Let me begin my testimony by saying 2 famous quotes from 2 influential people the world has come to recognize.
NO ONE IS USELESS IN THIS WORLD THAT LIGHTENS THE BURDEN OF SOMEONE ELSE. -Charles Dickens THE BEST WAY TO FIND YOURSELF IS TO LOSE YOURSELF IN THE SERVICE OF OTHERS.
And that is true. We were truly blessed last Friday! You know why? Let me tell you. . . After work and after school last Friday, me and our kids met at Sannomiya station. We were all tired from work and school but we were happy to celebrate Ofie’s birthday. We all bought delicious Burger King hamburgers. Who would not like a delicious big Burger King hamburgers to celebrate. After buying some, we uttered a prayer to the Lord: The prayer goes like this: Dear Lord, we thank you for all the blessings you have given us. Our food, house, jobs and our lives. Thank you for Mama’s birthday. Bless he even more. Now Lord, may that blessing be extended also to others. Lord lead us to any homeless man or woman that would benefit from this food that we bought. We pray that as we give to their needs, we can also share the love of Jesus to them. Amen So there we go, for 2 hours we walked at night in the streets of Sannomiya to celebrate Ofie’s birthday. The most joyous celebration of all, that is, to seek and save the lost for Christ. Yes, we found some of them. We gave them food and a Bible, and prayed for them. My brothers and sisters in Christ, truth to be told: The joy comes in giving not in receiving. True happiness comes when we follow what Jesus did, He gave His life for us so that we could be saved! That is true JOY! The joy in giving oneself for others. We have been doing this family tradition for the past 7 years every time we celebrate our birthdays. We give something for the homeless, not only food, but most importantly, spiritual food that comes from knowing our Lord Jesus. Praise the Lord! I was glad that we were able to minister and give to some 4 to 5 people at Sannomiya. We have been giving to about the same number of people every year. And I remembered last year I asked the Lord, “Lord, we want to give more. We want to reach out to more people for the gospel of Christ.” The Lord answered that prayer. Last October 10th, I was privileged to be part of planning committee by the MMIM church and the Evangelism and Discipleship Ministry of KUC. We planned to reach the homeless people of Japan with the gospel of hope and salvation. We prayed for a place that God would lead us. The answer came. Ofie knew of a place where a lot of homeless people roam around because she was previously working part time near that place. She said she has never seen so many homeless people in her life. It’s like a whole town full of them. Everywhere you go, you see them either sleeping, drinking liquor, or just chilling out in the streets. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE! This was near Shin-Imamiya station near Tennoji Osaka. We needed to coordinate, pray and plan. “Lord is this the place you would want us to minister?”. The answer is a resounding YES! We coordinated with Gideon’s Bible Japan and got 40 free Japanese Bibles to distribute. Next we were able to buy gospel tracks. We also managed to buy 40 pieces of hotdogs and drinks from Costco. Also, because we are not that fluent in speaking Japanese, we wrote what to say to them. We made the script in English then translated into Japanese by some of our Japanese friends including Megumi Miyatani. (Thanks Meg) There were 7 of us that went to that place. We were a bit nervous because we have never been to such a place before. There were concerns if it was safe. But we trusted God that this is His work and not ours. If it is His work, where He calls, He protects and He provides. We divided into 2 groups so we can quickly minister. (START to SHOW POWEPOINT SLIDE) In the 1st slide is a man that we were able to minister. As you can see, he was very eager to listen then pray. Actually in this picture, he followed me in the prayer of accepting Jesus as Saviour. In the 2nd next slide you can see how they were all lined up in the street. There you see Vicko and Camille, Joyce and Ptr. Marion praying for the homeless people. 3rd slide you can see the joy in this man reading the Bible. There was joy in his eyes when he received the food. He was happy he was prayed for. 4th slide you can see the rain was getting stronger, but that did not change our agenda. The agenda was to bring food and the gospel to this people no matter what. These people need the Lord. We are sent by God for this purpose and rain will not stop us sharing the gospel of Christ to them. 5th slide you can see we were praying out loud for these people in the middle of the street. I deliberately pray out loud so that the other people will hear the name of Jesus. 6th slide, this man is mentally challenged. He was shouting and talking to himself. Actually Ofie was kinda scared of him. But then when I shared the gospel and prayed for him, he kept quiet and he also prayed. He was glad to receive the food and the Bible. From slide 7 to 9 are other pictures where you can see we were all so engaged in sharing the love of Christ. We were all sent on a mission by God for these people. We were united in a common goal. In the last picture, we found a park full of them. But we run out of Bibles and food. We said to ourselves, we should have brought more food and Bibles. (zanen!) We went back home with a strong desire to come back and give more, knowing we have planted the Word of God in the hearts of these people. AMEN! THE JOY IS IN GIVING! THAT IS TRUE! That leads me to the question I posted at the beginning. “Do you see Jesus in the streets?” The answer, Yes, I do see Him there. When He said “Whatever you do to the least of these you do it to me”. My brothers and sisters, this does not mean Jesus can only be seen in the streets. Jesus can also be seen in your family. Jesus can also be seen in your work. Jesus can also be seen in your church. JESUS CAN BE SEEN EVERYWHERE. Whenever there is someone in need, remember that Jesus takes it personal. Why? Because, When we feed them, we feed Jesus. When we cloth them, we cloth Jesus. When we visit them, we visit Jesus. My hope and prayer for all of us in this church is that we do what the Lord wants us to do. Not just to go to church but “To go out and BE THE CHURCH”. We are God’s hands and feet in this world. His love flows through us to others. May we be a blessing to all the people we encounter. When the Lord asks us who will He send, may we say. . . “Here I am Lord, send me.” Let us pray. . .
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Hello Kobe Union church family. Greetings from beautiful Temecula California. Yes I’m no longer in Long Beach and lot has changed in the past year. I’ve longed to come back and see you all but covid and life circumstances has prevented it.
