Desperate Faith

Preached by Michael Cheuk
June 28, 2009, Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B
Mark 5:21-43

Someone once said, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”  In this morning’s Gospel Lesson from Mark, we meet two desperate people facing desperate times.  The first was Jairus, one of the synagogue rulers.  We know his name because he was a highly respected leader perched on the upper crust of Jewish society.  Yet, despite his power, his influence, his connections and his resources, he was helpless in the face of his twelve-year-old daughter’s progressing illness.  Jairus had access to all the best medical care of his day, but they didn’t work out and his daughter’s life was rapidly slipping away.  One wouldn’t blame Jairus if he had resigned himself to his daughter’s death, for in his culture, daughters were not valued as sons.  But she must have been a very special child, the apple of his eye.  Now, he had heard about a faith healer from the podunk town of Nazareth, who, by all reports, was casting out demons and performing miraculous healings.  Talk about alternative medicine!  All the doctors Jairus had talked to thought Jesus was a quack, and all his friends on the synagogue ruling council said that they wouldn’t be caught dead getting help from an uneducated, hick-town preacher.  But Jairus was desperate, and for his beloved daughter, he would try anything.  So when he heard that Jesus was arriving to town from the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Lake of Gennesaret, he decided to leave his dying daughter’s side for one final, desperate mission.

Mysterious Growth

Preached by Michael Cheuk
June 14, 2009, Second Sunday After Pentecost, Year B
Mark 4:26-34

I’ve got a question for you this morning.  How many of you have a garden or a farm?  That’s great!  I admire people who can take simple seed and plant and grow beautiful flowers and tasty crops.  As summer officially arrives next Sunday, we are at the height of the growing season.  Farmers and gardeners are eagerly waiting for signs of a coming harvest – like tomatoes, vegetables, cotton and wheat.  In Jesus’ day, since they didn’t have packaged and frozen foods shipped from half-way around the world, everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of the growing season because that meant that pretty soon, they would have fresh produce on the table and harvested grain to turn into flour for bread.  Jesus used this familiar agricultural image of planting and growing to teach his disciples what the kingdom of God is like.

Do we really know what the kingdom of God is like?  That term is mentioned 53 times in the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John, and the phrase the “kingdom of heaven” is mentioned 32 times in the Gospel of Matthew.  Obviously, this is an important concept for Jesus and the early church.  For a long time, I thought of the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven as a physical place – you know, hovering somewhere up there, lined with streets of gold with angels playing harps.  But as I examined the Gospels closer, almost every time Jesus described the kingdom of God, he used earthly and earthy images, not to describe a physical place we go to when we die, but a realm in the midst of earthly matters that is under the reigning power and authority of God.

Do we really know what the kingdom of God is like? 

A Saving Mystery

Preached by Michael Cheuk
June 7, 2009, Trinity Sunday, Year B
John 3:1-17

My name is Nicodemus.  This morning, I want to share with you my story and my strange but memorable encounter with Jesus late one night.  But first, let me tell you about my credentials: First, I’m a member of the Pharisees, which means that I’m a smart and learned man, a scholar of Jewish law.  Second, I’m a member of the Jewish ruling council, which means that I am seen as a leader in my religious community.  I have authority and power to make decisions and I’m very concerned about the future of my community’s faith.

It was my concern for the faith that got me interested in Jesus.  You see, I first heard about Jesus when he drove out the money changers in the Temple at Jerusalem.  It was all over the news and so many members of the Jewish ruling council were furious at what he did.  I however, was also intrigued – not so much by what he did, but by what he said.  He said to the money changers as he overturned their tables: “Get these out of here!  How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”  What could he have meant to describe the Temple as his Father’s house?  Isn’t that blasphemous?  But then I saw all the miraculous signs he was doing and how many people believed in his name.  So I decided to visit him and get to the bottom of this mystery.

One night, I went to see Jesus.  I went under the cover of darkness because I did not want my colleagues to know. 

Guided by Prayer

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 17, 2009, Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; John 17:6-19

As we prepare to take family trips to St. Louis and Houston this summer, one thing that we are glad to have in our car is a “GPS,” or a “Global Positioning System.”  A GPS is a very handy device.  We program into the little box our final destination, and then a voice calls out directions, turn by turn, through every intersection along the route.  If I fail to follow the instructions, the GPS pauses and then announces . . . “recalculating,” and then it guides me along an alternate route or suggests that I make the nearest U-turn.  While our GPS is not perfect, it certainly has been very useful in guiding us in our travels, especially while driving through strange and unfamiliar parts of the country.

