SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
TEXT: 10a&b I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation… THEME: dressed for Freedom INTRODUCTION This passage is like instructions, for something we got at Christmas. It is an owner’s Manual of how to make the best use of the gift of the Christ Child. SCRIPTURE The People of God are being held captive in Babylon. Taken by force from their ancestral home, to live in a foreign land. Generations have passed and it seems that God has abandoned them, but the prophet Isaiah is giving them news of their return home. Home is no longer a distant memory, but a dream of the past. The Prophet Isaiah gives them news that they get to return home and instructions on what this means. Each point, is a touchstone to our own experiences that will inform us of how to receive this gift of salvation as well as to receive in the Christ Child. What do we wear? What are the clothes of rejoicing? Think about it, the clothes of rejoicing are Shorts, T shirt and Rubber slippers. Being back home in Hawaii, at the beach, relaxing, not judged by our appearance, confident in who we are, comfortable and ready for action. This makes us think of clothes that they haven’t been able to wear while captive, like those of a wedding. Imagine having to put your life on hold. Suppressed, confined, and then being freed to live your own future. The simple act of marriage, self-determination, a choice towards a covenantal future, is worth up dressing for. During our COVID-19 Facebook worship broadcasts from home, I wore an aloha shirt, shorts and bare feet. But when we went back into the sanctuary, I put on long pants and shoes. Not because it was the most comfortable, but because I had the opportunity to respect God with what I wore. To have a sense of how things used to be. To protest having to have been sheltered in. To be my casual best. When I pastored on Molokai, Cissy Kaupu would greet me every Sunday with a lei. An act of love, an expression of respect, and reflection of the beauty of God. The Ilima leis she sewed, took 2000 of those thin petals, picked and sewn in the early morning to be ready for our morning service. Sometimes ginger, or the blossoms of the dwarf poinciana tree. A garment of salvation, a Garland of celebration. Like how a bride accents her beauty with jewels. We are valuable to God, precious, and decked out. Their release from Babylon has the potential of new life for the Israelites. I severely trimmed the bougainvillea hedge in front of my house in preparation for painting. There was not a single leaf left hanging and I thought I might have killed it. It took two weeks before I started to see, shoots being pushed out from the branches. I didn’t kill it, it is springing to life with new leaves, branches and flowers. This is the chance freedom gives the people of God in returning home. For a new life, new potential, new ways, new patterns and renewed relationships with God and each other. A relationship with God on our own effort is futile, but not when God is the initiator, as with Christ born of Mary, all we need to do is to let God love us. What God is able to do through Israel is an example of the love of God that is available to us. Israel’s relationship with God is a light that shine as an example of what is possible. Light is more powerful than darkness, but somehow darkness always seems to get there first. The light God is shining though us needs to be proclaimed. During one of our Christmas shopping expeditions, we found humming bird ornaments. One of the recipients of this ornament googled ‘Humming Birds’ and found them to be a symbol of the resurrection. A humming bird’s heart rates can slow down to imperceivable levels giving the appearance of death, until they are roused and flitter away. These ornaments have become talking point to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus. The God of Israel is not just for the Nation of Israel, but is for all nations as they witness to the way they live, and work with their God. Their prayers, their holidays, their worship, their food and their dress are all about God and exited our interest in what knowing their God could mean for us. On one of those rabbit holes on Apple News, took me to the story of Sarah Culberson. She is an American actress and dancer who discovered through a DNA test, that she was a princess of Sierra Leone, of West Africa. She was orphaned as a child and adopted by a couple in West Virginia. Her discovery of royalty did not come with an inheritance, but with responsibilities that she has not turned her back to. She has helped to restore buildings in Sierra Leone, she is an advocate for education and has championed the rebuilding of High Schools, she is promoting Mask wearing to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and is developing safe and clean sources of water for villages. She says, “If it doesn’t make a difference, it’s not worth doing.” She has taken the responsibility of being a princess for these people, and is using the resources available to her, to make a difference for good, as a person of faith and a daughter of a king. Children of God, we are children of the king. We shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord our God. APPLICATION Our salvation is found in the love of God. That’s why the prophet Isaiah uses the analogy of a wedding. The birth of Christ is an expression of love from God to us, where our response is to be in love and enter into a covenantal relationship with God and each other as a Bride and Groom. The Christ at Christmas will change the way we dress, will bring shoots forth of new possibilities and a new future, is so exciting that we can’t stop saying something about it or living in a compelling way with our God and our community, we will be called Christian, Children of God, heirs, citizens of the Kingdom of God, The people of God. We will be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord our God. CONCLUSION As we went around this Advent season, we stopped and chatted with people that we haven’t be able to talk with in a long time. My family committed to a Zoom meeting each week to light an Advent Candle and the Christ Candle on Christmas Day. Our greatest joy and salvation are with those people we stay connected with, our family, our church, our friends, people we know, people we meet, our neighbors and our God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Our relationship with God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit is lived out in each relationship that we are a part of. Salvation is not just about being freed from sin, although it does include all of those elements of forgiveness, reconciliation, renewal and restoration. Salvation is more about a love, being loved by God, loving God and loving others. So, we are not Dressed as Free, which was my first definition of salvation, but we are dressed as loved, as seen in our experience with Jesus, the babe, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born in a manger, the Son of God.
