Scriptures: 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ---1 Corinthians 12: 4-7 (NIV)
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 27 You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it. --1 Corinthians 12:12-14; 27 I had planned this sermon to highlight our Church Council’s visioning retreat last weekend but we postponed due to the increase in Covid cases here in Hyogo prefecture. The Council members have been working hard as a team to lead KUC. We all have our different gifts and some different views, but are part of one body and one church. The scripture on the Body of Christ was the one chosen for the retreat and I decided to still preach on it even if our retreat was postponed. It is a good theme for us at KUC. In her sermon last week Pastor Akiko mentioned the term “koinonia” which means community. We are a community – albeit a diverse one - here at KUC. She also talked about walking in the light and shining the light in the darkness. Let us look at the word “walking.” I once heard an African saying about walking “If you want to walk fast, go alone. If you want to walk far, go with others.” This is true for our church. We cannot move forward alone but we can move forward with others. We need to be a community of believers to walk together and support each other along the way. Our connection with others and having community is important. I had the blessing of hearing Bishop Tutu many years ago when he spoke in Berkeley, California. Bishop Tutu expressed his thoughts on our connection with others and the importance of community. When you are in community, you are connected. When you are connected, you are in unity. Bishop Tutu said something like how “…we are all bound to one another and our destinies are intertwined, even if we see one another as divided and separate, our common fate links us together as one family.” But unity, Tutu recognized, could not occur until each person was valued as a unique child of God and subsequently was given the freedom to express their own God-given gifts. Archbishop Tutu wrote in his book, “Hope and Suffering” these words: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. And this sentiment echoes the words of the Apostle Paul in his writing to the Corinthian church. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul explains the gift-giving process: 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ---1 Corinthians 12: 4-7 (NIV) Each person is different, Paul acknowledges, but each gift is given “for the common good,” for the good of the community. It seems the church in Corinth is having some problems and there is sharp dissension among the believers. The nature of the conflicts has not been fully explained by modern scholarship, although the issues are clearly identified: rival loyalties to different evangelists, including Paul; apparent lax morality; the eating of food consecrated to idols; practices involving baptism and the Lord’s Supper; the value of speaking in tongues; and the doctrine of the resurrection. “With all of these diverse views, cultural traditions, ways of being human in the world, how do we become one body?” The people of Corinth asked Paul. “Is unity possible when we believe and behave so differently?” These questions could be also be asked among us here at Kobe Union Church – how do we become one body? Is unity possible when we are all so different? KUC is an international, interdenominational and non-denominational congregation gathering as a community of Christ in Kobe, Japan. We come from various homelands, speak a variety of languages, believe differently about politics and values, but we are called to be a part of the One Body of Christ. Kathleen Norris, author of a number of best- selling books like Cloister Walk and Dakota and Amazing Grace, said something about the church in her book, Amazing Grace. She said how we may struggle to “maintain unity as ‘the body of Christ’ given the fact that we have precious little uniformity.” This was true of the church in Corinth that there was very little uniformity among the people. In the ancient world where the church in Corinth was comprised of persons ‘from a variety of sub-cultures—Jews and Greeks, slaves, freedmen, and a few of noble birth, the powerful as well as the weak, the wise as well as the not-so-wise. Their differences in language, in tradition, in culture presented challenges to overcome, just as ours do. But we have other challenges as well. During this strange time in the world, we may not even be physically present with one another, and some of our congregation has now expanded on ZOOM to people in other countries. The members of our community are called to be part of this one family. How is that possible? Maybe the people in Corinth wondered the same thing: How is this possible? Paul answers their questions with this lesson, and I paraphrase: “Everyone is different. But we use our differences, our uniqueness and God-given gifts to build and nurture the community. To each is given a gift, and each gift is different. While you may be able to sing like an angel, I may be able to teach others the stories of our ancestors. Each is given a gift, but all gifts are important and valuable, and all are given by the same God, for the common good. For the good of the community.” As we adjust to new COVID rules and restrictions, how are we using our gifts for the good of the community? How do we use our gifts - even as we endure the physical and emotional trauma of these past two years - to build up the community? Paul advises the people of Corinth in verse 26: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” Let me share a wonderful story and I will share it just as it is written by the author. “My dad has bees. Today I went to his house and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a 5 gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn't survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose. I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly, after all he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside. Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside. We put the 3 little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters. When it was time for me to leave we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty. Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free. Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates. We could all learn a thing or two from these bees. Bee kind always. As Pastor Chuck might have said if he had heard this story, “Bee the Church!” I would add “Bee the Body- the Body of Christ!” “You are the body of Christ,” St. Paul wrote to the people in Corinth. It’s a brilliant metaphor. The human body is almost a perfect example of the principle of unity and diversity. Furthermore, everybody can understand it without having it explained or exegeted. Everybody’s got a body; everybody experiences the principle daily. Everything works together for the good of the whole, and if one thing isn’t working, nothing feels right. We all know what that means. Douglas John Hall, a Canadian Reformed theologian, wrote a book called, Theology in a North American Context. In it he says that “Unity is not incidental, but essential to the Christian faith. Ecumenism is not a luxury; it’s certainly not a liberal plot. It’s part of the evangelical witness to which we are called.” Oneness and unity of Christian people is part of the way we witness to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are all are welcome to God’s kingdom. We are all kin. Related to one another even if we are different. We are a faith community at KUC whether you are joining through ZOOM or coming to in-person worship. All are welcome. In God’s reimagined creation, all are one. Well, of all things, scientists are now telling us that unity, oneness, is the organizing principle of the universe. That’s what scientists and theologians talk about these days when they get together, and they’re getting together a lot, by the way. Ever since Sir Isaac Newton, physics has understood the universe to operate on the principles of predictable, underlying mathematical rules. You can understand the universe by taking it apart, looking at the separate, isolated parts and systems and laws, and