Which Music to Dance to?

Sermon 200705

Genesis 24:45-48/ Romans 7:15-11; 25a/ Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

It is already the first Sunday in July. It has been 4 months since I was appointed as a senior pastor of the University Church, and it has been 4 months since I was unable to worship together at the Ruce Chapel and worship online. The school has completed the first semester of 2020, which will be remembered for a long time. There have been too many changes in the homes and workplaces of classmates. All of our fellow students who have been with us in difficult situations for almost half a year have been very busy. Jesus gave this today to us who are too hard and weary

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I pray that this comfort of Jesus will be vividly experienced in your life. And I sincerely hope that our university church will be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus to become a church that gives true comfort to our neighbors and all who seek it. Today I prepared a sermon based on the words of the text of Matthew. Particular attention is given to 11:16-19. In these words, Jesus gives us important lessons while using children's play as a subject.

What kind of play did you play often as a child? Play will be very different for each generation. When I was in elementary school, the memories that I remember are green light red light, hide-and-seek, Mangkkagi and so on. Women who belong to an age group similar to me must remember elastic string play. Those who know this kind of play should not deny that they belong to the old generation like me. When we think of children's play, aren't our ears soft and our hearts are filled with memories of our childhood?

It seems that the children's play introduced by Jesus was a kind of role play. The children are playing in the market, one in the party house play and the other in the mourner’s house play. In a party house game, if you play the flute on one side, you have to dance excitedly, and in a mourner’s house game, you have to cry when you sing on the other side. These role-playing games have a kind of learning effect that allows children to learn about life and social life by imitating the roles of adults like housekeeping.

However, unexpected things happen in children's play in the market. When one person play the flute on one side, but others don't dance, and one weep on the one side, but you don't cry together on the other side. If you haven't started playing at all, you'll have to play according to the rules of the game to continue. If you don't play your part, you're going to ruin the play. Usually, when does this happen? Doesn't that happen because they're not good at it, or because they're greedy to own a good role?

If it were simply about children's play, it would not be a big deal, but Jesus points out more serious problems through the analogy of play. In play, we can connect <The Child Who Sings> to <John the Baptist>, and <The Child of the Pipe> to <Jesus>. And <Children who do not follow the rhythm> can be connected with <Pharisees and law scholars who oppose Jesus>. John the Baptist emphasized abstinence, and Jesus emphasized forgiveness and love in everyday life of eating and drinking. John the Baptist, Jesus too, did not agree with Jewish leaders. That's why I didn't want to keep the rhythm. They were desperately feeling that the future of Judaism was very precarious with their current religious system in the midst of a historical crisis, but never gave up their vested interests and still wanted them to take the initiative.

If we interpret this parable more boldly using our spiritual imagination, we can see that the teachings of John the Baptist and Jesus are like <The Beat of the New Era>. Rhythm is beats. Beats are very important in music genres like rap these days. Depending on what beat comes out before you start rap, the audience may already be resilient. With rhythm, rhythm is also important. The same goes for jazz music and pansori. The song or dance we sing will vary depending on which rhythm is laid. When we sing and dance to the rhythm well, we are excited and immersed in music, but if we don't fit well, it is very difficult to dance or sing.

Jesus' first sermon theme is <Repent, The Kingdom of God is Near>, and this is the key message that penetrates all of Jesus' teachings and lives. This word can be taken as meaning, <Now throw away the rhythm of the past and dance to the rhythm of the kingdom of God>. If you put it in words these days, can you say, <Is EDM still the trend, but is it still a boring trot?> Ah, by the way, Trot is back. Considering the trot craze these days, you can see how important the beats are.

As I pondered about this today, I said, "Oh! I came to think that this text is a message to us as we go through the COVID-19 incident. The rhythm that we've danced to has reached the end of its life, and I thought it was time to dance to the new rhythm. Even if it wasn’t for COVID-19, humanity has already talked about civilization and transformation for a long time. I have talked a lot about the future that will show a remarkable development with <4th Industrial Revolution, Singularity, Transhuman>. However, such discussions were mostly optimistic.

Now, with the COVID-19 incident, it has become more certain that mankind will undergo enormous transformation, and instead the character has become very pessimistic. Utopia's rosy dream turned into a dystopian gray dream. We must live a new generation of post-coronavirus, and we must make fundamental reforms in line with the new environment. We must dance to the new beats of God's beat. For us, transformation shouldn't be reluctantly taken just because the external environment has changed. Already internally, the Korean church and Christianity had to make a total reform. Christianity as we know it may disappear in history if we read the signs of the present age and do not change our way as God wants us to.

In my opinion, there have been many tremendous upheavals in the history of Christianity, the four most important of which are <The destruction of Jerusalem in the 70s>, <The Reformation of the 16th Century>, <Secularization of Christianity after the 18th Century> and <The Coronavirus Incident> we are experiencing. Each time, the group that discerned the will of God, who runs history, and made fundamental reforms dominated the later era, and the group that was tied to long customs and could not respond disappeared from history.

The text I read today happened in a time very close to <The Fall of Jerusalem>. Judaism radically changed after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in about 70 years and the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Before that, Judaism was a religion centered on <the Temple and the Sacrifice>. The temple in Jerusalem was the most important religious symbol, and wherever you lived in the world, the sacrifices that come to the temple every season were the heart of your religious life. Naturally, the priest played the most important role, and the Sadducees who produced the priest had great power.

