Sicamous United Church

Reflection January 5, 2020 (Epiphany) by Rev Sun-Young (Sunny) Kim

Isaiah 60:1-6/ Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14/ Matthew 2:1-12

The Light of God That Came to Us

On Christmas Eve, I confessed that I have a mild OCD, and because of that the Nativity display bothers me; and that I can’t mix two different types of cereal in one bowl. Today’s personal confession is that my eyesight is getting worse, and I have cataract growing in one eye, which eventually will require a surgery. Since I can’t see very clearly even with my glasses on, driving after dark is a challenge, especially if the ground is wet. One evening, Attila was coming back from his work trip. It was late, he was too tired to drive to Armstrong where his company is and back home, and there was too much snow for him to park his huge truck by the side of the road in front of our place. I had to go to the truck stop and bring him home. It was dark and the road was wet, reflecting light and making it very difficult for me Continue reading →

Reflection – December 22, 2019 (Advent 4) by Rev Sun-Young (Sunny) Kim

Isaiah 7:10-16/ Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19/ Matthew 1:18-25

The Love of God – Emmanuel

Have you ever heard of this saying, “Friends don’t let friends (blank)”? Friends don’t let friend make stupid decisions, for example. I’ve also heard a choir director say, “Choir directors don’t let choir members clap on one and three.” When I was studying to become a teacher at University of New Brunswick, my best friend was a guy named Siva. One day, I told my friends about a stupid decision I made. All the other friends were like, “It’s none of my business; I accept your decision,” but Siva got mad at me. He couldn’t condone my stupid decision. That’s when I knew he was a true pal, that he truly loved me.

But it’s not only between friends; parents shouldn’t let their children get everything they want. Those of you who are parents will know the challenge of making difficult or unpleasant decisions for your children because it’s good for them. You may force feed vegetables as they cry in protest; my son Cedric does that a lot because he’s a picky eater. Or you might watch them attempt their first step and fall. You don’t only do pleasant things with your children because doing what is best for them is love, even the difficult, unpleasant, and heartbreaking ones; overindulging is not love.

Today, we heard the word “Emmanuel” more than once in our scripture readings. The Chosen One of God Continue reading →

Reflection 120819 (Advent 2) by Rev Sun-Young (Sunny) Kim

Isaiah 11:1-10/ Romans 15:7-13/ Matthew 3:1-12

Righteousness and Peace Will Kiss

I think I’ve already told you this, but Doctor Who is my favorite TV show of all times. The protagonist of the show who is simply called “the Doctor” travels in space and time in his space and time machine that looks like an old English police phone box. Because he travels in the universe, he meets all kinds of alien races, promoting open-mindedness and the idea that diversity is beautiful. One of the alien races the Doctor meets along the journey is the most invaded species in the universe. The people of that planet who look like the Whoville people from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, whenever there is a foreign invasion, receive the invaders without fighting. Their motto is “Resistance is futile”, and their national anthem is “Glory to (blank),” to insert the name of their invaders. They don’t resist, so there is no bloodshed to crush the rebels, but is this peace really peace? Not doing anything when one is oppressed and mistreated, is this peace?

The scriptural lesson on peace that we already learned so far is that peace should be based on justice. We examined the image of life-destroying weapons turning into life-giving farming tools as an analogy for peace. Today, we read about another image of peace from the Book of Isaiah. In this image, the wolf is with the lamb, the leopard is with the young goat, the cow is with the bear, and a baby plays with a dangerous snake. The cow and the bear graze together, and the lion eats straw; although, no, this text is not a justifiable proof for vegans to argue that we were created to be vegans. We should not take this “carnivores-eating-plants” thing Continue reading →

