SCRIPTURE: Luke 9:51-62
TEXT:62Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” THEME: The Church of God needs to compost for new generation of believers. INTRODUCTION My favorite Pod Cast is coming to an end. On Being with Krista Tippett is reaching the time, where its host feels that she has accomplished what she has set out to do and will stop the daily grind of producing a weekly show. I began listening to this pod cast after attending my first General Synod where Krista Tippett was a presenter at one of the workshops. Often times I would listen as I gardened and somehow, her topics seem to intersect the themes I was pondering that week. She began with interviews of scientist who held deep faith in God and were able to mesh the two as complementary instead of diametrically opposed. This week as I was hanging laundry I began listening to her latest offering, with Adrienne Maree Brown. Her biography describes her as; “A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we’d be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us.” Wouldn’t you know it, this is exactly what this week’s lectionary reading is about? SCRIPTURE As Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem, he has a vision of the People of God that is greater than what the temple can contain. Temple worship is too small and localized for what Jesus is bringing with the Love of God. The inclusive nature of God’s love reached far beyond the sin and sacrifice cycle perpetuated by the Jewish religion. Relationships with the Love of God are abundant, diverse, not centrally located but beyond age, race, nation and sex. God’s love is not dispensed, restricted, regulated or controlled, but surfed, moved by and washed over. Jesus is in Samaria to share the love of God, but old prejudices and suspicions prevent them from welcoming the Good News. The Demoniac is liberated from oppression as the pigs that host Legion are now destroyed. Afraid of Jesus, the Samaritan city asks Jesus to leave. So, Jesus leaves their own former demoniac to tell them about the love of God. Jews and Samaritans have a difficult history of betrayal, hate, disappointment, selfishness and abandonment. Judgments and accusations have been cast against each other. The next town over was also afraid. Mistrust, suspicion and intolerance characterize their encounter. They don’t even try to understand what Jesus’ setting his face towards Jerusalem is all about. Instead, they interpret Jesus’ actions as ignoring or minimizing them by leaving them for Jerusalem. They don’t realize that Jesus needs to go there to bring a newness to the people of God, beyond the limits of Jerusalem, which would include Samaria and all people. The third town they approach allows them to come but with conditions to their participation in God’s movement of love. We cannot control God much less the movement of God’s love. The measured relationships balanced between sin and sacrifice with God will be opened up with love; unregulated, inclusive and diverse through the Spirit. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” A new system of being the people of God will emerge to include all of these changes, as the Spirit gives birth to the church. Jewish temple worship cannot imagine the love of God singing praises in Hawaii. This is why Jesus turns his sights on to the events in Jerusalem. This is how he will be a Savior to All People, just as foretold to shepherds by the angels at Jesus’ Birth, “A Savior has been born to you for all people.” APPLICATION The old needs to be plowed under to fertilize the new God is creating in love, for the Kingdom of God. What is God venturing to create, fertilized by our last crops? Remember when we were young; we were defiant, we had energy, we resisted authority, we questioned why things had to be done the way they have always been done, we protested injustices. We dressed in ways that our parents disapproved of. We wore our hair in ways that made us look unkept. We tested the boundaries of independence and freedom. In our youth we made choices about substances, sexuality, and how we chose to behave. We had to make do with what we had. The modern pieces of technology we owned were a pocket calculator and a typewriter. The most important relationships we had, came from our family, the church in a variety of forms and love. Not that different from the emerging generations of Christians, except they have more distractions, more technology, more media at their fingertips and more cyber relationships. They are also more mature than we were at their age, but they don’t trust the structure and authorities as we have. So, they question what we have taken for granted as truth. Then when our structures witnesses more to a political democracy than community of God’s love, they choose not to continue to be part of the church. What has worked for us in the past may have to be composted to serve something that will reveal a modern-day foretaste of Heaven. Adrienne Brown says, “Change is coming. You can be prepared for it, and you don’t have to be a victim of it. You can actually shape it.” It takes “radical imagination” to