SCRIPTURE: Zephaniah 3:14-20
TEXT: 15The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. THEME: No Judgment because God loves us. INTRODUCTION This is the Third Sunday of Advent The Reign of Love. On the first Sunday of Advent, we started with the Reign of Peace, where God interrupted a civil war between the Israel and Judah with the invading Super Power of Babylon. This settled their divisions with each other and unified their focus on God for their survival. This is not the way we think about peace. Last Sunday we looked at aspects dealing with The Reign of Hope. Prophetic voices of the still speaking God, of the God who is on the move, of the God whose dreams are built on the foundation of the faithful. The past need not be repeated but faith finds its foothold into the future in something new. This is not the way we think of hope. This Sunday being Loved by God is different from what we think. Love is more powerful than we think. SCRIPTURE When we begin our identity, with disobedience in the garden of Eden, we become the sin that needs to be fixed. We have to go back further, the Bible begins with Creation, where everything that was created was pronounced “Good”, by God. We are not a problem that needs to be fixed, but created in the image of God. This is where our identity begins; Created lovingly. Loved by God. Enjoyed by God, Marveled by God for our creativity, laughing together at the unexpected, having fun together, participants in the stewardship of creation. When we begin with Creation, we begin with relationship. There is nothing to be fixed, there is no sin problem, no judgement, just the relationship quirks that need to be fixed. This is what we get in the Family Story of Abraham and Sarah and their kid, their grandkids and great grandkids. There is hurt, anger, trickery, envy, favoritism, manipulation, status, forgiveness, covenant and family. So, verse 15 takes the fear of judgement away to reset the requirement of our relationship with God back on love. We are not a problem but an evolving relationship of growth and discovery in covenantal love. This is a change in the way we think about our righteousness and being worthy of God. When we play the debt and payment game with God, we are always counting score and never doing enough to merit the grace that would bring us acceptance into God’s eternal family. But what if it is love and not judgment that forms our relationship with God because God loves us and does not judge us? A relationship with God is something that is nurtured, fostered and grows, not perfect, filled with grace, but persisted during hard times and good. Seeing our relationship with God in the light of this kind of love, gives us room to enjoy each other. Look at the description of God in verse 17. When we take away God’s role in our relationship together as judge, then our perceptions of God and who we are changes. God is present and wants to spend time with us. God is our warrior or Tiger Mom, fighting for our cause, not trying to keep us in our place as an embarrassment. When God is with us there are shared moments of amazement, joy and gladness. We will laugh at dad jokes together. When we spend time together it strengthens our bond. God will be an encouragement to us. A positive influence, singing loudly about the Good God sees in us. This is great as our time with God is described as “on a day of festival”. It must be like going to Disneyland with God, riding rides, eating treats, singing songs, marveling at the wonders of Imagineering, being part of a community of shared joy. And resting in each other. Cycles of fun, discovery, excitement, thrills, nourishment, rest and enjoyment. How does this make us feel, knowing that God loves us like this? This is where the gratitude feelings inside of us, are so great that they begin to over flow the fountain in loud splashing noises and expression. Sing out loud, we are God’s children in God’s dwelling place. Shout out loud, we are God’s people. In my observation, this kind of shouting is accompanied with running around in circles with arms going round and round. The uncontrollable laughter of rejoicing as every dimple in our face is shown. You feel, this good feeling down in your heart. This is how verse 14 describes us as those living in the city of God’s family. The thought that keeps repeating for me is “absent father”. In so many ways the families of today are robbed of having fathers detached away from their families by; work, drugs or alcohol, incarcerations, selfishness or feelings of inadequacies, fatigue or just plain failing to show up. We are mistaken to think that God is absent and we should not act as if this is the model of fatherhood. In God’s care, there is nothing to fear. God will turn our enemies away, disaster will be removed from us, we are gathered in and our oppressors dealt with. There is healing and our shame will be changed to praise and renown, just by loving God because God loves us. Let that wash over us because, this it is not what we think about ourselves. This is what God thinks about you. We will never think that we are good enough. And you are right, but God never requires us to be good enough. God already proclaims that we are ‘Good’ because God created us. God just wants our relationship together to begin. We can worry about the details along the way. APPLICATION When we stop being driven by the fear of perishing. And relax into the fact that God loves us just for who we are. How does that change in the way we live our faith from being good enough towards enjoying God’s company or finding our sense of fulfillment by being with God? Verse 20 has this one phrase, “At that time I will bring you home”, that brings into focus What being loved by God is all about. Being at home with God. The CTEL class I took on Christian Education had us begin each post with answering the question of “Where is home?” It changed a little bit each time we answered it; with family, where we grew up, with those who love me now. Not so much place as people. Those who know who I am and still have a bond with me. This is the next thing we can work on, with our relationship with God. Not living to escape being judged, but to live with God, in a way that we can feel at home. Belonging, accepted. Renowned, loved, knowing that God is glad that we are here. O daughter of Zion, O daughter of Jerusalem, we are at home. CONCLUSION The Reign of Christ, brings a Reign of Love that is not about how hard we love God, but about how hard God loves us. This is the flip, from coming to God because of fear and sin. to a coming to God because God Loves us. Pronouncing us ‘good’ from the very beginning and working with the details along the way. If God does not accuse us of anything, then what should any body’s accusations of us matter? They don’t. Lame, shamed, outcasted, oppressed, welcome home. Sing loudly, shout with joy, be at home, you are at home.
