SCRIPTURE: Lamentations 1
TEXT: THEME: Giving ourselves grace to grieve our loss. INTRODUCTION Barbara Brown Taylor, a former pastor, educator at Piedmont College, and public theologian spoke about how our world is carrying a lot of unmourned grief. Our world has experienced so many kinds of losses. Just last week the shooting at the end of the Kansas City Chief’s parade triggered old sorrows brought about by gun violence. Our American culture doesn’t give us adequate opportunities to grieve. We don’t stop to reflect, to feel pain, placing an event like this into a larger context, we jump quickly towards revenge which is not mourning. Sometimes we need a retreat where we can scream with drums, or attend a really good funeral, or participate in a march advocating for the stop of losses due to abuse, but our culture does not offer a stylized way to deal with the corporate grief we feel as a community. She suggests that the church offer Ash Wednesday and the 40 days of Lent as a way for our community to deal with our unmourned grief with an opportunity to lament, confess sins, and sit in the sins of our community. This led me to the book of Lamentations. I have never preached from it before and I found a resource from Fuller Seminary called Lamentations in Lent. It seemed a bit much for the next 5 Sundays in Lent, so I thought maybe I’d join Iao UCC bible study in Mark. So I took Iao’s invitation to join them at 7pm. The Gospel of Mark will have us journey with Jesus up to the events of Easter but that wasn’t what I wanted to do so I went back to Lamentations. As I read the its passages I found that its poetry were touch points for the thoughts and emotions we are carrying about the Lahaina and Kula fires. I’ll be preaching from the first few verses of Lamentations 1 but have worked the other verses of the first chapter into the liturgy of our worship service. SCRIPTURE Lamentations speaks to our human condition. Our hearts are articulated in the words of this poem. From its verses I took the feelings that were communicated and attached some of our current feelings and events. As you listen to the retelling of this lament, do the same and attach your own feelings, thoughts, stories, to reflect, meditate and mourn. This is the beauty of poetry. 1Lahaina: sits in ashes, Once filled with people, now uninhabitable and empty. She has become like a widower. Once a princess among resort towns, she is now dependent upon handouts, subsidies, FEMA, grants, agencies and others to support her. 2Sorrowful, her tourist friends are gone, their playground is gone. Some try to take advantage of her despair. 3Her Livelihood is gone. Those who could–have left, locals are sheltered without jobs, security is gone, some are surviving to stay close to home, to ward off opportunist. 4The first Missionary outposts mourn. The Kalawina ministers behind the scenes. Our hope in God lies within. 5She is subject to insurance companies, building permits, the core of engineers, EPA standards, infrastructure and utility concerns. It is easy to think God is the cause of all of this. That is not true, God has not caused this, Rather God is with us in all of this and even with our children. 6Ambivalence towards Lahaina’s children drives the forces of power, money and politics towards quick fixes. This will be a long journey. 7All we have left are the memories. Even our mementos are gone. The touchstones to the past, the reminders of our history, the ancestors are gone and the artifacts of our stories. Don’t listen to those who try to take our heritage from us. 8what has happen to her bring sadness. It is so embarrassing. 9We are Mortified. We have been so short sighted, only doing what was needed in the moment without thought to its long lasting effect. We have no pride to preserve. “Lord look upon our despair and our shame.” 10what has been most dear to us has been taken away. Our boundaries have been violated. 11The treasures we have escaped with, we use for sustenance. Lord look upon our desperation. 12Tourist come and gawk at our misfortune. How sad, how poor, how houseless. 13The fires were relentless and complete. Everyone was affected by its wrath. 14Sometimes when things are difficult, it is easy to blame God for what we have done, or for things that have happened to us. Forgive us. APPLICATION The lament gives us time to consider what has happened. Identify how we feel, and even consider how we might have contributed to part of what had happened. We can admit our part, make plans to change our behavior so we don’t find ourselves in this situation again and see what we can do to make things better. The feelings we have are important. We may not understand them right away and need to give them the attention they need so we can identify them, explore why we feel that way, discover their roots and decide if we want to continue to feel like that or not. Too often we move towards quick solutions that are rash and don’t deal with the feelings we have, just burry them. When we are able to name these feelings it helps us to know what we are dealing with. Prayer, silence, engaging in a lamenting prayer gives us space to consider these things. Sometime we may need the help of a therapist who can help us to identify what we are dealing with and give us tools we can use to deal with our feelings. Praise music, the Psalms, and coffee with a trusted friend are other tools at our disposal. CONCLUSION On Friday Eddie and I spoke with an insurance adjuster about the repairs to the sanctuary roof and water damage inside. They surveyed the outside of our building with a drone and the inside with a 360 degree camera. Their AI software will identify all of the places in need of repair. They said there is a good chance that we will be able to get the funds that we need to do all of the repairs that need to be done. We need to be in pray that the insurance company will partner with us to make these repairs and keep our building going for the next 150 years. The interior work may be extensive. We may have to invite ourselves to worship at Iao UCC while they set up scaffolding to work on the ceiling. I can feel my anxiousness building. Remember the 4-8-7 breathing? We need to feed oxygen to our brain to think clearly. (And breath in the Holy Spirit). Sitting uncrossed with our feet flat to the ground and hands in our lap, helps us to feel grounded and maybe even sense the presence of the Lord being our foundation. There is lots of work to do, besides everything else we are already doing. But God hears our cries and journeys with us through all of this. Then down the road, I anticipate, we will celebrate, as people being able to return home to Jerusalem. To Lament is natural. We all feel loss in our lives from time to time. God is not foreign to our sorrow and is a companion who will not abandon us even when the road is difficult. God is a good listener, is patient with us especially when it is taking a while for us to get our bearings and knows that our feelings are important and will always be there to help us.
