Friday, February 17, 2012

What Matters Most?(19Feb2012)

Sharing the Presence M2 (Luke 15) 12 02 19
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu (with Sabine Lague giving testimony before the offering)
Title: What Matters Most?
Text: Luke 15
BIG IDEA: People who are lost to God’s love matter deeply to him and will matter to those of us who follow him.

Recently our three-year-old son Joey was invited to a couple of birthday parties of friends who are at his pre-school. We don’t know either of these families well, but I am acquainted with one of the moms of one of the birthday boys. Sakiko wanted me to find out what the son might want as a gift. I e-mailed her directly and asked, “What should we get your son for his birthday?” She e-mailed back and said, “I am sure he would enjoy anything that you would get him.” Sakiko said, “You shouldn’t have asked so directly.”
When I approached the second mother at a group dinner, I made the same mistake and asked, “What do you think we should get your son for his birthday?” I could see that she was demurring and Iremembered Sakiko's advice, so I said, “Oh, I should not have asked so directly. Tell me, what is your son interested in doing?” The mother said, “Well, he really likes Lego these days, so if you got him a small box of Lego he would be really happy.”
Sometimes when we are buying a gift for someone that we do not know well, it can be hard to know what they are really interested in and therefore what would be a good gift for them. Sometimes, even for people that we know quite well it can be hard to get that person a gift because they don’t have a clear passion for something, a real hobby, or something that they are really interested in.
Isn’t it great when someone tells you directly and honestly what they are passionate about?
In the pages of Scripture it is very clear what God is interested in. In the parables of Jesus that we are about to look at we are going to see what matters most to the living God.
Pray:
If you have your Bibles please turn to Luke 15:
So, here’s the context in vss. 1-2:
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law, who were these highly devout people who strictly observed the Scriptures, were muttering about Jesus because he welcomes tax collectors and sinners and eats with them. The tax collectors were seen by the Hebrew people as being traitors in bed with Rome because they would overcharge their fellow Hebrews—they could tax them at 70 or 80 percent in some cases, give Rome what was required, and pocket the rest.
In the Middle Eastern Hebrew culture of Jesus’ day for a person to eat with another was no casual thing. It signified friendship. It was a sign of acceptance.
Now, we tend to think of Pharisees today as people who are self-righteous hypocrites.
In Jesus’ day, however, the Pharisees were people who sincerely wanted to live a life that was pleasing to God. They were very bright. For the most part they were highly educated lay people. They were the respected, devout lawyers of their time. They were aware that the reason they and their people, the Hebrews, were living in a kind of exile in their own land, that is they were living in exile in the sense that they were under the foreign domination of Rome in their homeland, because, according to Deuteronomy, their people had disobeyed God and therefore they were being judged by God.
So the Pharisees were passionate about keeping the law of God as they understood it. In fact, they had atomized God’s law into 613 rules, 248 commandments, 365 prohibitions, and bolstered these rules by 1,521 emendations. For example, to avoid defiling the Sabbath, the day of rest, they outlawed 39 activities that might be considered work. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were very concerned about keeping every part of God’s Word.
The Pharisees had a practice of lowering their heads and not even looking at a woman to avoid any kind of sexual temptation. Some of the Pharisees were known as "bleeding Pharisees" because they bumped into walls and pillars while looking down.
Jesus was also passionate about keeping God’s Word, but his focus was different from the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed that keeping God’s Word meant that they would be completely separate from the sinful sinners of their world, so as not to be defiled by them. Their holiness led them to exclude the people of this world. Whereas, for Jesus, holiness, being truly set apart for God, meant he would offer God’s welcome, love, and presence to people.
He goes on to tell three stories which show us what God is most interested in—what matters most to the heart of the living God.
In each of three stories something valuable is lost.
In verse 4 Jesus says:
4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
The Parable of the Lost Coin
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
So, in the first parable, the shepherd loses something of real value to him—sheep--and searches for the sheep.
The second parable a woman loses a coin – something that's worth a day's wages and searches out the coin.
Have you ever lost something of value to you and so went on search for that thing?
The other day, I accidentally dropped $60 on the floor of IGA. After I got home I realized I had dropped it and could guess where I dropped it. I went back to the place where I dropped it and it was not there. I was feeling anxious, self-loathing – how could I be so careless? I’ve heard that if Bill Gates drops $100 bill it's not financially in his advantage to waste the energy to stoop down and pick it up. I thought I'm not Bill Gates. I was doubtful that I would find it, but still hopeful. I went to the place in the store where I thought I had dropped it. No sign of it. I went to the lost and found counter. I said I dropped three $20 bills – they were green with a picture of the Queen on any chance anyone turned it in? No sorry. I didn’t find it. (BTW, were any of you in IGA on Tuesday by chance? No—I’m done.) But the point is that for me the lost $60 was something worth searching for.
So the first two parables are about a lost sheep, and a lost coin—things that are worth searching for.
The third parable is about something that is much more valuable and therefore much more worthy of a search—Jesus tells a parable about a son who becomes lost to his father and family.
In this story, the father has two sons and the younger son approaches his father and asks if he would give him his share of the inheritance now. In the culture the younger son by asking for an inheritance was saying in effect, “I would be better off, Dad, if you were dead so I could get your money now.” The father, instead, out of love for his son sells off much of land holdings. He gives the money to his son and the younger son goes to the equivalent of Vegas and spends his money on partying, drugs, and prostitutes

