“Attracted to Excellence”

Wednesday Community Night - February 8, 2012

2 Kings 4: 18 – 37/Psalm 142/1 Corinthians 9: 16 – 23/Mark 1: 29 – 39

Fr. Gary W. Thurman

The theme for last Sunday was “Attracted to Excellence.”  People are attracted to those who do things well. They are attracted to people who are able to rise above and stand above those who just do things normally.

In 2Kings 4:8-10, it says that the woman noticed Elisha.  Elisha was a man of excellence; a man that had a double portion of the spirit that Elijah had.  Elijah had a mighty portion of the spirit, but Elisha had twice as much.  He did twice as many miracles; he raised twice as many people from the dead.  The woman said, “We know that this man is a prophet.  He is a man of God.  He is excellent.  Whenever he keeps passing by our house, on his way to his journeys, let’s build a room for him.  Let us build a room on the roof so that when he comes by, he can stay and eat there.”  They were attracted to his excellence and opened their home to him.

In the gospel, after Jesus cast out the spirit of a man in the synagogue, after He went home after church and healed the mother-in-law of Peter, the whole city was attracted to Him.  The whole city gathered at His door.  They have not seen anyone with such excellence before – healing the sick and casting out demons.

In our Men’s Meeting last Saturday morning, Fr. Patrick shared with us about integrity.  Integrity is a type of excellence that attracts people perhaps because it is unusual; it is rare and hard to find.  If you are a person of integrity, people will be attracted to you.    This issue of attraction, of how excellence attracts people is important because the gospel on the Third Sunday of Epiphany in Mark 1:17, Jesus told us, “You are going to be fishers of men.”  He told that to Peter and Andrew; He told that to James and John.  By extension, we, as believers, He also says to us, “I want you to be fishers of men.”

What is fishing?  Fishing is basically the art of attracting fish.  You attract them to come out of the water into your possession so that you can have dinner later.  When Jesus said, “You are going to be fishers of men,” what He is saying is you need to learn how to attract men into the kingdom of God.   The excellence of Jesus was an attraction to people.   The excellence of Elisha was an attraction to people.

This is the reason why Jesus used fishing as a metaphor for evangelism because what we are doing in evangelism is that we attracting people into the kingdom of God.  In fishing, we attract the fish to come to us.  You can put a boat in the water; but there is no guarantee the fish are going to come to you.  They are not going to jump out of the water into your boat by themselves.    You can put a hook in the water; you can tie a hook to your line; and throw it out in the water but there is no guarantee that the fish will bite the hook.  You have to make it attractive.

In a few months, at least a part the TV-5 complex across the street is going to be open.  I know that a lot of people are excited.  They say, “When they open, a lot of people will go there and a lot of people will come by the Church, see it, and come inside.”  Maybe, maybe not!   Let us face it.  There has been an army of construction workers there for a year.  Have any of them joined us yet?   I did not see any; I am here almost all the time.

It is one thing to have a hook in the water; it is something else to attract the fish to bite the hook.  We don’t have much people here who have been fishing.  There is the problem because when Jesus said, “Fishers of men,” we don’t know what to do.   Fishing is fun.  I was the luckiest kid alive that I know of.   When I was a little boy, in my whole growing up years, I had an uncle who lived nearby. He also had a piece of property not far behind our house.   On that small piece of property was a lake.  It was basically a farm pond.  It was 200 yards wide and across.  It was walking distance from my house and that little farm pond was full of fish.

Many days, I would get my fishing pole and dig up some worms and go fishing.   I would love to go fishing because in that farm pond, there were several different types of fish. There was bream, my favorite kind, which is the size of your hand.  There was bass which everyone loves to eat where I come from.  They are a lot bigger and they are a good fight when you get them on your hook.  They are really fun to eat too.  There is the fish called crappie.  You may not believe that but crappie is the best tasting fish. They taste great; they don’t taste bad as you would imagine it to be.

All of these different kinds of fish – catfish, blue gills – are on the little farm pond behind my house.  If you wanted to catch a bass, you use one kind of bait.  If you wanted to catch bream, a blue gill, or catfish, you would use different kinds of bait for each.  Every type of fish was attracted to different kinds of bait.    One kind of bait would work for a bass; but it wouldn’t work for a catfish.  One kind of bait would work for a bream, but wouldn’t work for a blue gill.  You have to know what you wanted.  If you wanted bream, just go and get some worms.  There are different kinds of worms.   You have the night crawlers which are fat and long; you have the red wrigglers which are very small and short which are good for bream.

