The Call to Share one another`s burdens

Text: Galatians 2:6,7,10

Bear one another`s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ...whatever a man sows, that he will also reap...and let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we don`t lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do goód to all men, and especially to those who are of the same household of faith.

Introduction:

Thank you very much for the invitation and the privilege to be with you, at this time, when you are celebrating the 21 years of partnership with the Development Ministry to the Islands. On behalf of the DMI personnels, the parents and the local community of Hingotanan, and on behalf of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines of which mission work you also have been supporting , I would like to extend their greetings and deep gratitude.

It was 21 years ago when I first came to Europe, to your country, Germany. And this time I was very much aware of the classification done for our nations. That you here in Europe belonged to the First World and that my country and my home people belonged to the Third World.

Of course, I could see the differences in our two worlds. But my visit also changed and challenged that classification. I realized that we live in one world, as one people with common hopes and dreams. My exposure to your churches told me that we share one faith, that we can sing some songs together and that we can read the same Bible. That we are people with common joy,goals, pain and problems. We are people who can laugh and cry, people who can mourn  and celebrate. We are people in need of each other, that we can enrich each other, and there is no man-made classification of standards of living which can change the reality of our common shared humanity.

2. We are one people in God`s own created world. And it is because of this shared humanity in God`s creation that we can reach out others in the spirit of Christ. Our identity as people created in the image of God enables us to fulfill our role of sharing each other`s burdens which St. Paul in the book of Galatians admonishes us, " Bear each one`s burdens and fulfill the law of Christ".

In 1985 I came to Germany with some students from Asia in relation to the program of the World Council of Churches in Geneva. It was part of the winter program of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute to expose students to the life of the Christian church in Germany. That time I brought along with me the album of photos of the rehabilitation program for Hingotanan island, after the worst typhoon Bising, which killed a number of people and destroyed the local people`s means of livelihood.
I showed the photos to Erna, who that time was the chairman of the church council in Bierstadt. She asked to borrow some of the photos. And then I was invited to come to Bierstadst Church and I saw some of these photos at the Bulletin Board of the your church here, and an offertory for the rehabilitation program in Hingotanan island was done during that worship service.

From that time on, this church has been supporting the program which moved from being a rehabilitation project to a project work for the children in the fishing islands. At present. DMI is found in two fishing islands in Maomaowan and  Hingotanan serving 101 children and opening the centers` recreational facilities to all the chidren in these fishing islands.

The natural catastrophe  that hit my home island and the work of rehabilitation was an example of sharing one another`s burdens. Bierstadt Church as a local congregation in this part of the world was part of that act of sharing, not out of your sense of power because you have money, but out of the fact of your identity as people created in God`s image with the sense of responsibility for others although these are people whom you have not seen in person. My home people are people who are part of our one common world.

Later, a number of you made a particular visit to this small island and had your personal experiences. One among you kept on coming back to that island and tried to live like the local people. And the local people said,
"Oh, she is just like us".

3. Jesus as model of giving and sharing.

Jesus is our model of the act of giving and sharing. In the life and ministry of Jesus this role was exemplied. Jesus fed the hungry, made the blind see, freed the prisoners, and announced the coming of the Lord`s Day. Jesus brings abundant life for all. Jesus lives, dies and resurrects so that we may have life.

The text says, " Bear one another`s burdens and fulfill the law of Christ.." It is in giving ourselves for others,in our act of sharing each other`s burdens that we can live out the life that Jesus has shown for us. The act of sharing one another`s burdens becomes a sign in itself that we belong to Christ. Bearing each other`s burdens is a privilege and responsibility for those whom we live with, those who live near us--- our family, friends and colleagues and neighbors but also those who live far away, even those whom we have never seen face to face, saved only by our common knowledge that these are people who live in our one world, in God`s own created world.

In the sharing of each other`s burdens the needs are met, and there in the act of sharing, God who is looked at as the common provider is taken as one who gives out blessings. God`s rich blessings are experienced, confirmed and celebrated by the eyes of faith, and those who experience these, call these as God`s act of wonders or miracles.

Your act of sharing is sometimes read by my home people as Gods miracle."How could it be that people we don`t know care about us, " they ask. To them you are also God`s instrument of God´s grace, of God`s act of wonders or of God`s miracles.

4. Let us take up the last part of the text. "..and let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we don`t lose heart. so then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."

What many Christians in the world discover which is true until now, is that the act of giving is a kind of sowing which cannot be empty at all. When something is sown, it is also possible to reap or harvest something.
What is sown has a way of growing as a blessing for others and a blessing for one who does the sowing.

