Kenwood will celebrate the birth of the Christ Child with worship on Christmas Eve at 7:00 p.m. A message will be shared, lots of carols will be sung, and communion will be served. The service will conclude with a traditional candle-lighting as Silent Night is sung. Join us for this special time of worship.
Archive for December, 2008
Christmas Eve Worship
December 24, 2008Children’s Pageant Packs the House
December 24, 2008On Sunday evening, December 21, the sanctuary filled with people of all ages to experience A Shepherd’s Story. The actors, playing shepherds in Bethlehem, entered herding their sheep–the youngest of our children. The sheep were quite content to be sheeply for the duration of the show. Music was provided by the Children’s Choir, who did an excellent job sharing the story through song. Afterward, people joined together for a light supper, and about 20 people went Christmas Caroling in CedarLea.
Sermon December 14, 2008
December 16, 2008Rejoicing In Hope
Third Sunday Of Advent, Year B ~ Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Kenwood UMC ~ December 14, 2008
This season we’ve been talking about hope—how to have hope in the midst of a world where it is sometimes scarce. And that task of talking about hope, of believing hope, of creating hope has often been the task of the prophets. The prophets of the Old Testament have both held God’s people accountable for their mistakes, and also offered a new vision for what is yet to be.
We find this new vision in Isaiah today. It is a vision of these words written behind me—liberty, good news, comfort, glory, salvation. It is a vision of a better time, and a Savior upon whom God’s spirit rests. And we heard this good news interspersed with headlines from our world, and the despair and mistakes and corruption of our world. This is the same way that Isaiah’s people would have heard his news—in the midst of despair and mistakes and corruption.
The question before us today is, how do we respond? How are we able to rejoice in hope, to celebrate the ways that our Savior is coming into the world to bring liberty and release, to usher in a reign of peace. We have an image of one possible response on our bulletin cover today. It was drawn by Luke Saunders, who is 3. Luke is going to have a baby brother in the next couple of days. Back in November in Children’s Church, children were asked to draw images of rejoicing in hope, and this is what Luke drew. Without any conscious thought or planning, he drew what I believe is an image of rejoicing—of color and movement and expression that demonstrate joy.
We will all demonstrate joy in unique ways this Advent season. And sometimes it will not come as easily to all of us as it does to a three year old. I want to share a story with you this morning about one member of our congregation and her journey towards rejoicing this season.
Many of you have come to know Joyce Lachut over the last year as she has gotten involved at Kenwood. You know her as friendly, caring, compassionate and enthusiastic. You probably know that she has a large family, and is from upstate New York. But I am willing to bet that there are some parts of her story that many of you do not know about.
Joyce has spent the better part of the last decade caring for her husband who died in 2006 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. She moved to Virginia in 2007 to be closer to some of her family who had relocated to this area.
If you are familiar with Alzheimer’s and related diseases, you know that when you are caring for someone in advanced stages that you have to be careful with their physical environment. Moving furniture, moving their bedroom, anything like that can cause horrible confusion because they often cannot see well and cannot remember the changes. That includes putting up a Christmas tree. So Joyce did not have a Christmas tree in her home in either 2004 or 2005 while her husband was alive. In 2006, and again last year, in 2007, she could not bear to put up a tree, because her grief was too raw, too fresh. The tree’s presence only reminded her of her husband’s absence.
But this year, she put up her tree. She got out all the ornaments that she had moved down here from New York. She got out the nativity. And in her home she erected this symbol of the season—a symbol of hope. She relates that she had to sit down and weep after putting it up, but she also realizes that this tree is a symbol of how far she has come, of the rejoicing she is able to claim now, rejoicing which was absent for many years.
Joyce’s headlines were sickness, caregiving, Alzhiemer’s, death, moving. We all have different headlines. We all have different realities that define us personally. We are all a part of a community, a nation and a world with headlines that we share as reality. And we all have a reason to hope. Christ is coming. The light of Christ is being revealed in our world and in our lives even now. We can rejoice. We can look beyond the present reality to the words of Isaiah. We can turn away from the cruelty of the headlines and we can give the world a gift—the gift of a new reality, a reality born in hope and defined by love.
