Sermon: Forgive Like the First Vineyard Workers (Matthew 20:1-16), Nov 14th, 2021

Reflection:   

Forgive like the first vineyard workers.

Today I would like to begin with the story I shared with Immanuel’s children this week via a YouTube video. It is a story about God’s love and the way God loves us. 

 

Recently, I visited one of our Immanuel families. I called ahead to tell them I was coming and the youngest ones in the family were waiting for me, watching through the window as I parked my car. 

 

I received an exceptional welcome from the family. Their generosity made me really happy. Not only that, when I sat with them, the youngest ones, Aria, Sophia and Grayson, hugged me and welcomed me as their guest. Not just once but several times. Three minutes later they came to me again to hug and say “hi”, “welcome.” Again 5 minutes later, they came and hugged me and showed me their little gifts like toys and books. They really wanted me to know that I was welcome. 

 

God’s love is like that. To God, it doesn’t matter when you come to help. God loves you at 9 a.m. God loves you at 11 a.m. God loves you at 1 p.m. God loves you at 3 p.m., 5 p.m, 7 p.m, 9 p.m. and all through the night while you sleep, as well.  

 

In today’s story about the Vineyard Workers, Jesus says that God is generous. That God loves us generously. 

 

I write this reflection holding in my heart the gifts of Aria, Sophia and Grayson and their siblings who showed me a generous welcome. Every 5 minutes, no matter what time I came. 

Especially when children shine, they are reminders of who and what God is like and what God would like to do. Lorraine Kakegamic’s 6 great grand children showed me God’s generous welcome. 

 

In today’s Gospel story, the day has turned to evening. The owner of the vineyard said to his manger, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. When the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 

 

There are many ways to understand this story, but today I wish to reflect on my recent personal experience related to forgiveness and healing/growth in light of Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers. Sometimes it is true that, as we get older, we become more generous in our understanding, especially in terms of how we bring the other’s situations into the picture and accept them, both of the joys they bring to our lives and the mistakes they make. We try to be kinder, approach more gently, and extend compassion. We have learned and experienced how such practice based on caring can help us and bring positive changes and outcomes.

 

Thinking about today’s Gospel story in the reflection of my recent experience, I find an analogy between the first workers in today’s story who came early and started their work at 9 o’clock in the morning and our own life experience with“getting older”, or becoming mature with age.

In the story the first workers have a hard time accepting the landowner’s call, “Be generous”, when the other workers who worked for just an hour receive the same daily wages as they did. The first workers grumble against the call because it hurts their long-held belief, their identity and sense of entitlement. More directly, it hurts them themselves. The first workers came before anyone else. They stayed longer than anyone else. They worked harder than anyone else. It is not easy to be a faithful vineyard worker and work on the ground for so many hours in the scorching heat, but they did it. Working under the scorching heat for hours could be a traumatic experience.  An experience that shows life can be marked not only with joy but also with pain in the struggle to get to the envisioned destination of a life hoped for and claimed. The struggle includes convictions, brokenness, frustration, defeat, success, and all of that. Along the way as we build our lives our identity is shaped and reshaped, including the sense of who we are. When our vision, and the sense of who we are are challenged, criticized, and/or face the demand from others to rethink what we believe is right, it is not fun. It might cause feelings of hurt, bitterness and resentment. Our heart might become rigid, unwilling to move into the direction of forgiving those who have hurt us. I use the word “forgiving” not because I assume that the others could have actually “sinned” against us, but because forgiving is primarily a status of the heart’s. It is an action or movement that opens us to considering or “giving” us a new way of thinking of ourselves and others.

 

When we become rigid, it could mean that we might have forgotten the quality of welcome, love, acceptance of life that Aria, Sophia, Grayson and their older siblings showed me at my visit. The children offered me welcome several times within a very short visit. They showed me the same welcome each time, no matter what time I came. The children’s flexibility, creativity and uninterrupted joy resemble that of our Creator’s. 

