How often do you actually hear people in our lives or the mass media using the word, ‘Christian?’ In my hospital setting, when I receive a referral from staff or patient or family for a visit, one of the questions we ask is one’s religious affiliation. So for me, I frequently use the word ‘Christian’ in my daily life. How about you? Let me rephrase the question a bit differently. When was the last time you heard the word ‘Christian?’ Where did you hear it? I would guess probably the media during election season how Evangelical ‘Christians’ would impact its result. The media’s use of the term ‘Christian’ is quite limited to conservative agenda such as abortion, immigrant, gun control, and other debated issues. It seems to me that this term, ‘Christian’ is most frequently used in a political manner. I personally have mixed feelings in that we are somehow taken seriously by politicians only when they want to win their races. I also find this phenomenon tragic because I firmly believe that Christians can actually bring positive changes to our society. We are not just conservative or liberal votes that only matter during election season. For this, we need to remind ourselves of Jesus’ saying, “You are the salt of the earth.” Remember it’s salt not a cult that is only preoccupied with its own interest and benefits.
And today’s gospel lesson goes right into how we become the salt of the world or how we want to be known in this world. We are commanded to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. This radical act of loving our enemies is what we Christians want to be known for in the world. Now, let us be realistic. Do you believe you can do that? Or can you believe that God can help you love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you? Our honest answer to this would most likely be no. I think one of Jesus’ teachings that Christians don’t consider seriously nowadays would be this loving our enemy part. It is as if we no longer believe this teaching to be realizable or that Jesus’s saying really matters. This tragic reality has a lot to do with the church institution. Recent scandals around sex abuse in churches trouble us and distance us from Jesus’ teaching on loving our enemies. The church community is hurting, instead of loving, its members. We are not even talking about enemies, but about innocent people. What about in our lives? Is there anyone at Saint Agnes Church who has experienced being hurt by the church community, clergy, or leaders? I do hear people talking about how their fellow Christians have disappointed or offended them. I myself feel more damaged emotionally and spiritually when my fellow Christian does something that is far from being Christian. It’s like we all have certain expectations of high moral character and behavior from our fellow Christians. And we are quite good at not meeting these expectations. I have friends who often quote Gandhi, “I’d be a Christian if it were not for the Christians.” or “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” When we talk about love of our enemies, it is even much harder for us Christians to love one another. G. K. Chesterton once said, “God tells us love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love our enemies, because they are generally the same people.” Our enemy is usually the one who we encounter frequently or who we have some kind of relationship with. (Of course, there are some extreme cases in which someone randomly hurts us or our loved ones for no particular reasons and thus becomes our enemy. It’s not so hard for us to create possible enemies who can wrong us in different ways.) Based on Chesterton’s way of looking at our enemy and neighbor who are generally the same people, this may give us some insight on why there are so many disputes or gossips in churches than any other institutions! So far, I have discussed how hard it is to love our enemies. I think all of us can be quite good at justifying why we cannot love our enemies. It isn’t too difficult to hate our enemies. Yet, this is not what Jesus wants for us as well as for the entire world. And simply hating our enemies doesn’t serve us any good. It doesn’t make us happy but resentful. Our true happiness can only be met when we align our free will to the will of God, reaching out to the goal that God has set before us. Jesus always invites us to walk with him to the way of love. Listening to Jesus’s teaching on loving our enemies compels us to put our guard on. Our immediate reaction would be “That is impossible! I can never do this.” We might just think of all those who have hurt us and do not seem to be forgivable and think about whether to forgive and love them or not. Before we, by default, say no, let us remind ourselves that we were once God’s enemies. When Jesus says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you,” he is not just saying things he himself cannot do. All of us Christians begin our personal relationship with God from realizing our brokenness, our sinful nature, or our wrongdoings before God. With this recognition of our sins, we admit we were once God’s enemies, the ungrateful and the wicked or stubborn. This is why Jesus says in today’s gospel lesson, “...he [God] is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” How do we then actually love our enemies? I must say we cannot just love our enemies right away. It’s a process of dying and rising in Christ. Without our own sense of the resurrection with Jesus, we can only pretend to do so. In our first lesson, Joseph shows what this sense of the resurrection is really about. We are only reading the last part of this story of Joseph and his brothers. What happened before was quite horrendous. Joseph’s brothers originally planned to kill him out of envy and anger because he was favored by their father, Jacob. They didn’t kill him but sold him into slavery. Joseph actually has all the reasons