Dedication of our hearts at 11:00.
Sermon December 7, 2008
December 12, 2008Messengers of Hope
Advent 2, Year B ~ Isaiah 40:1-11
Kenwood UMC ~ December 7, 2008
I just signed up for Twitter this week. Twitter is a free service that links people through text messaging on their cell phones…I am thinking that I may regret telling you all I signed up, now that I think about this….but at any rate, you “tweet” or write short messages to people who follow you answering one simple question: “What are you doing?” For instance I might twitter right now, “leading worship at Kenwood.” Twitter is a messenger that helps people keep up with one another.
Messengers come in many different shapes and sizes. The come in the form of the postal
worker who puts mail in your mailbox. They come in the form of the employer who calls you into the office to tell you about a policy change. They come in the form of the person who sends you an instant message or a text message. I could go on and on….
But messengers are not always messengers of hope, are they? Sometimes they are messengers of doom and gloom. So how do we recognize the messengers of hope among us? The words of the prophet Isaiah this morning give us some clues.
This passage from Isaiah contains words spoken to the Israelite people when they are in exile. Their homeland has been destroyed, they have been separated from all they know, they are in financial and emotional ruin. It is not too farfetched to make the leap from those people to people today, feeling in exile because of financial uncertainty, job loss, deployment to remote parts of the world, and many other reasons. What kind of message does Isaiah offer to the exiles?
A message of comfort and a message that looks toward the future. Let’s take comfort, first. Isaiah acknowledges the suffering of his people, the long term of exile they have endured. And he speaks tenderly to them, offering a word of comfort. When people are in exile we begin with comfort. We don’t begin with blame, we don’t begin by telling them to snap out of it. We begin with comfort. We acknowledge their pain and tell them we know they are hurting.
And from comfort Isaiah moves toward painting a picture of the future. A voice is crying in the wilderness with a message of hope. And the word shall is the important word in that message. Every valley shall be lifted up, uneven ground shall become level, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Messengers of hope know that their job is to paint a picture of a new future, a new reality. And that picture shows what shall happen—not what might happen, or what could happen, but what shall happen.
There’s a certainty in that shall, a certainty that the future will happen, a certainty that implies that we can trust this messenger. And that is what people in exile need to know—not just that hope might be present, but that hope is present, that a new day is coming.
We have a challenge this morning. It would be easy for us to say we need to look for messengers of hope. It would be easy for me to lift up some messengers of hope in our world today. What is more difficult, and more important, is not to look for messengers of hope, but to become messengers of hope. If we believe that Christ is coming and brings a new future, a new kingdom, then we can become messengers of hope. If we believe that the baby who was born in Bethlehem makes a difference, and ushers in a new era of hope and salvation, then we can share that message of hope. We can be the ones who speak to those who are in exile in our community and our world. We can be the messengers who say to ShyAnne Shane and her family, the day is coming when you shall feel better and your dad will be able to go back to work. We can be the messengers who say to the one who is out of work, the day is coming when you shall have a new job. We can be the messengers who say to those who are afraid, the day is coming when you shall be secure.
In this Advent season, as you prepare for the celebration of Christ’s birth, let your heart be changed by becoming a messenger of hope. Proclaim hope on Twitter or Facebook, in your Christmas cards, in your phone conversations or over coffee or lunch. Proclaim the promise of a new future, and I can promise you that the more you proclaim it, the deeper you will believe it, and the easier it will be to live into it.
A Shepherd’s Story
December 5, 2008On Sunday, December 21 at 5:00 p.m., Kenwood’s Children’s Ministries present A Shepherd’s Story, a Christmas pageant about the shepherds who were the first to hear the good news of Christ’s birth. Our Children’s Choir will be joined by other readers for this celebration. We invite you to come, and to bring finger food to share after the pageant. Then we will travel to Cedar Lea for some Christmas Caroling to finish out the evening. Make plans now to be a part of this celebration.