then reassembling it. But then someone, not so very long ago, made an amazing discovery that the act of observing an electron causes the electron to act differently. Suddenly, we’re in a whole new place! Suddenly, we’re bound together in an invisible web of relationship that we didn’t even know was there. You’ve heard or read about the popularized version of this effect: it’s called the Butterfly Effect. Every time a butterfly beats its wings, apparently every time a cat yawns or a baby sneezes, the whole web has to make an adjustment. It’s got a fancy name. It’s called the Chaos Theory. Well, Barbara Brown Taylor says that the Chaos Theory is simply what St. Paul meant by “the body of Christ.” That great mystery! That mystery of God that binds us together whether we feel like it or understand it or even like it! Taylor helped me see something I’d never noticed before, I think because I didn’t want to see it. I should have. I was too busy worrying about all the other members with whom I’m not sure I want to be a body. Taylor says, St. Paul’s not urging me to agree with this metaphor and to start trying to act like it. We’re not being asked to evaluate this proposal, to reduce it to an overture and vote on it. We’re being told something. We’re being told something about who we are essentially as men and women, whether we understand it or like it or not. This truth is beyond our consent or liking. This is truth beyond our theological and credal formulation. It’s a truth, brothers and sisters, beyond essential tenets or confessions or vision statements for the future of our Church. It is this: You are the body of Christ. Jesus Christ has made you His body. The God who is incarnate in Jesus Christ has a vision of the human race, and for better or worse, you’re it! We are God’s vision for a divided world. You and we are what God means by unity and diversity. We are the Body of Christ. Notice what Paul says in verse 21: The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” Nor, as Paul says in verse 15, would the foot cease to be part of the body if it said: “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body.” The bottom line is this: In the body of Christ, we need each other, not only for the health of the body as a whole, but to enable each individual member to operate at full potential. It is true in the human body. And it is true in the church, the body of Christ. We need each other. And we belong to each other. We understand that no one can rightly say: “I’m useless. I have nothing to offer.” And no part of the body can say, with superiority or an attitude of self-sufficiency, to another part of the body: “I don’t need you.” The stronger or more spiritually mature members do not – and must not – say to those who are weaker or less mature: “We don’t need you. We don’t want you. Good-bye.” Every member of the body matters. Every part of the body has an important contribution to make, even those parts that seem to be weaker or less honored. In order to be the church God wants us to be and to function the way God wants us to function, we need each other. I need you, and you need each other. We simply must open our eyes, and reach out to our neighbor, offering our hand, our compassion, and our love. When Paul talked to the Romans, he also told them about he thought the church was like a body. See Romans 12:3-8 (NIV) 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Paul said that God wants us to find a way to serve God by working together as a body works together to move. He said that it's important for us to not imagine the things that we each can do as an individual are more important or better than things the other members of our body can do. We must remember that we need all the different things that each one of us can do in order to be the church. Some of us will be teachers and some of us will be compassionate hosts and some of us will preach, and some of us will teach everyone how to share (and we'll all probably do a little bit of each one of these things). We really need to appreciate all the gifts each one of us brings. We need to love each other, be excited about our service together, be hopeful and empathetic when someone suffers, and we need to pray together. All of those things make our body stronger. Remember how Paul said there were somethings that we all need to do in church to work as a body? He said, we need to love each other, be excited about our service together, be hopeful and empathetic when someone suffers, and we need to pray for each other. When I was pastor at West Tokyo Union Church, around the year 1993, we pulled together as a congregation to minister to a man who had AIDs. We washed his clothes, visited him, prayed with him, and when he passed away, I conducted a simple service for him in the hospital morgue with some members of my congregation present. The man with AIDS was not a church member but we showed him the love of Christ. A man dies of AIDs and a part of us die. A baby is born and a part of us is born. We are all interconnected. The Body of Christ suffers and shares joy with others in our world. We make the body stronger just because we are a part of it. We are the Body of Christ. Let us pray. Dear God, we come here out of our separateness. We are different people; we have different stories; and we come from different places this morning-some nearby, some from all over the world through our live-streaming. Help us to move beyond our differences and to know something of the oneness you have given us, and use the experience we have shared in these days together in your ongoing project of reconciling the whole world through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
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Let us pray. Lord,may the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts testify your goodness and the depth of your grace. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.
In her message last week Pastor Claudia talked about how God is light, and that even though God lives in the darkness too, that darkness cannot overcome God’s light. And while we all understand that God’s light overcomes the darkness in our own lives, at some point or another we have all had to experience that darkness for ourselves. As some of you might know, my mom died when I was just 21 years old. Her death was so sudden, and so very unexpected, that it shook me to my core. Her death robbed me of my sense of purpose, and took away my will to live. That time was probably the darkest moment in my life, a time of deep darkness and depression. It was like my mind was filled with fog; the world lost all color, and I forgot what happiness and joy even were. It was like I was living in a colorless, dark void, without thought or feeling, and I didn’t know what to do anymore. I spent every day crying nonstop. I felt like my life had been reduced to a long, and very dark, tunnel, with nothing and no one to comfort me. Many of you know the rest of the story. One day, a nurse came to my bedside as I was lying in the hospital crying and said to me, “Akiko, it’s going to be ok. You will be happy again. Everything happens for a reason and God will not give you more than you can handle.” In those days I wasn’t a Christian. I didn’t know who God was, but the words that nurse spoke to me that day stuck with me and I truly believe that those words were given to her by God. In that moment, it felt like those words gave me a way out of the darkness; I realized that, at the end of the long, dark tunnel, there could be light. To make a long story short, about a year and a half after my encounter with that nurse, I became a Christian. I had learned about the God who is love, and who loved me just as I was. I came to understand that God could actually handle sad-me! I didn’t need to suppress my sadness or depression; I could be honest with my thoughts and feelings, and say that I was sad when I felt sad. I felt free, like I had finally come out of the darkness and into the light! Well…at least I thought that was the case. I had come out of the darkness and fog of depression, but even finally meeting that God who is the light of the world didn’t cure me of my depression. My hurt and pain was still there; the loss of my mother still filled