Lydia Shiu - Reservoir Church

The Legend of Mary

Kids say the darndest things. My first Christmas as a youth pastor, I had a kid say in our group time, “You know Christmas was stolen from a pagan holiday.” As they do. And there it unraveled the myths of christmas and our Bible study debunked in the face of good education and intelligent self thinking kids.

Turns out, she was right. Jesus’ birthday, known as Christmas, on December 25th is not in the Bible. Turns out, there has been celebration of hope and light in the midst of the darkest of winter solstice, in various cultures and time in history before Jesus, where they cut evergreen trees and bring it inside or have big extravagant parties to celebrate the sun god. These stories, these histories, these myths – what are we to do with them? And in light of them, then, what is the significance of the Christmas story? How do we unpack the religiosity and the politics that wrap the story of the birth of Jesus by co-opting other traditions with their power? If Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th, what are we even celebrating? Are these all just lies?

That’s what my youth group kids were alluding to when they asserted their knowledge. And my kids, oh they loved seeing me try to make sense of it and do cartwheels around their smarts. And I didn’t want just smooth over them. I wanted to engage them. It’s not like I could only tell the Christian tradition and not expect them to be challenged with other traditions. In fact, in a pluralistic world as today, we can’t be ignorantly covering our ears and belly gazing our own well known story of Jesus. It is, and it must be comparable with the respect and dignity of other traditions. It should be investigated and humbly engaged with BOTH the miraculousness and as some would claim the ridiculousness of the story. Otherwise this wouldn’t be a church, it would be a cult, where questions or critical thinking are not welcome. The Christmas story also must come to terms with the colonized history that retells the story, knowing that the story does not come to us in a vacuum. It comes within the confines of certain theologies. Certain worldviews. Certain perspectives. Stories come in containers. You’ve heard “medium is the message.” And if we know that, we must be sophisticated enough to pull apart the medium from the message.

Why bother? Why bother thinking about the context of the biblical writers? The Bible says it, so I believe it? Why bother considering the cultural context of the tradition that’s been passed down to us? Because I believe that the message behind the medium, is at core, the message of Good News. A message of promise. What is the promise? I’ll get to that in a few minutes.

Here’s what I mean.

One of my favorite movies is “Big Fish.” It’s a Tim Burton film with Ewan McGregor. It’s a telling of the story of the father’s life, but in a fantastical beautiful exaggerated way, as it says, “the way he told me”. The movie is definitely a very much like a fairy tale with witches, giants, siamese twins and all. The son, Will decides to try to get to the truth of the stories, traveling back to their hometown. Now, Will’s disappointment in his father and frustration of having been lied to about the details of his life, takes the backseat when he realizes the beauty and the actual capturing of its grandeur of the “truth” behind the story. Sorry for the spoiler. It’s still worth checking out if you haven’t seen it, as Tim Burton does capture it magically. In fact, isn’t it sometimes that poetry is closer to truth than facts. Fiction brings about real human experiences alive and makes us enter the story and feel, embody, with empathy through our imagination. Myths include more meat than mere historical accounts. Well, I mean even historical accounts are…. Well, just an account.

Theologian Frederick Buechner in his book called Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, says, “The preaching of the Gospel is a telling of the truth or the putting of a sort of frame of words around the silence that is truth because truth in the sense of fullness, of the way things are, can at best be only pointed to by the language of poetry–of metaphor, image, symbol–as it is used in the prophets of the Old Testament and elsewhere.” Let’s let the silence of truth ring as we take a look at the image of Mary today.

The Christmas story, the birth of Jesus, we have only 2 accounts of it in the Bible, Matthew and Luke. Mark, he actually doesn’t even mention it. The book of Mark starts instead with the baptism of Jesus. Which is interesting point about what baptism is, the moment in which God claimed Jesus through a voice from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” a very particular set of words, a formulaic words of the ceremony of adoption from that time and culture actually. But I digress. So, Matthew has the birth story, more from the angle of Joseph and Luke more from the perspective of Mary. Here at Reservoir, we’ve been in the Advent Series of pilgrimages. We’ve been following the various journeys of different characters in the Christmas story. I’d like to take a look at the pilgrimage of Mary today. Receiving the story as is, like Will in Big Fish trying to excavate the truth behind the story, let’s see if we might be able to enter the story in all of its fullness of miracles. It’s Christmas week. Let us enter into the magic of Christmas with a sober mind and open hearts. Let me read the text for us.

Luke 1:26-56 New International Version (NIV)

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

46 And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord

47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48 for he has been mindful

    of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

    holy is his name.

50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,

    from generation to generation.

51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones

    but has lifted up the humble.

53 He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.

54 He has helped his servant Israel,

    remembering to be merciful

55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,

    just as he promised our ancestors.”

56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Every good story starts with an origin story. Startup stories like How I built this podcast. Or how two people met and fell in love. In the ancient world, all heros, important figures had an origin story. It’s a way of meaning making and connection building people groups have been doing for ages. This story is at face value a joyful, hopeful story. But it’s not without a pang of tragedy. It’s a bit glazed over but it’s there.

When my little girl Sophia who’s 14 months old now, grows up, I will tell her, that…

On the morning of her delivery, after I was induced at Mt Auburn hospital, your Dad and I went on a walk along the Charles River as we waited for you to come pushing out of me into the world. I was scared. It was good to walk and get out of the hospital room, hooked up to machines to monitor your heart rate. There had been this song Umma made up for you. Jagabee, Jagabee, Umma loves you Jagabee (the in utero name we had been calling her, named after our favorite asian snack). It was in a minor key, as I’m often drawn to a little blues, a little dissonance, a little smudge in life that makes things unique and beautiful. We were singing it for you. And Dad was trying to rewrite the song into a major key. Jagabee! Jagabee! Umma loves you Jagabee! Now, neither of us are musicians. Eugene’s an actuary. Despite Umma’s disposition toward minor keys, we wanted you to know and experience joy, happiness, an ending without a hanging sad note but with a nice resolution. We sang the song in variations until we forgot how the original song went. And I hope that that’s always true for you. That no matter what happens in life. If it plays for you minor notes, may you re-sing and reclaim your song majorly.

Fredrick Beuchner also said, “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.” The reality of Mary’s story is that… this is not just a happy story. It actually starts with bad news. On a minor key. Getting pregnant out of wedlock was bad news. It would’ve been a death sentence for the girl in that culture where attachment to a man through proper manner was everything. I mean, it still is in some circles today.

The writer, Luke wanted to pass down Mary’s origin story of Jesus to the next generation. Around 80 CE, as the community of Jesus followers were beginning to form its own unique identity, it was probably important for them to start getting it down in writing. The eye witnesses, the various versions of the stories that were passed on orally. Which is why we have the 4 gospels, with some of the events with varying details. The “discrepancies” between the stories do not make them unreliable but adds to the truth of the fact that multiple people experienced Jesus in different ways. If my sister and I each wrote letters about my mom, it would be very different stories. Neither are untrue. And if my brother wrote about my mom, well it would be songs not letters. Similarly, Matthew had an approach to the Jewish audience where he incorporates much of the Jewish texts to tell the story of Jesus, fulfilling the Hebrew Scriptures. Mark has a very swift way of telling the story, shortest of the 4, often just quickly capture what happened. Luke is a bit more elaborate. He’s educated, known to us as to be a physician from other sources. He has intent and a theological focus in the retelling of his stories. And John, much like my brother Johan, which by the way is John in Korean, John is so poetic. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. Like you gotta snap through reading John like a spoken word poetry slam.

How did Luke come to capture this account of Mary’s pregnancy? Biblical scholars point to a possible earlier source that Matthew and Luke probably utilized in each of their own accounts. Luke wasn’t there, with Elizabeth or Gabriel. Mary and Elizabeth must’ve told their husbands, their friends, their community. They probably posted on their wall and people liked and loved it. But they probably didn’t record it. The text we have today is a piecing together from the best of their ability, with their most reliable sources, a narrative that Luke wrote, as he says at the beginning of his book, “Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus…” It’s not a transcript. The Bible is not a history or a science book. It could be said that it’s actually closer to investigative journalism. Luke was likely commissioned by Theophilus, to get it right. He wanted to set the record straight. So he says the story went like this,

Mary was greatly troubled.

And the angel said, don’t be afraid.

And Mary was like, but how?

And the angel said, the Holy Spirit will take care of it.

And Mary said, may it be so!

I genuinely believe that Luke did his best in trying to capture the glory and honor of Jesus’ birth story. But I think it moved too quickly to Mary’s properly mannered obedience, as is a model woman’s role to be of such nature. And in doing so we miss out on the pain of Mary. Her struggles. Mary’s darkened soul in the face of the realities of her world. Maybe it would’ve been too scandalous to keep it too accurate to her experience. Maybe Luke wanted to highlight the hope part more than the tragic part. And maybe in a sense, that’s why the Christmas story sounds a bit more like a fairy tale. I excavate the story to find the wedge in the joy. Because I personally find the wedge in joy often in life. I don’t know about you, but in the midst of this supposedly joyful season, I find the wedge actually widening and taking up even bigger space amidst the jolly holly. The cold air of those who are not with me are more chilling. The loneliness of being estranged from some family members more painful. Amazon prime orders made to their houses fall short of the embrace I want to give them. All the celebration, the warmth, the love in the air contrast too starkly to the sadness I feel. And I think Luke preserved that wedge for me in Mary’s song, also known as the Magnificat. In it, it peers deeper into darkened world of Mary’s. Juxtaposed by her hope and victory, she shed light onto the world in which Jesus is born into. This is her reality, hope she made sense of what was happening, and her theology. What is God doing by coming into this world? She says,

God as scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

God has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the humble.

God has filled the hungry with good things

but has sent the rich away empty.

There is this cry of petition, of resistance in this song. A proclamation not of only praise but a preaching, a speaking into the future of how things better be in the future. The proud scattered. The rulers brought down. How the humble shall be lifted up. How the hungry will be fed and the rich left empty. There is a switching of order. And she knows this order because she herself has been the back end of this order. She knows humiliation. She knows rejection. She knows what it’s like to be marginalized. For her, this is personal.

I don’t know exactly how it all went down. I believe that Luke capture the legend of Mary in a way that tries to honor her. But the reality is, Mary was not that honorable at first. Let us not white wash her trauma. This is a tragic moment for her before it was a divine revelation. She was freaked out. She was mortified that her parents would find out or people would gossip about her. Her sexuality in questions. She was ashamed. She was heartbroken with the possibility of her fiance breaking the engagement. She needed Elizabeth to talk to and calm her down, for 3 months! Heck she needed an angel! All I’m saying that it probably didn’t exactly happen the way Luke captured it. Many parts of it corroborate with Matthew’s account. Many other parts do not. Maybe she didn’t agree to it so quickly at first. Maybe she retold the story after Jesus grew up, realizing what God had done with her story, with her shame. Maybe people retold and retold the story mixing their growing hope into it more than their fears. Quoting Beuchner again, “It is impossible for anybody to leave behind the darkness of the world one carries on one’s back like a snail, but for God all things are possible. That is the fairy tale.” Maybe Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th.

Accurate factual stories are too small to hold the miracles of God. When a smart person asks you questions about your faith, poking holes into the Bible stories, Do not be afraid. I was afraid when my youth group kid asked me. Teenagers can be scary! We all know how the Bible was written. If not, you can google it. It’s not a secret and it’s a part of human history, passed through many tainted hands. I’m okay with saying that there are many variations of these stories, edited by multiple people and generations over time, written with a theological agenda, intent, and purpose, to preserve the message, the promise. Then, how can it be true? How does the Christmas story hold up? Why should it even matter? The Legend behind the Myth. The truth behind the history. The Promise behind the story. What’s it to me?

What is truth? Truth is what we deem to be important enough to say again and again, in community, and pass down to the next generation. Whether it’s true or not, is for the each generation to decide. If it is compelling enough, it will speak for itself. Truth need not be forced or manipulated. Truth, even if threatened does not shrivel, when shed of its complexity is not muddled, but continues to reveal in new ways, growing deeper wider web of roots in which it stands. Through it all, the myth, the legend, the history – the promise is clear.

And the Promise is that, the illegitimate is made legitimate. The Illegitimate is made legitimate. Not only so but beautiful, miraculous, and holy. The promise is that God forsaken situations are covered by God’s mercy and purpose. The sidelines become the center. That shattered dreams are mended with gold. Tricky situations are turned into defining moments. The disgraced are lifted.

Not just a once upon a time but right now, right here, that’s the promise. God is brewing, in the belly of Mary and at the core of you. This is what Mary proclaimed in her song, that God uses the foolish to humble the proud.

If your heart is broken. If you’re despairing. God sits with you. If you’re down and out, feeling cast out. God is on your side. If you are depressed, anxious, worried, deflated. God stands with you. If you are suffering, oppressed, and enemies stand against you. God moves toward you. Not only so, God sees to it that you are brought back to the center, made whole, loved and claimed as God’s own, and reinstated back into a righteous justice realm where God reigns. This is the miracle work of Christmas that God is doing, through the marginalization of Jesus in a broken world. In the face of a life tragedies, which there are many, may The Holy Spirit come on you, and the power of the Most High overshadow you. Amen.

Invitations to Whole Life Flourishing

Move in towards the messes of your life. Or the messes of others. See if you can find it to be a place that can be fertile soil to something miraculous, beautiful, holy.

Don’t see it with the world’s eyes, as failure or a mistake. See if you can recognize the divine manifestation through the ugly, the shamed, the illegitimate.

Spiritual Practice of the Week

Close your eyes and imagine Mary’s experience. Visualize looking into the room where Mary first found out that she was pregnant. Try to sit with her emotions that she might be having. Notice and simply witness both the natural fear and the supernatural strength. After, journal how that experience made you feel. What did it bring up for you?

Action: Jesus Compels Us to Act

We’re talking about Reservoir’s Core Values these days. And I’m so excited to talk about them because I really like these values. Like, this is who we are and what we care about, and how we think it best informs and shapes our faith journeys. Check it out. Here’s what our website says:

CORE VALUES

Jesus captures our hearts, transforms our lives, and makes all things possible. We want to move closer to Jesus in all aspects of our lives. As we do so, our community is animated by these five core values that guide our pursuit of vibrant, inclusive, healthy faith:

Connection: We value life-giving connections and are committed to pursuing God’s wholeness, love, and leading in every moment of our lives, transcending distinctions between sacred and secular.
Everyone: We seek to welcome people in all their diversity, without condition or exception, to embrace a life connected to Jesus and others.
Action: Love for Jesus compels us to act—to seek justice, show compassion, work for reconciliation, and hope for transformation in joyful engagement with the world.
Freedom: We encourage honest exploration of faith over conformity of belief or behavior, trusting that the Holy Spirit reveals truth to all who seek God.
Humility: We are wholeheartedly committed to pursuing the truth of Jesus through multiple sources, including the Bible, reason, culture, and experience, and we take the posture of learners, recognizing that our understanding of God’s truth continues to unfold.

Y’all, this is so good. For a church to have such words. “transcending distinctions between sacred and secular,” you mean even “worldly” things? Yes it’s all God’s. “Diversity, without condition or exception” For real? Even…? Yes, no matter what. “Trusting the Holy Spirit reveals truth to all who seek God.” Whaaaaat. To all? And “recognizing that our understanding of God’s truth continues to unfold?” WHAAAAAT you mean, we didn’t have it all figured out in 1791? Can you tell, I’m so excited to be unpacking these values together for 5 weeks.

At the center, the starting point is Jesus. Jesus captures our hearts. Jesus transforms our lives. JESUS, makes all things possible. Steve kicked us off in the series last week with Connection. Today, I’m talking about Action. I thought about how l’d talk about action. And I was like wait, This is about ACTION. Not, let’s sit here and listen and talk about action. So, I have a gift for you all today. I am going to preach a very short sermon! Praise God! And hopefully give us some time, a chance to take action in whatever way you might need and feel lead today at the end of service. So short sermon, we’ll end early, and I’ll point you to a few ways that you can use that time to open yourself up to even a small action today.

So let me share just 2 Bible stories and what moved them to Action.

The reality is that the love of Jesus does not compel us all the same. So here are two ways, two different women reacting to the love of Jesus. Listen

Luke 8:42-48 (NIV)

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Luke 13:10-17 (NIV)

10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Two stories. Two women. The first woman,

in order for her to touch the edge of the Jesus’ cloak had to kneel, out of desperation, hurl over, in humility and get low to barely touch Jesus. She came trembling, and fell at his feet. The second woman,

was already bent over and could not straighten up at all. Jesus sets her free. He liberates her. And she stands up. And while many capture this story with her being bent over, I think as Vernee said a few weeks ago, why do we remember them by their ailments rather than their legacy of healing? I see her more like the strong defiant free woman, like this fearless girl statue.

(“Fearless Girl,” statue by Kristen Visbal on Wall Street)

For both of these women, Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” and “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Jesus says go. You are set free. Not only does Jesus heal them but he releases them. Go. You are set free! In the midst of it, the disciples around are asking questions, they are confused, and the synagogue leaders are indignant and like, but what about sabbath!

I thought of ending the service early and moving us to action. And a part of me was a bit like, but what about worship? What is worship? Worship is a reaction to a God who loves us. Worship isn’t just sermon, prayer, and praise songs. The provocative message of Jesus was about liberation, heaven on earth enacted now, not observing the sabbath to do religion better, but seeing the people who are in the midst of us, around us, right now suffering.

