Monday, July 28, 2008

Hope springs eternal

Romans 8:18-25

This past week the theme “In Christ we can” has been studied, lived, shouted, sang and prayed about. In Christ, we can, is the Christian message of hope for today and always.


It is said, Beethoven nearly lost his mind, when he learned he was turning deaf. He went into depression, but then he realized, what use was there in being depressed? Finally he gathered the strength to write music despite deafness. To everyone’s amazement, he wrote some of his greatest music even if he would never hear a single note of it. He discovered an advantage in being deaf. With all distractions shut out, melodies flooded in on him as fast as his pen could write them down. The loss of hearing, became a source of hope.
It is said, early Christians sang hymns as they were led to be fed to the lions in the Roman arena.
 Sometimes hope is all we’ve got. When you take away that hope, people go crazy. Remember how the families of those who were lost in the sinking of Princess of the Stars, waiting for the promised delivery of survivors? They went berserk when Sulpicio Lines failed to deliver even dead bodies? If you take the hope away from a person, he will surely prefer to die. We’ve seen it happen to Romeo and Juliet took their lives, because their parents blocked their hope. We cant live without hope.
 Paul observed “The whole Creation has been groaning in despair, and we ourselves groan inwardly, as we wait for redemption, for in this hope, we are saved.” Rom 8:22-24.
We struggle against hopelessness in the world. We adapt, we change, we innovate, to have hope. When gasoline prices go up to unprecedented levels, people get angry, but while no one can seem to do anything about oil corporations, people are beginning to invest in alternative forms of energy.
 In our personal lives there is pain as well. We get sick. We manage our pain, and deal with healing and re-growth. We endure emotional turmoil when we lose a loved one or when we fail. But in our community, we pray for each other, visit each other, we find hope. On the national level, the national economy has been derelict for some time, people have gone abroad to search for jobs. Now dollar remittances from OFWs, are keeping us afloat. There are others now working for a method of using those remittances as alternative investments that create jobs so that forced migration is somehow mitigated. Hope springs eternal.
Paul is concerned both in the eternal and the present. He articulates the ultimate hope, “Don’t forget, there will be a time when there won’t be any more struggles, pain, death or tears. For those who are in Christ, there will be only joy and happiness.”

This world is subject to the second law of thermodynamics. That law states that everything in this universe is decaying. What seems fresh and new one day will some day be old and broken down. Something that is growing and vibrant will some day shrivel up and die. To use Paul’s language, this world is in “bondage to decay.”
On the other hand, he is concerned with expressing our faith & hope today. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, praise worthy, think of these things. Do these and the peace of God will be with you. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. This is where our hope lies.
Jesus preached a lot about the hopeful kingdom in parables. The kingdom of hope is like a man who sowed good seeds in a field. His enemy sowed weeds among the wheat to destroy the crop. Still the master took measures to preserve the wheat.
The Kingdom of hope is like a mustard seed that is sown in the field. It is the smallest of seeds, but when it becomes a tree, birds nestle in its great branches.
The kingdom of hope is like leaven that is hid in three measures of flour, till it has grown and become bread.
 In the midst of hopelessness, the message is — there is hope of a new day. A seed must die and fall, before it can bring new life. Hopelessness and hope are part of a continuum.
I have heard people groan loudly because of the pain in their bodies. But I have heard people groan inwardly too, inaudible groan, an internal groan, a longing for relief. The groan occurs when we recognize that “what is” is so far away from what ought to be.
Every one of us has been there. When we experience the decaying process, we let out a groan. When someone we love does something we wish they wouldn’t have, we groan in frustration. We grown out of pity. But Paul says that groaning is a sign of our hope. We are longing for something better. And if we are in Christ, we have the promise that there is something better! So as we groan, we remember our hope. Some day things will be better. We have hope! And that hope for the future can and should affect our present disposition. (Pause)

Our hope is greater than the world we live in. We need to live in the Spirit rather than the flesh, we need to be in touch with an eternal perspective on life that is greater than this world. If we are in Christ, we have an eternal sense of hopefulness. For us, there is no such thing as a hopeless situation.
 Paul’s not saying that we should just deny the reality of pain and trouble in this world because it’s not real. That’s not it at all. This world does hurt, it is frustrating and painful, and we shouldn’t deny the pain. But we cannot let the hopelessness get us down. For the Christian, who has entrusted God with his/her life, there is always reason for hope, both in this life and in the life to come!

