Archive for November, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Isaiah 64:1-9

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This is the first year our daughter seems to get the whole cultural Christmas thing. Her inner consumer has been awakened somehow. Maybe it was sparked by the Christmas songs she’s been singing in school. Maybe it was all the ads she’s seen on the El platforms and inside the trains.

This year, she has learned to add the addendum to her requests for toys that have been denied, saying “Can we put it on my Christmas list?” For the past few days, she has been spending hours writing out her list in scribbles and jumbled letters with washable markers.

All of November, she kept asking when it was going to be Christmas, and Emily and I kept telling her it is was after Thanksgiving. So come Thursday, I don’t think I remember her ever saying “Happy Thanksgiving” but rather “It’s almost Christmas!” Friday morning, she came running into our bedroom to wake us up at some unbelievably early hour saying “Merry Christmas!” Saturday, the same thing. My dear child. I guess she was only repeating what we told her.

It is amazing to me how quickly the culture pushes us to jump from fall to Christmas. As soon as the first leaf turns, the red and green ink begins to flow like mountain-fed rivers in spring … the muzak and satellite radio have 15 channels of holiday selections, all of which seem to feature Mel Torme or some other sleepy sounding guy who slides all over the notes; then a glockenspiel or some bright and cheery instrument will replace the voices the third time through the selections. We are fast-forwarded to the yule, and holly jolly, and the ho ho ho.

Last year, I watched the city of Geneva hang the Christmas trees from the lamp posts the first week of November and was stunned. “Can’t we wait?” I said to the shop owner whose window I was looking out at the time. “We haven’t got the time,” he replied. “We’re too busy living the American dream.” (more…)

by Candie ODell

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6: 33-34 )

We’ve all heard the saying “be present in the moment”. Sometimes this phrase catches me off guard because by nature I am a worrier. I am constantly worrying about the “what ifs” in life. I’m also a procrastinator which doesn’t bode well with my worrying. Though I worry all the time, it doesn’t motivate me to complete things until the last moment such as homework. I like to say that I work well under pressure, but let’s be honest, everything could benefit from a little more time. My schoolwork could be better, time with God, and many other things in life, could benefit from a little more time.

This passage in Matthew talks about always striving for the kingdom of God. As long as we keep the Kingdom (or Kindom as I prefer) all will be given unto to you. This doesn’t mean that just because you think of God throughout the day and the rest of the Kindom, then you will get everything you want. God is not a magic genie nor Santa Claus. I think that it means to always have creation and God’s children in mind when you take action. Who will this action affect is a good question to keep in mind.

During this busy holiday season remember to take time and enjoy the day. Enjoy the person you are with, really listen. Avoid looking at your phone, thinking about your to-do list, emails to return, and the house that needs to be cleaned. Revel in the moment. Call someone you’ve been meaning to reach out to, make someone’s day by smiling or stopping to say hello, Stop and smell the roses if you will.

This is my challenge to myself and to my community. I will be present in my school-work, my job, my relationship, and my intentional-living community. These are my responsibilities today and are what I can focus on today. Tomorrow will come soon enough and will bring its own set of challenges, but what is right in front of me can be solved today. BE PRESENT!!!!!!

Tomorrow will bring challenges all on its own, but today is the only today we are going to get.

For a while, I was part of the “Take Back Christmas!” crowd. Yes, I knew that it had pagan origins. And yes, I also knew that December 25 probably wasn’t actually Jesus’ birthday. But I desired so much for it to become a real holy-day kind of holiday that I fought against the culture. I realize now that fight is wasted energy. The Christmas I long for is not something that an entire nation will ever get behind. In fact, I don’t think it ever did. I’ve come to grips with the idea that Christmas in its evolved form (what I call ComsumermasTM) is here to stay. Our economy claims to run on it. Its lights, tunes and targeted advertisements make the kids happy. For adults, it is like a Las Vegas-style neon green yard glass full of cheer. I submit to its wonderfully whimsical and nonsensical virtues.

I have not, however, given up on Advent. At its core, Advent is the darkness of a morning just before dawn. It is hopeful. It anticipates. And Advent does this because it has seen the dawn before. It remembers the light. Advent does not lament in prophecies of doom, nor does it linger in sadness and pine for what once was. Advent says this may be the new day we’ve been waiting for; the greater day we’ve longed to live in. It may be God’s day; God’s future becoming the entirety of our reality. ComsumermasTM wants nothing to do with it. It isn’t threatened by it at all. Because at Advent we pray and wait for the seemingly impossible to happen: peace; reconciliation; equity; and rebuilding. These gifts are not things we can buy, nor are they things that an economy can produce. They are only what we can inherit. And we can only claim that inheritance by waiting.

