United Church of Christ in the Philippines
DISTRICT CONFERENCE OF SOUTHERN ZAMBOANGA
Christian Young Adult Fellowship
4th Annual CYAF Conference Assembly
May 10-12, 2012
Theme: Discerning
And Obeying God’s Will In These Critical Times
Subtheme: THE CHURCH IN MISSION: Called To
Discipleship And Servanthood.
CYAF Subtheme: The Family As The Nucleus Of Effective Christian
Stewardship And Servanthood.
KAPAMILYA NA… KAPUSO PA! Magkapatid tayong lahat
Texts: Deuteronomy 6:4-9
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8:30 am
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Community Singing: Welcome to the Family
I’m
so Glad I’m a Part of the Family of God
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5 mins
|
|
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Prayer
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2 mins
|
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8:40 – 8:55
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Structured Learning Experience:
Building of House.
1.
Materials
needed: scrap boxes (boxes ng zesto);
popsicle sticks, used mineral bottles, masking tapes, used cartolina
2.
Divide
the group. Each group will have at most 10 members
3.
Each
group will get: 1 zesto box, 10
popsicle sticks, 1 mineral bottles, 1 masking tape, 1 used cartolina.
4.
in
15 minutes time, the group should be able to build a house out of the
materials made available.
5.
The
house will be tested based on its beauty, stability and durability.
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15mins
|
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8:55 – 9:10
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Sythesis: In your group, kindly share your thoughts:
1. What is your experience in building the
house? How close is this to your
experience is building your home?
2. Let’s look at the resources in building
the house: What resources are available to you in building your home? How
available are these resources to you and your family? Why are they available? What make them scarce?
3. How do you feel about the end result of
your work? Beauty and Stability? When
can you say that your home is beautiful? What makes your home beautiful? When
can you say that your home is stable?
What makes your home stable and durable?
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15 mins
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9:10-9:40
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Reporting
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30 mins
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9:40– 10:20
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Lecture: Kapamilya na… Kapuso pa! Magkapatid Tayong lahat!
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30 mins
|
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10:20 – 10:30
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Act of Commitment: Rebuilding
the House.
Rebuild the house using materials you find in your body.
Prayer of Commitment
|
10 mins
|
KAPAMILYA NA…KAPUSO PA! Magkapatid Tayong Lahat
by Rev. Carmel
Villar – Paet
Text: Deuteronomy
6:4-9
I.
INTRODUCTION
A.
On
The Assembly Theme
Your Assembly’s theme this year: The Family As The Nucleus Of Effective Christian Stewardship And
Servanthood, is a takeoff from the quadrennial theme our church has set for
herself: Discerning and Obeying God’s Will in These
Critical Times with a Subtheme: THE
CHURCH IN MISSION: Called To Discipleship And Servanthood.
You have just declared in your theme that the family is
the most important element – the nucleus – for effective Christian Stewardship
and Servanthood. Bug-at nga mga terms ug
bug-at nga mga expectation for the family.
But let us look at what is happening to our family these days.
B.
Family
in Crisis
The family is in
crisis!
Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan? My family has just
joined the statistics: I am here… and I am working in Leyte, while my family
(my husband and 3 children) are in Cavite.
Kasama na kami sa maraming pamilya karon where one of the parents work
and live away from home. This is one of
the major social issues which confront our society these days. The traditional structure of the family is
challenged. Roles are shifting. Before, the father is the one who leaves the
house to look for a job. The mother is
left at home to care for the children, the livestock and the farm. But now in a globalized community, the
delineation of family roles has shifted.
There are more fathers who stay at home, care for the children, wash
dishes and clothes and wait for the wife at the end of the day or maghulat na
lang kanus-a magpadala ug allowance si Nanay.
Kasi si Nanay nandun sa Saudi nag-aalaga ng anak ng iba, leaving care of
her children to a next of kin or to the Tatay. Buti pa Ai-Ai at si Ate Vi, at
ngayon si Pokwang, sumikat na sila at yumaman for portraying roles of mothers
who had to leave their children to work abroad in order to provide for their
children. Telephone companies have
gained mileage with their promotion of virtual relationship… malayo man malapit
din… bringing family closer with their cellphone services. Sa aming pamilya, yumaman na talaga ang
cellphone companies … my daughter complained that her day was boring “dahil
wala akong load!” More relationships are
built virtually, over the social network, over cellphone unlitext and
calls. But then, we no longer have
control over who or what influences our family members because information is
so available at the click of the mouse.
