SCRIPTURE: Acts 16:16-34
TEXT: 16One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. THEME: Compassion lives out our faith in adverse situations. INTRODUCTION On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember those who have served in defense of our country and have died. Anne Wakamatsu always remembered her brother whose life was lost in the WWII. But along with our remembrance is our grieving for those we have lost to COVID, over a million people in the United States alone. Worldwide this number is at 6 million. And then recently we have had the killings at Tops Grocery Story and this week at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas due to gun violence. We mourn as a nation. We mourn because we are human, we mourn because we empathize with their loss. SCRIPTURE Paul is in Philippi. Last week he met Lydia, the dealer of purple cloth. This week, as he and his friends walk through the town towards a place to pray, they are continually hassled by a slave girl who is possessed by a fortune telling spirit. The spirit identifies Paul and his friends as servants of God and mock them. After a few days of this Paul, turns and casts the spirit out of the slave girl. Much to the horror of her owners who are now drained from all of the money they could have made from her, as she is freed from that spirit and useless to them. They have Paul arrested and bring them before the magistrate for charges; disturbing our city and are Jews. They rial up the fears and prejudices of the crowd and claim a nationalism to Rome. These are supremist tactics. Before the Magistrate, the laws are enforced to protect the rights of the merchants. Their beliefs in Jesus make Paul and Silas odd ducks in Philippi and to Judaism. They were going to a place to pray. What could be so wrong in seaport, bustling with tourist and merchants demonstrating all of the newest things and ideas. They are foreigners in Philippi, but because they threatened the economic lively hood of rich slave owners the law came down and shut them up, beat them and threw them into prison as a lesson to anyone else who would try to upset the balance of privilege that is afforded to a few and not to all. The triptych of this passage is first with the enslaved girl, the second is the with the magistrate and the third is with the Law Enforcement Officer. Falsely accused, wrongly beaten, Paul and Silas are thrown into the innermost cell and fastened with leg shackles. In the stillness of the night, they are heard, praying and singing. ♫ Jesus loves me this I know…♫, ♫ My God is so great, so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God cannot do. ♫ “Dear God, we have come to Philippi to share your Good News of love. You have shown us that this is where you want us to be with Lydia and her household. You love us so much, that you sent Jesus to show us how to live with you and with others. And then when he died at the hands of those who tried to silence him, he suffered in loving us, like how we are suffering now, but to your glory was resurrected to life. This is what you have in store for all of us. You love us so much.” Then an earthquake busted open the shackles and prison doors, but no prisoners escaped. The Jailer who had failed at keeping his prisoners secured was ready to kill himself, but Paul calls out that they are all here. Paul’s words, actions, kindness, and concern even for this jailer brings him to his knees and to Jesus. What we believe about Jesus, what we know about Jesus, what we have experience about Jesus, needs to inform the way with live and how we treat others so they can begin to see Jesus for themselves. APPLICATION This passage addresses many of the issues that are being discussed today. There is the issue of human trafficking. A woman’s right over her own body. How the laws are written to protect the privilege of the rich and not about justice for the poor. Of how the accusers ignite the fears of the people with immigration and prejudice, accusing the ‘other’ of the very thing that they are doing. About law enforcement officers following orders or thinking for themselves and acting with humanity. What difference does the Resurrection make when we choose between humanity and money? In a very simplistic way, we can almost see most of the issues today as a choice for humanity or a choice for money. Jesus spoke about money a lot because when we choose money over humanity, we failed to see the image of God in each other. Often times the rich who came to Jesus were challenged with opening themselves up to humanity, by giving what they had to the poor, or anyone they cheated and then to be dependent upon the compassion of others to survive. Relationships are needed in the resurrection, not money. Our focus on money can represent our greed, our selfishness, our pride. Focusing on humanity opens us up to another’s suffering, their wounds, hurt and pain. Then we can become people who are compassionate. There is no place for slavery in compassion. There is no place for gerrymandering laws in compassion. There is no place for semi-automatic firearms in the hands of civilians in compassion. Compassion is representative of the suffering we have endured and God who loves us. CONCLUSION Because we are human, we mourn, even the deaths of people we don’t know. The sheer numbers that COVID has claimed. The Families that have been permanently disrupted because of this virus is overwhelming. NPR has been playing the favorite songs of some of those who have died to COVID and tell a bit of the person’s life. These songs strike chords of the loss. The young lives struck down at school. The futures that ended. The hopes silenced. A potential never reached. And yet God embraces us in our deep sorrow. And meets us in our grief as we carry their memory into the future shaping who we are and informing the rest of our living. Compassion is one way that we consider the suffering of others and humanize them so we can come along side that journey, our faith in Jesus’ resurrection is the food of compassion we are fed for us to live.