1. Our hope is in a new world. Fulfillment of our needs can give us some hope. But we know in the end, the physical things that keep us up, even our bodies, will go to its natural course. There is no long term hope there.
When we place our hope in God, we don’t try to satisfy our groanings with the things of this world. In hope, we anticipate that God will satisfy us in ways that cannot be understood in this life.

2. Our hope turns our eyes away from our pain to God. A woman lost a loved one and all purpose in life. She was committed to an institution. She stared into space, talked to no one and was in another world perhaps to forget her pain. One day, a doctor came to her room and said “Good morning, my name is Dr. Haven, this is the day that the Lord has made.” At first the woman paid no attention as the doctor talked on. As the doctor finally took his leave, the woman asked “What was your name again?” And that was the beginning of her recovery. In a month’s time, she found something in this reality to live for.

The good news is that in Christ we live in a constant state of hope. The hopelessnes of this world will give way to the kingdom of hope. The promise from the Bible is that in that time Christ will dry all our tears. That hope infuses us now with the ability to turn our eyes away from our pain to God’s glory. The good news is that Hope springs eternal. In Christ, we can have hope.

(Sermon delivered July 20, 2008 Silliman Church)

Posted by Pastor Noel at 03:20:02 | Permalink | Comments (2)

HEAVY BURDEN

Matthew 11:25-30  

Someone has said:

Pain is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, his submission to the will of God, and, for the spectators, the compassion aroused and the acts of mercy to which it leads.  It is the same with death, sorrow, loneliness, separation, failure. All of these burdens, lead us to God, and for the spectators, compassion is aroused and acts of mercy follow.
 Today all of us have some sort of burden to bear, some sort of problem we passionately carry with us. Big problems like global warming; the culture of corruption; imbalance in international trade relations; investment climate that discriminates on small enterprises. There are day to day burdens like, rising gasoline prices, higher price of rice. Someone is burdened by the death of a brother. Some are burdened by their health. Others by broken family relations; others still by financial loss.
Our text today is well known for its soothing assurance that lifts this burden from us. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Our world is full of tension and stress and our burdens are often very heavy to carry. Have we not all been torn by the questions — should I work abroad, leave my family behind? Should I break the heart of someone who loves me, for a selfish reason? Should I continue to carry the burden of a bad habit or obsession, burden of guilt, conflicting loyalties, burden of responsibilities? Life is truly burdensome and sometimes we can’t handle it anymore.

To all of us, Jesus calls, “come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
 God knows that everyone has difficulties in life. After all he lived with us as a human being once. Life is not easy because we live in a world that is ruled by laws – the law of competition, law of survival of the fittest, law of diminishing returns, law of supply and demand, in an urban and industrial setting.
What these laws tell us is we have to take care of ourselves, for as long as our bodies hold out, against the rest of humanity. Our productive lives average 40 years. You enter the labor force at 20, you retire at 60.
 The compulsion to be competitive and productive during those 40 years is intense, a kind of idolatry. We go at break neck speed. We acquire as much as we can, as fast as we can.
 That obsessive compulsive need to acquire and achieve, while it may give us possessions and honor, are liable to destroy our relationship with nature, with other persons, and with God. And we pile up weights we carry through life. We load ourselves with guilt, failures, stress, broken relationships, that take a toll on our bodies, minds &  souls.
 But Jesus says he will help us, he will walk besides us, he will help us carry our load.
Jesus explains how he lifts ours burdens through an illustration. He says that the yoke is used so the oxen can carry or pull a weight. He puts the heavy part of the yoke on the stronger oxen, and the lighter part on the oxen that is not as strong.
His yoke is made like that, the heavy yoke is upon his shoulder, and the lighter yoke is upon ours. Our father bears most of the weight of our problems; our guilt in life, our sins.
As a student Clinical Pastoral intern, I was once called to the hospital to help a distraught woman, who cried all night as the doctors battled to save her baby, from pneumonia. We prayed to God, that the baby might be saved. We prayed to God that the woman would have strength to endure seeing her baby’s chest heaving as she struggled for air, even as plastic tubes were inserted through her nose and mouth. It was a hellish midnight to dawn, punctuated by the rasping breath of the baby and the mothers wailing.
Finally, at dawn the baby died. The mother sobered up and confessed it was her fault. She had purposely delayed bringing the child to the hospital in anger at her irresponsible and two-timing husband, who did not care for their baby. She sought to hurt her husband by risking the baby’s death. Instead, she tortured herself with guilt which she thought would haunt her all her life. She asked the Pastors, could God ever forgive her?
I remember thinking, it would be cheap grace if God would forgive you now. She carried that heavy burden of guilt for years. Years later I met the mother again. She had annulled her marriage and re-married. She had another child. She had become a born-again Christian. And this time, she and her husband were so responsible for their child.
Jesus had forgiven her and had lifted her burden from her shoulders. Through caring members of the church, he had helped carry her guilt and had given her another chance in life.
 Over the years as I visited members of different congregations, I have come to know true life stories, and I can appreciate even more the work of God in everyone. We all need to hear over and over again that we are loved, we are not alone in this world. We do have someone to share our burdens with, we have someone who truly cares for us. That someone is Jesus. He says come. He invites each one of us, Come to the Lord, come to him with your cares, come to him with your problems, come to him with all the burdens of life and he will help you carry them. In May, the university had a burden about a possible decrease of enrolment, following the rice crisis, and higher gas prices. We prayed for relief. Pres. Malayang called for faculty to accept a higher capacity of students per classroom, otherwise, we could incur huge deficits. The SBE lifted our burdens by increasing their number of pupils per classroom. SU is the only school that increased enrolment in Dumaguete this June.
And this is the point. Burdens have a purpose. They lead us to God. And they lead others to compassion and acts of mercy. Have your burdens led you closer to God? And have the burdens of others led you to compassion and acts of mercy? The mother who grievously sinned because of anger, did she come to Jesus? Yes. And was her burden lifted? Yes. But it was the Body of Christ, the fellowship of believers, individuals acting in the name of Christ, who helped her carry her burden. It was SBE that lifted the burden of the whole SU.
We need to listen to one another, to share each other’s brokenness, to walk with each other and share God’s love to make each others burdens lighter. We are called together as the body of Christ, to share with each other, the hurts, the heartaches, the problems of life.

