St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

Scripture Reading

Galatians 3:28

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I was quite disturbed by the comment Donald Trump made about the judge Gonzalo Curiel of United States district court. Donald Trump said that a Mexican American judge in a case involving trump university was biased against him because of his heritage ethnicity. In other words, the ethnicity of the judge is the cause for the bias. It doesn’t matter what that person is, if that person has certain ethnicity, he or she cannot do the good job. Judge Curiel or was born in Indiana, he was born American, of course, he has a Mexican heritage and he fought against the, drug lord of Mexico. Now, he’s always surrounded by bodyguards, so wherever he goes, he has to go with a bodyguard because, the head of the drug dealers ordered people to kill him. That’s why he always has to have body guards. He risked his life for the peace and justice of the country, and he’s a good judge, but as long as he has a certain ethnicity, his ethnicity, will not make him a competent judge. That is a blatant racism. As a speaker, Paul N’Dri in the nation’s highest ranking Republican said it was a textbook definition of racism. I just can’t believe how a person who says blatant racism can get so many votes, that’s the kind of a world that we live in North America. I was thinking of, my own context in our church. We have a Korean’s born in North America. They’re excellent in what they do. They’re smart, they’re all this culture, and also they know the language well enough, and there are maybe some judges in the future, but as Donald Trump said, or did many people in this country may question theater ability because of their ethnicity, prejudice. It is a strange thing. It really blinds our eyes, as long as we have prejudice, reason doesn’t work and we human beings easily fall into our own prejudice. When we are victims of prejudice, all our logics and reasons will become powerless and useless and these reasons will be only used to legitimize and justify their own prejudice and these reasons and logic will drive them only further into their own deeper prejudice. In other words, the prejudice incapacitates the power of reason. God gave us reason to know the truth, not to justify your own bias. Narrow-mindedness and prejudice God gave us reasons so that we can think and we can discern what it is; what is the truth? So when you don’t use reasoning that way. Then you’re committing sins. As you look at this passage, you see St Paul experienced complete healing from his own prejudice in Christ. Listen to what he said.

This is actually scripture passage  for today, which I forgot. Again, 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. This was spoken 2000 years ago by an Asian man. Freedom from prejudice, Greek or Jew doesn’t mean just the race is to also talk, he’s talking about the religion. His message was to eradicate the racial and religious prejudice, socio-economic inequality, gender discrimination, and to promote tolerance. Even in today’s standard. It was a very bold statement, and he found that in Christ, he found this truth in Christ because he was a victim of prejudice because of his religiosity, whatever that may be, the religion or morality or self righteous or whatever. If that makes you a person of prejudice, then your reason doesn’t work anymore. You’re reason only justifies your prejudice. Paul experienced tremendous freedom in Christ. It’s not that all of a sudden he decided, okay, this is the right thing to do. No, he found this freedom in Christ. He found his healing in Christ. To me, that is freedom. Doing whatever you want. It’s not freedom. What Paul experienced was true freedom. That is what true conversion looks like, on people talk about conversion, true conversion is true healing from this kind of prejudice. Paul’s conversion was not religious conversion. Paul’s conversion was not moral conversion. Paul’s conversion was not ideological conversion, these convergence are easy, you can just make decision on that because Paul’s conversion was spiritual conversion, and through the spiritual conversion, he’s eyes which used to be blind because of his prejudice are completely open and was able to see

that’s true convergence. That’s true change, only in true conversion, we can overcome our own prejudice, and then our reason will come alive, and we can expand the horizons of our understanding. Until then, we’ll just live in our own prejudice. When this happens, we get new vision for ourselves and for the world. We’ll be able to overcome our own fear, we’ll be able to overcome our insatiable desire and hunger for power and domination. We don’t need to have that anymore. We can truly build unity and we can build a better world together. We won’t build a world where one percent of the population uses 99 percent of the money, we won’t build that kind of world. That’s North America just last week, New York Times reported one percent of American population owns 99 percent of the money. We won’t build that kind of world. Just imagine it. For example, let’s say here is about 100 people here. Out there, their are 100 Kimbap. One person is with 99 Kimbap, and with one piece of Kimbap 99 people have to share this. Can you say that’s a sane world? That’s insane, but that’s the kind of world we live in. As long as we have prejudice, all our reasons will not operate, will not work.

We’ll build a world where everyone is treated with respect, dignity and equality. I went to a seminar last Tuesday, presented by Joe Park. It is about the mental health for the Korean community and all the came and their doctor know, who is used to be a who used to teach at Cambridge and he said the infant mortality rate is a very good indicator of determining socio economic status of a group. And he said the African American in the United States has higher infant mortality rate than that of Bangladesh. And the sad thing is the mortality rate of Canadian abroad gentle originals is even higher than African Americans. Yeah, living in a such a nice world, but they are also people who are suffering in this heaven like world utopia kind of world. We are living in a world where prejudice is uncritically accepted that was not the vision of Jesus Christ. And Paul saw the true vision of Jesus Christ and dad is that there is no longer chew or a Greek. There is no longer slave or free. There is no longer male and female for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And that is a legacy we should carry on.

Maybe all are saying, timothy, people should memorize this. It’s not that difficult. It’s not that long. Maybe we all memorize and always keep that in mind in whatever we do. I hope that we all become the leaders to eradicate the prejudice around us and build unity and harmony.  

a few weeks ago I preached on good Shepherd. Jesus gave us that parable, good Shepherd. In that story, there are three kinds of people we see, one is a thief, and the other is hired hands, they are paid to do whatever they were supposed to do, but once danger comes they flee, and finally, there are good shepherds. Take care of sheep and who will even sacrifice for the sheep. I wonder what kind of people there are in the world. Maybe there are thieves out there, who only take profit all the time, maybe 99 percent of money and there are higher men working crazy just to make a living, but beyond that they don’t care, but there are also good shepherd who loves humanity, who love this world, who will do anything to make this world better. Sometimes even sacrifice themselves to make this world better than our living just for themselves. They’re not living, robbing other people. they are living for other people. Jesus called us to be good shepherd. Not thiefs, not higher than, but good shepherd. This time I’d like to challenge you to think through what kind of life am I living? Am I just hired hands? Or am I… do I want to live like the good shepherd helping others, making this world better place? Let us pray.

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Romans 7: 14-25

Let us hear the word of the Lord. It is taken from Romans Chapter four verses 14 to 25. “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I’m of the flesh sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree that law is good, but in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me for I know that nothing good dwells within me that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that does it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self. But I see my members, another law at work with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am who will rescue me from this body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord”. This is the word of the Lord.

“I do not understand my own actions for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”. This is a very strange statement by a great apostle. We are not talking about just an ordinary person. We are talking about the Great Apostle who some people say has founded Christianity. He said, “I cannot understand my own actions for I do not do what I want, but I did a very thing I hate”. It is an honest and yet a very bold statement. Who can say things like that? Who can say, I don’t know myself? People say I know what I’m doing. They seem to be very assured of themselves even though they are not very sure about themselves. They have to show on the surface that they are atleast quite confident. You know, I used to envy those who are so sure of themselves.

It was good to see that they have so much confidence in life. And I always thought, what do they have that I don’t have? They seem to have so much confidence in themselves about life, about everything. They seem to be so sure of what they are doing, but now I realize that they are not much different from me. They don’t have more knowledge, they don’t have more faith, and they don’t have much confidence in themselves either. Often it was just a facade that they put on to look strong and confident. Sometimes I see young people looking cool and tough, but behind their cool and tough demeanor, I also see that they are very scared of not being cool and not being tough. What if I don’t look cool? What if I don’t look tough? I see that fear. So after all, they are not that cool and tough. They’re just scared. Who has real faith? Not those who put on a religious facade, but the one who actually encounters God and those whose eyes are open because of that encounter to be able to see the reality of God. At the same time, they see not only the reality of God but they can also see what’s in them because their eyes are open. They could see their own shame, darkness, weakness, sinfulness, so they not only see the reality of God, but they also see their own carnality of themselves. God is light, when you come into the light everything gets exposed. Not only the good things, but even the ugly things gets exposed. So before you see your own contradiction within yourself, that’s what Paul confessed in today’s scripture, “I do not understand myself”. When I was young, I was scared of many things. I was especially scared of how people may look at me and how they will judge me. But as I got older, how people look at me is still important, but it’s not that important anymore. It’s still important, but it’s not that important to sacrifice everything that I do or what I’ve learned that it is all right just to be me. It’s not that great, but it’s all right just to be me. I think that is what maturity does to us. Maturity gives you the courage to accept the complexity you have within you. When I was young, I saw my own contradiction and complexity. I was very insecure about it, but as I get older I realize that it’s all right to have that complexity within me. You can have critical thinking about yourself and yet you don’t perish. That’s the difference. Before, if I saw contradiction within myself I almost perished, but now when I see contradiction within myself, I don’t perish. It doesn’t perish me. It doesn’t destroy me.

I was reading a book so I would like to share with you about it. It said: “critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivete”. I think it’s pretty good. You know, we need to keep up critical thinking, but if you don’t give any hope, then that is cynicism in you. You just become a cynical person. When you do critical thinking you don’t want to be a cynical person. You don’t want to be a complainer. You want to make changes. You want to make a productive change. That’s why you do critical thinking. Not just because you’re sturdy, satisfied, so you never lose hope. When you have critical thinking about others and about the world and yet you never give up hope, then you’ll never become cynical. What is the Good News? What is the Gospel? What is the goodness? The goodness that Paul delivered today is this: you don’t need to be perfect. That’s the goodness. You don’t have to be perfect. That is a message of Jesus Christ. You don’t have to be so cool. You don’t have to be so perfect. You don’t have to be so religious. You don’t have to be so righteous, because you are not.

We all have insecurities within us, but we don’t want to live out our insecurities. I hope that we don’t live our insecurity in our lives.

