Sermon: A Love Letter for Those to Whom "Hope" Is a Weary Word (1 Cor. 13), June 25th, 2023

Sermon: A Love Letter for Those to Whom “Hope” is a Weary Word 

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13

“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” This is one of the most beloved quotes from the Bible, often recited at weddings. When Min-Goo and I bought our first house in Winnipeg, the previous owner had printed this verse on the newly painted wall on the hallway next to the kitchen. Every time I came into the kitchen, I saw “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” I have put some thought into this beautiful statement of Paul’s. Love is a wonderful thing. We think about it, talk about it a lot at church, at home, at special life events. Love is interwoven into our daily lives. Faith is the reason why many of us have gathered here. What about hope? 

 

We might not seriously consider hope as a religious word, as much as love or faith, but hope is one of the three pillars of our Christian community. Even if hope is thought of as the least among the three, and the least developed in our Christian conversations, a community of faith is one led by hope. I invite us to ask today, what we mean by hope. What is hope? 

 

One day, I listened to a Black preacher recite a poetic prayer written by Desmond Tutu, Reflections on Wholeness. This is an abridged version; the whole prayer is very beautiful, if you care to look it up. 

 

“Busy normal people, the world is here. 

Can you hear it? Wailing, crying, whispering. Listen. 

The world is here. Don’t you hear it?

Praying, groaning for wholeness? 

Sighing, whispering wholeness?

Tiresome, difficult journey towards wholeness?

 

God who gives us the strength of our body makes us whole. 

 

We “busy” normal people,

We are sick; we yearn to experience hope, healing in our health, wholeness in our most inner being, and prosperity.

We continue to feel unwell, unfulfilled, or half-filled. 

There is hollowness in our pretend well being. 

Our spirit cries out for wellbeing of the whole human family. 

We are all parts of each other. 

We yearn to be folded into the fullness of life together. 

Life together with the outcast, prisoner, the mad ones, 

Our wholeness is intertwined with their hurt. 

Wholeness means healing hurt, working with Christ to heal the hurt, 

Seeing and feeling the suffering of others, then, standing alongside them. 

 

…  There is no wall. 

There is only God at work, in the whole…

 

God who gives us the strength of our body makes us whole. 

 

Desmond Tutu describes hope as something we yearn to experience. Hope is our yearning to experience healing in our health, wholeness in our most inner being and prosperity of all on earth. Hope is for all of us, busy normal people, those who continue to feel unwell, unfilled, or half-filled, and yet swallow that hollowness, pretending well-being. Sometimes it is hard to come out of our inner isolation and truly flourish, feeling the wholeness of ourselves both within and without. 

 

For some of us, and in the world at large, hope becomes a weary word. In Korea, people with disabilities come out to the subway station, chain their bodies to the railroad tracks, and protest for their mobility rights, stopping the trains that transport busy normal people. The wailing and pain are not hopeful cries. The outcry is made because the freedom to use the subway without any hindrance is a necessity for human dignity. When the Sewol ferry sank in 2014, it was carrying 325 high school students, among others. They were excited for their long-awaited graduation trip to Jeju Island. The overloaded ship capsized under normal sailing conditions; only seventy-five students survived. The government covered up their shocking lack of oversight; the substandard ship was allowed to sail because the owners were very powerful people. This absurd, agonizing tragedy happened because profit was prioritized over people’s lives. Many people in South Korea called for political reforms, as the victims' families cried out for the truth. However, since nothing changed, hope once again became a weary word that year. The Earth's temperature continues to rise, and the forests are being burnt down by wildfires. After only ashes are left in the burning forest, new green life, hardly visible at first, sprouts among the blackened devastation... Even though people constantly talk about hope, when profit and immediate convenience take precedence over the whole human family and life on earth, hope continuously becomes a weary word.

 

Many years ago, I met Kim Won-Young through his 2010 book titled “I’d Rather Be a Burning Desire Than a Cold Hope”, and his challenging questions and stories never let me go back to reading the word hope in the same way. Kim explained that as he grew up, he discovered his weariness of the hope narratives. People say “I find hope” or “I see hope” when someone overcomes their disability and achieves their life goals. What kind of hope is this?

