Nagoya Mission

January 25, 2009

Mark 1: 21-28

        Why me?  It was my senior year in college and early during my six month internship with the National Council of Churches: Farm Worker Ministry.  During my first week, I accompanied a group of farm workers at a picket and boycott line at a grocery store.  
         After we arrived on the morning on the first day, the police come to see what was going on and to my surprise, I was the first person they came to interview.  Here I was, not knowing really what was going with a camera around my neck ready to take pictures and small notebook in my hand to take notes.  The reason the police came to me first to ask questions, I came to believe, was they thought that I was in charge.  Why me?  It was probably the fact that I was the only white person among twenty or so Mexican-Americans.  They thought I was in charge!  
         That experience is a subtle example of many things, racism being one, but there was something more that can be termed and called “authority.”  Among a group of farm workers, I was assumed to have some authority, granted it was probably because I was white, yet authority nonetheless.
         What is authority?  Yesterday, after a meeting at the Japanese church a group of us looked at this passage in our Japanese Bibles.  In the Japanese, authority is translated from the biblical Greek into “ken’I” --- 権威.  In Japanese “ken’i” has the strong connotation of political authority.  That led to an interesting discussion.  So, what is our image of authority? 
         Let us take that question back to Capernaum, to today's reading from the gospel of Mark: “They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.  The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law." 
         Why did people sense authority in Jesus' teaching?  How did they recognize his authority?  Did he wear that era’s clothing, comparable to our rumpled suit and tie with a pipe in one hand?  What was so convincing about Jesus?  Well, Mark says that it was “his teaching.”  What is this teaching that so astonished Jesus' hearers? 
         We don't know.  Not a word of Jesus' specific teaching is remembered here from Capernaum.  Whatever it was that so astonished people was not written down for us to hear.  You may rightly object that Jesus' teaching is remembered in other places. 
         Yet, it is rather odd that in Mark's gospel, where Jesus is called "Rabbi” or “Teacher” over and over again --- by disciples, by the crowd, by Pharisees --- very few of Jesus' teachings are remembered.  For example, in Mark, there is no Sermon on the Mount as in Matthew.  Nor for example, can we find many parables compared to Luke.  Instead, the focus of Mark is that Jesus taught “them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.”  
         That, too, is rather odd.  For authority seems to be precisely what the teachers of the law had!  The teachers of the law could claim the authority of words, --- Gods! --- passed down through many generations.  That authority was not in how they carried themselves, or that they were wealthy.  Rather the teachers of the law had the authority of God’s words, centuries old, from the time of Moses.  Furthermore, these teachers had the prestige of education --- PhD’s --- and a power because their words had an impact on the culture and society.
         But the way Jesus taught surpassed all these teachers’ claims.  Somehow Jesus was more compelling, more authentic to those who heard him.  What sort of authority was this?
 The clue may come in the interruption for suddenly our story is broken up.  Perhaps in the middle of the lecture, we hear what is described as wild voice, disruptive, and disjointed.  “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are?the Holy One of God!”  Our modern sensibility would suggest that he had schizophrenia, or possibly --- if we note the plural form --- had a multiple-personality disorder.  Jesus confronts the man, or rather the voice: “Be quiet!  Come out of him!”  And the evil spirit, crying with a loud shriek, came out.1
         Interestingly enough, over and over in Mark's gospel it is the demons who know who Jesus is.  Those who were evil are the ones who called him the “Holy One” whereas those who should have known, those who were “sane,” put him to death.  And when Jesus died, it was a centurion solider, an outsider, who proclaimed, “Truly this was the Son of God!”2