We would go out there and would put some red wrigglers on the hook and throw it out in the water.  We knew where the fish would always stay because we went there a lot.  We knew where the bream were.  After a while, you would feel the tug on the line and you would see the bobber on the water go down, and you got some fish.  Before long, you’ve got a lot of bream.  You take them home, clean them, and cut off the heads, the tails, the fins, the insides, the scales.

We don’t do that here.  We eat it all because for one thing, they are so small that if you cut off the head and the tail, there is nothing left.  Where I am, we don’t like to eat a fish with a head on it.  For one thing, if you are sitting there and fixing to eat, there is this fish eye looking at you saying, “Why? I thought you were going to take me home and put me in your aquarium?”  We always cut the head off first, then clean everything and put it in a fry daddy.  In the south of United States, where I come from, the standard appliance in every home has a fry daddy.  It is about the size of a rice cooker, a little bigger.  Inside it, there is nothing but cooking oil.  When you plug in the machine, it heats up the oil and you put your food in it and you fry, just like McDonalds.  Every home where I am from is a little McDonalds because we deep fry everything we eat, especially fish.

There are different baits for different fish.  Different fish are attracted to different things and sometimes for different times.  Different times of the year, there are different water conditions. All of these things affect the appetite of the fish.  It affects what bait they are attracted to.  Sometimes, you would turn on the radio and especially on some of the country music radio stations, they would have fishing reports.  After they give the news they go, “Here on DWBIE or DWPLO, we are going to give you the fishing report.  Over at Lake Alatoona, the bass are biting on a spooner jigs.  If you cast it on about ten feet of water, you’ve got to slow cast. The bass are biting now.  Over at Lake Lanier, the trout are biting on shad.  On Jackson Lake, the catfish are biting on nightcrawlers and red wrigglers.  At Lake Walter F. George, they report that they are getting very good results from artificial baits.”  They would always tell you what was biting that day.   They would say, “You’ve got to fish this way to catch this kind of fish in this kind of lake.”  It is always about what attracts the fish at that time – what is the right bait in the right place.

I learned this personally a few years later.  I got a little bigger and my friend, Steve,  called me one day and says, “Gary, you want to go fishing this Saturday?”  I said, “Sure, I am always up for fishing trip.  Where do you want to go?’  He said, “Up in the northern part of the State, up in the mountains, there is a reservoir that the core of engineers ran and it is always stuffed with fish.  There is a small stream that comes out off that thing. Every Friday night, they stuffed that stream with rainbow trout that they had in their breeding farms.”

Once they got to a nice size, the rainbow trout is the best fresh water fish that you ever had.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  My friend said, “They breed them every Friday and release a bunch of them in the stream.  So if you want to, you get up early and we can go look at that stream and find the fish and have us some great feast.”  I said, “Sure!”  We got up early one morning before it was daylight, drove up for two or three hours drive up to the Lake Georgia Mountains, found the stream that he was talking about just about daylight.  We got all our fishing gear; we had live baits; we had three different kinds of worms; we had crickets; we had lizards and all sorts of different artificial lures – spinner baits, spooner jigs, rooster tails.  We started walking on the stream, and it was about mid-thigh deep and clear as a bell.  This is something else that you don’t see a lot of here.  Stream was clear and you could see it.  When you look over, you could see the school of fish.  Once they have been released, they are just there staying in one place about twenty or so and you see the nice rainbow trout – the best fresh water fish that you could imagine –not as good as bangus, of course.

We saw the fish, so we started with the worms.  If you walk right toward them, it is going to scare them.  We stayed a distance, got a line, and threw it out there.  Perfect catch, right in front of the fish, but they were just sitting there, not doing anything.   We tried for a few minutes; it didn’t work.  So we tried one of the crickets and we threw it out there – right in front of them – and they didn’t do anything.  We said, “Maybe they are not hungry for a live bait today.”

