New Here Service Times

Sermons

Aug. 29 Sermon: Luke 14:1, 7-14

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Holy Covenant UMC
August 29, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

bread Aug. 29 Sermon: Luke 14:1, 7-14Imagine with me that you are hosting a dinner party. You have spent weeks preparing—cleaning the house, planning the menu, going over the guest list, cooking the dinner. And then when people arrive you are a gracious host—making sure nobody’s drink glass is empty, that the volume of the music is just right, that the trays of appetizers remain full.

You’ve put much effort into making this a pleasant experience for everyone. And then, as everyone is seated at the table, one of your guests begins to criticize you. Begins to criticize your guest list—telling you that you shouldn’t have invited the people you did. The people that are sitting right there next to him. How would this make you feel? Probably pretty uncomfortable—I know I would be. Others in the room would be uncomfortable as well. We’ve all had the experience of sitting around the table, engaging in polite conversation, when someone—that guy—we all know one of those guys—says something that moves the conversation from polite to candid. From nice to challenging (often it’s when a family member brings up politics or religion). And it’s hard to know how to react. (more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Aug. 22 Sermon: Breaking Free

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Breaking Free
Holy Covenant UMC
Sunday August 22, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 13:10-17

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

She’s a broken woman.
She’s also faithful, coming to the synagogue every single week on the Sabbath. To pray, to sing, to worship God with her community, her community that’s become her family.
For eighteen years she’s walked into that sanctuary bent over. Broken.
364 times she’s entered that space, week after week, year after year, and she couldn’t see anything but the small piece of ground right underneath her eyes, her vision reduced to the patch of land around her feet. 364 times she’s walked into that synagogue, bent over and broken.

She lives in deep pain, all the time, which affects more than her body—she’s a powerful witness that body, soul and mind are always interconnected and her pain seeps into all aspects of her life. She’s broken because she’s a woman in a culture that values men—for their ability to work and gain political and religious power. But even in these constraints she’s not a very good woman: it’s nearly impossible to cook and clean when her head hangs so low. Animals are more valuable to the world than she is.

And there are people who look at her and they see only her bent-over-ness. She’s so tired of being reduced to her ailment…they see the small patch of ground where her body bends over, but they can’t see that she loves a good joke, lost a beloved son in war, survived cancer and makes a mean falafel. They look at her and don’t even know her name: oh, there’s the bent-over woman, here again. A broken body, back to worship.
(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Aug. 15 Sermon: Kindled with Fire

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Kindled with Fire
Holy Covenant UMC
Sunday August 15, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 12:49-56

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

When I was 10 years old, in 1992, I visited Yellowstone National Park with my family. Yellowstone represents nature at its most abundant. I vividly remember being in awe at the beauty that surrounded me. Yellowstone is in Wyoming, near Grand Teton national park, so it sits at the foot of spectacular mountains, gleaming silver, that rise sharply into the deep blue sky. There was snow on the ground that summer, in the middle of July—to a girl from Texas this seemed miraculous. Yellowstone is full of wildlife in its natural habitat—bison herds that cross the road, causing traffic jams. Elk mothers with their babies, scampering through woods. And if you’re lucky, there’s even the occasional bear. And of course, there are the geysers, perhaps what Yellowstone is most famous for—water shooting up from the earth at regular intervals, spraying passersby.

I grew up in West Texas, which is flat and dry, no trees or natural bodies of water. So the lush trees and waterfalls of this place were a wonder to me—I couldn’t get enough of them. (more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Aug 8 Sermon: Hosea 2:14-23

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Sunday, August 8, 2010rebeccaanderson Aug 8 Sermon: Hosea 2:14-23
Holy Covenant UMC
Rebecca Anderson, preaching

Hosea 2:14-23

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

  • Share/Bookmark

August 1 Sermon: Rich With God

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Rich with God
Sunday August 1, 2010
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 12:13-21

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

toiletpaper August 1 Sermon: Rich With God

I’ve recently discovered Costco. I had never been until about a year ago, and now, I’m afraid, I’m hooked. Have you been there? Costco is a warehouse that contains pretty much everything you could want to buy—food, electronics, clothing items, furniture, pharmaceuticals—at a deep discount and in bulk. You can get your printer ink, 2 for 1; replacement heads for your electric toothbrush, an electric toothbrush if you don’t have one already; 20 avocados in one container; vitamins in gallon size bottles; even flat screen TV’s.