         Where does that leave us, we who are struggling to understand his authority?  Obviously it is not the authority vested in a political leader, not an authority that comes by holding a gun at someone unarmed.  It is not an authority that comes with size, or sex, or color, or wealth or education or anything else.  Rather, in Mark's gospel Jesus himself is the content of the teaching.  The authority is not in particular speeches, or words, but in his particular life.
         Jesus lived as one who had authority, an authority radically different from that of teachers.  As Pastor Barbara Lundblad puts it, “To understand this authority we must not only listen, we must also look.”3  Jesus’ authority is a derived authority for it comes directly from God.  That is why evil trembled because it is not a power from anything on earth, but an authority derived from God.  And it’s this divine weight that we see unfold in the gospel of Mark.  In a way, it is similar to what some students who may say “Don’t take the course --- take the teacher.”  The students are reasoning that if they have a good teacher teaching a bad subject that is more worthwhile than a lousy teacher ruining a good subject.
         Where does that leave us?  As Christians, followers of this teacher Jesus, we are part of and are given that divine authority as well.  
         What does that mean?  In the 1970’s, a University of Chicago professor, Dr. Don Browning, wrote a book called, The Moral Context of Pastoral Care.4  It was intended for ministers and counselors on how to help people with problems.
         Browning argued that when we talk about human problems, too many of us reduce their causes to be psychological; all human pain become problems of psychological maladjustment, or chemical imbalance in the brain, or experiences as infants.
         Yet, Browning says, there are many human problems, which are more cognitive than physical or emotional, meaning it’s more a matter of not knowing rather than not feeling well.  For example, some people are in pain because they are confused.  Modern life is so chaotic and confusing, that a person may be miserable, although emotionally and physically they may “feel” fine.
         Browning suggested that too many pastors and Christians in general have made the mistake of seeing problems in a medical model, and seeking a physician.  Browning says instead we should take as our model the rabbi, Jesus.  Jesus the teacher healed that man in our gospel not as a doctor would heal a sick person; rather Jesus silenced the raging spirits and taught the doubting assembly.    
         Within the grace of the Holy Spirit, we work as disciples in living out God’s grace in Jesus who had undisputed authority to speak for God.  The authority of Jesus moves us toward healing not as doctors necessarily but as moral agents.  What are some examples of that kind of authority?  We have the gospels, examples of Jesus, as the authority over sin, death and the power of the devil, to help us.
         One is that we are people of inclusion rather than exclusion.  Those invited into Jesus' life included tax collectors and sinners, poor widows, prostitutes, little children.  All of these Jesus called models of the Kingdom of God and models of faith.  We must, therefore, be suspicious of any kind of other authority which moves toward dividing, excluding and separating.
         Jesus' authority also valued persons over rules or traditions.  Jesus pointed out that the religious leaders too often valued Sabbath laws and other written traditions more than people.  Rather, Jesus said these laws were meant to serve the people.  The implication is that as moral agents of Jesus Christ, we are at times to value the needs of people over always keeping rules or traditions.
         Those were two examples.  Of course, our human understanding is not the same as God's.  That is why Jesus' authority cannot be contained on a button.  This authority cannot be reduced to a slogan, a tract or a well written book.  Nor is this authority a simple word to hurl at our opponents.  Jesus showed God’s derived authority in the substance of his teaching, his life.  May we grow in the authority of Jesus as we confront evil and share the good news.  Amen.

