Our society has a strong tendency to disregard, if not look down on, things and people who seem small and lack power. If there’s no use, there’s no meaning of its existence, our consumerist culture implicitly proclaims. This principle applies to people. If one is with disabilities, or one is too young or too old, one’s worth becomes less valuable than those in power or those who are more productive and useful. We say we are human beings, but the consumerist culture, which is always too anxious of scarcity, redefines us as human doings or human producing or human consumings. But Elisha the prophet in the first lesson tells otherwise. Jesus in the gospel lesson proclaims the abundance of God, not in the way of productivity or usefulness, but in the way of offering or oblation.
I would like to read you a different version of today’s gospel story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. It is Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s version, his storybook Bible for children. The title is “God provides enough for everyone: Jesus feeds the crowd.” All day in the hot sun, thousands of people sat and listened to Jesus talk about God’s dream. They were so hungry to know God, they forgot to eat lunch! When the sun started to go down, Philip said, “Master, it’s late and the people are hungry. You should send them home.” “Why send them home?” Said Jesus. “Just feed them.” “Feed them?!” Philip said. “We don’t have any food.” “Someone has something to share.” Jesus answered. A little boy offered to share his five small loaves of bread and two tiny fish. Philip threw his arms in the air. “That’s not enough for all of these people!” “Ask the people to sit down,” Jesus said. He took the bread in his hands, looked up to heaven, and blessed it. He did the same with the fish. Then he told the disciples to hand out the food. They were amazed! There was more than enough for everyone. When all the people had finished eating, the disciples filled twelve baskets with the food that was left! With God’s love, five loaves and two small fish fed more than five thousand people. (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Children of God: Storybook Bible, pp. 88-89) As you can see, Archbishop Tutu’s version is edited. Which means as he retells the gospel story, he interprets it in some way. For example, he doesn’t include Andrew. There’s no mention of Andrew in his version. Through Archbishop’s imagination, we get to hear the crowd’s response to this miracle by which they were amazed. Philip comes across as someone who is realistic enough to know the crowd should be sent home and the little boy’s five barley loaves and two fish aren’t enough for them all. Out of all his redactions, I appreciate how Archbishop Tutu makes the little boy’s presence much more active and visible. In the original text, the little boy is presented through Andrew. Andrew says to Jesus, “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” We don’t know how Andrew found out about the boy. Did the boy get caught by a bunch of adults or did he volunteer? If it was voluntary, how did he know that Jesus wanted to feed the crowd? These are some questions whose answers we can only imagine. But in Tutu’s retelling of the story, the boy takes up a different role. And Jesus also takes up a different role. He actually expects someone to share. In Tutu’s version, Jesus says, “Someone has something to share.” That someone Jesus has in mind is the little boy. He offers to share his five small loaves of bread and two tiny fish. The little boy doesn’t hide his food from others. He doesn’t keep them to himself. He actively offers to share what he has for the sake of others, for the sake of the five thousand. This whole scene reminds us of Jesus’ saying, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3-4) The little boy not only enters the kingdom of God but also shows how to enter. And what is this how? Offer what you have. Offer what you are. Offer yourself for others. This actually is a unusual behavior for us when our consumerist culture fears people of scarcity. We are told that we lack something and there’s never enough for myself, destroying any room to share with others. Interestingly, Jesus seems to go against our consumerist culture that preaches to us to produce. He doesn’t produce anything even when he sees the crowd who haven’t had anything to eat. Instead, he receives the five barley bread and two fish from the little boy. The bread and fish are offered to Jesus the Great High Priest. Jesus takes what’s offered to him, blesses it, breaks it, and distributes it to the crowd. This four patterned act brings all of us to the altar. Jesus not only offers what’s offered, but he offers himself, becoming the offering to God to feed the world. This morning, let’s be attentive to what Jesus calls into. Looking around our society and our world, there’s never enough for everyone even though we are very much aware of what’s being wasted. We might also think very less of what we have or less of what we are, telling ourselves there’s nothing much we small people, particularly our small parish, can do much for others. We wouldn’t say such things explicitly or out loud, but deep down in our hearts, we might consider ourselves not so useful or too small to be productive. Perhaps Andrew’s question might linger in our hearts, “There’s a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” What are we small parish among so many people? We want to go beyond this saying of Andrew so that we can listen to the voice of Jesus, “Make the people sit down.” Which means, “Let’s prepare ourselves to serve.” My friends, let us remind ourselves that it is not up to us how to make ourselves abundant. That’s not what Jesus asks us to do. That task of God’s abundance is God’s work, never ours. Jesus never commands us to be useful or productive. Jesus simply looks for someone who desires to share what one has. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are. All Jesus wants is someone to offer, someone to be offered for the sake of others just as he himself did on the cross, as he offered himself to the Father. Offering of myself in believing that God will make me abundant is how one enters the kingdom of God. This is how one experiences the reign of God here and now. “Walk in love as Christ loved us and offered himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” And this offering is made possible because we are the body of Christ. St Augustine once said, “When you eat this food and drink this wine, they will be transformed into your substance. Equally you will be transformed into the body of Christ, if you live in obedience and faithfulness. The Apostle reminds us of the prediction in scripture: ‘Two will become one flesh.’ And elsewhere in reference to the eucharist itself, he asserts, ‘Because there is one bread,we who are many are one body.’ You, therefore, begin to receive what you already begin to be.” (Sermon 227) So my friends, let us not be afraid to offer ourselves. Let’s not shy away from being oblates to Jesus who will make us abundant. He will take us, bless us in thanksgiving to God and transforming us who we really are, breaks us, and shares us with those in need of God’s mercy and grace. Let’s open up our fists, open up our hearts to this Eucharistic miracle of Jesus Christ in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The fundamental fear that every human being eventually faces comes from mortality, human finitude, or simply put, death. Death produces lots of thoughts and feelings, which we consider unpleasant and negative. If I name a few, they are anxiety, fear, sadness, sorrow, and grief. I would say any kind of death would evoke such thoughts and feelings, but when it comes down to our loved ones, its depth is so much deeper, almost leaving a wound that makes us grieve for a while. And this morning, as we celebrate and remember the life of E, we also mourn and grieve for her loss.