A couple of years ago, Beth took our kids and her dad on a driving trip around Texas.  For the trip, Beth and her dad both thought it was a good idea to have a GPS on hand to guide them.  Their trip was great – Beth’s dad grew up in Texas, and so they stopped in a variety of towns and cities across the state and met up with relatives, friends, and some of her dad’s old army buddies.  While the GPS guided them capably along the way, there were a few times when Beth’s dad would say, “I know the GPS wants you to take the interstate, but let’s turn along this old highway – it doesn’t take any longer and will be a prettier drive.”  So, throughout much of their travels in Texas, Beth and the kids relied on another GPS, the “Grandpa Positioning System.”

Don’t you wish sometimes that we could have a GPS to help us navigate the major crossroads in our lives? 

An Obedient Love

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 17, 2009, Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B
John 15:9-17

Love and obedience.  In our day and age, it is hard to see at first glance how these two things go together.  In popular culture, we mostly understand love as a deep feeling of affection and desire, an intense emotional attachment toward someone or something.  Obedience, on the other hand, describes an act of will to submit to the commands of someone in authority.  It may even imply being compelled to meet an obligation regardless of how one feels.  For many, the word “love” suggests wanting to do something in freedom, while “obedience” implies having to meet a duty in servitude.  That’s why in so many wedding ceremonies, many couples drop the promise “to obey” even as they say the rest of the traditional wedding vows.

It reminds me of a story about the time a groom approached the pastor during the wedding rehearsal with an unusual offer.

“Look,” the groom said as he slipped a $100 bill in the minister’s hand, “I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor and obey’ and ‘forsaking all others’ I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave that part out.”  And with that, the young man walked away feeling satisfied.

The next day, during the wedding service when it got to that part of the ceremony where the vows are exchanged, the pastor looks the groom in the eye and says: “Will you promise to love her, by obeying her every command and wish, by serving her breakfast in bed every morning, and swearing eternally before God and your lovely bride that you will not ever even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?”

An Abiding Love

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 10, 2009, Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B
John 15:1-8

On this Mother’s Day Sunday, we come this morning partly to honor our mothers and to recognize their role in bringing us into the world. Mothers have an intimate connection with their children, since they nourished and nurtured them in their own bodies during pregnancy. Mothers play an important role in setting up the kind of household that provides a loving and caring home for their children. Now, I know that not everyone is fortunate enough to grow up with a loving, caring mother, but I think motherhood is a useful metaphor to help us to understand what Jesus is teaching his disciples when he told them: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” The word “remain” has been translated elsewhere by the more archaic term, “abide,” and in this context, it means “to dwell” or “to live closely.” In his translation of the Bible called The Message, Eugene Peterson translates Jesus’ words in verse four this way: “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you.”

“Live in me. Make your home in me. Remain in me. Abide in me. And I will abide and make my home in you.” In our increasingly mobile society, we are constantly on the move and our schedules are jammed packed. In our increasingly restless society, we are constantly looking for the next best thing, the next American Idol, the next promotion, the next opportunity. In one of the most famous prayers of all time, St. Augustine prayed: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.” I think Augustine is right; we all have restless hearts, constantly searching for purpose, meaning, significance, love and acceptance. But Waylon Jennings is also right when he sang “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” We often to look for love, acceptance, meaning and significance in all the wrong places. Our hearts are restless until they find rest, until they find a home in the abiding love of Christ.

A Shepherding Love

Preached by Michael Cheuk
May 3, 2009, Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B
John 10:11-18

“I am the good shepherd,” Jesus said.  Now, for those of us who are followers of Jesus, if Jesus is the good shepherd, then the implication is that we are the sheep.  Since we no longer live in an agrarian society, most of us have do not know that much about sheep.  But as I learned more about sheep this week in preparing for this sermon, I’ve come to the conclusion that we church-goers have a couple of intriguing similarities with sheep.

First of all, sheep generally have a strong herding instinct that leads them to congregate in a flock.  But when sheep are anxious or stressed, they are quick to panic and flee, which often makes shepherding a difficult task.  People can be similar to sheep in this way.  Sometimes, people separate themselves from the flock because of inner hurts and personal struggles.  Perhaps it is because they don’t feel a sense of belonging.  Perhaps they feel like they are being judged.  Sometimes, people separate from the flock because of a family squabble or a pending divorce or a child getting in trouble with the law.  Sometimes it is due to their anxieties and disagreements about the direction the church is heading.  Many times it is due to disillusionment regarding the church’s leadership or bureaucracy.[1] And so, these sheep flee the flock, some to seek answers on their own while others flee to find greener pastures.

Journeying into the Future

Preached by Michael Cheuk
April 12, 2009, Easter Sunday, Year B
Mark 16:1-8

On June 10, 2007, the much awaited finale of the award-winning drama The Sopranos aired on HBO to a frenzy of anticipation and speculation.  Fans that had followed this show for eight seasons couldn’t wait to find out the fate of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano.  Would Tony and his family live or be killed?  Would he be indicted and convicted?  Would the family enter into a witness protection program?  In the final sequence, as the tension mounted and as the audience braced for tragedy, the showed suddenly blacked out in total silence for eleven seconds, causing millions of viewers to frantically reach for their remotes or to call their cable company.  And then the final credits rolled, signifying the end of not only that episode, but the end of the whole Sopranos saga.  That “fade to black” ending was the buzz around water coolers and internet blogs for the days that followed.  Many people were furious at creator David Chase for cheating them out of a satisfying ending.  They were left hanging literally right in the middle of a scene.  Some hoped that there were alternate endings filmed.  But all were left wondering about the future of this family.