1 Vs. 24 - 26
2 Mark 15: 39
3 Day1 :: A New Kind of Authority by The Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad February 2, 1997
4 Browning, Don. The Moral Context of Pastoral Care. Westminster Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1976

January 18, 2009

Mark 1: 14-20

“I get by with a little help from my friends,
I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends
I get high with a little help from my friends
Yes, I get by with a little help from my friends”

     When the Beatles sang “With a Little Help from My Friends” back in the 1960s, they were expressing an important concept.  Some suggest that the song is actually about the drug culture of that time, as in “I get high with a little help from my friends;” “High” was the word to express what it meant to be on a drug and “friends” being the drug itself.  In my opinion, that 1960’s view and reference, simply detracts from the meaning of the song and speaks more about that time period than the universal point made in the lyrics.
     Let me put the lyrics of the Beatles song in a more current framework, Rich Mintzer of Entrepreneur magazine offers a description of the “four people every business owner needs.”1  Research shows that if a business owner is fortunate enough to find all four, Mintzer says, “You may have your own little village to help you raise a business.”
     The four types, according to the author, are the Cheerleader.  Cheerleaders are those who will rally behind an idea and provide encouragement.  He follows with every business owner needs a Role Model; this is the person or persons who mentor.
     Research shows that businesses need an Expert, in that, businesses should surround themselves with people who are smarter about certain areas, filling in gaps that every business has.  Finally, Mr. Mintzer proposes every business needs a Techie; wizards with things, not just computers but also communication systems, manufacturing, infrastructure and the like.
     Whatever you may think of Mr. Mintzer’s suggestions or the meaning of Beatles lyrics, I believe those two varied points of view, are drawing the same conclusion --- “team”
     Jesus --- Son of the living God, God of God --- believed this to be true, it takes a team, and thus we had better believe it, too.  I know before I delve more deeply in this thought, that we need to acknowledge the controversial point of whether Jesus needed “help” or not.  For some Christians, Jesus needing help is controversial, for others it is quite acceptable.  Either way, we see in this week’s gospel, Jesus at an early point in his ministry, begins by surrounding himself with a team, but not the kind we may think. 
     The symbolic meaning of twelve to begin with is important.  Part of the idea of choosing --- at first --- 12 disciples was to provide a metaphor for a reconstituted and renewed 12 tribes of Israel.  But for us the practical affects of choosing disciples is that Jesus’ mission consists of the participation of others.
     Early on, Jesus does not wait for disciples to come to him --- that happens later --- instead we see that on the outset, Jesus spends time going after candidates, most of who are nothing like himself.
     Jesus did not follow the model proposed by Mr. Mintzer to set up a business or look to develop and have friends as disciples.  Jesus was not looking for friends in which to depend on nor experts or cheerleaders who would be part of an entourage.  Jesus did not look for role models of high moral character or techies versed in communication theory and practice.  Jesus does not go headhunting at the local synagogue, or have an interview process beginning with “Show me your discipleship portfolio.”
     Instead, Jesus goes to the lakeshore and begins by inviting some fishermen to be on his team.  The Bible does not give us any indication of why the lake at first, rather than say … farms.  The Bible also does not give us an indication of the specific roles Jesus was looking for in Simon, Andrew, James and John.  Instead, we have something far more powerful.
     At the lake, Jesus was looking for a response to the invitation, "Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”2  Jesus was doing his own “fishing” for people when he came upon Simon and Andrew, and invited them to join him in his work.  James and John were next, leaving their undoubtedly astounded father by the boats with the hired help as they, too, set out after Jesus.
     Some assume that somehow Jesus was looking for fishermen aka the poor; in other words destitute individuals with nothing to lose, who easily fit the transition to fish for people and furthermore, Jesus simply was trying to break the monotony of their everyday lives.  I think that is a wealthy person’s point of view, because from my experience, it does not matter if rich or poor, it is not easy to respond, to leave everything and change.
     Point of fact, if you read the Bible more closely, these first four fishermen were likely quite prosperous.3  We learn that Simon and Andrew had a house and an extended family and that James and John, along with their father Zebedee, were wealthy enough to be able to hire additional help for their fishing business.
     These were not desperate drifters with nothing to lose, but well-established businessmen in a culture where prosperity and family were everything.  To respond and follow Jesus was no small disruption of their lives but a complete change of course.  Throwing in with Jesus meant throwing out their security, their reputations and their livelihoods.
     So, was Jesus looking for friends, or cheerleaders or a role model or experts or techies?  Rather than looking for specific role definitions, Jesus wanted people with just one primary qualification for discipleship: a response, a willingness to follow, regardless of cost.
     Later, in the gospels, we see how the disciples would take on different roles within the group as it formed around Jesus  For example, Simon Peter would become a leader, spokesman and conscience of the group; John would be the “beloved” disciple and closest friend of Jesus; Andrew may have been the hospitality coordinator, and so forth.  Regardless of role, however, each disciple shared a common trait: They said “Yes” daily, to Jesus’ invitation, gambling their own futures on his vision for a new world.  At any time they could have left.
     Of course the disciples did not exactly understand the ramifications of their daily response to follow.  They questioned and wrestled with their choices.  I do not anyone who knows exactly what will happen with every decision they make.  For example, the courage that these disciples displayed that day on the lakeshore would dissolve into panic in the Garden of Gethsemane, yet they would have recovered by the resurrection and would move the kingdom message out into the world, a move that would cost most of them their lives.
     Being a disciple means not being advisers or supporters or friends or investors of Jesus.  Instead, Jesus is looking for a response, to live and follow all the time, everyday.  The announcement of the kingdom was a proclamation that everything was changing.  
     We are a part of a team, not to fill a role, but to follow Jesus.  You and I have been called not because Jesus needs a little help from his friends,  Rather being a disciple means being willing to drop our own agendas for life and get on board with the kingdom agenda of Jesus, people who stake our lives and livelihoods on his vision for the world.4  Jesus challenges us to see our primary vocation as being kingdom people; fully invested --- body, mind, spirit --- in that venture!  Amen.  