We started trying all these different lures in our fishing boxes. We tried the rooster tails; we tried the spinner and spooner jigs.  We tried everything, throwing all the artificial minnows out there and everything we can think of.   The trout was just sitting there.  We tried for two or three hours.  There was nothing.  About ten or eleven o’clock in the morning, a local guy comes up with one little fishing rod, no tackle box and special equipment like we had.  He walks over and sees the fish and he goes over not too far from where we are and he pulls out of his pocket a piece of cheese.  He puts a little piece of cheese on his hook and I said, “What is wrong with this guy?  He is crazy!”  He throws the cheese on the water and he catches the biggest one, just like that.   He takes another piece of cheese on his hook, and in fifteen minutes, he caught all twenty of those fish.  We said, “Cheese?! Who would have thought?”  After a while we said, “Can we have some of your cheese?”   I will not tell you what he said but it included the word, “No.”  Fishermen are very competitive.  They don’t like to share their secrets.

It taught me one thing: you got to have the right kind of bait, and sometimes it is different than what you think.  If we want to be fishers of men, we’ve got to have the right kind of bait. Sometimes we are trying to fish for men with bait that people aren’t interested in at all.  This is probably why we don’t catch a lot of fish.  This is why we don’t bring a lot of people into the kingdom of God.   To put it in simple terms, it is why we don’t get a lot of people to church with us.  We are using the wrong bait. We are not attracting them to something that they are interested in.

As evangelists, royal priesthood in the kingdom of God, it is important for us to learn how to us the right kind of bait.  The question would come: how do you find the right kind of bait?  How do you know what the blue gills are biting this week?  How do you know what the catfish are going for?  How would you know what the trout are biting?

There are ways to know.  First of all, excellence is attractive.  One of the best ways to attract people in evangelism is simply through excellence – doing everything excellently.  If you do things half-way, sloppily, not even caring, it is not going to attract anybody.  No one is going to say, “Wow, he is really sloppy.  I want to see what he has to offer.”  It is not going to work.  “He is a total loser. I want to go where he is doing.”    Excellence is a great way to attract people.

Second thing that is attractive in fishing for men is a personal touch.  Get to know people personally.   When Jesus was healing the mother-in-law of Peter, He took her by the hand – a personal touch. Through that, there was healing.  Personal interaction, a personal touch is attractive to people.  If they know you care, that is attractive to them than just, “Who cares about you?”

When the widow came up to Elisha, she just grabbed him by the feet at first.  Elisha said, “I know there is something wrong, but I can’t tell what it is.  It is hidden from me.”  Being grabbed by the feet is not a personal interaction.  That is symbolically how people are trying to evangelize, “I am good.  I am holy. I am holier than you. I know God more than you. If you want, you can touch my feet.”   This is not attractive to anybody.  Was it effective?  Elisha said, “I don’t know what is going on with her.”  I don’t believe that this is Elisha’s attitude for he would never be the man of God that he was.  Symbolically, as long as we just expect people to grab our feet, we are not going to catch fish at all.  We are going to go home empty every time.  We have to be open to people and be personal with people.  Be ready to have a personal relationship. Open up to them.  Don’t be saying, “I am me and I am in my little church outside the Church, so I have nothing to do with you.”   You will never catch anybody.

The Church will never be full.  A certain area of this Sanctuary will never be full on Sunday or on Wednesdays but we must learn to have personal attention to people, a personal relationship. When Elisha just had Gehazi lay his staff on the boy’s head, nothing happened.  How personal is that? “Take my stick and lay it on his head.”   Are you surprised that it didn’t do the job?  There is no personal connection there.  The staff is the symbol of his authority, just like with Moses.  I don’t care how much authority you have.  I don’t care if you are the leader of a ministry.  I don’t care if you are ordained priest or a consecrated bishop.  Just that staff alone won’t change people’s lives. There has to be a personal connection.  Laying the staff on the boy’s face did not help at all. What helped?  When Elisha got down with the boy and went down – face to face, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, hand to hand, this made the difference.

You don’t get much personal than that.  This is personal contact which is symbolic.  It showing us that it is the personal connection between the people of God that causes God’s life to flow and rise up and to raise the dead.  A stick on the head didn’t do it.  Having somebody grab your feet didn’t do it; but the mouth to mouth, hand to hand, and eye to eye made the difference.  Not Facebook wall to another Facebook wall.  This is better than nothing, but it is still not real personal contact.

