2008. 2. 10 Rev. Lee, Hyun Ho

Amusing Church, Amazing Church

--Romans 12:1-2

1.

A mother came to America to see her daughter and headed back to Korea. People around her ask her, "Did you have a good time?" This is how she replied. "You see, I did eat delicious food, and I liked it, but my daughter seemed to go out every morning and evening to pay a debt for something called pickup, and I did not feel good about that." Actually, the mother's daughter wasn't in a debt, but in the morning and evening she had to go out daily to pick-up her children (pick-up), and the mother did not understand the English, so she understood it to be going out to "pay a debt for something called pickup". Our household, after being in the United States for six years, we still pay our debts every day with daily pickups! Perhaps there are many among us who also pay our debts every day with daily pickups?

2.

Nowadays people like fun things. Doesn’t it also seem that one also needs to laugh out loud once during a sermon to say, "I was filled with Grace"? Tiresome and complicated world, living the tiresome days that can give you a throbbing headache, one want to come home and relax a little bit to loosen up, and one prefers to come to the church not to hear just a preaching that is serious and touching, but one wants to hear a sermon that is soothing and comforting. In one aspect, I understand that.

Nowadays, when young people choose their spouse, they have an ABC standard. They are: Ability, Beauty (appearance), Character (Nature), Degree (education), Financial Power, Family, and the seventh is Gift. But there is one more. And that is Humor: it is that ability to give a sense of humor to entertain another. Even though A through G may by stupendous, but without a sense of humor, one does not receive a generous score as a potential spouse.

If the metaphor for life is cooking, then the need to have fun in life is comparable to spices. No matter how good the basic foodstuff is, without a proper seasoning, the cooking cannot be tasty; likewise, to have zest in life, life needs to be seasoned with a balance of humor, good times, and laughter. Especially nowadays, as more people live in the today's dull and dry era, people thirst for evermore fun, sensational excitement.

But the problem is that the quest for excitement has become central to the way of life. While it is true that condiments are important, but without a good basic foodstuff, you don’t get a good cooked meal. No one survives on condiments just because it is a delicious condiment. While condiments add taste and seasoning, the stuff that sustains our lives is good wholesome foodstuff, isn't it? The world that is excessively driven for excitement would eventually lead to no other but the experience of lives of emptiness. Although it isn't right for our lives to be boring and old fashioned, but it is also not right to seek only the pleasures of excitement in life.

3.

One winter of 2006 a reading from a newspaper somewhere in the United States which was about an interview with a pastor gave me a big jolt. Having experienced the fastest growth among the churches in the United States, with fame and attention drawn from Christendom, the pastor said this in the newspaper interview, "It is a sin for churches to be boring." Every week they borrow a large amphitheater, and with innovative thinking, the church provides constant services in their Christian worship from the moment the worshippers arrive to the moment they leave the church. The pastor's sermon is also full of laughter filled humor from the beginning to the end. When one comes to church, finding plenty of laughter, plenty of pampering and plenty of talk bring the healing from God, and the love of God, was the pastor's conviction. Every year, the church continues to experience a remarkable growth.

I have read the newspaper article, and I could not help but to nurse a feeling of irony. Must we fill churches with excitement? Is the saying 100 percent correct that the world is a tiresome place to live, so Christian churches should not tire the churchgoers? If a church seeks to raise the excitement, then who is the church for? What is the Church for? To be more specific, if Christ is not with those who seek excitement, can that church still be a church?

It is a problem to be a bore, but seeking only the excitement is a bigger problem. Christian churches should rightfully be a comfortable place of worship, but essentially that comfort is provided by God, not by an artificial contrivance. Of course, there needs to be laughter and joy in the church. I also would not like to be in a boring church. But to focus exclusively on the church catering to the enjoyment, with things to eat, plenty of praising, sermons full of laughter, and facilitating friendly fellowships, it is something to think about.

Late last year, my wife home pickled cabbage kimchi and radish kimchi. But only after a few days after the home pickling, both cabbage and radish started to unexpectedly ferment, and so spoiled they became they became inedible. They were pickled as usual, with right amounts of salt and spices, but there must have been something wrong with the beets and cabbage. Because of the quantity of spoilage, depending on the day, we had all kinds of kimchi soups, stir fried kimchi, and kimchi pancakes. It was a really trying time.

If there is only excitement but no meaning, then it is like a pickled kimchi that went bad. It starts with good foodstuff. It must have meaning. To pursue excitement at a loss to the meaning is to find emptiness at the end. We are not living for fun. You must have meaning. Upon a dramatic survival from Auschwitz, Victor Frankl has made a legacy of plenty of deep impressions in his widely received books and lectures: He said, "One finds a reason to continue living when one discovers the meaning of life." People have lost the meaning to a life becomes at a loss as to whether to continue with his living. If zest is the spice of life, then meaning brings the existence to life.

4.

Apostle Paul's words, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world," (12:2 a) is a saying that seems to tell us to not to indulge in excessive pursuit of excitement in today's pattern of the world. There may be many things that we should not compromise easily to the 'trend of the era.' Without precisely enumerating, they can be excessive opportunism, excessive consumerism, materialism, excessive personal selfishness, family paternalism, and collective paternalism, and excessive competition. Paul is adamant about these things. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world!"

Telling us to not to indulge in excesses of today's pattern of the world is a word of caution. More specifically, "Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is!" (12:2 b). What is God's will? It is God's bestowed meaning. Where God says there is "meaning" one can find God's will. His will is the meaning. We should not have to live to pursue life in the individualistic context, but we should seek meaning as a people of God in Christ in our lives. It is not the fortuitously encountered meaning, but we should seek to find the meaning in God's light.