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SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:1-20
TEXT: THEME: INTRODUCTION There is another way to understand the Stable that Jesus was born in. In those days, it was not uncommon for people to have animals in their homes. Kind of like how we might have a dog, or cat, or some other pet roaming the home. My friend had a rabbit. Bethlehem is Joseph’s home town, fill with all kinds of family to impose upon. When the inn was full, he and his pregnant wife had options. Sleep here on the Pune in the living room, next to the dog, cat, chicken, duck, goat and cow. Animals were brought into the house at night for shelter, warmth, and safety. When the baby comes we’ll be there to help. SCRIPTURE Reimagine the home, with travelers sleeping from their trip, in the living room. Then roused from their sleep as the child is ready to be delivered into the world. The household became alive with activity, with each finding something to do. For some, this was not their first time helping to deliver a new life into the world. Accommodations, adaptations, room is made ready for this new addition to the family. Where are we going to put the baby? We got this thing here to use as a bassinet. Line it with fresh hay, it’s soft, This blanket is clean, swaddled babies don’t move, he’ll be safe, this will work. Jesus comes, born into the family of David’s cede in Bethlehem. What God is doing is about family and relationships. Jesus’ coming is about our identity as the people of God, being brought into the family of God, no matter who you are. Shepherds are alerted by angels of this and are welcomed at the manger event. From God in Heaven, to Angels above, to Travelers from Nazareth and Shepherds in the field, this is an inclusive act of God, drawing all people to God’s self at Aunty’s house in Bethlehem. Jesus is the kind of relative that comes to stay with us and is happy to sleep in the living room, or on whatever we set up with for him. Dog, cat, chicken, goat, cow, its okay. Staying with family, to spend as much time with each other cooking, washing dishes, hanging out is what Jesus wants to do. The Christ child is about love, relationships, living and welcome APPLICATION This Christmas story is not about how sinful we are or how much we need to be fixed or saved. But this Christmas story is about a God who loves us so much, veiled in flesh and blood is born in the City of David. What is created in Mary is the work of the Holy Spirit. Joseph shelters Mary in their marriage, The family of David shelters them with a heritage, And God is extending this shelter of love to all of us. God sees us as good and love sparks Jesus’ coming to us in this dramatic way. “Infant holy, infant lowly, For his bed a cattle stall.” The Manger is unpretentious, inventive, innovative, creative, imaginative, wide open for anyone to come and be apart of this manger event. God’s arms are opened wide to welcome us into God’s self just as we are. As our eyes lock on Jesus in the manger, this image is etched in our minds. We too must make accommodations for the love of God, in; wholeness, acceptance, purpose, joy, compassion, caring, companionship, healing, hope, life, life eternal, relationship with God, goodness, contentment, and peace. It takes the adaptive, creative, devoted parts of us that allows us to let go of those parts that impede the life God wants to share with us in Jesus. Jesus’ birth is a story of good news, it is a story of God’s news, and the story of Good lives - all lives - loved by God. CONCLUSION There is a welcoming hospitality that is extended to this traveling couple and accommodation to include the Christ Child. This is something we already do. We make accommodations, we adapt, we are creative and inventive, and strengthen relationships with each other, with experiences of hospitality. God comes to us in Jesus as a lavish expression of God’s love for us. God sees us as good, you are good as God desires more intimacy in our relationship together. Christmas is this gift of God’s manger, opened wide to include us, under God’s shelter of love. SCRIPTURE: Luke 1:26-38
TEXT: 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” THEME: God favors us to carry the Holy within us. INTRODUCTION Very early on as a preacher, I ran out of things to say about Christmas. There are not too many passages on it and although it is an amazing story of love, God, and incarnation, once you’ve preached an account of the birth of Christ there isn’t much more about it. I tried to be creative, to see some insight that I have might not see before, but my Mom told me what people come to hear, is the Christmas story again. So, don’t try to be creative just preach the same story of Jesus’ birth. Of course, she is right, but…. I cannot help to see new things in this passage, even after 30 years and find different ways of telling the birth story. So, like