Jesus indeed helps us carry our burdens, through forgiveness and removing our guilt, but he also commands us to love our neighbors, help others carry their burdens. We are called to share our faith in Jesus. We are called to love and carry each other’s heavy burdens.

Posted by Pastor Noel at 03:16:29 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Parable of the Pearl

Mat. 13:31-42
The 7 parables in ch. 13 begin with — “the kingdom of heaven is like…”   a teacher’s lesson plan for the kingdom of heaven. These are the parables of the sower and the seed; the tares and wheat; the mustard seed, the yeast and the flour; the man who dug a treasure; the merchant and the pearl; and the fish net. Because treasure hunting at Guy Hall is hot, let me start with the Parable of treasure.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matt 13:44).

Palestine in Jesus time was like Silliman in 1946. Japanese treasures more precisely war booty, apart from ordinance, were being buried along escape routes. It appears now some people believe they hid some treasure under Guy Hall. So far, nothing. In Palestine as in Silliman it was to protect robbers and wealthy owners from losing their wealth against invading armies.

When the owner of buried treasures was forcefully driven from the land, his treasure would be lost forever unless someone discovered it. So, in Palestine , it was common for a person plowing or digging in a field to accidentally dig up a treasure. But, seriously the main point of the parable is, the man found something so valuable that he sold everything he owned to get it. He was so happy about the treasure that he was willing to sell everything in order to buy it.

Similarly,“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found 1 pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (13:45).
A merchant buys things wholesale and sells them to a retailer. He is looking for beautiful pearls. Pearls were perceived in the first century in much the same way we view diamonds today. They were the most valuable gem in the world at that time. If you owned a pearl, you were royal.

The fine quality pearls are obtained from the pearl oyster. Since that oyster thrives at an average depth of 40 feet, it takes a diver to find it. A pearl isn’t a treasure you just stumble across as you walk along a beach.

A pearl diver would tie a large rock to his body and jump over the side of a little boat, allowing the weight of the rock to carry him down to the oyster beds. He risked many dangers in scouring the mud for oysters. The diver had to hold his breath and hope there were no sharks. Then, chances of finding pearl among oysters 1:1k.
 So this parable describes a man who goes around looking for beautiful pearls. Then when he finds the most beautiful pearl he has ever seen, he sells everything he has to obtain it for himself.

