Advent 4 Sermon: The Birth of a Family (Luke 2:8-20), Dec 22, 2019

Sermon: The Birth of a Family  

Luke 2:8-20 

Have you ever listened to the birth stories your family members tell? Or maybe you have told them yourself… 

My children like to hear their birth stories: how they were born and what happened before and on the day of their arrival. My two sons were born at home. My older son Peace was laid on my bosom right after his birth on the warm bedroom floor (Not all Koreans sleep in beds.) My younger son Jah-bi was born “in the bathtub” at the lovely blue house we first rented on Vancouver Island; That’s the way I tell the boys about their births. Then, Peace, who was 4 years old when his “little baby brother” was born, and my partner don’t even wait to chime in and tell their parts, … in detail (You know what I mean!). But as the mother, what I often like to highlight is the moment of amazing mystery of the first eye contact I made with my children. The moment that tired baby Peace, about to cry, was laid on my chest, he opened just one eye with effort, just halfway, and when our eyes met, it seemed that he knew where he was and then he did not cry.

Adoption stories are often very powerful and moving, too. The families carefully weave together their own birth story through experience and memories: the story of how they first met, when and where, their first moments of the mysterious and powerful feeling of an immediate deep connection. By sharing the stories each year, or any time when the family wants to, the parents and children honour the birthday of their incredible love as a family.

Birth stories are often extremely powerful. They can immediately bring us back to a joyous moment, they can sadly remind us of some couple’s struggles with infertility, they can stir our imaginations with children hoped for, and they can make us aware of the difficult circumstances some people had to overcome in their lives. 

Birth stories are charged with deep emotion. 

Ask any parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle, and of course, older siblings about the birth of a new baby (or the welcoming of a child to the family), and they typically can describe the event in great detail (Karyn Wiseman). As most birth stories begin, the storyteller sets the stage… They describe the setting and the situation into which the child was born. They bring us into the realities of the event. In the Gospels, we are told of the reasons the family travelled so late in Mary’s pregnancy. We are brought into the place of the birth and why the location of his birth came about. The power of Jesus’ birth story lies in its humbleness - - a babe born in a stable, wrapped in simple cloth, and laid to rest in an animal trough. It is the reality that reflects/represents so many birth stories in the world. It’s the story of real poverty. It’s the story of marginalization. It’s the story of many refugees and immigrants. It’s the story of the babies, the children of God, whose family can’t find accommodation, haven’t received the generosity, kindness and acceptance of society… if we only look at the stable scenes, the manger scenes, the humbleness or the dire situation that Mary and Joseph suffer or embrace…  

And yet, in today’s Gospel, all of a sudden, the others begin to chime in to not lose any time to tell their parts and to weave the whole of the story together… 

“ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS” BY MURILLO

First, the shepherds came in a hurry, and they told their story to Mary and Joseph with great joy. (Indeed, we are told that “Thus is born the true saviour of the world - not Caesar Augustus, the oppressor, the colonizer, the false saviour of the world, the protector of those with power and privilege, but Christ the Lord, whose birth is ‘good news of great joy for all the people.’” Shepherds tell the story: “Mary, Joseph. We are the shepherds living in the fields near here. As you know, our job is just the same, every day. We keep watch over our flock by day and by night. But tonight was different. Just before we came to you, Oh My Lord, we were terrified. We were not sure what we were seeing at first, but an ANGEL of the Lord appeared and stood before us! You should have seen the glory of God. The light, … the beautiful light shone and surrounded us. We were frozen in the moment, terrified, and curious. We didn’t have time to ask each other, What’s going on? Can you believe this? We just couldn’t turn our eyes away. Then the angel spoke to US. The Angel’s voice was so soft, tender and kind, and the Angel said, ‘Do not be afraid; See — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. … This will be a sign for you: You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ AND THERE WERE SO MANY ANGELS – a whole heavenly choir, and they sang, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours’. So the angel told us to come here and tell you this and see the baby, and when an angel tells you to do something, you HAVE to do it, right? This baby is special – wait, what’s his name? Jesus is God’s child, and a blessing for you and for us, the whole entire world… Never doubt that.” The Bible tells us, “All who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

Maybe the thing about remembering the birth of a baby and telling the story is that everyone has their memories and they are all different. We are all natural meaning-makers, story-tellers, connecting what we see and hear with our own life situations, identity, hopes…, drawing lines between the dots - which have sometimes been laid aside, neglected and forgotten - and adding colours to the event to celebrate and experience again and again when the stories are shared with more people and in more places.

