Sermons

Sunday, October 23, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Rebecca Anderson, preaching

Psalm 148

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Sunday, October 16, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Matthew 25:31-46

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Spring 1987. I was standing at the back of a Christian bookstore at the Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee. I held the can headphones at the music listening station tightly against my ears. I had my best 12-year-old head bob going. My friend was standing next to me looking through the cutouts … the discount bin.

“You have to hear this!” I screamed over the music that was far too loud. He excitedly put a cassette copy of Stryper’s “Yellow and Black Attack” in my face.

“No, you have to hear THIS!”

A woman in a sofa-quality floral print dress (country blue, I think) was standing behind the counter and threw a menacing stare our way. Obviously, I had disturbed a precious, bubbly moment of Amy Grant as it pumped through the store’s PA system. I didn’t really care … my world was changing with every measure of music that went by. I’d never heard anything quite like it. Especially in that store. The delay-soaked guitar bounced all around in my head.

The owner of the store, a man in a shirt, tie and brown cardigan walked up to me. “Oh, that’s the new album from the ‘YooToos’. They are a great Christian band from Ireland,” he said. What I has been listening to was The Joshua Tree. I was amazed … and a little hesitant.

“Really? A ‘Christian’ band?” I thought. (more…)

Sunday, October 9, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Rebecca Anderson, preaching

John 4:4-29

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Sunday, October 2, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Mark 5:1-20

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

John 2:1-11

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Nestled in the high country — five miles north of Nazareth — is the Galilean neighborhood of Cana. There, a groom and wedding party wait patiently for the end of the customary betrothal period. They have waited what seemed an eternity to the groom — an excruciating three days — but the time has finally come.

Everything is in order between the two families and the wedding party can finally begin their walk across town; off to bring the bride to her groom. It is finally time for them to be married, and there is a great joy in the fresh night air. They poured out into the street. Lanterns full of oil guide the wedding party through the darkness — their lamp-light jumps off the homes as they dance like fireflies in a summer field. Across town, the bride and her servants see the twinkle as it dances in the distance and prepare for its arrival. “This has to be it!” she says.

She has waited just as long, and is excited to finally move into her new home. Through her veil she watches as the twinkle slowly grows into a great ball of light that obscures all the stars from her sight. The throng arrives; gives her their blessings and compliments and whisks her away to the home they will soon share together. There are more that have poured into the parade through Cana, now. It seems as if the whole town is coming for the celebration. Of course they had invited their family and close friends. Mary, her son Jesus, and his new disciples had sent word that they were making the day’s trip up from Nazareth.

The bride turned to see who was else was in the crowd. There were some from the Sanhedrin behind her, certainly making sure that everything was legal — on the up-and-up. Soon they arrived at the groom’s home, and the servants washed the hands and feet of all the guests according to custom.

There were so many flowing in that they went through six stone jars full of water washing all the guests. The earth outside the doorway had become mud, and the stragglers stepped lightly around the mess created by the 120 gallons that had now spilled out into the road. The rush of people kept flowing through the doorway, so many in fact that the Ketubah was signed and read before everyone was inside. The last person through the door saw that the bride’s veil had been removed and the wine had already begun to pour. And it poured, and poured.

They all cheered, and danced, and sang, and ate — and the wine poured, and poured. The bride and the groom, giddy with glee, smiled and laughed. And the wine poured, and poured.

Jesus and his disciples were enjoying themselves, too. Andrew, Peter and Phillip were quizzing each other on what Jesus had meant earlier about the “heavens opening up.” And since Cana was his hometown, Nathanael was introducing his new Rabbi to the people he knew at the party.

But Jesus took notice of something else. He spotted his mother having a conversation with the wine steward across the room. The discussion was impassioned and they were both waving their hands in what seemed to be disgust.

