Tomorrow evening we will have our last Presbytery meeting of 2021; please register if you haven’t already. We will all be on Zoom, which has worked very well for our presbytery meetings, especially for night meetings. We will celebrate with Arcadia Community Church and welcome their new pastor, Rev. Dr. John Scholte; we will welcome new Inquirer Jae Yang; and we will hear from Inquirer Tiffany Ashworth as she seeks to move to candidacy.

As is customary with our November meeting, we will plan for the future with the election of next year’s leaders and the approval of next year’s budget. We will also consider whether to be listed as a Matthew 25 presbytery, showing our support for the efforts of the national church to encourage all our churches and presbyteries to commit to follow Jesus’ call in Matthew 25:31-46 by embracing and telling our stories in addressing one or more of the three focus areas:

• Building congregational vitality
• Dismantling structural racism
• Eradicating systemic

We will also give thanks for the people who have completed their terms of service, and we remember loved ones who have died this past year through our necrology.

As the dark and coolness of the night seem to be coming much earlier now, and we look ahead to the holiday season, I have been thinking about the saints who have gone before us, especially these last two years. Though sometimes it feels like it’s been a lost two years, much has happened—and we have lost many loved ones. The horrible winter surge of COVID hit a year ago, and I remember how Monte Vista Grove, which was so careful and had been weathering the pandemic very well, suddenly saw ten residents die within a matter of weeks. The holiday season always brings up memories of the loved ones who are no longer with us, and I can feel the sadness of missing friends like Ross Kinsler, Mary Hamburger, Dick Hettish, Sandy Shervington, Don Hawthorne, Clayton Cobb, Bill Van Loan, and so many others as we give thanks for their lives.

This Saturday, November 20, at 11 am, the memorial service for Rev. Barbara Stout will be held at Claremont Presbyterian Church. Barbara died on February 27, 2020, right before COVID hit all of us. I remember when she passed away, and many of us wondered how we would be able to celebrate her life if we could not meet in person. We now have the opportunity, 21 months later. Of course memories of her life, and the impact of her decades of faithful service, have not dimmed, so I am grateful that we are at a point where we can now safely gather to grieve, and give thanks. For those who were not blessed to know Barbara, she was a long-time Christian educator and pastor for several churches, most significantly with Claremont Presbyterian Church and Trinity Presbyterian Church.

She was also on the committee that produced the hymnal that continues to be in the pew racks of many if not most of our churches, the one some of us refer to as “the blue hymnal.”

As the weight of grief bears down on us, paradoxically amidst the joy of the holidays and the relief that maybe, just maybe, we will reclaim a little bit of normalcy in our lives, we take comfort in our strong belief in life eternal, thanks to the grace of Jesus Christ. And we give thanks for the memories.

Rick Hamlin was executive editor of Guideposts magazine, and in his book 10 Prayers You Can’t Live Without, he wrote:

The people you sing with become a part of you.  After they’re gone, you can still hear them. I think the sound of everyone who has ever sung at our church is buried in the walls of the place, and all their “alleluias” come echoing back whenever we sing. They make up that “great cloud of witnesses” the Bible talks about. If you’ve sung harmony with someone, you especially miss their part when they’re gone.

And Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet:

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. . . .
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

As we gather—on Zoom, in worship, at Christ’s table—however we gather, let us feel whatever we feel, knowing that whether we weep or whether we rejoice, our hearts can be filled with the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:7)

See you tomorrow night,

Yesterday, someone asked me how the Presbytery was doing. I mentioned that issues are cropping up, which means things must be getting back to normal.

I’m not being totally cynical in saying that. In the past 18 months or so, I’ve noticed that I have not heard much from the churches regarding the usual conflicts. Of course I was grateful for it, as we had our hands full already. But now I think the churches were not reporting conflict because all their attention was put to just managing the basics under COVID conditions: worship, pastoral care, and the occasional meeting. When everyone is focused on just getting the basics handled, there isn’t time or energy for disappointment or criticism.

