Marriage Sermon & Benediction (June 1, 2013)

Message

(Song of Solomon 2:10-13)

I wonder whether some of us here may have wondered why they would like to be married now, after 20 years together? It’s like the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” - but just because something isn’t broken, doesn’t mean you can’t take something good and make it even better.

Last Wednesday, while I was sitting at my kitchen table writing this message for Denny and Laura, I turned my face from the computer screen and looked outside. It was a rainy day, and the rain was really coming down, soaking the land, making puddles and little streams everywhere. The trees, the grass and the moss were a vivid green. The light gray cloud was moving swiftly. The simple, modest old houses were adding a few more tints of red and yellow and blue to the scene. It was a joy to see it all, a simple joy. It reminded me of the daily blessings and beauty we often take for granted in our lives, which may have their own rain-soaked times but are still glorious and hopeful, steeped in love and dear memories kept and shared between those who love each other. Today is special to us all, as we celebrate two things: Denny and Laura’s holy union in the covenant of marriage and their loving, daily, ordinary and extraordinary relationship. We celebrate the humble and awesome blessings they have shared through the past 20 years, with their beloved family and their community. Denny and Laura’s wedding is today, but their gift of love has been with us for a long time.

God the Creator is the Great Love, the being who sent each atom into motion, who designed us to have hearts that feel and love and beat away within our chests – the same heartbeat which a pair of gazelles would also feel in themselves when they run for love and freedom together.  In today’s reading, the Song of Songs, a gazelle calls to another; “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. The fig tree and the vine and the flowers give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

Dear Denny and Laura, God gives a blessing to you in this sacred moment because your hearts beat as one and you rise for one another in love. Love is where we find our truest inspiration and our truest rest; it is a miraculous power which always pulls us onward towards a greater hope.

Dear children and family of Denny and Laura, may you continue to be blessed by Denny and Laura as their relationship grows in commitment, faithfulness, and love. May you be bound together as one blessed family by God’s promise and blessings given to you today and in the future. And Happy Birthday, _N_. Next year, on this day, June 1, you will know how much your parents love you and all your brothers and sisters, when all of you together as a family celebrate your parent’s first wedding anniversary. I am sure that Riley, Lucas, and the coming new nephew will add more joy to you; Thank God for the big, blessed family you have!

Dear friends, God’s love is never separated from us either in the rain or in the sunshine - we are blessed under all circumstances. God’s glorious light beams and enlightens us with wisdom and strength, today and forever, for Denny and Laura and all of you as family and friends. Amen.   

Benediction

Go forth in the love of God;

Knowing that God is with you.

And the blessing of God,

Creator, Christ, and Spirit,

Be with you, and remain with you always.

May the God of rain and roses, and of every creation

on this blessed earth and land

bless this day and your lives

with wonder, joy, love and beauty. Amen.

Sermon - Doorway (Trinity Sunday, May 26, 2013)

Sermon: Doorway

Lectionary: Romans 5:1-5

“We have obtained access through Jesus Christ to this grace, God’s grace, in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Paul’s eloquence stands out here - in one sentence he turns suffering into a gift.

These words challenge us; not every suffering person goes through these ‘steps’ from suffering toward hope. The succession of Paul’s four steps to hope does not always happen in our challenged, blessed lives. They’re not even steps, really, not a clear pathway up and out of our troubles. We often find we are stuck in the middle. For many, suffering often ends with a feeling of devastation, not with hope, with disappointment in what we call life. Trust is abused and broken, love is rejected by those closest to us. Late last fall, I preached about our lives, saying, “When we carefully look at even our happy lives, we see wounds, cracks, loss, a few petals fallen off to show that even the happiest life is not a perfect life.” There seems to be no one whose life has not been scratched and dented along the way. “A few petals fallen off” is not a metaphor. Many among us have have gone through terrible times of loss and grief. I know that some of us are even now in a time of turmoil and transition; it can be hard to find God, to make that last step to hope when the world seems to be falling apart around you.

One of the effects of struggling with suffering and grief is that feelings can be misdirected. Anger and blame can be turned outward, hurting others as we have been hurt.