Without the guidance of the parents, children can open any site in the
internet and be bombarded and be influenced and abused by information we have
no control over. It is scary. The Catholic Church sounded the alarm over
the breakdown in family if the RH Bill and the divorce Bills are passed. And Bill Gates continues to control our
family. Children are fighting over who
gets to use the computer first.
Kailangan talagang may PSP… kailangan talagang ang cellphone ay I-Phone
or else… huli na sa uso. At mas IN kung
naka I-Pad! So one day, my son asked to be IN. Nagpapabili ng PSP yung may
program ng soccer (soccer player sya).
My response was… anak sila may PSP kasi yung tatay nya nagtatrabaho
abroad. Sige gusto mo alis ako
magtrabaho abroad para magkaPSP ka.
Tinakot pa ang anak. Gakos
intawon ang anak, “Nanay wag kang umalis!”
Pero umalis pa rin ang nanay… at wala pa ring PSP ang anak!
We can spend the entire day just discussing the crisis
the family is facing now. Actually, the
lecture on Family in Crisis requires a session of its own. I have to give
credit to your assembly in bringing back the focus on the family’s critical and
crucial role in Christian stewardship and servanthood. In fact, the challenge
your theme has set is this: how can the
family despite being in crisis be the nucleus of effective stewardship and
servanthood?
C.
ON STEWARDSHIP and SERVANTHOOD
Let me briefly level off our definition and perhaps the
theology on stewardship.
Kitang mga UCCP hilig kaayo ani nga term:
stewardship. I’m sure, daghan na mong
nadungog nga BTR, Lecture… workshops on stewardship. Our church even has a
Commission bearing the name: Commission on Stewardship and Resource
Development. From the name of the
commission, we can get an idea what is our general understanding of the word
stewardship.
Basic to our understanding of stewardship is proper
management or handling of money/finances and physical resources. Kaya nga during Stewardship Month in our
Church Calendar which falls on November, we talk more about how to increase
giving in the church. We double the effort in preaching about tithing, of
supporting the ministry of the church financially. But stewardship is more than just money
talk. Our church has expanded the meaning
of stewardship. It is based on Genesis
where God entrusted the stewardship of
all creation to us.
Mao ba kini ang injong idea when you set this theme? Do you expect a lecture on tithing and/or
financial management. If this is your
expectation, then you got the wrong speaker. I did not prepare a lecture on
financial management or in caring for the ecology. Let me introduce to you another understanding
of stewardship.
Stewardship comes from the Greek word “oikonomia”
which means "management of a household". Although managing the
household entails financial management, “oikonomia” requires taking charge
of or having the responsibility to look after the welfare and well-being of the
entire household.
The Biblical concept of the management of household has
its roots in the institution of slavery.
E.g., Joseph was hired as steward in Potiphar’s household. The master
appoints a slave/servant “to administer his household, which might include the
teaching and disciplining of the members of the house, especially other slaves
and the children.” [1]
In the NT, especially in the Pauline letters, stewardship
refers to the administration of the gifts of God, especially preaching the
gospel.
This idea is explicit in the
following verses:
I Cor. 9:17 - - “If I do so willingly, I have a recompense, but if
unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with a stewardship.” (New American)
GNT: ….I have been entrusted with this task
ABMBB - … Apan katungdanan ko
ang pagbuhat niini isip tinugyanan.
Eph. 3:2 - if, as I suppose, you have heard of the stewardship of
God's grace that was given to me for your benefit
Col. 1:25 - Of this church I was made a minister according to the
stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry
out the preaching of the word of God (New American Standard)
I Cor. 4:1-2 - Thus should one regard us: as servants of Christ and
stewards of the mysteries of God.
Titus 1:7 - For a bishop as God's steward must be blameless, not
arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid
gain,
In these verses, stewardship
seems to refer to the discipline and training of the Christian in the realm of
faith and the preaching of God’s word.[2]
And this is the definition we will be using throughout
this BTR.
So to define your theme: The family is the nucleus- or
the most important element- of effective training of Christians in the realm of
faith and in preaching the Gospel.
As mentioned earlier, the concept of stewardship took its
roots from the institution of slavery thus we have a unified understanding that
stewardship takes its roots from servanthood.
Stewardship then equals servanthood. Therefore, we are servants
entrusted with the nurture and discipline of the Christian faith and the
preaching of the Gospel. And the family is entrusted with this
responsibility.
