Askew’s Grocery Cards can be purchased from Sicamous United Church. Use them to purchase your groceries and the Church receives 7% of the cost of your purchase.
This is a great win-win-win program with a local grocery store, support for the ministry of Sicamous United, and fresh, often local groceries for you.
Contact Kris Nickerson at 250-836-2528, email, office@sicamousunited.ca. or leave a message at the church 250 836-4390.
Reflection 112220 November 22, 2020
Ephesians 1:15-23/ Matthew 25:31-46
Reign of Christ in Our Midst
It does not easily make sense to talk about reign and monarchs because we do not live in a strictly monarchial system today. Of course, there is the queen of England, but she does not reign over us in the same sense as in Europe 500 years ago. If we are to call Christ the king, we should examine the monarchs of the past who truly ruled, not like today’s constitutional monarch in England. But when we examine kings and queens of the past, we learn that it is difficult to find monarchs who seriously cared about their subjects. Most of them were greedy and busy with their desires and ambitions. If you ever bother to read the Old Testament, you will find that most kings were evaluated as evil. King David was Israel’s ideal king, but even he was not perfect. It is the same thing in the European history as well as in the Korean. But Korea produced a king who spent his whole reign trying to improve the lives of his subjects. We call him the Great King Sejong. There are several kings in the Korean history who are dubbed “great”, but before King Sejong, the “great” kings were warrior kings who expanded our territories, which I do not consider great. Great King Sejong felt heartbroken for his subjects who were poor and uneducated. He formed a group of scholars for technological advancement, and most of all, he is responsible for the invention of the Korean alphabet system. Until then, we had to use Chinese characters, and they are so difficult to learn that most people had to live their lives without the ability to read or write. A small percentage of privileged people hogged knowledge and information. King Sejong also recruited smart people Continue reading →
We are seeking someone to assume the position of Thrift Shop Manager starting by January 2021.
Good communication and leadership skills a must.
If interested, email resume to office@sicamousunited.ca
Reflection 111520 November 15, 2020
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11/ Matthew 25:14-30
Faithful Servants, Faithful Lifestyle
As you may already know, my home country is technically still at war, because truce is not peace. I grew up in a tense environment because we were always, at the back of our minds, considering the chance that war between the two Koreas might resume. Every month, on the 15th day, there was a nationwide siren in the middle of the afternoon for a drill to prepare our people for a possible war. All cars had to stop, and people had to hide indoors as if in a bomb shelter. With the siren, there was an announcement that it was a drill. It was a tense ritual. Then one day, there was a siren when it was not the 15th day of the month. The announcement said it was not a drill. A North Korean plane was spotted in our airspace and we thought it was an invasion. It turns out that it was a North Korean (possibly a pilot, although my memory fails me) defecting to South Korea. We all uttered a sigh of Continue reading →
The next $2 Bag Days will be Friday and Saturday, November 27 and 28th; clothing and shoes only.
Last month’s “in house” trial $2 Bag Day met with success; encouraging us to restart the regular sale with the last consecutive Friday and Saturday in the month being $2 Bag Days (clothing and shoes only).
This Friday and Saturday October 30 and 31 are $2 Bag Days. Please drop by. You’ll find a wonderful array of Halloween items.
We thank you for supporting the Thrift Shop. Be well.
The Thrift Shop will be open Friday hours from 11am to 2pm starting November 6. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers this makes 3 days a week that we will now be open: Thursday and Saturday 10 – 3 and now Friday 11 – 2.
Thank you for being patient with the process of lining up, using hand sanitizer and wearing a mask.