Help A Family This Christmas
December 5, 2008Kenwood has adopted a family for Christmas from the Elmont Elementary community. The mom and 10 year old boy need our help to make their season bright. Donations will be collected in the sanctuary foyer through Sunday, December 14. You may donate: gift cards (Ukrops, Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Old Navy, etc.), clothing size 10 boys (sweat shirts, pants, winter coat, t-shirts, etc.), shoes & boots size 3 boys, blankets and towels, and household paper products. If you would prefer to make a cash donation, write a check to Kenwood and memo it “Christmas Family.”
Sermon November 30, 2008
December 4, 2008Looking for Hope
Advent 1, Year B ~ Mark
Kenwood UMC ~ November 30, 2008
You are checking into a hotel in a foreign country, on a routine business trip. Suddenly masked gunmen burst into the lobby, and you take refuge with others in a ballroom. You wait, in the dark for 6 hours, hearing gunfire all around you and waiting to be rescued. Finally, the group smashes through a glass window and shimmies to the ground on curtains when they realize the building has caught fire. These are people looking for hope.
You have worked for your company for 5 years. Economic times have gotten tough. You keep hearing rumors of trouble, difficulty making payroll. You watch stock plummet. And one day you come into work knowing in your heart that today is the day. Before lunch, you and 699 others are let go. These are people looking for hope.
You have known this day was coming. For months you have watched your beloved family member, knowing they are slipping but not quite being able to put your finger on it. You’ve watched the behavior change, the symptoms increase. But today is the day where you know, beyond a doubt, that you must get them to the doctor. This is a family looking for hope.
This is a world looking for hope. Each of these situations is real, each has happened in the last month in our world—and most have happened more than once. And everywhere I turn I hear hopeless words. People shake their heads at the economy. People shrug their shoulder at governmental unresponsiveness. People stop responding to stories of poverty and violence because they are too difficult to hear and truly absorb. It is almost too much to bear. We find ourselves walking around with this sort of uneasy feeling in the pit of our stomachs waiting for what is next. That’s hopelessness, friends. It is a feeling, a reality, a way of life.
It’s a feeling that’s a lot like the Jewish people in the time of Christ. They were worn out, burned out, shut out and out of luck. And into that hopeless existence came Jesus, saying to them that after days of darkness and angst there will be a coming, a coming of the Son of Man. After those days a new day will dawn. We don’t know when that new day will come. We have no way of predicting it. Jesus simply tells us to be watchful for it.
But in order to be watchful, we have to believe it will actually happen. We have to have hope. We have to believe that this time of darkness and loss is not the end. Brothers and sisters, we have a choice. We can choose to live another way, to live as people of faith. Now, making that choice is not logical—but hope is not logical. We don’t think our way into hope. We don’t plan our way into hope. We live into hope.
If, this Advent season, you really believe that God’s salvation is coming into the world, then live like you do. Refuse to surrender to the discouragement and hopelessness of the world around you and chose hope. Chose to live into the new reality that God has promised. Choose to look for that reality every moment of every day. Be a person who looks for hope.
How can you look for hope this Advent season? Change your mindset. Refrain from telling people how terrible the economy is, and tell people how you believe that there will be an end to this downturn. Refrain from watching or reading the news obsessively to hear of the stories of loss and angst. You know, I find that the more I read about the terrible things that are happening, the more convinced I become that they are terrible. When I am able to step back—and by that I do not mean to ignore what is happening in the world but to put it in proper perspective—well, they are not nearly as terrible any more.
Take time to share hope with friends and family. Take time to tell them you believe God will bring better days ahead. Take time to share hope by investing in hope if you are able—giving financially to those in need, spending time with the poor or the sick, adopting a Fox Holiday Sock or a Salvation Army Angel.
This season, look for hope. But do one thing more—become the hope you are looking for. Become a part of God’s plan of hope and salvation for the world. Expect that it is happening, and live into that expectation. Love, the Lord, is on the way.