It was my wife’s birthday Monday last week.  On Tuesday, I opened my email, which she and I shared, to send the Propers.  The whole first screen on the Inbox was nothing but from “Facebook – birthday greetings to Marilie.”  I hit the second screen, which was about twenty-five to thirty names and it showed, “From Facebook – birthday greetings to Marilie.”  Third screen until the fourth screen showed, “So and so wrote Happy birthday on your wall.”   It was four solid screens of birthday greetings to my wife.  Many of them from you, from my friends back home from HongKong, and from other relatives.   It was like a hundred and fifty-two people.  I said, “Wow, I am going to get one of this wall thing! It is just kind of cool.”  But you know, I would rather you walked up to me and say, “Happy Birthday, Fr. Gary.”  It would be a lot more than just punching a button because this computer tells you it is your birthday.

Hand to hand; eye to eye; mouth to mouth.  This is what makes the difference.  This is what attracts fish.  A Facebook wall is better than nothing, but personal contact is a lot better. This is the second thing we need to have the right bait.  With personal contact, you would know what the right bait is.  You will know what attracts them and you will know how to bring that to them.  If there is no personal contact, if you don’t really know them, there is no way that you will get the right bait. Maybe by luck, but chances are no.  Personal touch is vital.

The third thing we need if we are going to catch fish like what Jesus said which is the most important and what I want the youth, the communities to hear, for all of us to hear, and what the Lord wants us to hear is: we need a passion for fishing.  We need to be passionate about fishing.  This is what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 9: 16 – 23.  It is really powerful.  When we were reading it on Sunday, I just could hardly contain myself because I was saying, “Is this my attitude? Is this how I feel about things?”

“If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I did not preach the gospel.” Have you ever said, “Woe is me if I don’t go fishing today?  There is fish over there; they look like they could…never mind.”  But Paul says, “Woe is me if I don’t go fishing.  Fishing is my life.”  He knew what Jesus said, “You shall be fishers of men.”   How important is it to us?  Do we have a passion for fishing?  Verse 19, “Though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all,  that I might win the more.” Catch them in fishing. “I have made myself a slave to everybody so that I can catch them.”

Such a strong language – a slave.  Think of what Paul is saying.  We read these words sometimes but look at what he is pouring into this. “I consider myself a slave so that I can catch a few more fish.”   Verse 20-22, “To the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I may win Jews;  to those who are under the Law, as under the law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law.  To the weak, I became weak that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some.” “And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I can catch more fish.”

Some people would say, “Paul is being a hypocrite.  He is pretending to be a Gentile, though he is not.  He is pretending to be under the law, though he is not.”   All he is saying is, “I want to give the right bait out there so that I can catch the fish.”  You think about it this way.  This is exactly what he is saying.  “I am going to do whatever it takes so that the bait is right so that I can bring the fish in the boat.  However it takes, I want that fish in the boat of the church.”

Look at Paul’s passion. He even says in Romans 9:3, “If I could make a trade, if I could be accursed so that my fellow countrymen could be caught in the boat, I would make the trade, just like that. I would count myself accursed for the sake of my fellowmen.”  This is how passionate he was about fishing.  Are we that passionate about fishing?   Are we that passionate about being fishers of men?  We would say, “I will be accurse if I just get this one in the boat.” Remember, that these are the same people that were trying to kill him.   They stoned him twice and left him for dead.  Five times, they gave him thirty-nine lashes.  They had him arrested numerous times but Paul says, “I am so passionate to have them in the kingdom of God. You can curse me Lord, if that is what it would take.”

This is passion.  This is a man who loves fishing.  This is a man who loves bringing home the fish so he says, “I would do whatever it takes to get them into the boat.  I will put whatever bait is necessary.  If it is to be as without the law, or if it is to be with the law or to be under the law, if it is to be Jew, whatever it is, I will do it to get the proper bait to bring the fish into the boat.”  Only the right bait will catch the fish. It takes a passion for fishing.

