Sermon: Listening to the Lotus Roots (Matthew 13:44-46), April 14th, 2024

Matthew 13:44-46  

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in their joy, they went and sold all they had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When they found one of great value, they went away and sold everything they had and bought it.

 

Sermon: Listening to the Lotus Roots

 

Today’s Kingdom of God scripture, which has also been a touchpoint in their studies, is about the treasure hidden in a field… In this reflection, I would like to invite you to connect this story with my Question of the Day: “If Easter is not a day but this moment, what do you see as a present-time possibility, something resurrecting?” Then, this Sunday, (as John Wesley famously said, each Sunday is a “little Easter,”) on this little Easter, we celebrate the youth’s faith exploration by confirming their baptismal faith, with Jamie receiving baptism. In my mind, these three different elements became one as I prepare this Sunday, this Easter time with our youth: 1) The treasure hidden in a field, under the ground 2) something resurrecting, something rising, and 3) water…

 

These three elements move in my mind and heart like a circling spiral, and suddenly I am transported back in memory. A few years before COVID, I spent a summer with my family in my hometown of Gwangju, South Korea. At a park, we came upon a small human-made lake where a thousand lotuses had bloomed. When I was younger, I had never seen a real lotus flower. I had learned and knew the phrases like "No mud, no lotus" illustrated in children’s books or in Buddhist temples, but only as a metaphor or a symbol. Growing up, I do not have the memory of having seen a real one. Maybe the conditions and climate needed to create a place where lotuses bloom are so precise that it rarely happened in Gwangju, my hometown, in the 80s and 90’s. 

 

The lotus begins its life in the muddy water below the surface of a pond or marsh. Gradually, the pod pushes through the murky shadows, reaching up toward the rippling surface above. In time, it rises from the water and unfurls its petals to the sun, revealing its silky, vibrant beauty in fullness. Nowadays, in this millennium, almost everything can be recreated artificially, so a park can have a small lake and create the conditions for a thousand lotuses to bloom easily. While reflecting on this new-to-me sight in my hometown, a sparkling object caught my eye. I saw it shimmering in the sunlight, rolling around on a wide, deeply indented lotus leaf. It was perhaps a drop of rain from that morning, gathered like a pearl in the centre of the leaf, not drying up, spilling over, or being absorbed by the leaf, even as I deliberately moved the leaf around. In that moment, I saw every part of the lotus that preserves itself intact - not just the petals, but the leaves that allow the water marble to play, the stems that support it in pushing through the water surface, and the roots that still connect it firmly to the mud below. I also saw that the one lotus, or even the immensity of a thousand lotuses was not the key issue at that moment; rather, it was that in that one moment, the dirt, roots, stems, leaves, petals, and the beads of water, and the rain that had turned into those beads, and the cloudy sky and the winds that moved those clouds, and my mother who had suggested we go to the park were in that single moment, all together, as one universe of the thousands of unique particulars, as Easter. 

 

Then, all of these lotus-interconnected worlds were not all that came to my awareness. The threat of climate change was so real. Summers in Korea have become brutally hot and humid in recent years. On muggy days, it feels like being a goldfish in a steam-filled glass bowl, and on dry, hot days, the air conditioner becomes a refuge. It required courage to venture out to the park to see those thousand lotuses in the noonday heat. However, despite the real threat of climate change, the realization came to me: there is still summer, still winter, and still, for now, nature is a gift that sustains our lives. The power of the unbroken nurturing each and every life, encompassing a thousand thousand lotuses, billions and billions of our lives and the lives of animals and plants, still creating tomorrow from today, and the future from tomorrow - all this was a gift of perspective given to me by nature's invitation to awaken to the whole, at that lotus-awareness minute and universe-sized moment.

 

I wondered why I had been thinking so much about our youth confirmation/faith exploration journey. Why was this important to me? 

 

Before reaching out to the youth, I was reaching out to myself. 

 

Joy Harjo, a poet and member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, said, “Listening comes before writing. … Listening is crucial to writing poetry, living a good life, creating, raising children, and I think these days, it is increasingly difficult to find listening places... Learn to listen.”