As I read Steve Jobs biography, I mean he made great achievements and all that, but I felt sad. Probably he’ll feel sad for me, but I felt sad for him in a way because all his life he tried to prove to the world how good he is in everything he did because when he was very young, his biological parents gave him up. He always asked questions, why did they give me up? Why did they abandon me? Was I so bad? Was I so unworthy that they had to abandon me? He lived with this question all his life. When you watch the movie Amadeus, I don’t know whether it’s true or not but Sallieri always lived that lived out his insecurity. I hope that we don’t live out our insecurity. You don’t need to pretend to be so strong and so upright. As you hear the good news, you get this courage to think that you’re alright. You can be honest with yourself. That’s where everything begins, by being honest with yourself. Then you’ll be able to discover so much about yourself. You’ll be able to see the insecurity deeply embedded within you and then you can laugh about that. You know, when I was young I was so skinny that my kneecap kind of protruded and I hated that. That little kneecap. All the other guys didn’t have that, their’s were flat. I hated it so much that I didn’t want to wear my shorts at that time, but I don’t have that insecurity anymore because I don’t have that kneecap anymore. But also at the same time, I am strong enough to be able to handle that kneecap. But I’m just talking about a very small thing. The kinds of insecurities that I have, I cannot even talk about here. It is so embarrassing. I cannot even talk about it. Even though I still have so much insecurity within me, I know someday I’ll be able to overcome that too with God’s grace and I also know that those things cannot crush me anymore. I can even laugh about that.

I’m not sensitive about that. Once in a while I get sensitive, but most of times I am not. Jesus’ goodness frees us from the fear of our own weaknesses, darkness, and insecurities. The good news says it is all right, I’ll help you work out your own problems. You don’t have to hide it anymore. You don’t have to look down upon others for their weaknesses to hide your own weaknesses. I realized that the people who hide their weaknesses are usually abusive to other people’s weaknesses. Now you can embrace your own weaknesses and also other people’s weaknesses because you are not much different from them. As we received the good news, we become very comfortable with our own weaknesses. You are in a much better position to deal with your own weaknesses and you can also have compassion for others who are struggling with their own weaknesses, and I think that is a power of grace. That is a power of grace. Grace is a wonderful thing. As you look at your own weaknesses and embrace your own weaknesses, you can also embrace other people’s weaknesses. That is the power of Grace.

Paul lived all his life without knowing what grace was all about. He was a hard working man, and he was very good in everything he did and he had to be good. He tried to be good, and he had to be good in everything he did and most of the times, he was good. But he didn’t know what grace was all about. What do you mean living with grace? He didn’t live with grace. He left with his strong will, but unfortunately his strong will blinded him. Only when he discovered the grace in his life, his eyes were open and he was able to see his true self and he was able to see how scared people were and how hard they tried to cover up. I think grace is wonderful thing. We all have to understand God’s grace deeply. How do we know God’s grace? You don’t need to be so religious to know God’s grace. You don’t need to be morally so perfect to know God’s Grace. You don’t need to be so smart to know God’s grace. God’s grace is available to everyone who needs that grace. That’s all you need. When I need grace then that grace is available.

When you see your broken self instead of just looking at yourself, you can turn to God and you’ll see God’s grace waiting for you. That’s what grace is like. When you see only you, yourself, then you cannot see grace, but when you turn around and turn to God, you see God’s grace waiting for you. Jesus came to give us a grace. Jesus came and left, but he left grace with us. This is what it said in John: “and the word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace”. That’s what God gave to us last week. We said said that life is a gift. Life can be only a gift when you have grace. When you know grace, then life is a gift.

There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing you need to do to receive grace, but when you see your brokenness and turn to God, God will show you his grace. St Paul said this,” where sin increased grace abounded all the more”. I translated a little bit, and I think this is better: “where the perception of sin increased, the power of grace abounded all the more”. It’s not just because you sin more that you will experience God’s grace more, but when you understand your sin more deeply you will then be able to understand the power of God’s grace more abundantly.

Your weakness is not something that you have to hide at all cost. When you do that, you’re building a life of lies. You become a person of lies. You’ll just pretend a lot of things and you’ll show a facade, but that’s not you. I don’t want to build a life of lies. Your weakness is something that you need to confront, embrace, and expose to God. Then you’ll see God’s grace working in you. I do believe that is the power of life. Only there we can have true confidence in life. I hope that our insecurities do not eat us up, parish us and destroy us. Rather, let it make us compassionate human beings to other people’s weakness.

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Hosea 2: 7-8

We just finished the first part of our Hosea study. I enjoyed the study. It’s very different from the New Testament study. The language is very extreme, but behind the language I see a beautiful picture of the truth about God. I think Hosea captured the message very clearly and very emotionally. Hosea’s message is simply verse 8.

She shall pursue her lovers, but not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now. She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal.

This is the main message of Hosea. It is God who lavished upon Israelites, but the Israelites did not know that it was God, and they went to Baal and they gave gold and silver to Baal for a blessing.

My friends, it is God who has provided all we need and beyond. God lavished upon us all the good things that we enjoy in life. Not just the material things, the totality of life. I was thinking, would God be able to give more than what he gave? Is there any more things to give on God’s part? And I realized that there’s nothing more he could give. He gave all the abundance.

When I was young, I could only imagine going to heaven. I could not imagine beyond this. You can eat whatever you want, there are all kinds of abundance, all kinds of things that you enjoy. That’s what heaven was like when I was young. So God has provided all good things for us, but it’s not just material things. We have to remember, God did not just give you material things. God gave you peace, God gave you happiness. God gave you good friends, good family and good people who will always there for you. Life is not just material. Life is more than a lot of things, and God gave all of us all good things. In that sense, life is a gift from God. Yes, life is a gift from God. He provided all good things, so I believe that says that life is a gift from God.

Last week and the week before were tough for me because I had two retreats back to back and I had two funerals back to back. First I had a funeral on Thursday night, and then a funeral on Saturday, a Friday morning funeral, a Friday evening funeral, Saturday morning. Too many funerals. Too many reflections on death. It was tough. But you know what? In the midst of a very busy and hectic schedule, I had peace of mind. Where did that peace come from? I don’t know. I could very well be frustrated and stressed out. I didn’t even try to make myself feel good, but peace was there. So I sit down, I’m stressed out, I’m frustrated and all that, but where did that peace come from? I realized that life is like that. That’s what life is. When you face hardships, difficulties, and problems in life, life has it’s own way of finding peace. That’s what I realized. Life moves into that direction. Life knows how to find peace and happiness on it’s own. I don’t have to even try anything, life just moves towards that. That’s what I realized about life. Because life is a gift from God, it is made to be that way.

Whether you’re religious or not, you will find peace, comfort and assurance if you don’t ruin it yourself by being angry and frustrated. We are often the culprit of our own unhappiness. We are the ones who block the way. We are the ones who don’t let our lives find peace and comfort and assurance. We are the problem. If we just move ourselves outside of it, life will find it’s way, but we are the ones who make ourselves frustrated, angry and stressed out. Life is a gift from God and it will know how to find it’s own giftedness and its own peace and it’s own happiness, and yet we are in the middle and we are making ourselves very unhappy. We are the problem.

About the nature of life, and our life force, I realized that God made our life that way. I thank God for that. For six days God created heaven and earth. The material things. First day, second day, third day, he created all of these things, mountains and oceans, and all material things. After he created all those material things for six days on the seventh day, what did he do? He rested. Why? Was it because he was tired? Can God be tired? Since he worked so much for six days, on the 7th day he had to take a rest? I don’t think so. He left the seventh day to rest and he let every creation on the seventh day rest. He created rest, and without peace there is no rest. Just because you physically rest, that doesn’t mean that you’re rested. If you don’t have peace, then you don’t have true rest. In other words, God gave peace on the seventh day.

Peace was builtin in God’s creation from the beginning. The 7th day is more important than the six days. In six days, he created all the material things. On the seventh day he created the crucial thing that we need, which is rest, peace and all those things that make us happy.

When you look at the scripture of Genesis, God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it because on it, God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. God not only created all the trees, flowers, oceans, mountains, rivers, animals and human beings, on the seventh day, God blessed them. In other words, he added blessing to the materials. So what you get is not just materials. What you get is blessed materials. You have all the materials, but don’t have joy. What good is it? God not only gave materials, but blessed materials. The happiness with it, the joy with it so that you can have appreciation for the abundance you enjoy. That is what God wants.

Then how come people don’t seem to be very happy with life when they have all the abundance they can get? You can’t get any better. You can’t get any more than this. If you want more than this, that’s greed. Wake up. If you want more material than this, that’s greed. We have more than enough. God gave enough.

The reason we human beings are not happy is because, Hosea saw it this way; verse 8, she did not know that it was I. That’s a problem. (She is Israelites). She did not know that it was I who gave her the green, the wine and the oil, who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal. The problem is she did not know that it was God. The reason we cannot enjoy all the abundance and live with happiness is because we don’t know it is God who provided all these good things for us. She used silver and gold for Baal. That’s an idol. She went to Baal thinking that Baal can give her true happiness. How true that is for us right now. When God gave all the abundance, we turned to something else and asked for blessing. Asked for happiness. We often forget that God is the source of all the blessings and all the good things that we enjoy. We try to create our own happiness. Try it. You can never. Our autonomy has become our own Baal. Our ability and capability have become our own Baal. But you don’t realize that your self centeredness kills your soul and takes away the true joy you’re supposed to experience. The more we try to create our own happiness, the more miserable we become, because the source of happiness is in God. It is God who created all that. It is God who gives all that.

There are two things human beings did. One, they have forgotten that it is God who has provided all the good things in our lives. Two, they have become self centered and self absorbed to create their own happiness. The result, we have become very unhappy and feel very empty. That’s exactly what happened. That’s what happened to people in history. That’s what’s happening to people right now, and that’s what will happen to people in the future because that isn’t how God made life.