Last few weeks we’ve mentioned the Health Equity Team and the things they are working on. And sometimes, as a leader of this church, as a pastor, I do ask myself, hm how do I make the connection. Is it too political to talk about healthcare? Am I focusing on this community organizing to empower them to make a change in their real lives rather than teaching people how to pray? And I realized, I’ve been taught to be that synagogue leader. Sunday worship! Sermon prep! That’s important! But this story has convicted my heart to what breaks Jesus’ heart. Jesus saw her. Do you see her? In fact he calls the bystanders out and say, you untie even your ox or donkey! We don’t even give the crippled people enough dignity of even a dog! We ignore them and go on about our worship in our comfortable beautiful space. Why is that? We don’t see the neighbor that can’t afford a doctor’s visit. We don’t see the kids crippled by the lack of access to good education right here in our neighborhoods. And we’re so concerned with our own lives and our church. What is the church for? It’s to receive the love of God and not keep it for ourselves but open up and release our healing and power to go! Set free! Jesus acts and the woman stands. We act that others may stand.

What brings you to church today? What desperation, what need, or posture brings you to the feet of Jesus today? Hear the words of Jesus, “your faith has saved you.” Receive it. Believe it. Accept it. And then, Go. Go out in peace. Don’t hear this message as, now go get busy. Some of you actually need to stop doing many things. If you need to sit at the feet of Jesus to drive in deep the love of Jesus, do that. Kneel. Hurl over. Take time to reach out to Jesus and say heal me. Because everything we do, it derives from the power of Jesus. So let’s sit with him first before we think of any action. And if you heard him, he says stand up. He says walk.

So I’ll wrap up now and we’ll move into the rest of the service with music, prayer, and communion. And after the service has “ended,” let your worship continue. Here are a few ways I invite you to this time, and I invite you to an action of some sort, but per our other values of freedom and humility, asking yourself what you need and as you feel lead and comfortable.

As I said, Jesus compels us in different ways, and we celebrate diversity, so there’ll be a few different things going on. I invite some of us to hurl over this booklet of spiritual practices. Sit, kneel, lay down if you’d like. These carpets are pretty new and clean. I hope you receive the love of Jesus, just as you are. The band will continue playing and create that space here in this sanctuary.

And then I invite some of you to move out. There’s the Dome, where the Health Equity Team will be huddling about the Nov 4th action coming up. Talk with them. I’ll also be in the Dome to talk about Neighboring and Justice work our church’s doing.

There’s the lobby and the Cafe. Find someone to connect with for just 10-15 minutes and share what brings you to church. Share what Jesus has said to you through these scriptures or through this worship service. Listen and share what compels you to act. Jesus wasn’t about religion or even social action, but about relationships. In the midst of chaos, Jesus called out saying, “who touched me”, he wanted to know her, and In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him. In the face of hurt and pain, Jesus saw her, he called her forward. Last week Steve invited us towards connection. Share your story. Let’s listen to the stories and call each other forward.

And move even further out. I invite you to walk around the church and our campus. Take a few moments to stare at a leaf. Look up and breath. Pray for this place. Walk around and pick up trash. Pray for our church, the people. Pray for Benjamin banneker school. There’s a guide in how to do that in the Spiritual booklet as well.

Your faith has healed. Go in peace. Amen.

On the Brink of Not Much…Not Yet…

Both of my graduations were anticlimactic. College graduation, I got the cap and gown, but the diploma was just a cover. I wasn’t getting the real diploma, yet. As the end of my 4th year in undergrad was coming to a close, when everyone else was interviewing, landing a job, planning to move, I was graduating late because I didn’t have enough credits. In high school, it was easy to keep up and I wasn’t the smartest but still got A’s and B’s without trying too hard. SAT scores were decent enough to get into UCLA. Transition to college was a bit more difficult for me, not just the academic part but socially, emotionally I wasn’t able to balance out everything too well. Each semester I was overloaded and ended up dropping a class here and there. Which is how I ended up at my graduation with about 20 units short and was only “walking”. Everyone was asking each other, “what are you doing after graduation?” Oh, an internship at Deloitte. Grad school at USC. An oversees program with Peacecorp or some other exciting cool gig. It seemed like everyone else was on the Brink of everything, except me. After I “walked” my graduation, I had to take 3 classes in Session A of summer school and 3 classes in Session C, to finish all my classes by the end of summer.

My grad school graduation also had a damper. After you graduate from seminary, you received a masters in divinity, because apparently you’ve mastered the divine (lol), and then in my little circle of the world, in the denomination of Presbyterians, the order was that you are then “called” by a church and that’s how you get ordained. I, happened to be working at a church that’s of another denomination and didn’t qualify for ordination right then. Folks would ask each other, “where you getting ordained?”. While others were becoming solo pastors at a church or becoming chaplains at a hospital, I had to explain about working at a church that’s not Presbyterian and the whole thing.

Churches follow the season of the new school year, so it’s a new ministry year for us, and as we kick this time off, we’re doing a sermon series called, On the Brink of Everything, taken from a book by Parker Palmer. The series isn’t particularly inspired from the book, as our head pastor Steve kicked off the series last week talking about being overwhelmed in the midst of being on the brink of every kinds of things, whereas Palmer’s book is mainly about aging and reaching end of life. Palmer got the title actually from a reflection written by a mom as she watched her toddler on the brink of discovery and seeing the world with wonder. And yes, as I see my 10 month old daughter, omg she on the brink of swallowing cardboard, falling head first on a sharp toy, or knocking down any liquid nearby. So, whether we’re 10 months old, or very old, or anything in between really, this is a season for many of us, we’re on the brink of change, launching, possibility. And we just loved the title, kinda poetic, on the brink, of everything!

But for me, there’s this thing about it, that’s a bit anticlimactic. On the Brink of… not much… not yet…. Not me…. And it feels like everyone around me is on the brink of stuff. They are working on some new cool project. They are starting a company. Their company’s about to go public for ridiculous amounts of money. I’m like, dude, we were in same small group a few years ago! But me, yes, I have recently had many changes, I moved here almost 2 years ago, had a baby. That’s a lot of change. But then like, since then it’s been, diapers, emails, uh trying to eat better, gym, work, ya know. Same ol, same ol. Every weekend we’re like, so….. Uh library? Costo? Burlington mall? Yeah, I know my life might look fabulous on Instagram, but that’s just it. It looks like everyone’s on the brink of discovery and excitement, but there’s this mundane regularness of life that we don’t see. What do we do with this time, the not much of nothing not yet? That’s what I want to talk about today.

Even for Jesus, the Bible stories about him are his facebook feeds, the highlights, that’s captured and saved forever, but there’s all these early years of his life that we have no record of. Because he was probably doing not much, not yet. The only record we have is when he was 12 years old, when his parents lost him in the temple. Let me read it for us.

Luke 2:41-52 (NIV)

41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

They traveled on for a day? What were you doing for a day without your son you called Emmanuel, Mary and Joseph? He was literally not with you. Rough childhood. And Jesus, sounds like he was a kind of a problem child, running away and not letting his parents know where he was?! His mom’s like, “why have you treated us like this?” Totally what my mom would say to me, “why would you do this to me?” and I’m like, I didn’t do it to you, you’re the mom! But I digress…. A twelve year old, after 3 days?! WHAT? Can you imagine? And he talks back too. “Why were you searching for me?” And the kid is weird, saying things they didn’t understand. I mean what if your middle schooler, when you’re like, “where you been?” says to you, “Don’t you know that I had to follow the voice of the one who calls me?” You’d be worried. I mean, you bring them to church but you don’t want them to be THAT religious. The writer wrapped it up well, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” But man, you don’t know that when all you see is him acting like this!

It was a time of growth. A time of becoming. A time of not much…. Not yet.

They call it the gap years. Jesus took a gap year! Years, at that! Because there was nothing extra special about that time probably. The only other reference we have to his backstory is when Jesus was seen doing miracles later, someone was like, “wait isn’t this the carpenter guy from that one town?” When you make it big, someone always does this. And to that, Jesus responded, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home”. So, Jesus was probably a carpenter. Building furniture, maybe houses, a contractor. Not particularly related to a charismatic spiritual leader.

Even when Jesus finally performed his first miracle, it felt as though it was not time yet. In John 2, it says, 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” and Jesus replies “Woman, why do you involve me?” “My hour has not yet come.”

Do you feel like your hour has not yet come? Or not even sure if it’ll ever come. Maybe some of us feel like we’re just on hold. In this liminal space between doing something meaningful or great, or it doesn’t even have to be great, just right. And in the mean time, it feels as though you are stuck. Maybe you’ve been feeling like you’re stuck at a job, you’ve been interviewing and interviewing but nothing’s been happening. Or you’ve had this idea in your mind, and tried to have it become something, but it just keeps hitting a wall after another. Or maybe it’s a season marked by just trying to get by. Just sustaining. Just the day to day. And it feels, mundane. Like you’ve been waiting. Wondering how long this season is going to be.

Those times after both of my graduations were also times of insecurity and uncertainty. I wasn’t sure who I was, or who I was supposed to be. It felt like I was put on hold. I knew I was capable of things. Sometimes it felt like people didn’t see me. Or recognize my talents. Like I wasn’t even worth being given a chance. There were times at my job when I was moving chairs, coordinating events on emails, and setting up the projector that would not cooperate, I felt frustrated that this is all I amounted to after grad school. Not that I was above those things, those tasks are actually some of the meat work of ministry and I still do them, but I wasn’t given a chance to preach, or teach a class, or lead a group on a topic that I was passionate about.

I remember one night during those times, I had a sleepover with my 2 bestfriends. Yes, I was like mid twenties having sleepovers where you turn off the lights, lay down and talk to each other in the dark. It was one of those conversations with your bestfriends that just flowed, we were listening, and present, completely still, all in the dark, blankly staring into the ceiling. And we were talking about our lives, post college graduation. And I had this image in my head that just popped up. I wasn’t sure what it was but I just shared it with them. There was this small pink plastic stool with like cheezy flowers on it, like the ones you see at chinese markets. And on top of it was a bowl, an ordinary bowl. The bowl was full of water just about to overflow, and on it was a drip, drip, drip, with each drip, the bowl at the brink of overflowing but not yet. I shared that image and one of my friends said, I can’t remember exactly but something along the lines of, it’s been filling up, slowly, veeeeery slowly, but it’s filling up. And I just filled up with tears in my eyes and my heart swelled up with this recognition, of knowing and feeling exactly what she was talking about. My ordinary, some would even say pretty ghetto life, just makeshift stool and put a bowl on it, ya know nothing fancy, it’s not a chalice on a tiered stand or nothing, but God was filling me up, drip by drip. And I could picture the bowl overflowing, running down the pink plastic stool and spreading all over the floor. It was like a glimpse of the future. When each day felt like only a drip, insignificant, small drips.

I’ve had this other image, during the times after my seminary graduation. When I knew I wasn’t ready to be killing it. There was this sense of daily grind. Where I was building myself up, and just sharpening knife. At the risk of being just streotypical Asian, I’m about to drop a bunch of asian images here but, I imagined like a samuri, one who learns how to just sharpen his sword. Like a Rocky moment, getting up super early in the morning, in the darkness of dawn covered in morning mist fog, you just faintly see the figure of a samuri kneeling and the only sound you hear, sheek sheek sheek, sharpening his sowrd. Until one day it comes, I don’t know the enemy or whatever, and he just goes, shook shook shook, and kills.

I’ve kneeled and grinded, next to my dad growing up. More asian stuff coming at ya, while he would write caligraphy, I would sit next to him with a black block in my hand, and you pour a little bit of water on this heavy black stone brick, that literally had a big dragon engraved on it as the lid, and you would grind the block to make ink. And as you do it, you don’t just grind and make ink, you give your focus, your intention, your chi, maybe you’ve heard it I think the chinese call it, in korean it’s called gi, your energy. That is how you make ink. And before you can freely move your brush on about, you first grind the block with you gi. You know like, wax on, wax off, okay, I’m done with the asian imageries.

We were just on a church-wide retreat together this weekend, friday to Saturday and the theme was mending, with a speaker who literally sewed things together. We were told to bring holey socks. And the thing about sewing things together for me is, man I just don’t got time for it. I remember our sheets started to get these little holes in them and we had literally like just bought them so not wanting it to rip more, my husband was like, can you sew these up? I was like, PSH, uh okay, sure, let me just bust out my sewing kit and put a tiny thread into a tiny hole and do some sewing in my spare time like a proper wife. Just kidding. I don’t talk like that to my husband lol…. I was like, uh yeah sure, I’ll try. But I was thinking, when am I going to have time to do that?

I did it one day and honestly, it felt so good. It felt like REALLY good. To slow down, just look down and focus on your hands, fixing something physically. I was present. And my husband was pretty happy too.

Looking back, the timing of things actually were perfect. During those times were times I had the space and time to process some important things in my life. It was during those times that I had the energy to put myself together, to grief, to be angry, to heal and process some of the traumas I’ve experienced in my life. And I’m grateful for it because, if I was preaching during that time, well I would’ve been horrible at it because I was too deep in my own stuff. They were times of slowing down, places I had to weave, thread, reinforce, protect, and mend for me.

When Jesus finally stepped into his true calling of preaching, healing, performing miracles and eventually dying for what he did, he continued this habit of withdrawing himself from the spotlight and connecting with the Father. It says, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” in Luke 5:16. And in Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

In between greatness and living out his fullest life, he would, ground himself, go back to the source where he got his energy. When things would happen that was too much,

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Matt 14:13.

I actually think this is the brilliance and the magic of Jesus. He was busy. he was fighting the systemic powers of his time. He was able to bring heaven on earth through his very words and his hands, because he would whisper to his Maker and clasped his hands in prayer. Where did he get his power to do what he did? Through seasons of some negative space in his life, where he went on walks by himself. He was constantly stepping away, ducking out, and sneaking off to connect with the One. He claimed to be one with God. And that’s, I believe the secret to Jesus, showing us how to be one with the divine, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me. Says in John 17:22. I quote these verses, not because they are important because they are in the Bible, but for us to get glimpses of who Jesus was like and why he’s such a big deal. What made him tick. What made him, him. What makes Jesus so compelling is actually counterintuitive to today’s culture of being a big deal and showing the world who you are. He did the opposite. He went down. Lower than anyone expected him to. Unto the depths of shame, and blame, and death. There, from there he rose. That is the way Jesus shows us, that the way down is the way up. When you think not much is happening, that’s the place of incubation and rebirth.

You know, it seems as though everyone else is achieving greatness, putting themselves out there, making things happen. And like the overused cheesy imagery of a caterpillar, this gross crawling thingy cacoons itself in the darkness. And maybe that’s you, who’s been in a season of darkness. A season of what it feels like a dull chronic pain. A season that feels like God is doing not much…. Not yet… and you’ve been asking, “how long, oh Lord.” If you find yourself there, take heart. God meets you there in the dark, and is sharpening your sword, is grinding your rock, is dripping every blessing and goodness onto you, that you may be filled up and overflow. May that be true for us, our community and the world.

As we trust God to show up in those places, we can freely allow ourselves to slow down to really get in touch with who we are. And maybe this season that feels like a lull, like a moment of stagnation, is maybe a time of sustenance. We all need such season. Especially if we want to be ready for greatness. We have to be filled up in order to overflow and give and serve those around us. The freedom that comes at the moment of releasing your truest potential, it only comes from a time and place of daily discipline.

Let me wrap up. Here’s my invitation for life flourshing in a season that may be on the brink of not much, not yet. It’s in the program for you.

Don’t look around to what others are doing. Look up and dream big. Look down and do the daily small stuff. You do you. Every day. Plug away.

And a Spiritual Practice to sustain you through this season.

Find time in your life for refueling your energy, connecting with the divine. Connect with yourself, in solitude.

Just as Jesus did. Where he got his power, from the source that everflows to nourish you. To be grounded in the abundant love of God that tells you that it’s not what you do or achieve, but here in the stillness of, even in the midst not much, not yet, I love you. You’re beloved. There is your brink of everything.

Jesus Kicks It Up a Notch

Luke 12:49-56 – Jesus said,

49 “I came to throw fire on the earth. I wish it were already kindled. 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, no, but rather division. 52 For from now on, there will be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

54 He said to the multitudes also, “When you see a cloud rising from the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it happens. 55 When a south wind blows, you say, ‘There will be a scorching heat,’ and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you don’t interpret this time?

What a challenging text! Oh dear, I pick em good right? No man, it’s just in the Bible. And what are we gonna do with it? Well we gotta do something with it. Because the Bible claims to be a good word for the people, telling the story of God, who loves us relentlessly. So how does this text, do that? Let’s see.
Cause the reality is, sometimes it’s used to do the opposite. Sometimes biblical texts have been misused. To coerce, to manipulate, to shame. I’m pretty sure a few cults have used this line,”father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother” to get people to commit their lives, and money usually, to their cause, abandoning their family who all saw what you were getting into and got worries for you. So you can’t just blanketly apply a text to a situation for your agenda. What I mean is: “Just because your family hates you doesn’t mean you’re doing God’s work.”