This Advent, I invite us into a season of waiting. Naming the holiest of things and ideas, we wait upon God to bring them into our midst. And, while they may not come this Christmas, it is still possible they could come the day after. Or the day after that. Because the impossible has already been done in Jesus. We have seen the dawn before. And we cannot forget that light.

Blessed Advent, friends!

Pastor Matthew

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Sunday, November 20, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Rebecca Anderson, preaching

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

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A couple of years ago, I attempted to do a series of “person on the street” interviews to include as part of worship. It was this time of year — when we reflect on what we are thankful for — and I was convinced I would get a wide variety of answers on being both thankful and gracious. But I didn’t. From where I stood while doing the interviewing, it seemed to be an abysmal failure. Every time I asked someone to tell me what they were thankful for, they replied with “my family.”

Every time.

But how honest, really, are you going to be with a stranger who interrupts your trip out of Starbucks with a camera and microphone? In hearing their equivalent of a Miss America “world peace” answer, part of me wondered if they didn’t want to sound ignorant or selfish, so they just played it safe.

After about ten of them in a row, I said to the next person “Come on, that’s the answer everybody is giving me. Isn’t there something else that you are equally thankful for?”

She pushed back, ‘Well, how would you answer the question?” (If you ever want to see if a reporter is unprepared, ask them the same question.)

I didn’t know how to answer her, so I asked her another question: “I mean, my family is a pain sometimes. My extended family is a pain a lot of the time. Isn’t yours?”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. Now we were getting somewhere. Now I could get some honesty. “But that doesn’t make me any less thankful for them,” she continued. I pressed the stop button, thanked her and went back home.

Recently, I found that tape. Oddly enough, I had had re-used it for another project. Only a snippet was visible, but I immediately recognized the woman. She passed by in between clips of my daughter riding her trike in the house (and aggravatingly, into the tripod) and my spouse helping me test a new video light (and a small argument about how long it was going to take). I laughed and figured I would have answered the same as all those people.

I think the same kind of thankfulness is present for members of a church family. We are pains to each other a lot of the time, but we are still family. United by the grace of God, we are the very best of the life God offers us to receive. That certainly includes the great moments of love and unity. But it also includes the warts. Be thankful for our Holy Covenant family, sisters and brothers.

Peace,

Pastor Matthew

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Sunday, November 13, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Joshua 3:7-17

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The story of the Israelites crossing the Jordan into the promised land may be unfamiliar to you. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I paid any attention to it. When I finally did, I was captured by it for a number of reasons, and I began to wonder: why isn’t this story as popular as some of our other favorites?

I went to my trusted sources and found them very thin when it came to this bit from Joshua. The blog I subscribe to that aggregates sermons from all around the world had zero submissions for this story from Joshua. Frankly, the lack of conversation about this text is more than a little odd. Because it is an important passage of scripture … it marks the end of the wilderness experience for the Israelites. For forty years they had meandered like a snake crawling over itself. For forty years they had wondered if they would every find a new home … and if the new home would have the milk and honey promised to them.

It is the culmination of the promise given to Abraham at the origin of the covenant. This land they are going to is the land that God had shown the first one to heed God’s call. This story from the book of Joshua is an event hundreds of years in the making. It is the end of an epic chapter in biblical history. It is full of drama and excitement … Joshua shares what God told him, everyone approaches the river, which is raging and deep at this time of year, but the river stops.

The ark of the covenant is held square in the middle of it, a gauntlet of representatives from every tribe flank the wall of water. Like sentinels, they signal to the weary and worn wanderers that a new day has come. Upstream, flood waters are rising up the banks and spilling into the fields. And all the people parade across the muddy riverbed … by the priests and the ark. Every person walks peacefully in the shadow of the towering liquid. The fish are all wondering what is going on.

This was an amazing event! But this story isn’t part of our greater narrative. I don’t remember this one from the felt boards in Sunday school. Hollywood never made a movie about this event. There was the one about that other time the waters were parted … the one from Exodus … that one is probably familiar to you. It is pretty famous. It is remembered over and over in scripture. Miriam and David wrote songs about it. Eventually, Charlton Heston played the leading role in it. Val Kilmer did the voice-over for the animated version. I think we did a musical about it in my Sunday school class. I had the role of frog number three from the plague scene. (more…)

I know many of you are weary. The fall does it to me. The darkness. The chill. But in this season, we are also weary as a church. So much transition. So many goodbyes and new beginnings. While there has, indeed, been much change here in the past year, I think it is important to remember more has stayed the same. Without fail, we worshipped every Sunday – usually more than once; many dates three times. We sang thousands of songs. We gave and received signs of peace and love tens of thousands of times. Simply standing where we do, our message and mission were witnessed by hundreds of thousands who pass by our building. We broke bread at Jesus’ table just about every week. By year’s end, we will have served nearly 5,000 meals within the context of fellowship and through the amazing work of Dignity Diner. We opened our baptismal font to our children. We opened our building to our neighbors. When all is said and done, people will have come through our doors more than 15,000 times in 2011. That’s bigger than my town was when I was in high school. And we’ve been doing these kinds of foundational things, year in and year out, for decade upon decade. Honestly, little has changed. And that is because we are part of something that is bigger than all of us. We are part of God. And I hope you find peace in knowing it.

