Differing Traditions Differing Missions

 

A sermon about different traditions, preached in several RCA churches during 2012 and 2016 while on home assignment from mission service in Taiwan.  Fill in the blanks with the names of your church or your town as applicable.

TEXT: Mark 7:1-8

 

PROPOSITION:

The traditions which we maintain can restrain us from the mission that challenges.

INTRODUCTION:

Thank you so much, ______________________, for arranging for us to be here today. For more than ___ years ______Church has supported our work in Taiwan. Sometimes in these past decades we’ve been in the US for periods of a full year, others for only 6 months.  We have more than 30 congregations to visit, so, on a “short” home assignment, like our current one, we count each Sunday as a precious opportunity for a visit.  Thank you for giving up one of your precious Sundays, and , thank you also, Pastor ______ for giving up your precious congregation and pulpit to us.

TRANSITION

There are many kinds of mission, some local, done right here in ______ and even in this building, and others across in different locations or even in other countries. When we leave our comfort spaces, we often get involved in what is known as  “cross cultural” mission. When we do that, we often find ourselves in different places, where there are different traditions, and where, in order to live faithfully, we may need to dig deep in order to find common ground.  

I: Different places

In the story we just read from Mark’s gospel, Jesus  was dealing with people from a different place. squared off with some outsiders regarding   Verse 1 points out quite clearly that “ the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him”. The story is set in Galilee, which was Jesus’ home region. Other stories in the gospels imply that folks from Jerusalem thought of themselves as more cultured and holy than Galilleeans. That kind of difference is sometimes faced in mission wherever folks like us may find ourselves.   

Tainan Theological College, where I work, has enjoyed a close alliance with Chang Jung Christian University, where Char teaches, since the early 90s.  Late in 2010 it also entered into  partnership with Chin-li University, another Christian school,  located hundreds of miles away. Chin-li also has a “sattelite campus” about 20 miles from us. That alliance has moved me to a different place.

Last year, one February noon, I got a call inviting me to an interview at Chin-li regarding an opening for a Friday evening class teacher they suddenly had.  I threw together some materials and met with a some teachers that afternoon. I was hired to start the next week.  It was agreed that I could use Taiwanese to teach the course. Turns out to have been a good decision.

The 15 adult students were mostly in the university to get college diplomas that would enable them to advance in their careers. They included a guy who had been on Taiwan’s Olympic team in 2008, a truck driver, an army officer, a bank teller, and a guy who ran a tea stand. From the first night I told them both that I am a teacher of the theological college AND that I’m a pastor. I asked them to keep me accountable for acting like a pastor. The class was basic college English, and nobody expected much.  I taught them for three semesters, finishing last June.  

The first term, after learning that they wanted nothing beyond passing grades, I kept my expectations low, just requiring that they demonstrate an ability to read. In the fall I had them again, so decided I’d expect them to write.  Some of them said that they’d never written a sentence in English before, so I made it easy, and they developed confidence.  Before the end of that semester I told them that if they would take my course in the spring, they’d be expected to start talking. In the end, they did. Their final exams were done on tape recorders.

Being from a different place meant that I didn’t teach or test like their previous teachers. There was little memorizing, no reciting, and I was gentle with the red pen on their homework and test papers. Some passed, some failed, but that depended on how much they were willing to put into their own future.  

When we moved to Tainan in 2008, Char spent a year teaching at the theological college before a position at Chang Jung Christian University reopened for her. One day in class she saw quite clearly how teaching at the two places differed. The topic of the reading  in the textbook was “Space.” One warm up question was “Do you believe there may be life on other planets?” She divided students into groups and assigned them to talk to each other.  An animated discussion began in one group. Though most of the students were open to the possibility of life elsewhere, one student firmly held the position that “If it’s not specifically written in Genesis in the Bible, then life elsewhere is impossible.” Char’s response was to raise the question, “Does the Bible tell us everything, or only so much as we need to know?” Both the students’ comments and her response were different from experiences in the university. Different places bring different content to the missionary task.

There are “missionary advantages” to being “not from here”.  As outsiders, we’re free to do things differently, and sometimes to do them not so well as local people, yet still get our message across.  In contrast, people “from the same place”, whether that is geography, culture or social class, can have problems ministering to those who are “different,”  and that can be true of Mission in right here in _________.  What all of us need to do, as ALL of us are in mission (whether in Taiwan or in _________) is to be aware of our “different traditions” as we live the gospel in our societies. That may include how we meet newcomers, how we open our homes to new friends, and our church practices to new and different ways to go about arranging things.

TRANSITION

Being from someplace else means you learned different things growing up.  One of the most readily apparent differences is what we consider to be normal, even when that comes to what, when and how we may eat different things.   

II: “Different Traditions”

Jesus had learned differently from the Jerusalem Pharisees who came to talk to him. They asked him,  “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”  Though they all used the same language, it’s likely that the folks from the south spoke with a different accent from those northern Galileeans. They might just as well have asked, “why don’t your disciples say things the way we do?”

Traditions can be interesting reference points for us, things like “when there’s a wedding in our church, the bride gets ready in this room and the groom in that one”, but in some cases, like those of the Pharisees and Scribes who talked to Jesus, the traditions become the controlling force behind actions.

Every semester Char interviews each of the students in some of her classes at Chang Jung Christian University both at mid-term and final examination time. Among other things, they talk about a topic related to a lesson they have studied. One student, commenting on “scary things” brought out some ghost stories. One would think that with all of Taiwan’s technological modernity there would be great skepticism. Alas, many young people believe in and powerfully fear ghosts.

One woman told Char that she was very afraid all of the time. During Ghost Month (the 7th month of the lunar year) she carefully does the right things, burning ghost money, putting out food sacrifices and such, so that the ghosts won’t harm her. She asked Char, “do you believe in ghosts?” Respecting Sandra’s culture, Char said that she could not say whether there were ghosts or not, but as a Christian she believed both that God is stronger than whatever might be out there AND that those who have died are in God’s care, so that we need not fear them or provide for them. Sandra’s only response was, “it is our culture, we must believe it.”

One day late in March a music student at the theological college asked me what hymn I wanted her to play for morning prayers on April 9th when I was scheduled to lead. I had to admit that I had forgotten that I was on the list. I checked the assigned scripture and put a note in her mailbox. Then I forgot again. The next week, the ministerial student asked me for my plans because he was assigned as the worship leader that day. Again, I admitted that it has slipped my mind, but promised, “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything weird.” (I have a reputation. I’ve been known to preach by painting pictures or leading people in impromptu songs.)

A LOT of preaching happens in the college chapel. I usually figure that another sermon is not what people most need, specially on a Monday when they’ve all been to church the day before.  Taiwan is very noisy and filled with words. One week I worked with the concept of the silence between the notes.
In the college’s hymnbook there are several “prayer response songs”,  things like “Hear Our Prayer O Lord,” all grouped together.   I set up a service led by a student reader and the pianist. My only job was to explain the structure of the service, which I did immediately following the prelude. After the, call to worship, a hymn and a prayer, the congregation opened their hymnbooks to #329-333.  Then the leader read the scripture, one verse at a time. After each verse the pianist played a prayer response song, in the order that they were arranged in the hymnbook, the congregation was free to sing, to hum along or just listen. Then there were 60 seconds of silence.  This cycle was repeated five times.  
The entire service, verses, songs and silences, took a bit longer than 15 minutes. I hoped it did two things: 1) give the community a contemplative beginning to a busy week and 2) Show a different way, a different “tradition” for going about daily devotional life.  
Having different traditions in mission (the way we go about being Christians in service to God on earth) can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. That’s true in both Taiwan and in __________. In the gospel story we read, the observation of different traditions led to discussion.  Whether it’s with the student in the classroom, the people we meet at work, at the campground or in the doctor’s waiting room, our different ways of going about things are conversation starters, and, when we do that between congregations, with the church down the street or the church downtown, we build relationships for mission in our communities as we learn each other’s traditions.

But why bother? Well, Because:   Because we have a mission to live our faith in front of the world.  Because we have something to say, and because we have a story to tell to the nations.

TRANSITION

Differences don’t necessarily produce harmony, though. If we are seeking something beyond, “We’re right and you’re wrong” we may need to go way back to something we have in common, then build from there.  

III: Dialogue that comes when traditions differ

When Jesus was talking with those “out of town Pharisees and Scribes, he went back far enough in their common traditions to pick up a prophet whom both sides held honorable  He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you” OK, what he said after that was NOT very complimentary, He called them hypocrites and said their religion was vanity, but it DID start from common ground.

A LOT of what is done in our mission work in Taiwan involves searching for common ground

Once when I was working as a pastor in Taiwan, trying to meet the people in my neighborhood, I sat with people at a tea stand beside a road. Someone arrived and the resulting conversation  indicated that this person had just returned from having gone to a neighborhood temple to purn incense and pray in front of an idol.  Some people talked about which god this one had offered sought, then mentioned the idols in their own house and which gods they sought out at different times.  My contribution was to listen, pick up on the fact that we all believed in something divine, and took time to pray. Starting there, I ventured an opinion that Taiwanese folk religion was unnessarily complex, having all of those gods, and that Christianity was much simpler, there being only One.

Char’s four hours of teaching one Tuesday were supplemented by a “free talk” session with five first-year students. At its beginning, the extra hour seemed that it would take forever. Some freshmen have little experience at conversation and this group seemed to want Char to carry things along. She would ask questions and get single-word replies. Then one guy ventured a question of his own, “What is the meaning of happiness?” But things almost shut down when the one woman in the group gave her one word response, “Buddha.”  Then John, the guy who had asked the question gave his answer,  He said that for him happiness was connected with his life in the fellowship of his church, learning about the Bible and faith. .

Building on that statement, Char said that happiness could come from many places. She noted that, like John, Christian faith gives her happiness, specifically loving God and living in faith with other people. She noted that the one woman among these students had happiness in Buddha, and asked  the others where they found it. The answers were short. At the end of the hour, John distributed copies of a small Christian monthly magazine. Finding Christians like John who are willing to witness to their classmates is one joy of being at Chang Jung Christian University, an environment that supports and encourages discussion of faith and life.