If life is a gift, we need to do two things. One, be thankful to those who gave the gift. Be thankful to God who gave you the gift of life. Two, share the gift of life with others. Share. If it is a gift, share it. Don’t take it all. Share it with others. Be thankful and share, those two things. Very simple. If life is a gift, then we always live with thankfulness that will drive away all our worries, anxieties, frustration, all that. Two, share it. By sharing it, you will experience the abundance of life. When you are thankful and you share your life, that’s when you become the happiest. Life when it is shared shows it’s best, and you start enjoying the beauty of life. If you remember these two things, your life will only get better.

A good life is not a good life because nothing bad happens. A good life is a good life because in the midst of all the bad things that happen in life, we will never lose hope and the beauty of life. That’s when life becomes good.

When I watch the movie, I’m sure most of you watched it, Life is Beautiful, I heard the message very clearly and strongly. This Jewish man who was about to be executed is so bright. He takes care of his son. He talks with him, he plays with him as though nothing bad will happen. He celebrates how beautiful life is, and the title of the movie of is Life is Beautiful.

Life is good, not because nothing bad happens, but because in the midst of all the bad things that happened in your life, you never lose hope. You never lose perspective. You never lose the beauty of life.

We will only discover a deeper taste of life. As wine gets better. As it matures, you will taste the deeper taste of life as you get mature about life. Don’t forget that life is good. And what is good you share. Don’t forget the life is gift. Celebrate it, enjoy it, and don’t ever ever forget that it is God who gave you all the good things in life. I want you to enjoy the maximum joy of life. That’s what I want for everyone, to enjoy the maximum joy of life. Remember those two things, one, be thankful and two, share.

Scripture Passage

John 10: 9-14a

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I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

It is great that, once a week we gather together like this and ask ourselves the fundamental question of life. We don’t always do that. We will not be able to answer all the questions about the fundamental things of life, but at least once a week we need to reflect upon that and see where our lives are going. What is the purpose of my life? It’s a very, very big question, but it is still very important for us to continuously ask this question. You will reflect on that when you come to church, but you will forget it too. You can hear it today and then tomorrow you will forget it. That’s okay. That’s a part of life you understand, learn, and forget but forgetting doesn’t mean that it disappears. It remains in you. When some critical moment of life comes, all of a sudden, all those things that are within you that you didn’t even know were there will come out. So whatever you hear, whatever you understand, whatever you realize, it will not disappear. You may forget it in your consciousness, but it will always be there in your heart. When the right time comes, you’ll be surprised and think I didn’t know that I have this insight, or this understanding, or this attitude'. It is great that once a week at least, we come to church and reflect on the fundamental questions of life.

Sunflowers move towards the sun. That’s natural. You don’t have to tell them to do so. Similarly, roots of the tree by the river reach out to where the water is.  Automatically roots will go down to the stream of water. Salmon make an incredible upstream journey to spawn, to lay eggs in the same places that they were hatched. These are natural things. Those who want to be actors and actresses dream to move to Hollywood. They hope that some day they will be picked someday someone will recognize their talents and ability. Our life is like that. Whatever we desire, we move towards. Sometimes we realize there is strong force that a guides us, moves us and leads us to a certain direction. That’s what our life is like. I’ll call that life’s calling. It calls you to certain things in life. Life's calling does not have to be your job or career. For some people it is, but it doesn’t have to be. A job is a job to some people, it does not necessarily define their life’s calling. But to some people, life’s calling so strong they even give up their old job and then change it to live out their life’s calling.

I think that’s quite courageous to give up all your things and do whatever life calls you to do. We all have life’s calling and our life moves towards that. Think about it. Why are you doing certain things? Why are you attracted to certain things? Why is your life moving towards a certain direction? I believe that there is a life’s calling. Oprah Winfrey said, there’s no greater gift you can give or receive than to honor your calling, it is why you’re born and how you become truly alive . She’s not even a minister. She has wisdom. Yes, we may live our life’s calling. That’s where we are the most happy. Then how do we find life’s calling? I’ve realized that it’s not just one decision that you’re making, sometimes when we do that you make a mistake. I think it’s a process, a slow process. Little by little you realize things about your life’s calling, rather than willfully deciding that ‘I make this decision, I’m going to live like this’. That’s not life’s calling. That’s your decision, but life’s calling is much bigger than your decision. There may be a series of events that may have awakened you. There may be one or two instances that made you seriously think about what you want to do with the rest of your life.

Maybe sometimes you experience or discovered a very strong force that forces, guides and leads you in a certain direction. For me, it was a book that finally, I mean before the book there were lots of other things that happened, but in the end it was a book that finally convinced me to go into ministry. So everybody has a different experience of finding life’s calling. Ask yourself a big question: why do you live? Why do you exist? Why did I come to this world? Was I just a product of my parents’ decision and will? Is is as simple as that? Or was I just born with no meaning attached to it? I was born and because I was born, I just live?

Jesus was very clear about why he came to this world. I think that’s the difference between great people and mediocre people. Mediocre people don’t know why they came to the world, but all the great people know clearly why they came to the world, why they live. That’s what I discovered. Jesus said this, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”. That was why Jesus Christ came. He came to this world so that we, not him, may have life and have it abundantly. What a noble thing to say. He was only a 30 year old young man. How could a young man have such a noble idea about life. He came so the other people may have life abundantly. I respect that. That is awesome to have that kind of idea about life.

The other day I was thinking about what my message is to the world. What is my message to the world? You all have a message to the world, whether you verbally articulate it or not, through your life, you’re living out your message. You show what you want to speak and what you want to say to the world. This is what life is all about. Your message to the world reflects what your philosophy of life is and also that will point to the direction of your life. Depending on what message you have to share with the world. I can see your philosophy and I can see where your life is heading to.

Jesus’ message to the world was ‘live life abundantly’. That was Jesus’ message to the world. What was Paul’s message to the world? It was that you must live your life always joyfully. Rejoice your life always. That was Paul’s message to the world. What was Bobby Mcferrin’s message? Don’t worry. Be Happy. That was his message to the world. That’s a good message. Nelson Mandela’s message was that everyone is equal and can have their say, and he lived and died for that message. Martin Martin Luther King Jr’s message was that one day all people will be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. That was his message to the world. The message of Mother Teresa was that, your life is supposed to take to take care of weak, vulnerable, poor children. That’s the right thing to do. Take care of the poor children around you. All these people had messages to the world and they tried to live out that message. That his life’s calling.

I hope, my friends, that our message to the world may not be as follows: Be selfish. Life is meaningless, and the future is hopeless. Don’t think too much. Just live. Do whatever you want. Pain is useless. Suffering only destroys us. All people are bad. I hope that that is not our message to the world, but sometimes, unfortunately we deliver these toxic messages unintentionally through our behaviour, through our actions, through the words that we speak and through the attitudes we have. Yes, I know life is hard. Living almost 60 years, I know that much. Life is hard and life can be quite gloomy sometimes. There is so much suffering in our lives and in the world. Just last week, all 66 members of Egypt Air, thought they were going to work. They all got killed. All 66 people.And we were very saddened by the news of the aboriginal young people committing suicide, one after another. A mass suicide. Why? Young people are supposed to live with excitement and for a bright future. But they felt so helpless and hopeless and they killed themselves. Why? And we just prayed his afternoon about a Bangladesh. So many people lost their homes and families. Life can be gloomy.

The world needs the message of hope, courage, strength and belief. And who will speak the message to the world? You. That’s why the world needs you. The world needs your message. You are the prophet. Each one of you is the prophet. In every situation. We go there and we speak the message of hope, a message of love. You're called to deliver that message. My friends, our life’s calling is to help people around us. It is simple as that. What’s more difficult? What more is there? Our life’s calling is to help people around us. Just as there are many different messages, there may be different ways of doing it. It may be as simple as to help people around you. When people fall, help them get up.  If people are discouraged, be with them and encourage them. Life’s calling is to help people around us.

Ultimately, we want people to live abundant life. That was Jesus’ message. As Jesus was a shepherd, you are also a shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus said, that is a good life to emulate.These days, so many people live with ‘hired hands’ mentality or ‘thieves’ mentality. They steal, kill and possess things from the world. “What profit can I get from this world?” That’s all they think about. They don’t think about taking care of the world. They are not good shepherds to the world. They are hired hands to the world. The only think about the profit they can get from this world rather than how they can make this world abundant. How can I make the lives of these people abundant? Doesn’t matter who they are, Christians or non Christians. We must ask “how can I help humanity live abundantly?” Sometimes as a good shepherd, you may even have to sacrifice what you have to do that. I think that’s a noble life. That’s the highest ethics and morality and that’s a good life. This is what I realized: when you have the mentality of a hired hands, the message does not come. That’s what I realized. If you have that attitude, the message doesn’t come. What is my message to the world? I’m not sure. What is my life’s calling? I don’t know.

But amazingly when we live a life of a shepherd, all the blessings come to us. We experience the abundance of life. When we live a life of good a shepherd. We realized that life is full, not empty. Life is meaningful, life’s joyful. It’s always full, not empty. That’s that was God’s message to Abraham, right from the beginning of Genesis. God called Abraham and said, “I will make of you a great nation and I’ll bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing”. God gave you blessing so that you may be a blessing to other people around you. So you are a prophet, you are a good shepherd and you are a blessing. Don’t ever forget that. I hope that all of you may be a blessing to others and that you discover a message for your life. 

{Reflection Song: Knowing You Jesus by Graham Kendrick}

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Scripture Reading

Micah 6: 6-8

{Transcript}

Micah 6:6-8

With what shall I come before the Lord,

This is the word of the Lord.

Good life. That is something that we need to pursue. You deserve it. You’re supposed to live a good life. I mean, we have one life we live. We’ve got to live a good life, so you need to pursue it, and you deserve it, and you have a right to do so. And God very much wants you to have good life.

