SCRIPTURE: John 6:1-21
TEXT: 14When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” THEME: Jesus makes God visible to us by what he does, and says. INTRODUCTION We have been looking at who Jesus is through the eyes of the Gospel writer Mark; with his hometown, with Herod, with tending to his human side, and today with his divine side. This story, although in the gospel of Mark, is taken from the Gospel of John and begins five Sundays discussing the bread of heaven. We are attracted to the things we see Jesus doing. It witnesses to the power of God that is among us. Saying grace before a meal gives us pause to reflect upon our day and be thankful for a great day of blessings. Thankful for all of the things that God has done, thankful for the food, thankful for our safety and thankful for each other. A crowd of people have dropped what they were doing to follow Jesus. SCRIPTURE Healing the sick, teaching about God in loving ways of covenant and reconciliation, and casting out of unclean spirits have created a following. Jesus makes it to the other side of the Sea of Galilee where a large crowd approach Jesus. Philip is asked to find something for this crowd to eat. Six month’s wages would only give each a taste. Then Andrew interrupts. He was listening to a boy’s offer of a bowl of poi and two dried akule. Hawaiian style. One day after church Arthur invited Jann and I for lunch at this house. We had been on Molokai only for a short while. We sat with his wife at the kitchen table where there was a common bowl of the most sour poi I have ever tasted. The moldy crust on top of the poi was stirred into the bowl as we ate our full, seasoned with the salty fish. That was a kind of communion. God provides for us in one way or another. When we pause and think about it, it is amazing. Now, imagine 5,000 people gathered on a grassy hill side. As this boy’s lunch is shared, everyone takes a portion and is provided for by God, as everyone is satisfied with something to eat. Just as God provides for us, every day, Jesus makes God’s provision visible in this one huge event. When the leftovers were gathered, there was 12 baskets, abundantly more than enough. “If Jesus can provide bread for everyone, why not make him king?” This is what the people were thinking. Jesus makes the activity of God visible. He gives witness to a God who heals, a God who casts out unclean spirits, a God who is about life, A God who cares for us. A God who’s rule bring equality and justice. A God who fosters good relationships. A God who draws us near through Jesus. A God who journeys with us through suffering and pain. A God who is compassionate and provides us with food to eat. Who Jesus is not, is king. Jesus is not a political entity. Jesus is not rallying support for a revolution but for citizens for the Kingdom of God. For family members for the Family of God. So, when the crowd approaches him to make him king, Jesus makes his way up to the mountains and the disciples head out to the other shore. This is the backdrop for another story revealing the divinity of Jesus, walking on water, identifying himself as the ‘I am’ and the disciple’s miraculous arrival to the other shore. APPLICATION We are influenced by the relationships that we keep. Whether it is with hobbies, foods or doing good or bad. What kind life, has our relationship with Jesus influenced us to live? Our journeying as a church has been littered with signs along the way. Answered prayer, God’s providing for the financial needs of the church through the concession at the County Fair, acquiring the Organ for our 150th anniversary, re-roofing of Sanderson and Ritter Hall, and there is a whole list of things associate with the Wailuku Mission Housing which is a part of my annual report after church today. There have been healings along the way, God has helped us when we struggled. And we are in a different place today because of how God has led us to see ourselves as missional instead of a chaplaincy, and how we have developed practices of discerning the will of God. Even during the Pandemic, there are signs of God’s provision, of sharing, of blessings, and God’s guidance that shows our participation in what God was doing in our world. We were bread for some families who found they only had a few slices left. We were a point of contact in a sheltered in world. We were practicing safety even when there was conflicting information. We made accommodations, we assimilated, we adapted as God’s spirit lead, empowered, created the right opportunities for things to happen. Today, we have a new video set up. Broadcasting on Facebook and YouTube, with an emerging audio set up. Jesus makes God’s activity among us visible. We are loved, guided, helped, supplied and empowered by God’s good grace to help our neighbor. To provide child care so parents could work. For spiritual support, mental health, for gaining a calm confidence, and peace in a world filled with anxiety. We have taken our imagination, and asked how is it that God would want us to be stewards of 2.5 acres we have in Wailuku town. We are becoming the inn keeper in the parable of the Good Samaritan, venturing to offer affordable homes, so our neighbors to have housing. CONCLUSION Jesus makes the activity of God among us visible. We follow Jesus to see what God is doing, but it is God who is healing, God who is casting out the unclean spirits, God who is feeding the 5,000 God who is drawing us into God’s self, as a parent loves their offspring. God is drawing us into a relationship of nurture and caring where we live with a God who is present in our lives. Into a relationship where we are not alone but have help through our hunger, we have comfort through our illnesses, and companionship in our wandering. God is drawing us into a relationship where we are called to participate with God, in what God is doing, to be partners in mission, stewards of creation, co-creators of something new and witnesses of the power of God that is among us. God is visible for other to see in us as the bread of heaven becomes our food.