see “beyond the constructs of what is and to see a future where we all get to be there, not causing harm to each other and experience abundance.” Part of our history as the Hawaii Conference was the sending of missionaries to the Micronesian Islands. Descendants of this missionary activity are now in Hawaii and their churches need places to worship in our community. What transformative imagination and vision is God giving us to be the church in a new way? CONCLUSION Adrienne Maree Brown’s interview was apropos in talking with Krista Tippett who is in her last season, as well as to us as we witness the strain of our own organizational structures. Our church will be working on by-law changes because we are not able to fill all of the nominated seats of the past. That structure has reached what they set out to accomplish but is impossible for us to continue in its current form. We will also be presenting a bare bone proposed deficit budget for next year, lacking the income from the County Fair. Adrienne Brown says when organizations accomplish what they set out to do, they should say, “Great. We did a good job. Let’s call it. Let’s learn what we need to learn and move on.” But instead, they say, “No, we need to persist. So, let’s change our mission, we’ll update our mission, and here’s what the philanthropy is willing to fund. And they get contorted.” She says, “now it’s time to compost this and process it and see where else the resources need to flow.” Adrienne Brown continued, “what you’re speaking to is the life force, right? Everything dies, but that’s kind of good. [laughs] It makes for a very rich world. All the richness, all that fecundity, all that beautiful miracle of life, it happens because we live in cycles, not perpetuity.” Krista Tippett responded, “And as you say, composts something else, right — other seeds. Other seeds then have their moment, have their time.” This is what Jesus is doing as he sets his face to go to Jerusalem. He is on a composting mission to nourish the seeds of a new crop.
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SCRIPTURE: Luke 8:26-39
TEXT: 39bSo he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. THEME: The Spirit of Christ reaches out to find shards of light in us. INTRODUCTION We continue with a sermon series on the ‘Spirit in Life’, in this passage the Spirit in Jesus, ‘Reaches Out’. Jesus reaches out to find hidden shards of light in every event and in every person, like treasure, then lifts it up for all to see to bring wholeness to the world. (Adapted from Dr. Remen’s grandfather’s Creation Story) SCRIPTURE The shore of Gerasenes, must be like that graveyard across from Paia Hawaiian Church, on the Makai side of the road. Jesus approached from the water and walked up the shore to find someone living among the tomb stones. Spooky, naked, unkept and dirty, with broken chains handing off of his wrists and ankles. He runs up to Jesus and bows at his feet and says, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” The Disciples have been trying to figure out who Jesus was. He healed the synagogue Leader’s daughter, he feed a massive crowd of people with only a few items, and calmed the waters and winds on their way here. They have been wondering who Jesus possibly might be when this demon possessed man identifies Jesus as ‘the Son of the Most High God’. This man lives in two worlds, one here and the other possessed by invisible demons that he battles internally. When Jesus asks what his name is, it is Legion, like a battalion of Roman soldiers occupying Judea. Not only do these demons know who Jesus is, but they also know there is no chance of winning here and pleaded for Jesus not to torture them. Fearful of being sent into the abyss, a black hole of nothingness, the demons suggest an inhabitation in a herd of pigs. Jesus does this, having compassion for these demons. They cause the pigs to become suicidal, run off a cliff drowning their host in the water below. I can only imagine, with the host dead do the demons also perish? It is easier to see the demons in others than it is to see the demons inside of us. The villagers are possessed by fear. They see the result of the Spirit of God in Jesus and don’t want that to happen to them. So, they rather keep their inhabitations than be liberated from them and ask Jesus and disciples to leave. This may seem strange, but they may have come to live with their demons and would rather live with them than change, be transformed or live in a new manner. Even though our Aha Pae’aina last week was viral, it was one of the better Aha’s. The Speakers and workshops were excellent, and can be found on the Hawaii Conference United Church of Christ’s web page. But in the midst of our gathering were the demons of our ugly past. Reparations for the wrongs committed to the Hawaiians and our church’s complacency towards those events at that time. This is a great abyss that will never be satisfied. In that sense our possession is evident and it prevents us from being able to follow Jesus. Justice is a mirage that only forgiveness can give us hope, because there will never be