Liberating our Families

Chan and Tin worked most of their lives in the rice fields of Thailand.  After working all year on the farm, there was barely enough money to feed the family.  They struggled year after year in desperate poverty.

One day a recruiter for a company called Global Horizons came to their village promising high paying jobs on farms in America.  In one month in America, they could earn what they make in a full year in Thailand.  It was the opportunity of a lifetime to change the lives of their children and their whole extended family.

There was just one catch.  To enter the program, they had to pay a recruitment fee of almost $15,000.  They mortgaged their farms and their houses.  They talked their relatives in to mortgaging their farms and homes.  Tin’s loans ranged up to 80% annual interest, but Chan’s loans reached 152% annual interest.

When they got to the airport, Global Horizons forced them to sign a host of new documents - including a visa renewal fee of $8,000.  When they reached America, the recruiters confiscated their passports “for safekeeping.”  This meant that they had no identification and no way to prove that they were in the USA legally.

At first, there was plenty of work and on-time pay.  After a few months though, the work began to run out and the pay started coming later and later.  Often, they sent 100% of their pay checks back to Thailand so that their families could make the payments on their loans.  That meant they often didn’t have enough to eat, so they caught wild animals for food and gathered wild vegetables from forests.  They usually lived in overcrowded housing without enough beds for each person.  Sometimes the toilet wouldn’t work for weeks at a time.  They often lacked kitchens, washing machines, and sufficient heating. To limit their contact with outsiders, their handlers told them that Americans are greatly prejudiced against Asians and that leaving their housing grounds would be very dangerous.  

Surely this couldn’t really happen in today’s world, right?  They are free people.  They could just change companies, right?  Wrong.  Global Horizons was their legal sponsor and guarantor.  If they quit, they would lose their visas and be sent home to Thailand ... and their families would lose everything.  

God Plaguing Us - Exodus 7-11

   This is a long and complex passage.  You will probably have unanswered questions after I’m done talking.  That’s OK.  There is no way I can talk about everything here, so I want to make some observations that can help us understand this strange text and apply it in our lives today.   Ten observations about the ten plagues.

1. Yahweh is God of all the earth.  In the English text, any time you see the word LORD in all capital letters, that is a textual symbol that the Hebrew word used is YHWH (or Yahweh).  Yahweh is the special Hebrew name for God.  The background for the plague story is a battle of Egypt’s gods and Yahweh Israel’s God.
    Moses comes to Pharaoh and says, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go ...”  But Pharaoh responds, “And who is the LORD?  ... I don’t know him, and I won’t let Israel go.” (5:1-2).  This is the essential conflict of the plagues.  Yahweh is making himself known to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh is learning to submit to the God of all the earth. 

 

2. Yahweh wants all people to worship him.  Before the plague of the flies, God says, he is sending this plague so that “you will know that I am the LORD and that I am present even in the heart of your land” (8:22).  Before the plague of the hail, God said, “By now I could have lifted my hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth.  But I have spared you for a purpose—to show you my power and to spread my fame throughout the earth...” (9:15-16).  
    God wants all people everywhere to worship him.  This was a radical concept.  Back then, each tribe or nation worshiped their own collection of gods.  The gods were regionally or topically based - the god of this area or this issue.  No god asked for everyone’s exclusive worship - only some worship from some people.  Yahweh’s claim that he is the One True God of All the Earth was - and is - radical.

Ash Wednesday Liturgy 2012

Here is our 2012 Ash Wednesday liturgy - with the homily by Logan Kruck.

Intro: Music only of the first verse of the first song.

Welcome
Opening Prayer:   Let us pray.
    Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and repentant hearts, that we, fully sorry for our sins and acknowledging our brokenness, may receive from you, the God of all mercy, full cleansing and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Song: “Give Thanks"

Explanation of Lent and Ash Wednesday:
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. It is a somber day of reflection on what needs to change in our lives if we are to be fully Christians. It was not always the way we know it today. Ashes marked on the forehead of worshippers were not given to everyone, but only to the public penitents who were brought before the church. Much like Hester Prynne bearing her scarlet letter, these open and notorious sinners were marked publicly with the sign of their disgrace.
As time went on, others began to show their humility and their affection for the penitents by asking that they, too, be marked as sinners. Finally, the number of penitents grew so large that the imposition of ashes was extended to the whole congregation in services similar to those that are observed in many Christian churches on Ash Wednesday.
We who will bear the ashes upon our foreheads stand with those whose sins may be more public, but not, according to the Scriptures, more grievous to the heart of God. And so we make our confessions …