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216th General Assembly (2004)Richmond, Virginia
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Sermons |
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Should those who put in their time from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM be rewarded differently than the ones who worked only an hour? |
I was seven years old when my family immigrated to the United States, but I remember the exact moment I knew I had become a true American. It wasn’t the day I received my citizenship; it was the day I thought to myself: We gotta do something about all these foreigners coming into this country! Yeah, I think I was about twelve years old then. Recently, I watched Martin Scorsese’s latest film called “Gangs of New York,” a fascinating story about immigrant gangs at war with one another in the mid 1800s. In one scene, “Nativist” gangsters of Anglo-Saxon and Irish stock are at the docks, greeting the new immigrants with flying garbage and verbal abuse such as, “Go back to Ireland, you dumb Micks, you bog-Irish gyps!” Imagine that – American born Irish showering utter contempt upon Irish born Irish. There is something about human nature that equates longevity and tenure with a sense of rightful claim. In how many churches do the longest running members, those who “put in their time,” feel the greatest claim on the identity and mission of their congregation, regardless of the issue of faithfulness, vision or maturity? I believe this passage in Matthew 20 gives us a corrective to that view. Should those who put in their time from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM be rewarded differently than the ones who worked only an hour? This parable is ultimately about the difference between our time and God’s time, what the Greeks called chronos and kairos. The modern business world tells us that “time is money,” but this phrase seemed just as current to the setting in Palestine some 2,000 years ago. As is his custom, Jesus paints a picture of what the kingdom of heaven is like using everyday scenarios. He tells a story of a landowner who hires laborers throughout the day to work in his vineyard. At the end of the day, there is some grumbling among the workers. The problem wasn’t about fairness, it was about jealousy. Those who had worked twelve hours were envious of those who had worked only one hour and yet received the full day’s wage. They were essentially saying: Time (chronos) is money, and since we put in more time, we should receive more money. The landowner had quite a different perspective. He was fair to the first
workers, paying them the full day’s wage as agreed, but he was generous
with the workers hired later in the day, even those who were hired in
the last hour, paying them all a daily wage. Is it not his prerogative
to go beyond fairness to generosity for those he chooses? Jesus was teaching
that chronological time means very little to an eternal God. For the laborers,
God chooses just the right time, the right kairos moment, to call them
to work in God’s vineyard. |
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The Western church has often treated the churches of the eleventh hour as less worthy to receive God’s grace and to lead Christ’s church. |
In the context of 2,000 years of church history the church in Korea too is a latecomer. I thank God for the Roman Catholic missionaries and Korean Catholic converts who were persecuted and killed by the native monarchy for a hundred years, paving the way for Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries from the United States to preach the gospel beginning in 1884. Last year, the National Korean Presbyterian Council of the PCUSA’s Racial Ethnic Ministries Unit met in Hawaii to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration to the United States (that was our “official” reason for meeting in Hawaii). For the Korean people, that automatically means the 100th anniversary of the first Korean Presbyterian church on US soil. (In Israel, they have a phrase: “two Jews, three opinions.” Among Koreans, my observation is: “three Koreans, two churches.” Those of you involved in Administrative Commissions overseeing conflicted Korean churches know what I’m talking about. Like former president Bill Clinton once said, “I feel your pain.”) This year, 2004, marks the 120th anniversary of Protestantism in Korea. In those 120 years, Korea has produced the single largest Presbyterian congregation in the world with over 50,000 members, has become the second largest missionary-sending country (after the US), and claims double the number of Presbyterians (5 million members) compared to the US, with only 17% of the US population. And yet, the ecclesiastical climate in America is such that Scotland
is still looked to as the fount of “pure” Presbyterianism, while
Korean Presbyterianism is seen as a youthful upstart. We must remember
that both Judaism and Christianity began as Asian religions, yet Christians
everywhere acknowledge that the greatest impact and expansion occurred
in Europe for most of these 2,000 years. This Western heritage is one
that all Christians should celebrate, for despite the many errors, the
European church has kept the flame of Christendom burning, however faintly,
to this very day. But I’m afraid that the longevity of the church
in the West has caused it to overreach. The Western church has often treated
the churches of the eleventh hour as less worthy to receive God’s
grace and to lead Christ’s church. |
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During the colonial period in South America and Africa, the missionaries, traders, and military governors, all under the rubric of “Christian civilization,” wrestled with this pivotal question: Do we convert the “natives,” or exploit them? |
During the colonial period in South America and Africa, the missionaries, traders, and military governors, all under the rubric of “Christian civilization,” wrestled with this pivotal question: Do we convert the “natives,” or exploit them? Even the language by which the issues were framed was problematic. In 17th century South Africa the term “Christian” was synonymous for “European settler,” and the term “heathen” a reference to all black peoples.(1) History shows that exploitation won out over humanization. Desmond Tutu often tells this story:
It is a funny but discomfiting story that illustrates how the church’s mission was so easily and so often co-opted by colonialist ambitions. As an Anglican priest, Archbishop Tutu also credits the many brave and faithful missionaries who struggled for the dignity of indigenous people, but more often than not, the missionaries only served to soften, at best, the brutal impact of empire. This is a pattern we know well in the United States. The 25th President William McKinley once said that the purpose of invading the Philippines was to “uplift and civilize and Christianize” its people.(3) The American Indians were given Bibles and stripped of their land. They had to give up their native language and culture, or die. Every year that I visit my friends at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, I am amazed that there are still Christians among them despite their history of oppression at the hands of a “Christian” nation. (4) The slaveowners too were eager to have their African slaves become Christian,
but not that they become educated. God forbid that they actually be able
to read Paul’s letter to Philemon or read phrases in the Bible like,
“In Christ, there is no slave or free,” or “for freedom
Christ has set us free.” Why throughout church history do those called
to the harvest at 6:00 AM feel that they can oppress those whom God has
called at 5:00 PM? |
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Is “separateness” okay? ... Didn’t Professor Donald McGavran teach that the “homogeneous unit principle,” basically that like should seek out like, is the best and fastest method for church growth? |
I was in South Africa recently studying post-apartheid racial reconciliation. Even though I always knew that the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) was complicit in the apartheid regime, I did not know that the DRC provided the theological and ideological underpinnings for apartheid when the racist National Party came to power in 1948. (5) Even as early as 1857 the DRC national synod voted to exclude non-whites from communion.(6) To this day, the DRC holds on to the discredited notion of “separate but equal”(7) and refuses to merge with the Black, Coloured, and Indian Dutch Reformed denominations which the DRC created with their apartheid theology. I couldn’t help asking myself: Is this the Reformed tradition or the deformed tradition? We shake our heads in disbelief that such blatant racial bias can still exist. But what about the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America? (8)Even though we have no governmental or ecclesiastical constraints as was the case in South Africa (until 1994), we continue our practice of segregated worship. Most of our congregations insist on only the Euro-American form of Presbyterian worship, excluding Presbyterian worship styles from Brazil, Taiwan, and Kenya, not to mention the rich heritage of African American Presbyterianism. Is “separateness” okay? Is it as harmless as Vikings fans and Packers fans sitting on opposite sides of the stadium? Is it okay for African Americans, Euro-Americans, Latino Americans, and Asian Americans to worship at four different churches in the same neighborhood, because of our worship and fellowship preferences? Didn’t Professor Donald McGavran teach that the “homogeneous unit principle,” basically that like should seek out like, is the best and fastest method for church growth? Most American Christians have been led to believe over
centuries of conditioning that separateness is not only “okay,”
but even desirable. People ask: What’s wrong with worshiping with
people like yourself, people you’re comfortable with? Does “separateness”
sound reasonable to us today? What about the word “apartheid”?
We seem to be okay with separateness but recoil at apartheid? Are we not
aware that apartheid is an Afrikaans word that means “apartness”
or “separateness”? Apartheid was constructed on the concept
of the irreconcilability of peoples.(9) Interestingly,
apartheid was finally condemned as a heresy by the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches in the 1980s. |
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Simply put, the “separate but equal” notion and the “homogeneous unit principle” are both examples of “church theology” rather than “prophetic theology” reflecting the status quo of society and easily co-opted by mega-cultural forces |
The Dutch Reformed settlers looked to America during the 1800s to draw lessons in dealing with their “black problem.” They learned from Reconstruction, the Jim Crow laws, and the reservation system constructed for Native American tribes. (10) They saw that after luring thousands from China to work on the transcontinental railroad, the government would pass the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 once the railroad was complete – so cynical, even back then! But more disturbingly, our Dutch Reformed siblings learned from the Presbyterian Church. They saw how our historic denomination split over the issue of slavery in 1861. They saw that we had created “separate but equal” presbyteries along black/white lines. And in the 1970s and beyond, they understood the text, that many Presbyterian churches eagerly embraced the “homogeneous unit principle” as the latest technique for church growth. More significantly, they understood the subtext, that this principle was a way of legitimating the existing racially segregated churches, and obscuring their racist idolatry with a cloak of theological sophistry. Contrast this with the Kairos Document published by antiapartheid churches in 1985, at a kairos moment, to counter a “church theology” which according to Robert Schreiter “took the concepts of reconciliation, nonviolence, and justice and watered them down to make them palatable to the ruling powers supporting apartheid.” (11) Simply put, the “separate but equal” notion and the “homogeneous unit principle” are both examples of “church theology” (12) rather than “prophetic theology” reflecting the status quo of society and easily co-opted by mega-cultural forces. Regrettably, the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa drew some unsettling lessons from their Reformed siblings in North America. As in the parable, the church must do better with those who arrive to
work later in the day. Europeans themselves came to a North America already
populated by native peoples – they came late too! And yet, how have
Euro-Americans treated the Native Americans, the Africans, and new immigrants?