to hate his brothers. He wouldn’t be able to love them if he had to do that right after being sold into slavery. Joseph went through struggles after struggles until he became the second most powerful person in Egypt. This is the process of dying to his old self and rising to new life in God. Joseph saw in himself the same vices that his brothers had suffered from and came to have a new way of seeing himself and others. He learned to see his brothers as God saw them. My friends, there are three things I would like us to keep in mind this morning. First, let us not be discouraged by Jesus’s teaching on loving our enemies. Also, let’s not be disappointed by our church communities when you see them not loving their enemies. When you can say that these communities are not doing what Jesus has told us to do, we can still do what they couldn’t do as One Body of Christ. We do not have to follow failures of others but uphold them in prayers and do what they couldn’t with the help of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, consider this radical love of enemies as our designation to arrive on this way of love. On this journey, we are to see ourselves with honesty and humility in the light of Jesus. Don’t look at yourselves alone. The Christian way of self-reflection is always trinitarian. It involves Jesus who looks at us with the Father’s long loving look while the Holy Spirit is holding the mirror that reveals who we really are, not just God’s enemies, that we are truly loved, and that our worth is solely founded in God. Lastly, let today’s gospel lesson be not only a wake up call for us Christians to remind and remember who we are called to be and do in this world that hates its enemies but also a holy obstacle that pauses us to hate or retaliate against the ones who hurt us. May this radical love of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit fill our hearts and this world through our baptized bodies and souls. Amen. We’re living in a society where Jesus’ understanding of who is blessed and who is cursed does not apply at all. Jesus himself didn’t even live in that ideal society that looks at the poor, the hungry, and the sorrowful as blessed. Those who are poor, hungry, sorrowful, and undesired have been seen as cursed. This is what makes today’s gospel challenging and uncomfortable. If non-Christians hear this message of Jesus, which is called the Sermon on the Plain, they would just laugh about it and consider it as an ineffective strategy to attract them to the Christian faith. Based on a commonly shared assumption that all human beings like to be blessed, this type of blessing Jesus proclaims isn’t what people would want. It is a curse. How can anyone think poverty, hunger, sorrow, and social isolation are blessings of this life?
What this amature social analysis of mine can at least tell us is one thing. Christian blessing is not the same as how the world understands a blessing. Christian blessing, which is defined by Jesus, is not so much about gaining material fortune, power, comfort, safety, fame, and honor. It is actually on the complete opposite side. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." Jesus doesn’t stop there. He redefines what it means to be cursed: “"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets." It is not good to be rich, full, laughing, and receive honor and respect from others from Jesus’s perspective. That is not the way to receive Jesus’s blessing. Does anybody feel uncomfortable about his teaching? I think we all should feel troubled by today’s gospel lesson because unlike Jesus we don’t see the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, or the undesired as blessed. Instead, we see the rich, the successful, the happy, the powerful, and the famous as blessed. Our view on blessing and curse is different from that of Jesus. We can counter his perception of blessing and curse to be naive and unrealistic or even harmful, by asking him, “How can you say that starving children are blessed?” or ”What’s wrong with having material fortune? Can we help out those starving children with it? Isn’t that what God wants?” I think all these questions that we might raise are valid. Yet, there’s another question we need to ask ourselves. Why are there so many starving children? Why are there so many homeless people in New York City when there are about 25,000 millionaires? We cannot say that there aren’t enough Christian millionaires to help them out because it seems to me a lot of them don’t care. We cannot just blame the homeless. We cannot consider this social problem as individual failures. We cannot ignorantly say that these people haven’t tried. Dom Helder Camara famously said, ”When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” We can spend hours and days talking about how to better understand and resolve these social issues. But for us today, we want to understand Jesus. What does he really mean by today’s gospel lesson? Herbert McCabe, a Dominican friar and priest provides helpful insight on this. Let’s look at poverty and possession and contrast them. Poverty is really about being whereas possession is obviously about having or taking. McCabe explains, “We take possession of things. Even if they are gifts, we can either take them or refuse them. Taking is essential to possessions. Being or life, on the other hand, cannot, in this sense, be taken. It can only be sheer gift.” (God, Christ, and Us, p. 54) He then goes on, “No one can take upon herself life; nothing can bring itself into existence. Always we receive being from another or from others. To aim at riches is to aim at taking possessions of things, even, perhaps, taking possession of people. To aim at poverty is to aim at the giving of life, and this comes from gratitude for receiving life ourselves. And giving life is a specially godlike activity.” (Ibid.) Jesus is then quite right to say, “Cursed