1 Mintzer, Rich. “The 4 People Every Business Owner Needs.” Entrepreneur Web Site, June 17, 2008. www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/selfassessment/article195016.html.

2 Vs. 17
3 Mark 1:29-31
4 John 15:14

January 11, 2009

Mark 1: 9-11

(Note to reader: This sermon in particular evolved considerably from the printed text, found here, to my sermon on Jan. 11.  If you attended worship on the 11th and are looking for an exact copy of my sermon, it is not available.)

        Have you ever heard this acronym --- T.G.I.F.?  That acronym stands for the phrase: “Thank God it’s Friday.”  North Americans have been offering that secular prayer of thanksgiving for years, and the phrase has become so popular that it’s attached to a restaurant chain in the United States called - T.G.I. Friday’s.
        This phrase, “Thank God it’s Friday” and its corresponding acronym TGIF, is based on the view of many, that people are happier on Friday because Friday is at the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend.  
         The opposite of TGIF is the “Monday morning blues,” based on the opposite notion that Mondays are supposed to bring you down because it is the end of the weekend and many people have to return to work. 
         Well, guess what; those two corresponding views, Monday blues and TGIF are simply not true.  Recent research has uncovered that people are not much happier on Fridays than they are on Mondays or Sundays versus a Wednesday.  Fact is that on average our emotions do not change very dramatically based on the day of the week.
         Instead, that same research reinforces a different fact.  Fridays are remembered as happy days and Mondays are thought of as sad days simply because of the change that happens when we attach meaning to memory.1
         What the research shows is that because of the emotions about Friday being when we are liberated from the chores of the work week and the door to the weekend is thrown wide open, the day has emotional significance and it affects and shapes our understanding of the day.  In other words, because we believe that Fridays are happy days, we remember them as happy days, aside from how we actually felt on that day.  It does not matter that we may not be happier or sadder on Monday or Friday, instead we think we are.
         Meaning shapes our memory.  For example, a bride and a groom may say that their wedding day was the happiest day of their life.  However, in point of fact it may have been incredibly stressful, but the meaning of marriage turns the day into a happy memory for the couple.  They may retain information, some memory of the stress, but because it was their wedding day they believe it to be happy and thus associate happiness for that day even if that was not the case.  I like the way American Comedian George Carlin, spoke about this fact.  Carlin is speaking about his athletic aptitude earlier in life and described it this way, “The older I get … the better I was.”
         What does that insight have to do with us Christians, on this day?   We do not have stories of Jesus as a child growing up instead we jump into the beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ with his Baptism.  Today, the Sunday after Epiphany, the day in the church year called “Baptism of the Lord,” gives us an opportunity to remember this event and reflect on its impact because baptism is a perfect example of how meaning shapes memory.
         Let’s examine our gospel more closely.  Leading up to our lesson, John the baptizer if you remember, immediately appears in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  People from the city of Jerusalem and all over the area flock to him, and are baptized in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.2 
         But then John the baptizer switches gears and goes into overdrive, and reveals that he’s not simply in the purification process.  He proclaims, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me … I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”3  Jesus then appears and is baptized by John, at which point the sky is torn open, and we overhear the words told to Jesus, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
