In yesterday’s Come Sunday, I invited you to think of times when you experienced awe.

So I’m wondering what your thoughts are. What gave you a moment of awe? Psychologist Dacher Keltner writes. “Awe makes us curious rather than judgmental. It makes us collaborative. It makes us humble, sharing and altruistic. It quiets the ego so that you’re not thinking about yourself as much.” Keltner also names what he calls “The Eight Wonders of Life” which invoke awe:

• Moral beauty: Witnessing extraordinary kindness, courage, strength, or people overcoming great obstacles.
• Nature: Experiencing vast landscapes, towering trees, animals, or natural elements.
• Collective effervescence (collective movement): Feeling deep unity and shared rhythm with groups through dance, sports, or concerts.
• Music: Being moved by a favorite song, a live concert, or harmonious sounds.
• Visual design: Feeling stirred by human art, architecture, and creative structures like sculptures or vast buildings.
• Spirituality and religion: Encountering the sacred, mystical, or divine through meditation or faith.
• Life and death: Reflecting on the profound cycle of existence, from childbirth and new life to aging and loss.
• Epiphanies (big ideas): Having sudden intellectual breakthroughs, scientific realizations, or deep insights into life’s truths.

This is also the point of the Tikkun Olam story and our scriptures today.

They invite us to consider nature and all its beauty, but also the mystical nature of the universe. Consider what you know about the moon. As we have been to it, we know that it cannot easily sustain life on it.

Our scripture reminds us that the Jewish feast days are based on the lunar calendar, as is our Easter. We know the effect of the moon on the tides, and if you’ve ever been in the ER on a full moon, you know how much it affects people. Teachers can also attest to the effect of a full moon on the children.

This being said, have you ever taken time to look for the moon – to notice the different colors it can be or the size of it. The ancient people were just in awe of these things. They did not know what we do about the atmosphere. And the stars – they did not have the light pollution we have – so they could see so much more of them.

As the psalmist wrote, “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” – 121:1-2. They knew that sometimes you had to look higher and further to see the works of God.

And at the root of the Tikkun Olam story is the idea that God broke God’s self to create the world and we are called to be healing the world by recognizing the sacredness of all.

But we want a world that is predictable and ordered. We don’t like chaos, even though it is through chaos that everything was made. But we want control to prevent the chaos which we perceive as evil. When in reality, by resisting the chaos, we also limit our vulnerability. And by limiting our vulnerability, we also limit our joy.

Do you know what to do if a riptide takes you? Surrender – surrender and let it take its course and it will bring you back to the shore. So right now, I invite you to risk a bit of vulnerability with me and take off your shoes to feel the floor.

The energy of creation – of the earth – can come through the flooring. So give yourself some time to become grounded and listen to a story about awe. Imagine being at the beach. Imagine the feel of the cool, damp sand under your feet. See in your mind’s eye, the ocean with the tide coming roaring in and then quietly leaving again. Ahead of you on the beach, where the water has just been, is a toddler with very unsteady legs and a wet, sagging diaper, looking at the ocean, waiting for it to come back. The child’s parent is sitting some distance away, watching but trying not to interfere with the child’s experience.

As the next wave comes, the child runs towards the water but only deep enough to be above their knees. From the child’s perspective, these small waves are big things. The child knows they are with something VERY BIG. He turns and walks out of the water while it disappears back from where it came. And then he turns and runs again as if to meet the next wave. Notice how the child is feeling.

 Finally, the child flings their arms out and shouts at the ocean; an unintelligible but eloquent speech to the water, to the gulls, to the sand, to the world. Can you feel the nature of his awe? Can you join child in their pleasure? Can you live as wholehearted as the child?

May it be so. Amen.
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This season we looked at six stories of creation in the Bible and considered what we are to learn from each.

What I saw in these stories were these reminders:

1. We are not God – The sun does not rise or set on our command.
2. All of creation is sacred – every piece is worthy of our respect.
3. We are to care for the people and natural world as God would.

And if you’re thinking that we knew this, might I remind us that we haven’t always acted this way. And a scripture passage we may need to be reminded of is: “Pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18.

Our Psalm for today is believed to be an Entrance Liturgy both for what it says and a larger pattern with the Psalms beginning with Psalm 15, which is also an entrance liturgy.

