Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 19 March 2023, by Aime Girimana. The scripture readings that day were John 9:1-41.

NO CONDEMNATION IN GOD!

I can bear all kinds of pains, whether it is physical or mental pains. So I always choose to be fine!

For those who are aware of my situation, you know what I am talking about.

The only situation where I hardly bear my feeling is to hear people's comments/condemnations about my personal life.

I am not pointing at comments about my professional performance because I know I am not perfect, so those comments are fine to me because they can help me to improve my work.

Here I am talking about comments on my personal life from people who have no idea why and how I found myself in this kind of condition. 

Back to our bible reading today, there are many people in need, like the blind man, who are victims of such kinds of comments/condemnations.

 Thus, such practices are very dangerous because someone in need may miss the opportunity to get help or even discourage people who want to offer help.

You know, for a human being, after receiving false information, it is easy for a potential healer/giver to say, why should I help? Simply and politely, you say, I am sorry, I understand your situation, but I am not able to help. 

 

Unfortunately, those kinds of comments/condemnations may come from us Christians, and today Gospel reading, we know that those negative comments may even come from Jesus' Disciples.

 1 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind."

Sickness or disability are not necessarily the result of someone's sin. 

Everything happens for a purpose. God may use sickness, disability, pains and sufferings to reveal God's mighty power "…… he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him".

Human being's judgment standard: condemnation "because of his sin or his parent's sin" How a man born blind could commit a sin? That was not likely possible; the disciples knew it, but still, they insisted on condemning him or his parents.

At the end of the day, a Human being's standard is all about oneself. I deserve more than he/she does. I am better than him/her. My mistake is lesser than his/hers. His/her sin is bigger than mine. 

Human condemnation goes beyond that, and here we see that condemnation was also addressed to both the healed and the healer/ receiver /giver. 

1. God's judgment's standard: No condemnation

Does this mean that we are free to commit sins? The answer is a big NOOOOOO! 

Isaiah 1:15-16 "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you;

 even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!.....learn to do right, seek justice, plead for the oppressed, the fatherless, widow."

Though human beings treat their sin as smaller than others' sins, it is not the case in God's eyes; there is no smaller or bigger sin. We sin by action or omission. 

God's judgement: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him". 

In the season of Lent, we should remember that it's a journey leading to this very truth "No Condemnation in God". Instead, all the way to calvary, he will bear our sins on our behalf and set us free because he knows our particular needs.  

1. God knows each one's particular needs. 

In addition to the healed blind man story, I will encourage you to read King David's story. He is one of the witnesses of the fact that God knows our needs in all circumstances (Ps 23). He is able to transform someone's life "from mess to messenger". 

                       -Jesus took the initiative. When Jesus saw the blind man, he came to him; the blind man did not come to Jesus or call him he didn't ask for anything from Jesus: "………, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes".

 At this stage, the blind man didn't know what was going on, and he seemed to know very little about Jesus.

                       -In his time, not our time: Jesus took the initiative to heal the blind man straight away and on the Sabbath day to challenge the law and tradition. To reveal that God's work happens whenever and wherever needed.  

                      -Using any means, sometimes using things which do not make sense to professionals.

Jesus performed many miracles, and he used different methods of healing in each case. 

For example, in Mark 8: 23-25, Jesus healed another blind man. There was a demand from people, and Jesus did perform sight healing action and follow up "He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Can you see anything?" 24 And the man looked up and said, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking." 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 

In today's case, Jesus used saliva as in Mark's gospel case plus mud, there was no demand, he took the initiative, and he didn't do any follow-up. In other words, the born blind man's healing is not about the method but about God's power. 

                         -Jesus expects us to take action. In this context, Jesus did not promise the blind man that he would gain his sight if he washed in the Pool of Siloam (7), but he simply asks the man to take action. Meaning that he would gain his sight only if he did what Jesus told him to do. Sometimes, we do receive only some guidance from God; what we need to do is only to obey.

The blind man responded with faith-filled action. The healing would not happen unless the man responded with those faith-filled, obedient actions.

The blind man had to find his way down to the pool of Siloam and down its steps to the pool itself; imagine a blind man walking with mud in his eyes! "He went and washed". 

That is the faith and obedience you and I should have.

By doing so, God is able to perform a transformation of your life, just as you are, so significantly that many will find it hard to believe. Because there is no condemnation in God. 

Miracles will happen in your life to the point that everyone who sees it will be full of questions about how it happened.

We were told that even religious leaders reached the point that they had doubts and disagreements on Jesus, and they decided to approach the healed man. They thought they would get more information regarding Jesus, which meant the healer.