As in the prayer of confession, we struggle with suffering. We fear suffering. We would avoid having that pain, if we could, and if we really were in control of our life. But there’s a good chance we are already  suffering, right now. And the challenging part of it is that we don’t usually have a good vocabulary to address suffering and understand it. Even though we know where we are, we often find that we don’t know how to deal with this pain in a right spiritual direction. We seek to find allies. We go out to find friendship. And these are very understandable actions; emotions need to be discharged and troubled hearts needs friendship. Suffering can be shared and comforted. It seeks healing. But these efforts do not always work; trust can be betrayed, painful secrets shared as gossip. We believe that, by reaching out to other people we have tried everything we can do, but we have actually tried to fix the problem and improve the situation by ourselves. The step that we we often miss is to see and hear how God is calling us in the midst of the turmoil, disappointment, devastation, pain, anger, resentment and distress.

It is perfectly reasonable to fear suffering; suffering is a great ordeal in our lives. It pushes us to the edge, making us feel that we have failed in the most important, essential parts of our lives. But God calls us to prepare ourselves for suffering in order to forge a new way for us to send our spirit and God’s spirit to those we love and to those who love us. This is God’s call we hear in every moment and passage in our life - to seek faith, love, hope, and it is indeed a call, because it is very hard, very challenging, especially when we are overwhelmed by life’s challenges.

Life is not a well-marked road. Suffering, endurance, character, and finally hope – they are not a succession of steps or stop signs that we can mark on the way to our destination. In our struggle to move on in life, it may happen that these steps of progress or regression go unnoticed. Sometimes we go some miles ahead, then some miles back to find a comfort zone, or to find our bearings. In the meanwhile, our wounds mend and hope grows little by little, like the green things growing under and beside the rocks along the shoulder of the highway, getting stronger even under harsh conditions. They give us a sign that spring will come even after the hardest winter.

Hope is not a quick answer,though - it shouldn’t be, and cannot be, an immediate response to suffering. Our priority is not to get to that destination quickly, at highway speeds. We have to slow down to find the right speed for ourselves.

On a winding road or in a rollercoaster journey of transition and uncertainty, we find it hard to sit and pray. I recently found the phrase, “When you pray, move your feet.” But no matter whether we sit or we move our feet, we find sometimes that we don’t know how to pray or when to pray.

What today’s reading teaches us is that prayer does not depend on ourselves, but the triune God: Jesus, through the Spirit, is praying with us and for us. I believe that this is the message, the comfort and the heart of the theology of the Trinity.

This week, I have wondered and  imagined whether and how our Sunday worship can be a feast of prayers. When you visit our church website you will read; “Members of the congregation participate in a variety of ways during this service – doing readings, offering prayers and leading in singing. The mood of the service is celebratory.” I love this; but what is and should be celebratory is not only the mood of the service. Worship is a feast - it is a feast of prayer and praise. The worship is celebratory because the heart of the worship, the heart of the festivity, is that we pray when and wherever we gather in Christ’s name. And we don’t have to worry about not having the right words, because prayer is not something that begins and ends with me, us, or with someone who is praying on behalf of the church community. Prayer begins and ends with the triune God: with Jesus, through the Spirit, praying for us, according to God’s will, as we pray every Sunday when we say the Lord’s Prayer.

Worship is not just a minister’s work; it is communal work. It is the people’s work, the festival of God’s people. Worship is not governed by its structure; worship is led by the spirit, dwelling among us, in prayer and praise.

Last week, I found a phrase which says “Suffering is the primary doorway through which the Holy Spirit enters our lives.” Suffering is indeed a doorway. But the key to open that door is not in our hands - it is in the root of our being and existence. It is in the bottom depths of the water of emotion. It is present in us but deeper than us. When we find that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, we tend to find fault, to find blame in others, in ourselves, or in God. But what we need to search for is not a fault, but the key - the key which is in us, and in our relationship with God.

Have you seen the movie “Whale Rider”?  In the movie, the leader of an aboriginal community in New Zealand, the grandfather of the film’s protagonist, throws the rei puta, a whale’s tooth, the treasure and symbol of the tribe, into the ocean; whoever recovers it will prove worthy of becoming leader. In the scene, the whale tooth plunges into the depths of the transparent blue water of the Pacific ocean. That scene inspires me to imagine that prayer is our way of recovering the key - responding to God and remembering that the triune God with Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is praying for us - we exist in the boundlessness of God’s love and promise.