I’ve never had a chance to meet her in person, but one aspect of her life that stands out to me is that she was a mother of seven children: E, J, K, C, K, A, and R. Being a mother, as we know, is not simply a matter of giving birth to a baby. Out of all kinds of things that a mother can do for her baby, there’s one crucial fact and truth that only the mother can provide. That is, becoming a home to her baby. If we reflect on English words such as womb and home, we can easily hear how these two words sound similar to each other. Every human being’s first home is a mother’s womb. So, every mother’s vocation begins quite early in her womb being a home to her baby. In this sense, E became the very first home to her seven children. There’s an interesting word play between womb and compassion in Hebrew. The Hebrew word, ‘rechem’ means womb. When this singular word becomes plural, which is ‘rachamim,’ its meaning changes to compassion. If we use this word play in our second reading, where St John the Evangelist hears the loud voice from the throne, “See, the home of God is among mortals,” the home of God can be understood as the womb of God. And this womb of God incarnate is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the divine compassion becoming flesh. And in this divine home of compassion Jesus brings to the world, death becomes a path to the way of the resurrection, not the end of everything. In this divine home incarnate in Jesus, no one is lost. Jesus raises up all, including all our loved ones who have gone before us, especially E. With sorrow, grief, and tears in our eyes, Jesus brings hope, joy, and wipes every tear from your eyes. Let us listen to what Jesus speaks to us this morning, “See, I am making all things new. It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.” And to this promise of Jesus, we say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him.” And we will hope for the resurrection in which we are united together with E in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Pentecost+9/Proper 11B (Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)7/22/2018 Self-care seems to be one of the most mentioned words at least in the field of medicine where its use of the word was historically originated. In the fields of chaplaincy, social work, and medicine, this term, ‘self-care’ is quite frequently emphasized in the sense that before one gets burnt out, one must take care of oneself. There are many interesting and creative ways to self-care. You can very well imagine something like giving yourself a break from work or people, hanging out with your friends, taking a power nap, treating yourself with healthy food, going away somewhere peaceful, and so on. One interesting phenomenon about this term is that after the 2016 election Americans googled this term twice as much as they did in the past.
In today’s gospel lesson, it seems that Jesus becomes more aware of this importance of self-care. We might want to claim that self-care is part of the Christian teaching! So here’s the situation in which Jesus feels the need for self-care. Once his friends are given Jesus’s authority to preach to people to change their hearts and turn away from whatever prevents them from loving God, others, and themselves and to heal their broken hearts, they come back to him and report all they did. Jesus tells them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Jesus and his friends are surrounded by people coming in and out, having no leisure even to eat. We can very well imagine this busy routine of Jesus and the disciples’ ministry since we ourselves are quite busy working. They decide to go away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Once they are about to finally have some freedom from people, they get caught by people in that different town. These people are serious. They are not going to lose Jesus and his friends. They hurry themselves, almost running to get ahead of Jesus and his friends. Even before Jesus gets to his designated and supposedly deserted place, a great crowd of people is already there, waiting for him and his friends. I can jokingly say that if you want self-care in your life, don’t get caught by people you know like Jesus and his friends. Don’t tell others where you’re going, hide well, or turn off your phone. This, however, is not the point of the gospel. The essential theme of today’s lessons we hear really comes out of Jesus' heart. Which is compassion. When Jesus' self-care plan or vacation plan is all ruined as he encounters a great crowd by the shore, he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. His way of looking at these people who come to see him as shepherdless or lost sheep, St Mark calls, compassion. This compassion Jesus feels for the people in the gospel lesson is what the shepherds in the first lesson are missing. Jeremiah warns and condemns, if not curses, the compassionless shepherds. He prophesies the word of God, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.” These shepherds are judged guilty of destroying, scattering, driving away God’s flock, and not attending to them. And who are these shepherds in Jeremiah’s time? They’re the leaders of Israel. Israel in Jeremiah’s time is under the siege of Babylonia. Their cities and homes are to be taken over by the Babylonians. Their nation is already divided into two, Northern Israel and Southern Judah. The people of Israel are about to be destroyed, scattered, and driven away from their homes. Jeremiah accuses these leaders as well as their false prophets of moral depravity. In light of today’s gospel lesson, this moral depravity of Israel in the time of Jeremiah comes from a lack of compassion they have for their people. Jesus feels compassion for a huge crowd by the shore because they are like the sheep without a shepherd or like the sheep with a false shepherd. Only the one who has compassion for the lost sheep can be the Good Shepherd. Jeremiah proclaims God’s promise, “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall fear any longer or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing.” There is one specific righteous Branch that Jeremiah prophesies in the first lesson. That Branch of justice and righteous is Jesus of Nazareth who is not just full of compassion but the divine compassion embodied and enfleshed! When that divine compassion of Jesus touches people, healing happens. Reconciliation happens. The peace which comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus arrives in their hearts. So what are we as followers, friends, brothers, and sisters of Jesus the