It seems like ages ago that Chuck and I were there with you all in Kobe and I’d like to share with you some of twists, turn, trials and triumps God has taken me through during this time. I loved the message Pastor Claudia gave about Job. I can relate to a lot of it although my situation hasn’t been nearly as dramatic I too feel like I was stripped of everything that was familiar and comfortable in my life within a very short period of time. Some of you know that Chuck was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of prostate cancer back in 2012 and given only 2-4 years to live. He was told he would need surgery, chemo and radiation but still not guaranteed he could beat it. He felt lead and we as a family agreed to trust God for his healing since we had already seen so many healing miracles in our own ministry over the years. They tested him regularly and were always shocked to see that the cancer never spread. We continued to travel to Japan to run our business The Foreign Buyers’ Club which we started in the mid 80’s and we began working closely with Kobe Union Church. Our lives were blessed. God gave us 4 daughters and who all married wonderful husbands and He always provided comfortable homes for us to live in and met our needs. When we left Japan we were fully intending to wait out covid and head straight back to Japan and pick up where we left off. We were working on closing FBC and focusing on full-time ministry. Chuck absolutely loved KUC and ministering to you all there! Unfortunately, not long after returning to the states his health took a turn for the worse and so did FBC. We began closing down the business in late 2020. By May of 2021 the cancer had spread all over his body. He lost the use of his legs and FBC was officially done. It was gut wrenching watching my best friend and soul mate lose everything. The prayers and support of all of our Christian friends were my lifeline through all of this. People came to the hospital to pray, they prayed together with us on zoom and encouraged us in so many ways. On June 28th I stood by as he took his last breath and went to be with the Lord. Suddenly in an instant my life as I had known it was over. Weirdly I felt tremendous peace which I knew could only come from the Holy Spirit. That peace carried me through those first weeks and even months as I sorted through the details of rearranging my life without my best friend. But then as time went on I felt empty and without purpose. We had so many plans for our future and now I felt I had no future. How could I ever minister without Chuck after all we were always known as Chuck and Kelly. I felt like there was no Kelly without Chuck. He was the charismatic one, the outgoing extrovert I was his supporter. What could I do without him? In my despair I isolated myself and didn’t deal with my grief in healthy ways. I was going down a lonely dark path when I finally reached out and asked for help. God is such a gentleman, he never forces anything on us but when we reach out He's there ready to turn things around for us. In June 2022 the husband of my youngest daughter Madi got a job offer in Temecula where Kristin my oldest daughter and her family had already moved to and they asked me to move with them. Miraculously we found a house down the street from Kristin. I started counseling to deal with my grief and the unhealthy ways I was dealing with my loss and found a wonderful community of Christians to fellowship with. Now I’m training to be a counselor myself and can see how God is taking what was meant for my destruction and using it to help others. Chuck and I always lived by the Bible verse Pastor Claudia mentioned in her sermon Romans 8:28. Our short version of it is ‘Better than before’. I still miss Chuck every single day but I don’t live in the dark any longer thinking I have no future. My future is bright. I have my 4 daughters their husbands and 6 beautiful grand children around me. We all go through tough stuff in life. Jesus tells us in John 16:33 In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. And in Romans 8:28 he promises that He will work all things out for good. Not just some things but all things. So take heart when going through struggles of your own. Don’t blame God. He’s there to help. Reach out to someone and don’t isolate. And always pray for each other. Your prayers are more powerful than you know. Something is bothering you. Something is depressing you. Something is causing you pain. Something is holding you back. Something is blocking your ability to forgive. Something is exhausting you.
Now close your eyes and breathe. Really breathe. Deep down from the bottom of your belly. (That is where Japanese say your “ki” is – in the belly.) Now breathe in an out- pregnant with your breathe. Breath in and out breathing in what is called in Hebrew “Ruah” or God’s breath. God’s breath is life. Keep breathing until you have breathed God’s breath with your breath into your head, your heart, and all parts of your body, especially in areas you feel stress or pain. Breathe as I pray. Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew. Amen. Job 27:3-4 says, “as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not say anything wicked, and my tongue will not utter lies.” In the Book of Job, we can read how Job is having a very hard time. In English, we have an idiom for a person or situation that is causing or having much difficulty. We say that someone is having “a devil of a time.” Well, Job in this case, Job is literally having “a devil of a time.” In 36 long chapters, Job has lost everything - his children, his home, his wealth, his cattle, his sheep, his servants, his social standing…and the devil is behind it in this story. (Spoiler alert: God is always stronger than Satan and has authority of Satan.) You don’t need to be Job to know what it means to suffer. Many of us may have experienced pain or even the ache of God’s seeming silence. (See Psalm 13:1) Real struggle hurts. It marks us in ways we don’t even always realize when it happens. Years can pass before we begin to comprehend the marks and scars experiences in our lives. It can leave us wounded and different for the rest of our days. You or someone you know may have had someone you care for deeply die, or a job you didn’t get, or a college you didn’t go to, or a dream deferred? (See Langston Hughes’ poem, “A Dream Deferred”) As it says in Proverbs; “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12) Japanese say, “Kokoro ga shindoi.” People can psychically and mentally and emotionally become sick when things go bad. But people change after any struggle. Sr. Joan Chittister once said, “Struggle brings us to a point in life after which will become new people, sometimes worse, often better, but always different.” We cannot avoid struggles in our lives. Often times it takes place deep down inside of us. No external enemy is nearly as demanding, as damaging, as destructive as the enemy within, the one of our own doing is our own list or pride or greed or jealousy or anger or PTSD or addiction or gluttony or lack of forgiveness or discouragement or lack of self-worth or anything that takes us down… It is our innate compassion and humility and self-knowledge and justice and courage that causes us to become our better selves. Can we say with the apostle Paul, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians 4:12)? But can we always be “content in every situation”? Can we actually say, for example, “I know how to endure years of chronic pain” or “I know how to face financial disaster,” or “I know how to continue to be abused” or “I know how to give up my whole life’s dream to care for someone” or “I know how to be betrayed”? or “I know how to grieve over the death of a loved one?” Sometimes we may have heard people speak of the “endurance” or “patience” or “persistence” or “perseverance” of Job (slightly different words - depending on which Bible translation you use). The