I had a cousin, actually my Dad’s cousin and my Dad’s age. This man loves to fish.  Every Saturday, he wasn’t at home. He got in his boat and he and his friend went to the lake. He just loved the fish.   If he had a week’s vacation, guess where he was those seven days?  He was at the lake.   When he retired, he went everyday at the lake. He had a passion for fishing. On some days, he didn’t catch a thing.  He would fish all day and would not catch anything.  Other days, he would fish two hours and catch his limit and come home early.  Over all, he caught more fish than anyone.  He had trophy fish and had a lot of large-mouth bass hanging on his wall because he fished a lot.  Somebody asked him one time, “You are a good fisherman.  How can I catch more fish?”  He said, “There is one trick to catching more fish. If you want to catch more fish, fish more often.”

This makes a lot of sense for that is what he did every day.  Some days, he wouldn’t catch anything; but on other days, he caught a lot because he was consistent and he fished all the time.  This is the secret for us.  If we are passionate for fishing like Paul was, like my cousin Dewey was, we are going to catch more fish.  It is important to catch fish, to catch men; for the evangelical church people will tell you, “It is important to win souls.  It is important to bring people into God’s kingdom because if you don’t bring them to the kingdom, when they die, they are going to hell.   You have to get them saved before they go to hell.”  This brought out the evangelists and a lot of people.  Save them before they go to hell.

I am not sure that I believe that anymore because if they don’t know God, if they don’t have a knowledge of everything that Christ has done for them, if they are not applying everything that God has done for them, they are in hell already.  It is not trying to save somebody to save them before they get to hell. They are in hell already.  What do I mean?

In the Christian Training Center, in one of our early classes, we learn about who God is.  We learn that God is our Provider, our Teacher, our Protector and our Leader.  If people don’t know God and don’t know that God fills those roles in their lives, who is going to protect them?  Who is going to lead them?  Who is going to teach them? Who is going to provide for them?  If you don’t know God, and you don’t have those things working in your lives, that is hell.  Who is going to provide for you if God doesn’t provide for you?  The lotto?  Willing Willie?

Without God, you don’t know what else to do!  If you have God in your lives, you know that He is your Provider.  In the mountain of the Lord, it shall be provided.  If you don’t know Him, hope Willing Willie gets your name next week, otherwise they are going to come and take away your house.    If you don’t know that God is your Teacher, who is teaching you?  Wikepedia?  They have already shown that there are so many errors in those things.  Nobody checks up on it.  Anybody can write submissions into there and there are always things that are wrong. There is a submission under CEC which a lot of it is wrong.  Just because it is in Wikipedia means it is right.  Just because it is on the web means it is right.

A teacher can teach the young generation all about the Greek, the Roman and the Egyptian gods, just like J.K.Rowling talked to the young people about witchcraft.  He hasn’t written a book yet about Jesus Christ, and I doubt that he ever will.  They don’t understand God as their Teacher who is teaching them.  Who is teaching the young ladies?  Lady Gaga?  Teaching them how to act, to dress and saying, “I was born this way?”   Heaven forbid!  That is the agenda.  The lesbian sector wants the society to accept the fact they are born lesbians. This is not what the Bible says – Adam and Eve; male and female.  If God is not there in a role as Teacher in our lives, we will be taught by whomever.   If God is not there to lead us, who is going to lead us?  “Lord, which school should I attend? Lord, which house should I buy?  Lord, which job offer should I take? Lord, which one of these boys that is courting me should I marry?”  If you don’t have God to lead you, who will?  Horoscope?  Feng Shui?  This is hell! Hell is not having God in your life to lead you, to teach you, to provide for you, and to protect you.

God is our Protector.  If you don’t know that, who is protecting you?  Mr. Cole?  Mr. Smith and Wesson? Mr. Beretta? Mr. Uzi?  What is more common is a gang.  People are drawn to gangs for the protection that they offer.      This is hell and all these can be avoided and stopped if we just start introducing people to their true Provider, their true Protector, their true Teacher and their true Leader.  This is why it is important to be passionate about catching fish.  If we don’t catch the fish, it is not that they are going to hell; they are already in hell being led around.

Some of you have been there and you know that it is not a fun place to be.  So are we going to let those around us stay there too?   We need to have a passion for fishing.  We need to have a passion to be fishers of men. Show forth excellence.  Make personal touch with people. This is why I love to walk to work every morning.  If I had a car, I would be happy with it, but I think that if I had a car, I would still be walking to work every morning.