incarnate compassion called to do? I had a discussion about today’s gospel lesson with my priest friend and colleague. During our sharing of ideas and insights, I realize how often priests quite automatically see themselves as shepherds and lay people as their sheep. Well, I think this approach is very wrong and even harmful in the sense that lay people are seen as the ones who need a shepherd, placing them in a passive role. I would like to encourage you to look at yourselves as shepherds who have Jesus as the ultimate Shepherd. God does promise that God will raise up shepherds over the remnant of God’s flock. We as Christians are called to see ourselves as those shepherds God will raise up. Being a shepherd for others is exactly the same thing as the priesthood of all believers. In the world, every baptized Christian is called to be a priest. St Peter says, “You are a royal priesthood and royal kingdom.” Through the blood of Jesus the High Priest, we are made into priests who join the sacrifice of Jesus for the world. This being a priest is really being a shepherd for others. And what qualifies us as a ‘faithful’ shepherd and a ‘holy’ priest is whether we have compassion for others or not. What then is this compassion that is so crucial to who Jesus is as the Good Shepherd and the High Priest and who we are as shepherds and priests? ‘Com-‘ in the word compassion is a prefix which means ‘with’ or ‘together,’ whereas ‘passion’ comes from the Latin ‘pati’ or ‘passio’ meaning to suffer. Compassion is not just a feeling but calls us into action to suffer with or suffer together. It is a statement that those who are suffering are not alone. Compassion puts us into that very place of suffering to suffer together. But let’s remember that when we are present to others’ suffering, we don’t enter as a healer, but as a fellow sufferer. When these two fellow sufferers meet, there comes the healing of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. This way of compassion then compels us to look at others in a different way. I’m going to borrow the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and modern martyr in the Nazi era who says, “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” Compassion actually pushes us out of ourselves. This compassion of Jesus perhaps is the only requirement we need as a priest and a shepherd of God. Now, you might wonder what happened to the self-care piece that I mentioned at the beginning of this homily. Did I forget? Am I trying to say self-care matters but it’s never possible? No. Based on this compassion of Jesus which essentially expands one’s understanding of self, this self-care actually is not simply limited to oneself or one single individual unit. This compassion-expanded self always includes others, forming a communion of compassion or what St Paul calls in the second lesson ‘a holy temple in the Lord’ and ‘a dwelling place of God.’ As we partake in the Eucharist, we’re embodied into the compassion of Jesus. In the Eucharist, we are joined into the divine compassion incarnate. May this compassion incarnate Jesus Christ perpetually lead us to suffering people. May we also find the healing and peace of God in that place which we see both the cross and the empty tomb. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. T. S. Eliot once said, “I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope,for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought; so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” Encountering today’s rather dark and gloomy (just like today’s weather) gospel, T. S. Eliot offers a way to hear the good news. Wait without hope, love, and thought until the darkness becomes the light, and the stillness the dancing. Jesus’ name is mentioned in today’s gospel lesson, but there’s no actual saying of his. So as a person who would like to meditate and contemplate on his words, I feel quite perplexed to find his message in today’s lesson. But there’s someone else who indeed delivers the gospel. I’m not going to tell you who, but I would like you to guess. Here are the characters who talk in the lesson: St John, Herod, some people around him, Herodias, and her daughter Salome. St John the Baptizer may be considered as someone whose life solely revolves around Jesus and whose focus centers on Jesus. It is as if his identity from the very beginning, even before he’s actually born and in his mother, Elizabeth’s womb, is already set. When two soon-to-be mothers, Elizabeth and Mary meet each other, when Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, the unborn John leaps in his mother’s womb, reports St Luke. From that very moment, it seems it is already evident who he is called to be, what he is called to do, and what kind of death his life would face. Throughout all four Gospels, St John’s vocation is quite clear. He’s the voice in the wilderness. He’s to prepare the way of the Lord. To be the prophetic voice in the wilderness is his identity, who he is. To prepare the way of the Lord is his mission, what he does. If you can recollect your memory of this past Advent season, two lessons are about John’s prophetic role before the coming of Jesus in this world. The prophetic voice of Isaiah in the Hebrew Scripture, which is “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” parallels with that of John. In today’s gospel, we hear the tragic story of St John’s death. As we reflect on this gospel lesson, particularly John’s death, we might wonder if his death, not just his ministry of baptizing people with water for repentance and teaching, is part of preparing the way of the Lord and making straight in the desert. His death completes his mission. Which also means that Jesus is invited to walk on that way that John prepares. As his way paves the way of Jesus, his death foreshadows the death of Jesus. He seems to send a message to Jesus that he also has to go through the path of death and walk on it himself. The early 17th century painter Caravaggio has two famous pieces that depict the beheading of John. One painting titled as ‘the decapitation of St John the Baptist’ shows the moment of his body pushed on the ground by an executioner/headsman with a knife; this man next to the headsman giving a direction of this process; one woman holding the plate to carry John’s head, and the other woman whose hands are covering her ears looking horrified. And there are two bystanders behind the window who are watching it curiously. Another painting is Herodias’ daughter, Salome carrying the head of John on the plate with the executioner grabbing John’s hair.