As was true of the shepherd who had lost his sheep, and the woman who had lost her coin, the father who had lost his son desperately longs to find him.
Jesus’ was directing the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son at the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who are criticizing Jesus for his being friends with tax collectors and sinners.
In each of the parables, something is lost—a sheep, a coin, a son, something of great value to someone – something that is worth searching for.
A former teacher of mine, Tim Keller, in his book, The Prodigal God, points out: “There is a striking difference between the third parable and the first two. In the first two, someone goes and searches diligently for what is lost. The searchers let nothing distract them or get in their way, but in the third story, the story of the lost son, we are expecting someone to go out and search for him.” In a sense, the father looks for him, because the parable tells us that while he was still a long way off, he spots him and then sprints toward him to embrace him. It’s likely that he walks to the edge of his property each day and scans the horizon in search of his son. But beyond that, there is no active search for the lost son.
The listeners in Jesus’ day may have asked the question: “Who should have gone out and searched for the lost son?” Jesus and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law should have known the Scriptures well. They should have known that in the first book of the Bible, in Genesis, there is a story of an elder brother and a younger brother, Cain and Abel, and in that story God tells the older brother, “You are your brother’s keeper.” The older brother should have been searching for his lost brother.
Edmund Clowney tells the true story of a young person who was a North American soldier, missing in action during the Vietnam War. When the family could not get any word from the soldier through any official channel, the older son flew to Vietnam, and risking his life searched the jungles and the battlefields for his lost brother. In spite of the danger, he was never hurt because those on both sides heard of his dedication and respected his request. Some of them simply called him “the brother.”
This is what a true elder brother in the parable would have done. He would have said, “My younger brother has been a fool. Now his life is in ruins. I will go and look for him and bring him home.”
And Jesus by telling the Pharisees and the teachers of the law through these stories, and more through his own example, the Pharisees, calls those of us who claim to know the Father that we are to seek out women and men, boys and girls, who are lost to the Father’s love in some way and help them find their way home…help them find their way to the Father’s house. Lost, not in the sense that the Father does not love them, as the parable clearly shows, but lost in the sense of being disconnected from the direct experience of God's love.
As was true for Jesus, sometimes there is a cost, if we associate with people who are considered on the spiritual or moral margins of life, by other “older” brother or sister types (as in Luke 15) who are more traditional. As was true for Jesus, people who are more traditionally moral may look down on us.
Some time ago in a sermon I made a passing reference to attending a party where there was a lot of drinking for the purpose of an illustration on some something that was happening in our culture. Monday morning I received a scathing e-mail from someone that I do not know, asking how I, not just as a Christian, but as a pastor, could go to a party and enjoy spending time with such obviously disgusting depraved people. I am sure this person was very sincere to believe that true holiness means that we separate ourselves from people who are obviously sinners. But, according to Jesus, true holiness, which means being set apart for God’s purpose means that we love and embrace people that some of our brothers and sister types consider sinners. True holiness is about showing God’s mercy, love and passion to those who are lost in his love, for Jesus, as true of Sabine, it was about sharing the presence.
The names Jerry Falwell the fundamentalist Baptist pastor and Larry Flynt the publisher of the pornographic magazine, Hustler, provoke strong reactions from some people in our culture for different reasons. Both for different reasons are likely regarded as “lost.”
They were adversarial and often debated each other on shows like Larry King.


