$10 Registration/$10 Admission. Proceeds benefit the St. Mark’s Preschool. For more information, contact Kim Reed at kimreed@wowway.com or Cindy Flynn at notnowkato@gmail.com.

Link here for a flyer/photos or Talent Night Performing Arts Entry Form 2012. (Thanks to Peter Vagt for the photos!)

Sunday, February 5, 2012
The Rev. George Smith

Sermon preached at St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church – A OneChurch Project pulpit swap 

Have you not heard?  Have you not seen?  Do these proclamations, in whatever way delivered, made by the prophet Isaiah some 2500 years ago grab our attention in 2012, here in DuPage County?  A recent survey shows that 96% of DuPage residents are either satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of their lives.  Isaiah was prophesying to people who had been forcibly removed from their country and relocated to a foreign land and culture.  They were prisoners with no parole.  After a generation in exile, they needed a word of encouragement and assurance that God hadn’t forgotten them.  With 96% of us satisfied with our lives, does anyone want or need such reassurance?  I like the clever message on your new sign that faces Butterfield road.  With cars speeding by at 50 miles an hour, they might miss it.  But some will see it and it will make them think.  Does everyone here know what the sign says?  It has the letter CH, two blanks and again, the letters CH.  Below is says, “What is missing.”  If you’re a little slow, you might guess “UR” – the ancient homeland of Abraham.  “You Are!” of course is what is missing and that will not be lost on most people.  It will make them think.  Because although the survey says 96% of the people are satisfied or very satisfied, there is another survey that says a majority of people have a deep spiritual longing and desire to encounter the divine, whether God, a Higher Power or the great energy of the universe.  Brian McClaren, author and theologian, has studied attitudes toward religion and found that ten years ago, a majority of people considered themselves religious and not spiritual.  Today, that has flipped.  A majority of people consider themselves spiritual and not religious.  Behind this survey are deep forces at work in society.  Church attendance is down.  Spiritual hunger is up.  Although we have been blessed with material choices and abundance and advances in medical and communications technology, shopping and the pursuit of the next I-phone has eaten away at the human soul.  There is a hole that can’t be filled with more stuff, although that’s what the commercials promise – a promise made by each of those $3.5 million thirty-second commercials on today’s Super Bowl.  It’s a vicious cycle that shows no sign of slowing down, and the more it continues, the larger the hole in the collective human soul will become.   So what can we do about this?  By being here today in worship, we are doing something essential for ourselves and others.  In worship, we are formed, strengthened and prepared to go back into the world.  This what St. Luke has been doing for fifty years.  It is what St. Mark’s has been doing for over 100 years.  Is it enough?  We all are asking, “What is God’s plan for us?”  Perhaps this question is particularly urgent and exciting for you at St. Luke as you welcome a new pastor and plan for your future.  It is also a question for all churches.  Many of us are asking, “What is God’s plan for me?”

About fifteen years ago, I entered a period in my life when I began to struggle with my direction and purpose.  I had graduated from business school, had worked for four years at a large and successful distribution business and had taken a new job at an Internet company.  On the surface, everything looked great.  I had the right training and a promising career.  But inside, I had a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction.  I wasn’t feeling excited or connected with my work.  To make a long story short, I ended up going on a five-day silent retreat at the Society of St. John in Cambridge, Massachusetts – a monastic community of the Episcopal Church.  Being in silence for five days meant that the only talking was during worship and a daily meeting with a spiritual director.  The question on my heart was simple – what does God want me to do?  I had boiled it down to two options – start my own business or go to seminary to study to become an Episcopal priest.  From my second floor monastery “cell” I had a view of the Charles River.  It captured my attention with its choppy, steady movement, blackish color and interplay with the reflections from streetlights, cars and moon.  On the forth night of my retreat, the river was calm for the first time.  On the river was reflected a large rectangular traffic sign.  What was reflected was the backside of the sign.  No words, just a rectangular shape.  I decided that I should definitely go to the other side of the river and find out what was on the sign.   I thought that this might be the sign that I had been looking for.  Perhaps it said, “Turn now for seminary.”  I didn’t waste any time, and made my way to the other side of the river.  It was mid-December, raw and cold.  When I got to the sign, both anxious and feeling a little foolish, I had to laugh.  The sign showed an upcoming divide in the road – turn right for Cambridge, stay to the left for Boston.  A fork in the road – simply information for drivers to choose where they wanted to go.   I laughed inwardly and outwardly.  I got the message.  It didn’t matter which path I chose, but I had to choose.  Now I wish I could tell you that at that moment I had clarity and decided to go to seminary, which I eventually did do.  But in fact, it took another year of agonizing soul-searching to make that decision.