On another day, in another “free talk” session, a guy who calls himself Dan  asked what it meant that Char is in Taiwan as a missionary. He wondered if she is the pastor of a church or something like that. She told him that we are, indeed, involved in church life, but that her missionary service is her work and presence with students at his school.

Remembering that earlier in the year Dan had commented that listening to Christmas music made him feel peaceful, Char gently asked if he was perhaps part of a church. The answer was ‘no.’ Char then asked about his family’s religion and learned that they are nominal followers of Taiwanese folk religion. While Dan doesn’t believe any of it, he participates in ancestral worship rites when required. His telling comment was that he didn’t see his family’s religion having any effect on the way they lived but thought their religious practice was more just a matter of habit and culture. Dan said that he has been touched by the lives and testimonies of Christians who have been his teachers and that he admires Christian ethics and philosophy. God leads people to faith in Christ along many paths. Dan may be on one of them

When we find common ground, we can work toward building common love, whether it’s in Taiwan or _________.  A challenge before us here, today, is to seek what can be done with others as we engage in mission with our neighbors wherever we are.

CONCLUSION

We’re going to be different.  We will have differing traditions. We need to try to celebrate each other’s traditions as we learn from each other.  For example, 3 years ago the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan published a new hymnal, the first since 1964. It’s about 50% familiar (Translations of hymns from America and Europe that many of us here would know) but also contains 150 translations of songs and hymns from Africa, the Pacific and elsewhere in Asia and another 150 that were written in Taiwan by Taiwanese people and are sung to local (Taiwanese or Aboriginal) tunes.  In this way, the Taiwanese church celebrates and learns from the cultural forms of other Christians in Taiwan and around the world.

         As we face challenges of mission here in ____________, we likely face different people, who from different places and with different traditions.  We need to learn how to support each other in common mission.

Let’s do that, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

To your marks. Get set. Go!

TEXT: Matthew 5:13-20,  Isaiah 58:1-12

TITLE: To your marks, Get set, Go!

OBJECTIVES:

Hearers will come to know themselves, as believers, in terms of light of the world and  salt of the earth.

Hearers will come to understand what “light” and “salt” mean for themselves as  believers.

Hearers will apply their calling (vocation) to be light and salt to the lives they lead day to day.

Hearers will analyze their worlds, seeking out the dark and insipid places where their identity matters.

Hearers will evaluate the wider social and political contexts of their lives to see what is wanting.

Hearers will individualized and corporate create light and salt responses to the world outside the church door.

PROPOSITION:

Knowing isn’t enough. Being and doing are essential parts of our identity as salt and light.

 ——————————————————————–

INTRODUCTION

What do you know yourself to be?  There are lots of answers to that question: religious answers, ethnic answers, national answers, social-status answers, political answers, gender answers, family-position answers and more.

Lots of people, including ourselves, discover who we are when someone else tells us. Newly enlisted soldiers aren’t well respected, neither when they begin NOR while they’re in their initial weeks and months of training. But when that training ends, and the drill sergeants and officers who have treated these young men and women so badly for the couple of months that seemed last forever, there comes an announcement: “you’re no longer recruits, now you’re soldiers (or airmen, or marines, or sailors, or whatever). There’s a pride that has been earned, and an identity, and people stand up straighter.  When my kids were little we watched and re-watched a movie about a large family on vacation in a little town. The movie was both entertaining and educating. In one scene the family had a baseball game that included an older family friend who had played professional baseball in his youth. On the other team was a young boy who was extremely disappointed when his side lost the game. The older guy took the boy aside and said, effectively, “the others were just kidding around. YOU are a Ball player”.  Secure in his identity, the boy dropped his sadness, and stood up a little taller.

In the bit of Matthew’s gospel we read from today, Jesus told some people, “You are like salt for all mankind,”  and “You are like light for the whole world”. Today we have the option to choose whether or not he was talking to us, now. We hear these statements at the beginning of these paragraphs, and we’re like those who stand at the starting line of a foot race, hearing the “starter” say to us, “To your marks.  Get set, Go!”

TRANSITION

So, what do you know yourself to be? If what you want to be has anything to do with pleasing God, then what we read from Isaiah today applies. Pleasing God is NOT about “fasting and praying, making ourselves suffer or spreading out sackcloth and ashes to lie on.” What it IS about is removing the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice and letting the oppressed go free. It is about sharing our food with the hungry and opening our homes to the homeless poor. Isaiah 58 details for us how to be “…like salt for all mankind,”  and “…like light for the whole world”.

1. Understanding the Salt and Light metaphor as used by Jesus

Various sayings of Jesus, were gathered into a single collection which was used by the writers of Matthew and Luke, and which has come to be known as “The Sermon on the Mount”.  In Luke’s telling, these words were delivered to Jesus’ Apostles, a large number of disciples and a crowd. But we read from Matthew today, where they were addressed to disciples who were gathered around him. (How many disciples? It doesn’t say. Were there crowds listening? Maybe, but Matthew isn’t clear on that either).

When Jesus said to WHOEVER it was who was listening that they were “like salt for all mankind and like light for the whole world, ” he wasn’t speaking literally.  Since people aren’t salt (we’re flesh and blood) and since we don’t emit light, we can be pretty confident that he was speaking in metaphors. WE can’t take these words of the Bible “literally”, we need to be linguistic, artistic and even poetic, in our attempts to understand them and apply what we learn to our lives.

Sometimes when we taste soup or stew we feel that it needs “a little salt” to bring out the flavor. And that’s about the only time we, modern people with refrigerators to keep our food from spoiling, think about salt at all. But for the people who originally heard these words from Jesus, and those who lived before refrigeration, salt was about more than taste. It was, and even today IS, a thing used to preserve meat or fish from spoiling and to healing or cleansing certain ailments. So when Jesus said, “You are like salt for all humankind”,” he and his audience had much more in mind than a convenient flavor source. Salt was a necessary element of life. It was a symbolic bond of the necessary relationship between God and People (in what was sometimes called a covenant of salt).  In saying to people then, and to us now, that we are like salt for all humankind, Jesus names us as an essential element in preserving, healing, cleansing and binding.

He went on to tell his hearers (maybe even US) that they were like light for the whole world. This was not  the light that shines from the sky, and not even the light that comes from the lamps in our rooms to help us read. It wasn’t even like the light from the projector on the ceiling that makes it possible for us to use power-point during church and class. .This is the light that comes from within —- the kind that shines through individual people and whole communities of people. As “light for the whole world,” we are given the tasks of: 1) bringing clarity and understanding to social, political and personal relationships; 2)making the way of life easier to navigate like the streetlights along the road; 3) warning others of dangerous places like lighthouses along the seashore, and 4) attracting people to the right place, like those rows of lights that guide landing aircraft to the end of the runway.

TRANSITION

Just like those to whom Isaiah 58 was originally addressed, we are people seeking to understand how to worship God truly and rightly. We often fail to integrate our spiritual and social lives. We need to remember that “spiritual” and “holy” stuff, when unaccompanied by social action, is self-serving and empty.  The promise from the prophet today was that when we act out of concern about oppression and injustice. God’s favour will shine on us like the morning sun, and our wounds will be quickly healed”

1. ANALYZING OUR WORLD

But knowing isn’t enough. We need to BE and ACT if we are to fulfill our commission as salt and light.

Salt serves to enhance flavor, to preserve what is good, heal what is sick and cleanse what is unclean.  We must be involved with the world in which we are living, learning where injustice and oppression lurk, so that we may act for healing. We must sample life to learn where it is flavorless and participate in ways that make it tasty, even interesting. One of the most flavorless places in human endeavor is often religious life. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY! Especially not in this church. All ideas are welcome. We’ll try anything, (at least once)! If we don’t like it, we won’t do it again.

As the salt of the earth, we have both “cleansing” and “preserving” jobs to do. St. Francis of Assisi named some of these things in that famous prayer, where he asked God to help him analyze life, see certain things, and act in mission.

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

As light for the whole world, we look for the dark places: We need to learn where there’s a need to disperse darkness, light the road, warn of danger and attract people in. Darkness engulfs areas like governance, economics, politics, education and much of religious life. BE THE LIGHT!

Darkness isn’t hard to find. We just have to begin asking questions, and we’ll be met with all kinds of “you don’t need to know” OR “that can’t be known”, OR “It’s none of your business”, OR, “Nothing can be done about it” kinds of answers. These are key indicators of darkness. All we have to do is start to ask, because silence leaves us in darkness. Asking opens the way for the light to get in.

TRANSITION 

Not in Isaiah 58, but pretty near to it (In Isaiah 60:2) we can read, “…nations will be covered by darkness, but on you the light of the Lord will shine,the brightness of his presence will be with you.”

III. APPLYING OURSELVES, AS SALT AND LIGHT, TO OUR WORLD

If we accept Jesus’ words to some people long ago about being salt and light as describing us now, then we have some responsibility in the world. The prophet put it like this, “remove the chains of oppression and hte yoke of injustice, and let the opressed go free.   Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless poor. Give clothes to thosewho have nothing to weazr, and do not refuse to help your own relatives.”  Salt by itself in a box or a bag (or in a hill like out in Chigu)  doesn’t do any of these things unless it is placed in the situations where it is to act. If we are to be like salt for all humankind,  we cannot merely sit in our boxes, bags and churches.

Light that stays inside the lamp, either because the cover is not opened, the switch is not turned on, or the lens is dirty, does little good for anyone. It’s the same with us if we consider ourselves to be light for the whole world. We can demand transparency from those whom we have elected to represent us in government, those who move money around effecting, and impoverishing, millions of people, those who control the levers of power in society and the university, and those who claim to represent God and preach Christ’s gospel. Though I may not initially welcome challenges from you, I’m supposed to. So pull me aside, phone me or send me an e-mail when I’ve created an offense. I promise to listen, to pray, and to enter a discussion with you.  I further promise that, if the discussion leads us to the necessity, I’ll both repent and apologise.

TRANSITION

Doing things is all ewell and good, but often the things we do come to nothing, in part because we don’t have standards by which to measure their effectiveness. Once again, Isaiah comes to our aid. In 58:8&9. God says, “Then my favor will shine on you like the morning sun, and your wounds will be quickly healed. I will always be with you to save you; my presence will protect you on every side. When you pray, I will answer you, When you call to me, I will respond.