If we’re going to take this text seriously, then we’ve got to consider the context in which Jesus was in, who the audience was that Jesus was talking to, seriously. Why Jesus said such things, to whom, for what situation, and what he must’ve meant by it. Honestly we’ll never know what he exactly meant, because we don’t have a time machine, and just like you never know what Mark Rothko meant with his art. I mean, it’s just boxes of colors. But let’s consider, what does it evoke in you. And the search for what he might’ve meant is the journey worthy enough. We dive into the text with eagerness, hope, and humility. What does Jesus mean by these words? And I really struggle with this statement. “Do you think that I have come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, no, but rather division!”

I mean them are fighting words here. Ain’t nobody wanna hear that right now, at this time of our own political environment of division, our generation of widening gaps among folks!

A few weeks ago I preached from Ecclesiastes and in that book, it reminds us that there is a season for everything:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

So what might have been this particular time for division that Jesus was talking about? What was the context of Jesus’ time that prompted him to say this.

History and texts outside of the Bible tells us that Jesus was born into a time and place when the Roman Emperor Augustus reigned. It was marked by a time called Pax Augustus, the “peace of Augustus” ruled with a mighty hand. What did this mean? The Oxford History of the Biblical World says that it, quote, “brought stability to the empire as a whole, but its benefits were not spread evenly. While some enjoyed freedom and prosperity, subject peoples and those on the fringes of society experienced oppression. Such inequity often leads to unrest and even insurrection, and some scholars have viewed the ministry of Jesus as a hostile response to oppression by the Romans and their representatives in the east. Certainly the Roman treatment of Jesus and later his followers indicates that they were considered a threat to the peace.” (Coogan, p.390) Meaning, it was peace for some but oppression for some. For those who are enjoying peace, it’s always a nuisance when their peace is interrupted. Those folks often say, everything was fine, why the unrest? Fine for you but it hasn’t been fine for others.

Of course peace is ultimately something everyone wants. The meaning of the Greek word used here for peace is, peace. “A favorable circumstance”, or ‘tranquility’ or, ‘to be without trouble’ or ‘to have no worries” or, sometimes it’s helpful to hear it as that culture’s idiom, ‘to sit down in one’s heart’. That sounds so nice. To sit down in one’s heart. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s because some folks didn’t have peace, they had troubles and they had worries and they could not sit down in their own heart, they were running around just to keep up. It’s peace for you but what if others are not experiencing that peace right next to you. Can you sustain your peace? Martin Luther King Jr said, “He (one) who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he (one) who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” Passively accepts. I think that’s often what happens with situations that we think as peace for some. We just all go along with it. We just passively, silently, let it be because we don’t wanna cause trouble.

That kind of “peace” is not what Jesus came for. Jesus didn’t come here to just numb the pain or even accept some enlightenment of peace no matter what’s going on around you. He came to fundamentally change the whole system . Which meant disrupting the current one under the yoke of the Roman Empire. He didn’t even come to just make you feel better but he came to uproot the very nature of the way the world operated, which you are a part of. He’s like, I didn’t come here to just chill with you. I’m sorry but we’re gonna get up and get some work done. You think I came to have a good time? No I came to challenge the status quo. Rock the boat. Not ignore. Wake up. Bring things to light. And people hate it when you bring things to light. Because it disrupts the norm.

And when Jesus talks about one house being divided, well, it’s bringing disruption close to home, into every fabric of their lives and community. Not only so but it’s disrupting the everyday norm of the time, and pulling apart the most basic nodes of system that the whole system builds on. Jesus is disrupting familial system. This is challenging. This is hard.

There was a time in my family, when things started to unravel. It mostly started because I decided to start going to therapy in seminary. Before then, sure we’ve had problems but certain things were understood as, ‘that’s just the way things are’. But then, the youngest of 3, had to go and process family systems theory and it began breaking open old secret boxes of our family. I began to ask questions. And my family at first were open to it, like that’s cool you’re doing this, but soon the questions got too deep. And things got emotional. I asked my dad why he no longer talked to one of his sisters. My mom and my dad both claimed that nothing particular happened. That they just drifted apart. I asked if we could reach out to them, and my mom began to get defensive and walked away. My dad sat there and this darkness came over him.

When our family gets together, there were certain things that always happened. Certain expectations. Certain behaviors. There was this one time, right in the middle of my deep journey into therapy work, we planned a family vacation in Vegas. To be honest, I didn’t want to go because some of the things that came up for me that made me sensitive. I was starting to change, from the role I had always played, which was the youngest, which in korean is mang-neh, which connotes so much meaning of who you are and what role you play in the family, and in my family mangneh was the one who always entertained everyone and made everyone happy. Growing up, I was the harmony maker in my family. And on that trip, I decided to not be that anymore and it was so awkward.

Everyone was staying together in one suite. And vegas suites are huge, but this was with my sister, her husband, her 3 kids, and my brother, his wife. And I, needing boundaries and some personal space as I was working through some family trauma, and said that I will be staying in another room by myself, in another hotel. And at random times, I’d duck out, saying I needed to go to the gym. Yeah I was that person. And they were like what? Lydia doesn’t work out. I remember them looking at me weird, in one sense realizing their youngest was growing up, and in another sense it began disrupting everything. My family was uncomfortable and yes, I was making things more difficult. Using money to get my own room? Selfish! Causing awkwardness to our family vacation. But I needed to. There was some family trauma that nobody was talking about and I needed to bring it up.

Because Peace is not just all agreeing with one another. Unity is not uniformity. That’s people pleasing. Real peace, is justice right? Not just nicey-nice, easy going, but real peace, shalom, is holistic righteousness in every aspect. Even the thought of division, I don’t necessarily think division is bad sometimes. Not everyone needs to be on the same page. I have a pep peeve when someone calls America a melting pot. It’s like, no, we shouldn’t expect everyone to just melt into the rest and lose our unique flavor and individuality. I’d much rather like a pasta salad, please, with kimchi on top. Give it some kick. Some spice! That something pickled. Much tastier. You know what you get when you melt everything together in a pot right? Poo poo color soup.

So, is it better to just blend in and not start trouble? Shall we just stay silent as to not cause conflict? I mean, it is very uncomfortable. I mean, I talked about being the one to kind of instigate change and speaking up in my family but I, for most of my life have much rather just avoid the conflict and crack a joke instead. Or distract us. Or numb us. I never knew how to do healthy confrontation, and of course that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s never confrontation, it just mean when there is, you don’t know how to do it well and things are piled up and saved up and erupts. Most days I love avoiding discomfort.

Look, I love TV. I love Netflix. Grey’s Anatomy, Queer eye, Orange is the New Black, Give me your drama, not my drama. I love just tuning in and zoning out. My husband, not so much. Him, he likes to connect. Talk about things. He loves to ask me this questions, “so what happened today?” And I’m like, uh nothing, nothing happened today, just same ol’ same ol’. I’m like trying to just watch some TV and not process the things that happened that day, but him, oh he loves to discuss things, things I saw or heard, things I felt. He’ll ask me like, anything that stood out to you today? Like a journal prompt. And then I’ll kind of start sharing about something that happened that kind of bothered me and then as I talk about it I realize how much it bothered me and I get all worked up and he’s like you’re just now telling me this? And then he’ll get worked up and say something like, “why didn’t you say something?” and I start questioning and replaying everything. And now both of us are worked up. In one sense, I’m like, man we could’ve had just a quiet night where we watch a TV show, poke on our phones next to each other, and then go to bed. You know, a peaceful marriage. But no, he wants to talk things out and make me feel stuff.

Here’s another example. It’s like the great TV show, cause you know I love TV, Kitchen Nightmares with chef Gordon Ramsey. I mean, he brings in conflict. And the reality is that the restaurant he’s come to work with has already been dying a sad slow death of no customers. But then he comes in and calls the menu, insert flowery language I can’t say here, and yells at the owner, the owner is kind of just numb and the staff is checked out and the chef has lost all passion. And Gordon comes and kicks it up a notch. He’s like, this is disgusting, do you even care? And like barges out of the kitchen back door, throwing out food into the trash. He pulls out spoiled food from the fridge, meat that’s been frozen for years, lays everything out and makes them look at it and confront their failures. Everyone starts crying.

In the beginning of Luke chapter 12, Jesus says, “The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!” Bring it to light. Expose the back of the kitchen. And he talks about these two metaphors fire and water. He says he’s bringing down fire. And this metaphor for fire isn’t just judgement or destruction. We know that fire destroys but also it cooks, it shed impurities, it shapes metals or glass. It heats and give energy. Jesus also talks about the waters of baptism. Which also, water can destroy, but also refreshing, it permeates and drowns everything. Water of the womb breaking to release new life. And that my friend, is not peaceful. I remember hearing that that pain, it’s one of the most natural supposed to happen kind of pains that we can experience in life. Jesus is bringing fires of change and water of new life to this earth.

The reality is, the gospel is really not a feel good message to be honest. If it was, then we’ve dumbed it down. The gospel, which by the way comes from the word evangelion, which was the exact word the Roman Empire used to announce some new decree of “good news”. The early Christians intentionally used that exact word to describe what Jesus was bringing, the real good news. Funny how words evolve over time, “evangelism”… But I digress.The gospel is more than just a nice fortune cookie saying for your week. It’s much more disruptive, discombobulating, and challenging to the status quo and your comfort level. I have the weird job of preaching a sermon that you like but also that makes you a little uncomfortable. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Let us not be lulled into thinking that the gospel is to make our lives better. That’s prosperity gospel. The gospel convicts us to sometimes turn our lives upside down. And it sometimes really is not pleasant or convenient.

The last church I was at went through some difficult times over the years. But this is not the story of just this church but so many churches. About a decade ago, it left a denomination they were a part of to make the shift in allowing women to be ordained as pastors. It was a divisive issue. A big chunk of the church left when they made that change. There were budget cuts and loss of relationships. And then about 5 years ago, it made another transition, to be a lgbt affirming church. It was a divisive issue. A big chunk of the people left. And for some people, it disrupted many personal and professional relationships. There was a social cost. I know professors who’ve been dropped from their jobs from seminaries for taking a stand. Some of these folks’ networks, friends, organizations that they help build, all turned their backs because they decided to accept their gay son rather than disowning him.

Last story I’ll tell. I know this wonderful woman. Her father was a minister growing up and she herself had always been involved in serving in the church. She’s now married to a woman. They have a son together. And because of it, her parents do not speak to her. They do not visit their grandson. And that makes me so sad for her but when you talk to her, I mean really talk to her, she really has so much love for her parents who have distanced her. She says she knows that they love her and that this is their framework, their way they know how to love her. She says that she doesn’t know what God is doing but she knows that God is working through them too somehow. It deeply pains her and she longs for her grandson to know his grandma. But she honors her parents, not at the cost of denying her own truth, or being gay, or her own calling⁠—which by the way, she is like THE pastor to so many Asian-American queer Christians I know⁠—but with her heart, with a divided heart that loves with grace and aches with pain.

It’s really hard you know. And it’s not clear. One man doesn’t disown his son. And another man rejects his daughter. And the point isn’t that division is God’s calling. Like I said at the beginning, there’s a time for everything. Like a good gardner, uprooting everything, turn over the dirt and pull out the weeds, before replanting, watering, and waiting. Like a good physician, that cuts or rebrakes to heal. The point is that there will be some fire. Some heat. The burning sensation is normal! Jesus came to throw down and allowed himself to be hung up on a cross. He came to kick it up a notch. So that we may know peace through his death. What paradox. And that’s what the gospel is. A beautiful paradox that we can’t organize neatly. May we have the grace to hold both, and wonder and be in awe of the great work of God that is done through Christ’s divided hands.

Look, there are lots of divisions in this world. You know it already. And Jesus never said, “why can’t we all just get along?” Jesus invited us into the tension, into the fire, into the waters. Maybe there’s a way to honor the divide, and the work it needs to do. Could it be possible that maybe God could work through both? just, consider, maybe. The text today doesn’t say which side God is on. Whether God’s on the mother-in-laws side or the daughter-in-laws side. It’s that whole iron sharpens iron verse people often quote from Proverbs. You know what happens what iron sharpens iron? It cuts both and there’s fire sparks everywhere! And it’s really loud! God is big enough to work through both.

Let me close us with this invitation to flourishing and a spiritual practice.

Invitation to flourishing:

Notice a particular division in our world. Notice your feelings and emotions about and towards both sides. Try to see each of the side’s motivations, their logic, their longings, their story. Consider what this divide is bringing attention to. What each of the side is truly concerned about at the end of the day. What truth or value is this division bringing to light? Without judgement, pray for the refining fire and waters of baptism that brings forth new life through this division.

And consider trying this out.

Spiritual Practice:

Two hands prayer – Honoring the divide. Consider each side.

On the one hand: I’m angry… I’m grieving… I’m frustrated… I deny…
On the other hand: I wish… I hope… I want… I positively desire…

Faith Lessons from a Cynic

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23:

1:2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

1:12 I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem,

1:13 applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with.

1:14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

2:18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me

2:19 –and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

2:20 So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun,

2:21 because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

2:22 What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?

2:23 For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

In the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college, I went on a mission trip to Mali, Africa for 2 weeks. While I was there I remember one day, I was kneeling and praying in a room, sweating in the heat of the summer, asking God to show up and meet me, that I wanted to experience God in a real way while I was on this mission trip. I mean I came all the way to Africa! Don’t miracles happen on mission fields? So I prayed and prayed. And suddenly I felt this gust of wind and felt chills run throughout my body and I gasped and turned around and it was the fan air.

We’re following a Bible reading guide called the Lectionary during the summer to preach from. And today’s text, from Ecclesiastes, calls life, vanity. Vanities of vanities. The word, sometimes translated vanity and sometimes meaningless, is derived from the Hebrew word meaning “breath”, “vapor “ or “light wind”. Passing wind. Like my mission trip, just fan air. Vanity, a chasing after wind. That’s what the author pretty much says what life is. It’s quite a cynical view of the world.

I’ve always been a bit confused by this book. When I’ve always learned from good Christians that ‘there’s a meaning for everything’ or ‘things aren’t just chance’, that ‘there’s a purpose driven life’ for everyone! So this book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes that has the these statement of “everything is meaningless”, well what’s the meaning of that?! I wanted to know. Like, it’s so negative vibes! That’s not faithful. It’s a downer book. Especially in these chosen verses for today, which it looks like it chose verses here and there from chapters 1 and 2, that doesn’t even include some of the conclusive lessons or takeaways from the book. Like, I can’t preach a sermon that’s titled, ‘everything is meaningless’ okay? And be done. We’d get some constructive criticism feedback on our Welcome Cards and emails tomorrow!

So, why. Why is this book in the Bible?

Let me just read you a few other lines/translations from the book, “I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race.” (1:13) “I conclude the the dead are better off than the living”. (4:2) and “And the day you die is better than the day you are born. Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies” (7:1-2) Oh, comon! You don’t like birthday parties? Something is wrong with you mister! Why is such a perspective in the Bible though? How can such words contribute to our faith journey?

There is some wisdom here. Some truth. Harsh truth. Maybe there’s some truth behind people who are emo, or goth, this dark cynical view of the world. There might be a reason why biblical counsels have decided again and again to include this in, what’s called the “canon” meaning, the carefully selected book collection that make up the Bible. (By the way there are other books that have been considered, and not included for this or that reason– some team of folks decided on that. Just saying. It’s an intentional, hard work and process that goes into putting the Bible together with a team of people. It didn’t just happen magically or drop from the sky. And God works through human efforts, critical thinking and process that uses literary tools and strategy–and despite it too! Anyways.)

So let’s take a look at what this book is saying. Why he’s saying these such negative cynical things about life. And why it’s in the Bible. I’ve titled this sermon, Faith Lessons from a Cynic, because I think such perspective does have something to offer to us.

It’s hard to consider it. Because sometimes we’re taught that there’s good and bad, and that’s it. But this book, Ecclesiates is a mix. Positive, hopeful attitude is how we’re supposed to be. Trust God always. That’s how you be a good Christian. Christian CULTURE and other cultures of our time has taught us certain values are worthwhile, well accepted, therefore valid, while others are not. Like we make it so black and white. But the Bible is more comfortable with a mix of feelings. With the process of various feeling throughout the faith journey, that’s not always full of optimism and hope in life and in God. It’s comfortable with saying that’s it’s not always as clear or evident and things are not going the way that they’re supposed to go. Even the writer of this, commonly known as Solomon, though the text isn’t clear, is a mix of personalities and wonderings. We can’t pick out only the heights of one’s faith journey and let it be goal for us to follow.

As a child growing up in church in Sunday school, I learned the Bible in simplistic ways. And at first, when you learn anything you learn the simple ways. I learned that David fought the giant Goliath because David was brave. Be like David. Not knowing the many pitfalls and mistakes David had made in other parts of his life. Or Esther saved the Jewish people with her courage. Be like Esther. Leaving out the parts where she’s one of the many women that were taken to the king for beauty treatments. We sometimes make biblical characters to be elevated to be saints, blameless and perfect, not realizing that in is in fact through their very story of their whole lives, that had twists and turns and not all together always ‘faithful’ and ‘good’, that God chose them and worked through them. Actually in the places of detours is where God used them.