word “persevered” is found in James 5:11, which was read today. “As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” Though James may see it that way, Job doesn’t see it that way. At least not at first. Job’s first reaction is to wish he had never been born (Job 3:3), then to call out to the heavens for a one-on-one confrontation with God. (Job 10:1-3, 23:3-5) In the midst of this crisis, his friends - Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite try to offer him their comfort and bits of their wisdom. So, they preach to Job for a very long time, for most of 36 chapters. They have plenty to say but their counsel just does not help Job and he calls them "miserable comforters" (Job 16:3), and he spends almost the whole book arguing with them. Have there been times in your life when you have had a crisis and your friends or even the church has not responded in a way that was helpful? I can think of times when I wish my friends had just sat with me rather than try to offer advice on what I should be doing. But, of course, it depends on the situation and also who is giving the advice as well. But oftentimes it is just a listening presence that is needed. Anyway, at the end of the Book of Job, the Lord doesn’t think Job’s buddies did a very good job of comforting Job either. We read in scripture, “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has….You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8) In spite of his friends’ words, Job is somehow is able to his trust in God. “…I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live. “ (Job 27:5) Throughout the Book of Job, Job continues to ask God for justice because he knew his heart was right and his conscience clear. But finally at the end of the book, God finally speaks and Job just falls face down in reverence. He humbles himself before the Lord. Job does not succumb to self-blame, guilt, or pious explanations. He rejected the religious arguments such as: ---"You must have deserved this. You are being punished for your sins.” ---“This was all God’s will.” ---“If you really had faith, then you shouldn’t grieve.” ---"You just need more faith.” How does this make someone feel? Even the most faithful comforters cannot always understand the depths of our sorrows, or always speak the right word in the right tone, or discern our ever-changing needs. But there is one who has promised, “I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:20) Job held onto his sense of rightness, his right to feeling his feelings, to grieve, to suffer, to be angry at the injustice. We have a right to our feelings and do not let others say you don’t. God can take our cries of anger, pain, and frustration. God will listen just as God was listening to Job the whole time. Finally, “then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.” (Job 38:2) God comes to us in the most unexpected ways at times – a burning bush, the wind, a storm, and in still small voice. God had heard all of Job’s questions and heard the answers provided by Job’s friends but the Lord then asks many questions – for four long chapters of them. God is asking a bunch of rhetorical questions to Job to show Job that God is God and Job is just a man. And that God can do all things! Another point that I would like to make is that God may have plans for us and want what is good or best for us but we mess it up or perhaps un expected circumstances mess it up or unexpected disasters. But God uses the difficulties to God’s glory if we can live through them knowing God is there. I also pray that we have a caring community to help support us through the times we are in need when we cannot struggle on our own. No one wants to suffer or will be happy about suffering. But God can help us to use the suffering we face as fuel for our journey. God can also send people to help us. People who have gone through suffering can be healers to others. In his 1972 book The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen writes: “Our service will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from a heart wounded by the suffering about which we speak.” Often the most effective healer is the one that is not only wounded but able to realize and practice out of a space where the wound itself is used in ministry and healing towards and of others. Perhaps Job went on to help others who had suffered. Perhaps he could be a helper and healer to others who needed help. We do not know what happens next for Job other than he is blessed once again. But hopefully we can take the pain and suffering we have gone through to help others in similar experiences. Hopefully we can help other broken people out of our brokenness once we have been healed. We do not do this alone but through our community and prayer and knowing that God will not leave us. We are not alone. Disasters and unexpected things happen. We may suffer. But we also have free will and we make our own choices. Oftentimes these are not always the best choices. Thus, we may have to pivot. We go to Plan B or Plan C. God might be disappointed we didn’t follow God’s Plan A for our lives. But God will be with us even when we fail. God be with us when we stray and God’s Holy Spirit guides us back to the best path for us to take. We may stumble again but God will never ever leave us. God is and will always be there to catch us, hold us, and show us the way. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) There are people who are going through hard times in our church and community. People who are struggling. We can pray and support one another. As it says in scripture, “I urge you…but our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.” (Romans15:30) God will use our life experiences for God’s glory. ““Praise be to the God….. who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) Jesus has seen every kind of sorrow, heard every cry of grief, and knows every type of pain. “When we search for someone, anyone, to know what it means to walk in our shoes, Jesus emerges as the preeminent and truest companion to our afflictions” is what a pastor and writer, Zach Eswine says. (Spurgeon’s Sorrows, 85). We have Jesus Christ, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…” (Isaiah 53:3), and Jesus leads our way. Job’s story ends in the 42nd chapter but our story continues. Our story continues with God’s Holy Spirit guiding us. The Holy Spirit shows us how we can be a community that deals creatively with struggles. Also, in our life we continue to remember that God, who breathed life into us, is a God who will never leave us. Let’s take a moment to breathe once again. In and out. When Jesus breathes life into our lowly body and raises it up in glory, we can be sure it’ll be the end to everything else that’s broken. I would like to have Pastor Kelly Grafft, Pastor Chuck’s widow in California, now share just a portion of her testimony which includes some of her struggles. But prayer and community have helped her. God has given her a purpose in life. We all need to feel a sense of purpose given to us by God in spite of our struggles in life. (Pastor Chuck passed away June 28, 2021. May his memory be eternal.) “My Life After” By Pastor Kelly Grafft Hello Kobe Union church family. Greetings from beautiful Temecula California. Yes, I’m no longer in Long Beach and lot has changed in the past year. I’ve longed to come back and see you all but covid and life circumstances has prevented it. It seems like ages ago that Chuck and I were there with you all in Kobe and I’d like to share with you some of twists, turn, trials and triumphs God has taken me through during this time. I loved the message Pastor Claudia gave about Job. I can relate to a lot of it although my situation hasn’t been nearly as dramatic. I, too, feel like I was stripped of everything that was familiar and comfortable in my life within a very short period of time. Some of you know that Chuck was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of