Twenty one years of partnership with the local people in Hingotanan Island. What could have been reaped out of this period? We don`t know. After 21 years, there are already number of graduates of DMI who have formed their families, others are pursuing a further education outside the island, others are occupying a position in the island, others are still a part of their own families in the island, living like the ordinary citizens in the island.

What is a way of measuring what DMI has done? I don`t know. What I can only say is that these were children who each day were trained to take a bath before going to school, trained to cut their nails, trained to wear shoes and sandals to refrain their tummies to be infested by worms, trained to clean their hair from lice, children who were trained to come to the center with clean uniform and to play, sing, dance and read and write, to hear stories from the Bible and about Jesus. The principal of the Elementary School in the island said that they like the children from DMI because it is among these children they find those who excel in the normal elementary school and up to high school.

How can we measure DMI? We don`t really know. We only know that when something is planted, it is possible to harvest something. We only know that there are parents who are still very interested to send their children to DMI centers. We only know that my home people know that there is a country named Germany, far away from them, and a local church of Bierstadt that supports the program for their children. They know that they only are not a tiny island in the Philippines but they are also a part of the bigger world of God.

How can we measure your partnership of DMI within 21 years as a congregation? I don`t know. It is only you who can answer. When we give something, it comes back to us in a different form of blessing, only our eyes of faith are able to identify what these blessings are. For others, the blessing comes as joy. The joy in giving is sometimes experienced as a form of blessing in the heart.

5. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Let us not grow weary in doing good. It is a privilege and responsibility. It is a mark of having known Jesus Christ as model of a life of sharing and giving.

In my period of stay in Denmark, I came to know a woman from another country who became a good friend. She was very active in the local church. But one day she got divorced and that changed her into a different person. She became alcoholic with some days, only wanting to drink without eating. When my family and I moved to Christiansfeld, two and a half hours drive from Copenhagen, we would contact each other on the phone. She would ask when are you going to visit me. I said, I should visit you one day. But I could not really make it. I was very busy. Then one day I received a phone call, informing me that my friend died. I was very sad and told myself I should have really visited her and I should have helped her seriously so she could have received the necessary help. But she was gone. And this text became much a challenge to me, especially that she was a woman of the same household of faith.

This text is not discriminatory at all, calling us to take care those in the fellowship of the church, those in the same household of faith because in life of Jesus we are called to reach out all those irrespective of their religion and culture, but this particular text today, tells us also to take care of our very own people inside our circle of fellowship. It is not only the pastor`s role to take care of the members.

Let us do good to all those, when we have the opportunity to do so. The opportunity to be able to bear one another`s burdens may not be there all the time. We don`t know how many days, how many months, how many years we have. Only God knows. And this call of doing good is an urgent call for now, without waiting for many tomorrows.

Conclusion:

In the spirit of Christ, let us live a life committed to the call of giving and sharing, a life commiteed to respond to that call with love. In responding, we are made instruments of God`s act of grace and wonder. The privilege and responsibility of sharing and bearing each other`s burdens is a Christian vocation, a natural part of what and who we are as people with the identity rooted in the ministry of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. It is also a vocation rooted in the understanding that we are people created in the image of God in his one created world.

Let us celebrate the continuing signs of God`s love, mercy and wonders among us, outside us, near us and far away.

May God bless you and keep you.

sermon delivered by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen
to the congregation of Bierstadt Church in Wiesbaden in Germany, marking the 21 years of partnership with the Development Ministry to the Islands in the Philippines. This sermon was translated  to the German language by ARAMI. (July 1, 2007)

Biblical reflection, June 22, 2021

Gospel Ministry in the Context of Worship

Intro: This is the second time, as far as I can remember, that we have KIV church service since Kolding International Voices started in 2017. I hope it will be a tradition as it is most fitting to have a church service to remind us of our identity, role and function as gospel choir in our time. I think it is a beautiful thing that we get time to reflect who we are as a gospel choir in the context of worship. Thanks, Jeanette, for making KIV church service as part of the KIV schedule.

When Jeanette and I talked about this service after I accepted the request of Michael who is not able to join with us tonight because of family matters, I asked Jeanette, should I wear a priestly attire.  And she said, that would be great.

In the Philippines those who wear priestly attire are called pastors and the Catholic priests that wear “sotana”, their priestly attire, they are called padre or fathers and priests. The special attires/gowns which pastors, priests, bishops, or popes wear place them in a special role as the priests for God. But the text read to us, in Peter, speaks of the priesthood of all believers, giving to us a new understanding that all believers are priests, that all laymen and laywomen not in priestly dresses are also priests. They are messengers of the gospel.  They are bearers of the gospel, just like what those priests in special gowns   do.

