Quick Summary:

This sermon looks at the appointed texts through the lens of Japanese Internment during WW2, and recent events: The murder of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya by ISIS forces, and the kidnapping of Missionary Phyllis Sortor in Nigeria.

“Let it not happen again.” These words emblazoned on stone near Pritchard Park on Bainbridge Island call upon everyone who reads them to remember the 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were forced from their homes and were taken to relocation camps under the authority of Executive Order 9066.

Our texts this morning circle around the theme of IDENTITY. WHO GOD IS. WHO JESUS IS. WHO WE ARE. WHAT’S OUR RELATIONSHIP.

When Uncle Sam looked at Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, all he saw was a potential traitor. He only looked skin deep. How deep do you look when you encounter someone? What do you see and what do you not see? What gets in the way?

The journey we’re on in Lent is a journey to the core of who we are—not who we are in the eyes of others who look at us, or even in our own eyes—but in God’s eyes. And in God’s eyes, you dear sister, dear brother, in God’s eyes you are infinitely valued; infinitely loved; and worth dying for.