A poor blind man who didn't have that much knowledge about Jesus: all he knew was that Jesus was his name "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash".

1. Lesson to learn. 

                   -Full trust in God.

Some people refuse to commit themselves to Christ out of fear of losing this or that favor or fear of how others might react. The blind man and his family were afraid of being kicked out of the synagogue (22). 

Some people do not know how to put their trust in the Lord.

Are you afraid of committing yourself to God because of rejection? The assurance has been given to you and me as long as you believe in him. (35-38) Jesus then made his to meet the healed man and receive him. It hurts to be rejected by others, but God has consolation for us in Jesus Christ.

 "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. 'Tell me so that I may believe in him.' Jesus said, 'You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.' Then the man said, 'Lord, I believe,' and he worshipped him." (35-38)

Today you were asked the same question, what should be your answer?

In this case, we have a clear message that we shouldn't base our faith on our personal experience with God; we should also base it upon God's trust. Our experience of God's work in our life, being able to proclaim loudly, "I was blind now I see" is important because it is a plus to strengthen our faith and the faith of others, but we should also trust God on what he can do. Just go and wash without any promise of gaining his sight.  

                       -Give glory to God through Jesus by becoming and making his disciples.

But most importantly, following God's work in our lives, I wish everyone should use this powerful statement to ask others this question: Do you also want to become His disciples? Meaning that the healed man proclaimed himself to be a disciple of Jesus, and he then called the religious leader to do so.

Do not be afraid; once you declare your loyalty to Jesus by not denying him before the hostilities, he will reveal more of himself to you (You have both seen Him, and He is talking with you).

Jesus will allow you to endure persecution and rejection once you get greater knowledge of him.

 "You feel rejected from the synagogue like the blind man", Jesus is telling you today, "I will receive you as you are", no matter what your background, character or sickness are because there is no condemnation in God.

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 12 March 2023, by Hope Antone. The scripture readings that day were Exodus 17:1-7, John 4:5-42.

To Thirst

Have you ever found yourself in a situation of deep thirsting for water? Hiking is probably one activity that makes one thirst for water. I remember drinking my bottled water during hiking because I was sweating a lot. Drinking water was also a way to lighten the load off my backpack. 

 

I have also experienced being dehydrated while working in my air conditioned office. It happened when I buried myself in work that I forgot to replenish myself with water.  Headache was my biggest warning to stop and drink some precious water. And that physical water was like a healing and soothing drink.  

 

In our time and context, water is so accessible that we probably take its value for granted. But there are communities in certain parts of the world that have no access to clean water. I don’t think Jesus would dismiss their need for clean water in order to push for a more “important” option, i.e., the “living water.” 

 

Some scholars explained that the reference to living water could be a play on words in Greek. ‘Living water’ was often used to refer to fresh and flowing water, as opposed to stagnant water like the Dead Sea. ‘Living water’ is often shown to be synonymous to a spiritual well that never runs dry. It was a clear contrast to Jacob’s well which was known to run dry during the months with no rain.  

 

The Old Testament reading (Exodus 17:1-7) described how God provided water to the Israelites who complained against Moses for taking them out of Egypt where they had water all year round. Water is God’s important provision to sustain life. 

 

Our dualistic mindsets may make us want to choose between the physical water, represented by Jacob’s well, and the living water, symbolized by Jesus’ offer. But in fact, both are important for life to thrive. I therefore propose that Jesus’ encounter with the woman from Samaria is an affirmation of the importance of both the sustaining physical water and the living spiritual water. 

 

Human as he was, Jesus was thirsty for physical water when he sat by Jacob’s well and asked the woman from Samaria for a drink. And that was a big No No. No Jewish male would speak to a woman in public space. No Jew would ask for a drink from a Samaritan. But Jesus was thirsty, and there was a well, and a woman with a jar. Later at his crucifixion Jesus uttered, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28), for which he was given not water but sour wine.   

 

What did Jesus mean when he shifted the topic from physical drinking water to spiritual living water? 

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)

 

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

 

I think the person and communal contexts of the Samaritan woman could help us find the answer. 

 

As a woman of her time, she was not only nameless, but her identity was reduced through markers of exclusion and marginality. Her gender was a painful reminder that her legal status in society depended on having a male person in her life. Her condition – i.e., having five husbands and being with someone who was not her husband – could mean her being trapped in a levirate marriage. The levirate practice provided the duty of a man to marry the sonless widow of his deceased brother. It was to ensure the widow’s access to legal status in society. But it’s possible that some men did not even wish to fulfill the marriage obligation. That Jesus did not say to her, “Go and sin no more,” may indicate that he did not find her marital status an issue. Perhaps he understood her being a victim of the social system that commodified woman by having to belong to a man.