So now that the crisis of uncertainty seems to be behind us, we have the cycles to see what is bothering us. It seems to also be the time for some pastors to leave. While in the midst of the crisis, the pastors stayed put so they could help their churches. But, like many others, some pastors took this time of social distancing to reflect on their lives. Some who had delayed their retirement are now retiring, and some church members and pastors are deciding to move to other states where the cost of living is not as demanding, giving them space to try something new.

I’ve been reminded that we humans are wired to respond more to negative concerns than to positive. A couple of us even wonder if we are experiencing so much painful division in this nation because there isn’t a common enemy for us to unite against. During times of war or natural disaster, Americans are able to set aside differences to work together against whatever has been threatening us. But if we are blessed to be without an immediate threat, our response seems to be to find enemies from within. It is unfortunate that we could not come together to fight the COVID virus; I guess the danger the virus presents is not as obvious as a hurricane or an airplane flying into a city building.

It does seem that we humans respond best in the midst of a crisis. We also, as the apostle Paul wrote, build character by facing and enduring challenges. continue to see how people who have faced injustice are capable of living out their faith in more dramatic fashion, with increased capacity to forgive and show compassion to others.

Some have suggested that suffering is an inescapable part of living. I do have to share the lesson I learned from a young woman named Leanne. Leanne was paralyzed from the neck down, and for years she was in a wheelchair. She inherited a disease that caused her paralysis in adolescence, and that caused the death of her father and two brothers. She lived in an apartment building that was designed for people with disabilities, which was right across the street from the church I was pastoring, so we were part of a Bible study group there. Leanne was amazingly upbeat, and she took a paratransit bus into Honolulu each day to help her mother train service dogs.

One day she was on the way into town when she started feeling sharp, stabbing pain in the bottoms of her feet. The pain was so deep it brought her to tears. She couldn’t believe it because she had no feeling below her neck since she was paralyzed. What was happening? Was she imagining it?

She went to her doctor to get an explanation. He examined her and surmised that her nerves were regenerating! Within weeks, she was learning to walk again. And the first sign that she would start to feel and walk again was pain.

It would be wonderful if we all could only experience joy and peace, or if we would find as strong a motivation for compassion as we find in fear or rage. But if we have to face challenges in our lives, may we appreciate God’s love alleviating our pain—and in our gratitude and humility, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, may we turn our suffering and endurance into character and hope.

In about a week, we will hold our last Presbytery meeting of the year. It’s been a very full year, and with Moderator Deborah Owens’ leadership, we will be reflecting on the call to be a Matthew 25 Presbytery. We will also look at the budget and new leadership for 2022, as well as receive John Scholte, Arcadia Community Church’s new pastor, and hear from two people under care of CPM. And we will remember loved ones who have left us this year to go home to God. It will be a very full meeting, offering a glimpse of the richness of life in God’s world.

Whether you are feeling joy or pain, I do pray that you are experiencing the presence of Jesus Christ in all you do. And may we always give thanks for bringing us together in our churches and in the Presbytery. Blessings to you and yours, and may we see the love of God in Jesus Christ through the support of your siblings in Christ. See you at Presbytery.

In hope that does not disappoint us,

This last week was a very full one for me. It started with the 50^th Anniversary symposium of the NCKPC (National Caucus of Korean Presbyterian Churches), where I was asked to speak alongside two academics, Russell Jeung and Jane Hong. Both are accomplished leaders; in fact, Dr. Jeung was just recognized by Time magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People of 2021.” I was already nervous about speaking, for several reasons: first, I do not believe that Japanese have the right to tell Koreans anything given our history; second, I am aware that I was not their first choice as a speaker (I learned in Denver that I wasn’t their second choice either!); third, I am not a scholar and am not comfortable as a public speaker; and fourth, some of my Korean friends had strong hopes that somehow I would be able to speak to the intergenerational issues that have stressed the Korean church for years.