 

Engaging with young people is incredibly precious to me; it moves my entire heart with gratitude and joy, so often, like the lotus pod pushing through the mud to the surface. When I am reaching out to the youth, it’s because I’m already reaching out to myself.

 

Young people are an important “listening place” for me. When I was finishing Grade 6 and graduating from primary school, there was no next step after Sunday School. In my church, there was no youth program to lead my questions into meaningful activities. Sunday School was merely a program provided for the children of my parents' generation, not paying attention to the growth of each youth. Somehow, the youth became mismatched, hard-to-fit, somewhat misplaced, misunderstood puzzle pieces... Odd pieces. Looking back, my adolescence was like a void of meaning, not a time when I could look into how I was the treasure, to discover in the dirt like the roots of a lotus. I did not learn how to listen to the sound of those roots. Instead, I only knew how to compare myself to others and how to separate my values from the mud. I hope our youth learn to listen. Especially, that they learn to listen to the lotus roots of themselves. What do they want? What powers do they have? -- The questions of the lotus roots in the mud below.

Someone in youth ministry said, "Today’s generation is the most anxious, adaptive, and diverse generation ever. Let’s be the most empathetic church ever." This is an invitation for the church to be a listening place, the place where we learn to listen gently to the roots. 

I think of young people as precious 'listening places,' 'lotus places' for ourselves. When you listen to the youth, you are actually listening to yourselves: Your lotus-pod-mud-leaf-flower-stem-rain-bead-water marble-wind-sky journey. Therefore, today, as I share this reflection with you, and as we celebrate confirmations and baptisms at the ConXion service, I believe they are meant to be our listening places, our Easter places, even before the moments of celebration will be listening places and Easter places for the youth themselves. This also means that when you are listening to me, you are listening to yourself, and when I am listening to you, I am listening to myself.

 

If "Remember your baptism" means “Remember to listen, especially remember to listen to how the lotus grows and how the treasure is found,” then Joy Harjo’s poetry, "Remember," shows exactly how Easter, as the moment, (not a day) can be experienced as something resurrecting, as something profoundly unbroken, as one universe and at the same time a particular, a present moment possibility.  Indeed, whenever the youth met for faith exploration on the last three or four Sundays, J would always respond to my question, “What do you like? What stands out to you from the story?” with “Everything.” Everything.

 

Remember, by Joy Harjo

 

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, … how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. 

Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. 

She knows the origin of this universe.

 

Remember you are all people and all people are you.

Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

 

Listening is inquiry. When you hear the poem, you start to ask, with the speaker, about how one person becomes all people, and all people become one person, and how this universe becomes you and me, and you and I become the universe. Listening is about hearing the question that comes from the “gift of a different view”. It is listening to the sound of the lotus roots—hidden, vibrant, in the mud, below the water, just like finding the treasure hidden in a field.  Then you buy the whole field, not just the treasure. You find the whole universe, including the lotus roots.

 

Credit: Sarah Porter. Sarah and I co-led Youth Faith Exploration at Broad View Untied, 2024

Palm Sunday sermon: "Palm Soundscape" (John 12:12-16), March 24th, 2024

Intro to Scripture: 

Palm Sunday is like a pendulum. Just as a pendulum swings to the highest point on the right, passing the midpoint at the end of it, there is a pause, a brief gap in the transition from the highest point to it swinging down again. Palm Sunday sketches that transition, just before Jesus moves into the final hours of his Passion, creating a brief break, a pause. And that’s where we are. With Jesus. In his moment, as our moment. 

 

Today, we remember the story where people welcome Jesus by waving palm leaves or laying them on the ground, as he quietly and slowly rides on a donkey into Jerusalem, the place filled with uncertainty for him and his disciples, amid people's Hosannas. (John 12:12-16)

Sermon: Palm Soundscape

Recently, I was walking to the church for a meeting. With earphones in and a bit late, I hurried along, moving quickly from one street to the next. My legs moved on their own, and my mind was abstracted, just my steps hastening down a familiar path. Then, suddenly, I was enveloped by a rich fragrance. Looking up, I realized I was walking under a canopy of blossoming cherry trees. The pink, the softness of each petal, forming one perfect tiny bouquet with others, and the fragrance were enough to awaken me. I asked myself: In this beautiful part of the world, in this small moment, could this be the loving-kindness Earth offers? Standing in the centre of this intimate small universe God has created and shared by all, I received the free, unconditional loving-kindness this land offers without expecting anything in return. 