 

In a recent dream, I was praying in English. (I have lived in Canada too long not to pray in English! What, 14 years? In comparison with some of my friends who migrated to Canada some 4 or 5 years ago, or even 2 or 3 years ago, I find myself relating to the first vineyard workers.) 

 

In my prayer, I called God “God of rain, God of water”. Then, I remembered the loving memories I had with childhood friends. I was probably similar in age to Aria, Sophia and Grayson’s, and we were watching as rain dropped on and flowed down the window. Small rain drops were formed on the glass surface of the window and got bigger and got heavier. Then, they let go of the tension to stay where they first landed and flowed down. A lot of them, all the same. The raindrops flow and they are erased. The window glass shines reflecting the light in the prisms of water flowing on it. The rain drops knows no first, no last. 

 

In the closing part of the prayer in my dream God asked me to make a room “literally and figuratively” outside of myself and also inside of myself, so that I am protected in a cocoon. The reason for making a cocoon rather than prematurely expressing anything outwards and therefore possibly hurting myself and others, was to make room for “much thinking.” Thinking outside the box, thinking flexibly, thinking creatively. After all, in the case of forgiving it is not always about whether the other has actually “trespassed” against me, or “sinned” against me, but more about moving from self-pity to extending compassion “for giving” a new understanding of ourselves and others. 

 

Jesus’ words and teaching “Whoever wants to be first must be last, and servant of all” are profound and can move us to a space of grace for both the other and ourselves. 

 

Then, my dream moved to a woman wearing a bright yellow dress.  The dress flew like yellow pansy flower petals, or a California poppy. She was dancing a ballet, freely making a sophisticated choreography of joy and forgiveness, as if telling me that forgiveness is a way towards liberation. 

 

Another thing the dream taught me was that such forgiveness happens when not only our broken spirit is mended but also our body is healed of its hurt. When hurting happens mentally, we might not notice it immediately but it is also hurting our body too, as shown through the symptoms of aches and imbalance. The dance of the woman with the yellow pansy dress exposed her aspiration to be free, not only spiritually but also physically, from her bruises. Forgiving was happening within her because she took time to heal and thereby became physically healthier. Healing can happen through the caring from our relationships, but I also believe we all have a God-given inner ability to heal, which generates healing energy from within, especially in the process by which we move to forgive and are forgiven. 

 

The vineyard workers who came first to help God at 9 am in the morning would need cocoon time until they can reach the understanding that we all need flexibility, creativity and joy of children no matter what time we have arrived in the vineyard.  In my experience, children are more apt to forgive their friends or to ask for forgiveness because they very quickly find reasons to play together, to enjoy the present moment, and to discover new experiences with their friends. In the eyes of children, the rain drops flowing on the window are the beautiful marbles at which to wonder. Their words often form a cheerful poem. Somehow, children can maintain their healthy curiosity. Children do not really care much about the time of day. They know they like to welcome their guests, and they express their joy as they find satisfaction in sharing God’s love with others. So, may we Forgive, like children. And may we Forgive, as the first vineyard workers are able to, after their cocoon time. 

Sermon: Christ on the Chemainus Road (The Reign of Christ Sunday, 2021)

Reflection: Christ on the Chemainus Road 

 

Before moving to Winnipeg, my family lived in a town that was built on a steep hill, Ladysmith. The town of Chemainus, built in a river valley, is about a 15-minute drive from Ladysmith, and the United Church in Chemainus was where I worked. This part of Vancouver Island, south of Nanaimo and north of Duncan, is where we lived, loved and worked. 

 

I particularly enjoyed the drive to Chemainus. The best part of it is when you turn this one corner. I knew exactly when the corner appeared and what I would see after I turned. In all four seasons, the bottom of the trees and rocks on the edge of the narrow road were covered with a large delicate moss that was a popping neon-lime colour. I loved the glory of God in that beautiful show of nature. 