At the staff meeting, I told the staff that this week’s sermon title is ‘good life’ and Reverend Sohn said, “it sounds like Good Life fitness.” That’s the first image that comes to your mind. And I told him that was exactly why I chose that title. Good life. I think that Good Life fitness has captured very well what modern people understand what they think about a good life. When people think about good life, they think about a healthy and active life.

We are obsessed with what we eat and we are very careful about what we eat. It’s not just older people these days who are eating healthy food, but a lot of young people are. It’s a trend, a lot of young people are into healthy food – it’s much more expensive, but they don’t mind paying more money for buying expensive food because, you know, “eat better, feel better.” And so they have all kinds of theories. Some stores who sell expensive organic food, they do very well. Not just tasty food, but healthy food. People choose to live a healthy life, and food is very important. A lot of health problems come from eating unhealthy food. We are eating and consuming way too much bad food.

I mean, ramen at night is like heaven, but it’s not necessarily good for your body. In an elevator on the way down from the exercise room, I happened to listen to these two young Korean men talking. I wasn’t intentionally listening to them, but they didn’t know that I was Korean, so they were speaking Korean to each other and I just had happened to listen to their conversation. They were talking about body building and they were giving tips to each other. I was quite surprised at how hard they exercise. When I go up there, I run on the treadmill and I say, “Wow, I did so much” and I look at my time – only 20 minutes at most. These guys are staying there three, four hours for their body. They workout religiously. It is good to exercise… healthy body, healthy mind. It is good to work hard, eat sensibly exercise regularly, and enjoy your life doing things that you enjoy. That’s how we define a good life and that’s how I’d like to define a good life too. You’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to exercise, you’ve got to eat healthy food and you’ve got to enjoy whatever you really enjoy doing and that’s what I try to do too.

But when I look at those things, what I just described is all about external things. Food, exercise, work, and doing things you enjoy. These are things that we do on the outside, but how about the inside? Also all of these things are about me. It is all about me, and a good life cannot just be all about me. A good life is more than that. A good life is deeper than that… It’s not just about me.

In today’s scripture, people came to God actually complaining. Sometimes we use this passage during Christmas time. You may think that, like a devotional to God, “What do you require of me?” That’s how some songs are written and all that, but that’s mistaken. Here, the people came to God complaining because God was not very pleased with the Israelites at that time. Because they were very selfish, they were only thinking about themselves, and God was not happy with them. So the prophets rebuked the people, and people responded to God. They said, “What do you want, God? Do you want burnt offerings with calves a year old? Or do you want thousands of rams? No, or do you want ten thousands of rivers of oil? If that is enough, then God, shall I give my first born for my sin? Then you’ll be satisfied? What do you want?” That’s what they were saying. It wasn’t like, “God, what do you require?” like a devotional response. They were angry at God.

So there was a sarcastic tone in their response to God, and God said to them, “Oh, mortal, what is good?” It sounded like to me, “What is a good life?” God is saying, a good life is to the justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. I want you to remember these three things. (Can you put it up please?) Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. These are pillars of a good life. Doing justice is to do with morality, but morality is often viewed as a personal thing, personal morality. Doing justice is to do with not you, but with other people and the earth we live in.

We are doing a terrible injustice to our environment. We need to do something about it. We are abusing the earth, resources, the land… everything that you know about the environment, we are just abusing it. We need to do something about it. I’d like to do something even from our church too. You know, it is difficult to do it at church because at home you’re always there so you can be conscious of it and you can separate all that. But in church you come once a week and then doing all that is difficult. But if you automatically assume that somebody will do it, it will never be done. It’s hard. So if you chip in a little bit more of your time taking care of the garbage and all that, then we can do it together. And I hope that someday we can do this environmental stuff at our church. Once, we wanted to get rid of styrofoam cups. So that’s why we actually bought the dishwasher, a heavy duty industrial dishwasher in the kitchen. We and everybody brought mugs and all that. So I hope that we can do something to help out with the environment.

But it’s not only the environment that is abused. People are abused. Especially people who don’t have power, privilege and resources. The poor people, people of different colors, different opinions. They have been abused and mistreated badly. Maybe read the book by Ta-Nehisi, ‘Between The World And Me’. He really, clearly speaks out about how black people are being treated in the United States. That’s that right. Simply not right. Doing justice is doing what is right. You don’t treat people like that. It doesn’t matter who they are, what they may have. What morality, what orientation, whatever that is, you don’t treat people that way. That is not the right thing to do.

Jesus was not so harsh on personal moral failure, but he was very, very strong and harsh on those who abused people because they didn’t have power. We have to be very conscious of justice all the time. You always have to be conscious of people who are treated unfairly. Poor people, powerless people, and we should stand up for them. Living with a sense of justice is what a good life is all about. And we should use our resources to help out with injustice going on around us. Last Friday at the Bible study, I asked them, “What is the difference between abundance from God and abundance that you have created, you have made?” What is the difference between abundance that is given from God and abundance you yourself made? The difference is, abundance from God creates gratitude and thankfulness because it’s a free gift, and you are thankful for that, but also at the same time, not only that, it’s easy to share with others. Abundance you created yourself is hard to share, but people who believe that their abundance is from God, then they share their resources with others. We have to fight for justice. Always be conscious. Whether at work, school, or with your family.

That’s why I was very interested in feminism for awhile because women’s rights have been abused and treated badly. That’s why I was, for a while, very interested in liberation theology, because in South America, the people have been treated so badly. The poor people. This is a part of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus always stood up for those who are weak, vulnerable and powerless.

The second pillar is to love kindness. To love kindness is to live with mercy, and then the best word that came to me comes to me is compassion. I told you the word compassion is a combination of two words, come and passion. Come is together, passion is suffering. So life that suffers with those who suffer. That’s a good life. We cannot take other people’s suffering casually. When we hear other people’s suffering, we cannot just here from one ear and then let it go out from the other ear. We cannot let it happen that way.

Sometimes I go to a Canadian church, and I speak about some stories of suffering, it is very different. When they hear it, I can feel that they feel it. They feel the suffering in the story that I share with them. That’s empathy. Compassion is empathy. When people suffer around you, we gotta suffer with them. You cannot just look at it like, “Okay, too bad.” Sympathy is different from compassion. That’s why the last two weeks, we have collected offering for Alberta. It’s not much, but at least we got to do something about it. We got to share resources to alleviate that suffering from people. The suffering of the people is real, and we have to do our best to alleviate that suffering. It doesn’t matter what it is. That’s a human thing to do. That’s a right thing to do.

Thirdly, walk humbly with God. Don’t think that you can change anything on your own. Don’t think that you can change the world on your own. We humbly ask God for help. This is to walk humbly with God. We’ll do our best to the justice and show our compassion, but ultimately it is God who truly changes the world, so we’ll never be discouraged. We’ll try our best, but we’ll never be discouraged. Humility is the same as trusting in God. From that trust, true happiness comes.

Working hard, eating healthy food, exercising regularly, and doing things that you enjoy are external things and it is about you and it’s important. But living with a sense of justice, living a life of compassion and living humbly trusting in God are internal things, and is all about others and about the world we live in. We need both, but what’s lacking in you? What is lacking in the modern world? I think the latter is lacking.

Half of a good life is not a good life. A good life is complete. It’s not half of it. Half of a good life is not a good life. We can only have a good life together, not alone. You can never be happy, you can never have a good life alone on your own. We can only be happy with others, together. Being happy when others are suffering is not a good life. It’s not a good life.

People like Dr. Farmer, I told you about the book, ‘Mountains Beyond Mountains”, he gets about $100,000 a year teaching at Harvard medical school. He doesn’t even know where that money goes to. He lives in a church basement and he goes out and just does the work. What a wonderful example. He said, “Being happy when others are suffering is not good a life. In the process of helping those who are suffering, you become happy and you find good life. What Micah said was a summary of the preaching of all the prophets. That’s what all the prophets say. Simply is summarizing into these three; do justice, live with compassion, and walk humbly with God. Those three things are a summary of the prophets message, and the summary of your life and our life.

May God bless you with a good life. Let us sing together.

*praise music*

This time, let us have a moment of silence and let us pray. What is lacking in my life? We all need to live a good life and we deserve a good life, but what is lacking within me? Let us pray so that God may help us build our life all around in a healthy way, in a balanced way. So let us pray that, “God give me the life that is balanced in all these things so that we may truly enjoy a good life.”

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Scripture Reading

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

I’ve read this passage numerous times and I’ve also preached on it before. But this time around what really hit me hard was, this phrase that keeps on repeating in the beginning. Let me read it for you again. “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) It doesn’t say that love is a quality that one may or may not have. It says that without love who I am and the one life that I’m living can be meaningless. And I experienced this whenever I go to a funeral. Every life is precious and it is to be celebrated. And we celebrate with the person, but it is so evident whenever I go to a funeral that the person who lived with a lot of love , have shared that love. There’s something unique about that person’s funeral, there’s a particular, abundance, fullness, and warmth at that funeral. And every time, every funeral, I walk away thinking it’s love. Ultimately, it’s the love that matters. It’s not what I’ve accumulated or how much I’ve achieved. Ultimately at the end, it’s love that counts. And it’s the love that person that has shared receives in the end. And then these verses make me question then, what is love? What really is love? It’s interesting how often we think we know what love is because it’s so commonly used. It’s an everyday word that we rarely stop to think and wonder about its meaning. But after reading this first Corinthians passage, I couldn’t help wondering to myself, do I really know what love is?