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SCRIPTURE: Acts 16:9-15
TEXT: 9During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” THEME: God has greater visions for us to participate in. INTRODUCTION God has big ideas, creating out of chaos, planets and stars, land pulling away from the seas, plants and animals and human beings. God has big ideas, a nation of descendants from a childless traveling couple who receive a miracle that become a nation. God has big ideas, in freeing an enslaved people, with an escape, from the grip of the world’s superpower master. A mass exodus is made to freedom and relationship with God. God has big ideas of becoming flesh and blood, born into the world, dependent upon a mother’s arms, in a family, in a village, in the Holy land, to show us love, kindness, ministry to others and peace with God. God has big ideas calling us to be ministers to others. Not only those who are like us but to include Macedonians, to accept and to embrace whoever they may be. SCRIPTURE Paul is having a midlife crisis. Everything he has known about career, faith and God has changed with his experience of the resurrected Jesus. Instead of arresting Jesus’ followers Paul is now making more of them. But God has an even bigger idea as Paul is given a vision of expanding the call to followers to Macedonia. This next part of the text is usually found in adventure movies with a map and a sailboat sailing from one port to another with a red line drawn from Troas, to Samothrace, to Neapolis, and then to Philippi. Gung Ho, led by the Spirit, having a vision and colleagues joining in, they reach their destination and stop. Calming their spirits, keeping their ears to the ground, centering themselves with God, a bit of the wilderness before first contact. In doing so they can see how the Holy Spirit has already been at work, as they discern the best place to be on the Sabbath, is by the river, outside of the city where there is supposed to be a group of women gathered to pray. Wisdom, patience, Spirit lead, self-controlled, this group does not scare off the praying women but are able to have these women listen to them and one of them, Lydia eagerly listens to what Paul has to say. God’s vision for the church is greater than what we imagine. Expands the vision of who we would like to include, and extends the boundaries further than the limited of our theology. This passage is more about proclamation than about regulating the good news. APPLICATION There are a few of us minister types who are pondering the vision of the church. In many cases, the church is not sustainable in its current form; with lower buildings, membership decline, offerings alone cannot meet our projected expenses. Our attraction to the past is not a sustainable model and will prevent us from having a different future. One of these colleges sent me a pod cast to listen to from Homebrewed Christianity, it featured conversation between two progressive Baptist pastors Tripp Fuller, Baptist minister who served the largest UCC church in L.A. and Ryan Burge who just wrote a book on the myths of religion and politics. Their frank conversation casts a new vision of the church. Here are a few take aways: 1. How do we use the resources we have in life giving ways? The Episcopal church has billions of dollars in endowments, that far exceeds its membership. These pastors suggested using some of this money to pay for new church startups, by paying the education cost for promising seminarians, then by giving them 4 years’ worth of salary, and half a million dollars for programs. Then check back in 5 years to see if they need more money. 2. They theorized a start of a new church start, would take 10 families. That would be about 40 people in church, and they wouldn’t even have to tithe for the first few years. 40 people is more than the number of people many of our churches had before the pandemic, and certainly don’t have currently. 3. Tripp and Burge observe that People are not regularly engaged in a faith community. They would rather take the music from one church, listen to the message from another and follow the spiritual practice of a third. It is a TikTok approach to church. A differentiated faith. 4. People don’t want to go to a church to hear a good new where they are ‘the problem’ that has to be fixed. So, as we take our focus off of the cross and place our focus on the resurrection, then we can see a God who says that everything that God has created is good. The earth is good, human beings are good and we are love, accepted, forgiven, worthy and valued. The churches that preach this kind of message are old mainline denominational churches. Finding a decent Mainline denominational church is hard and if you do find one, who wants to be a part of a church where there are 30, 80-year old’s waiting for the end? That is why, since Easter I have been preaching sermons about the difference we make, when we focus on the resurrection instead of the cross. The resurrection calls us into loving communities and relationships that have an eternal quality to them. Our faith is for living with people and with God. I am not sure how long our