by admin | Dec 4, 2018 | Message from Kahu
We began the Season of Advent on Sunday! The church is decorated with the Christmas tree, Advent wreath, poinsettias, and the beautiful Nativity seen on the communion table. Shellee Riggio shared personal words about “hope” (our theme for the day) and then danced a stunning American Sign Language interpretation to the song “I Hope You Dance.” Kathleen Dahill sung a perfect solo for the day and taught the congregation a new song about waiting for the Lord (another Advent theme).
In my message, I talked about preparation for the many ways Christ comes to us (and, yes, another Advent theme!). I said that it was a bit like when my son Palani used to visit me after I moved to Dallas and how I anticipated and prepared for each visit. It was also very much like when he came to live with me full-time in California just before his junior year in high school. God, in Christ, comes to us over and over again, and yet, God also comes to stay and never leaves. The question to ask is: “How do we constantly prepare for his presence among us—today, tomorrow and for the rest of our lives?”
I also shared a famous Russian painting by the 15th century artist Andrei Rublev called “The Holy Trinity.” (There is a picture of it below.) It is a very different image of the Trinity than the pictures I saw growing up, in college where I studied philosophy and religion, and in seminary. In most of those pictures, the figures are typically very masculine: an old man with a long white beard, a younger man with a long brown or blonde beard, and a dove or other figure or symbol for the Holy Spirit. The images in those pictures also indicate an authoritarian God, and frankly, a Caucasian God. In Rublev’s iconic painting, however, we see three figures sitting around a table enjoying a meal from a common vessel. Their heads are bowed in humility to one another and they sit as equals.
On the front of the table, in the center just below the bowl, there is a rectangle with remnants of glue. Some art historians believe there was once a mirror attached there. Whenever someone saw the painting, they saw themselves as part of this humble and intimate communion of God! During the Season of Advent, may we remind ourselves that God is relational, intimate and inviting. What more hope for the world do we need than that?
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
“The Holy Trinity” By Andrei Rublev
__________________________________________
Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of a recent message from Sunday morning. You may see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.
“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.
by admin | Nov 16, 2018 | Message from Kahu
The Quilt of Belonging
Reflections on the
Parliament of the World’s Religions
On Sunday I shared with the congregation about my experience at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto, Canada, where I was last week. I spent an entire week attending plenary sessions, workshops, movies, exhibits and concerts—all having to do with the various religions represented—which numbered right around 200—and the importance of religious people gathering, welcoming one another, and working together to address some of the world’s greatest challenges, including racism, intolerance, violence, hunger, global warming and environmental destruction.
One of my favorite exhibits was called the Quilt of Belonging—definitely the largest and perhaps the most striking quilt I have ever seen. It is 120 feet long and consists of 263 blocks, representing all of Canada’s aboriginal groups and every nation in the world. I met the lady who came up with the idea and oversaw the entire project. Her name is Esther Bryan. She started the project in 1998 after a trip to Slovenia with her parents. Her father had left that country after World War II, and they went back to find the home and family he had left behind. During that trip she recognized that everyone has a story to tell and each person has a past and a place that forms who they are today. As she thought about all of the indigenous and immigrant people of Canada, she began wondering about an art project that would truly represent everyone in the country and give each person the opportunity to find a place and sense of belonging in the overall design. Esther was there at the exhibit and I visited with her for awhile. She told me that every square in the quilt was designed and created by someone living in Canada who was either a member of their aboriginal group or a person who came from another country. She asked each participant to make a square that represents their country and tell the story of their home! She finally finished the quilt seven years after she started it, along with a book of all the stories!
Esther created the quilt as an expression of hope—a vision of how the world can live in harmony, as it recognizes diversity while celebrating a common humanity, demonstrating that there is a place for all to belong. I tell you about the quilt because it was, for me, a symbol of the entire Parliament. All 7,500 of us came from different places in the world—including a number of us from Hawai`i. After seeing the quilt and hearing all about it from its creator, it occurred to me that every single one of us has a place we came from and a story to tell about it.
Every day, I listened to dozens of speakers talk about where they were from, the faith they learned in those places, their convictions and their concerns. One of my favorite speakers was Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. He was born and raised in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. From elementary school through high school, his entire education was in refugee camp schools, while living in poverty. He overcame seemingly unsurmountable odds during his childhood and early adult year and he studied hard enough to receive a scholarship to study medicine in Egypt and then got his MD in London, as well as a master’s degree in public health at Harvard. He was the first Palestinian physician to receive an appointment in medicine at an Israeli hospital. He has dedicated his life to promote healing and peace throughout the Middle East and the world. Part of this mission was to tell the stories of war and violence between Israel and Palestine.