When we look at the structure of this psalm, we see three-parts:

V 1-2 – Declaring God as the Creator
V 3-6 – Liturgy for humanity to enter God’s holy space
V 7-10 Liturgy for God to meet us there

Of particular interest is that this psalm, although it calls for being “clean” and “pure,” is looking for moral cleanliness and purity to come before God rather than physical – which was the norm in the ancient world. It was issues with blood or disease that made one “unclean” and therefore, unable to enter the Temple.

The “pure heart” is not referring to emotions but to one’s state of will. Is one coming with the best intentions? Pause for a moment and consider why you came today. Because in my experience of church over my lifetime, people have come for many reasons that had nothing to do with God, including me in my younger years.

Our scripture from Genesis is near the end of the story, where we hear God remind us of all that God has done, and God’s proclamation that it was all very good! I hear this as God inviting us to be grateful for all God has given us.

And yet, as we discussed last week, in Genesis Ch. 3 we weren’t grateful –  we wanted more – we wanted what we felt we were denied.

Could this be pointing to our tendency to play the victim? Is this why some of us needed a Savior, different from God? Well, I must confess that I tend to feel like a victim. I learned it well growing up, and I have lived through some situations where it felt justified. However, I can’t get stuck there because then I am surviving rather than thriving. Rather than focus on what we don’t have or get, God wants us to consider all that we do – AND be grateful to God for it all!

We also tend to think that we have earned it, and give ourselves credit rather than God! This leaves us with inflated egos. There are always contemporary examples of this behavior!

So we are going to take a few minutes in silence to reflect on what we are truly grateful for. Try to think more deeply than we did during the Children’s Time. For what are you grateful in the deepest parts of your being?

I will begin by reading Psalm 46:10: “Be still – and know – that I am – God. Be still – and know – that I am. Be still – and know. Be still.”

So what are the things for which we are grateful? Anything different than before?

But what is even more challenging is to be grateful in challenging or even terrible circumstances.

For this, I leave you with the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “I’ve had a remarkable life. I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude.”

May it be so. Amen.
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Last week I preached about the ground and humility and I felt that I got a dose of humility as that sermon did not flow like it normally does.

So I had to sit with why that was true, and maybe the reason is that I, too, have a difficult time believing that the ground we walk is sacred all the time, rather than just when a miracle occurs. Even though I look for God’s mysteries and graces in nature, I also take much of it for granted.

I wonder if this is why there are more creation stories in the Bible than the first two chapters of Genesis. Just as we needed four gospels to begin to understand who Jesus was, what he taught, and the difference he made to the world, we need multiple creation stories to remind us that this world is not just about us and what we want.

They remind us that we are a piece in the web of life that is God’s creation.

Psalm 104 reminds us to be grateful to God for all that is created, and to recognize that God is also the one who sustain us through it.

“All creatures depend on you to feed them at the proper time.” v.27 “Take away your breath – they die and return to dust.” V.29b

And how does God feed us at the proper time? By creating a system that creates more life, sustains it, and then, as it dies, creates new life in its place. Every plant and animal can reproduce not for itself but for the benefit of creation. The oak tree produces acorns, which can create other oak trees to supply needed shade on hot days as well as cleaning the air, but they also supply food for the rabbits and squirrels which supply food for larger creatures, including us.

The Genesis scripture gives a bit more detail on this process as we hear God command the Earth to produce vegetation – “Plants that scatter their own seeds and every kind of fruit tree that bears fruit.” In this, we see the abundant potential of God’s creation. The Earth’s vegetation will produce enough food for all its creatures – including us. And God saw that it was good!

But, we have always had a mindset of scarcity and never believed in the abundance of God. So, we have hoarded resources and are still trying to deny folks of food, water, shelter and safety. We are told that groups of people – Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, and the LGBTQ community are to blame for our pain rather than realizing that all people – regardless of who they are, where they live or how they live are created by the same God and are entitled to the same gifts of creation that we are. And for those who are struggling, we say their lack of hard work puts them there rather than acknowledging that we have created systems to protect the white, straight people out of our fear.

Metaphorically speaking, we too are God’s seeds with abundant potential to care for creation and all its creatures.

We were created to reproduce, care for each other, and the rest of creation. So I’m wondering what seeds within you do you nurture through your relationship with God? What are the “seeds” you plant with those around you? Within each of us is a call from God. That call wants to help us be the best version of ourselves. If we are struggling or hurting, God wants to heal us. If we are unsure of our way, God hopes we will listen for God’s guidance Which will lead us to abundant life now and for eternity.