the willful child, I have another creative perspective for our consideration. SCRIPTURE Mary’s human experience with God, is our story with God. Mary is as sinless as humanly possible. But her favored status is not based on how perfect or sinless she is, because the gift that she bears, is for us too, as imperfect and sinful as we are. As God finds favor with her, God is also finding favor with us. So, for no other reason than God’s loving her, does she (and we) find favor with God. As impossible as that may sound, Mary is carrying the Son of God inside of her. This also is our story too, as what God does for Mary, God also does for us by our being able to carry the Holy Spirit of God inside of us. The angel Gabriel is the messenger who tells Mary that she will become a God Carrier. Jesus is the messenger who tells us that we will become a God Carrier. The Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his interview with Krista Tippett says that we are special to God. He talked about a woman in his parish in South African, her white employer said African names were too difficult and called most of the women employees “Annie”. He exhorted her, “When they ask who are you, you say, Me? I’m a God-carrier. I’m God’s partner, I’m created in the image of God.” The favored greeting of the angel was not just for Mary, but is also for us, “Greetings favored one, you have found favor with God.” Her emotions move from being perplexed and pondering about what sort of greeting this may be, to Fear of having an angel in your living room, to Wonder, of how is this could be possible, to resolve, as whatever this is all about, she will do her best to participate in this movement of God. What does it mean to find favor with God? Mary’s life has a new trajectory. APPLICATION Sermon Brainwave commentator Courtney V. Bragg calls Gabriel’s announcement a Holy Interruption. Mary’s life will never be the same. Finding favor with God gives us cause to Reimagine our future, what is possible, who we are, and what we can be doing. The annunciation is an announcement about our lives. We have also been found to have favor with God. What does finding favor with God mean for us? How is the trajectory of our lives changed? Taking the outline of this passage we can measure our response towards God’s favor of us. Perplexed and Pondering. The God of the universe, who causes the rise and fall of nations, announces to us, that we have found favor with God. From the time of Creation, God has always loved us. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus. As I re-read that passage in Romans a verse of a song began to play in my head. ♫ Amazing Love, How can it be, that thou my God shouldn’t have love for me. ♫ Singing is in our trajectory. Fear. “Phenomenal Comic power in an itty-bitty living space” The thought of housing God in our bodies is fearful. The Holy Spirit in us is just like the Genie in Aladdin, this power was always used to enable the Genie to serve others. The Phenomenal Cosmic Power of the Holy Spirit in us, is for the purpose for us to participate in ministries to help others. We don’t have to be afraid of it, just do good. That nail gets hit a lot as we think about the Wailuku Mission Housing. We are not working on this for ourselves, but we are building this project, being stewards of the gift that God has given us (the 2.8-acre Mission Ground), in the way that God would want it used, for the favor of others. Wonder. How is this possible? Faith, vision, combined with expertise, open minds, adaptations, discernment, humble flexibility, letting God define the project and 30 years’ worth of time. I’m talking about Mary with Jesus here, not the Wailuku Mission Housing. But there are similarities in participating in what seems to be impossible, because we have a sense that this is what God is doing, and God’s call of us to join in. Proof. Elizabeth is the proof that what God is doing now, God has already done a similar thing somewhere else. Just as Edward Bailey holding on as the sole member of this church for 10 years to call Rowland Dodge as its pastor was dynamite, The Soda Booth Concession at the County Fair has been a constant source of answered prayer, the Fixing of the stained-glass windows, the purchase of the New Organ at our 150th, the re-roofing of Sanderson and Ritter Hall and now the Wailuku Mission House are poof of what God has done something similar in the past to shore us up for the future. Resolve. For nothing is impossible with God. Mary moved all of her chips in on her bet on God’s favor. This is a defining moment of her life that will bring hardship, trial, scrutiny, disdain, joy, love, life and salvation. I attended a webinar sponsored by the UCC on “What the New Church Will Look Like” The link was prefaced with this quote, “Churches that love their models more than their mission will die.” Carey Nieuwhof. I signed up right away. The Webinar used