 

As a woman from Samaria, she knew the boundaries that kept her community separate from the Jewish people. She knew the history that kept them at odds with each other. Every day she drew water from Jacob’s well, which may have been beloved by some in her community but was also a painful reminder of their outcast status as a mixed ethnicity. It is not clear why the name was changed from Shechem in the Old Testament to Sychar in the gospel, but according to some Bible scholars, Sychar may derive from the Hebrew word for ‘drunkard.’ 

 

Given the rich symbolisms in the fourth gospel, some Bible scholars have suggested that the Samaritan woman’s “five husbands” might be a reference to people from the five foreign nations who were brought as colonists by the Assyrians when they conquered the region in 721 B.C.E. (2 Kings 17:24). If that was so, then Jesus brought up the issue to highlight imperialism and colonization as the cause of the Samaritans’ mixed race and culture through no fault of their own. 

   

What all this means is that Jesus knew the woman had much deeper needs, greater thirsting or longing than just for the drinking water from the well. Could Jesus’ offer of the living water then be a way of disturbing the woman’s acceptance of or resignation to her situation? Could it be an offer of a way out of such a situation that rendered her a non-person?  

 

Realizing that he must be a prophet, she ventured into a theological discussion on worship in view of the claims by the two communities on their so-called places of worship. The Samaritans focused their worship on Mt. Gerizim while the Jews focused their worship in Jerusalem. Jesus then described true worship as transcending geographical locations and ethnic differences: “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Indeed, true worship transcends any exclusionary zones such as gender, ethnicity, geography, religion, and conventional morality often contained in traditions, beliefs and practices. 

 

Jesus’ offer of the living water restored the Samaritan woman’s sense of value as a human being. The living water which she received from Jesus began to quench her deepest thirst for affirmation, dignity and security as a child of God. As that living water became a spring gushing to eternal life, she left behind her water jar to go into the city, to testify to others about Jesus as the Messiah, and to invite them to come and encounter Jesus personally. The physical water sustained her life but the living water gave her a new purpose in living.

 

In his book, Thirsting for Living Water (published in 2021), Michael J. Mantel narrates his journey as a young executive who left a promising job/position to pursue the adventure in faith of providing both clean drinking water and the living water of Jesus in various parts of the world. I just came across a review of this book and it’s heartwarming to know that some people felt the need to provide both drinking water and the living water of Jesus in places of great need.   

 

During this Lenten journey of “reclaiming wilderness,” let us be grateful for both the physical drinking water and the spiritual living water which we need and have access to. To thirst for physical water is necessary in order to sustain human life. To thirst for the spiritual living water is needed to sustain a deeper meaning and a higher purpose in living. 

 

Like the Samaritan woman, may we be ready to testify to the source of sustaining and life-giving water.  

 

Living Water, fill our cup, quench our thirst, nourish our roots, and help us grow. Amen.

 

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 05 March 2023, by Rev. Judy Chan. The scripture readings that day were Genesis 12:1-4a, John 3:1-17.

Today’s Gospel reading needs no introduction. It’s very well-known, including perhaps the most quoted verse in the New Testament – John 3:16. Yet, on International Women’s Sunday, I was drawn to another famous theme from the 3^rd chapter of John – being ‘born again’. Some translations of the Greek say ‘born anew’ or as we heard this morning ‘born from above’. They’re all valid translations. But somehow ‘born again’ has been the most popular especially among evangelical Christians. To the point that the phrase is used in other contexts rather different from the biblical meaning.

For example, a scientific article revealed the discovery of some very hearty spores which were called “Born Again Bacteria”. Then there’s a business that takes your old furs and makes them into teddy bears. The company’s name? You guessed it: “Born Again Bears”. And recently there’s a song called “Born Again” sung by Rihanna for the second Black Panther movie. Actually, it’s a beautiful song, but maybe what some would describe as ‘spiritual but not religious.’ It’s about staying strong in the face of heartbreaking loss. 

Born Again, Born Anew, Born from Above. I’m not going to debate which phrase is best. Because you know what’s the most amazing thing about this whole passage?  The image of childbirth itself. Yes, the experience of being born in our earthly life as the way Jesus explains our birth into eternal life. And when I say ‘eternal’ life, I don’t mean just life after death. I mean the abundant life God intends for everyone now and forever. So, for that to happen, we need to embrace childbirth and everything that comes with it. Because if we don’t appreciate the truths of our first birth, how can we understand the truths of our second birth?