 

Quote: 

"What kind of dreams do people hope a disabled individual, living their life lying in a bed-type wheelchair at a small disabled residence in a mountain valley, would have? For instance, they might hope that on their last day of life, they could say, 'Although I never left my bed for a lifetime, my life was beautiful. The flowers visible through the window on spring days, the snowflakes pouring from the sky on winter days, and the eyes of the volunteers who visited once a month to help me with bathing and eating, my life was filled with and was beautiful.' Rather than pursuing destructive and fleeting desires, they hope to find such hope in the life of a severely disabled individual who spent their entire life in a mountain valley without any resources or opportunities, a life that proves the existence of a sublime and grace-filled human life, a beacon of light in this age of competition in the jaws of desire.”

 

When does hope become a weary word? Cold hope?

 

What I have learned from Kim, from his book I’d Rather Be a Burning Desire Than a Cold Hope, is that we need to ask, Who hopes? What is the temperature of that hope? Is the hope a distant expression of just wishing something to be the desired object?  Is the hope about what you want to see, within the limits and the boundaries you can allow and empower? Is hope only good as long as it doesn’t disrupt our convenience? Who among us speaks of hope, owns hope, sighs, whispers, groans, wails, cries for wholeness? Can we, busy normal people, hope? Yes!

 

What if we hope just as we desire something? Like burning love, agonizing and difficult, bright and shimmering, anxious and heartbreaking, bearing a fulfilling and risky desire to truly bring the new reality into existence. What if we hope just like an aspiring human, one who is wild, sexual, flesh, blood, loving and loved and who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things because we are in fearless, hot, and passionate love with what we hope for? The love-filled hope believes impossible things, endures inconvenient things, hopes challenging things, bears uncomfortable things and cries, whispers, prays, groans, sighs, wails, because we allow ourselves to burn for wholeness.  I have a friend, Hannah, who's 19 years old. In her recent speech during National Accessibility Week, she shared her story of growing up as a child with a disability, always looking for a safe swing to ride on at playgrounds. Her hope was expressed simply: 'Put a disabled swing in every playground.' Her hope, it soars as high as a swing!

 

God uplifts those who are afflicted and makes uncomfortable those who are comfortable. The clarity of hope is a privilege of those who have been afflicted and in tribulation. Do not let the ability to imagine be stolen from you. Tap into dreams, desire, love; rest and write the new narrative for burning hope. Busy, normal, afflicted, sorrowful people, can hope in earnest heat. Dare to live with hope at such a time as this, hope in the midst of the constant clanging of despair in the world. 

Hope hot. Fiercely hope. 

 

As Desmond Tutu says, “There is no wall. There is only God at work in the whole.” When we might feel that we are surrounded by the impossibilities and the walls of all kinds of hindrances, God is at work. God (already) works with us in between, behind and beside this world’s dividing walls like the rushing wind of Pentecost. I find immense comfort in the thought of this. I find the presence of hope in the mobilizing wholeness. There is no wall. There is only God at work, with me, with you, in the wholeness of our relentless, passionate hope. 

 

We, busy normal people, 

We, afflicted and weary ones, 

We, burnt by oppression,

We, the world, violated and hurt, 

Let us be the community led by hope, hot, burning, daring, struggling, seeking the wholeness of hope’s presence amid the constant noisy gong (“No, we can’t”) and clanging cymbal (“Maybe. Somebody other than us might do it.”)

Let each of us be folded into the fullness of life together. 

 

It’s my burning love letter to you for whom “hope” is a weary word. 

Even still, normal, busy people, burnt-out weary ones, sorrowful and groaning friends, 

 

Hope. 

Sermon: Six Stone Water Jars (John 2:1-12), June 11th, 2023

Sermon: Six Stone Water Jars

Scripture: The Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12)

 

I did not choose today’s story, the Wedding at Cana, just because of Becca and Karl’s wedding next Saturday (Smile); nor do I wish that this great couple goes through the same challenge of running out of wine too quickly at their wedding reception! 

