Sermon: Tapping With Children; Tapping With God (Isaiah 40:21-31), Feb 7th, 2021

 Message:     Tapping with Children; Tapping with God 

Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31

These days, I tend to start my sermons with one of the daily insights I obtain from interacting with my sons. It’s a no-brainer; in our long and weary sojourn in this physically-distanced world, my firsthand social bubble is my family. 

I’ve been really focused on my kids lately; there is always one more new challenge to figure out each day, especially for children’s mental health at home and at school. Jah-bi is in his new school, and my oldest child is a teenager. 

I thought I graduated from being a novice parent a long time ago; 12 years ago, when I was in perpetual motion, chasing my older son, I had a stack of parenting books at hand to understand the three-year old’s mind (and perhaps my own mind, as well). I realize now that I have to update my parenting skillset for my growing adolescent at home, a high school kid in a Canadian school - a double task to figure out, as I grew up in Korea. If we were not in the middle of a pandemic, you would have often found me in the parenting section of the library or Chapters. And yet, I have another child to care for. 

One morning, I was explaining to my younger son about Tapping. He loves King Kong and Godzilla, and seems to find relevance and stress-releasing strategy from mimicking King Kong thumping his chest or Godzilla roaring out laser beam from his mouth to the sky. (Show the pictures.) 

That’s when I found the “Tapping Solution”. There’s a video (Google "Tapping Solution for Children") to help kids find a way to alleviate the stress that comes at them from every direction these days. “Jah-bi, sometimes when you get really stressed, try this: tapping. You can thump on your chest like King Kong. You can also tap on yourself with two fingers, and no one will be able to notice that. (Demonstrate tapping.) I heard that when we tap on our body, it sounds like the mother’s heartbeat that the baby hears in her belly before they’re born. (Jesus grew hearing Mary’s heartbeat in her womb, the mother’s tapping all the time — well, I didn’t tell this part to Jah-bi - ) Tapping can help us feel calm and protected, and that we are with someone who loves us, wherever we are.”

In today’s reading, Isaiah paints God as a Great Tapper. Not because God has hands to tap on us, but we can hear and feel and tune in to the tapping of the Creator’s heartbeat everywhere we go. Everywhere we are, if and when we wait on the Lord. Chandra Taylor Smith says that African Americans have faithfully turned to Isaiah 40, today’s reading, because of its awesome vision of liberation and hope in the face of oppression and helplessness. In African American church services across North America, gospel choirs regularly sing a moving rendition of a song titled, “They That Wait on the Lord”. The melodic blending of alto, soprano, tenor, and bass voices intones the lyrical prose of Isaiah, telling suffering souls that “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like an eagle, they shall run and not be  weary, they shall walk and not faint.” 

(Play the first part of this video, until 1 min 30 secs.)

God is tapping. (Did you see the singer tapping on her chest while singing “Lord teaches me to wait”?) God is tapping on the body of the earth. God is tapping on the body of our beings. 

Does that make God a good parent? Does God know how to parent us? How does God parent us? 

Isaiah sings that God “Sits above the circle of the earth, stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in.” We hear that when God is doing these things, God is tapping God’s rhythm on the world with freedom and vigour, like the soaring eagle. Isaiah invites us to visualize the imposing wingspan of this regal bird, hovering unfettered and confident above the earth, inspiring the downtrodden to look up toward the heavens. 

I watched a Korean drama on Netflix the other day. The drama is set in the early 1900’s. A servant child, about Jah-bi’s age, was carrying wood on a mountain, surrounded by trees. Only a small circle up high right over the clearing allowed the Sun to shine down and let him see the sky. A black raven soared up from nowhere and crossed over the Sun-filled circle, casting a fleeting shadow. The boy looked up at it, thinking, “How can a bird darken the sky?” At that moment, (for some reason) a noble elder was sitting there and said to him, “Child, it’s no good for a servant or a slave to look at something far and up high like the sky. They don’t live long.” 

God’s transforming justice, God’s renewing strength, is how God taps on us, how God parents us. For an eagle to soar up or swoop down, and glide along the air streams, it needs to dwell in a high cliff or tree in the first place. There’s a reason eagles don’t nest on the ground. The highest tree is where they rest, build their nest and grow their young ones. Eagles must expand and flex their sturdy wings to be who they are. The power of those wings, the breadth of their wingspan, are assuring visions that symbolize God’s lifting up and steadying the broken and weak, empowering them to take flight and soar by themselves. 

