2026.09.27 | Looking Back to Look Forward

“Looking Back to Look Forward”
1 Kings 19:11-13

Preached By
Rev. Ashley Wai'olu Moore

Eden United Church of Christ 
Cherryland, CA

September 27, 2026

Good morning Beloved! 

Although I have been playing guitar since I was in middle school, I had never tried to play a ukulele until about ten days ago. Although I certainly anticipated that learning to play it would require some adaptation, I largely assumed it would be more of a cerebral challenge that a physical one. You see, the ukulele is tuned differently from a guitar and while the chord shapes are similar to those for the guitar, the pitches are different. So the shape that produces a D chord on a guitar, produces a G chord on the Uke. And the shape that produces a G chord on a guitar, produces a C chord on the Uke. So I assumed learning to play the Ukulele would largely involve remapping my synapses so that my brain would transpose the pitches in my mind to a new set of shapes in my fingers.

But have you ever had the experience of getting behind the wheel of a rental car? Or perhaps found yourself in a situation where you needed to drive someone else's car? You know how to operate a vehicle and you understand most of the functions of the dashboard controls, but everything is a little off. The seat hugs your body differently and the steering wheel is too large or too small, too low or too high. All of the mirrors need adjusting and everything else is in a different place than it is in your car.

Or perhaps you’ve had the disorienting experience of trying to use someone else’s computer in order to type something up real quick? Except that they’re using one of those hipster keyboards that sits 3 inches off the desks, has keys that travel an inch between when you begin pressing the key and the point at which it registers the keystroke. And then theres some fancy mouse or trackball that requires fine motor skills that you simply have not developed. Only in this case, it turns out that its not a QUERTY keyboard at all so all of the letters are in different places. Suddenly typing that quick note has become a frustrating experience because the tools challenge you on every level and limit your ability to communicate effectively.

Well the Ukulele similarly surprised me with physical challenges I had not anticipated. Compared to the guitar or bass, the Ukulele’s frets are closer together on the left to right axis while the strings are farther apart on the top to bottom access. This means that my fingers need to simultaneously be closer together and farther apart. So while I expected to be mentally struggling with my pitches, I kept finding myself physically struggling with my fingers landing between the strings or in reaching for the wrong frets.

I honestly don’t know why I was surprised by all this. Whenever we delve into learning something new, or taking something we know to the next level, we bring all of our past experiences to that moment and 

lean on all that our previous learning to help us adapt to and incorporate the new information for that new experience, that next set of skills. At other times, we find ourselves resistant to new prospects or change. Yet we know that any organism that ceases to change als o ceases to exist.

Will you pray with me…

In the weeks ahead, we are going to be engaging in dialogue with one another, listening for the Holy Spirit, sharing where our personal and collective passions intersects with the call of the Spirit. Our conclusions will arise from studying the Ven diagram that emerges from this process. Together we will discern what is next for us as a church, as a community and as citizens of the world in this time. That’s the work we will do together.

Of course the prospect of shange can be daunting. We humans tend to fear change, especially if it seems to occur suddenly. And history has shown that church folks can be some of the most reluctant to embrace any kind of change. There are countless stories of worship communities that have let relatively small things lead to large divisions. Arguments over the the position of the candlesticks on the altar, who’s sitting in which pews, the color of the carpets, the style of the choir robes, all manner of small things that become codified in our minds about the way things are supposed to be. There have been denominational splits arising from disagreements about the order of the ritual of the Eucharist. All of which are quite at odds with the teachings of Jesus. Instead they reflect our human fear of loss of identity and normalcy.

Now we may be the type of person who was brought up with a theology of an unchanging God. But if you seriously look at our biblical stories, they are full of change. Movement and migrations, people’s fickleness and inconsistency - and God meeting us at every moment asking us to come back into covenant and trust! 

God’s unchanging nature is about love and mercy and forgiveness, not doing things the same way forever and ever. In fact, God never does anything twice. No miracle was ever performed the same way twice. God is always doing a new thing. When God was speaking to Moses, our bible says that God identified himself as “I am that I am.” But a teacher pointed out to me that the Hebrew used here has no tense. So it can just as validly be translated as “I will be that I will be,” describing that God that never shows up the same way twice.

The gospels present us with the biggest surprises. God simultaneously upends all expectations, surprising everyone - while simultaneously fulfilling all the words of the prophets and all of the law. 

Another thing we absolutely see in our is that God never arrives in the manner we humans expect or in the type of person we ourselves would choose or wielding a flashy show of force. 

Consider the story of Elijah. In the chapter and verses  immediately preceding the one Jan just read for us, Elisha just finished defeating the prophets of Baal in a big showdown on Mt. Carmel, demonstrating that YHWH is the one true God. Though his victory is profound, queen Jezebel threatens to kill him. So he flees into the desert exhausted and in fear for his life. Though he had met that challenge with great courage, he is now discouraged and full of fear. He collapses under a bush and prays to die. God meets Elijah in the midst of this fear and doubt, giving the frightened prophet comfort and rest.

Elijah is then instructed to go to Mount Horeb and told to, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by.”

Then we are told that “A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake came, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire came a gentle and quiet whisper.”

You see? God speaks not in wind, earthquake, or fire but in a gentle whisper. Elijah had implored God to judge his people through the dramatic spectacles of a windstorm, earthquake and fire, but it was not God's will to do so. 

