Sermon: Passion for the Impossible (Genesis 37:1-28), Aug 20, 2017

Passion for the Impossible 

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

When my Vietnamese friend, Tu Anh, asked me, “Do you have a dream? What is your dream?” at a cheesecake restaurant a year ago, I was surprised to find myself feeling unsure of what answers I could give to her simple questions. The kind of dream she was asking about was obviously not daydreaming. I understood she was asking about what I would want from myself. What future goals are working as a positive force in my life now, giving me a healthy lift and moving me forward?

When we ask ourselves, “What dream is leading my life?” we may find that this wondering question can unsettle us, prompting ourselves to reexamine our lives. Since that time with my friend, I continued the conversation with myself. I slowly begin to realize that “What is your dream?” can be a theological question. There’s a critical difference that makes the act of dreaming different from just setting the next goal in life. If it is a theological question, we should be able to define what it means to dream: who dreams and what do we dream, in our lives and in Christian community?

Today’s Hebrew Bible story is about a dream. Joseph dreams. Of course he dreams. This boy was born to dream - not to work, not to shepherd. Dreams run through the whole of Joseph’s story. 

You might remember Joseph’s first dream: the sheaves bow down, the sun, the moon, and the stars bow down. And Joseph’s father wonders, “Shall I bow down, too?” It was the first dream that Joseph told his father and his brothers. All creation bowing down to him means new political power; it anticipates the end of the present order. 

When Joseph tells this dream to his father and his brothers, the brothers are not happy at all. If you had a young brother and he came to you and told you about his dream, similar to Joseph’s, you might have a good laugh with him. He’s young. It’s just a dream. What seriousness can you find in your younger brother’s dream? However, in the Bible, dreaming is given serious consideration, because dreaming is a gift from God. Dreaming is God’s hidden way to reveal God’s plan. In the Bible, dreaming is the act of giving power to those who dream, and through the dreamers, to the people they care for. Dreaming is powerful. 

To make the situation more interesting and harder, our story’s three main characters - Joseph, his father, and his brothers (as a group) - are in a triangle of love and hate. Joseph is loved too much. Jacob loves his favourite, Joseph, too much. The brothers feel loved too little. Jacob has given his son, Joseph, a very special robe, a beautiful long robe with special sleeves. It stands out. It proclaims a regal status. It is Jacob’s announcement that this son is the wave of the future. This “coat of many colours” is like God’s gift of clothes in the garden. Delightfully, this description of “many colours” invites us to imagine the beauty of Josep’s special robe.

I like to drive outside of the city, and I especially like to see the different colours of grass and wildflowers mix on the left and right sides of the open road. Pink, purple, green, lemon. The colours are not flashy, yet they are noble. I imagine that this young boy, Jacob, 17 years old, wears his Pride robe with the beautiful mix of the colours of the garden, and seeks his brothers, as Jacob tells him to go find and help them. 

Unfortunately, very unfortunately, the story tells us that the brothers “hated” him. They say to one another as they see Joseph approaching, “Here comes this dreamer- let us kill him, and see what will become his dreams.” The part of this story we read today ends with Joseph being rescued by the passing foreign traders, to be sold as a slave in Egypt. We know that, however, this tragic turn is not the end. Joseph will experience an incredible journey in the new country. He will overcome many challenges through the work of dreaming and finally become the new ruler. Irony: the same act of dreaming that has put him in great danger when the story begins will make God’s promises fulfilled in exile. 

I want to ask what today’s story, then, tells us about dreaming? Why is “What is your dream?” a theological question? 

What we learn from our story is that the act of dreaming is, ultimately, God’s unsettling work through us. Everything else depends on the dream. Without the dream, there would be no trouble, no conflict, no grief, no loss, but at the same time no Joseph, no exile, no promise, no future. 

If having a dream bears a critical difference from setting life’s next goal - SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely - what is that critical difference? 

When I was young, probably 10 or 11 years old, I remember I wrote down the three things I wished to do before I die: teaching, writing my autobiography, and, this one I clearly remember: “Being granted an audience with the Pope.”In my small world of childhood, where all close family connections were Roman Catholic, “Being granted an audience with the Pope" sounded like a very mystical, honourable thing to do. Indeed, that opportunity is a rarely given chance. but these three dreams are not unsettling. The act of dreaming our Bible teaches us is a life-changing one, not for oneself but for others, for the world.  

I shared with you before my journey from 2007: Struggle to Be the Sun Again, which started when I first realized that I became the moon, the shadow of another’s light, as a young mother without a job, in Korean patriarchal society and the Christian church. Especially if you are the young mother, without a job, with a baby, and wife of the ordained husband, the weight of oppression can be very repressive. I didn’t even notice that my personality was slowly changing to a depressed, dependent one until I first encountered the poem, written by a Japanese woman in the 1990’s, which I found in a Korean feminist theologian, Hyun Kyung's book: Struggle to be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women's Theologies. 

“Originally woman was the Sun. 

She was an authentic person. 

But now woman is the moon. 

She lives by depending on another, 

and she shines by reflecting another’s light. 