In the 1980s, Larry Flynt's pornographic magazine Hustler carried a parody advertisement of for the alcoholic beverage, featuring a fake interview with Falwell in which he admits that his "first time" was incest with his mother in an outhouse while drunk. Falwell sued for $45 million in compensation alleging invasion of privacy, libel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress
But the following story, shared by Falwell's son Jonathan, describes a moving conversation between them years ago. Jonathan traveled with his dad to Florida where the senior Falwell was debating Larry Flynt, Jonathan recalls:
Mr. Flynt asked my dad if we could give him a ride back to Lynchburg in my dad's private jet. Dad said yes so we traveled to the airport and boarded a beautiful black and gold Gulfstream III. As we flew to Virginia, I sat across from dad and Mr. Flynt as they had a long conversation about sports, food, politics and other ordinary topics. I was amazed and bewildered because they kept talking like old friends. After we dropped off Mr. Flynt in Lynchburg, I asked dad, "How come you could sit on that airplane and carry on a conversation with Larry Flynt as if you guys were lifelong buddies? Dad, he's the exact opposite of everything you believe in; he does all of the things you preach against; and yet you were treating him like a member of your own church. Why?"
Falwell turned to his son, “Jonathan,” he said, “there may be a day when Larry is hurting and I want to keep the door open on our relationship and be available to serve him if I can.”
(Perhaps Larry Flynt wanted to keep the door of friendship open to Jerry Falwells with hopes that Jerry might chill out a bit).
After the death of Falwell in 2007, Larry Flynt released a comment regarding his friendship over the years with Falwell.
"I hated everything he [Jerry Falwell] stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity.”
I know parents whose children are making lifestyle choices in relationships, drug use, or walking way from God in ways that break their heart… but, if possible, they want to maintain a relationship keep the door open.
There are important people in my own life whose views or life lifestyles are very different from my own, but I want to maintain the relationship and the connection to share God’s love, share the presence (and I find that I receive God’s blessings through people who don’t believe in God’s existence—another sermon).
One of my favourite stories at Tenth that I tell at our newcomers diner is about a woman who was walking through Stanley Park on a rainy day. She ended up running into a pimp that she knew. She began to pour out the woes of her heart to this pimp, all of her personal problems. When she took a breath about 15 minutes later, the pimp said, “I don’t think I can help you, but why don’t you try going to Tenth Church?”
God has called us to be a place of welcome for all. I love it when I hear someone from a particular lifestyle background, such as a sex trade worker, someone of a particular sexual orientation, or an atheist, feels that they wouldn't be welcome here, but the friend who brought them says, “You need to meet Ken personally, or get to know some people in our community.”
I would love this to be a community of welcome for all, including people who are lost in a scandalous way, and those who were lost in a self-righteousness way like the Pharisees.
As was true of Sabine, Jerry, many parents, and I pray me and community like Jesus we are called to love and maintain a connection with people so we can share the presence, share God’s love with them.
As we love and maintain our connections to people who are lost to the Father’s love, they make their way a little closer to God, like the shepherd in the parable, like the woman who lost the coin, like the father. We can experience joy as a person makes their way toward home.
When I was working in Japan for Sony in Tokyo, I began to preach from time to time at my small church. The pastor was eighty years old and was looking for someone to pinch-hit for him from time to time. As I anticipated one day going to seminary and entering vocational ministry, I eagerly volunteered for this opportunity. My grandmother in Tokyo heard a rumor that I was preaching. She was both intrigued and amused. She remembered me as a little brat whose favorite book was the Sears Christmas catalog and she recalled I used to always ask her, “Grandma, how can I be rich when I grow up?” More out of curiosity than anything else she decided she would come and hear me preach…. She had not been to church in over two decades. On a cold, wet February morning she rode the Tokyo subway and buses for over an hour to come to our church.

