Sermon: For the Sake of Wholeness (Aug 18, 2013)

Sermon: For the Sake of Wholeness

Luke 12:49-56
(국정원 개입 부분은 짧은 설교에서 교인들이 이해하기 힘들 것 같아서 내용에 포함시키지 않음)

In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”. He also says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

In the middle of August, when some of us have begun to already feel that true summer is going away from us, (my son asked me for his jacket before heading to his day care, saying,  “The mornings are cold, Mom.”), Korea is still immersed in scorching summer heat, and a very interesting thing is happening. Two Saturdays ago, when I officiated at the marriage of Sonia and Jesse at Marian and Norm’s ocean-side garden, on that very day, at that very time, 100,000 Koreans, from young to old, some in strollers, some with canes, gathered at the downtown streets of every major city throughout the country and lit 100,000 candles. It happened at 7:00 p.m, twilight. Imagine all those little twinkling lights, shining under the harder lights of office towers, all those people with their little beacons of hope and defiance.

Until they did this, the people  themselves didn’t realize there were that many who shared the same yearning. This amazing picture (on the powerpoint) from Twitter is comparable to the Korean-born, world-famous pop singer Psy’s sensational impromptu concert which attracted 20,000 youths to Seoul City Hall square last October, Unlike Psy’s concert, however, the mass gathering wasn’t shown on the mainline TV news that night or the night after. (Left: Seoul 100,000 candle-lighting gathering. Right: Psy’s.)

 

On top of all the grievances the Korean people have against their government, ... recently, the Korean government, under the pro-corporate leadership of President Park, enacted a new tax law. A government spokesperson made an absurd remark, saying that “We can’t collect more tax from those whose annual income is between $150,000.00 to $300,000.00 because they are the leadership class of our current society.” Countless people in Korea are working as part-time temporary employees without stability or benefits, vulnerable to lay-offs and downsizing, pushed to the limits of their emotional and physical endurance. But the current government doesn’t move a single step to deal with this vicious system; it’s only concerned with the promotion and protection of the Korean mega-corporations.

This summer was one of the hottest summers on record in Korea. The government warned Koreans about the electric power shortages which have manifested every summer and winter since 2010. Why have this year’s power shortages become an issue in people’s minds, when they gathered on the streets with their candles, adding more heat to a hot, humid summer night, candle-light and the warmth of their own bodies, packed closely together?

This summer, this government forbade all public institutions, like community centres, town offices, etc, to run air-conditioning, in order to prevent weather-related power outages. The people were upset, not because of the inconvenience and the ridiculousness of the ban, but because they realized and saw the unfairness of the measure. Over 50 percent of the total electric power which is generated in Korea is used for industrial purposes, and 10 mega-corporations use up 20 percent of that total. Just 10. For example, last year, just one Hyundai factory used up 5,500,000 megawatts of electricity, which is equal to the total power a single nuclear power plant produces within one year. Just one factory uses all that power - there is no better example of a system that dreams of expansion without limitation, without any need to consider the human cost...

Only then, when ordinary and average people begin to realize the dehumanizing power of the system, will they begin to kindle a light.   

I believe that that light, that single light people spark, one by one, is what Jesus means when he says “fire.” Some people feel threatened by the rising of the masses and say that light is ‘communist.’ But no. The fire Jesus brings to the earth is neither of the communist, left-wing, socialist variety nor of the uncontrolled capitalism which leads to the devaluation of human life into monetary productivity. The fire is the yearning and questing and seeking for the new reign God’s people will bring while they experience and reflect and meditate and focus their thoughts and prayers on values like compassion, dignity, beauty, life, justice, peace, sacredness, gratitude - all of which are what Jesus taught and showed by his own example in his ministry and life.

Robert Saler says, “Part of the genius of scripture is that it names realities about our lives that are often very wrong.” The truth is that the Bible offers us a Jesus who names hard realities in hard times. One of the things I admire and love about Jesus, why I truly love the way of Jesus and follow it, is that He does not always name the evils and proclaim the good news with a thunderous voice. Last week, I wrote, in my twitter account, “Let me sing my faith that is true to myself – my intellect, my reason, my soul’s wide and wild stretch. … I would write my faith at the edges, at the margins, at the corners...” The only Biblical account which reports Jesus writing anything is when Jesus writes on the sand a word which is never known to us. And he wrote it at a very pressing moment: people were about to stone a woman caught in adultery, a moment when the authorities challenged and tested him in order to have a reason to arrest and kill him. The man I love and confess I would follow is Jesus, who never picked up a brush to write his argument on any piece of paper. Rather, he kindled a fire in his heart and in the people’s hearts, a  fragile and flickering light initially, which eventually transformed into a true steady flame of faith. 

History comes in cycles of light and dark, even as we choose how we will  make our history, and our future. I summarize Jesus’ life with the three ‘C’ actions – compassion, confrontation and taking the cross for our own. Jesus’ peace is what brings fire. Jesus’ peace is what brings division. As hot and cold cannot be the same, as the east and the west are distant to each other, the character, firmness and contagiousness of Christ’s fire brings division. It makes a difference from the ways of the rest of the world.

Why do we have to risk division, for the very intention of imbedding those values and positive and prayerful forces like peace, justice, and integration of the whole creation into our lives?

I hope the following poem may give an answer to my question. Oriah, the poet, wrote in her poem, Invitation,

“It doesn’t interest me

What you do for a living.

I want to know

What you ache for

And if you dare to dream

Of meeting your heart’s longing.

…

I want to know

If you can live with failure

Yours and mine

And still stand at the edge of the lake

And shout to the silver of the full moon, “yes.”

It doesn’t interest me

To know where you live

Or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

After the night of grief and despair

Weary and bruised to the bone

And do what needs to be done

To feed the children.”

We kindle a light in our hearts and pass it on to others, because we hope that this fragment, this one, small, singular candle-light, will enlighten true vision in ourselves and in others when it gets together and makes a circle of light, adding more lights into our spiritually darkened world. May we stand together, each with our little light that adds to the blaze of faith and belief across the globe.