discipleship

Looking Carefully

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments


For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. – Acts 17:23

Not looking carefully, I typed “Kiijubg” as first word
for the title of this poem/prayer.

It’s not a word I’ve seen before; I’d struggle to define it,
and truthfully it’s definitely not the word I meant.

But Shaw once wrote that when a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth
(and promptly replied to himself that it takes all the fun out of it).

That fierce and fascinating man from Tarsus, though offended
by the shrines to idols all about, found one shrine

Which honored Agnostos Theos (perhaps); enough to base
a sermon on, to find a common root within a verdant forest

Of complex and disparate devotion,
and twist a cord to complement relationship

Between the human children worshiping the God of Jacob,
and the human children worshiping Olympians.

If Paul had looked less carefully, perhaps his ire for idols
would have leapt to his lips.

Instead his plea for understanding fell on ears
which heard. Some scoffed, it’s true,

But if he’d launched into a diatribe against the shrines,
what could they do but scoff and turn away?

For anger, like a hand misplaced upon the keys,
makes meaningless its words, however filled with hope.

A poem/prayer based on Acts 17:22-31, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Sixth Sunday of Easter.

The image is a photo of the “Altar of the unknown god” ca. 90-110 CE, discovered on the Palatine Hill in Rome (not Athens) in 1820. Photo by Sailko – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56294298. The inscription can be translated, “Whether sacred to god or to goddess, Gaius Sextius Calvinus, son of Gaius, praetor, restored this on a vote of the senate.”

Story: Courage

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment
A bird with black feathers and a white bill, with a white forehead shield, swimming in gray water with droplets visible on its back.

May 3, 2026

Acts 7:55-60
John 14:1-14

The ala’e keokeo – also known as the Hawaiian Coot, and I guess it is pretty cute – lives along the shorelines, particularly enjoying the old fishponds built by the Hawaiians because the edges are rich in the water plants they like to eat. “Ala’e” means forehead, and “keokeo” means white – so the Hawaiians certainly called it by its appearance.

One young ala’e keokeo liked a lot about his life. He liked the sun, and he even liked the rain when it fell. He had brothers and sisters and parents and aunties and uncles in plenty, and even when they were teasing one another he liked them. He liked swimming in the fishpond, even if he didn’t have webbed feet like a duck. He liked the foods he ate: seeds, stems, and roots for the most part. There was only one problem.

He was afraid of the water.

Does it seem odd that he liked swimming but was afraid of the water? Well, it did to me, too. What he was afraid of was putting his head in the water. Plenty of people don’t like that, either. They’ll step into the water up to the shoulders, but put their head in? No.

That was his feeling about it. Put his head in the water? Absolutely not.

To be truthful, he could get along with his head firmly above water. The plant seeds he ate waved over the water, so that was OK. He could pull on stems from above, too. The only time it became a problem was with roots, and wouldn’t you know it?

One of his favorite foods was the root of a pond grass that he absolutely could not pull up from overhead. He tried and tried, and he could not do it.

He resigned himself to a life without his favorite root, but it turned out he didn’t have to. It turned out that when it came time to find someone to build a nest and hatch chicks with, she was a generous and compassionate bird. She didn’t tease him about not diving, the way his cousins did. Instead, from time to time she dove down and brought one or two up, and gave them to him.

He loved her for it.

When she laid their eggs, she stayed with the nest continuously for the first couple days – it would take them a while to learn that he could keep them warm, too. She got hungry, and he went back and forth from the grasses to the nest bringing her seeds and shoots.

As he set out for another foraging trip, he overheard her sigh, “I’m so hungry for a root or two.” She didn’t mean him to hear her, and he didn’t let on that he’d heard. That trip, though, he made sure to find some of those plants as he plucked seeds and shoots.

The next trip, he returned to that same spot. He looked at the water. It was fairly clear. He could see the bottom of the pond and knew just where the root would be. He closed his eyes and held a memory of his wife in his mind – then he dove into the pond.

He wasn’t good at it, because diving takes practice, but he did it, and he did it again until he gripped a root in his beak. He brought it back to the nest, where his wife gasped to see it.

“Here you are,” he said. “I knew you’d want one.”

“Thank you so much,” she told him. “This was so good of you.”

“I wanted to do it for you,” he said. And then he went back to do it again.

Sometimes courage comes from what we need, and sometimes it comes from wanting to do something for someone we love. Love can help us move through the fear and help us do amazing things for one another and for God.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story as I wrote it and the story as I told it are not identical.

Photo of an ala’e keokeo by Eric Anderson.

