 This week has been very special to me. This is the first past week that I have participated in. I met many old friends and also more new friends here. And thank you AMBS for giving me this wonderful opportunity. Ten years ago, when I came back to the US from South Korea, I wanted to come and visit AMBS, where Alan and Eleanor Crichter, and Willard Stratley, and Wilbur Shank, John Driver, those are my heroes. So, will they resign? I really want to visit, that was one of my dreams to visit this campus. I never thought about preaching here at AMBS Chapel, preaching to these people, wonderful professors, you know, it's overwhelming, overwhelming. I never thought about I'm going to preach in front of Jennifer Sensenich, the queen of preaching, and then the seminary is the last place on earth that I want to stand at the pulpit. Imagine all the professors and theology students sitting here and criticizing my sermon, as I did to other pastors. I'm going to have a long introduction and short Bible reading. You don't have to imagine, they are all here, right? And then, you know, pastors would be the scariest people group that I want to give a sermon to, right? I think a lot of you agree with me. And furthermore, preaching after the speakers such as, you know, Janet Plannert, Megan Good, Greg Boyd, Melinda Berry, Drew Hartzburg, this is not good for a person who's coming from a shame culture. And this whole through the week, some people told me that, Hyun, I am excited about your sermon on Thursday and you will wonderfully wrap up whole this week. And honestly speaking, I'm so sorry to my speaker friends. You know, during all the sermons and seminars this week, one major thought dominates my mind. What if he or she says first what I want to say? That really thought occupies my mind. And, you know, did I tell you I come from a shame culture? I should send no to Jewel. Why did I say yes? I don't know. There's no other answer to explain this situation besides that I am crazy. This whole week I am meditating how crazy I am. And I realize that there's another crazy person or more than me here. And that is Jewel. What were you thinking to ask me to preach today? And I also thought about the people who are sitting here to listen to my sermon. I'm not a great speaker or I'm not a great thinker. I'm just too struggling with my English. I think you are all crazy, right? I am crazy and Jewel's crazy and all of you are crazy. So we are all crazy. Yes? Yeah, that makes me feel much better. We are all crazy. And I have pondered why I said yes. Whole through the week. Why I said yes. And I realize that I didn't think about my audience when I was invited to come. I didn't think about the audience, which is very weird because I always consider my audience before I made a decision if I accept the call or not. But this time I had no idea why I did not think about my audience. If I did, I would definitely say no to this invitation. But I really didn't think about my audience. So I continued to ask myself, why was it so natural for me to not think about my audience? Why? Why was it so natural for me to not think about my audience? And I found out the reason yesterday. It was because I unconsciously considered you as my brothers and sisters. Not professors, not theological students, not great thinkers, and not wonderful speakers. I just trust you as my brothers and sisters. And there's no place for professors, pastors, great thinkers when we are all gathered together to listen to God. And we are just all brothers and sisters in this community of God. I know that you will listen to me anyway. Not because I'm a great speaker, but because you're a listening community. You know how to listen to what others say. You can draw out the best things from me. And also, you will not depend solely on my words as God's words, because you're a discerning community. Whatever I said, I know extremely, you will disobey my words. I know that. You will disobey my words in the community and through the community. It is who we are. This kind of understanding of Mennonite has unconsciously embodied in me. That's why it was very natural. I wasn't like that when I was in the Korean Babs tradition. That is one of the reasons that I am crazy about Mennonite. That's why we all are crazy about Mennonite. Do you agree with me? I know we have a lot of problems. We are struggling. We have division. But still in my eyes, Mennonite is beautiful. I fall in love with this tradition. That's why I draw this tradition. So listen to me, my beloved sisters and brothers. The community of listening and discernment. I rely on you when I read today's passage. Here I am, and you complete my reading. This is my introduction. And I have a short Bible reading. If Acts chapter 2, 4, and 13 describe the ideal image of the early church, the book of Corinthians totally shatters the utopian image of the church. Immorality, fighting, corruption, and division were seen in this Korean... Koreantheon church, not Korean, Koreantheon church. This church was having seen issues that non-believers didn't even struggle with. The reality of the messiness and the confusion in the young church surfaces brightly in the book of Corinthians. I joined Mennonite church USA in 2007. I confessed myself at the Anabaptist 25 years ago when I