Kanesatake United Church in Oka

06/11/2026

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

06/07/2026

Reflection on the Word of 9:9
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, "FOLLOW ME." And he got up and followed him."

FOLLOW ME – Luke 14:26-27, 33
"14:26 'Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 14:27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 14:33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.'"

Sometimes we think [that] it is up to our decision to become a disciple of Jesus. However, there was a theologian, who questioned that in the middle of the 16th century, called John Calvin, a Frenchman.

He was a cleric and a lawyer hailing from Paris who had to flee to Switzerland, and after a while, he became a powerful leader in the Protestant city of Geneva and laid the foundation of Calvinism as it spread throughout Europe and America.

Regarding discipleship, or more accurately regarding salvation, Calvin had a quite narrow-hearted opinion, namely, that from the wholeness of the future generations, but before the Creation of the world, God had already preselected some people, ordered and destined to be saved to gain salvation by the irresistible grace of God.

Whoever was preselected, it did not matter what they wanted or even did later, because they were predestined for salvation.

However, those who were not preselected as chosen ones, howsoever they struggled, could not gain salvation, according to Calvin. This practically means that God had also chosen people for eternal condemnation. This controversial doctrine of Calvin is called double predestination.

Of course, this view has been challenged through the centuries. For instance, the Methodists hold that salvation in Christ is offered by God to every single person on Earth, and it is our choice whether we accept or reject the touch of the Holy Spirit, which ceaselessly calls us to repent and to turn to God.

As God’s divine spark resides also in our souls, the Creator made sure that we must have free will.

The greatest commandment does not say that we have to serve God as slaves, but it says [that] "Love... God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Any enforcement in love would destroy love itself, thus we must most certainly have free will.

Becoming a disciple is a call from God, of course, as it is written in the letter of the Apostle James [that] "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you."

Thusly, we have to meet God halfway, as we have to make our own choice to become a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship has a narrow meaning, a wider meaning, and a general meaning.

The narrow meaning meant, first, the inner circle of Jesus, which was Peter and John and James. Secondly, it meant all the 12 Apostles plus the 500 disciples around the 12 within the congregation of Jerusalem.

The wider meaning meant all the Gentile converts before the era of Romanization, all who believed that in the name of Jesus, God offers eternal life. The broadest and generalized meaning of discipleship is church membership, which is, on paper, around 2 billion, recently.

Nonetheless, it is absolutely not only astonishing, but nowadays it is seemingly mostly incomprehensible [especially regarding the very definition of discipleship] that Jesus also told the audience that "So therefore, whoever of you who doesn't renounce all his possessions, he can't be my disciple."

He required from his disciples that they had to give up all their possessions. This is also diamond clear from his conversation with the infamous young man, as Jesus said to him in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19, that "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

But when the young man heard the saying, he went away sad, for he was one who had great possessions.

This request is incomprehensible in modernity within the realm of the raging greed all around us, and it was an incomprehensible request within medieval but emerging Protestantism as well, where one of the Founding Documents of the Protestant Religious Revolution, the so-called Second Helvetic Confession, written by Heinrich Bullinger in 1562, says that "We do not disapprove of riches or rich men, if they be godly and use their riches well."

It was for sure that the ancient Apostolic order in the Jerusalem congregation understandably seemed a fantasy-utopia one and a half millennia later in Switzerland and Germany.

Nonetheless, Heinrich Bullinger was missing a point, namely that Jesus clearly rejects the owners of riches and the rich men by saying that "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Today, just as since time immemorial, we deem this ordinance of Jesus as an impossible requirement.

If we gave up all our possessions, we could go homeless, dying of a heatwave or of our arctic cold or hunger, or we could become a burden to society and family.

Thus, for many today [and actually the sentiment is proportional to the size of the possessions] this requirement seems to be not only impossible, but even senseless.

