by admin | Mar 13, 2017 | Message from Kahu
BLESSED ARE THE MEEK
As we continue our Lenten journey this year, we pause each week and consider one of Jesus’ beatitudes (Jesus’ blessings in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5). This week’s beatitude is:
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the Earth.
On Sunday, we met at the beach as we considered how meekness is an attitude and way of being in the world. I mentioned in my sermon that it would be difficult to be proud and think that I am the center of the universe as I looked at the ocean in front of me on that clear day. It is immense and I am humbled to stand at the ocean and consider how vast and deep it is.
We also read from the third chapter of John’s Gospel, where Jesus told Nicodemus: “No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above (which can also be translated “born anew” or “born again”).” There is a certain humility we must have in order to start over, or admit that we don’t have our act together all the time, or begin seeing the world around us in a whole new way. Yet, this is what Jesus called people to do if they want to truly see the realm of God among us.
Our attitude makes a huge difference in how we see the world and how we create community and a world where God’s love is felt by everyone. I encourage us all to be open to new ways of being in the world, especially being humble so that we can see and learn new things.
I invite you to join us on Wednesday evening at 6 o’clock as we enjoy a soup supper and consider these things in reflection, conversation and prayer.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
_______________
Since we were at the beach on Sunday, there is no video of this week’s sermon.
“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 | Mar 9, 2017 | Message from Kahu
We began Lent last week with our Ash Wednesday service when we were reminded that God remains with us throughout our lives and in the life to come. Our theme came from the first Beatitude (Jesus’ blessings in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5):
Blessed are the poor in spirit,for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
God is with those who are poor and those who seem to have little spirit left in their lives. God is with us when we are feeling that way. Even when we face the death of a loved one or our own mortality, God’s love never leaves us, and we have faith that we will someday rise in God’s loving presence. As I marked the foreheads of those who worshipped on Ash Wednesday with ashes, I reminded them of these beliefs as I said:
From dust you were made,
to dust you shall return,
and from the dust you shall rise.
On Sunday (the first Sunday of Lent), we focused on the second Beatitude:
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
In my sermon, I talked about the ways we experience grief in our lives and pointed to Psalm 6, Luke 22 and Matthew 5, to learn what we can from the Scriptures about grief. Here are some of the highlight of the sermon:
- Grief is a very real part of life, and there is no point in denying it or trying to pretend that we never grieve. King David is a great example of someone who openly mourns in God’s presence; and we see this openness before God over and over again in the Psalms.
- Grief comes to us in many different ways. Sometimes we can’t get to sleep—like King David—no matter how tired we feel; and at other times sleep seems to be all we want to do—like Jesus’ disciples when they knew he was about to be arrested.
- God is with those who grieve. We find great comfort in our grief knowing that it is never God’s way of punishing us, and in knowing that God loves us and blesses us in the midst of our greatest sadness.
I hope you will join us on Wednesday evenings at 6 p.m. as we share a simple meal together and then reflect and discuss the theme of the previous Sunday.
I also hope to see you at CHURCH ON THE BEACH this Sunday. See below for the details.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
_______________
Click HERE to see a video of Sunday’s sermon. Videos of Kahu’s sermons are available most weeks. You can find them on our church website <www.koloaunionchurch.org> and on our weekly e-news. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. You can also subscribe on YouTube anytime you watch a sermon; that way you can easily watch any past sermon and even receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.
To see a video of last week’s sermon, click HERE. (It was uploaded a bit late and was not included on the Weekly News.)
“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 | Feb 28, 2017 | Message from Kahu
It was a joyful day being back in church on Sunday after a 3-week break of vacation and study leave. It was a special Sunday for me, as I celebrated my 3-year anniversary as the kahu of Koloa Union Church, and as my son Palani and I hosted around a hundred people at the grand opening of Alan Akana Gallery in the afternoon. The gallery is the fulfillment of a dream I have had for many years to have my own space to share my watercolors with others. I am especially pleased that the church will benefit from the profits of the sales. Please drop by if you weren’t able to attend on Sunday.