         Just think about all that with me.  Here we have a man, John the Baptist, not so neat, not so clean, with a wild appearance, demonstrating how to be clean, repent and be purified before God.  Furthermore, this wild-looking unkempt person is the one that God chooses to baptize his Son, Jesus Christ.  
         Then look at little more closely, particularly the emotions.  There are the confessions of those who come to John, gratitude for the gift of forgiveness and renewal in water.  There are the surprises and shocks at the sight of the baptizer’s camel’s hair clothing and diet of locusts and wild honey.  There are feelings of confusion about the identity of John, the powerful one who’s coming after John and the lingering question of why the one who is to follow John needs to be baptized.  And of course there is the emotion expressed by God, love and pleasure.
         But as I said before, meaning has a powerful effect on memory.  We know this to be the meaning of baptism: Jesus is God’s Son, the Beloved.  God accepts Jesus as his Son, and that shapes our entire memory of baptism.  So what about the feelings?  Gone are all these feeling and emotions around this event --- the repentance and the gratitude for cleansing, the surprise at the identity of the baptizer and his manner, the confusion about the identity of the powerful one and his baptism, even God’s words ? are in a sense pushed aside.
         The very same is true for us.  In this sacrament, the sacrament of baptism, we are connected to the body of Christ -- the universal community of Christians --- the past, the present and future --- that’s nothing less than the flesh-and-blood physical presence of Jesus in the world today.  “Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” wrote the apostle Paul.  “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.”4 In this sacrament of Baptism, we become children of God, no less loved and accepted than Jesus Christ himself.
         Baptism connects us through the Holy Spirit to the body of Christ.  It enables us to die and rise with Jesus.  It makes us dead to sin and alive to God.5  Baptism gives us new and everlasting life and a freshly minted identity as children of a loving Lord.  That meaning gives us a brand new memory.  
         I am sure that we all know and can see among ourselves and other Christians that this baptism does not mean a lifetime of perfect bliss or perfect decision making.  
          Instead of a life filled with peaceful bliss and right choices after baptism instead we have something else.  Immediately after the baptism of Jesus in the lesson that follows, Mark tells us that the Spirit immediately drives Jesus “out into the wilderness,” where he is tempted by Satan for 40 days.6  Baptism means life no matter how we may feel or what is going on in our lives Monday, Wednesday or Friday.  Baptism only needs to happen once and whenever that may be, it is for all of our life, and our feelings to do not change it’s meaning.
         What does that mean?  As many of you know, the United States had a presidential contest in 2008 and one of candidates was Senator John McCain.  Senator McCain if you remember, was a veteran of the US war in Vietnam and was captured and in prison for years.  During that time in prison he experienced many things including torture.
         Senator McCain revisited Vietnam in 2000, in which he had the opportunity to reflect back on his years as a Prisoner of War.  During that visit McCain said, “I put the Vietnam War behind me a long time ago.  But I harbor no anger, nor rancor.  I’m a better man for my experience, and I’m grateful for having the opportunity of serving.”7
         We may not all have the strength to put to manage our memories and our feelings as John McCain has done.  Instead we have something more powerful, “The truth, even though I may not feel it right now,” wrote the Dutch priest Henri Nouwen, “is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace.”8
         This is not true just for Jesus … it is true for each one of us.  When we feel like we’re drowning in all that Satan throws our way, we are raised up ? and the breath of God fills us.  That’s not just a memory of baptism, it is a memory shaped by meaning.   Thus, our meaning shapes our lives.  We are precious.  We are beloved.  We are safe in an everlasting embrace.  Our true identity.  T.G.C.G!  Thank God, Child of God.  Amen. 