She scurried back across the room and said to her son; “They’re already out of wine.” (more…)

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

Mark 7: 24-30

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Why didn’t they say anything? Jesus is trying to recuperate; attempting to find respite in a private residence after what seems like a never-ending parade of people in need. He hasn’t had a moment to himself since he snuck away in the early morning to pray. Who can remember how long ago that was? Just like all those others who visited Tyre — the vacation hot spot of the day — all he wanted was a moment. Just one moment to enjoy creation; a moment to close his eyes and catch the gentle western breeze as it blew in off the Mediterranean; a moment to breath in the cool sea air as it swirled through the house. So why didn’t they say anything?

He had just sat down, barely had a chance to untie the strap of his sandal, and in the blink of an eye there was someone at his feet — crying, begging and pleading. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She wasn’t supposed to be speaking.

“Sir, please!” she says “Sir, please my daughter … she is possessed by a demon … please drive it from her!”

Now, this is exactly the thing he was seeking rest from … he had been casting out demons all over the place. There were so many, in fact, that he empowered his disciples to do it too, seemingly so he could have a moment like the one that just escaped him upon her arrival at his feet. So why didn’t they say anything?

This foreign woman, all alone, managed to get by Jesus’ whole entourage, into the house, kneel at his feet and beg him to heal her daughter without one of the disciples saying a word. They could have said something to stop her. They could have said something to appease her. They could have said something to help her. “Woman, what is it that you need. We can help you.” But they said nothing.

Now, we know that they were fully capable of speaking. They spoke up to disturb him in his time of prayer because they didn’t know how to handle the crowds that are asking about him. They spoke up when the 5000 were getting hungry. Yet in this moment, they remained silent. So she took her petition to the one who she thought might say he’d help. (more…)

Sunday, September 11, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Rebecca Anderson, preaching

Matthew 18:21 – 35

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Sunday, September 4, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Matthew 20:1-16

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After we decided to become a one-car-household last year for both environmental and economic reasons, I had to slow my life down a little. Emily had the car nearly every day for her 20-mile commute from suburban Geneva into rural Kane County, which left me with three options: walking, cycling or public transportation.

When traveling by any of those means — each of which was a bit slower than driving — I noticed things I never really would have seen before. I saw the trees clothe themselves for the seasons. I noticed when the hedges on my route went untrimmed. I knew those who had dogs and those who subscribed to the newspaper. I noticed sales in the storefronts and I learned the schedule for snow removal on the city sidewalks.

But what I saw more than anything (at least what grabbed me and lingered more than anything) were the shadow populations. They were the people that worked in our community, traveled through our community, lived in our community, but did so hiding in plain sight. The sidewalks to nowhere near the strip malls were frequented by uniformed fast food workers; the handful of alleys behind the restaurants were populated by the homeless that no one really ever talked about; the recreational bicycle trails along the Fox River were like superhighways for those who worked in the factories of the valley.

My most profound witness of the shadow population, however, happened when I needed to take the bus someplace. Now, the buses in suburbia don’t work the way they do here. The routes they run are extremely limited, and the times they run are even more so. The Aurora and Elgin routes only run half-a-dozen or so times a day, which often requires the working poor drive most places. If I had to take the bus, it cost me my whole day, and I could bank on always being the wealthiest person on it.

While in Aurora waiting to make a transfer, I watched as the day laborers milled about in the parking lot across the street from me. Trucks pulled up, fingers were pointed, and the men hopped across the white lines and into the truck. It reminded me of gym class when teams were picked. After about 20 minutes of my watching, the group dwindled, and only a handful remained. “This really happens in suburbia?” I thought to myself.

Around then, I was joined in my waiting by a man named Javier. He was in his middle 30s and carried a book, a brown plastic grocery bag with a change of clothes in it, and a red hat. The hat matched his embroidered polo shirt — both which carried the monogram for a popular chicken restaurant. Sixteen months prior, Javier had given up working as day laborer in exchange for the fast food industry. When he started talking to me, I think it was with the intent of telling me why. Maybe it was because of the way I watched the men across the street. I probably let out a sigh or shook my head … something to indicate I was troubled by it. (more…)

Sunday, August 28, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Matthew Johnson, preaching

Luke 10:1-11, 17-20

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Moments after Cassie met Frank, he was shimmying up a coconut palm with a knife in his mouth. She and six others watched from a porch in front of a social service agency office. At one time it was a home, probably built by a family from the northeast that was transplanted to Florida in the 1940s.