Every morning when I leave the house at five-thirty, I pass by so many people.  Usually, they are four or five different street sweepers in Pasig.  I always greet them, “Good morning.”  I used to say, “Thank you for the nice job of sweeping our streets.”  I am not condescending.  Would one of you want to have the job sweeping the streets?   Not of us would want to do that, but they are doing it.   I honestly say, “Thank you for doing this job nobody else would want to do.”   The streets in Pasig are always nice and swept because those ladies and men are always out there several times a day sweeping it up.    I pass different security guards, some people jogging. They would always say, “Good morning, Father.”

You don’t do that when you are in a car. Where is the personal contact?  You roll up your windows, turn your stereo on, and whoever is out there, one can’t tell.   You need to walk once in a while.  Make personal contact with people because this is one of the best ways to fish.  Without personal contact, you are not going to catch many fish.

Love and compassion; passion for fishing. The root of passion is actually compassion; it is love.   We won’t have compassion for the world unless we have love for them first.  We won’t have compassion for fishing unless we have a compassion for those who are in hell. Being led by people who don’t know how to lead, being protected by people who don’t know how to protect, being taught by people who don’t know how to teach, being provided for things that are saying that they will provide, but really they can’t.  It is a lie.   It is hell. Unless we have compassion for them, we won’t go fishing for them with the right bait.

I mentioned about the Youth Ministry and the communities.  These two ministries should be hotbeds of fishing. Already, our Outreach to the Blessed is bearing a lot of fruit.  It is catching a lot of fish.  Yesterday, there were babies getting baptized and every one of them had a family with them.  They were dressed up – not the stereo type we get of informal settlers.  They were there because somebody went fishing.  Sis. Chato, Dcn. Ben, and a few clergy wives have been working on that.

I believe that our communities, our Youth Ministry need to be areas that can fish.  Our community leaders have to say, “What can we do in this community to catch the fish that are right here at our backyard?”  “What can we do in our community meetings?” Are we using the right bait to catch people or is this something that nobody is interested in?

For our young people’s ministry, there is a specific type of bait that will appeal to young people that maybe older guys don’t care about.  Maybe it is applicable to the Youth Ministry that is not applicable certainly on a Sunday, but you are not going to catch young people with Sunday School songs.  This is not going to attract them.

We need to put the right bait out, to the right people, and we are going to make a catch like Jesus gave to the disciples when they threw the net out on the other side of the boat – a hundred and fifty-three fish.   Most important, we have to have compassion for people.  Understand that they are in hell.  Have a passion like Paul.  “I will do anything to catch a few more fish.”   This is all what we need; this is what we have to have.  We need to pray and ask God, “Lord give us the passion like Paul.  Make us truly fishers of men.  Teach us to fish.  Teach us what the right bait is. Teach us how to throw it right there.  Teach us how to present it right.”  You may have the right bait but if you put it in the hook wrong, the fish won’t take it.  Everything has to be just right.  The Lord can show us how, but first, we got to have a passion for it.  We’ve got to have compassion for those fish who are in hell and who don’t even know it.

This is the challenge for us tonight. Are we interested in being attractive?  Are we interested in the excellence that will attract those souls who are lost?  Let us ask the Lord to increase that passion. Let us ask the Lord to increase that compassion.  Let us ask the Lord to teach us how to fish and how to be fishers of men. Amen!

“Demonstrating Excellence”

Wednesday Community Night – February 01, 2012

Deuteronomy 18: 15 – 20/Psalm 111/1 Corinthians 8: 1b – 13/Mark 1: 21 – 28

Fr. Leo Yanguas

We are in the Fourth week of Epiphany.  Epiphany is a time wherein God reveals Himself to us. In the gospel, God reveals Himself; a desire to reveal Himself to us as a teacher, as someone who brings new things in our lives, and the God who sets us free.  We can see the heart and the attitude of Christ in the few verses of Mark 1 where it says that He immediately went to the synagogue and began to teach.

We can see the heart of God towards us. Christ was excited to set aside everything to be able to enter to the synagogue of our lives and reveal Himself to each one of us.  It is such a privilege.  We should really learn to listen because it is God’s desire.  We can see His intention, His zealousness that immediately, at the Sabbath, He went to the synagogue to teach.

Deuteronomy 18 says, “I will raise up a prophet whom you will listen.” The context of this writing is that as the people were entering the Promise Land they were told, “Do not listen to the witches, the sorcerers, the mediums; and do not even listen to those who consult the dead.”  In our society, the temptation is there to get the opinion and consult the dead.  We consult those things that don’t bring life; we ran after those things that are dead.