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SCRIPTURE: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
TEXT: 6For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. THEME: Letting the light of the divine shine through us. INTRODUCTION Although it is Transfiguration Sunday I am not going to preach from the Gospel text. Theologian, Melinda Quivik gives an interesting perspective of the transfiguration. Jesus is on a hike up the mountain with James, Peter and John, when the veil of Jesus’ humanness is removed and Jesus’ divinity; wondrous, frightening, powerful, unexpected and rich is revealed. Dazzling white, the unnatural and incomprehensible draws us towards, the abnormal and apocalyptic sight (apocalyptic means: revealing; like the apocalypse of the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz). If that wasn’t enough, the companions that appear with Jesus are Moses and Elijah, showing us how Jesus it the fulfillment of the Law that Moses brings from God and the prophetic nature of Jesus, speaking God’s words to us. Then God speaks, don’t rest on these laurels but take these wonders in your heart and live it off of the mountain, among the people. The transfiguration is a change in Jesus’ outward appearance that does not change who Jesus is, but his transfiguration is a transformative moment for Peter, James and John. SCRIPTURE The gospel of Jesus Christ is carried by human vessels. Sometimes the glory of the Gospel is veiled by our humanness and sometimes, as the Apostle Paul recognizes, the Gospel is unable to be received through our veils of pride, selfishness, greed and lust. 6For it is God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” … Rachel Naomi Remen, story book writer, gives insight to this verse as she tells her grandfather’s story of the first day of the world. From out of the heart of the Holy darkness-the source of life, emerges a great ray of light, giving birth to the world of a thousand thousand things. And the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke and was shattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden. All people are created with the capability to discover these fragments of light in every person and event and as we do, acknowledging the light with awe or thanksgiving, it makes the world a little bit more whole, or as Paul might say, less veiled. APPLICATION Why talk about the transfiguration? Because it plants the brilliance of eternity in us as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday that we are dust. That as soil, we are dependent upon God breath in us for life. Our responsibility is to listen to Jesus and engage what we know about Jesus in our living. What is veiled in us that needs to be transfigured? As I was working on this passage, I realized I got my made up headings for the scripture reading wrong. The first part is a Lament: “the gospel is veiled, to those who are Pershing, the god of this world has blinded them, and keeps them from seeing the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” Then the second part is Transfiguration: “We do not proclaim ourselves but Jesus Christ in us; Let light shine out of darkness, to give light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” I realized this when I made a list of all the veils that blind us from seeing the divine; greed, power, prestige, money, possessions, materialism, fame, privilege, image, approval, popularity, ego, pain, prejudice, fear, selfishness, racism and self-preservation. The light of the divine that shines out of darkness are seen in acts of; compassion, stewardship, community life, a woman’s rights over their own body, seeing hurt, empathy, affordable drugs, healing, affordable health care, water rights, zero carbon foot print, justice, eliminating microplastics, generosity, financial planning, the family of God, equity, image of God, the body of Christ, the children of God and being the people of God. This is what transfigures through us when we drop our human veils and let Christ in us shine through. The USA is good, but not perfect and needs the church to help it move in betters ways away from the veils of self-centeredness and self interest. In today’s Mission Moment on the back of the bulletin, it talks about racism and earth justice. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and others are exposed to hazardous waste in their communities in the dumping of toxic material, testing of nuclear devices, medical experiments, diverting water, ignoring EPA standards and just pay the fines of their offensives. Racism is the intentional or unintentional use of power to isolate, separate and exploit others. This is another way to shine the light in darkness. CONCLUSION Transfiguration Sunday is also the last Sunday in Epiphany, this Wednesday we move into the season of Lent. As I worked in my yard, I listened to a pod cast interview with Barbara Brown Taylor. Episcopal priest, public theologian and former religion department professor at Piedmont College. In one of her side comments, she said that American Culture does not deal well with Lament. Other cultures have stylized ways of dealing with their loss. This is what the O Bon season is during the summer, the Lantern ceremony at Ala Moana beach park, the Mexican dia de muertes (the day of the dead), Ching ming. Besides funerals, our culture does not provide ways for us to deal with unmourned grief. Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, 40 days before Easter are one thing that the church can offer. So I am planning to preach from the book of Lamentations for the next 5 Sundays before Palm Passion Sunday and Easter. This will provide us time to meditate, reflect and listen to what God has to say, not only to our own sins, but to the sins of all, and our corporate sins. It will give us a safe space to mourn so there can be some healing from what we have lost. SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
TEXT: 23b so that I may share in its blessings. THEME: Faithfully living Christ’s Aloha can change lives. INTRODUCTION Every so often, while driving I will run across one of those “Live Aloha” bumper sticker. The one designed by Sig Zane with the resilient Ohia Lehua blossom in the corner. It started as a campaign, in 1993, to reform government when its organizers recognized that Hawaii was losing its Aloha Spirit. So, they decided to promote living according to the depth, beauty, and wisdom of the Hawaiian people. Live Aloha means to live with a caring spirit, respect for others, respect for land and the responsibility for all that surrounds us. When we couple this with the love of Christ, living aloha, is Christ’s Aloha, and should be characterize in our lives, in the church, permeate into our community, challenge our country and bring peace to the world. This is not domination but a grace filled craftsmanship of dominion or “skilled mastery.” SCRIPTURE Sometimes when we do a Bible study we get down to the minutia of a passage, with verb parsing and etymology, but at other times we need to pull back and view the passage from afar, to get a feeling of how this truth applies to us today. As we pull our view back from this passage, we can see how it is divided into two parts. The first being that of the Apostle Paul justifying to the church in Corinth his legitimacy as a teacher about Jesus and the second part, talking about how the Good News of Jesus Christ is for all people, backgrounds, races, culture and even religions. The Gospel of Jesus is primarily about our relationship with God. It’s free, easy, not lorded over, or complicated. Simple enough, but