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SCRIPTURE: Malachi 3:1-4
TEXT: 4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. THEME: Jesus gives us Hope that things will change for the future. INTRODUCTION As we prepare for the reign of Christ at Christmas, we are exploring what it means for peace to reign, for hope to reign, for love to reign of love, and for joy to reign. Last week we looked at the reign of peace that came about with the defeat of Israel by the Babylonian army. Their inability to let go of their hard held beliefs prevented them from considering another perspective, feelings or values. They drew hard lines of intolerance to defend against attacks. They created divisions that lead to a civil war instead of coming to an understanding. Their self-righteousness closed them from recognizing even the voice of God, as feelings of intolerance and superiority grew. Whatever factions or bickering they held against each other were brought to an end with their defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. At peace with each other they now had a common enemy, were exiled in the Babylonian Captivity. as a common people, by a common enemy. They put their differences aside in order to survive and to have a hope for the future. SCRIPTURE When God reigns, things are going to be different. God sends a messenger to prepares the way for what God is going to do. The people are caught by surprise when the Lord comes to the temple. This is a commentary on their state of worship, where they did the perfunctory movements but never expect God to show up. God being able to show up in our midst gives us a sense of appreciation for the forms and style of the past that have kept and preserved our faith. Often times when we do things year after year, we forget their meaning and the tradition becomes more important than what they represent. Getting back to what they really mean gives us the opportunity to revive, adapt, accommodate and create. Remember when the Tongan Congregation was worshiping in our sanctuary? The men would dress to the ’T’ in black suits, each Sunday. A custom from back home, even in our summer heat. Younger members asked for a change but the elders held fast, as keepers of the tradition. It is about honor, respect, coming into the presence of the royal holy one. How they dress showed their veneration and honor to God their king. But they forget the welcomed shepherd at the stable’s manger where the King of Kings, is a different type of king. When the Lord suddenly appears at our worship, is what we are wearing really going to matter? Real worship is not window dressing. There is a refinement and washing of temple worship to bring our hearts back in line with God’s intent. Our worship practices are redeemable, but we will have to be willing to change from what they are, to evolved into something new. “Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.”4 a pure heart, the right intent, communion with God and neighbor. Are we willing to let go of what has become culturally familiar to align ourselves more perfectly for God? During the Pandemic we have had to use Facebook and YouTube, now we may have to look at other platforms. We cut out the Gloria Patri, Reach Out and Take a Hand. We cut verses out of hymns, we took out anthems in order to keep our posting lively and short, to keep the attention of our viewers. The competition to gather an audience on the internet is greater because there is so much more on line. The difference being we know you and you know us from before. And we are beginning to make new friends. And strengthen other connection in this way. APPLICATION When the church was engaged in strategic planning, at the end of the 1990’s, the consultants said that depending where we were, we might have to make a few adjustments. But if our mission and actions did not line up, then we will need to have engage in a systematic strategic plan. Then we were asked to identify our Constituents, our Context, our missional Heritage, and how we were organized. We worked on discerning the will of God and what God was calling us to participate in. This has given us a Missional outlook on who we are and what we do. We looked at our Heritage through the eyes of mission, we looked to see what God was doing around us, because God is still on the move. We listened to what scriptures were surfacing because God is still speaking. We began to imagine different images of the church. 1. The People of God being the people of God in how they lived, spoke and acted, 2. A people on a journey, traveling together, and learning how to be a community along the way, caring for each other and learning about God. 3. A medical ship where we went to different places and tended to those who needed healing, spiritually, physically, with caring and acceptance. Some whom we helped join us on the ship and others departed the ship to be part of the communities we reached. 4. A surrogate family. We recognized that our church started with those who came from elsewhere to live on Maui and left their extended families behind. So, we have become their Aunties and Uncles, Grandparents, and relatives on Maui. Then lastly, we saw ourselves as the back side of a tapestry. We are different bits of string, colors, textures, lengths all knotted together and, in a mess, but on the other side, was a beautiful picture. After prayer and meditation, we were able to discern the picture on the other side of the tapestry was of the parable of the Good Samaritan. It held all of our images of; journey, being, healing, caring, family, community and belonging in this one scripture from the Gospel of Luke. Seeing this image of the church, enabled us to let go of somethings and begin to move towards something, instead of just trying to keep all of our old pieces together. With appreciation of the loving expression of our church, we took that foundation to build into our future. Jim Bradly, my Church History professor at Fuller, talked about the monasteries during the Dark Ages with appreciation. Although we may disagree with their theology and how ritualized Christianity had become during this time, it preserved the faith so that the Reformers has something that could be reformed later rather than lost. CONCLUSION We are building on the faith foundation of this congregation. We honor the old forms but we are ready to the something new. In some ways, living through the Pandemic has purged, refined, and condensed our resolve as a church. We still are doing the Wailuku Mission Housing project. We still love and care for each other. We still worship and pray. We still do the preschool and the food pantry. And we will have another Maui Outstanding Piano Amateur Festival this coming February. But what we will look like in the future is like crossing a bridge where the other side is hidden by a dense fog. All we know is traveling together, and we will get into the future of what God has, together. We will figure what God wants us to do along the way and when we get there. Christmas brings a Reign of Hope into our lives with Jesus and all of us. |
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April 2024
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