Reflection November 10, 2019 Rev Sun-Young (Sunny) Kim

Micah 4:1-5/ Romans 8:31-39/ John 15:9-17

Peace, Justice, and Compassion

Are you familiar with Wonder Woman? I don’t read comic books much and I didn’t like the Wonder Woman TV series while growing up because even to my young eyes, Wonder Woman’s costume seemed like the exploitation of the female body. But two years ago, the movie version of Wonder Woman came out. Here’s today’s one fact about myself; I cried watching that movie, and now Wonder Woman is my favorite superhero. I’m not sure if you know this about Wonder Woman, but she is the daughter of the Amazon queen; so in the movie, we see a lot of Amazon warrior women training and fighting. Seeing strong and tough warrior women is of course awesome and empowering as a woman myself, as well as all the Wonder Woman’s battle scenes in World War I (yes, by the way, she goes to London during World War I in this movie); but what was really touching was why she was fighting. As an Amazon, she believes that it is her (and their) sacred duty to defend the world and fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. In London and in the battle fields, she sees injured people or a bombed village and her heart breaks. The most awesome and touching scene was when her human partners insist that they cannot cross the No Man’s Land to get to the suffering village. She defiantly steps in and crosses the No Man’s Land, in slow motion for dramatic effect, and deflects whatever the Germans shoot at her with her wrist bands and shield. With her deflecting all bullets and whatever else, her partners can cross the No Man’s Land to go help the village. Wonder Woman fights because of her compassion towards suffering people. Compassion motivates her to fight. Wonder Woman teaches us that peace is not possible without justice for the suffering people, and that the effort for justice is based on compassion.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. Today, let us explore two questions; first, what should we remember, and second, how should we remember them. What are we remembering? We remember the horrors of the wars and say, “Never again” and those who fought against evil. I am not only talking about the veterans who fought in the battle fields; for example, there were brave and compassionate people who risked their lives to save Jewish people from the Nazis. Some of them got caught, tortured, and killed because they refused to give up the list of the children they were hiding. We should remember all those brave people who fought, either in the battle fields or behind closed doors. We should also remember what horrors we experienced through wars. My parents were children when the Korean War happened. They remember the fear as they evacuated to the south. My parents were lucky, but a lot of families got separated, never to see each other again. War is terrible and traumatic; we should remember this. Now, how should we remember them? Short answer is that we should keep fighting for peace and justice in our world. Let us elaborate.

We read about God’s vision of peace in the Book of Micah. In God’s vision, weapons are turned into farming tools. Weapons cause suffering and death, but farming tools give life by producing food. God’s vision for peace is about saving lives instead of harming them in any way. God wants peace and justice for all God’s people because of love. In the Book of Romans, we heard Apostle Paul’s heartfelt words about the love that binds God and us; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” From Romans, we learn about the love between God and us, but in the Gospel of John, we hear the quintessential Christian commandment that comes from the love of God; “Abide in my love,” says Jesus. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” How do we love one another? Jesus says the greatest love is laying one’s life for friends. So, here‘s the summary of God’s love; we should love one another because God loves us, and we should love one another to the point of making sacrifices for one another, not just dying for others.

We are celebrating Remembrance Day and reflecting on whom and what to remember and how to remember them. There have been major wars, which is why we celebrate Remembrance Day. There are those who fought and died. There are those who fought and survived but are suffering PTSD. One of my members in Kimberley United Church was a veteran; he is in his nineties and still can’t sleep at night because of the images of terror that hit him. We should think about how we should take care of our veterans. But also, in the context of peace effort, we should think about all suffering people of our world; refugees and asylum seekers, members of the marginalized groups who are constantly suffering discrimination and bigotry. Because peace is not possible without justice, we will never know true peace until we can beat all forms of hate and bigotry. In God’s vision of peace, killing tools turn into life-giving tools; then our vision for peace should be spreading tolerance and love instead of hate and bigotry. How should we remember our veterans and the horror of wars? By working towards a society full of love instead of hate. Since peace is not possible without justice, we should work towards a just society; this is how we should remember. Let this Remembrance Day reflections and the scripture readings be God’s call for us to embrace and welcome all God’s people and not to stay silent in the face of hate and injustice.  Let us be filled with God’s compassion.

Reflection October 13, 2019 by Rev Sunny

Deuteronomy 26:1-11/ John 6:25-35

Thanksgiving, How?