What is the 'meaning' or 'import' of things? It points to the 'mystery' inside. God's will is God's mysterious ways. To discern the will of God is to read into God's ways. We do not even know the ways of another, how are we to read God's ways? Because He has revealed His ways unto us, we are able to discern His ways. We call this 'revelation.' Because without our knowledge God has beforehand revealed unto us, so this is what John Wesley meant by 'the grace upon grace'. God has bestowed us with Grace such that His will is revealed unto us.

Jesus Christ is God's very Mystery. We see that John's astounding declaration, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14) can be solved in this context. The meaning of what is said is held by the source of the word. Word's incarnation is the very incarnation of the meaning (import) of the Word. God having been become of flesh among us he did not veil but reveal all of his Mystery unto us. The salvation delivered unto us by Jesus Christ is the very Mystery of God (meaning, import). He was born of man, and started his work of salvation among the commoners, and became friends among those living with sighs, pains and hurt from of the sinful world, the message of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, marching with a cross towards his inevitable place of death, is the very heart of God's meaning. That is the meaning upon meaning.

5.

Meaningful living as Christians clarifies and shows the intention of God and responds to the calling of Jesus for us to live the intention of God. It is that willing endeavor to live like Him and become his disciples. Living His intention is just “offering our bodies, living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,” and this is your “spiritual act of worship to God.”

It is not desirable to be bored, but being meaningless is truly a sin. On this point, we should say differently like this, “it is a sin for a church not to be meaningful.” “A meaningless church, that is, a church that doesn’t discern the real intention of God is just like committing sins.”

Learning the intention of God within Jesus Christ, which is the true meaning of life; becoming disciples of Jesus who made the God’s intention come to true, those are, I firmly believe, the rightful worship and an appropriate communion we should pursue as a church.

Dear fellow believers, are you uncomfortable with this belief? Is it a burden on you? How much do you put up with the discomfort of standing long lines, forgoing sleep, on the Black Friday in order to buy 80% discounted brand name’s bags and clothes? Don’t you think the Christ gospel have any worth to us? Isn’t it worthy of coming church, enduring the burden and the discomfort? Jesus Christ endured great discomfort and the biggest burden for us completely.

Dear fellow believers, is it boring to listen to such a story and too heavy subject? Yes. It is heavy and may be boring, but it is a significant story. It is the story that becomes the Ground of being of us. Like the expression of Paul Tillich, a great theologian in 20th century, the Lord is “The Ground of being.” The story of salvation of the Lord and the story of Jesus Christ are the meaning why we are alive. It is the motive force of subsistence and aliveness.

It may not be fun talking about such a story, but it surely is a delight. What we truly need is not fun but delight. Meaning provides us delight. Those who had done the meaningful things know that fun is an instant, but the meaningful delight displays lasting power from inside us. This is the reason why the word of “fun” is shown only one time in the Bible, but “delight” is shown many times in it, especially in the Psalms. In the Psalms 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” You feel true delight only in the Lord because He is the only the true meaning. In the longest verse 119 of Psalms, the word of delight comes 9 times. It all related to the lessons, commandments, rules, and admonitions of the Lord. The life with the intention of the Lord is accompanied with the true pleasure. The meaning and delight also come with.

6.

There is something we need so as not to conform to the excitement-seeking pattern of this world but to live according to God’s will. That is “to be transformed by renewing of your (our) mind (12:2).” Renewing our mind and living a transformed life through it-that is the true meaning of ‘repentance.’

Lent is a season for repentance. It is the season for transformation by renewing our minds. Repentance does not simply mean seeking forgiveness for hurting someone’s feelings the other day, but further finding the renewed meaning of life, looking back our past with sincerity, living today with measured breath, and determining for tomorrow so as to live that meaning. In other words, discerning “what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God” and living life according to His will and therefore presenting the entirety of our being, the entirety of our life as “reasonable service… that is acceptable to God” ? these are the very essence of repentance.

Also, Lent is the season for thinking about Jesus, who fell on his knees and prayed in tears so as to live God’s will, not his own will (Matthew 26:39), and finally fulfilled God’s will (John 19:30). Lent might not be a season for excitement, but it is a season full of meaning.

Excitement makes us laugh, but cannot truly transform us. Excitement adds spice to life, but cannot complete life. What transforms us is “meaning.” Meaning gives us a true sense of joy. God’s will - meaning upon meaning - makes us happy. In living life according to God’s will, there is salvation.

For the title of my today’s sermon in English, I settled on “Amusing Church, Amazing Church.” A truly amazing church is not about having fun, excitement-oriented, or amusing, but a community of people taking a journey of faith together, trying to discern God’s will, which is the meaning upon meaning, and living life according to that will despite various inconveniences. Our church, Korean United Methodist Church of Greater Washington, might not be so ‘amusing,’ but I want us to be a community of faith that is ‘amazing.’ I hope that we will be a community of faith, serving one another, rejoicing in Christ, and struggling in one heart and one mind to live a life in accordance with God’s will, which is the true meaning of life.
Lent has begun. I pray that all of us living in the season of Lent in 2008 will joyfully answer His holy calling and the Holy Spirit will take hold of us, so we can live out His will by thanksgiving.

Lord, You are the true meaning of our lives.
You are also the true joy of our lives.
Please help us seek
Your will in all circumstances and understand Your will wisely.
Transform us to live a holy life fulfilling
Your will just like Jesus Christ had done so that our lives are dedicated as a living sacrifice and worship that are pleasing to You.
In Jesus Name, Amen