1 Peter 2:19-25
June 9, 2002
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Long ago, according to Japanese legend, there was a youth named, Rikyu. He wanted to learn about the elaborate customs known as the Way of the Tea. Now, this was centuries before Starbucks introduced Chai to its coffee lovers. The Way of the Tea was an Asian tradition that was like a way of life with its values, ethics and morals.
Rikyu traveled to tea-master Takeeno Joo, who tested the young man by asking him to tend the garden, another sacred tradition in Japanese culture. Rikyu weeded and cultivated the ground until the garden was just perfect. Everything was in their places. But before presenting the beautifully tilled garden to his master, he looked at the immaculate landscape and noticed something was wrong. The scene was too perfect. He shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers to spill randomly upon the perfectly manicured ground. And a new way to look at life was created: wabi-sabi.
In 15th century Japan, rich ornamentation and absolute perfection were valued. But Rikyu introduced a new idea of beauty that is still popular today. Wabi-sabi is the art of finding beauty in the imperfect and the incomplete. It appreciates the underlying beauty in what is modest, humble, and unconventional. In other words, wabi-sabi is when what is plain and what is beautiful become one.
In today’s culture, wabi-sabi is more like driving around in an older model car than a cruising in a shiny new one. It’s incorporating some new clothes with old clothes instead of going out and buying a brand new wardrobe for the summer. Wabi-sabi is getting Bs and perhaps even some Cs because you volunteered at the local hospital or tutored a disadvantaged child.
Wabi-sabi is a way to look at life when we can see beauty in that which initially looks ugly and old.
Big Head
When I was growing up in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, I began noticing how different I was from the other kids. In a predominantly African American community, most of my friends were taller than I was. I was Chinese. They were Black
I never thought that I had a “big” head until someone mentioned it. And they were not saying that I was egotistical. They were actually saying that my head was too big! I was devastated about my looks. How can I make my head get smaller? Impossible! So I started doing these neck exercises thinking that if I can get my neck bigger, my head wouldn’t look so big.
We all want to be perfect. Good looks, excellent grades, solid friends, and lots and lots of recognitions. Like Rikyu, we want to weed and cultivate the ground until the garden is aesthetically beautiful. I wanted my life to be perfect too until I realized like Rikyu that my life was never perfect, is not perfect today, and will not be perfect tomorrow. But instead, the way I look at my life is now richer and more meaningful. My life reflects wabi-sabi.
Suffering in Faith
When we feel spiritually ugly and morally decrepit, we turn to a Savior who knows how to make something beautiful out of our tattered lives.
In our Scriptures for today, Peter was writing to a group of churches that owned slaves. Most likely they have been abused and suffered greatly. But these slaves or servants were baptized Christians who were aware of God. As baptized Christians, they have already received the gifts of grace and redemption.
Although slavery is unlawful today, sometimes we feel that we are enslaved. Don’t we?
We feel that we may be suffering needlessly—from the tremendous pressures and stresses of school to the high expectations to succeed; from not only getting into any old college but to the elite university. Like slaves, we feel that we are abused and suffering.
But here Peter is saying to his readers, participation in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection means participation in the suffering he endures for the sake of others. We are to imitate or follow Christ as closely as possible even to walk in his steps. But the good news is that Christ has already blazed the trail—we are called only to follow the path. Christ already died and suffered, once and for all. When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
When we suffer, we are not suffering from our sins. God loves you just the way you are. And when we do suffer, our suffering is a natural consequence of a faithful response to the world.
Never Felt Smart Enough
About three weeks ago, Thomas Ray Hoo, a Lowell High School junior, was a model student and athlete. He was captain of the football team, placed second in all-city wrestling, had good grades and lots of friends.
But below the surface, there was a nagging sense of inadequacy. He never felt big enough, fast enough, smart enough. Three weeks ago, the 16-year-old killed himself.
The suicide death of this gifted young man is a tragedy. For every death, there are 200 failed attempts. For all intent and purpose; in all categories of rating and scoring, Thomas Hoo was successful. But in his own mind, he was not perfect. He felt inadequate because
of his size. He felt not smart enough when he was only getting Bs and B-plusses. Although God loves him, Thomas Hoo was unable to love himself.
Thomas Hoo envisioned his life to be that perfectly manicured garden and couldn’t see that when the cherry tree flowers fell, that it was more beautiful than he thought. He had not learned about wabi-sabi when life is beautiful in the imperfect and the incomplete.
Peter said that Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
I think I can understand some of the terrible pressures that you, as young people are experiencing in life. I felt that my head was too big! Being perfect is not what God is calling us to be. Getting all As is not what God is expecting from us. And honestly, if your parents were to choose between you getting all As or to have you be happy, they want you to be happy. Christ has already died and suffered for our sins and has freed us to live for righteousness and wholeness. The wounds that you may be feeling are not inflicted by your parents or the church and definitely not by God. And if you have any wounds, Christ has healed them.
The Wabi-Sabi Christ is the savior who brings beauty to the ordinary, the imperfect, and the incomplete.
Being Lopsided
A woman named, Marcia Kolb saw herself as “lopsided.” In 1995, she was stricken with the worst case of Bell’s palsy that any of her three doctors have ever seen. She had medical care, wholistic care, massage, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and changed her diet. She tried everything, but for several months, she looked and felt like the Phantom of the Opera. When she got up every morning and looked in the mirror, she cried.
Kolb went on to discover the meaning of suffering. Two years later, she opened a shelter for disabled parrots. She took in 100 disabled birds. They were all lopsided like she was. And when she saw the tender beauty in each of the birds, she began to have compassion for herself. It was then that she looked around the world and saw the same thing all around her.
Kolb wrote, “The lopsided of the world, those who are not “normal,” those who have been hurt, disabled in the world’s terms, born with disabilities, scarred for life, are some of the sweetest, kindest, deepest, tenderest human beings I have had the privilege to know. In fact, it is often the so-called normal, healthy ones that worry me. There is no such thing as perfection and we all know it.”
Wabi-Sabi Savior
No one knew suffering better than Jesus. His horrible and ugly death became the most gorgeous act of love in changing our lives. In his ministry, every step of the way, Jesus
showed us what perfection looks like. It has less to do with outward appearances than with inward awareness. It displays no grand riches or academic credentials.
Our lives are not immaculate. We have no need to shake any flowers off the cherry tree, the fallen flowers are there already. We come to Jesus knowing that our rooms are not spotless, our paths are not straight, our resumes are not perfect, our summer jobs are not our dream jobs, our gardens are not perfectly manicured, and our souls are not without sin.
But still, we come and sit at the foot of the cross to remember that in spite of all our imperfections, we are free in Christ. By Christ’s wounds we have been healed. Our Wabi-Sabi Savior though perfect, became human and died and suffered on our behalf so that as imperfect people, we can come to be healed and be made whole.
The legend is that Rikyu finally learned how to serve tea after he understood the meaning of wabi-sabi. He served tea in a garden that had cherry tree flowers scattered around him and that was as perfect as it can be. Likewise Jesus serves us the cup of the new covenant so that as imperfect slaves as we are, we will have everlasting life.
My prayer for you is that you have a blessed and safe summer and know that God in the Wabi-Sabi Savior loves you just the way you are.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, lead us to believe that you have created us as imperfect and incomplete but still beautiful people. Lead us to see the gifts and the wonder in our lives as we serve you in faith and in deeds. We pray in the name of Christ who has made us whole. Amen.