are the rich, the powerful, the successful, and the famous.” Those whose purpose is to take possession of things and even of people are just occupied with making themselves bigger. There’s no sharing of life or giving of life but depriving others. Our protest against Jesus for raising the issue of starving children, for example, in the Central African Republic as ‘not so blessed’ is not so much of a protest against Jesus’s teaching. It really is our mere realization of how this curse of taking possession of things has suffered and pained innocent children in our world. We see the result of the evil that taking possession creates. When we don’t believe that blessed are the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, and the undesired, people suffer. When we don’t believe that those who give and share life are blessed, people are cursed by those who only desire to take and take. I might sound a bit divisive to ask all of us, but do you see yourselves as blessed or cursed in Jesus’s eyes? This is to ask, “Do you set the purpose of your life on being or taking?” This sounds like a cliche and I said it before, but there’s a reason why we are a human being, never a human taking. To focus our eyes on being rather than taking is to look at the nature of being as being given life. We never lose sight of our being as being given from God. This way of looking at our lives as being or being given life is related to our Eucharistic practice that when a priest gives the host, we are given the life of Jesus. We receive him, the source of the new creation, the resurrected one, making a sanctuary with our two hands. We never take him. My friends, let us redefine and reclaim what it means to be blessed in this world. We are created to be, to share, to give ourselves to others. Our life is not fulfilled by taking and consuming more and more. This way of thinking not only is a curse but also causes suffering to others. As Christians, we can only be blessed when we join those who are poor, hungry, and weep. When we are truly in solidarity with them, joining their suffering with our lives, we can see the true blessing is in that act of sharing, giving, and receiving and Jesus is present with us. And doing what’s right in the eyes of God will unsettle and upset the world whose goal is to take possession of things and people. And we will be hated. But let’s take heart from Jesus who assures us this morning, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. What’s your experience of leaving everything behind because you have something or someone that matters the most? When I was about 10 years old, I was so into G. I. Joe action figures. One action figure cost about $5 back then. My family wasn’t financially comfortable so I wouldn’t ask my mom to get me those action figures. I was more independent and quite creative to find ways to get what I wanted. Taking great advantage of living with my grandparents, I would ask my mom, grandma, and grandpa every three days for a bit of allowance like a quarter or two. It usually takes about a month or so. Once I collected enough, I would spend everything to get that handsome and sophisticated made G. I. Joe action figure. Money was simply a means to fulfill my desire to possess Storm Shadow and show him off my cool toy. Which was why I didn’t care too much to spend everything to my action figures.
In today’s gospel lesson, we see Peter, James, and John leaving everything behind and following Jesus. I want to say that what might be most striking to us in our capitalist society wouldn’t be the miracle itself that Jesus performed. If you know how to invest your money, that abundance of profit would be just like the experience of the fishers whose nets were breaking because of too many fish. We might skeptically or sarcastically say that Jesus got lucky or he was feeding all that fish underneath to get closer while he was teaching in Peter’s boat. What’s more troubling for us whose lives and securities depend on material things may be this one last phrase of the gospel story. Which is “...they left everything and followed him.” Peter, James and John after witnessing the catch of fish left not just one or some things but everything and followed Jesus. If you take your Christian faith seriously, this act of leaving everything behind and following Jesus shouldn’t be taken lightly. Being a Christian means being a disciple, a follower of Jesus. And are we ready to leave everything like Peter, James, and John and follow Jesus alone? Before you actually say yes or no to this question, we really have to reflect on what everything means to us. What is everything to you? Who is everything to you? I don’t believe it is Jesus’s intention that we should leave everything and everyone to become his disciples. Giving all our possessions to charity? That means someone or some other organization will have to help us anyway. Cutting ties with everyone? Isn’t Christianity about building a Christ-like relationship with others? What about leaving your family? One of the requirements for someone to be considered bishop, according to St Paul in his letter to St Timothy, is that one has to be a responsible householder, which definitely contradicts this distorted teaching of leaving your family. Let us not fall into an irrational mistake of biblical literalism. St Francis of Assisi can be a great example of leaving everything behind, yet the purpose of doing so was never on that act of giving up every possession he had. To him, that everything that people might consider important did not matter. Jesus became everything to him. Jesus was everything to him. Now, I want to ask us again what or who is everything to you. This question calls us to examine what we honestly care and value the most in our lives. Is money everything to you? Is your business everything to you? Is your career everything to you? Is fame or honor or reputation