“To the beloved”
Pastor Akiko Van Antwerpen Genesis 1:26-27 (NIV) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:26-27&version=NIV Genesis 1:31 (NIV) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A31&version=NIV 1 John 4:7-12 (NRSV) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4%3A7-12&version=NRSV As some of you might know, though some might not, just like many Japanese people, I grew up in a non-religious home. In my teenage years, I started struggling with my sense of self-worth. I got depressed often. I didn’t actually understand why. Back then, I didn’t like myself. I was not confident in myself. I felt like I needed to pretend to be happy. I was always afraid to show, and to share, my true self. I thought that my friends couldn’t handle the “real” me, because the “real” me was fragile, easily broken, full of darkness and so very sad. So I pretended. I pretended, pretending as if I were happy all the time, while inside I was not. It was so exhausting! I started skipping school a lot, because pretending was so much work, and I just couldn’t bring myself to go to school some days. I didn’t know why I felt so depressed, but deep down within myself I knew what I was looking for. I was looking for a love that embraced all that I was. I just wanted to hear someone say, “You are loved just the way you are.” I wanted that, but I was trying to find it in all the wrong places. For almost all my life, I was a very good student; not because I am especially smart, but because I worked really hard. I wanted to hear that “good job” from my family, especially my mom and my dad. Words of affirmation were what I was looking for; recognition of my worth, of the value of my existence. I thought that this kind of affirmation would lead to me finally receiving the love I was looking for. I wanted to be good enough, and I wanted to be loved. But that didn’t happen. Not because my parents weren’t loving or anything. They were good, kindhearted people; but they weren’t God. I was looking for love in all the wrong places, and this never-ending search for love led me to feel more and more empty. The story we have today is a really well known one: the creation story. God creates the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them. God creates light, sky, seas, plants, fruit trees, seeds, stars, every living creatures. (Genesis 1:1-25) And this isn’t just any type of creation. The verb used here in Genesis 1 which means “to create” [barah] is actually a word that only applies to God as the subject; it means only God can do this type of creation. No-one else, nothing else. It means that only God can create life like this! And then, we get to this point; the climax of God’s creation story. God makes us; humankind. And unlike when God made the heavens and the earth, we weren’t made from formless void and darkness. In verses 26 and 27, we get some repetition, which how we know something is really important. And what the writer of Genesis is emphasizing is this. God made humankind in God’s image. Last week, Pastor Chuck talked with us a little bit about the image of God. Pastor Chuck said that, to him, God is like a black grandmother. For some people, their image of God is an actual person. In recent weeks, I’ve led a few devotions based on this passage at staff meetings, in our mid-week worship, and at WoW(Women’s on Wednesday group). And in each case, I asked people: what image of God do you feel that you bear, as someone created by God, and in God’s image? I’ve received many different answers, such as “God is merciful,” “God is in control,” “God is grace,” “God is love,” “God is a redeemer.” “a Savior,” “a provider,” “the forgiver,” “teacher”. “doctor”, “prophet” or “the lover of my soul.” “God does not leave me alone.” “God is a presence.” As Christians, we are blessed to have the whole of scripture available to us, where we can dive in and grab hold of all these different images of God portrayed in these ways; All of these can be found in the scripture, and all are true of God. But even if we didn’t have any other books besides Genesis 1 available to us, we could still learn something profound about God just from looking at Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is all about God who is a special creator, unique; able to bring forth new life from nothing, out of a dark and formless void. God alone can create and can create something good. At the end of each day of creation, God looked upon everything God had made, and called it good. All God’s creations were good. Before any other aspect of ourselves comes into play, we are first created by God as something good. In the eyes of God, we aren’t built to consume or be consumed; not made to trade pieces of ourselves to gain reason for existence in life, or to work at being good enough. We don’t have to do anything to achieve that label of “good” and prove the worth. God made all of us good to begin with. Sometimes, this relationship between us and God is described as something like a parent/child relationship. When babies are born, they can’t really do anything. Parents, caregivers, siblings, and other adults have to do everything for them; feed them, change their diapers, put them to bed, help them burp, help them sit, help them bathe, help them walk….everything. But they are cute, loveable, and above all good. Without being able to do anything else, babies are good. In fact, it’s hard NOT to love them! Because we live in such a production-based, efficiency-oriented, productivity-driven society, sometimes we can easily start to see our relationship with God as transactional. The world tells us that we need to prove our productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness. And we start to look at our relationship with God in that lens. The other day, I saw a survey asking people how it was that they were able to remain productive during this COVID-19 pandemic. More than 50% of people who responded said that they were not able to