provocative. It raises our curiosity to learn more. It has us offering the best version of ourselves to others. We can journey in relationship with God through Jesus for the rest of our lives. Not only that but this is for everybody as we journey together. So, we don’t have to make living in relationship with God harder than it has to be. God does not regulate it, we don’t have to administrate it, all have must to do is share it, and dispense it by living it. Past lives do not disqualify us from relationship with God through Jesus. We all come from someplace before we have an experience of Jesus that moves us from; unbelief to faith, to the belief that Jesus is God in flesh and blood, to a new reality of resurrection, to relationships healed through forgiveness, and the dwelling presence of God’s Holy Spirit that gives us the ability to make changes in our world for God. It is after all a new beginning. Paul is not a theological snake oil salesman, but has an experience with the risen Jesus that changed his perspective and discredited his previous presuppositions. He now believes what he thought was blasphemous and reset his course of faith. The motivation of love is not domination. It’s not a forcible take over of culture, but is; persuasive, compelling, convincing, crafting, stewardship, skilled mastery in its living and resonates through our experiences. APPLICATION We all have come to believe in Jesus as the Christ in some way. The next part is for us to live what we believe by faith. How do we live/share/dispense this Gospel knowing that it is not just for us but for everyone? In thinking about the application part of this sermon, I began to think about examples of faith I was able to copy from observing how others carried on and lived their faith. There was a couple who didn’t use their old car as a trade in but gave their old car away to someone who needed one. There was a couple, that even though well into their married years always spoke with respect, appreciation and polite manners with each other. There is a pastor who took complicated theological ideas and made them simple to understand and even explained them with humor. There are those who don’t live as if they are dying, but as those who are going to live forever, with courage, trying new things, wonder and zest. A classmate of mine and her husband chose to keep their baby even though they knew she would have birth defects. They did what they could to let their daughter have as full a life as she could and know that she was loved. Then there where those who care for love ones, that I see the example of Jesus in them. It is humbling to watch and inspires me to be a better care giver. It is through the example of these, ordinary faithful people that I have been won over to be better. Watching their examples I have been able to copy some of what they do. This is what Paul is talking about when he speaks about becoming all things to all people. It is more about a humble empathy that understand where people are coming from, so we can speak human being to human being, and see the image of God in each other. Heart to heart, fear to fear, hope to hope and love to love. I have changed my mind and behavior because of kindness I’ve witnessed by others. I have changed my mind and behavior because of the generous acts of help displayed by others. I have changed my mind and behavior because I saw those who chose to be loving instead of judgmental. I have changed my mind and my behavior because of Hospitality I have received when I was hungry, lonely, and stranger. The stories of the Bible inform me about how important good, compassionate, and just our immigration laws need to be, as the people of God continue to be aliens in a foreign land, relying on the resources of others to be generous and kind. CONCLUSION More times than not, those who have the “live Aloha” bumper stickers are the worst drivers on the road and want you to ‘aloha’ them because they are not ‘aloha-ing’ anybody. That is not how it works. Aloha is not a commodity, or a demand on anyone, it is an inspiring way that we choose to live. Love more important than power. Loving you in spite of you. At the beginning of my career, I spent most of my preaching explaining the text so we could have an insightful understanding, but what good is a minuscule insight that doesn’t make a difference in the way we live our lives. So in the latter half of my career I have spent more time trying to figure out how the truth of a passage, can change the way we live, approach life, reconcile relationships, reprioritized our lives and calm our fears about death. When we get down to it, my preaching has been about being loved by God, about relationships with God and others, about our doing our best to be loving of others, and for us to love ourselves so we can bring the best of us into any situation and to others. One last observation. We live in an anxious world. There is a tension between Paul and the Corinthians in this passage. I went to a resilience training this week that the Hawaii Conference resourced using the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Team. They demonstrated different breathing techniques as way for us to feed our brains with oxygen so we can be calm and bring our best selves into a situation or relationship. When I attended the General Synod last June, they began a lot of their workshops and session with breathing. As natural as we think it is sometimes, we need to stop hyperventilating and take a few deep breaths (even before we get our blood pressure read). One tool the resilience training taught us to do was to breathe in for 4 counts, hold that breath for 8 counts and release it in 7 counts. 4-8-7 In the word Aloha, Ha means breath. This could be a way, we can allow God’s breath to help us to live ours. SCRIPTURE:1 Corinthians 7:29-31
TEXT: 29aI mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; 31bFor the present form of this world is passing away. THEME: Christ’s Aloha shifts us to live in God’s way. INTRODUCTION The culture in Hawaii is changing, its losing its local people and its Aloha Spirit. Its people are not able to afford to live in their home, so some have taken their families for opportunities on the Mainland. The writing of Paul, to the church in Corinth seem to be addressing a change to their culture with the concept of Christ’s love or aloha. Their lives are being changed by the concepts of grace, forgiveness, adoption, inclusion, and an acculturation with Christ’s love into their lives. Here in Hawaii, I like to call our version of acculturating the Love of Christ into our lives as ‘Christ’s Aloha.’ Taking the concept of Aloha and using Christ as its descriptor. The Corinthian lectionary themes can be seen as; Christ’s Aloha-Hanai, Christ’s Aloha-Church, Christ’s Aloha Body, Christ’s Aloha Change, Practice Christ’s Aloha, Live Christ’s Aloha, and Shine Christ's Aloha. We have Aloha as part of our culture, what we learn about Christ informs our Aloha and what we learn about Aloha informs our understanding of Christ. SCRIPTURE 1 Corinthians 7 identifies the age we are living in as the ‘last days’, because Christ has come into our world and now God rules. This ends the present age and begins something new, the reign of God. This theological perspective is called; ‘A Realized Eschatology’ (or last days) where the Kingdom of God is already (realized) present among us. This is why we say the eternal life God makes possible in Christ begins now, and not just after we die. This gets unfolded in the 5 focuses Paul highlights for change in this text; wives, mourning, rejoicing, buying and the world. Instead of our wife being the mission of a husband, we can have our spouse as a partner participating in the mission of God, as best we can discern, as God’s call of us. Instead of living until we die, we can begin to live our resurrected lives now. Living life without the fear of death and with courage instead of self-preservation. We can shift our focus from those things that make us happy towards those things that bring us joy. Eating bread with butter is a happy place for me, but it is short lived and filled with regret when I step on a scale, but the joy I have eating together with family/friend is long lasting and I will forgo dietary restrictions to spend time with them with no regrets. Instead of our self-worth coming from the things that we have or from the approval from the dominate culture we can have confidence in God’s acceptance of us and our belonging to the family of God. Christ’s Aloha forgives so nothing can separate us from God. One day Jann and I were walking through Target, we were holding hands as some married couples do, when a person saw us and had to give their approval of what we were doing adding that her husband wouldn’t do that and was someplace else in the store. (I was a little taken aback, thinking that she felt it was her place to give approval to our holding of hands). On another day, going through TSA precheck line, I went on ahead to blaze the trail for Jann and Samm to follow. In the gap between us, two people jumped in behind me. The Asian person stopped and bowed and readied herself to let my party catch up with me, while the other person intervened, gave permission to her to cut in front of me, as she also let herself go ahead. I told these two stories to illustrate how our actions and opinions can be condescending without knowing it when we are not considerate of other people’s stories. In the dealings of the world, we have a choice to pursue power to do what is good for us or love, to do what is good for others. The opposite of power is seen on the cross as Jesus give up all power, being able to call angels from heaven, to be all loving, by submitting to dying on the cross for love of us. Power gets people to do what we want, while love seeks to do what is best for someone else. Christ’s Aloha takes those things that are important to us and gives us a new perspective of their priorities, and what may be similar but of more importance and value to us and to others. APPLICATION How does Christ’s Aloha change things for us? One person can make a difference and change a church or community. I’ve been watching old episodes of Northern Exposure where young doctor Joel Fleischman finds himself paying off a scholarship obligation by being a doctor to a small town of Cicely Alaska. In a town made up of a host of characters he adds his own touches that enriches this community as well as being changed by these people. Two more stories. Last week as we made our way to Honolulu for a Dr’s Appointment, our flight was delayed. As we waited, we ate food we bought from 7/11, except I didn’t pack any napkins. When I volunteered to go get some, the local person sitting next to Jann said, “I have some in my package, I didn’t use them, here you can have them.” That is the Aloha Spirit that we have in Hawaii that we need to practice and teach other. She wasn’t ease dropping but she was observant and was willing to share what she had with us. Later when we boarded the plane, her seat was right behind Jann’s and said hello one more time. We live in a small world. The other story was in the Dr.’s office. As we entered was a sign that asked everyone to wear a mask while waiting. As we entered, everyone was complying with this except for an elderly couple who looked like Kamaaina’s but acted like Malihini’s and didn’t wear a mask. Although they obviously lived in Hawaii for a long time, they haven’t acculturated or exhibited the Aloha spirit towards the others in the room or towards the Dr’s staff. Our freedom gives us the power to consider Christ’s Aloha towards others over our own personal rights. CONCLUSION Pidgin English was needed for the cultural groups who lived in the Plantation Camps to communicate among each other. A little bit of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, broken English and of course all of the ethnic names of the foods they ate. But without the plantation that mashed our cultures together and kept us local, we now have to learn to speak to the guest in Hotels, our Pidgin English may fade in a few generations, because ‘no need ‘em for talk to each other anymore.’ Language picks up the values of a community in the words its speaks; Pake, Lolo, momonas, bombucha, Bagoon, Patelle, baboose, Ohana, and Aloha. The Aloha Spirit is about being observant and considerate of others. It changes the way we live. It changes the community we live it. It can change an awful situation to a bearable one with compassion. It is willing to be generous and help someone in a loving way. When this loving Spirit is coupled with the love of Christ it matures, evolves, and becomes even more provocative as Christ’s Aloha. SCRIPTURE: Ephesians 3:1-2
TEXT: 10so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. THEME: Christ’s inclusion of all changes community of faith with rich variety. INTRODUCTION The season of Epiphany is one of enlightenment and lights. Those who studied the stars in the East mark their arrival at the birth of Christ. During this season we will be looking at the changes the birth of Christ brings to our understanding of God, our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of how we relate to others. We will be using the wisdom found the Epistles to unfold the depths of its meaning for our world. Jesus shows us that we have free access to God through prayer. We can talk to God without having a priest intercede for us. Prayer is not just for making requests, but for dwelling with God, to be in conversation with God, for us to be heard and for us to hear God’s perspective and and insight, that can strength, further our resolve and inspire our living. We will being using the lectionary readings from the Psalms as our Call to Worship. Kealahou, who will be filling in for me next week, did this as he created the Worship Bulletin for next Sunday, so I did some reverse engineering and decided to follow suit, by working the Psalms into our up and coming Call to Worships. To emphasize prayer during Epiphany, we will also be singing “Somebody Prayed for Me”. As we get into this song, feel inspired to write additional verses that we can sing together. When Jesus comes, he comes for all people, Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish way of viewing the world was in term of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Either you are a ‘us’ a Jew or you are a ‘them’ a Gentile Unfortunately this sometimes causes those of faith to be arrogant and judgmental. It was not a nice way to live out their distinctiveness as being God’s people. The wall that separated Jews from Gentiles is taken down in Christ’s creation of a new humanity. The new community of faith is blended together with stories of God’s grace. It is a collaboration of those who are Jewish and those who know God through Jesus. This is a radical idea. Imagine them having to rethink the theologies handed down to them, because of the grace displayed through Jesus’ love and life. This lends itself to the building of an inclusive community of faith, of which Paul finds himself called to be part of its building. SCRIPTURE Paul’s dedication to what he learned about God through