Both paintings can bring so much emotions. Caravaggio’s realistic imagination can shock us as it reminds of John’s humiliation and indignity in his death, if not its cruel and violent features. There’s a sense of unfairness, injustice, and also disappointment. We don’t want someone like St John, the prophet and the forerunner who prepares the way of Christ to face this kind of death. This is far from that of Hollywood movies’ heroic version which we are quite used to seeing. At least in our culture, heroes must face a glorious death, not this kind of tragic, unfair, and cruel ending of John. What can be more infuriating is how his execution becomes possible. I can romanticize his death by saying that this is all meant to be and is a part of God’s providential plan. But at least what we hear from today’s gospel lesson is that his tragic death directly results from Herod’s drunkenness and Salome’s impressive dance. Of course, before that, St John has been a critic of Herod’s immoral and unethical decision to marry his niece who is already married to his brother. John’s criticism of Herod is not for the sake of his own righteousness. He risks his life to turn Herod away from the evil. Paradoxically, this is an act of love and justice. He really is a courageous and righteous voice in the wilderness while he’s seen as a sacred irritant to those in power, Herod and Herodias in particular. Let’s also remember what Jesus once refers him as that “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.” (Mt 11:11) St John, however, doesn’t get to have a heroic death like Bruce Willis in Armageddon. What a tragic, horrendous, terrible way for him to die! But deep down in our hearts, we know that there’s no death in reality that can be romanticized or sentimentalized as in Hollywood movies. And out of all the deaths, John is far from a Hollywood version, so is Jesus the Son of God on the cross. It is hard to deny that John and Jesus are quite similar. Both face a tragic and horrendous death, a very political one. Both preach the same message of repentance and the coming reign of God. And this close connection is shown in a very interesting way in the eyes of Herod. After beheading John and hearing about Jesus’ ministry, he relates them to each other. Not only are they cousins and both come across as a political threat, Jesus is a resurrected John to Herod. Some say he’s Elijah, or a prophet of the ancient tradition. But what he really believes is that John is back again from the dead. The beheaded one is risen from the dead. Herod’s understanding of Jesus as a resurrected John might tell us that he’s awfully guilty. We hear from today’s gospel that he is deeply grieved for the execution. He knows John is a righteous and holy man. He fears John as well as holds grudge against him too. John in a way plays as the voice that awakes Herod’s conscience. The other aspect to this perceiving of Jesus as a resurrected John is that Jesus’ own life can be in danger. Herod or Herodias might want to get rid of this resurrected John again. Jesus who talks about the kingdom of God, the reign of God already sounds just like John, a political threat to their regime and conscientious spirit to their hearts. And they do succeed in contributing to the death of the resurrected John. The fact that both John and Jesus died is depressing. At times, we might feel like the power that be continues to win and succeed in eliminating the righteous ones in our world as if there’s no justice prevailing. But the hope ironically comes out of the mouth of that one who murders the righteous one. And this is Herod who delivers the good news of Jesus. “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” Jesus who is seen as the resurrected John is not simply another version of John. Jesus is the one who resurrects those who are dead. Jesus resurrects John. He resurrects many Johns who have faced unfair, unjust, and tragic deaths. This hope of the resurrection in Jesus is painfully realistic, seeing things as they are. This hope Jesus brings is beyond wishful optimism. This crucified and risen hope hops despite of its rather pessimistic view of the world. Because of this very truth and hope embodied in the person of Jesus, we are not afraid of death at all. We face it and go through it, never around it. It’s all because we believe that Jesus himself represents our resurrected selves. Our world has changed so much. Our American politics become weary. Global economics are unstable. We might want to shrink and hide until this stormy climate of politics passes. But as followers of Jesus who knew what kind of death he would face in the death of John, we want to walk that path of death and resurrection. That’s what we’re called to do today. This is the good news of Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. There’s one custom based on the first half of today’s gospel lesson which still continues to be kept in regard to clergy deployment. That is, a newly ordained person does not go back to one’s home parish as a priest. I’m not sure if there are any theological reasons behind this custom which I believe is kept throughout the Anglican Communion except some unusual cases. But I have heard from other priests that one of the many reasons is what Jesus says in today’s gospel story: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” I personally resonate with this saying of Jesus.
