{"id":108,"date":"2000-07-16T13:18:30","date_gmt":"2000-07-16T13:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/?p=108"},"modified":"2020-11-22T13:44:45","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T13:44:45","slug":"a-new-unnatural-household","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/a-new-unnatural-household\/","title":{"rendered":"A New (Un)Natural Household"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ephesians 2:11-22<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 16, 2000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My family history is very similar to many of yours. In 1910, my grandfather chose to leave his Hem Slem village near Chung Lau far behind to come as a student and laborer. After some success, he decided to take his two sons, my father and uncle to continue the laundry business he started in Boston. They chose to leave their Chinese citizenship to become foreigners in America. As we all know, being aliens in a strange and different shore was not easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After World War II was over and my father became an U.S. citizen for serving in the U.S. Army, he sponsored my mother and brother to come to America. They too became foreigners in a new country. On Angel Island in 1947, they chose to coordinate their stories of what the village life was like so that they can become residents of a new country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But soon after settling in Boston, my brothers and I were born. No longer were we foreigners, but ABCs\u2014American born Chinese! I didn\u2019t have the chance to choose whether I wanted to be born in Hem Slem or in Boston. It was a natural thing that happened!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gentiles by Birth<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In the Ephesians passage for this morning, we see that the Ephesians were Gentiles by birth. They were not born into God\u2019s household. They were not the Jews who by their birth were citizens of God\u2019s household. Like me, they didn\u2019t have a choice where they were born. The Gentile Ephesians were called the \u201cuncircumcision\u201d by those who are called themselves, \u201cthe circumcision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now in Christ, the promises of God to Israel are brought near even to the Gentiles. Before the Gentiles were without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, Gentiles who were once far away from God are brought close to God through the blood of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the Ephesians, we were once outsiders too. But we see in Ephesians 1:5<\/a> that we are destined for \u201cadoption\u201d lavished on us through grace. We can only be in God\u2019s family through adoption. No one comes in here naturally. Christians are made, not born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also from Chapter 1, we, who weren\u2019t in the family have \u201cobtained an inheritance.\u201d We weren\u2019t in the will, but now we are. We are heirs to a fortune. By the seal of the Holy Spirit, we are marked as \u201cGod\u2019s own people.\u201d We were once far away, but now we\u2019re close kin\u2014family members. The walls that used to separate us are now down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can imagine how the Ephesians felt when they first heard this good news that they were now a part of God\u2019s promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christian by Birth<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

We like how God\u2019s promise sounds in our ears too. We once saw ourselves as Gentiles but now we are no longer aliens and strangers. We are marked as God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notice what the writer of Ephesians has to say. He doesn\u2019t say, \u201cYou decided to join the church.\u201d The writer says, you were \u201cbuilt,\u201d you were \u201cjoined together,\u201d you were \u201cbuilt together spiritually.\u201d Your relationship to this new family is not something you do. It\u2019s something done to you. It\u2019s God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like my parents exchanged their citizenship in China for that of the United States, we as Christians are doing the same. The Ephesians who were once aliens from God\u2019s household are now family members. We who were once foreigners and aliens to the church are now members of God\u2019s family and have an inheritance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you thought that being a Christian is something that comes naturally, the natural, normal American thing to do, think again. Nobody comes in here by being born into the church. Just because I was born in Boston doesn\u2019t make me any more a Christian. You have to be adopted, transferred into, built into this household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long ago, people in America didn\u2019t worry much about whether or not children would grow up Christian. It seemed like a normal, natural American thing to be Christian. My parents thought that way by sending us to church every Sunday and to church camp in the summers. Since it was the First Baptist Church that sponsored my mother to come to America, it was only natural that we went to church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this belief that the world in which Christianity was normal, natural, American, has ended. I find among us as parents and teachers that if our children are to grow up in this faith, we will have to make them that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being Christian is no longer the normal, natural American thing to do. Our children watch an average of 15 hours of television every week. They are in church a maximum of a couple of hours per week. Suddenly we discover that our children are acquiring values that are very different from how the Christian faith defines these matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have what we might call, \u201csecret Christians,\u201d people who are good and sincere, but do not formally embrace the Christian faith. Being a good person is not being a Christian. To be a Christian is to be someone who self-consciously follows, or is attempting to follow, the way of Christ. Someone who is attempting to let the story of Christ forms and guides his or her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FCBC\u2014UnNatural Household<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