Hear this quote from former President Jimmy Carter – “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. I’m free to choose what that something is, and the something I’ve chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands—this is not optional—my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

This means the types of “seeds” he tried to plant with others – Seeds of patience, kindness, generosity, and faithfulness – Come to my mind when I think of him.

Yesterday we had our first booth at the Lancaster Pride festival, and we were planting seeds.

We were planting seeds with people who did not know us and were unsure what kind of church we were. The booth directly next to us reminded us that there are a lot of people with religious trauma, they were a counseling service that offered services for religious trauma.

In our booth, we had this beautiful mural that was designed and painted by Deklan, Monica, and Monica’s brother, which had the tree of life on it, but just the branches. We invited attendees to put something on the tree, and they did! Once this mural is finished, I hope you’ll take time to really read what people wrote. Because we asked them to share the ways they’ve been hurt, and some people did. We also asked them to write their hopes for the whole community, LGBTQIA+ and beyond.

I want to share with you just one interaction I had while I was there. A woman and her young child came up, and her child had just the biggest smile, so I said, “What a beautiful smile you have.” The mom then asked what our booth was doing, and I explained. She looked at me, a little concerned, and asked if her child could just color on one. I said, of course, so I handed him a flower, and he used his markers to decorate it. When he was done, I asked if I could put it up on the board for him. He ripped up his flower, and the mom looked scared. I just put out my hand and asked, “Would you like me to take the pieces?” To ease the mom’s mind, I said, “It’s okay, this is what this is about. It’s about making space for everyone, however they need to be here and express themselves.” I think she was afraid I would be angry that the child didn’t do it right. She thanked me because I knew they just needed some grace. So what if the child didn’t do it the way we planned? It’s about knowing that her child was accepted and that she was accepted and cared for.

That’s what PRIDE is about. That no matter who you are, you are a child of God. You are loved and worthy of God’s love and grace just as you are. We had a chance to make a difference in that mother and son’s lives, just in that short interaction. But hopefully, they got a different sense of the church. There was a different sense of the church in the parking lot, telling attendees they were going to hell for going to Pride and bringing their children to Pride. But inside, there were people, like us, who just offered them grace.

That’s who we are called to be, people who offer love and grace.

May it be so. Amen.
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Sermon by Rev. Beth Thompson

One of the things that I love about our two scriptures is that they fit so well together, Psalm 27:1,4-8 and Matthew 4:12-23.

Matthew specifically reminds us that Jesus doesn’t wait for a perfect moment to call people. He doesn’t wait till our schedules are clear. Everything’s settled. He calls people while they’re working. Their hands are wet, they’re full. The nets are wet, and the boats are still tied to the shore. It seems to happen right in the middle of life. This is something I learned in a very personal, embodied way many times, but specifically many years ago when my wife and I moved to Maine, COVID restrictions had lightened.

At that time, I had just graduated from seminary, seeing what it truly means to be a leader in a moment of trauma and confusion. I had done all the work, the reading, the listening. I learned the language, the scriptures, the theology, and what I uncovered for myself was not the tidy belief system that I had suspected my education would end in. I expected clarity.

What I discovered instead was that by following Jesus’s word and following the light, my faith spread everywhere. It breached across categories and labels and crossed traditions. It refused to stay contained, and while that faith felt honest and alive for me, it was not always affirmed. It was often questioned by others, feared by others, and eventually, I questioned myself. That left me with the question I didn’t expect to be asking at graduation. When I stepped on that path to seminary, I guaranteed God that I would follow what was put in front of me. I did. I followed all the paths, probably too many, but I was feeling confused. Am I worthy to speak of the divine’s love if my path and my belief doesn’t fit cleanly in a box or a set way? Am I worthy to lead a community?

That question of worthiness, that quiet sense of lack, became one of my greatest hurdles. It held me back from speaking what was in my heart, from trusting what I felt to be true about God, about faith, about Jesus. I knew the move to Maine was gonna be a good thing. It was the right thing, right? The act of love and support from my wife and her calling, as she had just supported me through seminary. I understood that as a willingness to follow and to trust. Trusting can sometimes be stepping into something unknown, but knowing that doesn’t always mean that you know it in your heart. It doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be easy.

