Grace Chicago Church

This Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Per our tradition, our children will process with palms early in the service. Please find Kelsey, Director of Grace Kids when you arrive. You are welcome to walk with your little one if that is the encouragement they need!On Palm Sunday we celebrate Jesus's entry to Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover. The crowds give him a royal welcome and they are right to do so. He has come to Jerusalem as the rightful heir to David's throne and he will soon be recognized by all as the Messiah. But how Jesus becomes king will defy human wisdom and religious expectation. He is a king like no other, holding power for the sake of others, for our salvation and for the life of the world.

It is often noted that Transfiguration Sunday, which we celebrated two weeks ago, marks the transition from the Season of Epiphany to the Season of Lent. Culminating with the transfiguration, the Season of Epiphany has revealed the glory and power of Jesus. Lent, culminating with events that lead us to Good Friday, reveals that with Jesus, power and glory are there for our sake and for our salvation. In Jesus, power and glory are not like they are in the world; they come in the shape of the cross. We hope you can join us this Sunday, The Fifth Sunday in Lent. This Sunday we are addressed by the provocative and mysterious words of Jesus where he says: “when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”. We look forward to thinking together what Jesus meant when he said this and its overall meaning in the life of the church, then and today.

The Third Sunday in Lent. This Sunday our Scripture readings prompt us to remember that human wisdom does not enable us to grasp how God is at work in the world. For that, we need God's wisdom revealed in the person of Jesus. We will explore what that means for us in the nitty gritty of daily life. It is often noted that Transfiguration Sunday, which we celebrated two weeks ago, marks the transition from the Season of Epiphany to the Season of Lent. Culminating with the transfiguration, the Season of Epiphany has revealed the glory and power of Jesus. Lent, culminating with events that lead us to Good Friday, reveals that with Jesus, power and glory are there for our sake and for our salvation. In Jesus, power and glory are not like they are in the world; they come in the shape of the cross.

The First Sunday of EpiphanyJanuary 6th, marks the Feast of the Epiphany on the Christian calendar. We will celebrate Epiphany this Sunday during the worship service. Year after year, for centuries, the church has celebrated on Epiphany the revelation that Jesus' redemptive love is for all people, the whole world. This marvelous truth is manifested in the visit of the mysterious Gentile pilgrims, the Magi, who travel from a distant country so that they may pay Jesus homage.

Homily Preview:This Sunday we join churches all over the world in celebrating the Reign of Christ, sometimes referred to as Christ the King Sunday. Click here for a brief overview of how this Sunday fits into the church year. One theme that is common to this special Sunday is the sovereignty of Christ and its implications. We will take that theme up on Sunday and highlight the way in which God's judgment is always ordered towards redemption. We hope to see you on Sunday!

The homily this Sunday, is based on a reading from the Gospel of Mark. The context is the same context we have been working with the last few Sundays. Jesus is in Jerusalem during Passover. He will soon be delivered up to Pilate in a collusion between the corrupt religious leadership and the Roman authorities. Jesus is taking these last few days before the crucifixion to teach the disciples in a very focused way about the Kingdom of God - what it is and what it isn't. One thing that seems to be on Jesus' mind a lot is the importance of paying attention to how God's love is at work in the world and the importance of being aligned to what God is doing. If we heed what Jesus is saying we will live in ways that are uniquely in line with God's kingdom and in important ways not in line with the kingdoms of this world.

Matthew 25:14-30This Sunday we will be back in the Gospel Matthew. We will hear a parable that Jesus taught about the urgency of paying attention to what God is doing in the world. We will think about its message in its original context and then ponder how to apply it to our setting in our place in time. Jesus' words about the importance of paying attention to God's work in the world is a good reminder for us for any time, but especially in our world today. I look forward to what God has to teach us.

Matthew 23:1-12We return to the Gospel of Matthew this Sunday and continue where we left off last week, contemplating the implications of what it means to wholeheartedly love God and our neighbors.

We are back in Matthew this week for our homily. Last Sunday Leigh Pylman preached a great sermon on the passage where Jesus says: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's". If you didn't hear it, I encourage you to listen to it online.This Sunday I I come along a few verses later in the same general context of Matthew where the religious leaders, the elite who hold power in Jerusalem, are continuing to bait Jesus with insincere questions designed to be traps. But just like all the other times, Jesus gives an answer that further indicates that he is the one in the room who is wise and who represents Yahweh and the Old Testament law truthfully and fully.The exchange this week revolves around the question: "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus answer is simple and profound. "He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”I look forward to thinking with you all about what this meant in its original context and how we might learn from it in our place in time.

