June 21, 2015
Retirement Luncheon, Far East Cafe, San Francisco
Thank you all for coming today! I can understand some of you who don’t see me on a weekly basis that you would make the effort to come. Thank you. But for those of you who see me more often than you may like, you still came and even paid more than a typical Chinatown rice plate would cost. Thank you.
As you all know by now, I always have a few words to say. I also learned that after 40 years of ministry that the one and perhaps only true gift that God has blessed me with is the gift of Closure. The gift to say a few words, to wrap things up, to bring even the most grievous meeting to an end and put a bow on it because everything we do, we do in the name of Jesus Christ. And in the Lord, there is only the love of God and the love we have for one another.
For my closing words, I have only one point to make. FCBC is the Church of the Second Chance. When the early pioneering Chinese were trying to make a living by mining for gold or working the fields or cooking and inventing chop suey, people would say, “It’s a Chinaman’s Chance!” A Chinaman’s Chance is that there’s no chance that Chinese Americans would make it in America. You can see today that we have!
FCBC gave this Chinaman a second chance to answer God’s call to ministry to which I am most grateful. Did you know that when I first applied to become your Assistant Pastor in 1975, the Search Committee rejected my application because I was living in Boston and it was too far from San Francisco? And before I was about to accept a call to pastor a church in Massachusetts, you reconsidered me and gave me a second chance.
After being away for 20 years, in 1998, you gave me another chance to become your Senior Pastor and I have been blessed beyond words for the past 17 years of being in ministry with you.
I know that Chinese people believe in fate and chance especially when we see the many busses on Sacramento Street on Sundays going to the casinos. These people believe that if the Fates had them in their favor, they would come home rich. But as people of faith, we believe that all things work according to God’s will under heaven. While you may have given me a second chance at FCBC, in retrospect, God has had a strong guiding hand on my life and on yours all along.
When Jonah was running away from God’s instructions for him to go to Nineveh, God gave him a second chance and he completed his mission. When Jesus met the woman at the well and told her everything she has done, Jesus gave her a second chance and she told everyone in her village all about Jesus. When Peter, the solid rock, denied Jesus, he was given a second chance and Christianity spread all the way to San Francisco.
I thank God for leading you to give me a second chance in 1975 and then another chance in 1998 to be with you.
We might think it’s luck or fate or coincidence or even human efforts but God in his mighty wisdom never gives up on us. My prayer for you is that you won’t give up on one another. When one lives long enough with the grace of God, one can begin to see across the many years that it’s not by chance but it is God’s mercy and forgiveness that he always gives us a second chance to live.
Now that I have used the only gift that I have which is Closure, the ability to sum things up and tie a pretty bow. Now, may the peace of God always be with you.
Benediction
God bless you and keep you.
God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
God look upon you with love and give you peace. Amen.