First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo

As we continue our six-week series called "The Six Great Ends of the Church," our guest preacher The Rev. Scott Clark looks at #2:  The Shelter, Nurture, and Spiritual Fellowship of the Children of God.

Lessons: Mark 1:14-20, Luke 1:46-55: In this first in a series on the Six Great Ends of the Church from the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA), we look at the way that the good news of the kingdom of God - God's intention for all of God's creation - can accomplish the salvation of the whole world, not just some individuals, and not just after we die.

Luke 10:25-37: The Samaritan teaches us several important lessons.  First, God comes where we least expect God to be, because God comes for all and to all.  Second, “loving” looks like helping those in need.  And third, the Samaritan, the one who acted as a neighbor, crossed a boundary.  The hatred between Samaritans and Judeans went both ways, and yet this Samaritan stepped outside of his nationa...

Luke 10:1-11: Jesus sends out his disciples as missionaries to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God.  We, as Jesus' disciples, are sent as well.  We are send not to convert, force our culture on others, or save souls, but to rely on the hospitality of others, which means listening to them, meeting them on their turf, and joining with them in the work God is already doing in and through...

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14.  God tells Elijah to anoint Elisha to replace him as a prophet to the people of Israel.  When the people of God need a new leader, God is on the job.  God made it clear that as exceptional as Elijah was, God’s plans did not depend solely on Elijah.  Likewise, God’s work doesn’t depend on any one pastor of a church, or on any individual leader within the church.  God continues...

Our Abode in the Spirit Sermon by Rev. Douglas Olds (all rights reserved) First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo June 23, 2019   Sermon Texts: Lamentations 1.1-4; 11-13                         Genesis 1.1-4

"Grazing on Ashes" A sermon by Rev. Douglas Olds First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo (CA) June 16, 2019 Sermon Texts: Galatians 5: 13-18 ,                           Isaiah 44: 9-20

John 21:1-19: In this post-resurrection scene on the beach, Jesus offers Peter what many contemporary psychologists contend every one of us needs: a sense of belonging, and a sense of purpose.

John 20:1-18: Easter is not a celebration of something that happened 2,000 ago.  Easter is ongoing.  Easter is God's ongoing work in the world, making us new people.  Easter is not in or about the church, but the church is the fellowship of people who look for, recognize, and point to new life.

Luke 19:28-40, Luke 11:1-4: In this final Lenten sermon on the Lord's Prayer, we find that the greatest temptation, at the core of all temptation and every human act of succumbing to temptation, is the temptation faced by Jesus in his 40 days in the wilderness: To doubt that our most important identity is as God's beloveds.

Matthew 6:12; Matthew 18:21-35: The fifth in our Lenten series on the Lord's Prayer looks at forgiveness as a practice.  At times forgiveness doesn't mean reconciliation; it simply means unburdening.

Matthew 6:7=17: The fourth sermon in our Lenten series on the Lord's Prayer looks at how the Lord's Prayer prays for sufficiency for today for all people, not just for individuals.

Lessons: Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 6:9-10: This third in-depth exploration of the Lord's Prayer looks at "the kingdom of God" as Jesus' primary metaphor for what God wants for God's world.  God's kingdom is God's will - it is what we pray for when we pray, "thy will be done on earth."  Jesus intended us to understand the kingdom of God as an alternative to t...

Luke 9:28-43: In this highly symbolic story, called the Transfiguration, the disciples see Jesus transformed before their eyes.  Moses and Elijah appear, connecting Jesus with the long history of God’s deliverance and God’s word to a sometimes unfaithful, but always beloved, people.  We’re told they speak about Jesus’ “departure,” which in Greek is literally, “exodus.”  This is not a random word. ...

Luke 6:27-38: The Golden Rule isn’t so much setting up one more rule we have to figure out how to follow correctly, and get just right.  Instead, each of the verses in the passage from Jesus' "sermon on the plain," including the Golden Rule, is not a command or a rule, but a promise.  The promise, essentially, that the world doesn’t have to be the way it is.  That there is another o...

Scott Clark Dean of Student Life and Chaplain of San Francisco Theological Seminary preached from 1 Corinthians 13: Love is the plumb line and the polestar of our everyday life and all we do.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27-31; Luke 4:14-21: When Jesus reads the Isaiah scroll, it is not only a promise and a declaration, but an invitation to us to participate with God in fulfilling the good news of God's kingdom, today, tomorrow, and always.

Isaiah 43:1-7;  Luke 3:15-17, 21-22: Seminary intern Heather Gordon explored the way God claims us as God's beloved children. 

Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12: Matthew’s Christmas story is the story of two different human communities: Jerusalem, the big city center of the elite, and Bethlehem, with its rural peasants.   In 2019, you don’t have to be from the country to be marginalized, and you don’t have to be from a big city to be arrogant.  So for us, it’s less about urban verses rural, and more about world view.  It is s...

Luke 1:39-56: The video, "An Unexpected Christmas," [produced in 2012 by St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand, a church with a ministry called St. Paul’s Arts and Kids.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1XusYVqNY .] captures precisely what Luke intended in the first two chapters of his gospel, in the story of Elizabeth and Mary and in the Christmas story.  “Brilliant!  They won’t...

Colossians 2:2-4, Mark 12:38-44: The story of the wdow's mite isn't a "Wow! I should be more like her!" story.  It's a story about connection and the way our lives are interwoven.  Jesus doesn't hold her up as a role model, but as an example of how the brokenness of the institutions and the establishment impact the lives of human beings.  He shows us we need to see pe...

Psalm 146, Mark 12:28-34: The Psalm celebrates the lifelong praise of the God who is trustworthy, who stands up for the oppressed and sides with the most vulnerable.  Praising God, which is what we do in worshiping communities, transforms us into people of hope, resilience and resistance to the forces that would worship power, wealth, status or security, turning, "me and my" into "w...

Mark 10:46-52: Bartimaeus recognizes that his condition as a blind beggar is not normal, and so he cries out.  The crowd attempts to silence him.  The crowd always has a stake in pretending that something that really is abnormal – in this case, blind begging – is normal, because it means no one has to change.  If being a blind beggar is just normal, then the society doesn’t have to ask, “Why are s...

Mark 10:2-16: This sermon explains how Jesus' comments about divorce and his welcoming the children are connected. In 1st century Palestine, divorce meant economic and social ruin for the wife. Jesus is saying human beings are not disposable, and a case in point is the children seeking Jesus' blessing. They have no status in the culture, they have no way to "earn" God's lo...