In short, Costco represents everything that is wrong with America:
An over-abundance of stuff, deep discounted products that make consumers happy but blind to the workers and the conditions that lead to a year’s supply of socks being 5 bucks, cheap processed hot dogs at check-out and the desire to consume more and more. It’s hard to get out of there without buying twice as much as you went in for.

And yet just as I’m horrified, I admit that I love it, too. I’m not proud of this. I am, proud, however of how much toilet paper I have stored away in my closet.

What is it about stuff that makes us feel so secure?

This is at the heart of the parable Jesus is telling us this morning. (more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

July 25 Sermon: The Power of Persistence

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

The Power of Persistence
July 25, 2010
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 11:1-13

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“How are we supposed to pray?” is the question before us this morning.
The Disciples are asking Jesus this familiar question that we so often find on our lips, on our hearts…How are we supposed to pray?

I get this question a lot, as a pastor.
And I’ll confess to you, as someone who spent three years and $30,000 getting a degree called “master of divinity”—I still ask this question, on a very regular basis. How am I supposed to pray? How are we supposed to pray?
At some point all of us wonder how/why/to whom/when about prayer. When we feel spiritually empty we want to fill up and seek prayer to give us that fullness.

Scripture gives us many images of prayer:
Moses literally talks to God, in the desert and on mountain tops, teaching us that our prayers can be direct dialogue with God, voicing our concerns and our hopes.
We have the psalms, full of rich imagery of praise and joy and also heartache and pain, teaching us that in prayer, we don’t hide anything from God—we bring our full selves and God receives us.
We have stories of Jesus stealing away by himself, teaching us about the power of private and silent prayer, alone-time with God
And Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, teaching us that our whole lives are a prayer, when we center ourselves in God. (more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

July 18: Both/And in an Either/Or World

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

“Both/And in an Either/Or World”
Sunday July 18, 2010
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 10:38-42

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The world loves to pit women against each other:

Stay at home moms vs. moms who work outside the home;
Sarah Palin vs. Hillary Clinton;
Women who take their husband’s names vs. women who don’t;
Women who take wives instead of husbands;
Single women vs. married;
Those who want kids vs. those who want to be childless;
Those who seek fertility treatments vs. those who don’t;
Angelina Jolie vs. Jen Aniston;
The classic Madonna/Whore archetype that pervades our culture.
I could go on and on…I’m sure you have examples of your own.

We are in a dangerous (and destructive) either/or mentality. Either women are virtuous or slutty; moms or career women; friendly or the b word; Angelina is a seductress while Jen is forever a scorned woman; power hungry or passive; strong or nurturing; Hillary is smart and aggressive, Sarah is attractive and dumb; We’re not allowed to be both/and. (more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

July 11 Sermon: Go and Do Likewise

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Sermon, July 11 2010
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Luke 10:25-37

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Go and do likewise, Jesus tells us.
Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and your neighbor as yourself.
Your neighbor is anyone, especially the one we ignore, who shows mercy and compassion.
Go, he says, be a good Samaritan, and do likewise.

It’s hard, though, to go and do likewise when we, ourselves, are by the side of the road, not walking by. For the world is full of ditches, and often we find ourselves there:

There’s a woman in a ditch right now. Beaten, robbed, covered in blood and dust, alone on the side of the road, feeling hopeless.
She doesn’t know how she got there.
She had all the markers of success in her life: Captain of her high school basketball team, valedictorian, full ride to her state school. There she was able to balance having a good time with getting her work done, developed an interest in human rights advocacy, and applied to law school. And there she met him, her future husband, and it was pure magic, from the very start.
But now she’s here, all alone, beaten…not physically, but she was so afraid one day he would. He pounded her down emotionally, one insult, threat, and manipulation at a time. He’s slowly robbed her of her friends, close family connections, and her dignity. It’s hard to see clearly because of all the dust in her eyes. She finally left, but has nowhere to go and needs some serious healing. (more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

July 4 Sermon: Guided Meditation

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Guided Meditation
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd, Holy Covenant UMC
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.