The word gospel means good news. As a gospel choir, each of us is a messenger of the gospel, the bearers of the Good news, that is the salvation of God in Jesus the Christ, the good news of love and hope in God despite forces of darkness, of death, fear, despair, ruins and destruction, despite illness and pandemics. This gospel of salvation, this gospel love and hope  rings through.

The history of gospel songs and music is often associated with the black culture and music during their time under slavery or when slave labor became a popular trade in the 16^th century.  In spite of beatings, lynching, hangings, the oppressed slaves, sold in public markets as objects for sale, treated as objects and not as human beings, sang songs of freedom, songs of hope, of life after death, they sang songs of faith in the living God.

The year 1865 witnessed the abolition of slavery. Before this, a former slave trader John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace in 1772 and published this in 1779 revealed in this gospel song the mysterious change of the heart of man – a wretched man like him, involved in slave trade got the chance to find a renewed understanding as a human being. A stony heart was changed into a heart of flesh, finding it wrong to treat human beings as objects for profit and coming with a new understanding of God who holds every human being as a precious child, to be nurtured and protected and regardless of color and culture, social status and religion. Amazing Grace is one of the recognized powerful songs that has its own testimony of change and renewal in the heart, one who is lost and yet found… and calls us to sing songs of praise in thousand years. After this year, a freed black man, Wallace Willis, wrote Swing Low, Sweet chariot, keeping that hope in Jesus even in death.

The Gospel music has also been identified as force for revival of churches. If we look at further in the 19^th century, we see wars, the First world war in 1914.1918, the second world war, the second world war in the 1939-1945, that killed 5o million people service personnel and civilians; the rise of secularization and the rise of death-of- God theologians, atheism and the declaration that God is dead or “There is no God.”

We witness Hitlerism and the Holocaust that slaughtered 6 million Jews as minority group in the utopia to have a super Aryan race. We have heard about the Apartheid in South Africa, segregating the whites from the Blacks or colored ones and favoring the white. We witness the white supremacy ideology and the great intolerance and genocides in conflicting ethnic groups. The genocides against some ethnic groups, the expulsion of minority groups from their homes and driving them away from their own lands as refugees. We have seen the rise of extremist groups, willing to kill and destroy lives of others for the cause they stand for - to seek to dominate, a dream to dominate and to hold power for themselves no matter which way they use.

In our 20^th century, we feel the rise of Cold war, stopped in 1990, the local and global pandemics of Ebola and Corona virus. World health Organization has given a data of deaths of 3.3 million worldwide and the World Economic Forum speaks of excess deaths, not being tallied from 13-17 million worldwide. It may take time before we will be able to know how much destruction and number of deaths this Corona pandemic has caused our one world. But what is real is this:

In the world we live in there are forces of darkness, forces of evil and violence, but the gospel speaks of the truth that there is also light, the dream for bright day and commitment to peace.

There is the reality of fear, of hate of vows for revenge, but there is the gospel of love, of renewal and forgiveness and reconciliation.

There is the reality of destruction and ruins, of display of powers in absolute pride and abusive power, but we have also the gospel of humility, of rebuilding, of fellowship and community.

There is death and despair, but there is also the gospel that brings life, and life eternal, the gospel of hope that brings joy.

We have a world of absurdity and meaningless but we have the gospel that brings meaning and purpose in God revealed to us in Jesus, the Christ.

The gospel songs continue to do its function—to affirm the greatness of God, the omnipotence of God, the ruler of all the earth,  worthy of praise and worship and honor.

 Gospel songs are in the context of our own world. Yes, there are forces of darkness and violence, but there is light.  There is hate, there is fear and will for vengeance but there is love and forgiveness. There is death but there is life eternal. There is despair, but there is hope. Yes, there is meaninglessness and yet there is meaning and purpose in God revealed to us in Jesus, the Christ.

Gospel songs are songs of testimony. They are songs of the stories of faith… Isn’t it an honorable vocation as gospel bearers in a gospel choir? As we move forward, it may happen that there are those in the choir that will be able to compose new songs and share them with the choir. There is no end to the testimony of God’s love, hope, and grace. Let us continue to sing and proclaim the Living Lord of love, hope, faith, truth and peace.

 

Sermon of Elizabeth Padillo Olesen, delivered to the church service of the International Choir, Kolding International Voices of Kolding Deanery, June 2021 at Simon Peters Church, Kolding