enough reparations to equal the injustices perpetrated. The hurt remains, the anger remains, the pan remains, if only there were pigs enough to cast these demons into, for there are many. Our failed attempts to bind them, to satiate them, to reconcile our errors are like broken chains on the wrists and ankles of a possessed man who lives in the shadows of the dead. When we think we have done enough, old stories are retold, our failures repeated, and we are back to square one. We need Jesus, who sees the hurt, the tortured souls, and listens to the fear, then with compassion sets us free in ways we don’t understand, so our lives can move on as a witness of Christ being with us. The former demoniac wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus sent him back to his city to declare how much God had done for him. He became a constant reminder of what the Spirit of Christ can do, in an impossible situation. APPLICATION The way we were treating each other at the Aha Business Meeting, with mistrust and the constant hurting of old wounds, brought us back to the injuries of the past. We wish we could pay for the crimes of our ancestors but we cannot. We wish we could ignore what was done to our brothers and sister of faith, but we cannot. We hear the pain and our actions continue to wound them today. There were historic admissions of our bad behavior. Only love and grace will forgive us. Even though we are not worthy of such kindness. I am afraid that the future of our Hawaii Conference will be in shackles. Being in the wrong, we cannot force our victims to forgive us. That comes from within. It comes from the Spirit. As I was writing this sermon, I found myself in prayer. So, I will invite those would like to close their eyes for this guided prayer to do so. We will end by opening up our eyes to sing the praise song; There’s a Stirring. Let’s begin by sitting comfortably and taking a few relaxing breathes: breathe comfortably and relax… As we pray, listen instead of talk, to the voices of their prophets that we call activist. We don’t have to do anything other than to feel what they are expressing… … breathe. Feel how our actions oppress, and have caused a possession in their lives, recognize that they feel stuck too… … breathe. Listen to the silence, hear the voice of God’s Spirit talking. Feel God’s sadness as we are at odds with each other… … breathe. Jesus’ compassion extended to the extreme and was for the demons too. What do we need to let go of, to be compassionate…? … breathe. As we look inside of ourselves. We are afraid of what we might find. What is the demon from you, you would release into a pig…? … Off it goes, over a cliff. Now breathe in God’s Spirit and fill that space in you with a Blessing… With Peace… With a good presence… Welcome Jesus’ Spirit in you… Rest… relax…breathe… and when you are ready open your eyes. CONCLUSION. Praise Song ♫ There's A Stirring ♫ Verse There's a stirring deep within me Could it be my God has come When I'll see my gracious Savior Face to face with joy and grace Is that God’s voice I am hearing Come and live My precious one Is God calling me? Is God calling me? Chorus I will rise up, rise up Then with Christ And love the world With compassionate grace. Verse 2 Is that God’s voice I am hearing Come and live My precious one Is God calling me? Is God calling me? Chorus I will rise up, rise up Then with Christ And love the world With compassionate grace. End There's a stirring deep within me. CCLI Song # 816808 Anne Herring © 1992 Latter Rain Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing) For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com The Spirit can greet us in our prayer, to discover hidden shards of light in all events and all people. SCRIPTURE: Romans 5:1-5
TEXT:5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. THEME: The Spirit helps us to discover understanding and compassion through our suffering. INTRODUCTION The sermon themes During this season of Pentecost or Ordinary Time, will be pertaining to “The Spirit in Life”. This is a turnaround of the phrase, “Life in the Spirit”. Life in the Spirit is a little self-serving, as if we get to choose when the Spirit moves, being about our lives and what we do to have the Spirit in us. But by turning this around. We have the Spirit that comes to our lives, not because we prayed, or were deserving, or forgiven of all of our sins, but because God loves us, and the power of God dwelling with us is wild, uncontrolled, infecting our lives, causing us to adapt, to adjust, to accommodate, to change and to live with the spirit of God in us. I’m also going to be carrying the image of the Spirit enabling us to have the ability to discover shards of light in every event and in all people. Lifting up the light we discover for all to see to bring wholeness to the world. SCRIPTURE God loves us. That love forgives us so we can be at peace with God. God’s love is gracious with us and results in a relationship with God and a community with others. God’s love Heals our wounds and is always there for us. Our faith in Jesus tells us that there is nothing that we can do that would prevent God from loving us. Faith is not a quantifier, but an attitude towards God’s love. This is the same compassionate love we can have for others, of how God has loved and helped us. Of how we can understand and have compassion for others. This is most exemplified when we suffer. Suffering is a part of our lives. God journeys with us and allows suffering to produce endurance in us, Allows suffering to produce character in us. And allows suffering to produce hope in us because God’s love pours the Holy Spirit in us to help. Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh cannot imagine the Kingdom of God without suffering, because it is how we are able to transform the suffering Inside of us, that we can help us to transform the suffering around us. We think of the Kingdom of God as a place where no one suffers. He would instead see the Kingdom of God as a place where we would not run away but understand the nature of suffering. Then what we discover about suffering can be used to build peace and happiness. Struggling with our suffering fosters understanding and compassion. These are needed in our relationships in the Kingdom of God. What we learn from suffering can help to transform the world around us. Following up on the thoughts of Dr. Remen from last week’s sermon, she asked her students what was helpful to them in a time of disappointment or loss. What did that person do? What did they say? What message did they bring that was helpful from their time of struggle? Then listen generously without judgment, holding confidentiality, with the power of our presence, being a witness to another person’s loss. Letting what matters to them matter. Being wholly human includes our wounds as well as our strengths. And often times we connect through our wounds. APPLICATION What has the Holy Spirit shown us through suffering that can be helpful for others? As we move out of the isolation of the pandemic, we will begin to be in conversation with others again. We will have to remember how to make small talk and converse with others. When Eric Law was here leading a workshop on his book, Holy Currencies, he talked about the importance of relationships but discovered that people don’t know how to converse with each other. All we need to do is to ask questions of the other person, to show our interest in them and not use the time only to tell our story. There will be plenty of opportunity for us to share later. But as we put our focus on others, they will get a sense of our care for them. We will have to refrain from our favorite conversation buddies to get to know some others better and greet the stranger or new comer. We will be surprised at how healing, being a good listener can be, especially for those who haven’t had anyone new to talk to for a while. This is not an interrogation but listening to another person’s story and to ask questions that spark an interest or curiosity. People are not looking for advice, or judgment, but there may be times when the suffering they have encountered is similar to the wound we have endured and what God has done to help us could be and encouragement. The words that describe these conversations are found in our text from Romans; peace with God, access to grace, and hope of sharing the glory of God. Showing how faith has enable us to discover shards of light in all events and people. CONCLUSION I ran into someone the other day. And they are working their faith, to get God to answer their prayer. There was a righteousness that they were aspiring to, to keep them in God’s good graces, so that their faith would justify their peace with God through Christ Jesus. I would describe the tone of our conversation as edgy, judgmental, critical and fearful at times. When Krista Tippett asked Dr Remen about perfection becoming a major addition to our Christian living, Dr. Remen responded by saying, “perfection is the booby prize in life, actually. It’s very isolating, very separating, and it’s also impossible to achieve. So, you’re always struggling to become something you’re not” I listened, but was a bit sad thinking about God loves as a parent; providing, sheltering and caring for us for no other reason than love. Of how God loves us as a friend or sibling, listening, coming along side of us to show us how-to live-in relationship with the Divine, with others and in our world. And how God loves us from within, through the Spirit helping us to be strong, feel secure and doing way more than we ever thought possible. All as a matter of nothing that we merit but grace. I listened to the pain, the deep seeded hope in God. And have joined the prayer for a miraculous outcome. But I believe, the Spirit is in Life. God’s love has poured the Spirit into our hearts, indwelling, filling, wild, uncontrolled Spirit, greets us in our suffering and helps us to discover hidden shards of light. There are more shards of light to discover in this event and in these people, to be lifted up for all the world to see. SCRIPTURE: Acts 2:1-21