What would be one of the ways, or even (if I can put it this way) what would be an ultimate loving-kindness we can give to ourselves? Especially if any of us is going through their own sacred times of Passion. It might be illness, grief, a loved one’s death, chronic pain, fear, an intense journey of self-discovery, identity, exhaustion, or deeply personal struggles you might only share with trusted friends. Exhaustion. Numbness. Burning heart, burning out. Our modern society is distinguished by its “separation”, “polarization” — this and that, as if these are bracketed against each other, like palm (celebration) on the one end of the pendulum and the passion (vulnerability) at the other end of the pendulum’s arc. But in real life, as our deepest selves know, we are moving between Palm and Passion, constantly. We live both ends of Palm and Passion to varying and changing degrees. This life invites us to be flexible, to ride the fluidity of changes, the beauty and terror of impermanence. Our body, our relationship, our work…  Almost everything that shapes our lives is changing, and we need to learn how we, then, must live with the beautifully, wonderfully, and fearfully impermanent nature of this world. 

Palm and Passion Pendulum

What is faith in all of these? How do we live moment by moment by moment with faith, in this pendulum journey of Palm and Passion? 

 

It would be a delight to find the cherry-blossom blessings in this life, an Easter moment in the Unknown, — not to just find ourselves constantly in the moving pieces of Palm and Passion, but in each moment, unexpected or intentionally created, to enjoy the loving-kindness you would allow to happen in your life, your day, and to comfort and encourage yourself. Jesus says, “Love your neighbour, just as you love yourself”, right? What loving-kindness would you allow to happen, and create to happen, for you, and because of the karma effect of lovingkindness, what generosity of loving-kindness would spread like the Easter grass through the world you inhabit? That loving kindness transforms the polarization of Palm and Passion into the mystery of Easter.

 

Now, I invite you take a deep breath, as we journey into today’s story again. I invite you to the “soundscape” of this story. What is a soundscape? I don’t know. It’s English. As far as I have learned, a soundscape is like a landscape. When I say “landscape” you can conjure up an image you like or are neutral about, but an image – the shapes of trees, the bend of a river, tall skyscraper canyons - can be pictured in your landscape imagination. A soundscape is like that; it’s created through the actual sounds our ears hear or that our mind can create by imagination. 

The soundscape from today's story can be heard as the sound of a donkey's hooves, carrying an adult on its back, moving slowly, without hurry. What's fascinating is that, as you imagine this, so many in the crowd shout "Hosanna," cheering and making noise, throwing and laying palm leaves on the ground, amidst the smell of sweat, the heat of summer, and a narrow path opened through the crowd split in two. How is it that this donkey does not panic or run away, as if it were a young disciple understanding Jesus's heart, possessing a trusting heart to move forward, steadfastly in the direction Jesus wants? What kind of soundscape might unfold in your heart as you listen to today's story? Among the children and adults, the youths and the crowds cheering and making noise, might we not also hear the murmurs of those who, although quieter than the cheers, create a dissonance with their rough and sharp criticisms, rebukes, doubts, and condemnations? Some cheer, while others ponder the traps they will set when Jesus enters Jerusalem. As Jesus crosses over the ground covered in palm leaves, relying on the slow, swaying body of the donkey, amidst a polarized crowd split like the Red Sea parted for Moses and the Israelites, what expression does he wear on his face?  Do his eyes, shining without fear, show an awareness that is fully awake, allowing and accepting what’s happening? Where exactly are his eyes looking, and whom do they see, with or without a smile on his face, in this timeless time that might last thirty minutes or even an hour? How does he navigate the split stream of cheering and grumbles, unsafe both physically and psychologically, through this momentarily suspended pendulum of time? Are his body and mind at ease? I love this expression Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Each step is peace.” But really, in the soundscape imbued with tension, could you or I make each step be peace; Jesus might, and if Jesus was able to make each step be peace, how? 