The Presbytery of Philadelphia was formed in 1706. After almost three
hundred years the Presbyterian Church (USA) is still 93% Euro-American,
in a country that is little more than two-thirds Euro-American. If the
PCUSA is multicultural, it is mostly in the aggregate; at the local level,
we remain divided by race. If we are to take any steps forward, the first
thing we must do is confess. We must confess that our current ecclesiastical
reality is that of separateness, known also as apartheid. |
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| The Lord has always been as generous and gracious to those arriving late, as to those who started early; to those on the margins, as to those at the center. This parable reminds me of when our family first immigrated to Los Angles in 1975. In those early days, I saw a group of young Mexican men waiting at a corner. White men in pick-up trucks would swing by to pick up day laborers. Most got picked up early in the morning; anyone still standing around by noon usually meant they wouldn’t work that day – a sharp contrast to the way Jesus treats his laborers. As Pastor of the Church of All Nations in Minneapolis, I cannot avoid the difficult and complex issues of race and culture. I do believe that the Lord has called me to work for racial and cultural reconciliation in my local church and community; to be a witness to a nation in which the mega-idolatry in its historical meta-narrative continues to be racism; to make possible a church of all nations.(13) As President of a wonderful network of evangelical individuals and congregations called Presbyterians For Renewal (PFR), I believe the key to renewal is not in looking back but in looking ahead. (14) For many, the past represents greater doctrinal clarity, cultural unity and numerical robustness. But for others, the past also represents disdain for those at the margins, disregard for the poor, and dehumanization of people of color.(15) As
a renewalist, I believe there can be no renewal in the church without
reconciliation. We cannot paper over our differences, do justice only
with official pronouncements, (16) even a wonderfully
prophetic document like “Facing Racism: A Vision of the Beloved Community”
approved by the 1999 General Assembly, or vote our way out of real disagreements.
(17) As a Korean American, as an evangelical member
of PFR, as a father of children named Claire Nicea and Austin Athanasius,
it wouldn’t be too difficult to guess my position on the most contentious
matter of the day in our church. Yet, we evangelicals must act out of
humble conviction, not hegemonic certitude, (18) with
graciousness and generosity, not arrogance and contempt.(19)
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While we continue to debate sexuality in the church, I also pray that our church will not be under the illusion that the issue of race is behind us |
While we continue to debate sexuality in the church, I also pray that our church will not be under the illusion that the issue of race is behind us. Native Americans and African Americans have still not received their daily wage in the church. New immigrants continue to pour in, and the church has not caught up to the gracious and generous spirit of Jesus Christ. Even as mostly white people fight against other mostly white people over sexuality, we need to make sure that the issues that are of critical importance to communities of the eleventh hour, such as racism, sexism, housing, immigration policy, and civil rights, are at the forefront of the church’s agenda. According to our Master, those who’ve come at the eleventh hour too deserve their daily wage. God’s ways are not our ways. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Jesus gives a daily wage to the latecomer. Jesus gives the daily bread to all who are hungry. When we were the hungry latecomer, we accepted Jesus’ generosity as good news. Now, as those who’ve worked since morning, we must not begrudge Jesus his grace. We must not be envious because God is generous. We must love our neighbor. So the last will be first, and the first will be last. Amen. |