me with the same sadness it always had. There were still days where the things I had to do felt so overwhelming that I couldn’t even bring myself to get out of bed. There were still days where I didn’t want to see people, because I didn’t want people to see the darkness that was still in me. I had become a Christian; a child of God, a child of the light! I thought that I should always have the light of God shining from my face, God’s love constantly shining from every aspect of my life. I should always look happy, always be happy. In my mind, I felt that I should always look completely and totally blessed, a perfect reflection of what a Christian “ought” to look like in my mind at the time. And when the times came that I didn’t feel like that, when I just plain wasn’t like that, I didn’t want to let my darkness, suffering, and pain be visible to the world. I thought that if I continued to show that I had changed, that I had left the darkness behind and found a life of happiness, light, and love, that my friends and family would see that light and want to be Christians too. After all, if I made Christianity look good, special, and wonderful, and demonstrated that Christians were always full of light and positivity, who wouldn’t want to be a Christian? But all that effort bore absolutely no fruit. My family and friends weren’t drawn to Christ by me pretending to be happy all the time. Instead of God’s light shining from me onto them, God’s light revealed something completely different in my own life. God’s living light revealed the shadows in my own life. God revealed that I would not get out of darkness until I dealt with darkness within me, the sin that remained even after I became a child of God’s light. Now sin is a pretty heavy word in our faith. As Christians we believe that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died for our sins, which is a pretty big deal; but why do we rarely talk about sin in church? Why are we so hesitant to speak this word, and come face-to-face with the darkness that is within us? I wonder if that might be because we don’t often think of sin as a real, concrete thing in our lives, but as an abstract concept; an idea, rather than something real. We “know” from the scripture that we are sinful, and that sins are something we commit. We read about people who commit sins all the time in the Scripture; the Israelites made idols, built statues of other Gods and worshiped them, some of the Pharisees opposed healing on the Sabbath, opposed the teachings of Jesus, and were a big part of sending him to die on the cross. Sin is a part of God’s story. God sent prophets to Israel throughout the story, confronting them with their sins and giving them warnings of the consequences - warnings of what would come upon their community, their nation, if their sins continued. Of course, when we read stories like this we tend to read them like stories; things that happened to some other people, in some other place and time, and not like something that happens in our own lives. The idea of sin still feels foreign to us, distant, and irrelevant to our lives. We don’t worship idols, do we? We come to church and worship God, so we’re not like those ancient Israelites. And we’re not like the Pharisees either, exercising our authority over others just to have our own power and control; opposing God’s healing, grace, and mercy because it challenges what we have for ourselves rather than standing with Jesus even unto the cross? Sin is something that other people do…not us. Right? It’s interesting that in Ancient Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, there are many different words which we translate as “sin.” Basically, there are specific words for specific sins. However, in Greek, the language of the New Testament, most of those words were condensed into a single word - Hamartia. This word isn’t very specific, and it can mean a great variety of things that fall under the category of “missing the mark” when it comes to God. Imagine for a moment that you’re an archer, aiming your bow at a target. When you loose your arrow, it doesn’t really matter whether it hits something a meter to the left, or 2 meters to the right; what matters is that it didn’t hit the target. Greek simply says that anything that missed the target is a sin. Sin isn’t all about failing to follow specific commandments, or to practice certain rituals. It’s not about failing to give right sacrifices, or to honor the letter of the law. Those things can show that we’ve missed the target, but sin means much more than that. As we can see in today’s reading, sin is something that lives in our daily lives, something alive within our Christian community. Sin, as we heard in the epistle of 1st John this morning, is described as a kind of unwillingness. This letter was written around 100 CE, as Christianity was beginning to spread beyond Jerusalem and Judea, to regions where Greek mythology and philosophy had a much larger influence. Now Greek philosophy had a great emphasis on knowledge as the key to a better life. So, within some church communities, people were claiming that they really “knew” the gospel, and using that knowledge to look down on those who they felt didn’t have enough knowledge about who Jesus was, and how Jesus functioned as the incarnation of God. The result of this was division, rather than unity. There was no fellowship between the people of the church community. Fellowship, from the Greek word koinonia, means communion; simply being together. Even though the church is called to be together as one, just as God the creator, the son, and the Spirit are united as one, the reality was very different. People were not growing in relationship with each other; there was no intimacy, no love within the community. Isn’t it crazy to imagine a Christian community without fellowship? I mean…come on! We’re Christians! We are called to love God and love one another. So why couldn’t they do it? Why couldn’t they just get along? I think that if we ask ourselves for the truth, truly look deep into our hearts, we can see that this isn’t an issue that was only a problem for the early church. I think we know that this is still very much an issue even today. Look at the church around the world. Mainstream Protestant denominations have begun to split because they can’t agree over whether to recognize the ordination of women, or the acceptance of LGBTQ Christians. In the U.S., families and church communities alike are being divided by politics, fellowship broken by allegiance to a particular presidential candidate. And you know what? People are watching. People who don’t know Christ are watching, trying to understand who Christ is through us. And what they’re seeing makes no sense; they can’t figure it out. Why do we tear each other down while claiming that our God is the God of love? I get questions from friends who are not Christians asking why people fight? Why do people gossip, scheme, and badmouth each other at church? Where is the love? Where is the fellowship? I think we all need to take these kinds of questions seriously. We are a people called to love one another, and to show God’s love to the world; but why aren’t people outside the church seeing that? Why can’t they see? Maybe the problem isn’t that they don’t see. Maybe the problem is that we are unwilling to confront reality. When I first became a Christian, I thought my life had been changed forever; that the darkness was gone and I would never have to deal with it again. I thought that I had been brought permanently from the darkness to the light. And while that is true, God’s light also revealed the darkness that was still inside me, a darkness that I still very much had to deal with; an unwillingness to love, and to forgive. A year or so after my mom died, my dad decided to remarry and, to be honest with you all, I was not happy about it. I was living in the U.S. at the time, and I had never really had the chance to get to know my dad’s new soon-to-be-wife. It had only been a year since my mom died; it felt so sudden to me. But no matter how it felt to me, what is important to share is that I held some seriously bitter feelings towards her. I wouldn’t say I hated her because, even as a brand-new Christian I knew, both in