 

Could we still give loving-kindness, especially to ourselves, to allow the calm we need, for us to be able to embrace ourselves with courage and a trusting heart, like the donkey’s, when we are exhausted, when we are busy. There is loving kindness when we look up to find where the fragrance of cherry blossoms comes from. Give a little more loving-kindness to ourselves, each time, one more minute, one more hour, by pausing, by catching our breath and dwelling with our senses to smell the flower more deeply, spot it with more curiosity, and give our undivided attention to the senses and to the generosity of the Earth’s gift, “As if you haven’t seen this before, smelled this before, listened to this before”, with an open heart. 

 

Marcus Borg suggests, in his book, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering A Life of Faith, “Faith as Visio”. As the closest English word “vision” suggests, this is faith as a way of seeing (or sensing). This is faith as a way of seeing the whole, as a way of seeing “what is”, a way of seeing the world as ultimately life-giving and nourishing, as a way of seeing the world as profoundly gracious. Just like when Jesus exclaimed, “Look at the birds of the air. And Consider the lilies of the field.” God feeds them. God clothes them. Faith is a way of seeing and sensing the world, with a “trusting heart,” with the radical trust of the beauty and goodness in this intimate-relations-web-like universe God has created.

Faith is creating the space within our mind and heart, free of judging. Perhaps the best loving-kindness we can give ourselves is the gift of non-judging. In fact, our mind is constantly busy, thinking, feeling, reacting… what I like, what I don’t like; what is right, what is wrong, memories of the past, plans for the future. The first arrow, followed by the second arrow.

Instead, open your heart to the unknown. I was drawn to this quote a while ago: “The Unknown is what has not been looked for.” The Unknown is the name for the “more" than my boundary, the landscape beyond the limit of my experience. When we trust that this is the world God has created, hope glitters and glimmers even in the deep canyons of the unknown. Ultimately, the world, our life, death and life after death, is sustained by the mystery of Easter, that profoundly life-giving, transforming love. In faith, which I would submit to you in this sermon as the “ultimate loving-kindness”, a must-have for a journey through our cheering, grumbling, heart-pounding soundscape, we are invited to ride on a donkey, and keep going, in a world of uncertainty imbued with both beauty and terror. Faith invites us to journey, trusting self and trusting “I don’t know”. Trusting I don’t know everything, Trusting the Easter in the unknown.

So, back to Jesus in the soundscape of today’s story; Jesus’ faith is not a construction he makes to supply certainty. No. 

 

Faith is about trusting the profound nature within each moment, not directed by the need for finding certainty, but faith searches for the loving-kindness, for ourselves and others, moment by moment by moment to journey with the enlightened awareness of the gracious nature of life, the Easter in the unknown, the courage to walk in beauty even when the pendulum moves to the direction of fear, uncertainty and Passion. So, friends, let’s continue this incredible journey called life with faith, which is synonymous with the wholesome package of loving-kindness, the soft and quiet invitation of cherry blossom blessings, and even riding a donkey, in today’s intersection of Palm and Passion, in this, the midpoint of the Holy Week.

Sermon: Burnout and Baptism (Matthew 3:13, 16-17), March 10th, 2024

Intro to Scripture: Matthew 3:13, 16-17

Jesus is our meditation. His story invites us to meditate on our own journey. 

 

After today’s story, Jesus journeys into the wide-open desert. I have not been to the land of Palestine, so I cannot know exactly what that part of the earth is like. I can only rely on the pictures I can Google. One thing I know is that any desert, no matter how dry, is not dead. There are day and night, the Sun and the Moon and the creatures that exist in darkness and light, and the wild grass, bushes and small flower networks that spread where the dew falls or the hidden underground water flows. 