During the 2009 Gaza war, an Israeli tank fired on his home and killed 3 of his daughters and his niece. This was just 4 months after his wife died of cancer, and he and his daughters were still grieving her death. Immediately after the shelling, Dr. Abuelaish went into the room where his daughters and niece had been just moments before, he saw their body parts all over the room, and he knew they were all dead. He was scheduled to speak live by phone on Israeli television just a few minutes later. He decided to keep his appointment, and he told the story of what had just happened. In tears, he described the horrific scene and cried for help.
After moving to Canada, he wrote a book called I Shall Not Hate. In the book, he writes about dedicating his life to peace and conflict resolution in the Middle East, in memory of his daughters. Also in their memory, he founded Daughters for Life Foundation, which provides scholarships for young women studying in the Middle East, regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation. Dr. Abuelaish is a Muslim, and he attributes his positive attitude and commitment to peace, forgiveness and reconciliation to his Muslim faith.
This is just one of the many stories I heard at the Parliament. I will be sure to share more of them with you in the coming months. In the meantime, I invite you to listen to my sermon from Sunday, order Dr. Abuelaish’s book I Shall Not Hate, and check out the Quilt of Belonging.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
__________________________________________
Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of a recent message from Sunday morning. You may see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.
“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.
by admin | Oct 25, 2018 | Message from Kahu
No Matter Who You Are…
On Sunday, I told the congregation about a friend of mine that I knew back in high school. He was gay and struggling with his sexuality. He found it particularly difficult facing his feelings and attractions on the one hand, and hearing at church that his desires were sinful and disgusting to God. He became quite depressed and eventually suicidal. When he ended up in the hospital after having a breakdown, our pastor went to visit him. As the pastor listened, my friend shared his feelings, struggles to do the right thing, and wanting to please God. The pastor told him that it would be better to kill himself rather than to be intimate with another man, for at least that way (according to the pastor), he would more likely end up in heaven.
When my friend told me this story, I was beyond angry. “How could someone’s life become completely worthless because of his desires for love and intimacy,” I thought to myself. When my friend refused to admit that his desires were sinful and agree that he would never act upon them, it became apparent very quickly that he was no longer welcome at that church.
One reason I became ordained in the United Church of Christ is because we proclaim toeveryone: No matter who you are or where you have been on life’s journey, you are welcome here! I was so pleased on Sunday when our congregation voted unanimously to begin the process of becoming an Open and Affirming (ONA) congregation of the United Church of Christ. Over the next several months, the ONA Core Team from our church will be keeping us all informed of its progress and also inviting every single member and participant of our church to ask questions, share stories, express fears and opinions about people who may be different. We will also hear stories from people who may not have always felt welcome in other churches. I invite us all to open our hearts, our minds and our ears as we listen to one another and consider how we might be completely open about welcoming all people into the life of our church.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
__________________________________________
Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of a recent message from Sunday morning. You may see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.
“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.
by admin | Oct 16, 2018 | Message from Kahu
Gratitude and Politics
On Sunday, I told the congregation about the final section of Diana Butler Bass’ book, Gratitude: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks. It focused on gratitude, community and politics. I get the connection between gratitude and community; that totally makes sense to me; but gratitude and politics? Those aren’t two themes that often go together in my mind. Diana’s book was helpful in understanding the importance of bringing those two things together. However, it was Jon Meacham’s book, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, that really helped me to see the significant role that gratitude can have in the midst of politics—even if those politics seem far from what we want or imagine the world to be.
Meacham points to many dark times in our nation’s history and refers to certain Presidents, Governors, Senators, members of Congress, and others who said and wrote some of the most surprisingly hateful and intolerant things about African-Americans, Asians, Jews, Eastern & Southern Europeans. He names those elected leaders who owned slaves, those who ordered the massacre of Native Americans by the thousands, those who imprisoned innocent people, including over a hundred thousand Americans of Japanese ancestry during WWII. He also writes about those who would build great walls to keep immigrants out of our country, such as Georgia Governor Clifford Walker who said these words to the KKK in 1924:
I would build a wall of steel, a wall as high as heaven, against the admission of a single one of those Southern Europeans who never thought the thoughts or spoke the language of a democracy in their lives.
Meacham never gives thanks for the intolerance and hateful acts, but points out that there are always people who condemn them, that such times have always been survivable and they actually make us stronger and more accepting in the end. In other words, after the times of darkness, there is more light than there was before; and this leads us to gratitude.