So, there are the 7 standards by which we measure if our action has been fitting to our identity as salt and light. God’s favor, God’s  healing, God’s presence, God’s salvation, God’s protection, God’s answers, God’s responses.

CONCLUSION  Creating a New World

Jesus’ words, and Isaiah’s, call us to do a lot today. 1) To come to know ourselves in terms of being salt to all humanity and light to the whole world; 2) To come to understand what being “salt” and “light” mean for the lives we will lead; 3) To analyze the world around us, looking for where things need “salt” and “light”. 4) to apply ourselves to filling that need; 5) to evaluate how well or poorly that’s working and 6) to create “salty” and “bright” responses to the death, darkness and destruction that we see around us wherever we go.

That’s a lot, SO:  “Runners to your marks, Get set, Go!”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

Let Us Pray

O Holy Spirit dwelling in us, guide us out of our inaction and darkness, that we may be like salt to all humankind and like light to the whole world, for these are the identities pronounced to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. AMEN

When the Bible and the Bible Don’t Agree

DATE  29 January 2017

TOPIC: Choosing Foolishness over the Way of the World

TEXT: I Corinthians 1:18-31  (Psalm 15)

TITLE A Wise Choice?

PROPOSITION    What’s wise in God’s eyes isn’t necessarily common sense in ours.

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INTRODUCTION

“In this ever-changing world in which we’re living…”when two authorities stand giving us opposite views of how things are. Which are we to believe? In the past 10 days we’ve heard what claim to be “authoritative views” which oppose each other on things like the size of the crowd at the recent US presidential inauguration and on the threat to security posed by people who hold onto their Muslim faith. OK, these are politicians, on BOTH sides. Maybe we discount them all. Or maybe we follow what in many cultures and language is called, “common sense” (which, of course, each side in these kinds of arguments insists it is using.)

But what are we to do when the opposite advice is about something spiritual, and both sides are direct quotations of the Bible?

TRANSITION

Dr. Jonathan Seitz teaches ecumenical theology at Taiwan Theological Seminary in Taipei. He’s got a PhD and lots of experience considering things like scripture and Christian belief. His father is a retired minister. There’s a real difference in their viewpoints when it comes to things in the Bible that don’t exactly match up with one another. Where Jonathan sees it as a chance to dig in and study, his father would rather find a way to “harmonize” things, even if that requires “don’t think about that.”

I: PSALM 15: THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD

The psalm we read this afternoon represents the wisdom of the world and the instruction of the religious tradition in which Jesus was born and raised. Looked at straight up, verse 1 asks the Lord to set forth the specifications for those who aspire to get into“the Lord’s tent” or to be allowed to climb up the Lord’s “holy hill”. A few weeks ago we sang a hymn #452, “Here I Am, Lord”. We did it as a dialog between God and people. If we look at Psalm 15 like this, verse 1 is a person asking, and verses 2-5 are God’s answer.

Now, though we may agree on the degree of Holy Inspiration of the Bible texts, very few, if any among us, would put forth the idea that God wrote the Bible. What we have here is one inspired writer’s idea of a conversation with God, in which the writer himself (not likely herself) set down both parts. It all looks like Good. Common. Sense.

If you want to get near to God, into God’s tent or onto God’s hill, you’ve just got to do the 10 things that are listed in verses 2-5….After all, this is God speaking!  So:

1) walk blamelessly (don’t sin)

2) do what is right (avoid error, too)

3) Speak the truth from your heart

4) do not slander with your tongue (be careful what you say about other people)

5) do no evil to your friends

6) defend your neighbors

7) despise the wicked

8) keep your promises

9) if you loan money to anyone, don’t accept interest

10) don’t take bribes against the innocent

These are not only common sense, they’re exactly the same number of requirements we find in the advice to “keep the 10 commandments.” Maybe it’s not an easy list, but it doesn’t look that hard, either. The conclusion of the Psalm assures us that those who do these things shall never be moved. NEVER BE MOVED? That sounds like eternal life in heaven, doesn’t it?

TRANSITION

And that’s part of the religious tradition in which Jesus grew up. It might sound a lot like the tradition in which a lot of people in a lot of places in a lot of different religious traditions grow up. And if we stop there, why bother to choose any specific religion. We can go over to Chin Nien Road to the Temple of Heaven and sort of mix everything together and pick the parts we like, and be assured that we have been accepted by “the animating spirit of the universe” that runs through all religious traditions.

II: A SECOND OPINION

But we didn’t just read the Psalm today. We got a second opinion from St. Paul (he wrote a LOT of second opinions, and a lot of first opinions, too.) He was not arguing with the Psalm, and seems not to have had it in mind as he spoke the words we find in I Corinthians to his secretary (one of the traditions about St. Paul besides that he was bald was that he was nearsighted, so didn’t write). His argument was with his religious and philosophical rivals, whom he identifies here as the “Jews and the Greeks”. The former, he said, demanded signs, that is, miraculous proof from heaven about anything they could not find written in their Bibles (that’s why the scribe is mentioned). It was as if they were saying, “If you can’t quote a chapter and verse for what you’re saying, then do a miracle to prove you have the right to make the claim.” Miracle performers are to be believed. It’s only common sense!

The Greeks wanted something else. They wanted “wisdom”, as is found when someone is skillful at debating. They wanted the kind of “wisdom” that is expected of people who have spent long years in consideration of texts and accumulation of diplomas from famous universities. Diploma bearers are to be believed. It’s common sense.

In the face of those first opinions, St Paul presents a second one: God’s foolishness. It’s seen not in a demand for good behavior (Psalm 15) or some wondrous sign from heaven (as was demanded by the Jews) or some great reasoned argument (as was demanded by the Greeks), but in the proclamation of Christ CRUCIFIED..

It would be easy enough to see this NOT as God’s foolishness, but as St. Paul’s foolishness. To those who wanted a sign, he might have better proclaimed Christ RISEN. That’s a pretty powerful miracle, isn’t it?  And to those who wanted wisdom, he might have appealed to Jesus’ teaching, which was so eloquent while being so simply presented. It is exactly his teaching that has drawn so many people to fall in love with Jesus.

As the chapter is finished out, St Paul acts like a gambler. He doubles and redoubles his bet. God is not only foolish in offering access to his tent and holy hill through what looks like the failure of Jesus’ mission (because, after all, being crucified was not a sign of victory at that time, or even now). God “chose what is foolish in the world, God chose what is weak in the world, God chose what is low and despised in the world, God chose to work through Christ Jesus, who became for us 1) the wisdom from God, and 2) righteousness, and 3) sanctification, and 3)redemption.

TRANSITION

   Whether St. Paul had the 10 biblical instructions of Psalm 15 in mind when he dictated those paragraphs to his secretary or not, they certainly give us a different opinion of what anyone must do to “abide in the Lord’s tent” or “climb the Lord’s holy hill” and they’re labeled here, by their author, as “God’s foolishness.”

III: THE CHOICE IS OURS

Probably nobody here would like to be called a fool. We don’t even like to look into the mirror and call ourselves a fool (even if nobody else is around to hear us do so). We want to be thought of as people who live by the principles of common sense and wisdom. We want to operate by principles that can be either scientifically proven or religiously guaranteed to work the same way every time. We like things laid out as clearly as in computer code, “IF this, THEN that” so that the program will do what it has promised.

We like Psalm 15. It’s common sense, it’s biblical, and it doesn’t look too hard. Since we experience forgiveness of sin in Jesus, we 1) walk blamelessly and 2) do what is right, and 3 speak the truth from our hearts.  Since we’re educated, we don’t 4) slander, or 5) do evil to our friends. Since nobody is attacking, we’ll never be called on to 6) defend our neighbors. We naturally 7) despise the wicked and 8) keep our promises. We don’t 9) accept interest from people to whom we loan money and we’d never 10) take a bribe against the innocent. At the end of Psalm 15 we learn that folks like ourselves will live secure and never be moved.

If you only want a first opinion, an opinion with which Jesus grew up, then you can stop here. It depends on you and your actions alone. You don’t need God to get near to God. You’ll be as wise as the owls pictured on the front of today’s bulletin.

But there’s St. Paul’s second opinion, represented by the picture of the fool on the bulletin. It’s the way of the foolishness of God, who chooses what is foolish in the world, what is weak in the world, what is low and despised in the world, and who works through Christ Jesus CRUCIFIED who became for us a) wisdom; and b) righteousness, and c) sanctification, and d)redemption. But THAT’S NOT COMMON SENSE, is it?

TRANSITION

How can anyone make a choice? Both “ways” are biblical. If it were a matter of having a miraculous sign to prove either side, nobody can do one for us. If it were a matter of debate or the wisdom of the world, someone who was “against” the bible, and against Christianity, and against faith in God, could take these two pieces of scripture to argue us OUT of the beliefs we have held. If it were a matter of “blending them together in some way and not asking too many questions”, then Dr. Seitz in Taipei can introduce you to his father, who is good at that.

CONCLUSION

We believe that God inspired the people who wrote the things that we find in the Bible. But we still have choices to make. Some of those choices are between which parts of the Bible we will use for guidance in how to live. We pray that God will guide us to make wise choices, even when they are to opt for “foolishness”, and even when they are not according to “common sense”. We pray that the Holy Spirit may dwell in us to guide us as we read and learn from the things we read in the Bible, and the things that the Holy Spirit reveals to us in the course of our lives of faith.  And we pray it all, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

 

Let us Pray

Lord Jesus Christ, send out your light and your truth, let them lead us to your holy hill, to the place of our eternal habitation. AMEN

Light that’ll ROCK your World

22 January 2017

TEXT    Isaiah 9:1-4 & Matthew 4:12-23

TITLE    The Light that Jesus Calls us to

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INTRODUCTION

This afternoon we’re going to think about light. Not the kind of “light” that any of us who would like to lose a few kilos would like to be, but as the kind of thing that we get when we turn on the switch by the door.