 

In my mind’s eye, I picture the desert laid out in a God-created dome. Many ancient people and cultures imagined the world being shaped like a round dome. During the day the Sun makes it bright; its absence creates night. The glittering and glimmering colours of rocks and living things and human beings create a whole dynamic history of peace and war, liberation and suffering, God’s Word and human actions. Jesus came into the desert, that particular part of the dome of God’s cosmos, after being baptized in the Jordan river. Daytime in the desert can be scorching hot, and the night can be desperately cold. I do not know how he survived those extremes, on top of hunger and thirst for a symbolic forty days, but I think the empowerment received at baptism must have sustained Jesus to go through the burning of the desert place. These Lenten stories invite us to be able to look at our own lives and meditate on our own experiences — physical and spiritual hunger, thirst, possibly burnout, exhaustion, fear, or solitude, whatever they might be — something we have crossed over to find the path for our own healing and wholeness.

 

Matthew 3:13, 16-17

 

Sermon: Burnout and Baptism 

 

Jesus is my meditation. His story invites me to meditate on my own journey. 

 

When this year’s season of Lent started, our BVU artist Laura Giffen created the Lenten Art Fort in the Narthex — The “Glimmering Hope” between the separation of the walls painted black and white on each side, symbolizing polarization. On my first visit, I entered the fort and found the broken bowl Laura had carefully placed. The presence of the broken bowl in the fort comforted me, with the assurance that there is no shame, no stigma attached to burnout or any other experience we might go though when we feel spiritually and mentally alone. 

Laura Giffen + Joan Mason ~ Photo: Ha Na

The thing called Wabi-Sabi, embracing the fractured beauty of imperfection, impermanence and incompleteness, is a part of our life journey that, with intention and courage, offers a profound opportunity to learn about ourselves and the world around us. Whether, just like the broken bowl, we are in a state of being broken, being ill or being mended with a golden healing element that offers growth and transformation, the contemplation of wabi-sabi offers the opportunity to have an inner conversation with our own selves. It builds a raft where we can look into our troubled water without drowning. 

A few weeks ago, I finally made the time to visit a registered massage therapist. After explaining the reason for my visit and hearing the massage therapist's suggestions, I felt a sense of novelty when I laid down and the session started with relaxing the muscles on my forehead. I didn’t expect that the process would begin with the forehead; I had mentioned tiredness in my legs and arms, but the therapist started from the forehead and moved down following the nerves from the trigeminal nerve around the eyebrows, under the eyes, cheeks, jaws, and near the ears. That moment, I was reminded of an image of a Boddhisatva I had seen in a dream. They had soft, glowing cheeks, pink like a cherry blossom or a peach. This beautiful figure of wisdom had a faint, light, and gentle smile at the corners of their mouth, with the corners slightly upturned. As the massage therapist skillfully manipulated and relaxed each muscle in my body, I found myself meditating in tandem with the relaxation of my body. At the end of the massage, she said, “I have one suggestion for you. You need to calm down. Did you know that throughout the massage, you were constantly clenching your fists?”

This conversation marked the beginning of a dialogue with my own body. When am I tensing parts of my body without realizing it? The left side of my neck? My shoulders? Am I putting more force on one leg when sitting, or constantly clenching my hands even when alone?

If this state of tension continues - though the reasons and processes vary for each individual - our exhaustion can lead to burnout. There’s no need to place any stigma or shame on burnout. It's a signal from your body, a deep calling, and an opportunity for widening and opening your inner capacity of acceptance. Acceptance — That’s what I have learned in recent weeks from adopting meditation and bringing mindfulness and mindful breathing into my daily life. As a Zen proverb says, an open hand gathers more flowers than a closed fist. 

Usually, most of the time, … about 90 percent of my life so far, I have been confident about myself, thinking I can do anything, if I want, and when I do, I can do most of those things quite well, if I work on them. I have always had a stubborn confidence in my own abilities. Then, through meditation, I realized there’s one thing I don’t do well. That’s acceptance. Simply, I don’t accept what I think is not right. When I face what I think is not right, I struggle with it, cry over it, and fall into the polarizing crack of feeling I am wronged. It can be compared to the metaphor of being struck by two arrows. The first arrow is the unpleasantness of the experience – we’ve all felt that. It could be a stressful work situation, a task we are not feeling up to or are not confident about, a difficult family member or even an alarming headline or another daily dose of bad news… That’s the first wound. Then, because we are unable to accept what is happening, we tighten and resist, deepening our aggravation or aversion. This is the second arrow, the second wound which prolongs our suffering and hurts us the most. The first wound is from the reality, the specific experience. The second one is from how we react, our own aversion, and falling into polarization. 