Now, you may think I’m making too much of this childbirth metaphor. After all, there are lots of other images in the 3^rd chapter of John. Yes, but I can’t help thinking if Jesus had been talking to a woman, the conversation might have been different. But that’s not the story we have – Jesus is talking to a man, a learned man high up in religious circles, a man who takes the risk to seek out this remarkable rabbi to find out more. 

Preachers often make fun of Nicodemus for being so dense. “How can a grown man go back into the womb and be born a second time?” he asks. I don’t believe Nicodemus is that dumb. Jewish culture of course understood symbolic language, and Nicodemus was likely a father himself. This was just John’s way of re-telling the story to make sure you get the point. To make sure you understand that entering the Kingdom of God is just as hard and risky and miraculous as a baby being birthed from the mother’s womb. 

So, let’s take a moment to consider our earthly birth – what does it mean to be born? Who’s involved? Well, of course, there’s a baby. But we don’t just get born by ourselves, do we? For every baby who enters this world, there was a father behind the scenes and a mother on center stage. A mother hard at work, laboring through pain and tears to bring us safely to the other side. Because even with the medical advances we have today, no birth is without risk to the mother and child.  Even in the 21^st century, there’s just still so much we don’t know about childbirth. There’s still so much beyond our control and comprehension. In the end, we finally have to let go and let nature take its course. No wonder then parents everywhere call the birth of a child a miracle. 

Well, if being born the first time is so remarkable, imagine how much more so the second time. Just like natural childbirth, when we’re born anew, we aren’t the ones who make it happen. It’s the work of the Spirit. The Spirit of God laboring through blood, sweat and tears to bring us safely to the other side. For just like births from below, there are no risk-free births from above – risks for God and risks for those who undertake the perilous journey from darkness to light, from the Kingdoms of the world to the Kingdom of Heaven. And again, let me emphasize, when Jesus speaks of ‘heavenly things’, He fully intends to change our present as well as our future.

I recently had a conversation that made that crystal clear to me. I was talking with a young person, who knew I was a minister. 

He said, “Could I ask you something?”  OK.

(Him) “How do we know if we’re going to heaven?” 

(Me): “Why do you ask?” 

(Him) “Because my Christian friend told me heaven is like a VIP club.”

(Me) “Really?” 

(Him) “Yeah, not everyone’s going to get in.”

(Me) “Did he say how you get in?”

(Him) “Yeah, it’s up to someone who decides those things.”

(Me) “And who is that?”

(Him) “I’m not sure.”

Visions of St Peter at the Pearly Gates crossed my mind, but I let that go.

(Me) “Well, whoever it is, how do they decide who gets in this VIP club?

(Him) “My friend said it’s not enough to say you believe in Jesus. It depends on what you did during your life too.”

(Me) “I agree.”

(Him): “So what’s the point of religion?”

What’s the point of religion? That’s the $100,000 dollar question, isn’t it? You may have your own answer. But here’s what I think:

For me, all religions are ultimately about how to deal with suffering. Our own suffering and the suffering and evil all around us. You know what I mean. Look at the tragic state of this world! Is it fair that some people get everything they want, and some people get so little? Is it right that some people commit horrendous crimes and never get punished? That other people live innocent lives, suffer and die young? Is that all they get? Where’s the justice in that? Does God even care? 

The Gospel lesson this morning tells us God most certainly does care! That this life we were born into is not all there is. We were all meant to have love, peace and joy. And to pass it on. That’s our birthright, our destiny as a child of God. But to get there, we need a bigger miracle than our first birth. We need to be born again through the Cross of Christ. We need a heavenly wind to lift us up, to get us through this life and the next in one piece. That wind, that breath is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit that births us into a whole new world called the Kingdom of God. In short, this is our second chance at life. Will you use it or lose it?

I’d like to close with some inspiration that comes from W4W, Australia. They’re fitting words for any time of the year, but especially during this season of Lent and on International Women’s Sunday. 

Let’s pray:

We may be born again,
born into the life of the Holy Spirit of God.
From the womb of God’s love
we will emerge into the unknown
and wait in faith for what may come.
Christ’s arms will hold us like a loving mother.
As the winds of the future blow where they may,
we are called to take one step at a time
towards the will of God for us in each moment.
We may be born into life everlasting
and a grace which is eternal in the Triune God.
Come, Holy Spirit, and be with us today.
Guide us through our laboring…
and bring goodness to birth through us and within us.
Come, Holy Spirit, come. Amen.
(Source W4W 2011)  https://pilgrimwr.unitingchurch.org.au/?p=3458