SCRIPTURE: Luke 16:1-13
TEXT: 13c” You cannot serve God and wealth.” THEME: Children of light living in a Children of the age world. INTRODUCTION The World is made up of all kinds of people. Jesus sees us as good and comes to love us to God. We have a choice to follow Jesus or not. When we chose to follow Jesus, we find that God’s ways are good for us and good for others. When we choose to do things our way, apart from God, often times it is only seemly good for us and others could suffer because of our choices. SCRIPTURE This parable is a little difficult to interpret because, trying to identify who the characters in this story are, is a bit tricky. Our usual assumptions could make this story harder to interpret until we leave them behind. At first, we would hope that the rich person in this story is God with the dishonest manager being one of us who had lost their way, valuable to God but lost like a sheep or coin. As the story progresses, we find that the dishonest manager continues at the master’s expense, to finagle deals in hopes of garnering good will from the master’s creditors. Fake grace in order to foster fake relationships with obligation, favors, manipulation to help this manager beyond his employment. The rich person’s praise of the dishonest manager’s shrewdness does not sound like something God would say. God’s goal is not to gather riches in our world but to build relationships with us. This rich person is somebody who has gathered riches in this world for themselves, so maybe the Rich person is not God, but another person who is lost in this economic system of usury, slaves and greed. The only ‘God like people’ in this story are the Children of light, who operate according to a system of love, fostering relationships, and who find themselves living contrary to this system of greed, self-interest, and injustice created by the Children of this age. The Children of light are about fostering loving and caring relationships through kindness, generosity, stewardship caring and reconciliation instead of creating liaisons for personal gain. This boils down to the same question of choosing humanity over money or to serve God or to serve wealth, or to live according to God’s ways or our ways. APPLICATION How do we as children of Light live in a world that operates under with the systems of greed created by the children of this age? Our news is filled with the ongoing saga of a rich man who is doing all that he can to stay in power, to garner more wealth, to change the laws for his advantage, to place his friends in positions of power so they can do favors for him, so he can avoid the consequences of his actions. In addition to that, he now is accused of collecting of sensitive data that he could use as leverage against his friends and enemies, to insure more favors. We are witnesses to a public display of selfishness, greed, manipulation and disregard of human life. Shrewd by the world’s standards. The warning Jesus gives is for the Children of Light is to be smart, vigilant, strategically prepare and not to rest on our laurels. Don’t be naive, know the game that is being played and prepare against the coming shrewdness. Admittedly the world is not perfect, but it is good and people are good, lost sometimes, with the potential of good is inside of them. The Gospel Christ brings is for the possibility of transformation, reconciliation, relationships and community. There are some who see the world as half empty and are waiting for it to be destroyed. This is not the message Christ gives to us, coming to live among us, and loving us in ways that bring wholeness and life to us. Very simply this passage is telling us that relationships are important. And human beings are more important than money. God shows us how to live with each other in ways that are caring and just. This week, the presidential portrait of Barak Obama was unveiled at the White House. It brought back memories of a person who led by example, tried to change the culture of Washington by seeking humanity over money. Obama Care, although used to make fun of the Affordable Health Care Act he proposed has been embraced as the kind of man and president he was. People are more important than money, and most of us are just a few health issues away from financial disaster. Obama Care created a way for all to have health care. When we follow Jesus, we will seem a bit Odd to the rest of the world. It’s hard for those who serve money to understand those who value people as being more important. But through compassion, prayers, and being advocate for those who experience injustice, we can be examples that draw people to God and transform the children of this age into children of light. CONCLUSION Jesus’ investment is in us. To choose to follow him has us operating from systems of love, relationships, and caring. The system of greed has choose creating scenarios of obligation, fear, manipulation, threat, control and vengeance. These relationships are filled with lies to prejudice the way people think. We falsely think that by keeping the rich man in power, we all will become rich. The truth is that most of the wealth is shared by only a few and that does not include the rest of us. Our value, our meaning in life is not gauged by how much money we have, but by the relationship we foster with God and the people we care for and help. We have friends and families who love us, not acquaintances and business partners who owe us favors. Our lives are rich with God and people who care for us, not with money. We build communities of caring and are stewards of our resources for the good of everyone not just a few. It is a richness that money cannot buy, God giving love freely to us, to transform the Children of this age with light.