“Light” opposed to “heavy” and “Light” opposed to “dark” are often mingled, to our amusement. There’s a product in America called “light beer”. It has fewer calories than regular beer and doesn’t taste very good. In one TV ad, an actor dressed for a part in Shakespeare’s play, MacBeth, playing a scene set in the dark, called out, “a light, a light”, and someone off stage threw him a can of beer.

Scientifically, light has a dual nature. It acts both like a particle that travels in straight lines, and like a wave that bends around things.

I:     Darkness

Light was mentioned in both the Old Testament and New Testament scriptures we read today. The SAME EXACT LINE in both places, meaning something different in each place. We’re going to try to figure out what it might mean for us, here, this afternoon, attempting to rise above both literature and science, and reach for the realm of metaphor.

The writers of both Isaiah and Matthew tell us that “The people who were in darkness have seen a great light.” For the writer of Isaiah, who lived at a time when his nation was under threat of being invaded and swallowed by a nearby empire, the “Galilee of the Nations” referred to a territory that had already been taken away. Galilee and the road that ran past it were lost to his people, and were regarded as being in darkness. The darkness was a matter of international politics and the affairs of nations. The prophet’s words were of a future time when things would be made right again.

The writer of Matthew’s gospel wrote things down more than 40 years after Jesus had left his world. What we read there reflects the faith of one part of the Christian church in about the year 70 AD. This writer was particularly intent on showing that Jesus, in whom he believed and of whom he testified, had come to fulfill the prophecies made to the people of Israel long ago. He used a technique that was familiar to Jewish rabbis of his time, “throwing a Bible verse” at something to make a connection that we, today, might find pretty weak. We have a fact: Jesus went to live in Galilee, followed by the author of Matthew throwing in an Old Testament verse connected to Galilee. In its Old Testament setting, it’s about something entirely different. But even in that “misapplication” there’s wisdom. If we get beyond the reason for the quote (that the two things are about a place) we can get to the metaphors of darkness and light. The people of Galilee in JESUS’ time were also under an empire, but that wasn’t their darkness. They were pulled this way and that by their society, culture, economics, local and international politics, and the supermarket of religions available to them from their own traditions, the religions around them, Greek culture and Roman politics.

Do people live in darkness today, whether here in Tainan or in any of the other countries from which we come? They sure do. Our darknesses are the same as those of old: political, economic, cultural, social and religious. But now it’s not so simple as it seemed to have been in Isaiah’s time. Then it was possible to say, “the darkness is because of that Empire” or in Jesus’ time, “the darkness is because of that culture.” Of course, even in those times the darkness was complex. In the age in which WE live, our darkness is often seen as psychological. Do you know of anyone who suffers from depression, or shame, or narcissism, or some other psychological darkness. That is where people today live just as sure as many of us live in political, economic, cultural, social and religious darkness. And we share spiritual darkness with the peoples of all times and all places.

II:    The Light started small.

There’s an English language proverb that probably translates well into all languages and cultures, “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Light may begin to come into our darkness from a very small point, but it’s a pledge of the great light that is to come. Most mornings, it’s “a little bit light” before it becomes “fully light”. The bible puts it this way, Before Jesus, there was John the Baptist, of whom it is said that “he was not the light, but he came to testify TO the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone…”

The use of the image “seeing the great light” in the Isaiah verses we read referred to Galilee already having been lopped off of the territory over which one nation used to have control. Isaiah was a prophet in a different nation, but the peoples of both nations were the same, so the darkness was felt even where he lived far away. The political threat from the same people who had grabbed Galilee was on Isaiah and his king in Jerusalem. The words in that setting are a prophecy that the threat would be lifted. Reading the history of the region, it came about, at least for a while. Lifting the threat was “a little bit of light” for those who walked the road in darkness.

We can’t say enough good stuff about Jesus. We sing all kinds of praises about him being the light of the world, the bright and morning star, we sing songs like, “Shine Jesus, Shine, Fill the World with the Father’s Glory” and lots of other stuff. Often we forget, though, that Jesus was, for those years he walked among humans, “just one guy.” He resided in a house in Galilee, he walked everywhere (or sometimes rode in a boat). He suffered the same human limitations we do. Sometimes, just like us, he even quoted the Bible incorrectly. (or maybe that was just the guys decades later who wrote about what he said who quoted Jesus incorrectly.) For us today, Jesus is the great light. But that light started out shining pretty dimly. Kind of like one candle lit in the darkness.

Reflecting on darkness earlier, we considered it from political, economic, cultural, social and spiritual sides. Light’s like that, too, even though many of us may not want even to consider politics, economics, culture, science, the arts or society as “bearers of light”. If we’re religious people we may want to think that light mainly comes through spiritual things. In fact, “spiritual things” may be the place where the main source of light in our own lives has been located. But if “darkness” has been in our home life, then perhaps someone outside of the family has given us light. If darkness has been in our oppression as part of some minority group, then light may have come through a new understanding of human rights. And if “darkness” has been psychological, then perhaps it’s been the Prozac, Xantax, Valium or some other medicine that has cleared things for us enough so that we can see light.

Sisters and brothers, whatever our darkness, we can also look to Jesus for light, because in relationship to him and through the things we read in the Bible about what he did and what he said, THERE IS LIGHT, even if, when we just get started, it is only just a candle’s worth of light.

III: The great light that people saw

A candle might not seem like much. The light given off by a match, or by a burning cigarette may seem to be even less. But there’s a reason that soldiers in combat zones are trained not to smoke at night. Nicotine addiction is so strong that some can’t resist lighting up and taking a few puffs. That little glow from the end of the cigarette, which if not held in the mouth is in the hand, gives someone who wants to shoot and kill a very good target, even from far away. The “little light” of a cigarette invites the big flash of a rifle being fired in the deadly direction of a nicotine addicted soldier.

The light of Jesus, one guy, shining on people who met him, ROCKED their WORLD. Rejected people, like the tax collectors Levi and Zacchaeus, were restored to self-esteem and community. Lepers who were isolated from social contact were restored to families and friendships. Ritually unclean women could return to home and synagogue. Poor people deemed beneath notice were the first to hear the good news. Women beneath value in their society were Jesus’ friends. Simple working guys became religious leaders.

And through those followers, the message of inclusion and salvation was spread from one little social and political backwater in the Roman Empire. It first went to the southern and eastern regions in Egypt and Syria, from there to the cultural centers in Turkey and Greece, and eventually to the imperial center at Rome, and on to ALL THE WORLD. Not that numbers mean much, but in today’s world, a religious census finds more Christians than any other religion. Not that numbers mean much, but in the Congress in the United States, 91% of the members self-identify as Christians.

The light of Jesus ROCKED THE WORLD of his followers, and through them has ROCKED THE WORLD that we live in today. Has it rocked YOUR World? Maybe it has; maybe it hasn’t. Maybe it’s just like a candle for you, because the important things you deal with day to day are more social, professional, educational, economic or political.

A cartoon I used to watch with my children had an episode that started from the Greek epic, The Odyssey. A character who was supposed to be the grandson of Ulysses, when told that his ancestor was “A mountain of a man”, responded, “Yeah, I’m more like a small hill.” Maybe that’s what the great light is in some of our lives. Maybe it’s only a candle’s worth or even just a gentle glow.

But it shines. Just like the dim light shone for the people of Isaiah’s time, just like news of “that Jesus guy in Galilee” shone for hopeful people in far away Lebanon, Jerusalem and other distant places 2000 years ago.

CONCLUSION

Although it’s pleasant to think about people long ago, our challenge is to live among people and in situations now. We aren’t Jesus, but we can be sources of light to and for the people in our world this week. If we have no light of our own to shine, we can be reflectors of Jesus’ light into darkness around us.

Choose a person or place onto whom or into which you can shine your own light or Jesus’ light in the coming week. You’re not required to go all the way to testify to them in a way that leads them to confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That’s such a scary thing that it might make you not even try. But don’t reduce it to inviting someone to churc. Though we welcome everyone, we may not shine much light in any one week. They may be disappointed. So try one of these:

1) see and selflessly meet someone’s need.

2) apologise to someone you’ve offended,

3) listen to someone whom nobody else respects.

Be like Jesus back in Galilee, a candle to people next to him, but a great light to the world. Do this, and you shall live.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

A Psalm is Like a College Dorm Room

DATE 15 January 2017 at Tainan International Community Church in English

TEXT Psalm 40:1-10

TITLE: Knowing and Showing

 Experience of God’s work in our lives is something to be shared. 

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INTRODUCTION

In this church, we come from many different cultural backgrounds, so making assumptions about where one person or another locates emotions is dangerous. Let’s experiment. Some years ago a person who had lived outside of her home culture said that in her adopted home, when one wanted to say, “I love you”, the words used were, in that place’s language, “My Liver is Sweet to You”. That’s because in the other culture, love resided in the liver. A few examples:

In Taiwan, courage is associated with the gall bladder.

In America, anger is associated with the spleen.

Our experiment: When I make this sign (heart), what does it mean to you?

OK, for the purpose of what we’re going to do today, let’s pretend that feelings reside in the heart. Maybe your culture has it elsewhere, but just go along for today.

There are many emotions that we carry in our hearts. We may feel sorrow, anger, enthusiasm, love, concern, worry,…lots of things. We may not even be sure what’s in there, and need help to see into ourselves and help to unload what we find. That’s when music, song, and the Psalms in the Bible (which were originally meant to be sung) can be useful.

I: The Role of the Psalms

There are many kinds of psalms: We might be more familiar with those which praise God, “Make a Joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.” We find comfort in Psalms that tell of the writer’s faith “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want” But there are lots of Psalms that complain or tell of personal sorrow, too. Do any of these lines sound familiar, “O Lord, how many are my foes….” Or  “Give ear to my words, O Lord; give heed to my sighing…”

Whatever kind they are, Psalms can shine a light into our hearts and expose what is inside. If it’s our habit to read through the bible a chapter a day, then whatever Psalm comes up next during the 5 months it takes to get all the way through them might take us by surprise. We might be feeling quite joyful then hit a sorrowful Psalm. We might come to see the Psalm writer as a complainer or a person with a mental illness and wonder why this even was allowed into the bible. But sometimes the surprise of the complaint can uncover some personal sadness that we didn’t know we were carrying. It EXPOSES the feelings so that they can be dealt with.

