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updated 3/30/02Reverend Kenneth E. Kovacs' Sermons - 2002
Maybe you missed a worship service, maybe you want to review a favorite sermon, maybe you're looking for a little inspiration today, or maybe you would like to visit our church and you wonder what to expect. Whatever your reason is for stopping here in your web travels, you have found the right place. This
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March 31, 2002
"I have seen the Lord!" Peter and Mary were at the tomb early in the morning, found an empty tomb, but no Jesus. Peter left and Mary stayed behind and that's when it happened. Jesus appeared to her. The crucified Lord, in the flesh. At first she didn't recognize him, but then it all became clear when he called her by name, "Mary!" The voice was familiar, it was the voice that spoke of grace, she knew that voice. The voice belonged to the man who offered her the forgiveness of God, the one who offered her hope, the one who gave her life back. "I have seen the Lord!" Read
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soon
March 28, 2002
In tenth grade, I was hurt in gym class. It happened while working out on the Nautilus machine, lifting weights. I was sitting down ready to do some leg presses. I asked one of my classmates, someone I really didn't trust, but I asked him any way, to put the ring in at 140. I positioned myself in the seat, took a deep breath, and pushed against the metal foot pads. But he didn't set it at 140, he set it at 40. I could push 40 pounds with little effort, but because I was really exerting myself, the pads flew ahead of my feet, my feet dropped to the floor, with the metal foot pads returning in place, pounding into my shins. Blood was everywhere. I was so mad at this guy - and I was happy that he got in trouble. Thankfully, I didn't need stitches, but the metal plates left two dents in my shins, you can still see and feel them today, the scars are still there. Read More... Audio coming soon March 26, 2002
"It is finished" Jesus cried. Just before he breathed his last breath, he cried, "It is finished." Finished what? His life? His suffering? His time with humanity? What is Jesus talking about? Is he in a delusional state brought on by exhaustion and dehydration? Or is something more profound going on? Three simple words; but one word in Greek. Read
More... Audio
coming soon
(Reverend Kovacs
did not preach on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2002.)
March 17, 2002
On some Sunday mornings when I'm robing before worship, I forget to put my St. John's Cross around my neck before putting on my hood. I put my robe on, then my cross, followed by my academic hood. There's a little cord at the v-section of the hood that is attached to a button on the front of my robe. (You've probably wondered how all of this stuff is held together.) I place the cord through the v-shape of the cross and chain. If I don't get dressed in this order, the cross doesn't lay right. Then when I put on my remote microphone, the mike has to be at the right level so that the cross doesn't scrape against it. The whole robing procedure would be a lot simpler if I did not wear the cross. Sometimes I mumble to myself or say aloud, "See, the cross is always getting in the way." In more ways than one! Read More... Audio coming soon March 3, 2002
Jacob the fugitive, Jacob the liar and scheme, Jacob the deceiver is running from Esau because he stole his brother's blessing from his father, Isaac. He's running from Isaac. He's running from God, fleeing from everyone in Beersheba and running toward Haran. Read More... Audio coming soon February 24, 2002
These three texts this morning from Joel, the Psalms, and Second Corinthians call us to something new and send us in a particular direction. They establish specific goals before us. They hold us two different, but related and important images: a movement of the heart and a turning of the face. Heart and face. The Joel text calls us to turn to the Lord with all our heart. In scripture, the heart was understood as the more than an organ that pumps blood. It was viewed as the center of our personality, the core of our being. All that you are was represented by the heart. If your heart was not right with God, then something was wrong. If our hearts are devoted to gods which are no gods, instead of the Living God, then our hearts have betrayed us. Because the heart represented the center of the self, the health of one's heart was dependent upon that which pumps life into the heart; it was dependent upon God. God wants our hearts, meaning that God doesn't just want a part of our lives - our empty religiosity and putrid attempts at simply being moral. Instead, God desires the heart of our lives, the center of who we are, all that we are. Read
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coming soon
January 27, 2002
This time each year our thoughts and feelings focus on the birth of a very special child. The birth of Jesus causes us to ponder the wonder and innocence of infancy, of the potential goodwill found in every child. In his work, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the American author James Agee (1909-1955) wrote, "In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of not matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again." Read
More... January 20, 2002
The religious authorities were trying to trap him. They didn't like him very much. They didn't like what he had to say. They didn't like the authority of his teachings. They didn't like his popularity. They didn't like the way he could see right through the injustices of his day and expose them for the lies they were. They didn't like him because he was messing up their tightly ordered little worlds. Jesus has a habit of doing this. He was dedicated to truth at all costs and he came so that all might live in the light of that truth. The truth can be painful to hear sometimes; but it can also be liberating. Read More... Audio Coming Soon January 13, 2002
"Well, so that is
that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
This is how Auden
(1907-1973) talks about the aftermath of Christmas in his poem "For the
Time Being."
January 6, 2002
On Thursday in The Baltimore Sun there appeared an editorial by Crispin Sartwell, who teaches philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art. I know some members of the church were disturbed and troubled by what he wrote. It was entitled, "How can anyone possibly believe in God?" Sartwell is a thought-provoking writer. In the face of so many religionists these days who claim to know the will of God, I must say his plea for religious skepticism is refreshing. This might sound strange coming from a minister. When I was a religion and history major at Rutgers College, one of my theology professors (himself a minister) talked about the value of a "healthy agnosticism." Doubt and skepticism are an important part of faith. When I was at Princeton, I learned from one of the greatest American theologians, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), the need to be cautious about pronouncing the will of God and never be so presumptuous to say that God is only on your side. At St. Andrews, I learned from Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769) that, "The God comprehended is no God." You have to be a fool to say for sure that you know the will of God. Even the Christian philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) said, "Before God we are always in the wrong, and this is an uplifting thought." Read
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"In
Celebrating the Grace of God, and Sharing the Love of Jesus, We Grow Together"
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