Best Breakfast
Happy Easter!
Have you ever had a hard time in the morning, not wanting to get
out of bed? I have, I have so many times. Especially when I was a child;
I knew my mom’s breakfast was always good, with fresh-cooked hot rice and fish
and vegetables. And my mom never missed making delicious soup for breakfast. I
know I should have always been thankful for my mom's breakfast, and I should
have woken up right away when she called to me and my brother, “Come and have
breakfast!”. But….honestly, my answer was often, “Mom! Call me 10 minutes
later! Then, I’ll be there.” And I was still lying in bed by then.
In today’s Bible story, the disciples are still wondering about
the events of the first Easter. Early in the evening, Peter has talked them all
into going fishing…because that is a good thing to do when you are confused and
overwhelmed. You know, catching many fish is not the point of fishing,
many fishers say. It can be more about calming one’s mind while waiting,
looking at the wide calm ocean or lake. I think Peter and the other disciples
were doing exactly that. Or, have you guys cracked nuts in the evening on the
kitchen table with your family? Sometimes, people crack nuts, one, two, three,
four, (Prop: a nutcracker and nuts)
when they feel anxious about something and there’s no good way to
deal with it.
By the way, all the disciples went fishing, but through a long
night, they caught no fish, (which is not always the point of fishing) until,
near sunrise, they saw Jesus on the shore! Risen Jesus!
Jesus called to the disciples, saying, “Come and have breakfast!”
What an invitation! What a way to start the day. after the long
and tiring, fishless night! What a great turning. What a great joy in the
morning for them!
If you saw Jesus like the disciples in the early morning, after
the long, long tiring night, what do you think you might do? If I were one of
them, I would run to Jesus and sit around the charcoal fire, and eat the
roasted fish and a piece of toast with friends.
Sometimes the night can seem so long. When we have problems or
things are tough or we just want to sleep a little bit longer, everything can
seem as dark as the night. But this story reminds us that each day we live for
Jesus and we live with Jesus. We can get up and have breakfast with Jesus, just
as the disciples did long ago.
How? ...
We can say some morning prayers over a bowl of cereal, like that.
By doing this, the joy and mystery of Easter will come every morning. Do you
know what has changed in my family for Peace? Peace loved to pray, but not
always, but one Easter day, he asked his parents, “Mom, and Dad, we should
always pray before we eat!” And that was how he welcomed the joy of Easter.
Remember, Jesus calls us, saying “Hey, Easter children. Come and
have breakfast!”
Will you pray with me?
Good morning God!
Thank You for today.
Thank You for being with me
this morning, today,
this evening, and forever. Amen.
all of these things from the service today: comfort, peace, joy and above all the love of God . You are on the right path so trust in yourself and most of all trust in God. He will give you the right words when they are needed.
Sermon: Morning! (John 21)
Good morning.
We have sung Psalm 30 and heard from the Gospel of John. When I first read this week’s readings, I was very inspired by all the ‘morning’ images. I thought that together, they played a morning canticle, a song of praise.
If someone asked you to write a poem about morning, like one of our Sunday School children, Emily Oliver, did for Easter, how would you give an image or a melody to morning?
When I asked myself that question, the first image was morning dew. Not the Mountain Dew my older son always looks at longingly in the grocery store, hoping to try when he grows up; the little drops of moisture that cling to spider webs and grass stems, reflecting the world as it warms into a new day’s life.
In the 1970's, when Korea was still under a dictatorship, when countless Korean students rose for the desire of democracy and shed their blood for a better world, many songs or books were forbidden. “Morning Dew”, which I would love to sing for you this morning, was one of them.
Like morning dew passing a long night,
Forming on the grass, and more beautiful than pearls,
when sorrow in my heart is forming one by one,
I go up the hill in the morning, and learn a little smile.
Sun is rising up with crimson above the graves,
and sizzling heat at midday would be my ordeal.
I now go to the rugged wilderness,
leaving all sorrows behind, I now go.
This song may reveal a different cultural landscape of emotion, how to embrace our sorrows or leave them behind, how to learn “a little smile”. But I hope it may give us one more language for how we embrace sorrows and griefs which are “forming one by one”, and how we move on, leaving them behind or living with them.
Throughout this week, I have thought about how I live Easter, what it means for me and for us, and asked whether the mornings I greet every day reflect the Easter morning's surprise of turning and joy. And I have wanted to ask you how your mornings are these days. Are your mornings well? Do your mornings greet you well?
I will not ask you questions like ‘Do you open your mornings with a morning prayer when you wake up?’ or ‘Do you pray over a bowl of cereal?” But the questions may be something like “Do you sometimes give a whistle back to little birds, those who open the mornings for you with their chirping?” Or “Do you sometimes open your windows wide to welcome in the morning’s sunshine and fresh air?” Or “Did you give thanks to the green and rain outside today?” “Have you sent an affectionate blessing to the wet soil in your garden?” “Do you sing a joyful song or hum a hymn when you take a morning shower?”. Do you have any spiritual practice for your mornings to help you be more peaceful, relational (with God and with your family), joy-full?