1 Vedantam, Shankar. “When we cook up a memory, experience is just one ingredient,” The Washington Post, May 26, 2008, A2.
2 Mark 1:4-5
3 vv. 7-8
4 Romans 6:3, 5
5 Romans 6
6 Mark1:11-13
7 http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/26/mccain.pow/index.html.
8 Nouwen, Henri. Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

Christmas 2008-2009

This is a copy of my Christmas 2008 Missionary Sponsor letter.  The letter was sent out the week of January 5-9.  The mailing list includes all Missionary Sponsors who have pledged a gift or signed a covenant in 2008.  To be added to the list please contact Global Mission of the ELCA: http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Global-Mission/Engage-in-Global-Mission/Support/Global-Mission-Support.aspx

Christmas in Japan

         By the end of December 25th, Christmas Day, any evidence of the holiday event in Japan (outside of churches) is quickly removed, pushed aside for the much larger occasion surrounding New Year celebrations.
         “Kitschy” is how one American who attends Meito Christ International Church where I am pastor, described her impressions of the Christmas decorations in Nagoya.  That feeling could arise from the 4 ft. artificial trees found at numerous store entrances.  The trees are festooned with ornaments the size of soft balls and gold garland that nearly cover the green plastic needles.  Or, it could be the odd mix of Christmas music piped into stores beginning the day after Halloween (that is another story).
         Besides the borrowing of western Christmas kitschy decorations there is very little that advances the true meaning of Christmas; even cr?che scenes, when seen at all, tend to be gaudy.  Instead, Christmas here centers on decorations and food.  Many people eat a Christmas cake and a bucket of Kentucky Fried chicken to observe the holiday.  The white cake tradition, unique in many ways to Japan, is believed to have begun after World War II when many families could afford the newly available but expensive white flour only once a year.  The economic might, as well as ability to purchase flour, of course, has increased for most people since those years, and various white flour cakes, also available by the slice, are prevalent all year round.  Yet the Christmas cake custom continues in an 8-inch round, white decorated layered flour cake, with an inch of sweet and light white frosting for Christmas, next to a bucket of original recipe Kentucky Fried chicken.
         Nagoya-Kibo Lutheran Church here in Nagoya, where I am missionary, strives to put the Christian meaning into this borrowed and transformed holiday.  Christmas is a prime opportunity for evangelism for it takes what is already present and puts meaning to the decorations.  One of the major annual Christmas events is for the parents, primarily mothers, of the kindergarten children at our Lutheran kindergarten.  This event hosted by the social committee of the PTA is a formal sit down affair (as much as it can be with the young little brothers and sisters of the Kindergarten students present) with everyone dressed up.  It is very well attended!
         It begins every year with a few Christmas carols sung by the entire group and an advent hymn that was taught to the children and parents a month prior to the mid December event.  After a prayer, the pastor provides an opening message.  The pastor’s words are a straightforward explanation and retelling of the Christmas story and what Christmas is all about.
         This year the short entertainment featured a tone chime group of Kindergarten parents who played a selection of Christmas carols while a light brunch (with cake!) was served.  Before a concluding prayer and Christmas message (again a retelling of the meaning of Christmas) from the chairman of the Kindergarten Church board, a short business meeting was held.  During the meeting, each parent received the same copy of an appropriate Kindergarten children’s activity book that retells the Christmas story, which is explained at the event to the parents.  Each family is then responsible for wrapping the book (in a paper of their choosing, with examples available of what is appropriate).  The following week, as part of Kindergarten Christmas pageant, the children receive the activity books during a Christmas present exchange.  Wrapped presents are largely absent during Christmas, as envelopes of money for children is the traditional Japanese New Year’s gift.
         During the meeting a special appeal (with the suggested amount of about $10.00 per family) is made for the Christmas offering that will be taken during the Children’s Christmas pageant.  Over the last five years, the entire Christmas offering has sponsored children in developing nations, this year in the Philippines.  There is a strong relationship made between the offering and the exchange of Christmas gifts and the desire of Christians to share the meaning of Christmas in giving.
         But more remarkably, I was struck on this occasion that the basic assumption made by this local church and the pastor is that everyone who attends knows nothing at all about the meaning of Christmas.  Besides what was said, more subtle teaching moments were included, for example at each place setting was a booklet that retold the Christmas story as well as the meaning of Jesus Christ and answers basic questions about the seasons of Advent and Christmas.   Nothing was taken for granted regarding anything that surrounds the season.  The basic message of Christmas was explained and repeated numerous times.  I thought about my time as a pastor in the United States and realized how often I assumed that most if not all knew all about the meaning of Christmas.
         That Christmas Kindergarten Parents’ event was but one example of the many opportunities taken by the local church during Christmas to share the good news of Jesus Christ, using people’s natural curiosity and the evident cultural borrowing of the season.  In a nation where Christian symbolism is largely absent, Christmas is a prime time to share the good news.  Instead of lamenting at how wrongly Christmas was being portrayed, the church instead used the opportunity to share.  One of the women at the table where I was sitting, new to the kindergarten, expressed complete shock at the meaning of Christmas.  Although she was aware of the season from all that was around her, she exclaimed, “I had no idea that Christmas was about the birth of Jesus!”
         After this Christmas, I was left wondering about our own symbols of Christmas, many of them invented and with meanings layered as thick as white frosting cake.  Where have we possibly missed the opportunity to share the good news of the birth of Christ because we in the U.S. lament how much Christmas is no longer about Christ?  Perhaps we can turn that around and view it as a golden opportunity to tell the good news that God is with us, born as one of us in Jesus the Christ child.  Here the assumption of the church is no one knows what Christmas is about.  Maybe the church in Japan has it right!