So even this book of wisdom from Solomon, are mixed in with his passions, disappointments, resolves, and exclamations of random things, like “only one out of a thousand men is virtuous but not one woman!” (7:28) Haha, sounds like he had women issues… Why are we listening to this guy? And yet, I think there are things we can learn from one’s full range of journeys, in and through their impassioned lives. Sometimes, their extreme way of putting things, I think can provide a fresh perspective.

Honestly when I read this book, I see a man who has been sorely disappointed in his life. A man dissatisfied, discontent, and even at the brink of losing hope, (can any of us relate?) but working it through, talking it out, trying to journal his way through the state of life. It seems that he’s not happy with his kids. “I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me–and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?” (2:19) He had worries that kept him up at night. “even at night minds do not rest.”(2:23) He’s seen incongruence in life: “I’ve seen wicked people buried with honor.” (8:10) He’s presumptuous. “I have seen everything in this meaningless life.” Have you though Solomon? He’s passionate. “including death of good young people and the long life of wicked people. So don’t be too good or too wise!” Ha, don’t be too good! Bold advice! Cynical. But yeah, he’s got some wisdom in there.

Cynical people get bad rep in our culture or like just brushed off as, ah go vent, complainer, or why are you so angry. Cynicism: “An attitude characterized by general distrust of others’ motives. A cynic may have general lack of faith or hope in the human species or people…” according to Wikipedia. Cynics sometimes point out the painful and realist’s view of the world that is often times disappointing, life parts that left us out to dry, spitting us back out after hopeful prayer after hopeful prayer go unanswered. But maybe, I think maybe, cynics have an angle on life that we can take into consideration, as one of our conversation partners, that might be a helpful tool for our faith journey. Like when Steve talked about Doubt as a companion a few months back. A kind of conversation partner. The cynic within you maybe, doesn’t have to be disregarded, considered invalid, but a genuine emotion to be honored and taken into account for our faith journey. Maybe it might have some wisdom to shed on faith. Because the LORD knows, sometimes in life, we get cynical. And God’s okay with that. The Bible is. It’s also a pedagogical tool. Like sarcasm that pierces to truth. Or satire that exposes. Or tragic comedy theater that brings to life one’s perplexing untieable-with-a-nice-bow-on-a-box experience. I’m just saying, that when there are parts of you that feel hardened or cynical or defeated by hope, those parts of you don’t just have to disregarded and talked over with, “oh just get over it and smile”. They have something to teach you. Something to contribute to your conversation about life.

The ways we’ve been taught or understood what the faith journey has been so intertwined with actually, our culture. Being able to take apart, what is cultural norms that were meshed into faith teachings is a way to sift through theology or the gospel the way you would with flour that’s been sitting for a while when you bake. We’ve been sitting on a kind of thinking for a while, and what does it look like to shake things up a bit. Because it is the case that every religion in every time and place has been learned and given in a container that is culture.

Let me give you an example. South Korea received a big wave of American missionaries around the end of world war II. It’s also around the same time it experienced liberation from colonization, post-trauma of a nation becoming close to being wiped out. It also had economic, military, and political help from Americans. Along came Christianity with capitalism, democracy, and a rebirth of a nation (leaving behind same people in North Korea on the other side of the border). And South Korea can be seen as a “success” story. However you feel about overseas intervention of US, just know that it’s complicated. I’m personally ever so grateful to the veterans who fought in Korean War. But it’s a mix you know? Cause Korea boomed with Christianity. And it boomed economically. But also it grew too quickly. There was a time in the 90’s when Korea realized some of the buildings went up too quickly. A large beautiful mall had collapsed. Christianity in Korea grew for a while and then it became a tool for keeping people in line. The gospel of the good news was entangled with european theology and sometimes it didn’t fit. And it mixed with Korean culture too. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was the example for how you should sacrifice for your family.

Here’s another example. The other day I saw a meme that said:
“How to know you’ve internalized capitalism:
– you determine your worth based on your productivity
– you feel guilty for resting
– your primary concern is to make yourself profitable
– you neglect your health
– you think ‘hard work’ is what brings happiness”
Tweet by fatima @_r0sewater

And I have, and many of my friends both Koreans and Americans have definitely internalized this. It’s seeped into our theology. Even though the Gospel talks so much about grace, we were constantly trying to become better Christians with our own efforts.

Solomon is being cynical about this very concept. We werk werk werk werk werk. For money. For pleasure. For pursuit of happiness! It’s a core value.

What if, what if our core value is wrong. Or okay, okay what if your core value that is in opposition to another’s core value, what if we’re supposed to hold them lightly and be in conversation with them about it.

In moments like this, cynics are so fun to talk to. Like you can’t offend them, they’ll offend you maybe, but they’re like, “it is what it is”. It’s like that friend that will always keep things kind of extreme, kind of real. You take what they say with a grain of salt, but she keeps it real!
Like the friend that watches you chasing after name brand education, breaking my back studying, pressuring myself for applications after applications, and she says to you– dude, like what if you worked at not Google or Facebook. Who would really see you differently? I wouldn’t. You’re not that big of a deal. And you don’t have to be. I’d still love you even if you whatever, fail! Not enough people say this to us.

Solomon is saying to himself, I’m not that big of a deal. Well, cause I was and I have had all the deals and like they were whatever! I’ve had all the money, all the wisdom, all the knowledge, all the women, all the pleasures and like, it was all meaningless.
He reminds us that “The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise osmetime go hungry and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives.” (9:11) A great reminder! But we’re DRIVEN by this. It’s a popular, what we assume is the most well accepted notion of what is good. Run hard, work hard, be strong, be educated, get the degree, get the skill, get that money, hustle, be busy. What is worthwhile. What is valuable. What is meaningful.

My sister reminds me of this from time to time. Sometimes I’m so busy or worked up or trying so hard, and she’s like, Lydia, I’d love to just see you enjoy life. Be loved on and not have to feel like you have to carry the world on your shoulders.

In May, Forbes had an article titled, “Bringing your Whole Self to Work” interviewing the author Mike Robbins of book titled it. Showing up to work authentically with all parts of yourselves. It sounds not smart, cause you don’t want to bring home problems to work. But Robbins claims, “When we don’t bring our whole selves to work we suffer – lack of engagement, lack of productivity, and our well-being is diminished. We aren’t able to do our best, most innovative work, and we spend and waste too much time trying to look good, fit in, and do or say the “right” thing. For teams and organizations, this lack of psychological safety makes it difficult for the group or company to thrive and perform at their highest level because people are holding back some of who they really are.” It reminds me of Solomon saying, don’t be too good!

What if I said to our church. Don’t be too good Christians! Cause what if in doing so, the church “lacks the psychological safety making it difficult for the congregation or a person to thrive and perform at their highest (spiritual) level because people are holding back some of who they really are”? We’ve heard this, that sometimes church is not a safe place cause it looks like everyone has their act together! Everyone’s in the in crowd except me! When so many of us are feeling like, I don’t fit in, I’m struggling, I’m lonely, I’m the only one who’s done this, think that, or looks like this. Why do I feel like an imposter coming to church sometimes? Why don’t I feel like singing praise songs? Am I a bad church goer? Why am I sitting here so angry at God that I can’t hear anything good. Because we’ve all acted like we’re fine. We’re not cynical. We’re only full of hope and joy and love for Jesus! Good job Church!

And if this is not you, consider for a moment folks who might feel this way. What about those of us whose experience real loss or a real set back and are feeling really hopeless and paralyzed. Can anyone relate to me? Don’t tell me to just trust God. Or that God meant it for good. Just tell me, it sucks. Just tell me you have ever right to be angry. Just agree with me, that what I see and experience is messed up and it’s senseless, it is meaningless. That, THAT is how you minister to me. Don’t give me a solution, just show me that you see my problem as real and I’m not crazy.

In a book that our staff read together called A More Christlike God by Bradley Jersak has a section subtitled, Rejecting the un-Christlike God. He talked about the “self-avowed ‘non-Christian’ such as satirist (cynical) Bill Maher. His primary attacks are not against Jesus at all, but against Christians whose religion does violence in the name of the Prince of Peace. He castigates:

He quotes Bill Maher:

“If you’re a Christian that supports killing your enemy and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourlsef. ‘Capping the enemy’ is not exactly what Jesus would do. For almost two thousand years, Christians have been lawyering the Bible to figure out how “Love thy neighbor’ can mean “hate thy neighbor”…
And not to put too fine a point on it, but nonviolence was kind of Jesus’ trademark–kind of his big thing. To NOT follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales. There’s interpreting, and then there’s just ignoring. It’s just ignoring if you’re for torture–as are more evangelical christians than any other religion. You’re supposed to look at that figure of Christ on the Cross and think, “how could a man suffer like that and forgive?”… I’m a non-Christian. Just like most Christians. If you ignore every single thing Jesus commanded you to do, you’re not a Christian–you’re just auditing. You’re not Christ’s followers, you’re just fans. And if you believe the Earth was given to you to kick butt on while gloating, you’re not really a Christian–you’re a Texan.”

Jersak says this about this Maher’s quote: “Maher’s unbelief is actually biting hatred directed against un-Christlike perversions of God, the projections of religious fundamentalists. Audiences find this commentary comedic because the irony is tragically accurate and laughably contradictory. Instead of reacting defensively or hanging our heads in silent shame, why not hear his indictment as a clarion call back to explicit Chrislikness…. “
He goes on to say that, “I wonder, In the case of the sardonic Bill Maher or the broken hearted Charles Darwin, the real culprit may actually be an un-Christlike image of God. Which is to say, not God at all. If so, I’m inclined to agree with Walter Wink, who affirms such atheism as first step toward true worship, because it represents the rejection of an idol. That is what like Maher and Darwin might be turning from — i.e. repenting. The next step, which I don’t pretend they have taken is a turning toward–i.e faith.”

He calls it TRUE WORSHIP. The comedic, the irony, the tragedy, the contradictions, the cynicism. A form of true worship. A form of telling the truth. About life. About religion. About ourselves.

Let’s learn from a cynic. Everything is meaningless he says. And in conclusion what does he say? Solomon says this, “Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them.” And “So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life.” and “So go ahead. Eat your food with joy and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne!”

Again, let me remind you Solomon is a character. He’s like Queer-Eyeing us! With a splash of cologne!

In the face of unanswered prayers and hopelessness. When we’re faced with the harsh realities of the meaninglessness of things in life, senseless and even confusing. Solomon invites us to simply enjoy the moment. Sound too simple? Oh don’t be cynical 😉

So my invitation to you this week is simple. Take a moment to just be. Sit and feel. Feel the sunlight on your skin. Bask. Nothing else really matters anyways, and you were simply meant to enjoy the delight of the present that has been given to you in that moment.

I’ll end with the spiritual practice invitation. We can try it now if you’d like. Just take a moment to close your eyes and don’t do, think, anything — just receive.
Enjoy. Just receive. Bask. Sit and be embraced by the sun rays. There’s nothing you need to do. Nothing you need to think. Just accept and receive the gift from God, God’s presence enveloping you with warmth. Bask in the presence. Be present.

Amen.

The Galatian Incident

The below text is from the preacher’s prepared remarks, and is not an exact transcript, but is very close to the recording. Additionally, at around 7:34 minutes in, we experienced a technological challenge which halted recording. The recording picks back up again, but about a minute of the sermon (paragraphs 4/5 in the text) was lost.

Galatians 3:23-29

3:23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.

3:24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.

3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,

3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

3:27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

3:28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

I visited Korea last year. I was born there but moved to the U.S. when I was 9 years old. It was only my second time back. And it’s of course a whole different place than when I used to live there. I was using Google Maps to navigate the Korean bus system, and had to ask for directions. I stopped someone and asked (in Korean), “Do you know what bus I need to take to get to Namsan Tower?” And the guy replied back to me (in English), “Do you speak English?” Now, if you know Korean, you know that my Korean is good but I clearly have an American accent. And everyone knows ‘bus’ in Korean is not ‘bus’, it’s “Bbuh seu”.

When I moved to the United States, I didn’t know how to speak English. I learned but for a while had an accent. People stared at me and treated me differently. I always had this dream what it would be like to go back to Korea, where everyone looked like me, and I could speak Eorean and not be misunderstood. It turns out I’m too Korean in America and too american in Korea. Am I Korean or American? Identity is a peculiar thing. I never felt totally at home anywhere and displaced no matter where I was.

And I especially struggled with that in my formative years. Throughout middle school and high school, I probably changed my “identity” about every year. Each grade, I made a new circle of friends. 6th grade, I embraced being a shy girl with only 2 friends, the 3 of us picked a spot just around the corner of the school building at every recess. 7th grade I felt the need to expand my circle, or actually move up the ladder, I joined the cheerleading team and made friends with the popular “prep” crowd. Then I got too cool for the cool kids and in 8th grade and decided that I was into alternative rock, baggy pants, and hung out with skaters. 9th grade, I met these Vietnamese kids at our school that were so cool with their low-rider cars and what they called “rice rockets”, fixed up Hondas with spoilers and rims. We’d go “race” our cars around the block during lunch hours. I jumped around to “cliques” and reinvented myself every year. Because I didn’t fit in anywhere.

It would be too cheezy of me to simply say that I found myself in God. Although I did, after I was much older, not necessarily through church community, because churches were always somewhat complicated too. I didn’t fit into Korean youth group. Or the campus fellowships where everyone had similar political views in college while I was studying political science. Because actually Sunday mornings are some of the more segregated times in america. I found myself, after years of trying to be this or that for others, realizing that I didn’t need to try so hard to have people understand me. They didn’t. They didn’t get me. They couldn’t put me in the categories they knew. I didn’t fit them. I came to find myself more grounded during an especially estranged time, when I first moved to San Francisco right after college for a job. I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t have a community or church, my job was a whirlwind. I felt alone and disconnected. It was during those times that I began to do this thing, a thing that I always felt the pressure to do all my life but never did it right, I had Quiet Times with Jesus. We used to called it QT. Bible study leaders used to keep us accountable by asking, “how are your QT’s going?” And I never got through the designated devotional readings. But during this time, when I felt most alone, I spent some time in the evenings, right before bed, reading the Bible, doing this devotional called My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, and I prayed and talked with Jesus. And I kept doing it night after night, because through those times, I felt grounded. I felt connected. I felt this sense of peace, this strange source of energy that was joyful. I was working 70-80 hours a week, exhausted, but I perked up and felt energized by spending time with Jesus at nights. It was crazy, cause I always used to fall asleep reading the Bible growing up. It didn’t matter to God where I was from or what language I spoke proficiently. My prayers were a mix of Korean and English, and sometimes just groans and tears. I felt heard and known by God. I wasn’t sure who I was still, mid 20’s, who I was becoming, but I knew that I was the beloved child of God. And I felt that so strongly and deeply at a time when I was the most lost, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. And like Paul says in our text today, whether I’m Korean or American, I am a child of God. “you are all children of God”

Racial, ethnic, and national identity has always been a tricky thing. The Old Testament is basically a series of stories in a process of making and breaking of a nation and their identity, the Israelites, the Jewish people. Because of their belief in a God who promised a covenant relationship with the descendants of Abraham, Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them and so are you, so let us praise the Lord, although I’m not a son, I’m a daughter, but that was the message. The promise. God’s chosen people. And they had a special name for anyone who was not them. The Gentiles. I used to think the Gentiles meant people from the Gentile, there’s no such country. It just literally means anyone who’s not Jewish. The Greeks did the same thing, The Greeks and the barbarians. Anyone who was not Greek were called barbarians!

So Paul saying whether you’re a Jew or Greek was a very provocative, scandalous, uncomfortable thing to say. Because the separation was clear. And those who tried to blur those lines by worshiping and eating together, were being considered heretics. This is what Paul was defending because his ministry was being discredited because of his stance on the mixing of the Jews and Gentiles. And the text might not hit us like it did them then. We don’t FEEL the danger of the words in our bodies like we would if different words were used today. Let me show a modern day example of this with a quick video. This guy named Nuseir Yassin, who identifies himself as a Palestinian-Israeli, posts a short video each week on various topics called Nas Daily. This one is on Segregation.

Words like, Jews or Arabs, Christians or Muslims, Black or White, Straight or Gay, Citizens or Immigrants–categories that may have exposed tentacles for today’s folks, is kind of like what it felt like for the Galatians to read this letter from Paul. This letter wasn’t written in a vacuum but in the midst of high drama for the Galatian church. And using “loaded” terms during that religious climate was – them were fighting words. And Paul was fighting – fighting for the legitimacy of his apostleship. These “teachers” were saying that he was an imposter. They were claiming that in order for their church to be valid, they had to follow the purity laws, follow our rules.

A thing to note here – as modern day Christians, we shouldn’t assume that Paul’s view of expanding the good news to the gentiles was simply a Christian doctrine and that the Jewish belief system was the archaic bounded set one. We’ve got to remember that at this point, the gospel was still a sect of the Jewish religion. Paul still very much thought of himself as a devoted Jew, as he constantly reminded them how zealous he was as the teacher of the law, which is also why he’s making this claim of his theology as one that ultimately meets the promise of becoming Abraham’s heirs, within the realm of Jewish beliefs. In fact, the early Christian history from the book of Acts show that the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem had earlier agreed that the gospel of circumcision and the gospel of the uncircumcision were BOTH valid and acceptable. Meaning, Gentiles didn’t have to follow the traditional Jewish laws to be a part of the faith. It was the unraveling of an eventual split but not yet. And nowadays the Jewish requirement to join the faith, or Catholic, or other churches and denominations vary widely, and are still up for debate. It’s interesting how applicable Paul’s call to radical unity and inclusion is even today, especially today.