Wait a minute… kapeng mainit… isn’t the task and
responsibility of instilling, nurturing and discipline of Christian faith
assigned to the church? Kaya nga di ba,
atong ipadala ang atong mga anak sa Sunday School, atong ipaattend ug VCS,
youth camp, Christmas institutes aron didto ilang makat-onan ang mahitungod sa
atong paguo ug aron pinaagi niini nga mga programa sa simbahan motubo sila sa
ilang pagtuo ug Cristohanong kinabuhi!
Trabaho sa simbahan ang pagtudlo sa pagtuo! Trabaho na ni Pastor!
Puede! Pero kamo
man ang mipili niini nga tema, as your invited speaker, it is my responsibility
to enlighten us on your chosen theme.
Mas sakto baja ang injong tema kay sa sa atong yanong
pagsabot. Mas sakto ang inyong hunahuna ug pagsabot nga ang FAMILY IS THE
NUCLEUS OF EFFECTIVE CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP AND SERVANTHOOD.
II.
The Family As The Nucleus Of Effective
Christian Stewardship And Servanthood
Together, let us read Deuteronomy 6:4-9
4 - Hear, O Israel: The LORD our
God, the LORD is one.
5 - Love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
6 - These commandments that
I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
7 - Impress them on your
children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the
road, when you lie down and when you get up.
8 - Tie them as symbols on
your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
9 - Write them on the
doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
The passage which we have just read is commonly referred
to as “Shema Yisrael” or “shema” for short.
This is from the Hebrew shema which means “to hear.” THE SHEMA
is the central prayer in the Jewish prayerbook (Siddur) and is often the first
section of Scripture that a Jewish child learns. Many Jews recite the Shema at
least twice daily: once in the morning, when you get up and once in the
evening when you lie down as
instructed. When recited in the synagogue, the Jews pronounce each word
very carefully and cover their eyes with their right hand.
The Shema has two parts:
1.
The declaration
of the faith: There is only one God and we are to love this ONE GOD with
all our heart, soul and strength.
Surrounded by cultures that worshipped many gods, the Shema declares
wholehearted devotion to One God. Jesus echoed the first part of the Shema in
his many sermons and encounter with ordinary people and temple and law
authorities. Ibig sabihin lang nito,
this truth is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the Jews because this is
recited from the moment each Jewish child can speak.
2.
The second part of the Shema is the propagation of this faith to ONE GOD, to
YHWH. The Shema instructs that this
devotion to One God be impressed on
the children.
IBA’T-IBANG VERSION PAREHONG
KAHULUGAN
Notice the word in the Shema… “impress” (NIV). Many versions use “teach them diligently to your children.
“You shall tell them to your children, and keep on telling them” (New Jerusalem)
(Kulitin ba?)
Drill them into your children (New American) (Gives the idea of a
training in the military or police camp where the sergeant drills the recruits
until they get the routine of military life engrained in their system.
Itudlo kini kanunay sa inyong
kabataan (ABMBB)
A.
THE
FAMILY AS THE CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND NURTURE and not the Church - The
centrality of the family in teaching the faith
Clearly now, the Shema
points to the centrality of the family in propagating the faith. Kung ang UCCP may CEN, in the Shema, it is
the family that is tasked in educating and nurturing the faith to the
household.
In the Jewish culture, the home is more important than the synagogue[3]. In their culture, the teaching of the faith
is assigned to the parents. Unsa man
diay ang gamit sa synagogue or temple?
The rites and rituals are performed in the temple. But the teaching of the faith originally
stays in the family. But later, we know
that the teaching of the faith is assigned to the teachers of law and is
conducted in the temple/synagogue.
Still, basic to the Jewish family is the understanding
that it is in the family that faith is instilled, impressed and passed on to
the children. The father passed on the
faith heritage to the son/s and the mothers to the daughters. The book, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant,
describes how the mothers (and the book claims that it was the women) passed on
the faith heritage and their history to the daughters and it was the daughters
who kept their stories alive.
a.
The
task of teaching the faith lies primarily on the parents.
According to Dr. Marvin Wilson, an expert on the Jewish
heritage of Christianity, the Hebrew language, the very root for
"parent" is the word yarah. This word means, "to shoot an
arrow" or "to direct" something or someone. The parent directs
the child’s life. This direction applies to all areas. For instance, the father
is responsible to teach his sons a trade. We remember that Jesus worked in a
carpenter shop with his father. Paul had the trade of tentmaker and he
exercised this skill often in his missionary work. In the Talmud it is said,
"He who does not teach his son a trade is considered as having taught him
thievery" (Kiddushin 29a). It should be pointed out that manual
work and skills were greatly honored among the Hebrews. There was no dichotomy
between the religious and secular as there often is today. In fact, the Hebrew
word avad is used both for "work" and for "worship."[4]
b.
