2008. 4. 13 Rev. Kang, Hyon Sik

Accepting
<Job 1:13-22, 42:1-6>

1. Unfathomable Life

We find ourselves these days at a beautiful time of the year. The earth is covered with flowers. Birds of all kinds open the mornings with their singing, and gentle breezes nudge the trees and the grass into the world of green. Spring seems to have a certain effect on our hearts, too. My children are busy picking up the flowers off the road on their way from school. Everything seems beautiful these days, so that the world looks to have only those that are beautiful and happy. We know, however, that life is not always spring. Frequently it brings things that we cannot understand, those which we can only find as mysterious. At times life brings, in an unexpected way, things which we simply cannot accept.

Job had a life that was like a day in a spring. Everything was in full bloom. He had seven sons and three daughters, all grown, and a great number of cattle and slaves. With his riches beyond comparison, Job was living a fair weather of a life, surrounded with flowers of every blessing. Furthermore, it is said that he was honest and without blame, a man who feared God and shunned evil.
But one day, a catastrophe hits job out of the blue sky. His many cattle and livestock are taken away, and his slaves are killed. News of one disaster after another finds him, leaving him in the end robbed of his entire properties. Still the greatest shocker comes at the last: a house collapses on his children, who were dining together at one place, killing all of them at once.

Job is devastated, but now he is afflicted with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. He takes a piece of broken pottery and scrapes himself with it as he sits among the ashes. His wife says, “Curse God and die!” Is what happened to Job a tale that has nothing to do with our own reality?

I remember grieving as I heard what had happened to the two grade school girls in Korea, Lee Hye-Jin and Woo Ye-Sul. I am sure their parents could never have imagined, as late as a day before the children went missing, that something like that could ever happen to them. They must have had many a sleepless night, waiting for their children return; and having found out the children’s fate, they must have refused to be comforted. What could possibly justify the death of innocent, pure children? How could it be allowed to happen in the world? How could the parents be accepting this cruel and appalling fate?

A true event: a man in Kansas was backing his car on the driveway, when he hit his three-year old son, whom he did not see. The child was killed on the scene, and the father nearly lost his mind from the shock. He subsequently parted with his wife and lived alone on therapy, yet unable to ever look at children straight. Whose sin is this, and to whom is the stone to be thrown?

The tens of thousands of people killed by the Tsunami and their families, the students who lost their lives at Virginia Tech and their parents, the young men and women who died in Iraq and other wars around the world and their mothers?how are they accepting these tragedies that came their way? How can they?

Besides these big events and disasters, there are many stories of heartache and despair both great and small in and around our lives. A student who thought he would be admitted to a college is rejected; a job applicant hears no reply; a loan request is rejected; a thriving business suddenly goes under; a child begins to hang out with wrong crowds and to touch drugs; unexpected failures and unforeseen tragedies, great and small bits of despair and discouragement, the things we simply cannot accept exist as part of our reality.

2. Choice or Acceptance?

Friends, let us first take a look back at our lives. Did we have more occasions and circumstances when we had a choice, or did we have more when we had no choice but to accept? Some say life is all about choice, but upon a closer look, we discover that the factors beyond our choice loom much larger in our life.

Truth be told, we human beings are limited in our choices. We did not choose to be born and have life. To end our lives in natural course of events is also beyond the realm of our choice. It may seem that we have come this far as a result of our own choices, but once we reflect honestly, we know that the circumstances beyond our control have often dictated the steps of our lives. Therefore, I believe that more important than the question of what to choose is how to accept. I might even go as far as to say that a person’s life depends not on what he or she chose, but how he or she has accepted the given circumstances.

Ideas such as this can be misunderstood as pessimism, a doctrine that encourages despair. But it is not the passive resignation or despair that I am proposing. I am speaking of an active acceptance, a radically foundational acceptance. It will become clearer as I speak.

Life becomes richer when we learn to accept. The many problems of life are often resolved not with a choice but with an acceptance. This I believe is the principle of life and living.

We become miserable when we cannot accept that which we really must. What make us unhappy are not the hardships that are hard to accept, but the attitude that refuses to accept that which must be but accepted. We pretend not to fail, when we do keep failing. We try to hide our weakness, when it keeps being revealed. We hide, pretend, and conceal, building the false fences in our lives around ourselves. Therefore we become restless and anxious. Anger keeps building, and there is no lasting peace; all because we have refused to accept that which must be accepted, because we have not yet learned the secret of accepting.

