Grace Chicago Church

Fifth Sunday in Lent

John 11: 1-45

This Sunday we have the opportunity to sit with the incredible story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. This passage includes a beautiful discourse between Mary of Bethany and Martha of Bethany (Lazarus’ sisters) who come to their Teacher, Jesus, with their grief and their questions. Together, we will ponder Mary and Martha’s grief, and the great grief that Jesus experiences in our text. What a Savior - One who holds our griefs and enters into them as well. This one, familiar with grief, identifies himself to us as the Resurrection and the Life. We will consider what this means for us in our lives. And with this story, we will anticipate the great grief and anguish of the cross yet to come, as well as the other side of that grief - new life and resurrection.

Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 9:1-41

This week is the Fourth Sunday in Lent. In our homily text we are looking at the miracle of healing the man born blind. John’s Gospel is filled with long discourses describing Jesus’s divinity. In here, John 9 gives us a glimpse of the kingdom of God, where creation is redeemed, and opens our eyes to the greater purpose of suffering in life. Jesus corrects His disciples’ misconceptions about sin and suffering, then grants the blind man an ability he has never had before. This will lead to more angry confrontations with local religious leaders as their refuse to see their need of Jesus.

Homily 03/12/2023

We are delighted to had the Rev. Frances Nelson in our pulpit this week. Rev. Frances is a dear friend of Grace Chicago and is part of the City Classis community. We are eager for her to guide us through this remarkable passage of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

Frances graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary with an MA in Counseling. She served at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City as a Director of Fellowship Groups, and at City Church San Francisco as Pastor of Congregational Care. Prior to working as a Church Lady, Frances had a corporate career in Marketing and Communications in New York City - most of it as a single woman.

She is an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America and a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors.

This week is the Second Sunday in Lent. In our homily text we meet the fascinating Nicodemus. He is captivated by Jesus and his teaching but he doesn’t want to be seen talking to Jesus by others. He comes to see Jesus under the cover of night. He is from the aristocratic class and a religious leader in Israel - he has a lot to lose.

In their brief but intense conversation Jesus challenges Nicodemus to see beyond what he thought he knew about God. Nicodemus fades from this narrative without comment but he comes back two other times in John’s gospel, indicating that he kept following Jesus at a distance. What a great text for Lent!

First Sunday in Lent

Matthew 4:1-11

This Sunday is the First Sunday of Lent. From ancient times the church has set aside the forty days leading up to Easter as a time of reflection, a preparation to meet the risen Lord, During Lent we are encouraged to ask God to enable us to take stock of our lives, to show us the patterns of thinking, feeling and being that oppose God’s work of redemptive love in the nooks and crannies of our lives - to show us those patterns and empower us to turn from them and embrace God’s empowering and renewing forgiveness. A good Lent is a time of self-discovery, wherein we rejoice in finding light where there was darkness, and hope where there was a measure of despair. A good Lent should not be an exercise in self-loathing but a time of refreshing. On the First Sunday of Lent we meet Jesus in the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil for 40 days. As we reflect on Jesus’ temptation we will take heart that his ordeal was because of love and enjoined on our behalf.

Transfiguration Sunday

Matthew 17:1-9

This Sunday during the worship service we will celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus. Transfiguration Sunday comes right before Lent begins. Lent is the season of the year when, in a very focused way, we ask God to enable us to take an honest look at the darker side of what we are capable of as human beings. It is a time to name those deep-set patterns of feeling, thinking and acting that cause us to resist God’s grace - to name them and to repent. The Transfiguration is an image that we hold on to during Lent, for it gives us courage and hope. In the Transfiguration we see what human beings are meant to be, and who by the mercies and grace of God we will be: those who radiate God’s presence more and more fully in our own flesh and blood lives. It is Jesus’ human flesh that is transfigured and that tells us where we are headed.

This Sunday we continue in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. There will be a lot to ponder. I would imagine that even if you are hearing this passage for the ten thousandth time that Jesus' words will probably set you on your heels a bit - they do that to me every time. The sermon is meant to stimulate our imagination about what it looks like to live in this world as if we are already living in the next: the Kingdom of God in all of its glory when Christ is all and in all. I look forward to Sunday's worship service, trusting God's empowering presence to be at work as we submit our individual and collective imaginations to God's Spirit.

Last week we took a look at the Beatitudes through a wide angle lens and with particular questions in mind. We thought about things like the importance of recognizing them as being addressed to a community, a group of people who, through Christ’s empowering presence, enact patterns of behavior that are consistent with God’s coming kingdom. Living like this will almost always be counter-cultural and is often opposed by those who have power, wealth, and prestige (according to worldly standards). This week we will pick up on some of this but move forward and talk about what Jesus means when he says that we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

Homily Preview: This week we look forward to reflecting together on the Beatitudes during the worship service (Matthew 5:1-11 is our reading right before the homily). The beatitudes are fairly familiar but they are often very misunderstood. Sometimes they are thought of as blessings that are earned - kind of like entry requirements. Other times they are thought of as so idealistic that they only apply to sweet little Sunday School children, while we adults know that the world is too hard to live life according to the beatitudes. We will suggest a different way to think about them. We will suggest that they are gifts given by the king that enable us to bring a taste of the world to come into the communities where we live, work and play.

Homily Preview: The passage in Matthew where Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow him, to be his disciples. Their vocation is fishing. Jesus calls them to a new vocation, saying that he will teach them to be “fishers of people”. What a phrase! What does Jesus mean by it? What does he not mean by it?