        Thank you for your prayerful support in 2008 and I look forward to your continued support in 2009.  In 2009, the ELCA Global Mission Lenten package will include a sermon that I wrote as well as some other ideas for Lent.  Finally the web address of my blog on my work has changed.  We can now be found at www.nagoyamission.typepad.com  God’s blessings on you and yours in 2009.

Rev. Charles Fredrickson
ELCA Missionary - Nagoya, Japan

January 4, 2009

Matthew 2: 1-12

        Have you ever wondered what it is like to follow a star?  Is it easy or is it hard?  Of course, I am not talking about following with baited breath for the next episode in some soap opera life story of a celebrity… some film, music or TV star.  I am talking about this story from Matthew, where centuries ago Magi traveled and arrived in Bethlehem.
         “Magi” is a Persian word for followers of Zoroaster but by the time of Jesus had come to generally mean a person with an ability to read the stars.  Thus the Magi were not kings with names --- for that image was layered on to the story much later.  These three --- and the fact we say three is based on the number of gifts and the fact that Matthew uses the plural form --- who came from out “east” and started asking questions around this occupied ancient city of Jerusalem.  These Magi claimed to have the knowledge to identify a star that portended the birth of king and moreover, a king for the Jews.  That ability was not odd for in that time heavenly occurrences and their routes were assumed to have something to say in much of life including important decisions like who was destined to be royal.  “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”1
         Even from those words, if we read them carefully, we do not know that they even “followed” the star from their homes, for that star that taught them of the impending birth of a king, reappears and is only followed after their time in Jerusalem.2  Yet how the Magi actually follow the star to Bethlehem, ironically only after King Herod had told them where to look after being reminded by the religious leaders that the birth was to be in Bethlehem is not mentioned.  What further complicates the story is Bethlehem is not that far from Jerusalem … only about 9.6 kilometers or six miles, hardly a journey far enough for a star.
         If that is not enough, how then do they follow the star to a particular house (rather than a stable described in Luke) in the town?  Was this star like the illumination with five corners that one can buy at a department store and put on the top of your house?  Or was the star one that had a long tail of light that descended from heaven to the front door of the place where Jesus lay?
         Obviously we cannot ever answer those questions.  We do not have time machines to go back and watch the story unfold, first to check its veracity, and then to review the mechanics, and not that those details makes much difference in the large scheme of things anyway.
         Yet, there is something deeper to that thought --- “following a star” --- that persists even to this day, it can be found in this question, “Where does one look for God” or possibly better asked, “Where are we looking for God?”  How are we following the star --- metaphorically speaking --- so that we find God or help others to find God?
         Let me put that thought into different terminology that may help us.  Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad in their book Competing for the Future suggest that to move forward toward our goals, we must have a specific "strategic intent."3  Without "strategic intent" we are just another generation wandering in the wilderness or oblivious.  But this "intent" doesn't mean trying everything or sipping from every cup offered our way which is the common misconception in our world.  Rather "intent" depends, Hamel and Prahalad argue, upon the presence of three attributes in order for it to gain any headway.