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TITLE: Who is Jesus? Human
SCRIPTURE: Mark 6 TEXT: 30The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. THEME: Caring for our human selves. INTRODUCTION The last PSR’s CTEL (Certificate of Theological Education for Leaders) class was on spirituality. I struggled to find the broad swatches of time that was necessary to do the variety of exercises and readings. So while the class finished a couple weeks ago, I am still going through the posted assignments on the web site. One of the assignments was a thirty minute guided meditation. Simple directions on a podcast that freed me to ignite the human part of me that is spiritual. Quiet, meditative, silent, and prayerful are all part of our being human; physically and spiritually. There is a need for us to be in touch with both aspects of our being. This is what is so amazing about this passage in Mark. Jesus is deeply aware of what it means to be fully human and fully divine. He is attentive to the balance that combines the physical and spiritual sides of our humanity. As the disciples return from their mission into the neighboring villages, Jesus cares for their physical and spiritual needs. SCRIPTURE Jesus sends the disciples out in pairs with little more than the Holy Spirit and the Gospel. But before we get to that story’s conclusion, the Gospel writer, Mark keeps us in suspense with the interjection of the story of the beheading of John the Baptist by King Herod. In an act of tremendous ego and arrogance, Herod has backed himself into a corner and must preserve his image as a powerful, promise keeper, and ally, by upholding a public vow he made, that ends with John the Baptist’s death. This is the world we live in where the leaders of governments are not benevolent, and use their power and authority to mitigate their personal ambitions over those of their county’s needs. The disciples return and gather around Jesus to tell him how the teaching, proclamation and the casting out of unclean spirits went. They must have been on an adrenaline high. Jesus tends to their physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual needs by retreating to the wilderness. Don’t underestimate the need in our lives for food and desolation where we can relax, find rest, be in silence, pray, meditate and cultivate ourselves spiritually. In reading the text, a break can be placed between verse 32 and 33, to give Jesus and the disciples a respite from the crowds. A pause for rejuvenation, before the crowds catch up with them. This pattern of ministry, retreat and renewal is repeated in different parts of the Gospel. A pattern of balance that we can repeat in our lives to maintain mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health. The desperate crowd hurries along and catches up with them, with an onslaught of expectations, presumptions, petitions, requests, wishes, desires, hopes and dreams. The needs of our human conditions are overwhelming. Humanity is wonderful, but without guidance we can be lost and spiritually void, so Jesus teaches them many things. This gives them a theological perspective of understanding God. Jesus heals the sick, addressing their health concerns. Jesus acknowledges their physical suffering and has compassion for their emotional distress. There is a sense of hope arising, as the Kingdom of God draws near. APPLICATION There is both a physical and spiritual part to us. We also are engaged intellectually and emotionally to the world. Jesus brings these aspects out as he provides care and nurturing to the disciples upon their return from the field. How do we care for ourselves so we can engage wisely in mission? I was reflecting on the pattern of ministry a colleague of mine in ministry repeats. Over the course of his career, he has done amazing things but at the cost of exhausting the congregation behind him. Almost to the point of usury, where he uses a congregation to fulfill his needs instead of having the congregation’ whole being in the ministry of God. It is exciting to be part of his ministry, and participate in what he is able to accomplish, but it is also exhausting and if you were not careful, you could get burned out, with a caustic taste in your mouth. There is a burn warning here. What was missing was balance between the Mission of God and the checking in and monitoring of healthy practices that maintain our physical and spiritual health, as well as our intellectual and emotional quotas, to foster our life together as a community of faith. When we don’t eat we get ‘hangry’, when we don’t sleep we get irritable. When we are exhausted we don’t make good decisions, when we are frustrated with no one to talk to, we become bitter, lonely, and grumpy. When we don’t have the full story, we can become quick to judge and build resentment. When we are stressed, we may feel like quitting or running away. If we are not in a good space physically, spiritually, emotionally or intellectually we may not feel appreciated no matter how many thanks of gratitude we receive. Jesus draws the disciples in to ask “How did it go?” There is a tremendous ministry we can do for others, just by listening to what they are going through that can help to bring balance to their lives. CONCLUSION Jesus is human just like us. Jesus knows what we are going through and is attentive to our needs. Jesus responds to our humanness with compassion, sensitivity, teaching, leading, healing and caring for us. We can be attentive to a balance between our physical and spiritual selves. We need to tend to both, to have a good place to minister from, and live the wholeness God has to offer our lives and bring it to others. SCRIPTURE: Mark 6:1-13
