Pastoral Update
for Sunday, April 28, 2024
Fifth Sunday of Easter
WORSHIP IS IN-PERSON AND LIVESTREAMED ON VIMEO
10:00 a.m. HST
Aloha, Keawalaʻi ‘ohana,
This Sunday we celebrate the baptism of a young girl named Keawalai Laahea Tihada-Kaonohi. Little Keawalai, born just one week before the fires of Lahaina last year, will be presented in our church for baptism, brought by her parents, Kawena Kaonohi and Tavi Viela, and their ‘ohana, numbering almost twenty people.
When the fires came, Keawalai and her parents were displaced from their home, and they continue to live with their extended ‘ohana in the area. This beautiful baby girl with the dark, flashing eyes, Keawalai, was named in honor of our church. Both of her parents of are Hawaiian descent. Tavi’s mother has a historic connection to our church, having worshipped here when she was younger. I hope that all of you who are able will turn out in large numbers to welcome this beautiful young family into our church. You may also bring lei to celebrate and welcome our special guests this Sunday. I am grateful for deacon Cindy Mead, who met with the family and me this week in preparation for this baptism, and to Kate Acks, who will serve as liturgist this Sunday, and will participate in the liturgy for baptism.
In honor of this baptism, I will be preaching on another baptism that took place long ago: the encounter of the apostle Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch. This tightly crafted story is a literary masterpiece, showing the Holy Spirit as the primary catalyst in the extension of the gospel beyond Jerusalem and Judea and to the uttermost parts of the earth, including Ethiopia, and yes, ultimately, Hawaii. We see the Holy Spirit break down geographical, racial, and ethnic barriers reaching beyond Jerusalem as the early church expands, growing in numbers, power, and influence.
The Ethiopian eunuch was a castrated servant of Queen Candace, a God-fearer who had just returned from Jerusalem. He sat in his chariot on a deserted road reading the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, perhaps reflecting on how it applied directly to him, because, as someone whose genitals have been mutilated, he was excluded by Jewish law from entering the holy assembly. Before Philip arrived, sent by the Holy Spirit, the eunuch had been reading Isaiah 53: 7-8, which describes the Suffering Servant who was shorn, like a sheep awaiting slaughter. Being “shorn” and thus humiliated and excluded, the eunuch wondered who was the Suffering Servant? He would like to understand what he was reading, but he had no one to explain the scripture to him. That is, until Philip arrived, sent with urgency by the Holy Spirit.
Did Philip show the eunuch how to scroll down further in scripture a few chapters, to Isaiah 56: 4-4, where Isaiah prophesied a time of messianic blessing when eunuchs and other marginalized persons were free to fully participate in the great assembly? We are not told.
What we do know is that the eunuch asks Philip a question: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” What question! Of course, there were numerous things that could have been roadblocks in the path of baptism for this man. He was living in Ethiopia, for one thing, so he was cut off from the land of Israel. He was a eunuch, and thus in violation of “purity code” of Israel. He was a member of the cabinet of the queen of Ethiopia, therefore loyal to the wrong sovereign. He belonged to the wrong nation, held the wrong job, and possessed the wrong sexuality.
But Philip heard the voice of the Holy Spirit speak a far different answer to the man’s question, “What is to prevent me from being baptized. “Absolutely nothing,” whispered the Spirit. So, the eunuch commanded the chariot to stop, and he was baptized right on the spot. Walls of prejudice and prohibition that had stood for generations came tumbling down by the ha—the breath of God’s Holy Spirit. A man who had left the holy city of Jerusalem feeling lost and humiliated was found and restored in the wideness of God’s grace.
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Prize for peace, he gave what is perhaps his most important speech, known simply as “The World House” speech. King begins with a story: "Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: "A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together." This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant.
Come this Sunday from the north and the south, from the east and the west, and witness the power of a World House where widely separated people congregate to worship and adore the One who has called us together to dwell in peace. Come as we welcome our newest and youngest member of the church: Keawalai Laahea Tihada-Kaonohi.
Me ke aloha pumehana,
Gary Percesepe
Click to view: Sunday, April 28, 2024