But, as I learned as a reluctant servant of God, much of ministry is showing up, opening your mouth, and trusting that God will do the rest. I believe that doing a little homework is helpful too, not only for what gets said but also for my own benefit. This talk is proof of that, as I actually learned a lot about my own heritage in preparing for it.

I realize I’ve mentioned this conference a few times already, but it has brought up many core issues in my life and ministry, and also what I see happening in the church. The second half of the week gave added opportunities to build on this, with a day-long retreat for the Reparations group in our presbytery, and a talk given by Dr. Kenneth Hardy that was sponsored by Presbytery of San Francisco.

In our Reparations retreat, we confirmed the particular approach to reparations that we want to take as Presbytery of San Gabriel. We did not craft a simple definition for this huge topic—a topic that has many different facets, some that are magnified or unrecognized depending on the different approaches to reparations. For instance, many see reparations as a legal act of the federal government and has no Christian context. Some focus primarily on the need for money to be included in reparations. While most see that money should be part of the restitution, there are many different views on how the money is given, to whom, how much, who gets to decide how the money is used, and finally whether money is all that is required.

We hope to make a formal presentation to the Presbytery in 2022 (yes, that’s coming up in a couple of months!), so I cannot make a definitive statement. But as we have discussed here in San Gabriel, we see reparations as a spiritual discipline that follows the process by which we approach reconciliation, so it incorporates basic Christian practices such as listening to God through the voices of others, confession, repentance (ie, committing to change what oppresses others), and restitution. We can do all these things because God calls us to be in relationship with others, even be repairers of the breach (Isaiah 58:12), and because we are assured that we can confront and turn from sin knowing that God’s grace is always more powerful than any sin that weighs on us.

I’ve been thankful for the work on racial reconciliation being done in Presbytery of San Francisco, with the leadership of Rev. Kamal Hassan, a friend who pastors a church in the Bay Area but who comes from Los Angeles. Dr. Hardy has given two webinars with San Francisco, and both have been thought-provoking. While the first session was on “How to Be an Ally” for people of color, this session was addressed to people of color, and he challenged us with certain tasks.

In our Reparations retreat, we listened to the experience and wisdom of several of our Presbytery siblings as they spoke about their perspectives as Black Presbyterians, and how they see reparations. They mentioned some things that Dr. Hardy also addressed; two of them are especially striking to me. One is the way that people who have been oppressed for generations will internalize the oppression, and limit what they consider possible for themselves. This is a natural response to abuse (I learned this dynamic when working with battered women), but it can keep people trapped in abusive relationships if they simply start to accept the inevitability of the abuse. So one task for people of color is to dare to dream freely, to honor the courage of their ancestors by living into their vision.

The other concept was a reframing of reparations not as a legal or economic action, or sacrifice required by one group due to actions of their ancestors, but as inheritance. This can take on many meanings. Not only is it an understanding of what is due to a people for their work—and the generational wealth that they would have inherited had their ancestors been paid what they were due—but also a commitment of the current generation to future generations, to strive to “level the playing field” so that their children and children’s children can move into their future with hope.

Throughout the week, I saw how we are being given the awesome opportunity to live out the Gospel in our midst. We can be repairers of the breach, resetting past wrongs to restore right relationships. And we can gain strength from our ancestors, even as we also shed the sin that clings so closely, even the sin that we inherit from past injustices, as perpetrator/beneficiary or as victim. Korean and Black Christians are showing their willingness to forgive. Japanese and dominant culture Christians must recognize and stop the ways they perpetuate, or at least benefit from, historic patterns of oppression.

And we can do this, through the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we approach All Saints Day, let us recommit to the race for God’s justice and peace. As we take the baton from our ancestors in this intergenerational relay, we can give thanks for them getting us this far, even as we go forward with the gifts that God has given us. What an awesome, and beautiful, task.

God bless you and all of us in this endeavor,