Admittedly, I thought it was weird when John Yoo suggested that I preach about K Pop Demon Hunters on World Communion Sunday. But then I watched it and I admit that I get the connection. Especially for his congregation. A typical Korean church in the US will have one worship service for parents that's only in Korean, a second service for youth that's only in English, a third service for kids, everyone separated and usually speaking a different language. When John arrived at True Light, he did away with this. And now they have one service. It's a bilingual service, and the whole family attends it together.
[00:41:24]
He's invited kids to participate in leading the service, which has taken some getting used to, because there's a high value placed on being reverent in worship. And John shared that there's an assumption that kids leading worship isn't reverent because they might stumble over a word, they might giggle. So he keeps asking his congregation, what if you went to your grandma's 80th birthday party? Would you want everybody to sit really appropriately and solemnly and respectfully, or would you want people to have fun? That's how we should approach worship.
[00:42:11]
John says he's also getting quite a bit of pushback about worship being bilingual, especially from the 1.0 generation who has to struggle with English all week long in their daily lives and just wants to worship in their mother tongue on Sundays. A number of people left their congregation when they moved worship to being bilingual, which was a grief for the congregation. But John says that now the people who participate in worship understand that it's about coming together as one body. They recognize that that's always going to require some kind of compromise.
[00:42:52]
Collectively wrestling with this mixed heritage, with questions about identity and belonging, the themes of that seemingly unrelated K Pop movie, they manifest themselves in almost every decision John's congregation has to make. Who are we? What parts of ourselves are we going to accept? Are we going to make visible? How are we going to receive each other's differences?
[00:43:37]
We're all aware that culture is getting less religious and that there's a silent and not so silent exodus from the church. But John shared a study that found that the number one cause of this was youth group. As a generation of churchgoers were segregated by demographics. Kids over here, youth over there, parents over here, singles over here, seniors over there. People were exposed only to people their own age at church, only to age specific activities, music, not to other generations and interests and worship and music styles, compromise, deference to the preferences of others, concessions in order to be part of one body of believers. That wasn't part of the faith formation for so many people.
[00:44:15]
And so when people do look for a faith community, it often sounds more like shopping than it does like building a relationship. It can sound like, well, this one doesn't have the features and amenities I want. So I'm moving on rather than like no one person, no one community is going to be perfect and fulfill all my needs.
[00:45:15]
It's not that their kids don't want dishes, plates or bowls. They don't want china. They still want something to hold what nourishes them. And it's not that those who have left mainline religion don't have spiritual hungers. They're still looking for something to feed them. Or to switch up the metaphor, they're looking for what will fan the flames of their faith.
[00:46:25]
We assume that because of the the passage we just heard from second Timothy, that it's in the Bible that everybody mentioned in it had a robust faith. We assume that because the book is named after Timothy that he must have been a real go getter. But verse six, which we heard read as I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you. Here, here's what it sounds like in Greek. I encourage you to fan into flames the embers, to breathe life into the faltering flames of the gift of God that is within you.
[00:46:57]
Young Timothy has had his faith passed down to him from his grandma Lois to his mom Eunice, and now it's his. And Paul says to him, fires go out when they aren't tended. Embers grow cold. Timothy's world wasn't much different than ours. It might have even been more hyper masculine than ours. Empathy and forgiveness and love of enemies. Really pretty much everything that Jesus preached was countercultural, seen as weak, prosecution, probably even girly.
[00:47:42]
So it's surprising that when Paul is writing to Timothy, he leans into that. He reminds him he inherited his faith from his grandma and his mom. Paul says, I remember when you cried, Timothy. Paul uses this really emotional, effusive language. But then at the core of what Paul says to Timothy points out the preacher Marianne McKibben Dana. At the core of what Paul is saying is something deeply muscular, even as it's heartfelt, because Paul contrasts this Love and self discipline with cowardice.
[00:48:19]
It's courageous, Paul says, to embrace the kind of power that Jesus embodied, a self sufficient, sacrificing power, one that requires self control because otherwise your ego will take over. It's courageous to feel love. It's courageous to let your heart be broken by this world, this world that God loves. Suffering, not strength, is where we see faith.
[00:49:04]
So if your heart is broken for this world, good news, Paul says, a broken heart is how you fan the flames of your faith. They'll feed the fire of your faith. They'll motivate you to keep serving God and neighbor.
[00:49:37]
And interestingly enough, that's exactly what Peter Choi says happened to him when he looked in the rear view mirror of his upbringing in a Korean American immigrant church. Growing up, his church emphasized these mountaintop moments, emotional highs, spiritual revival, super emotional. He actually spent a lot of time literally on the top of mountains in these prayer stations. He was taught to fear ordinary moments lest it corrupt his faith. He couldn't wait to get out of his home so he could get away from the emotionality of his parents faith. But that doesn't mean he was done with Jesus.
[00:49:57]
But then, as happens to all of us, time passed and he gained a little bit more perspective on his parents and realized that in addition to their mountaintop spirituality, they were also really familiar with the valleys and the ordinary planes of life. And then Choi learned about the Korean concept of Han, and it was paradigm shifting for him.
[00:50:42]
Han is this feeling of unresolved resentment against the injustices you faced, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against you. This feeling, feeling of acute pain in your gut, even in your bowels, an obstinate urge to right a wrong. It's all of those things all tied up into one. Put another way, Han is like angst, but miles deeper because it's a resistance to structural oppression.
[00:51:11]
And Choi says once he learned about Han and saw its pervasiveness, he could empathize with his parents with how their rage, how their lament fanned the flames, fueled the fire for their spiritual renewal. It was like their spiritual kindling. Mountaintop moments can't be divorced from the valleys or the ordinary places.
[00:51:41]
Soup doesn't need to be held in a china bowl in order to nourish us. In fact, a simple loaf of bread, broken for us, broken for all of us, for the brokenness of this world is probably just what we're hungering for.
[00:52:14]
It's easy to forget how truly wide God's welcome is. But when we gather for communion with people throughout the world, we remember how truly diverse God's kingdom is across political lines and economic lines. In places of powerfully protected affluence, and among the poorest of the poor, we gather to share a meal, remembering the One who proves that shalom is possible.
[00:59:50]
Come to this table where God intends us to be nourished and and where Christ can make us new.
[01:00:32]