Prayer is daily sustenance. Prayer is the heart of the festivity of worship. Prayer does not begin and end with me, or you. Prayer is not just words. Prayer is remembrance that God’s love is never separated from us. Prayer is presence; it simply needs us. Prayer is where we find hope. Prayer is the key to open the doorway of our suffering – whatever it is - through which the spirit of healing, knowledge, wisdom and truth enter our lives. It breathes us into the next phase – hope and healing and returning to God’s love.   

Children's Time: God is So Big (Trinity Sunday, May 26, 2013)

Children’s Time: God is So Big…

(Inspired from the children's sermon from On the Chancel Steps.)

Good morning!

This morning, I have brought some things

we can find around us.  

I hope they can help us to understand 

what we are celebrating today at church.

Let’s start with lighting three candles.

All right. The next is a triangle ruler.

 

What else have we got?

A 3 leaf clover…

A musical triangle!

And, wait a minute, what am I sitting on? A tricycle!

 

What do you think these things have in common…?

(Children will answer, “Three!?”)

In our church calendar, today is called Trinity Sunday. Trinity means three in one, and one in three. What we celebrate today is that God loves us, with Jesus, through the Holy Spirit. Trinity is a big word and a mystery of God which even adults find hard to understand. 

But a few small things around us may help us to understand God’s love in the Trinity.

 

Look at this three leaf clover; Each leaf of the clover is a leaf, and only bound together are they a clover.

Would anyone like to play this musical triangle for us?

Like a triangle has three sides and makes one sound, 

(pointing at each corner)

God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one, and God, with Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, makes one wonderful sound of love for us.

Can any of you tell me your full name? (Receive answers…)

Hmm…I wonder what’s God’s full name may be….?

It’s like God has been using God’s full, long name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God loves to be called by this full name. And also God loves more!

When a girl who holds a bouquet of wild flowers calls God Giver of Life, God loves that name.

When a tired soldier who has seen the terrible cost of war calls God Peace, God is with him.

When a mother holding her baby in her arms calls God, “Mother”, God loves that name, too.

Creator, Giver of Life, Father, Mother, Friend, My Rock, all of these can be God’s names.

I wonder why God loves to be called by so many names? (Receive answers and affirm them.)

God is big…God is so big…

No one has ever understood God fully. There is always something else we can learn about God.

When you see God, what would you like to call God?  

Will you pray with me?

Dear God,

Today we rejoice

That you are so big…

Today we rejoice

That you have so many names we can call you.

Thank you

For being so big

That you have enough love for us all, 

with Jesus, through Holy Spirit. Amen.

My son(7)'s response while he was listening to this story:

Me: "God is big...so big..."

My son: "I always thought whole earth is God's tummy. 
Whole space is God's body.
Stars are the Spirit and the end of the world is the face of God.

God is big, because God loves everything.
God is in everything. 

We are living in God. 

God created everything, and created himself. 

Nobody can create God. 

It's was a long time ago when nothing was alive on earth 
except God. Maybe there was the Holy Spirit."

"Sometimes I call him Spirit, Joy, Peace....Holy Spirit...

Mom, did I miss anything..?"

Prayers (Trinity Sunday) - May 26, 2013

Opening Prayer: Pentecost Prayer

(This prayer is based on an inspiring prayer offered by one of our church members in a smaller circle last week.)

Gracious and Loving God,

May the wind of Pentecost blow away

all sadness, all fear, all doubt , all tiredness,

all pain from physical ailments.

May the wind of Pentecost bring us

joy, peace, love  and wellness.

May the fresh breeze of Pentecost bring us

a sense of a new direction , a sense of anticipation ,

a sense of excitement about the future of our church.

May our minds and hearts be refreshed

as we worship together with Pentecost Hope this morning. Amen.  

Prayer of Confession

God of Light and Shadow,

We struggle with our sufferings.

As much as love is the generating power of life,

Letting go with love is part of this life.

We confess that we fear sufferings.

Often, they are no more than another cause for sadness.

O God, 

prepare us for our sufferings

in such a way that they will be 

a new way for us 

to know ourselves and share God's spirit

with those we have loved and who have loved us. Amen. 