everything to you? Is your family everything to you? Ponder on what and who is everything to you. And bring them to Jesus. We must examine what’s in our hearts, what we truly desire, what we really want for ourselves and leave them to Jesus without fear of his judgment or shame. In a way, Jesus shows the abundance of fish which is what all the fishers want, especially Peter who owns that fish boat. What Peter wants at the moment reveals when Jesus tells him where to let down his nets to catch fish. Peter responds, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” Peter is honest with Jesus. He’s not hiding anything from him. “I want to catch fish. I tried all night long. I got nothing.” Just like Peter without shame or fear of judgment for being selfish or self-centered, we bring to Jesus what we really desire and want in our hearts for ourselves. What Jesus doesn’t do is that he never tells Peter what Peter wants doesn’t matter. Jesus never says to Peter that fish doesn’t matter. Instead, he fulfills Peter’s desire and want abundantly to the point where his nets are unable to contain all the fish that are caught. Peter is never told to abandon everything he cares about. Peter is never forced to leave everything. At that very moment of his desire being fulfilled completely, Peter sees God in Jesus, the God who is the source of everything in both heaven and earth. Then, what he wants doesn’t mean much now. Everything has changed. He is able to see what matters the most in his life. So, he confesses, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” He feels naked before the source of all being. He cannot desire fish for his life. How can he continue to do that when he has seen the source of all being, the source that fulfills and completes his desire? For example, say I love having lots of money. If I own and control the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, why would I need money? I can just print any dollar bill whenever I want to. I no longer have my original desire to have lots of money. When I have the source of where all U. S. bills come from, why would I go back to my old desire to have lots of money? I got the machine! I got the entire Bureau! This is just a simple example. So, what is it that you really want? What is everything to you? Who is everything to you? Jesus will make that everything so abundant, but that’s not the point. The point is whatever you consider most important disappears when it is brought to Jesus. We see something more essential, more substantial, more fundamental. Everything we consider so crucial to our lives is transformed in Jesus. Another example of this is this. Suppose your family is everything to you. Leaving everything and following Jesus do not mean you care less about your family than you used to because of Jesus. No. You care more about them than ever before. What happens is when you bring your family to Jesus and leave them entirely to Jesus, trusting that Jesus loves them more than you can. Imagine the nets breaking because of the abundance of the fish in Peter’s case. In Jesus, you can love your family or those who you deeply care and love more fully. Our first task is to honestly examine “what and who is everything to us” and to ask Jesus to transform it. Jesus then transforms who we are. Our focus in life changes just as everything that used to matter changes in Jesus. In this upside nature of things and people that used to be everything to us, we find our true calling and vocation. Peter who is a fisher becomes a fisher of people. What this means is that Peter’s focus was to catch fish, to survive. Now with Jesus, it is no longer so. He becomes a person who catches those drowning in the water of despair. His focus is not on fish but on people, specifically on serving them. This calls us to review how our focus in life changes from some things to people. A true Christian vocation always starts from Jesus and reaches out to people. I know N. is working for a real estate company. I don’t remember on what occasion she shared her work history, but she mentioned something like she enjoys working there because she meets lots of people and finds joy in helping them get their homes. Her focus is not on making a sale though it is important but it is really on people. Finding people a place, a home, a sanctuary where they build their family, love, future, and life. My friends, what and who is everything to you? Bring them to Jesus without shame or fear. I don’t believe Jesus expects you to say he is everything to you just yet. Trust that he will transform “whatever is everything to you” into “Jesus is everything to you.” He will transform you to participate in his mission, walk the way of love. He will make a fisher of people wherever you’re working. Jesus fulfills you, your heart, and your deepest desire and longing. It is my prayer that St Paul’s confession becomes yours. “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” My friends, don’t forget God’s grace toward you has not been in vain because you are indeed everything to him. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is nothing scientifically studied, but there are these two behaviors that I think we all have in common if our eyesight is still good. It’s about light. Here’s the first behavior: imagine this situation that you’re sleeping in your dark, dark room, and someone without any warning turns the light on. You’ll most likely frown. This light isn’t always welcome, especially if you’re enjoying your sleep and rest so much in your dark room. You’ll probably hide your face in your warm and cozy blanket. Now it’s the second behavior we might have in common: if you’re getting enough sleep and are ready to get up, sunlight coming through your window would be a gentle invitation to your new day. Light is a tricky thing. It can be either something so warm and inviting or something that is being frowned upon.