I mean, Paul’s looking at the Galatian Incident, but look at us now. Churches are still debating what belief makes you in and what makes you out. Some people have used terms like bounded set vs. centered set to talk about this, that’s helpful. Bounded – that’s about who’s in or out. Centered – that says Jesus is the center and we’re all in different places. After thousands of years, we’ve still make it about who’s in or out. And rules and guidelines, or more lightly put priorities or set of values are important. But they are just that. Guides.

Paul puts it like this. He says, “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came…” The word disciplinarian here is the same word they used for slaves who oversaw children during their formative years. They were tutors, babysitters. Law was the guardrail but now faith is here! It’s like this.

The babysitter was told bedtime was 9pm and no popsicles. But now, mom and dad’s home. They were the ones who gave the instructions in the first place, but it came from not the correctness of sleeping at 9pm because 9pm is holy and cause popsicles are evil. It’s because of the parents love the child and want the child to have good rest and enjoy a popsicle at a proper time in the sun, at a picnic on the grass when the whole family is eating popsicles together.

Basic rules are helpful, but it points to the greater truth that is beyond the law. Children start with the basic colors, learning red, blue, yellow. But you grow older and see the beauty of complex colors like aquamarine or lavenderblush that they can create and paint for themselves. Or grammar rules that everyone learns but every advanced writer throws out the window when they’re forging their own truth words. How much more than, is how to live holy lives, can be determined by the textbook of the Scriptures. It cannot. Paul says, It’s not the Torah (the book) but Jesus (the person) that leads us and guides us and teaches us and is for us and walks with us and loves us. He says, “Faith has come!” Faith in Jesus. And I don’t mean faith in Jesus as in, saying the formulaic words like a spell, “accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” Again, the intent was good but we’ve made it into a formula again! That’s not faith. That’s a system and we love to create systems because it’s easy. It keeps the power in the system. But Paul was preaching the unleashing of the faith that’s living out the spirit of Jesus. Faith is not a thing you join like a rewards program, that only works if you signed up for all the terms and conditions that’s in the fine print that you never really read, that applies only from Aug 1st to Dec 1, and if you pay a little more, you can get the platinum status. NO! You’ve already been approved! Credit cards try to tell you this because it’s such good news, but that’s the magic of marketing, it looks very similar to good new but it’s not. And churches do that too. You’re all welcome! Unless you want to get ordained. Unless you have questions. Unless you think the spirit is working in you that’s different from what the Bible says.

And the Bible says a lot of different things! This whole debate is in the Bible and with the early Christians too. Who is in and who is out is always the debate. Books like Ezra and Nehemiah had divorce decrees for those who married foreigners. But the book of Ruth and book of Jonah, Ruth, a foreign woman becomes an ancestral matriarch in the royal line of David, and Jonah who was a particularist is then shown by God God’s heart for the people of Nineveh. This is our debate today still, and was in the days of the Bible.

In Romans, Paul again deals with the heated debate of whether to eat meat or not. For some thought it was okay to eat meat and some vehemently opposed it. Peter struggled with this too but his change in his theology didn’t come from interpreting the Torah but from a vision in his prayer, where he saw a sheet coming down with all kinds of unclean animals descending from heaven. His mind was changed from experiencing God. But this issue of eating meat was a big deal, a hot topic to get all worked up about. I mean this happens in the modern day too right? I remember in San Francisco, when I first moved up there from LA, there wasn’t a big recycling culture in southern california, and at restaurants in SF had a bin for trash, a bin for recycling, a bin for compost and I stood there with my tray and placed things into wrong bins, and this lady behind me walks up frustrated at my slow moving and rearranged the trash, muttering something like, it’s not that hard. It’s like, okay, I know there’s climate change and we’re killing the earth but I just haven’t been around such a well organized disposal system, like you don’t gotta be so condescending about it, you know? And Paul kind of sounds similar in Romans 14 saying, “Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables”, he calls them weak! Guess we know how he feels about vegetarians! But still, he goes on to say, “those who eat must not despise those who abstain…and not pass judgement”. In one of her latest standups Ellen DeGeneres was like, “vegans are such snobs.” but also, “let them be. Why are people so concerned with where they get their protein. But what about protein! I don’t care where you get your riboflavin!” But these are important matters, purity laws, climate change, veganism. People care and they should. But Paul reminds us, even to the church today, experiencing much division over disputable matters, (even though some may say it’s clear and not disputable, but just by the fact people do disagree makes it a disputable matter). Some have called it third way, and while there’s some criticism even what third way really is, I think it’s simply remembering that it’s not about meat or no meat, or circumcision or no circumcision, but about faith in Jesus and unity of the spirit in the community. I’ve heard it said, I forget where, not left or right but from above, or not the elephant or the donkey but the lamb. I know we get worked up about our differences and some matters are not just issues but people, not preferences but life and death matters. Yes, and how do we fight for what is good and justice in the midst of division and disagreement, holding tension and holding one another, not letting go of the other who disagree, not walking away but making them look into your eyes as your share your convictions with them and sitting down and eating with them as you hear their experiences and life story that brought them there. An enemy is one’s story you haven’t heard. That is a provocative prophetic progress that only the church can show the world, that no activism organization or political party can achieve because the radical power of love that church is supposed to display. They will know us by our love, Jesus says in John 13.

And it’s hard. Plenty of churches, denominations, and church have split over issues. Nations have split over ideologies or political methods, communism and democracy like North Korea and South Korea. It’s complicated. Or sometimes it seems so simple but, unfortunately it’s not, apparently it’s not and what are we to do with that? Just steamroll people who don’t get it? Who’s not there yet? Who just don’t see the light? Referring back to the video from earlier, racism and division is not just going on in America or between whites and blacks. Singapore is an interesting social experiment in action. A young city state, gaining independence in 1965 after having been a British colony for centuries. It’s implemented innovative social methods, like their housing ownership laws, given to citizens at a much lower market rate with the caveat that it’s for 99 years only, or college abroad paid for with the promise to come and back work in Singapore for certain amount of years. The city runs extremely efficiently and the diversity is very much an integrated one. And you might think, Chinese, Malay, and Indian, well of course that’s easy, they’re all Asian and look alike. Um, you haven’t seen a staunch nationalist like an old Korean man who’s been through colonization that almost wiped out his country and culture. ‘Made in Korea’ is everything to him. Among Asians there’s a great divide among east Asians, South Asians, and Southeast Asians. And among same kind of Asians there’s discrimination among the lighter colored ones and darker colored ones. And there’s so much judgement and shame to those who are overweight or exactly at their own personal weight that’s considered “fat” when it’s totally healthy. And there’s so much gossiping and disregarding of folks who are not educated. Employed and the unemployed. Disabled. Homeless. Jews or Greeks. Slave or Free, male or female, even those categories reinforce the hierarchical system cause that’s all we know. But do you know that before you were American or undocumented refugee, you are a beloved child of God? And after you never graduated and after you had kids and stopped working, Jesus walks with you still daily and works through you. Before you decided to follow all the rules, never go outside the lines, always be helpful, never cause a ruckus, achieve a respectable status/career, perform at the highest level at all times, God loved you just as you were and will always love you even if you don’t keep it up at all costs.

Whether you’re wearing Louis Vuitton or Target, or an Ivy League graduation stole, or sign saying “anything helps”, you are all clothed in Christ – one who died on the cross and rose in glory to say, I love you this much. Whether we’re dressed at our Sunday best or naked with nothing left, Jesus clothes us. Binds us. Unites us. “For all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are heirs according to the promise.” You are heirs. According to the promise. Know that that is who you are. Heirs. Do you believe that? May we live into that inheritance more and more. Amen.

An Invitation to Whole Life Flourishing:

Notice the various categories you place people into: conservative or liberal, powerful or powerless, rich or poor, privileged or not, ally or enemy. Without judgement, notice the differences and particularities.

Spiritual Practice of the Week:

Find radical common ground with the other. Imagine Jesus loving both you and the other just the same, uniting the two of you no matter how different or disagreeing you are.

Prophetic Living: Prophet Hosea

Good morning. We’re in a series called Prophetic Living and I’ll share from one of the prophets in the Bible, a book called Hosea. A quick Bible overview. Old Testament is made up for 39 books. It’s really a library rather than one book. It’s ordered loosely according to genre, Genesis being the origin accounts, then some law texts, and then we’ve got some history books, then some poetry which is often called wisdom books, like the psalms and proverbs, and then the rest are the Prophets. There are “major” prophets and “minor” prophets, not because Isaiah was so majorly cool but cause the book is long. Hosea is one of the minor prophets. 14 chapters. A quick tell-it-like-it-is. When I finally read this book in seminary, cause I never once read it before then although I grew up Christian, I was floored by the content, and since then have always wanted to preach on it. So when we decided to do a series on Prophetic Living, I was like, this is my time! To talk about a very weird book!

It’s a book that isn’t often mentioned in Sunday School, you’ll see why. And you know what, prophetic living can be kind of weird, as we’ve heard about that other Prophet Ezekiel past few weeks. He weird for sure. And that’s an aspect of prophetic living, kind of weird, out of the box. It can sometimes look very different from what’s normally accepted. And I think that’s kind of cool.

So let me read the text for us and see what this peculiar book might have, anything, to say to us today.

Hosea 1:2-11

2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

4 Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”

8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.[b]

10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.[c]

You see why we don’t read this in Sunday School. Go marry a promiscuous woman. And in fact, there are a lot of parts of the Bible we don’t read for kids, but for adults either. I mean, talk about biblical marriage, there’s this one, and Abraham with his wife Sarah and Hagar the maidservant who bore him a son. And many other marriages in the Bible that is FAR from our culture and tradition, or norms of our days, or even their days frankly.

So let me say a few things right off the bat about this text. First of all, it’s a story and it’s a metaphor. It’s set in a time long ago with ancient cultural context. It’s also provocative. So I just want to say that, if any of this is triggering or offensive to you for any reason, a difficult topic, please feel free to step out and take care of yourself. You know your needs best. And also maybe try to allow the metaphor, locked in its particular time, to pass through to unearth the meaning behind the metaphor. We ARE going to do some initial critique of the genre, and that is a PART of reading Bible texts with integrity. So, let’s give ourselves, both me and yourself some grace and mercy through this process of discovering an ancient text. I’m going to take us through the thinking process of this text, so it’ll take us a few detours to get to the core message of Hosea. Stay with me, this is the good work of delving into the text and doing it justice. Like a love confession letter(or email) from your crush, you don’t just read it once and get it, you study every word and layers in meaning! I’ll talk about the metaphor, the problem that the metaphor is referring to, and Hosea’s hope and vision. The metaphor, the problem, and the hope

So, the metaphor. The medium sometimes is not the message. The metaphor is that Hosea is to marry a promiscuous woman to illustrate God’s loving relationship with the unfaithful Kingdom of Israel. It’s meant it to be provocative. Sometimes prophetic messages come off kind of blunt and out there. It’s also an ancient setting in which cultural understanding of marriage, covenant relationship, and gender roles are set in a specific society, different from our own, most likely a patriarchal one, meaning one where the male gender has power and female doesn’t. And so to allude God as the loving husband and the unfaithful Israel to an adulterous wife, such metaphor is comprehensible language and even effective. Partly because the meant audience for the writing was for men, the powers of the Israel who was leading the country astray. But for us, those who get to eavesdrop on the conversation between prophet Hosea and the people of Israel set in 8th century BCE, there are many things that we have different assumptions and standards about. For one thing, the ancient metaphor doesn’t take into account the harm in always aligning the Divine/God with “he” pronoun and the nation, the human beings, or the wrong ones as “she”. I believe the message of Hosea can withstand modern feminist critique, to not only see the simple metaphor, but we must be able to see THROUGH the metaphor, and be able to critique the medium that has caused harm in seeing the female gender as the tainted one and male as the saviors. The text itself is more rich and complex than that. We should not take it at face value and give it the time and effort to do some digging.

Here’s a way to look at it. The prophet writings were a certain GENRE of writing. It’s part autobiographical, historical, interweaved with conversations of God with the prophet, and the prophet with the people. We HAVE to keep the GENRE in mind, because when we are not aware of the specific genre, we totally miss the message. For example, [SLIDE] The Onion is a news source that is meant to be a satire. They report on things like, “Man To Undergo Extensive Interrogation By Coworkers About Where He Got Falafel” with quotes like, ““It’s only a matter of moments before they’re surrounding my desk, ordering me to tell them everything I know about how long the line was and cross-examining me about what other dishes were available.” It’s random. It’s funny. But if you didn’t know the genre, you’d be like, that’s news? Knowing the genre is important when reading something on the internet. It’s also important when reading the Bible. Whenever you read the Bible, ask yourself, what’s the genre here?

The prophet writings are a specific kind of writing. It wasn’t written to give you marriage advice. It’s a metaphor. This sermon isn’t telling you who to marry. Please don’t take the Bible literally like that. In fact, on that note, let me say for the record, sometimes churches often provide people with cultural or moral or ethical standards as a biblical teaching or Christian tenet, and what the Prophets show us, is God’s plan is bigger than human plans. Like this story. Marrying a promiscuous woman, I’m sure would not have been a godly advice to young men in their temple. Marriage is so deeply interwoven with cultural expectations of its time and place.

Here’s an example. Marriage expectations is the bread and butter of Korean dramas. They’re a bit like american soap opera or telenovela, but it’s like this whole genre called Korean dramas. It’s actually huge in asia, my chinese mother in laws knows Korean phrases from watching them, and you can even find them on netflix. Usual story goes like this. A girl and boy somehow falls in love. But there’s a problem. The boy is from a poor family, or the girl grew up without parents and she’s an orphan, or the boy is younger, oh no!, or the girl has a career, she can’t have babies! And the families just lose it when they find out they’re dating, they try to pay each other off to break up, and humiliate their boyfriend or girlfriend. Drama.

The beginning of this text says that God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. (side note, the specific word translated is actually not prostitute more accurately, promiscuous, although many bible translate it so because the metaphor of Israel being a prostitute is definitely there, but the word prostitute is never actually connected to the wife. clarity.) And name his children, Lo-ruhamah–’Not Loved’ and Lo-ammi–’Not My People’. That must’ve been hard names for them to live with! And the rest of the book is series of conversation between God and Hosea, and Hosea to his wife, and God to the people of Israel, and Hosea to the people as the prophet, and it is often confusing who’s saying what to whom. This is often the case in all of the Prophet books. It’s part autobiography, part oracle, part preaching, mixed in with their personal conversation, and feelings, with God and then it being God’s mouthpiece and intention. It’s unclear. But that’s often how life is sometimes right? God speaking through our lives, sometimes in moments of such clarity, God said this, and sometimes in the muddy mix of of our emotions, Is this how God feels? We ask ourselves this as we move about our days, God what are you trying to show me. How are you using me and my life to be a witness. What good story of yours are you telling through my life?

So the metaphor was his own personal story and experience, his marriage, his children. And it’s being used to illustrate the problem. So what is the problem? The rest of the book, Hosea expands on this marriage metaphor to call out the people of Israel. It’s an autobiographical social commentary. So what was happening?

Little history. It’s late 8th century BCE. Around 930 BCE the united monarchy has split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. I feel like I’m explaining Game of Thrones right now, “king of the north!” but actually it’s kind of helpful in imagining it in that genre. Hosea, though it doesn’t say clearly in the text, is probably from the north from the way he talks about all the narratives that were popular in the north and mentioning of mostly northern cities. During the 8th century the Israel and Judah were experiencing some booming of economy and flourishing unlike any other time in their history. They had political stability and independence, partly due to neighboring super powers like the Assyrians, who had been colonizing surrounding nations, were kind of taking a break with their own problems like disease outbreak and such. And in fact, Israel and Judah were expanding and colonizing their neighbors with this newfound strength and stability. And with imperialism, colonizing, they enjoyed more trade, goods, which then bore more hunger for power and exploitation of foreigners and peasants. And then surplus of power that began to tip over to greed causing greater disparity among the rich and the poor. This is common history, right? A history of most nations and powers, the rise and fall, the struggle of the rich and the poor.

What we know is that very soon, a little later, in 722 BCE, all this goes down the drain, with the great fall of Samaria, the capital of Northern Kingdom of Israel. Assyria gets over disease outbreaks and starts destroying their neighboring cities again. We know this through other sources and the Bible. And Hosea lived just before that, and didn’t know this. But, he saw it coming. I think that’s why we allude the word Prophets to those who foretell, but it’s not just that, it’s actually more like those who really have a keen sense of the current state of the nation that they can “predict” what’s going to happen to the country. There were economists who saw the housing market crash of 2008, but we don’t call them prophets. But they knew. They saw it coming. And Hosea, saw the destruction of Israel coming and used it to warn the people to turn their ways.

