Words Don't Count

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 (NLT)

Then another message came to me from the Lord: “Why do you quote this proverb concerning the land of Israel: ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste’? As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, you will not quote this proverb any more in Israel. For all people are mine to judge—both parents and children alike. And this is my rule: The person who sins is the one who will die.”

“Yet you say, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right!’ Listen to me, O people of Israel. Am I the one not doing what’s right, or is it you? When righteous people turn from their righteous behaviour and start doing sinful things, they will die for it. Yes, they will die because of their sinful deeds. And if wicked people turn from their wickedness, obey the law, and do what is just and right, they will save their lives. They will live because they thought it over and decided to turn from their sins. Such people will not die. And yet the people of Israel keep saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right!’ O people of Israel, it is you who are not doing what’s right, not I.”

“Therefore, I will judge each of you, O people of Israel, according to your actions, says the Sovereign Lord. Repent, and turn from your sins. Don’t let them destroy you! Put all your rebellion behind you, and find yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O people of Israel? I don’t want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live!

Matthew 21:23-32 (NRSV)

When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him as He was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?’ And they argued with one another, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?” But if we say, “Of human origin”, we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.’ So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And He said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. It got much chillier. One day the temperature was high 80s, and after the rain it became mid 50s. One day I needed A/C, and the next day I turned the heater on. It is the most dangerous season to catch cold and flu when the temperature is roller-coasting. So be careful, stay warm and don’t get sick. Since we had very successful Gourmet Seekers’ meeting last time, I am thinking to have a similar thing. Instead of going out to a restaurants, you pack your own lunch and we meet at the church library on the second Friday of the month. The Gourmet Seekers is on the fourth Friday of the month. I am going to call the new meeting BYOB—Bring Your Own Burger. The last B stands for Burger, not Beer. Please don’t bring your own beer. This is church, and the preschool will be on session. We’d better not be drunken in front of the preschool children at church. So, let us meet next Friday, October 13th, 11:30AM at church library. As you know, the church is the safest place to be on the Friday 13th. Don’t forget to bring your own burger. In this way, we will meet every other Friday.

By the way, tomorrow is Hangul Day which is a national holiday in South Korea. Hangul is Korean writing system invented and proclaimed by King Sejong in 1443. Samuel knows how to read and write in Korean, and I do too. If you are interested in learning how to read and write in Korean, I can teach you. Some medical researches suggest that learning foreign language helps preventing dementia a lot. So from time to time, I am going to teach you Korean expression. The first lesson is this. If you say that you look sharp (날카로워 보인다), in English it means you look nice and pretty, but in Korean it means you are very hysteric. On the first Sunday of my previous church, many people told me that I looked sharp, and I wondered what I had done. “Is it because I am nervous? I must try be more gentle then.” I am really glad that nobody told me that I look sharp today. Thank you for not telling me that.

As you may have heard from the news, the conflict and violence between Israel and Palestine are escalating rapidly. The conflicts were always there and the battles erupted from time to time. But I am afraid that it will be much bigger scale this time. I was in Israel and Palestine during the 2014 conflicts. Hamas was firing lots of rockets. The iron dome was intercepting those rockets mostly. But it is not perfect, so the authority set off the siren. While I was digging out bones and potteries at the archaeology site, I had to hide myself when I heard the siren. While I was driving on highways, when I heard the siren, I had to stop the car, come out of the car, run as far as I can in a few seconds and lie down on the ground. One day when I was having peaceful breakfast in Bethlehem, which is the Palestinian area, the table jumped with a loud explosion sound. A rocket from Gaza hit the Palestinian house. Violence, war, blood are tragedy. Please pray for the peace in the holy land and the safety for the people of both sides.

Conflict

Well, speaking of conflicts, I once had a very bad argument and conflict in my first year of college with a seminarian, who was the intern pastor back then. He was a total stranger, but he tried to convert me because I was a Buddhist back then. I do not know to which denomination he belonged. Now I just hope that he was not a Presbyterian, because not only he failed to convert me, but also he made me despise and hate the Christianity all the more. Now, I am not only a converted Christian, but also even a pastor, I still do not agree with him, whom I have never met after then. He repeated only two things. One, you say that you believe in Jesus then you are saved. Two, once saved, it is a done deal forever. I asked him, ‘You can say something you do not mean it. Do you still get saved even in that case?’ And his answer was yes. Then I asked him again, ‘If you say that you believe in Jesus which you do not mean, and then you never come back to church, no prayer, no reading the Bible nor meditation at all until you die, and meanwhile you rob a bank, murder several people, and rape bunch of women. Do you still go to heaven?’ His answer was yes again. Then I thought to myself, “That is B.S. If that is all about Christianity, I definitely do not want to be a Christian. That is the biggest B.S I have ever heard.” But as you know, God works in mysterious ways, and later I became a Christian.