my heart and my head, that hate is fundamentally anti-Christian. But my bitterness, my anger, and my not-exactly-hate for this woman felt justified, even excused. It seemed perfectly legitimate to me to continue to hold onto these bitter feelings towards her because, as I thought to myself, I was the person who was injured. I was the one most wounded. It had only been a year since I lost my mother, my best friend! My mom and dad had been together for nearly 30 years, and she had been my mom for my whole life! Of course I would feel hurt and bitter! While I continued excusing myself, justifying my feelings, God did not think that this was OK. God kept placing this uneasy feeling on my heart. Deep down, I knew that holding on to this feeling towards her wasn’t good. Deep down, I knew I was doing exactly what is written in verse 6: “If we say that we have fellowship with God, while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true;” (1 John 1:6) For the next few years, God continued to patiently shine light on this dark part of me. God was merciful in this way, and never gave up. In the end, I was eventually led to repent, to confess to my step-mother my struggles to like her and respect her, and to apologize. I have never felt as free as I did after I confessed all that I had been holding inside me. I had thought that I was damaging her by holding on to those bitter feelings, but I was wrong; I was only damaging myself. I was walking in darkness called sin. As we keep talking about sin and darkness in our lives, I think it’s important to remember that God knows we commit sins. The whole reason Jesus came into this world was to save us from sin and, as verse 7 says, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. We know that cleansing is possible in Jesus, so the simple fact that we commit sins isn’t where the problem lies. The problem comes when we are unwilling to confront reality, when we build excuses and justifications that prevent us from seeking out that cleansing which is available to us through Christ Jesus. Let’s look at verse 6 again, “If we say that we have fellowship with God while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true.” Walking in darkness is not the problem in itself, because darkness cannot overcome the light. In God we are able to move from darkness into light; and again, that’s not where the problem is. The problem comes when we “say” that we have fellowship with God, but are still very much walking in darkness. In reality, if we are truly with God, we might go into the darkness from time to time, but we don’t remain there; we don’t walk in the darkness. We choose to stay in the darkness, while saying that we have fellowship, intimacy, with God. Do you see that unwillingness to face reality? Just like when I held bitter feelings towards my stepmother but still acted as though I was close to God; just like in John’s community when people dwelt in their disagreements and chose not to be in fellowship with each other; just like in conflicts in the church around the world, or among communities in the U.S.; holding onto that darkness within rather than making the choice to repent, and letting it go is at the very heart of what sin is. During our Sunday worship services, we have a time for the prayer of confession. This is an intentional time, where we come face-to-face with the fact that we are a part of the sins of this world. We confess to the reality that our lack of love ends up hurting the world in many different ways. We might not be murderers, rubbers, destroyers of the environment, entirely corrupt or evil ourselves, but through our ignorance, indifference, and unwillingness to confront our own excuses and self-justifications, we are a part of that corruption, and need to be cleansed so that we can walk in the light again. In our times of praise, that beautiful God’s light breaks forth into our lives and into the life of the church but, at the same time, darkness is revealed as well, shown in contrast to God’s light. When the Spirit shows us that dark shadow cast in our lives, we need to face it, own it, and say “we are sorry God. Please, forgive us.” We need to ask God to give us the strength to work towards improving our lives and our communities, rather than hiding out in the darkness. Though, you might not be able to easily see how you might have sinned, or how you might still be sinning. You come to worship, and attend a bible study group; you serve the church, and pray every day. But let us take an honest, closer look at our attitudes or behaviors. Is there anything you’d rather hide? Anything you’d rather not face? Even if you have a really good reason for it? John 3:19-20 tells us that, “the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” God’s light isn’t always an enjoyable experience. God’s light exposes our darkness, our sins. And John’s letter tells us that when we confess those sins, when we confront them, it can lead us to cleansing and forgiveness. I know that today’s message isn’t the most uplifting of messages. Times are pretty dark right now; COVID cases are on the rise again, schools are shutting down, kids can’t play and learn the way they have been in the past. Friends and loved ones have been coming down with COVID, or maybe you have come down with it yourself. Many people have died and many suffer from the after effects of COVID. In these dark times…why would we take the time to talk about something as depressing as sin? Why wouldn’t we focus on comforting, uplifting messages, you might wonder? I think so, too. Because I am also a sinner. I sinned and I still sin. As hard as it might be to face, being in touch with the darker parts of ourselves both as individuals and as a church community is fundamental, because when we confront the depth of the darkness within us, we realize the depth of the grace that God has poured out on us. Just like we sang after our prayer of confession today, “grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin!” God’s grace is greater than ALL of our sin, no matter how deep that sin goes! People will not see God in us when we don’t build intimacy with each other. People will not see God in us when we do not admit that we make mistakes, just like everyone else does. If that’s who we are, then what is the difference between us and the rest of the world? What does that say about God? But people will see God when we come face-to-face with the fact that we make mistakes as a community of God. We sin. We hurt each other, and hurt God in the process. We want God to be our redeemer, the light that rescues us from the darkness but, in order to do that, we have to stop holding onto our hurt, our pain, our bitterness, our fear, our anger, and our sadness. We have to stop embracing the darkness, and turn to God instead. We have to choose to embrace God’s light, to do the hard work of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. In doing that, we embrace God as our redeemer, and the light of the world that everyone can see. Let me end my message by borrowing these words from John’s letter. “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Let us walk in the light, just as God is the light Amen. When a flashlight grows dim or quits working, do you just throw it away? No, you change the batteries. When a person messes up or finds themselves in a dark place, do you throw them aside? No, of course not. You help them “change their batteries.” In the US, batteries use letters of the alphabet to determine the sizes but in Japan numbers such as “denchi tan san, tan ni, tan ichi are used. Batteries in the US have these sizes. A, AA, AAA, C, and D. Using this analogy for people some folks will need batteries that are AA…attention and affection; some need AAA… attention, affection, and acceptance; some need C…compassion or comfort; some need D…direction. And if they still don’t seem to shine…simply be with them quietly and share your light. As Christians, we are called to not only walk in the light of Christ but to be the light for others. When The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster happened on Sunday, January 17, 1995, I was still living in Tokyo and preaching that morning at West Tokyo Union Church (WTUC). When I asked for prayers, one of our