After explaining how vital love is in life. Saint Paul describes what love is, and I’m going to again, read it for you carefully, slowly so that you may think and ponder about it. “Love is patient love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-6) As I was reading and meditating upon this slowly, I felt really uneasy at the end, recognizing that I don’t fully have any of these qualities in my life. According to Saint Paul love is anything and everything, but that comes easily and naturally to us. It is so much easier to be impatient and criticize than to slow to judge and be patient. It is so much easier to hold grudges and close our hearts immediately than to forgive and continually seek to see the good in the other person. It is so tempting and so very easy to be wrapped up in my own world and be indifferent than to look out to the bigger world where there’s so much hurt and needs. It takes effort to persevere and not to give up on hope, when it comes to people and relationships. All these qualities, I’ve realized that we don’t need when we love those who are simply loveable. But all these qualities of love, we can not cultivate without humility and courage to really look deep inside myself and first recognize and acknowledge my own brokenness, my own darkness, and without struggle and going through the challenges without persistency and perseverance, we can not build any of these characteristics of love. So the question is, how can we endure through this? And how can we love those we find kind of difficult to love. I never realized that we begin with this truth, that within every individual, there is a precious and beautiful being. We’re all unique, we’re all different. But we start with the truth that, yes, I’m a beloved child of God, and you, she, and he is a beloved child of God. We start with this unwavering truth that every individual is a fundamentally beautiful, precious being. And I realized that’s where love starts, love begins with that acknowledgement, understanding and determination saying, I’m going to love, and I’m going to love this person.

Someone said that love implies looking and speaking to the person behind the action that we see, behind the behaviors, beyond their knowledge, their capacities, it’s seeing beyond that. It’s interesting because often we see their behavior and we get turned off or we decide, okay, I can ‘t love you. But love is going and seeing beyond the behavior and external things. And when you have that, you start to be present differently. You start to understand differently. You start to listen differently. It’s going to take effort. It will demand effort. It will be challenging. But when we are able to do that, that love eventually helps that person to be themselves fully. And I think this is the kind of love that we see in our parents, no matter what your child does, sometimes you know, they may unintentionally hurt you with their words, their actions. Our Hi-C, they’re going through hormonal changes, it’s not their fault. And yet, parents, you get hurt, but you don’t turn away from your child. You consistently loved them. You cannot stall, but love them and continually hope in them. And you see this beautiful being that I think sometimes other people just don’t see, that is the love of a parent.

Some of you may know, Jean Vanier, he’s a founder of a large community. He’s the one who founded this large community where people with various disabilities, they come and live together. So this was the time when everybody with those certain disabilities were hospitalized or put in institutions. He had a vision that, you know, why don’t we come together and live as a community. We learn from each other. We make homes with them. And so right now in 33 different countries, 135 large communities exist. Henry Nouwen, whose book we often read, he was also influenced by Vanier, and he ended up going to one in Toronto, and lived with those people. And he shares a story where one day this woman came into their community named Pauline. She was 40 years old, one of her arms and one of her legs, was paralyzed, she was epileptic and diabetic, but something that really stood her out from the rest of the people there was that she was extraordinarily violent. She was often enraged, yelling and screaming, breaking things, making it very difficult to live together with others in the community. So Vanier and other people in that community decided we need to help. How can we help this woman? And what can we do? A psychiatrist said and reminded them that this woman had lived 40 years. And experienced rejection and humiliation, you have to start with that understanding. She would’ve been looked down upon, mocked by people in her life. And this was in the 1940- 1950’s, where society did not welcome and accept them. So she was someone who had been through tremendous humiliation and experienced rejection. And when someone experiences humiliation, they develop a broken self image. They can not love themselves. And there’s a division in their hearts. And when there’s division, it leads to suffering. And for her case, that suffering came out in violence. She was fighting. She had to be in a fighting mode. She had to somehow protect herself and out came all the violence. And through this violence, she’s screaming out, I’m hurting, inside, I want to be loved.

So the people in that community were determined and were encouraged. They were challenged to see Pauline underneath her anger, underneath her rage, underneath her violence and her depression. They try to see beyond that. And they sought out to be present with Pauline, the beloved. And so Vanier, and the rest of the people in Pauline’s community practiced, they practiced the nature of love described in first Corinthians chapter 13. They waited patiently, so whenever anger or violence came out, they waited. When they’re washing or helping her take a bath, they would purposely and intentionally hold the parts of her body that she herself has rejected tenderly and lovingly with reverence so that she could start to love herself and accept herself. And through this patience, kindness, being truthful and enduring with her, through her pains, even whenever a broken image would emerge time to time, they helped her to know the truth, that she is beautiful. That despite her disabilities, but with everything as she is, she is a precious human being. And it took a long, long time, many years, for healing to happen and for Pauline’s true self to come out. But eventually it did, little by little. She was able to accept herself and love herself. But interestingly, Vanier shares that he was actually grateful to this woman for, it was Pauline who taught him what love is, it was Pauline who taught him how to love, what loving is all about and that they need to grow together in love.

It is when all of these characteristics, the qualities of love, patience, humility, openness, kindness, acceptance, respect, forgiveness, truth, hope, and trust. When they are cultivated and ingrained within us. That’s when love is manifested, that is when we are able to love. And of course, we cannot do this on our own, merely with our effort, we need to draw our strength and even the desire to want to love from the source of love, who is God. When you look at first Corinthians chapter 13, it’s the love that God shows us his endless patience. He sees us beyond our brokenness and our darkness. He loves us despite our failings and shortcomings, studying Hosea, we learn that God does get disappointed. He gets angry, passionately. He gets hurt because he loves us.

The greatest thing is that God never gives up on us. He waits for us to come back. He waits for us to understand and know God’s love. And when we’re able to see and encounter ourselves in the light of this love, that we are empowered to continue to strive, and take the challenge of really loving those around us. And that is why I believe that Saint Paul says love will never end because God’s love for us will never end. And when you think about this, spiritual community is the best place for us to practice and grow in this love, in every community, wherever you go, there’ll be people who will be different from us. And there might be people who we find a challenge to be with and unintentionally hurt us. But Saint Paul reminds us today through today’s scripture that they’re the ones who will teach us how to love. Those challenging moments are times for us to practice and cultivate love. Enabling us to live a life that’s not lived in vain, enabling us to live a life that matters because we have loved and we have received love. With this in mind, the perspective changes, when they encounter a challenging situation, instead of backing out, what I’m encouraged to think is this is a time for me to practice love. This is an opportunity for me to grow in love. This person, who I see differently, is a person who will teach me how to love. And I’m going to love this person. I’m going to strive to love those who are different. There were a few pastoral visitations I had this past week. I visited two spouses, one KSM couple and one ESM couple, and both of the couples where one of the spouses is sick in bed. I visit and I see the other spouse just being there tenderly giving care. Of course it wasn’t the most comfortable situation and circumstance. But I witnessed how the one giving care just stood by their side, with patience, with tenderness, with kindness and enduring without giving up hope.

And I say to myself, every time I come out of that visitation, wow, that is love. That is what first Corinthians is trying to say. That is love. It is in when we’re able to be present with those who are suffering, not willing to give up, but strive through that suffering and come out of that suffering. That’s when we are able to say that I have loved. And I pray that we press on to know this love of God. We press on to know the love of God that will encourage us, enable us and challenge us to cultivate love within us, grow love within us. So that in every encounter we see that it’s an opportunity to love, and to grow.

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Scripture Passage

Mark 10: 17-31

{Transcript}

What a beautiful song, we’ve been given enough to give enough. We’ve been blessed to be a blessing. What a beautiful anthem and what beautiful words. Some of our praise team are writing songs, I’m looking forward to their songs, the beautiful words and beautiful songs are so beautiful. Today, the scripture is taken from Mark 10:17-31 “As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.' He said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth. Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. They were greatly astounded and said to one another, Then who can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible. Peter began to say to him, Look, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus said, Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. Very difficult passage to interpret, to understand, as I reflect on this passage, the first image, somehow that came to my mind was this image, a bird whose legs are tied by a string. That image came to my mind. I don’t know why, but as I read, read and reflected this passage, I imagine a bird whose legs are tied to string. The bird has all the power and freedom to fly as it will, as wishes and wants, but once his legs are tied by a string, it cannot.

A man came to Jesus and asked this question, good teacher. What must I do to inherit eternal life? An important question. How do we inherit eternal life? How can we have eternal life? Probably there are all kinds of theories and whatever you heard from people, from churches, from when you’re young, Sunday school or you have your own theory about eternal life and all that stuff. It’s a very important question though. How do we have eternal life? I hope that through this scripture passage, we may reflect on how to inherit eternal life. He was a good moral man, since he was young. He lived with a good conscience and strong moral responsibility, but that didn’t seem to be enough to inherit eternal life. Somehow Jesus says to him, you lack one thing. Go sell what you own and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. The man could not do it. Mark gives us this picture. When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving for he had many possessions. He was shocked and we’re all shocked if we have to give away everything that we have and follow Jesus, and then only then you will have eternal life who will be saved, who will be able to have the eternal life, they were shocked and even the disciples were shocked. This is what the disciples said. There were greatly astounded and said to one another, then who can be saved?

It is a very hard passage to accept as a truth. What is Jesus’ word? We have to take it seriously. It is truth that Jesus spoke. Is giving away everything a condition for inheriting eternal life, is being poor, a necessary condition for entering the Kingdom of God. Everyone has to be poor to be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Can rich people go to heaven. This is what Jesus said, “children how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Why is it so difficult for the rich people to enter the Kingdom of God? What is it about rich people that it is so hard for them to enter the Kingdom of God? It is something that we need to all think about, especially when money seems to be the most important goal for many people in our world, especially in this capitalistic world. Money is the most important thing and people go for money. They’re life goal is to make money. What does money give us? Money gives us privilege and power in this world. The world we live in, the money has a pretty good power. You can buy a lot of things. It gives you the buying power. With power, what you get is privileges you become VIP and these days VIP is not good enough. So we have VVIP. So in this world, it is hard to let go of money because we hate to let go of all the privileges that come with it. People say, why should I? It’s the money I earned. I worked for it. I studied hard. I made it. Why should I give it away? I’m entitled to have this money. What’s wrong with enjoying the privileges that money can give us, but my friends, there is a cost in everything. There is a cost, for the sake of privilege, there’s something that we lose. We have to pay, what is that? I think that is freedom. As we get privilege, we lose freedom. We cannot buy freedom with money. Money does not freeze you, but rather binds you. That was what this rich men showed to us. He was bound to his wealth, so he went away sad, grieving. Money became a string that tied the legs of this man. The bird is capable of flying freely, but when his legs are tied by a string, it won’t be able to fly.