remain productive. Some people said they couldn’t feel productive because they did not have enough time. Or others might have felt they were not productive because they had all these time to themselves at home, not knowing how to manage. I am certainly no exception for both! I made meals three times a day, did laundry multiple times per day, helped the children with their homework, and still tried to do work for the church as well. And not being able to do as much as I wanted to for the church honestly affected my sense of self-worth a little. I felt I was not good enough. And this type of thinking can easily slip into our Christian life as well. It’s easy to think we are God’s good creations because we do X, Y, and Z. We are good children of God because we pray. We are good children of God because we forgive. We are good children of God because we tithe. We are good children of God because we watch the online worship service and participate in zoom meetings! Obviously, I am not discouraging you not to do all these things. The point is that we sometimes need to examine why we do these things. When we look at this passage from Genesis, it is clear that none of this is what makes us good. Before we were able to do anything for ourselves or for our God, God called us good. And that is the message I heard when I first heard about our God who saves. My pastor told me that I was made in God’s image, and I was good. And I remember the tremendous relief I felt when I heard such good news. I finally found the first love that I was looking for. I realized that I did not have to do anything to earn this true love. I did not need to prove my worth to God. I was good just as I was. To me that was profound. So profound that I decided to live my life as a beloved child of God. So if any of you feel that you are not good enough for God, know that you are made good by our God, the God who created the heavens and earth, and all that is in it. Such a majestic, omnipotent God created you personally, forming your inward parts, knitting you together in your mothers’ womb. You are (we are) fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and you (we) are good. But as we all know of course, that good does not mean perfect. God said that we are good, but not that we are perfect. And this makes sense; after this chapter of Genesis, sin enters human life. And through that, humans become separated from their relationship with God. If you are like me, if you hear that we are not actually perfect, you might be tempted to try to be perfect by doing more “godly” things; more prayers, more tithing, more serving, more sacrifice, doing more and more and more for God. But those things do not lead us to be perfect creations of God. Doing does not lead us to perfection. God’s love does. Let’s look at the word from 1 John 4, which we also read today. It adds to what Genesis says about us humans. In Genesis, God created us to be good, but as you see, that is just the beginning. We are not made by God to be perfect creatures. As we all experience in life, we hurt each other. We see humans hurt each other and other creatures too. Our imperfections sometimes get institutionalized and systemized. Certain group of people get more hurt than others. Brokeness is everywhere. Despite all that, we are beloved. Read 1 John 4 again and pay attention to how many words of love we hear/see in this passage; it is a lot! Here we are called beloved, the same thing God called Jesus when he was baptized. God called Jesus beloved, saying that God was well pleased with him. That same love is poured into us, and lives in us; and that love can not only be pretty good for us, but in fact it can be perfected in us (as the verse 12 says) if we love one another. If you know the context of this passage, John, the writer of this book, his answer for the problem that John’s community was having is a bit of a surprise. This community was in conflict with a group of people who said Jesus was neither a human being or God. That kind of belief obviously could be a threat to John’s community, putting the very core belief as a Christian into questions. When we encounter a group of people that challenge something that we hold dear and true, it is very easy not to like them, not to love them, and then to act accordingly. However, John’s answer to these people in this situation was surprise. He says that people ought to love one another. Not because we have that kind of love inherent in ourselves, but because God is love. God loved us first. God loved us so much. That is why we can love such people. And it is even more humbling that John reminds us not to remember the sins of others. But John calls us to attention that God’s Son was sacrificed for our sins( v.10), not the sins of our enemies, or the sins of people that we don’t get along with. John says to look at our own sins. When I stop pointing fingers at the sins and failures of others, but simply look at others as God’s good creation, and look at my own sins, I experience God’s deep perfect love for me and others. Love grows bigger and gets close to its perfection. I can’t do this alone. I need God in me and besides me. We are made to be good. And this image of our good God lives in all humankind no matter where they are from, what skin color they have, or what religious views they might have. We are God’s good creation. But we know that the world we live is not perfect. We see oppression and violence done to people based on their skin color, ethnicity, religious views, abilities, performances, privileges, sexual orientations; for all these reasons and more, people hear from others that they are not good, or not good enough. We tell each other that others are not good, or good enough. But here is the good news. Through baptism, we became born of God. From the beginning of our lives, we bear an image of God in us. We also see in people this same image of God. Now we actually belong to that God who is love. Thus, we became called