Imagine the places Jesus is calling you to go in your life. Where is the harvest? Is it in your family and personal life? Is he calling you to a new place in your work life? In schooling? Is your harvest to a new journey within yourself? A place of forgiveness, peace, hope? Is he calling you out of yourself, to leave your comfort zone? To serve others? Help the hurt and the lost and the least? Where is Jesus calling you to go?

3Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.

What is weighing you down on your journey? Imagine that Jesus is calling you to let go of your stuff, your purse and bag and sandals…maybe its physical stuff in your home, your car, your clothes, your electronics. What is distracting you from going on your journey? What does it feel like to let it all go?

5Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.

Continue on your journey, and picture saying to everyone you meet: Peace to you. Imagine greeting the people on your path as if they are fellow travelers, children of God, called by Jesus. How does that change your journey? And now imagine staying with them, even when it’s more comfortable to get up and leave. Stay with that discomfort and go deeper on your journey instead of rushing from place to place.

8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” 10But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11“Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”

What is Jesus calling you to proclaim on your journey? What’s the good news, the hope, that you can share with others on your path. Imagine what you would say to others when they ask you why you are traveling…do you tell them about peace? Joy? Fulfillment? Forgiveness? Patience? Discernment? How do you describe the Kingdom of God to those you encounter?

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’

On your journey, know that Jesus is calling you to tell the truth, about who you are and the one who sent you. Never apologize for being a beloved child of God, and living your life that way. Never apologize for knowing that you are sent out in the name of love, new life, justice, mercy, and grace. Know that God is sending you, and worldly rejection is not strong enough to overcome God’s call. Know and believe that call.

17The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ 18He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

What scares you about your journey? What are your snakes and scorpions—is it money trouble? Rejection? Fear of change? Risk of loss? Worries of discomfort? Fear of the unknown? Name your fears…..now let them go. Let them go…as you breathe in and breathe out….let them go.

For Jesus is calling you on a journey, and his love is greater than any fear. Let that love ground you, center you, and send you out into the harvest, proclaiming new life for you and all you meet. As you breathe in, and breathe out…

  • Share/Bookmark

June 27 Sermon: PRIDE Sunday

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

PRIDE Sermon
Holy Covenant UMC, Sunday June 27th 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here it is! Pride Sunday, finally. We’ve been building up to this joyous day for the last month. We’re ready to leave here and have fun, celebrate, be set free into Lakeview to march and sing and dance.

And then we hear this scripture passage, from Galatians, which can seem to squelch all our fun. It starts off well and good: Paul is talking about freedom in Christ, telling us that we are no longer under a burden of law or oppression. And he tells us that the fulfillment of the law is summed up in the one commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.

It’s freeing and it’s beautiful…and then we get to the end of the passage, we’re on the edges of our seats ready to have fun, and Paul seems to ruin it: He tells us about all the things we can NOT do; he tells us that flesh is bad and in Christ we live by Spirit alone. It can be a bummer to hear on this day when many of us want to go carousing and engage in pleasures of the flesh. It doesn’t feel very freeing and it doesn’t necessarily feel like a Scripture passage we want to take pride in. Is this what it means to be Christian? To separate body and Spirit?
It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Plus, many of us have been oppressed because Christians have told us are bodies are bad. This passage is about freedom, but it can feel constraining.

Is this something to be proud of? After all, we are gathered today to be proud!

I couldn’t preach a “Pride” sermon without mentioning my all-time favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. I know, I know, this isn’t the kind of Pride we’re talking about today…although with all the fabulous dresses and tea parties and witty banter, it is a pretty gay book. In it Mary, the most sensible of the 5 Bennett sisters, says this: “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” (Mary; Ch. 5)

I really like this definition of Pride because it moves it away from a desire to always be afraid of and influenced by what other people think of us, and instead, pride being centered in knowing who we are and what we believe, and unashamed to share that confidence. Even if the world tells us otherwise.

We gather today as Christians, as Holy Covenant, as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, straight, allies, and we ask: Where is our Pride? What are we proud of? What is it that we know and believe about ourselves and the world that makes us want to share it, boldly? And how do pride in our sexuality and our Christian faith line up with one another?

