A Message from Pastor Kaji
Dear Beloved:
This week, our scripture pointed me to the concept of spring cleaning.
We are conditioned to accumulate, holding onto things because they’ve meant something to us, or because we once believed they would keep us safe. But then Spirit moves, and we find ourselves looking around at stuff with tired hearts, wondering: do I need this?
In Sunday’s message, entitled: “Trash Talk”, we turn to the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians. Paul speaks of all the things he once considered gains: pedigree, accomplishments, authority—and he has a strong word for them. Not because they were never meaningful, but because they didn’t have a place in the new life he had found in Christ.
Sometimes, to make room for resurrection, something has to go.
Speaking of going…this Sunday, I’ll be away from The Park, traveling to support a young one who is now celebrating a major milestone. A new season. A resurrection story. While I’m not with you in person, I’ve prepared a message I believe your soul might need to hear. A message that gives you permission to let go. To discard what no longer aligns with who God is calling you to be.
In this season to memorialize our grief and gratitude, I want to highlight something special some church members invited me to produce. It is a practical guide, or a checklist, for people facing the loss of a very closed loved one entitled “At the Loss of a Very Close Loved One –A Pastoral Guide from Pastor Kaji.” So many times, people ask me: what do I have to do? I hope that you will take a look at this guide, bookmark it and share it with anyone you know who might need it. Over the course of my almost 20-year pastoral ministry, I have walked with hundreds of grieving people. Please take my experience and allow someone you love to make use of it.
Finally, as we mark Memorial Day together, let us also pause to give thanks for those who sacrificed so much in service to something beyond themselves. For every person who gave their life believing in the possibility of freedom, justice, and peace: we give thanks. Our hopes grow from the soil of their legacy.
As you prepare for this Sunday, I invite you to ask:
- What’s taking up space in my life that no longer reflects who I am becoming?
- How might God be inviting me to loosen my grip on what I’ve outgrown?
- Where have I mistaken heaviness for holiness—and what if I set it down?
See you soon, church!
Pax Christi,
Pastor Kaji
Philippians 3:7-11 (Year A, p. 319):7 Whatever gains are mine, these things, because of Christ, I regard as loss. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the excellency of knowing Christ Jesus my Savior, for his sake I have suffered loss of all things, and regard them as trash, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having my own righteousness that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, righteousness from God built on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of Christ’s resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings, shaped by his death, 11 that I might in some way attain the resurrection from the dead.