Psalms can also help to carry the joys we are feeling outwards, helping us to EXPRESS what is in our hearts, giving us words for what we had been feeling. Sometimes we’re feeling is sadness, like these: 1) “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… My tears have been my food day and night…”   2) “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” Sometimes it’s our faith: try these:3) “Great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.”   4) “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications…”

Psalms are like a dormitory room at the university. The first time you enter it, you turn on the light to expose what’s in there. The last time you leave, you may need help carrying out all the things that have accumulated during your stay. In our lives as human being, there are Psalms available to help at both times.

II: Exposed and Expressed through Psalm 40:1-10

What was in (or on) the heart of the writer of the Psalm we read today?  Let’s start from the title ahead of the first verse, where it says “Psalm of David” If you’ve grown up going to Sunday school and hearing the stories of the boy shepherd who became the great king, these titles put you in a frame of mind about what you’re about to read. But these titles were added to the Psalms hundreds of years after they had been gathered into one collection, and that was hundreds of years after David had been a boy shepherd or a great king. They show a high regard for David, but they can’t be taken literally. The titles are between the covers of the Bible, but unlike the Psalms which are inspired by God, the titles are pious wishful thinking.  

Then, no matter WHAT we might decide about who did or didn’t write the psalm, we should remember that Psalm 40 is an “individual psalm of thanksgiving”. It is one person’s way of saying something to: 1) his neighbors; 2) to God; and 3) to us.

The 10 verses we read easily divide into three parts. In Verses 1-3 we learn the writer’s story of personal experience of God’s rescue. We don’t know what the situation was, but it’s compared to being in the mud, and not merely a little mud on your shoes, but deeply in it. .This was big trouble. When we unwind the events into a straight time line (remixing the lines of verses 1-3) they read like this:

I was in deep trouble.

I prayed,

God heard.

I waited,

God got me out of my trouble

God made me safe.

Now I have a story to tell

When I tell it, others will believe.

Verses 4-8 are not spoken to people. They are Praise spoken to God. That might be an important direction to consider. Consider, when you sing a song or hymn of Praise, are you praising God or telling other people that THEY should praise God? Look at a classical hymn in our Red book here, “All Creatures of Our God and King” (#22). It is sung to: 1) all creatures, 2) to the wind, 3) to the clouds, 4) to the moon,

5) to the stars, 6) to the water, 7) to the fire; and 8) to all people. It tells THEM to do the praising.  Or the Doxology, printed in our bulletin and often sung after the offering. In it we tell all creatures on earth and all angels in heaven to Praise God: Creator, Christ and Holy Ghost. But do WE praise?

When I was in my early 20s I learned to sing, “Let’s Just Praise the Lord, Let’s Just lift our hearts towards heaven and praise the Lord.” In that song we invited each other and told each other what to do, but we didn’t DO it, and whether or not we followed up by praising (or lifting our hearts towards heaven) is debatable.

More contemporarily, but still 20 or more years old, there’s the worship and praise song, “Lord I lift your name on high” in which we tell God how glad we are to be saved before we get around to actually praising God for what has been done for us.

The writer of Psalm 40 doesn’t wait. He teaches us how to praise God, AND does it. Look at verse 5 “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.”  That’s a great example of what it means to praise God with our words.

But the outline isn’t yet complete. 1) God did something wonderful for me. 2) In response, I praise God. There’s something missing…. 3) Now its my turn to do something wonderful.

What comes in Verses 9-10, is something familiar to any of us who are or who have ever been students. They are a report. They tell God the 2 things that the writer has done and 3 things the writer has not done in response to God’s action  A) “I have told the glad news in the congregation. B) I have not restrained my lips. C) I have not hidden your saving help within my heart. D) I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. E) I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

The psalm writer says he did this “in the great congregation”. Hopefully, whatever God has done for any of us can (and should) be told to all the world. But if we can’t do that, at least we should figure out how to tell it in the church, where God’s people can join us in praising God.

IF and when a psalm or anything else gets through the shell we have built around our hearts, so that some light gets in to where we live (and sometimes suffer), then we can see ourselves, and maybe see the way to express whatever we find. The Canadian poet Leonard Cohen put it this way, “There’s a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The verses we read this afternoon can guide us.

III: Our pattern of Response

The first thing we can do is TELL what God has done. Whether that’s just that you had a good day or that you were wonderfully rescued from a muddy pit by God pulling you out, do not keep it a secret. Try not to be the kind of person who has been wonderfully saved from something terribly bad, but won’t tell anyone because it would seem either like bragging or like shameful admission of how low we had fallen. When we hold back on the telling, people never learn what God has done. Whether our silence comes from humility or from shame, we’ve gotta get over it. OK, that’s hard, but we should figure some way to tell the world.

The second thing is to honestly tell God how we feel. Review it in front of God, saying what you’ve learned from the experience. This is kind of like the what we who are or who have been students when writing an end-of-term research paper in which we discover for ourselves how much (or how little) being part of any professor’s class has taught us.

And third, tell out what you have experienced, but keep God at the center of the story. Many people who testify make THEMSELVES the center of the story. Many preachers (myself among them) stand and preach, thinking we’re proclaiming the gospel but really we’re only telling folks about ourselves. So, keep God at the center as you tell the story. You don’t have to wait to be asked about it, either. That’s what social media, Facebook, Instagram, Blogs and little Christian papers (like Heart Farmer in Taiwan) are for.

CONCLUSION

None of us is empty-hearted. Some of us have hearts filled with suffering, and we need music, songs, and even Psalms, to break in so that the sadness can get out. Some of us have hearts of darkness, and we need the light to come in through the cracks to expose ourselves to ourselves. Some of us have hearts filled with joy, and we need to learn ways to share that joy with people. We all need to learn how to express the wonderful things God does for us, each day and eternally. What we read in Psalm 40:1-10, offers us a pattern to lighten our own hearts, and to enlighten the hearts and lives of people around us.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

Anyone is Acceptable to God

8 January 2017 at Tainan International Community Church in English

TEXTS: Acts 10:34-43 &  Isaiah 42:1-9   and   Psalm 29

TITLE  Anyone is Acceptable to God

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INTRODUCTION

A lot of events in the life of Jesus are celebrated in churches each year. Two Sundays ago many churches celebrated his birth. Last week some events soon after his birth.  If we were just following the story of Jesus according to the church calendar, today would be the Sunday on which we’d jump from the baby to the young man and celebrate his baptism. If you were expecting that, then, “surprise”. The scripture we read from Acts 10 this afternoon mentions Jesus’ baptism, but that’’s not the focus of what we’re going to look at.

In a way, expecting one thing and finding another, is just the story of life. Among us here today there are probably many people who started a study program in college or graduate school that has led us somewhere that we had not expected. Our parents may likely have had to adjust their expectations for us, their sons and daughters, to match how we have turned out in life.

Often we get surprised by what life throws at us. Sometimes it’s not life that’s doing the throwing, but GOD who is doing directing us in one way or another.

I: Surprises for Cornelius and Peter

    The story from Acts that we read this afternoon had a lot of characters in it, the most important of whom were Cornelius, a Roman military officer, and Peter, who seemed to be the leader of the disciples whom Jesus left behind. The story takes the entire chapter, from verse 1 to verse 48. It’s full of surprises from beginning to end. We only read 10 verses in the middle, which is where OUR surprise will be found. But first let’s consider the surprises that come before ours.

1. A Vision (Cornelius) vv. 3-7

Cornelius was a devout man who prayed and did religious duties, and like all of us devout people, expected the blessings of heaven in return. It was very controlled, and is the way of much religion at all times and in all places. People say to God, “I’ll scratch your back, and you’ll scratch mine.”  But he got a surprise, a vision and an angel voice. Most of us would rather not have such an interruption in our ways of going about life.

2. A dream (Peter) vv.9-16

Peter was hungry and went upstairs waiting to be called down to a meal. Roofs are warm places. He fell asleep and dreamed about food. But not the kind of food he’d ever consumed. He learned that he could go forth and “eat it all”.

3. A summons and Command 10:18-20

Peter had likely expected to be in one place, by the sea, for a while, to have a nice holiday at the beach. But in the middle of it, he was called, he was sent.

4. A discovery 10:25-33

Whatever Peter may have expected to find in his conversation with Cornelius and the people he met there, he didn’t get it. Instead, he learned that any person is acceptable to God.

The last verse of our Old Testament reading this afternoon, Isaiah 42:9 includes God, through the prophet, saying, “New things I now declare”

II: The New Comes Wrapped in the Old, or the Old Comes in a new Wrapper

New things aren’t always “new”, they’re sometimes just old things that have been re-packaged. Maybe you’ve had this experience. You go to the supermarket to buy more of something that you’ve run out of. You look for the familiar package of the brand you’ve always used, expecting it to be the same as before, and it looks different. The name of the manufacturer is the same, the name of the product is the same, but the package has changed, and there, in big letters on it, is the word, “NEW”. You buy it and take it home, expecting (maybe even fearing) that it will be different in some way, and find the same old product you’ve always used and trusted. The only thing “NEW” about it is the box or can that it came in.

When Peter was at Simon’s house in Joppa,  the “wrapper” old, but the contents were new.

The Bible story we read found Peter at Joppa, by the sea. He was not at home, but in someone else’s house. After becoming a disciple of Jesus, Peter was always meeting new people. After Jesus’ ascension, Peter was going out and meeting them on his own. So being with “Simon the Tanner” in a town by the sea was no big deal. Just the fact that this home belonged to someone named “Simon” meant that the owner was one of Peter’s own people.

To have an angel speak to him in a dream, also not a new thing to Peter. But wrapped in this familiar package, Peter was introduced to something new.  Simon’s house was, apparently, a place where the family’s meals were composed of things that were permitted for eating. Peter had no trouble swallowing anything that was served to him. But in his dream, he was told that he could eat anything, even forbidden things. In fact, God had made these things clean. The “wrapper” (a word in a dream or by an angel) was old, the contents (what he was told) was new.

When Peter went to Cornelius’ house, he found something old wrapped in something new.