As you think about making an annual pledge to Holy Covenant for 2012, consider what we are a part of, what endures and how it grows. If you have not pledged in the past, consider growing your participation in the sameness of God that unites us, by making your gifts one of those consistent things your friends at Holy Covenant can count on. I, and your leadership team, thank you for everything you do to keep the foundation strong, the community stable and the church alive.

Blessings!

Pastor Matthew

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Sunday, November 6, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Matthew 5:1-12

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When I was a kid, cemeteries were a bit frightening to me. Maybe they were for some of you, too. I hung around with some friends who liked to tell ghost stories, and they’d often coerce me to make late night trips deep into the headstones. They’d make up stories about the people buried below us; spinning yarns about murder and mayhem committed by people with old names like Tobias and Gertrude. They’d use a spooky voice to share how the spirits of Toby and Gert could leave the ground and inhabit us like demons. Although I was certain (well, fairly certain) that what they said wasn’t true, their stories stripped me of just enough of my curiosity that I never wanted to find out the stories of any of those strangers buried there.

When I’d visit my grandparents at the beginning of the summer — around memorial day — we’d often go to lay flowers at the graves of grandma’s brothers who fought in World War II. They were people I never met. And while you’d think that would have been a positive experience, I always walked gingerly, partially afraid of what may emerge from the ground, but mostly because of the way my grandmother screamed the first time I stepped on an area in front of a headstone in her presence. You would have thought a hand freed itself from the earth and began untying my shoe. But she was just concerned about my disrespecting the graves. “We don’t walk on people,” she said, guiding me around the back of the headstone. Imagine my confusion and fear the first time I saw a grave dug on the backside of the stone. Oddly, I remember these things, but I don’t remember hearing anything in those moments about my great uncles who were buried there. Her forlorned look told me they obviously still had a place in my grandma’s heart. But I never asked.

Even when I was a young adult, the graveyards were unnerving. I was happy when the ones along side the rural roads wouldn’t catch my attention because the thicket had overtaken them. Out of sight, out of mind and all.

I have no memory of going to the graveside of any of funerals I attended for interment.

My first year of ministry things changed by necessity. I had to overcome my nagging uncomfort. In my first week, I officiated two funerals. I had gone from avoiding graveyards to being in them all the time. This reality was partially because I served two aging congregations, but also because I had quickly become the funeral director’s go-to guy for those who had died unconnected and without a congregation. In those first years, I was standing at the head of a casket or next to an urn at least three times a month. This was when I came to the conclusion that God loves irony. A lot. This was also when I first started paying attention to the stories the dead left behind … the mournful lamentations of family without family, the joy of a legacy left, the anguish of things left unsaid or done, the reclamation of meaning in a name. Sometimes I would hear them in meetings and prayer before the services. Sometimes I would hear them over potato salad after the services. And sometimes I would hear them in raw moments during the services. (more…)

As you know, Rebecca’s last Sunday is November 20th. The Staff Parish Relations Committee is actively working to hire to fill Rebecca’s position. We have decided to divide Rebecca’s current position into two positions – one to focus on worship in the evening service and one to focus on spiritual formation and small groups. We felt it made sense to divide the position since they need very different skill sets. Here are the job postings for the two positions: Evening Worship Leader and Ministry Associate. If you know anyone who would be a good fit for either of these positions, please send them the job postings. Thank you!

If you have any questions please, feel free to talk to me or any of the members of SPRC or the Lay Leaders. You can also email questions to the Staff Parish Relations Committee.

Mandy Leifheit, SPRC Chair

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Pass it on to anyone you think might be interested!

Holy Covenant UMC, a dynamic, progressive congregation full of many young adults and families in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, is seeking a Ministry Associate to share pastoral responsibilities for the Holy Covenant community focusing specifically on Spiritual Formation for all ages.

Responsibilities include planning and developing small groups, worship leadership, and worship preparation (multi-media creation, volunteer recruitment, and communications). Bachelor’s degree is required and working toward a Master of Divinity is strongly preferred. Position is 20 hours per week. Position starts immediately and continues through June 2012 with potential to be extended. If interested in applying, please send a resume and cover letter to office@holycovenantumc.org.

We are also looking for an Evening Worship Leader.