He masterfully interweaves his conversations with his wife, the anger, the struggle, the feeling of betrayal, to illustrate God’s disapproval of Israel’s actions. Some, I wonder if they were God’s venting, or his own. They are pretty harsh words. And like a good Korean drama or an epic HBO show, things are well, let me read a few lines. Chapter 2, “I will leave her to die of thirst as in a dry and barren wilderness. I will not love her children… I will strip her naked in public… no one will be able to rescue her from my hands…” DRAMA. This is kind of why I stopped watching Game of Thrones in season 3, cause it’s like too much violence and rape, like why. And this is also why some people stop reading the Bible cause too much violence and rape and genocide. You know, human history. It’s ugly. And it’s a literary artistic choice too though. Hosea goes back and forth from one chapter on God’s judgement and fury, to the next chapter, having said all that, End of Chapter 2, “but then I will win her back once again…speak tenderly to her….You will call me ‘husband’ instead of master” (Side note, fun fact! Husband is the metaphor being used in juxtaposition to Master, because the word Master, which is baal, is the same word used for the foreign god Baal. The one true God, loving husband, the false idol god, the taskmaster. It was a pun!) And it does kind of make God sound bipolar. Maybe Hosea was bipolar, or I don’t know, he’s going through a lot right now you know? And it goes on like this pretty much rest of the book, utilizing other metaphors in addition to the marriage one like farming, religion, or parental. Chapter 4, “Israel is stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. So should the Lord feed her like a lamb in a lush pasture? No. Leave Israel alone.” Chapter 6, “I want you to show love or show mercy, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me, more than I want burnt offerings.” Chapter 11, “I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him. I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love, I lifted the yoke from his neck and I myself stooped to feed him.”

These metaphors are pointing out how Israel is breaking the covenant relationship with God, unfaithful and disobeying, saying that they are worshiping idols. Hint: It’s not just about religion. Especially in that time, the separation of religious and secular concerns were not as distinct. So, what is the offense to God? What does unfaithfulness to God look like? As he said in chapter 6, it’s not about the sacrifices or burnt offerings.

Chapter 5: “The court officials in Judah have become like removers of boundary landmarks; upon them I will pour out my fury like water.” Why was removing boundary landmarks such a crime? Cause it was about territory, property, and the court officials who determine them unjustly.

Chapter 9: “you love shares on every threshing floor of grain. Threshing floor and wine vats shall not benefit them, and the new wine shall fail them. They shall not sit in possession in the land of Yahweh; but they shall return to Egypt, and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.”

It was about grain, agriculture, and wine, trade goods, and possession of land, and political ties to Egypt and Assyria the other superpowers that were also exploiting other nations.

Chapter 10: “since you trusted in your chariots and in the abundance of your warriors, an uproar shall rise amidst your cities, and all the fortifications shall be destroyed, like the destruction of Beth-arbel by Shalman on the day of battle” and this is really extreme, I’m sorry but it’s in the Bible, “mothers were dashed into pieces with children,”. Chapter 13 has even worse that I don’t want to read. It was about military, about walls, about wars and murders of women and children.

Prophets studies scholar Rodney R. Hutton puts it this way, “To accuse Israel of religious infidelity was not simply a pedantic concern about correct religion. I was fundamentally a political concern about foreign alliances and the sort of pressures such alliances exerted on Israel’s core religious and social values…Hosea rehearses a long litany of social injustices, all of which result from the fact that, “there is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land. There is swearing, lyding, killing, stealing, and committing adultery. They break all bounds and murder follows murder (in reference to the ten commandments) (4:1-2). Clearly, one cannot distinguish between religious and secular concerns, between matters of worshiping the correct god and worshiping God correctly. For Hosea the two go together and offenses again God have universal and cosmic effects: “Therefor the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air; and even the fish of the sea are taken away” (4:3).”

This was their sin. This was their rebellion against God. As is the case for all of the prophets. They were calling out for the repentance and turning away from their ways. Their ways of militaristic power expansion, land accumulation and exploitation of the poor. The marketplace. The economy. The politics. The unfair trades of good, about farming, about water, about children, about life. To be devoted to God and to do justice is one of the same.

I briefly mentioned the Canaanite god of fertility earlier, Baal, who was also known as the Lord of Rain and Dew, one who provided the climate for abundance of crops. That’s why worshipping Baal was ‘falling in love’ with potential of grain, wine, oil, success, wealth, power. –This was Hosea’s warning and message to the people of Israel. So what. What does that matter to us? Only that, I don’t know if you noticed, but the possible parallels to our days of grasp for power and money.

Let’s bring it to conclusion. Having said all this, What is Hosea’s expectation or hope for the future of Israel? The hope. Having angrily vented to the people of Israel and dishing out judgements of what they deserve, what does God do? God says, in verse 7 of today’s text, “Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.” Assyrians are coming. And you think you need to get your power up. no, that’s not how you will save yourself. You won’t. I will save you. The back and forth of judgement and devotion, it always ends the same, I will bring you back. I will allure you. I will love. I will heal. I will do it. It is God who acts.

Prophets were a warning to the people. A moral ethical call to people. And one we should listen to, to the prophets of our days. But the ultimate message is the same. It’s not that you need to clean up your act, but I love you. I will show you my love that you can’t help but turn back to me no matter how far you’ve gone.

Hosea’s difficult marriage was what he was going through. He also was seeing the injustice of his nation. He was trying to make a sense of both, and through his life experience and his place in history, he felt, saw, sensed, and heard, not only God’s frustration (resonating with his own frustration with his wife and his country), but more so, God revealed to him love and compassion for him, and for his wife and for his people.

How is God showing God’s love through a difficult time in your life? This one was through his marriage. And some hold up that metaphor to be the ultimate experience of God’s holy love. But a good marriage is not the only example of God’s goodness. This example is an example of a failed marriage. A marriage that would’ve brought shame to Hosea and his family. God used shame and turned it upside down saying, even there, I will work. I will reveal. And I think of our modern days. That marital status has actually been a source of much shame for so many people and our generation. Those who are in difficult marriages. Those who are at the brink of marriages falling apart. Those who have been married before but no longer. Those who seek to be married but haven’t found one. Those who have no interest in marriage. If God used Hosea’s marital status as an illustration of God’s love, I wonder, how could God use EACH of our marital status, married, single, divorced, seperated, widowed, choose to not marry, etc, in all various stories and states of our lives, that might be seen as unconventional. how does God use the drama of your life, to reveal God’s faithful love?

I was a part of a conference in Los Angeles, while I was traveling last few weeks, where they had a panel of LGBTQIA+ stories. the story that stood out to me was the person identifying as asexual whose pronouns were they/them/their, meaning that they prefer to not be called she or he gender. They started to explain a little bit about their identity and life as an asexual person. They said, “please don’t say things like, “the friend zone” or “only friends” because it demeans friendship relationship,” because that’s mainly what kind of relationship they live on because they are not interested in romantic ones. They said, “people who are in traditional families with children, and please don’t call that NORMAL, be inclusive of people who are not married into your family.” As they shared, they kind of drew this picture of deep community that isn’t bound by nucleus families but a bond and connection that goes beyond culturally accepted familial lines. They were paining a picture of a kind of a church that I’d envision. A kind of heaven.

Cultural NORMS have wedged people into lives or expectation of lives that they can’t live upto or want to live up to. Hosea marrying a promiscuous woman was provocative and yet the whole book was actually trying to portray the deep love and beauty of such marriage that ended up this way unfortunately, and yet, this is the reality as is and love covers it. I know that people feel shame for being single, older and single. I know that as a married person I have a certain privilege that keeps me blind to their experiences. I know a little cause I got married mid 30’s, GASP so late. But GASP’s are the stuff of God’s toolbox that God paints the most beautiful pictures with.

Prophetic living can be counterintuitive because sometimes what looks like failure to men is glory in God. 1 Cor 1:27 says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” As seen on the cross by Jesus. What seeming “failures” in your life is God using to show God’s love for you? And how can we honor such stories that might been unordinary, out of the box, out of tradition, out of the norm, maybe even provocative, for some even offensive, to see those stories as God’s stories of God’s good and faithful love being played out through their lives? Can we? May we live that provocative prophetic lives boldly, knowing that in it and through all stories, God is faithful, God is loving, God chases after us and wants to make us whole, not despite of but THROUGH that very story. Maye it be so. Amen.

Palm Sunday: Jesus’ Journey into the Wilderness

Good morning, my name is Lydia. I’m one of the pastors here and it’s my honor to share the Word with you today. Let me read for us the Scripture text, pray, and get us started. The reading today comes from John 12:12-13 and John 19: 1-6 and 14-16.

John 12:12-13

12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Blessed is the king of Israel!”

John 19: 1-6, 14-16

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.

4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”

14b“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.

15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.

16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

Let’s pray

Loving God, Our crucified Lord, We pray that we may have the eyes to see and the ears to hear your Word this morning. Spirit of God descend here now. And would you reveal yourself to us, your deep sacrificial love for us, that we may see and experience your comfort and compassion in our lives today, we pray, in Jesus Name Amen.

So, I was driving around Oakland, CA one day. I stopped to get some gas, and while I was filling up, this beautiful car pulls up, a fixed up low rider, shiny with the pastel purple coat of paint, rims and all, and the license plate read, “The Reverend”. The driver comes out of the car, dressed real nice, sharp sunday best, and I said, “Nice ride Reverend!” I had just gotten ordained so I’m like, yeah, pastors, so I walked over and said, “So you’re a pastor?” And he said, “Yup” and named the church nearby. And I said, “I’m a pastor too. Man, I wish my church was cool with me having a nice car like that. Korean churches especially, (I knew this because I was raised as a pastor’s kid in Korean immigrant churches), they love to see a pastor suffer for the Lord. I feel like black churches have some respect for their pastor, you know?” And he laughed and said, “Oh you know folks, they will glorify you, and then, they will crucify you. Like they did to our Lord.” They’ll glorify you and they’ll crucify you. That is what folks do. The human mob mentality. And this is the case yes, for Jesus and his time on this earth.

We’ve been journeying through the season of Lent with the theme of Wild Places, wilderness places of doubt, exile, and uncertain in between spaces. Places where God might surprisingly show up and meet us in the wilderness. We’re reaching the last few weeks of the season, today being Palm Sunday with Jesus’ Triumphant Entry to Jerusalem, and it takes us to the rest of the Holy Week to Good Friday, to the Crucifixion and to Easter Resurrection. So these last few days, there’s a lots packed in here. And today, Palm Sunday starts out with Hosanna! And Glory! But it is the beginning of the end. Jesus’ last few stretches, as he journeys into his own wilderness, where he begins to pray to God to take this cup away from him if possible, a place where he cries out to God, Why have you foresaken me, from a place of skulls called Golgotha. Palm Sunday begins with glory glory, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and it ends with the crowd calling out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Jesus too faced the Wild Place. Why? If he’s God, why does he make his way toward that wildest place of all, death?

I went to hang out with the wonderful Youth Group of our church a few weeks ago. To prepare I spoke with Tory the lovely youth director and she gave me a few things that the kids have asked about in the past that maybe I could speak to. So, I’m like sure, I’m game, what they got? And she says, “If God is good and almighty, why is there suffering in the world?” Oh cool, let’s just get right to the hardest question to wrestle with and bang that out on my one time visit with the kids. And when I sat with them, they, did you know that we have teens in our church that are quite amazing? They are smart and KIND, and keen, and curious, and critical thinkers. Because that questions is the correct response to this God we get to know through Christianity. God is good. Okay, then, Why is there suffering. In fact, why did Jesus allowed himself to experience suffering himself and be crucified. I told them, that is a very good question! Let’s break down the question, first of all, the adjective we’ve attached to God, good and almighty, is getting at a descriptor of God and also not fully. Because yes, God is good, and God is almighty, but also, how we define these words can’t capture the truth at all times. For example, when Jesus died on the cross, was that an almighty thing, or an omnipotent thing? It might be seen as a weak thing. So, like, is God weak?

We talked about how any names, or metaphor, symbols for God is that and much more than that. I asked them what are some names or metaphors for God. They called out, Father, Lord, Shepherd. I said, so God is like a Shepherd, caring, nurturing, taking care of us and feeding us. But God is not totally like a Shepherd and we’re not literally sheep. They were like bahhh baaaah and giggled. They thought that was funny. Cuties. They seem to have got what I was trying to say, that talking about God is bigger than what we might say about God with metaphors or adjectives. And I ended with, the BEST metaphor that I love, that is the most all-encompassing descriptor is that God is love. Love is big enough to hold all that is God.

I share this with you because I’m going to offer us some metaphors of God that might explain who God is today, but I want us to remember that God is like that, and also not that, far more than that. When we talk about God, we’re trying to get at it with adjectives, names and words, but words fail and God is so much more complex. And to you as well I say, consider each metaphor with the lense that ultimately God is Love. I’ll give a personally meaningful one, a light hearted one, and a metaphor not from my own tradition but from the African American experience.

Wild places are places of suffering, agony, and pain often. And what is God’s response to the suffering of human kind? Chocolate. No I’m kidding, it’s not chocolate, the answer the one that Sunday School champs know best, is Jesus. God’s response to human suffering is to suffer the human destiny of death himself through Jesus. In Jesus, God decided to leave the divine realm and enter into the realities of our suffering. Jesus’ journey into the wild was to become co-sufferers with us.

To suffer with, next to, someone is a one of the most intimate things you can do. I experienced a stranger leaning into my suffering and accompanying me in such a sacrificial way during my delivery. Nurses. I have so much respect for nurses. Any of you nurses out there? So much props to you. I gave birth to my little girl Sophia 5 months ago and I was so impressed and grateful for the nurses that took care of me. One moment, just as I was starting to feel contractions, I was getting ready to get the epidural, and you have to get in this weird position for them to stick like a wire looking thing into your spine, and the nurse said, “lean on me, I’ll hold you.” and they got me at the edge of the hospital bed and she embraced me as I put all my aching weight on her. I was in pain and afraid of what was happening, and she held my body saying, “breathe, you’re doing great, just a little bit longer, almost done.” They checked in on me at every discomfort I had, and changed the buckets that were filled with my, um, output. The co-suffering God is like a nurse during labor, a midwife to a mother in delivery. One who’ll stay in the room while you scream. One holds your hand and roots for you.

To stoop and become one of us reveals devotion and care. Have you heard of a show called Undercover Boss? Oh it’s great, super cheezy but kind of entertaining, seeing a CEO or the President of a large company, go out to the field. They pose as a regular new employee, get trained, and see what it’s like actually working the franchise site. There’s one where the CEO of Domino’s Pizza gives up his lamborghini for the day to shadow the delivery expert. It’s great seeing these guys in suits gear up in the store uniforms and hat, working the kitchen and the cashier. And then there’s always that scene at the end, when they unveil the cover of the CEO to the employees. People are usually a mix of shocked, embarrassed, and impressed that the CEO would do such thing as working alongside them in the store. And the CEO, having experienced and seen the work on the ground, is touched by the stories of the workers lives, their dedication to pay for college or support their disabled dad. With the newfound empathy and compassion, the Domino’s CEO offers the delivery expert, an immigrant from India who gave up his job as an engineer to move here for his kids, an opportunity to submit his special recipe to make it to the Domino’s menu and a check for $1500. He gives him box tickets to a local game and The delivery expert is beyond himself and cries at the offer, thanking him profusely. It’s an heartfelt show because it crosses boundaries and the experience breaks open both the bosses and the employees to a sense of camaraderie and unity. Hey, a CEO leaving his office to work the pizza line is very much a journey into the wilderness, they always capture the boss getting overwhelmed with the backed up orders, making mistakes and sweating bullets by the ovens. God is like the Undercover Boss, who becomes one of us, taking on the humanity uniform, working the line, feeling the pressure of life on this earth.

Through Jesus, God decided to move into the human experience. Life that is both filled with joys and delights, but also with toil and wanderings, of pain and suffering. God is not afraid of the human condition and moves towards the wild places that we experience. These wild places we face, of work and vocation, the daily grind, of trying to make ends meet and survive, of trying to get through tough times and life pressures. There was a song from a few decades ago, by Joan Osborne, What if God is one of us? Just a slob like one of us, Just a stranger on a bus. If God has a name, his name might be John, who works at Dominos by day and cleans office buildings by night. If God was one of us, she’s be overworked nurse working crazy hours sustaining her two kids as a single mom. If God was one of us, they’d be the one moving about with trauma in their bodies trying to get through an interview without having an anxiety attack. If God was one of us, he’d be the wrongly accused, misunderstood, praise by some but rejected and imprisoned and punished for no good reason, that is what Jesus faced on this earth.

When we talk about who God is, and how we come to know God, there’s a helpful methodology that can inform our theology. Attributed to John Wesley, known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, it says that we know God through 4 sources, Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience. And that all four of these contribute to our understanding and formation of our thinking and knowing about God. Maybe one or more of these have been a part of your knowledge of God. Scripture, include stories of God interacting with God’s people, from which we can read and learn about God’s character and their relationships with God. Reason, allows us to use logic, science, to draw conclusions about our understanding of God. Tradition includes all those who have come before us and their experiences, through which we gain a wider scope of God with many cultures and times throughout history. And experience, personal and individual experience shape many of our faiths, for this is a way to know through one’s own life.