As we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord at the Temple, which is usually called ‘Candlemas,’ we have begun today’s service with the lighting of the blessed candles. The story behind this celebration is rather simple. It is to proclaim that Jesus is the light of God. He’s the light that is not just a mere natural phenomenon of electromagnetic radiation. When we say Jesus is the light, we want to say this light which flows from Jesus is uncreated. This light of Jesus is the source of all light in the world, God shining upon us through Jesus. Now, you might wonder what this symbol of light got to do with today’s gospel lesson, presenting a 40 day old infant Jesus to the temple. What’s the relationship between Jesus being light and Jesus being represented in the temple? We actually have to go through some biblical background to get this metaphor of light right. Let’s start with this tradition of presenting the firstborn to the temple. This tradition goes all the way back to the Book of Exodus. It’s specifically instructed in Exodus 13:2 where it says, “Consecrate to me all the firstborn; whatever is the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and animals, is mine.” But why? What does this mean? The answer comes in 13:15: “By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.” It is to remember that God liberated the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. In this act of presenting the firstborn to the temple, the parents not only remember God’s work of liberation from slavery in Egypt but also remind themselves and their future generation of their darkest moment and God’s faithfulness in history. They were once in the darkest place but God took them out of suffering. God shed his light upon them, overcoming all the darkness therein. St Luke’s gospel lesson we heard this morning comes from this Exodus tradition, telling us the story of Joseph and Mary presenting their son Jesus. And Simeon sings what we just said together as we processed into the sanctuary: “Lord, you now have set your servant free * to go in peace as you have promised; For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, * whom you have prepared for all the world to see: A Light to enlighten the nations, * and the glory of your people Israel.” (BCP, p. 93) What this tells us is that Jesus is the embodiment of God who liberates those in slavery. He opens the closed door of darkness, slavery, or the impossible. His presence in and of itself is the light of God revealing not just some things but literally everything in this world. Those who feel locked up in darkness will no longer be there because there is no place where the light of Christ does not reach. This light of Christ revealing everything, especially what’s deeply hidden in our hearts, in our world, however, may not be welcomed by all. We all carry our own darkness, yet who among us would like to talk about it? Who would like to share it? Simeon is very aware of this paradoxical nature of the light of Christ that reveals everything. Simeon who once praises Jesus as the light of God thus warns Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” Jesus will reveal all the inner thoughts of many, of the world. He will be opposed for that very reason. And he was. He was crucified and killed. As I mentioned in the beginning of this homily about light being so tricky, if you’re open to the light of Christ that shows what’s in your heart, you’ll welcome it because that light heals you. But if you’re so stuck in that darkness, too ashamed to share with Christ, too guilty to be revealed by the light of Christ, you will try to hide it with something darker. But however you want to darken it, it doesn’t work. The light of Christ gets brighter and brighter. I resonate with Plato who says, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when we are afraid of the light.” So, here’s my question to all of us. What are we looking at in ourselves through the light of Christ? What’s revealed? We need to see ourselves truthfully. What do you really see? And what darkness are you trying to hide or avoid or ignore? Are you afraid of the light of Christ? My friends, do not be afraid of the light of Christ. Welcome him. Invite him. Let him look what’s hidden in your soul. At first, it might be felt like a sword piercing your soul or going through refinement of silver. Nobody likes to be vulnerable. But through that vulnerability, through those wounds of darkness, the light more vividly shines. Let Christ’s light heal your wounds. We not only look at ourselves as in a mirror through the light of Christ but must not forget that this light heals all our wounds of vices. Only then, we can go out to the world, carrying not darkness but the light of Christ. And with this light of Christ, we are graced, we become God’s gift to the world. Think of yourselves as a wounded healer. Your wounds are healed by the light of Christ. And you’re to be a gift as someone who is healed and is gifted to heal. Hans Urs von Balthasar, a priest and a theologian, said “What you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.” And this was the theme of our diocesan convention. The light of Christ does not just reveal what’s in your hearts. It also reveals and exposes what’s hidden in our world. At our diocesan convention, Bishop Carlye mentioned about all the darkness in our society: white, middle-age suicide spiked 40% in the last 10 years, how much black parents are afraid of their black son being killed when they are pulled over by the police, and black mothers die in childbirth at three times the rate of white mothers. So we got some work to do, seeing ourselves as wounded healers, as gifts of God to the world. And how do we do that? I’m going to repeat Bishop Carlye again, because I firmly believe she is right. She says, “Build a community.” We want to build a community that is not afraid of the light, that is not afraid of being judged imperfect, but letting our wounds be healed while willing to heal others. We must start within ourselves to build this community of love. I invite all of us to participate in this mission of God at Saint Agnes Church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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