Then because he was commanded by the Holy Spirit, he went to the home of a man who was doubly his enemy.  This man was not one of Peter’s own people, he was an Italian!  Further, he was a military commander of the Roman empire, which was oppressing Peter’s people. Yet within this man’s home, Peter found the kind of faith in God that he had only expected to come from his own people. The “contents” (faith in God) were old, but the “wrapper” (the home of an enemy) was new.

That’s the way it is in a life of faith. God, who is and has been over, under and around us at all times, shakes our world; throws new stuff at us, and builds us up.

III: Anyone is acceptable to God

This may come as a surprise to you (it has often surprised me)”you are NOT God!!”  Whenever I realize that in my own life, that I’m not God, I’m both surprised AND grateful.  You are NOT God. Not to your family, not to your hometown, not to  your people, not to your classmates, and not even to yourself. THANK GOD that you’re not.

Every one of us has a set of boundaries constructed out of all kinds of influences, which guides who we will or will not accept. Last year someone tested this on the Taipei mass transit system. The trains are often crowded and finding a seat is like finding a treasure. But one foreign guy paid attention and noticed that riders on the trains usually left the seat next to him empty until it was the LAST open seat in the car before anyone would take it. Apparently they decided that, unless there was no other choice, sitting next to a foreign person was unacceptable to them.

Alexander Maclaren was an enthusiastic British Christian writer 200 years ago. He insisted that all Christians should be involved in direct evangelistic work. BUT, he said, we have to be careful of the people wespend time with, because being with sinful people would weaken our testimony. Isn’t that strange? Sinful people are EXACTLY the ones who need Christian friends!If we can’t associate with sinful people, we can’t be in the same room with each other, and will even have trouble being alone most of the time.

Anyone is acceptable to God. The exact phrase that we read this afternoon is  part of a sentence spoken by Peter, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”     Two requirements, only two.  1) fear God;  and 2) do what is right. According to St. Peter, that’s all. He said nothing about race, nothing about nationality ,nothing about ethnicity, nothing about social class, nothing about gender, nothing about sexuality, nothing about a particular kind of church, nothing about a set of habits, nothing about diet, nothing about health, nothing about a prior history of sinfulness, nothing about which department one belongs to at the university, and nothing about whether or not someone believes even a single word in the bible!

Think back to that verse we read from Isaiah earlier this afternoon, in which  God, through the prophet, said, “New things I now declare.” What Peter was saying in that house of Cornelius was not new then, and it’s certainly not new now. Peter had merely forgotten that God accepts anyone. In that house, he remembered. We are often, like Peter, forgetters.

CONCLUSION

    There’s a town in America that is full of churches and full of good Christian people. 60 or 70 years ago it was considered normal in that town to ask someone you met for the first time about which church they attended. There is one church which some people were suspicious about. A friend there who is now in his 90s said that when he was young, whenever the name of his church came up in a conversation, he heard the comment that it was the place where “they’ll take anybody.”

Tainan is also a town of many churches, some of which use Taiwanese, others Mandarin, and others which may be multilingual.  In our little group here we call ourselves “international”, and we are.  We call ourselves “community”, and we are. So let’s also intentionally be the church of which others say, “they’ll take anybody,” because in that way, we’ll be the church which, though not God, is “like” God, and anyone will find themselves accepted here.

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

 

PRAYER

Accepting and welcoming God, thank you for your love for us. By your Spirit, transform each of us, and transform our church, to be as accepting as you are. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=112knbgj1JpnfWdBzHiCpXs3LSJ5oXleCXkCTL_fY-xI

You Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee

 

TEXTS: Isaiah 63:7-9  Matthew 2:13-23

TITLE: You Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee

“God with” us means that we are cared for and guided wherever we may be.

 

 

INTRODUCTION

There are so many people living as refugees in the world today: East Africans in the Democratic Republic of Congo; West Africans in France and Spain; Eritreans in Libya: Syrians in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, & Europe: Afghans in Pakistan, Sudanese and Iranians in Papua New Guinea & Nauru. Rohingya people from Myanmar in India. Sometimes refugees are forced out of one place (as the Rohingya of Myanmar), other times they elect to leave for good reasons (as do the Eritreans). When children are part of the refugee groups, they have not made the choice themselves. They have either been forced out with their parents, sent out by their  or have followed their parents into exile. Wherever they end up, 1) resettled in Europe or Canada, 2)in concentration camps like the Afghans in Nauru, or 3) dead on a beach like that child in Greece whose picture was all over the newspapers in 2016, children become refugees innocently.

There are lots of aspects to refugee status:

1. When “home” means a set place where one lives safely, then being a refugee means being away from that place for a long time.
2. When people have left home because of a natural disaster, or war, or to escape exploitation, they often do so in a hurry and under force, typically making a dangerous passage to the place where they temporarily reside as refugees. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is common among Afghan refugees in Nauru.
3. Because they are not “local”, refugees are often exploited by those who “receive”them or are tasked with their care. Child labor, child soldiers, and sexual exploitation of young girls are not uncommon in West Africa.
4. Being a refugee means to lose one’s freedom. Teenagers fleeing violence and poverty in Central America find themselves prisoners in “detention centers” in the USA.

In a few places on the gospels it is written of Jesus that he was at home in the town of Capernaum, but even there, he was known as “Jesus of Nazareth”, which shows that he was regarded as an outsider. Mainly we read of him wandering around from Galilee to Judea and back, sometimes stopping off in Samaria on the way. He was a man without a fixed address.

At this time of the year we hear the name “Emmanuel” a lot, and we’re told over and over that it means, “God is with us.” Refugees, especially child refugees, have the right to question that. People like many of us, who living away from home and family, might also question whether or not God is with us here. We’re going to look for some responses (even if they don’t amount to answers) in the scriptures we read this afternoon.

I: CIRCUMSTANCES SEND US AWAY

Jesus was a refugee child even before he was born. His pregnant mother carried Jesus from her hometown of Nazareth to Bethlehem. Then he was born. We celebrated that last week. He was born there NOT because his mother wanted to give birth in a better hospital than the one in Bethlehem, or because his father wanted him to have a passport from and citizenship of a better country than Galilee, but because an emperor declared a census, and a husband had to be registered in Judea.  

But then another king made it necessary for Jesus as a very young child to become a refugee in Egypt, a third country, where he certainly wasn’t one of the local folks and where he and his parents were as likely as not unwelcome.

There are many circumstances that make people residents of places far away from home. Not all of these circumstances necessarily make a person into a refugee, but people are far from home. For instance, my wife, Charlene, teaches at Chang Jung Christian University. Last week she had a conversation with an international student from Sarawak, in Malaysia. She learned that this woman and her sister, who studies at a university in Kaohsiung, are in Taiwan because entrance to public university in Sarawak is extremely difficult and the private universities there are very expensive. Circumstances have forced them into temporary exile from home.

I came to Taiwan 40 years ago when there was an American military base in Tainan. The base had a chapel with regular religious activities for American soldiers and civilian government employees, but some felt more comfortable having a church of their own outside. They lovingly invited everyone to attend English language worship on Sundays.  I went a few times. But it seemed to me that everything in that church was centered around a people far from home, waiting until they could leave Taiwan, and in the meantime seeking God’s help to be Christians while they were here. The soldiers and civilian employees of the American government had been sent here by “a higher power”. They were far from home. Their feelings were legitimate.  But that wasn’t me.  I had volunteered to come here and was excited about almost everything I was experiencing. I wasn’t “just waiting to go home”. So it wasn’t long before I found somewhere else to worship in English.

Whether we are students residing here temporarily, long term overseas residents by choice, or refugees from some oppression not knowing when or if when we will ever get home again, like Jesus in Mary’s womb on the way to Bethlehem or riding on her back on the way to Egypt, we can be sure that Emmanuel (God with us) has not forsaken us, and for the sake of others who do not have our confidence, we can be “God with us” for people feeling sad and distressed away from home.

God’s people have been refugees over and over throughout history. But whether at home or on the move, as we read in Isaiah 63:7 this afternoon, it is God’s love and mercy that redeem and carry us along.

II: CIRCUMSTANCES TREAT US CRUELLY

Jesus was a refugee in Egypt. We’ve been looking at pictures of that escape today. It’s been a popular subject for those who do religious art for centuries. The time in Egypt was not of Jesus’, or Joseph’s  or Mary’s choosing. We read that an angel spoke to Joseph in a dream, ordering  them to get out of town.  In Jesus’ case, the alternative to being a refugee was being dead.

Emperors, kings, governors, presidents, mayors, whatever title any one of them may hold, have enjoyed pushing people around for centuries. Herod, the king of whom we read this afternoon, went a step further. He ordered that people be killed. They died NOT because of anything that they had done (only the boys under 2 years of age were killed) and NOT for any purpose that would benefit a greater population (as is sometimes considered the reason in societies that practice human sacrifice for religious reasons). They died because by continuing to exist, one among them might threaten this king’s continuing to be in charge. The angel’s order that came to Joseph in his dream, “Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you:…” was more compelling, more forceful, than the earlier imperial command to “go from your hometown in Nazareth of Galilee to Judea to the city of David to be registered because I order it so.”  

So Jesus became a refugee. That’s a curse, but sometimes it’s the only way to avoid something worse. Sometimes when we’re far from home, as are many of us here, it can feel like exile. American soldiers in Vietnam in 1970 spoke of the time when their duty in the war-zone would end as the day they would “go back to the world.” The American soldiers and civilian employees I met in Tainan in 1976 seemed to feel that they were in exile. There are likely international classmates of some of us here who feel that way. Maybe some of us, here, are in that state. But we have to consider, if only for a minute, that maybe this season away from home is better than what awaited us if we had never left. Maybe God who “was” with us at home has brought us here, temporarily, for the sake of something better further along the line. Maybe.  

Jesus was a refugee first because of a Roman emperor’s need to register people for taxation purposes, and then because of a local tyrant’s fear of being replaced.  Consider this: St. Patrick is the patron saint of engineers because he Patrick taught the Irish how to build with concrete. If he weren’t the Son of God and our Savior, then Jesus could at least qualify as the patron saint of refugees.

    Becoming a refugee saved Jesus from dying when the boys of Bethlehem his age were all slaughtered. It also saved his parents from the grief of losing their firstborn child. So refugee life saved them in some ways. God’s presence with us is saving. Whether at home or away, the name Emmanuel constantly reminds us that “God is with us.”

