Title: God's Self-Loathing
Contents
Although he took the form of God, he did not take for granted equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and became human. Appearing in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. - Philippians 2:6-8
Doctor is called "a-zu" in the Sumerian language used as an international language in ancient Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Egypt from about 2500 BC to about 1800 BC. "a-zu" means "one who knows water". At that time, sickness was thought to be due to sin, so if someone became ill, they would have hoped that they would be healed through a sin offering or purifying agent. It might have been called "a-zu". In the Old Testament, we can often see fighting over ownership of a well. Because without water, life cannot be sustained.
There is a passage in Lao-tzu's Tao Sutra that describes the properties of water well. Lao-tzu says in Chapter 8 of the Tao Te Ching, 上善若水, that the highest virtue is like water. Because water is good for all things and benefits all things, but because it is always in a lowly place that everyone hates, water is close to the Way. Water benefits all things, but it does not steal from others or quarrel for position for its own sake. It always flows downwards, stops the flow when blocked, and flows down when opened. Water flows down and down into the humble places that everyone hates, watering life and saving lives. Water does not insist on magnetism. If you put it in a round bowl, it will be round, and if you put it in a thick bowl, it will become hairy. Water flows and becomes river water and sometimes sea water. Water is fragile. Water discriminates, discriminates, and does not discriminate. It just gives yourself up to whoever needs you and gives you vitality.
Human beings insist on themselves and try to distinguish, discriminate, and discriminate whatever they are. It separates me and others, divides life and death, and discriminates between good and evil. However, if you change the location, I am the other person, and the other person is me. A person goes wrong by insisting on only one thing.
God is no more glorious than is revealed in this devotion, and no more powerful than is in this incapacity. God is no more divine than is revealed in this humanity.” This explains the reason why we confess the human Jesus as God. A God just like a human, a helpless, weak, and crucified God.
I teach several religious traditions to my students at school. As I convey the beautiful and profound ideas of various religious traditions, I am often asked questions by students. 'How do I remain a Christian?' and say. Then, although it is a confession of faith, it is talking about the crucifixion. In fact, I stripped away all the mythological elements from the Bible and felt divinity and confessed God in the image of the human Jesus dying on the cross. “Father! Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cries out in pain, the one who gives himself completely, praying “Lord, forgive them because they don’t know” for those who nailed and pierced him with spears. I feel divinity in the image of God and confess that I am the Lord.
The cross before the cross of Jesus symbolizes the bottom of human helplessness and hopelessness. However, the cross is changed when God, not Jesus, gives himself completely helplessly on the cross. C. S. Song said, "The powerlessness of God was because he had no power to hate, destroy, and kill. It is for this reason that he was the most powerful God.
He was a God who loved, made life, and gave hope. Therefore, the cross was the victory over hate, destruction, and the power of death, and the victory of life over death. The world is saved by this helplessness of God.” In a letter written by the German theologian Bonhoeffer just before his execution in prison, “God is powerless and weak in this world. And he does just this, only in this way is he with us and helps us. Only God who is suffering can help.”
So, what should the Church of God be like that was crucified? His church will not be a church that accumulates wealth in abundance. It would not be a church that applauds the logic of triumphalism that even wars for its own benefit. The conversation titled “National Reconciliation and Christian Faith” was included in 「Story to Engrave」 published in the winter of 2002.
As I was reading the dialogue, Wan-Sang Han's "The lesson of the cross is not to think that you must win" came to my heart. So, I actually planned today's sermon.
For a long time we have been oriented to triumphalism. You have to run faster than others, climb higher than others, and so on. I am no exception. I've been looking up more than down. There was an incident that made me look back and feel ashamed. A student came to my room. That student was a student who went to school in Seoul and left Seoul school to read the philosophy professor's book and learn from him, and came to our school in a rural area.
I found that fact very refreshing. Then the student's story is even more touching. "Professor, when I was in Seoul, it seems that I lived only after a few values. 'Study well from a young age. Go to a good university. Find a good job.' Etc. When I came here, I realized how many precious values humans have to pursue, not just those values.” As I listened to the student, yes, you are more mature than me. I still can't give up the thought of wanting to get out of this small provincial university, which never knows when it will close, and go to a big university. The student would usually be very limp and carry the bag of a student who was on crutches, and it would have been noticed that he was friendly with the student.
One day, the student said to me, “Professor, while traveling with Yunja unnie, I realized something important. Yoonja unnie has a different stride from us when she walks. He said, "It's about not missing out on the little flowers that we, who walk fast, miss, even the little things. So, I thought, 'Oh, just walking fast isn't good."
Meeting that student was precious to me. It makes us look back on whether we are forgetting the more precious values we should pursue while looking only at high places, and whether we are missing out on many things around us that we should love in order to walk faster than others.
Dear brothers and sisters, being a follower of Jesus does not seem to be so easy. Truly, following Jesus does not mean to receive more blessings, to live a better life, and to win, but to come down like water to the lowest places that people hate, to benefit all things unconditionally, without contention, without boasting, as shown on the cross. I think that it is taking one step at a time to accept the pain with the whole body and turn hate, destruction, and death into love, hope and life as death.