church members said there had been a huge earthquake in Kobe! We were shocked but didn’t realize the severity of it until later. WTUC raised money for Kobe and sent supplies like diapers, warm clothes, gloves, soap, etc. In the weeks to come, some of our church members went to Kobe to volunteer and do takidashi - distributing food- among those in need. I hope they were able to be a light to those who had suffered through the quake. KUC had moved up the hill to Nagaminedai in 1992 and so had only been here in our present location for a few years. Many of the houses in this Nagaminedai neighborhood were badly damaged by the quake. Therefore, many people couldn’t stay in their homes so one of the missionaries living nearby KUC, opened the doors of KUC so that people could come to KUC for shelter. At KUC, they slept in the sanctuary on the pews. Our beloved secretary, Kikuko Delp was visiting Kyoto at the time but came back to Kobe shortly after to help. Water was in short supply so some people were hauling down water from Nunobiki falls. I heard that our neighbors down the hill, the Yamaguchi yakuza clan, had their own well so gave out water to those who needed it as well as rice. Damage was widespread and severe. Around 6,434 people died and over 41500 people got injured, and the amount of the damage was estimated to be over 9600 billion yen. Kwansei Gakuin University was badly damaged and may students and teachers lost their lives in that earthquake. I heard that Rev. Musubi Tabuchi lost one of his dearest friends in the earthquake. Rev. Musubi Tabuchi will briefly share his own story now with you. (Tabuchi sensei briefly shares in 3-4 minutes his own story here.) People worked together to restore Kobe. The fact that volunteers from all over Japan converged on Kobe to help victims of the quake was an important event in the history of volunteerism in Japan. The year 1995 is often regarded as a turning point in the emergence of volunteerism. In December 1995, the government declared January 17 a national "Disaster Prevention and Volunteerism Day." In addition, a number of churches in Kobe are still having prayer services on January 17 to remember that day. If you go to the outdoor Earthquake Memorial in Merican Park near the Kobe you can see some photos, a video, and pieces of property that was damaged and preserved by the waterfront. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake memorial museum (The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution - (人と防災未来センター) was opened in 2002 in Chuo ward to commemorate the tragic event and to educate visitors about earthquake and disaster prevention. Light brings hope to people. The Kobe Luminarie is an annual winter event that takes place in the vicinity of Motomachi Station and was started by the organizing committee (including the municipal government) in 1995 to pray for the people to pray for the victims of the Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck the region on Jan. 17 and for the region's recovery. The 200,000 individually hand painted lights were donated by the Italian Government. It is an annual event and lights are kept up for about a little over a week and lights turned on for a few hours each evening. Some 3.47 million people visited the event in 2019, but it was canceled last two years because of Covid. Hope lives within our hearts enabling us to shine bright. And, when we shine bright, others see Jesus in us. The late Bishop Tutu said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Light is part of who God is. This statement, “I am the light of the world” is the 2nd of the 7 great I AM statements in John’s Gospel. Like all of the I AM statements, Jesus declares his divinity. He is the great I AM, Yahweh Godself. He says emphatically “I AM the light of the world.” While Jesus IS himself the light, he also gives light to His people. Jesus came to bring people life and to bring them light. As it says in Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and salvation.” Light is a powerful symbol for God’s work. At the beginning of creation, He said, “‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3). In his Gospel, John wrote that in Jesus “was life, and the life was the light of all. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12). There are many scriptural references to light. There are also many prophecies of Scripture that Jesus fulfilled and the fulfillment of Isaiah 42:6-7 says as part of the scripture, “…the Lord is a light among nations.” Jesus is a light that transformed the nations, transforms the world, and transforms us. I like the image of the light especially for this season after Epiphany. (The season after Epiphany runs until the first Sunday of Lent, which begins seven weeks before Easter.) We just sang one of my favorite songs for this season, “I am the Light of the World.” We will sing another hymn in our service today found in our hymnals, “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.” It begins with “I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to follow Jesus. God sent the starts to give light to the world. The star of my life is Jesus. The refrain says, “In him there is no darkness at all. The night and day are both alike. The Lamb is the light of the city of God. Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.” For some people, they will need help to have Jesus shine in their hearts as they may be experiencing pain, grief, and sorrow. Some people may not see where they are going and our lost. So, as Christians, we can help them find the light and assure them that God has never left them. . God dwells in deep darkness. God is with us in the hard times. Even in our “darkest” hours, God is there. God comes to people in “dark” clouds, “dark” nights, “dark” dreams. If this is hard to see, then maybe it’s because we’ve been conditioned to think of “darkness” as always negative. Think of the way people use darkness. “That was a really dark film.” “This economy’s not out of the dark yet.” “She’s in a dark mood.” “Dark days are coming.” “Oh, he’s gone over to the dark side.” (Like characters in the Star Wars films). Jesus came as the Light of the World but was born from a dark womb and in the darkness of night in a stable although under the light of that Bethlehem star. But he was also born in the darkness of the oppressive times under Roman rule. He and Mary escaped during the darkness of the night to Egypt as we heard last week form Pastor Akiko. (The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13–23) and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him.) There are times in the wilderness such as the Exodus story in the wilderness which could be seen as a time of darkness and growth. We also have stories of darkness and light together. God came to Moses in a cloud (Exodus19:9) and speaks to the people from inside a cloud. The cloud sits on Sinai for days, flashing like there’s a bright fire inside. When God calls Moses inside the cloud, Moses enters it and stays for forty days. When he comes out again his skin is so shiny that people are afraid to come near him. So, Moses makes a kind of cloud to cover his face - a veil that he can pull down when he was not with God to protect the people from God’s brightness and reflected glory. Job, who yelled into the darkness for 37 whole chapters before God snatched him up into a whirlwind and showed him things too wonderful for him. (The Book of Job.) A man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council came to Jesus at night to ask Jesus a few questions. (John 3:1-21). Peter, James and John, who entered another cloud on another mountain, where they too were overshadowed by the glorious, terrifying darkness of God. (Luke 9:28-36) Look at Saul, who was busy persecuting Christians but then was struck blind by a light from heaven on the road to Damascus. He lost his vision for three days but God was transforming him. In Damascus, he met Ananias who laid hands on him, and restored his vision. The disciple Ananias helped Saul (who later became Paul) to see the light of Christ and he was baptized. (Acts 9). God dwells in deep darkness and in the light. There are times we may believe we are lost or you may know of someone who is lost but based on the witness of those who