The theme of our worship service on Sunday was “joy,” and I shared a bit about my journey with joy and some of the things I learned about joy in The Book of Joy, written by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The thing that stands out most to me is Tutu’s quote that we are “reservoirs of joy” and we allow ourselves to experience joy in our own lives, that joy has a ripple effect and continues to touch the lives of people even far beyond our vision or knowledge. I encourage you to pay attention to the possibilities of joy for you and allow your joy to ripple throughout the world!
I hope to see a lot of people on Tuesday as we gather at 6 p.m. in Moore Hall for our Mardi Gras Pancake Supper, and then again on Wednesday evening at 6 for our weekly Lenten Soup Supper, followed by our Ash Wednesday service at 7. I have a feeling that this year’s service will be especially meaningful to a lot of people.
As a reminder, this years Lenten Season will focus on the beatitudes—Jesus’ “blessings” in Matthew’s Gospel. I invite you to join us on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings as we consider the many ways of blessing and being blessed!
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
______________
Click HERE to see a video of Sunday’s sermon. Videos of Kahu’s sermons are available most weeks. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. You can also subscribe on YouTube anytime you watch a sermon; that way you can easily watch any past sermon and even receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.
by admin | Feb 1, 2017 | Message from Kahu
On Sunday, I shared three stories that brought me hope and inspiration during the week. I also reminded the congregation that we are creating the stories of today—stories that future generations will tell. I invite you to consider what stories you want to be told about you and our generation, how you want to be remembered, and what changes you might make in your life and in the world around us in order to be remembered for justice, kindness and humility. You can click the link below to see the full sermon from Micah, chapter 6, in which the prophet tells us what God’s longing is for us:
…to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God
I trust that you will create a beautiful story with your life!
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
________________________________
Click HERE to see a video of Sunday’s sermon. Videos of Kahu’s sermons are available most weeks. You can find them on our church website <www.koloaunionchurch.org> and on our weekly e-news. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. You can also subscribe on YouTube anytime you watch a sermon; that way you can easily watch any past sermon and even receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.
by admin | Jan 25, 2017 | Message from Kahu
FOLLOWING JESUS: A NEW KIND OF EMPIRE
On Sunday, I asked the congregation to imagine what it would be like growing up in utter poverty in Antioch, the capital city of Syria—a Roman province—in the first century. You eat one small meal a day if you are lucky and when you are finished eating your very small meal, there is no more food left in the house. You have to wait until your father comes home from work the next day with more food. There is a little bit of money left, but that is for taxes, and no one would dare not pay their taxes. When you get sick with a cold or the flu, your parents pray that you don’t die, because most children die; they die from colds, flus and all kinds of other diseases. Your family cannot afford a doctor or medicine or any kind of healthcare; so everyone learns to pray really hard. Getting sick and dying from illness happens a lot in every family. Death is a constant topic of conversation. When the tax collector comes around on one of his regular rounds, he demands the tiny bit that your parents have saved up; and this is the reason you can only afford one small meal a day; but your family give him whatever he asks for. If they don’t, the tax collectors will have Roman soldiers sent to your house; and they will drag one or both of your parents off to prison. Speaking of Roman soldiers, there were some 20,000 in your little city. To get an idea of the huge military presence in Antioch, imagine 500-1,000 soldiers patrolling Koloa and Poipu. They would be everywhere! You would see dozens or maybe even hundreds of them every single day. Back in Antioch, if you didn’t pay your taxes, they might kick the entire family out of your home; then all of the children are likely to be orphaned and the likelihood of illness and death increases even more.
