Jeremiah 15:10-21, Phillipians 3: 15-21, John 12-20-26

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.” John 12:26             

When Brendan and Kiki were young, we lived in Tokyo, attending services at the Tokyo Union Church (TUC), a non-denominational Christian church primarily serving the expatriot community.

At this same time, there lived a hidden population of homeless men who would roll out their mats each night and sleep on the cold cement floor of the Shibuya eki (train station).  Touched by this unacknowledged suffering, a group from TUC decided to feed this homeless community.  Each day a small band of volunteers would meet in the basement of the church to laugh, cook rice, and assemble onigiri (dried plums wrapped in rice and seaweed).  The nutritious packages would be placed in bento boxes to be collected by another volunteer in the afternoon.

The following morning, another pair of volunteers would deliver the onigiri by 5 am so the homeless men would be fed before they were pushed out of the station.  Many were the cold, winter mornings when these volunteers would leave their homes as early as 4:15, walk to the train station with their bags of nourishment for the ride to Shibuya.

Silently this team of wingless angels would place their life-sustaining parcels on the corner of each sleeping mat, gliding through the station in living prayer.  Some of the homeless men were old and infirmed; others were young and afraid; many smelled, most were sleeping when their breakfast was delivered.  Occasionally one would open his eyes–the very eyes of Christ, and murmer a grateful, “domo arrigato.”   To which the volunteer would respond, “Do itashimashite,”  traditionally translated as “you are welcome.”  But in this instance it may be more appropriate to imagine its meaning as, “This is what I am here to do–to serve you, nourish you, honor your dignity as a child of God.  Placing this package on your mat is a small gesture in the grand scheme of all that I have been given. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.”

It took a team of people willing to lose their life of comfort and leave their warm beds at 4 in the morning; to be able to overcome their fears of delivering food to smelly strangers in the bowels of a train station; to be interested in the well-being of not only their own families, but also those of the human family, for this moment of communion to be lived out each and every morning.

Christ has died.  Christ has risen.  Christ will come again.

-Mary Sullivan

I have always known God.

As a small child, Jesus loved me, this I knew.  I prayed the Lord my soul would keep and if I died before I woke, I prayed the Lord my soul would take. I obeyed my parents in the Lord, for this was right, regardless of what they did or said to do. Singing give me oil in my lamp keep it burning and there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide, I learned to accept what I was told, even if it had no meaning.

As an older child, God would take me to heaven at the rapture if I was saved; otherwise I would get left behind.  When everything was quiet, I would frantically find someone still around.   It never occurred to me that the person I found may have been an infidel who got left behind.  Good thing I wasn’t taught to think things out, or I may not have survived the fear.

The God of my teenage years knew my every move; my every thought. It was impossible to sin without His knowledge. I sang blessed assurance Jesus is mine.  Why was I so blessed to have Big Brother for a Jesus?

As a young woman, I knew God as a way of life.  He was always right and His code was my code. I knew Him so well that I knew when others were wrong. My judgement
was swift and sharp as a sword. God led the battle and I was a soldier in the
Lord’s army.

God’s Holy Word was my guide and I certainly knew God’s Word because I was given it at church each week and on Christian radio each day.  I didn’t have to search for God or for truth, because it was done for me. If I walked down the isle, I was instantly saved from hell.

God never changes.  That is what I was taught.  I learned the Bible said if I spared the rod I would spoil my child; that interracial marriage was a sin; that God punishes the wicked and Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality. Funny how I can’t find those things in my Bible now.  Did God change after all?  No, God didn’t change, but God changed me. By grace. God is my journey. He is my neighbor’s journey. I don’t have to be perfect; I just have to wait on God. I let go of trying to know God and, instead, let God be in me. The rest takes care of itself. God set me free to know Him. Jesus taught this and His example changed the world. I follow Christ, but it is hard for me to call myself a
Christian. And that really doesn’t matter after all.

Our background and circumstances influence who we are, but it doesn’t have to
dictate who we become.

Love and peace during this season of Lent,

Pamela Pouncy

Philippians 1:3 – 8 (NRSV)

“I thank my God that every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your hearts, so all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for you with all the compassion of Jesus Christ. “

Such joy and thanksgiving in Paul’s writing to the Christians of Philippi! Whenever I read this passage I am filled to overflowing with thanks to God for Christ’s followers. That sounds pretty flowery for my usual talk – well, maybe that is because I am writing not speaking face to face, but it is true. Not that any one of us is a saint in the perfect sense. However, each of us is a saint in Paul’s sense – a believer.

To think that Paul, though imprisoned, could write with such joy and confidence! Surely Paul’s words reflect the truth in his heart and life seen in a part of another of today’s lectionary readings, Psalm 31:14-15a, “I trust in you O Lord: I say, You are my God. My times are in your hands.” I know that in my own life, I often do not think or act in the sense of those words, trusting in the Lord. But I also know that the more I hear and read of others whose lives show trust in God, the more I am aware of the possibility of living in such trust myself.

Hearing the personal experiences from Beloveds and in sermons of others meets such a powerful need I and perhaps all of us have, I ache for Paul and those today who long for the fellowship and live worship but are unable to be present. Thus it is that I am so thankful for the opportunity of Christian community on each Sunday.

May Paul’s prayer, Philippians 1:9, be our prayer – that our love may overflow more and more with knowledge and depth of insight to be able to discern what is best (NRSV & NIV adapted), and may we share that love and insight and discernment with one another.

-Nancy Sales