The teaching of acceptance is not about accepting what is wrong and how you have been wronged by injustice. To get through the harsh landscape of the polarized world, especially for those of us who risk our mental and physical health because of the sharp edge of polarization, acceptance is about opening and widening our capacity to be able to see what is happening, including our reaction to it, in the very moment of being struck by the first arrow. In that moment, we can remind ourselves that we can be mindful and still preserve ourselves. Accepting not just the reality, but accepting our own capacity to observe what is happening, including our own judgements, reactions to them, feeling upset, hurt, resentful, sorry. It’s the practice of non-reactivity which I will explain more on Palm Sunday. In the story that is told on Palm Sunday every year, Jesus rides a donkey to enter Jerusalem, pushing his way with non-reactivity, through the polarized crowds on the left and on the right, those who are booing and those who are praising. Acceptance is the base. Then, eventually we would be able to skillfully respond to the situation with purpose and clarity, while preserving our Cup and health and not allowing the second arrow to hurt us — the burnout, the exhaustion — even after being struck by the first painful arrow. 

Recently I learned about Mountain Meditation, originally written almost thirty years ago by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I hope you can find some time to try this meditation in a comfortable and safe space in your own home or in the wild. You can Google about Mountain Meditation and even watch an adapted version on YouTube. When you need resilience, stability, empowerment, in the desert of burnout, on the way to the Jerusalem of exhaustion, search Mountain Meditation. In a nutshell, it invites you to meditate on picturing the most beautiful mountain you’ve seen or can imagine, one whose form speaks personally to you. I’ll give you two minutes. Close your eyes or watch the slides I prepared from Claude Monet’s art. 

Perhaps your mountain has snow at the top and trees on the lower slopes. Perhaps it has one prominent peak, perhaps a series of peaks or a high plateau. However it appears, just sit and breathe with the image of this mountain, observing it, noting its contours, its qualities and colours and its changes - flowing with the play of light, shadow, fog and clouds. 

When you feel ready, see if you can bring the mountain into your own body so that your body sitting here and the mountain of your mind’s eye become one.

Does the magic happen to you? It did for me when I tried it for the first time, when the words invited me to see if my body and the mountain of the mind’s eye can become one. All of a sudden I became a Korean mountain my family loved and still love in our hearts, the low and long range of the round peaks, the deep, deep forest with sun-dappled pine trees in the humid mid-summer. One time, when our two kids were much younger and we climbed the same mountain with my mother, we got so thirsty. We’d already eaten some cucumbers and only had empty water bottles; we picked up fallen cherries on the path, and ate them. Surprisingly, that little bit of juice was refreshing enough to keep us going that day. This is my fondest memory of mountain-climbing. 

There were two gospel readings today – not just dry desert but flowing water. I have to admit that I originally got the order of the stories wrong – I thought, first desert, so dry, so hot, and then the cooling relief of the river – it makes sense. We long to know that the desert ends in its opposite – but that’s not the way this story goes. Water first, then the desert. God’s blessing before we are struck by the arrows of the polarized world. When you feel ready, see if you can bring the aspect of water into your body, just as you brought the mountain, so that yourself and the water of the mind’s eye become one. Water quenches our thirst, cleanses us, renews us, and just as the Dao Te Ching (trans. D. C. Lau, 1963) sings the praises of water, water, like Dao, can flow without contention:

 

“The highest good is like water. 

Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures 

without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, 

It comes close to the way.” 

 

Jesus came to the river for baptism before going into the desert, the place of burnout and stark polarization, so he could bring the water with him. Jesus traversed the desert through the teaching of acceptance and a skillful response to the polarized world, like the way Water prefers. Even when everything seems blocked or tangled, clenched and seized up, water carves its own path and breaks through where there was no channel before. I invite you to imagine in your mind’s eye the possibilities of a community like water, alive, moving, refreshing others before and after their desert journeys. Nothing is impossible to a community like that.