"Love's the Reason"

Fun in the Sun

February 22, 2009

Mark 9:2-9

Richard C. Choe ©

Transfiguration

Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

* * *

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

* * *

Love’s the reason.

Q&A is the title of a book by Vikas Swarup, a career Indian diplomat. The book was inspired partly by the story of Harshvardhan Nawathe, a 27 year old to who won ten million rupees – about a quarter million dollars – on September 24, 2000 in India’s version of the American game show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

In Q&A Swarup wove a story of an orphan with the realities of Mumbai – one of the most culturally diverse cities where the gap between the rich and the poor is just unimaginable for those of us living in Canada.

Slumdog Millionaire, a simplified and “sanitized” version of the book, is nominated for 10 Oscars, including the best picture category. I will be rooting for Slumdog Millionaire at tonight’s Academy Awards.

Love is the reason why Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from Mumbai’s Dharavi slum enters the contest in Slumdog Millionaire. Winning the money was not the reason that Jamal entered the game show. He was after a chance to reunite with Latika, his lost love, whom he knew would be watching the show. Jamal wins 20 million rupees – about $500,000 – in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire and reunites with Latika.

I liked the movie. But I kept comparing the movie with the original book. This is one of the challenges in watching a movie version of the book. Regardless of how well the movie is made, it cannot fully capture the complexities and the subtleties of your own imagination of reading a book. I felt that the plotline was too linear and not as complex as the original story. But, how can you tell a whole book in two hours?

Describing church, I think, is akin to describing the relationship between the book and the movie based on the book. What the screen writer does to the book is similar to how we try to express our understanding of faith in relation to the vision of the Jesus movement which began about two thousand years ago. What we do here at KRU, how we practice our faith through worship and our work – how we relate with one another here in this place and with the people around us – are only facets of the vision of God’s community lived out and expressed by Jesus of Nazareth and his followers.

The answers to questions like “Why are you here?” or “What is church?” would be different for each person. For some of us, church means a place where we grew up. It is a place where we and our relatives and friends got baptized, married, and were eulogized in funerals.

For some of us church conjures up feelings of nationalism and pride in being Canadian. Some associate our faith with the memories of prayers and vigils during the war years when we desperately prayed for the safe return of the loved ones. For some church is a place of memories of being consoled and consoling those whose uncles, sisters, husbands, and aunts came back wounded or who did not return, forever lost at the battlefields in Europe and Asia.

There are others for whom church is a place where a lunch is shared on Fridays during the harsh winter months. For some church is a place of warmth and welcoming.

Each of those stories about church, although meaningful and wonderful, does not fully describe being church as Jesus of Nazareth envisioned.

There are “not-so-wonderful” sides of being church. Being made up of human beings, there are disagreements and, at times, dissensions arise amongst us here. There are times when we are not able to show our regard or respect for one another.

Why our reality of being church falls short of the original vision of Jesus of Nazareth is mostly due to our human condition. We are trying to become one but are not there yet.

Like the movie Slumdog Millionaire in comparison to Q&A, the complex original story, the faith that we practice and how we are church in our community at KRU reflects only parts of the original vision of being church espoused by Jesus more than 2000 years ago.

The director of Slumdog Millionaire flashes Latika’s illuminated face at various points of the movie to capture and to express the love between her and Jamal. Latika’s face symbolizes love that represents their childhood. Latika’s face illumines a love that survived poverty, separation, violence, and chaos. It is a love that helped them to survive through moments of hopelessness and eventually healed their wounds. It is a love that represents naiveté and hope in society accentuated by greed and fast changes. Their love for each other eventually gave them courage to boldly move into the future with hope. Pictures, indeed, speak a thousand words.

The story we heard today about transfiguration, or metamorphosis in Greek, also captured the imagination of being church – a community of God’s beloved – for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. The story was so important that Mark, Matthew, and Luke recorded the event. The story of transfiguration illuminated the understanding of the mission and ministry for the followers of Jesus.

It is a scene where three of Jesus’ disciples witnessed Jesus’ physical body being changed, Jesus conversing with heroes of his faith and cultural community – Moses and Elijah – and heard a voice of God.

Like the illuminated face of Latika representing a thousand facets of love between her and Jamal, the story of transfiguration represents God’s call to us to work toward establishing a community based on God’s love and the struggles of establishing such community.

Like Jesus’ disciples, Peter, James and John, Christian communities struggled with the temptations of “settling down” to build shrines in memory of Jesus. Over the centuries, churches often forgot that Jesus called his disciples to go back down the mountain and share the experience of hearing God’s voice with the rest of the world. The transfiguration story reminds us that the Way of Jesus was a movement to establish a community based on God’s love to the end of the earth.