Matthew 22:15-22This week, Jesus has another peppery encounter with the religious elite in Jerusalem. He is asked about paying taxes to the Roman occupiers. In Jesus fashion, he reframes our questions, categories, and suppositions. He invites us to consider how to give God, what belongs to God - everything! If we live as Jesus followers with this understanding, we can (on our knees!) strive to see the world the way God sees it, and discern the Spirit's guiding as we engage with society today.

This Sunday we will reflect on all three scripture readings from our liturgy. Our Call to Worship is from Psalm 133, a song of unity. Our First Lesson takes up the theme of unity again, as Paul urges two of his co-workers to have the same mind in the Lord. Finally, our Gospel Lesson is from Matthew. It is another parable of Jesus that illustrates God's broad and scandalous welcome.

This Sunday we look forward to hearing another parable that Jesus taught. Like many of Jesus' parables, the language and images are meant to jolt us. In the instance of the Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32) we will think together about what a life marked by wholehearted devotion to God looks like. Does it mean being perfect? No, that is not possible. But then what DOES it look like? Looking forward to prayerfully pondering with you Sunday morning!

Last week we heard a parable about mercy. This week we hear a parable about grace. Like last week's parable, this story is meant to shock us. God's grace, like his mercy, is unfathomably generous. So generous, that we will always struggle to understand it. As we consider the Parable of the Vineyard Workers (Matthew 20:1-16), we will ponder the depths of God's grace and the relationship between grace, mercy and justice in God's economy.

This week we will pick up where we left off last week in the Gospel of Matthew. Peter asks Jesus a question about how many times we should forgive. Jesus' answer is drawn from the very heart of God and its meaning is at the center of how God will redeem the whole world." Please let me know if you need anything else!

Fifteenth Sunday after PentecostRomans 13:8-14A community where love is the reason for everything. This is one way of talking about the new community that the Spirit of Christ has called into existence through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. What does it mean for love to be the reason for everything? We don't love perfectly in this world where we still struggle with selfishness, pride, and the like - so what happens when we hurt those around us because of our sins of omission or commission? We are going to ponder these things this Sunday morning when we take up two passages from the New Testament: Matthew 18:5-20 and Romans 13:8-14.

Matthew 16:13-20Our Seminarian in Residence, Leigh Pylman is preaching.This week, Jesus asks us the piercing question, "Who do you say that I am?" So simple, and yet, our response to this question will inform our whole worldview. Who do you say that Jesus is? We'll ponder Peter's response to Jesus, and consider how Jesus, as the Messiah and builder of the Church, incorporates you and me into the rich legacy of the Church. At its core, the Church's message doesn't boil down to a catechism or a prescribed list of rules, it centers around a person - Jesus our Messiah.

“A desperate Mother reveals the depth and scope of God's love for all people"Talking about a passage like this in a short homily is challenging. But in all the commentary and speculation, the takeaways are clear. We can trust in God's promises, even when God seems silent. Even when what we hope for can't be seen. We can argue with God. God invites our hurt or questions, our calling to account. This argument might even increase our faith. This story shows the power and possibility inherent in boldly insisting that God be faithful to God's promises. Abraham does it. David does it. This desperate mother does it. So can you.

This Sunday we welcome Tony Pizarro to the Grace pulpit. Tony is a friend of Grace who attends when his schedule permits and often supports out volunteer efforts with Breakthrough Urban Ministries. Tony works at North Park University as Assistant Director of the Writing Center and Lecturer. He also serves as a steering committee member for the Illinois Coalition for Higher Education in Prison. Tony is a person with great humility who loves to serve others.

This Sunday's homily will be a reflection on Jesus' parable which is often referred to as the Wheat and the Tares. It is a story that encourages us to live faithfully, patiently, hopefully and lovingly in a world where evil things continue to happen. In her homily, Laura Winn, will ponder several important questions, among them this one as framed by New Testament scholar, Klyne Snodgrass: “how can we stop evil without being evil in the process”?

This week our text for our homily is Jesus' Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13. It is a parable about hearing Jesus' words in such a way that, as one New Testament scholar puts it: “the whole person is captured”. This parable is a very timely one for 21st Century Christians who, when we are honest, must admit that it is hard to hear Jesus for all the other noise in our culture. How can we help each other hear Jesus loud and clear?