 

My heart sank when I saw a Facebook post which showed the road to Chemainus was swamped – underwater, in parts. Some cars had to still pass this road which had turned so dangerous. Soon, I was reading more news, articles and seeing pictures and videos about what happened in BC. Huge rain, and a windstorm, bad enough to be declared a state of emergency. All roads and highways between the Lower Mainland and the rest of Canada were closed. Damaged, or completely washed out, bridges and highways would take months to repair. Railroad traffic to and from the rest of the country was suspended. In one city the water treatment had to be taken off-line, and there was no water available in people’s homes. Thousands of people have been evacuated from entire cities; thousands of people were trapped between slides.

 

As I speak of these tragedies, I find my colleague Jennifer Henry’s words of prayer helpful: “Feeling for all the BC folks struggling with another state of emergency. [We pray] for those who experienced trauma earlier this year and to whom it is returning. For those cut off from basic necessities and medications. For those separated from loved ones. For those feeling afraid. For those who have died, likely more than the one soul now grieved by family and friends. Stay strong, dear ones.” 

 

This past weekend, I was asked to open a meeting with prayer and offer the land acknowledgement. Thinking deeply about it, I decided to ask people the following questions, rather than simply writing down on their zoom chat box which and whose territory they live in. (Show the picture of Our Lives Are In the Land by the Metis artist, Christie Belcourt): “The harm of climate change affects the lives of all of us, in Canada, the whole of this American continent, around the globe. It is no longer thought to be something that affects only the ‘vulnerable’ population or people in the Third World where it is hotter and more humid, or in the north of the globe where permanent glaciers are melting. Climate change affects a very immediate part of our lives, the lives of all of us. We think especially of the Indigenous communities, peoples and nations whose traditional land we live on. 

 

From the knowledge you have so far, could you name negative impacts of climate change on culture and cultural rights of Indigenous people, especially in your region, specifically how it affects the lives and the land of First Peoples? 

 

Also, could you name some potential benefits of the culture and cultural rights of Indigenous people that would enhance responses to climate change, especially in your region?” 

 

To prepare this land acknowledgement, I was reading an article I found on-line, Cultural Rights of First Nations and Climate Change, published by the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations. (May 2020) (https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/CulturalRights/Call_ClimateChange/BCAFN.pdf)

 

Among many important learnings, I would like to share two points from the article:

 

“Evacuation orders from fires and floods force First Nations to move away from their territories, often without culturally appropriate assistance and support, and especially impact Elders, women and those with special needs.”

 

“There are many examples in BC where First Nations have been using their Indigenous knowledge to mitigate and adapt to climate change, although there is no specific, dedicated effort or funding from the Provincial or Federal Governments to enable all First Nations to undertake climate change mitigation or adaptation actions using culture and cultural resources. … 

 

Indigenous self-governance and land rights are essential to upholding cultural rights and responding to climate change. The  Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Report and other sources show that Indigenous peoples with secured land and water rights are coincided with areas of enhanced biodiversity, conserved forest and marine areas, carbon sequestration, and markers of biological health.”

 

Scientists and other experts have long since predicted how climate change would impact the region where we live. And they are proven devastatingly accurate, each year. Forest fires, historic flooding and melting glaciers are just some of the examples of how Canadians have experienced the impacts of a changing climate and the extreme, unpredictable weather patterns that come along with it. For the West, (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C.) the key risks are wildfires, flooding, droughts, changes to water supply and quality. Changing rain patterns make droughts more frequent and more intense across the southern Prairie region in summer. That leads to less water in the rivers during the summer months, which could have a big impact on the agricultural industries based here, despite the fact that the growing season itself will likely get longer as a result of fewer days with frost. 

 

As many of you have also learned this past week, one of the areas most affected by flooding, Abbotsford, was originally the Sumas Lake, the biggest fresh-water wetlands in all of BC, and it was drained to make some of the best farmland. The draining of the lake destroyed the only way of life the local Sumas Band of the Sto:lo Nation ever knew in 1923-24. Ned, a former chief of the Sumas band, was interviewed by the Vancouver Sun in 2013, and he said, “They took the lake away and we never got one inch of it. I don’t know how the people (Sumas) survived way back then.” 

 

The rampant wildfires of the past few years crumpled the holding power of the soil, so when the heavy rain fell, it was unstoppable. The water reappeared and tried to come back to what it was once part of, the disappeared lake. 