Churches continue to struggle with the temptation of “settling in” high up at the mountain set apart from the rest of the world at the expense of the mission to feed, heal and free people. Buildings or entitlement of power within church becomes a primary focus when a faith community loses sight of its mission.

The story of transfiguration also reminds us of the times when we “conversed” with ancestors of our faith community, like the way Jesus conversed with Moses and Elijah. “How did you do it, Mom?” “How did you walk through the difficulties of being church when there were divisions and conflict?” “How did you minister together when the membership and resources dwindled?” “How did you deal with the fear of the immense responsibilities of being church?” “How did the leadership emerge faithfully when the congregation needed clarity and direction for its ministry?” “How was God’s presence experienced in your time?”

The transfiguration story also reminds us of how God has illuminated us with love. We remember the times when we were able to embrace ourselves as beloved. Do you remember being in love? Do you remember how you found it impossible to hide the love you were experiencing? Do you remember experiencing God’s presence in times of sorrow and in times of celebration?

As church we are called to feed the hungry, heal the sick and free those who are imprisoned in body as well as in mind and in spirit. That is our primary mission of being the church of Jesus Christ with our body, mind, and spirit.

Each Sunday worship and each act of ministry here and around KRU, we try our best to illumine love of God. We continue to listen for the voice of God within us and amongst us when we gather. We are encouraged by Jesus to go down the mountain, to open ourselves and to serve those in need. And we acknowledge that Jesus’ vision of God’s beloved community is the vision we follow. We also commit ourselves that we will continue to tell that illumination of love throughout our lives. We share the stories of love that invite us to embrace one another as God’s gift. The stories of love that offer hope for all. The stories of love that transform us to become love for all.

Love was the reason Jesus took his disciples up to the mountain. Love was the reason the disciples experienced Jesus’ transformation. Love was the reason they heard God’s voice. And, love was the reason why Jesus and his disciples went down the mountain.

Love is the reason why we are gathered here. Love is the reason why we are challenged by God’s love to open our minds and hearts wide open to embrace our neighbours. Love is the reason why we are continually challenged to be transformed by God’s call to embody and enliven God’s love in our world.

Love is the reason.

Amen.

"Love: Now and Forever"

February 15, 2009
Black History Month

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

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A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

* * *

Love. Now and forever.

All of us seek something that can last forever. Anything of value, in our imagination and understanding, is something that lasts forever. Whether it is something tangible, like a diamond, or the love of your life, something that lasts forever is what we search for in life.

We seek things that will last forever perhaps because of our temporal nature of life. As we get older we are more aware of the fact that nothing lasts forever. So, we seek things – tangible and intangible – that could last forever. Look at all the commercials and advertisements. Anywhere from “Built Tough” to “Forever in Blue Jeans” we see the human longing for things that will last a long time.

A leper came to Jesus and begged him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” “If you choose, Jesus, you can heal me from my physical illness that burdens my whole being,” the leper pleaded with Jesus. “If you will, Jesus, you can lift me from the neglect, the isolation, the degradations, and the humiliations I live through each and every day, that has lasted forever,” the leper appealed to Jesus.

Have you ever had such an experience that has burdened your whole being? Where the angry stares of neighbours and strangers seemed to burn into you? Where your presence seemed to bring out the worst in people? When your physicality defined and confined you from being less than your whole self? When the searing pain of existence seemed to last forever?

A few weeks ago my friend, Glenn, and I went to see the movie, Gran Torino. We both like Clint Eastwood. And we both love Ford Gran Torinos, one of the most recognizable cars of our youth from the 1970s TV series, “Starsky & Hutch.” “Zebra Three” was the radio call sign for them as they tore through the streets of “Bay City” in Starsky’s two-door red Ford Gran Torino.

As a movie, Gran Torino has a remarkably diverse ethnicity of people. Each and every ethnic stereotype is pushed to the extreme limit. Walt Kowalski, the main character, played by Clint Eastwood, is a Polish American retired auto worker who lives with the demons of the Korean War. His barber is Italian. They are both macho men who can only talk to each other with offensive name calling and crude jokes. The taxi driver is Sikh. The tailor looks Lebanese.

You see African American youth and Hispanic American youth in the ghetto portrayed as stereotypical thug wannabees. Kowalski’s children and the White working class neighbours have all moved out of the neighbourhood as the Hmong Americans move in. The Hmong youth are no exception – they also form gangs to belong and to defend themselves from other gangs. Everyone seems to be stuck in typical racial-ethnic stereotypes. Everyone seems to be afraid of one another. Everyone seems to have grudges against one another.