Ryan Carreon Aragon, Phillipines

Count the actors in the Nativity stories. Shepherds. Mary. Joseph. The Angel. The Magi. The Innkeepers. Even King Herod… The narrative becomes more complex, richer - just like any family’s life becomes richer and more complex with the birth of a child… 

The mystery of Christmas is that somehow we all can relate ourselves to the story of a baby wrapped in simple cloth and laid in a manger. It offers an entry point into our life’s and world’s complexities. It is, after all, the birth story of all birth stories and it’s a story of family. For many people, Christmas is both an exciting and a stressful time. Some families struggle with overwhelming burdens of care. For others, memories of closeness are accompanied by memories of loss and grief. Christmas is a space which invites the coming together of many significant life issues - experiences, often unexamined or unarticulated… Perhaps that’s when the stories of the birth of the holy child makes connection to the weary, tired part of our lives: We need the angels, the romance, the starlight, the symbols and the colour of the story. We can enter the story, find ourselves there, make our own exploratory journeys with the shepherds, just to see, to be there, and tell our part of the whole of the story… Then, and there, God joins the family… The Starlight falls down to the earth, “spreads diamonds” to the hearts of those who await hope and good news at midnight, rather than just watching over the earth and its people. God joins the family with both its fragility and strength, trading the freedom of power and distance to join us. God, out of all the judgements God has wielded, God chooses to “sacrifice” judgement and become vulnerable in order to fully exist with us, in the story of the humble birth of hope, and make permanent connection with us. And this story of the birth of the holy child is told generation to generation, place to place, all the time, every year. 

Concluding this message, I believe it is quite a relevant and true blessing to share the reflection of Stan McKay (Newsletter, Dec 2019, of Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre): The Birth of a Child. 

“In my home on Fisher River First Nation, we have celebrated Christmas for many generations. We understand the importance of the birth of a child as a sign of hope and new beginnings. We are discussing ceremonies for celebrating with families whenever a baby is born. In our cultural understanding, we know that every time a child is born there is a renewed hope for the future of our community.” 

This Christmas, how about telling the stories of a birth of a child, a baby, a family’s love, a new hope in your family? Joy, hope for healing, accompanies us when we tell our stories of new birth, in wonder, beauty, kindness and friendship… 

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church

Advent 3: On Kindness (Matthew 1:18-25), Dec 15, 2019

On Kindness

Matthew 1:18-25

I read this story from 2010 in Patheos.

There is a legend about the Loretto Chapel, built in 1873, on the Old Santa Fe Trail. It begins like this: 

When the Chapel was built, the architect forgot to include a way for the nuns to reach the choir loft. The sisters weighed their options, but all were equally undesirable. They could build a conventional staircase, but that would take up too much room. They could rebuild the balcony, but that would be far too expensive. They could climb a dangerous ladder up and down, but that would be an accident waiting to happen.

The sisters’ predicament reminds us of Joseph’s dilemma, swept into a situation in which your only choices seem to be negative ones. He could divorce Mary publicly or divorce her quietly, but either way, in Joseph’s mind, he still has to divorce her. She’s pregnant, and not by him; there’s no way out that saves his dignity and her reputation. There is no possible resolution that could lead to full redemption, only painful, but necessary, choices. it never occurs to him that Mary’s unbelievable story may be God’s truth. It never occurs to him that if he embraced Mary’s words as truth, the situation would be transformed. 

No way out - - only negative options. What do we do when we face a situation in which our only choices appear to be negative? 

The author who wrote about the Loretto Chapel imagines that Joseph had a talk with himself that might be something like this: 

“I cannot believe that she has done this to me. I have been sitting here all day. I have been praying. I have even cried. For one fleeting moment, I even considered the possibility that she was telling the truth, but it is more than I can swallow. What man would fall for a story like this? It would serve her right to be publicly shamed. Why not? Nobody in town would blame me. But I am not a vengeful man. I am a man strong within myself, not concerned with others’ opinion of me. I have nothing to gain by humiliating her. I believe I will divorce her and save her the public humiliation of accusing her of adultery. It will be a quiet matter, the sooner we get it over with the better. I always try to think the best of people. How I wish I could of Mary! And of God. I confess I feel somewhat betrayed by God as well as by Mary. They say that you should never let the sun go down on your anger, but the sun is setting, and I am filled with pain. I will go to bed with my pain, and hope for sleep. Tomorrow, I will send a message to Mary letting her know of my decision.” 