It’s a lofty, hovering image of God, and therefore, God taps on us to be the same, do the same: look up to the farthest and most distant sky, with the trust that God takes care of us as an eagle parent would do for their eaglets. God is not passive, but is dynamic and active in creation. When we are ourselves out in the world, especially in nature, 

(Imagine the pleasure you have taken, from being outside, in nature, on a snow-covered favourite trail or walking on the frozen river alone or with companions — pet or human - the steadiness and solidness that winter wonder creates.) You are never alone. Even if all is still around you, the life energy is hovering on everything and everywhere. Your heart becomes tuned to the environment around you, to the universe around you… That may be how God’s tapping works in us. Tap. Tap. Tap. Mother’s heartbeat. The eagle’s wingbeat. 

To parent us, God never makes any work less than it should be, makes any of us less than who we are. 

Isaiah directs Israel, ‘Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created the stars” (V. 26). In God’s unmatched strength and power, God created, numbered and named all the stars. “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (V. 28). God asks, “To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?” (V. 25). 

Tapping does not only happen in the vast, cosmic universe. I have seen it every morning on the concrete paved roads too. When we are in harmony and healthy, we are naturally inclined and tend to enjoy tapping, bringing ourselves into alignment with our companions, who are on the road together, those who walk with us. My younger son goes to his class, fairly late. Sometimes after the school bell rings. (These days… only. Covid Time.)

I drop him off and, going home, I see more late-comers. Perhaps, their school bells ring at different times. When high school boys wait at the crosswalk, they are usually chuckling, or they tap on each other’s shoulders and laugh. Their bodies face each other. These are tappings. 

This week, I saw two siblings try to hasten their steps going their school; an older one falling back and gently dragging the younger one’s arm to go faster with him. They are all tappings that move my heart in love and hope. Your screens this morning, which can shine thanks to an endless alternation of computerized 0s and 1s, tap on my heart, our hearts, and inspire prayers and joy on our lips. Those who print out the worship packages and deliver them to those who do not have computers, bringing them into alignment, into communion, tapping out communication. All tappings matter, mimicking God’s tapping, making our world a better and warmer place, “Spreading love like a tent to live in.” 

I am thankful for my children. They teach me how to do tapping with God. 

God is tapping out the heartbeat of the universe. God is tapping on the body of the earth. God is tapping on the body of our children, and our beings. 

“God gives power to the faint, 

    and strengthens the powerless. 

Even youths will faint and be weary, 

    and the young will fall exhausted; 

but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

    they shall mount up with wings like eagles, 

they shall run and not be weary,

   they shall walk and not faint.”

Procrastination? Proclamation! (Jonah 3:1-5, 10), Jan 31st, 2021

Scripture:  Jonah 3:1-5,10

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’ So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed God's mind about the calamity that God had said God would bring upon them; and God did not do it.

Reflection: Procrastination? Proclamation!

My older son will be 15 years old in May (slightly older than one third of my age!). He never likes to be called a “teenager.” He tells me, “I am just a kid.” This kid (who has already lived the first third of the years of my life!) recently developed new interest and passion in Japanese anime (“manga”), and told me that he would like to learn Japanese. Thankfully my friend told me he would be happy to offer Japanese tutoring for him, so his Japanese sessions took wings. However, before starting the tutoring, my friend told me to ask Peace: Why is learning Japanese important to him? What helps him learn best? What happens if learning Japanese gets too frustrating for him ? My son answered: "Because like him, I am obsessed with Japanese culture. I learn best when it is interactive. When it gets too frustrating, I procrastinate.” 

Today, I would like to reflect on “procrastination”. I procrastinate sometimes. My son procrastinates, sometimes. You probably procrastinate sometimes. Definitely, Jonah procrastinated about going to “Nineveh, the great city, and proclaiming God's message” to the people there. Jonah never liked the idea of going to Nineveh to transform the ways of life of the people there by telling them God's messages. Nineveh was a place of power. It was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. It was the capital and largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as well as the largest city in the world for several decades. I imagine that, to Jonah, the city of Nineveh was like the capital city of the United States would be to an Iraqi citizen today. The book of Jonah describes its scale and size as “an exceedingly large city, a three day's walk across.” Nineveh was also an enemy’s city, famous for its social oppression. Jonah must have heard that the Syrian Empire oppressed even its own people. Jonah must have also thought to himself, “Why should I go? Why should I help them change their hearts from evil ways? For whose benefit?” In his opinion, Ninevites did not deserve to be released from calamity. We know from the rest of the Jonah story ( which comes after today's chapter) that the repentance of the Ninevites actually infuriated the prophet. Yet another reason why Jonah originally procrastinated his God-given task: When he cried out, people believed God. Jonah did not want that to happen in Nineveh.