However, before accusing Jesus of senselessness, we should know better, because whatever he said, it must make sense, even if we have to oppose Heinrich Bullinger in order to side with Jesus, trusting Jesus that he did not make an error in judgment by conveying an impossible commandment, needlessly charging innocent-ish rich people with a hard time regarding Heaven.

So then, how does the advice of Jesus make sense? Actually, it makes sense all the way, though it was quite lost through long centuries.

It is for sure that throwing away or rather giving all our possessions to the needy, leaving ourselves without a safety net, is not only senseless, but not even advisable. However, Jesus had never said that you should throw away all your possessions without replacing them with a safety net. Quite the opposite.

It should be known to all that the group of the Jewish followers of Jesus had a nice but official nickname: The Poor. So, when he advised the infamous young man that "you should sell everything, giving it to the poor and then follow me," it meant that you should sell everything, give it to the community of the Poor [to the community of the disciples of Jesus] and by this, you may join the community of the disciples.

It is a biblical fact that the Community of the Poor had their possessions in common, and there was no needy among them, because they shared everything. Thus, the person who sold everything and gave up all his or her possessions did not become homeless and a beggar on the spot, but became a part of the common safety net, where there was nobody homeless among them, neither destitute nor poverty-stricken, exactly because they shared everything.

And actually, this is exactly what the New Testament says about the Jerusalem Congregation, as it is clearly written in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, that "All who believed were together, and had all things common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need."

Christianity, as it looks, long, long time ago abandoned a major, and as it seems, an indispensable part of its mission, which is to change this world for the better according to the Lord’s Prayer: "Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

Maybe it is not too late to make it systematically and globally sure that there shall be no poor among us, and by that, we choose God’s blessings on Earth and eternal life by the Grace of the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
Amen.

06/05/2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uha91xdS4dQ
Narrative Sovereignty | 2026 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
taking place June 2-7, 2026 (Toronto) and June 8-14, 2026 (online)!
imagineNATIVE presents the world’s largest Indigenous film festival. The Festival was founded to support the diverse, contemporary work of Indigenous directors, producers and screenwriters working in film, video, audio and digital media.

Save the date for the 26th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts F...

05/28/2026

Reflection to the Word : Matthew 28:16-20 - TRINITY SUNDAY
ONLY GOD HAS AUTHORITY
But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had sent them. When they saw him, they bowed down to him; but some doubted. Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

It looks as though there is a great division between the authority exercised in Heaven and the authority exercised on Earth, or on other habitable planets, pending extant inhabitants. It is only natural that there are divisions on Earth, as it is written in the Book of Exodus, chapter 8, that the Lord told Pharaoh through Moses regarding one of the Ten Plagues:

“The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground they are on. I will set apart in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end you may know that I am Yahweh on the earth. I will put a division between my people and your people. This sign shall happen by tomorrow.”

There is hardly anything else on Earth but divisions and boundaries within the mineral kingdom, within the plant kingdom, within the animal kingdom, and, of course, within human relations, including cultural, political, social, and geographical compartmentalization everywhere. Unity is rare, and harmony is even less common.

Even in the untouched rain-forests deep in the Brazilian jungle, almost everything is set for mere survival, competition, decay, violence, predators, and victims everywhere, subjected also to the forces in the macrocosmos and to the forces in the microcosmos, called the quantum reality, where Newtonian physics does not apply anymore.

Nonetheless, the divisions on Earth are designed, including the boundaries within the one human nation, as they are a part of a bigger picture called salvation, as it is written in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, that “He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

It must be also natural that there is a great division between the natural and the supernatural, as this must be the very nature of things in Heaven and Earth, in the skies and on the ground.

Although Thoth, the Egyptian God [whose Greek name is Hermes Trismegistus, the god of knowledge, etc.], allegedly revealed in the so-called Emerald Tablet that as it is above, so it is below, thus the affairs of Earth mirror or should mirror the affairs in Heaven, or the Kingdoms in space, if there are any out there.

However, it is obvious that Heaven is not Earth, Earth is not Heaven, and the Kingdom of God is not a material, but a spiritual infinity.