(Show the picture of the painting by Rembrandt, Joseph.) 

On this night, an angel hovered near, whispering a message from God into Joseph’s sleeping ear. “Here”, whispered the angel, “is the key that unlocks your dilemma. Believe her unbelievable story. Marry her, and become the father of God’s child. He will need, not just any father, but a father like you, capable of nurturing him, and giving him a name, ‘Immanuel - - God with us.’”

Now, back to the legend of the sisters of Loretto Chapel. According to the legend, one night, while the sisters were together, a bearded stranger appeared at the door of the convent asking for work. A toolbox was strapped to his burro and he told the sisters he was a carpenter. When they told him their problem, he offered to build a spiral staircase. His spiral staircase was an engineering marvel, containing thirty-three steps and two complete turns of 360 degrees with no central support. The carpenter used wooden pegs instead of nails, and his only tools were a saw, a T-square, and a hammer. As soon as the staircase was finished, dissipating the cloud of despair and worry from the sisters’ minds, the unknown craftsman disappeared without asking to be paid. And, according to the legend, many believe that the carpenter was St. Joseph. Well, even though I grew up as a Roman Catholic, I am not very enthusiastic about saints (except for some inspiring women of courage like Edith Stein!). The point I would like to highlight about the Loretto Chapel story is that kindness, which is the theme of our third Advent Sunday, is a lot like that unconventional staircase, the “despair-defying staircase.” Just as the nuns did not get much personal information from the bearded stranger carpenter, many other ordinary saints in our lives prefer to keep a low profile, going quietly about their business. We all know someone who offers true kindness, someone who gives us a demonstration of how to build a staircase that lifts us out of impossible situations. There are people who help us to expand our imagination to dream and live courageously, especially when we are in difficult situations and the only options before us seem negative ones. “Quietly dismissing” Mary is never a kindness. Only when Joseph’s decision is based on the shared courage to defy despair with his partner, Mary, does it become the truly supportive staircase of kindness, built for the future of all.

Loretto Chapel Staircase, Santa Fe, New Mexico

There must be four characteristics (and more, I am sure) which go with the expression of kindness: the sacrifice of time, the sacrifice of judgement, the sacrifice of social status quo, the sacrifice of fear. When kindness is accompanied with the genuine significance of personal sacrifice, based on strength and courage, it transforms despair into hope, strong enough to build a “despair-defying staircase” for the people we are helping, in the community where we find each other as partners.

First, the sacrifice of time. To share kindness, we must give away or share something from ourselves. Sacrifice, when it is voluntarily offered, not forced or imposed by others, is a beautiful practice, even a spiritual journey, that allows the blessing energy to flow through us. For sharing kindness, sacrificing (giving away/sharing) time is the first thing. If you don’t share time, how could anything good even happen? I believe the foundation of genuine kindness is time, shared out of humility, because we see the others we are helping or sharing kindness with as being equal, as our partners, who are capable of teaching us, not just the recipient of our benevolence. 

Second, the sacrifice of judgement. Think about when you truly feel grateful when another person attempts to help you. We are often most grateful when we are offered non-judgemental empathy. Attentive listening. Just empathic listening, without the other trying to impose their judgement, opinion, advice, will… Our pains are heard as they are and our struggling selves are accepted. We must sacrifice our ability to judge others in order to show true kindness.

The third component that makes kindness genuinely supportive comes from sacrificing status quo. A few weeks ago, a Residential School Survivor told me that the most painful thing to reflect back on was that his liberation, his own awareness of the impact of colonization on himself, was slow. His liberation was slow, because racism and oppression are often carried out using the language of love. Even at residential schools, many of the staff believed that they were doing the right thing as they destroyed his people. Believing in the superiority of White culture, they lacked the capacity to see that Indigenous traditions and families and knowledge keepers have their own intrinsic, important value. Kindness as the despair-defying staircase means that it must defy the status quo at its heart. Kindness is sharing respect and humility, out of deeper understanding on our interdependence with one another. 