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SCRIPTURE: Luke15:1-10
TEXT: 15:2b "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." THEME: Life with God is for all people. INTRODUCTION At Pentecost, God’s Spirit enables us to discover shards of light in every person and in every event. Luke’s gospel seems to do this in telling the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, as in every encounter, Jesus discovers light in persons that were labeled something else by circumstance, deed, public opinion or physical feature. In this passage Jesus see shards of light in Tax Collectors, Sinners, Pharisees and Scribes, SCRIPTURE Jesus eats with Tax Collectors and Sinners. The assumption being that those who are not following the Laws of God are not good enough to make it into the Community of God. This is what the Pharisee and Scribe adhere to. Pharisee are of the Jewish religious order that studied the Commandments of God like lawyers and controlled Judaism. The Scribe studied the scriptures in a prescribed way to teach others the same. Jesus is not perpetuating the usual way to understand the People of God. All people are loved by God and not seen by the labels of Tax Collector or Sinner, but as welcomed. Tax Collectors had a very lucrative job, but not very many friends. They would be responsible for collecting a certain amount of taxes from an area, and any more that was collected was theirs to keep as their compensation. They were seen as greedy, rich while everyone suffered financially and traitors to their people. Jesus draws these social outcasts in for a meal to draw them into a life with God. Welcoming these to the community of God creates a broadness and openness beyond the theological confines of the Pharisees and Scribes. A people of God wider than ancestral ties to Abraham and Sara. Expanding the worship of God beyond the confines of Temple in Jerusalem. People are not problems that needs to be fixed. This has been the usual way that we evangelized. We begin with the negative, getting people to admit to the wrong things they have done in their lives. Then to fix them by offering them an atoning sacrifice to erase their sin. A Sacrifice to God to forgive our debt of sin. But Jesus’ approaches us as valued by God. This is the story of the incarnation. Jesus comes, not to satisfy a debt but to love us to God. This is a love story that begin with acceptance, a wanting to know you and you know me at a meal with Jesus. Life with God is about being welcomed, belonging, without the labels, presuppositions, stereotypes or judgments of sin. Every one of us is valued, so when we have lost our way from God, God comes like the shepherd, leaving the flock behind, to find us. God sweeps the house to find the lost coin, like how God values us when we are missing. And when found, angels in heaven, friends, neighbors and God celebrates that the lost valuables have been found. APPLICATION When we affirm the love God has for all, how is our approach to our faith different? How is our life with God changed to include all people? How is our ministry, our attitude, our demeanor, and the makeup of the church changed to reflect this love God has for all? We like having church the way we are, but we are in a world that is in constant change. When we started out, our churches were language churches, but since then we all speak English. We may have to change from how things are into something new which means using our facilities in a new way. We all have our own buildings, cultures, values, and traditions. Our theologies have evolved in its own way according to our Holy Spirit experiences, things we have learned and our studies of the Bible. But is God calling us to be new, taking worship away from the form of church we have become comfortable with? Is our vision of church too small for what God is creating with the people of God? Recently we have received requests from other churches to use our sanctuary space for their worship. We had the Tongan Church in the past, we currently have a Samoan Congregation, but we have also been asked by the Pohnpeian Church, the Marshallese Church, the Chuukese Church and most recently an Anglican Church. What if God wants us to be a Worship Center? Imagine a partnership with Iao and Kaahumanu, where they would place our properties under a common property manager who would do the work of the trustees, managing our properties, schedule the uses of our facilities, taking care of maintenance, cleaning, improvements, and manage our projects. In the past we have had Concerts in our sanctuary, educational workshops in our Dodge Hall besides Weddings, funerals, and baptisms. Recently the Maui Choral Group asked about our sanctuary for their choir practices, which brought up concerns about ‘sacred space’ and the respect, treatment, specialness, and practices in our sanctuary. Sacred Space is one of those Chicken Skin places where we have history and memories of a closeness to God. A thin place where we pray, feeling the nearness of God. How do we treat and behave in this sacred space? Can we share this space with others without feeling that we have dishonored it in some way? When we started having concerts in the Sanctuary, as Music at Wailuku Union Church, I shared the history of this sanctuary, where our services were in the evenings, and began with an Organ Concert. It was equivalent to having a rock concert to bring the people in, for a worship service. I composed prayers for each event tying God, spirituality, prayer, and music together. These have not been money making events, but a welcome to our community, to come and eat with Jesus. CONCLUSION Jesus brings a shift in how to live our faith in God. It is not in judging the world between the righteous and the tax collectors and sinners, but to instead, love the world to God. The forms of Judaism give way to the church, maybe today our churches need to give way to something else, sustainable, creative, profit generating that will benefit not just one church congregation but many. Some of the churches mentioned are still language churches, but we may find shards of light that we have in common as partners in God’s mission, as God values us all. SCRIPTURE: Luke 14: 25-33