Assurance of God’s Grace

Where there is no shadow, there is also no strong light.

Here the good news: God’s love has been poured into our hearts

Through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Though we suffer from losses, illness, fears, 

Pentecost reminds us of what we have been received.

When our weakness and struggling seems to push our life up through rocky earth, remember that things are growing green under and beside the rocks and will be stronger. 

Let us lay our thankful hearts before God. Amen.

Prayers of the People

God of Holy Trinity,

Help us slow down the speed of our mind.

Breathe your Holy Spirit into our mind and heart, and blow away gently

anxiety, sadness, tiredness, and pain we may feel, and mend our wounds.

Help us to seek a new way for us to send our and God’s Spirit

To those we have loved and who have loved us.

Let us always seek your voice which calls us and your assurance that

You are our God and you listen to our cries for help, and you are with us now.

 

Let us not lose hope and know that 

You are praying for us, with Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.

We pray for those whose heart is in turmoil and whose life is in transition and uncertainty, now.

We pray for those who sit on the edge of their loved one’s hospital bed or bed at home.

We pray for all parents who are learning that joy and angst are parenting and, sometimes, the heartbreak of love is also part of parenting. 

We pray for those who are recovering from human or natural disasters, especially those in the aftermath of a devastating tornado in Oklahoma.

There are times that the tide of our grief roars and foams to overwhelm us. There are times that, in our sorrow, we seek to know your presence but end up with disbelief.

In any circumstances in our life, we believe that you are our refuge. Be our strength.

In any path our life takes us to walk on, let us live lives of faithfulness – that we might follow Jesus’ path of peace, justice and love with each step we are privileged to take in this world.

Holy Trinity, Three in One and One in Three in love,

Receive our praise and receive our prayers, and hear our sighs too deep for words.

(Silence)

Send your Holy Spirit – the comforter, the wisdom – to dwell among us and within us – now and always. Amen.   

Benediction
May God give strength to you and to all, 
May Christ Jesus bless you with peace,
and the Holy Spirit whisper within your heart, Hope. 

Go and reveal the Christ's love to the world. Amen. 

Greeting

Welcome to the Trinity Sunday worship service at N United Church.
This time is for a feast, the feast of prayers and praises, silence and songs, our and God's stories and reflections.
May Christ's love be with you and shine on you. 

Sermon: "Pentecost Hope" (Pentecost Sunday, May 19, 2013)

Sermon: Pentecost Hope

Have you ever stood in our sanctuary, alone, in the afternoon or in the morning, looking around and appreciating every detail of its beauty? Have you ever stood or sat in the center of this sanctuary, breathing in and breathing out … Inhaling and exhaling? (Come on -you have! We’re all breathing in and breathing out every moment, without ceasing, and we are here, aren’t we?)

Last Thursday afternoon, I was alone in the church, and I crossed the  sanctuary to find something. I suddenly felt the vitality of this space: this space where we work, this space where we worship, this space where we wonder, this space where we weave our stories. So I stood in the aisle, taking some pictures of the biblical stories in stained glass, with my smartphone - I think these days, taking pictures is a part of how we take a look at things! - , then turned around and faced the Christ window. (action) The white summer light came through the window and made it shine like a stained glass miracle.

That moment of awareness was an inspiration - this space is not just a building. It is a church. Our existence together consists of a church, the body of Christ, not just a family, nor a social group. The body of Christ breathes in and breathes out, like a living body does. Suddenly I realized this sanctuary was breathing with me as I breathed in and out. Am I being too mystical here? Let’s try something - imagine that the pews to the left of you and the pews to the right, are a paired set of lungs - an essential organ every life needs to live. Breathing happens without our conscious thought - our body just does it automatically. We don’t think about it, we just do it.

This past week has caused me to reflect upon how we breathe, what we do when we breathe, what is even so special about breathing? Why was I even thinking about breathing? Maybe it was because something last week reminded me of the simple truth that life is, in some way, all about breathing, and Pentecost is coming … and here we are! In Pentecost we retell the story of God’s Spirit coming to people in wind and fire.

