Sermon about my trip to Korea in the early March 2013 & A Prayer for Korea (Apr 14, 2013)

A Travel Note (Mar 17, 2013)

Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126, John 12:1-8

Hello my friends - I am so glad to be back. I had a safe trip to Korea, thanks to your prayers and good wishes. I will never forget your whole-hearted warm blessings. When I shared a few good stories of your blessings with my mom and dad over supper at their home, my parents laughed with joy, thinking that their daughter is blessed by such a loving congregation. Hearing about you, knowing that their daughter is surrounded by warm hearts and kind faces, was a great present for them. Thank you.

I’ll quickly remind you of the purpose of my trip. .... 

(...skip.... for confidentiality.)

Last Monday, the day we arrived in Korea, while our group was riding on the bus heading into Seoul, we all noticed that everything was grey, a depressing monotone. Our sight was obscured; there was no view beyond the grey cement roads, the grey cement sidewalks, tightly spaced houses and apartments soaked in a grey haze. Allan asked me whether we were seeing mist or pollution. I couldn’t tell him; this grey haze thing was new to me. I learned that night from watching the news that it was caused by Chinese smog smog which landed on the Korean peninsula. The reporter said this grey smog would last for one week, then dissipate, but a yellow dust wind from China might follow. This new phenomenon of ‘greying’, the cloud of ecological deterioration, deeply concerned me. When I was younger, just 10 or 15 years ago, I could see the mountains which surrounded the cities as if the blue mountains were layered with many different shades, receding off into the far distance.  

Some of you have asked me about how South Koreans have been affected by the recent aggressions of North Korea. But the truth is that South Koreans are not concerned about the North; younger generations don’t pay any attention to them -they don’t see them as any real threat. The real threat or crisis they experience firsthand is the problem of overwhelming, rapidly progressing economic polarization; the fast enlarging disparity between the nation’s rich and poor since the Asian financial crisis of 1997; in other words, the nation’s bankruptcy. My father was a leading architect with his own small company, but he had to close it in the financial chaos and economic depression that followed the country’s debt crisis.

About 5 years ago, my father decided to live in a ‘one-room’ apartment (it does not mean one bedroom apartment. It means literally one-room, one space.) to, in my opinion, atone for wasting the wealth which he could have more wisely deposited in the bank or increased. When the Asian financial crisis occurred, my father was swept away in the stock boom which arose immediately after the crisis, and lost a lot of money. He’s a very competent engineer, so he continued working as the chief engineer in a construction company; he builds high-rise apartment mega-complexes, but he continues to live in an one-room apartment with my mom. Earlier this month, my one sibling, my younger brother was accepted for immigration to Canada and landed in North Vancouver; but I feel it is all diaspora. He’s been pushed away from his home country;  Korea is now experiencing the worst rate of unemployment ever; the unemployment rate of younger generations has reached as high as 50 percent. This dysfunction harms Korean society; values like economic justice and integration of creation are crumpled. My mom said at the supper we had the last Thursday night, “You know, Ha Na, it feels like we are going to end up just like Mexico, with rich and poor and nobody in between."

To so many people, hope is a distant story. They are so steeped in doubt and despair they would have a hard time believing the Gospel’s promise that life should be blessed and lived abundantly. Every country suffers from its own social problems, but Korea is really in crisis, particularly since 1997, having experienced only a spiralling-down degeneration since then. There are three challenges Korea and so many parts of our world struggle with; the monetary juggernaut of transnational capitalism, (today’s empires are defined by cash, not borders), ecological destruction, and patriarchy.

These three challenges create great suffering while they create a new context of existence for many people. I believe these contexts are where we need to cry out for God’s saving act on behalf of God’s people and creation; to liberate the oppressed, to release the prisoners, to heal the sick, to stand with those who are steeped in deep despair, to mend the wounds of those who are scarred by violence. We should cry out to God to act for those who are struck and displaced by the tsunami of world-wide economic injustice; for those children who starve while other parts of the world waste food, for those who make a scant living picking through the discarded technological trash of wealthier nations, for those who shiver in makeshift slums that overlook the bright streets of wealthy cities.

In Isaiah God says “I make a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters... Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. I give my chosen people the path and drink.”

There is so much hunger. People everywhere -their mouths are chapped for thirst, like the land is splintered during a drought. In my trip to Korea, I hoped that I could be the one who is called to work with God to mend the drought-stricken land, by anointing it with the small drops of water and oil I can offer. This world needs us to act in the same way that Mary of Bethany does in the Gospel when she anoints Jesus’ feet in oil. We need to act like Mary – adding water and oil to the lives of weary, foot-sore people suffering from a drought of justice and peace. Mary of Bethany gave what she could have kept and hoarded for herself to mend another human being’s feet, to bless the feet of Christ, even to his toes.  

My trip to Korea wasn’t what I expected - I wanted the United Church people to see the beauty of my country, only to find my homeland trapped in a sad grey smog. (skip.... for confidentiality.) Things were far from perfect - but imperfection makes need, and a choice of action, clear. The action we choose may be imperfect - just as Judas was quick to point out Mary’s foolishness, others may be quick to question our actions, but we must go out, with our oil and water, to serve others, to bless God, and to live as if the feet of Christ were in front of us, in need of our protection and our love.

Prayers of the People (offered on the different date, Third Sunday of Easter (Apr 14, 2013))

O God of Peace and Justice, we pray for an end to the increase of tensions on the Korean peninsula at the present. We pray that the members of the Six-Party Talks, the six governments most responsible for peace and human security in Northeast Asia to return to their own earlier path of negotiations and confidence-building. We reject any notion, effort, and action which in any way justifies the possibility of outbreak of war. We pray for all the churches in South and North Korea. Let us stand with our brothers and sisters in Korean churches who during the past 60 years have worked hard with the goal of seeking reunification and reconciliation. We pray that your will be done, O God, for justice and peace among nations. Isaiah exclaims, “Come, Israel, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his path. Let us beat the swords into ploughshares, and the spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more. O House of Israel, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Let us give more hearing to the voice of those people who deeply pray and work hard for peace, justice and reconciliation than to some media which promote anxiety and fear among people, giving wrong message that this world is frightening, than, in its foundation, being bounded in God’s goodness.