church can continue in its current form. The Wailuku Mission Housing will greatly improve our witness of God’s love, finances and ministry possibilities. But along with our location comes two other UCC churches. Can our community support all three churches? In the future, I imagine churches cropping up in coffee shops, laundromats, upper rooms of restaurants and food pantries. Meeting at different times of the week. They have a leader who is not ordained but they can’t afford to pay a salary. So, there is a good chance that they would be looking for a subsidy. The Wailuku Mission Housing project may give us a little extra money to sponsor such a church with strings attached. Requiring them to come to some of our events so we can get to know them. They should be as guests to our Aha O Mokupuni O Maui, Molokai a me Lanai functions so they can know the wider church. And their Pastoral Leader would be required to attend PSR CTEL program to give them a few more theological tools for their ministry. Wailuku Union Church will be different in the future than what we were. After the Pandemic, we already are. CONCLUSION God’s plans for our church are bigger than what we think is possible. We are already seeing this with the Wailuku Mission Housing. With it there may be other visions that God will make possible for us. God’s outreach goes beyond what we think is possible or who we want to include. I found a tie with blue and yellow stripes that I could use to keep Ukraine in the forefront of people’s minds and prayers. I wore it at a wedding that I officiated at last Friday. One of the gusts came up to me after the ceremony and asked if I wore that tie in support of Ukraine. I said I did. He said that he was half Ukraine, doesn’t go to church but was so touched that we would be in support of Ukraine. Our prayers for Ukraine, give us a vision beyond our paradise and a ministry to a people torn by war. SCRIPTURE: Reservation 21:1-6
TEXT: 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them. THEME: In Heaven God comes to dwell with us. INTRODUCTION Our Easter sermon series began with Jesus as the first born of the dead-on Easter Day. We see the effects of the resurrection as Peter chooses to obey the voice of the Lord instead of the institutionalized Judaism. Paul has his eyesight restored because Ananias applied his faith to do what God asked him to do. Tabitha has a story of the resurrection that gives further evidence of God’s power over death. Today we have a vision of our resurrected lives and what it means in heaven. SCRIPTURE Certainly, Revelation is not meant to be taken literally. But with broad stokes, its images are painted and emote feelings of the things to come. The bombed out multi storied apartment building stands as a monument of the violence that Russia has inflicted upon Ukraine. And into this scene, we see from heaven, a New Jerusalem and a new Earth descend. The unspoken pronouncement, that is being made as God comes to dwell among humans, is that “the Earth is good” and that “we are good”. God has always wanted to live with us. With all of the work in creating, God is found in the garden with the humans. Even after we are expelled from the garden God still travels intimately with the family of Abraham and Sara. In the incarnation, God becomes flesh and blood in baby Jesus and is brought up in a family, cared for by humans, lives in the village of Nazareth and ministers in the countryside of Galilee. And now God gives John a vision of a New Heaven and a New Earth descending from the heavens for the old has passed away and the sea is no more. The sea and the Jews don’t get along. There is a leviathan down there, and whenever they get in a boat there is a ship wreck, a storm or violent wind. The sea represents fear and the unknown. The unknown and fear are gone in the new Heaven and new Earth. For our CTEL class on Biblical Interpretation, Jeffery Acido, had us answer the question, “Where is home?” Of course, it is where we grew up. But as we answered this question every day, our understanding of ‘home’ got expanded., Mom and Dad and siblings. Eating Stuffed Aburage and Kau yuk, where my family is. My wife and kids. Where I feel that I belong. “See the home of God is among mortals.” We are not an abomination. We are not distasteful; we are not an affront. We are loved, we are accepted, we are treasured and part of God’s definition of home. The earth will be under new management. God’s ways, no tears, no death, no pain, new things. German theologian Jurgen Moltmann writes dense theological theories. Wading through his writing takes considerable determination and dedication. I just saw a video interview of him and he said; “God is a broad place of freedom. where we can find meaning of life. And discover how to become new.” I don’t know if that is representative of Moltmann but this is another way for us to consider heaven. APPLICATION Not taking this passage too literally, we see in verse 1 that the new heaven and the new earth are here on earth. And we, as the people of God, are here on earth. God is here dwelling among us on earth. That is the main thing about heaven, God is dwelling