"Being in God's Honor" - March 21st, 2021

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"Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever."

1 Peter 4:9-11

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Message of Stewardship

from Amanda Swann

As a high school theater teacher, when we are putting on a production it is all hands on deck. Everyone has to contribute, the performers, the technicians, the production committees, even the audience when it's time for the show. To have it be the most meaningful and impactful experience, we can't do it alone. We have to pool our resources and put on a show together.

In our church, our church family is called to contribute. We are each called to give of our resources, our time, our funds. When we pull together our resources, we can have a greater impact on our community and on our world. So as we move forward doing the work of the Lord, let us think about pooling our resources in a joyful way.

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"Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the father will honor."

John 12:26

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Pastor Michael's Sermon - March 21st, 2021

You know, I don't talk about politics too much when I'm preaching, unless it's about social justice or the environment or racial issues. Well, maybe, maybe I do talk a little bit about politics if you consider those issues political. I guess what I meant to say is that I don't talk about political figures a lot.

But today I wanted to talk about a former president. No, not that one. And really this has little to nothing to do with politics.

Today I want to lift up former President Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is a pretty amazing human being. You know back in the early to mid 60's, he was a vocal supporter for civil rights, even though it kind of harmed his political career in Georgia, but beyond that, what is really amazing about Carter is the light that shone from him after his time in politics.

After being president, he created the Carter Center. And according to the Stennis Center for Public Service, the Carter Center does many things, and the former president is still working for the center. Their work has helped to ensure fairness in elections in over a hundred countries all over the world. The center does work in Africa offering Health Care in thousands of communities and villages. And throughout the world, the center has fought for human rights and helped in world conflicts. Now, this is part of the reason that in 2002 Jimmy Carter was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

He still teaches bible study in Plains, Georgia and people come from all around to be a part of his group.

Now, these are all amazing ministries. However, in interviews that I've heard and read, what seems to be closest to the heart of Jimmy Carter is Habitat for Humanity. He has worked for years for this organization and even at the age of 96, he continues to work with Habitat for Humanity. And that includes hands-on house building.

He once told CNN, “I'll stop when I have to but I won't stop until I have to.”

And when he was one time working on a house and a photographer wanted to take a picture of him holding a hammer, he said, “Sure, but as long as I'm holding the hammer, it's going to be hitting a nail.” Sounds like something Rick Hall would say.

Jimmy Carter told reporters, “One of the best ways to practice my faith as a Christian is to participate in Habitat every year.”

In today's scripture, Christ says, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the father will honor.”

I am sure God honors Jimmy Carter

because Carter's work is a glowing example of how to follow Christ, how to be a servant to Christ.

As people of faith, it is our aim to be in God's honor and as Christians we do this by following Christ, by serving Christ.

We've talked a lot about the many ways that we can follow Christ, but bottom line it always comes down to following his teachings, living his message, and caring for each other.

Being in God's honor comes in part by knowing the ministries of Christ

and making those ministries our own.

Being in God's honor always involves a light that shines outward, a caring

and compassionate heart that sees the world around it as an extension of God.

This is the image of one who is following Christ. The image of one who is living in the light. But this image of one goes beyond us simply as individuals, this image of a shining light that sees the world as an extension of God and yearns to minister to it is the image of what a church should be. The image of what our church should be.

It's true that even with our doors closed, we've been able to continue some of our ministries. Others however have had to be placed on hold. But soon we will be returning to in-person worship and we will have an opportunity to resume some other ministries and we can begin some new ministries.

Now you may have already heard but I'm going to tell you our current timeline for returning to in-person worship.

Coming up in a couple of weeks, we will be taking our walk through Holy Week and that will be online.

On Saturday the 27th of this month, at 3:00PM, we will be doing Bless the Pets on Zoom. That's this Saturday! Sharing our animal friends and catching up with one another.

Then of course the following day, we will have a special Palm Sunday service that you can watch wherever you're watching this service today.

Our Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services will be on April 1st and 2nd at 7:00PM and these will be on Zoom, so they will be interactive and then of course April 4th, we will have a glorious service of Easter Sunday which again you can watch wherever you're watching this service today.

Also, let me tell you this Easter Sunday the big wooden cross is going to be placed right here in the Little Brown Church and I invite you to stop by any time and place a flower on it. We've got a lot coming up for Holy Week, but let me get back to the subject of in-person worship. Shortly after the Holy Week events are over, as long as Los Angeles county is still above the purple tier, I will be calling a meeting of our church officers, our executive board, elders, our deacons, and our church staff and we will be deciding when we will be returning to in-person worship.