prostate cancer back in 2012 and given only 2-4 years to live. He was told he would need surgery, chemo and radiation but still not guaranteed he could beat it. He felt lead and we as a family agreed to trust God for his healing since we had already seen so many healing miracles in our own ministry over the years. They tested him regularly and were always shocked to see that the cancer never spread. We continued to travel to Japan to run our business The Foreign Buyers’ Club which we started in the mid 80’s and we began working closely with Kobe Union Church. Our lives were blessed. God gave us 4 daughters and who all married wonderful husbands and He always provided comfortable homes for us to live in and met our needs. When we left Japan, we were fully intending to wait out Covid and head straight back to Japan and pick up where we left off. We were working on closing FBC and focusing on full-time ministry. Chuck absolutely loved KUC and ministering to you all there! Unfortunately, not long after returning to the states his health took a turn for the worse and so did FBC. We began closing down the business in late 2020. By May of 2021 the cancer had spread all over his body. He lost the use of his legs and FBC was officially done. It was gut-wrenching watching my best friend and soul mate lose everything. The prayers and support of all of our Christian friends were my lifeline through all of this. People came to the hospital to pray, they prayed together with us on zoom and encouraged us in so many ways. On June 28th I stood by as he took his last breath and went to be with the Lord. Suddenly in an instant my life as I had known it was over. Weirdly, I felt tremendous peace which I knew could only come from the Holy Spirit. That peace carried me through those first weeks and even months as I sorted through the details of rearranging my life without my best friend. But then, as time went on, I felt empty and without purpose. We had so many plans for our future and now I felt I had no future. How could I ever minister without Chuck? After all, we were always known as Chuck and Kelly. I felt like there was no Kelly without Chuck! He was the charismatic one, the outgoing extrovert I was his supporter. What could I do without him? In my despair I isolated myself and didn’t deal with my grief in healthy ways. I was going down a lonely dark path when I finally reached out and asked for help. God is such a gentleman, he never forces anything on us but when we reach out He's there ready to turn things around for us. In June 2022, the husband of my youngest daughter Madi got a job offer in Temecula where Kristin my oldest daughter and her family had already moved to and they asked me to move with them. Miraculously, we found a house down the street from Kristin. I started counseling to deal with my grief and the unhealthy ways I was dealing with my loss and found a wonderful community of Christians to fellowship with. Now I’m training to be a counselor myself and can see how God is taking what was meant for my destruction and using it to help others. Chuck and I always lived by the Bible verse Pastor Claudia mentioned in her sermon Romans 8:28. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Our short version of it is ‘Better than before’. I still miss Chuck every single day but I don’t live in the dark any longer thinking I have no future. My future is bright. I have my 4 daughters, their husbands and 6 beautiful grand children around me. We all go through tough stuff in life. Jesus tells us in John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” And in Romans 8:28 he promises that He will work all things out for good. Not just some things but all things. So, take heart when going through struggles of your own. Don’t blame God. He’s there to help. Reach out to someone and don’t isolate. And always pray for each other. Your prayers are more powerful than you know. If you would like to pray with me, contact me. ☺ God bless all of your at KUC. God forth “better than before” knowing God is with you Sermon title: “Daughter”/ Scripture: Mark 5:21-34 (NRSVUE) / Preacher: Rev. Akiko Van Antwerpen10/16/2022 Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts together be pleasing in your sight O Lord. You are our rock and redeemer. (Psalm 19:14) Amen.
As a pastor there are a number of things that I am privileged to be able to do on a daily basis, but I have to say that one of my favorite things to do is to sit down with someone, one-on-one, and just have a talk. I love it when we can just take the time to get to know each other, share stories, and talk about what has been happening in our lives. I’m not talking about small talk here, by the way - the kind of “Hi! How are you? I’m good.” Interactions we all blow through automatically every day. I’m talking about the kind of deep, real interactions that we can have with each other where we share the truth, beauty, struggles and pain; all the real stuff that is happening in our lives. But as much as I say that I enjoy those times of deep and intimate fellowship, I also know that not everyone is lucky enough to have a space in their community where they can be honest, where they can say that they are just having a really hard time, where they can say that they’re struggling and ask for help without the fear of being looked down upon, judged or even punished. Sometimes, or for some people, it can be hard to find how to be the real and authentic selves in their communities. In today’s reading, we’re given a woman who was experiencing exactly that situation. I wish I could introduce this woman to you more completely. I wish I could tell you her name, her title, or even just where she’s from, but the Scripture doesn’t really give us much information to define her, other than her health struggles. While Jairus, is introduced as one of the leaders of the synagogue at the beginning of today’s reading, this is what is given to the woman: “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:25-26) Now, I want to unpack things here a bit because, while she’s not given the impressive title or social rank of Jairus, these two sentences provide us with so much context, and in that context we can see so many of this woman’s untold stories of loneliness and suffering. First of all, for people of Jesus’ time - and long before as well - bleeding was considered a sign of impurity and uncleanliness. Those who were bleeding for any length of time were considered unclean, full stop. (Leviticus 15:25) They weren’t just disabled in the physical sense - They were social outcasts. They didn’t have a place in the community at all. They were banned from entering the synagogue, which was the center of life in the community, because it was believed that they would contaminate, defile the synagogue with their unclean presence. Normally that wouldn’t be too much of a hassle, as all one would have to do is to wait for the bleeding to stop and do a purification ritual. And, for the most part, bleeding isn’t something that lasts all that long. A cut can stop bleeding in minutes and, while some things can last a bit longer, bleeding wasn’t usually something that kept people away from their community for very long in the end. But this woman had been bleeding for twelve years. Twelve years, isolated from the community and completely alone! Look back at the last 12 years of your life; how much has happened in that space of time? For me, in the last 12 years I became a mother to three kids, went back to school, graduated from school, entered the ministry, became a pastor and relocated three times! That’s a lot of stuff to happen, and my family and I couldn’t have endured any of it without the love and support of the communities that surrounded us. But this woman, for the last 12 years, has lived a life marked by nothing but suffering, struggle, and isolation. And her struggles didn’t just come from being considered socially unclean; her suffering had