Anselm, one of the early church fathers, one day he was walking on the street and he saw a young child playing with a bird. He tied the birds legs and he played with a bird. He let the bird fly for a while, the bird trying to fly in that. They bring it down to the ground and the bird fell to the ground. And then he tries to fly again, and he brings it down to the ground and the child was so happy and then he was playing with this so friendly and enjoyed it very much and some saw that for awhile and he cried and he said, “that’s what Satan does to us.” Satan less us fly for awhile, but brings it down to the ground. That’s what money does. It looks like it gives us freedom, but it doesn’t, for a while we fly, but it brings us down to the ground. Money cannot give us freedom. What we need is not privilege. What we need is freedom. Eternal life is not about privilege. Eternal life is about freedom. Then my friend. What does freedom look like? What does freedom look like? It looks like this, freedom looks like freedom to have all and the freedom to give it all up. That’s what freedom is. That’s what freedom looks like, to have it all and freedom to give it all up. Freedom to live in plenty and freedom to live in want. Isn’t that the freedom that St Paul was talking about, this is what he said, “I know what it is to have little and I know what it is to have plenty in any and all circumstances. I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

That is freedom. That is freedom. It is the freedom of being content in all circumstances. That was what Jesus was talking about. Paul said, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” and that’s exactly what Jesus said in today’s passage. For mortals, it is impossible, but not for God, for God, all things are possible, isn’t this the same thing. They’re talking about the same thing. That freedom, is not possible with money, that freedom is possible only with God. Our goal of life is not accumulate more. But it is to be free from what binds us. Let us not be blinded young people. Let us not be blinded. Our life goal is not to accumulate more. Our life goal is to be free from what binds us. Freedom to be content in all circumstances is much better than the privilege that we can buy with money. There are things that you can buy with money and there are things that are priceless. One of the commercials has that right? It’ll label how much they are, how much they are and at the end something is priceless. Is it mastercard? Okay, there’s things that you can buy. There are things which are priceless. Freedom, eternal life, salvation that’s priceless. Eternal life is not entering into the world of privilege. Eternal life is entering into the world of freedom. What is the best way to achieve that freedom. I was thinking about it and I realized that the best way to achieve that freedom is to give away. Give away what you have, not all at once, but little by little, learning to give whatever we have learned to give. That’s where we can learn freedom. To our children, don’t teach them to be successful. Teach them to give.

We are teaching wrong things to our children. Don’t teach them to be successful. Teach them to give.

Last Friday I had dinner with church members and they don’t come to church anymore, but he was saying this, “why do I have more money? Why do I have more resources and children? People in India don’t have anything. It’s not fair.”So they cut down their houses, they moved to a smaller house, save their money, they’re into giving away, charity and all that because he said it’s the human thing to do. It is the right thing to do. Why do I have more? We are blessed to be a blessing. You are given enough to give enough.

I’m reading a book by Tracy Kidder and he’s a Pulitzer winner. Mountains beyond mountains. He’s talking about Dr Paul Farmer, he is a Harvard graduate and he teaches at Harvard School of medicine. Especially infectious diseases. But he got a room a near Harvard University. There’s a church. He rented a room there so he lives there in that church. And then most of his time he goes to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, Russia. And he really helps out especially people who have infectious diseases. And as I shared a little bit yesterday, and at the mission dinner, this is what he says, the only real nation is humanity. The only real nation is humanity. I think that’s wonderful life. Whatever we have, giveaway, whatever we have, we share. That’s the human thing to do. That’s what Jesus taught us. That’s freedom, true freedom. Don’t be bound to wealth, be free from wealth. Don’t be bound by North American lifestyle, learn to give away.

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Scripture Reading

31  When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,a]">[a] you did it to me.' 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' 45 Then he will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Word of Lord

I really like the song. Thank you very much. Beautiful. Yeah. Today I’ll read the scripture I will not forget. Interesting thing is last week I forgot, and nobody notice that. Let us hear the word taken from Matthew 25:31-46. When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goals at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, come, you are blessed by my father. Inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me nothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when was it when we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing. And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? And the king will answer them. I think this is really the core passage, a core verse of this passage. Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. What does that mean? To one of the least of these were members of my family did it to me.

Then he will say to those that his left lefthand, you that are cursed, depart from me into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they will also answer, Lord, when was it when we saw you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you. Then he will answer them. Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. This is the word of the Lord.

Caring

As we reflected last week about the scripture, as we read in depth, they’re tremendous wisdom and insights and many times we don’t really read in depth and we are going to reflect on today. If you did it to one of these least ones, you did it to me. What does that mean? Caring for somebody is something we do. We all do. We all do take care of somebody. Sometimes aging parents, our children and people who need our help taking care of somebody is what we human beings do. It is a big part of our life. We cannot live without it.

At the Wednesday woman’s Bible study, we are studying the spirituality of caring and last week we were talking about how important it is to care for other people and I realized that our women’s group, they’re doing so much in taking care of people around them, their children, their spouse, their aging and ill parents and their family members who are sick. There are so busy caregiving, I think they are doing a wonderful job in caring for other people. So they were saying all the things that they were doing. And then I asked them who takes care of you? And I saw tears, some tears in their eyes. Who takes care of you? And they said caregiving can be quite lonely sometimes and I realized that caring for someone is not just what we do. Caring is not just what you do for people, it is about building a kind of relationship where we care for each other. It’s not what you do, but it is building a relationship where we care for each other in that relationship we give care, but sometimes we receive care from people, so when you take care of your children, when you give care for your children, don’t just give them what they need. Don’t just give care to them. You have to teach them how important it is to care for other people.

If one human being cannot learn what it means to care for others, then we don’t live out good human life. So as we take care of our children, we have to teach them, that’s` the basic, the most basic thing that we need to teach our children before any degree. We have to teach them to care for other people.

Connection

We need to create an environment where we all learn about caring and I realized that caring is not just an act. It’s not what you do. Caring is about being connected. When you take care of somebody, then you are connected deeply and intimately connected with that person. That’s what caring is. Caring is not just giving them bread and give them food. Caring is about being connected with a person that you care for. Saint Paul gave us this wisdom about being a Christian. He was talking about the marks of Christians and he said this, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

He’s talking about deep connectedness. You’re so connected with a person. When the person rejoices, you rejoice with them. The person is in sadness and you weep with them. That’s what caring is. That’s what being connected means.

Maybe we are deeply connected with a person. We can feel for that person, both joy and pain. We can be with them in their struggle.

Receiving Care

You know, we cannot always give caregivers. Sometimes we need to be care-receivers. There are times when we fall, times when we are down. There are times when we’re depressed. There are times when we are really, really sad and even there are times, so maybe you’re angry, nobody knows, but we are very angry. That’s when we need care from other people. We cannot always give, we cannot always be caregivers, sometimes and often we have no choice but to care receivers. When I receive care from people, I found something wonderful happens. Something mysterious happens. You know what that is?

We experience the divine presence. They receive care. We experience the divine presence. The person that I talked about last week, how many you found out? She’s Irene. She’s getting a surgery tomorrow. She still sends me email messages every day hearing each sermon. I think she went into last years sermons now and in one email she said, Reverend Kim, you visited me 20 years ago when I was in the hospital. At that time I received a new life through many people’s prayers and doctors, wisdom, and insights and all of this time I have lived with a thankful heart for the new life I’ve received. Then you know, 20 years later she got the same doctor who did her surgery 20 years ago now. He became a chief of that department and at that same doctor is taking care of her and is doing the surgery, and she said, now you visited me again.

God sent me many angels, including you. Thank you, she said, I think that was her divine moment. She was able to see angels around her. As we receive care, we also receive divine presence. That was what Jesus was talking about in today’s passage. Jesus said, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me, and the righteous said, when did I do that?

I only saw the hungry. I only saw the thirsty and the stranger and the naked and the sick and the prisoner. That’s all I see. I didn’t see you. You weren’t there! And Jesus was saying, of course, I was there. Of course, I was there.

Caring in Life

I was writing to the heart of those who are suffering almost in the heart of those who received care from you. So when you did it to the least of these, you did it to me because I was right there in their hearts. That’s what Jesus was saying. When I’m sad sometimes and somebody takes care of me by sharing my sadness, I experience Jesus right there through their caring heart. Last Wednesday I visited with Jane, a KSM member at the hospital. He is at the last stage of his life. He wasn’t fully conscious. He was coming in and out of his consciousness. So I went to him and, uh, besides his bed and I said to him, this is Reverend Kim, can you recognize me? And all of a sudden his face was brightened up and he

I’m sure Jesus was right there with him. Caring is not just doing mechanical action. We carry the divine presence in your care for the people who are in need. You don’t even have to talk about Jesus. We carry a divine presence. Verbal articulation is not needed, in caring.

When I was in university, I was kind of, you know, very hot for Jesus. Even now I’m hot for years, but I was hot and naively, I wanted to share about Jesus Christ. I wanted to tell them how much he loves you and all this stuff. So it was a Robart’s Library. I don’t know, maybe in the second year university, Robarts Library. I was in line. There was a copy machine at that time. They don’t have it anymore probably, I was waiting in line and there was a girl behind me, uh, and I wanted to say something to her. So, uh, I couldn’t really say that Jesus loves you and then she will look at me crazy. And so I told her, why don’t you go ahead? And then she’s, she was quite surprised and thank you, she said, and I said, by the way, I’m a Christian. Oh, I was so embarrassed.