the beloved, and in this way God’s love can live in us, and as a result, we can love one another in perfect ways God desires for us. Friends, we belong to that God who is love. We have the ability to love one another in truth, to love not just our neighbors, but our enemies too, just as we love ourselves because we are God’s good creation. We start from a place of good, and grow from there into even more. We become beloved by God, and through that we can love more fully and truly, not because of an obligation to be good, but because God’s love has been poured into us before we even knew and loved God while we were sinners. The world God created, and which God so loved, becomes perfect just as the kingdom of heaven, when we love one another with the love we are reborn into. If we love one another, God’s love lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us. And that is indeed perfect news for us! Amen!
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Does your Father really love you?
Ephesians 3:17-19 (Amplified) Mark 10:17-22 (NIV) Pastor Chuck Grafft Sunday, June 21, 2020 In 2005 we got our first foster child, sort of by accident! We met her at a church camp. A former teacher of hers had agreed to take her for a couple of weeks as they couldn’t find anyone to take her! - not to camp - but to take her at all! She was an 11-year girl who had gotten in trouble and the truth was no one wanted her. So, this teacher had reluctantly agreed to take her for just a couple of weeks and had been booked for this camp so brought her along. The first day we met her was unusual. She just down sat next to Kelly during one of the messages and then asked if she could put her head in Kelly’s lap and then fell fast asleep. We had not met yet! It felt sort of ominous! That night and nights after that she would come to our cabin and share stories of living with her mean mom and brother and her mom’s periodic bad boyfriends or pretend dads. Her mom had told her clearly that her father had been a one-night stand and she would never meet him. One story she shared with us impacted me more than others- one of the temporary “dads”, or mom’s bad boyfriends as I called them, got mad at her for acting up- she was a strong personality and could get in trouble amazingly quickly. To punish her he took her and a puppy she had been given a few weeks prior out to the desert. He put the puppy outside the car and drove back leaving the puppy to die in the desert--- as a punishment for her. Lots of stories like that. So to make a long story short, at the end of that week at camp she asked- no begged us – to take her…and all my girls begged - like we were adopting a stray cat! I said that was sort of impossible- there is a system and it didn’t work like that and we- we were not one of those families! We also lived 500 miles from where she was from but…. yep, we scrambled around the courts bent some rules and we took her shortly after that. The first few weeks we had her she was like a wild animal. One of the first days she stayed with us she got upset and so,… climbed up on the roof! We had to make rules for her we had never had before with our own girls- like, you cannot open the car door and get out until the car stops! She was probably the most difficult and feral with me. She would absolutely literally melt down fairly often with me- drama on a scale I had never seen anywhere-ever- even on TV! One time we were in a store and I had told her ‘no’ to something she wanted and she just sat down on the floor of the store and started crying, loudly and really hard- I mean she was 12- my own kids never did that- even at 2 or 3- I just didn’t know what to do! I would just pray. In all of this a weird and cool thing happened for me- I felt a love for her which I felt come from God through me – a love I had never known or heard of. One of the most profound experiences in my life actually. God put in me what I feel is His love for us in a way that would make me slow down and become calm in ways I had never known. My own girls got upset with her though and started to be mad at how she was treating me. One day while she was freaking out and screaming and crying- about what I cannot even remember now- I suddenly said to her: “Heather, I’m the good dad.” “I’m the good dad.” It was a moment. We both stopped and looked at each other. I cannot remember exactly how we processed that – it was beyond words but I think we both felt and knew- this was God showing us that there is a Good Dad and I was representing that good dad for her and myself! She settled down and then asked if she could sit in my lap- she was 12 but if you had met her you might have guessed she was 8 or 9 and little. She curled up in my lap and fell asleep. This also felt like a moment and when she would do that it felt like it was a healing time for her spirit. I would usually work on my laptop while she slept! Funny now looking back. If you ever want to hear more stories of our foster kids, I’ve got a ton. I felt like we got profound spiritual lessons or moments almost daily. We learned a lot about love and what it looks like. We saw what it looks like up close when kids don’t think they are loved. In the years after that we took in lots of kids but also “big kids”- adults- so many of whom seemed to pine for, to long for, to want a father to love them- regardless of age. This is an issue we see all the time and why my hope was to put this in the light today and ask the Holy Spirit to do an intervention! I think our foster kids cases were extreme but in our talks with others, maybe half, maybe more, of the people we’ve counseled, or talked to, we see a gap in this understanding- they wonder if their father loved or loves them. Both earthly and heavenly and both affect and relate to one another. Even from regular homes, and what we’d call ‘good families’- but maybe the Dad worked a lot, was gone a lot, was not very expressive, or was just somehow distant or not very affectionate. My