We as a church have in faith attempted to follow the way of Christ. For over 120 years, our church has borne witness to our unwavering faith in Chinatown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe some years ago, it was natural for most of our church members who lived close by to the church, even right across the street, to walk to church for Sunday school and worship. But it\u2019s unnatural for people today to cross bridges, drive on freeways, drive over 60 miles away, and then to search and find hard to locate parking spaces to come to church. We have a very unnatural household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today it\u2019s more natural for us to communicate in languages and dialects that we grew up with because they reflect the rich images and meanings that we want to hear and say. It\u2019s more normal that we like to fellowship together with people who share our same interests or convictions. It\u2019s natural for us to have a 9:00 contemporary youth service, a 10:05 English blended service, and a 11:15 Cantonese service. But it\u2019s unnatural for us to stand faithfully and strongly committed to being one church in the name of Jesus Christ. It feels more unnatural for all of us to be together today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people would say that the most economically feasible thing to do is to sell our church building and buy or build a new church where there\u2019s no congestion and plenty of parking spaces. It is natural for us to want more comfort, more space, and more conveniences. But it is unnatural for us to spend over $1.5 million dollars to retrofit and renovate an old brick building that still holds the same number of people before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are a strange bunch of people who are doing unnatural things. FCBC is an unnatural household!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a church building on Waverly Place and Sacramento Street. A church without boundaries, with no borders, without distinctive marks, is hardly a church. Today\u2019s Scripture from Ephesians speaks of the church as a building, a house, a place. In today\u2019s modern culture, Christians are like aliens in our own culture. We must do \u201cunnatural\u201d things in order to stand out as the church of Christ in the world. We are missionaries to the very society that we had part in creating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such a time, the church is an identifiable new family. It is bigger than that which we normally call \u201cfamily,\u201d for it is made up of all those diverse people whom Jesus has called to follow him. Not just men or women or youth or English speaking or Chinese speaking, it\u2019s also the social outcast, the poor, white people, brown people, people of all colors and shapes! It\u2019s like being taken out of your human family and made a member of the family of God\u2014the household of faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such a time, our house is built with Christ as its cornerstone. It\u2019s the stone upon which the whole house is built, that foundation upon which everything else rests. Did you know that they can\u2019t find the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol building? There was a great dedication ceremony to lay the cornerstone in the early 19th<\/sup> century when construction of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the Capitol began. But over the years, it sunk, covered by gathering debris of the ages. Now it can\u2019t be located. They have a commission charged with digging here and there in order to find it. The cornerstone represents the history of the building, a sign and symbol of its purpose. We must not lose sight of our cornerstone because it helps us to know why we are here. We must clear away the debris of fear and apathy to find Jesus, our cornerstone. We are here for Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such a time, we believe that it is God who has called us all here. All too often we are guilty of presenting the Christian faith as something that we do or decide. When we say, \u201cWhen I <\/em>gave my<\/em> life to Christ.\u201d When I<\/em> asked Jesus to come into my<\/em> heart.\u201d It\u2019s all about me, my, myself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in today\u2019s Scripture we see from the Ephesians that we are in the passive tense and God is the active voice. It is God who has called us here. God made a decision for us. God has \u201cbuilt\u201d us as parts of this new household. God has broken down the dividing walls between women and men, between the races, and the ages, and the social classes. If you are here in church today, following Jesus, it is because you have been put here by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying that we have no choice at all. But when all is said and done, my relationship to Christ is not just a matter of what I feel, or do, or say, but what God in Christ through the church, has done. I don\u2019t always feel, act, or speak like a Christian, but that\u2019s not the point. The point is that you and I have been called forth to be a part of this strange, unnatural and wonderful new divine experiment in the human family called the \u201cchurch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Are a Visible People<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

For the past year, we have faithfully climbed up Clay Street to remain the church. And look at us! We remain strong and vibrant because it is God who continued inviting us to be together, being built together, and joined into this household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past year, God has not been distance from us. God continued given out new citizenship papers to strangers and aliens so that they are now citizens with the saints and members of God\u2019s household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we are still aliens, we are aliens to a world that has allowed people to be killed and maimed, a world that values money more than people, a world that destroys living creatures, a world that doesn\u2019t care, a world that thinks that the status quo is a natural way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the FCBC, we are a visible people standing up against these injustices and sins. So today, we are no longer aliens from God. But for some of us, we are learning that by being close to God, we are aliens from this society, at odds with some of this world\u2019s dominant values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we physically and symbolically become God\u2019s new people, a visible \u201cbuilding\u201d for all the world to see. You might be thinking that the excitement is to re-enter our new sanctuary. Yes, that will be exciting. But the real visible building is when we process down the streets of Chinatown. We are the visible building of Jesus Christ in the world. It\u2019s not the brick building on the corner of Waverly Place and Sacramento. It\u2019s all of us. We are the visible building of Christ in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now we \u201care no longer strangers and aliens, but we are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As family members adopted by God, with all the privileges contain thereof, let us go and be God\u2019s new Household of Faith!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O Mighty and Loving God, make us your vibrant and visible church in the world. Lead us forward with a renewed faith in Jesus Christ to courageously preached the Good News to all your people. Guide us safely as we return to our church home. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us go home!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ephesians 2:11-22 July 16, 2000 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco. My family history is very similar to many of yours.Continue readingA New (Un)Natural Household<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,11],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-ng-sermons","tag-ephesians","tag-fcbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}