Love God, Love Others, Love Lived

You may or may not have noticed a couple-week hiatus in these blog posts. I have been on the mainland with 2 students from our congregation as part of our 47-person group from the Hawaii Pacific District attending Nazarene Youth Conference (NYC) in Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, we did go to Arizona in the summer...yes, we did survive.

As with most Christian camps or conferences, you always make wonderful memories, you bond with the group you attend with, and most importantly you experience moments of deep connection with the Lord. All of these things, though taking place within a public convention center in downtown Phoenix, are done within somewhat of a Christian bubble. I was grateful that immediately following the closing service of NYC, our district grabbed some boxed lunches, loaded a bus, and headed off to go do a tube float on the Salt River with the Southern California District.

A glimpse at the arena full of Nazarene students and sponsors during one of our sessions

Our Hawaii Pacific District crew posing after dinner with the Phoenix sunset behind us

From previous years in youth ministry camping/canoe trips, I anticipated what we were about to experience on the river. I had witnessed the common recreational practices on Missouri rivers in the summer, but I wondered if our students would be thrust right into a similar environment. It turns out Missouri and Arizona rivers aren't too different.

As our students grabbed their black inner tubes cautiously avoiding cooking their arms into bacon via the Phoenix sun, they got their first glance at the Salt River and realized we weren't going to be alone. Many couples, groups, and individuals were floating down, partaking in substances that were nowhere to be found in the bubble of NYC. I could see eyes widen, partially because of the shock of the cool water as we entered it, but partially from their safe Christian-bubble popping. This was going to be fun.

Simultaneously at home on the Big Island, activity began stirring around the construction of a Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the top of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea. For someone without much context of the real life of Hawaii, this might be no big deal or simply an exciting scientific endeavor about to take place, but let me pop your vacation-only bubble about Hawaii. This is a real place, with a real history. Most people are unaware that merely 126 years ago, Hawaii functioned as its own sovereign kingdom. Like many other islands and people groups, that sovereignty was lost in a not so distant history.

Even before Hawaii became the 50th state, the Hawaiian people were experiencing losses. Losses of land, culture, sovereignty. I have yet to truly dive deep into the history of Hawaii to learn all the ins and outs, but from the bits and pieces I have learned it is clear that there have been many injustices suffered. Those for whom this land was home long before people of my skin tone arrived have many reasons to be angry. Some argue that if it hadn't been the United States, another nation would have done the same thing to these islands, or worse. Regardless, the Hawaiian people have experienced much loss, and we should not dismiss their grief.

So when construction was set to move forward last week on TMT, many of the Hawaiian people rallied and said, "Enough." Peaceful protests began at the base of Mauna Kea blocking access to the mountain. For them, Mauna Kea is holy and has been used and abused too long. From what I am gathering, this is also about the Hawaiian people being used and abused too long. Their voices have been silenced and ignored as history has marched on. These protestors, or from another perspective protectors, have a real history in this real place. Mauna Kea has become the last straw for many.

As we floated down that river and I watched our students interact with people who hadn't been in the same NYC bubble they'd been in, I watched them begin living out what we'd been learning all week: Love God, Love Others, Love Lived. Sometimes it was awkward, sometimes it was beautiful. I was wondering if any of our people were back home doing the same thing up on Mauna Kea.

It is my prayer as one of many churches representing the Body of Christ on the Big Island, we realize that not everyone lives in the same "Christian-bubble" many of our lives exist within. Not everyone operates by: Love God, Love Others, Love Lived. People are soaking up rivers, taking a stand on the base of mountains, and doing their best to navigate life by what they know. Some people do operate by some or all of those themes from NYC, but others not so much.

Are we willing to trust that our God loves each person we may encounter just as much as He loves us?

Are we willing to go and try to love people, even if it's awkward? Perhaps it could be even be beautiful...

Are we willing to ask Jesus what it looks like to live His love in our world, and then to obediently go and do? Perhaps that means to go and listen to those who's heartache pours out into a can of alcohol or in their passionate cries for justice...

May the Lord help us as a church - keiki, students, and adults alike - to truly become His ambassadors of reconciliation in this place. May He empower you to do the same from wherever you may be reading today.

13 If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:13-21

- Pastor Malorri



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