You know, we don’t need, we don’t even have to say verbally. Our heart does not have sound, but our heart is louder than what we say with our mouth. It’s not the amount of how much you do for that person, but it is the thought that counts. It is a thought that counts. It is your heart that moves them. It is your attitude. If your heart is communicated, the person will receive deep care from you because you are connected.

Jesus’ Caring

You know one thing great about Jesus is that he was only a 30-year-old kid. I’m sorry, what do 30-year-old know? He was a kid, and yet he knew exactly what was going on in people’s heart. He knew exactly what was going on in Nicodemus’ heart. He knew exactly what was going on in Samaritan woman’s heart. Jesus was able to see what was in people’s heart. That is so hard, isn’t it? You don’t know what that person’s heart. You don’t know what your parents are going through. You know what your children are going through. You don’t know what other people are going through around you. It is hard to know what’s going on in people’s hearts, but I believe we can do it.

I believe that it will get better as we pay attention to them with a caring heart. When we have a caring heart, I think we can do that. Isn’t that the depth of a person?

The greatness of a person is not how much money you have or what kind of career you have. The depth of the greatness of the person is how much that person knows you, deep inside the person who was able to do that is a great person. The person who was successful, that’s I will measure success.

When I talk to some people, somehow they know my heart and then I look at them. How do you know me?

Reflection

With the depth of our compassion,

We are able to see what’s in people’s heart and then we can be connected with them. Those who are on the right-hand side of the king saw the needs of the people very clearly, but the ones on the left cannot see anything. My friends, “I don’t care” is the worst thing you can say. I’m angry is so much better than “I don’t care”. By saying “I don’t care”, we are killing our spirit. I think I don’t care is the most severe punishment you can give. Maybe that’s why we use that quite often because when we’re angry, we want to give the most severe punishment to that person, but let us not use that. Let’s not do that. I don’t care is the worst thing we can say to anyone. The people on King’s lefthand had this “I don’t care” attitude. That’s why they cannot see anything, any need. They cannot see the prisoner. They can not see the naked. They cannot see a foreigner, stranger, but this “I don’t care” attitude is what I see a lot in our world. That’s how the world, how our world is operating. It’s so sad and we shouldn’t be angry that our role has become like that. We should fight against that. I don’t care is not the right attitude to live your life with. Of course, we have to care for the poor, for the sick, for the people who are suffering. Of course, we have to care. In this world, they simply don’t care about others. Even though caring life is the most basic thing we human beings do, they don’t seem to be able to carry out.

That’s a simple thing. It is sad. Caring is the most beautiful thing that you can give and you can receive. Without knowing the art of caring. We simply cannot enjoy the beauty of living. You’re living in a fragmented world. People are not at all connected. We need to be in touch with people, especially people with suffering and we pray for them. Ecuador, Japan, and other places. Hundreds of people die, but it’s just numbers. Hundreds, hundreds of people, but around hundreds of people, how many family members are crying right now? How many people are suffering right now because of that loss?

By taking on their pain, we can help their burdens lightened and it’ll be much easier for them to handle their problems. Isn’t that what we experience with our burdens are so heavy and somebody comes and take away a little bit off our burdens and our lightened and we are able to handle that, handle all problems. We need to build a caring community where we are connected. That’s a true community. A community is not gathering up people. The community is gathering of connected people. That’s what spiritual community is all about. That is the depth of community. This materialistic world cannot give that. It replaces this deep community, with the shallow community such as social media. Through social media, you cannot be healed. Let us learn to care for one another. That’s what Jesus taught us. That’s what we human beings should learn to do. Let us sing.

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Scripture Reading

{Transcript}

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, It is a ghost! And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.

Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me! Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, You of little faith, why did you doubt? When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.

Three things we wish for when we pray are to see God more clearly, love God more clearly, and to follow God. Sometimes the way we look at the scripture is very limited and I think that is a problem of modern society. We don’t know the scripture very well. We are believers, we are Christians and yet we don’t understand the scripture and our way of reading the scripture is very much elementary in a way. We still have a Sunday school mentality an that’s how we treat the scripture. We read it in that way so we don’t really get the depth from the scripture. We still think that scripture is an archaic document, which was written 2000 years ago. That is true, but it’s not just archaic document. We believe that it is a living word of God and yet we just treat it as an archaic document or like a moral code or a manual that we just read it and follow. We don’t really get deeper into the message of the scripture. We don’t go beyond what’s written on the surface without understanding the meaning and implication of the text. We lack imagination and we lack creativity. So we read the scripture, but we don’t really read it in depth.

For example, in the scripture passage, all we can think about is about the question of miracle. Jesus performed the miracle of calming the storm and walking on the water, and so we only look at it in that way. Then next question is, can a human being walk on water? Some religious person was say, “yes, of course Jesus can walk on water”, and some scientific skeptics will say, “how can a human being walk on the water? I won’t accept that story”. The person with the religious piety will say, “I accept the story”. That’s it. Beyond that, there’s nothing. I don’t think Matthew was simply interested in telling us that Jesus performed a miracle by walking on the water or calming the storm.

I think there is a deeper message that Jesus wanted to get across and a message that Matthew wanted to get across. As you look at the scripture today, it was Jesus who told the disciples to go into the boat and go out into the lake. Then in the lake they faced a ferocious storm. When you look at the scripture this is what it said, “immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side”. It was Jesus who told them to go into the lake. Late a night, at 3 am, in the pitch dark, they were in the lake, and they were struggling because of the storm. And then they saw a man, a kind of human being walking on the water towards them. Then they said in fear ‘It’s is a ghost!’. That’s a natural response because when you see a man in the darkness walking on the water without a boat, what else can you conclude? And also Jewish people, they all thought that the place a for ghosts is in the sea. So all the ghosts were captured within the sea and they automatically assumed that it must be a ghost.

The real story, however, was about Peter. Jesus said to all the disciples Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid. Jesus said to take heart, be courageous, be strong, and do not be afraid. And Peter’s response was strange. He said, Lord, if it is you call me to come to you on the water. Why did he ask thafddt? There’s a storm and it is pitch dark. Everybody was scared and they are really struggling for survival. And they could say, “please save us!”. That’s a natural response. And then a Peter said, “Lord, command me. Call me to come to you”. That was a very strange response.

What was Peter thinking at that moment? Was he trying to show off? I don’t think showing off was in his mind. I mean, he’s busy surviving. He didn’t try to show off. Was he tests trying to test Jesus? No, you don’t test somebody when you’re at the risk of death. I don’t think so. I think when Jesus said ‘it is, I take heart’, something happened within Peter. The scripture doesn’t record that there’s not enough space for the scripture writers to write everything. So he didn’t write it, but something happened within Peter’s mind at them moment is almost like an ‘a ha’ moment. His eyes opened when he saw Jesus and when he heard Jesus say ‘it is I, take heart. Be Courageous. Do not be afraid’. As soon as he heard that his eyes opened and something happened within him. It was a divine presence that he encountered and  experienced at the moment.

The expression “it is I” is a very interesting expression in English. In English it is “It is I”, but in Greek it is a ego eimi. That’s the Greek term ego eimi is ‘I am’, and that is also ‘I am that I am’. Ego eimi is the expression that was used to refer to God in the Old Testament. So often in a lot of places you see ego eimi, it refers to God. So when you read the Gospel, John used it quite a bit. I am the shepherd. So he uses ego eimi as a kind of expression that refers to God. For example, when Moses first time met the living God, in the burning bush, Moses asked God, ‘What is your name?’ and in Septuagint, a Greek Bible of the Old Testament, it says ego eimi. I am that I am.

Because Jesus said ego eimi, plus take heart and be courageous that there was a divine moment. Peter experienced divine presence, and when he had experienced that divine presence, courage came to him. With that courage he asked Jesus to call him, to come and walk through the storm towards Him. I’ll be where you are in the storm. When we experience God the experience courage. When we experience divine presence, the first thing that comes to us is courage. Jesus was very happy with Peter’s response, so Jesus said to Peter, “come”. Peter actually got out of the boat and was able to walk through the storm.

That’s what God wants. God does not want you to be a begging person. God wants you to have the courage to face your challenges and walk through the storm. God does not want you to be a spiritual beggar. Saying, “Lord, save me. Save me” all the time. God does not want you to be a beggar. God wants you to leave your safe boat and start walking even when it means walking through the storm. Peter was able to do that, but soon his eyes, started seeing the waves and fear started filling his heart. There was a storm outside, but also there was a storm inside Peter. Then he became a spiritual beggar again, with no choice. He said “Lord save me” because he was dying.

Of course he needed that. He had no choice. Sometimes we need that too. Sometimes we need a crutch. Sometimes we need to say that, but not all the time. There are two kinds of faith I realized, and the two kinds of faith is this: faith that asks God to call us, to walk through the store and faith that begs God to save us out of desperation. The second one is little faith. The first one is the authentic faith. In the beginning, Peter had that authentic faith that asked Jesus to call him to come  and walk through the storm because he had courage. He had that divine moment when he experienced divine presence, so he had courage and ask God to call him to walk through the storm. As soon as he saw the wave, however, fear started controlling him and he was dying. He was falling and falling and falling, and out of desperation, he said, “save me”. You know a lot of people’s faith comes from fear. That’s not the kind of faith Jesus wants. Just because you’re scared, you’re crying out to God for help with a faith that comes from fear, but the faith God wants is a faith that comes from courage, not from fear.

For people whose main interest is in survival, security and safety and success. Their prayer is always ‘save me’. ‘Save me from financial difficulties, save me from disease, save me from misery, save me from difficulties of life’. But people who have met the living Christ who have met the divine presence in their lives, their prayer is different. ‘Call me. Call me to walk through the storm, give me the courage to face my own storm and give me the strength to overcome it”. What they want out of life and what they want from God is not the easy way out. What they want is two things: courage and strength. Jesus wants us to be strong and courageous. He said in John 16:33 “In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”, this is my favourite passage. Don’t pray that the storm may avoid you. Pray that you have the courage and strength to walk through the storm.