What is God’s plan for you?  And I mean both you individually and as a community of faith?  I am here to say that we need to flip the question around and ask the question in a different way:  what is God’s plan, period.  I mean for the world.  Knowing that, then we know what we need to do, right?  If a building is on fire, people don’t need to ask the plan is for them as individuals.  Get some water, help people to safety.  There are lots of things to do – just do something.  As we read through Mark’s gospel during the coming year, we will see God’s plan revealed.  In fact, we have already seen it.  In Chapter 1, Jesus preaches a four-part message:  the time is now; the Kingdom of God has come near; repent; believe the good news.  Now today, the gospel shows us this message in action.  When the Kingdom of God comes near, it comes right up to you, near as your hand in front of your face.  Jesus enters Simon’s house.  Simon’s mother-in-law, an old woman, is on the verge of death.  Fever was more serious than we imagine it to be.  Not the Nyquil kind, this fever meant death was near.  The woman does nothing to ask for help or prove her faith.  Jesus simply takes her hand, raises her up, and she is made well.  We don’t know if she says anything.  But the gospel tells us that she began to serve them.  In this short scene, we see God’s plan for the world, made known in the work of Jesus.  The arrival of the Kingdom of God brings healing, and healing brings service.  God’s plan does not rest.  It is a virtuous cycle of service, health and restoration.  Today, the Kingdom of God has not gone away.  It is close.  We don’t build it or extend it.  It is not ours to own or control.  But it is available to all of us, and God’s plan is for us to know God’s Kingdom and become part of it.  I am not preaching anything that you don’t already know.  This is your mission statement says – found on the cover of today’s service bulletin.  Your mission is “to live as community of faith active in love in response to the gospel, by caring for each other, serving all in need, and witnessing to Christ in all we do.”   I am here today because five churches in Glen Ellyn, three Lutheran and two Episcopal, are exploring ways that we can work together. We are calling this the OneChurch project.   I want to challenge you on what you mean in your mission statement by “community of faith.”  Yes, you are part of the ELCA as a federation of churches that brings you into a wider community.  St. Mark’s has the wider Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.  But the fact is that even with these denominational affiliations, individual congregations and parishes remain isolated.  They are silos each operating independently.  At the same time, with few exceptions, churches are under huge pressures from societal trends.  Church attendance is on the decline.  Membership in all denominations is decreasing.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for congregations that are used to a full-time pastor to keep up with even minimal levels of medical, insurance and salary compensation.  The OneChurch project is possibly a way for brothers and sisters in Christ to work together, to do more, to participate more fully in God’s plan for the world, in service, in outreach, in advocacy, in worship, for our youth, for our children.  The UR that’s driving by right now is not in our churches.  For these people, the outwardly satisfied, perhaps inwardly search, there is good news, and I believe there are exciting ways that working together, we can do more.  Have you not heard?  Yes, you have.  But they haven’t.  With God’s help, may we encourage one another and work together to serve each other and others and participate even more in God’s plan for the world.

Amen.

All proceeds support the St. Mark‘s Mexico Mission Trip. For details, please contact Horacio Chavez at 630-932-5525 (chavez_horacio@hotmail.com), or Victor Conrado at 630-858-1020.

February 2 and 9 – Movement class with Kim Rothwell

Kim Rothwell, is a dance/movement therapist with a certification in Laban movement analysis. She will provide an experience of body connectivity and comfort through Bartenieff fundamentals and an opportunity to shake it (and shake off any winter blues) through a free form dance party.

February 16 and 23 – Pilates with Ellie Dunham

Join Pilates instructor Ellie Dunham as she leads this body conditioning routine that helps build flexibility and long, lean muscles, strength and endurance through the whole body. It puts emphasis on spinal and pelvic alignment, breathing to relieve stress, developing a strong core or center, and improving coordination and balance.

 March 1 and 8 – Running with Scott Bednas and George Smith

Quote from Scott: I was recently asked if I could transform someone, who hated running as a child, into a runner. I won’t make that promise, but I despised running as a child and somehow managed to finish a handful of marathons. There are still days when I don’t enjoy the act of running, yet I always find joy in the endorphin rush, clarity of thought and stress relief that running provides. If you find that running is not for you, I suspect you will find bliss among movement, pilates, walking or biking.

March 15 – Walking with Judy Jackson

Judy will lead us through both a walking meditation and a “power walk” for exercise.

March 22 – Biking with Lonnie Morris

Fun, Fitness and Transportation! Avid biker and nature lover, Lonnie Morris will help us learn all we need to know about biking on the Prairie Path and beyond.