What do these 2 parables teach us? They teach us about the incomparable value, excitement of God’s kingdom, and of the church which is called its first fruits. The irony of it is it is already here, people see it with their eyes, but they do not experience God’s presence there. They can listen to its music and to the word proclaimed, but they do not hear its message. The heart is not ready for the reality of God’s rule because He is an inconvenient truth. If Jesus was beside you now, you probably wouldn’t be comfortable. Would you invite him to your home or the dorm? Would you welcome his absolute Lordship? Would you treasure his words?
The kingdom of God is at hand, Jesus inaugurated it! But like the parable of the sower says, the kingdom, the Word of God falls on the wayside and is trampled under foot. Some of the Words fall on rocky ground, where there is some hope, but when the sun rises, the seed doesn’t endure, it has no roots. Some of the Words fall among the thorns and are choked by it. But some fall on good soil, and the kingdom grows. Only when our hearts are ready can the Word of God bear fruit in our lives. Do we treasure the seed of the kingdom?
The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast are similar in intent. They remind us not to overlook the small, insignificant signs of the power of God – the smallest of seeds becomes a huge tree, and the yeast dissolves in order to make the bread rise. It tells of God’s unseen power surprising, miraculously transforming the earth! Do you discern God’s action in the world? Can you see God moving like a tiny stream but mightily in the world today?
Finally, the parables of the tares and wheat and the fishing net, are a warning. A man sowed wheat. At night his enemy sowed tares weeds. If the weeds are removed, some wheat may be sacrificed. The master allows the weeds to grow but takes them out and burns them just before the harvest of wheat. Likewise, the fishnet catches fish. Afterwards the good fish are put in a bucket, and the bad fish are taken away to be burned. Gnashing of teeth. This tells us that in the kingdom there will be a day of judgment. And the question for us then will be, are we ready for the day of accounting?
In 3 verses 9, 14, 43 there’s a warning with the words, those who have eyes, let them see; those who have ears let them hear! You know why? Because even when confronted by the truth, people deny the truth of God! They deny and reject the Kingdom of God that is here and now. Fairy tale. God is at work now! In unexpected places! Among people we often do not recognize. We are often insensitive to its growth, it is small but has surprising life changing power.
The 3 most important questions for us today are, have you seen the work of God’s kingdom today? Have you seen love shown? Have you seen care for nature? The poor? Humility? Forgiveness. Do you have eyes that see? Ears that hear? If you have, how valuable is that kingdom to you? Do you support it with all you’ve got? Are you willing to pay the cost? The man who of the treasure, the merchant of the pearl, sold everything they owned, to be in the kingdom.
Are we willing to pay the cost of being a follower of Christ? John Calvin said: “the Gospel is not valuable, unless we prefer it to all the riches, pleasures, honors, and advantages of the world, and to such an extent, that we are satisfied with the spiritual blessings which it promises, and throw aside every thing that would keep us from enjoying them.”
This afternoon, for you to know the joy of God’s kingdom, you must give up everything. “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Luke 9:23-24).

The kingdom of God is truly hidden treasure to those whose eyes are open but cannot see, a precious pearl that is unattainable for those who are not willing to surrender everything for it. But the kingdom is here. It is being offered today. Is that kingdom valuable to you? Are you willing to surrender, everything to be a part of it? Those who have eyes let them see. Those who have ears, let them hear!

(Sermon delivered July 27, 2008 Silliman church)

Posted by Pastor Noel at 03:12:51 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Youth Corner

Dorm-to-dorm Campaign/Joint devotion: June 24 – July 30

Project Blessing “Pospas alang sa Kabataan”: Every Sunday, 9AM, Brgy Looc Basketball court
An on-going mission and outreach program of the youth envisioned to provide “food for the hungry; care of the needy; and empowering the community.”

Mid-week Worship Service: Every Wednesday, 7PM, S.U. Church

www.youthworship: Every Sunday, 5:30PM, Udarbe Memory Chapel or Church Lawn
a contemporary worship aimed at welcoming the youth and students to worship God, share the Word through songs, testimonies, and meditation, and to witness through prayer and loving one another in Jesus Christ.

Eagle Habits: Every Friday, 7PM, S.U. Church Catacombs
This is an avenue for equipping, nurturing and inspiration for HABITS 203 facilitators and youth leaders. HABITS 203 is a small Bible study group (3-7 members) aimed at developing the following habits: H-ang out with God in prayer; A-ccountability with each other; B-ible study; I-nvolvement with the church; T-reasure or tithe giving; and, S-service to others.

Why 203? It is a reminder of what Jesus promised – “…for where two or three are gathered in my Name, there I am in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Catacombs Special: Every Friday, 8PM, S.U. Church Catacombs
A weekly evening event of inspirational praise songs and music, reflections through poems and expression of faith through one’s talent.

Posted by Pastor Noel at 08:03:24 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

UCLEW Activities


Left, members of the J2MAD Band together with Kuya Oyen and some CYF members pose after performing at the Friday Night Acoustics. Right, students put finishing touches to their chalk drawing.
Posted by Pastor Noel at 07:59:59 | Permalink | Comments (1) »