Becca and Karl, we are thrilled to celebrate and extend our blessings to you. What a delight for all of us. Thank you for inviting us all to attend your wedding. 

 

Today’s story, the wedding at Cana, is the one where Jesus’ disciples witnessed the first sign of Jesus being divine: the transformation of water into wine. What that means — water being changed to wine — is left up to us, how we reflect on it in our own context. It is said, “Scripture changes with the world.” Stories in scripture are like “living” stones used to build the new sign of God’s abundance in new context. So, we are encouraged to move away from a “narrow” scripture reading, where the meaning was set many years ago, to allow “generous” reading, which means that something can be interpreted and understood in different ways. Broad View does that. Generous reading. Generous preaching.

 

In the wedding story in Cana, the wine ran out too quickly. Jesus’ mother nudges him. “Child, they have no wine.” Jesus resists. “Mother, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not come.” The translation in The Message tells the story this way: Jesus’ mother, Jesus, and his disciples, were all guests at the wedding. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”  Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother — yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.” Mary went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”  Six stoneware water pots were there. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons of water. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim. 

 

Now, move beyond the tension between Jesus and his mother - in the dialogue’s rapid sequence: the wine has run out. My hour has not come. Whatever he tells you, do it. Fill the pots with water – now, imagine what the rest of the wedding party is doing. They’re not paying attention to Jesus; they have their own lives, their own dramas, that take precedence in this moment. The master of ceremonies and chief steward panic as the wine runs out, while relatives and elders who haven't met in a long time create spaces, placing their hands on each other's shoulders, asking each other to sit, to converse, to greet, to drink, to eat food. The children tease their cousins, running and playing amongst themselves, creating rippling streams of laughter. Look around at this eternal moment that will continue for several days, with the bride and groom receiving grand, heartfelt congratulations. No one wants to break this banquet. It’s a wonderful occasion for the whole town. In the end, gallons of premium wine are served. The party continues its wave of excitement. 

 

So, in the story, what is the sign? Where is the miracle? Water being changed to wine? The party being saved, thanks to quick thinking and swift responses, and no one noticing what has happened? 

 

Let us quickly think about another miracle story of feeding five thousand people with the two loaves of bread and five fishes a child came to offer. We know that the miracle or the sign is not really about the quantity: The two loaves of bread being multiplied, like puffed rice expands and popcorn pops. Since one loaf of bread weighs about one pound, and let’s say 10 people share one loaf, this miracle deals with 500 pounds of bread, which is about 250 kilograms of bread. When we think about God’s abundance, multiplying from 2 pounds to 500 pounds at the voicing of Jesus’ prayer does not only sound impossible; it diminishes the generous volume of the event’s meaning. Why, then, should we think that the miracle in today’s story, the Wedding at Cana, is about the material change from water to wine? Let’s look for the generous wisdom of the alternative understanding of the story. 

 

What if we notice that Jesus still stayed in playful resistance, when his mother pushed him and said “They have no wine.”? We have clearly heard Jesus’ direct response: Wine is not my concern. It is not my business. Then, Mary, regardless of his clearly expressed position, “Mom, it’s not our business!”, went away and said to the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.” After all, Jesus did have the six stoneware jars filled with water. But, please note this. After he had the jar filled with water, Jesus did not say, “Let it be wine!” Instead, he said to one servant, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” In fact, in the story, he never mentioned “wine”, not one single time.

 

While everyone is absorbed in the excitement of the party and the frantic organization of ensuring everything moves according to expectations (and rightfully so, for the newlyweds and their families), I want to focus on the fact that Jesus quietly instructed the servants to pour water into six stone jars (each holding twenty or thirty gallons which is about 110 kilograms; so total 660 kilograms of water.) Well, we cannot assume that they had a modern water supply system like ours, where water pours out when the tap is opened, and water could be poured into the stone jars with a hose, filling them to the brim within a short time. However, really, how fast and effectively each jar can be filled and the changes of material composition — Wine is composed of water (86 %) and ethanol (12 %) — cannot fill the generous volume of the meaning of this story. It seems that filling those tall jars with water to the brim in such a short time is already a near-impossible act. It’s daunting to imagine how the servants had to spring into action, like firemen with a bucket brigade, to carry that 660-kilogram volume of water, so quickly, with no break. 