Gate

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

“So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.'” – John 10:7

It’s not your most compelling image, Jesus. In
a section where you said, “I am…”
three times, how many hold this one in memory?
To say the truth, I barely do.

And yet a gate is comforting. It guards a home,
a sheepfold, or a soul from harm.
It’s hardly perfect, since a thief may climb the wall:
They’ll have to work to work their ill.

The beauty of a gate is not protective force,
but its capacity to swing,
admitting those outside who’ve recognized the voice
and come to claim their place and home.

You tell us you are gatekeeper and gate. May we
remember that the gate is you,
and when we close it, we usurp your power, your
authority. and you yourself.

May we have faith and wisdom both to hold the gate
wide open for the gathering flock
and only close it in the most compelling circumstance,
then open it with welcome love.

A poem/prayer based on John 10:1-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Fourth Sunday of Easter.

Photo of a gate by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Colt

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

March 29, 2026

Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11

Today’s story doesn’t take place in the forests of Hawai’i. Nor does it take place in our time. It starts in a small village not far from Jerusalem, and it takes place on a day we’re familiar with because we celebrate it each year.

Surprise! It’s Palm Sunday.

He was a very young donkey. He’d only lived in one place, and he’d only really experienced one other creature, and that was his mother. He drank his milk and experimented with grass and hay and basically thought that life was pretty good, if a little dull.

On that day, however, a couple strangers came by and began to untie his halter and his mother’s halter from the fence. “What’s going on?” he asked his mother, who understood human language better than he did.

“These men say that the Lord needs us,” she said with some surprise.

“What does that mean?” he wondered, and his mother didn’t know, either.

Mystified, they followed the two strangers to a group of strangers. They put cloaks over his mother’s back and over his back, and then one of them sat on his mother while his friends cheered.

“What’s going on?” he asked his mother in some fright.

“They’ve asked us to carry Jesus to the city,” said his mother. “Just walk by me and everything will be fine.”

Off they went. One of the men led his mother along the road, though she seemed to know where she was going anyway. He trotted alongside – his legs were shorter than his mother’s, so he had to go faster to keep up.

As they made their way down a hill, other people began to gather along the road. They began to shout at Jesus and his companions. Some of them took their cloaks off and laid them on the road in front of the two donkeys. Others had taken branches from the trees and were waving them in the air as they shouted. Some of the leaves covered the road and the cloaks, and as the donkeys’ hooves stepped on them, they made a lovely scent rise.

“What are they saying?” he asked his mother, a little frightened by all the shouting.

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” said his mother with wonder in her voice. “And they’re calling, ‘Help us! Save us!’”

The little donkey didn’t know how they were going to do that. He didn’t even know how he was going to help his mother carry Jesus. Abruptly, he knew that the thing he wanted most in the world, in fact, was to help his mother carry Jesus. He nuzzled up to her side.

“Let me help,” he said plaintively.

She said nothing at all, because Jesus reached over and rested his hand on the little one’s head. Just his hand. It didn’t weigh much at all. Jesus even scratched him behind the ears a little. But he proudly carried that hand along the way, through the city gates, and up the streets as the crowds grew and kept calling out in joy and with need:

“Help us! Save us! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (and a certain amount of improvisation). The story as you read it is not necessarily as I told it.

The image is The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem by Master of Maderuelo (12th cent.) – photographed by Zambonia 2011-09-29, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17158568.

Angels Hovering ‘Round

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
In the center of a large dramatic landscape of mountains and clouds, two smaller figures speak to one another. One, in pink, is Jesus. The other, in brown, is Satan.


“Then the devil left [Jesus], and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” – Matthew 4:11

He challenged you, Jesus.
Summon the angels! They won’t let you fall.
You won’t have a bruise on your heel,
Nor a strike from a snake.

You said no. No to bread.
No to flight. No to glory
(that fails to transcend
all the kingdoms of earth).

Then he left. And who came?
Yes, the angels. The angels.
They were hovering ’round,
And they brought you relief.

Well, Jesus, I’m tempted.
So tempted, you know,
so hungry and weary,
confused and distressed.

Where are the angels?
Will they tend my bruises?
Will they feed my hungers?
Where are the angels, Jesus the Christ?

“There are angels hov’ring ’round.”

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 4:1-11, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, First Sunday in Lent.

The image is Weite Gebirgslandschaft mit der Versuchung Christi (Vast Mountain Landscape with the Temptation of Christ) by Jan Brueghel the Elder – dorotheum.com heruntergeladen am 30. September 2012, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21801997.