I'm very excited to get back into our buildings together, of course so that we can see one another but also so that we can get back to building our ministries. Not only have we been separated from our brothers and sisters within our church, but we have also been separated from those to whom we minister for over a year.

Our food pantry has been closed for weeks. But on April 13th, it will be reopening with those running it already vaccinated. This is an important ministry, and I'm so excited that it's going to be operating again soon. Kevin Lewin and the rest of our elders are always coming up with new forms of ministry that can be a part of our work.

I invite each of you as we slowly return to a sense of normalcy, to birth your own ideas for new ministries for our church. And the ideas don't have to be complicated! When we began our ministry of collecting socks for the people of Hope of the Valley, all that was involved in setting that up was placing a large basket in both of our church buildings. And then you all brought thousands of pairs of socks with you to worship over the past few years.

I would love to get to the point where anyone could go to our website and click on a button that says Ministries and find a page filled with all sorts of outreach that our church is doing and ways that anyone could help just by signing up.

Begin thinking now. What am I good at? What can I contribute? What do I see a need for in this world?

If we are all doing this, think of the change that we could make, think of the impact that we could have. Soon we will be back to in-person worship and I know some of you will be slower to coming back but I feel that we are getting so close to that point.

Let us come back with hearts that are even more deeply committed to service.

Let us come back following Christ even more closely.

Jimmy Carter once said, “It's a decision only you can decide. What kind of a person so far in my life have I chosen to be? Every person can be a complete success in the eyes of God.”

So I ask you, what kind of a church so far have we chosen to be? Well, I think we've chosen to be a pretty great church, but I think we can also do more, allowing us to be even more of a success in the eyes of God.

Let's pray.

Holy One, lead us, guide us to where you would have us do your work. On this Earth, let us be your hands and your heart. It's in your son's holy name we pray.

Amen.

"Clothed in Faith" - March 14th, 2021

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Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith you will receive.”

Matthew 21:21-22

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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Ephesians 2:8-10

Pastor Michael's Sermon

March 14th, 2021

If you Google who invented Penicillin, the name Alexander Fleming will immediately come up. Fleming told the world how he had actually invented Penicillin by accident and that's pretty much the story that you may have heard. However, there's a little bit more to the story than that.

It's true, one day Alexander Fleming had neglected to clean a container in his laboratory and when he left it unclean a huge ball of green mold formed and it had the power to kill bacteria. But on that day, Fleming was not jumping up and down and yelling “Eureka!” As a matter of fact, instead, he just looked at the mold as basically useless. Apparently, he didn't take any notes about what had happened and he didn't look into it any further.

But apparently within the scientific world I guess people talk, because Fleming had told several people about how this mold had appeared that could kill bacteria, and some of the people thought it would be worth looking into its possibilities. But it wasn't easy because, as I said, Fleming hadn't taken any notes and he didn't have any interest into looking deeper into the mold so to speak.

Ten years later, there were some scientists at Cambridge who became very interested in the possibilities of this mold and they got began working to try to recreate it. But they had a whole lot of trouble trying to make just the right kind of mold and even when they came close, they struggled with pulling the Penicillin part out of the mold that could kill the bacteria. They worked for years trying to figure out how to pull out enough Penicillin for it to be good for anyone who might need it to be part of their treatment.

Finally in 1940, they were able to figure it out and they treated a patient with a certain type of blood poisoning, and it worked! And when they did this, guess who showed back up and took all the credit. That's right. Alexander Fleming.

So yes, in scientific journals and among scientists, it is acknowledged that the real credit when it comes to inventing or discovering Penicillin goes to the team at Cambridge, but in history books and as far as Google is concerned, all the credit goes to Alexander Fleming, who really did nothing but forget to wash a laboratory container. Alexander Fleming boasted and took credit for something that really wasn't his doing.

Today's scripture passage warns against boasting and taking credit for something that is not our doing. But in this case, we're warned against taking credit for our own salvation. It is not by our own hand that we are saved. Yes, we are saved through our faith. You know, faith that we possess, faith that we work on, faith that we build. But that faith is merely our ticket to salvation. And although it is an important ticket and it is a necessary ticket, it is God who punches that ticket and invites us into life everlasting.