what new church starts in the UCC look like, as a lens as to what the churches will look like in the future. There will be far less Brick-and-Mortar buildings and more “churches” that will meet in bars, conference rooms, coffee houses, not every week, and not even on Sundays. Their leaders will not be seminary trained which mean we need to have things like ETCL and PSR’s CTEL programs to provide some kind of training. Otherwise, their thinking and theology will become insulated. They will gather around interests like eating raw foods, yoga or exercise. These are not self-sufficient models of churches. Many of these churches ask for subsidies to support them beyond their members for leadership compensations, rents and materials. This is where, if our Wailuku Mission House takes off, and we find ourselves with more money than we need to support ourselves, Wailuku Union Church may be in coffee houses, bars, conference rooms and diners because of the partnerships and relationships we form with these expressions of the church. Our being favored is moving us into a new future, with a different trajectory. CONCLUSION Something new to consider this Christmas, “What is possible for Mary is possible for us too.” The Favor she has found in God, is the same favor that we experience with Jesus. The indwelling of the Holy conceived in her, is like the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gifted to us at Pentecost. The pattern of perplexed and pondering, fear, wonder, proof and resolve in Mary’s life are the same for us, as we go through these rounds of emotions, stages in contemplation, and find our lives in a new trajectory with God, as God carriers, in our World. SCRIPTURE: Luke 146b-55
TEXT: 46And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, THEME: Adding our stories of our experiences with God to the Bible. INTRODUCTION We think of the Bible in its completed form, but it is a library of Books, written of lives recording their experiences with God. One book is not complete in revealing everything there is to know about God, but each story adds on a new facet of God. The Story of Creation wasn’t all there was for us to know about God, so the story of Adam and Eve’s experience with God in the garden was added, likewise the faith stories of Abraham and Sarah. Then the stories Moses and the Israelites, the rise and fall of rulers that lead the people of God to the continuing saga of faith with Jesus in the New Testament. Bishop Desmond Tutu, when talking about his friendship with the Dali Lama, says that his Christianity cannot possibly contain everything there is to know about God. There are stories of human experiences with the Holy, that are revelations of who God is from other cultures, as well as other religions, that can add to our understanding of God. SCRIPTURE This passage concludes with the promises made to Abraham of; descendants, people, a nation, community and communion with God as the ultimate purpose. In seminary, the Kingdom of God was talk about with no relevance to our everyday life. It wasn’t until 1995 when we were involved in strategically planning as a Church, that conversations on the Kingdom of God were expanded to conversations about the Community of God. What does it mean to be God’s people? How do the people of God behave? What are the practices of a community of God’s people that we can put in place? This is when we changed to a consensus model of decision making for our business, when we used the devotional time of our meetings for inspiration and learning, and gave the Council responsibility in discerning the will of God instead of just making business decisions. Mary’s child it a fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham for the formation of a people and a community as the people of God. The Nation of God, Israel, has an ongoing story of God’s mercy and grace. Mary’s song is a vision of an Alternate Future, a revolution of change. The proud are scattered, the powerful brought down and the lowly brought up. It is describing a democratic form of government where the people are governing by the people, for the people. Any dictator, autocrat, or monarch that has Bibles in their country would certainly feel threatened by these words, as surely the Roman Empire was. Mary is an antecedent of change, participating in bringing in a community focused around a relationship with God. It makes her feel like singing. This is where Mary’s story becomes a platform for our story. For our experiences with God to be added with Mary’s story, crafted, painted, sculpted and written. What does our experience with God make us feel? Mary is happy, flabbergasted, valued, joyful, and grateful in her relationship with God. Her feelings towards God have moved from the reverent fear to the personal relationship, from being religious to being intimately devoted and from wondering to commitment. Her experience of being favored by God is