with us. What difference does the resurrection make in Heaven? Living with God as a roommate is going to be new. Not with rules, but with love; having common courtesy, minding what we do with respect for each other. Washing our dishes, keeping the common spaces clean. Putting the toilet seat down, picking up our clothes, and putting our things away. Not eating what does not belong to us. We live in loving ways because our roommate loves us. Little wonder that there is marriage language in this passage as we become partners in life, creation, stewardship and mission. Living with God as a roommate is going to be crazy. God working through us to do amazing things in our world. If we take Ukraine as the example, being able to rebuild after Russia leaves, will be like a new earth and new heaven. It will take the international community to do this work, to bring about the return of families, to heal the brokenness, to comfort those who grieve and to replant fields of hope. After the old is past and the new will be built in its place. This vision of heaven is relational, with God, with in community, living as covenantal partners sharing and enhancing each other’s life. The eternal God has not given up on humanity or Earth. We are both resilient, redeemable and enjoyable. If this is where God’s investment is, then here too is where our efforts of reform, reconciliation, redemption and rebuilding should be at home in us. So here is the kicker, since Revelation is not to be taken literally, but drawn with broad strokes, maybe the new heaven and new earth is the church. The home where God dwells among the mortals. As the place where we feel and express God’s broad place of freedom, find meaning in life and discover what it means to be ‘New”. CONCLUSION The new heaven and new earth is not an adjustment, it is a major shift. We are just coming out of the COVID pandemic and are finding that some of the adjustments that we have made will be permeant shifts. A million lives have been lost in the United States alone. That is equivalent to the population of one of our major cities. We lost our socialization, we lost our security, we lost our freedom and are still haunted by COVID’s return. The Resurrection brings new dynamic to our understanding of life, death and God that shapes our living today. The encouragement of Revelation is not to wait for the by and by, but to know God finds a home among us and so we are to live into the new heaven and the new earth today, as the church where God is a broad place of freedom, where we can find meaning of life and discover how to be new. SCRIPTURE: Acts
TEXT: 42This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. THEME: The resurrection changes the stories we have to tell. INTRODUCTION Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection. That makes all of us second bananas or second fruits of the resurrection. Preaching during this Easter season, we are looking at what difference the resurrection makes with obeying God (when the angel opens Peter’s prison doors and tells him to preach in the streets), using our faith to do what God wants to be done (as Ananias goes to pray for healing for the enemy of Jesus, Paul) and to tell stories of how the resurrection is shaping our lives. SCRIPTURE A good person from the Christian community in Joppa dies. Peter is in a nearby town of Lydda and is called to come. Joppa is ten miles away, roughly a 2-to-3-hour walk. So, two men are sent out to ask Peter to come. It takes about 6 hours before Peter gets there. Funeral preparations were already in process. The room was filled with commotion; people weeping, widows showing the generous clothing Tabitha had given them. Peter asks people to leave the room and prays. God has done amazing things through Jesus and is now doing amazing things through Peter. He calls Tabitha by name and tells her to get up. She opens her eyes; sees Peter and he helps her up. Then Peter calls everyone back into the room to show that Tabitha is alive. Imagine all of the people who have a resurrection story to tell because of Tabitha’s return to life. There were the women who prepared her body for burial, the disciples who heard that Peter was in the nearby town, the two men who went to fetch him, then all of the widows who received clothing and tunics from Tabitha’s generosity, Then Tabitha herself who hears her named called as she opens her eyes and sees Peter. Peter has his story to tell, all of the saints and widows allowed to come back in the room to see Tabitha alive. In addition to this, her rising from the dead became known throughout Joppa. This is not the first time that news about the work of God turned hearts towards God in Nineveh. Jonah had similar results. This part of this town’s spiritual heritage. And at the end Peter stayed a little longer in Joppa at Simon’s house who probably asked, “What brings you to town?” APPLICATION This story is not about having enough faith for God to heal us, God already loves us and has gone through extreme measures to bless our lives with Jesus. Neither is this story about doing good to merit God’s grace towards us. We know that we can never do enough to