“SAWUBONA” | PART 2

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I had brunch with a retired couple whom we respect deeply. The husband faithfully and fruitfully served as a head pastor of a Korean American church for decades and retired when he turned 65 almost on the clock. What is more admirable was the fact that he and his wife packed their belonging and rushed out of the country in a week and a half after retirement, not to burden his successor and the accompanying ministry. After retirement, he and his wife spent the next several years in China until they could no longer be in the country.  They ultimately settled down in Korea, on a podunk Island on the southern tip of the country. What grabbed me was the heart of their testimony, which was a humble and sublime Jesus-like “one person at a time” focus. As soon as I heard the phrase when he mentioned it as a bypassing comment, I “saw” the message as God’s invitation for me. I teared up because I knew God was speaking. It was holy ground.

Their current ministry involves spending time with bi-racial children with Korean fathers and more often than not, southeastern Asian wives. Bi-racial children in Korea are not readily “seen” and are sometimes bullied by others since Korea does not yet know how to embrace ethnic diversity well, though the scene has been changing in recent decades. To use slightly different language, the pastor couple exemplifies doing little things with great love. As I grow older (and hopefully mature older), I appreciate the lives that are inclined toward doing little things with great love and less on doing great things with little love. Of course, one can do great things with great love, which to me is an exceptional rarity. My experiences tell me that attempting and accomplishing great things are too tempting to a point that somehow great love is compromised and thus downgraded to good enough love. Great love, which is synonymous with unconditional love, requires too much sacrifice and dying before dying, it seems. And doing great things generates often predictable and unfortunate shortcuts that tend toward a compromise of love. “Little” things are the ones that are often under-appreciated, unseen, ignored as being trivial, and even bothersome. “Great” things represent bigger-than-life tasks, worthy enough to bear a slogan, and easily visible. My superficial distinctions are just that, superficial. At the same time, I cannot help but ponder the life and ministry of Jesus. Many in Jesus’ time including his disciples did not understand Jesus’ bent on doing seemingly little things with unfathomable great love. Many expected and hoped Jesus would do great things even if it required harsh “worthy” punishment and some kind of radical political reorder. I absolutely love this Jesus that refused to match their “great” expectation and hope!

Ok, that was more of a rabbit trail than I anticipated. . . The couple invited us to visit them while we are in Korea, so we are making plans to stay with them for a few days. 

While my wife’s ministry is already focused on “one person at a time,” which she knows she was born to do as in true vocation, I know I have some work to do. At the surface level, the focus on one person at a time brings me down to the earth and forces me to be real, since my natural tendency is for my head to be in the cloud somewhere, engaged in some sort of systems thinking trying to figure out solutions and ways forward. Think “great” things. . . I was often told by people to bring my 30,000 feet level thinking down to at least 10,000. Writing or blogging in this sense has been a concrete grounding discipline for me. . .

As I wrote earlier, the subject-to-subject encounter is predicated upon the “sawubona” concept, I see you, really see you. When I consider myself as a subject and see others as cow sees cars, I have denigrated others as mere objects. The subject-to-object view on relationships betrays (I know this is a strong word) God’s view on humanity. When we label others as objects, they become commodities, accessories, and/or just numbers. Worse still, we can use and abuse objects to justify, gloat, and thus bloat our meaning of existence. One of the greatest incarnational miracles and mysteries is that God treats us as subjects, not as objects. When the authors of the Bible make it sound like God views us like objects (think of Canaanites God “commanded” Israelites to wipe out from the land including all the children and the livestock)), it is human’s best and genuine interpretation of God at the time, which to me is never perfect and thus far removed from how God “sees” us. The converse is also true: we dare not see God as an object. God could even be The Object of all objects. Even then, this notion falls woefully short and scandalous of how God desires to be seen by us. God’s incarnational love for us and our love for God finally meets as subject to subject! We are seen by God and with the same eyes, we see God. The subject-to-subject encounter between God and us can mature into and blur the lines between the subjects and to use Paul’s language, we experience Christ in us and we in Christ, thus becoming one. An inevitable invitation for all is that we see others and others see us, ushering in the revolution of dignity, equality, and liberty.