The last thing I would like to mention, the sacrifice of fear, is also a very important aspect of kindness. See Joseph in agony, in today’s story. He is a carpenter, a lower class, in his time, but he is a man respected in his community, a decent citizen. Not much, but compared to Mary, he has incomparable power. He has choices. He’s thinking, “Oh, I am filled with pain. I will go to bed with my pain, and hope for sleep. Tomorrow, I will send a message to Mary letting her know of my decision.” The flip side of his sense of self-protection is his fear. What happens if he loses all that makes him secure? The flip side of his power is the fear of shame — the fear of the feeling of weakness, the feeling of grief, pain and sorrow, and the realization that he himself is vulnerable to society’s rejection, judgement and even shunning. His power, small as it is, could be taken away, his status stripped, were he to be seen as a fool, a cuckolded husband. Instead, what makes Joseph’s act of kindness a true one to commend, comes from the fact that he sacrifices his fear of weakness in order to build a staircase to walk up to the future of God’s dream, with Mary, and with the child, when he has only wooden pegs, (instead of nails), a saw, a T-square, and a hammer in his toolbox, trusting that in God’s toolbox, told in his dream, the family would become strong, a structure for blessings, the good news, to flow to the world. Joseph moves from fear to courage. In the Advent season, we are urged to do the same. Accompanied by the necessary sacrifices of time, judgement, status quo and fear, kindness is never a sign of weakness and naiveté but the demonstration of personal courage and strength and faith that transforms today. 

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church

Advent Two Sermon: Sakihiwawin (The Love upon which everything hinges), Luke 1:39-55, Dec 8, 2019

Sermon: Sakihiwawin 

       (The love upon which everything hinges) 

Luke 1:39-55

In today’s reading, two women, Elizabeth and Mary, meet each other and share greetings. The way-making and the way-wandering Creator follows their footsteps with a smile. 

“After Gabriel receives Mary’s stunning consent to walk a path no one has ever walked before, the messenger/angel gives Mary one point of orientation, one navigational clue that will assist her to make the rest of her journey possible: Gabriel tells her of her kinswoman Elizabeth who is pregnant in strange circumstances herself.” (Jan Richardson) 

At this point I will share with you one very useful concept. Wild Space. I learned it from Sallie McFague, who was a professor at VST while I studied there in 2007. Sallie continued to inspire countless people through her books and lectures until she died just a month ago. Many of us were very saddened by the news of her passing, partly because of how her ideas touched us. Wild space is the part of each of us that doesn’t quite fit into our conventional worlds. What would you say is the wild space within you that does not fit into the worlds in your life? What are the characteristics of your “conventional worlds”, and how do you fit or not fit into them?

For some, it is the “consumer and market-oriented, individualistic, greedy world”. See, Black Friday and the temptations of Amazon Prime. What else… I would say conventional worlds are the oppressions that make us suffer. Colonialism. Hierarchy (which places humans at the top of everything, while, actually, we are the most dependent beings in creation.). Individualism. We might consider them to be “normal”; we live with them just like we breathe air. And yet, at the same time, at the crossroads of conventional worlds and who we are, we learn that there is a spiritual and emotional realm inside of us that makes us resist these normal, isolating worlds. There’s a yearning within us to seek out ways to shape our world differently. That yearning is wild space; the heart story and personal truth that matters. It is the desire to participate, to change the world. We desire to be heard and to hear, to be connected and to connect. Friendship would not shine like the sun, if we do not feel safe and confident enough to let each other know about the wild space within ourselves. My favourite definition of friendship is that it is a shared space in which each person finds true security and safety in intimate equality. No one is higher or lesser, none of the cultures, the cultural wild spaces, dominates another. Could we see Elizabeth and Mary, their kinship and friendship, in the light of wild space, too? I think so! Mary’s Magnificat is truly a hymn that praises the wild dreams of God and our wild spaces. “God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. She has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; She has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

The question for us in this Advent season may be… What is the wild space I own and share? What are the wild space of ours, friends, strangers, the Creator’s people that overflow the strict lines of prescribed, imposed, conventional worlds? And, why do our wild spaces overflow?

Imagine, "wild space" like a wild space you’ve gone out to on the land, in the actual real world. You find a place on the land that is away from things… It might be a hilltop. It could be the shore of a lake or a river. It might be a glade in a forest or a rock ledge or a fallen log in a clearing. A wild space is like these… Hear the wind or the breeze in the trees or grasses. Hear the sound of birds and the small creatures. Smell the land, and differentiate the aromas of the soil, grass, blooms. Pick up stones, twigs, leaves, moss, tree bark, and feel each of them. Let our fingers trace each of them and see them with our touch, and know how the touch, the smell, and other senses make you feel. Enjoy the feeling of connection. That may be like the wild space in our hearts too. It’s the energy. Know how the land makes you feel in the day and the night... 

