“The Body of Christ at Young Nak: Courage and Sacrifice”

(Joshua 1:1-9 and Luke 9:23-27)

          How many of you have either read or seen onscreen Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club?  A series of intertwined stories of first and second generation Chinese American women, with chapters about adult daughters who have grown up here in the States sharing the stage with flashbacks to the lives of their mothers as young women in China.

          Some deeply painful memories are recalled, in the mix; before I went to see the movie, all my friends warned me to bring a lot of Kleenex. I did, but as I sat through one powerful scene after another, I was a little surprised to discover I wasn’t choking up like those around me.  Perhaps because I was so familiar with the book itself, I was certainly moved, but wasn’t entirely caught off guard.  I knew what was coming.

But then came the scene with a long line of Chinese refugees leaving their homes, walking for hundreds of miles to escape the communist invasion, tossing ever more valuable possessions to the sides of the road because they simply didn’t have the strength to carry them anymore.  One young woman even sets down her own babies under a tree, convinced she’s about to die, hoping against hope that some generous soul will look after them for her. 

And that’s where I lost it.  I knew it was coming, but as I watched the action unfold onscreen, I couldn’t put out of my mind another picture – a photograph, actually, of a little Korean girl, that hangs on our wall at home. The only photograph, we’re told, that made it out of North Korea with her family, when they fled the communists in the 1940’s. Ken’s mom, you see, was one of those little ones being carried, as photographs and other valuables were tossed to the side of the road, in the North Korean version of that same refugee story. (slide of North Korean refugees)

          Crowds of people - kids, parents, grandparents, clutching what is most valuable to them, having left the rest behind.  Long lines of tired, hungry, displaced people stretching out as far as the eye can see, and beyond. (second slide of N. Korean refugees) It’s a scene that has been replayed far too many times in world history; we see it today seemingly in more places than we can count.  It’s important to know, as we turn our attention this morning to Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Seoul, Korea (exterior photo of church), that the roots of a congregation now 50,000 members strong lie precisely in that refugee experience.

          When I imagine those who fled North Korea in the 1940’s and then, before they had even built homes for themselves in Seoul, began pouring their limited resources into building a church, I can only imagine the tape playing in their heads at that time must have sounded an awful lot like the Lord’s words to Joshua. “Be strong and courageous. I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for the Lord is with you wherever you go.  Only be strong and courageous.”  Clearly, they also lived today’s gospel lesson, about denying themselves and taking up their cross for the sake of Christ.  What a powerful example of risking their own lives (devaluing things like personal comfort and security), in order to find fullness of life in serving Christ.

          Personal sacrifices continued at Young Nak even after the church was built. (slide of whole monument).  One of them is memorialized just outside the sanctuary entrance. The text of the tribute reads as follows (close up shot)

“The elder, Eung Nak Kim, died as a martyr in this church during the Korean War in 1950.  With the landing of the allied forces at Inchon in late September of that year, the news was brought to him that the communist troops had abandoned the church building.  Thinking only of protecting the church from possible vandalism, he entered the church ground on September 23 [57 years ago today], and was arrested by the communist soldiers who had not yet left the premises.  Declaring calmly, “I am an elder of this church,” he was subjected to torture and executed that day near the altar.  Thus he became the first martyr of this church which he had devoted his last years to help build.  Mr. Kim was 45 years old when he died.”

How completely this dwarfs anything I’ve been asked to do in service of the church.  Talk about courage, and sacrifice.

          Now that South Korean fortunes have changed so radically (slide of highly populated city of Seoul), now that the city of Seoul has become far more affluent, and its people far more comfortable (slide of brake lights during rush hour in Seoul), we might well wonder if Young Nak’s history of courage and sacrifice is in the past.  But we saw encouraging signs that this was not the case. 

          Today, members of Young Nak (slide of sanctuary interior) are still encouraged to give sacrificially to the church – to give until it hurts.  For if you give a great deal of money, but it costs you little, what good is that?  Pastors at Young Nak regularly preach tithing (giving 10 percent of one’s earned income) and even far more. 

The same sacrificial spirit is invoked when calling church members to hands on service in the various ministries and missions of the church.  And when inviting them to early morning prayer services.  While some of us might question whether gathering for worship at 5 a.m. every day is the Spirit’s leading, the assumption at Young Nak - like so many other Korean congregations – is that faithful Christians won’t be deterred from worshipping the living God because of something so trivial as an early hour!