I was 13 years old when I first discovered that I was proud to be a Christian. I had been in church my whole life, baptized as an infant, raised as a United Methodist. I was always in Sunday School, memorized bible verses, played my violin in Christmas Eve services, read scripture in worship, sat on committees, even sang in the children’s choir—God help the adults who had to listen to me butcher music—they were very Christ-like, I assure you. I loved the church, but I didn’t realize the fullness of why or what this means until I was a teenager.

When I was 13, my church, St. John’s UMC in Lubbock, TX, decided we were going to undergo the process of becoming a Reconciling Congregation. The Spirit had moved my pastor and the lay leaders to start the conversation about officially welcoming people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. We thought this process would take under a year, and it took nearly four years from the time we began to the time we took a congregational vote. During this time, I witnessed plenty of fear, confusion, and hatred. But none of that won out in the end—because during these four years, as I was growing and developing my own identity, trying to make sense of the world, my church community witnessed to me to wide love of Jesus Christ and what it meant to love our neighbors as ourselves. And I was so proud to worship Jesus, because of the stories I heard, stories about body and spirit being intertwined, about God’s love reaching to everybody:

*I heard Evelyn and Betsy, a couple in their 50’s, share with tears in their eyes in front of our whole congregation that this was the first church they could come to together and be who God created them to be. They still weren’t safe to be out in other areas of their lives, especially in West Texas in the mid-90’s. Church was home.

*I heard my pastor preach from the pulpit about God’s wide love and mercy, that sexuality is a good and sacred gift from God, and that we should welcome all people, even though these sermons made some in the congregation unhappy and threaten to leave. I was proud he was prophetic instead of quiet and scared.

*I learned in Sunday school about the passage in the Bible that people use to say homosexuality is a sin, and then we did careful interpretation to discover the context and real meaning of God’s word.

*I heard Tom tell about the 4 churches that had kicked him out before he came to St. John’s. As churches let go of him, he never let go of God, and God never let go of him.

*I sat on a committee with Betty, the retired preacher’s wife, a woman in her 80’s who fit every stereotype of “retired preacher’s wife” she had grey hair in tight curls, wore sweaters and turtlenecks when it was 80 degrees, and of course she played the piano. But Betty was anything but stereotypical: She told us in that meeting about lobbying at the state capitol for adoption rights and encountering a group advocating for transgender rights…she had learned about the high-incidence of suicide among trans persons and job discrimination. She led the way for our church to embrace facing transphobia and being a place of welcome. I was proud when she said: If Jesus were here today, he’d be spending time with transgender persons.

*I listened as Sarah, a girl a few years older than I was, bravely came out to our youth group. She was fearful, though, to tell her parents because they were leaving our church because of our reconciling identity. We were a safe place when her home was not.

*And one day I sat in the cafeteria of my jr. high, at my regular table with girls I had been friends with for years, many from my girl scout troupe. And they ambushed me, each bringing a Bible and confronting me with texts, telling me I was going to hell and so was my whole church for welcoming gay people. It was so freeing to be able to look at them and say that Sodom and Gomorrah is actually a story about the evils of gang rape, and that it’s violence and objectification that God detests, not two men in a committed relationship. I was proud to be a Christian in that moment, to worship that God, the God of love.

As I lived and worshipped in this community, I was so proud to be a Christian, to know that the freedom we have in Christ is one that breaks the chains of fear and hatred and division and creates each and every one of us a beloved child, deserving of grace and mercy and a place around the communion table. I knew, from that experience, that I wanted to be part of leading and creating Christian communities like that. To show my Pride in Jesus Christ. To share the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. And to not live out of a sense of vanity, concerned what others think, but to be proud to live out of God’s call instead.

It can be hard and painful to be proud of being both Christian and GLBT, when so many Christians are using Christ to spread fear. But what Paul teaches here, what we know in our very bones, is that God’s law is love. And that’s what we’re proud of.

But we still have the questions of the flesh and the spirit, and if Paul is calling us to divide those up. After all, it’s hard to embrace sexuality as a good gift from God when Paul seems to separate it from our souls.