3. Avoidance

To accept, however, is not so easy; it is easier said than done, because it is accompanied by pain. Because of that, many seek to avoid this ‘life of acceptance.’ But pain is not a thing to be avoided at all cost. The best way to deal with pain is to experience it.

Medically speaking, the pain we feel in our body is actually an important maintenance mechanism for our health. It is part of the life system alerting us to the fact that something has gone wrong in our body, therefore warning us of the loss of balance in our health. To experience pain therefore is evidence that our life system is actively working. It is a dangerous thing to be unable to feel pain, and the effort to avoid pain is a foolish thing indeed.

The bacteria that causes leprosy is known as Hansen’s bacillus (\b?-’si-l?s\). It is known to act in ways that are friendly with the nerve cells. Gradually, however, it destroys the nerve cells and even ones that transmit pains. A person suffering from leprosy is said to feel no pain even when he loses a toe or when a nose is collapsed. Today, there are many who have ‘mental leprosy,’ those who either do not feel pain or who try to avoid it.

Pain is a signal telling us that we are alive, a sign that life goes on. In that sense, pain is a condition of blessing for our life. Through pain, we can be restored to an even greater and complete health. Let us not therefore seek to avoid pain. Let us endure it. Let us actively and boldly accept it.

4. The Road Toward Acceptance

How could we then, instead of avoiding pain, live in a way that practices acceptance? Here now is the conclusion of today’s message: we must truly accept God. When we accept God, we can then learn the way of acceptance.

Even after a terrible tragedy, where he lost all his possessions and his family, Job seemed to accept all things. “Naked we come, and naked we will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away." Upon further reading, however, we learn that he did not wholly accept his miseries and sufferings.

Job cursed the day of his birth, crying out, "May the day of my birth perishes, and the night it was said, 'a boy is born!’ May that night is barren…for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes.” How could anyone blame him? What pain and suffering he endured, after losing everything including his children?

But in our text for today, which is the last chapter of the Book, we come to a moving scene where Job comes to accept God for truly who he is. “It was me who obscured your counsel with ignorance. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I now withdraw my argument.” Repenting in dust and ashes, Job finally accepts God.

Once Job truly accepted God, he also came to finally accept all the dreadful things he experienced. Had he not known God before? Had he not believed in him? Certainly he did. He had known God and believed in him, but somehow he had done so without accepting him for who he is. To truly repent, therefore, is to truly accept God. How could we then accept God as God? Here I’d like to tell you a story.

5. Hand Let-go and Hand Trust

Henri Nouwen in his old days enjoyed watching circuses. He especially liked the trapeze, so much so that he personally befriended circus members and even learned some trapeze himself. It is a show where two persons swing back and forth high in the air, and one lets go in a swing and fly to the other, who catches him.

In this daring act, the person flying has the more important role than the one who swings from the trapeze. There are two things he must remember: first, when the right moment comes, he must let go. A split second delay would mean a fall to the floor; second, he must never try to catch his partner himself; in order to succeed, he must instead completely trust his partner to catch him. Nouwen realized that this is a perfect illustration of the principle for our faith towards God.

Here I want to apply this principle to our subject today. To accept God means to let go of the things which I had been painfully holding onto. It is to let go of those that I believed to be my safety and certainty, things which I stubbornly held. Then, it is to completely trust God so that he could catch my empty hands. When we raise our hands in surrender to God, he whose hands are skilled and whose arms are strong, will hold our hands firmly. This is the way to accept God.

People of God, is there by any chance an issue that causes you heartache, because you refused to accept it? Is there anything, instead of acknowledging and accepting, you continue to conceal and hide? Why not accept God as God; let us let go of what’s in our hands, and stretch them towards God. Let us boldly let go of the trapeze whose name is “I,” the self; the swing of my own life, own conviction and philosophy, which I trusted. Let’s raise our hands high and try surrendering to God.

Everyone who so accepts God as God will be able to accept the inexplicable life also. Not only will you be able to accept difficulty and suffering but you will know what to do in their face. That is the secret and blessing of accepting. Friends, let us do accept! Accept!

Let us pray.
O Lord,
You have endlessly accepted us in all our complaints, caprice, and unfaithfulness.
Our hearts of many sins and infirmities you have forgiven and accepted.
Who are we, that you have so loved us?
Who are we, that we have so many that we refuse to accept in our life?

O Lord,
We come back to you.
We will accept you for who you are.
We will let go and give our hands to you.
We will receive all;
Do as you will with our lives.
Do as you will.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.