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

Sermon: "Who Do You Say That I Am?" (Matthew 16:13-20), Nov 3, 2019

Sermon: Who Do You Say That I Am?

Matthew 16:13-20

Before scripture reading

Since the summer, for the sermon, I’ve tried to focus on offering more scripture-based preaching, instead of sharing more personal reflections. I LOVE exegesis, looking at scripture and how it is so relevant to us and our world, but today, I am going to get personal. Jesus says in John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

Sermon

In today’s reading, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Hearing those answers, irrelevant to him, he asks his disciples one more time, changing the question just a bit, changing people to “you”, “Who do YOU say that I am?” 

Today, I would like to share with you about identity. I will share with you about my identity, and I hope that will inspire you to think about your identity – what shaped your life, to make you the person you are today?

I was born in 1979, in Gwangju, in the southwest of South Korea. It’s a big city, the fifth biggest in Korea, and my birth came one year before the government, a military dictatorship, sent troops into Gwangju’s streets to massacre thousands of pro-democracy students who were demonstrating, in defiance of martial law. When the troops and the soldiers passed the outskirts of the city and invaded the downtown, students climbed on trucks and buses, weaponless, to fight the soldiers. Ordinary citizens went out on the streets to support them, handing out packed lunches and food. While the massacre was happening, no one outside of the city knew what was going on because all media were controlled by the government; no reporters were allowed in. Until the first truth and reconciliation commission was established twenty-five years later, in 2005, it was just known as a riot, not the Democratization Movement. (My husband told me this week that it was banned to teach about it at University in 1994. Students secretly passed on the knowledge underground.) 

As a baby, I was carried on my mom’s back when she went downtown to visit a hair salon just one day before all of these events happened. After that terrible day, I grew up with silence. No one taught the elementary school students of Gwangju what happened when they were babies. The silence was born out of fear, and the desire to avoid trouble. We grew up not knowing what had happened, but we knew the deeply shared common hope for justice and democracy. That hope lay underneath the surface of fear and obedience, but it was there. 

When the citizens of Gwangju saw a new democratic government win the election in 1993, with our leader (who was like Nelson Mandela) as the president, only then did my parents and my teachers express their extreme happiness and tears and laughter, and the whole city literally went crazy for rejoicing! 

In my city, I grew up in a new, planned community. It was very nice, living in a new, shiny place. Later I learned that my new place was someone else’s old place - those who lived in the older, poor, farming towns had to leave where they lived, to make room for the pleasant new communities. I grew up thinking that the original people who remained, living just outside the border of the newly developed area were so different from us. They were poor, and poverty was attached to negative connotations. The town outside where I lived had a big orphanage; each of the schools in the new neighbourhoods received kids from the orphanage. Each class was assigned two or three kids, as if they were so different, they had to be spread out. They often looked spiritless, lifeless. Every year, I felt sympathy for them; I wanted to get to know them and become friends.

All these experiences have remained with me. To be honest, I have just recently begun to reflect on what their influence has been on my life and my psyche that I begin to see the connections. I begin to make connections between the massacre history of my home town and the consequent stigma attached to people from Gwangju as being Red and Communist, the punishment and discrimination we had to go through, and the Metis history, here in Canada.

Historically, there were efforts to build Indigenous confederacies across Turtle Island. One of these that included the Metis, Cree, Ojibwe, and Assiniboine was called the Nehiyaw Pwat in Cree ("Iron Alliance" in English). And they made the efforts which resulted in the creation of the 5th province of Canada, Manitoba - the language used is that Metis people confederated the province, or ensured Manitoba's entry into confederation. While they were successful then, the outcome - due to racism and colonization - was ultimately the dispossession of Metis people from 1.4 million acres of land they had been promised in the Manitoba Act (1870). Many of them fled the new province they had helped create, and tried to re-establish a new homeland in what would become Saskatchewan. Metis people and the new alliance tried to confederate a 6th province but the railway had been built by then and the Canadian Government sent in 1000s of military men to defeat Indigenous resistance on the prairies. That's when the indigenous alliance lost the Northwest Resistance in 1885 and Louis Riel was hung. Since then, Metis people entered into the Forgotten Years - a period of dark repression and oppression where they were beaten, raped, evicted from their own lands, prevented from sending their children to school, or receiving health care, with extreme poverty and starvation. This lasted until the first World War but didn't really start improving in a concerted way until the 1960s.

Here in Canada, my educational background has given me some advantages, but I have struggled a lot. I have a hard time being recognized as who I am. I sometimes find myself in two different situations. Some people like to consider me as just one of them - as their regular minister. They would say, we called you, not because you are Korean but because of who you are - as someone who can be a good minister. What that means, what they are telling me is, "We would love to see you as someone like us"! OR some people have no higher expectation or interest in me because I am not of the group of people they identify with. Neither of these is good. The former is assimilation. The latter is stereotype. 