However, the religious nature of Judaism changed radically when the temple was destroyed and the Israelites did not have the territory to call their land. Temples or priests or priests are no longer really important. So what are the characteristics of the new form of Judaism? It is <Synagogue-centered, Tora- centered, Pharisee-centered, Diaspora-centered character>. Of course, these traits did not appear when the temple was destroyed. For centuries, in Judaism, this tradition existed as a reformed and non-mainstream tradition. The non-mainstream tradition, which has so far been pushed against the mainstream of Judaism, naturally emerged as the only alternative in the enormous transformation of the destruction of the temple. When civilized transformation takes place, people who are ready for the future naturally take responsibility for the way of Judaism.

The birth of Christianity can be explained in this close connection. Christianity, at least in the 1st and 2nd centuries, has a strong character as a branch of Judaism. In other words, after the temple was destroyed, people who believed in Judaism or who had a good feeling for the Judaism called God fearer had to choose between synagogue-centered Judaism and Christianity as an alternative to the now-disappeared Church-centered Judaism. Most mainland Jews have moved on to synagogue-centered Judaism, but many of the original Diaspora Jews and God fearer who were already living abroad before the fall of Jerusalem have come to accept Christianity. In 313, Christianity was accredited by Rome and went on to become a world religion. Synagogue-centric Judaism leads the way as a tribal religion centered on ancestor Jews. And the temple-centred Judaism, led by the former Sadducees, will disappear forever in history.

The period when the Gospel of Matthew was written is considered between 75 and 100 years. From this fact, the author of Matthew has already experienced the destruction of Jerusalem. After a great upheaval, he pondered the words of Jesus, so he wouldn't be convinced that <Oh, Jesus already knew about the destruction of Jerusalem>? In this regard, we can fully interpret that <playing a flute and playing a song> is a proclamation of a new order in the future to come, and <dancing and crying> changes our entire mind in preparation for a new world.

Now, let's think about <COVID-19 Incident>, which is coming to a greater catastrophe than <The Fall of Jerusalem>. We are clearly going through the turning point of civilization. How should we respond to this great change we cannot prevent or avoid? How can we discern <the sound of the flute of God> for a new world opened with Covid-19? We must first admit that we cannot make a perfect plan for an uncertain future. Even if there seems to be a lot of problems in the world, we must admit that it is God who is in charge of this world, and we must be prepared to respond promptly and carefully to the rapidly changing situation. And we must try to discern what God's good, rejoicing, and perfect will is. On that basis, we must do our best to spread the word of God, whether we get the time or not. Just as God opened the way for Christianity to grow into a world religion through the destruction of Jerusalem, I believe that God's kingdom will continue to expand its history even during the era of COVID-19. And for that mission, I think God is calling Yonsei University Church.

At the outset, I said that the first semester of 2020 will be a long-term semester in history, but only Yonsei University has about 7,000 lectures this semester, all of which suddenly turned into online courses. In the meantime, the chapel also went online. Chapel is an obligatory subject for undergraduate students, so there are always complaints from students. I was worried about preparing chapel online this semester. I was worried that I would get more complaints if we went online, given that students were already complaining when chapel was offline. So, the staff of the teaching room did their best, got the advice and cooperation of the school-related departments, and carefully prepared the chapel and ended it. After the last lecture, the students evaluated the lecture. A total of 9,500 attended, about two-thirds of them completed surveys, and I was amazed at the results. When asked about satisfaction with Chapel, only 3% answered negative and 79% said it was very good or good.

And 80-90% were satisfied with the suitability and quality of the online method, with only 0% or 1-2% of negative comments. Many students received <the great comfort through chapel>, <learned a lot about the Christian spirit of Yonsei and God's love>, <I was an atheist, and I came to understand Christianity positively>, <Chapel was the most awaited class of the week >, <I have overcome Corona Blue through the chapel>, <I have filled all the necessary chapel credits, but I would like to hear more if it is such a chapel>. In the meantime, students have never been so active in chapel support. As a result of this, I came to think of this in several ways. I've come to think of many things, such as being able to be more effective online, being able to open students' minds even if the chapel is an essential subject, and having the chance to meet the students by participating in the chapel.

I think online chapel is one of the many changes and opportunities ahead of us. The post-COVID-19 era is a world of greater danger, but also a world of expanded service, open opportunities for love and mission. In particular, I think that the Yonsei University Church is given a special mission to effectively communicate with society in a new era by making the most of all the resources of Yonsei University. The mission was a dream of a 26-year-old young Underwood missionary, and a dream that has been learned through 135 years of history of Yonsei University and Korean Christianity. Whenever I think of that dream, I am thrilled. I sincerely hope this dream will be your dream as well. Let's all dance to the new rhythm of God.

Lastly, I'll read verse 1 of the song, <The King of Dance>, written by Sydney Carter.

On the morning when this world was created/ I danced with my father/ When I was born in Bethlehem, I danced in the sky/

Dance, dance powerfully and cool everywhere/ I'm the king of dance wherever you are/ I lead you in the dance