TEXT: 33So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. THEME: Count the cost of life with God to live in a differently looking community. INTRODUCTION I am so glad to be back on Maui. Getting off the plane and waiting curbside, the West Maui Mountains greeted us, “Maui is really beautiful!” Our trip to the mainland was very different from our other trips. With COVID, Monkey Pox this was the first time in two years we ventured to California. Hearing about the TSA wait lines at our airport we rushed around trying to get our Precheck approvals before we left. It works really well when everyone in your party has it. We were disappointed that somethings were not as good as they were the last time, we were in California but at the same time we discovered a few new things, like “double double, protein style, animal style.” burgers at “In n Out Burgers”; Lettuce wrapped burgers, grilled with mustard, added pickles and no bun. You can’t always reduplicate past experiences, but we can have rewarding new ones. This seems to be what the lectionary readings from the gospel of Luke is about. The people Jesus encounter at this stage of his ministry had been contending with what ‘Life with God’ was about but now are trying to discover, anew, what life with God is like according to Jesus. SCRIPTURE It seems that Jesus turns all of a sudden (knowing that he is being followed) to address the crowd. Life with God is not about, who you are related to, what race you are or where you grew up (he uses the words of hating your mother, father, sister, brother, spouse and children to express this). If this is what you are clinging to, then don’t follow me. The People of God, Jesus is bringing forth, is a paradigm shift from how things have been. It is more about your commitments, what you think and how you treat others than who your ancestors were or what your religious involvements have been. And with any commitments, there are consequences, responsibilities, obligations, and costs to them. Isn’t this interesting he uses the counting of the cost of building a ‘tower’, and not a house, or a shelter. A tower is not a basic need, but for a view, a Look out, a defensive structure, for fire protection, or as a support for a tram ski lift. Anyway, something big, gaudy. It will either becomes a wonder of the world like the Great Wall of China or a colossal Failure like a Frankenstein; a person who creates something that brings about his or her ruin. Just like Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. I’m sure things have not gone as he anticipated. He did not accurately count the cost of the invasion, public opinion on the world theater, or the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people. He is not acting in a way consistent with commitments to God. In contrast, his concerns are his own and no one else’s. I suspect what he wanted to accomplish could have been done through diplomacy and negotiations. Not with a show of force or absolute control but with covenantal agreements. When this is all said and done, Putin will still have to negotiate some kind of treaty for peace and be held accountable for war crimes against humanity. For God, one human life lost is too much of a price. The cost is too great for the kingdom of God. So, maybe this is foreshadowing how Jesus’ colossal failure was a tremendously loving way to prevent the collateral damage of all of our souls. This is a flip side to the way we have been thinking about the Kingdom of God, heaven, eternal life and life with God. What Jesus is offering is not a way for us to possess eternal life or heaven, but a way for us to live with God and with others. It’s going to be a crowd, diverse, multi-cultural, multi languages, rainbow, and colorful. “33So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” APPLICATION If we are to live with God, we can’t help but live with others who are also committed to God. What is the cost to living in the crowded community of God? Let’s start with what we get with ‘life with God’. We have a chance to be transformed in ways that God wants us to change, we have the opportunity for a new way of being, our minds are opened to radical ideas that could make positive differences in other peoples’ lives. Our communities would care for others, lives lived with meaning, we would have life beyond our gathering and possess things to share as blessings and renewed relationships with forgiveness. Our stewardship of resources would help those in need, which includes a stewardship of each other, healthy practices and friendships that become our family. The cost to living in this way is to give up the markers of materialism and greed, for those of humanity. It is that same template of seeing the world with either its goal as being money or humanity. It’s not that money is bad, but when we are not the steward of it, then it can control us and become our master. We must always see the humanity of a person no matter what state they are in. Practices of respect, dignity, self-control, patience, kindness, gentleness generosity, peace become the fruits of our actions. As love and joy well up inside of us. CONCLUSION When we were on the mainland, we decided not to go to Disneyland because of our concerns with COVID and Monkey Pox. As a compromise we decided to go shopping at Downtown Disney outside of the theme park. When we got there, we had to pass through Disney security and surrender a glass water container and Leatherman multitool to be part of this community. As we ate on the lanai of the bakery, we could count the number of people who were wearing masks compared to those who were not and felt better about our decision not to go into Disneyland because it could very well have been a spreader event for us. Some of the good fun events from the past were pale on this trip. But we had a new experience like eating at a Korean Soft Tofu restaurant in Gardena that was GREAT! Letting go of our cherished possessions, gives us the opportunity to have new experiences living into new ways with God. From the time Jesus ministered in Samaria to his to journey to Jerusalem for the last time, he is expanding the understanding of who can be part of the people of God. It is more about loving God and others than it is about our ancestral roots. The People of God will be from everywhere not just one area. The People of God are made up of all races. The system of temple worship is too small for the crowd of People and worship, God is bringing about. Our commitment to live for God comes with commitments, consequences, responsibilities, obligations and costs that we gladly bear for being able to be new in Christ. |
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April 2024
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