layers. Wanting desperately to be healed, as anyone in her place would, she went to many different physicians. She spent time, money, resources, using everything she had to do whatever she could to get better. But despite her physical, emotional, and financial investment…nothing worked. And not only was she not getting better, she was actually getting worse. Now, given all of that, how do you think people saw her? Was she, in a weird kind of way, famous as someone who remained forever unclean, someone whose entire life situation was truly hopeless? Did people wonder about her, like they did in the story of the blind man in John 9, if her bleeding was the result of her sins, or the sins of her ancestors? Or maybe, people told her that the only reason she hadn’t been healed yet is because she didn’t have enough faith? Or maybe some people avoided her because they just didn’t know how to interact with her because her problems were too great and they felt they had no solutions to offer. But despite all the discrimination, prejudice, and even segregation she experiences, she still seems to be an impressively active and resilient woman. The fact that she still goes to all these different physicians even though she knows how society, including the doctors, must see her, shows just how determined she is - it shows that she doesn’t give up. When suffering comes, when we find ourselves facing something we never imagined would happen in our lives, it’s natural for us to feel discouraged, to wonder if things might never get better. This woman probably had many dark moments like that throughout those 12 years; moments where she felt hopeless, unheard and alone. In 12 years with no community to see her or hear her, she must have wondered if her story would ever be told; if her suffering would ever be seen, heard, and understood. Every time she went to a doctor, I wonder if she thought to herself; “This time it will be different. This time the doctor will help me. FINALLY, a light at the end of the tunnel!” And every time, all she got was another frustration, another round of disappointment, and a growing sense of hopelessness. After a while, she must have started to wonder; “Where is God in all of this?” But this day was going to be different. Today, Jesus had decided to hop on a boat and cross over to her side of the sea. (Mark 5:21) And while Jesus was responding to Jairus - a leader of the synagogue, and a man of great social standing - there was still a chance that she might be able to at least get close, that she could maybe at least see Jesus, or touch him just a little. Anything to grasp at some chance, some last and desperate hope for healing. Of course, now that we understand her situation a little bit better, we can see how going to see Jesus in the middle of that great crowd might be a challenge for her. Jesus was already known as a miracle worker and healer throughout the land, so he was surrounded by many followers wherever he went, begging for his wisdom or, more often than not, his power. And as an unclean, bleeding woman, right in the middle of a large crowd was one place she would certainly have avoided. The law was clear that anything and anyone that people who were bleeding might touch is considered unclean. (Leviticus 15) So not only would no one come near her socially, it would have been a great risk for her to go in the crowd legally too - no to mention the emotional stress of all her past interactions with people during those 12 years. Who knows she might have heard people say things to her in those days; “Oh, you’re still unclean so you can’t be here.” “Oh, you should look at your life and see where you’ve turned against God and need to repent!” “Oh, you just need to have a stronger faith and you’ll be fine!” “Don’t worry, you just need to pray!” Or people might not have said any words at all, but given her certain meaninfgul glares; the pressure of their unwelcoming and judgemental gaze. Imagine the crush of all these well-intentioned people, making comment after comment without ever listening to her story, treating her like a problem to be solved instead of a person to be heard. Wouldn’t that make anyone feel even more isolated ? This Jesus who she was trying so hard to see, she had no rational idea if he would be any better than the many, many physicians she had already seen, and who had been able to do precisely nothing for her. She’s seen many who claim to be healers who couldn’t help, and many more religious leaders who would do nothing but judge her mercilessly for daring to appear in public while still being unclean. She had every reason to doubt Jesus’ power to heal, and to doubt his willingness to even see her. But despite all her very understandable reservations, she still went to see Jesus. She believed “If I but touch his cloak, I will be made well.” (Mark 5:28) And you can hear those reservations a little bit in what she says here. She never expects that Jesus will speak to her, or embrace her in any social way - she doesn’t even expect him to acknowledge her. After all, she didn’t say, “If he notices me, if he sees me, or if he touches me, I will be made well.” But she has absolute assurance, complete conviction that she will be made well if she can only get close enough to touch the hem of his robe. In fact, the verb used for “I will be made well” in verse 28 in the Greek is a very strong one. This word describes complete assurance that this thing will happen. This means that restoration, healing, and even reconciliation absolutely will happen. For the woman, going to see Jesus in the crowd was a big deal. For a woman 12 years unclean to sneak into a crowd and deliberately try to touch the cloak of a Rabbi was a huge risk. She was violating the law requiring her to remain isolated, and deliberately touching - contaminating - a religious leader. If she was caught, she could face some severe consequences. But today was the day, and her desperate hope and absolute faith came together to move her through the crowd, right up behind Jesus, and she touched his cloak (Mark 5:27). And in that exact moment, everything stopped. Jesus stopped, realizing immediately that power had gone out from him (Mark 5:29-30). The disciples stopped, because Jesus had stopped. The crowd stopped, because everyone else had stopped too. And the bleeding stopped. After 12 years, the bleeding immediately stopped. In that moment, their hearts were connected - her desire to be healed met Jesus’ desire to heal, and the bleeding stopped. In that moment, she knew what had happened. She knew that she had been healed, but she didn’t plan on telling anyone. In fact she was terrified when Jesus said to the crowd, “who touched my cloak?” (Mark 5:30) The disciples dismiss his question, telling him that it’s impossible to figure out because there are so many people in the crowd. There’s no way to know exactly who bumped into him. And it could have just been an accident; maybe someone just got pushed in the crowd and touched his cloak by accident. It’s a crowd, after all! But Jesus knew that this was something totally different, not a random accident. He had just experienced a brief but powerful moment of communion, a connection to someone with such a powerful, deliberate, and courageous faith that Jesus couldn’t help but to become immediately aware that this person had touched him, seeking healing from him. (Mark 5:30) And in this moment, Jesus wanted - needed - to meet this woman. So Jesus started looking around to see who it was who had just touched his cloak (Mark 5:32) and, in that moment, the woman had a choice. She could choose to remain silent. After all, no one seemed to realize yet who it was that had touched him, so she had the opportunity to take her healing and go, to leave the scene in secret without ever risking getting caught. Now when we hear this, we can easily imagine the fear she must have felt, the fear of being punished for touching Jesus while she was still