The manner of teaching the faith
i.
talk about them when you sit
at home.
Conversations inside the home centers on the faith. This is more evident in the celebration of
Jewish holidays. For example, in the
celebration of the Passover, the young child would ask "Why is this night different than other nights?" And thus
the teaching begins. During the festival
of the Tabernacles or the Tent, the family builds a flimsy outdoor structure,
where they often eat and sleep for a week. This is a sure delight to children.[5]
ii.
when you walk along the road
They didn’t have buses or airplanes to get from one point
to the next. They had to walk that is
why their distance is measured by how long it would take to get from a certain
location to the next. Remember the conversation Jesus had with his parents when
Mary and Joseph could not find him on their way back from the temple?
iii.
when you lie down and when
you get up
iv.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind
them on your foreheads.
Jewish people wear
what is called tallit “tallit,
a rectangular prayer shawl with four fringes (called tzitzit).
One tzitzit is attached to each corner of the tallit. The reason for wearing the
tzitzit is to remind oneself to observe all of the commandments of the Lord”[7].…
“In the Torah, there is a commandment to wear "fringes" on the
corners of garments. That is, all garments of a certain size or larger, which
have at least four corners, must have strings known as tzitzit attached. The
original requirement was to have a blue thread among the white threads;
however, since the precise shade of blue is no longer known and the source of
the dye used, only the white threads are used (except among certain chasidic
groups that claim to know the dye formula).Since the normal clothing in our
time does not have four square corners, traditional Jews wear a garment that is
specifically made to have four corners so that the mitzvah can be fulfilled. This is known as the tallit katan or tzitzit
and is usually worn under the shirt. Some people wear them with the tzitzit
showing, others conceal them. The verses giving this commandment are found in
the third paragraph of the Shema, which is recited during the morning and
evening prayers.During prayers, the custom is to wear a large rectangular garment
with tzitzit (tallis gadol) and pray while wrapped in it. There are different
customs as to when this is done. Most Ashkenazic men will begin wearing the tallis when they get married. In some Sephardic and GermanAshkenazi communities, a boy will put on a tallis when
he becomes a barmitzvah (13 years old). There are some communities that begin
this earlier. Customs vary among liberal Jews as to who wears a tallis and when
it's worn.”[8]
v.
write them on the doorframes
of your houses and on your gates
“There’s a symbol that is used to represent and reflect that presence in our
homes and it’s called a Mezuzah.
Mezuzah is the
word for “doorpost” in Hebrew. The
Jews, at a point in their history, created a little
box-like piece and attached it to the
doorpost of their home. In it was placed the Shema or
other Scriptures. It didn’t serve as a good-luck charm, but rather as a
constant reminder of the importance of God and that in this home, God is
welcomed. It also reminded the inhabitants of His presence, and of
course, to pass this knowledge along to children.”[9]
III.
Making our Home
as a Sanctuary
When the Israelites were in exile, they were
separated from their temple. They didn’t
have synagogue. They made their home
their sanctuary. It is where they learn
about their faith and it is where they worship God.
In our study of Shema, we could see that learning
about God is not something that we make a schedule of. It is part of their
daily lives. The moment they wake up,
when they work, when they talk, when they travel… up to the time they lie down
to bed, their life is dedicated to God and in living out their faith to
God. Their whole being is infused with
their faith in God.
“When a person is praying alone, he begins the Shema with the
phrase "God, Faithful King" (El melekh ne'eman) to bring the
number of words in the Shema up to 248, the number of parts in the human
body. This indicates that the worshiper dedicates his or her whole body to
serving God. With a minyan, the chazzan repeats the end of the Shema
so this phrase is unnecessary.”[10]
Their faith in God is lived
out in their
a.
conversations inside the house and even outside
of their homes
b.
in their dress
c.
and in their houses. They use images and symbols to remind them of
their faith in God.
IV.
Group
Discussion
Group with your family… up to extended family. What can you do to actually live out Shema in
your family. What practical ways can your family:
a.
Talk
about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie
down and when you get up. How can we
infuse our conversations in our family with our faith in God? What changes in our schedules can we make so
that there will be conversations in our home regarding our faith?
b.
Tie
them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. In our
fashion, how can our faith in God be lived out?
c.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses
and on your gates. In our homes, what
can signs or images can we put up to remind our children and the entire members
of the household of our faith in God?
