Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 17 January 2010, second Sunday after Epiphany, by the Rev. Phyllis Wong. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 36:5-10, 1 Cor 12:1-11 and John 2:1-11.


Prayer
Our God of love, may your Holy Spirit dwell in us and lead us into your truth. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

On the first Sunday of this month, Jelita had delivered a message about stewardship. I would like to follow up on this theme today by sharing about using our spirit gifts to build God’s church.

Spiritual gifts could be very diversified. They can be defined as any individual talent and ability activated by the Holy Spirit to achieve common good and bring about God’s glory. How about God’s church? In a micro and narrow sense, God’s church can be referred to a local congregation like KUC as we are right here. But from a wider sense, God’s church refers to the body of Christ. God’s church represents Christ’s presence in the world to fulfill God’s kingdom of love, justice and peace.

Using our gifts to build God’s church can go from a micro and narrow sense to a macro sense, that is from the congregation level to societal level to build God’s kingdom in the world.

The early church leader Apostle Paul had talked to the church members of the Corinthians about spiritual gifts. He taught them to use their gifts for building up the body of Christ in unity. Paul had stressed that the gifts that were used for God and beneficial to others were freely given by the Holy Spirit.

From Apostle Paul we realized that we will never lack the gift to serve God. It is because God will give his people unique gifts to serve through the Holy Spirit to manifest the common good for all. The issues of using gift to build up God’s church involve different dimensions.

First of all, do we know our gifts, our passion and our strength? If we know and recognize it we may have higher chance to use it.

The spiritual gifts mentioned by Paul were very specific. Utterance of wisdom, utterance of knowledge, healing, working of miracles, prophesy, discernment of spirits, speaking of tongues, interpretation of tongues. The gifts mentioned by Paul were needed in his socio-political and religious context.

God will give different gifts to his disciples according to the social context and situation that they are living in. When we have children and youth who need to be nurtured, a building that needs to be maintained, and poor people who require charity and so on, God will prepare people with relevant gifts to take up the jobs. Each one of us has to be sensitive to God’s calling of a special role and task.

The second element related to the use of our gifts to build God’s church is ‘how much do we care?’ Do we care for God’s Church, do we care for God’s concern?

I would like to highlight Jesus’ first miracle in Cana’s wedding for this aspect of sharing. In Cana’s wedding, Jesus performed his first miracle in his public ministry. He turned water into wine.

First of all, this miracle was initiated by Mary, Jesus’ mother. How? It was Mary who told Jesus that the wine was running out. From the text and by making references from commentary, Mary was taking an important role for helping the host to take care of this wedding celebration. She was observant and sensitive to the needs of the wedding. When she noticed that there was no wine, she immediately told Jesus about this. Her approach to Jesus for help has demonstrated her care for the couples and their family who were hosting the wedding. Mary was aware that if not enough wine is served in a feast like this in a wedding, it would be quite a shame and embarrassing to the host. The host was her good friend. The miracle started with a caring heart for friends.

When we looked at the narrative, quite to our amazement is Jesus’ initial response. The way Jesus replied to his mother was not so positive, ‘you must not tell me what to do. My time has not yet come” (Good News Bible). From the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the text is written as, “woman, what concern is that to you and to me, my hour has not yet come.” It sounds like Jesus did not want to do it. Mary’s response to the Jesus’ reply was to tell the servant to do whatever Jesus instructed them. The response of Mary revealed her total trust in Jesus. Here perhaps what we can learn from Mary is that we should have total trust and patience to Jesus Christ to work in his time. What we do is just to pray to Jesus and share our concerns in the first place.

Now let us look at the response from Jesus. Although Jesus realized that the time has not yet come, he went ahead to try out his first miracle of turning the water into wine. Why? According to the narrative, Jesus performed the miracle for revealing his glory and for his disciple to believe in him.

From a human point of view, Jesus cared for his mother. He might not want to disappoint her. Just like in the narrative when he stayed in the temple in Jerusalem, when his mother was so worried about him. Although he knew his mission, he obeyed his mother by following the parents back home.

Reveal his glory and his disciples believed in him
The author of John’s Gospel tried to let the readers know who Jesus Christ was. The Gospel of John was completed many years later after Jesus’ death. The author tried hard to bring forth the identity of Jesus Christ as the son of God. It was through him, and those who believed in him will become God’s children. By believing in Christ, God’s children will be saved. This miracle has revealed God’s glory through him in terms of his care for his mother. He cared for what his mother cared for. Secondly, he cared for his disciples. He wanted his disciples to know him more and believed in him so that they could be connected to God and be redeemed. To Jesus, to reveal his glory was not for his own sake. It was not his intention to make himself great or gain any adoration from human beings because of this super power. Caring is the essence for his performance of this miracle. Caring for his disciples and his loved ones reflected Jesus’ love to God. Jesus’ love to the whole world has further given us understanding of God’s great and steadfast love without boundary.

