Federated Church Sycamore Sermon Podcast

Rev. Eric Ogi
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Federated Church Sycamore Sermon Podcast

Hear weekly Sunday messages from Pastor Eric as he reflects on scripture and our world to cast a vision for—and invite us to live—a more just, generous, and authentic version of our faith.

  1. DEC 2

    YOU are a Blessing

    Advent, like Lent, is a season that is meant to prepare our hearts to hear and receive the good news of God's incarnate love anew. Advent marks a beginning, a new year, in the "church calendar." As we begin our journey toward the manger, we also consider the beginnings--and endings--in our own lives. As we do, we open ourselves to hearing ancient promises anew, beginning with "YOU are a blessing." Could letting this simple reminder--so easy to offer a little child and yet so easy to dismiss as an adult--wash over us amidst our beginnings and endings hold transforming power for us? This Advent, may you know this blessing deep in your soul--right where you think your blessedness ends.

    21 min

  2. NOV 28

    The Transforming Power of Giving Thanks

    In this message, Pastor Eric shares a few stories from his own life and faith journeys to help us reflect on small things in life that are actually the big things; the easy-to-overlook moments that are actually the moments that matter the most. The great Medieval German theologian, Meister Echkart, said: "If the only prayer you say in your life is 'thank you,' it would be enough." What if we learned to pay attention to these small things, to pause for a moment and say "thank you" when notice them? What if we sincerely practiced expressing gratitude to one another instead of keeping it to ourselves--or waiting until a funeral to say what someone means to us? How might this small thing be a big thing; how might this simple practice transform us in big ways? Will we let ourselves find out?

    22 min

  3. NOV 11

    YOU are called to Be A Minister of Hope

    In this message, Pastor Eric concludes our Stewardship series on being a Community of Hope. It also being the first Sunday after the 2024 election, he reflects on how Jesus himself lived in a difficult, chaotic, and uncertain social-political time. In the midst of that, he built a community of disciples--students--who were themselves being formed by the gospel of peace and compassion and justice, and then he sent them out to proclaim and embody that message with others. In doing so, he offers a model for us as we seek to be a community of hope in our own turbulent times.  Like them, we might wonder: How will we make it through? What do we do now? What does this moment ask of us? Like them, we recommit ourselves to the healing and liberating work that has always been ours to do. And we do it together, knowing that none of us can do it alone.

    23 min

  4. NOV 6

    A Community of Hope--for Who?

    In this All Saints Day stewardship message, Pastor Eric reflects on remembering our ancestors as a way of looking toward a future with hope. In doing so, he invites us to think of ourselves as "ancestors in the making" and reconsider what it is that God is calling us to be stewards of.  Rather than merely passing on possessions, what does it mean to steward "a community of hope" in a world of violence, fear-mongering, isolation, and hopelessness?  What will future generations say when they look back at us, on this moment in history, and consider how we responded? After all, hope is not merely wishful thinking; hope is a choice; hope is an action; hope is choosing to act in alignment with our deepest values, with who God calls us to be, even when the world feels like it is ending.

    19 min

  5. OCT 21

    The Church as a Field Hospital

    In this Stewardship message, Pastor Eric invites us to reflect on one of Jesus' most famous parables--often dubbed the "Parable of the Prodigal Son"--and ask ourselves how God has sought us out, lavished love on us, and invited us into a future where there was hope--just when we were at our lowest and most despairing? How has this church been a space and community that has loved you back to life, offered you hope during a difficult season? Drawn forward by these experiences, how might God be calling us to more boldly embody God's prodigal--God's wastefully extravagant--love? In a world where so many of us carry around wounds--visible and invisible--how might we be like a "field hospital" for the spirit? And how might doing this as a community create "a future with hope"?

    21 min

  6. OCT 14

    To Hope When the World is Ending

    In this Stewardship season message, Pastor Eric reflects on the Prophet Jeremiah's vision of "a future with hope." What is the relationship between hope and the experience of hopelessness? Between hope and honestly facing reality; honestly facing life's difficulties and hardships? What does it look like to choose hope--to make hope a verb--here and now, and how does doing so transform the future that is possible? What might it look like for us as a church to be a "community of hope" in these difficult times that we are living through? What are you willing to commit in terms of presence, passion, and participation, in terms of time and resources to make such a community possible?

    23 min

  7. OCT 10

    Where Are We Going? Who Will Go With Us?

    In this Stewardship message, Pastor Eric draws together the story of God calling Abram and Sarai to set out into an unknown future where, despite all signs to the contrary, God promises there will be abundant life, and this quote from Howard Thurman, the great African American theologian, mystic, and mentor to Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement: "There are two questions we must ask ourselves. The first is “Where am I going?” and the second is “Who will go with me?” If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble.” If the future is unknown and unpredictable, "where" ARE we going? And why is it so important to have clarity on that BEFORE we focus on "who will go with us"? And what does this have to do with stewardship and Federated Church?

    23 min

  8. OCT 1

    We are a Multi-Storied People

    In this final message of our "This is Us" sermon series, Pastor Eric uses examples from scripture and our own church history to explore the danger of telling a single story--about ourselves, our communities, and about others. Each of us are made up of many stories. We are complex, messy, inconsistent, changing, and ever-growing. How do we hold the fullness of our stories, of who we are, and honor that fullness in others? How do we acknowledge our failures as well as our triumphs without giving in to shame? How does the way we do this shape how we live and respond to issues facing us now, the kind of people and community we are becoming, the very future that is possible?

    23 min
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Hear weekly Sunday messages from Pastor Eric as he reflects on scripture and our world to cast a vision for—and invite us to live—a more just, generous, and authentic version of our faith.

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