V.
Conclusion.
On the Shema.
Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Hear, Israel, the Lord [is] our God, the Lord [is] One/ alone.
Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Hear, Israel, the Lord [is] our God, the Lord [is] One/ alone.
Hear does not only mean auditory hearing… maminaw… sulod
sa dalunggan gawas sa pikas. This is an
active listening with the intent of knowing it by heart and of obeying it.
Different
renditions… same meaning
Various translators have supplied the verb "is" in different places:
Deut 6:4 (NASB):
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is
our God, the LORD is one!
Deut 6:4 (NIV):
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is
one.
Deut 6:4 (Revised English Bible):
"Hear, Israel: the LORD is
our God, the LORD our one God;
Deut 6:4 (The Tanakh, the Jewish Publication Society
translation):
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is
our God, the LORD alone.
Deut. 6:4 (NRSV):
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD is
our God, the LORD alone."
Pero sa Hebrew, wala talagang “is”. Nilagyan ng mga translators ang “is” so it follows the English grammar.
Let’s look at this verse without the verb "is" and see what it looks like.
KJV: "Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God one LORD"
NRSV and the
Tanakh: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD alone."
The first version makes no
grammatical sense without the "is." The second one, however,
does show grammatical sense -- "The LORD our God, the LORD
alone."
Look at the word "is"
in the Interlinear. It’s added in parentheses in the English, and doesn’t
appear in the Hebrew at all.
These are the Hebrew words that
make up this verse: Shema Yisrael, YHWH Elohaynu, YHWH echad. Shema =
hear, or listen, or obey. Elohaynu is the plural possessive form of El,
so it means "our God." Echad = one, or only, or alone.
We can understand the phrase YHWH
Elohaynu, YHWH echad to mean "Yahweh our God, Yahweh the one and
only." Without the verb "is," that is what it would mean.
Therefore, from what we’ve seen so far, the entire verse could read,
"Listen O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh the only." That is probably
much closer to what Moses meant.
However, it is also just as
correct and appropriate to render the word echad as "alone."
At least one source (A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old
Testament, by William Holladay) translates YHVH achad as "YHWH
alone." This would render the verse as: "Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our
God, Yahweh alone." [11]
With
these renditions we can take Shema as
a.
a declaration of our faith to One God [a declaration on the nature of
God]
b.
It’s
a statement that we are to obey our God above all else!
Whatever
was in the heart of the Jewish people, the Shema has strengthened them and kept
their faith through the most difficult time in their history.
During
their exile in Babylon, they recite the Shema as faithfully and devotedly as
they could passing this to their children and to their children’s
children. When in Cyrus time, the
Persian king, the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland, their faith
and obedience to One God remained as strong as when Moses asked the people to
recite. Even during Holocaust, when they
were tortured and persecuted for being Jews, the Shema has kept the Jews from
leaving the faith and endured through suffering.
THE FILIPINO CHRISTIAN FAMILY
AND THE SHEMA
Although the Shema is not part of our prayer,
this can be a guide to our family in disciplining our children into the faith
and in nurturing the faith in our family.
This is challenge for the family not to leave the teaching and nurturing
of the faith to the church alone. We
have to reclaim our role in raising our children into the faith and in
nurturing them through the different stages and challenges of their lives.
This
is a tall order since as I have stated at the start of our session that our
family structure is facing changes and challenges. How can we have a conversation regarding our
faith when we are geographically separated; when our schedules hardly allow us
to meet; when there are so many things that capture our attention and
interest.
But if we really care for our children and we care that
our faith is nurtured to the next generation, then we really have to work
doubly hard. The shema may give us a
guide… but the best guide we can ever give our children is the faith lived out
in our lives. sa atin mismo nila
makikita ang ating pagtuo sa Dios. Sugod
jud tag tan-aw sa atong kaugalingong kinabuhi.
The shema, if anything else, is a reminder that we should
devote our lives to God and to God alone.
· The two letters Ayin
(×¢)
and Dalet
(ד)
are enlarged in the first sentence of the Shema. Together, these letters form
the word 'ed (×¢ֵד), which means
"witness," suggesting that the Shema is a testimony of the
sovereignty of God and our primary duty to love Him with our whole being: [12]
Amen.
[1]
Elwell’s Theological Dictionary
[2]
Elwell’s Theological Dictionary on Stewardship: The Bible Library cd-rom
[4]
Marvin R.
Wilson, Our Father Abraham, Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith. Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and Center for
Judaic-Christian Studies, Dayton, OH, 1989.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
ibid