Thus, there is a great division between the Heavenly realm and the material realm, as it is written in the Book of Job, chapter 26, that God “stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them.

He encloses the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud on it. He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke.”

As it seems evident that God has ultimate authority in Heaven, as the Almighty Ruler and King of Heaven, so it must be evident that as the creator, the King, and the ultimate Master of the Universe, God has unmatched authority on Earth, and on any other planets in space, whether they have inhabitants or not.

As the 74th Psalm sighs, “You have set all the boundaries of the earth. You have made summer and winter.”
It must be also obvious that God does not share this authority with anyone else.

Still, even the Apostle Paul claims that the secular authority holds the sword not without a cause, but to punish sin, and we should obey not only because of the fear of the sword, but for the sake of a good conscience too.

And indeed, being or becoming a law-abiding citizen is considered a morally justified virtue, pending that the law of the state at least parallels the Ten Commandments, and does not blatantly violate them, which is exactly the case sometimes.

However, let us say that when the secular authority is enforcing the law in order to proactively prevent murder, theft, and false witnessing, etc., then even the secular authority obeys God, and, though acting secularly, it acts in the name of God or at least in the name of God’s commandments.

It does not mean that the secular authority can ever vindicate for itself divine authority instead of some partial authority, because they make mistakes here and there, and many times the limited governmental authority is also hijacked by ungodly dictators and wicked Emperors like Julius Caesar and his nephew, Caesar Augustus, or even the clinically insane ones like Caligula or Nero.

However, God does not make mistakes, God’s authority is infinitely undivided, and the divine nature of God’s authority is unshared.
The divine and ultimate authority is still shared, at least in the Trinitarian Theology, but only with the Son by the Holy Spirit, as it is written by the Apostle Paul to the Philippians, in chapter two, about the Son, who, when being born in the flesh to become also a part of the one human nation, “didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

May the Lord’s name and divine authority be blessed forever in our hearts. AMEN

05/28/2026

05/28/2026

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=p&d=52&y=17134

05/22/2026

CALL OF THE SPIRIT
John 20:21-23
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

The disciples were hiding behind closed doors. They had waited for ten days in Jerusalem, as they were promised to receive the gift of the Lord, which is the Holy Spirit. When it arrived, as the Scripture said, flames of fire appeared over their heads. This was enlightenment, literally and spiritually too—a true transformation of the heart.

The disciples, who became desperate and depressed after the death of the Master, and who were left without the physical guidance of Jesus since the ascension, were completely changed. By the touch of the Spirit, these same disciples opened the doors, no longer hiding the Gospel of Christ. They prayed for faith, and they received it in the Spirit. This event was the Pentecost.

Three thousand people joined them in Jerusalem in the hours after they opened the doors and left their fear, anxiety, doubts, and apathy behind. Although persecution also grew, they did not run anymore; instead, they told the authorities that they must obey Jesus rather than men (who crucified him).

The first Christian churches shared everything within the congregation: food, money, land, and resources. Thus, there were neither beggars nor needy among them, neither slaveholders nor slaves, neither landlords nor peasants. They gave thanks together to the Lord, saying that only to GOD belongs the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.

In the last 2000 years, Christian scholars have written tremendous amounts of tractates, essays, Bible interpretations, commentaries, and other books, filling up personal bookshelves, religious libraries, and public libraries throughout the world across centuries and millennia. These works were written by renowned scholars, and because of them, we mostly and seriously think that the case of the Holy Spirit is so complex that it is barely perceivable for a simple mortal being.

However, almost nothing should be simpler than the touch of the Holy Spirit. Because as God is One and the Lord is One, so the Holy Spirit is One. All are one under different names and within different manifestations of the same divine One.

Nonetheless, there are some phenomenal characteristics where the Holy Spirit can be caught "red-handed," such as in its gifts to humans: the gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues, healing the sick, judging souls, attaining wisdom, and so on. When we contemplate these gifts, the major phenomenon is that the giver of the gifts is One.