Transfigured by the Mountaintop

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light.” – Matthew 17:1-2

Bright with light, walking with the prophets, hailed
by holy voice that stunned the clouds
and silenced even Simon Peter:
Jesus the Beloved Son of God.

Transfigured on the mountaintop.

At mountain’s foot, however, trouble lay,
because a demon would not be rebuked
by any of the nine disciples there. “Where can
I find the mustard seed of faith?” they asked.

I grant you they had missed the mountaintop.

But Peter, James, and John, who’d seen the sight,
had heard the voice, been silenced clean:
how had they been transfigured? Were they changed?
Did they bring nourishment to their own mustard seeds?

For they had known the mountaintop.

Yet Peter asked if there were limits on
forgiveness. He wondered what he’d gain
from following his Lord. While James and John
coopted their own mother to secure a place of power.

Though they had been upon the mountaintop.

When Jesus brought the three apart again,
this time into a corner of Gethsemane,
their bodies ruled their spirits, and they slept,
while Jesus wept the bitter tears of grief and fear.

Had they forgotten about the mountaintop?

Approaching soldiers woke them. Weariness
no longer slowed them. As blood streamed from
a stricken servant’s ear, the three who’d seen
and heard the most took to their heels and fled.

Had they been changed upon the mountaintop?

One found his courage and his way back to
the courtyard of the trial, but did not bring
his name. Three times they asked, three times
he cried, “I do not know the man!”

He’d known him on the mountaintop.

So Jesus, here I stand, at best an image
in a mirror darkly of those first disciples. I
am not the person I would like to be,
say nothing of the follower whom you expect.

And I was never on that mountaintop.

Yet truly, you have summoned me by less
dramatic means than brilliant clouds
and stunning voices on the wind, to be
your follower, your servant, and your friend.

But have I been transfigured by the mountaintop?

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 17:1-9, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Transfiguration Sunday.

The image is “Studies for the Transfiguration” by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbin) ca. 1519 – https://collections.ashmolean.org/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96040396.

Story: The Salty Koa’e ‘Ula

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

February 8, 2026

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20

Salt is a funny thing. Your body, my body, pretty much every body of every person and every creature needs some salt. Without salt, we get sick. On the other hand, if we have too much salt, we also get sick. Not too much, not too little. That’s the way to do it.

Most of the birds, including yellow-billed cardinals, manage to get the right amount of salt just by what they eat. Seeds have a little salt. So do berries. But every once in a while things don’t go the same way, and one yellow-billed cardinal found himself feeling hungry in a very odd way.

He was hungry for salt.

Personally, I’m rarely hungry for salt itself. I’m not likely to go find a salt shaker and sprinkle some on my tongue. I mean, yuck. Put salt on fried potatoes, though, or popcorn, or…

Well. Let’s just say I’ll eat those up.

Nobody was going to make popcorn or French fries for a yellow-billed cardinal, especially one who couldn’t cook. He hopped around the shore looking for salt, and although there was plenty of it in the ocean, he wasn’t about to drink salt water. He already knew from painful experience that he’d get sick from that.

To his amazement, as he looked, he saw white crystals glistening on the rocks, and even on some of the leaves of the bushes. He thought at first it might be salt left by ocean spray, but it was too far from the breaking waves. Regardless, he pecked a couple of those crystals, and felt much better, even if he did feel pretty thirsty from it.

He didn’t know where it came from, but from time to time when he got hungry for salt again, it was there.

In the meantime, overhead flew the koa’e ‘ula, who spend much of their time far out to sea where there’s too much salt in the water and, for that matter, in the fish that they eat. One of them, in fact, had just had a good long drink of sea water with more salt in it than was good for her.

Unlike the yellow-billed cardinal on the shore below, she could take in more salt because her body could get rid of the excess. Something like tears, salt crystals formed along her beak and sprinkled down on the ground below, where a salt-hungry bird might pick them up.

Neither the koa’e ‘ula nor the yellow-billed cardinal knew anything about the other. Neither of them thought much about it, in fact, but one of them was doing something really important for the other, and didn’t know it.

The same is true of us. Jesus called us the salt of the earth, and he meant that we help other people live and thrive. Sometimes we know we’re doing it, but sometimes we don’t. Just like the koa’e ‘ula, we do ordinary things in our ordinary lives, and someone else lives better because of it.

May we always be the salt of the earth.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. As a result, the story as I wrote it does not match the story as I told it.

Photos of a yellow-billed cardinal and a koa’e ‘ula by Eric Anderson.