 

Today, I would like to invite us to the generous reading and generous curiosity of this story, fully enjoying Jesus’ delightful and playful stubbornness. Water is water. Did Jesus make wine? Didn’t he make it clear from the start of the story that he had no interest in wine? He filled the jars with water and let others taste whatever they wanted to taste. His first sign was not “Let the wine flow.” It was “Let water fill the jars and taste it.” I want to imagine that it is an invitation for us to come to the sanity and identity of water from the fuzzy-headed intoxication of wine. (By the way, I love wine.) I think Jesus deluded the high officer (the chief steward; the governor/the ruler of the feast (KJV)). He deluded the townspeople. He didn’t defraud them; he just let them think what they wanted to think. But the servants, who filled the jars with water upon Jesus’ request, knew what it was and what they were serving. These servants who were at the bottom rung of the party ladder and whose position it was to serve, not be served, to work, not rest, were Jesus’ disciples that day. Jesus’ first sign at the wedding was the subversive stubbornness that continues to call his disciples and us to ask questions… asking who we are and what we are called to serve. When everyone else was firmly of the belief that there must be wine to sustain the party, Jesus and the servants distributed two-thirds of a metric ton of water and supplied it to the party.  Water completely replaced the wine and everyone was still fully able to enjoy the party. If some child accidentally drank the wine, (I once drank my father’s beer accidentally when I was young at a busy party) there would be no problem.

 

Let’s continue this generous reading, generous curiosity. What if we were called to be like the servants who filled the water in the six stoneware jars, asking who we are and what we are called to serve, as if our worship and meetings hinge on those questions, not wine. Jesus does not ask us to break up the party but to distribute the living water into it, for us and all guests to taste. Can it be the start of an enduring change… The first sign to become a prophetic community, expressing playful stubbornness and resistance, taking a break from wine (capitalism-driven goals) and tasting the difference; taking a break and experimenting with rest from the compulsions and forces of extreme capitalism in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. Taking a break to care for creation in a wider sense, not just our own gardens. Too many precious forests have been consumed by the rage of wildfires. Radically placing ourselves in today’s context, the context of here and now in this intoxicatingly affluent and beautiful city, Victoria. I hope that Broad View, and whoever joins us, can be the water-carrying servants for deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice. Then, filling and carrying 660 kilograms of water within an hour sounds heavy, doesn’t it? We cannot do it alone. We need to engage family and friends; invite neighbours to infuse life-sharing water into the city and into the world, together. Find the emerging, justice-oriented leaders who hope to build a new generous vision for plenty and abundance, and ask them to lead. By uniting and being united, by inviting and being invited, by engaging and being engaged, we are the new generation, new-context water stewards that work to keep the ‘good wine’ of faith and justice flowing freely. 

(Before the service, I took an empty wine bottle and filled it with water and placed on the pulpit. Then, right after the sermon, I poured the water from the bottle into a wine glass, a little dramatically, and said “Cheers!”)

Sermon: BREAK! ... It's a Pentecost Sermon (Isaiah 65:17-19, 21-23), for Pacific Mountain Regional Council, June 3, 2023

Sermon Title: BREAK! … It’s a Pentecost Sermon 

Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-19, 21-23

In the voice of the prophet Isaiah, God declares,

 

“My people will build houses and live in them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 

They will not build for others to live in, or plant for others to eat.” 

 

When you hear these verses, this declaration is not really about building a house.  These people are in captivity. They have built houses for their landlords, their masters, their colonizers in Babylon. So, they have been building houses. 

 

I’ll say it again: the declaration we hear today is not about building a house. 

It is about owning. 

 

Owning your life. 

Owning your voice. 

