Bible Text: Exodus 17:1-7, Matthew 21:23-32 | Preacher: Rev. Jenn Geddes
Whether you know it or not this Sunday is, Presbyterians Sharing Sunday. Perhaps you know what Presbyterians Sharing is or perhaps all you know is that we give an amount to Presbyterians Sharing each year as determined by the national church, like a due or perhaps you’re thinking to yourself, “Don’t Presbyterians share already-why do we need to devote a whole Sunday to sharing?!” The short sermon is “Presbyterians Sharing is the national church fund that supports the mission and ministries we do together in Canada and around the world. Presbyterians are sharing in a wide range of ministries from encouraging and equipping congregational renewal and development, to supporting inner city , native, refugee, urban, remote and chaplaincy ministries in Canada, to supporting conferences like Burst Forth and Canada Youth, to sending mission personnel to work with our international partners.” Although I support short sermons that ones just a little too short. What the Presbyterians Sharing fund does is help us make the unimaginable, imaginable, the impossible, possible.
Like the people in the desert we often set limitations. The Israelites have been travelling from place to place as God had commanded but they are beginning to grow weary and thirsty. It’s not the first time they quarrelled with Moses. It’s not the first time they questioned God and it will not be the last. Yet, every time they had a need it was met. This time God gives Moses a solution- the unimaginable happens. Water begins to flow. Our God is a limitless God and God responds time and time again with unimaginable answers. We often forget that the God of Moses’ day is still at work today. I want to tell you a story about one of the many projects supported by Presbyterians Sharing about a man who saw what he thought to be impossible made possible.
When I attended General Assembly in 2012 I had the great privilege of being a witness to the very first edition of the Hakka Bible. For 30 years the Rev. Dr. Paul McLean and his family devoted their time to complete a translation of the Bible in the Hakka language. It is a dialect predominately spoken in Taiwan but also in Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Australia. Although Dr. McLean was the head of this translating team, and was beaming when the Bible was revealed at General Assembly, he was supported by Presbyterians Sharing and had help from many of the locals. One such local was Elder Liau Tet-thiam. While working on the translation Dr. McLean asked Elder Liau how it was that he became a Christian. The story begins like this, one day Elder Liau’s paternal grandfather and family were visiting the nearby town of Liung-tham (Dragon Lake) to attend a large Hakka festival. There was a big rain-storm during the festivities and the family looked for some place dry to wait it out. They saw a simple building with an open door and wooden benches, so they went inside. There a kind man named Dzung A-moi offered them tea and chatted with them about the “God of Heaven and Earth”. The men had wandered into a small Presbyterian preaching hall. Over the next few months they got to know Mr Dzung, a disciple of Dr George Leslie Mackay – a Canadian Presbyterian missionary to Taiwan at the turn of the 20th century. Elder Liau remembered as a young boy walking miles from their farmhouse to worship God at Koan-si Presbyterian Church, even as neighbours yelled at them and called them fan-e gui, “foreign devils.” He learned from an early age what it meant to deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Jesus. His first Bible was printed in Romanized Taiwanese. He won it as a young boy in a Bible memory contest at Church. He thanked God for that precious Bible, but was always a bit sad that it was not written in his mother tongue, Hakka. His second Bible was written in Japanese which he learned to speak when Taiwan was still part of the Japanese Empire. Elder Liau realized that he himself could not share many of the stories of God’s love with his own people because they were not as privileged as he to learn the other languages. All they knew was Hakka. Although Elder Liau Tet-thiam stood only 5 feet tall, he was a giant in Christian faith, hope and love among Taiwan’s Hakka people. When Dr. McLean arrived thanks to Presbyterians Sharing he asked for assistance and Elder Liau came forward. In fact often Elder Liau taught Dr. McLean new words or sayings. Sometimes as the team struggled over a verse, Elder Liau would come up with a brilliant solution. Presbyterians Sharing supported all the elders, staff and volunteers over that time. Elder Liau worked on the translation team well into his 90s, until the Hakka Bible was published just two years ago. Elder Liau died at the age of 95 this past April. But before he died he saw how God turned the efforts of a few into what would have once been unimaginable – the entire Bible in his mother tongue. Translating the Bible into Hakka allows Hakka people to hear God’s words in the language that speaks to their hearts. It tells them they are important to God, that God loves them, that Christ sacrificed his life for them. Through Presbyterians Sharing we get to be a part of this story too. And our partnership with the Bible translation ministry in Taiwan hasn’t stopped. Now that the Hakka Bible is complete, Dr. McLean is advising four translation teams who are preparing Bibles in the indigenous languages of Amis, Bunun, Drekay and Paiwan. God keeps blessing the work. When we give to Presbyterians Sharing we act in love, offer hope and proclaim God’s compassion to the world. God is transforming lives. We may not all have the gift of being Bible translators – but we can all share in Bible translation by supporting and praying for that ministry. We may not all have the gifts to be chaplains, to work with refugees in Canada or abroad, we may not all be brave enough to take jumps of faith. But we can be inspired by their stories and know that as a connected church we are connected with brothers and sisters across this country, sharing our time and money. We are connected with missionaries around the world, sharing our prayers and support. As a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada we share in God’s call to do mission. As a national church we collaborate together on many different things. We support one another’s ministries. We help start new congregations and renew others. We share the good news of the gospel with mission partners around the world. We discuss theological issues and make decisions at General Assembly. We learn from one another, share our experiences and establish healthy ways of working together. We walk with theological students in their journey to become ministers and ensure they have a quality education. We speak out on matters of justice. Together we are involved in mission and ministry bigger than our individual efforts. Together we are a church bigger than our individual congregations. Together we are sharing in God’s mission. Presbyterians Sharing makes this possible. It is about joining together to do God’s work – and letting God work through us. The miracle of water coming from a rock was not Moses’ doing but God’s. However, Moses allowed God to work through him so that the people of Israel would know that God is with them. It is often easy to think that the God of miracles is a God of the past. Yet, miracles are happening all the time. Prayers are answered over lifetimes. Presbyterians Sharing is one way in which we allow God to work through us so that others may know that God is with them. We are called to be like Christ- in what we do and how we do it. Where do we find Christ? Hanging out with people, listening, serving, healing and helping with the authority of God. Jesus helped people contemplate the big questions in life. He engaged people in whatever circumstance he found them and spoke to their deepest needs. Either figuratively or literally, he spoke their language and touched their hearts. Christ saw how they were excluded and included them. Christ saw their hurts and healed them. There are moments in Jesus’ ministry when he went alone on a mountain to pray- to refuel- but there are many more moments when he allowed God to work through him. If we do as we are called to do, if we are faithful and follow Christ, God will work through us. And we can see, as evidence in Elder Liau’s story that God is working through us – accomplishing more than we can hope for or imagine. Amen