Also in today's passage we’re reminded that it is not God's obligation because we are faithful to offer us salvation. We are reminded that it is a gift, that it is by grace that we are saved.

So let us never boast that we are saved because we are so faithful. Let us never boast that we are saved because we earned it. We are saved by the grace of God.

But that's not to say that we still don't need to do our part. Indeed, we need to create that ticket for God to punch. We need to maintain our faith and to do that,

we need to tend to our faith. We need to cultivate our faith so that we're not simply, that is, our faith is not simply a part of who we are. Our faith must be the essence of who we are because that's how we keep it strong. We shouldn't carry our faith with us, but rather we should be clothed within it. We should be living within it, because how strongly we live within our faith, how we clothe ourselves within it, is our protection against all that attempts to chip away at our faith.

So many things can occur in our lives that can challenge our faith if our faith is not strong. Over the years of being a pastor, I have seen many times when people struggle with their faith. Maybe they've lost a loved one, or a relationship has come to an end, or any number of challenges that can take place in life.

When I say struggle with faith, I'm talking about when we question our relationship with God. This is actually pretty common. People will ask, “How could God let this happen?” We've heard this before, all of us have. “If God is of love, how could God allow me to be in so much pain?”

Legitimate questions and questions worth asking ourselves, but as we ask these questions of ourselves, we need to be asking them from a place of faith because when we don't ask these questions from a lens of fully knowing that God is loving

and fully knowing that God is a caregiver, then we leave ourselves open to place blame on God and we can weaken and even destroy our relationship with God. And I've seen this happen.

After a death or some other life changing event, I've seen people completely turn their back on the church, turn their back on their faith, people whom I baptized, people who once had a beautiful relationship with God and what seemed a heart of faith, I've seen turn their back on God and walk away. And really it is so hard to watch because the truth is when we turn our back on God during a time of loss in our lives, we are only adding to that loss. We are widening the hole in our heart and we are excusing the greatest supply of strength that we could possibly ask for.

It has been four months today, Sunday, since Pastor Bill passed away. And over these past months, I have been asked more than a couple of times if my faith has been challenged, if my relationship with God has changed because God called Pastor Bill home at a time that most of us felt was way too soon.

And I tell you each time I've been asked that question, my answer was immediate “No.” My faith never once wavered. My relationship with God remains just as strong. And I'll tell you why.

Because I know that the God that called Pastor Bill home is the same God who

blessed each of us by allowing us to know him. This is the same God who gifted us the opportunity to be shepherded by Pastor Bill. The same God who called him home before any of us were ready is the same God who allowed the lives of those of us who knew him to be brighter because Pastor Bill was part of our walk.

Our relationship with God should never waver based on what is going on in our lives. God does not waver on God's relationship with us.

The God who is with us during our highest of highs is the same God that is with us during our lowest of lows. Let us thank God for all that we have been given and all that we will be given. For we know that through our faith and by God's grace we shall be saved.

Let's pray.

Holy God, we thank you for your presence and for your grace. Help us to keep our faith strong and may our devotion to you never waver. It's in your son's holy name we pray.

Amen.

"Living in Harmony" - March 7th, 2021

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"Give and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back."

Luke 6:30

Message of Stewardship

from Claudia Tumaliuan

This week for my family was very exciting. We harvested our potatoes! Oh, it was so cool! We had big potatoes and teeny tiny ones the size of my thumb. And at the end of the day of gathering them all up, we filled up a beautiful basket.

You know, your offerings are a lot like that. It doesn't matter if you give the biggest check you've ever written or you just found some change. All of it is important and all of it is appreciated.

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Pastor Michael's Sermon - March 7th, 2021

There is a story that appears in all four of the gospels. But as usual, each narrative is slightly different. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the story appears near the end. But in John, we find it much earlier. As a matter of fact, it's in Chapter Two.

The author of John tells us that Jesus had gone to Jerusalem for Passover and when he got to the temple, he found people selling animals. Cattle, and sheep, and doves. And there are also money changers sitting around at many tables. Well, this made Jesus very angry.

He was so angry that he took some cords and he made them into a whip and he used the whip to drive the sheep and the cattle right out of the temple. Then he dumped out the coins of the money changers and he flipped over their tables. That's the part of the story that most of us remember the most. Jesus flipping over the tables. Then he shouted at those who were selling doves and he told them to take the doves out of the temple. He demanded that they stop making God's house a marketplace.

People in the temple asked Christ by what authority he was doing all of this. They said, “Show us a sign of your authority!” And Jesus told them, “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it again.”