         First, a sense of direction!  The Magi had a sense of direction.    Instead of traveling off to some isolated mountaintop or deserted island the Magi traveled to a specific place, at a specific time.  The Magi knew where to go not just from the heavenly star, but where else would you go if all of sudden you had found out that a new king was to be born for the Jews.  Of course, you would go to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital.
         We see that later in Jesus as an adult for he spent the bulk of his journey, his earthly mission, in the ordinary towns and villages of his native Palestine.  He taught and preached and performed miracles -- in neighborhoods, at the docks, in homes filled with kids, chores and sick people and then finally in Jerusalem.  Jesus did not wander aimlessly.  Instead, with purpose and wherever he found himself, Jesus knew he could find God's word, God's presence, if he but looked around and within.
         We get off on the wrong foot when we make the mistake of looking for God's presence and purpose somewhere "out there.  We imagine the Divine must be somewhere far away and out of reach.  As a result, we tend to lose our sense of direction altogether.    
         Hamel and Pahalad secondly suggest that strategic intent also has a sense of discovery.  The journey itself is as intentional as the destination.  The Magi could not and did not expect that the birth of a King would lead to a small town and a newborn that would be a threat to King Herod.  That discovery was not told by their heavenly star rather that became clear as their journey unfolded.
 Even Jesus spent three or so years of public ministry on a journey -- three years in which he discovered more about God's presence and purpose than he had back in Nazareth when he first started.  For example, the Syro-Phoenician woman surprised him with her tenacity.  The Roman centurion surprised him with his faithfulness.  Simon Peter, one of the disciples, surprised him with both his insight and his ignorance.  Satan tried to surprise him in the wilderness.  At every turn of his journey, Jesus discovered a greater sense of God-around-him and God-within-him.
         The magi did not know how this journey was to turn out.  Jesus himself was surprised.  Accordingly why do we assume that our lives are to be without surprises or that the journey does not matter?
         Third and finally, strategic intent has a sense of destiny.  The Magi did not follow with out some fore knowledge of what they planned to find, the king of the Jews.  Granted that knowledge came from the star, none-the-less their sense of destiny came from God.  When they stood before King Herod, they did not hide what they had learned or what they believed to be true or their intention.  Rather, it was King Herod and possibly all of Jerusalem, who should have known more about the details, rather than these foreigners.  That destiny was not hidden.
         Jesus, himself, moved with a clear sense of destiny -- a focused passion of purpose. Jesus sought to expose and explain God's unparalleled love to others.  And as we see in the end as Jesus moved toward his own personal destiny -- toward the cross -- his message was not about himself, but was about the plan for salvation.
         Here we are at the beginning of a new year 2009.  That question, “Have you ever wondered what it is like to follow a star?” is not for the Magi alone.  Rather, that thought in a sense is exactly what it means to be a disciple and follower of Jesus.  So how is your sense of direction?  How is your sense of discovery and how is your sense of destiny?  How we will follow God’s star to worship this king, Jesus the Christ in 2009?

1 Matthew 2:2
2 Vs. 9
3 From www.Homiletics.com; Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, Competing for the Future Boston: Harvard University Press, 1994. p.130ff