Her face has a sickly pallor. 

We must now regain our hidden Sun.”

Upon reading it, I dreamed to start a totally new kind of journey to live my new realization. 

“I am more than, larger than, how I am defined by the social, institutional, patriarchal restrictions.” 

I invited Min Goo to share in my journey, and Min Goo invited me to come to Canada in order for our potential to grow. Through the journey, I learned that it was an example of God’s liberating love being realized, revealed and coming out for me. This new dream unsettled me, lifted me, took me on a new path. Yet, it was not the end. 

A new turning point came with the realization that I had been quite successful with my endeavours, yet I have not really done anything beyond seeking success. 
I hadn’t fully challenged myself to embrace “dreaming”, the powerful, political act of dreaming to unsettle the world. Had I truly dreamed to work for the benefit of others and not for my interest? All people need, all of us need God’s liberating love to release us from being captivated, imprisoned by restrictions, even though the names of the restrictions may be different for each of us. 

I am not a dreamer, we are not dreamers until we realize in the Bible, dreaming is the unsettling work of God that works through us. Because I had forgotten the importance of dreaming, I lacked focus, I lacked a sense of purpose, and I was tentative when my friend asked, “Do you have a dream?, What is your dream?” 

Friendship Kitchen was my first answer to the important work of dreaming. 

If I were given a pen to rewrite today’s story, I would change all characters in the story to be dreamers. All the people in the story. Joseph, his 12 brothers, their father Jacob, the foreign traders who rescued Joseph but sold him in Egypt for 20 pieces of silver. 

All people need God’s liberating love to release us from fear so we can dream, and those dreams can anything. How do we know what kind of dreaming we need, if we want to become the wave of God’s future? 

I believe the key is that the act of dreaming is “Unsettling” toward “The Impossible”

I loved when I first read Nam-soon Kang, another female Korean theologian, Nam-soon Kang, state: “Religion is the passion of the Impossible” in her class. 

What is the Impossible? These seem to be Impossible in our ordinary world. 

Unconditional love. 

Absolute justice. 

Unconditional welcome. 

Unconditional hospitality. 

Unconditional forgiveness. 

When you try to open a new on-line transaction or account, you constantly see the advice: “Be sure to create a strong password.” To make one, you need to mix certain numbers of characters, capital letters, lower-case letters, numbers, symbols, etc. Similarly, even though we cannot know all of the unsettling love that God powerfully works through all people, if we work together, if we always strive to learn from each other, to hold each other’s wild spaces and deep, challenging strength, the act of dreaming together can become a "stronger", powerful, unsettling work, leaning toward the Impossible. We may never arrive at perfection. We can only embark upon “continual journeying”. And that’s exactly where we are called to do: become a passionate friend to each other, whom we can turn to, in trust, and love and support, and ask, "What is your dream?

Sermon: "Wild Space" (Aug 6, 2017)

Wild Space 

Matthew 14:13-21

Series 1-4

#wild space 

#the impossible 

#coming out 

#imago dei

Once my family moved to Manitoba, we immediately learned that Manitoba is bison country. As you know, all Manitoba license plates have a bison picture on them. After we became Manitoba residents, my family acquired a collection of little bison figurines that live in the upstairs bathroom and the children’s toy boxes. My family likes to go to Forth Whyte Alive, and the first thing my kids run to as soon as we enter the main building are the life-sized, stuffed bison. Those things remind my family that we now live in bison country, and over the past years, I’ve learned and developed respect for the important place bison have in indigenous spirituality and tradition. Truthfully, only after a real-life encounter with a herd of bison, last weekend, at the bison enclosure at Riding Mountain, have I truly come to know this amazing creature’s power and dignity. 

Last weekend, my family were camping near Clear Lake, and, following the instructions of the information center’s staff, we drove out at 7:30 pm to see the bison for ourselves. When we got there, at about 8:15, no bison were on the scene just the beautiful scenery in this picture. Wildflowers, tall grasses and the loud, pleasant sound of insects… We had to drive on the same narrow roads inside the enclosure several times, over and over. (Until almost 9:30 pm - still like daytime, bright, but with the sun slowly setting, the breezes becoming cooler, the heat calmer.) Min-Goo and I were ready to give up. The kids had already lost interest, chattering loudly, bothering their parents. The windows were open, then … “Shh!” “Quiet” When we were just about to pass between the thick bushes, one bison was quenching his thirst,

within 1 meter of our car. There was eye contact; I thought, this is what we call an “encounter.” This male bison’s quiet presence seemed odd, strange, native, and heavy. Then another huge male bison walked toward us (right to the front of our car) and passed us- within an arm’s reach. Looking at us. Then the big herd of bison - mothers and babies - slowly moved to the other side of the woods. 

When something is really real, it feels like it’s almost unreal. New understanding and appreciation are born, when a sense of awe takes the place of our past, limited, concept of what we thought we knew. When this happens, we say, “It is real.” “It is different.” There’s an element in these encounters which moves us into realms of “genuine transcendence.” 