own father suffered a lot of his life due to some tragedies in his early childhood and then from his solution which was alcohol and the marine corp. These things made him a bit mean and gruff and not very loving. Years later my dad recovered and became a Christian. He was never very affectionate, but he found ways to show his love which make me, and others smile. One of the ways he showed his love is he would see an article he thought might interest me and send it to me. In later years he would see an email or internet article, print it out and send it to me. Sometimes I would point out that he could just forward an email but…this was a special thing for him. From the time I was about 20 till he died, my dad sent me -- pretty consistently-- a letter a day. A day- for some 30 years. Sometimes the way people show love is different and we can miss it- like the book on love languages- that’s a good one if you have not read it- helpful if you want to show someone you love them in a way they will most understand. Maybe we also struggle with seeing how God loves us either because the way is not easy to discern or because many have not had a great loving father image. God’s love for us and our awareness and knowledge of that though is key. It was an amazing transformation we witnessed with our foster kids when they started to see and feel and understand that we actually loved them- that we were doing this because we wanted to. That we would be their family in one form or another the rest of their lives- they changed. When you are loved, and you know it – it changes you. And if you are missing it- that also shapes you and shows. Many, no, most adults I know who are struggling- let’s just say ‘struggling’ and agree there are lots of ways and manifestations of struggle- I feel that if they knew- knew- experienced – that kind of knowing- the love of God, the love of the father- it would change their life. This is one of our primary missions. For me and Kelly we have seen the power of love- especially God’s love through us or others who channel God’s love. And if we can help people see this truth in the Bible – with their eyes and minds- it can enter their spirit. This is the key. This truth must be a thing you get with your spirit – so it can come in a hug or a verse or a gift, a song, or a kind word- but the truth and power of love must reach our spirits to do the magic. That kind of love- the love of the father, the love of God- when KNOWN in one’s inner being- that’s life changing and that’s our mission to bring and reveal and show some of. In the gospel of Mark chapter 10 we read the story of what is called the rich young ruler. He wanted to know what he needed to do to have eternal life. Jesus gave him an interesting challenge we don’t see elsewhere but was likely what he knew this one person needed to hear (good side lesson here for us! ) BUT as he looked at him, before the challenge or the response it says, Jesus looked at him and loved him: This touches me- he seemed to know him, to see him and in spite of what would happen next – that the guy would walk away- it says Jesus loved him. In Ephesians 3 which we heard read today- Paul’s desire for them is so deep and as relevant today as it was then- Paul starts this passage as a prayer that they would be rooted and grounded in love- lets read it again and I hope you will look this up and reread it and in different translations- I PRAY that we get it too -just like Paul prayed! 17 May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, 18 That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; 19 [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses [f]mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! Feels like we need a selah moment here for that! For some it might help to have creative permission to think about God’s love in a new way. We can pretty confidently say that God being a spirit and part of a mysterious triune God as Pastor Claudia tried to help us grasp- means God is not just a father/male entity. Its an image. He is not as many of us imagine, a stern old white man with a beard! In fact, it has helped me over the years to imagine God as an older black woman instead! Equally not accurate but the point is to help ourselves grasp this love. and for you it might be a coach or an aunt or a pastor or someone you felt like they heard you, they saw you and they loved you – even though they knew you! This is the love of God and if we can grasp this it can change us and how we love others. The other day I was reflecting with Kelly and said – you know this one guy we like listening to- he’s so good- so intense- he just seems to have the right words- great preacher but I asked her – who/what has actually changed our lives? I mean we have been walking with God as a couple for almost 40 years now- who and what has most actually impacted/changed us- and what’s funny is a couple of very simple people- but who truly knew their Bibles and lived love in their spirits – they changed us – good to see – really good to see I realized that Truth- the big stuff with Capital T is seen and heard with our senses or our minds but our spirits is where the action is- ever meet someone who talks true things, but something feels off or missing- its likely it has not penetrated their spirit. When the truth of God’s love touches our spirit, we change. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. I think sometimes we are too clever and try too hard. The other day a sister shared with us how after having gone to a Bible school and studying the scriptures intellectually she realized that she had lost some of that personal connection to the Holy Spirit that she had had when she first was saved. She repented for that. It was really moving. Knowledge is not the same as Truth. 