In order to be reborn into the similarity of the One Spirit, we all have to become, one by one, holy, wisely one-minded people. This means that we must focus on the oneness of God, and we must focus on the Kingdom of God, whose sole importance must overcome everything on Earth.

The requirement of being holy and wisely one-minded sounds very simple, though it is one of the most difficult tasks in our lives. As the Apostle Paul wrote:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

Good and bad dwell in the divided human soul at the same time, and they are fighting each other constantly for the rule of the human soul. In order to get rid of the bad, we have to become one-minded. That is why the Great Commandment says:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

God demands our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole strength, and nothing less. According to Spirit Math, just like a candle shines in the darkness, the light of the One Spirit must destroy the darkness in the soul, fully eradicating bad inclinations. It is like combing coiling snakes out of someone’s hair.

In that way, the one-minded soul serves God, and only God, as Jesus himself declared:

“Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Nonetheless, some people imagine that they can become their own God, and that they will serve themselves only—their own ego. As Wolfgang Goethe wrote in the 19th century:

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

However, the opposite is written in the Gospel:

"For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." (Gospel of Luke 14:11)

A human without God is less than nothing, because being without God is not a neutral state; it is a wicked, evil, ungodly and literally a godless condition. Paradise is not lost, it is just that the path to its Gate is hidden. The Path has been revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and we simply have to obey the road signs (aka the holy commandments) in order to return to Paradise, which is the Kingdom of God.

It is obvious and clear that our relationship with God must be based on humility. God is so much higher than humans that it is unimaginable for a man to exalt himself over God. If at least one is humble out of two, or at least ten men are humble out of many, then forgiveness, reconciliation, wisdom, truth, justice, and hope will be present on Earth.

Still, the temptation of becoming gods lured the first people to death, and it is still deadly today when men (like despots, tyrants, and psychopaths) claim ultimate power over life and death, bringing wars, oppression, slavery, and contaminated blankets upon each other.

True humility means that we must submit ourselves to God by obeying his commandments, aiming for the common good and the well-being of all humans and all creatures.

One of the most astonishing aspects of the Spirit might be that the Spirit talks to the godly and to the wicked with almost equal intensity, and without a pause. As it is written in the Sermon on the Mount:

"...that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust."

The volume of the voice is the same, and even the love is the same toward the just and the unjust. However, listening to the inner voice of the Spirit depends on our readiness, willingness, and openness to really listen to it. As it is also written in the letter to the Hebrews:

“While it is said, 'Today if you will hear his voice, don't harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.'”

Not only does the Spirit call everyone—both the good and the wicked—reaching out with the same intensity, but it does so without a pause. No one can say, "I will do some good when the Spirit calls me, maybe next year," because the call occurs every day, and even by night.

Thus, we are on duty 24/7, just as the first congregation heard and answered the Spirit every day, as it is written:

“Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.”

May we do the same for the sake of God, by the merit of Jesus, so that we truly answer the voice of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

05/18/2026

REFLECTION ON THE WORD of ACTS 1:6-7
THE RETURN OF JESUS
Acts 1:6-7: Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.”

The possible return of Jesus, its timing, and its core features were not clearly defined in the Gospels or in the apostolic letters. Thus, we can say that the biblical account is somewhat vague in the New Testament.

It is also characteristic that after the cross and after the resurrection (right before the Ascension) even the disciples wanted to know what was going to happen. What would be the next step? How would the mission unfold? How would the kingdom of God emerge? As a task group, what should or must the Apostles and the disciples (in a broader sense) do?

The question of his disciples reflected their expectation that after everything Jesus had done for salvation and redemption, the right time should have finally arrived to establish the kingdom for Israel. It was not only a common expectation, but it was almost a demand. Although it was wrapped in a humble question, it was still an explicit request (essentially asking, "What are you waiting for, Master, especially now?").