unclean. After all her trauma, would she really be able to bear one more punishment; one more isolation? But in that moment, she set aside her fear and instead allowed herself to connect. The things that have been taken away from her so long- contact, connection, and social welcome - is now being offered to her through Jesus. In Jesus’ own eagerness to meet her, she saw the opportunity for the wounds of her heart to be healed as well and, in that moment, she realizes that it’s worth the risk. She probably didn’t know whether Jesus would be the type of leader who would punish her for breaking the law, but once again she demonstrates the strength of her faith in overcoming her fear and trembling (Mark 5:33), and she chooses to come forward, to risk everything to answer the call of Jesus. “The woman fell down before him and told him the whole truth.” (Mark 5:33) Think about that; she told him the whole truth. Who in her life so far had ever shown an interest in hearing the full, painful truth of her story. Who had ever wanted to know how great her suffering had been, how she had spent every penny she had on the desperate hope of getting better? Who had ever tried to hear how she desperately kept going around and around, looking for help, looking for healing, looking for something. Who had ever tried to understand her desperation, to the point of breaking the law, that drove her to come to Jesus today? Jesus saw all that. Jesus saw her, heard her, even when no one else would. And in that moment, when she is finally seen, this is what Jesus says to her: “Your faith has made you well.” (Mark 5: 34) His emphasis here isn’t on his own act of healing; he doesn’t say “because of your faith I have made you well.” It was her faith that did the work, her trust in Jesus that connected her to the healing she so desperately needed. It was her faith that made her well, that restored her, that made her whole. All of Israel had heard the stories of Jesus’ healing, told again and again throughout the land, but no one had heard the story of this woman and her suffering until Jesus drew her close, and shined a light on her story. This nameless woman never pleaded publicly, never made a show, but just quietly touched the hem of his cloak with absolute belief in his healing power. She never sought to be uplifted or made famous, never wanted to be part of the great story - she just lived into the fullness of her strong, quiet faith. This is the kind of faith that Jesus chooses to highlight. And in verse 34, we get the best example of pastoral care yet. In this moment, after this desperate woman breaks several major laws just to sneak in for healing, what does Jesus call her? Jesus called her “Daughter” In that moment, being called by name wasn’t what the woman truly, deeply needed. In the last 12 years, every doctor, every priest, every synagogue official all knew her name. But in the last 12 years, no one had ever seen her as part of a family. Being called a daughter, a beloved child who is looked after and beloved by the whole family…that is the healing that her heart desperately needed. And Jesus knew that! In life and ministry, there are days where I feel discouraged, sad, lonely, isolated, and I just want to give up. But, while I was feeling that way just the other day, my mentor listened to me just like Jesus did, and said to me ”Wow Jesus must be really happy to see how you continue to wrestle like this.” This was exactly what I needed to hear and it brought tears to my eyes. When I go to our small group meetings, I am privileged to be able to witness honest sharing. Pain is shared, and tears are shed. Hugs are given, and prayers are exchanged. I hear the true cries of other’s hearts, and I can deeply feel that God is with them in that moment, holding them so tenderly and gently. A church is a community, but true community doesn’t just happen when people come together. Look at today’s story; until this woman lived into her faith with openness and vulnerability, the story didn’t move. In fact, the whole story rests on the faith and vulnerability of someone we might not expect; someone who didn’t have a title, someone who didn’t have any right to be there. The whole story rests on the willingness of someone who had been bleeding for 12 years without healing, someone labeled as hopeless, sinful, cursed, unwanted, and unwelcome by the community to be vulnerable and open to the radical love of Christ. Times have been tough lately for our church community and for our world, as we navigate these past few years of the pandemic. But I know that there are stories upon stories just waiting to be heard, stories of people still believing in the goodness of God despite enduring challenges, confusion, suffering, and pain. And as a church community, we have the privilege to do as Christ did, to seek out these stories. We get to look out into the community, out into the world, and see where the power of the Holy Spirit is flowing out, to find all those who suffer in silence. As a church community, we will continue to have more opportunities to come together. In fact, we will be having an all-church fellowship on October 30th after the worship service, and I pray that we might find that same connection that Jesus shared with the bleeding woman growing among us as well. It’s true that, even in church communities where love and grace are consistent, people can still hesitate to share deeply of themselves, and to embrace togetherness and communion. Sometimes we’re afraid of judgment or punishment, or we’re afraid of embarrassment, or the trauma of past times where our sharing was not well received may still haunt us. But I hope today’s story can encourage us to give it a chance and to be vulnerable. I hope we can see what happens in Christ when we allow our deepest concerns in life, the full truth of our story, to be seen and heard without any editing. And when you find yourself in the place of Jesus, when you are privileged enough to be on the receiving end of someone showing their vulnerability, their pain, their cry to you, I pray that you will remember to open your heart too, to pray, and to listen. I pray that God will give you the sensitivity and awareness to see how God might be at work in that moment so that, just as the Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit are one, so too might we all be as one also. Because that is why we gather together. That is what it truly means to be the church. Let us pray. Lord help our church to have the connection that you and the woman had. Work in us so that we can have faith in the love you laid in our community. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. Today I will be doing something a little different than my normal style of exegetical preaching. I will tell a brief personal story on why Luke 17 means so much to me. I was not going to speak on it today because I preached it this summer at Nojiri, but it is the lectionary passage for this Sunday and after talking with pastor Claudia (who heard it at Nojiri) I felt the Lord saying to me preach it again. Maybe this time I will get it right. After the story I will look more deeply at the passage and what I think we can learn from it.