1 Corinthians 8:1 warns us Knowledge [alone] makes [people self-righteously] arrogant, but love [that unselfishly seeks the best for others] builds up and encourages others to grow [in wisdom John 4:18 reminds us “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” My prayer for us today is this- that we would know, experience kind of know, the love of God, God the father, (or mother or grandmother) and that we would receive it, and then share it- this is fundamentally the way we will bring heaven to earth and I would like to remind us that this is way Jesus taught us to pray- to a father, to our heavenly father and that His kingdom would come here on earth as in heaven – this is our mission and I believe it starts with a foundation in love. 1 John 4:19 tells us, “we love because he first loved us.” Ok- please pray with me- I’ll pray and if you agree in your heart just say yes or amen to each point you agree with: Father, thanks for being the Good dad- maybe the one we never knew till you Thanks for loving us in a way that changes us as we receive it in our hearts or spirits and changes us even more as we pass it on! I pray now for anyone who is listening to this who is not sure they KNOW this love But who want to Father pour out a new level of and experience of your love to us this morning and renew us with it Show us people and ways we can share this love so we can get refilled and be fountains, hoses, streams and not buckets or jars of love which we worry about running out of but rather faucets of love In Jesus name – amen Ok- come to Sunday School at 1030 if you’d like to discuss this more - we have one class in English and one in Japanese – just click the Sunday School Options on the front page of the website. Ok see you there! Overzealous Hammering
1 Kings 19:11-13 Romans 5:1-8 Rev. Don Van Antwerpen Sunday, June 14, 2020 Seventeen years ago, when I was an undergraduate student back in the United States, I got into a bit of an accident getting out of bed one morning. I know it sounds mundane, maybe even a little bit silly, but when I was getting out of my very high bed, the ladder I used to get in and out of bed broke, and I fell. I landed...very badly. When I hit the ground, I had destroyed my right wrist completely. It wasn’t just broken; the way I had fallen had crushed all the bones in my wrist. It was a disaster. I didn’t realize it at that exact moment, but what had happened to me was even bigger than just the physical pain. This accident had repercussions that went much, much farther beyond that. At the time I was a music composition student, but, because of this accident, I had now just lost the ability to play any musical instruments, possibly forever. I was a college student who could no longer write and, after taking weeks in the hospital and a little longer still for rehabilitation...I was a college student who had to somehow make up all that missing classwork without being able to write or type. Over the course of a few months, I began to realize what had happened. I hadn’t just gotten hurt...my life had been completely derailed. Everything I had ever worked for was in ruins, and there was no possible way to go back to the path I had been on. So, as most people in their early 20s do when confronted with existential crises, I retreated. I ran away from everything; stopped doing my classwork, stopped even going to classes….everything. I figured that, since it was all going to fall apart anyways, I may as well just give up; stop caring, and try to hide out until the school finally kicked me out, putting an end to a game I already knew to be lost. Life had hammered me down hard, and all I knew how to do was hammer back at whoever and whatever else was around me. Then, one day, a professor of mine pulled me aside and asked “What are you doing?” When I tried to tell him that it didn’t matter what I was doing, because it was all falling apart anyways...he surprised me. “That’s not true,” he said, “All you have to do is go to this class, participate in these programs, and you can still make it through. If you hang in there, this doesn’t have to be the end!” Personally, I thought he was nuts. I couldn’t imagine coming back from a place like that. It just didn’t seem reasonable to endure the situation I had been given. But, both in this instance and many more after, he was completely right. It took time, endurance, and effort...but it was possible after all. Undergrad wound up taking seven years instead of four, but things did get better. There is, surprisingly, always hope. Today’s story about Elijah is, I think, my favorite example of this weird, sometimes awkward way of stumbling through suffering. Though I didn’t get it at first, this was one for the first bible stories I ever really got into. I remember the first time I read today’s passage; I couldn’t have been more than 11 or 12. I was a not-so-cute middle schooler, and I was tethered to my Bible. I took it with me to school every day, and I would just sit around whenever I could, reading it. And I LOVED this passage. I loved it because it felt deep. I loved it because it felt powerful. Elijah is just sitting alone on a mountaintop, hanging out in a cave looking for God (as one does), and he gets hit by a hurricane, an earthquake, AND a fire; one right after the other. I remember reading this for the first time, imagining a patient Elijah getting just knocked around by these disasters, and just being amazed at the awesome power of God. And then…we find out that God wasn’t in the wind, or the quake, or the fire; God was in the silence. And 12-year-old me was just blown away! God was so strong that the presence of God didn’t need the destructive fanfare of all these earth-shattering disasters. God’s power was so strong it didn’t have to be loud. I thought about this passage for days, weeks even, so strong was this message for me. So strong, that it wasn’t until years later that I came back to it and noticed what it was that God actually said: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And Elijah answers, doing his level best to put a good spin on things, but the truth is that Elijah wasn’t on that mountaintop just