I learned the following from a lecture by Dr. Alex Wilson, a Cree scholar who teaches at The University of Saskatchewan: Sakihiwawin. We are a part of Creation. That means we are created, we are born, with the same creative energy as all of Creation. And that is Sakihiwawin. Before explaining about Sakihiwawin which means Creative energy of love, we need to talk about reconciliation. Reconciliation originally stems from Catholicism. (framed from within a Catholic world view. That’s where the idea came from) For any of you that know people or you may have been yourself in abusive relationship, the solution is not everybody getting along and back together. 'Reconciliation' is not the perfect descriptive word to express the ultimate reality we should strive for… Alex Wilson says that some of us understand reconciliation in a limited way to just mean “getting along” among Indigenous and Settler peoples and communities. Limiting reconciliation loses the full implication that this critical process must include for us to be connected to underlying Indigenous philosophy and world views and honouring them in a way that they influence our behaviours and work. Reconciliation, in its true sense, validates and actualizes the “wild space”  against the aggressive, capitalistic world. A very wise Elder teaches us that Reconciliation means declaring the ecological interdependence among Indigenous and Settler communities as equal partners, being able to contribute, inspire and transform, and emphasizes our human interdependence on bio-diversity.

Why do our wild spaces overflow and make us desire change? Because we are the creation of Sakihiwawin, the creative love energy. The energy of the Creator. “Sakihi” is the root for the term love. The creative energy is the love, love in action, love in constant motion, (which is Cree natural law). All things on the earth, in the sky, in the air and under the water are created with vital love energy, and therefore, love is the thing upon which everything hinges. Elizabeth and Mary, as kin, as friends, greet each other and find each other in joy during their very strange, difficult situations because they have faith in the Sakihi energy - - the love, as a way of being, upon which everything hinges. They have been able to keep their wild spaces intact and connect them together to make a greater whole. Alex Wilson says Love is why the water protectors are doing what they are doing. Love is why there is Standing Rock. Elizabeth. Mary, Joseph, Wise Ones. Shepherds. Angels. All of the characters in the nativity story appear and write the extraordinary drama of the birth of hope because the creative love energy, Sakihiwawin, positions these actors and us in the story that comes every year in new, unexpected ways. Sometimes we have to make a difficult decision and stand up for friendship, for justice; we choose to follow Sakihiwawin, the wild space in us that moves us to act, both inwardly and outwardly. 

May your Advent journey be guided by the creative love energy of the Creator to reach and hear your wild spaces. When friends meet, may the way-making and the way-wandering God follow our footsteps with a smile and bless us. 

Hymn:  VU 12    She Walked in the Summer 

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church

1ST ADVENT: What is Beautiful In This Story? (Luke 1:26-38), Dec 1, 2019

Introduction to Worship at the beginning of the service: 

Our theme this Advent is Wonders: Beauty, Friends, Kindness and Family, each Sunday. Imagine these as the embers of our lives that will last to the end… 

Message: 

Today’s theme is beauty, and as I looked at our scripture reading chosen for today, I asked, What is beautiful in this story?

Today’s story in Luke does not tell us the time of the day when the Angel’s visitation actually happened – morning, evening, or midnight. Or place - where it happened. Inside the house, on the front yard, in the field outside? What was Mary doing when she had the visit from Gabriel? One thing we know from the story is the geography. Luke tells us that “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth”. If I knew when it happened, and where it happened - I might describe through my imagination the beauty of the moonlight, or the stars, or the sunrise, the beauty of the setting - what grew in the fields, or the trees or bushes or animals which might have existed in the story. Then, I realized that the most beautiful thing, or the beauty in the story, is Mary, the youth. In Korea, there's an expression people like to use when talking about young people, expressing a particular fondness for their youthful energy - their purity, innocence and positive outlook. We have a saying, “The youth laugh (together), even when they hear the sound of the rolling fallen leaves.” And yes, it does lose something in translation. What I would like to highlight is that the “Virgin Mary”, in the story, is a youth. So, what does being a youth represent at the time she lived? And what do youths represent now, in our time? What are the situations the youth of our time are facing today? When I was young, I had no idea how beautiful I was – none of us did –but as I have grown older, all children, all youth are beautiful, every one of them, because the Spirit of Creation is most visible in their lives.

I recently learned about the Haudenosaunee concept/understanding of orenda. 

It is the “Good and creative animating power present in all of creation. Children are born with it and puberty enhances it for the life journey of that child. The idea of the Holy Spirit coming upon the prophet to do prophetic work is similar to the idea of enhanced orenda.” (Adrian Jacobs, The Holy Spirit, in Theology of the United Church of Canada.) 