Owning your body. 

Owning your labour. 

Owning your language. 

 

Own your United Church story. 

Own your BC Conference story. 

Own your Pacific Mountain Regional Council Story. 

Own your congregational ministry story. 

 

Own God’s dwelling in you, in the moment of the difficult, challenging, creative “ruptures” you’ve experienced in life and ministry. 

 

You may think of rupture as a word associated with trauma, or an intolerable amount of damage, but “rupture”, by definition, means “breaking away from the established pattern. A break from social, cultural or historical norms or conventions; a significant turning point; a moment of crisis, signaling the necessity for change or transformation.” 

 

Isaiah’s declaration to build a house is not for the landowners; it’s for those whose ancestors have been enslaved. It’s for those who, for generations, have seen their lives, their community and their children be robbed of autonomy and forced into a system which is not their own. 

 

Isaiah’s message is for those who have lived and survived, resurging from the colonial apocalypse and its intergenerational impact. Isaiah’s housebuilding is for those whose ancestors paid a head tax in order to build the Pacific Railway. It is for those whose ancestors’ homes were stolen while they were imprisoned in internment camps. 

 

I hope to see the sacred verb build be reserved for the communities which resurge, reconnect and reclaim a reconciliation that includes reparation.

 

In Isaiah, another verse that shines forth is “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth”; I believe it should mean for us that “God is about to create a new context.” It is a call for us “to be radically contextualized” in the new heavens and a new earth where God finds new work and renewed rest. In other words, we need to be radically contextualized in “our own new context” that must create a rupture in the middle of our endeavours, regardless of whatever we are going to do.

 

God’s declaration, “My people will build houses and live in them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit” is written for those whose lives have been disrupted by oppression. If we flip it, creating a rupture for the hearers who are in the position of being able to use their power and privilege without any hindrance, God’s Word is reversed in the statement of prohibitions: 

 

Do not build on stolen land 

Do not build on stolen labour 

Do not build on the mastery of English

Do not build on white culture 

Do not build on White Supremacy 

Do not build on the patriarchy

Do not build on the false concept that Canada or The United Church has overcome the patriarchy,

Do not build on “We are not perfect, but we are still better”

Do not build on White male privilege 

Do not build on White female privilege 

Do not build on non-White male privilege

Do not build on Gender binary and cisgender privilege

Do not build on able-bodied privilege

Do not build on Neo-liberalism 

Do not build on the 1% hard-working CEOs 

Do not build on praising the 1% hard-working CEOs

Do not build on “What is mine is mine” 

Do not build on “It’s my property; it belongs to me and I can use it however I please” 

                    (including church property)

Do not build on taking advantage of the grace of Mother earth 

 

When I was young, growing up in Korea, the August summer sky was high and blue. When I climbed a gentle hill, looking at the pillowy clouds in the blue sky, with the ice cream cone in my hand echoing the cumulus shapes up above, that was enough to cool the sweat on my forehead. That is gone now. Children in Korea in 2023 do not know that feeling. Sometimes you cannot go outside without wearing a proper mask, not because of Covid, but because of the danger of fine dust in the air. Sometimes you cannot see the sun for weeks in August, covered and choked behind the grey sky. Not to mention, it is too hot and too humid, due to climate change. One summer, a very popular ocean beach was closed because the sand was dangerously hot! On every small corner, builders build high-rise buildings endlessly, covering everything in asphalt, roads, shopping malls…  I take an issue with praising building… 

 

When we use the sacred word, “build”, let us allow a moment of rupture; let us embrace the radical context of new heavens and a new earth, in the era of climate justice.

 

For another moment of rupture, I would like to invite you to be radically contextualized in my lived experience, owning my BC Conference story. It happened at a lunch table in the BC Conference office building, around 2012. I was there for an interview as a candidate for ministry, and at the lunch table, someone, a well-known and respected minister, was sitting alone. And they saw me, and I saw them. And in that split second, when I was anxious but ready to say hi, the eyes which stared at me quickly turned down to whatever they were doing, with no expression on their face, as if telling me, ‘I am not seeing you. I am not interested in you. You are not enough for me to recognize. I am waiting for someone else, and it was not you. I am too occupied with whatever I am doing. I am busy, distracted, I find no reason to acknowledge your presence and say hi to you…

I was there to join the ministry, after years of study and effort… I felt unwelcome. 