Jesus changes this perceptions on faith. He used to think, “Who can forgive sin but only God. So when Jesus proclaimed ‘your sins are forgiven’ it rub him the wrong way. What an arrogant claim for anyone to make. Who does this Jesus think he is. Only God can forgive sin…unless Jesus is God. Then bam, bright light, knocked off the horse, blinded and the voice of the resurrected Jesus calling to him. Paul had a paradigm shift where he equated Jesus with God and everything made sense in a new way. Relationship with God is not only for the Jews (the ancestor of Abraham and Sarah), but for everyone. The prejudice he carried for Gentiles (those who were not Jews) was wrong and arrogant. This grace makes Paul passionate about bringing the Good News of Jesus to the Gentiles so they don’t fall under the same yolk of the Law that he was under and for them to share in the relationship he has with God as parent through Jesus. The Good News is found in the mystery of Christ which is all about the gift of grace for everyone. This Boundless riches of Christ brings a rich variety to the church. More than what Judaism could contain on its own. The church has its roots in Judaism, with the revelation of Christ, gifted with God’s grace and rich variety by all who come to make up the church. APPLICATION What are the characteristics and practices of an inclusive-collaborative community? What is being described in Ephesians is an inclusive community of faith, rising from its foundation in Judaism but having ability to accept anyone, no matter what their ancestral background might be. Living gracefully, the church is a community of those who have come to have faith in God and find grace together through the mystery of Christ. This brings a rich variety that includes different cultures, traditions, habits, practices, races and experiences. God is not limited to one people, but open to the experiences, insights and values that have influenced, molded and made them into who they are. As with anything, they need to be discerned, adapted, included or left behind. This is true with the church, one new member can changes the church with who they are, the gifts they share, their faith, love, grace, experiences and the needs that they have. This means that the church is always changing. There is a rich variety, that confirms the diversity of God’s love. This is harder on us, who like things to be the same. We evolve to a point where we have a standard to keep but a pandemic happens, the county fair stops, the flow of income changes and the cost of living increases. Our mode of operation is to dominate, to over power and have our way. But the way of Christ is to acknowledge the richness in diversity and then to work collaboratively; Judaism and Christ create the church. The church has evolved from Catholicism, to Protestantism, and Charismatic-ism and is moving into ‘what next'? When we moved from a chaplaincy model of the church towards being missional, it wasn’t because we were doing church wrong all of those years, it meant that the mission of the church was moving and we needed to shift gears with it. Sometimes it takes someone from here to go away and come back to notice the change in our demographics. We are a lot less local on Maui. And there is a lot less ‘Aloha’. Our brand of Christianity is very special, because of ‘aloha’. It can be lost if we don’t teach and practice it, not only to the next generation, but to those who have moved here from someplace else, who now call Hawaii their home. Can you imagine such a person moving to Molokai and wanting to change a Molokai Market to be like the grocery store they left on the Mainland. Moving into the new, there is a bit of letting go and a collaborative work of building something that holds our shared values together. Part of the flavor of our church is a little bit of many cultures. We don’t try to dominate but appreciate the diversity and blend, the fusion and collaboration into something special. But don’t stop there. God is on the move to the next and the new version of the people of God and the church. We have progressed and established ourselves, but what we have built is struggling to sustain itself today. Groaning to move into something new. Diverse collaboration blended we need to teach our values, life style to the new comers and the next generation so they can take what is special about us, into the future. This could be what our country is going through in trying to preserve the status quo, instead of changing into something more collaborative, blended and diverse. If we are not careful, we will be sacrificing our values and distinctiveness instead of embedding them into the future. CONCLUSION Paul learned about the Aloha of God, realizing that what he thought was too small. We need to teach ‘Aloha in Christ’ to everyone. A Hawaiian Style of being a Christian. If we teach our way of loving and worshiping God to others, then it won’t be lost to the future but it will finds its place, incarnated, in the next generation and the next evolution of the church SCRIPTURE: Galatians 4:4-7
TEXT: 4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, THEME: Our Lives are shaped by God dwelling among us. INTRODUCTION The idea of God Dwelling with us is an interesting one to follow. We can see it in the beginning, in the description of the Garden from Creation. God is intimately involved with the creation of humans and their placement in the garden. Then there are concerns about of companionship and the creation of a partner. God is walking in the garden when Adam and Eve were being human and God’s love never ends but moves with the changes in their relationship. God continues to be involved with humans when they disconnect from each other and the chaos of water creates a handful of survivors as seeds for the relationship with God and the people of God to be preserved. God dwells with the family of Abraham and Sarah, with their descendants and in the land. Then liberates them from slavery in Egypt. This is where the nation of Israel forges their relationship with God in the wilderness. Warriors, prophets, judges, and kings re-inhabit the promised lands until they are defeated by the Assyrians and exiled to Babylon, God and Israel’s relationship has been bumpy with ups and downs. But now with the gift of God’s self at Christmas there is a new way where God comes to dwell among us. SCRIPTURE Christmas (as the apostle Paul has discovered) is where the fullness of time had come. Everything comes together at Jesus birth. God comes to dwell among us by becoming flesh and blood, born of Mary. Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia shows how Paul understands this. The first descriptor of our relationship with God was articulated in the 10 Commandments. The people of God received these while they were being formed in the wilderness. Ten Commands later became known as the Law, describes what people who have a relationship with God are like. These descriptors of their relationship with God make them distinctive from all other people. But these Descriptors are not exclusive to only them, but available for anyone to adopt. These Commandments from God details their relationships with God and each other. Unfortunately, we as humans tend to regulate things, administrate what we can’t control and make the things more difficult than they need be. They have taken these 10 Descriptors, something that was freely given to all, and used them as a way to rank themselves with God and measure themselves against each other. Paul declares, “Jesus’ Good News fulfills all of the Law’s requirements. A redemption has been paid in full and our indebtedness to God has been settled. The Law that had become an entity in itself to be satisfied has been rendered obsolete by Jesus as the Christ.” God’s Son (Jesus-Divine), Born of a woman (Mary-Human), Born under the covenant of the Law (as a description of the people who lived in relationship with God) is no longer needed as a way to mark sin in people’s lives. God’s dwelling among us in Jesus is proof of God’s loving grace and not our doing things perfectly. This takes us out of the loop of sin, debt, and repayment. Jesus fulfills the requirements of the Law and creates a new measurement for the People of God; love, grace, and forgiveness. The idea of Grace is so radical that our greatest temptation is to put a price on it or ironically make people earn it. So, Paul takes the idea of relationship with God, out of a financial system of debt owed and paid, and restates it in the system of Ohana; hanai-ed, loved, adopted, parent, child, and heir. No matter what you do, you are identified as family member. And as an icing on a cake; God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to dwell, at no extra charge. More grace upon grace, ♫ This This the angels sing is Christ God’s holy offering ♫. APPLICATION What does it look like having God dwelling with us? Living freely is the first. We are freed to live, not saddled with a bunch of rules that tie us down to earns eternal life points, but free to live creatively, inventively, productively, meaningfully loving God and loving others. Relationships are what God is all about. Relationships that heal, reconcile, and grow in intimacy. Relationships that form covenants, families, communities and peacefully living of generosity, justice, living collaboratively in harmony. It’s about sharing our time, effort, and resource with others. This is what our Food Pantry is all about. Taking stock in what we have, and being willing to share with others. We don’t say this enough, but our food pantry is also supported by the generosity of Ala Lani Methodist church and Emmanuel Lutheran church. Last week one of the refers was out, and we discovered that through their generosity towards this ministry, were do not able to purchase a refrigerator from a premium appliance store and avoid the 6-week delivery wait. God dwelling with us is the second thing. Christmas and the incarnation maybe the preview of God dwelling with us forever. In Revelation 21 there is a vision of the new heaven, the new earth and the new Jerusalem that comes down here from God. A voice speaks and says; “See the home of God is among mortals, He will dwell with them as their God they will be his people, and God himself will be with them…” God dwelling with us is something God has always wanted to do. Wrapping our mind around this takes a shift from the theological paradigms of escape handed down to us. That theory is actually the opposite of the incarnation. We not going anywhere, God is coming to us. This is in line with our living our resurrected lives now instead of waiting for later. We are to live with God as our parent belonging to the Family of God now and not wait for death before we start. This is how Jesus lived his life. Some theologies live with the idea that we are not perfect and so not good enough. The earth has been messed up by us and not good enough. And everything is no good so God has to replace everything. That is not what I get from the pronouncement at Creation where everything is good. Or how God wants to dwell with us, or how God never stops loving us even when we willfully eat from the wrong tree, or that God’s grace is abundant and is able to forgive us when we make mistakes or that God sends the Spirit of Jesus to us to help us when we make a mess of things or to be equipped to participate in the activity of God. To dwell in us. Ah there it is again, this time it is God’s Spirit dwelling in us. We can have a positive outlook of ourselves and the world because God does. So as messed up, warm, crazy, and dangerous our world may be. It is still good with the potential of doing better. God has not given up on us so we shouldn’t either. We can be positive, creative, inventive, resourceful, disciplined, mindful, kind, and generous in doing better. There is lot of hard work to do. CONCLUSION I remember doing a Bible Study with teenagers where the curriculum said the purpose of salvation was ‘fellowship with God;’ 1 John 1:3 was the text. Loosely paraphrased it says, “Through Jesus, there is fellowship with other Christians, as we share a common Parent God (Father) and have a common sibling in Jesus (his Son/our Christ).” All of this for fellowship. Through the years, this where my theology has taken me. What God does is all for fellowship, relationships, our relationships with each other and intimacy with God. God created us, much with the same sense of longing that God created us partners. Our Mission is not alone but with others and for others. Our mission with God never seems to be complete but continues on, to be worked on, improved, refined, adapted, and evolved with a community of believes, the church. The birth of Christ at Christmas is the Fullness of Time that brings all of the divine elements we need to help us to participate in fellowship, work and mission with God dwelling among us. SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:16-20
TEXT: 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. THEME: Being present with Jesus changes our lives with God’s peace. INTRODUCTION The shepherds are present at Jesus’ birth. Angels have announced the birth to them. But it is at an unusual setting, a stable. And they should be allowed in with no problem. Christ’s birth was announced to them. They were invited to go and see. And they did. No enyo hold back SCRIPTURE They didn’t shower. They didn’t change their clothes. They didn’t try to get the sheep smell off the them. They didn’t bring any omyage with them, Not even a lamb, a sheep skin or lamb chops. They were the presents, They were present. No Shame. One of the lyrics we hear during this season is “I don’t want a lot for Christmas….” Ending with: “All I want for Christmas is you “Yeah." This is what God is singing to us at Christmas. “All I want is you…” “Baby" This is exactly what God is doing at Christmas, God is giving, God’s self to dwell with us in the baby Jesus, Which makes it possible for us to be present with God. I’m sorry, but nobody is the Queen of Christmas. No act Jesus puts the Christ at the CENTER of our worship or mass And THAT is all there is room for. So Christmas is about showing up and being present. Ourselves being present before God. Like the shepherds who come, Showing up and being present. After they took their selfies with the Christ child, They put their phones away so they could be present, Focused, And take in all that they could from the time they had with Jesus. Hele Mai come by here Christmas, it is about our being present with God and taking in all we can from Jesus. That’s why we take the extra effort to be with each other at Christmas. It is the Spirit of God that moves us to be together. Being together has always been God’s plan. From in the garden, to wilderness, to God’s gift of Jesus, And to having a vision of heaven being right here on earth Where God gets to Ohana with us. APPLICATION To be present, as a family, is one way God’s Spirit moves us through this ‘gift giving’ holiday. To be about relationships, reuniting, reconnecting, reconciliation and renewing. It also has become a way of acknowledging, appreciating, and celebrating the event of Christ’s coming