by admin | Apr 1, 2015 | Message from Kahu
LIFE: QUANTITY AND QUALITY!
On Palm Sunday, I shared with the congregation some thoughts about the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem. According to the Gospel of John, it was a donkey colt–just a baby! People were used to Roman soldiers riding into town on their gigantic horses, reminding them not to mess with the powers that be. John compared Jesus (along with his message, life and “leadership style”) with the Roman Emperor and those who represented him. (Hence, the baby donkey!) The emperor was known as the one who took away life from the common people. John portrays Jesus as the one who gives life to the common people–and everyone else for that matter. Over and over again in John’s Gospel, we see Jesus giving life, talking about life, promising life, and living life. He offered not only a quantity (eternal), but a quality (abundant).
As we prepare ourselves to partake of Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday, may we open our hearts to Jesus–the Bread of Life. As we prepare ourselves to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday, may we open our hearts to the life he offered: eternal and abundant…the life that not even death can take away!
I invite you to join us at Koloa Union Church as we celebrate life!!!
Kahu Alan Akana
by admin | Mar 26, 2015 | Message from Kahu
OUR MISSION IS TO REACH OUT
As the Season of Lent comes to an end, we are wrapping up our focus on our new Mission Statement. We are talking this week about the final part of the statement: “Our mission is…to reach out into the broader community by sharing aloha with everyone.”
On Sunday, I shared a story about Father Gregory Boyle, who spent most of his ministry working among the inner-city gangs of Los Angeles. He took a couple of gang members with him to a restaurant (a first for both of them!). When they entered the restaurant, the hostess just glared at them. No welcome. No indication that they might be seated. With their shaved heads, tattoos and baggy clothes, they didn’t belong there, at least in her mind. Because of Fr. Boyle’s persistence, she finally sat them. The customers became completely quiet as they stared at the two gang members. Suddenly, like an angel from heaven, the waitress approached and treated them as if they were her favorite customers, calling the two young men “Sweetie” and “Honey.” She brought them additional menus, kept their drinks full, offered them “extra this” and “more of that.” When they asked if she had “Tapatio” hot sauce, she brought it to them as if everyone asked for it all the time.
The two men were blown away by her kindness. When they got back into the car, one of them said, “She treated us like we were somebody” (a kind of treatment they rarely got!). Fr. Boyle called her “Jesus in an apron.” Upon further reflection, it occurred to me that this is how Jesus treated everyone: like they were somebody! Women and men, children and adults, Jews and Samaritans, healthy people and lepers…he treated each and every one as if they were the most important person in the world. As we live out our mission, our job is to do this very same thing. May God grant us wisdom, courage and compassion as week seek to share aloha with everyone!
I hope to see you for our Wednesday Lenten Reflection, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday during this wonderful and holy time of the year!
Kahu Alan Akana
by admin | Mar 18, 2015 | Message from Kahu
OUR MISSION IS TO NURTURE ALL….
The part of our Mission Statement which we are exploring this week is “to nurture all with God’s unconditional love.” On Sunday, I began my sermon talking about the importance of having a nurturing theology. When our theology is nurturing, then we have a shot at being nurturing in all that we do. In the church of my youth, the theology was based more on fear than on nurture. I remember hearing over and over again that my sins were so great that I deserved to die and go to hell. Furthermore, there were certain things one was expected to believe, say and do in order to escape the fires of hell and eternal damnation. Needless to say, I don’t feel very nurtured when I look back to the theology of my youth.
As an adult who has explored the Scriptures for most of my life, I find many examples of theology that are very nurturing. In Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, he wrote these words (15:10): “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” I believe these words may express one of Paul’s most enlightened moments, to be able to look at himself and know that he is what he is because God’s love made him exactly that way.
What would change in your life if you truly believed that about yourself? What would change in your relationships if you truly believed that about other people? What would change in the world if we all believed that about everyone else?
Why not give it a try:
- Take a look in the mirror and say: “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”
- Take a look into the eyes of another and say: “By the grace of God, you are what you are.” (You may want to say this silently or you might get a really funny response!)
Try it out…and just see how your life begins to change!
I invite you to join us on Wednesday evening and Sunday morning as we continue to explore a nurturing theology…and what God is calling us to be!
Kahu Alan Akana
by admin | Mar 3, 2015 | Message from Kahu
OUR HAWAIIAN IDENTITY, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Each week during Lent, we are spending some time on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings taking a look at one part of our new Mission Statement:
Our Mission is to worship and serve God,
Whom we understand as Creator, Christ and Spirit;
Embrace our Hawaiian identity, language, and culture;
Invite and welcome others into our faith community;
Nurture all with God’s unconditional love;
And reach out into the broader community
By sharing aloha with everyone.