win God’s favor, although Tabitha does have a generous giving heart. God does all of this simply because God loves us. This story is about God’s power over death and how the resurrection is part of a new story God is writing in our lives. Jesus has opened heaven’s doors by conquering the grave and death with life. How does God’s power over death change our story? How is God telling the story of the resurrection through us? The Resurrection informs our living. Before the resurrection we lived to escape death. But now, with the promise of the resurrection we live in ways that bring life. Stories of the Resurrection are those stories about those who were thought to be dead but have come back to life. This week brought up the debate on abortion to the surface as the decisions on Roe vs Wade are being threatened. I am not attempting to make a decisive statement for or against abortion but stating observations of this complex issue. The first observation is that this is a complicated matter and making black and white determinations does not serve all of the dynamics of a woman’s choice over the future of a pregnancy. We have politicized this into a moral issue where it also includes elements of social, economic, racial, sexist, esteem, power, dysfunction, status, privilege and self-determination. The other observation I made is that this is a matter of compassion. Compassion for the unborn child, compassion for a woman’s right to choose the life that she wants. But the compassion also needs to extend to those who hold different views. And compassion towards each other to listen and be compassionate enough for each other to maintain respect and be on our best behavior. Practicing Love for live does not to regulate other people’s lives but to figure out help in these complicated situations people find themselves in. The harder solution for Antiabortionist might be to use their compassion to create support for the expectant woman to bring the baby to term, to create care and nurturing for the child and to provide family, belonging, education and encouragement for this child to be loved and opportunity for it to reach its full potential. We want safety, health, resource, and wise counsel for all. The third observation I had was that abortion may be the symptom of greater problems; abuse, violence, self-esteem, dysfunction, power, racism, sexism, poverty, narcissism, manipulation…. We want to make judgments of the result of a cacophony of sins but ignore our contributions to this dynamic. The resurrection is the result of God’s love for us. That does not just change our end, but it has the potential of changing how we live all along the way, Making corrections. Changing the way, we do things. Being more concern about others, and how we treat each other, Being stewards of what we have to create security to those who experience scarcity. Living in compassionate ways. CONCLUSION What is the connection between the story of resurrection in our lives and Roe vs Wade? With the promise of the resurrection, we are no longer living to escape death. We are living through God’s love. How we live God’s love now, is the obsession of our lives. Compassion is not as black and white as we think, judging between the limited parameters of moral behavior. But it goes down to the root of systemic hurt and healing, of restoration and wholeness, of setting aside and moving into something new. The abortion issue is a compassionate issue, not a definitive moral absolute. We cannot reserve compassion for some and not others. Our resurrection stories are about life, compassion, recovery, love, acceptance and the mighty work of God that bringing life to what was once thought as dead. SCRIPTURE: Acts 9
TEXT: THEME: Prayer is for listening to God, Faith is putting what we hear into action. INTRODUCTION In Sunday school we begin to build our theological ideas. First based around stories of Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, the stories surrounding Abraham, Sara and their family, Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the Ten Commandments and the Lord as our Shepherd. The powerful God of the Old Testament can be portrayed as fierce and punitive. When we develop our theology, we tend to get intrenched and closed to any other ways of understanding what we believe. We tend to defend, rather than to be open to consider something different. We start by being literal in our understanding. But as we are informed by the context in which the text was written and how those words were used in their day, we can begin to expand our understanding of a text. We can know more of the nuance and the intent of a passage and have of sense of their meaning, giving us a better understanding of the heart of God. We can move from obeying commandments, to Living the will of God. Then we meet Jesus in the New Testament, soft and cuddly as a baby. Living a common life. Growing up in the neighborhood. Teaching about God in ways that expand our theological imaginations and giving us living examples of what it means to be the people of God. Last week we saw the inflexibility of the High Priest with what the apostles were saying about