was in the Anabaptist seminary. I briefly learned about Anabaptist history in the class. I was very attracted to that history, 16th century Anabaptists. But to make a long story short, I went to military service even though I confessed I'm an Anabaptist because of my family thing, and also I didn't have any support group. At that time, I had no supporting community around me. That's why I'm thinking community is very important for me. If you don't have a community, you can grow by yourself, right? And I went to Fuller seminary, and I didn't know Wolberschenk is a Mennonite. I took one of his classes, and it was fascinating. The reason I went to Fuller was to learn kind of spiritual dynamics from Peter Wagner, Charles Kreft, you know the names, and spiritual warfare. But after I took Wolberschenk's class, I changed my major to Mission Theology, and his teaching impacted me a lot. So I took eight courses of his class since that time, eight classes. I tried to remember, memorize all of his notes. He didn't say about, he didn't say the word Mennonite in the class, but all the contents are the Mennonite background, and about his background. So I really liked his teaching, and it changed my life. And then after I finished my degree, I went back to Korea, and he introduced me to the Korean and Anabaptist Center people. When I was in, before that time, before I came here, there was no Korean and Anabaptist Center kind of thing, but during my studying years, they started the Korean and Anabaptist Center there. So I met Kyung Joong and Jae Young, have you heard about their names? And we had a good fellowship. And one day, Tim Fraves, the Canadian witness, he was in Korea. He asked me to translate one of Alan Kreider's books, The Worship and Evangelism in Pre-Christendom. It was a short book, but it was really hard to translate to Korean. We just finished the second edition. So more people want to read that book. I'm very happy to hear that from Bokki Kim. He just told me a lot of people, they want to republish this book again. Ten years ago, so we did it. And many people asked me, do you think this kind of church is possible after they read the book? And then do you think this kind of church is possible? That was the most frequently asked question for me. And even my friends, they cynically told me, if you start this kind of church, we're going to follow you. That time I was thinking about, I'm going to stay in Baptist tradition, and I'm going to change my neighbors, my fellow Baptist people. But I struggled a lot, and I made a lot of trouble with these people. And I talk about peace when I'm fighting against these people. So talking about peace and fighting, it doesn't fit well for them. So I realized, I should, they have their own narrative. They're moving this way. But we might have the alternative way to follow Jesus Christ. That's not the only one way. And about tradition, it's not familiar to these people. So let's start a new narrative, and they will see us, and they might understand what we are saying. So I came back here in 2005, and started Korean Mennonite Church in California, near Los Angeles area. And we dreamed, the wonderful things is, we're going to have an ideal community. So we start from house church, and we gather at my house, and then later two of my church families, they move into our community. So three houses live together and worship together, and other people's joining. So the worship in my house, and then having lunch in another family's house, and Bible study in the other house. So we're using our houses as a church building. So from the starting point, it was very good. We really enjoyed our fellowship. But not long time later, we started to struggle, to complete the church. What I want to say is, when we start, when we think about the church, we always dream the beautiful, wonderful things. It's a utopian view. You know, this is a lot of Korean young people, they're thinking about the community like Rudolph. It's the ideal community. If we are Christian, we have to follow those kind of way. They dream it. And some of them, they started this kind of ministry, or church, or community, but easily we felt fail. And I joined Mennonite Church in 2007, and last almost eight years, you know, I told you, I dreamed these beautiful things about Mennonite, but it's kind of a reality check these days. You know, homosexuality issues. And I can see the division. I have very good close friends, both sides. And they're fighting against. I don't know where I should stand. And here's my close friend. And here's my close friend, too. Besides the immigrant pastors in Pacific South's Mennonite Conference, when they gather, they ask me to come. And what is your position? And I told them, you know, I have read a lot of scriptures related to poverty issues. Poor people. But I never seen any church division on that issue. More than a thousand times, God speaks about taking care of the poor. I'm not saying it's, you know, homosexuality issues, kind of, gender issues are important. I'm not saying that it's important. But I know it's really hard to express ourselves in this division. I don't know if you're experiencing that, but for myself, for me, my friends, both sides, very close and very lovely people. And then we cannot get together because