In our Gospel Lesson this morning, Mark the Evangelist also pulled a “fade to black” ending to his Gospel.  “What?” you say, “in my Bible, Mark ends in verse 20.”  Yes, but in most modern translations, there’s a disclaimer after verse 8.  In our NIV pew Bibles, it says, “The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.”  Most Biblical scholars agree that verses 9-20 were not part of the original text of Mark.  In the original Greek language, the story ends literally in the middle of a sentence with a proposition.  In school, we’ve all been told by our English teachers that a preposition ain’t a grammatical way to end a sentence with!  But if it is indeed the case that Mark intended to end his Gospel in verse 8, then he left us with no resurrection appearances by Jesus, no commission to his disciples and no ascension.  What we’re left with is only an empty tomb and frightened women who said nothing to anyone.  Is that any way to end a Gospel?  Is Mark such a clumsy Evangelist that he would lead us on a journey with Jesus for fifteen chapters only to leave us at a dead end?

Well, very early on that first day of the week, it certainly felt like a dead end to Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. 

Journeying Into Jerusalem

Preached by Michael Cheuk
April 5, 2009, Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B
Mark 11, 14:17-36, 15:1-39

It was a most amazing week filled with drama, exhilaration and dejection as Jesus, the Son of God journeys into Jerusalem. “As they approached Jerusalem,” says Mark, throngs of people gathered to catch a glimpse of the arrival of this charismatic leader.  It was an inaugural of sorts, where the hopes and dreams of a whole nation were placed upon this one man, riding into town on a donkey.  “Hosanna!” they shouted, which originally meant, “Save us!” and later came to represent an enthusiastic burst of praise.  “Hosanna!  Here’s our savior!” they cried, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”  In their audacity of hope, these crowds were screaming out for a change they could believe in.  ”Save us!” they said.  “Save us from the Roman Empire!  Blessed is the conquering hero who comes to kick out the occupying Romans!”  If this were to happen today, it would not be a far stretch to witness the crowd lining up alongside Constitutional and Pennsylvania Avenues waving their flags and crying out:

Hosanna!  Save us from terrorism!  Blessed is the one who comes to wipe out the terrorists!

Hosanna!  Save us from bankruptcy!  Blessed is the bailout to revitalize the economy!

Hosanna!  Save us from our pain!  Blessed is the drug that can dampen our distress!

Hosanna!  Save my failing marriage!  Blessed is the one who comes to change my spouse!

Journeying in God’s Law

Preached by Michael Cheuk
March 15, 2009, Third Sunday in Lent, Year B
Psalm 19

Over a week ago, a new superhero movie called the Watchmen hit the silver screens all across the country.  It is based on a limited comic book series of the same name that appeared in 1986.  As far as superheroes go, the Watchmen are pretty new, and from time to time, writers invent new superheroes with new superpowers, cool outfits, and funky names.  This week, I’ve been thinking about a new superhero possibility named “Righteous.”  Her super-strength is that she embodies “God’s Law.”  What do you think?  Will it make it big in Hollywood?  Probably not, because I suspect if “Righteous” were to fit into the stereotype that many people have about God’s law, then this superhero would be cold, unforgiving, judgmental, and her main superpower is that she can suck all the fun out of any party!   When people see her coming down the street, they duck for cover and turn the other way hoping that she won’t notice them to point out their faults and failings.  No one likes a self-righteous person, much less a self-righteous superhero.

In this characterization, I know I have grossly exaggerated one reaction that some people might have about God’s law.  But I do think laws, rules and regulations can get a bad rap in our society and culture.  We hear stories about the legislative branch of our government writing complicated and convoluted laws that very people can understand.  We hear about all the rules and regulations that are imposed on businesses that actually make doing business more difficult.  We feel that some laws place unnecessary constraints upon our own freedom.  And these feelings are not limited to adults.  In our youth meetings, we’ve been discussing about how to relate to our parents.  One night, I asked the youth this question: “If you could create the perfect parent, what characteristics would be on the top of your list?”  Our youth responded: The perfect parent lets me do whatever I want to do; the perfect parent fully accepts and loves me, is lenient and fun, and lends me money.”  Reading a list like that, it almost gives the impression that our some of you parents out there are dictators!

As I’ve said, laws, rules and regulations can get a bad rap.  That’s why it is somewhat surprising to read Psalm 19 this morning and hear the glowing words that David the psalm writer used to express his attitude toward God’s Law.