B. My family used to live in Yokohama 25 years ago and we attended YUC that is where I felt my call to go into the ministry. I had a job I liked/ friends/ a good church. Those were hard to give up, to go into debt for a profession where I would never make the same amount of money with higher stress. But that is not the reason why going to seminary was so hard for me. I have always struggled with school. It might be why I am a good teacher (If I can say that). It’s because I understand that learning does not always come easy to people. But here I was going to seminary when I knew that I was lucky to graduate from college. I was afraid of failing out. Lord often (maybe always) calls us to areas where we have to confront our worries, weakness, or fears. (Think of Gideon / Moses/ Abram / Peter / Paul). I heard the Lord say to me, “Mark, Come follow me”. Yes, I literally heard that. I had to learn the lesson that every servant of the Lord needs to learn. That when God calls. (And he does and not just for formal ministry) God equips. I’ll say it again, when God calls he equips. II. At seminary A. So we had moved to the States. We found a good church with an emphasis on service which is very common with Mennonite churches. I struggled with my studies, but I kept my head above water, and it was finals of my first semester. I like to study at home in the quiet, so I got Stephanie and the boys out of the house, and I was going to have 8 hours of uninterrupted study. I cleaned my house. Messy room messy mind. I was just about to go and unplug the phone because I did not want to be disturbed when it rang. B. I know I shouldn’t have answered it. But I did. It was a woman from the church who was wheelchair-bound. She said, hello and asked if I could help her. She was in physical pain (I could hear it in her voice) and she asked if I could help her. She needed not only a ride to the doctor's but help to get out of her apartment. I said, “I am really busy today could you call someone else on the volunteer list”. She replied that I was the last person on the list, there was no one else. Could I help? What would you do? What would you say? Really these are not hypothetical questions. C. I raced over there. Got her into my car. Drove supper fast to the doctor. We had to wait and wait and wait and after seeing the doctor she needed to get medication. There was a problem with her insurance card, and we had to wait and wait and wait at the pharmacist. I helped her there is no doubt about that. But my heart and my attitude sucked (can I say that here). I doubt that I will get any points in heaven for that survive. I was an “unworthy servant I was just doing my duty”. I left to go help her at 8 am and got back to my house at almost 4 pm. And just as I sat down Steph and the boys came home. AHHHHHH!!! III. Unworthy Servant A. That night I read the unworthy servant from Luke 17 for devotions just by chance. I read it and I wanted to throw my bible across the room. Unworthy servant!!!. Didn’t the servant work all day with his master? Didn’t he prepare the meal and serve the master? How come he is an unworthy servant? Jesus says he only did his duty. B. So I read it again and again for a few weeks. My finals went ok (by the way) I didn’t do great, but I did good enough. What do you call a person who graduates from seminary with a “C” average? - Pastor. But the scripture stuck there with me. I asked my pastor about it. He gave me an unsatisfactory answer. This passage has been rated by pastors as one of the most challenging of the gospel passages to preach by Christianity Today. I asked my seminary profs, and they too gave me well-worded but unsatisfactory answers. In its isolation, this passage seems at best to be harsh and uncaring and that does not jive with who Jesus is. C. I was asked to preach at a local church whose pastor had to suddenly be out of town and the passage they gave me was from Luke 17. The ten Lepers. God was working on me by bring it up time and time again. As I started preparing the light went on for me. I finally understood the difference between an unworthy servant and a worthy one. IV. Ten Lepers A. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he is walking along the border between Galilee and Samaria. On the outskirts of an unknown village, 10 men that must have heard stories of Jesus healing respectfully stood at a distance and shouted to Jesus. “Have pity on us”. It was pretty plain to see that they had leprosy. Just like it was plain for me to hear the woman I helped was in pain. And there are a lot of people in pain. Maybe that is you or someone you love or work with? B. Interesting word they use is pity. Pity is a feeling. Notice they did not ask Jesus for an action. If they were being more specific they should have said, “Jesus heal us”. That is what they wanted. But they do not say that. They ask Jesus to look at them. To talk to them. To feel for them. And from that feeling, they trusted Jesus to respond. Do we? Too often in my prayer life, I am so specific about what I want God to do. God do this at this time, in this way and this is the result I want. Like ordering food in a restaurant. C. These men have been kicked out of their homes, communities' lives, physically wasting away in isolation. Like the early years of the AIDS virus, like 2020 people got covid. A lot of our world is still struggling with the impact of the ISOLATION of covid. Lord feel for me in my struggles. And while I do not trust my feelings to always be correct I trust the Lord’s feelings. Lord have pity on me. / We do not know why we are sick. / We do not know why we are struggling with depression. / We do not know why we are struggling with work our kids…./ You name it. Lord have pity on us. D. And Jesus does. Notice one thing. The Ten Lepers shout (distance). But Jesus says. It shows that Jesus gets close to these men because when Jesus speaks it says he “said” not shouted. If the church keeps the world and its problems at a distance we will never make an impact. V. Go and Show yourself. A. Verse 14 is great. Jesus responds to them with what I can only assume is gradual healing. He says to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests”. But they were not healed yet. B. The scriptures are really clear here. It says, “As they went”. Jesus challenges their faith to move into the direction of the healing and health, but they have to move. We have to move. To move before they actually could see the results. If they would have just stood there it is unlikely that they would have been healed. It is called faith in action. They might have said to each other, “John look at you. Your skin is clean”. “No, look at you”. Maybe at a stumble, then a walk, then at a trot, then at a run. They could show themselves to the priest and get a certificate of health to show so that they could go back to their lives. They woke up that morning with no hope and now the world had possibilities. The world always has possibilities when we walk with the Lord. They had a chance when none existed that morning. All thanks to Jesus. Amen. C. And one man stops. He turns and returns to Jesus. He does not do what Jesus told him to do. He should be on his way to the priest to show himself. Jesus was very clear. He literally goes against what Jesus told him to do. I believe he will eventually go to the priests but first, he needs to praise God/ he needs to thank God’s son. Do we the church have an attitude of gratitude? Do we? Do I? Or do we just move on to the next problem to the next want. God forgive us your church. Forgive us your people when we do just the duty without praise, without gratitude without thanks. VI. Answer. A. In the dutiful servant I had my answer. If I tithe. If I serve. Do my jobs. We are just an unworthy servant if we do those things without joy, passion, and gratitude. We are just doing what we are told to do. But when we do our jobs with joy we become something far greater. Will we? Will you? We know that the 10th leper had a greater healing than just the body. His heart. His soul was healed. That is what I need. That is what the church needs. That is what the world needs. Let’s pray One Sunday morning, a little girl walked forward to receive Holy Communion. The communion server gave her a piece of bread and said, “The Body of Christ, given for you.” The little girl was disappointed with the size of her piece of bread and responded to the communion server “That’s it? I want more!” Her parents were embarrassed, but this little girl expresses a hunger that should be deep within us; a hunger for the bread and the cup, a hunger for the bread of life, a hunger for Jesus. I pray that we all find ourselves hungry for a deeper communion with Jesus.