What I see in today’s story is orenda. It is the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that always has moved the creation and evolution of all life in all things on the earth, including humans and human history. Today's story tells us … “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’. The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy.” The way I understand this passage is like this… 

In the dialogue between Gabriel and Mary, Gabriel’s response is not an explanation of how the pregnancy is to come about (i.e. implying the absence of human paternity; Mary’s sexual purity is to remain intact). It is a statement of reassurance, urging trust. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” and “The power of God will overshadow you” a promise of empowerment and protection. Mary’s question “How?” is sidestepped and remains unanswered. And yet, this story quite obviously echoes the commissioning or call of prophets. And Mary's yes, this beautiful moment of empowerment only makes sense when we also equally realize the terror that is inflicted on her. We never know what happened to Mary exactly - - and yet it is also clear that there was a violation (or violence) done against a betrothed virgin. The youth. The young woman. It's the terror that vulnerable people, especially young people, girls and women, lived through, especially in the lands of Palestine under the boot of the Roman Empire and the corruption of the Hebrew people’s own kings and religious elites. Only when we see both the beauty and terror of our lives, can we know that Mary’s canticle, the Magnificat, is powerfully appropriate. It is the song for those who have been sinned-against. “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” 

So, what does youth represent in our own time? What are the situations the youth are facing today? We may not recognize young voices as the prophets’ right away - - but there is orenda (the good and creative animating power present in all of creation; the Holy Spirit) in them, powerfully, and painfully, when they say to us they have been sinned-against! First of all, climate change. But not only climate change… The persistence of slavery through human trafficking. For example, Sex trafficking of girls, and girls exploited into child marriages and slave-like working conditions, in Pakistan and Indonesia and so many other countries in the world. Terror. Often these places are lands of great beauty and of great poverty, desperation and exploitation. “That such a beautiful land can hold such terrible abuse of girls and women in grinding poverty and oppression is not God’s desire!” (Kim Uyede-Kai). Sadly, these stories of slavery, human trafficking, abuse of women and girls are not just news from distant foreign countries. In 2019, this year – today, estimates place the number of slaves worldwide at 46 million, with 6,500 being in Canada. We have to look closely at our supply chain - with technology, clothing, gold mining, fishing, and sugarcane farming - being areas of concern. Furthermore, it is estimated that 2,200 future slaves pass through Canada on their way to sexual exploitation, drug addiction, torture and death in the United States. This is big business with the UN estimating that $ 31.6 billion US in profits is made from slavery every year. (Teresa Burnett-Cole.) 

Advent is a time of waiting… If we can see the waiting that accompanies the birth of hope, that's defined and understood and practiced each year, in a new light, we can really see both the terror and the beauty. Beauty is already there in the lands, very often in our lives, too. Look at the young people. Their youthfulness. The orenda. The animating creative power present in all creation. As much as we acknowledge the beauty of God, the beauty of the Spirit, already present in our world and in our lives, the terror is deep too. Leaves wither, they fall from the tree, winter is upon us, and yet the youth laugh because they are together and the moment of joy is now. Perhaps, we must journey through Advent with the youth… 

Here’s the one-minute video from Amnesty International. This year, Writes for Rights feature 10 global cases focusing on young people under the age of 25 who are a leading force for change. Today’s message comes from the youth of Grassy Narrows Territory, Canada. 

Then after watching that, let us sing “Long Before the Night (This Ancient Love)” in VU 282. 

GRASSY NARROWS YOUTH 

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church

Memorial sermon: Celebration of the Life of Brenda Tate, Nov 2, 2019

Celebration of the Life of Brenda Tate 

Sermon for the Stone Gatherers 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 

When I was young, just in primary school, growing up in Korea, my family was introduced to a new technology. One day, when I came home after school, my Dad was carefully setting up a video player in the living room! For the first time, we could watch our favourite things as much as we liked. A few years later, my Dad bought a new Disney video for me: Beauty and the Beast, in English. I couldn’t quite understand the English dialogue, but I was so mesmerized by the story and enchanted by the music, I watched it over and over and over, and at my favourite parts, I would stop the tape, rewind it back a few minutes, and replay it to experience the story again. I bet that most of you have had the same experience - you watch a movie or listen to music, and there are especially beautiful moments where you want to – you must - stop, and replay. Our life journey is just like that. There are always moments where we want to pause, to remember by heart, to replay, to keep forever.

