原文英文，孫志硯漢譯。經文：Isaiah 53:4-12 啟應文： 9 (Psalm 32), SS 444A, 275, 499

I have to admit, I’ve been having a hard time lately. I have been feeling bitter lately, because it seems as though people are going backwards instead of moving forward.

I don’t know if you have seen this in your own lives, but I feel like people are more racist, sexist, and less compassionate than I have seen in my entire life. I understand that the economy is bad and people are scared. In today’s America, this ground on which we stand is shaky.

So when this happens, people turn inward, toward themselves. They want to protect themselves. Thus begins a process of separating them from everyone else. They stop caring about people they do not know and try their hardest to guard what little they have.

As I write this sermon, I recognized that I am having a hard time writing because I am angry.

I am angry because it feels as though America is moving backwards in time, back into a time when it was OK to say terrible things to people just because they are different than you are.

I was in Michigan last week for a denominational meeting. I am currently serving on the Commission for Women, a commission that is created because the RCA recognized that women who are called to serve had a hard time getting support. This commission attempts not only to give personal support, but to try to keep the RCA accountable for its stance on the role of women.

Honestly, I am proud to be a part of the RCA. I find the RCA to be genuine in its call, which is a call of inclusion, to allow all different kinds of people, including people of color and women, to not only live within the denomination but to hear our voices.

The RCA began ordaining women in the late 70’s. So, it has been over 40 years, but unfortunately, there has been a renewed call to strip women of their roles in church.

This is also the same group that did not want to adopt the Belhar confession, the confession that the RCA adopted in 2009 that called for the equality of all human beings, no matter what color we all are.

There is a thread that connects all of these issues, which, of course, has to also do with the homosexuality issue that is now front and center of all churches at the moment. Simply put, if we say that all people are equal, then that belief might extend to the gays. If we say that women can take the leadership role against what is written in some parts of the Bible, then they see it as a direct link to allowing gays in leadership.

However, I am not here to talk about political or theological stances about social issues. This is not what the reading today is about; in fact, that is not what our faith is about. Our faith does not call us to take a stance on social issues.

The reading on Isaiah today is a call to God’s people to know that in the midst of all the brokenness, the shakiness, the unpredictable future, God is there.

The world that Isaiah lived in and wrote about is a world that is like ours—a world of injustice and sin. This is a world where the people of Israel have turned against God by sinning against their brothers and sisters by not caring about the pain and suffering that exists in their community.

They have become a people who are doing what they want to do, instead of remembering what God wants them to do.

In a time like this, Isaiah wants to remind us that we are God’s people. And because of that, we don’t have to “do” anything because God has already done the work for us.

In Jesus, God gave us relief from the evil that exists within us. God takes away our shame so we do not have to hide.

God saw that we were not treating each other as God wants to—with compassion, love, empathy, and justice. Rather than punishing us, God decided showed us radical love. God decided it was because we did not know any better that we were not living up to our potential.

So God sent Jesus, to walk with us in this world because God cares about our pain. Look at the pain that Christ suffered—this is pain that we humans are capable of causing to each other. God is saying, “no more. No more. I shall endure your pain, so that we would know that our God is One with suffers with us, One who cares about our fears, our shame, and our pain.

God decided to take on the sins of the world on our behalf, to suffer the same rejection, to feel the same judgment, to endure the same kind of oppression, to show us that despite the brokenness, there is salvation.

Through the presence of Jesus, God is showing us what radical love looks like, through respect, and compassion. Yes, it is hard to do so sometimes—you know what I mean—to admit when we are the ones doing the persecuting, to speak up when we see others being persecuted. It is hard to trust that we will survive physically and emotionally when we put ourselves out there for another human being, someone who MIGHT be cruel and mean.

As Taiwanese people, we know that it is like to be taken advantage of, to be cheated and lied to. As Taiwanese people, we know that there are people who take advantage of our kindness. As a result, we become hardened and hateful—just like “those” people (you know who I’m talking about).

Yet, as Christians, we hold up Jesus as our example.

Jesus suffered tremendously when He was alive. It was not just the physical suffering. He had to endure the Pharisees bullying him. He had to deal with people making fun of Him and mocking Him. He had to grieve the loss of His friend Lazarus. Last, but not least, Jesus knows what it is like to have a close friend betray Him, to stab Him in the back and send Him to His death.

Nobody would want to live the life of Jesus. Except God.

And because of Jesus, we know that through the pain, there is salvation because God saves space for our pain and holds us in the midst of it. God will protect us, deliver us from all bad things, answer our call, rescue us and honor us, reminding me in this time that, like Jesus, I am called to acknowledge pain, to care and honor the pain through compassionate listening.

This road that we are on is not easy. If it were easy, we wouldn’t need Jesus. If it were easy, we wouldn’t need a community of believers. But we have all of these things so that we can be reminded when we are angry, bitter, and sad, that God is love. As I write this sermon, my anger is dissipating because I know that God is using my anger to remind me of God’s radical love. And this love is radical because it pushes us to live in and out of God’s love not only for ourselves, but for each other.

What I am suggesting is not for you all to take sides on political issues or to feel angry.

My challenge for myself and for you all is this: how can you radically love someone today? Is it to listen carefully to someone’s pain without judgment and interruptions? Is it to offer support for someone’s dreams? Is it to offer a word of thanks and acknowledgement for someone else showing you love? Is it to stand up for an injustice or to speak up in defense of someone else?

Whatever it might be, love is the challenge. We may think that we can love good enough, but we often don’t. We allow our fear of being hurt and being devalued to close off our hearts. We allow our judgments of other people to close the door in the face of need. We allow our anger to rear its cruelty toward those who benefit from the broken system in which we live. We do not acknowledge the pain that another person is in because it is too hard to hear and believe. This is what we need to think about—how do we conquer our fears and weakness so that God can work in the world?

My parents go protesting every week on behalf of President A-Bian. In September, I went with my dad once. I felt kind of embarrassed, to be honest, because, dude. We were in the middle of New York City! This is NOT what I would like to be doing. At least not with just a handful of people on my side.

Making matters worse, when I was there, I heard this girl mutter under her breath, “why don’t you go protest in Taiwan, then?”

I wanted to just stop right then. I wanted to be like, yeah, this is silly. We should go home. I want to go home!

But then I looked around at my companions. These people who were so moved by their compassion for the suffering of another human being, by their sense of injustice in the country they loved so much, by their anger toward oppression that they could not help but go out there, making a fool out of themselves, in the middle of New York City, every single week.

This, my friends, is radical love. It is radical because the love is overtaking the fear. It is saying, “I know that what I am doing may appear silly. I know what I am doing may not help. But I am called to serve God’s people and to speak up for those who are not able to speak for themselves.”

They are channeling their anger into righteousness.

And I want to use my anger for righteousness.

So let us all allow God to use our negativity for God’s glory in service of our families, our communities, and our people. May God turn your frustrations and bitterness and anger into motivation—a motivation to witness to the radical love that God has for us. May you be strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit, to pursue righteous and love that is so missing from our hearts.