TEXT: 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. THEME: INTRODUCTION Our experiences with God write our theology. Our experience through prayer becomes a conversation with God that informs our theology. When the Holy Spirit of God moves in our lives, opens opportunities, guides and leads us, these new experience with God are sometimes beyond our theological constructs and expands our boundaries with our relationship with God. Paul had this experience as he sees the vision of the Macedonians calling him to come. Then as he finds a place to pray the Holy Spirit has prepared Lydia and her household to believe in Jesus. Paul and Silas see the same thing happen when the fortune telling spirit is cast out of the slave girl. Then while imprisoned an earthquake fling doors and shackles open. Our experiences with God inform our theology. SCRIPTURE I listened to a podcast conversation of Krista Tippett with physician Rachel Naomi Remen. Dr. Remen counsels’ patients who are vulnerable and weak and listens to their stories for signs of strengths, while so much of our focus is on pain. Her grandfather told her the story of the birthday of the world. It is a creation story where from out of the holy darkness comes rays of light. But as in a Jewish story there was an accident and the vessels that contains the light of the world breaks into a thousand counsels’ fragments that are scattered and fall into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day. An accident where humans are now born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, and to lift it up and make it visible once again, returning wholeness to the world. A story to say that inside of each of us is a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. The Story of Pentecost is about the Spirit of God that rushes in and fills the room, resting on the apostles. It reveals that hidden treasure of light that is imparted in everyone. That strength, that gift, that kindness that adds wholeness to our world. There came a rushing wind, that everybody heard. People ran towards the source of the sound and found those closest to the explosion speaking. One of the commentators from Sermon Brainwave shared about traveling in a foreign country, when all of a sudden, they heard someone speaking English, not just English but American English. Hearing this made them feel at home. Imagine being a pilgrim in Jerusalem and as you heard a loud sound that led you to a gathered crowd where in this circle of men you hear, “An den, had one Iniki kine wind and Wen blow all inside the house and we began to speak like dat! And then all you guys stay hear all your own words like dat too. We stay all part of God's big Ohana.” Pentecost is God’s story proclaiming to us that, there are shards of light for people to discover in every person and every event to lift up for all to see and bring wholeness to the world. APPLICATION Our fully revealing God, creates an opportunity for us to live profoundly in relationship with God and with others. How do our experiences of God change the way we live with others? At Pentecost, the fulness of God; Creator, Incarnate and Spirit, adds important knowledge to the stories of our lives. Dr. Remen talked about how important knowledge is passed on through stories. Dr Remen's grandmother fed the people in her neighborhood. So, you had to be careful when you opened her refrigerator door, that nothing would fall out. It was told that if an egg did fall and break on the floor, her grandmother would say, “Aha, today we make a sponge cake.” As a 15-year-old, Dr. Remen was diagnosed with and incurable disease that would shorten her life, she brought the ‘sponge cake story’ to that news. It took a long time, but she created a recipe that was all her own to this. At the time of this recording that was 63 years ago and this September her new book for children will be released. Her story has outlived the prediction of a shortened life but has informed how she has lived her years. Our salvation, is being able to live in relationship with God and with others. Dr Remen’s occupation evolved into listening to those who needed to talk about their stories and to help them to discover strength and not only see pain or sorrow. Seeing the fallen egg has help them in creating a recipe all their own to make a sponge cake. CONCLUSION We used to think that the Holy Spirit was all about power, healing, miracles and signs. Power can be seductive if we are not grounded in love. It is about God dwelling in us, as part of our story and us being part of God's story. It is relational. One last thing about the story of the Spirit. Stories are not finished. Krista Tippett told the story of the Birthday of the World to her son. Dr. Remen’s Grandfather’s story continues to be written in his life. The story of Pentecost is about God’s Spirit giving to us the ability to discover shards of light in every event and every person so that it can be lifted up to bring wholeness to our world. The Holy Spirit story continues to be written in our lives as we create our own recipe of living in relationship with the fullness of God. |
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April 2024
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