Merry Christmas?

"Have a merry merry Christmas, and a happy new year..." the song streamed through the car speakers as our family drove to church this morning. At this point in the song, my precocious 8 year old daughter blurted out, "Really--do they have to say Merry Christmas? Not everyone celebrates Christmas, you know. He should just be singing, 'happy holidays'" I was quite taken aback by this comment from our daughter who had pretty much celebrated Christmas since she was a mere fetus. How does this 8 year old have the cultural and religious sensitivity to say something like that? Maybe I'm giving her way too much credit; she might have very well picked up such rhetoric from school or something. So, how do you respond to that? I just wanted to say, "Love, but we celebrate Christmas, so there. It's OKAY to say Merry Christmas! It's more than okay to say it! Shout it out from the mountain tops! Bellow it out from the depth of your guts! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" The truth of the matter is, I'm sick of constantly having to care about whether my beliefs, my looks, my voice, my intonation, my clothes, my jokes might be politically and/or culturally incorrect and might offend those who are different from me. Just for once, can I just say, "this is who I am, and I'm proud of it?" If you happen to differ from me, "that is who you are, and I'm glad for it!" Of course I can say that. Celebrating our differences is a truly beautiful thing! Being sensitive to someone else's culture or religion isn't the same thing as apologizing for mine; rather, it's a gesture of mutual respect when we can clearly state where we are coming from and welcome the other to do the same with much warmth and grace. To reduce our distinct cultural and religious holy days to just holidays in the spirit of communal acceptance and sensitivity is to deny the beauty of celebrating and upholding our differences. It's going back to the melting pot days where we are all melted into indistinguishable gooey mush of nothingness. I will wish you a Merry Christmas and you can wish me a Happy Hanukkah or Happy Kwanza! Why not celebrate each others' distinct authenticity and culture instead of just wishing each other non-distinct, meaningless "happy holidays?" This is what I think and doggone it, I'm proud of it!

A Taste of Heaven

House of Prayer (HOP) is a place our congregation has been serving for the last two years. It’s a church in Uptown, mostly comprised of homeless people who live in shelters. We have been going there every third Saturday of the month. The lead pastor is a Korean man who comes from the Pentecostal tradition. After we worship together, we serve the food we had prepared and eat with them. What I love about this community is that it is so different from our suburban Korean American church where I serve. We get to have a taste of heaven as people of all colors and economic classes gather simply as children of God to celebrate together for what God has done in our lives. Just this past Saturday, I had the opportunity to preach there for the third time in two years. Preaching at HOP is especially challenging because it’s outside of my comfort zone. Last time I preached, an elderly African-American lady came up to me and expressed how special it was for her to witness a woman preacher for the first time in her life (and an Asian one at that!). I was elated to be her first woman preacher but saddened at the same time that in all her 70some years of life, she had never stumbled upon a woman preacher before.

As usual, this Saturday was also very special time of worship for me at HOP. After the time of praise, we have time of testimonies. Many former/current alcoholics, drug-addicts, and homeless men and women come up to testify to the faithfulness and love of God they had experienced over the week. Some of the testimonies are as short and powerful as, “I got up this morning, praise God!” Community is built up as we pray and bless those who give their testimonies. We feel a sense of belongingness and love as their faithful witnesses are shared with us. And then, the time came for me to preach. I don’t know what got into me, but I felt like my heart was on fire! As I preached and looked out into the sea of expecting and weary but excited faces—faces creased with years of weathering many tsunamis of life—I felt utter love for them. I preached my heart out, imagining Holy Spirit pumping love and life into their burdened hearts with each spoken word. And soon, I realized that the audience was preaching with me as I was preaching to them. They were right there with me, urging me on, almost putting words into my mouth. Sweaty and breathless, I thought, “This is what heaven must be like!” Enraptured in the Spirit of the community, I also had the privilege to bless each and every one of them who had renewed their commitment to live and die for God’s kingdom dream for the world—dream that was infinitely bigger than us or this present life. I was beyond moved as I experienced this time of true worship and community with my brothers and sisters who were so faithfully living out that dream from the margins.