With my family members, I’m not their priest. I’m my mom’s son who probably will be her baby until I become 80 years old. I’m my sister’s younger brother who she probably remembers as someone who is somewhat juvenile, rebellious, or annoying. With my friends who I grew up with, I’m not their priest. They see me as how I was with them in my childhood and adolescence. Sharing my personal story, when my friends heard that I was going to become a priest, they really believed that I went mentally insane or I had some traumatic event which completely changed my life. They just couldn’t believe that I would become one. It does make me wonder time to time what they were really thinking of me and how badly I looked in their eyes! I’m sure we all have similar experiences like this. Imagine your high school reunion. You have changed so much, but your high school friends who you haven’t met for years simply see you as how they used to see you in high school. They treat you like how they used to treat you back in high school. It’s like going back to that high school adolescent cliche that judges who’s cool, who’s pretty, and who’s popular. If you haven’t been to your high school reunion ask yourself why not. There may be many reasons but then one of them would be that we kind of don’t want to be seen as how we used to be seen in high school. We don’t want to engage with others if they’re only going to remember me as how they used to remember me back in high school, not being able to see me as who I am becoming. The heart of this psychological dynamic between the person who’s changed and those around that person who don’t see that change is a matter of openness. Do these people of Jesus’ hometown have this openness towards Jesus? Are their hearts open enough to see Jesus as who he is at that very moment when he begins to teach in the synagogue in today’s gospel lesson? No. Their hearts are simply cloistered. They hear him and do get astounded by his teaching. They say, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon, and are not his sisters with us?” Then they take offense at him, reports St Mark. Their immediate reaction to Jesus is quite harsh and even condescending. They see how wise his teaching is and how powerful his deeds are. They are impressed with his wisdom, particularly his preaching on the coming kingdom of God, the coming reign of God. They hear how he heals the sick and casts away demons. But they just cannot accept all that. They just cannot open their hearts to this Jesus who is proclaiming the gospel and bringing God’s healing to the world. They just cannot see him as who he is right now. What they go back to is their memory of him, how they remember him, the one that they’re used to. Notice that these town people call him ‘the son of Mary,’ not ‘the son of Joseph.’ This identification of Jesus with Mary is quite unusual in Jewish culture. Do they want to say that he is raised by a single mother? Who knows what they’re thinking, but this is not normal. They also go on to say that he is a carpenter, a craftsman, or a handyman who is expected not to have any God-given wisdom. And these people know Jesus’ siblings. They are not that special. They’re just like any town people. What they’re saying about Jesus is really about how they see Jesus and who Jesus is to them. To them, Jesus cannot be the Messiah. He cannot even be the prophet. He cannot be anyone respectful or admirable. He’s just one of them. These town people have no openness in their hearts towards who Jesus can be. But this doesn’t end here. Their lack of openness to who Jesus can be also means their lack of openness to who they can be too. There’s a saying from the Talmud: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.” In other words, if I may paraphrase this saying, we do not see people as they are, but we see them as we are. Jesus’ hometown people see Jesus not as he is, but as they are. They haven’t been changed or transformed. So Jesus can never be changed or transformed or any different from them. This cloistered mind prevents them from seeing Jesus as he is and seeing them as who they can be in Jesus. This lack of openness is also prevalent in other villages. Jesus’ disciples are now sent to others as they’re given authority over the unclean spirits. Jesus warns them what to do when they are not welcomed. Let’s listen again to what he says: “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on. Your feet as a testimony against them.” Jesus is very much aware that his disciples who are sent out in his name will be rejected. The lack of openness that his hometown people show will be with those people in other villages. And what they are actually rejecting is the message of repentance. This concept of repentance has been misunderstood, misused, and miscommunicated over and over throughout history. It’s not a dogmatic mechanism to impose fear on people and thus make them feel guilty and eventually ashamed. This is not simply an indoctrinating tactic to keep people coming to church on Sundays and make them volunteer and give more alms to the church. What it really requires from us is not this feeling of guilt or shame, but our inner and outer movement of turning away from how we think of ourselves and others and how we behave to ourselves and others. It’s the change of heart. But in order to make any change, we first must be open to the one who is actually telling us to change! That sheer openness to the one who himself is the source of change and transformation comes first. This is what the message of repentance is essentially about. Be open to how you can change yourself and turn things around in your life by embodying yourself in the body of Jesus Christ. Be open to your new self. Be open to others who also can be new selves in Christ. I must admit that I wouldn’t be too different from Jesus’ hometown neighbors. Frankly speaking, I confess to you that I’m not sure if my heart would’ve been open enough to see Jesus as he is. Probably I would see him as I am, as the one who has no expectation of becoming a completely renewed, restored, changed, and transformed self. To me, Jesus is just a handyman who is out of his mind, manipulating