You are told during your childhood that the reason you live in these conditions is because of your sins. You are told that your ancestor—the people of Israel—were unfaithful to God, and therefore God delivered them to the Roman Empire. And this is why your family now lives the way they do—under Roman oppression. And every day your family prays for a Messiah—the Anointed One—who will deliver your family and all of the other people of Israel from their sins…along with all of the consequences of their sins…most importantly the economic, physical and spiritual conditions under the oppression of the Roman Empire. And so, when you pray, “Forgive us our sins,” what you are really saying is, “Deliver us from the injustice of the Roman Empire.”
I shared about life in Syria for the average person because scholars believe that Antioch of Syria was the audience to which Matthew was addressing his Gospel. So, when Jesus showed up on the scene and began talking about an altogether different kind of “empire” (the same word as used in Roman “empire” and often translated “kingdom” in most Bible translations), it was in the context of people longing to be delivered from the Roman Empire. Jesus called this new empire the “Empire of the Heavens.” When Jesus spoke about “good news of the empire,” they knew that it must be a completely different way of doing things because the only empire they knew was bad for them—all bad in every way. This news was so good that people found it irresistible. In Matthew 4, while walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus approached two brothers who were fishermen, Simon Peter and Andrew, and said to them “Follow me.” They left their nets and followed Jesus. Then Jesus said to two other brothers who were also fishermen, James and John, “Follow me.” They too left their nets, boat and father in order to follow Jesus. The next thing you know, great crowds were following Jesus. The scenario that Matthew was creating is that the good news of Jesus and his altogether new kind of empire was irresistible.
The good news is still irresistible today! Just imagine a world where there is no hunger, poverty, needless suffering or fear of violence. Imagine a world where compassion and abundance are truly experienced by everyone. May God grant us the imagination to dream of such a world and the courage to create it.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
Click HERE to see a video of Sunday’s sermon. Videos of Kahu’s sermons are available most weeks. You can find them on our church website <www.koloaunionchurch.org> and on our weekly e-news. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. You can also subscribe on YouTube anytime you watch a sermon; that way you can easily watch any past sermon and even receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.
by admin | Jan 19, 2017 | Message from Kahu
AVERAGE PEOPLE CHANGING THE WORLD
Since we were celebrating Martin Luther King Day on Monday, I decided to share the story of Rosa Parks during my sermon on Sunday. Most of us know that Rosa Parks is the Black woman who refused to stand up on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and give her seat to a White person. She had actually been sitting in the “colored” section of the bus, exactly one seat behind the “colored” sign. However, after one particularly busy stop, there were people standing in the aisle, including a few White people. So the bus driver told all of the Black riders in Rosa Parks row that they would all have to stand in order to allow the White people to sit. Three of them stood up, but Rosa Parks moved closer to the window and refused to give up her seat. So the driver called the police and Rosa Parks was arrested for disorderly conduct. Because of her simple act of civil disobedience, the American Civil Rights movement was given the energy it needed to end segregation not only on buses, but also at drinking fountains, restaurants, schools, and neighborhoods.
One of the reasons I loved the story of Rosa Parks is because she was an ordinary person who made a big difference in the world. She was not a great public speaker and she didn’t have an exceptional education or resume; she worked as a seamstress in a department store and she struggled to make ends meet financially. Nevertheless, she acted out her convictions and courageously stood her ground. Her example inspires us because most of us consider ourselves pretty average and identify with Rosa Parks and other ordinary people. I think to myself: If such an ordinary person can make such a big difference, then perhaps so can I and so can you.
There was only one Martin Luther King, Jr., and we honor him for using his exceptional gifts. However, there were also thousands of ordinary people, like Rosa Parks, whose roles were also important in the Civil Rights Movement. I hope that we will honor them all, not only by remembering them but also by following their example and living by our convictions and doing the right thing even when it takes courage and faith.
Aloha nui!
Kahu Alan Akana
Click HERE to see a video of Sunday’s sermon. Videos of Kahu’s sermons are available most weeks. You can find them on our church website <www.koloaunionchurch.org> and on our weekly e-news. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to church. You can also subscribe on YouTube anytime you watch a sermon; that way you can easily watch any past sermon and even receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.
Recent Comments