Today's sermon in SJ

Today, the preacher's name is Fred Mok. He is from Chinese Christian Church as far as i know after i talked to one of my friend in SJ chruch.

So, he started the sermon by saying automatic-filter. Long short, this filter is an unconscious filter that we develop within ourselves so that we only have close relationship towards certain kind of people. the example is a girlfriend/boyfriend, we all tend to find someone with the same cultural background and for me (i agreed with the pastor said) that man is looking for a girl, who is shorter.

Then that topic was tied with typed-scene. Typed-scene (predictable) is a scene which has a common sequence mostly in the heroic/sport movies. The hero is unconvincing at first, but at the end he wins everything. So the typed-scenes in the bible that were presented are coming from Gen 24 (Isaac & Rebekah), Gen 29:1-14 (Jacob & Rachel), Exo 2:11-25 (Moses & Ziphora), and John 4:1-26 (Jesus & Samaritan woman). The typed-scene here is Well-Woman-Water-Wedding. In all first three scenes, the man sits down beside the well, the woman comes, the man drinks water from the woman, and finally they get married together.

About the last scene, Jesus also sits beside the well, the samaritan woman comes, the water is different because water (spiritual) here is given by Jesus to the woman, and finally Jesus "gets married" with the samaritan woman's "family". This is interesting as we read the verse 13&14, Jesus offers the woman the living water after she refuses to give Jesus drink as He is a Jew. It shows that Jesus doesn't choose who are supposed to receive his grace, it is unconditional love that Jesus gives to the samaritan woman. Jesus doesn't have any automatic filter like us do. The wedding; Jesus is not married with the samaritan woman, but He opens up His heart not only to the woman herself, but the whole community with whom the woman lives. You know right ?!!? when you decide to marry someone, you are not only marrying the girl/guy that you love, but her/his whole family as well.

I think this message is beautiful. although there were some funny parts that were presented in the sermon about this, i could not recall it. Hope we all can learn the unconditional love of Jesus through this typed-scene. (link can be found in www.imeem.com/iecsj with title of "Unfiltered Romance")

God Bless,
Hendra