people with his know-it-all gibberish. But at this point, I’m not so hopeless. I’m not in despair though I’m shaken by being quite honest about my tendency to close my heart. I’m rather hopeful because I believe the Holy Spirit is at work, opening my heart, and not just mine, but yours. As much as the Holy Spirit can open my cloistered, stubborn heart, yes, she can certainly open yours. This sheer openness that the Holy Spirit brings challenges us every Sunday when we partake in the Eucharist. Without this openness, how do we possibly encounter the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine? Without this openness, there’s nothing special about the morsel of bread. But with this God-given openness, we can see the presence of Christ hidden and revealed at the same time in the bread and wine as his body and blood. In this mere morsel of bread, God is present with us, which tells us if we can see God’s presence in it, God is really with us wherever we are, especially when we are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ. With this sheer openness, I would like you to look at yourself. Be open to yourself. Be open to who you can become through Christ. With this gift of openness, be open to others. Be open to who they can become. With this openness, we are sent to the world. Fear closes us in, but love opens us up. This path to openness is sacred and is nothing other than the way of love all of us are called to live out. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 6 years ago, when I first started my ministry as a hospital chaplain, I came across some question about how to interact with patients and their families outside the hospital. This issue also applies to psychotherapists, medical staff, especially psychiatrists. The question is ‘What do you do when you meet your client or patient on the street outside the hospital?’ What would you do if you’re a health care provider? And what would you expect your healthcare provider to do when you meet him or her on the street outside the hospital? Does anybody know the answer to this question?
I don’t know if there’s a definite answer to this question, but here’s what’s recommended. If. you’re a patient running into your therapist or psychiatrist, you have a choice to say hi or not. You can simply ignore and pass through. Or you can just say hi. If you’re a healthcare provider, you wouldn’t acknowledge your patient first. You wouldn’t initiate anything. Whether you as a patient say hi or just pass through, it feels a bit awkward. Here, we’re not talking about which response is more appropriate or not. We’re talking about setting up boundaries. Boundaries matter to all of us. They protect us from each other. They help us stay respectful to each other, not crossing the lines we agree to draw. Another name for this agreed behavior of keeping boundaries can be ‘privacy,’ the state of being undisturbed by others. And the extreme opposite of this behavior, that is, ignoring these boundaries and disrespectfully and violently crossing them can be called ‘assault.’ There’s another extreme of keeping boundaries that function to exclude a certain group of people, which we can call ‘segregation,’ the enforced action of setting people apart from each other. (Which is happening right now in our country.) So, again boundaries matter to us. It is crucial to our personal and communal lives. What matters is not so much about having boundaries or not. It’s about what boundary line we would like to draw. I would like us to imagine more graphically what kind of boundary line we draw in our relationship with others. Is it a thick solid bold line that doesn’t allow anyone to come into your life or that you cannot cross at all, keeping everything to yourself? Or is that line very blurry and unclear as if there’s no line at all so that you kind of get involved in all matters of people around you to the point you don’t know where your personal life is? In today’s gospel, Jesus shows a third type of line, which is a dotted line. This third type of a boundary with this dotted line clarifies where I stand from others and is also able to cross that line when necessary. This dotted line can be both open and closed. Think of it as chasing your lane from left to right when you drive. Jesus shows his transformative move in and out of his dotted boundary line in today’s gospel lesson. There are two stories of the hemorrhaging woman suffering for 12 years and Jairus’ 12 years old daughter. It’s not just one healing story we hear. Two healing stories, one being cured of the illness of bleeding and the other being resuscitated, not resurrected from death. There’s no doubt that today’s gospel lesson is about healing, but what we’re interested in is how this healing takes place through Jesus, by his way of crossing the boundaries. First, let’s reflect on Jesus’ first encounter with the hemorrhaging woman. He has a huge crowd following. I imagine it’s like walking nearby Times Square during summer time when it is filled with tourists. We can easily imagine some inevitable contacts with people passing by. This seems to be what’s happening in the story. Jesus is somewhat stuck in this large crowd. The woman who has been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years hides herself in the crowd. No physicians have been able to cure her illness. Now she sees Jesus and has a clear mission, which is to touch Jesus’ clothes. This is what she says, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” As she touches his cloak, immediately her hemorrhage stops. She feels in her body that she is made well. She is healed. We want to pay attention to the part that Jesus himself is aware that the power of healing has gone forth from him immediately when the woman touches his cloak. This is the moment that shows his dotted boundary line. His power of healing is not bound by or boxed in or regulated by a thick solid boundary line. It’s open. This power of God gracefully and freely goes out and reaches out to the suffering woman. This movement of God’s healing power is strictly against the Jewish law. It’s ritual defilement. Women who are menstruating are considered unclean according