What brings us all here today is our desire to commemorate and relive the precious moments, the beautiful moments, the loving moments, the joyful moments, the truly lived moments of life that Brenda shared with us all. “Brenda loved life. That’s truth. Brenda’s love of life was infectious,” her Dear One, Bob, said to me. 

As I prepared for Brenda’s Celebration of Life, I tried to replay those moments that Brenda and I had of getting to know each other. I always loved to see Brenda when she came to church with Bob on Sunday mornings. Often, when Brenda came, it was when she signed up for being a greeter. Her job was to welcome people and hand out bulletins to those who came to the service. I had some favourite moments. On those mornings, Brenda’s feet were warm inside her Mukluks, charcoal suede with lovely grey fur bells hanging outside. Brenda also liked wearing fluffy or soft woolen tops. When Brenda hugged you, she would give you a long, warm hug. I would come to her and say, “So good to see you, Brenda.” and she would talk to me, looking me directly in the eyes, saying, “Oh, Ha Na…” That was our usual morning. In those moments which I just replayed, I travelled to a world, a beautiful world, which her heart was, a little girl wearing moccasins on her feet, growing her flowers, walking lightly on the land in which we all live… 

Brenda didn’t say much after she said, “Oh, Ha Na...” But I think that Brenda's unsaid words were kind ones, spoken in her heart… When I visited her at St. Boniface Hospital, on one of her last days on earth, I said, “Brenda. I heard all your sons and your sister came to see you.” And on “sons” and “sister”, a very warm something quickly filled her eyes. She couldn’t say more, but she seemed to have a lot to say, a lot to thank, a lot to feel, in her mind, on her lips; her unspoken words were a light in her eyes!  

After Brenda was gone, her family met with me at church. I was honoured to hear the stories of their very fond memories, the joyous times, when they replayed them for me. Brenda was a teacher, and when her sons were young, they all came back home from each of their schools at 3 pm. Three of them sat down at the kitchen table, while Brenda made food. The three talked about the things that were interesting on that day. Bob thanked Brenda and the Creator God who watched over all the moments of their two lives together, and then four lives together, and then five - - the “joyous decades” in which Bob and Brenda shared their love of life together, became parents, raised a family, went on road trips and many camping trips and travels, and where they welcomed their family’s newest member, their granddaughter Charlie. 

Replay. Replay. Replay. The best moments live on in our memories. 

The week that Brenda passed away, Bob came to church on Sunday morning. Brenda’s best friend Lynne was there for him, and our member Wendy also sat close to him to give support. I was honoured to read and share what Bob wrote to announce the death of Brenda to our congregation. He replayed, “Brenda and I were alone together late that last evening, we hugged and kissed, and recalled forty years of marriage. Then she told me, “My program is finished here, I am ready to go home.” I said, “Good night sweetie, I love you.” We paused… in the moment. On that Sunday the Gospel reading was, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” 

Today’s reading was chosen by Brenda’s family. In this passage from Ecclesiastes, the poet shares the Word, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… A time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together.” Now is the time for us to gather stones of stories and thanks (show the stones) to celebrate the love of life, a true blessing to the earth. We give thanks to the Creator for the life and for the love of life Brenda shared with us, that has brought us all here today. We are here together to replay the precious moments, the beautiful moments, the loving moments, the joyful moments, the truly lived moments of life that we were privileged to share with Brenda. May a new hope, a new joy, be re-lit and rekindled in our hearts and prayers, in this hour and for evermore. May God keep Brenda on her final journey towards Eternity; the spirit being, the child of God, who was loved, is loved and will be loved among her people, the Creator’s people, us, the stone throwers and gatherers. Let us make our joy, let us make our love of life truly inspiring.

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church

Sermon: Questions Inside (Mark 12:28-34), Nov 10, 2019

Sermon: Questions Inside 

Mark 12:28-34 

How do you know what is right? How do you sense it? 

How do you tell if you are on the right path, or heading for it, looking for it?

Some of my earliest memories of being right are completing an English spelling test right (r-i-g-h-t) in Grade 1, or my Kumon math exercises (4 + 2 = ?), or circling multiple choice questions. Or, performing a play with my classmates, figuring out who is telling the truth about forgotten lines. Then, as we grow older, we become exposed to more complicated times and tasks. There may be no one right answer; we must make choices. 