have gone before, the dark times is where God can filter in light and growth. You may not see it at the time but later you may see how God was with you. God may have sent someone to you to help you. Darkness is never going to appeal to anyone the way enlightenment does. But we can learn to trust when we are walking by faith and not by sight. God does not ever leave us. In the Affirmation of Faith from the United Church of Canada, it closes with these words, “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.” In all the ups and downs we face in our lives, in the darkness and in the light, no matter what happens, God is always with us. Amen. (This poem is mot used in sermon but a resource and reflection for personal devotion.) This poem by UMC minister, Rev. Jan Richardson, speaks about the light that is coming in its many forms and on the many ways light comes into our lives. As you read this poem, reflect on these questions: “How has light sought you out and awakened you to something new?” “What is a light in your life and how do you access it?” “What areas in your life need the light to shine” How the Light Comes By Jan Richardson I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining. That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us. That it loves searching out what is hidden, what is lost, what is forgotten or in peril or in pain. That it has a fondness for the body, for finding its way toward flesh, for tracing the edges of form, for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart. I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does. That it will. That it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you, though it may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee. And so may we this day turn ourselves toward it. May we lift our faces to let it find us. May we bend our bodies to follow the arc it makes. May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light that comes. © Jan Richardson from her website: http://adventdoor.com/2011/12/21/christmas-day-how-the-light-comes/ Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
As Tabuchi-sensei mentioned, the Christmas season goes well beyond Christmas Day, and while we’re just a little past Epiphany now, I think we’re still close enough that we can still look at the Christmas story in the Scripture. Today’s Scripture passage isn’t an easy one, to say the least. It might actually be a fairly difficult one for some of us even. I think that the contrast we see in the second chapter of Matthew, between the first and second halves of the chapter, is pretty striking. The first half is, I think, exactly what we might expect from a regular, familiar, Christmas reading: The wise men see the star, which tells them about the arrival of the newborn King of the Jews and, after searching a bit, they find the baby Jesus. They’re overwhelmed with Joy, pay homage, and offer their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It is from this moment in the scripture that we get our understanding of Christmas as a cheerful season of giving. We recognize that our Lord and Savior has come into our world; that our God is not a distant God who remains far away in heaven, but a God who came to join our world as a human being instead, and we express that joy through gratitude and through giving But, even in the midst of that joy and gratitude, even from the very beginning, even from the time of his very conception, the life of our Lord Jesus Christ was in danger. When Joseph found that Mary was with child before they had lived together, Joseph had initially planned to dismiss Mary quietly, not wanting to expose her to public disgrace. (Matthew 1:18-19) What might have happened if Joseph had followed through on his instincts? Single mothers in those days didn’t have access to much in terms of resources and support; it’s quite possible that Jesus might never have survived until his birth in the first place. But an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream instead, and told him to take Mary as his wife, and name the child Jesus (Matthew 1:20-21); a name that means “the one who saves,” as Tabuchi-sensei taught us in his message last week. And because Joseph was a righteous man, he obeyed God, setting aside his own instincts and doing instead “as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” And in so doing, God preserved the life of this very special baby. But the book of Luke tells us that the challenges did not stop here for Joseph and Mary. They traveled to Bethlehem, Joseph’s family hometown, to be registered with the Roman census (Luke 2:5), a long and difficult journey for a woman in the final stages of pregnancy. And when they got there, it was already time for the baby to come! But even though this special baby had come into the world, that world was not aware of the significance of his birth No one was. Even though they were in Joseph’s hometown, bearing the son of God himself, Joseph and Mary couldn’t even find a room to stay in, having to give birth to Jesus in a manger instead. No wonder Mary had to treasure, ponder, and hold close all that she and Joseph had heard from the shepherds about what this birth meant for the world! (Luke 2:19) This child is “a Savior, who is the messiah, the Lord,” (Luke 2:11), and was “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger,” born just as had been prophesied (Luke 2:12). But despite all of this, despite everything that led up to this amazing moment of Jesus’ birth…the situation surrounding them was anything but cheerful and bright; not at all what you would expect from the holy confirmation of a long-prophesied, special Messiah. In today’s passage, coming right after this part of the story, we get something that is absolutely the opposite of a cheerful story. It is a story that begins with Jesus’ family escaping from Bethlehem to Egypt. That’s right; Jesus' young life starts not as a prince, but as a refugee. Joseph had been visited in a dream by an angel, who told him to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt since King Herod was searching for the baby Jesus so that he could destroy him (Matthew 2:13). So Joseph, being the righteous man that he is, gets up, takes Jesus and Mary, and moves to Egypt without even taking the time to go back to Nazarethand pack their bags. Many of us here have had the experience of moving, either from our own countries to Japan, or back and forth, or to more and different places. But no matter where we might have moved, I think that we can all agree that there is just never enough time to prepare for an international move! But Joseph and Mary weren’t given any time at all. The Scripture says that “by night” they needed to depart for Egypt (Matthew 2:14). And we can imagine that life as a refugee family in a foreign country couldn't have been easy, even among the many Jewish immigrant communities that existed in Egypt at the time. After escaping from King Herod, it has been said that Jesus’ family had to keep moving from place to place, jumping from cave to cave, always trying to stay one step ahead of the spies that King Herod kept sending into Egypt to find them. In a situation like that, we have to wonder just how Joseph and his family were able to survive life as a refugee family. Who would give them food, shelter, clothes, and the resources to keep running from Herod and his spies? In order for them not to wind up naked and starving, they had to rely on support. There had to have been people and communities who knew and understood that God loves the stranger, and that God shows love by providing for the needs of those strangers, and who knew of God’s commandments to show love to strangers in this way. (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) Joseph and Mary’s obedience to their divine calling was made possible through the obedience shown by others in giving them hospitality and support as refugees in a foreign land. For their obedience to be possible, the obedience of others was required. God provides us all community, resources, and support not just for our own well-being, but so that we and others can remain obedient to God’s guidance. And this is why it’s important to read our Scripture slowly, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us in reading and hearing the word, because all this obedience is echoing even between the verses: Let’s listen to this God’s Word again. Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. . When we read with a listening ear, hearing the context of the story, we can tell that this is about so much more than Joseph’s own continued obedience. It is a story about God intervening, and working through the people around that family with support so that he could remain obedient to what the angel had said. In showing their obedience to God through hospitality and care, the people of the community made it possible for Joseph to be obedient as well. Remaining obedient to God is a community effort, and something that all of God’s church communities need to remain aware of, nurturing a sensitivity to God’s calling to obedience so that we can be a part of other’s obedience to God as well. Going back to today’s scripture reading, as Joseph and the communities surrounding him and his family were demonstrating obedience to God in different ways, King Herod’s self-seeking ways became more self-evident, and more tragic. And in Herod’s self-obsessed rage, fearful of what the messiah could mean for him and his power, we come to one of the great tragedies in the Scripture; the massacre of the infants. That’s right; when King Herod heard about this newborn messiah, who was to be the King of the Jews, he felt insecure, and threatened. He couldn’t identify who or where this baby king was and, in his rage and frustration, decided to kill all the children in and around the town of Bethlehem, just so that he could make sure that this newborn King of the Jews, the Messiah Christ Jesus, was dead. And what’s worse is that this tragedy is a human-made tragedy. It was the decision of one person, driven by rage and insecurity over the threat to his power and position, which led to this slaughter. For the ego of one king, one human leader, the lives of innocent children were taken forever. What makes this even harder still is that the Scripture only gives us one verse for this terrible, human-made tragedy. ONE verse. And that one verse is very matter-of-fact, saying “When Herod saw that he has been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two yeras old or under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:16) That’s it. When I read that, I often wonder to myself… “Did God even care? Didn’t God have compassion for these children? Is our God a God who only cares that God’s son is alive and able to do what God has called him to do in the world, regardless of the cost that life brings about?” And then I see that the very next verse says, “Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah.” (Matthew 2:17) Does this mean that God predicted this would come and didn’t do anything about it? Did God allow this slaughter to happen? The same God as we know as all-loving, merciful, and kind? I wish I had an answer to satisfy you all. I wish the answer was written right there in the Scripture. But I don’t have an answer and the Scripture is not very clear either. In places like this, when we are confronted with verses and passages like this, what we need is to practice patience, allowing the Holy Spirit to continue to speak to us. We need to find a way to let go of what we think the passage is telling us, and find a way to let the Word speak to our hearts a little more. Sometimes, this is an act of discipline, which requires us to sit in the discomfort, fear, and confusion we might experience from a passage like this. So, that’s what I did. I went back, sat in my discomfort, and read the passage again, slowly, focusing on verses 16-18. And in doing so, I found myself drawn to these words in verse 18: “She refuses to be consoled.” Now Matthew here is quoting from the book of Jeremiah, the prophet who was sent to serve God’s people during their exile as captives in Babylon in the 6th-5th BCE. In the years around that period, Babylon had dominated the region, completely conquering Israel and taking all the young and strong among them back to Babylon to serve and prosper their own nation. This is why Rachel, standing here as the mother of the nation of Israel, was weeping, wailing, and lamenting so loudly. The children are no more, and gone with them is the promise of any bright future left for Israel. And in that space, she REFUSED to be consoled. When we think of obeying God, we often think of that obedience as a sort of passive acceptance of what is happening, because it must be God who made that happen. Obedience often means to us conforming, peacefully accepting the way things are with you and with the world. And while there are parts of the story where obedience does look like that, as it did for Joesph and his family, it doesn’t always look like that. We have to remember that obeying God can also look like peaceful, yet active, resistance too, like the movement of Martin Luther King Jr., the Me Too movement, the peaceful resistance to apartheid in South Africa led by Desmond Tutu, and so many others like these. These are moments, times and places, where refusing to be consoled means refusing to accept injustice, refusing to take God’s promised consolation just sitting down. Refusing to accept that God’s consolation for us must mean accepting injustice. When lives which deserve to live are taken, oppressed, or discriminated against, obedience to God should not look like simple acceptance of what has happened. Obedience to God should look like a refusal to be consoled, a refusal to accept, and a willingness to get involved with doing God’s work of justice. When we hear Jeremiah quoted in Matthew here, we can see that God is not at all happy with this slaughter. God is showing us through this word that God is refusing to be consoled in this mass killing, all for the sake of one person’s ego. If you read Jeremiah 31:16 says, God says, “keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work.” To me, this sounds like a call; a call that tells us that we should cry out against the injustices that happen, but that our actions should not end with our cries. At some point, we need to stop weeping and rise up to do the work of restorative justice. I remember my brother Harry, from my previous church. Harry escaped religious persecution in Indonesia and came to America 30 years ago but, because of the urgency of his situation, he didn’t have the time or ability to cross the border legally; just like Jesus’ family. The church saw this, and took him in. Harry was obedient to God and God’s community, working as a custodian, food pantry distributor, and fixer of the many properties that the church owned and used to house their homeless neighbors. He paid his taxes, and lived as an upstanding member of the community. But nevertheless, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) came and took him, separated him from his family; he spent time in a detention center. But eventually, he was released and restored to the community, and the next time ICE came for him, he ran to the church for sanctuary, staying there for as long as he needed to be there. The community demonstrated their obedience to God by sheltering him and surrounding the church building in protest of what ICE was trying to do to him and his family; the pastor even approached the governor of New Jersey to plead for his situation, and to beg protection for him and his family; a protection that the governor eventually granted. But the fight was still not over. The church hired immigration lawyers for him and finally, after all this time, he was finally granted permanent American citizenship. This is perseverance; this is obedience to God. Brother Harry never stopped being obedient to God, and his obedience was empowered by the obedience of his faith community, who refused to be consoled, refused to accept the way things were for him and his family. The Christmas story is full of unexpected twists and turns. The messiah, conceived in the womb of an unwed teenage mother. The news of the savior’s birth was announced to a field of workers so outcast that they didn’t even count in the census. The birth itself, happening in a stable, the baby laid to rest in a manger. Then, the holy child and his family escaped to a foreign land