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1- H. Russel Botman in James Cochrane, John de Gruchy, Stephen Martin (ed), Facing the Truth, David Philip/Ohio University Press, 1999, p. 127.(back) 2- M. P. Joseph (ed) in Confronting Life: Theology Out of the Context, Cambridge, Delhi 1995, p.149.(back) 3 - Time Magazine, issue June 21, 2004, p. 26.(back) 4 - Basil Manning states, “The United States will remain a racist society until it has a process where it owns up to the fact that it was built on the blood of at least fifteen million Native Americans and there has never been any kind of acknowledgement of that.” –Religion and Reconciliation in South Africa, Audrey Chapman and Bernard Spong (ed), Templeton, Philadelphia 2003, p. 93. (back) 5 - Audrey Chapman states, “After 1948, when the Afrikaner-dominated National Party came to power, the NGK [Dutch Reformed Church] urged the government to implement the policy of apartheid and actively supported the adoption of many of the laws that were central to the system. During the half century of apartheid rule, the NGK conferred its blessings on the system, offering biblical sanction and theological justification for the practice of racial separation. – Chapman and Spong, p. 7.(back) 6 - H. Russel Botman in Cochrane, de Gruchy, Martin (ed), p. 127. (back) 7 - The US Supreme Court upheld the “separate but equal” racial concept in Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896). (back) 8 - Raymond Helmick states, “South Africa has seen its parallels. The practice and conceptualization of apartheid were basically invented in church. Religious doctrine, judged by its opponents to have been heresy, served then as its rationalization: church as locus of superiority assumptions. And we Americans, with our history of ‘Manifest Destiny’ delusions, take our place in the line.” – Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Raymond Helmick and Rodney Petersen (ed), Templeton, Philadelphia 2001, p. 82.(back) 9 - Rodney Petersen in Helmick and Petersen, p. 19. (back) 10- Audrey Chapman states, “The Group Areas Act of 1950 and its various amendments defined separate areas that legally could be owned and occupied by various racial groups. To enforce the Group Areas Act, the government forcibly relocated people, primarily Africans, by deporting them to “homelands” or native reserves and instituted a vicious system of pass laws to control the movement of the black population.” –Chapman and Spong, pp. 3-4.(back) 11 - Robert Schreiter, Reconciliation, Orbis, Maryknoll, NY 1992, pp. 64-65.(back) 12 - See discussion on “state theology,” “church theology,” and “prophetic theology,” in Chapman and Spong, p. 8.(back) 13 - “Reconciled to God, the Church is a multi-ethnic community, the embodiment of a new humanity.” –Reconciliation, John de Gruchy, Fortress, Minneapolis 2002, p. 55.(back) 14 - “This we will do [encouraging people with the Gospel of hope] by replacing the longing for the previous so-called better days by dreams of an even better future. The same Gospel therefore also urges us to commit ourselves to engage in the reconstruction of our society.” –from “An Open Letter to Pastors of All Churches in South Africa,” submitted to the South Africa TRC in November 1997, in Chapman and Spong, p. 313.(back) 15 - Nevitt Sanford and Craig Comstock in Sanctions for Evil observe that dehumanization “protects the individual from the guilt and shame he would otherwise feel from primitive or antisocial attitudes, impulses, and actions that he directs – or allows others to direct – towards those he manages to perceive in these categories: if they are subhumans they have not yet reached full human status on the evolutionary ladder and, therefore, do not merit being treated as humans; if they are bad humans, their maltreatment is justified since their defects in human qualities are their own fault.” –in Helmick and Petersen, p. 102.(back) 16 - Audrey Chapman states, “Nevertheless, religious opposition to apartheid…tended to be expressed more through the drafting of official statements and the courageous leadership of a few individuals than through the sustained commitment and mobilization of members. –Chapman and Spong, p. 8.(back) 17 - Schreiter says, “…conflict is not peripheral to the reconciliation process but is met at its very heart. If the sources of conflict are not named, examined, and taken away, reconciliation will not come about.” – p. 23.(back) 18- “The gospel is itself critical of idolatry, absolutism and human pretension, and therefore critical of a triumphalist Church or of a Christianity which does not respect the ‘other’.” – de Gruchy, p. 47. (back) 19 - Miroslav Volf states, “Religions contribute to violence between parties in conflict in two main ways: (1) by assuring the combatants of the absolute rightness of their cause and, correlatively, the absolute evil of their enemies, and (2) by sacralizing the communal identity of one party and, correlatively, demonizing others.” –in Helmick and Petersen, p. 34. (back) |
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