Jesus answered them that albeit the re-establishment of the kingdom for Israel will eventually and surely happen, and everything accurately follows the divine plan, it is not for them to know the allocated date in advance. For the right reasons, this information is heavily classified by Heaven, and they do not have the clearance for it. It is information on a need-to-know basis, and right now, only God in Heaven knows it.

Although Jesus clearly told the disciples in the Gospel that it is not their explicit business to know the future, he still foretold future events, practically in three main categories.

The First Category
First, he foretold to his disciples that, "The Son of Man will be delivered up into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, on the third day he will rise again." The apostles were not particularly happy to hear that their Master would be crowned with nothing else but a crown made of thorns. The events of his passion happened very soon after, within less than a year.

The Second Category
The second category involves events he foretold that would happen within a generation (or more accurately, within that contemporary generation). As he said in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13, "Most assuredly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things are accomplished."

Among these events were the destruction of the temple and the devastation of the city of Jerusalem. Jesus told them, "Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone on another, which will not be thrown down."

He also predicted the upcoming Roman-Jewish war, saying, "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. ... There will be famines and troubles. These things are the beginning of birth pains."

This war began on the orders of Emperor Nero, and scholars deem its level of destruction close to the damages of the Holocaust in the 20th century.

Furthermore, after the war, the Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of Jews and enslaved hundreds of thousands more. From the looted golden treasure of the Jerusalem temple, the Romans forced the enslaved Jews to build the Colosseum in Rome (the gladiator center and human sacrificing arena for the glory of the Roman pagan gods).

It is hard to overestimate the brutality and the deadly effectiveness of the Roman legions at the end of the Jewish-Roman war, which flamed for four cruel years from 66 CE to 70 CE. Although the Jews initially destroyed the incoming Roman legions on their route, the Romans received more and more reinforcements and finally encircled and besieged Jerusalem.

The siege could have lasted almost forever, as there were enough supplies inside, alongside more than enough fighters in both numbers and quality. However, a series of civil wars broke out within the heavily fortified walls of Jerusalem.

Exactly what would later become an English maxim occurred: united we stand, divided we fall. Jesus foretold this in a parable, knowing their thoughts, when he said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand." (Matthew 12:25)

His foretelling regarding his own generation culminated in the prophecy that the Jerusalem congregation (which did not participate in the war on any side or party) would flee to the Pella area, which is today in Northwest Jordan.

He said about this event, "When you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ... Pray that your flight won't be in the winter.

For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be." This flight was still remembered as the "flight to Pella" by the early church fathers centuries later, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Epiphanius of Salamis.

The Third Category
The third category of Jesus' foretelling is eschatology, which means the last days. It is not always clear whether this means the end of the world and human history, or the transformation of it (such as the visible beginning of the Kingdom of God on Earth).

Nonetheless, about the end days, he said that, "the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out his angels, and will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the sky."

When that will happen, we do not know. However, someone once asked a famous Jewish rabbi, Amnon Yitzhak, "Please tell me, when will the Messiah be here?"
The Rabbi said, "I think that it will happen within three months."
The man began to cry.
"Why do you cry?" asked the rabbi.

The man said, "Because it is such a short time. I cannot be well prepared for the arrival of the Messiah; I cannot repent enough and clean myself to be worthy to see his entry into this world."

The Rabbi replied, "I did not say that the Messiah will be here within three months for sure; I said that I think he could be here within three months. However, I do not really understand why you are so anxious to meet the Messiah in three months when (God forbid) you could die tomorrow, or (God forbid) this very night.

Then, you must meet God the Almighty, the King of the Universe, who created Heaven and Earth. If you are anxious to meet the Messiah, you should cry every day, because it may happen that you will be forced to see the face of God not within three months, but any day and any hour."

Thus, Jesus was right again. The hour of the end of the world is irrelevant because, more than likely, way sooner than that, we will have to stand before the Judge in Heaven to give an account of what we have done or what we have not done but should have. May the Lord help us prepare for that hour, and make us able to praise God face to face by the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.