As you will already know, I am an immigrant in Canada. It is my goal to become a citizen because I want voting rights. While I was living in Canada, I witnessed two of my close friends go through the process of becoming citizens. One has to take a citizen test, and they told me that the questions have become even more difficult than before. Some of those questions, I don’t think average Canadians can answer. Now, I went to pursue my graduate studies in Montreal because I thought it would be easier to emigrate in Quebec thanks to my French skills. So, upon hearing about how difficult the citizen test is, I started fantasizing telling the immigration officer, “I don’t know all the names of past prime ministers, but I can sing O Canada in both languages!” Now that I’m not in Quebec anymore, I started another fantasy. Whenever I ask Canadians about the Canadian culture, the best they can come up with is hockey and Tim Hortons. Because Tim Hortons is so central to the Canadian life, I got to learn words like “double-double.” So, I imagine immigration officers asking, “How many double-doubles have you had?” “Um, I don’t know. Many. Maybe thousand.” “(Stamp) Welcome to Canada!” But of course, if that’s the case, I’m done for, because I don’t drink coffee.” Maybe I should start eating more Timbits just in case.

I have dreamed of living in Canada for a long while and now that I’m living here with a career and a Canadian husband, I am reminded of how blessed I am. I appreciate this country and my new church because I have lived where same sex marriage was not allowed, and the members of the LGBT communities could not be ordained. Some churches even in the Methodist Church refuse to serve you communion for being gay or refuse membership. My point is, you can’t fully understand the life journeys of immigrants. We are eternally grateful for this country for different reasons. This is the promised land for many of us.

The journey of the Israelites was not so different from that of a lot of today’s immigrants. It started from slavery in Egypt. Even after the Exodus, they wandered in the desert for 40 years, which is a long time. A lot of people died. A lot of people were born. They kept losing faith. But God is leading them to their promised land. When that “O Happy” day comes, they are to express their gratitude by offering tithes and some of their first harvest. Because they are grateful that God led them out of slavery and into the promised land, they should offer the first and the best to God, acknowledging that what they own is a gift from God. I express my gratitude by serving God’s people in Canada however I can.

Not a lot of us Christians in Canada give tithes, at least in the United Church. But I hope you brought special Thanksgiving offering today to express your gratitude for God’s providence. Also, because it’s Thanksgiving Sunday, we are making joyful noise in praising God. There are different ways of thanking God; we can say a prayer of thanksgiving. We can also sing the words of thanksgiving, which we are doing with our hymn selection. There is, however, another thing we should do as an expression of thanksgiving. Let us now pay attention to what Jesus says in today’s gospel text.

There are two major points that Jesus makes here; “Seek bread from heaven” and “I am the bread of life.” That’s a lot of analogy that makes our mouths water. I love this saying because I love bread. Usually, I picture regular bread, but since it’s thanksgiving, I am picturing warm and moist corn bread with butter melting on it. Bread is of course a metaphor for sustenance. Remember when Jesus says to the Tempter after fasting in the wilderness for 40 days? “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Bread from heaven is a symbol for spiritual sustenance we can get from our relationship with God, although Israelites in the desert were fed with actual bread coming down from heaven; manna. What we are learning about thanksgiving today, especially from the gospel text, is that what matters the most is the spiritual gift we received from God; bread from heaven, Jesus Christ through whom we experience God. If we are to give thanks to God for the greatest gift of all, Jesus, who inspired a lot of people and worked to bring God’s reign of love and justice to earth, we should do more than thanking God with our praise and material gifts. Then how should be give thanksgiving to God? Because we learn about God from Jesus, and were invited to follow him, we cannot give thanks to God without following the life and teachings of Jesus. We should live by the teachings of Jesus.

Today and tomorrow, there will be a lot of food on our table as well as people who share food and love at that table. We are also likely to overeat. But while enjoying the material gifts of God and the people in your life with whom you share your life and love, I urge you to remember that we who are giving thanksgiving to God are the follower of he who taught God’s reign of compassion and social justice. As we break bread with our loved ones, as we thank God for all we have on earth, let us also promise God that we will live a lifestyle of sharing and serving; of imitating God’s heavenly kingdom, by working towards bringing God’s kingdom in our communities.