because. He wasn’t up there because he was some mystical figure out searching for a closer relationship with God. He wasn’t some Moses-like figure ascending the great mountain so that he could zoom-chat with the almighty. He was up there because he had screwed up. Badly. Elijah had made some serious mistakes, and at that time he was running for his life. . He had angered the queen of his nation, and she was out for blood. His life was on the line, and he needed help. He needed to escape. He was desperate. You see, back in the Kingdom, not too long ago, Elijah had gotten himself involved in a God-summoning contest with a group of priests of Baal. Elijah had put our REAL God against the not-so-real God of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Of course, our God obviously won this confrontation, and the priests of Baal were publicly embarrassed. Elijah was triumphant; his zealousness for God had won the day! But then, caught up in his zeal for God, he took it too far, and ordered the priests of Baal chased down to the river and killed. He shouldn’t have done that. As Christians, we understand our God to be a God who wants that none should perish, but Elijah was so caught up in his self-righteousness at having led “team God” to victory, that he didn’t think it through. He knew he could; but didn’t consider if he should. Of course, Queen Jezebel was having none of this. She was furious! Bad enough that Elijah had publicly embarrassed the god she worshipped, but now he’d killed the priests too! Enough is enough! So…she threatened his life, and chased him out of the kingdom. Elijah ran scared, all because he was so focused on doing what he though God wanted that he managed to screw everything else up. His understandable mistakes snowballed into bigger and bigger disasters, until he’s hiding, terrified, in a mountain cave getting hammered by natural disasters. You know, I often imagine myself as Elijah in that cave, terrified and watching as my life just keeps going from bad to worse. When the fire dissipated, and that eerie silence fell, I don’t imagine him thinking “Oh, well this has got to be God.” I imagine him thinking, “…oh no. What now?” I mean, wouldn’t you? Just…statistically speaking, by this point in the story, it makes way more sense that something else is going wrong, right? But then, Elijah does something truly and completely amazing. He manages to have a “come to Jesus” moment 900 years before the birth of Christ! Elijah realizes the truth we later get in 1 John; So, he sets aside his fear, his pain, and his suffering, and he steps out into the silence… And, God challenges Elijah. God pushes Elijah. God doesn’t say “I’m so sorry this happened to you, let me fix everything!” No…God asks him “What are you doing here?” Why have you run away? Not only doesn’t God magically fix the problem, but God’s instructions to Elijah from here send him right back into harm’s way. He gets sent back out into the wilderness, with new tools to face the same problems. Elijah messed up. Hard. And he suffered as a result. But whether his suffering was the result of his own mistakes or not, the answer wasn’t escape…it was to confront what had happened, and to try to make things better. To try to make up for them by continuing the work, at God’s command, even better than before. And in accepting this call to endure, great things happened. Elijah meets Elisha, works great change in the kingdom, and eventually lives to see the repentance of the king before Elijah becomes one of the few people ever taken bodily up into heaven by God. But the path to that great and hopeful end doesn’t start from a place of perfection. It starts from a place of suffering, built from his own mistakes. Our hope lies in the fact that no matter how things started, no matter whether or not the circumstances are our fault, this suffering is the beginning of the journey, not the end of it. Because God has a plan. In Romans we get this wonderful line: “… we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” As Christians, we don’t just boast in our hope; that’s easy. We boast in our sufferings too, because we know that in the end they bring us closer to God. Of course, this path doesn’t always look the same for everyone. Sometimes, this path is a path of endurance; a way for us to navigate through circumstances beyond our control. We experience our own suffering, which is given to us by people or situations beyond our control, and we are inspired to endure that suffering rather than to submit to it. We choose to go on, rather than to give up. This endurance gives us a strength of character, and guides us towards the hope we have in Christ. Sometimes, that’s all it means. But for me, as someone who regularly makes all sorts of mistakes, I feel like this passage means even more. When we screw up, no matter how bad, we suffer, and bring suffering down on those around us. And when that happens, the instinct is to retreat; to run away from the pain, and the embarrassment, and to spare those around you from any further damage, just like Elijah did; just like I tried to all those years ago. But…when we run away…God just asks…”What are you doing here?” Because the next step isn’t retreat. It’s to endure. Rather than running away from that suffering, we need to endure it; to face the consequences of our own overzealous hammering without dodging or denial. And when we endure like this, when we confront our failings, learn from them, atone for them and work to rebuild, things get better. We become better people than we were before by confronting our failures than by avoiding. Endurance produces character. It’s here that we can find our hope in the realization that God didn’t sacrifice for us because we are a sinless folk who just happened to be victims of circumstances. God proved God’s love for us by dying for us while we were still sinners. While sometimes trouble does just come to us, even when we continue to make terrible, horrible mistakes, God’s