Sicamous United Church

January 10, 2020 Worship (Baptism of the Lord Sunday)

Call to Worship                                      .

All who thirst, come to the water and drink deeply of these living streams. Come, all who are weary; come, all who yearn for forgiveness. As the waters of the Jordan washed over Jesus, so the Holy spirit washed over you and me. Our gracious God beckons and blesses us. Let us give praise for new life in Christ.

Opening Prayer

Baptized in the Holy Spirit, O Christ, you are the fountain of life; refresh us. You are the cleansing spring; heal us. You are the well from which we drink and never thirst again; fill us. Amen.

Genesis 1:1-5

1 In the beginning when God created^[a] the heavens and the earth, ² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^[b] swept over the face of the waters. ³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Mark 1:4-11

⁴ John the baptizer appeared^[a] in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸ I have baptized you with^[b] water; but he will baptize you with^[c] the Holy Spirit.”

The Baptism of Jesus

⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved;^[d] with you I am well pleased.”

Reflection

Preparing for a Dangerous Journey

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and New Year’s. Finally, the Season of Christmas is over with Epiphany, which was last Wednesday. We celebrate Epiphany after Christmas because we start witnessing the light of God revealed in the person of Jesus. The stories of Jesus – his birth, public ministry, death, and resurrection – reveal God’s light and kingdom. Through the life and teachings of Jesus, we can understand God’s reign. We are en-light-ened through Jesus.

Light is often used as a metaphor for knowledge and wisdom. When we learn or suddenly realize Continue reading →

Reflection 122720 December 27, 2020  Rev Sunny Kim

Luke 2:22-40/ Galatians 4:4-7

Children and Heirs at Christmas

After blessing my best friends’ wedding, they had been trying hard and waiting long to adopt a child. They went to parenting classes, wrote their profiles, and waited till they got a match. It was a long waiting period, and they had an “almost” case that ended up being taken away from them. Mike was especially devastated since he was the one who strongly wanted children. Then three years later, they had good news. They were given two children, biological siblings. Their biological mom is a broken woman, abused as a child by her father and went through the foster system herself. Their biological dad has a drug addict for a mother and has a tendency towards violence. They were taken away from their mom the day after their births and placed in a foster home. When they first came to live with my friends, they looked like they were straight out of a Dickensian orphanage. When I received their photos several months later, they looked noticeably different. Now that they are psychologically settled and happy, they look like Continue reading →

Reflection 121320 (Advent 3: Joy) December 13, 2020

Luke 1:47-55/ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Joy That Comes from Peace and Justice

Since I left the Methodist Church and joined the United Church of Canada over the LGBTQ issue, I wanted my first wedding to be a same sex wedding. That dream came true when my dear friends Mike and Raphael decided to get married and asked me to perform the ceremony. Some of their friends and they travelled all the way to Kimberley BC to get married at my church. This event was full of emotions for all three of us for many different reasons, but for me, besides seeing my best friends get married and the fact that I was presiding over the ceremony, I shed the tears of joy that come from a feeling of liberation. We tend to take marriage for granted, but we should remember that not everyone is allowed to get married all over the world. Mike came from a country that oppresses and marginalizes LGBTQ people; he gave up his secure career as a pediatrician for the right to love and marry whom he wants. I left my beloved mother Continue reading →

Reflection 112920 (Advent 1: Hope)

Mark 13:24-37/ Isaiah 64:1-9/ 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Hope Requires Patience

As you know, I had my first eye surgery last week. I was scared and nervous about going through an eye surgery while being conscious, and a part of me did not want to go through with it. But I had my first surgery, and from the next day, my operated eye could see clearly. What a relief! Now my challenge is to keep reminding myself that this eye will take 6 weeks to heal and that I should continue being careful and administering my eye drops for this whole time. I must remind myself daily because I get impatient. Because my new eye can already see clearly, I tend to think the process is over; but if I become careless because of that, I could damage it. Six weeks seem long and frustrating. Then I need the other eye done with 6 extra weeks of recovery! Patience is a challenge Continue reading →

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 →