to the Jewish law. In this story, not only do we see this suffering woman’s courage to go against the Jewish ritual law and cross the boundary but also her action shows the dotted boundary line of Jesus who neither excludes nor discriminates her. His boundary is crossed over at the disposal of the woman, eventually at the disposal of God’s mercy. Without her faithful action that risks ritual defilement, we wouldn’t be able to see this third boundary line, the dotted line where God’s mercy freely crosses. So Jesus affirms her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” The other healing story that we see is that of Jairus’ 12 year old daughter who is dying. By the time Jesus arrives at Jairus’ home, his daughter is already dead. Some say to Jairus, “Why trouble the teacher any further?” Jesus overhears this. He doesn’t turn away, but urges Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.” He goes into the house and sees people weeping and wailing loudly. He tells these people, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” People laugh at him. Perhaps Jesus feels a bit angry or disrespected, he kicks them out except the girl’s parents, Peter, James, and John. Now it is Jesus’ turn to cross his dotted boundary line for Jairus’ daughter. He seems to do what the hemorrhaging woman does. He goes against the Jewish law that strictly says not to touch a corpse, for it is unclean. He takes the girl by the hand and says to her, “Talitha cum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” The girl is back to life, back to his father. In these stories of the hemorrhaging woman and the once dead daughter of Jairus, we see Jesus crossing over certain religious boundaries and his personal boundary being crossed over by others. That’s what the dotted line does. It’s open to the suffering of others. Jesus doesn’t set his boundary to exclude others. He doesn’t lock himself inside his own boundary. He lets others come in. He invites others to come and dwell in God’s presence in him. He never condemns the hemorrhaging woman for crossing the boundary or violating the Jewish law or making him considered unclean because of her. He very well knows he doesn’t own the healing power of God. He doesn’t control it. He is always at the disposal of God. This healing power of God is always at the disposal of those who are not afraid to cross that dotted boundary line of Jesus the Son of God. On the other hand, Jesus himself crosses his own boundary. He gets himself out of his own comfort zone. He lets himself be ritually defiled by touch the dead body of Jairus’ daughter. And he’s able to do that because as he crosses himself over, the daughter is no longer dead. The healing of Jesus happens when we are able to set our boundaries as dotted lines and are able to cross them for the sake of our neighbors. Our Christian community is then the gathering of Jesus’ followers whose boundaries are dotted lined like Jesus. So we can cross all kinds of barriers and walls that divide and separate the world. In a way, healing happens in this solidarity of those who are open, courageous, and wise enough to go against something that the society determines illegal. Healing, this process of being made whole, takes place only in this solidarity. When we are in the place of Jesus who not only crosses his dotted boundaries but also carries the cross of the world, this faith of putting ourselves where Jesus is will make us more whole, holier, and closer to Jesus himself. Lastly, I would like share with you this short saying of the 5th-century desert father, Abba Poemen: Many old men came to see Abba Poemen and one day it happened that a member of Abba Poemen’s family came, who had a child whose face, through the power of the devil, was turned backwards. The father seeing the number of Fathers present, took the child and sat down outside the monastery, weeping. Now it happened that one of the old men came out and seeing him, asked him, ‘Man, why are you weeping?’ He replied, ‘I am related to Abba Poemen, and see the misfortune which has overtaken my child. Though I want to bring him to the old man, we are afraid he does not want to see us. Each time he hears I am here, he has me driven away. But since you are with him, I have dared to come. If you will, Father, have pity on me, take the child inside and pray for him. So the old man took the child, went inside and behaved with good sense. He did not immediately present him to Abba Poemen, but began with the lesser brethren, and said, ‘Make the sign of the cross over this little child.’ Having had him signed by all in turn, he presented him at last to Abba Poemen, Abba Poemen did not want to make the sign of the cross over him, but the others urged him, saying, ‘Do as everyone else has done.’ So groaning he stood up and prayed, saying, ‘God, heal your creature, that he be not ruled by the enemy.’ When he had signed him, the child was healed immediately and given back whole to his father. (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. & ed. by Benedicta Ward, p. 166) We see Abba Poemen’s reluctance to cross his own familial boundary, refusing to make the sign of the cross. But it is his monastic community who pushes him further. It’s almost like his monastic community removing certain parts of his thick boundary line and so creating the dotted line of Jesus. May we let ourselves inside this dotted line of Jesus. May we also surround ourselves with this dotted line of Jesus, letting our neighbors come in and letting ourselves out there. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus sounds a bit harsh, if not judgmental of his disciples. We can easily imagine him correcting, if not scolding, his disciples of their fear and lack of faith in him. So he says to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” As I reflect on this saying of Jesus, my rebellious side comes out. It seems quite unfair for him to say such things if we seriously consider what kind of context the disciples were in as they showed their fear and lack of faith. They were in the boat with Jesus. And a great windstorm arose. The waves beat into the boat so that the boat was already being swamped.