God has already removed these things and says, “Why do you bring it back to your lives? This is why I am raising up a prophet to whom you will listen.”   It is important for us to realize the importance of listening and setting aside things in our lives which are not really important.    The most important thing is our relationship with God.  We can see the life of Christ – He exemplified a relationship with God that even in the different situations that He faces, He is walking with God in the cool of the day conversing with Him.

Perhaps, this is the attitude of Christ when He came to the synagogue as written in Psalm 111, “Great are the works of the Lord; splendid and majestic is His work.  He has made His wonders to be remembered.”  All these things overflowed in the heart of Christ.

Psalms 111:1 says, “Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart, in the company of the upright and in the assembly.” “In the company of the upright and the assembly, I will praise the Lord.  I will proclaim the greatness of God.”  This evening, let us listen to our Community members who will proclaim the greatness of God in our midst, in the synagogue.  It is important that we listen.  When we gather together, there is an exhortation, a psalm, an encouragement, and teaching.  I have asked three from our communities to share with us – whether it is an exhortation, a testimony, a witness an encouragement, or even a teaching.

Bro. Cyril Bunuan:

In our gospel this evening, Jesus is teaching about authority.  Authority is not just something about being the highest, but something that shows the excellence of God.  Authority is a big responsibility for us.  In the beginning, God already gave us the responsibility over all things.  Why are we afraid of anything if we are above it?

Last year, I had Dengue twice; but it did not stop me to serve God because I knew I had authority over sickness.  Through His power, I became a conqueror of Dengue with the authority God gave me.  Authority is a way to show the excellence of God.  If we ask people in the world about authority, the first thing that comes to their mind is the government.  Right now, the government is the highest in this country, but for us, the highest authority is God.  Through Him, He gave us the authority over all things in this earth.

Roman 8:31 says, “If God is with us, who can be against us.”  It shows authority and the responsibility to show how great our God is.  Through authority, we have been made conquerors. Through authority, we can do all things; not to show ourselves high but to show that our God is great.

In the beginning, God gave us the authority.  It is something that we have to multiply. Authority is not just work but a responsibility to show God in our lives.  By showing God, we can show to the people outside that our God is great through the authority we have.  By the authority, we can show to the government that our God is the highest.  Some of the people in the government use authority in a wrong way because for them, authority is something wherein they can do anything.   For us, it is something that will show the excellencies of God.

Fr. Leo:

It says in the gospel that Jesus taught with authority.  As shared with us, authority comes because we experience God.  Bro. Cyril shared how he overcame dengue.  He was one who was always in the synagogue, especially when he was in High School.  He was serving during the daily Masses as an acolyte.  Even in the midst of his bout with dengue, he still wants to come and serve.  Having experience God in that way gives him and us something that no one can take away.

God allows new things that we face in our daily lives because He wants to teach us to make what we read and what we meditate on as something real in our lives.  If it is something real in our lives, no one can take away that reality because we have experienced to have authority if we don’t give in to the situations of our lives.

Sis. Samantha Danan:

I don’t like speaking in public. When Fr. Leo asked me to do this, the first thought that came to my mind, “Why me?”  I did my best to wiggle my way out of this.  During the Mass last Sunday, I was already thinking of an excuse not to do this tonight; but I was immediately confronted with the gospel about Jesus speaking with authority.

My experience is simple for some of you, but I hope you would still learn from it.  I was dwelling on how Jesus spoke with authority and how He was able to cast out the unclean spirit.  Then, I remembered back in my college days when cheating was the “in” thing.  It is like the natural thing to do.  When my batch mates would see me, they are afraid to do it and I don’t know why.   I even remember one of my friends saying, “Let us study. How embarrassing it is to Sam.”    I am not the type of person who confronts people.  I don’t wear a cross to school.  I just wear the regular school uniform. When they are with me, I feel like that they are afraid to do something wrong.

I also experienced this in the work place.  When people say bad things or bad words, they often apologized to me.  It is not that I wear a Christian shirt to work, but I believe it is because we have the presence of God in us that people recognize.