Saved with Our Mouth?

So now I believe that seminarian’s theology is based on apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, and I quote: “It is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”1 This is one of the greatest statements in the Bible and no one, including myself, can deny that it is the foundational statement in Christian theology. The thing is that we need to understand the circumstances and situations in where apostle Paul and other Christians were. They were not living in twenty-first century America or South Korea where there is a guaranteed freedom of speech, and where the Christianity is widely accepted. They were living in Roman Empire before Constantine the Great, who permanently established religious toleration for Christianity within the Roman Empire through the Edict of Milan. Before that, Christianity was considered kind of the enemy of the state. To make it worse, when apostle Paul was alive, Nero was the emperor, who burnt the city of Rome with his own hands. His persecution on the Christianity was so bad that the Christians back then regarded him as the anti-Christ to come. Nero’s name transliterated into Hebrew alphabets has the numeric value of triple six. After apostle Paul’s death, the Christianity was under persecution for a few more centuries, sometimes under severe persecution, other times mild. So what does it mean to profess your faith in front of other people that Jesus is Lord?

Let me give you a more recent example than the Roman Empire—Korean war. In the beginning phase of the war, the North Korean red army advanced quite fast and they took almost all of South Korea except Busan and the surrounding area at the South East corner of the country. There is a small town, called Young-Gwang at the South-West corner of the country, which was an occupied area. On Sunday morning while the church people, not having heard the news of war, were worshipping at church, the North Korean soldiers broke into the church with rifles and knives. A North Korean lieutenant found a frame with Jesus’ painting in it. He laid it down on the floor, and announced to the church people, “If you spit on this picture, curse Jesus aloud, and stomp on it, then I will not kill you. If you don’t, you will be executed.” This is the kind of situation which apostle Paul was talking about, when he wrote in his letter that we are saved by professing our faith with our mouth. If I can profess my faith that Jesus is Lord in that situation, then God will admit that my faith is genuine, and God will surely save me and deliver me to heaven. This is what apostle Paul says that we are saved by professing our faith with our mouth. During Emperor Nero, the persecution on the Christianity was so bad, and yet many Christians professed their faith publicly that Jesus is Lord, and as the consequence, they willingly and gladly died. This was the reality which apostle Paul and the Christians in Rome were facing. And thus if we just spit out meaningless empty words, they don’t count.

Do you want to know the rest of the story at the Korean church with the North Korean soldiers? Well, I heard that beginning from the very pastor all the church people did what the North Korean lieutenant told them to do except one boy who was around fourteen years old. The boy picked the picture of Jesus up, wiped all the saliva, hugged it, and said to the soldiers that he would rather die than denying Jesus. Ironically the lieutenant shot and killed all the church people except the boy, saying that everybody was liar but the boy. Then you might wonder, “I live in America. I will never be in such situation. Then how can I be saved?” Well, do not worry. God sees the inner hearts. God knows everything deep inside of our hearts. So of course God knows if our faith is genuine or fake even without testing us in those situations. And trust me, it is better not to be in those situations. Therefore you do not have to be in that situation just to prove your faith. God already knows it.

Parables

And Jesus is actually piggy-backing me in today’s NT lesson with his parable. A father told his both sons to go to the vineyard and work. One son said, “Dad, I have home works to do, and video games to play. Can’t you see it? I am not going!” And yet he later went out to the vineyard. But the other answered, “Yes sir, I will.” But he did not go. And Jesus affirms that the son who answered yes did not do the will of the father. So Jesus affirms me that the meaningless empty words don’t count. 

Let me quote another famous Scripture from James: “Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.”2 You all must know the story of Rahab in Jericho. Rahab promised the Israelite scouts to help them, and she kept her words. But what if she just spat out meaningless empty words to the scouts, and did not hide them, nor help them to escape? Or what if she reported them to the authority? She would not be saved but killed along with other Jericho people at the conquest of Jericho by Joshua. And of course she would not be on the genealogy of Jesus Christ the Saviour. She was saved not by her words, but by proving her words with action. And thus James declares that the faith without works is dead. We all know that we are not saved by our works. But we also need to know that meaningless empty words don’t count.

Conclusion

When I was in the seminary, once I tried to make a group serving community with my classmates. We thought we need to show our faith and love through action. So we did brainstorming for the name of the group based upon that idea. We came out with one brilliant name: Faith Act in Love, but the thing is the acronym didn’t work.

Friends, meaningless empty words don’t count. Even though we are not saved by our works, we still need to act upon our faith, keeping our words of profession of our faith. Even apostle Paul who emphasises faith alone, not works, proclaimed in his first letter to the church in Corinth that the kingdom of God is not in words but in power.3 So we need to profess our faith not just in words but in power and works. When we do that, unlike my acronym, Faith and Action in Love will never fail. Amen.