Flickering Light

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

“[Jesus said,] ‘People do not light a lamp put it under the bushel basket; rather they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.'” Matthew 5:15-16

You sure do build on Scripture, Jesus. God
told Abraham that he and Sarah would
become a blessing to the nations of
the world, to all the families of Earth.

A pity that he promptly lied and said
his wife was not his wife, and gave her up
to Pharaoh for a concubine, which cursed
the land, afflicted every family.

Isaiah comforted survivors of
a great destruction after years had passed,
declaring that the people, soon renewed,
would shine a beacon to the aching world.

A pity that so many kept the ways
that frustrated the prophets years before,
preferring their own wealth and potency
and damming justice’ waters lest they flow.

Well, Jesus, to fulfill the broken Law
and bring to life the prophets’ promised call
will call for more than human frailty,
unseasoned salt, or lamp without a flame.

Can we fulfill what you came to fulfill?
Can we preserve and season all the Earth?
Can we be candles brilliant in the dark?
Can we be great in Heaven’s realm of life?

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 5:13-20, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.

The image is “The Candle,” an etching by Jan Luyken illustrating Matthew 5:15 in the Bowyer Bible, Bolton, England (1795). Bowyer Bible photos contributed to Wikimedia Commons by Phillip Medhurst – Photo by Harry Kossuth, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7550068.

Did They Know?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
A black and white drawing with two men in the foreground at left hauling a fishing net. At right further away a third man beckons at them as they look toward him.

“As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishers. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.'” – Matthew 4:18-19

Matthew left it out, of course.
What did you tell them, Jesus?

“Hey, guys, I’m sort of on the run
since they took John, although
they probably don’t know my name,
so that’s all right, you think?
Come follow me.

“Now mind you, folks will hear my name,
and quickly, too, if I am any judge.
They’ll come even from Syria to seek
some healing for their bodies and their souls.
Come follow me.

“I’m sure no one will think to look for me
atop a mountain peak – unless they follow those
who follow me, and frankly guys, I hope
to leave a wide and beaten track.
Come follow me.

“Now come along. We’ve work to do
that doesn’t need a net. No, we’re as likely to
be caught in Roman or Herodian nets as John.
They’ll lift us high – but not as high as God will raise us all.
Come follow me.”

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 4:12-23, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Third Sunday after the Epiphany.

The image is from The End of that Person (1980), published by the Indonesian Bible Society. Anonymous artist – Koleksi Wikimedia Indonesia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141661922.

Story: What Are You Looking For?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments
A sharp-beaked red bird with its head more brightly lit perched in a tree with smallish dark green leaves.

January 18, 2026

Isaiah 49:1-7
John 1:29-42

At this time of the year, you might forgive an ‘apapane for looking a little flustered. Or just for looking around. And flying around. A lot. This time of the year can be complicated.

For one thing, it’s time to get pairs together. When two birds have decided they’ll be parents with one another, they’ve got to find a spot for a nest. Then they’ve got to build the nest. Then there are eggs to lay and brood over, and then there will be chicks to feed and fledglings to teach fly, and during all of that, they still need to watch out for cats and hunker down in the storms and, of course, find themselves enough to eat.

One ‘apapane, one who had become something of a tutu to the younger birds, noticed another ‘apapane looking a little frantic.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“I can’t remember,” said the other ‘apapane.

“Have you eaten?” said the first one.

“I don’t think so,” said the frantic one.

“Go eat something,” she told him. “There’s some ohi’a in blossom over there, and there will be plenty of bugs there, too. I’m sure you’ll remember better after that.”

Another frantic ‘apapane landed nearby.

“What are you looking for?” asked the tutu.

“I can’t find my husband,” she said.

“Did you find a place for a nest?” asked the tutu.

“We found two, and they’re not in the same tree,” said the younger bird.

“Perch half way between the two, and watch for him,” said the tutu. “I’m sure he’s looking for you, too.”

About a minute after the younger bird flew off, a male ‘apapane flew up.

“What are you looking for?” said the tutu.

“I can’t find my wife!” he said.

“Did you pick two likely nest sites?” asked the tutu. When he said yes, she sent him off to find his wife between those two trees. “You’ll find her,” she said. “She’s looking for you.”

She did this all day, in between sipping nectar and snacking on bugs. She sent some birds after nest materials and some after food and more than you’d expect to find their missing spouses.

“How do you do it?” asked another ‘apapane who’d been watching it all.

“It’s simple,” she said. “I ask them what they’re looking for. Once I know that – actually, once they know that – I can probably help them, or send them to somebody who can help them.

“It’s really hard to find anything when you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory plus inspiration. The story you just read does not precisely match the way I told it.

Photo of an ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.