of this issue. So I don't know where should I stand. I can see some divisions in the church. Today's passage is about, you know, Corinthian church has many problems. But today's passage is about division. I don't know if you learn these passages maybe in different perspective. But when I was growing up in Korea, in my church, and most of the Korean churches, they used these verses, especially the letter part. You know, you're the temple of God, right? So when they explained these verses, the pastors usually said, so don't smoke. Your body is holy, the holy temple of God. So don't smoke and don't drink. That's a major teaching. But this passage is related to division of the church. So in this context of church division, he uses three illustrations for his admonition to the church. First one is filled, second one is building, and third one is temple. First verse 5 to 9, we are God's field. That's what he said, we are God's field. And basically what he said is leaders are important. But God causes all things to grow. So we are dependent on God. We worship God as the author of life. And he also says we are God's building. Verse 10 to 15. And Jesus is the foundation. As leaders or church members, we are all to build the structure according to this foundation. When I think about it, Jesus is the foundation. I imagine some, you know, Jesus is the image of invisible God. We cannot see God, but it's a visible image here. So Jesus's image of the invisible God, incarnation, he became flesh. And we can touch him. We can hear him. We can smell him. So Jesus can be a model, the model of our life. Jesus can be the foundation because we can see that and we can adjust ourselves according to this image. And he also says we are God's building. We are a temple of God. So he's focusing on presence. The presence of God is with us. He's working with us. I'm not going to explain the whole the world's by-world or anything, but this attracts me, this concept. It's three things. The field, building, the temple of God. And through this image, God is revealing himself. And first illustration is revealed the God the Father, the author of life. And the second illustration is the Son, the foundation and the image of invisible God, the model of our life. And then third one is talking about the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit. So the Father and the Son and the Spirit. He's explaining and he's giving advice to this culture, to the church when they are struggling with division with this Trinitarian, tri-union God, the God, the community. And he's explaining this. You know, God is the community. God Himself is the community. God exists in the community. And this Father, Son and the Holy Spirit they are holding this church even if you are struggling with this division even if you are struggling with this you know, false immorality or fighting, but still the tri-union God, the community they are holding this church. When I realize this what Paul is trying to speak to us I was whipping. I wept. Not because of our situation but because of God's abundance grace He's holding this church. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Because God exists in the community God takes unity very seriously. Tri-unity. Church is the community following the image of God who exists in the community. If church is the community of God I think unity should be considered as justice. I know that unity can be threatening of power. I know sometimes it happens and some people who have a power they keep on saying you know we need a unity. They are using this word and misuse this word. They use this word for their status quo. But still, but still we need to rethink about the unity as a justice. You know, Ephesians chapter 2 we all know that at the end of the history God will unify everything in Jesus Christ. So unity. We are moving toward that direction. So unity is very important. I know you consider unity is important but I think we can do them more than that. God's restorative justice is related to unity. He tried to be one with us. Right? So unity is very important. I know almost sexuality is important issues for justice and racial issues too. All other issues are very important but unity is as important as this kind of issue. All more. The one thing that I want to grab my attention when I read this scripture is post attitude. He sees the problem but he's still he's not sarcastic or cynical. The church. I think it's very positive on the future of this church. He never said about the hopeless things of this church. He still expects great things from this church. I think it's because he knows that God is in control. The father, the son and the Holy Spirit they're holding this church as a unity as a community. Brothers and sisters this is what I want to say whole this week. And I was nervous because somebody is going to say that first. The Trinitarian God try unity, God. The father, son and the Holy Spirit holding this church the Mennonite Church the Church of Christ holding so as a follower of Jesus Christ myself and as a follower of Jesus Christ the Mennonite Church I think we need to give our attention to this Trinitarian God and what God is doing in this church and keep our mind focusing on our mind and to unity as justice. This is what I want to share with you.