 

The reason why I am sharing this painful news and findings on this Reign of Christ, Christ the King Sunday is that Christian doctrines and traditional theologies about Jesus the Christ contributed to what has caused and now speeds current and future climate change woes. Historically, Christianity promoted the dualism of spirit and flesh, and taught the superiority of spirit, rationality or reason over flesh and body, and their right to control and govern what is inferior and manipulatable. It gave theological permission and a foundation that justified the rights to use, explore, even exploit what is considered to be just flesh, body not spirit, which is women, the land, nature, the earth.

 

On this last Sunday before Advent starts, the Reign of Christ, Christ the King Sunday, that celebrates the final Sunday before we return to the Genesis of the Gospel, the Advent, I want us to ask who Jesus is, what it means that we follow Jesus, as we lament, confess and faithfully respond to climate change and its effect and hurt to all peoples on this Turtle Island and on the earth.

Moss Lady, Victoria, BC

In our Gospels, we do not only tell the story of Jesus’ ministry and death. We also sing a song of faith in which we prayerfully wait for, patiently prepare for and courageously celebrate the birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Christ, with our saints and ancestors of faith in the world. If Christ has a colour, I believe they would show the bright lime colour of the moss whose beauty and delicacy surprised and created awe in the hearts of many drivers and passersby. This week, may Christ’s cry and blessings for the wholeness of the earth, relevant to today, challenge us and comfort us as we start surviving climate change, and strive to mitigate it for the well-being of all of us, on the earth. 

[Sermon] “I Saw the Rich Ones” | Mark 12:38-44 | Nov 7th, 2021 | Ha Na Park

Reflection:  “I Saw the Rich Ones.” 

 

“I Saw the Rich Ones” is the title of a hymn in More Voices that we will be invited to sing after the reflection. It is based on the text which Jane Nicholls shared with us this morning, and the first verse sings, “I saw the rich ones; I saw what they gave.

The widow who offered two pennies she’d saved /and I saw she was smiling. I knew she was glad/ and I wondered because she gave all that she had. /But with God the world is turned upside down /the poor are embraced and the lost they are found. /Let’s work for a world where all people are free /where it’s good to feel good about God loving you and me.” 

 

This story, often titled the Poor Widow, is memorable. There are a few remarkable juxtapositions Jesus makes for us, the hearers, to notice. The most well-known one is the contrast of wealth and poverty. Those who wear long robes that would make it difficult to work on the dusty ground, but instead, walk graciously. Those who are greeted even if they are surrounded by the crowd in a marketplace. Those who get the best seats in a worship place; those who have received such an education and special training on how to pray, or how to read scripture, that their words are eloquent and long. These people, including priests and scribes at that time, belong to not just to the religious elite; they are wealthy. Some lay people also contribute to the temple by donating large sums of money. 

 

On the contrary, Jesus pays special attention to a poor woman, who does not have the status of marriage; she has lost her husband, her breadwinner. She is poor; her life is hard, yet she offers everything she has - two small copper coins, which are worth about a penny. In that moment, Jesus compares the rich people who can contribute out of their abundance to the poor woman who puts in everything she has. It is about how society, now and then, perpetuates class and wealth inequity and excludes those who are deemed less valuable, insignificant, depending on their possessions and monetary contribution. In this story, the poor woman’s contribution does not lead to social change or a financial miracle; she stays poor.

 

Now, even if the Gospel writer may have omitted or neglected this detail (on purpose or without intention), there is another important disparity that plays a role in the story. Who are the rich in the story? “Rich” in this story does not only indicate an economic/financial abundance but an assumed superiority in terms of class/authority, represented clearly in clericalism: The clergy who are able to attain privileges as a priest or scribe, or some other role within the system, display their power in various ways, such as impractical garments. Their robes are unnecessarily long, inhibiting ordinary activity (thus separating them from daily lay activities — whatever they are: cooking, washing, serving others, lifting heavy stuff and carrying it, you name it). At that time, all clergy were absolutely male — which is still the same in many churches and societies — , each of them so much more elevated, more powerful, than the lay woman who is also poor. 