Caring for others is the essence of sharing our gift to build up God’s church.
If we care about something, and we care for others, we will have the power to do something great.

The third aspect of using our gifts to build God’s church is collective participation.
Definitely Jesus played a key role in the completion of this miracle. But we have to notice that without other people’s participation this miracle would not have happened. Mary, Jesus’ mother was the first one to see the need for wine. She told Jesus the wine was running out. She gave her gift of sensitivity in this miracle.

Jesus was able to turn the water into wine only when he got the water. He instructed the servants to put the water into the jar. Without the hard labor of the servants, Jesus could not perform the miracle.

Everybody takes a role and a part in completing the miracle. Equally, building God’s church requires everybody’s efforts by generously sharing their gifts with one another. To build up God’s church with success cannot just rely on the minister and a few church leaders. It must be the participation of all members of the church body.

Do the things we find right and valuable
Last Friday evening and Saturday morning, I went to the LegCo again to join the Christian organizations in the protest against the funding allocation to the Express Rail Link construction. On Friday night, some of our church leaders came to show their support. We had Jelita, the Council Chair, Bruce a Council member and MOE member, Trustee Chair Gabi, Tobias and Roy. Our presence has demonstrated our solidarity to the people who have been fighting for the interest of Hong Kong in terms of a more sustainable development that strikes a better balance between social and economic development, better use of public revenue to address the widening wealth gap, a more democratic process of decision making and for the government to listen to the public views, and so on. We were there to stand for peace and justice by following the footstep of our Lord Jesus Christ.

- The image of the young people and the protest in LegCo in the last two weeks that I personally experienced as one of the participants on site is very different from that portrayed in the media coverage.
- The young people who initiated this protest employed peaceful means through pilgrim walks and five of them even went for a hunger strike for 180 hours. What they demanded was to reclaim their rights to the decision making process of town planning in Hong Kong.
- The young people used their body, to be in touch with the earth in a humble way through the pilgrim walk. Through this holy and humble move, they wish to change the mind of the government and the LegCo members who have the power to vote and decide on the future of Hong Kong.
- Why do they want to reclaim this right? Simply because they love and care for the city of HK. They said this is their land. They care for the environment, the earth, to use the Christian point of view and the Christian language: they care so much for God’s creation.
- Besides the natural environment, they cared also for the livelihood of ordinary citizens.
- They find that the existing political systems and the decision making mechanism do not represent their views. They therefore tried something so difficult, perhaps impossible. Their commitment and courage have deeply touched many people in Hong Kong, including me. The young people are advocating for a better society with justice and compassionate love. Human beings and the earth are not just taken as tools for economic development for money generation. Apostle Paul has told us that ‘the Spirit’s presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all.’ I have witnessed how the spirit dwell upon these young people and give them various gifts to start and continue this peaceful protest for God’s creation, the environment and God’s people, especially those who have no power and are marginalized in the policy making process.
- These post-80 youth have a strong passion and care for God’s creation and God’s people. We Christian and Church should pay deep respect to them. Besides, we have a lot of to learn from them.

They are so courageous, they do what they think is right by all legal and peaceful means. They are not afraid of the authorities, they are not afraid of criticism, they are not afraid of being arrested by the police. They are right there doing something that is extremely difficult and some say impossible. But they do it for the sake of the common good. It is admirable.

From the courage and utter commitment of the young people in the anti express link protest, we realize a truth. When we care for something, we will do our best to give what we have. In addition, when we care so much we will give more than we have now. We will even go further to expand our horizon, by uplifting ourselves to something that is beyond our control. God, who is the creator of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ the founder of the church will definitely give us gifts through the Holy Spirit for achieving his will. The spirit is always right there to provide gifts and strength for us to act. This is an action for the common good and to bring glory to God.

At the end of the sermon, I would like to invite friends of KUC to engage in building God’s church through KUC. It is a time for you to put your faith in action. To respond to the love and calling of God, please fill in the stewardship pledge form to indicate your offering of gift to the church. There are different areas that you may get involved in. I am sure God has and will give you gifts through the Holy Spirit for his kingdom. Don’t hesitate to give for God will provide. In Jesus Christ, we are able to experience miracles. The church needs you and God is waiting for you.

The form can be taken from the table at the church entrance and a box to collect the filled forms is placed on the same table. May God give you the courage to act. God bless you!