one that informs us of what is possible with God and the changes possible through the birth of her son. Mary sings her story. She sings as Hannah did in the Old Testament, asking God for a child and the prophet Samuel was born. Mary has had an angel’s visit and a pregnancy that points to God. She visits her cousin Elizabeth and together their stories form a two-part harmony proclaiming the miraculous work of God. Mary’s story is one of being valued by God, feeling like ‘a nobody’ in her community but loved by God to participate in God’s great plans. This is a song many of us can sing. This is a story we find hope in, that our lives can also be writing new chapters of change where power shifts and the establishment of something new, just, and fair takes its place. Stories of answered prayer, stories of healing, stories of help that are experiences of our finding favor with God. The Roman occupation during Mary’s time was dire, but with God’s movement, as displayed through Mary’s child, things were going to change. Mary has been given a vision of what this child within her will be about and how his birth would change the world. Our experience of what God is doing in our lives writes stories of equity, justice and change. Living in relationship with God, we become agents for an alternative future. APPLICATION Theologian Marcus Borg makes a very interesting statement about the Bible. He says that the Bible is not about God’s stories, but it is about our stories of “our human response to God”. The Bible is a collection of stories, of Human experiences, like ours; with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The Bible is a book of our stories with God that reveal who God is through the interplay of our interactions with God. One story adds to another story, bringing God into focus and drawing a more complete portrait of God. How is the story of our lives adding to the stories of the Bible? What does our experiences with God say about who God is? What story is our experiences with God writing? This year we have experienced God’s help with us as we have lived through a pandemic. The virus spreads so rapidly because we are social animals. First God gave us courage to wear a mask when no one else was. Then God moved seamstresses to sew hundreds of masks to share, distribute and sell. When our interactions with others stopped, it was easy to become isolated and depressed. We have stories of phone calls, video chats, navigating the internet, texting prayers, and Facebook services that God has helped us through. Our feelings of loss rose near the surface and when someone had fallen ill and we couldn’t visit them or had died and the usual community of support was distanced our grief was accelerated. God brought comfort and connection in different ways. We had to lean on God more in these times and God held us up. With life as normal at a standstill, some other things proceeded forward like the development of the Wailuku Mission Housing. Both the County and EAH have been working on this and the grant awarded us by the State is getting ready to be released. This enactment of the parable of the Good Samaritan is becoming a reality. Not being able to worship in person, we have taken to Facebook. God has helped us navigate with these things to be church together, gathered, scattered and connected. We can see the Holy Spirit through the internet. The stories of Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, conversation on our racism, on slavery, on supremacy, Women equality on the football field kicking an extra point conversion, the rush to discover a vaccine, are all part of our stories of 2020 and of our experience with God that build on the stories of the Bible and inform us a little bit more of who God is. CONCLUSION The Bible is not complete and is still being written. Our shared experiences with God, magnifies the Lord and makes God visible in our world. Our experiences illuminate where our lives are better with God in it. Being in a relationship with God is our Salvation to living, to community, to loving, to meaning, to mission, to having faith and to pursuing hope. These stories are still being written to the Bible. SCRIPTURE: Mark 1:1-8