“You can see the beach from here,” Frank said after removing the knife from his mouth. He began to saw at a bunch of new, milky-yellow fronds that had recently emerged from the trunk. Daytona Beach and the Atlantic Ocean were only about three miles east of where they all stood. But you wouldn’t have known it from the ground. In spite of the Florida sun and the palm trees, it wasn’t a terribly desirable location. Blighted some would say. Potential for urban renewal, others would reply optimistically.

Distracted by a woman pushing a shopping cart through the empty lot across the street, the group had taken their eyes off Frank, so they were startled as the leaves suddenly started to fall around them. In a few minutes, the street was littered with fronds severed from the tree by Frank’s hand. Some fell at the feet of volunteers carrying expired baked goods into the house. They hid their heads in their shoulders — like turtles would into their shells — and hurried as quickly as they could while carrying donut boxes stacked to their chins. They were fearful that something with a bit more mass might fall.

Cassie had never seen anything like this in Illinois; A 50-year-old man, whose skin had turned to the color of deep mahogany after countless days in the sun, was suspended 30-feet above the easement, just below a green canopy that whistled in the wind. It was certainly dangerous and qualifies for a “kids, don’t try this at home” disclaimer, but that wasn’t what had Cassie mesmerized. Nor was it because Frank was homeless-yet-working-full-time; a two-tour Vietnam veteran; or a widower … because she hadn’t learned those things about him yet.

She was mesmerized because she was the reason he shimmied up the tree. It was something she said. It was innocent enough. He was sitting on a bench when her group arrived at Halifax Urban Ministries to begin their week of work there, and he welcomed each of them with a cross woven from the fronds of that palm tree. “That’s cool!” she said to Frank. That was her introduction. “Did you make this?” she said with some skeptical excitement, holding the cross delicately in her hand as if it were made of glass. He nodded to the affirmative. “Wow. I’d like to know how to do that, too,” she replied. (more…)

Sunday, August 21, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Michael Bates, preaching

Isaiah 51:1-6

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What are you made of? Show me what you’ve got. Come on, you can do better than that. I know you’ve got it in you. These were the words I heard on a regular basis from Mr. Mac, my high school choir teacher. I spent all four years of high school working with the man that many of us came to refer to as the Leprechaun. At 5’4 with Coke bottle glasses, Mr. Mac was the teacher my friends and I not only spent the most time with but also came to love the most. We even, regrettably, called him Big Daddy Mac sometimes.

We were the Counterpoints. We were the concert choir for my high school, a highly eclectic group of high-schoolers ranging from basketball, football, and soccer players to spell bowlers and chemistry club members. 60 of us altogether, despite all of our differences, we still managed to find a common point of interest, making music. Spending an hour and a half together each day, we learned to function as a single unit. We did it so well that we made it to state contest every year I was a member, as well as a couple of national contests.

Unfortunately, overall, high school was not an easy time for me. Being short, unathletic, and having a fairly high pitched voice made me a target for bullying on several occasions, both verbal and physical. Outside of the choir room, I felt like I didn’t fit in, didn’t belong. Often, this would trigger bouts of severe depression, isolation, loneliness. I was looking for home and just couldn’t find it. Worse, I simply didn’t know who I was. Like many of my age and situation, I didn’t know what I was made of, and I felt like this would always be the case.

When we look at the passage from today, we see a group of people facing a similar situation. In this portion of Isaiah, the author is writing to the people Israel in captivity. They’ve been torn away from home, having seen the temple destroyed right before their eyes. They’ve been dragged out of their native land by cart, by horse, and by foot into Babylon, a land with an alien faith, strange customs, and a different societal structure. They’re sinking into a deep depression, a sense of isolation, of not knowing who they are, where they belong, or what they are made of. (more…)