 

There are four wildfires in my lived experience which burned me, and I came out of them, eventually, as who I am. But, as they are fires, their flames were blazing enough to scorch my spirit, to cause me to groan and mourn and rage, in the United Church of Canada! It is hard to build a home – it is hard to build anything, when you are engulfed in flames.

 

The four flames that have burned me deep are gender, race, culture, and language. I am not alone in feeling these refining fires.

 

What happens when gender and race intersect? It is quite simple. For me, it’s MisogynAsian. (I coined that term.) Say, Misogyny. Say, Asian. Now, put together the two. Misogyn~Asian. Racism and misogyny come at me together. Not only that - since I am married, all of racism and sexism, and heteronormative cisgender-centred patriarchal assumptions and biases hinder me. Then, language is the fuel that makes everything above so much worse. Accents or broken English… That immediately creates the stereotype of an Asian immigrant woman, and such stereotyping affects the way you’re treated. 

 

Then, a month ago, I had this exhilarating, unprecedented, deeply personal Pentecost experience. It created a liberating rupture, breaking the tight chains of the four refining fires: gender, race, culture, language. I was at the Transgender History Moving Forward Conference at UVic, centering Transgender people’s voices and presence. Through the presenters’ voices, I felt belonging in this diverise community, and suddenly started to speak my mind and own my story, delivering them in a super-fluent BROKEN ENGLISH, in Pentecostal style. I let go of the fear of losing the mastery of language. I abandoned the apprehension of whether the others are getting what I try to mean in English. My English was broken; my grammar was disorganized, but I did not care. I kept "talking like a baptist”! In the moment of the Mystery of Broken English, I came alive from the Language Burn and resurrected in the Holy Spirit, Born Again in Brokenness. What a rupture! WE need to allow many more rupture moments to happen in all the spaces we build to create a community. In the Bible’s Pentecost story, even though God may be one, Christ may be one, the Holy Spirit allowed themselves to be BROKEN into one hundred, one thousand, one million different pieces, … one million different tongues. Intercultural Pentecost is born in ruptures, born in brokenness, not in building to maintain the status quo. Therefore,

 

For those who have been broken by hierarchy (of whatever that is in your own context), climb your new heavens and a new earth, and praise! 

Your brokenness is sacred. Praise! 

The rupture that creates a new possibility is your crown. Praise!

 

Let us honour the million and billion broken Spirit pieces in the world, and celebrate their resurrection.

 

So, Pacific Mountain people, 

BREAK, rather than Build, 

BUILD only when it is about empowering yourself and others to own stories of brokenness. 

PLANT the new imagination, instead of building buildings in the lands and places that are NOT our own. 

Plant re-imagination. 

Plant the seed of reparation. 

Plant the rupture from capitalism to allow for “experimenting with rest”, 

not patterning ourselves after hardworking CEOs. 

Then, PRAISE, in the radically contextualized new heavens and new earth.

 

For those of us who continue to learn how to own our stories, 

Do not build a house for others to dwell and live. 

Plant the vineyard for yourself and eat the fruit for your own body. 

Praise, rest, hope, resurrect, in the blessings and the spirit of brokenness, the spirit of the Broken master’s logic, the Pentecost of the Broken master’s language. 

 

Benediction: 

So, Break. Build. 

Plant and Praise, 

Rupture and Rest,

let’s do all of these. 

(Using the words from Richard Wagamese' Embers)

You can’t test your courage timidly. You have to run through the fire, arms waving, legs pumping and heart beating wildly with your efforts to build a house for you to dwell and live and plant the vineyard for yourself and eat the fruit for your own body. Then, let us shine most brightly in community, bound together forever by a shared courage, a family forged in the heat of earnest struggle.