Sometimes God drives us into the storm, as Jesus did in today’s passage. Why? Because there are things in life you can only learn through the storm. There are things in life you can never learn in the classroom. I wished I could learn everything in my classroom, but there are things in life that you can never learn in the classroom. You can only learn them through the storm. That’s why sometimes God drives us into the storm. When you face that storm, take heart, be courageous to not be afraid. 

The other day I had a visitation at the hospital, one of our ESM members, and Reverend Chung was sitting beside her and he said to her, let us listen to Reverend Kim’s message on suffering. So he went to the website and turned on and for 20 minutes they were listening together. At the end of sermon, her eyes were filled with tears. Yesterday I got about 15 emails from her. She listened to every single sermon from the beginning of this year. And then in 15 emails, for every sermon she was recording was she experienced, what she felt, and what she learned. Sometimes there are things that we can only learn through the storm.

Peter, as he took the journey of stepping out of the boat and started walking through the storm, he experienced the power of God. Can you imagine walking on the water? Probably that was with him all his life, that power of God that he experienced. However, it was not just the power of God that he experienced. He experienced his own vulnerability, his own weaknesses, his own doubt. He encountered himself too, but he also experienced the saving hands of Jesus Christ. In that few seconds, probably maybe 10 seconds seconds, he experienced all that. He experienced the power of God. He experienced his own doubt, weakness and vulnerability, but he also experienced the hands of Jesus who saved him from the water.

That is how we encounter our true self. That is how we grow my friends. There are so many challenges in life you cannot possibly ask God that all these challenges to go around you, skip you, or avoid you. Then what you’re asking is, let me live in a bubble. You can’t possibly ask God to get rid of all the challenges in life. We better ask God to give us the courage and strength so that when the challenges of life come, we are ready to walk through them and learn.

There’s more message in this passage than just the miracle, valuable lessons. Scripture is full of them, but we don’t truly know how to read the Scripture and we put it aside. I hope that we can take the word of God in our lives. Jesus’ teaching is not about religion. Jesus’ teaching is about life.

{Reflection Song: Still}

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John 21: 15-19

{Transcript}

Today’s scripture is taken from John 21:15-19. This is right after Jesus resurrected from the grave. And then he met Thomas and other disciples. And then finally he’s having conversation with Peter and you know that Peter denied Jesus three times already. So you have to have that in the background to understand this passage. So let us hear the word. “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘yes Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished, but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will fasten the belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God. After this he said to him, ‘follow me.’ This is the word of the Lord.

Do you love me? That’s a very difficult question to answer. In any circumstances, in any situations between spouses or parents and children or among friends when we are faced with this question. Do you love me? That is a very difficult question because that sentence involves care, attention, deep feeling, deep connectedness, loyalty, and sometimes even sacrifice. So it is hard to say yes, I love you. So the question do you love me is a very difficult question, and Jesus asked this question to Peter. No wonder Peter could not give him the straight answer I love you. He said, rather, ‘you know that I love you.’ He didn’t say I love you. He said, ‘you know that I love you.’ It is a sheepish answer, but we understand Peter very well. I mean, as I said just now, Peter denied Jesus three times. How could he do that, for three years they got to know each other. They were like friends, good friends. You don’t do that to good friends. They are not just teacher and student, but they are like friends. They didn’t see each other once a week. They practically live together. Day in and day out for three years and they went through all difficulties together. When Jesus was persecuted, when Jesus had hard times, when Jesus performed miracles, when Jesus taught an inspirational message, Peter was right there, even on the mountain, when Jesus was changed, Peter was there. He went through everything with Jesus and then Jesus at the end said you know, I’ll be delivered into the hands of powerful people and then they will kill me. They’ll persecute me, and then Peter, you will deny me, and Peter said, ‘Lord, no, no way that will happen. Even if everybody else desserts you. I’ll never desert you. I’ll follow you to the grave. That won’t happen. You don’t do that to friend.’ That’s what Peter was saying, but when actual danger came. Peter denied Jesus saying, I don’t know that guy. I don’t know that guy, three times. That’s hard thing to do, but he was so scared. So he denied Jesus three times. Now Jesus was raised from the dead and Jesus came to Peter and asked him do you love me. He couldn’t say simply, I love you.

You know, I wonder. That can be quite a cruel question to ask Peter at them moment. I mean, he just denied him three times and then he approached him and then asked him, do you love me? That can be quite a cruel question. I was wondering why Jesus did that. Did Jesus ask Peter to give him a hard time or did Jesus asked Peter to truly find out his love? Because Jesus wasn’t sure? Or did Jesus ask Peter to tell him indirectly how disappointed he was that he denied him three times? I don’t think so. The reason Jesus asked this question was because Peter had to face that question. Do I love Jesus? Because Jesus knew that Peter was going to carry on what Jesus started and to carry on what Jesus started, he had to answer this question. He had to face this question do you love me. He had to deal with his own disappointment about himself. How could I do that to my friend and he had to deal with it. Do I really love my friend Jesus? And Jesus wanted to give him the opportunity to say, yes, I love you, but it was so hard for Peter to say that I love you. That’s why he said, you know that I love you. It’s very interesting when you read in a Greek, Jesus keeps asking three times, do you love me? And then he used the word agape for that love and agape is unconditional love. So when Jesus asked, do you love me with unconditional love, agape and Peter three times he answered it, you know that I love you and to use the word phileo, meaning brotherly love, friendly love. He can’t say with agape I love you, but with phileo love, I think that’s a very honest answer. Do you love God? Do you love Jesus? It is really hard question to answer. Some people say, it like a formula and they say, I love you Jesus and all that, but do you really love Jesus? Do you really love God? It is hard to answer because we know our own deception. We know our own faults, shortcomings and mistakes. We know our own doubts, uncertainties and skepticism. We know our own apathy, indifference and selfishness. We know our own greed for the things that we can not let go. We know all of these things inside of us, so when we are faced with this question, do you love Jesus? It’s hard to say that yes, I love you.

Do I love God. That is a question that is hard to answer, but something that we can never forget. Always we have to face it. We have to always carry that question with us. How do I love God? I cannot even see God. Human love I can feel it, but with God, how can you love God, whom you cannot feel, you cannot see, you cannot touch. I mean, we reflected on it last week. How can you love God? And then I realized you can only love God because God loved us first. Loving God does not just depend on me, loving God depends a lot on God because God loved us first, then we can only love God. So without awareness that God loves us, we can never love God. I mean love is an important thing, but we can never love God unless we realize that God loves us. When I read the scripture, I mean those are all human beings. There’s all people like you and me. They are the ones who wrote the scripture. It’s not really from heaven, the words came down and the scripture was created, they were ordinary people like you and me but they somehow knew that God loves them, God loves people. How did they know? That’s a wonder to me. They must have experienced something to understand that God loves the world, God loves the people.

To me, that’s a wonder. That’s a mystery. Abraham Heschel, who is a Jewish person, believing in Judaism. He said, “I do not ask for success in life. I asked for wonder.” Oh, how beautiful. Yes. I do not ask for success. I asked for wonder. I mean, they must have experienced some kind of wonder in life to be able to say that God loves the world and God loves us. You know that very famous passage, John 3:16 “for God so loved the world” “for God so loved the world.” How did he know? Somehow he knew. So very, very clearly he said “for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” God loves the world. God loves every single one of us and then more eloquently. This is described in first John. We’re not quite sure who wrote first John, but let us read, “beloved, let us love one another because love is from God. Everyone who is born of God and knows God, whoever does not love, does not know God. For God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the, the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is perfected in us,” What a wisdom, what an insight. How did he know so clearly that God loves us and because God first loved us, we can love God and our love for God is translated into our love for one another. That’s what life is.

Any religion, doesn’t matter what religion. If they teach you to love God but not humanity, that’s a corrupted religion, it’s not worthwhile to take that kind of religion. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, doesn’t matter if that religion teaches you to love God but not love humanity. That’s a corrupted religion. That’s why Jesus was very, very clear about what life is. He said, life: love your God, love your neighbor as simple as that. The greatest commandment, the most essential thing is love your God and love your neighbor. First, somehow in the course of our lives, we have to understand, oh, God loves me. God loves me. That’s a very difficult realization, but somehow we have to get to that. God loves me. Once we understand that God loves me, then we can love God and we can love one another. Love is the most essential thing for any human being to do. That’s what human beings are. That’s a characteristic of human beings. That’s an essential characteristic of human beings. If you don’t know how to love, then you don’t know how to be a human being, but in the course of our lives, we have lost the ability to love. We don’t know what it means to receive love or to give love. We lost that ability, the most essential quality any human being should have. We have lost it. When we come to the realization that God loves us. Only then can this ability to love be restored. In other words, we need to be healed, since we we’re young, we felt betrayed, rejected. This why we try so hard to be recognized by other people. How cool we are, how lovable we are, how great we are because we have experienced so many failures and so much rejection since we we’re young, so we have lost the ability to simply to accept love from God and love one another. The best measure of successful life, it’s not how talented you are, how intelligent you are, how high you got in your society, how much you have. Those are not the greatest measure of success. The greatest measure of success is whether you have that ability to receive love and to give love as long as we are not free from the self centeredness, that life is a failure, but when we are free from the self centeredness and then freely love one another, then that is success. I define success of life in that way. When there’s a touch of love, everything comes alive. A dead flower comes alive and blooms. And around us there’s so much pain and hurt because of lack of love. Let us restore what should be the core of who we are. How much more success do you want, how much more money do you want? How much more proof do you need to prove. When I’m able to receive love and in return, love one another. That’s happiness. What else do you need in life? And Peter was completely restored. When Jesus came to him, that’s why Jesus approached him and then he was able to even give his life away for the sake of Jesus. That’s a beauty. That’s a beauty. That’s the power of love. Love casts out fear, even fear of death.

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