love is just as present with us. Though there are times where things do just…happen…to us, times where suffering simply comes, the one thing that we all have in common is that we make mistakes. Individually, as communities of believers, as people, as races, as nations; as groups of every size and distinction, we are united by the fact that we all too often make serious, terrible, seemingly unforgivable mistakes. As some of you may know, this is the issue my home country, the United States, is wrestling with today. Our country has been a nation of oppression for centuries; since even before we were a nation, really. Our people have oppressed others among us because of their skin color, caused untold suffering, pain and death simply because those of us with light skin tended to think we were better than others. We were so zealous for ourselves, that we spent hundreds of years running right over others. We have allowed white supremacy to blossom in our hearts, allowed ourselves to benefit from oppression, and allowed God’s beloved children among us to suffer needlessly for generations. And all the while, even in the midst of all this pain, when we look at communities of color in the US we can see the Spirit of God at work. They have suffered mightily, but they have demonstrated an unbelievable endurance; the endurance of a people who have patiently been pushing for God’s justice for centuries, while the rest of us sat around and waited. Theirs is truly a Godly endurance, because it goes beyond any one person; it is an endurance passed down father to son, mother to daughter, day in and day out. It is as remarkable as it is tragic. And in their endurance, these communities show the character that God has grown up among them. The character of a people who, despite being so long and so violently oppressed, are even now seeking justice, rather than revenge. The character of a little girl, still mourning the loss of her father, who saw the protests his death inspired, and said with pride “daddy changed the world!” This isn’t just godly character. This is literally who God is. Our hope is that, in Christ Jesus, we might be able to someday become a people as filled with grace as these. In the end, whatever our suffering, whatever the cause, this path from the wilderness of suffering, to that terrifying mountain top encounter with God, through endurance and character building, always leads us to hope. Our suffering might be long or it might be short. Our suffering might be caused by others, or it could be something we did to ourselves, but is always temporary; it doesn’t last forever. And if we just endure a while in God’s service, we will grow beyond it into the hope of mercy and forgiveness in Christ. So as the wind blows, and the ground shakes, and the fire rages, just remember that God isn’t in any of that. The disasters that surround us aren’t where God is. And as the winds die down, and the earth settles, and the fires dissipate, and we listen to the word of God calling us to go out and face whatever it was that drove us up the mountain…don’t lose hope. Because our hope is in Christ. Our hope is in the God who knows we are imperfect, who knows that we suffer, and who knows that sometimes we can be “overzealous,” but loves us all just the same. We are welcomed by the creator, given access to grace and forgiveness by the Son, and empowered by the Spirit to be agents of that hope that never disappoints. And that is pretty good news indeed. Scripture: John 16:12-15
KUC June 7, 2020 Pastor Claudia Last week was Pentecost! We had a wonderful and celebrative service! This Sunday is known on the church calendar as Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday of the church year focused on a doctrine in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are responding to God's response of discipleship and living as Jesus' disciples in the world in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit- God in three persons. - this is not easy to explain. It is one of the mysteries of our faith. The word “Trinity” does not even appear in the Bible. The Bible even makes it harder to understand by making it sound like there are three independent of each other or within each other, Jesus says; “I am going to him who sent me,” in John 16. He also said,” Nevertheless I tell you the truth: , for if I do not go away, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate (the Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send the Spirit to you. “ Jesus also says; “All that the Father has is mine and declare it to you.” John 14:9,11 says, ". . . Anyone who has seen me (Jesus) has seen the Father. . . Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. . ." John 14:25-26 "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name (Jesus) will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." If they are all one, how can they come and go at different times? How can one of them send another of them? It is not easy for us humans to describe God although believers throughout the centuries have tried. Let me give an example from one of our so called early church fathers, St. Augustine, who lived during the years 354 –430 AD He was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. St Augustine was walking along the seashore one day while pondering the doctrine of the Trinity -Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine seemed to hear a voice from the Holy Spirt saying, "Pick up one of the large sea shells there by the shore." So he picked it up. Then the voice said, "Now pour the ocean into the shell." And he said, "Lord, I can't do that." And the voice answered, "Of course not. In the same way, how can your small, finite mind ever hold and understand the mystery of the eternal, infinite, triune God?" The Trinity - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - all the same but all distinct the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Spirit. Easy to remember; hard to understand. We