We can very well picture how the disciples would’ve felt. Some of them like Peter, John, and James knew the sea. They were fishermen. They very well knew what to fear. Especially having their boat being trembled by the waves and being swamped, their lives were threatened to death. They were frustrated and upset, looking at Jesus their teacher sleeping as if nothing was happening. They were probably thinking, “What does a carpenter know about the sea?” Now, I want us to use our imagination to dig deeper into the gospel. Let’s imagine that the disciples did have faith just as Jesus urged! They are in the boat with Jesus. A great windstorm is haunting them with the violent waves. It’s rocking and swamping their boat. But the disciples aren’t afraid at all. They don’t care too much whether the boat is being swamped, their feet getting wet with water, their bodies being moved by the waves. With their great faith, they stay still, not anxious, not scared. With their great faith, they don’t even wake up Jesus who is sound asleep. Eventually, the storm simply passes by. Jesus has no idea about the storm or waves. He simply is very satisfied with one sweet nap, finally getting some rest from the crowd. It’s just that his clothes are wet here and there. The end of the story. I seriously doubt and wonder if this is what Jesus expected from the disciples. First of all, there’s no fun in this imagined scenario that we created. There’s no teaching lesson for the disciples. It’s almost like they have not much to learn from Jesus. They already know who he is and how they ought to behave. If this is what Jesus intended his disciples and all his followers to do, we wouldn’t even have this story in the gospels. We should instead be grateful to the disciples that they were terrified by the storm and woke up Jesus from his sleep. They are actually becoming a model for us not to be afraid to show our own fear and lack of faith. The Bible is not a rulebook. We don’t look for answers in this collection of ancient texts. We learn to ask better questions to wrestle with the difficulties of our difficult reality. In so doing, the Bible opens our hearts to speak, imagine and explore. It becomes the voice of our hearts. We learn how to ask God, complain to God, how to grieve, how to lament. We learn how to pray to God, how to love God and our neighbor, how to be forgiven and forgive, how to see ourselves and others in light of God’s love shown in Jesus. We don’t use it to justify our behaviors, which we end up abusing it. So, today’s gospel lesson encourages us to show before God our lack of faith, express our fear and anxiety, and share our experience of God’s absence in our suffering. Say what the disciples say. Ask what they ask! Wake him up! Jesus, do you not care that we’re perishing? Find and discover yourself saying the same as the disciples in the boat. And where you experience what the disciples experienced in the gospel, where you ask what the disciples asked, you face fear, anxiety, and most importantly the absence of God’s presence in that very moment of darkness. This moment you might want to call the dark night of the soul. In this dark night of your soul, God seems to be gone. God’s presence is nowhere to be found. It’s like Jesus in deep sleep while the boat is being shaken and swamped. God doesn’t seem to care so much about what I’m going through. We might just give up on God. But faith, which is the gift of God, enables us to ask that very question of the disciples, “Jesus, do you not care that we’re perishing?” Do you not care that I’m suffering? Do you not care that I feel so alone, that I don’t feel your hands reaching out to me? This question of God’s presence in suffering leads us once again to the very existential question. Why am I here suffering? Why do I do what I do? Who am I? When we start asking this question like the disciples, we are shaken and break open. The disciples in their terror of the great storm asked this question, ‘Do you not care that we’re perishing?’ in order to wake up Jesus from his sleep. But what really happened was their spiritual awakening to see the very presence of Jesus. Their questioning of Jesus’ inattention to their desperate need of rescue from the storm is nothing but their confession that they can’t rescue themselves. This question needs to be asked not simply to wake up Jesus from his sleep but really wake up and shake up our hearts not to lose sight of Jesus’ presence in the storm of suffering in our lives. Our question to wake up Jesus wakes up ourselves from sloth, acedia, apathy, ignorance, and indifference. Without seriously asking this question, we can’t see Jesus who is present everywhere, especially in the lives of suffering people. As the Body of Christ, it is our Christian duty to ask this question on behalf of those who are suffering, those whose voices are unheard. We first ask ourselves, “Do we not care that these people are perishing?” We wake up our hearts, our souls, and our spirits from our own indifference and apathy. We then ask the world around us, “Do you not care that these people are perishing?” The church’s role in this world is rather simple. Let’s amplify and intensify this question. Do we not care that there are some who are perishing because of the evil power in this world? Do you not care that innocent children are cut off and separated from their parents, damaging their most precious childhood? As Christians, we have to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. We must feel uneasy and far from peaceful about how the world takes its own course. Jesus isn’t asleep from our suffering. Jesus isn’t far apart. Jesus never turns his eyes away from the suffering of his neighbors, his people. Because he doesn’t, we don’t. We want to see Jesus who says, “Peace! Be Still” as he rebukes the evil power and ceases it. Today Jesus asks all of us, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? Ask me to wake up. Ask me if I care that you’re perishing?” “Oh yes, I do. I do,” says Jesus. “That’s why I died on the cross. That’s why I was raised from the dead.” With this truth that Jesus shows in his death and resurrection, my friends, we are going out to the world to tell that we care about those who are perishing in our eyes. We will rebuke the evil power, We will call it out. We will conquer fear. And we will do everything 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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