The last metaphor I will share comes from the African American faith and church tradition and through the specific experience of blacks people in America. It’s not my own tradition but it has profoundly impacted and unveiled actually my own experiences and understanding of God. So, let me share, with your grace and mercy, as I attempt talk about an experience that is not my own, of a very tragic history in America. It’s a powerful metaphor and raw in its imagery, so just a heads up of a possible trigger warning. It comes from the notable black Liberation theologian named, James Cone, who keys in in the understanding of Jesus through the lived, visceral, embodied experience of African Americans, in a book title, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Yes, he says to understand the cross, the crucifixion of Jesus, its purpose and meaning, that there is a more modern form of parallel tool of public humiliation and punishment, often used to send a message to the whole society, a display of power, one that is so similar in their form execution, that you can’t help but make the connection to the history of lynching of blacks in America. Because that is what the cross was back then, a lynching tree.

Here’s what he says,

“During my childhood, I heard a lot about the cross at Macedonia A.M.E Church, where faith in Jesus was defined and celebrated. We sang about “Calvary,” and asked, “Were you there?”, “down at the cross,” “when they crucified my Lord.” “Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” The spirituals, gospel songs, and hymns focused on how Jesus achieved salvation for the least through his solidarity with them even unto death. There were more songs, sermons, prayers, and testimonies about the cross than any other theme. The cross was the foundation on which their faith was built.

In the mystery of God’s revelation, black Christians believed that just knowing that Jesus went through an experience of suffering in a manner similar to theirs gave them faith that God was with them, even in suffering on lynching trees, just as God was present with Jesus in suffering on the cross.”

Many hymns and spirituals spoke to this:

Poor little Jesus boy, made him be born in a manger.

World treated him so mean,

treats me mean too…

Dey whippped Him up an’dey whipped Him down,

Dey whipped dat man all ovah town.

Look-a how how they done muh Lawd.

I was there when they nailed him to the cross,

Oh! How it makes me sadder, sadder,

When I think how they nailed him to the cross.

I was there when they took him down…

Oh! How it makes my spirit tremble,

When I recalls how they took him down.

—

For black churches, and the African American experience, no wonder the message of the gospel pierced straight through their very lives that the Good News was desperately longed for, Christ’s saving power, clung to, suffering felt in their bones, in their voices, in their shoulders, and hope that better have been true if this is the life they faced, there better have been a greater hope than anything they knew. They identified with Jesus, because Jesus identified with them. Whipped, flogged, slapped in the face, crucified, hung.

The book is rich, because the experience is horrendous, and the metaphor is powerful. Cone goes on to the depth of the tragic history of lynching, what spectacle it was, what it did to the mental emotional state of the blacks, how music and art spoke to realities too dark to put into words. And how real the cross was to them. How it spoke to their wild place they faced. I read it with anxiety and sadness in my heart, praying with grief and lament. It’s a provocative metaphor, because that is what the gospel is, provocative. How so? I don’t know, sometimes, you can’t explain except to just experience it and know it deep in your bones.

Jesus delved deep into the human condition. Deep. To the wildest places. To the most vulnerable places. To the most tragic moments. In our most horrible unimaginable places of pain and suffering, God placed Godself in it, God is our co-suffering God. A crucified God. A wild and crazy reckless God that jumps in right into the middle of our greatest agony. That is the kind of God this Jesus reveals today. That is the God we worship. Hosanna Hosanna in the highest. Which is very peculiar phrase of praise and joyful exclamation because it means, save us. A cry of help. A cry. Help! Help! How could such word be joyful? I don’t know.

And I’m going to end my sermon with an I don’t know. Because that’s where this Lenten season leaves us today and rest of this week. And I don’t want to skip ahead. But Easter is coming, and I don’t know sometimes how all this makes sense. But for now, Let us linger here. A world where we cry out, help, Jesus, help. Hosanna, Hosanna. Save us! Save us! Believing, or trying to believe, that God hears it and moves towards those who cry out in their wildest places.

Let us try staying there this week. Before the Easter bunnies and chocolates comes out. That’s my invitation to you this week, try staying in the wild a little longer. Try moving towards other’s wilderness.

Try the role of co-suffering with someone. When the opportunity arises. If someone is sharing their deep pain with you. Try not interjecting, advising, or even fixing, but just being with. Just feel the discomfort of their pain. Hold that sacred space of their wilderness with your presence.

A Spiritual Discipline Practice: Adapted From This Week’s Bible Guide (available through print outs in the Lobby and Podcast online)

Consider for a moment a great fear of yours [Or consider for a moment a great fear of someone else, imagine what they might face in their lives and experiences that you may not] – a failure, a loss, or trouble you might face, perhaps even your own death. Ask Jesus to assure you that Jesus will be with you should you face this fear. Ask Jesus: how will you be with me in compassion and strength? After a few moments of imaginative prayer, welcoming Jesus’ presence with you, close by praying this short excerpt from the ancient prayer, The Breastplate of Saint Patrick:

Let me close us with that prayer

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,

Through the strength of Christ’s healing with his laughter,

Through the strength of Christ’s teaching with his feasting,

Through the strength of Christ’s crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of Christ’s resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of Christ’s descent for the judgment of doom.

Finding God in the Wilderness

Exodus 2:15 – 3:4

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well¹⁶ Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰ “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”

21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom,[c] saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

3Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

We’re talking about Wild Places, in this season of Lent. Places of wilderness, that might be an inbetween place, a lost space, uncertain, null, negative space, or even of discomfort or pain. But also Wild Places are places of discovery, of new space, surprised by what’s found in the barren. Most of this season we’re engaging in how we end up in wild places that we might not choose, anxiety, doubt, exile, or suffering. But before we go there, there are some wild places that we might choose to go to. Some wilderness that we may be surprised to lean into. A place that we might not have thought we wanted or needed, but jump into the depths of the wild.

Because maybe, for some of us, things might’ve been green pasture for the most part. For many of us, our upbringing, our time in place and culture, has pretty sheltered us from the rugged wilderness. For a lot of us, here, in United States, in this day and age, in this area, we’ve had the privilege of being safe and protected, and maybe haven’t really experienced a wilderness of sorts. I’m not saying that there has been difficulties, or struggles. We all have each our own. But the reality is that for all of us, it is sometimes easy to be left to our own communities and cocoons that keeps us blind to some wild places others may experience. If we’re not intentional about moving towards the edges of those known comforts, we just might miss out on the whole of human experience that is vast, deep, and wide.

Here’s one way to put it causally. This may be why people of privilege love to travel. #wanderlust and backpacking and just getting lost in a new city. As someone who’s moved around alot and uprooted every few years that sounds horrible and stressful to me. But for some folks, maybe born and raised in one place, going outside of their comfort zones gives them a new perspective and new light into the world that you just can’t experience when you stay. Like the movie Lost in Translation, [SLIDE] so artsy and beautiful, two Americans lost in Japan, trying to find themselves and meaning. Because yes, being lost in a strange land is discombobulating and kind of beautiful. Or like Burning Man, [SLIDE] an event that people go out to the middle of the desert to learn the ”virtue of surviving in the desolate surreal trackless plain of the Black Rock Desert”. It’s extremely dusty, and very hot, and over 70,000 people pay $3-400 ticket to do this every year. And folks who do these, Burners you call em, are like cultic about it, it gives them meaning and life. It’s holy to them. There’s a longing there, a curiosity to experience deeply. The things is, for a lot of folks, traveling or camping is a luxury that you can’t afford and wilderness you don’t need. You’re just trying to make it here, you don’t need to go out somewhere to see if you can survive out there.

Moses, was the Prince of Egypt. The origin story of Moses goes, in Exodus 1, that the king of Egypt didn’t like the Hebrews and tried to kill all baby boys. Moses, was miraculously rescued by the Pharaoh’s daughter and ends up growing up in the palace. One day he notices an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, his own people, and so he jumps in, and actually ends up killing the Egyptian. And what’s interesting in the story is that, the Hebrews aren’t necessarily thankful for this young privileged Prince, all of sudden getting woke to his own conscience in the cruelty of the hebrew slaves, deciding to take matters into his own hands and thinks he can solve the problem. It probably caused more problems for the slave actually, to have a murder of an Egyptian in the news. It says verse 13, just a few verses before today’s text, “the next day he went out and saw two hebrews fighting, and he asked the one in the wrong, “why are you hitting your fellow hebrew” The man said, “who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” AND THEN, Moses realizes what he did, and decides to flee to Midian. Probably in confusion, probably in misunderstanding of the situation and what he did. Maybe ashamed of how he reacted and angry with the system of oppression he sees but doesn’t know yet what to do. So he goes. He goes away to Midian. For a long time.

Verse 15 says that, he “went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.” Which, I don’t know if that’s just a weird wording from translation but sounds kind of funny, that he went to live there, where he sat by a well. Maybe that’s what he did, every day, he just went and hung out at the well, without much to do, without much purpose. And when he saw these women, who were trying to draw some water, were getting harassed by the shepherd. Moses of course, decides to jump in again, and rescues the ladies. Sounds like he has a bit of a savior complex but okay, hey at least he puts himself out there. This time, he doesn’t kill the other guy and runs away, he stays and waters their flock.

When the daughters’ father asks what happened, they answer, “An Egyptian rescued us.” Moses is called an Egyptian. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” And Reuel’s like, who is this guy? “And where is he? Why did you leave him?” Cause something’s going on here. First of all, why would an Egyptian get involved and second of all, what is he doing around here anyways? He’s probably lost or something. Go find him. And I don’t know if Reuel was actually grateful but his response is to invite him to come and “have something to eat”. I love that. Rescuing his daughters is great but let me see and get to know this guy. Let’s sit down and eat together. And so Moses agrees, to

accept the generosity of him, goes into their house, sits down at their table, and eat their food, and stays there, immersing himself into the fold of their lives.

And the rest of the story sounds pretty mundane. Almost too normal for a big name like Moses, who later comes to be the leader who frees the the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. He gets married, she gets pregnant, they have a baby– you know, just life, and a long time passed like that, enough for the king of Egypt to have passed. Moses, mostly spent his days tending his father in law’s flocks. (A side note: a quick textual criticism Bible study, look at the text, in verse 18, he’s first referred to as Reuel, and then later in chapter 3 verse 1, he’s named Jethro. And in other part of the Bible in a book called Numbers he’s mentioned as Raguel, which pronunciation could be similar to Reuel, but Jethro is a whole another name, so it’s “generally accepted” that Moses’ father in law must’ve went by like 7 different names, apparently. Just a WINDOW into the fact that some stories in the Bible are FAR from our culture and written in different times throughout history. There are discrepancies of who’s who. There’s linguistics at play, Hebrew and Arabic, not to mention later translations of Latin and Greek that could be contributing to the confusion. I just point that out because it doesn’t make the stories FALSE because the details are mixed up, but hey reality is there are mixed up details in the Bible and things ARE lost in translation and I personally think it’s important to note them now, honoring its complexity of the story. You’re sophisticated enough to hold it, so that we don’t have to throw out the whole story of Moses later when we realize that we’re not even sure on the name of his father in law.) Sorry, detour, as you’ll see, detours can be gifts. Moving on.

Verse 3 says, “he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness.” There, something caught his attention. He saw a bush. And it seemed to have been on fire. On fire, but it did not burn up. it was a strange, mysterious sight and he was drawn into it. He didn’t understand it but He was captured by it. In awe of it. So he moved toward it.

I have a friend who was working at an elite interior design firm at the time. She was successful and establishing a great career. She’s actually designed and decorated a literal palace of prince of a country I can’t remember the name of. By any standards she should have been happy, set financially and on track to the top But at some point, she felt this longing to turn her head from the ladder she was climbing. And one day she decided to quit her job and go on a Eat, Pray, Love trip. Which is a popular book from some years ago about an american woman traveling to India and finding herself. And yes, it was yoga, she teaches yoga now. It’s a little silly, but not, because people find things, holy things, wholeness, meaning, God in these places, that at first seem like a distraction or a waste of time. For my friend, it’s when she left a high paying job to roam the world freely that she discovered and deepened her spirituality. It’s often when we’re taken out of our usual context and placed in a whole new environment, a retreat, that we find the space to hear something fresh. Sometimes it’s hard to really see, hear, or listen to the divine voice in the busyness of our usual days.

For some of us, the season of wilderness comes to us uninvited and catches us by surprise. But for some of us, sometimes life just seems to go on without much disruption and for those of us with lives that’s seem pretty normal and plain, we find ourselves seeking, choosing, and being drawn to places of wilderness that we might experience a kind of breakthrough, a fresh light, out of the shallow, into the deep.

Have you ever been pulled by something that caught your attention? Or distracted you from your normal flock tending life. Or a sight of something that demanded your deeper awareness. Made you turn your head. Examine it more. Someone emailed me a quote that they liked this week and they described it as, “this line arrested me with how true it feels”. Has a thing ever arrested you, your mind, your time, your energy?

A detour into the wilderness can teach us. Like all the negative space in a good photograph. An open wild space to experience. It might not look so productive sometimes. Like Moses, just sitting by a well. Moses gives up his palace and becomes a foreigner in a foreign land. He’s not in control, but moves with this family’s culture, tending flocks in the wild. And there, he is faced with the holy tree. There he is captivated by a thing he doesn’t understand. There, he is transformed. He’s there and challenged.

—

A few years back I was a part of a County Jail Ministry, where we went to county jail and did a worship services there every week. I initially signed up for it because I wanted to help. I wanted to bring church to those who are incarcerated and can’t attend a church on Sunday. And we did do that, share a message, a few songs, prayed together. But the thing that I experienced more when I stepped into that space was, helplessness. I couldn’t do much. Many of them were mothers separated from their children. They were waiting on court dates, not sure of where they would end up next, staying in jail or go back out into the same environment that got them there in the first place.

I wanted to fix the system that put addicts into prisons. I wished that I was a lawyer, or wished that I could find them a good lawyer, or try to make any of the situation better somehow. The thing that happened mainly, wasn’t addressing those issues, which weren’t my place to solve anyway, but that I realized that I wanted to make things better so I didn’t have to feel the discomfort of sitting with unsolvable problems. I learned that it was frustrating, mind boggling how long these court dates took, infuriating how this woman got mixed up with a person that coerced them to steal. I got a little glimpse of what it feels like to truly be out of control, caught up in a system as they say, hitting a dead end and not having the resources. I felt and learned empathy. Not just sympathy. And faith. It was uncomfortable leaving county jail and going back to my warm comfortable bed. They lingered in my thoughts. It brought me down. I prayed hard for them, and grieved many things. And It brought me to enter into someone else’s story, without exercising the power to rescue them. I was simply called there, not even to be there for them, but for me to feel and experience and journey alongside those who were imprisoned. Here I am.

Their lives are on fire, but they were not burning up. Why. how. They were, “hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) I wasn’t bringing Jesus to them but they were showing Jesus to me through their lives. They sang with me and cried with me. I couldn’t do anything but feel, discomfort, the discomfort that I had the luxury of avoiding if I really wanted to. At first I did it because you’re supposed to sit with the oppressed right? As a Christian, do community service, do charity, serve. Check. But that wasn’t the point at all. It gave me the space to really look at the systemic suffering in this world. It allowed me the real privilege to see their lives of resilience and strength. I heard a quote earlier this week from a man from Ecuador, quoting Father Gregory Boyle who started a ministry called Homeboy that worked with gangs in Los Angeles, [SLIDE] “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” I got a chance to just witness, what they had to carry, without trying to suggest how they should carry it.

Moses gave up being a prince of Egypt and became a foreigner. Jesus gave up “his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave and was born a human being, when he appear in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” According to Philippians 2:7-8. It’s peculiar to me that sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that following Jesus will just make our lives better, our marriages more successful, ourselves happier, to be more good kind people. Actually, I”m sorry, but following Jesus is a bit more deeper/darker than that. I’m not really make it look too appealing as the preacher of christianity am I, but the truth is, following Jesus ist is moving towards the cross, the suffering. And there is hope and resurrection that meets us on the other side. God calls us to the mountain tops but also to the wilderness. Before Moses split the sea, he lived in Midian for a long time not doing much. And after he split the sea, him and his people were lost again in the desert wilderness for 40 years. But God was with them, daily on the journey. The promise isn’t that life is gonna be awesome, but, that it might be a wild ride and I will be with you.. No matter where you go…..

Make no mistake though, the journey we’re invited to isn’t so that we can be the Moses or Jesus of the story, acting as if we’re the liberators or saviors. The only resemblance is that God calls us out into the wilderness, Moses, out to the burning tree, Jesus, to be hung on a tree, we just might find ourselves on the far side of the wilderness. And meet God there.

Where are you now? Is there a wilderness place God is calling you into, toward, to notice and pay attention to? A place where you have no power to judge or rescue, but to just have to stay and say here I am. Or maybe for some of you, you’re already in the wilderness and you don’t need to go choose it, it has chosen you. Maybe my message today wasn’t for you, for you already know the wilderness too well. For those of you who are there, God says, I am with you. At the far side of the wilderness, whether we choose to go there like Moses, or taken there like the Hebrew slaves, God seeks to meet us there and call us by name. Moses, Moses. Sarah, Sarah. John, John. Lydia, Lydia. May we have the humility to go there, take off our sandals and say here I am.

We invite you to consider the wild places in this season of Lent. Some invitations for you in the program, jotted down for you.

—Invitation to life flourishing

Move into and embrace a season of wilderness. Dwell and stay there, though nothing may happen for a long time. Perhaps, on the far side of the wilderness, you might experience God there.