TEXT: 4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. THEME: Living faithfully can help others make the connection of Jesus being the Christ. INTRODUCTION I usually don’t borrow large sections of someone else’s writing for a sermon but Courtney V. Buggs in her Sermon Brainwave commentary on this passage beautifully described the forerunner. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Louisville Postdoctoral Fellow, at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. SCRIPTURE She writes, “On August 1, 2020, the Sarah K. Evans Plaza opened in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.1 Evans, known formerly as Private Evans, is now 91 years old, and reflects on the seemingly unremarkable event that has led to public recognition almost 70 years later. In 1952 Private Evans was on her way home from her first military assignment, when she refused to move to the back of the bus. Upon refusing, she was taken to jail and detained for 13 hours. Evans sued the Interstate Commerce Commission for discrimination. Despite a judicial victory in November of 1955, the ruling was not enforced until 1961. Meanwhile, in March of 1955, a young black teenager, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. Having been exposed to the actions of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, Colvin was emboldened to resist the injustice she experienced on the city bus. As a result, she was handcuffed and arrested. And like Evans, her story was hidden until recent years. Before there was a Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights icon attributed with prompting the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, there was Sarah Evans and Claudette Colvin. These trailblazing young women set in motion that which would be later attributed to Parks. Their names are scarcely, if at all, associated with the Civil Rights Movement, yet their actions precipitated one of the most pivotal events of the time. Evans preceded Colvin who preceded Parks. Just as John preceded Jesus. Forerunners are often unseen figures and unsung heroes. Their back stories are unknown. The details of their lives are under imagined or undervalued. They garner minimal attention, because they are forerunners—those who plow the ground, destabilize the terrain, and make ready for change that is to come. They are not The One; they are those who come before The One. Every movement needs those who function as the advance team, that is, those who prepare the way for something beyond the present state of affairs. In today’s reading we find John preparing the way for Jesus. One homiletical entry for this text is to emphasize the necessity of those who are antecedents of change, setting the stage for an alternative future.” End of quote. APPLICATION This made me think, “How could our lives be forerunners, for people to peer into the manger to see the baby, and see the Son of God?” Wear Christmas T shirts to show that you are all about Christmas. Be pleasant while we shop in a crowded store so that Christmas Cheer is the love of God. Wear a mask, as uncomfortable and inconvenient as it may be, because this act of loving others has benefits in keeping the virus from spreading to us too. This is another, of the few ways, guys have to accessorize their look. Participate in acts of kindness and generosity, like volunteering at our Food Pantry. Be happy, trusting in God and let people see you smile. As well as sad, and how you deal with your feelings with God’s help. Be a person of gratitude. Our praise always points to the activity of God and Jesus in our lives. Don’t be afraid to pray. I received a group email of a classmate’s death and responded with a composed prayer. I hesitated sending it, but in the end, it was well received. Take what we believe seriously, not by speaking religious platitudes, but by finding practical ways to live what we believe about God as part of our everyday lives. We live devoted lives not religious ones. We wrestle with those things that distract us from God. Those things that take time that we could be spending with God in prayer, or reading the Bible, or learning about our faith, to keep our relationship with God fresh. As we turn toward God, we become a people of habits, rhythm, and mindfulness: grace before meals, prayer, meditation, contemplation, studying God’s Word as our morning routine, tithing on Sundays, stewardship with the things we have. Practicing reconciliation; admitting our fault, forgiving those who hurt us, asking forgiveness from those we have hurt. And by putting God’s ways into action; loving God and loving our neighbor. We can be advocates for God’s good, by getting in ‘good trouble’ Living into the freedom promised but not enforced as yet. Sitting beyond the lines of segregation of privilege. Adding our voice to those who have been ignored. Or to say something about the injustices we see. Then when the light of the candle on Christmas Eve, illuminates our faces, and our neighbor sees us, they may come to believe that the babe in the manger is really the Son of God. CONCLUSION Forerunners do seemingly unremarkable things, that set the stage for the remarkable. Just by living by the rules that nobody else is following. Or by having a faith that is real and lived every day, we set the stage for religion to become devotion and the Christmas story to become the God incarnate in our hearts. We are forerunners, antecedents of change, for an alternative future, with God’s rule of justice and love replacing our present state of affairs. |
Pastor robbSermons Archives
April 2024
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