Title: One thing is still lacking
Contents
Sermon Date: 2008/09/28
Location: Chodong Church
It took only 4 seconds before the moment when the Korean team won the gold medal in the baseball final at the Beijing Olympics was decided. This is the time for 5 players to move simultaneously. This is a fact that cannot be repeated. People see it and say it is mysterious, magical, and miraculous. Jacques Martin, a French thinker in the 20th century, discussed Picasso's abstraction in his book <Fine Art and Intuition>, and explained that it is 'magical knowledge' that human beings began to paint and reached modern abstraction.
In other words, it is a mystery, a mysticism, a mysterious enlightenment. It means that when human knowledge reaches the artistic level, it reaches the mystic and psychic miracles. No matter how sophisticated a machine may be, it can make tens of thousands of copies with just drawings, but humans cannot achieve 100% perfection even if they perfect their wisdom and knowledge. God's place is a mysterious void in human life, such as mysteries, wonders, and miracles. If that void is not filled, final completion is impossible.
Humans are thus mysterious beings, and human life is a series of mysteries. If you do not fill the last void of the greatest life, the greatest success, the house of your life will be torn down and left in ruins. We know and believe that “God created the heavens and the earth” in Genesis 1:1. Because of this, I know that there are strange things, magical things, mysterious things, and miracles in life. That is why Christians begin their entire life with faith in God. “If it is possible, what does it mean? Nothing is impossible for those who believe” (Mark 9:23).
Luke 18:22-23 describes a gentleman who was a ruler and became rich. He has wealth and power, and he is an exemplary believer who keeps God's law and is a blessed person. There is one thing left to worry about for this blessed person. ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ It is a matter of eternal life. Jesus answers. ‘You still lack one thing.’ What do you lack?
Lately, we see large corporations and chaebols going back and forth between prisons. Is this the end of the big business? will ask. The big chaebols in Korea have volunteered for medical, social, scholarship, and educational projects in our nation and society. But there is still one thing you lack from those chaebols. What you have so far is not a sin Just pointing out that there is one thing that is lacking. Even if you say, “Human life is a mystery,” we recommend that you think deeply about the fact that if you do not fill in one thing, life is a downfall.
So, what is the one thing the Korean chaebol lacks?
First, the big business owners that have been nurtured so far have not been entrusted to the most reliable, recognized entrepreneurs, and clear business ethics.
Second, we should not only reinvest corporate profits adequately for corporate growth, but also help the underprivileged class that the state cannot fully take care of, and the class that cannot keep up with their own strength as they are left behind in the march of the nation.
Third, the task of nurturing and helping people who will lead Korea tomorrow should have started early. Investments, capital, and technology, which are essential in the process of forming the corporate structure of Korean industrial capitalism, are not fundamentally the capital possessed by business owners. Since ‘capital’ is a financial resource created by the people, domestic banks, and foreign loans secured by the government, and technological capability is a financial resource generated by the people’s extraordinary passion for education, it had to be given back to the people, thinking of it as profit distribution and compulsorily distributed.
Let's think about the essence of 'what you have'
If I give away what I have, will I go empty-handed? But Jesus said, “There are your treasures in heaven.” Earth's treasures become garbage when they go to heaven. There are heavenly treasures in the sky. So God made everyone go naked. It is said that the owner of ‘what you have’ is ‘not you.’ To give what you have to the poor does not mean to be bold in social work. Who owns my knowledge, skills, and wealth? speaks of its essence. Wealth is water. The wealth that came to me is flowing water.
If you build a dam to block the water, it will rot and if not, it will run off. This means that before I go out on my own feet, I want to be one step ahead. If you correct the waterway and send it on time, a bag of five grains will open in the field and ‘If you send it to the paddy field, you will have a good harvest of rice, and if you send it to the factory, it will produce well. What you have, give to the poor, but give generously. In the Beatitudes, there is one hungry and poor man and one poor in spirit. It is a message to share, but to give to those who are really hungry. We need to nurture good talents by sharing them with people who are hungry for academic research. If the Chodong Church Seminary Scholarship finds and nurtures such people, you can produce valuable people who will renew the Presbyterian Church in Korea. Every year, among our scholarships, we can develop talented people who will change the fate of Korea when we deliver it to students in the humanities and social sciences every year. A capitalist society will never succeed unless it is accompanied by a giving movement. This is a problem of the outlook on life, a problem of the philosophy of life, and a problem of the human revolution.
Now, the industrial society depends on the success of drilling a waterway in a low-lying area ahead of time before it is deprived of wealth. According to Max Weber, the success of capitalism was driven by the ascetic ethical life of the Christian Puritan spirit. This is called ascetic rationalism. The industrialization of Korean capitalism was successful, but unfortunately, it reached the gates of Sodom and Gomorrah, a secular, low-quality culture where decadence, pleasure and corruption are rampant. The crisis of capitalism is caused by the deterioration of human morality.
At the same time, it is a matter of economic philosophy worldwide and a matter of political philosophy. As a whole, laissez-faire industrial capitalism, which maximized the freedom of individual human beings, that is, human revolution and rebirth - unless one is born again, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven - is now facing a total downfall before rapidly changing its economic philosophy and corporate management paradigm. will be It is urgently time for capitalists and entrepreneurs, prosperous countries and prosperous people to pay more attention to business management where and how well the money is sent. Therefore, it is necessary to establish an imaginary ethics in which the people, society and the international community live together.
Jesus said that this path of ascetic rationalism that Max Weber spoke of is the “way of eternal life” to the kingdom of heaven that the rich gentleman longed for as the way of coexistence. The way of coexistence is the way of eternal life. Freedom, not coercion, the economic philosophy of coexistence and the practice of economic ethics are the only ways to live together right and live forever. The one thing that is lacking is that life is going to go empty-handed anyway, but while procrastinating and running out of time, the last thing is insufficient, and you fall into the path of death rather than the path of eternal life. Good luck with this finish. Jesus answered the rich man who asked the way to eternal life.
‘Sell What You Have and Give It away’