sang a hymn; “Holy , Holy , Holy” and the last line in the first stanza was “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” A Triangle is sometimes used for the Trinity. It is one triangle but has three sides. It is a symbol of the Trinity. Another well-known icon who tries to explain the mystery of the holy trinity is St. Patrick. St. Patrick was a missionary around the year 400 to Ireland and, according to legend, he explained around the 5th century to the pagan Irish that the Trinity was like a three- leaf shamrock (a clover growing around Ireland). One shamrock with three leaves to represent the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And yet another example of the Triune God used by one of my church members giving a children’s message is that the Trinity is like water in its three states as water, ice, and steam. Last week in our celebration of Pentecost, we talked about the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit which filled the disciples to go out and preach. On Trinity Sunday, I’d like to mention how the Holy Spirit is our source of guidance in this world. In our lesson from John’s Gospel, Jesus is teaching his disciples. He says to them, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when Spirit of truth, comes, the Spirit will guide you into all truth.” Jesus knew that his disciples were going out into a hostile world. They would need both power and guidance. Jesus himself would no longer be with them in the flesh. But he would be with them through the power of the Holy Spirit. Today we live in a hostile word. I watch the news from CNN and talked to Pastor Chuck who is in Long Beach, California, a block away from all the looting. Pastors Chuck and Kelly were hearing gun shots from their apartment. They say their favorite dollar store was set on fire. They observed looting out on the streets from their balcony of their apartment window. They heard gunshots from a block away and saw helicopters flying overhead. We live in a world with racism, violence, and hatred. But we also live in a world with love, compassion, and caring. The Holy Spirit gives us power. The Holy Spirit gives us guidance. There are times in our lives when we need a guide we can depend on. More so today than ever. When we speak of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are in essence saying that we believe in the Creator God, we believe in Jesus , God’s unique presence in the world in human flesh, and we believe in Christ’s Spirit at work today in the world and in our individual lives. When some of us at KUC (the Mislang family and Erik) took rice balls (onigiri) to the homeless, the last homeless person we found turned out to be a homeless man that Miyatani san (Meg’s mom) makes dinner for on a regular basis. Now was that a coincidence or a God-incidence? Sometimes things happen in our lives that we cannot explain like running into someone we have not seen for a while or, as we heard in Adult Sunday School last week, receiving a gift of groceries after having given away money. Now is it a co-incidence or a God-incidence? Let the Holy Spirit tell you. It’s interesting how many little God-incidences happen to those who yield themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These are incidences of God breaking into our lives. During this pandemic, pause to feel nudged by the Holy Spirit to do something or contact someone you have not heard from for a while. Be open to any God-incidences that may occur. I believe in the Holy Spirit. There are times the Spirit nudges me and something happens. It is not intuition. There are times when I ignore or misread these gentle signs – but if we can stay tuned in our spiritual lives, then these “nudges” become more and more frequent and we can learn when and where the Holy Spirit is guiding us. People meeting people, people getting resources they need, people connecting to God – these are some of the ways the Holy Spirit works and moves in our lives, surprising, guiding and saving us, Jesus told his disciple they would not be alone. He sent the Holy Spirit which has been around the beginning of time to be with them. The fire of the Spirit burned in their hearts and guided them to go forth out into the world. This question of the Trinity cannot be dealt with on just one Sunday out of the year. It is instead a journey into the life of God - an ongoing process responding to a Triune God who asks us to live in a merciful and compassionate community. We may have trouble understanding all of it but it is how we have been baptized into of our faith in the church. We take a leap of faith. God is before and beside us. The Holy Spirit guiding us. We have had a number of baptisms at KUC, and as pastor I have the privilege and blessing of saying these words, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." It is the core of our faith. So Trinity Sunday is a chance for us to come together in our faith and be reshaped and be transformed in the Father, and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. In closing I will share a story. My son Koh had a kite as a child. We would go to Nogawa Park in West Tokyo where he would run …… He would stand there hoping it would fly then he would run to get it to fly but if there was no wind, it did not fly. It fell to the ground. That is like us. If we just stand there, nothing is going to happen. We need the wind, the Holy Spirit to move. Also Our church needs the Holy Spirit to move. Remember, the word for wind or breath in Hebrew - “Ruach”- is the same word for Spirit. In the life of the Christian and of the church, if there is no wind of the Spirit, nothing of significance happens. We need the wind! We need Ruah! The breath of God. The life-giving wind of God to blow us in new directions! We will be wide open to as much of that mighty wind of the Spirit as God is willing to give. Be open to God’s Holy Spirit moving in your life . Amen. |
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