Too often in our tradition, flesh and Spirit get defined as “body” and “soul”. And then the connotations that everything related to the body is bad and everything related to the soul is good. But this is a worldview that comes from Plato and trickles down to our modern culture, but it is not at all what Paul is saying, and it is not what Jesus taught and lived. In fact, God came to earth in a body, as Jesus, affirming that human bodies are good. There’s nothing biblical about separating body and soul.

Because if we look at the categories he names, that’s not what is going on here. Paul, in fact, is encouraging us to be whole persons through Jesus Christ. When he uses the word flesh, he’s talking not about the body, but about things that lead us away from God. And the categories he lists necessarily involve our bodies and our emotional, psychological, and spiritual energy to be engaged in. Listen to the list again: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing…Paul is warning us that living out of greed and objectification, that separating our bodies from the mutual love that we need and deserve, is ultimately destructive. This is the vanity Mary was talking about in Pride and Prejudice…consumed with what other people and the world think of us, not with who God is calling us to be. Our Pride comes from God, from the Spirit.

And when Paul uses the word spirit, he’s not talking about an individual’s soul. Paul is talking about the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. Listen again to the fruits of the Spirit of God: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control.

These are gifts of God in which we are called to participate, they absolutely involve the body! It’s hard to express joy without our bodies—when we celebrate love we laugh and dance and hug. We can’t practice peace without using our bodies to protest, our voices to speak out against injustice; We can’t be generous without stretching out our hands. When the Spirit of God calls, our bodies must follow!

Paul is not telling us to separate body and soul, because we never can. He IS telling us that with Christ, we now have the freedom to live as whole human beings, connected to one another with love. For when we are centered in Christ, we live that love out with our whole bodies, and we exhibit the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control.

We have a choice, as Christians, to live out of the world’s energy of greed and competition and loneliness, or to live out of the Spirit of God, which enlivens and animates the world for love.
And it’s this gracious love of God that Paul is talking about here. He makes it clear that when we know and experience the unconditional love of God, in our bodies, souls, minds, and spirits, we can’t help but to respond to that love with goodness. St. John’s, my home church, was centered in God and animated by the Spirit, and what that church showed the world were the fruits of the Spirit.

Over 10 years since I left St. John’s, I’m here, at Holy Covenant. And I continue to be awed by the love of God that will not let us go. I’ve been here a year now (I began July 1st so next week marks my one year anniversary) I’m proud of many things (I could go on and on, but I know y’all want to get to the parade before it’s dark). Today I’m proud to be here because you are a community who graciously and courageously tells your stories….many of you kicked out of your homes and/or faith communities because of sexuality or gender identity. And yet, despite that pain and anger, God has continued to tug at you and you’ve taken the bold step of walking through the doors of a church again. Because you know that the love of Jesus and the hate of particular church communities are not synonymous. Because you’re proud of who you are and know that God created you to be that way. And you’re centered in that knowledge of God, whatever the world says. You have come back to church, bravely and boldly, because of the Spirit of God. I’m proud to walk this journey with you.

Being proud, today, is about so much more than having fun. We will, of course, have fun. But it’s deeper than that . We will be a testament to ourselves and the community that we are not called to separate body and spirit, but to live into the wholeness of who God created us to be.

People will be marching in the parade from different groups and as individuals, and everyone has their own reasons for marching. There’s a reason you came to worship today, that you are marching with Holy Covenant and not as an individual or with another group…we are together on this day because we are proud to be Christians; proud to be lgbtq and ally Christians; and what a gift, what a privilege it is to share this God-given freedom with our community.
Because we don’t march as any other group: we march as people transformed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and spreading the fruits of the Spirit before us and beside us and after us.
And as we march in the parade, as we march out into the week, they will know we are Christians by our love. (and our joy and peace and patience and gentleness)

Let’s march out of here with this spirit, confident in our freedom, joyful and proud to be people who live out of love.

As we do so, we march towards the day when all will feast together at the heavenly banquet, where pain and war and tears will be no more, and God’s beloved community will be on earth as it is in heaven.

So be free! Be beautiful! And be proud.

Thanks be to God.

  • Share/Bookmark