Our Gospel reading on Sunday was from John, chapter 10, where Jesus came to offer lives of abundance. I pointed out that people can be grateful for both the abundance and Jesus’ vision of sharing the abundance with everyone. May we all be grateful that there is more than enough on the Earth for everyone and that a vision for sharing it with others is possible and actually happening throughout the world.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
__________________________________________
Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of his message from this past Sunday. You may see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.
“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.
by admin | Oct 4, 2018 | Message from Kahu
Gratitude and Abundance
Sunday was such a special day at Koloa Union Church! We celebrated with gratitude our many blessings and imagined ways to share them with others in the coming months. Our children presented a fun and meaningful skit on the importance of gratitude. Rose danced two beautiful hula on the theme of “gratitude and rainbows.” Most people offered a blessing that we might share with others in the coming year. I talked in my message about the meaning of the rainbow—traditionally a sign of hope and diversity. It is also a symbol of blessing, gratitude and abundance for me, for a rainbow requires both sunlight and rain in order to exist—the two necessary ingredients for life on earth. Just like the rainbow, every other blessing is dependent upon them. I am so grateful for life in all its fascinating diversity, and all of the blessings that come to us in our lives! The next time you see a rainbow, I invite you to give thanks for your many blessings and for God’s abundance on this amazing planet on which we live.
In our Gospel lesson on Sunday, Jesus said that he came that people would have life and have it abundantly. When we gather together as followers of Jesus, we celebrate the abundance in our lives and also share that abundance with others, for our blessings are meant to be shared, especially with people who have the greatest need of the basic blessings in life. As I consider our theme for the coming year, “With Gratitude, Welcoming All and Sharing Our Blessings in 2019,” I am especially grateful to everyone who made financial commitments to our 2019 general fund on Sunday. I am grateful for each and every one of our church members and friends who offer blessings to others on a regular basis!
In closing, I want to give a very grateful “shout out” to our Stewardship Co-chairs, Rosemary Smythe and Virginia Dunas, who do a wonderful job reminding us throughout the year of the importance of gratitude and generosity, as well as the possibilities of what we can do together when we give generously to the church with our time, talents and treasures. I must say that the cakes on Sunday, brought to you by the Stewardship Committee (including the one in the photo above), were some of the nicest cakes I have seen in a long time—and so appropriate to our theme!
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
__________________________________________
Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of his message from this past Sunday. You may see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.
“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.
by admin | Sep 26, 2018 | Message from Kahu
Love and Gratitude
On Sunday, I talked about how expressions of gratitude impact people around us. In her book, Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks, Diana Butler Bass writes about the impact that gratitude has on the people who observe it in others. She refers to work done by social psychologists who monitor the affects on the brain and bodily functions when someone observes another person expressing gratitude. One such psychologist is Jonathan Haidt, who observed a calming response, as well as related impulses, such as awe or self-transcendence. Amazing! Our bodily functions, our emotional states, and our spiritual wellbeing actually change when we observe another person expressing gratitude!
Our Scripture readings on Sunday point us toward love and gratitude when it comes to bringing our offerings to God. According to Psalm 50, it is gratitude that makes our offerings acceptable to God. Mark 12 reinforces this and also adds that love for God and others is the most important thing we can offer to God. In the story of the poor widow who places two half-pennies in the temple offering, Jesus makes it really clear that her offering is valuable and worthy because she gave from love and gratitude.
There is an important lesson here for us: our offerings to God are also valuable and of great worth to God when we give with love and gratitude. God is not concerned so much with the size of the gift; God is concerned with the love and gratitude that are offered in our giving. Another lesson from the story is that we can actually give everything to God. Just like the poor widow gave everything she owned to God, we can too. Think about what you place in the offering plate at church, what you give to your favorite non-profit organization, what is in your bank account, your home, your possessions, the time you have left here on Earth. What if you truly believed that it all belongs to God and you are a steward to make it all work and make a difference in the world by participating with God in sharing, loving, and being grateful?
For many of us, this is a big shift in how we are being in the world, in how we see ourselves and “our” possessions, in how we fundamentally relate to God, other people and the entire universe. It is a completely different paradigm in our living. Yet, it is the only way I know to live with the greatest joy, the deepest peace, and the most love. Besides, just think of all the people who will be impacted by watching you live with such gratitude! I invite you, if you have not done so already, to make that shift.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
__________________________________________
Our Kahu (Pastor) offers a weekly message in church most Sundays during the year. Click HERE to see a video of his message from this past Sunday. You may see the Koloa Union Church YouTube channel to see many of his past messages and subscribe in order be notified when a new message is posted. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. Please feel free to “Like” any of the videos you see and share them on social media, such as Facebook, so that others will notice them.
“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.
Recent Comments