TEXT:3b And they took offense at him. THEME: What God wants to accomplish through us can be different from what other’s expect of us. INTRODUCTION In June, Pentecost began with readings from the Gospel of Mark, we witnessed the activity of God’s Spirit in Paradise through Jesus’ ministry. This month we will be continuing in Mark, while looking at “Who Jesus is”; Who Jesus is to his hometown, Who Jesus is to King Herod, Who Jesus is as a Human Being and Who Jesus is as Divine. Today we will look at how his hometown sees him. SCRIPTURE Teaching about the Kingdom of God in Parables, Jesus escapes the crowds for time with God in a boat. After calming the winds and seas, Jesus finds himself on the other shore healing a daughter of Israel and a daughter of the synagogue. Leader. The next stop is in the familiar setting of his hometown. Jesus comes in preaching in the synagogue as he has done along the way to his home. He is an impressive speaker but makes his neighbors question how he is able to do this. How did Jesus come to be so eloquent? What is this wisdom given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hand? Jesus has exceeded their parameters of what is possible as they try to reframe Jesus in a box that they feel more comfortable with. Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Remember, his mom was pregnant and unwed when Joseph married her. Remember their family? Mary his mom, with James, Joses, Judas, Simon and the girls? Hey if Jesus isn’t going to be our carpenter, then who is going to build our houses? And they took offense at him. Villages needs its members to play their part in order of the community to survive. NPR broadcasted a story about a subsistence village in Alaska where this young boy was developing as a hunter, fisherman, boater, giving strength to the whaling parties, fixing homes, making gear and was becoming an intricate part of the future of this village’s survival. Until he was taken away to a Boarding school in Seattle. He was forbidden to speak his native language, He struggled in the academics they offered, his self-image plummeted until he discovered art, and could use his hand again. In Seattle, he became useless to his village. Their survival became harder as they lost a valuable member for their substance, for someone else’s perceived notion of a better life. They took offense at the United States of America for their policies towards Native Americans. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) developed the boarding school system for Native Americans. Their goal was to assimilate Indian students into Christian, civilized American culture. ‘Killing the Indian inside of them’. In a 2005 as study of this 30-year-old Boarding school program was made and they discovered that although learning about the world beyond their village was valuable, the loss of their cultural identity left a void in many students that lead to substance abuse, and suicide. They found themselves misplaced, finding it difficult to return home but not fitting in to where they were. Jesus no longer fit his neighbors’ image of what was useful to them. And they couldn’t see beyond their own assumptions to what God was bringing to them, so the only feeling they held was Jesus’ betrayal of his role as a carpenter for his home town. APPLICATION When we kill the prophet among us, we all die. How do we step out beyond our limiting expectations to see God’s expansive vision for our community? Today we are celebrating the foundations of our United States, they are prophetic in nature as they promote freedom and equality for all. Yet we have only narrowly practiced these principles of liberty and justice. The Dominant Culture uses freedom for themselves at the expense of everyone else. As a nation we are moving towards the practices of freedom for all, but as a nation our progress has been slow. We wrestle with slavery and its economics over what is fair and right. We had a Civil war to reset our thinking from capital gain to the value of human dignity. The war brought a shift in thinking but these principles took a long time to develop into practices of freedom, respect, justice and equality, whether the divisions were race, ethnic, religious, sex, sexual orientation, immigration or age. It is only now that we will nationalize a holiday celebrating the end slavery in our nation on June 19th. Good on paper but better in practice as the Civil rights movement of the 60’s took these principles of equality and applied them in resistant boroughs of our hometowns. We see on going refinement in equality, in law enforcement’s treatment of black lives, in the taxation of the rich to ease the burden of the middle class, In equal pay for equal work. To maintain the privilege of voting for elected officials. We see the resistance of hometown groups who cannot see beyond their own needs and are limited in seeing the needs of others or the movement of God. So, what do we do? A Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan will be presented to the Maui County Council on July 18th by Hawaiian Community Assets. On July 19th, the Affordable Housing Committee will receive the Council-generated Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan. We can stand for affordable housing. Danette Kong sent an invitation for us to show up on Monday July 19th at Kaahumanu Church Lawn to stand from 12 noon to 1pm, one hour, for affordable Housing. We can teach about God’s vision of inclusion. We can be healing to those who have been ignored. We can listen to the hurt and see what we want to ignore and have a greater vision for community that embraces a wider community. CONCLUSION The democracy that established our nation is more inclusive and diverse in nature and freedoms than we have come to practiced. The foundations are there, we just have to increase our inclusiveness to live into it. The perceived dominant culture has excluded, limited and interned the rights of others to preserve the freedoms that belong, not only to them but for all. The music for today’s service is provocative. Some of the lyrics have been reworded for greater impact. The song we are going to sing next is Dakota. Our government continued to treat indigenous people as less valued citizens and took their lands and pushed them to the barren dust bowls of our nation. We made these people dependent on annuities for subsistence and when their payments were delayed it caused them to starve. When they protested, their protest became violent killing townsmen on both sides. 38 Dakota Native Americans were executed for their participation in these killings. As they marched to the gallows it is believed that they sang this next hymn. Sung in their language, the spectators were ignorant of their Christian faith holding them up, as they faced their death. Who is Jesus? Jesus is a hometown kid who is a prophet, and does not see our hometowns as the final destination, but as the starting point for us to begin to imagine what the rule of God’s community can look like. We have the freedoms, the laws, and the liberties to institute them in our living in our nations. All we need now, is faith in a greater vision to put these into practice, where they are not. |
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April 2024
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