She sat in the second to the back row on the right hand side of our small chapel… I got up and I gave a short message on the work of the cross from Galatians, Chapter 2, and sat down. The 80- year-old pastor came up to the podium and said, “Brother Shigematsu… after that kind of message, you should have given an invitation.” He continued, “Come up here and give an invitation…”

I was unprepared… embarrassed… The mood in the little chapel grew tense… and awkward… but I had recently watched Billy Graham… on video… so I just plagiarized him… I said, “If you are here and don’t know Christ, if you need to make your commitment or re-commitment to Christ, I want you to stand up and come… by coming you’re saying in your heart, ‘I commit myself to Jesus’.”

As we sang the closing hymn I looked up after the first stanza, no one was coming… my heart was sinking. We sang the second stanza… no one moving. After the third stanza, one woman began to move her way to the aisle and came… We sang the final stanza, I closed the hymnal. I looked up and there were 17-18… people. My grandmother was among them….

With tears streaming down her face, she said, “This is the happiest day of my life.
I thought I was a Christian, but today for the first time, I understood why Jesus Christ died on the cross for me.”

I often think of that day—one of the great days of my life, because it was the day my grandmother experienced peace with God.

Even one of my sisters who is an agnostic, said “This alone made your two years in Japan worth it.”

When we welcome someone in our lives, love them, share the presence, and point them to Christ, it may be not our grandmother, but it may be somebody’s grandmother, somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s dad…somebody’s “person.”

When we see a son or a daughter who is lost to the living God experience home-coming, not only is it a gift to them, but it is a gift to God. Because what matters most to God are his sons and daughters, and when they come home, like a shepherd who finds his lost sheep, like a woman who finds a lost coin, like a mom who finds a lost daughter, he throws a party in heaven.
Prayer…
If you are here and are lost to the Father’s love, please know that he and Jesus, your true elder brother, welcome you home.
Receive his love and a new beginning.
And if you know the Father’s Love, is there someone with whom you can share this love…someone you can pray for?

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Chosen(2012Feb 05)

Series: Sharing the Presence M1 02 05 12
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Chosen
Text: Genesis 12:1-3; Isaiah 49:6
BIG IDEA: You are chosen to serve as an instrument of restoration in the world.
Some years ago my wife and I were in Rome.
As we walked through the cathedrals of Rome, we noticed that some art, like the portrait of the Christ, had been compromised in its detail over time.

(keep this image of Christ until I speak about walking through Rome at night)
One evening we were out walking and we saw the old Roman coliseum in the distance.


The Forum:

(Note: Keep this image of the forum up over the highlighted section)
As a thought about the damaged frescoes, the old Roman Coliseum, the old forum a number of the arches, I thought, “What magnificent ruins!”
Like the old remains of ancient Rome, something can be both magnificent and a ruin at the same time.
In a way, our world is a kind of magnificent ruin.
We human beings have been made in the image of God. Our bodies and souls have been magnificently made by a master artist. We have the capacity for creativity, compassion, courage.
We are magnificent! But we are also marred. We can be self-absorbed, self-serving, spiteful.
We human beings and our world--like ancient Rome--are a magnificent ruin. When our forebears, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden turned away from God, the source of all that is good, true, and beautiful, a crack was opened for the sin virus to enter the world, a virus which causes us to experience alienation from our Maker, ourselves and each other.
From the beginning of time the living God has had a vision to restore the magnificent ruin of our world. One of the clearest ways that God began to restore the magnificent ruin of our world was by calling the Middle Eastern nomad named Abram (his name changed later to Abraham) and his wife Sarah 4000 years ago. He called them to leave their country, their household and people and go into an unknown land. As they followed God’s path, he would make them into a family that would bring blessing for the whole world.
And as we will see, whether we are of French or Japanese, Chinese, African or First Nations ancestry, God invites us to become part of Abraham’s family so that we will be a blessing to the world.
So please listen to this text because it is as much about you as it is about Abraham and Sarah.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Genesis, Chapter 12:1-3:
1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
So, God says to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and I will make your name great. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Then, after he promises to make him a great nation, God says to Abraham, “Look up into the sky and count the stars you if you can. That is how many descendants you will have” (Genesis. 15:5).
God makes a staggering promise to Abraham and Sarah, telling them that through them and their offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed. But they wondered, “How could that be?” Abraham and Sarah were well into their senior years. They had struggled with infertility for decades. But miraculously they were able to conceive, and gave birth to a son when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was likely about 90. When God told Abraham and Sarah that they would eventually have a son, they both laughed because they were so old. It seemed ridiculous. So when their son was born, they named him Isaac, which means “laughter.”
Isaac married a woman named Rebekah. God repeats the promise to the son Isaac that he made to his father Abraham and says that he will make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and that through their offspring all the nations of the world would be blessed. Isaac and Rebekah had a son named Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel. And God said, “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Sometimes the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…sometimes the people of Israel are called the “chosen people.” But we could also say, in light of God’s purpose to restore the world through Israel, that God so loved the world he chose Israel as his instrument of restoration for the world.
We see, not just in Genesis, but throughout the Hebrew Scriptures how God calls his people to be a restoring presence in the world. I have been reading the book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, Chapter 4, we read how God calls the people of Israel to receive his love and wisdom, not just for their personal advancement, but so that they would point people to the living God, the God who restores all things, the God who makes all things new.
In Psalm 96, verse 3, we read:
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
The people of Israel are to declare before the nations God’s marvelous deeds and God’s greatness.
In Isaiah 42 we read of God’s call on Israel to bring justice to all the earth.
Then in Isaiah 49:6:
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
We read God’s plan for Israel was not just to restore themselves as a people and as a nation, but to be a light for us who are Gentiles, that God’s salvation would be brought to the ends of the earth.

How did Israel fare in its call to serve as an instrument of God to bring restoration to the whole world?
While there were moments when Israel shone as a magnificent light, for the most their light was dim… for the most part they failed. And when it seemed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that their descendants, the people of Israel, who were called serve as the instrument to restore the ruins of our world, would fail, in fact at a time when the Israelites would have felt like they had failed because they were in effect living in exile, that is under foreign domination, a sign according to Deuteronomy that they were being judged by God, God does something, which at the time no one could have anticipated. He decides he will, in a very personal way, become the fulfillment of the promise that he had made years ago to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He decides to become one of the children of Abraham. He approaches one of Abraham and Sarah’s great, great, great… grand-daughters named Mary and miraculously enables her to conceive. And the living God becomes a great grandson of Abraham. He becomes a human being. He becomes an Israelite. He takes the name Jesus—which means saviour. As a person who represents Israel, the people who are called to restore the world, at 33 years of age he voluntarily dies on a Roman cross and absorbs the judgment for the ways that Israel has failed to be a light to the world. And, before we become too smug and look down on the ancient Israelites, on the cross he also mysteriously absorbs the judgment that you and I deserve for all the ways that we have failed God.
God in Jesus Christ died on the cross. On the third day he arose from the dead. His rising from the dead was a sign that Jesus’ work of voluntarily absorbing in himself the judgment for sin that Israel and the people of the world deserved had been completed. This means that we can experience restoration with God and with each other and with our world.
As our lives are joined to Jesus’ we can become an instrument of God's restoration and healing in the world.
We become the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. When we look at that ruins around us and we wonder God won’t you do something? Shane Claiborne said last Sunday, “We hear God whispering I have. I made you.”
As Saint Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”
When our lives are joined to Jesus Christ we become his presence in the world, and according to the Scriptures we who are Gentiles, as was true of Jesus we become grafted in to the family tree of Abraham. In Romans 9 Paul says that we who are not biologically Jewish, we who are Gentiles, are like wild olive shoots that have been grafted into the original plant.
(SHOW POWERPOINT IMAGE).


