Sermon

Ascension Day meets IDAHOBIT. As long as we stare at the sky waiting for a from-heaven answer, we miss the heart of faith. Jesus removed his bodily presence so we would rise and bear the mission — not through fresher evidence but through the Spirit’s power and love. The Ascension is not a farewell; it is a commissioning.

Pastor Hong reflects on a brother in the community who lives with blindness, and who read Job through blindness, conversion therapy, and a lifetime of losses. Out of the whirlwind, God answers not with explanations but with presence.

“No one can know themselves alone.” Dr. Dino Wong drew from Acts 2 and 4, Karl Barth’s relational theology, and the clinical concept of re-parenting — weaving a vision of identity not as something we possess, but something that emerges in the gaze we share.

A brother’s livestream testimony at BMCC’s 2020 World AIDS Day Sunday service. At 45, twenty-five years after his HIV diagnosis at twenty, he reflects on finding belonging at BMCC — the only church in Hong Kong where he felt safe across a dual identity (LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive). A 1997 question from a brother — ‘If you died tomorrow, would you have any regret?’ — led him to fly for the first time, to Tongkwang Church and the Taiwan Lourdes Association, and to a calling.

BMCC’s 27th anniversary thanksgiving service. Lead pastor on Psalm 43:4: BMCC arose from a group of ordinary people who refused to accept that their lives must end as society dictated. Fifty years after MCC began America’s LGBTQ+-affirming movement, the work continues. A call to lay down what we cling to, walk to the altar, light our own candle.

Lead pastor on Acts 5: the early church’s perseverance under persecution depended on character — being of one heart and mind. The story of Ananias and Sapphira shows the cost of spiritual hypocrisy. Concealing injustice in the church is itself a deception of God. Eternal life is not static but the continuous transformation of our lives in cooperation with God.

Rev. Ngeo Boon Lin on Mark 2:18-22 — the three parables of the bridegroom, the new patch on old cloth, and new wine in new wineskins — all calling for change. Christians may give their utmost effort to goals, but entrust outcomes to God. Live in the present: do what should be done now, free of the pressure of outcomes. We do not seek to be the last straw; we seek only to be one of them.

Matthew 5:46-48 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax

Read together, the Good Samaritan parable and the Martha-and-Mary story (Luke 10:25-42) subvert the class and gender expectations of their time — a despised Samaritan becomes neighbour, a woman becomes disciple. Addressed to Theophilus, a wealthy Roman official, the message is clear: in the Kingdom of God, the hierarchies Rome prizes are dismantled.