          That’s not to say the leadership of Young Nak doesn’t have a battle on its hands.  The Sunday we were there, the senior pastor warned his congregation that capitalism is as great a danger as communism, in terms of the threat it poses to the faithfulness of Korean Christians.  In fact, he worries that when North and South Korea are finally unified, and North Koreans are introduced to a far better quality of life, they will be drawn in by consumerism before they even have a chance to be introduced to Christianity.  It is vital, he insists, that his church community share the gospel message with North Korean refugees who are finding their way to Young Nak even now.

          It would seem, then, that churches in Seoul are beginning to face challenges similar to those faced by contemporary American congregations.  As their most serious external threats fade away (no longer are most in their congregation struggling to feed their families, no longer are they called to give their lives as martyrs to defend the church), the difficulties they face are more internal to the community, and to the individuals within it.

After all, in the context of refugees fleeing an invading army, sacrifice was a given.  It was simply a question of whether that North Korean sacrifice could be redeemed, whether any good could come from it.  But for those who now regularly shop at the enormous new CoEx Mall in Seoul (which could give Bellevue Square a run for its money), the notion of ‘sacrifice’ begins to sound a little strange, as it does to us.

          Interestingly, it was actually far closer to home that we heard a great way of addressing this same issue.  We were worshiping one Saturday evening in August over at the Church of the Apostles in Fremont, when their pastor said: “Think about your church.  Is it a pain in your … (well, “arse” was the word she so delicately used).  Is it a pain to be part of your community of faith? 

          A number of church members there live in what are called “intentional communities,” so part of what she was after was that getting along with our fellow Christians is much harder in practice than it is in theory.  It’s easy to talk about loving one another, but for a diverse bunch of Christians to together in the same house and share the same bathroom without at times wanting to kill each other – that’s another thing entirely…

          But she went on that night to ask the question even more pointedly.  “Where else is it a pain, to be a member of this congregation?  Is it a pain in your calendar?” she challenged.  “A pain in your checkbook?” And if not, she continued, then why not?”

          We who know how overextended many church members already feel were thinking:  Is she nuts?  This is dangerous stuff! We’re supposed to woo people into our church families by making it easy on them, aren’t we?  Just a nice friendly place, fun for your kids, low impact on the adults, worship can be a largely spectator sport if you want it to be.  We don’t ask too much of you.  We just want you to feel at home here.

          But how far is that from the message of Jesus, who more often than not left ‘em squirming in their seats? 

          The Korean church has its flaws, as all churches do.  As a general rule, Korean pastors work so hard they rarely see their families.  There can be too much rigidity about traditions, Korean and otherwise.  There are even some who seem to seek out denial for its own sake, and not for the sake of Christ.

But there is also much we can learn from a church like Young Nak.

Halfway around the world, the leadership of that church is inviting the congregation back to their roots.  By celebrating the centennial of a great Christian awakening in North Korea in 1907 (slide of1907 mural).  By remembering great heroes of the past (slide of early missionaries to Korea, and then of Pastor Han Kyung Chik, who founded the church, with 27 other refugees, in 1945). And above all by calling their current membership to a new, 21^st century revival. 

I invite us to consider what that scary “R” word (revival) might look like here?

Maybe it starts at Tuesday Night Live this fall, with greater focus on a smaller subset of ministries, so that our teams find they can enjoy prayer and study together, in the midst of the business.

Maybe the groups that form on those second Tuesdays will serve as a catalyst for more small groups to sprout up around the church – a grass-roots movement that will ultimately prove far more effective than pastoral attempts to schedule such groups. 

Maybe we will start out on the youth team talking about monthly fellowship activities… and find ourselves in a year or two on a church-wide mission trip. 

Maybe we will start out on the adult nurture team scheduling teachers for 9:15 Bible study … and find ourselves challenged to radically rethink our priorities in light of the gospel texts we’re studying there. 

Maybe we will start out in Session talking about the church budget … and find ourselves moving into far broader conversations about money and discipleship. 

In other words, maybe what starts as a way to address the busyness of our little church can free us up to invest far more of ourselves in the real substance of our faith.

          Where is God inviting our courage in this new season of our life together?  And if, as I believe, we are not with Korean pastors called to sacrifice our personal health, or that of our families, what are we called to sacrifice? 

If the church is “a pain in our arse,” but no good is coming from it, for heaven’s sake, let’s put ourselves out of our misery!

But if we don’t find ourselves squirming a little …

If we aren’t experiencing spiritual growing pains, both individually and as a community…

If we don’t feel the pinch in our calendars and our checkbooks, then the difficult truth is that the gospel message hasn’t gotten inside us. 

          Together with Young Nak Presbyterian Church, let us be strong and courageous, as we listen together for what the Spirit is saying to the Church.  Amen.