The Psalmist sings this morning, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. God turns my mourning into dancing; God clothes me with joy.”
That’s a beautiful image - it would be wonderful to be clothed with joy every morning! But truthfully, if you ask me about my mornings, my response might be, “It’s a war!”
As I shared in the children’s time, I am never a morning person. It takes more than 20 minutes for me to finally crawl out of bed. I am using that procrastination to pray a morning prayer, still lying on the bed. I should say it gives me a little justification and comfort. I spend the whole early morning in packing two lunch boxes for my two boys, waking them up every ten minutes, toasting bread, roasting fish – sometimes - , filling and refilling their cups with milk, making them focus on eating, persuading Peace to wear a clean shirt, not the one he has worn for the last three days! In the meantime Min Goo packs his lunch and makes his coffee by himself. Thank God.
In today’s Gospel, when Jesus’ disciples were returning to the shore, after a long, long, tiring night, on the fishless boat, dawn was breaking. I imagine the beauty of that daybreak sky - perhaps casting off blue and green and yellow and red, while the sun was rising silently, framed by all those colours. But it seems that the disciples had no interest in praising the sunrise at the moment. They were still confused and overwhelmed. Even after Easter and the news of Christ’s resurrection, they did nothing. They talked of nothing. When they couldn’t bear the silence, nothingness, purposelessness, emptiness anymore, they chose to go fishing as they had always done before they met Jesus; they were fishermen, after all. But then they caught nothing. You may rightly raise a question, “Why were they all still so cheerless and fruitless (or fishless)?” According to the Gospel, the risen Jesus had already appeared to them twice; they knew that Jesus was resurrected. They should have been more life-filled, joy-filled, cheer-full.
I think it is because of the difference between just having knowledge and possessing a deep understanding of something. They had heard firsthand accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and some of them had seen the risen Jesus with their own eyes. They had empirical proof. But what they heard and what they saw were all stuck in their head – they were not digested through the stomach and gut. They hadn’t yet reached true understanding which is relational.
Jesus says to us, “Come and have breakfast.”
“On the beach” – in a quiet, intimate place, where we can sit with Christ, only Him and ourselves, in communion.
"At the daybreak" -when we can feel the warmth perhaps only from the heat of the charcoal fire and from one another’s presence.
Jesus invites us to breakfast in that quiet time and place where we can only hear the sound of each one eating the bread and fish.
Jesus says, This is the breakfast I prepare for you –
Dear guests – “my children", bring to the table what you have got. 153 fish. Let’s eat some of them together.
These are what happened at another Easter morning, on the beach (now, no more at the empty tomb): a loving discourse, a charcoal-roasted breakfast – communion followed by commissioning. “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”
I hope that this Third Easter Sunday worship may be a morning prayer for you which warms your heart, as if we, too gathered around that glowing, enlivening fire.
Every morning is an Easter morning.
Like the morning dew reflects the light of the crimson sun and the rest of the world - a green leaf - , our mornings can reflect a colour, a shade, or a light of the Easter morning of 2000 years ago, when sorrow turned to joy and the women and men were clothed with gladness.
Of course, today’s morning is different from yesterday’s, one week ago, one year ago, one decade ago; we can’t go back to a point in time when we haven’t suffered from loss. But every morning can be a canticle of the first Easter morning, if we have faith.
Treasure your mornings as if it is the Easter morning. Bless every morning of the earth. Welcome joy. Pray a morning prayer. Honour and pray for every relationship with God's creation. Pray for your children. Pray for your spouse. Pray for Christ. Pray for us. Our mornings can be very busy, I know - mine is a war! And our minds does not move for us as we wish them to. But let’s try one at a time, for one minute, for one morning, to live that joy of being with the risen Christ.
Yesterday at 2 o’clock, we commended Fran to Eternal God. We bid a final farewell to her, as we trusted that God welcomed her with “Good morning.” And this morning, we will welcome, wholeheartedly with love, our new members – Rene, Carol, Gloria, and Ken.
I think of life as being an energy flow, rather than a straight line where the beginning and the end don’t meet each other; I think that it all comes around in a circle. We let go, and we receive – the love of the temporary and the love of the eternal.
May the joy of the resurrection life protect every step you walk! May we continue to praise the love of God which resurrects. Christ is Risen! (Christ is Risen indeed!)
To read the evaluations from two church members, see the below and also click here.
Note # 1
Note # 2
Dear Ha Na, It was a lovely services today. I could see many wonderful expressions on people's faces as they listened to the children's time and your sermon. You are ministering to us in a warm and vibrant way. I loved the words of the Korean song and hearing you sing it. It spoke to my soul. I also love your vivid language in prayers and sermons.
I received
Love to you , Min Goo, Peace and Jobi
To hear Korean Singer Yang Hee-Eun's singing of Morning Dew on You-tube, please click here.
To hear Korean Singer Yang Hee-Eun's singing of Morning Dew on You-tube, please click here.
%5EJ%202023.jpg)