Everything changes when Walter Kowalski begins to interact with Thao and his feisty sister, Sue Vang Lor, his Hmong neighbours. The relationship that begins with Thao trying to steal Walt Kowalski’s 1972 Gran Torino, in the end, transforms all three of them. Three strangers from vastly different backgrounds learn to love and embrace one another.

Walt Kowalski is gradually transformed into a loving surrogate father to the two young people. Then, in the end, Kowalski offers his own life for the lives of his Hmong American neighbours. Thao and Sue Vang Lor’s lives are “cleansed” with Kowalski’s ultimate sacrifice.

Walt Kowalski, a grumpy old man living the nightmares of the past, ultimately chooses love – his “now and forever” – and becomes the Christ figure for his neighbours.

“If you choose, you can make me clean,” the leper said to Jesus. “I do choose. Be made clean!” Jesus proclaimed. The leper was healed and cleansed of the illness and became the message – God’s healing love. The leper who thought he was lost from God’s love and compassion was found by Jesus’ healing.

“If you choose, you can become love, now and forever,” Walt Kowalski heard a voice within himself. “I do choose. Let me be the Christ figure for my neighbour and lay my life for them,” was the embodiment of Walt Kowalski’s love for his neighbour. A man who was once lost from his own life and from the lives of his children and his neighbours was found by his new neighbours’ healing presence. He was once blind to his neighbours’ humanity but was able to see how compassion could bring out his humanity even from a tortured past.

The moment of healing became “now and forever” for the leper. He became the message of Jesus’ healing and God’s eternal love for all of us. The moment of self sacrifice of Walt Kowalski became the message of how humanity can leap across the chasm of prejudices and hatred when people reach out to one another with compassion.

As we celebrate “Black History Month” in our worship service, we remember how racial prejudices and hatred have blinded us all from our humanity and God’s compassion. We remember how God’s generous gifts of faith helped peoples of African descent move beyond enslavement, injustice, and degradation to stand tall with dignity.

This is what Rev. James Lawson, known as the “militant non-violent preacher,” wrote as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Statement of Purpose on May 14, 1960 during the “Civil Rights” struggles for African Americans and other ethnic minorities in the United Staes.

“Love is the central motif of nonviolence. Love is the force by which God binds humanity to God and with one another. Such love goes to the extreme; it remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It matches the capacity of evil to inflict suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all the while persisting in love.” [i]

We acknowledge the continuing angry glares that burn up possibilities of forming genuine relationships with one another. We acknowledge how skin colours continue to define and confine us from cherishing one another as neighbours in this global village. We acknowledge that sticks and stones will break bones and that names do hurt. And that sticks and stones and name callings hurt all of us in the end.

In our remembering of the dis-ease of and segregations of our Black sisters and brothers, we hear the voice of Jesus, “I do choose. Be made clean!” “I do choose. Be made clean of the hatred toward you. You are and you have always been loved by God.”

In our acknowledging of the malady of the continuing racial prejudices and hatred within us and in our society, we hear the voice of the leper, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” “If you choose, Jesus, you can make us clean of the illness of prejudices and hatred within us and within our society.” “If we choose, we can be healed of the malady that blinds us from seeing our neighbours as members of God’s family – our family.”

Love calls us to become the love, now and forever, for our neighbours. Love heals us to become the love, now and forever. Love reminds us to choose love, now and forever.

Amen.

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[i] Rev. James Lawson, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Statement of Purpose, May 14, 1960. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsncc.htm.

"Saved by Love"

Mark 1:21-28
February 1, 2009
The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

* * *

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

* * *

Saved by love.

There was a man who had seven different masks. He wore one for each day of the week. He would cover his face immediately as soon as he got up in the morning. He would then get dressed and go to work. He lived without ever showing his true face.

One night, while he was sleeping, a thief stole all his masks. When he woke up and realized what happened, he ran out of the house to look for his masks. His neighbours saw him running up and down the street cursing the world. He spent the entire day looking for the thief and his masks, but to no avail. Desperate and inconsolable, he broke down. No one seemed to be able to comfort his loss.

A woman passing by stopped and asked him, “What’s the matter, my friend? Why are you crying? He looked up and answered, chocking back his tears, “They stole my masks and with my face exposed like this, I feel so vulnerable.” “Take comfort from me,” she said to him, “I have always shown my face from the day I was born.”