Homily Preview:We are back in the Gospel of Matthew this Sunday where Jesus assures his disciples that "whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple" will be rewarded. The words come at the end of a discourse about mission and hospitality, a discourse full of dire warnings and triumphant hope. This Sunday we will think about the little ones are in the verse cited above and what it means to demonstrate hospitality in the name of Jesus in our place in time.

Homily Preview: In our homily this Sunday we will talk a bit about compassion. Matthew uses this word to talk about Jesus' reflexive response to the vast human need he witnesses (Matthew 9:36). We will explore the context in which Matthew makes his remarks and we will use that exploration as the jumping off point to think together about what it looks like to respond in compassion to the great human need we witness every day.

Earlier this week on Trinity Sunday we pondered the mystery that God reveals God's self in three co-equal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We tapped into the wisdom of the early church and thought together about God's love as the energy and motivation for all God does in creation, redemption, and even in judgment. We will continue to ponder God's triune nature this week in part two of that homily, as we think about the way in which God's unique nature enables him to join with us in our suffering, brining transformative hope to situations that would otherwise be Godforsaken. As we said last week, the triune nature of God is deep mystery but what it reveals about God's character brings us joy and hope.

I took quite a few Spanish classes in high school and college. At one time I could read a Spanish language newspaper with reasonable comprehension. Sadly, I have lost - for now - much of what I knew. I still make a feeble, yet sincere effort, to say something that might be comprehensible to those I know or meet who speak Spanish as their native tongue. I especially try very hard when I can tell the person doesn't speak English at all.What always amazes me is how gracious folks are when I say something to them, however imperfectly, in the language of their birth. Beyond being gracious, I think most folks are genuinely moved by the gesture (something I don't alway think about). Hearing someone speak to you in the language of one's birth is the phrase that the people use to describe the miracle that occurs while they are listening to Peter preach on the day that we now call Pentecost Sunday.To be sure, Pentecost is a story of the Spirit's power in the miraculous event itself. But the way to understand its fullness is by seeing how it fits into Luke's overall story of a new humanity wherein a diverse group of people retain their diversity while uniting to each other through the gift of the Spirit.

Homily Preview:Last week we spent some time talking God making his home with us and inviting us to make our home in God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This week we talk about what that looks like on a daily basis as we think about the promise of the Holy Spirit, God's empowering presence in human beings, the church and the world.

In the Christian calendar we are coming up on the end of Eastertide. We will celebrate The Feast of the Ascension on Sunday, May 21st, followed by Pentecost Sunday on the 28th. So, it is fitting that the next two Sundays have us thinking about Jesus' promises to the disciples about what life will be like after the cross, resurrection, ascension and pentecost. This next Sunday and the following Sunday we will be in John 14 as we consider the promises associated with the powerful presence of God's Spirit with the church. While all of this may sound very heady and abstract I assure you that it is not. If we are to act justly in this world, love one another well, and the like it will be because of our reliance upon God's Spirit.

The homily is from John 10. This is the passage where Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd. The scripture reading before communion is from Acts 2, where the the early church community is described as being one where people organize their lives so that each may be a blessing to the other. We are going to put these two passages together as we think about what sort of community is formed by the good shepherd. We will also ask ourselves what our responsibility looks like as stewards of the community of the good shepherd. Looking forward to our time together.

Homily - Pat Hecker

Homily Preview:First Sunday after Easter and our gospel reading takes up where last Easter Sunday's reading left off. This week we have more in the way of amazing encounters between the risen Lord Jesus and his followers. This Sunday we meet Thomas, sometimes called doubting Thomas. Jesus accommodates Thomas' doubts, even as he accommodates ours.

Homily Preview: This Easter Sunday, like every Easter Sunday, we will be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Our focus will be on the way in which the early church understood Jesus's resurrection. His followers, who will found the church of which we are a part two millennia later, had expected to relate to Jesus as a martyr and ponder all of what that might mean for continuing his work. Instead, they are confronted with a resurrected human being who will continue his ministry through them. They had categories for thinking of Jesus as a martyr. They had no categories for thinking of Jesus as the resurrected Son of God. But through God's empowering presence they learn that Jesus's resurrection from the dead is the beginning of a new chapter in God's relationship to the world. The new chapter summons the church to show the world a new way to be human.

Fifth Sunday in LentJohn 11: 1-45This 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 LentJohn 9:1-41This 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 03/12/2023We 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 LentMatthew 4:1-11This 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 SundayMatthew 17:1-9This 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?