Reflection 062120 Rev Sunny
Matthew 5:21-24/ Genesis 33:1-17
No Peace Without Reconciliation
Jacob and Esau were the sons of Isaac and the grandsons of Abraham. They were born as twins, but Esau came out first, which means Esau became his father’s heir. It would have felt unfair to Jacob and the mother who loved him more than his brother. This sneaky boy made his brother trade him his rights as the first-born son with a bowl of porridge. Then when it was time for the father to bless his heir, the mother dressed Jacob like Esau and made him pretend to be Esau. According to the Bible, because Isaac was almost blind, Jacob could fool him, although I don’t understand how a father couldn’t tell the difference between his two sons even if he couldn’t see. Anyway, we can imagine how mad Esau would have been when he found out his brother took everything from him. Jacob had to flee. He fled to his uncle’s house, worked for him, and ended up marrying both his daughters because he wanted the younger sister, but younger sisters couldn’t get married before their older sisters. He worked hard, had a lot of children and animals. In today’s story, this guilty younger brother who had been plagued by the guilt and fear for a lot of years, finally confronts his brother Esau. He was scared that Esau might still want him dead and brought a Continue reading →
Reflection 061420
Matthew 9:35-10:15/ Genesis 18:1-15
Hope of God’s Reign
These days, I am thinking of what George Floyd said as he was being choked by a police officer; “I can’t breathe.” I can’t breathe metaphorically because it is utterly exhausting living daily as a person of colour in this part of the world. Almost 70 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and the civil rights movement started in the United States, we are still experiencing systemic racism, as well as more subtle racism that comes in the form of microaggression. We live in a society where people of colour live as second-class citizens. Of course, since Rosa Parks, a lot has changed for African Americans; but at the same time, little has changed. The trauma from the pandemic got worse by the racial trauma that caused another Black Lives Matter movement. We can’t breathe. We are frustrated. We are exhausted. We are traumatized. In this social climate, I find myself being overtaken by negative thoughts and emotions. It is not easy to keep up our hope and soldier on. I find myself needing more prayer than usual just to keep myself from drowning in frustration and despair.
After experiencing the death and resurrection of Jesus, after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit for which the first disciples had to patiently wait, we are now reflecting on the hope of God’s reign; the hope that belongs to God. The Bible and our history are full of stories of unlikely dreams and hopes coming true. Today, we start from the story of Abraham and Sarah. They were old and without children. According to the Bible, Sarah was barren. But then, a lot of barren cases in the Bible were supposed to be the women’s fault. God promised Abraham a son from his wife, but since it was not humanly possible, they doubted. In today’s story, Sarah laughed because that promise seemed ridiculous. Listen to what the Lord said to these doubting humans; “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”
I learned that hope is faith in action. We can hope in unlikely situations because we have faith. Do you think enslaved Africans ever believed their children could become, not only free, but important leaders of the society? Do you think gay people hiding in the closet and loving in secret ever believed that they would one day legally marry each other and adopt children? We’re hearing a lot of rhetorical questions today because the answers are obvious. Nothing is too wonderful for the Lord. No dream is too impossible for the God who loves justice. This is the hope of God’s reign.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we see the disciples of Jesus being sent out to build the kingdom of God in their society. Not unlike us, Jesus and his people were living in a time that felt without hope. “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few,” Jesus said in verse 9. Then he sends his disciples out. If we read on after 10:8, Jesus warns them about the danger of the world into which they are being sent; they are like sheep being sent into the midst of wolves. In this scary mission, they are to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. The disciples are to remain pure in heart, but not so innocent as to become trampled by the wolves; they also have to be wise as serpents. In activism, sometimes, peaceful protesters deal with the police force that uses violence against them. In that case, being wise as serpents might mean, the protesters fight back and demand their civil rights. It’s like peace keeper troops taking arms, not to invade or attack, but to protect the vulnerable.
Jesus was worried about the world into which he was sending his disciples. They were being sent into the midst of wolves. Jesus would be worried about us if he were alive today. No, because the Holy Spirit replaced the human Jesus, we can say that the Holy Spirit is worried about us even as we are sent out into our world to spread God’s love and justice. I can tell you as a person of colour, it is not easy to picture a North American society in which people of colour are truly equal as white people. However, I learned from my university years when I was a student activist, that even when things look bleak today, we carry on guided by the hope for a just society. Today from the Bible, we hear the same message. Let us hope the hope that belongs to God, not to humans. Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Of course not. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the reign of God, the reign of love and justice is possible; God just needs more laborers for the job. So, today, I invite you to join me in this hope for God’s reign. Let us never stop hoping and working to turn our community into God’s kingdom of love and justice. Come Holy Spirit and make us ho*pe and dream, and act. Amen.