So, Jonah ran away. He ran  in the opposite direction, only to be swallowed by a big whale where he   spent three days and three nights in its dark, warm belly. He absolutely procrastinated, until he was vomited out onto dry land by the tummy aching whale. 

Now, standing with his two feet again on the land the Creator told him to go to, Jonah had no option other than to set out and go into the city, according to the Word of God. There he cried out God’s messages, proclaiming the impending doom of the city: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” 

In other words, in forty days, you’ll all be captured by your enemies or you will be dead (or whatever we imagine  what ‘overthrown’ might mean.) But… 

Why would anyone believe him? This sounds crazy.  The Ninevites would demand evidence. 

At this point, the story, again, reminds us how big, no, how huge the city was. When Jonah was proclaiming God's messages, Jonah was about a “day's walk” into the city, which was just one third of its inside diameter. (Remember, the whole city was “a three day’s walk across.”) Let’s take a picture of this situation. 

Walking across the city by one third of the straight line into it, how many Ninevites would  Jonah have met or passed by?  The people did indeed stop what they were doing and took heed of the words of this wandering prophet who was simply a stranger? And just within a day? Could it have been 30 percent of the total population? That would be ambitious! At least 20 %? Or even 10 %? (Experts say that when 13 % of the population turn around and reverse the way they do things, then there is a tipping point for social change.) 

To everyone’s surprise, verses 6 - 9 in the story, which the lectionary reading does not include so we didn't hear today, tells that Jonah's speech reached the king of Nineveh! The King rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 

Lately, I had an opportunity to hear an Indigenous Elder explain this story. She said that the missing verses noted that even the animals mourned. It was not just humanity, but the whole of creation that were mourning at the arrival of Jonah’s words/teaching. Jonah named what was not ok; He proclaimed!  He urged the change of hearts and the ways of life of the people in the Empire which was known to oppress not only foreigners and other countries but its own people. Surprisingly, for whatever reason, the Ninevites reckoned that Jonah's vision of their future was possible, if not accurate, and they chose to take a new direction! 

For a variety of reasons and by making different excuses, we can procrastinate about important things in our lives, in the church, in the world. We might say, “See how big the city is.” “See how complicated the situation is.” “See what we have become - - the biggest Christian denomination in Canada through institutionalization.” “We cannot move quickly because we are so big!” “The issues are so complicated” "The stakeholders are too many!”

We fear. We worry. 

Our heads get hot. Our hands get cold. Our feet do not move. We yield no action. 

We procrastinate. 

Some of us might wonder like me, what if we are not so big? What if we can be intimate  with each other? What if people are close to the voice, right close to the centre? People might respond immediately, then. 

We might continue to make an excuse, complain or worry. “We are so big. We cannot change ourselves in a day.” 

While we procrastinate important justice issues--our neighbours in suffering, ourselves in trouble, our Earth/Climate/Ecology in danger--are still oppressed, minimized, neglected, mistreated by our own church and in the world; racialized members, Black people, Indigenous people in our church and in the world. In the world, many address hopes and despair; cheerful songs and heartbreaking laments at the same time…

However, what Jonah’s story teaches us and awakens us to is that we still need to proclaim. Proclamation! No more procrastination! Even if we find ourselves being at just the third outer margin of the diameter of the situation, still far from the centre of the power, we proclaim truth, love and justice. 

Even if we are just in a day's walk in the city of a three days’ walk across, do not fear. Let’s heed the wisdom of Ninevites and turn quickly. We will meet the companions on the way and “climb the hill” (Amanda Gorman) of truth, love and justice together.

We may be more like the earlier version of Jonah who ran away and then was saved in the big dark belly of the whale. We are still inside the belly of the Creator. Of course, everything has its time, a time for every matter under heaven. 

Procrastination? Proclamation! 

Be a pro at love, speaking the truth and God’s transforming justice today. 

Let us set out and go to the Nineveh of our time and of our life — holding hands with our companions on this journey, seeking the ways of Wisdom, even if we are still just in a day's walk, in the huge city of a three day’s walk across, or even of one hundred day’s walk across and more. 

Procrastination? Proclamation! 

Hymn:  VU 649    Walk With Me