Of course this confused the people of the temple. They said, "Wait a minute!

We have been building this temple for 46 years and you think if it is destroyed you can raise it again in three days?"

But of course Jesus wasn't really talking about the building, was he? He was talking about the temple of his body.

As I mentioned a moment ago, this story is in all four of the gospels and is told slightly different in each. But what all the versions do agree upon is why Jesus was so upset.

Each account has him reacting in a somewhat different manner. But what upset Jesus is clear every time the story is told. Jesus was upset because the temple was being disrespected. The temple was not built to be a place for people to sell their wares. The temple was meant to be a place of praise and worship. A holy place. It’s sacred ground.

So to turn it into a place where people set up tables for financial gain? Well, this was horribly offensive to Christ.

Jesus was insisting that the temple be seen for what it was intended. The temple needed to be used for what it was supposed to be used for. Two weeks ago, I spoke to you of the importance of using the talents that God has given us because our talents signify what we are individually supposed to be doing to better the realm of God.

Today's story reminds me of a similar idea. Christ’s insistence that the temple be used for what it is supposed to be used for really started me thinking about our faith and how we ought to be using our faith for what it is supposed to be used for. During this reflective time of Lent, today let's once again look inward and ask ourselves a question or two.

What are we supposed to do with the message that Christ has delivered to us?

It does us no good to simply hold on to the word and keep it for ourselves.

What are we supposed to do to live out the temple of God's word in the way that it is supposed to be lived out?

You know, I could just start naming off examples of ways to live out the word.

Live your life compassionately, serve others, show love, be forgiving, committed, and prayerful, be gentle, patient, and humble. But I wanted to give you a perfect example of something that I think is what it means to really live out the word. But as I was writing the sermon I was having difficulty coming up with an example. So as I usually do when I get stuck, I closed my computer. I put it away with the understanding that God would soon provide me with the illustration that I was looking for. And by the way, this always works.

That evening one of our dear women within this congregation who I had been checking on earlier and left a message called me while I was at home to let me know that she was doing okay. We talked for a while and we laughed and just before we were ready to hang up, she said, “Can I tell you a quick story by the way?” I asked her if I could tell this story.

She told me that just a few days prior, she had been sitting in a waiting room at St. Joseph's hospital, and this woman is a singer and sometimes the songs that she sings are in different languages, so when she has time, she will often use her phone to listen to the songs to brush up on the many different languages that appear in her songs. She told me that on this particular day, she happened to be studying Swahili.

After a few moments a woman sitting across the room who turned out to be one of the hospital's chaplains and whom she had noticed earlier, asked her what she was doing and our friend said, “I'm a performer and sometimes when I sing, I need to use different languages, so I study them.” She continued saying, “By the way, you have a beautiful accent. Would it be okay to ask what type of accent it is?”

And the chaplain said, "Well, I'm from Africa."

Well our friend the singer said, “Well, then I have to show you something! You need to hear the song that I'm listening to it's called Jambo Bwana and it's in Swahili.”

She then asked the chaplain, “What is your native language?” And as the song played, the chaplain said, “It's Swahili. This is my native language”. The chaplain said, “Can you sing some of the song for me?” And so our church singer began singing and soon the chaplain joined in and as it turned out the chaplain had a beautiful voice so soon the chaplain was singing the lead and our friend was doing the harmonies.

And so they're in a drab waiting room, set to strangers creating music together, harmonizing together and the beautiful African melody filled the hallways as they were singing around 30 people in the hospital gathered. Doctors and nurses. And when the song was finished, the room erupted in applause. And although I'm sure the singing was beautiful, I'm also sure that the applause came because of other reasons as well. Because not only was their harmony in their voices, there was also harmony in the room.

There was harmony in their actions. There was harmony in their appreciation

for one another there was harmony in their hearts. Harmony of two different races, generations, two different paths, two different lives coming together without hesitation in a hospital. Coming together in a place of healing, in a place that over the past year has seen so much suffering in so much pain.

When I heard this story, I realized that this is a perfect example of living the message. This is the word of God being played out. This is living the message of Jesus Christ. This is how the message is supposed to be used. How our voices are supposed to be used. How our hearts are supposed to be used.

Harmony is not only for singing, it's also for living.

Let's pray.

Holy God, help us to live as one. Living your word that we have received from your son who sets an example for us daily. It's in his loving name we pray.

Amen.