I share this reflection as I begin to think about what my role and identity can mean as someone who is “ordained”. Even if I do my best to demonstrate or practice a non-hierarchical understanding of vocation and teamwork with lay leaders in ministry, I need to re-examine what I claim, express, preserve, inherit, and cherish attached to the tradition of the ordained path, which traditionally has been the preserve of men only. (My models of the ordained path are Teresa of Avila and Kay Cho, to name a few. It is the sense that before me, many women and queer people have walked this path and made a difference.) 

 

You are my ministers. And I am a minister among many ministers, pastors, like you, who try to live out our call to follow Jesus in our capacity, accepting old struggles and defining new hopes day by day. And yet, there is also something special to the path I chose. My gender, my lived experience, my relationships pertaining to my personal identity is the context to the ordained vocation/work, and this interconnection is important to me. In fact, I like many things that this identity, this role, this work offer and enable in my life. However, in a recent discussion with friends, I learned more about “clericalism” and was enlightened about how clericalism may still have an influence or impact that disempowers lay leaders and friends whom I work with, together, sharing our common purpose and faith.

 

Am I a rich one? If so, how? Are you a rich one? If so, how? 

How could we innovate and re-define “rich” in our lives? 

 

What exactly is clericalism? In the Roman Catholic faith tradition, clericalism manifests itself with the belief and practice that only ordained clergy have any true authority to make decisions and can do so without input from lay people. (Cozzens 2000) Pope Francis, in his address to the Synod Fathers at Synod2018 gave the following definition of clericalism: “Clericalism arises from an elitist and exclusivist vision of vocation, that interprets the ministry received as a power to be exercised rather than as a free and generous service to be given.”

 

In the article, “How Do You Recognize Clericalism?”, the Archdiocese of Vancouver Clericalism Committee tries to combat “The inherent evil of clericalism” within both the laity and clergy of the Catholic church in Vancouver, and it has come up with a working definition of clericalism: “Clericalism is a misplacement of responsibility with little or no accountability of the ordained ministers and lay faithful in the people of God. This leads the faithful and ordained clergy to expect that ordained ministers are better than and should rule over everyone else among the People of God, which further leads to abuses of power and hinders the universal call to holiness and the mission of evangelism.” 

 

In my twenties and thirties, I often found myself vulnerable in various situations which clericalism in the church caused, reinforced by patriarchy. I directly and indirectly went through the pains that clericalism, conjoined with patriarchy, created. An example is the assumed gender-based expectation, reverence, and/or harassment against the wife of an ordained husband. At the same time, I found a path towards ordination as something that opened to me, as the way to “Struggle to be the Sun again”. I rediscovered the sense of vocation which I buried when I was a child, told that ordained ministry was only for boys. I left Korea and enrolled myself at Vancouver School of Theology. There began my journey towards ordination, and I started writing an open-ended book that now has many chapters.

 

Ordination is a rich tradition and experience; it has allowed me to own some beautiful privileges (for example, being asked to be part of someone’s life, when my presence means care and celebration). However, I will learn and examine how hierarchical notions of clericalism and power and privilege are still carried in the ordained identity I have adopted to and in my practice. I will acknowledge the power imbalance/difference among the ordained personnels and the laity even in the United Church of Canada. Immanuel United Church has been wonderful; my true education on dismantling hierarchy started the moment I was offered the ministership here. You clearly stated from the beginning that you would like me to be part of your team, equal and free.

 

We see the rich ones in our lives and in the world. How we define “rich”, who we call rich, our very concept of wealth can change. We can innovate the meaning of “rich”, remembering the words of Jesus and others in the Bible. Jesus says, if being rich means power, privilege, turning a closed eye to oppression, abuse and the status quo, rich ones can never enter the shalom of God, just as it is impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Let’s be God’s version of “rich ones” in our ministry together, in the world, as the meaning of being rich is “turned upside down”.

  

Hymn: MV 127    I Saw the Rich Ones