In the gospel, the unclean spirit recognized Jesus and was afraid even before Jesus rebuked him. I believe this is the authority we all are given and even just by our presence, because of the perfect work that God has done for us, we could all demonstrate His excellence.

Fr. Leo:

Our presence is more than enough to show the authority of God in our daily lives.  Sometimes, we don’t notice this because we always look for the great things like raising the dead or the great miracles.  If they happen, praise God; but sometimes, we neglect the life that we live daily as an image of God that will be a light to the Gentiles.  Epiphany shares with us, “The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.”  It is the light that is being recognized in our lives.

The next person who will share is a one who always prayed.  Back in our Rohi days, if there is an emergency and you have to call her, or even if God Himself has an emergency and He has to call this person, He has to wait until this person is finished with her prayer.

Sis. Nancy Lopez:

My standing here is already a demonstration of God’s excellencies in my life. His Spirit has given me the boldness, the sound mind, and the confidence, not the spirit of timidity or fear.

I consider commitment as a demonstration of the excellence of God in my life. I remember the time when I was still new at Christian Life Fellowship in Magallanes Theater.  I would ask the late Sis. Dee Velando, “What is the envelope that they give?”  She explained to me about the tithe and the offering.

During that time, we had the teachings about Financial Plan; and I read in the Old Testament about the Israelites that only the Levites are not given an inheritance so that eleven tribes gave their share. I obeyed, and by faith gave my tithes gladly even when the time came that I had financial problems.  I then was a guarantor of credit cards and gift cheques.  Some of my sub-guarantors who also had their own sub-guarantors and cardholders weren’t able to pay so I wasn’t paid also.  I was the one who shouldered all these debts and my capital of buying gift cheques was depleted.

Despite of this, I gave the three percent to those who invested in me because I know that through the teaching of the then Pastor Tom, if I do what is right and that I don’t have to follow those who don’t acknowledge their payment, God will be the one to deliver me out of this problem. Even if I have a small amount of sales every fifteenth and thirtieth of the month,   I always give my ten percent tithe by faith.  I do not stop giving even if the whole picture shows that my capital is negative and I have to pay all my investors.

It came to a point that God delivered me out of this, not returning to those uncollected, but God stopped this task from me.  I sold my townhouse unit to pay all my investors.  I then got myself employed by my sister-in-law and also had a little business.  My daughter asked me to stop my job to tutor my grandchild.  She gave me an allowance for this.  In all of that allowance, I always set aside my tithes and offering.

With regards to the offering, I heard from someone that if possible, the amount of offering that you give should be equal to the tithe you give.  By faith, I obeyed this and I do it until now.  It came to a point I stopped doing things to do the works that Lord led me to do.  I thank God that in all of these, He is the great Provider and I never run out of resources.  After I received my monthly allowance, I set aside everything for my Wednesday, my Fridays, and Sunday offerings.   What is left I divide into four weeks and I could not imagine how I could survive with that amount.  Yet through all of this, God has provided.  I don’t know how, but He really is my Provider.

Last night, I felt pain in my body.  It was so painful but I told myself, “Lord, don’t allow this.”  I slept and when I woke up this morning, I thank God that the pain was minimal.  I am glad that I can be here today.

Another demonstration of God’s excellence in my life is His love.  Without His love, I could not forgive, love, and accept the failure of the one person that betrayed me.  I give glory to God for this!

Fr. Leo:

What Sis. Nancy shared is more than enough – an experience, a testimony of tithe and offerings, and commitment as far as finances is concerned and manifesting the love of God.

In all of the sharing tonight about the gospel, we can see authority, commitment, love and faithfulness as our response to God and our relationship with Him.   Most of the things that hinders us from excellence as St. Paul says in 1Corinthians 8:4, “There is no such thing as idol and there is no such thing as gods.”  We have a lot of idols that control us, that we focus on like idols of sickness, poverty, unforgiveness.   St. Paul says that these idols have no authority to control us.  In the synagogue, Jesus shows that these things that seemingly control us are really powerless against us in manifesting His excellencies.

We have heard from Christ’s teaching from our Community members who experiences their life in Christ. As Psalm 111, “They praised the Lord and gave thanks to God in the company of the upright and the assembly.”

May God be praised and may we be encouraged in their lives and continue in our faithfulness and commitment to God that we can proclaim the excellencies of God.