On Sunday, I shared with the congregation some of my thoughts about the 2nd part of the statement, which focuses on our Hawaiian identity, language and culture. I talked about the Hawaiian word for water, “wai”, and for wealth, “waiwai.” Wealth actually means “lots of water.” Hawaiian people have always measured wealth by the abundance of natural resources…and where there was plenty of fresh water, there was an abundance of kalo (taro), sweet potatoes, animals, and many other things to eat, not to mention an abundance of drinking water! In Hawaiian culture, it was important that there was lots of food and water for everyone. It was also important for people to work hard at whatever it was that they were good at. In fact, people from other places used to be so impressed by how industrious Hawaiians were…how hard they worked…even though they were surrounded by so much seafood and other things that grew on the land. They worked hard and long hours because they found their work extremely meaningful.
I also shared my observation that so much of the Old and New Testaments also speaks of wealth in the same way, including our reading from Isaiah 55:
Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wind and milk without money or price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
This sounds like the same message to me! There is something deeply satisfying about working hard at something when you know your place and see the overall purpose of your work, especially when you know that you are making life better for others.
I invite you to come to the water and drink deeply! Enjoy the abundance all around us! And, if you haven’t already, find something that you are really good at, and figure out how to use that gift to make life better for others! Let’s commit to that as individuals…and as a church!
Kahu Alan Akana
by admin | Feb 19, 2015 | Message from Kahu
JOIN US THIS EVENING FOR ASH WEDNESDAY
I returned this morning from Hawai’i Island where we buried my mother’s ashes next to the ashes of my father in Hilo. (So I’ve had a lot of time to think about ashes and the meaning of Ash Wednesday this past week!) I hope you will join us this evening at church as we begin the season of Lent by eating together, and then reading the Scriptures, singing hymns and marking our foreheads with ashes, as we remember that God’s love remains with us in life, in death, and throughout eternity!
6:00 Soup Supper in Moore Hall
7:00 Ash Wednesday Service in the Sanctuary
by admin | Feb 4, 2015 | Message from Kahu
LOVE BUILDS UP
On Sunday, I shared with the congregation some of the difficult passages written by the Apostle Paul. In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells his readers these interesting things:
- For people who are unmarried, it is best for them to remain single (because married people are anxious about pleasing their spouses rather than pleasing God), unless someone doesn’t have self-control (because it is bad for people to “burn with passion”).
- Men should never wear anything on their heads when they pray, and women should always wear something on their heads when they pray…and possibly wear a veil over their faces (because this shows that men stand in absolute authority over women, and women are in absolute authority under men).
- Women should be silent in church and ask their husbands at home if they have any questions (because it is shameful for women to speak in church).
- If an unmarried Christian has sexual relations with anyone…or if someone is greedy…or has too much to drink…we should kick him out of the church!
- If someone is hungry and is about to eat something, and then finds out that what she is about to eat is offensive to someone in the room, she should go hungry.
Paul seemed to have a lot of rules for Christians in the 1st century. I grew up thinking of Paul as rather narrow-minded, conservative and judgmental. So I was surprised a few years ago to hear about a book called The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. In their book, they describe Paul as being very progressive for his day. He imagined a time and place where everyone was equal: male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor. In fact, Paul was so “out there” in promoting his vision of the way things would be if God were actually in charge (rather than the Roman Emperor), that he was executed in Rome for treason. Of course, Paul lived in a imperial culture where both women and slaves were legal property, where temple sacrifices to idols were common occurrences, and where sexual freedom was more acceptable than it was in his own Jewish tradition. So Paul addressed issues within the church from the cultural context in which he lived. He also addressed a very divided church where people were fighting over who was right and who was wrong.
I’ll never forget the day when my seminary professor pointed out that the key verse to understanding the entire book of First Corinthians was one we read on Sunday: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” He pointed out that Paul was making the point that all God really cares about in terms of our behavior is how much we love each other. Whether we believe we are right on an issue or know that we are on the wrong side all together, the important thing to God is that we love the other person. For it is love that builds up a church. I would add that it is love that builds up a person, a marriage, a relationship, a family, a community, and a nation. Perhaps Paul was being pretty radical after all.
Have fun building up one another with love this week!
Kahu Alan Akana
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