In Romans 9:8, we read that it is not necessarily the natural children of Abraham who are Gods’ children. But it is the children of promise, those who have come to Jesus Christ who are regarded as Abraham’s true offspring.
We have, in fact, become sons and daughters of Abraham. We are, in fact, part of Israel.
In Galatians 4:28, Paul says that those of us who have come to know Christ are like Isaac—we are children of promise. We are the children of Abraham.
Do you know much about your family tree? Do you know the names of your great grandparents?
I did not know much about my family tree.
Several years ago as part of a team building exercise we were doing as a staff, I did some research into our family tree. On my father’s side, I saw that as I traced a line backwards, they were all Samurai. Samurai, of course, are typically known for their dexterity with the sword, but my ancestors were teachers of Confucius ethics for the whole clan. And in more recent times, there are professors, teachers, and artists on my dad’s side, and as you look at my mom's side, business people, like my great-grandfather who bought and sold mountains.
As a pastor I feel like some of my ancient grandparents who taught Confucius ethics for the Samurai community live in me. I feel like some of our ancestors who were professors and teachers, live in my younger sister who is a professor at the University of California and my youngest sister who was a high school teacher in Montréal, and that some of our ancestors who were businesspeople live in my older sister who is a business leader in the Silicon Valley, and our ancestors on my mom’s side who were artists live in my brother who is an artist.
I came across the story of the man who was adopted, and always felt a little out of place in his adoptive family because, while they were very loving, they were all interested in white-collar vocations; whereas he was more inclined toward cars and working with his hands. As an adult he discovered that his biological father had been a car mechanic.
While we may think that we have pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, there is a sense in which our ancestors do live in us, and in some sense they are us and we are them.
If we belong to Christ, our great, great ancestor is Abraham, and he is in us and we are in him.
If you belong to Christ, you are a great, great, great granddaughter or grandson of Abraham, as well. You may be Italian, but you are also a Hebrew. You may be Kenyan, but you are also Jewish. You may be Columbian, but you are also an Israelite. (In fact, if you belong to Christ this tie to our spiritual forbears is actually stronger than your tie to your flesh and blood ancestors—that’s true for those of us who are Asian too!)
As a daughter or son of Abraham… … you are chosen to serve as an instrument of God to restore our world.
Through who you are, through what you do, through what you say, you are an instrument of God’s restoration in the world.
In fact, if you belong to Christ, you are in Christ and Christ is in you (John 14:20) and he will live his mission through you.
Earlier this year our family was in Osaka, Japan, spending time with Sakiko’s family. One morning I pulled the family photo album off the shelf, was flipping through it and saw a photograph of Sakiko’s dad with Pope John Paul II. Sakiko’s dad is not a Catholic. He is not Christian.
Here is how he had the opportunity to see the Pope.
Michelangelo’s great frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Rome had become mired in grime, soot, pollution across the centuries and 500 years of candle wax so that the colours of the paintings had faded. Some of the details were blurred. The company that Sakiko’s father works for, along with a number of other companies from Japan, sponsored a team of art conservators to work together to clean, restore, and preserve these priceless frescoes during the 1980s and 1990s.

Here’s an image of Daniel before the restoration and after.

Here’s a close up for Daniels knee:

(NOTE: Keep this image up over the highlighted section)
And God is calling us, as the sons and daughters of Abraham, to serve as an instrument in restoring his masterpiece, the magnificent ruin of this world through what we are, what we do, and what we say.
I had breakfast recently with a friend here in Vancouver. As we hike, bike together from time to he will sometimes preface a comment by saying, “I am not a Christian” and then give his view on something. But at this breakfast he mused and said, “As I look back on my life, it seems that there is some way there has been some kind of force, some kind of presence that has guided me. So if I believe that, I wonder if that makes me a Christian. I wonder if I could consider myself a Christian.” I said, “What brings you to even considering the possibility of you are now perhaps self-describing as a Christian?” He said, “The committed Christians I know live better.”
The sons and daughters of Abraham around him consciously or unconsciously through their integrity, generosity, care for people are helping my friend experience restoration through leading him to a path where he is experiencing something of the restoration of God in his life, and he recognizes that.
It is not so much a scientific or philosophical or theological argument that is tipping my friend toward belief in God, but it is in the lives of people he knows that our committed to God.