In today’s Gospel, the disciples tell Jesus, “Teacher, this is a deserted place. It is almost nighttime. Send these people away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 

What I hear from what the disciples tell Jesus is ‘These people just met. They don’t know each other well. We don’t know them well, either. We think that it is better to send them away, and let them find what they need for themselves.’ 

The disciples, like us, have yet to learn what strength we can find in diversity, even in the midst of what seems like a random crowd of strangers. This miracle story asks one question: When we are just a random group of people, not fully bloomed into a community, how do we find the strength for compassion, care, and courage? When do we recognize the change and say, “This community is powerful. It is real. It is different?” 

Imagine, 12 people sitting with Jesus at a small local church. It is nighttime. They have to spend the night together as a group, a commitment they agreed to before they entered this space. They are supposed to find common ground, common purpose as a group that will make them one, united, a model of a better future for the world and for themselves - a.k.a., the Kingdom of God. They ask “How can a different world be made possible?”

These twelve may be a random group of people. They may be women or men, cisgender or transgender, student or senior, poor or rich, indigenous member or settler immigrant, black or white, gay or straight, progressive or conservative, Muslim or Christian. (and other identity markers, different life experiences, careers, origins, backgrounds) 

Wonder with me, how can these people find and create the strength for compassion, care and courage, together? The five loaves and two fishes do not only mean physical sustenance but the understanding of what the Kingdom of God ought to be, as a vision for us to live out. How do we realize God’s message in each of our lives, to change others’ and our own – for good? “I have created you in my image: Therefore, you are good. You are beautiful. You are whole”. 

Creative tension may be unavoidable - even necessary. Tension can inspire learning, study, listening, conversation. The best recipe for a healthy, inclusive community calls for honest conversation, loving affirmation, and open, reliable lines of communication. There’s also the understanding that I matter as we all matter, and we all matter as I matter. In this community, we become excited when we can tell everyone, “I have five loaves and two fish I would be so excited to offer. They are my gifts.” 

A few months ago, I was talking to a very wise indigenous elder about my situation. Without saying anything in return, she took out a small rock from her bag and handed it to me, and said, “This is my gift. Know that gift comes with teaching.” 

"This is my gift. Know that gift comes with teaching." 

The gifts we share with one another often come with ‘teaching.’ Birthday gifts are always fun to open. But gifts such as our valuable insights, perspectives, work, and calling, especially if they have truth in them and have come through deep reflection and experiences of life and ministry, ... 

these gifts may be challenging. Such gifts come with teaching. The question is then how we, diverse and united, can enter into realms of ‘genuine transcendence’, by way of including everyone and embracing everyone’s deep, challenging, strength. 

I am glad that I am now able to sharpen my understanding of why inclusion is important in community, why inclusion adds real strength to any community. I admit my failure as well. And I would like to sincerely apologize to anyone who felt there weren’t fully open lines of communication between us because of my weakness. I know I need to climb a mountain of learning, and listening, to be truly inclusive of others as I wish to be truly included. The only way to make that happen is through never closing my eyes and ears, to truly hear and see, and to have the vulnerability to embrace and acknowledge the strength of others. I also have learned this: If I truly want to be accountable to my community, I must first find a way to be accountable to the truth within me, and must offer my truest self, which some anthropologists have called “wild space.” 

Wild space is the part of each of us that doesn’t quite fit into our conventional worlds. For some of us, it may be the consumer and market-oriented, individualistic, greedy world (Sallie McFague). Wild space can be “queer self”, or what I call “cultural” coming out as a Korean, feminist, passionate person. Maybe we have some wild space because we are different – in all the ways that people are different from one another.  Many of us wondered a lot, when we were young, why there are divides between cultures and races, and realized: “These divides are uncomfortable; they don’t seem right.” Whatever makes it possible to think outside the box, to have a different interpretative lens, to think, to know, that things ought to be different - not just for oneself but for the world - is useful wild space. (Sallie McFague.)

Jesus had a lot of wild space. As we are, together, the body of Christ, we also have this wild space, and a lot of it. If we are the body of Christ, and we work through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, we also must work through us, with us, and in us.

In order to see differently, to entertain the possibility of a different world, we must let our wild space come out from its hiding place. It is not easy. We are human -  afraid of other’s judgments on our truest feelings or thoughts. We might have been given the message that our voices, our selves do not matter. We have seen some people share their opinions without respect for others. For many reasons, this ‘wild space coming out’ seems risky.

Yet, what Jesus shows us through this miracle of the five loaves and two fishes is that God “comes out” as a truly divine presence of Radical love that dissolves all rigid boundaries of Self and the Other. We also have this responsibility and accountability to God and God’s people to come out with our wild space to enter into the sacred reality of transformation together. 

If we wish for our community to experience genuine transcendence, we must know that our wild space is the gift. If we have kept it just to ourselves, hidden, we may not know how it has awesome BISON power and dignity. Risky, for sure, but the act of coming out is sacred, touching the truth, touching our strength. 

May we open ourselves to the glory of God, whose power working in us can do more than we ask or imagine. It is real. It is different – a thing of great power, long searched-for, and now, right in front of us, close enough to touch – if we dare. 

Photo credits: all mine.