Sermons

Sunday, December 25, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

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Sunday, January 8, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Nora Kahn, preaching

Genesis 1:1-5

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Sunday, December 18, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

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Sunday, December 11, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

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“Somebody get a camera! We need a picture of this.”

Nobody seemed to be listening. Everybody was busily laboring before the regularly scheduled afternoon storm began to drench the Puerto Rican rainforest that surrounded them. It was 1990, and I was there working as part of a volunteer in mission team along with Kevin … he’s the one who wanted the camera. It was validation that I had finally done something right on the trip. For the whole week, I had been working with Kevin, a bricklayer and mason from our congregation in Sycamore. I mostly did grunt work … pushing countless bags of dry goods you use to make mortar … up a large hill to the gate of the camp where we were rebuilding a house that had been destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in the previous fall. Looking back now, I think the dry goods were placed there just to give me something to do.

Eventually, I graduated to mixing the mortar, but wasn’t very good at it. Too much water, not enough water; too thin, too thick. It was a good thing there were extra bags of crushed limestone on site, and a hose nearby or we never would have gotten much done, I’m afraid. Kevin was very patient, yet all the while reminding me that if we didn’t have good “stuff” in the walls, they wouldn’t stay true. They’d more likely come down if another hurricane came through. Of course, that was the last thing I wanted. Our trip was all about rebuilding the walls that they needed in that mountain town.

As the day’s went on, I became more meticulous about my mud making. I pondered who might stand behind that wall of cinder blocks locked together by it … the shelves that would be hung on it, the family portraits drawn in crayon by a child, the meals that would be eaten inside them; the prayers that would be uttered at the feet of beds pushed up against them. With every churn of the spade, my mortar got better and better, until — finally — I troweled a batch onto Kevin’s palate board and he said “By George, this is perfect!”

Eventually, Kevin did get somebody to pull out a camera and the moment was captured on film. I still have that photograph somewhere … Kevin with an arm around me. One hand gripping my shoulder and jerking me off balance; the other one pointing to my mixing wheelbarrow of good stuff. Me with an uncomfortable grin, and him with a genuine smile.

Building walls can be an amazing thing, and it is something that we, as people, have become quite adept in doing. From canvas to adobe and straw, from timber and drywall to stone and concrete, it is virtually impossible to turn a direction where there are people and NOT see a wall. And it has been that way for as long as we’ve had the ability to build them. But is what we build in line with the blueprints that God has in mind? (more…)

Sunday, December 4, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Nora Kahn, preaching

Isaiah 40:1-11

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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…)

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

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

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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…)

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…)

Sunday, October 30, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Acts 1:3 – 8

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I love the ocean and the surf … I can’t think of a more pleasant thing than sitting on the beach experiencing the blue crash on the sand. When I was a teen, we spent one week in January on the Space Coast in Florida and I was hooked. Because of the surf, Emily, Libby and I drove to Southern California on a whim. I don’t care if it is a beautiful, sunny day, or gloomy and overcast. I don’t care if it is summer or winter. I love, in any time and any place, to watch, feel and listen to the power of the surf. There is something so mysterious about it, as each wave comes from the bulging blue — seemingly out of nowhere; rising like a hand with white fingers — tumbling over itself until it hits the shore in a thunderous explosion that erodes rock into sand and swallows the sand into itself as it returns to the blue. Fueled by the invisible forces of wind and gravity, the waves are relentless. People try and build barriers to keep the current from ripping away at what they’ve made, yet the surf is patiently incessant and eventually claims everything that stands in its way.

I love the surf, but, oddly enough I am deathly afraid of it for all the same reasons. To the surfers in the room, I envy you. I envy how you can be in rhythm with the waves, risking just enough to get out in front of it as it breaks with a surge of power … trusting yourself to that hand as it take you where it wants to. I cannot bring myself to get close enough to get wet. While I admire it from a distance, I have never gotten up the nerve to submit to its motion. I think it is a beautiful thing to watch others surf. For most that I’ve seen, it is almost as if it is part of their life … it is another motor function, a sixth sense. That is part of what keeps me coming back … dreaming that I could overcome my fear and be like them.

I’m told the rush is worth the initial fear. The synchronicity of body with wave is worth the cold and occasional crash. Even the threatening sharks, jellyfish and coral which lurk below are secondary to the thrill of uniting yourself with the power of the surf. But I have never risked it. I have thought about it. I have thought about taking lessons, but I am afraid of looking like a fool … of looking like the amateur I am … of having my instructor give up on me. I am afraid of it souring my opinion of the surf and dulling the shine of the sea and my romantic notions about the vast blue. It is an odd tension for me, but I don’t think it is unlike the tension we have in regards to the Holy Spirit and its power. (more…)