So I developed a strategy of self-identification and assertion of myself and my needs. The strategy is that I list the categories I identify with. I tell others, “As an Asian, newcomer, immigrant, queer/non-binary/woman, to whom two kids are attached and who speaks English as my second language”. So far, this has been very helpful. It’s the politics and power of critically using my positionality to reverse expectations. Before others tell you who they think you are, let them know who you really are. When I tell others that my experiences have been different because of being those categories, I keep my power because I explain my stakes in the dialogue.

In our journey of finding ourselves, our identity, all things past, all things present, all things we have not yet been, all our fears and all our dreams count. We recollect, remember, relive, reflect, and we realize all are connected. All are like stitches that are embroidered with one needle, different threads. Our identity is never fixed but is shaped and changes, challenged and develops, dismantled and gathered back all the time. Identity is at the heart of how we understand faith and practice it. 

How have you understood and worked on yours? My early experiences have shaped my heart for resistance, to feel and express anger over forced silence regardless of who experiences it, me or others. I know what it means to be silenced, to be treated as a category, and not an individual. 

Last week I was challenged when I was reading Rekindling the Sacred Fire by Chantal Fiola. She is Metis Anishinaabe-Kwe (woman) from The Red River region of Manitoba; she currently teaches Native Studies in U of W. I learned a lot of insights and historical information from her book, but what profoundly shook me were the participants’ stories in respect to identity and self-identification. For her research, Chantal interviewed 7 people with Métis ancestry, or a familial connection to the Red River Métis, who participate in Anishinaabe ceremonies.

Most participants indicated that the way they self-identify has changed as a result of following their spiritual path. Diane shares, “Rather than being just kind of like floundering out there and just looking around, swimming around, trying to find who you are; right away you just identify yourself as Anishinaabe. You’re not Metis, and you’re not White, and you’re not a Halfbreed, and you’re not a dirty Indian; you’re Anishinaabe… If you call yourself Anishinaabe, everything else that you grew up with, all those names and labels, they kind of just disappear. Because the word Anishinaabe, to me, is such a spiritual word; a name.” Lance also shared the story of how his spiritual path led him to identify as Anishinaabe. “I started self-identifying [as Anishinaabe] when I went to see an Elder in a tipi. He asked me who I was, and I said, “I’m Lance Wood.” He says, “Who do you belong to?” I says, “I’m a Métis.” He says, “You’re a Métis?” And I says, “Yes, I am a Métis.” He says, “That’s what the White people give ya; you’re Anishinaabe. Go find yourself. (…) I knew I was re-discovering myself who I was, being Anishinaabe rather than a Métis person who was labelled early on in my childhood days.”  Mike shared, “It’s made me proud to be who I am… given me that sense of pride, sense of identity, knowing that I am not alone.

After Diane’s and Lance’s stories, reading Dawnis’s story pierced me to the heart. Dawnis shares that her spiritual journey has led her to self-identify more with relationships and connection in Creation instead of fixating on a particular noun or identity category. She explains, “I’ve identified differently, not like a noun identity. The way I identify myself (and I continue to identify my connection and my relationships in Creation) is different because I am actively announcing and relating to Creation. … It’s not so much a noun-based identity, but relating.” 

Dawnis’ words helped me realize that I would also like to give more intention and love and effort, more mental, emotional and spiritual energy into building a more spiritual, beautiful, resilient identity. Too often, our individual experiences are translated into socially conventional categories. I thought that defining myself to others was better than letting them define me, but what a waste of time! Life is too short to not explore. Life is more abundant than being boxed in some conventions – even if you are the one building the box. It is wonderful to know who you are and identify yourself in “relating” to the Creation. Therefore, in relation to the air, water, land, the creation, in a more imaginative, nature based, spiritual sense of identity.

In today’s reading, by asking “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus is asking how his name is a spiritual name that is new and life-giving and freeing people from bondage and division. It is not John, it is not Elijah, it is not Jeremiah, it is not one of the prophets. It must be a spiritual name, in relation to the people who suffer in exile, to the people resisting oppression, to the people fighting the colonial ruling of the Roman Empire, much as the Anishinaabe have fought the colonial ruling of Canadian government. ‘How is my name, how is my identity, relating to the Creator’s people?’, Jesus asks of Simon son of Jonah. Simon answers, “You are the Messiah, the Child of the Living God.” Messiah, Jesus’ spiritual name. Jesus tells Simon, “I tell you, you are Peter.” Peter, Simon’s new spiritual name. Peter means the rock, the sturdy anchor that keeps the boat from unmooring, from being lost to the currents. Jesus asks us to know what it means to follow him through spiritual identity. Jesus asks us to relate to Christ “In truth and spirit”, to be anointed with the sacred oil that the Creator’s people harvest and press. Who do you say that Jesus is? Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that you are? We are shaped by our experiences, and we are crafted by God, always relating to the whole of Creation, never standing still. 

Ha Na Park

Immanuel United Church