III: GOD CALLS US ONWARD

God was with that little family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus in many ways. 1) Getting Mary safely pregnant, 2) getting Joseph confident enough to go through the wedding, 3) getting them safely to Bethlehem and 4) getting Jesus safely born (and Childbirth is still, in 2017, not necessarily a safe or comfortable thing).

God was with them even after the birth of our Savior, and not just in that babe in arms, whose picture we’ve seen so much of already this afternoon.  God whose word had been revealed to Joseph through an angel visitation in a dream in Nazareth returned the same way as Joseph dreamed again in Bethlehem, and in Egypt. God was with them as Joseph made the decision that anywhere near Jerusalem would be too dangerous for the Son of God, so took them all north, back to his and Mary’s hometown, where the child grew and became known as “Jesus of NAZARETH, the son of the Carpenter.

WE read the story already kind of knowing these things. But THEY didn’t know about them before they happened. They experienced God with them step by step, through angel visitations, dreams, visits, protection, provision and words. One step at a time they heard, and one step at a time they found confirmation of God’s presence. They had no indication of what Jesus would eventually say to his disciples, what we find written at the END of Matthew’s gospel, “Lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age”.

Like us, they had to take things as they came, being able to see ahead not much farther than the tips of their noses.  It’s possible that when we look back on our own stories that we, too, can identify moments and seasons of heading into the future with nothing beyond the clothes and a few other things that we have carried along. No matter how smart our smart phones may be, not a one of them, not even the as-yet-not-numbered i-phone, has or will have an app that can tell us the future.

1. We may have set addresses, what banks and governments like us to register as “permanent addresses”, but our addresses are temporary. We look for an eternal home, but we haven’t yet arrived.
2. Giving birth to a child, even being born as an infant, is traumatic. Though it’s natural, I recall from the experience of being in the birth room alongside my wife as she gave birth to both our daughter and our son is that she didn’t do so without a lot of work and a lot of pain.   I can testify to a great personal fear of being stuck in a tight place. In fact, when I wake up from a scary dream, it’s often because IN that dream I’m in exactly that kind of place.  My wife thinks that I must have had a difficult birth experience. It’s too late to ask my mother about it, though.
3. Exploitation is the lot of many refugees. It’s also the condition of many graduate students and junior faculty who toil in the academic world. Some in this very room may have experienced such exploitation at a nearby university.
4. And for all the talk we make about freedom, we may indeed have little of it. There was a season when Taiwan was most UNfree (from 1947 to 1990). I remember seeing a chinese language flyer for a set of Evangelistic rallies that were being held among Chinese language churches in the Philippines at that time. They had invited famous Chinese preachers from foreign places including Singapore, Hong Kong and “The Free Ancestral Country”. The title intrigued me, because the name of the preacher was a guy I knew from Kaohsiung!  

 

       Since we’re privileged to live in Taiwan, we can’t compare our condition to  Eritreans living in Italy,  the Syrians in camps in Jordan, Rohingya living in India the Afghans in Pakistan or the Iranians & Sudanese in Nauru. Our participation in “refugee life” or “the experience of exile”, if we can even dare to consider that title, is tenuous. But that doesn’t mean we feel totally at home. So, when you feel out of place, take heart. In the same way that  Joseph, Mary and Jesus on the roads between Nazareth, Bethlehem, Egypt and back to Nazareth, God is with us.

CONCLUSION  

In Isaiah 63:9 we read that God’s presence saved God’s people, that in love and pity, God redeemed those people, God lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. So also does God meet us, save us, redeem us and carry us, because God is with us, in these days of now, and forevermore.  

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

 

LET US PRAY

Guide of the travelers, protector of the sojourners, home of the homeless and refuge of the poor, we turn to you for encouragement in our own loneliness, and we ask you to point us to people for whom we might be your presence in their loneliness.

We pray in the name of the patron saint of refugees and exiles, our Lord Jesus Christ. AMEN

Full of It, a Christmas Day Sermon

Having accepted an invitation to be the preacher at a small English-language church in Tainan Taiwan from Christmas of 2016 until my retirement in July of 2018, I started out with the sermon below.

 

FOR 25 December 2016 At TICC in English

TOPIC Christ’s manner of coming to us (a Christology of our needs)

TEXTS: Proverbs 8:22–31 John 1:1-14

TITLE “Full of It”

CONFESSION OF FAITH Apostle’s Creed

OBJECTIVES

To see our needy state, and God’s gracious response

To revisit the high Christology of John 1 and bring it home to us, needy people.

To encourage one another with the joyful news of Jesus’ coming to us.

PROPOSITION

As human beings, we are in need of divine intervention, which comes in Christ

————————————————————————–

PRAY Ps 19:14

GREET The peace of the Lord be with you.

INTRODUCTION

Happy Christmas.

Eventually we’ll get there, but we’re going to start pretty far away.

Did you read the Harry Potter novels or see the movies? Think about the kinds of people in our own world that the “Potter” characters represented. J. K. Rowling seems to have reproduced among her “magical folks” the class distinctions of British society. In the stories there were the Muggles (common humans) and the magical folk, (witches and wizards). But among the magical ones there were differences. 1)Those whose families had ALWAYS been magical, on both mother’s and father’s sides, 2)those who were the magical folk offspring of a “magical” parent on one side and a “Muggle” parent on the other, and 3)those who were “magical” without any connection to a wizard or witch on either side, ever. There were even class traitors, known as “squibs”, who though of “magical” ancestry, had become Muggles.

Reading the books, I was particularly aware of the attitudes of those who were “pure magical blood” from “the best of wizarding families” . In their attitudes and behaviors towards almost everyone else they demonstrated a lack of nobleness. These were the evil people, who would stop at nothing to keep their privileged positions in an unchanging class system.

You’d think, with such wonderful ancestry, they’d have been better people.

TRANSITION

Sometimes we can feel that way about all human beings. We look at the conflicts between nations, between groups within nations, and between some people who sincerely believe their religion and other people, who sincerely believe a different religion, or no religion, or against all religions and you wonder why human beings aren’t better at being people.

I Human Beings, made through wisdom (Proverbs 3)

We read some verses from Proverbs 8 this afternoon, in which WISDOM says that she was created before anything else, and was with God in creation of all else. You would think, wouldn’t you, that with God as our creator and wisdom as our guide, we’d be better than we are.

We don’t need to point fingers at others when we talk about human failing, we often do. A theologian from the Philippines was in Taiwan a few years ago. She was (and continues to be) an enthusiastic Christian. But whenever matters about problems in her home country came up, she was quick to point to either the Muslims or the Catholics as the troublemakers.

About 20 years ago at about this time of the year I was at a church in America where the young adults group put on a stage play about the difference that faith in God can make in a person’s life. One character was wandering down a street, looking for meaning, but running into risk and sin at every corner. There were alcohol, tobacco, drugs, pornography, gambling, and all sorts of violent acts happening all around. Then the person met Jesus, and all of the bad stuff was banished and the person had a saved and happy life. Of course, NONEof the people in the play was involved in ANY of the sins they showed on the stage.

On the way home with a pastor from another church, I heard HIS evaluation of what we had seen. He was sad, because the things portrayed as “sin” were so physical and obvious. He said he’d rather have seen some demonstration of “invisible” things that were real problems for the people on stage and in the audience, like greed, enmity, selfishness, sexism, racial discrimination and unkindness.

Both the visible and the invisible “sets” of sins tempt and harm us. One psalm in the bible says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” You’d think, though, that with God as our creator and wisdom as our guide, we’d be better than we are.

TRANSITION

Another psalm in the bible says that we are made just a little lower than God. Wow, that sounds wonderful!, but in that “little lower” there is a great gap.

II: Human Beings: in need.

To be human is to be in need. Each of us in our own way has a different kind of need (I need glasses to read small print, maybe you don’t. Some need canes or wheelchairs to get around, others need constant reminders to eat right or dress warmly and carry an umbrella on rainy days.) We all have a need in common, which is to be saved from a) our limitations of strength, b) our defects of character, and c) the consequences of the sin that suffuses human existence. The sad thing is, though we can IMPROVE ourselves, we can’t SAVE ourselves.

What we mark and celebrate at Christmas is the coming of Jesus into the world. Through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension, he opens to us God’s way of salvation. We continue in our needs for 1)glasses to read small print, 2)canes or wheelchairs to get around, 3)constant reminders to take care of ourselves and even 4)helpers to take care of our most basic physical needs. We may continue to need all of these things, but because of God’s action and through Jesus Christ, we no longer need to seek to save ourselves. Salvation has been accomplished for us.

TRANSITION

It could only happen by God coming into human history, 1) first by creating us, 2) then by saving us.

III: The High Christology of John 1

We read about the creation act in the Gospel we read today, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, aht the life was the light of all people.”

One theory about these words was that they were set down during a time when Greek philosophy about wisdom was as common as motorscooters are in Tainan. It was just what was expected by people who thought about things. But because Greek philosophy at the time did not acknowledge God, so the writer of John’s gospel claimed that way of thinking about wisdom and applied it to what God had done in bringing the world into being. “Before the world, there was the Word”

Just to get us started, God was needed. But following up, because we are unable to save ourselves from our own weaknesses, God CONTINUED to be needed. As we read further along in the gospel, “the true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.” That “he came unto his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

TRANSITION

As human beings, we’re needy. We don’t need bible stories or doctrines to tell us that, we just need to experience life around us in the societies, nations and families from which we come. Earlier this afternoon in our prayer of confession we said to God

We have tarnished the gift you gave freely.

We have buried you so deeply in our hearts, the world doesn’t see you.
We have not followed Christ, we have ignored your teachings, we have lived lives of apathy against your love,
we have built fences and fortresses to push people away,
and we have silenced the screams of those in need.

As we admit to such failure, how do you think God might respond? 1) How do governments respond to their perceived shortcomings on the part of their citizens? We’ve seen that in Aleppo, Syria recently. 2) How do societies respond to the shortcomings and weaknesses of people? We see that in how the disabled are treated all around us. 3) How do families respond when a member of a “next generation” comes out as Lesbian or Gay, or informs parents that he or she will have sex change surgery? We see that in the rejection of many young people by parents and kinship groups, and the higher rates of suicide of transgendered people in many places around the world.