And a way to

Spiritual Practice: this, to create a space where you might ponder upon some of these things. Maybe try meditating with a tree. [SLIDE]

Maybe it’s a tree in water, and you might wonder why it has not been swallowed up by water. How it stands. I’ll close by reading

A poem to invite you into this practice.

TREES

by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Love of a Sinful Woman (Money, Sex, and Power)

Good morning, My name is Lydia. We’ve been in a series called “Training in the studio of LOVE” in the past 7 weeks, talking about love of neighbor, unselfish love of self, love of our world, and we’re wrapping up with love of God today. Training because we think even a simple thing like love, takes practice, we can get better at it, so we’ve been training, working it out, in this studio, so let’s go, on how to love God. Let me read this story from the Bible, I’ll pray and get us started.

Luke 7:36-50 (NIV)

36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[a] and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Let’s pray. Loving God, we come to you this morning, longing to experience something bigger than ourselves, curious of what you might have to offer us today. We come into this place, for some of us with great shame and distress, unsure of how we could possibly find love. Or for some of us, things have been so mundane and steady that we’ve become numb and uninspired to the holiness around us. Or for some of us, we’ve been so busy and distracted, it’s nice to just have a moment of quiet. Wherever we are this morning, would you remind us, that you created us in your image, and called it good. That no matter how far you might seem in this moment, that you mean to pursue us with abundant enduring love, and you run toward us to restore us wholly and completely. Would you convict us of that today, perhaps through this story, we pray, Amen.

So, we read this story in a Women’s Bible Study Group I lead last year. It was through a practice called Lectio Divina. Where you read, sit in silence, and reflect. At this particular meeting, after we read, we sat in silence together, waiting for someone to share—holy zoning out I call it. I think I might have said something like, “touching feet, that’s pretty weird.” Cause you know I like being awkward—just saying, it is weird! But then a woman started sharing, that her grandfather had just passed away. She shared how they sat around him in the room in the last few moment before his death. She remembered how irregular his breathing was, and whenever he would stop, they’d all sort of hold their breath together, wondering if he was still “with us”. And as they did so, they would constantly check his feet, because apparently when someone is getting close to passing, the temperature of their hands and feet drop. She remembered lifting the blanket, and touching his feet, checking up on him again and again. She’d never touched someone’s feet like that. It was how they were able to care for her grandfather in that time. What a picture of love and intimacy. Of care, tenderness, and connection. Feet. Touching. Love expressed. Hearts poured, body mended.

What was it that compelled this sinful woman such devotion and release of love? Something utterly and totally took over her being, leading her to this intrusive and courageous act. What caused her to treat Jesus as someone she loved and cared for so dearly and intimately?

She loved because Jesus loved her first. How? What happened? The Pharisee was confused too. Why was she acting like this? To explain, Jesus tells this story.

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii,[b]and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?

Last week Ivy used a text about taxes to talk about God’s love. This week, I’m using one about moneylender and debt! Well, I’m not. Jesus is. And there is something here. Why is Jesus telling this story to explain her love? We take this lightly in Christian jargon—Sin, debt, forgive our sins as we forgive our debtors—almost interchangeably. But what is the relationship between sin and debt?

Let’s look at debt first. To be in debt means essentially be tied to, responsible to, one could say even enslaved to the one whom you owe money to. During the housing crisis, people who couldn’t make their mortgage ended up losing their house to the bank. They owned your home. If a house was foreclosed, it’s as if someone died there or something, like a disease that took over the house, a darkness. I had a close friend who ran a fashion boutique for a while, but then during the financial crisis in 2008 had to close down and apply for bankruptcy. Not only was she out of money, but her livelihood, her purpose, her moral, took a hit as well.

The Pharisee in this story calls her a sinful woman. And to most of us we simply think that she must’ve done something wrong or bad. The word sin, not only describes someone who was morally deficient but a sinner was actually “anyone who was outside of the law”. And outside of law meant those who were considered “unclean” and couldn’t participate in the temple rituals. Which include the disabled, slaves, those in debt, even those who just gave birth. According to Leviticus 12, after a son you were unclean for 33 days after giving a son, for a daughter 2 weeks, and you would bring a lamb or a dove for purification. Then you’re clean. Then you are reinstated back into the temple life (which was basically all of life, it’s where the farmer’s market happened, where the festivals were, where you paid taxes—everything). There were many rules that would consider one a “sinner” which would thereby cut you off from the community. Frankly, for the Jews, any Gentile was pretty much a sinner.

And it’s also curious that most people assume this sinful woman was a prostitute, when the text does not say so. Even in the popular bible translation the Message, Eugene Peterson writes, “Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot…” when the original text says nothing about that. Just like the Pharisee here, and pretty much the rest of the religious leaders thereafter, tried to make it about “sin” to exclude people, when the reality was, that was just their way of categorizing someone who is unworthy of a flourishing life. Unworthy of being touched. Unworthy of entering the temple. Unworthy of power.

Maybe this story of two debtors that Jesus tells isn’t just a hyperbole. Whatever “sinful” state this woman was in, it probably simply meant that she was an outsider with an impossible “debt” to society that locked her in that indebted role. Jesus was saying, whatever debt you think this woman owes, I forgave it. And so of course the Pharisee’s like, who is this guy who think he can “forgive sins” aka “erase debt”. It’s like if I walked up to Sallie Mae and I was like, hey you know all these student loans, they’re fine, it’s taken care of, don’t worry about it. They’d be like, “don’t worry about it?— who are you?”

What if the point of the story isn’t that Jesus forgave her sins, but liberated her from the system of debt that oppressed and kept people locked in their label bracket—”sinner”.

Economy historian Michael Hudson, in his book ...and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (what a name of a book!), makes the case that the Bible and Jesus was actually more occupied with debt than sin. And in fact, that’s what got Jesus killed.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in Luke 4, Jesus stood in a synagogue reading from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

   because he has anointed me

   to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

   and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

19     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

With this he announced the “year of the Lord’s favor”. He was talking about the long tradition of the year of Jubilee. Jubilee was the fiftieth year in which you return the foreign slaves to their home lands and return the property to the original clan. It was the year of debt forgiveness and liberation of slaves. This was Jesus’ mission: “to proclaim the good news to the poor, free the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free.” Jesus came to announce and fulfill the year of the Lord’s favor, mercy and freedom to all. This proclamation of Jesus confused and angered the elites. It was too political. Too dangerous of a uprising, a revolution! And it ended with the execution of Jesus.

And that’s why this was good news to the poor. And again, the word “poor” wasn’t just about people who didn’t have money, but outcasts, foreigners, thieves, ethnic minorities, the sick, the unemployed—the other. Jesus turned the order upside down by telling the story of the debtors, and lifting up the woman to be greater than the Pharisee. Through this story Jesus was reinstating this woman from sinner to a free person, liberating her from the economic system and bringing her back into the fold of the society and community. Jesus was turning classism upside down.

But not only class but gender and sex too. This whole story is actually altogether quite sensual. She’s sitting behind his feet. Crying. She lets her hair down, which in that culture was a no no, and she’s wiping his feet with her hair. Like I said, feet, weird! I guess I’m like the Pharisee, seeing this story, going, “gasp, how could she!?” But Jesus defends her. He sees this very physical sensual moment and doesn’t twist it. He normalizes her act. He honors it and lets it be, in fact he lifts it up to be the right act.

We twist things like money and sex. Both of them aren’t inherently evil. The love of money is evil. And sex, well the church does a horrible job of talking about sex for the most part, well except, my 2nd or 3rd Sunday at Reservoir was about Patriarchy and Speak Out Sunday about the #metoo movement, but seriously THAT’S so rare. Usually churches are like—sex, just don’t! Unless you’re married, then do. And like that’s about it on sex.

For Jesus to let a woman touch her was crossing gender boundaries. For her to be able to let her hair down and touch him was to respect her sensuality. It wasn’t creepy or weird or awkward. He accepted and received her love and physical expression of that love. What would it be like to see sensual, sexual love as a revelatory metaphor for loving God? It’s like the biblical understanding of God’s love according to the book Song of Songs. Which is actually long erotic love poetry about a man and a woman. Why is this in the Bible? Again and again, it always found its way into the Bible even when some didn’t think it belongs, because God isn’t even really mentioned. The whole book is about sexual desire, and it’s been kept because romantic love is a strong metaphor for how God loves us. (And side note: it doesn’t mean that you can’t know or experience God’s love if you’re asexual or not in a relationship, it’s just one of many metaphors that only help. Like we’ve never had a king but we use that metaphor all the time.)

When we were taught in Youth Group to not date—cause it’s sin—and that Jesus is our boyfriend, I always asked, how do you make out with Jesus? The Bible Study leader didn’t like that question. But jokes aside, what would it be like to see God as our lover—our intimate partner? I think it could be helpful because we think about love or finding the one or romance, a lot in our culture (it’s a bit overemphasized and put on a pedestal—I think that makes the metaphor even more accessible for us, more than a king I’d say!). Could some of the ways we think and feel about romantic love shed light to how we are to be in loving relationship with God? I think so! God seeks intimacy with us. God wants to know us deeply and honors our sexual bodies.

I got this from one of your Instagram, a quote by Rob Bell, a popular pastor—he says, “The word sex comes from this ancient Latin word where something was “sext” – meaning “cut off”. So your sexual energies are your desires to be reconnected with everything you’re here to be connected with. So we in some ways are born in these disconnections and we know they’re not right. And for many people, they’ve been taught that sex is just two people fumbling around rather than sex being the transfer of energies that happens all the time because we’re all longing for connection.”

God wants to connect deeply with us and seeks to restore our sexuality with the self and with one another, and express God’s love through such connection.

In a new book called Shameless: A Sexual Reformation by pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, she was talking about how churches often use people’s financial giving, tithing, as a sign of spiritual health. And she adds, “Maybe a good sex life—whatever that looks like for who we are as individuals—can also be a sign of spiritual health. As your pastor, I want that part of your life and your relationship to be good. I want your sexual life to be free from fear and shame and to be joyful and true to who you are as individuals, because it is a holy gift from God.”

What would it be like for you to see your sexuality as something God wants to restore, accept, and love? What would it mean for God to affirm your sexuality, healthy and good and I don’t mean just pure—sigh… is feet touching pure? It’s real, it’s bodies, it’s humanity. I’m pressing this point because I think that some of our evangelical history has been not just toxic, but detrimental to our sexuality with things like purity culture. It was like a thing for folks to do a ceremony with young girls and their dads (like that’s weird—why not moms?) and get these promise rings to not have sex. I do believe there were good intentions and wisdom they were trying to get at but it’s also been a cause of so much shame and isolation of our sexualities. Look, sex is complex so I’m not here to lay out a new sexual ethics for us right now but, don’t you see? God is not afraid of your body. So much so that God decided to become a body as Jesus. And be kissed by a woman, with long hair, with oil. And if you’re feeling uncomfortable, I mean, I feel kind of vulnerable talking about this as a woman here to be honest, but we’re all feeling that because we’re human and we have bodies—we’re sexual beings, and we have senses, and that’s okay!

Friends, our finances and our sexuality, money and sex are important to us. And God sees the corruption of our economical system and our sex culture. Jesus was never about be a nicer person, but he was raising the bar on everything and turning whole eco-system upside down. He wants to liberate us from it all, to restore us to freedom, in and with our money and with our bodies. And when we realize that, that’s exactly what happens, freedom and power with our money and our bodies. I should’ve named this sermon, money, sex, and power, because here’s what happens.

This woman, having been so moved by the message of Jesus’ liberation, and being accepted wholly with her full being as a woman, her response was this powerful bold move. She walked into this Pharisee’s house, mixed in with her tears and shame, I just imagine her shaking nervously but also strangely determined to do this. That jar she poured out—they say it might been worth a year’s worth of salary. This was an expensive sacrifice. I mean, I have a nice skin care product from Sephora, a serum, that I got as a Christmas gift. It’s got this fancy dropper, and it’s glass, and every time I use it, I’m like so afraid I’m gonna drop it. Skincare products are so expensive—why, they’ve got little viles costing 100-200 dollars! But her, she was able to generously pour out her precious perfume at the feet of Jesus.

It doesn’t say this in Luke, but this similar story is in each of the 4 gospels and other accounts of the stories actually has her anointing Jesus for his burial. And Jesus points to her and says, wherever the gospel is preached, it will be done so in memory of her.

This story, actually is one that brought me into ministry. I’ll wrap up with my personal story.

At the end of my time at UCLA, I was feeling pretty worthless and defeated. I was actually graduating “late,” I walked the ceremony but had to take like extra 6 classes over the summer to graduate in time, which was a huge source of shame, especially in the Asian culture—you are like considered like, “oh she graduated late, yikes”. I didn’t have a job lined up after college. And part of it was—honestly—I partied a lot. Los Angeles has a way of seeping into your skin, and as a young woman it’s not the best influence. Like, I’m not even a football fan, but a few weeks ago I was like yeah L.A. sucks, go Pats! Beat L.A.! Oh L.A. L.A. L.A. I remember one time, I was hanging out with some girlfriends who were all models, cause that’s what you do in L.A., all tall skinny and beautiful, and it was the funny that got to tag along, they said we were going to some fashion show or something so we got dressed up and ended up somehow all getting into this Hummer Limo. And then I saw at the other end of the limo that they were doing cocaine! I was like—where am I, and had this realization that made me go, I’m very lost. And by the way, we finally got to that “fashion show” and it wasn’t a fashion show at all, but a VIDEO of a fashion show was playing on the screen! I think promoters just called it that to get models to come—so fake. So L.A. As I occupied myself with the L.A. Thing, going to certain parties that “industry” people showed up—so cool—I became more and more distant to God and stopped going to church. I had once grown up in the church and that’s where I usually had community, but I started to become very isolated.

So when one day I decided to go to church, which I did from time to time if I wasn’t out the night before, and heard a sermon on this story, I just began to sob uncontrollably. It all came crashing down on me—the shame. How that Pharisee talked about her, that’s how I felt. Growing up as a pastor’s kid, I was always judged for not being the kind of good quiet Korean Christian girl. I wasn’t shy, I didn’t laugh like this, I’d walk around laughing like this and it confused them. So when Jesus, stood up for her, and said, “do you see her?” I felt so seen by Jesus. I felt embarrassed to even be at church—how dare I, knowing the things I’ve done. I talked to myself like the Pharisee.

Even when I started feeling a call into ministry, I thought, how could I preach from the Bible? People will say, do you know what kind of a person she is? That she is a sinner! And I still feel that. I’m not the most holy person, or the most patient. I’m not that Christ-like and I don’t pretend to be. I really tried to curse less when I first became a pastor, and now I don’t even try. Honestly, it is a scandalous thing that I should be up here preaching the gospel.

But you know what? I’m here for Jesus, and damn it, Jesus says it’s okay for me to be here, to worship him with all my guilt and shame. To sit at his feet and let my hair down. And if I can, since he lets me, I don’t mind bringing all my gifts—my most precious things, my time, my energy, my money to his feet to bring him glory, to honor him, to anoint him. And then as I grew in faith I realized, Jesus wasn’t just forgiving me my sins but turning everything new. It was bigger than my own personal moral failings. God was changing the economy, racism, sexism, and that gave me greater hope with greater audacity to serve. Like her, I wanted to anoint the feet of Jesus. And I thought, well the Church is the body of Christ. Maybe I can serve there, and that would be okay.

Will you let God see you? Will you come sit at the feet of Jesus, no matter what anyone else might say? My invitation to you this week is that you try doing that. Come to the feet of Jesus. To the places where others might say, what are you doing! Why are you doing that?

Stories of Jesus interacting with people are powerful because we get to see and experience God’s love for them. Just as this story personally impacted me, there might be a story that God speaks to you through the Scriptures. Try picking a story, maybe a story you’ve heard about, Zachhaeus, or the rich young ruler, or the one where Jesus healed the paralytic. Whichever, here’s what I suggest to people often. If you’re not sure what’s in the Bible, google it! And then go look up the text in the BIble, and read it slowly. Let it wash over you and enter into that story. You can try that Lectio Divina, with the guide in your program. Let God enter into your whole being: your mind, your heart, your body, your everyday life, and know that God loves every bit of it and wants to restore and transform it completely. Will you let God do that?

Let’s pray:

Holy and Gracious God, You have created us good. And then things got kind of complicated, with our own mistakes, systems and culture. Would you take over every part of us that is broken or tainted and bring it back to your original intent. We long for that loving healing power in our lives. Spirit would you move in us to see and experience that love, that we may be humbled and kneel before you, with all that we are, ready to serve as you call us to do. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

An Invitation to Whole Life Flourishing

Come down to the feet of Jesus. To the humble places. To the dirty work, and make it holy. Anoint the least with your presence. Notice the unpleasant places and try engaging it. Pick up trash and throw it away. Do something that is unglorious, behind the scene, that no one cares about.

Spiritual Practice of the week:

Try doing a reading of Scripture in the practice of Lecito Divina (holy reading).

Here’s how:

Read the text aloud once. Simply receive and notice the story. What word or phrase stood out to you?
Read the text a second time. Analyze what’s going on. What do you have questions about? What did you notice further?
Read the text one last time. What came up for you personally as you read the text?

End the time with some silence to bask in your experience.