Deuteronomy 34:1-12
October 9, 2005
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When the farmer plants a seed, he doesn’t see when that seed is used to bake a loaf of bread. When an assembly line worker puts microchips into a computer, she doesn’t get to see the finished product right away. When our children Sunday school teachers tell their students about the stories of Jesus, they don’t usually get the privilege to hear them testify to their faith in Christ at Youth Camp. When we are working on a big vision over the long haul, very often, we may not see the results come to pass in our lifetime.
In our Scripture for this morning, Deuteronomy chapter 34 is the end of the book of Deuteronomy. It’s the end of the Pentateuch that records Israel’s exodus, wandering and promise. It records the end of the life of the 120 years old prophet and leader, Moses who as the result of the people’s disobedience, gets to only see the Promised Land from the top of Mt. Nebo.
Moses has been leading the people of Israel for some 40 years to the Promised Land, a place where they could be and become all that God had called them to be. The journey has been a rocky one, full of desert wanderings and disasters, famine and failure, miracles and mistakes. The years have taken a toll on the people and on their leader who, you’ll remember, didn’t want the job in the first place. A generation had passed since the beginning of the journey and now their descendants will end the journey.
Now the leadership and the vision would be passed to Joshua and to another generation. It would not be any easier for them either, for they learned that believing in the promise comes with a price. They too may not see the end within their lifetimes.
Vision of 125 Years Ago
On October 3, 1880, 125 years ago, Dr. Jesse B Hartwell along with nine Christians rented quarters on Washington Street to form the Chinese Baptist Mission in San Francisco Chinatown. Dr. Hartwell had great faith in the Word of God. He believed that if the seed of faith was sown there, there would be souls born into the kingdom of God.
As far back as to the beginning of our church’s history, students, young men at that time, came to night school to learn English. In the process of learning a new language to work and survive in their new land, the missionaries taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ. The students came to Sunday worship services where a good number confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior. They were baptized.
Dr. Hartwell and the early missionaries started this vibrant mission and as we gather together today, we know that their mission is not yet finished. It has not come to an end. We are still teaching students English but now they include women and older men and women. We are still teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and inviting our new friends to come to Sunday worship. Some of them get baptized. The end is not yet here.
No one ever sees the final consummation of their labors. None of us gets to know how everything will turn out, even those people and causes we served most passionately. We live by God’s promise, trusting God to bring some fruits out of our labors even if we never see them, nor get to enjoy them for ourselves.
In the past fifty years, our church developed and matured to becoming a self-sufficient ministry in Chinatown. There was no more need to receive salary support from the Home Missions Society in New York City when we can pledge and tithe to the church budget. No longer do we need superintendents and missionaries to run our church and lead our programs when we have church members born in America and trained and credentialed in the public schools to carry out these tasks. No longer do we need to send a telegram to Valley Forge so that they can hire a plumber to fix the toilet in our church in Chinatown. While the time of our missionary dependency was over, the mission and the work have not come to an end.
Many of our church leaders became actively involved in the life and health of our community. Park Lin Lee served as a translator on Angel Island’s immigration station but we still have many immigrants coming to America who needs English and citizenship classes.
Victor Low and many others led the way for bilingual education but we still have children and youth whose English is their second language and are in need of affirming their culture and becoming proficient in English.
Paul Fong helped found the Chinese for Affirmative Action but there are still Chinese and Asian Americans who are not given equal opportunity employment.
George Lai was instrumental in the creation and development of the Chinese Playground for a safe place for our children to play but we still have youth who have no place to go so they hang out at the corner of our church.
James Chuck was one of the founding leaders of the Asian American Baptist Caucus to advocate for Asian American Baptists to have a greater role in the life of the denomination, but we still have a hard time helping the larger Baptist family understand the needs and problems in Asian churches.
Shirlene Leong Nakano, Carolyn Hee, Wallace Choy, and Mic Fong and others have taught in the public schools to raise up new generations of children and youth to become responsible members of our communities but there are still Mei Wong, Lawrence Pang, Anna Quan Wong, and others who are teaching today.
When we are a part of a larger vision, it’s usually not up to us to see the end. Our vision of the kingdom of God is from God. It’s bigger than anyone of us. While we may retire or die, the vision continues and is carry forward to the next generation. None of us, not even one as strong as Moses, is indispensable. God makes provision for the future as one generation of leaders hands on the ministry to the next. The end is not in sight.
It is like a relay race. We pass the baton from one runner to another runner. When we are finished with our leg of the race, we know it’s not the end. We still need to pass the baton to the next runner. Moses takes the people up to the edge of the Promised Land, and then he hands the baton to Joshua who leads the next generation of people.
The missionaries passed the baton to other missionaries and in time to Chinese pastors and eventually to Dr. Chuck. The relay race continues today. The baton is being passed to you and me.
End of the Pews
It would have been much easier to just have this All-Church Anniversary Worship inside at Four Seas. We wouldn’t have had to sweep the street, move down all of these chairs, set up all of this sound equipment and inconvenient our neighbors.
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, the disciples asked Jesus when is the time he will restore the kingdom? Like Moses they wanted to know when they will be able to see the fruits of their labors. They wanted to see the end. Jesus said in Acts 1:7, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
We are called to be Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth; not just to the ends of the pews. By being on this sidewalk, we are able like the disciples standing gazing up toward the heaven to realize that we too must get out of our closed door homes and gated communities and closed churches and be witnesses to the ends of the earth.
In Deuteronomy, it said that the Lord knew Moses face to face which means that God knew Moses well. As we worship today under this bright blue sky and warm sunshine, we have come face to face with God too. Christ knows us well when he came into this world and took the sins of the world onto himself. As believers, Christ is passing the baton to us to run the race of radical discipleship.
Faithfulness
In planning for our 125th anniversary, so much work has gone into all of the preparation that we are looking forward to the end. We want to see the fruits of our labors. But we know that after this year, there will be the New Year of 2006. There will be more anniversaries until such time when Christ returns and the reign of God prevails in the world. The end is not yet in sight!
Moses’ death before entering the Promised Land makes it clear that the story of Israel is not a story about Moses. Moses is a chosen, important instrument in the story where God is the main character. God is concerned for his people. Moses is an instrument of God’s will in relation to the chosen people.
As we continue to celebrate our remarkable history and all of the saints and faithful leaders who have journey across these 125 years of wilderness to come to this place today, we are called to be faithful and not necessarily successful. Many of our forefathers and foremothers never got to see the fruits of their labors. They never got to the end. Today, we too are called to sow seeds and be faithful that God will take what little that we have to offer, he will finish what we started in his own time. God is the main character in our faithful journey today.
We are still called to be witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, in San Francisco, in all California and the United States and to the ends of the earth. For though we know that the Messiah has come, swords have not yet been beaten into plowshares, lions do not eat straw, and weeping is still heard in Jerusalem and San Francisco. Since we are not at the end, let us then begin like Joshua in faith to help make this world the Promised Land.
Let us pray.