So the most encouraging part of the Gospel we read today tells us how God responds to our need. God comes full of it. Hear this. “… the Word became flesh and dwelt among us… fUll of grace and truth.”

Not “hellfire and brimstone”; not “thunder and lightning”; not the German “sturm und drang”, not the Chinese “hot and noise” or the Taiwanese “noisy heat” . God comes into our 1) salvation–needing world, 2)our salvation–needing lives, 3)our salvation–needing societies and 4)salvation–needing families full of grace and truth.

Grace, because we’ve had enough of the harshness with which this world treats us, and with which we treat each other. Truth because there have been too many lies.

CONCLUSION

As human beings, we are in need of God’s coming into our very lives. Through the word, God was there before we began. We were formed in wisdom, and we are saved, in grace and truth.

Happy Christmas to all as we celebrate the coming of this light into our dark world. Pray that it would shine into your and my own personal dark lives, that we might be filled with the grace and truth which comes to us by God’s creating and saving work.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

God Bless Your Family Tree!

God Bless Your Family Tree

Most mornings we go out for a bit of exercise, usually to a nearby elementary school for several laps around playground. On the way there we pass a small park that is filled and surrounded by trees.  Since southern Taiwan is tropical, trees produce and drop leaves every day. There’s a group of retired folks who sweep the sidewalks around the park every morning. We’ve begun exchanging “hello” with several of them, including a Christian man who knows and likes to use a few phrases of English. Some of his phrases were learned in classes; others he has “figured out” on his own.  So each morning we hear “Glad to meet you” and “God bless you”.  We also hear “God bless your family tree,” which sounds strange to us. On deeper reflection, we think he’s trying to wish God’s blessings on all in our families. Not a bad idea. So, God bless YOUR family tree!

Purple Mini-Skirts

Last month when I was digging through some pieces of cloth in a closet of the chapel of Tainan Theological College, I discovered 8 short purple curtains with velcro patches at their edges. I’d seen a couple of them adorning two columns at the front of the chapel during Advent a few  years ago. I asked Lim Shu-na, the head of the worship committee, if they might ALL be installed this year. When we looked more closely we discovered that they had not only suffered random stuffing into boxes for a long time, but also had been used as table covers for other decoration involving candles, and had waxy crusts here and there. BUT, because they were ready made and the right color, using them would simplify seasonal chapel decoration.

The first task was ironing out the wrinkles. That took care of most of the wax as well. In the process it was also discovered that one curtain had gone missing. There were only 7! A bit of exploration found the errant cloth surrounding a Christmas decoration on the college lawn!. All ironed and ready, the first curtain went up around a column at the front of the chapel, but it hung funny, and really looked like a mini skirt. So another was tied around the bottom of it, and things didn’t look too bad. In the end, four columns each got tarted up.  

The unintended consequence is that Dave now gets asked to do magic with cloth when something needs doing. Within a few days he was asked to sew up a 10-foot by 40-foot backdrop for a stage show to be given by four schools at Tainan’s Cultural Center on December 16th.  

Packed Week at the College

Things often get put onto a calendar well in advance then crowded by things that come up later.  First, Tainan Theological College scheduled a series of lectures and engaged a scholar from Scotland to give them.Then the accrediting association scheduled a team to come and observe the college at work for the same days. On top of that, a once-per-term evening of faculty sharing research papers with each other had been on the schedule since the previous spring. Guests on campus meant special dinners. At the last minute, a memorial concert for the college’s founder, Thomas Barclay, was laid on to commemorate his birthday in 1849, followed by an evening when faculty members share research papers later in the week.  On top of all this, with so many guests on campus, there were required banquets and dinners. The week of November 20-26 was wild!

After all the dust had settled, the lectures had been challenging and informative, the accreditation review was passed, the dinners were filling, the research papers interesting, and the concert inspiring. The week of November 20-26 was wonderful, but nobody wants to repeat it again soon.

On High in November

On High  November 7, 14 & 18

The chapel at Tainan Theological College was built in 1957 according to the basilica model of a church hall.  It has low side aisles and a high central ceiling with clerestory windows.  Dave studied those windows for a long time, imagining how to hang streamers from the sills on one side of the chapel to the other. In a chapel storage room he found lengths of cloth sometimes used for decoration, but nothing was long enough. So he got out his sewing machine and stitched things together.  On November 7th he ascended to the organ loft, went out a side window onto the roof of the south-side aisle began attempting to open windows. He had a few tools, a few banners, and a big idea.

It turns out that the windows hadn’t been opened for decades. Things were painted shut, rotted, and even nailed tight in a few instances. Scraping, prying (and cursing under his breath) he was able to get 3 of 6 windows open on the south side, and the corresponding 3 on the north.  Result, 3 unevenly spaced and not particularly well matched lengths of cloth high above the worshipers on the following Wednesday afternoon.

On the 16th he was out on the roof again, this time with more tools and a student who had liked the effect and wanted to improve it. There was more scraping, more prying, and a couple more windows were opened on each side. 5 banners met those who came to worship on the 16th. These were also rearranged from Dave’s original random pattern to one that moved from lighter colors at the front to darker ones at the back.

It was a short-lived project. Someone had rented the chapel for a wedding on the 19th, and didn’t want all that up there. So, Dave was aloft on the 18th again. Windows having been opened in previous weeks were easier to deal with this time, and stuff comes down more easily than it goes up. A new possibility has been shown. We cannot know who among the students who saw the display may want to decorate a church, somewhere, sometime in the future, in a similar way.  

Death in the Pot  November 9

Dave was in the pulpit for community worship at Tainan Theological College on November 9th. His first time to be there since beginning at the college in 2004 (he’s led morning prayers and presided at communion, but never been the preacher). It was a  communion service this time, other people were the appointed as liturgist, celebrant and accompanist. Dave’s jobs were to write the service, preach the sermon, lead the prayers, and give the benediction. He used the story of Elisha and the poisoned stew as a springboard for talking about the role that communion plays in the lives of Christ’s people. To accomplish this application  of an Old Testament story to a New Testament use, he did some things with decoration and dramatic action to demonstrate different ways to preach.

Whether it was effective or not, to quote Pope Francis, “Who am I to judge?”  But, the head of the worship committee promised to schedule him again before we retire.

Praying with Taiwan’s President,  November 12

Well, we didn’t actually meet her, but were in a room with about 500 other people when she attended the National Prayer Breakfast on November 12th in Taipei.  We had taken Taiwan’s high speed train after Char finished work on the 11th (the station is near Chang Jung Christian University). Arriving in Taipei, we took the subway out to the end of the line in Tamsui and spent the night at a retreat house operated by our friends Carys Humphreys and Cecelia Yeh.

The next morning we were up early to get the subway back to Taipei because the ride  would take almost an hour, and we had to be at the venue by 7AM to clear security in advance of the president’s scheduled 7:30 arrival.

The event included prayers, sermons, choirs and a short presidential speech.

Ms. Tsai, Taiwan’s president, is not a Christian. She has, however, had a positive influence on the moral character of Taiwan since her election last January and inauguration in May. Many prayers were said for her, and we certainly wish her the best as she leads this fractured and fractious nation that we are pleased to call home.

Serendip  November 12

For nearly 40 years we have thought ourselves to be residents of Taiwan, only to have found out recently that we have dwelt in Serendip, a land of pleasant surprises first told about in a 16th Century Persian folktale that has been picked up and spread in many cultures since that time.

We were in the Taipei train station, purchasing tickets for a homeward trip, when a gentleman with a pronounced Japanese accent asked us about where to board his train. Like us, he was bound for Tainan. We learned some other similarities as conversations progressed.

Exchanging name cards, we discovered that Dr. Nishimara is a professor of International Management at Meiji Gakuin University, a Christian school in Japan.  That school has a cooperative program with Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where Char got her BA degree. It turns out that Dr. Nishimara had escorted a group of students from his university to Hope College not too many years ago to help them in the initial days of their American sojourn, and he spoke fondly of his time in the city.

Because our seats were in different train cars, we parted before boarding. Eventually Dr. Nishimara made his way forward to where we were sitting, but Dave was asleep, so he sat across the aisle from Char and continued the earlier conversation. He told her of a colleague who plans to come to Taiwan and hopes to stay at Tainan Theological College while she conducts research into missionary history in East Asia.  

We look forward to further adventures in Serendip, while having our feet on the ground in Taiwan.

Midterm Project, November 10 & 17

For a midterm project In the class on theology and visual art that Dave is teaching, students were given access to his collection of scavenged picture frames and ratty bits of cloth. Each had to create something out of recycled materials that could be used to help people worship in a church setting.  The one inflexible standard of the exercise was that all submissions had to be clearly visible to Dave in the college chapel. They would be set on an easel on the platform and he would sit in a pew at the center of the church. Points were awarded or subtracted based on what he was able to discern. About half of the projects passed this test. People learned that words cut out of newspaper headlines looked good close up, but were just blurs from a distance.

Because the visibility test was only one portion of the grade, nobody failed the midterm on that alone. In fact, nobody failed the exam at all. Students’ projects were subsequently hung along the halls of the classroom building for the enjoyment(?) of everyone at the school.

Dryer Delight November 16

Dave’s office in Tainan Theological College’s General Services Building is on a floor that has meeting rooms, about 15 dormitory rooms, and 3 little apartments for married students.  There’s a large lobby where halls from the apartments and dorm rooms meet the faculty and staff offices. On the morning of November 16th a couple of appliance technicians showed up and installed a Maytag electric clothes dryer in that lobby.  To dry a load costs 30 Taiwan dollars (about $1 in US cash).  When Dave got back to his office in the afternoon, the dryer was tumbling away….. Wow! It’s noisy!.

Later that afternoon, between class and college worship, he came through just as a mother of two who lives on the floor (her husband is studying for ministry) was putting coins into the slots and hitting the start button. It was her first time ever to use a dryer, and she was all smiles. It was a real mood lifter to see her almost dance her way back down the hall to the family apartment.