He looked at her face for a long time and saw that she was beautiful and confident. The woman bent down, smiled at him and wiped away his tears. For the first time in his life, the man felt the softness of a caress on his face.[i]

Like the man with the seven masks we, too, struggle with a fear of showing who we really are to those around us. “What would people see in me? What if they don’t like what they see in me? What if I don’t measure up to their expectations?” These questions of “what ifs” diminish us and yet we continue to struggle with them. So we show others about what we want others to think we are – the external and superficial things. And for some of us, the masks we wear eventually define and confine our identity.

Growing up for many of us often means learning to cover and hide our true self with masks of what Carl Jung called persona –“the social self resulting from our efforts to conform to the social, moral and educational norms of our milieu.”[ii] The word persona is derived from a Greek word prosopon – meaning the mask actors wore to portray a character.

Our fear of showing our true self also affects the way we see others. Our fears prevent us from seeing others as who they really are. When we carry our preconceived notions and prejudices, we encounter “our projections of what we think people are” rather than their true selves. We project our fears – the things that make us unwell and unbalanced – to those we meet. It is true that we are who we meet – and we meet who we are.

And yet, there is a sense of sadness within us that no one seems to really understand who we really are. We long to connect with our true self and discover who we really are. There is a deep longing in us to be able to see and connect authentically with those we encounter in life.

The Church is no exception in struggling to understand who we really are, who others are, and who God calls us to be as community together. “When you look for it, you will find it.” Dr. Hazel Bigby, one of my mentors, advised me when I was about to intervene in a crisis that was destroying a congregation. She shared her wisdom that there is a tendency for people to project their fears onto those who are in conflict with them. And that individuals experiencing crisis often experience their own fear as the reality of the entire community. Hazel reminded me that a self-fulfilling prophesy stemming from fear was often the primary cause for diminishing congregations and individuals within from being whole.

What diminishes us as a congregation? How do we discern together who God wants us to be as church?

“Be silent, and come out of him!” Jesus commanded an unclean spirit to be silent and to leave the man. Jesus healed the man by emptying him of the unclean spirit that diminished and limited him from being whole. Jesus healed the man by confronting the spirit that prevented him from being whole. Jesus saw beyond the man’s external self. By placing this story as the first public ministry of Jesus, the Gospel writer Mark emphasized that healing – removing things that diminish people from being whole – was the priority of Jesus’ ministry.

For the Gospel writer Mark, to be fully human is to be able to experience authentic connection with God and with one’s neighbours as beloved. To experience life anything less than whole is to experience an unclean spirit within. According to Mark Jesus restored a man on the Sabbath to become whole again by commanding the unclean spirit to leave him. Healing is about restoration. It is about restoring us to reconnect with God and our neighbours as beloved. Healing begins when we are confronted with truth and empties us of feelings and ideas that confine us and disconnect us from God and our neighbours. It is about reconnecting with our true self – the self who is loved and the self who loves. Each healing moment is an experience of God’s presence.

Healing of our relationships – restoration of our relationships – begins when we see who we really are as the beloved of God. Being church together is about experiencing healing and living out our conviction that God loves all of God’s creation. Being church is living out that proclamation in and through our actions.

We gather here to witness and to celebrate the baptism of Abigail Ross Hewitt, a daughter of Tanis and Christopher.

Baptism is an event through which we affirm our belief that Abigail is a beloved child of God and that she, along with all of us here, is called to love herself and the rest God’s creation. It is also a time of God calling us to be rid of the “unclean spirits” within us and put down the masks we wear that block us from being fully human. The baptism of a child is also a time of “remembering” how our face was once bare, uncovered, authentic. It is a moment of remembering to live as fully as God intended us to be.

Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian, wrote the following words:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history;
therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
Therefore we are saved by love.[iii]

It is with hope that we continue to work together to build a community where we can uncover our true selves. It is with faith that we connect with individuals within our faith community to become whole together. It is with love that we extend our hands with individuals and communities in our neighbourhood and the rest of God’s beloved in building a world that cherishes everyone as beloved.

We are indeed saved by love that uncovers us. We are indeed saved by love that heals and restores us as we encounter people soul to soul. May we continue to be saved by hope, faith and love.
Amen.

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[i] John Monbourquette, How to Befriend Your Shadow: Welcoming Your Unloved Side (Ottawa: Novalis, 2001), 36.
[ii] John Monbourquette, How to Befriend Your Shadow, 37.
[iii] Reinhold Neibuhr, The Irony of American History in Sam M. Intrator & Megan Scribner, eds., Leading from within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead (San Francisco: A Wiley Imprint, 2007), 15.