as refugees to flee the murderous actions of an insecure tyrant. Amidst all these unexpectedly difficult moments, through the voices of angels, God continues to ask for obedience. But obedience isn’t what we expect. God doesn’t want us to act like robots, blindly doing what we’re told. God wants us to think, to look around, and to pay attention to what is happening around us. God asks us to look for the strangers in our communities, and remember how strange and alone we once felt before we met God. God wants us to dwell in that feeling, and to be motivated by it to cloth them, and feed them, both physically and spiritually. God wants us to pay attention, to look around us and see all those things which do not reflect God’s goodness. God wants us to live and thrive together, with equal access to the tools needed to be obedient to God in our lives. If only one group is profiting at the expense of others, this is something we need to refuse to accept. If someone is paid below minimum wage, we can’t just accept that it is the will of God; it calls for the voice of God’s justice to be spoken, and for God’s obedient people to intervene. If someone is being beaten up either verbally or physically, we can’t accept it as God’s will; we need to speak words of reconciliation, and help the situation better reflect the good and merciful nature of our God. God’s world is one in which everyone can live, respected and loved, according to the good image of God, living out their calling in obedience with the love and support of the community. And as that community, we all need to be sensitive to the different ways God calls us to obedience by being a good neighbor, and sometimes being that prophetic voice that calls out injustice. So friends let us God and serve God with obedience, being ready to follow in ways we might not expect this year. May God’s grace and mercy be with us as we follow God with obedience as a child of God and community of God. Amen. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
And we, living in Japan, need to emphasize it is still Christmas, and it will last until the middle of February. I just show you our Christmas Christian Calendar as below: 24th December: Christmas Eve, a new baby was born to Mary and Joseph, and laid in a manger, the Angel appeared to the Shepherds who eventually visited the holy family. 25th Christmas Day 26th St Stephen’s Day, not directly related to Christmas events, but to commemorate the first Christian martyr stoned to death on this day. In England it is called Boxing Day in England. 1st January: The Name of Jesus 6th Epiphany: The Magi’s adoration of Jesus 2nd February: marks the final conclusion of the “Christmas cycle.” Candlemas celebrates the event that occurred 40 days after Jesus’ birth and was his first introduction to the Temple. In other words, it is the final “baby Jesus” feast day on the Church’s liturgical calendar. As such we are just early days of the Christmas Season, and today I want to focus on the meaning of Jesus’ Naming, since yesterday was the day that he was named Jesus. As you may already know, his name was introduced by the angels. As we heard from Claudia-senssei and Akiko-sensei, who was ordained last Monday, now Akiko-sensei has full authority as a pastor at the church, congratulations! and both reverends preached us that Mary was informed of her son’s name by Angel Gabriel, in Luke’s Gospel chapter 1. But in Matthew's story, that name was told to Joseph first by an angel with no name given. And I found it very significant in Matthew’s version of the story. At that moment, Joseph was in great distress being told that his fiancé was pregnant, and wondering to leave her in disgrace. At that moment, the angel appeared in his dream and encouraged him to take her “home” as his wife, since the baby would be born as the sign of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, that is God’s promise for Immanuel, God with us. Joseph was “challenged” and forced to choose one answer from two possibilities, to obey God's word, or to pursue his own will. And the name Jesus meant a lot to him standing at the crucial point of not only his life, but the life with Mary, more than that of the course of World History after that. Why did Angel tell him the name of Jesus, not any other possibilities? In his time, the name Jeses was a popular one among the Jews, and it is the Greek form of the name of Hebrew origin, and same as Joshua in the Old Testament. meaning “YHWH, the Lord saves/delivers.” As I told you, Joseph was sharply challenged by this angel whether to accept God’s will or only follow his own will or intention. And the name of the baby to be born from Mary made him certain to follow God’s plan for him. I think there are a couple of reasons for his decision. The first one was the name itself gives him an insight of his position in the history of his nation. The baby would inherit the name of Joshua, who was a national hero in history, the conqueror of the Palatine land from the enemy and divided it into the twelve tribes of Israel, according to the Book of Joshua. I know it caused a serious Palestine problem up to today, and the tensions among the people living there. But according the Joshua’s story, his main purpose was not to occupy the new land for the Israelite people but to obey the will of the Lord, YHWH. Joshua made the point very clear at the very end of the Book, asking the people who were led by him to choose any god for their family, but declared he and his family follow only the God of Israel, YHWH the Lord. “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:8) With the name “Jesus,” Joseph was reminded of the meaning of his national and personal identity at the same time. Should he just live for only his own welfare, or to serve the Lord to fulfill his lifelong mission beyond his perceptions? Joshua completed his life mission to lead his people as the successor of Moses by following only the Lord’s command. So, theoretically, as God ordered Joshua to occupy the Palestine land, he did it, and if God asked him to abandon his achievement, he should do it as before. I think this is the point to understand modern day Palestine problems, and it is not a political issue but the matter of faith of the people. Anyhow, by hearing the name Jesus, Joseph was challenged to accept God’s will. With the meaning of the name ”Jesus,” “YHWH, the Lord saves/delivers.” Joseph realized how to solve his difficult situation at that moment. Could he manage the situation not humiliating or hurting Mary, also keeping his justice for her and the society, since it was said “Joseph, her husband was faithful to the law,” (Matthew 1:19) And he was told that the new baby’s name was “the Lord saves.” Yes only God could help the situation to give him and Mary guidance what to do. At that crucial moment, if he could have relied on only his own solutions, what would happen after all? The name “Jesus” gave Joseph new hope to face the challenge and to overcome it. Also, more meaningfully, he could love Mary all with his heart and mind by following God’s guidance to accept her situation, that is to share with Mary’s challenge given by Gabriel. We believe in Jesus Christ, as we confess in the Apostolic Creed, and Jesus is not just the common name among the people but carries a deep message to Joseph and all believers in God. Do you truly believe in God and obey His will which has been clearly expressed and transmitted to us like “love your neighbors” and love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:33.34) which will be the only way to fulfill peace among us and our community. Then we can really feel “Immanuel”, God with Us, Let us pray: Merciful God, thank you for showing you Love through Christmas, and at the very beginning of our new year, we call the name Jesus, to be reminded the reality of Immanuel, God with us, whether we follow God’s will as Jesus showed all through his life to the Cross. Be with us always in the course of our days of the year of 2022, so that we could safely and confidently live our lives, praying “Your will be Done on earth.” Bless us all in the KUC and all who call the name Jesus, as our savior and deliverer. In His name we pray, Amen. |
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