church and coins

i feel a long post coming on here...

I have had a good weekend, despite being immensely sleep deprived [nebusoku] due to watching 2 world cup quater-finals on consecutive nights, both starting here at midnight & going on til penalties. Oh dear, England. Anyway, Fri/ Sat was cool as I went to the beach [Takayama] with some JET Christian friends where we had a goodbye party for 2 in our group who are going home [bye bye Rika & Bri!]. A really good time was had- good company (apart from all the spiders & cockroaches!), and refreshment. Also insightful comments were had, such as I will be a nazi Mum but lovely grandma- as I boss people around & get people to eat up all the food etc, & I'm always amazed by the trans-Atlantic fascination with my accent- am glad I can be a source of entertainment for others with that!
Anyway, I went to church in Rifu this morning. Was dreading an 08:30 start, but I got there early to play my flute- whoo! I just played right at the start & end of both 2 services (which are at 09:00 and 10:30, i usually just go to the later one). &on 1st Sun of month they have communion kind of between these 2 services, which i've never quite worked out timing for but it was good to have that & be able to worship on my flute- albeit briefly. There's something about worshipping in a way you're used to & it means i can think in English too, which is often not really possible when I'm concentrating on singing Japanese words. So I really hope I can play again, and maybe more or just more frequently (the last & only other time i played was on Christmas Day). Anyway, the congregation seemed to appreciate it. It's always good to help build up the body of Christ.
Anyway that seemed to help me muchly in the services anyway. And for once I understood the sermon in a pretty tangible way. (It helped hearing it twice for comprehension i guess, among other things!) So sorry but here's a potted summary of Luke 15: 8-10. I like learning new things about familiar passages! (This one follows on from crazy lost sheep parable. Lots of searching for things followed by calling people together for immense rejoicing.) But today, Pastor Makito focused on drachma. (One coin of which is lost and looked for.) (At first when he said, 'durakumakin' - drachma money in Japanese, I thought he said 'drug making', i was a bit confused!) Whereas denarii are Roman coins, drachma are greek & bear the head of a greek god. Not too different from British money with the Queen's head i guess. But hmm, keep image of greek god in your head!
Anyway, the parable goes that a woman who has 10 of these coins (each one is tiny and worth about fify quid), loses one. She hunts high and low & eventually finds it. The coin bears the image of the greek God. It is originally in her possession but it goes astray somehow we don't know how, but she looks for it & finds it and rejoices greatly. Contrast this with us - whereas the coin bears the image of the greek God, we are made in the image of God. We are His possession & belong to Him. The woman lights up her dark house to help her find the coin. God enters our darkness and world in the person of Jesus & dies to set us free so we can be reunited with Him. Just as the woman is reunited with her coin- wahoo, we are/ can be reunited with God and are given new life.
It was great to be reminded that we're originally God's possession. Just like the coin we got lost. But God came out to find us & we can be safe in the palm of His hand again.
I like the analogy with the drachma - which bears the image of the greek god. We bear the image of our creator God. Motoko san, one of my favourite people at church who, with her chef husband & daughter, has taken me under her wing, reinforced this point as she gave the announcement about lunch today. Check our her headband with the drachma on it! she's one of these people who's truly lovely and joyful (and a touch hilarious).

Afterwards Mum you'll be pleased to know, the singer in the worship group (which consists of singer and piano and occasional guitar) gave me some body soap special for people with eczema. People are so kind & I just love being a part of a worshipping community here. Even if I don't usually understand much of the sermon or the songs I'm singing, it's great to be in the presence of God and surrounded by people who are lovely.