In the words of Dorothy Day: “Live a life that is so mysteriously beautiful that the only explanation for it can be a living and loving God.”

I have been thinking quite a bit about Steve Jobs since his death this past fall. Steve Jobs had met the masterful cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, when he was at a design conference in Aspen, Colorado and Yo-Yo Ma was at a music festival. That is where they met. Jobs really loved Yo-Yo Ma’s music, as many of us do, but also admired his character. Yo-Yo Ma in person apparently is as sweet and as profound as tones he creates on his cello. Steve Jobs had invited Yo-Yo Ma to play the cello at his wedding.
A few years later he came by the Jobs’ home south of San Francisco. He sat in the living room and pulled out his 1733 Stradivarius cello and played Bach. “This is what I would have played for your wedding,” he told them. Tears came to Jobs’ eyes. Although Jobs did not believe in a personal God, he said, “Your playing is the best argument I have known for the existence of God because I don’t really believe a human alone can do this.”
I'm not suggesting that we make it our aim to become world-class cellists, but rather to say God is calling us as the sons and daughters of Abraham together, to live lives of such beauty, such mystery, that people are pointed to a living and loving God who restores all things… to a God who makes all things new.
And God is calling us as the sons and daughters of Abraham to live lives of such beauty, light, and mystery, and live such light that the only explanation for our lives is a living and loving God.

For those of us here who are pilgrims of Christ, some of us came into a friendship Christ because he foresaw Christ's beauty and the life. When I was a teengager, I went to the Firs this lakeside Christian summer in Bellingham. I don’t remember all that our counsellor Bam Bam, aka Ken Hamilton as he said, but I still recall seeing the joy and peace that shone from his face. More through his life as much as through his words, he invited me into a life with Christ.
Maybe that was true of you.
And if you know Jesus perhaps you want to do that for someone else.
Kim lived near our home. She preferred a New Age style of spirituality. She wrote me a birthday card some time ago and wrote something I’ll always remember. I didn’t know when or how she actually made a spiritual commitment, but she wrote these words. “I thank God that he brought someone in my life that I could trust enough to lead me to Christ.” I am a person with many flaws, but I want do want to become the kind of person… who someone can trust enough to point them in some way to Jesus.
Perhaps if you know Jesus, you have the same desire. Like the friend of my friend, I had breakfast with recently, like someone who plays beautiful music; perhaps you want your life to draw others to Christ and to become an instrument of reconciliation in our world.
Today building on the missions series and practicing the presence, we begin a new series called Sharing the Presence.
A couple of years ago we had an emphasis called Practicing the Presence, where we encouraged people in our community to commit to regularly prayerfully reading the Scriptures. Nearly 1200 people signed on to that movement and many have reported how as a result they feel closer to God and, in some way, have become a little more like Jesus. One of the natural overflows of practicing the presence and becoming more like God is to then share the presence of God in as we play basketball with people, or canoe, or hike with them, as we hang out over coffee….
Today we’ve looked at the big picture, and in the weeks to follow we’ll look at what it might look like for us to live lives of such beauty and love that the only explanation for it can be a living and loving God.
Here’s a little video that introduces Sharing the Presence:
Show video
Last Sunday Shane Claiborne said, the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away. When we really believe that best thing we’ve been given is the love of Jesus, we will want to share that love with others.
So, will you become part of this movement of sharing the presence—sharing the restorative presence of God in our world?
Pray:
Dear Lord,
Help us to turn over and over again to your son Jesus who is the beauty maker, and as we do may make us instruments of restoration in your world.
In the words of St. Francis:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

Amen.

Now Jade, Dan, and Lee… will lead us to Jesus through the table, the Jesus who is the beauty maker.