Elijah is then led to an impoverished widow for help. Both of these unlikely and pitiful characters are blessed by doing God’s will. 

Then there’s the stuttering murderer Moses, the forsaken brother Joseph, the scrawny shepherd boy David, the unwed mother-to-be Mary and the enigmatic Jesus. God always arrives in a surprising fashion!

Now, we here at Eden recount our successes with great joy. We point to the wonderful things we have accomplished with God’s help. And well we should be proud of those things. But we should also not forget to look back and remember the challenging things for they remind us of what this church has had to grow through, overcome and learn from. Those are the small, formative things that helped shape the successes.

The display on the wall outside this Sanctuary, there in the Breezway, reminds us that amidst the victories this community has experienced a lot of growing pains and instability. It reminds us that throughout most of its history, Eden church struggled with low attendance and not having enough money. There have been a surprisingly long line of pastors who only stayed for a few years. In fact, there have only been (I think) 3 pastors who had longer tenures. And while they did a great deal, it has always been the members of the church and their families who kept Eden going. The people made it what it became. In that sense, I’d say they truly embodied the congregationalist ideals the church was founded upon. Their commitment and dedication allowed Eden to continue moving forward and paved the way for the catalysts to come and accomplish what they did. And, according to what I’ve read, it was the women of the community who were the heart and strength of Eden. Just like the Compañeras in our time. God uses the faithful to create blessings.

These are the things I would encourage you to keep in mind as we move into our discernment process and delve into our strategic planning in the weeks ahead. Listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit. What is God igniting within us? Listen for the passion for service burning in each other’s hearts. Allow ourselves to dream boldly and consider the possibilities remembering that “God does not call the qualified, God qualifies the called.” And when we feel that what we may not have enough, we know that what we do have can multiply through God’s touch. Faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. And in God, all things are possible.

Eden church has already been through and witnessed so much in its 162 year history. At the time of its founding, this was a rural, agricultural area with dirt roads, horses and buggies. It was also a resort town, an idyllic Garden-of-Eden like get away from the emerging urban life of the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. 

As we know, the church was founded in 1865. That was the year that the American Civil War ended and that slavery was constitutionally abolished in this country. That same year, the San Francisco Chronicle was founded and the first railroads connecting Oakland and Fremont were built. What a different world it was then.

California had only become a state 15 years earlier just after Mexico lost control of the land in 1848. The inhabitants of the area had been predominantly indigenous Ohlone Indians and Mexican people until the gold rush brought migrants from all over the world into the San Francisco bay area. The railway brought tremendous growth to the Eden area.  Even more so when the transcontinental railroad arrived in 1869. Hayward didn’t officially became a city until 1883.

Consider the changes that have occurred since then. Eden church was founded before electricity or municipal water came to the area. In the first fifty years, Eden members saw the inventions of photography, radio, the telephone, records, radio, film, airplanes, even bicycles come into being. They survived the 1868 and 1906 earthquakes, World War I, and the Influenza pandemic. Celebrated women gaining the right to vote, the automobile, the roaring 20s and then survived the stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression and the second World War that followed. 

During the economic boom that followed the war, Eden church experienced its greatest period of growth moving to this location just in time to accommodate the population boom with this new campus. In 1957, we joined others and became part of the brand new United Church of Christ. 

Along the way, members of Eden church saw the advent of jazz, gospel , rhythm and blues, and pop music. Then television, computers, the space race, the civil rights movement, the moon landings, personal computers, cell phones, the internet, the emergence of the information age, smart phones and so much more. To be sure, the world we live in is drastically different from the one in which this church was founded. And yet our call to embody and share the truth of the Gospels remains.

Eden church responded to the challenges of the COVID pandemic offering testing and then vaccines, helping as many people as we could. Today we are distributing 10,000 pounds of food every month. And have distributed 1.5 million pounds since 2020. Our pillar programs are helping people navigate the many challenges of our time and finding ways to use these new technologies toward those ends and accomplish more than was possible for such a team to do even 25 years ago. 

But now we stand at the precipice of a profound paradigm shift as Artificial Intelligence emerges faster and more pervasively than any technology that preceded it. It will impact all of our lives in ways that we do not yet understand. And in a world where it will increasingly be difficult to discern what is true and real and right, people will be challenged in all kinds of ways. It will be more important than ever 

for us to lift up the gospel truth that we know to be real, and to be beacons of light in the stormy seas of AI generated information. Like Elijah, we may be called upon to help people to know that God is REAL.

So I encourage you to let this awareness also be part of our discernment process. Perhaps all of those spiritual teachings that instruct us how to understand God’s calling and ways of being, despite what the world shows us - was preparing us for just such a time as this. To adapt to these new tools and circumstances, we’re going to need to use everything we’ve learned, all of our personal and collective histories and adapt those lessons in order to prevail in this emerging reality. Maybe we’ll have to become like the folks in that movie the Matrix, fighting for freedom and awareness of salvation while the society around us is caught up in some dream-like illusion.

We need to stay faithful and not allow ourselves to get caught up in, or be fooled by, spectacles like the roaring wind, the flashing fire or the quaking earth. Instead, let us lean into our faith and stay focused on the small, calming voice of the Holy Spirit who answers our call, quietly whispering and calling us to action. Together, I believe we will discern how to prepare for how God would have us respond, so that we can continue to be a blessing for years to come.

Amen.