Today is World Communion Sunday and World Communion Sunday has got to be one of my favorite Sundays in the entire year. (But I also love Pentecost Sunday too.) ☺ For over 30 years as a pastor now, I have celebrated World Communion Sunday using a wide variety of breads to remind us of various cultures and God’s wide diversity. Our KUC congregation is quite diverse – we come from different backgrounds, traditions, and countries. In KUC, we have people from these countries as part of our congregation– Ghana, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Germany, America, British, France, Canada, China. It also brings to mind visions of Pentecost, where people from many nations gathered in Jerusalem and these people heard the gospel proclaimed in their own language. As we celebrate World Communion Sunday, I think that perhaps we are, in some small way, reenacting the power of God’s Spirit on that first Pentecost Sunday. When I think of World Communion Sunday, I get excited that tens of thousands of Christian brothers and sisters around the world are coming to the Lord's Table in different time zones to remember our Lord. It doesn't matter where we're from, because from God's perspective there are no political, ethnic, cultural, religious or national boundaries. The original intention of World Communion Sunday was to cross the divisions separating various Christian faith groups and extending God’s grace to all people. I love communion and I certainly enjoy celebrating communion every first Sunday of each month here at KUC and actually, I wouldn’t mind celebrating weekly every Sunday! Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist –the Great Thanksgiving - whatever name we call it - is one of our most sacred, special and holy celebrations. We proclaim God’s grace in this sacrament and God’s love for us and we experience a foretaste of the great heavenly banquet that awaits us. It feels as if our world grows continually more divisive each and every day. That is why, this year, World Communion Sunday is more important than ever. World Council of Churches works for Christian unity and ecumenical cooperation. The WCC 11th Assembly is held every 8 years. This is a special time as it brings together more than church 4000 participants, from all over the world. WCC Assembly the most diverse Christian gathering of its size in the world. This year the World Council of Churches 11th Assembly took place from Aug. 31-Sept. 8. The theme of the ecumenical of the gathering was “Christ’s Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity” and thus year it was held in Karlsruhe, Germany. ( https://www.oikoumene.org ) My husband Toshi and I went to the WCC 10th Assembly in Pusan, Korea 8 years ago in 2013 (Oct. 10 - Nov 8) and the theme then was “God of life, lead us to Justice and Peace “ and it was so exciting to be in unity with so many Christians from all over the world! I loved being in Pusan with so many Christians and I was reminded of the scripture, “How good and how pleasant t is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. “ (Psalm 133:1) Before we came to Kobe in 2011, my husband and I worked at the National Christian Council in Japan (NCC J) in Tokyo for 18 years. NCCJ (日本キリスト教協議会 ) is made up of 33 Church denominations, churches, and Christian organizations here in Japan. KUC is an associate member as are the other union churches. (I was also pastor at West Tokyo Union Church for 17 years in addition to my ministry at NCCJ.) My husband was the involved with international church relations and then general secretary of NCCJ. NCCJ worked ecumenically with other denominations, the Catholic church and even with other religions on social issues (e.g. Article 9 in the Japanese Constitution, human rights for minorities and the disabled, peace issues, women’s rights, etc. (https://ncc-j.org) Working together with other churches is one way to build unity among Christians. Also we can work together in spreading the Gospel. Here is an example. Our church member, Roy Mislang, our E&D (Evangelism and Discipleship) ministry leader is organizing a joint Christmas caroling event at Merican Park with other churches. Our union churches in Japan have made a Union Church network which is in our KUC newsletter. There are ways we can look for ways to be together even if we are from different churches or backgrounds or nationalities. Big and small ways, we can love our neighbors who are also children of God. On Special World Communion Sunday, we celebrate the fact that there is room at God’s table for everyone. As Paul writes in his letter to the church in Galatia, “There is neither Jew nor gentile, slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) Paul clearly declares there is no one better than another. There are no second-class Christians. What was the purpose of Paul's Letter to the Galatians? Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians to counter the message of missionaries who visited Galatia after he left. These missionaries taught that Gentiles must follow parts of the Jewish Law in order to be saved. But Paul said this was not necessary. We are equal in God’s eyes. Jesus welcomed all and broke through barriers. We are all children of God. We are to be one in Christ; we are to be the new race made up of a multitude of diverse people. We are one in Christ despite our differences. The Jews differed from other people in the ancient world because they believed that there was only one God. The Ancient Romans believed in many Gods. The Ancient Romans believed in Gods, and there was usually a God for everything in their life. The Jews believed that they were specially chosen by God. They were set apart from others and believed God called on them to be a “light to the Gentiles” and lead them to accept the God of Israel as the only God. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesus/The-Jewish-religion-in-the-1st-century) Paul himself was a Jew and if you recall and he was persecuting Christians until he had his conversion and followed Jesus Christ. (See Acts 9:1-19) Paul played a crucial role in spreading the gospel to the Gentiles (non-Jews) during the first century, and his missionary journeys took him all throughout the Roman empire. He truly loved the Gentiles and saw all people as children of God. I hope we can do the same. Paul saw a direct link between issues that divided people back then and the Lord's Supper. In I Corinthians 11:18-22, he describes division within the church in Corinth. Some of these divisions were maybe over loyalties to one apostle or another, and there were social and class divisions. The Corinthians were also being rebuked by Paul for their misuse of the Lord's Supper. The early church practiced the celebration of the Lord's Supper much differently than most churches do today. In the very early church, the Lord's Supper was eating an actual full meal together. Often the wealthy members came early to the meal, ate up all the best food and drank up most of the wine and those who were poor and maybe had to work didn’t get enough. It was not an equal sharing. The wealthy were not “better” than the poor but seems like they acted like they were entitled to having more and not sharing. Jesus welcomes all people to the table - no matter who they are and no matter what their class, background, gender, age, nationality or how broken all of us might be. We celebrate what Jesus did and what by the power of Holy Spirit he still does, we celebrate the Jesus who died for us, is risen, and will come again. We and the world may seem so deeply broken. Unity may not always happen. But this ideal of unity is still present and God is still moving in our world to make us one in Christ. In the words of Ephesians 4:4-6, World Communion Sunday can reminds us that “you are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.” In observing World Communion Sunday, it is a day when all Christians come to the table of our Lord and a day which proclaims that in Christ all division is overcome, all wounds are healed, and a day when the boundaries of “race and tribe and nation” (Revelations 7:9) fall away. This is our hope. But we have so much brokenness in our lives. Will our prayer for forgiveness be real if nothing changes when we leave the communion table? Every time we come forward for Holy Communion, we bring with us all that we are, our sin, our anger, our fear, our doubt, our brokenness and we offer them all to Christ, who in turn, offers us himself. At the table, Jesus offers us his body, the bread; his blood, the cup; and gives us unmerited love, grace, forgiveness and salvation. This is the best meal that can be offered. John Wesley described the Lord’s Supper as “the grand channel whereby the grace of his Spirit was conveyed to the souls of all the children of God.” As we take communion today remember that if you are hungry for community, Christ invites you. If you are thirsting for hope, Christ welcomes you. If you need forgiveness, Christ forgives you. If you are hungry for the grace of God, then eat this bread (or cracker) and drink this cup. We are nourished and sustained. We are all loved by God. I will close with some words from the delegates at the WCC Assembly. “We will find a strength to act from a unity founded in Christ’s love, for it enables us to learn the things that make for peace, to transform division into reconciliation… Christ’s love will sustain all of us in the task of embracing everyone and overcoming exclusion…For in Christ, all things will be made new. His love which is open to all, including the last, the least, and the lost, and is offered to all, can move and empower us in a pilgrimage of justice, reconciliation, and unity.” (Source: oikoumene.org “A Call to Act Together”) Whenever we gather to share in the Lord’s Table, we are connected as part of the body of Christ together, a body that lives in and through the power of a healing, reconciling God. No one is excluded. The table is vast as is God’s love. We are all God’s children. We pray that others will through us the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Amen and Happy World Communion Sunday! |
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