together. God is relational and is always moving us towards communities of love and care. The Spirit of God moves us like how the Shepherds come down from the hillsides to be present. God’s Spirit in us moves us to be welcoming, inclusive, accepting, loving and kind, to all people. We will see through Jesus that as human beings we can forgive hurts in broken relationships and do the work of reconciliation. Wise persons from the East detect God’s activities through the stars and come to be present. They cross scientific, religious, racial and political boundaries to do so. Powerful autocrats are threatened by God’s movement in the hearts of people and seek to exercise their power to destroy what they fear Jesus will take away from them. Love will always be in conflict with those who exercise their power to create fear in others. Love will always give confidence to those who are confronting those motivated by fear. The freedom Jesus baby brings is messy, chaotic. uncontrolled and un-uninformed. That is salvation away from Empire, Autocracy, fascism, and tyranny. Individuality, corporately, diversity, inclusion, acceptance, appreciation, held together with our presence, present at the manger crib, surrounded by parents, shepherds, animals and angels bathe in the presence of God. Live Aloha CONCLUSION The shepherds show us that there is nothing keeping us from God’s self accept our own selves. No enyo, No be shame, no act, hele mai, Ohana and live Aloha. God is at peace with us through love. We can be present at Jesus’ birth as we are willing to come. No Fear. SCRIPTURE: Luke 1:26-38
TEXT: 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. THEME: We serve of a loving God. INTRODUCTION The timing referenced of this passage is from the number of months of Elizabeth has been pregnant. Beyond childbearing years, she and her husband Zechariah are expectant parents. A miracle in its own right, she is in her 6th month of pregnancy carrying the Forerunner to the Messiah as the angel Gabriel goes to visit Mary. One of the commentators of this passage compared Zachariah’s reaction to the angel with Mary’s reaction. Needless to say, just saying “Don’t be afraid” isn’t enough for Zechariah as his inability to comprehend and embrace all of what God is doing leaves him mute, while Mary ends up singing. SCRIPTURE Mary was quick to pieces together all of the events of her angel visit and decides the best thing she should do, is to do her part in this mysterious, grandiose plan of God. Even though she shares part of the family line of king David she certainly lives more like a pauper than royalty. The origins of the Son of God are Divine. Even from the very start Jesus will be at odds with the Empire and their Emperor who also claims to be divine. Unmarried but engaged, young but favored by God. Mary will conceive and give birth to a son who she will name Jesus; “The Lord is Salvation.” Unmarried there are all kinds of problems with this. No support from the Ohana, no sheltering from a husband, vulnerable to public scrutiny, where will the food come from? Who will provide the things she needs? And where will the household come from? The ancestral promise of a royal linage, has earthly connotations, but now with a flare of the Divine. When the angel appears to Zechariah and Elizabeth, they had enough faith to go along with God’s plan, but Mary, was by herself. Later she is bolstered with Joseph’s compassionate faith and Elizabeth’s witness of God’s possibilities. APPLICATION Why not us? Sometimes we don’t get to choose but find ourselves living the impossible with God who makes it possible. All it takes is an eyelash of faith, like Zechariah. He was high on the form of religion being a priest in the temple, but had difficulty believing, but it was enough for him to do his part in God’s plan of living among us. Mary had faith to accept what God was doing, moving beyond the normal to be among us, through a birth. She was willing to participate in what God was doing. It would be a blessing for all people. Love is not mentioned in this passage but it is embedded. This is the same God who heard the Israelite’s cry while slaves in Egypt and whose love initiates a plan of liberation with the birth of Moses. Moses doesn’t get to choose but his experiences with God are compelling, moving him to participate in God’s compassionate mission of liberation. In the same sense Mary didn’t get to choose but was compelled to participate in the loving works of God for all people, with the assurance that 'nothing will be impossible with God.’ As with Zachariah and Elizabeth beloved by God, their child will prepare the way for Jesus. CONCLUSION The child, that comes, to dwell in our world, disrupts and the quiet lives of parents, and changes the world. God’s plan of liberating love will challenge the reach of the Empire, will change the religious order of things, will change the social economic classes, will change racism, will change immigration policies, and will change the redistribution of wealth. In God’s realm, everyone is seen, cared for and ministered to. Mary trusts that God is loving and only wants what is best for us. It is like being on the Amazing Race. Some of the feats the participants need to complete seem to be life threatening. They have to trust that the producers and planners have taken in every consideration that what seems impossible to the participant will require their skill, talent, and agility but they are more than capable to accomplish this feat without dying. All they have to do is overcome their fear and do their best. Trusting in God’s love, trusting in God’s plan, trusting that God will take care of them even though we know what God wants us to do, would be impossible for us to do on our own. All it takes is any amount of faith to trust in a love that is more powerful than our fear. Joy and happiness are two different things. The feeling of Happiness is about what makes us happy, While The feeling of joy is about our relationship with God. When we are happy we have joy But when we are unhappy or sad we can still have joy because God is with us. So when; Our things are taken away, We can still have joy. when we have to Move away from home, We can still have joy when we are Living under new rules, We can still have joy and when we are surrounded by lots of strangers, We can still have joy Because God is with us God will always help us God is our friend God is listening to us (when we pray) God will show us what to do and God will comfort us with love. In the 126th song in the Bible The Psalmist sings about ‘The fortunes’ ‘of the place where God dwells’ A fortune is not always about money, but about something very valuable to us: our Relationship with God. This relationship with God is being restored As we get ready to celebrate Jesus’ Birthday It reminds us of how valuable Jesus is to God How valuable we are to God, And how valuable Jesus is to us. Jesus helps us to know how to be in relationship with God. Our relationship with God gives us joy -we belong to God’s family -God promises of love for us -God is with us so we can be strong -God deepens our relationship with intimacy When we see what God. Is doing we can say ‘thank you’ and be happy What we do, even when we are sad can be good and when we feel better there we will be able to appreciate our hard work. The birth of Jesus was a surprise to most people. Maybe that is why we like to surprise people on Christmas with gifts. Surprise is an element that makes people laugh. Joy is the surprise in knowing that God is always working to make us free. Joy is a part of Christmas.
SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 40:1-11
TEXT: 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. THEME: The birth of Christ opens us up to learn new things about God. INTRODUCTION Last week we began our Advent journey to Christmas. Imagine two rows of Preschoolers sitting in these front pews. All you have to do is say the word “Christmas” to see their little bodies squirm with delight and anticipation. But when you are the adult, and you say the word “Christmas" we shudder with a nervousness of all the things we think we have to do before the 25th to make Christmas happen. We need to find a middle place where we recapture some of that childlike delight to balance our drivenness. SCRIPTURE Sermon Brainwave Commentator Anathea Portier-Young, said the Hebrew word for ‘comfort,’ naḥămû means to reverse one’s mind, feeling or state. Comfort, O comfort - reverse your mind, your feeling, your state, away from anxiety and fret of being captives of Babylon. Comfort your frame of mind towards being freed, liberated, released to go home. The prophet Isaiah is speaking these words to shock you out of your captivity; “Your term is up, the penalty paid, The extraction team is on its way, negotiations were successful, you are going home!” Not only you but everyone. This adds meaning to the word ‘Comfort’ that the English word does not contain. The Change in status or feeling or state of mind that brings comfort and a lot more. The way in the wilderness is a metaphor of a change in thinking. The highway in the desert is a metaphor of our theology, when it is legalistic and does not bring life. The straight road is a metaphor of our thinking, to be open to new ideas. To think about things in a new way. The valley lifted up is a metaphor of our self-image and insecurity being challenged by higher expectations witnessing the greatness of God. Seeing the Glory of God. Making hope possible. The Mountains made low is a metaphor of changing those high ambitions for more realistic, gentler, practices, kinder and doable successes. Un-even ground smoothed out takes care of the differences we have with each other for a spirit of cooperation and collaboration. And the rough places a plain, creates a space to receive new revelations as a foundation for faith to be built upon So, to comfort my people is to give us the chance to change our status or mind set. To be open to a change, to see things from a different point of view and get a glimpse of the Glory of God - in the birth of Jesus the Christ. We bring the present of ourselves. Our being present to the Christ in our midst. God is eternal compared to our mortality. God’s truth is eternal throughout the ages. This is what we know about God’s love for us. We are created by God. God has our back and God wants to dwell with us. This is what Zion is all about. Zion is the place where God dwells. At Christmas, God dwells with us making our world Zion. APPLICATION How does the way we believe bring comfort to others? Yesterday I went to a Memorial Service at a church different from our own. The Funeral Talk retold the story of Adam eating the fruit he knew he was not supposed to. Blame was passed on to his wife. So now we have a ransom paid to escape death. The congregation was nice, trying to understand the complexity of our family’s grief. They had points they wanted to make at the expense of getting the facts correct which made it hard to listen to them. The message of the sinner’s need, for an atoning sacrifice did not portray a compassionate concern for loss. The moral degradation of a soul, ransomed by a debt paid for by Jesus was more of a business transaction than love. I was comforted by the stories of how faith changed a life, although most of my family members failed to witnessed this changed life. It was hard to listen to explanations of the text that were like a collage drawn from many places from the Bible to make one point, instead of wrestling with a passage in its context. This made me think about how difficult it is to hear a familiar passage that draws a different conclusion from how we might have understood it in the past. The Gospel writers connect this passage from Isaiah to the ministry of John the Baptist, the prophetic voice crying in the wilderness preparing the way for Jesus. But there are also undertones of our being open to understanding God differently through the revelations Jesus will bring, giving us the opportunity for our theology to evolve and bloom. Brace yourself for a different kind of Messiah who is not born king in a palace, and a different concept of the Kingdom of God that is not contained just in Judea but made-up citizens from every country in the world. And a different sense of reconciliation that is centered on the practices of love and forgiveness instead of retribution. And a community of God that is more diverse than its Jewish roots. The incarnation, of God being flesh and blood and living among us, may include the foretaste of heaven, not being somewhere else but here; Where the Garden of Eden is, where Jesus dwells among us, Where God dwells in Zion on earth, with the new heaven and new Earth and new Jerusalem descending from the heavens onto Earth. The dwelling of God dwells with us. Zion the place where God dwells being here on this magnificent planet, with us as God’s magnificent people. We are not waiting to live resurrected lives but live this life into resurrection. CONCLUSION Christmas is a call for us to be present, as God is present to us through Jesus born to Mary and Joseph, to live among us. Christmas is Zion, where God dwells with us because we are ‘good’ and the earth is ‘good.’ God’s plan is not to discard us or the planet but to live in partnership with us to; reuse, renew, revitalize and to ‘Comfort.’ What we know about God is foundational and has held faith for us through generations. So, like the Judaism that Christianity is born from, or the Catholicism that the Protestants reformed, or the church that the Holy Spirit revived, and this is what we have something to evolve from, and blossom into today. There is a leveling, a rising up and a bringing down of our openness to how God wants to work in our world through the church today. “Comfort, O comfort my people” to be open to the compassion of God to “reverse one’s mind, one’s feeling and one’s state” for what is next to come. |
Pastor robbSermons Archives
May 2024
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