I remember driving into Bangalore for the first time. It was beautiful. The skies were blue, the trees were huge. I have never seen nature like that. I thought I did, being in Pennsylvania for all my life, but nope. And yet my stomach dropped. I felt it. It was a moment like when a rollercoaster is just about to go down. It’s not like panic or fear, but more that deep, unmistakable feeling that something inside is saying, this might not go quite the way you expect.

We often talk about following the light, following our call, and we talk about it like it’s going to be comforting, and sometimes it is, but light exposes in Psalm 27.

The question is, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” That’s not a declaration of uncertainty, but more of a prayer spoken in the presence of fear. The light of God doesn’t just reassure us. It reveals what we’ve learned to live around.

This is true in the scripture too. We celebrate the wise men for finding Jesus, but we rarely speak about their journey. They follow the light, the long nights, the uncertainty, the thresholds they crossed, the wise men followed the light the whole time before they even knew where it was leading them. Their journey wasn’t simple, and I’m sure it wasn’t glamorous; it was real, it was human, and it reminds us that following God’s light or following God’s call rarely begins with clarity. It begins with our trust in our faith.

In Maine, that same light revealed something in me. Although I called myself Christian, my experience of God had always felt wider than that Christian label. Interfaith theology wasn’t new to my heart, but naming it felt risky. Confining God to one definition felt too small. And alongside that knowing, I discovered a quiet, inherited distrust of others. Ironic because I’m another who distrust didn’t stop there. It turned inward, and I started to distrust myself. And that’s not a place you wanna be, especially when you’re trying to walk a path in faith. I questioned whether my way of believing, loving, and listening was even worthy of being offered.

That’s what light does. It doesn’t shame us. It just shows us.

But here’s the other thing that I learned about following. Not every threshold feels like Bangor. Some feel like relief, some like an exhale, some like recognition. I feel that when I walk through the doors of Church of the Apostles, even five years later, a place where I am met, not asked to prove or perform, where faith can be curious and honest, where difference is a gift and not a threat, that too is holy ground.

Following Jesus does not always lead us into discomfort. Sometimes it leads us into places that help us breathe again, and sometimes both. When Jesus says, follow me, he doesn’t promise ease or certainty. He promises God’s presence.

We’re invited to trust that the ground beneath us is already holy. Whether challenging or comforting, unfamiliar or deeply known, it’s holy. Most of God’s invitations aren’t dynamic. They come quietly and daily through small turns, through embodied knowing. Through moments that you could easily ignore, especially when you’re busy. The question is rarely whether God is calling, but whether we are listening? Listening for the light that reveals truth, listening for the ground, asking to be trusted, listening for invitations that help us grow, and those that help us rest.

The light of Christ doesn’t always comfort, but it always reveals. When we are honest, we often discover that the holy ground has been holding us all along.

May it be so. Amen.

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Whenever we hear the words from first chapter of Genesis, we think about the master plan of God’s creativity out of chaos, out of an ugly world of nothing.

God created our world. Genesis paints a marvelous picture of how God did this. In the first chapter of Genesis, we listen to the likes of, “n the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created light and sky and water and dry ground and God filled it up by creating habitats for animals and plants.

Then, finally, God created human beings and when God was all finished, what did God say? It is good.

You’re all familiar with this story. God made humankind to be like God. Created to reflect the very nature of God. Did you ever stop and wonder why? Why did God bother? Was God bored? Was God lonely? What was God’s motive in all of this creating? Well, to find an answer to this question, we go searching the scriptures to find out a little more about God.

I read to you today from Psalm 19. Listen to what the psalmist tells us about God.

“The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. Yet they have no speech and they have no words. No sound is heard from them yet. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world.” Psalm 19.

I believe God is revealing God’s self through the action of creation. God’s omnipresence, God’s all encompassing presence is revealed in God’s artistic act of creation. God’s spirit surrounds us in the air and the sea and the mountains, even though you hear no words.

The sounds that you do hear are the very presence of God.

Have you ever perched yourself on the edge of a cliff and the wind blew through your hair onto your face? Or have you ever sat on the sands of the beach and listened to the rhythm of the waves crashing onto the surface? Or have you ever lingered in your garden watching the movement of the bees and the butterflies and the birds? What did you feel in these moments when you were surrounded by God’s creation? Did you feel peace, tranquility, comfort?

I would like to suggest what you were feeling is love. The Bible clearly tells us God is love. We see it from the very beginning. It’s always been about love. In all of creation, God created love.

Why? Because as scripture tells us in 1 John, God is love. Love. It’s just who God is. I’m here to tell you, love is how we were created to be. We are children of God and that makes us children of love.