Our coming to maturity invites the question of the right path. The right choice and the right path might sound like the same thing, but I would say, our spiritual life is bound up more in the right path than right choices. Choices assume that there are a number of roads to take and we can choose one, or a few of them. When we make choices, we think we can predict what end is awaiting, what future we can expect from that one decision. Choices are made based on a predicted, or anticipated, outcome. On the other hand, the right path is more about a way of life. It comes to us more as an open question than an answer. It is a question that creates a perspective, a path, guided by the urge, intuition, wisdom, inside of us. The right path works sincerely for those who look for it, explore it, seek it, create it. The benefit is in the process, not just at the end. It’s defined from the inside, and the benefit, if it is really “right”, is for both the inside and the outside of us. 

For example, peace is the right path. Justice is the right path. Right Relations is the right path. I believe this topic of the right path is relevant to this day, Remembrance Sunday, as we commemorate those who have made sacrifices for their faith and belief. 

In today’s reading, a scribe asks Jesus “Which commandment is the first of all?”, and Jesus tells him, “Love your God. God is one. You shall love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second one is, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” The commandments are the guide to the right path of life, the right way to live life, from God, from the Spirit. The commandments are never given from the outside in, as God is not on the outside of our being, on the outside of where we are in Creation. God is all things good, all things beautiful, all things right in our heart, in our soul, in our mind and in our strength. 

The right path is revealed to us, to our understanding, in the right time, when we are led by the right question. And the right path is not just one circle around a multiple-choice question. The touchstones are: Do you feel a sense of joy? Is your spirit moving in you and do you feel alive? Have you become (more) hopeful? Have your vision and goals been expanded and broadened? Often, this spiritual journey leads us to discover forgotten and ignored aspects of our lives; they emerge and connect, linking to other parts of our lives. These new connections allow us to enter a profound awareness of who we are and who we want to be. I really like this phrase: “Then, there will be no longer any part of ourselves in exile.”

This phrase comes from the book Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations written by Richard Wagamese. Here’s the quote that follows these beautiful words: “Nothing in the Universe ever grew from the outside in.”

“I want to listen deeply enough that I hear everything and nothing at the same time and am made more by the enduring quality of my silence. 

I want to question deeply enough that I am made more, not by the answers so much as my desire to continue asking questions. 

I want to speak deeply enough that I am made more by the articulation of my truth shifting into the day’s shape. 

In this way, listening, pondering and sharing become my connection to the oneness of life, and there is no longer any part of me in exile.” 

One more quote from the same author. 

“My Spiritual Father once told me, ‘Nothing in the universe ever grew from the outside in.’ I like that. It keeps me grounded. It reminds me to be less concerned with outside answers and more focused on the questions inside. It’s the quest for those answers that will lead me to the highest possible version of myself.” 

Immanuel United Church also wants to do the same. I mean, that’s what I sense we want to do/engage to find/identify/discern/ the highest version of ourselves, as a community, as individuals. This is what we hope for ourselves and for where we belong. As I said before, the Right Path is revealed to us, in our understanding, in the right time, when we are open to be led by the right questions, when we are open to the spirit moving in us. 

Explain about the Open Questions process. 

Open question # 1: How might Immanuel encourage diversity?

Open question # 2: How can the arts provide spiritual nurture and invite participation by the community?

Open question # 3: As a church that contributed to colonization, how shall we express our commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? 

Explain our plan for November, December and January. 

I would like to conclude this reflection with one more quote from Embers, a book which has given me a very pure sense of joyful excitement; it gives comfort to my soul and illuminates my understanding of what the right path is like and how we can look for it, find it, and even walk on it. The heart of its wisdom lies in accepting the challenging task or the opportunity of discernment as a way of participating in “ceremony”. We say ‘ceremony’ because when we really need to discern the right path for ourselves, we need many people to support us: family, a community, a group of friends, to participate in our time of questions and remain open to the spirit. Immanuel’s journey on the Three Open Questions may be just like that too. It’s a community-wide call, and therefore, everyone is invited to participate, to discuss if these are right questions, asked in the right time, about how we can, then, create the right path together. 

Here’s the quote: 

Me: What is the purpose of ceremony?

OLD WOMAN: To lead you to yourself. 

ME: How?

OLD WOMAN: By giving you an idea of who you want to be and then allowing you to create the experience of being that way. 

ME: Which ceremony is the best, then?

OLD WOMAN: Life. Choose what leads you to the highest vision you can have of yourself, and then choose what allows you to express that. What you express, you experience. What you experience, you are. 

ME: How do I prepare?

OLD WOMAN: Breathe… 

So, we breathe. 

And find the truth between each word, each thought, each moment, each breath, as we follow our right path. 

Amen. 

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church