In the church we often speak of the events at Pentecost as the “coming” of the Holy Spirit as if it entered human existence for the first time at Pentecost. But the account of Pentecost in Acts and the Hebrew account of creation use the same word for Spirit - Genesis says, God breathed the “ruach” into the nostrils of Adam. ‘Ruach’ means ‘spirit’, ‘wind’ and ‘breath.’ God’s breath has been here from the beginning, like the air we breathe, like the wind that blows the clouds from the sky.

We all know what happens when the involuntary, essential process of breathing ceases. Even when our breath is shortened by just a mild bronchial infection, or asthma – we gain a deep, rueful understanding that normal, full, healthy breathing is quite special.

At some point in our lifetime, we learn that we can still stay alive, even while holding our breath for thirty seconds or a minute; I think my older son learned that two or three months ago, (he was very proud), as he began to love challenging himself to hold his breath and dive – in the swimming pool or in the bathtub – with his goggles on.

We also apply a similar knowledge - that we can still be alive, and look like we’re living well, for a limited time or for a lifetime, even if we distance ourselves from the path of seeking God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to be with us and dwell among us. We learn that slightly distancing our life from God does not turn our world upside down, that everything still looks good, nothing seems to change too much for us. We think that we are still fine, still okay. It seems that the distance doesn’t matter.

But, like the difference between a full-blown balloon and a balloon slowly deflating, living with the full presence of God, living with the full breath of God, makes a difference.

Gloria Cope shared her article with the Board last Thursday, and I’ll share it with you: She was attending a worldwide conference, held in Brazil, in 1992, entitled, “No North or South.” It was the opening day of the week-long conference with over 1000 women and some very brave men attending, including many church leaders from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

When keynote speaker Anglican bishop Steven Charleston finished speaking, Gloria realized she was crying. She told us that, over the next 21 years, as she watched global events unfold with sadness in her heart, she would turn back to the bishop’s message and find renewal for hope in his words.

Steven Charleston was a Native American from Alaska, a member of the Choctaw people. He opened his message by announcing, “The light of the world is shrinking. It is part of the phenomena of the shrinking number of people and nations who hold the world’s wealth. These nations and peoples are becoming increasingly dependent upon the rest of the world to maintain an untenable lifestyle – a lifestyle based on gluttony and greed.”

He continued to say, "The light is shrinking and darkness is growing, but there is another light that is beginning to grow in this darkness"; that light is who we are, as a church, as the body of Christ, who will stand up and sing, dance in the middle of darkness, in the love of Jesus. As the humble people of the earth and of the sky, we will exercise breathing – as said in Micah – the breathing of justice, compassion, humility. Lacking any of these three cannot make us healthy, as a cell, as an organ, as the body of Christ.

According to Charleston, in Christian history, the first reformation reformed our theology; the next reformation will reform our spirit. This second reformation or the New Church will be reinforced over and over by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Pentecost, the wind and breath and fire of God. Again, it is about breathing.

As we prayed this morning, the cycle of the respiratory system – inhaling God’s breath and exhaling justice, compassion, and humility – is so essential. Breathing in and out God's Spirit, the breath and wind of God, is what we should not and cannot stop, because it is the minimal, indispensable, necessity of Christian life which sustains and enables us to be who we are. It permeates every cell of our being, nose to toes, nose to head, lung to heart and invigorates our bodies and minds and souls. It gives health to our spirit and body together. Living, infilled with the Holy Spirit, which is as ordinary as extraordinary, is a gift from God to the church and gives it life.

What amazes me sometimes is how the Christian year and calendar is so well organized to fit perfectly to the nature of each coming season. With Easter, we welcome spring in its freshness, the season when new life is blooming all around us. Pentecost comes with spring well underway, and summer being not far behind. The season of Pentecost lasts until September - Pentecost is the season of fullness; everything is full; the light, the sunshine, the limitless width of the cloudless summer sky, and full baskets of of berries on the earth! It is a zesty, sun-dappled season! Time for a bit of wine! Time for a festival! Celebration seems to be so easy! But Pentecost is not an event to take lightly.

Pentecost is the day and the season in which we are invited to exercise ordinary and extraordinary breathing, the miraculous and humble exercise, with care, with purpose, questing for what we hope is life, for what we hope will invigorate our self and our existence as a church with the full breath and the full presence of God. May this truly be our Pentecost hope rising and falling in our chests and in our hearts. Amen.