The scripture test for today says God created human beings. He created them to be godlike. He created them to reflect God’s image. You my friends were designed by love you were designed by love in God’s image thus you were made to be loving.

Genesis is pretty clear That God created us for a very specific purpose, we’re to be like God. We are to be a reflection of God’s image. In other words, we are to look like God.

And how do we live up to God’s expectation of us being God’s image bearers? What does a loving God, a loving image person look like? What are we to look like?

First of all. According to Eugene Peterson, God made us to be responsible for tending God’s created world. We are to love our planet, and we do that by tending to the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. We are to be intentional in preserving life. We are to ensure all God’s critters and grasses are preserved. This is a declarative act. Call to action by God. The words we heard today say we are responsible for the planet.

Other biblical versions use harsher language that say humankind is to rule over all of creation. Some say humankind has been given dominion over the critters and the trees, but a loving interpretation, the one Peterson uses says we are to be stewards of the planet. We are to care for it.

The creation story clearly tells us that we have been given a responsibility to nurture creation.

But secondly, and in my opinion, even more importantly, the creation story tells us we are to love creation. Again, taking on an image of God means we are to be loving.

What does that look like? We know that love is a word that has multiple meanings. What images come to your mind when you hear the word love? We can love ice cream. I know I do. We love our siblings and our children. But that’s a different kind of love than what we have for our spouses.

Love is beautiful. Love it evokes the best in us and also the fiercest in us. I believe what the scripture is telling us to do is to love like God loves.

If we are to be like God than we must imitate God, but here’s the thing God doesn’t love like we love. We humans love in what is more a reactive manner. When we love, it’s because we find the object of our love pleasing to us. I love a Dairy Queen Blizzard with all its candy and ice cream blended into a tasty treat. I love them. Because they tantalize my taste buds. We humans love by our senses. When we see or smell, taste or touch something that is pleasing, we love it. You may have fell in love with your spouse because of his or her beauty, or because he or she was a good cook. This is the way humans love. Human love is reactive. We respond to our environments, but God’s love is different.

God’s love is not a reaction to the senses, rather God’s love is transformative. God’s love is creative. You see, here’s the thing about love. It’s not static. Love is an action word. God was busy during the creation week. God started off with nothing. Just chaos and God got busy creating land and sea and critters and plants. Then, the most marvelous act of his love was when God created us.

God created humankind. God was so busy that week that God got tired, didn’t he? So, what did he do? He rested. He set aside a day of all of this busy work so that we can rest, revive, refresh, and reflect. God needed a day of rest because creating is hard work.

Loving can be exhausting. You know that’s true. It’s not always easy to love. It’s especially hard to love like God loves. It’s not easy to create goodness from the ugly, but that is what God did. And that is what God commands us to do. Therefore, we are also called to do just as God loves.

God’s creation story is a call to action. We are called to transform lives.

We are not just to slumber and bask in the comfortable, peaceful, sunny meadows of life where we love to hang out watching those wildflowers sway in the breeze, birds flying in the air and the wind moving the clouds around in those remarkable shapes. We are to be busy. We are to always be on the move.

We are to be instruments for God’s creative and transforming love. See, here’s the thing, you know, God never stops creating. God created the world and God continues to create the world as an act of love. I know this and you know this because you and I can see it in the face of a newborn baby, in the blossom of a flower, in the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly, at the dawning of each new day, and we are offered the opportunity to be awakened and changed because God loves us.

When we invite God’s love, we too can create something lovely out of the chaos of this world, when we too become agents for change. Daily, my friends, we walk through the muck and mire of the “isms” of this world. Racism, sexism, ageism, and all forms of hate. We must be agents of change and create love.

When we tend to the social soils with loving hearts, chaos that accompanies violence, hatred, anger, while it’s transformed because love transformed. Those things are transformed to the likeness of kindness and justice and mercy. Love in action creates a world of beauty that blossoms into abundance.

Change begins with each one of us.

You may feel small and insignificant, but remember, God created you with love to be love. It’s in your DNA. Do not get comfortable. Today is the day to love God’s people and by loving, I mean nurture, inspire, revive what God has already initiated. Go forth from this world and be an agent of love and make change happen.

You can do that right where you are. Even you, my friends, can make a difference.

Now that is love is an amazing love. Amen.

This Sermon given by Rev. Katherine Seiler

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