Homily preview: This Sunday we hop over to the gospel of John for one week to consider John's account of Jesus' baptism and the calling of the first disciples. There is much for us to ponder together as we continue in this season of Epiphany, contemplating the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God, and what it means that God is human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. As we ponder this text together, we will consider Christ's call to the first disciples, and to us: to Abide with him. This is the first call of a disciple - not to have all the answers, but to abide and lodge with God who became human.

Homily Preview: Matthew 25. In the portion we'll be reading and prayerfully considering during the homily, Jesus tells a story to illustrate how God thinks about the vulnerable and the weak, and what our responsibilities are towards these sisters and brothers. We're looking forward to the Spirit's leading as we ponder Jesus' words and seek to align our lives to the patterns of living that make for our flourishing and for the flourishing of our communities.

Communion Reflection 12/11/2022

Homily Preview:

Homily Preview: Advent always begins with a bang. We get apocalyptic language and the like. It is sometimes asked, why does the church calendar begin a season as cozy as Christmas with the jolt of apocalyptic imagery? The answer is that the church has always recognized that the time in which we live is in between two advents, Jesus' incarnation and the future advent of Christ the King when he will join the world to come to this world, bringing all things and all people under his rule of peace, justice, and love.But to live between the two advents is to need to be reminded of how to read the present in light of the future, and to ask each other: how would we then live. Cornelius Plantinga puts it this way:Our task “between the two advents” is simple faithfulness in our work and in our attitudes — the kind of faithfulness that shows we are being drawn forward by the magnet force of the kingdom of God.We trust God's Spirit to use this Advent Season to make us more faithful, enabling our flourishing and the flourishing of our communities.

Homily Preview:Momentous day ends the Liturgical Calendar and our time in Luke. Join us as we reflect on our journeys through Luke culminating in Luke 23 and Christ's crucifixion. There is much for us to consider as we reflect on how the humiliation and rejection of Christ on the cross offers us a picture of the reign of Christ and points us to the upside down kingdom of God.

Gospel of Luke. The passage before us includes Jesus' prophecy that the Jerusalem Temple would be destroyed. This did come to pass in the year 70. But you are probably wondering how Jesus' words about that historical event can speak to us today? Well, our concerns are different in their particularity than were the disciples when they heard this prophecy. However, if you ever feel afraid or uncertain about the future; if you ever worry that God will not show up in the future; if you worry about "wars and rumors of wars" - and who doesn't!?- then you may find Jesus' words very helpful.

Homily Preview:We are looking forward to reflecting on another remarkable story from the Gospel of Luke this Sunday. The reading recounts an incident in which some of the more powerful religious leaders of Israel ask Jesus a question that is designed to trick Jesus into giving an answer that in one way or another could be shown to be flawed, thus embarrassing Jesus in front of his followers. Jesus gives an answer that no one expected and it is those asking the questions that are silenced. There is a great deal of material suitable for application in this text.

Homily Preview:This Sunday we look forward to being back in the Gospel of Luke where we will read a remarkable story about a man named Zacchaeus. He hears that Jesus is going to be passing by so he climbs up into a sycamore tree to make sure he has a good view. Jesus spots him up there and tell him to hurry down. Then, in front of everyone, Jesus says: hey, Zacchaeus, get your guest room ready - I am spending the night in your home. What an unusual encounter! There are many layers to this story. Before we are finished with our reflection we will have thought again about the space that hospitality occupies in Luke's gospel; what it looks like to be generous; plus a few other things.

Bob preaching about we will take a look at yet another of Jesus' parables: Luke 18:9-14. In this parable we learn that God is not impressed with those who are impressed with themselves, even in the slightest. But God does show mercy, without hesitation, to those who know they need it. We will also think together about another dimension of the parable: one cannot be right with God while taking pleasure in excluding others. The meaning of this parable is fairly straightforward, but applying it to ourselves will take a great deal of humility and sanctified imagination. May God grant us ears to hear and eyes to see.

Leigh preaching our lectionary journey through the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus gets closer and closer to Jerusalem.Homily Preview: Sunday, we continue our lectionary journey through the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus gets closer and closer to Jerusalem. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about a widow seeking justice who does not take "no" for an answer. Despite her powerlessness, she exacts justice - and so invites us to an unexpected picture of Christ's victory on our behalf. This is a wonderful parable, rich with layers of meaning. I am excited to reflect on this passage with you all on Sunday morning, as we contemplate this widow, God's heart for justice, and the life of faith and prayer.