Jesus. Paul has become cut from this same theological clothe as a witness of the resurrected Jesus. Today’s text is the story of how Paul transitions from a closed theological perspective to a new theological template. SCRIPTURE We know the story of Paul’s conversion on the way to Damascus. In route to round up followers of ‘The Way’ he has an experience with the resurrected Jesus. Knocked off his horse, blinded by a light and hearing the voice of Jesus. He is in a quandary of where his theology is too small to accommodate this experience with Jesus. In his theology it is impossible for Jesus to be God, it is impossible for Jesus to be resurrected. So, when Jesus appears to him, resurrected, he has to choose to keep God in a small manageable box or change his theology to match this out of the box experience of Jesus. Resurrection of the dead expands the theological parameters and to have Jesus as God in flesh and blood. This is where we get to the second part of this story, with an average person of faith, just like us, Ananias. He is a believer of the Way of Christ. And while praying; ‘The Lord said to him in a vision, “Go to where your worst enemy is and pray that he might regain his sight.”’ Ananias answered, “Are you CRAZY?!” But the Lord responded, “Yeah, Yeah, I know, but Paul is praying and has seen of vision of you going to pray for him. He is the instrument who I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” That is pretty compelling, besides having this awesome visions and dialogue with God so Ananias goes, prays for Paul and say, “The Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here has sent me so that you my regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Scales fall, his vision is restored and that’s history. APPLICATION By simply living our faith, listening to God, and doing what God asks creates all kinds of God possibilities in the world. What difference does the Resurrection make for our faith? For Paul (and for us), the resurrected Jesus makes everything that Jesus said about God, about how we are to live, about the Holy Spirit empowering us, about how to treat others, about who the people of God are and moving away from temple sacrifices, for living in loving, and caring communities that follow the ways of God, an exemplification of Jesus,’ life, true. Prayer is for communicating with God, but our use of prayer has evolved into a shopping list of wants. The other side of prayer is listening to God. Being silent and present as we open ourselves to listen. There was a Guy from Inter Varsity (Dino Simmons) who encouraged us to listen beyond the silence. Then we can hear how we are to participate in what God is doing in our hearts, in our families, in our relationships, in our church and in our world. This passage is filled with people listening to God, God has had to use a few extreme measures to get the attention of Paul and Ananias but they received God’s message and their faith moved them beyond what they thought was possible into doing what God wanted to be accomplished. We carry with us those touch stones of when God has been real to us. An answered prayer. Speaking in tongues, a vision, a sense of peace. Being healed. Those stories of Provision or protection that arrived just at the right time. How things have worked out in a difficult situation. Our life’s journey with all of those times where God has intersected our lives. These experiences inform our theology boxes beyond their confines, so we listen to what thing, God might possibly be calling us to participate in. My Uncle and Aunt came to celebrate Ching Ming at his parent’s grave in Lahaina. It is like a Chinese Memorial Day. On the way to Lahaina, driving along the bypass there is a field of sunflowers planted just beyond Waikapu. It made me think about Ukraine. Sunflowers are a crop that Ukraine is known for. There is a bill board campaign where all they have is a picture of a Sunflower to remind us of the people of Ukraine. I watched Kelly Clarkson’s talk show this week and in the back ground she had two pictures of sunflowers. Her guest Henry Winkler came out wearing a blue shirt with a yellow tie. The colors of Ukraine. These reminders of Ukraine are prompts for us to be in prayer for them and the battle they have with Russia. But it is also for us to be in prayer to listen to God, of how God may be speaking to us about what we can do to participate in what God wants to accomplish there. Praying, listening for God’s voice, to hear what God wants to accomplish there and the faith to participate in that action. CONCLUSION When we couple the stories of the Bible with our experiences of God and then stew them together through prayer, this is a soup for us to listen to God’s voice in our lives that may be even greater than our theological confines. Certainly, greater than what we want to do, but along with God’s Spirit, and the mustering up of our faith, recalling our touch stones of our experiences of God in the past, we can participate in what God is doing today and take action. |
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April 2024
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