September 1, 2013 | 8:00 a.m.

When History Is Made

Joyce Shin
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 81
Jeremiah 2:4–13

“What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?”
Jeremiah 2:5 (NRSV)

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. . . . This is the way our universe is structured. . . . We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of reality.

Martin Luther King Jr.

It must have been eight or so years ago that North and South Korea worked cooperatively to build the first-ever Joint Industrial Center of North and South Korea. The news made all the Korean papers. In South Korea, it was heralded as a beacon of hope—hope for the beginning of a more open relationship, if not for reunification. This factory, designed for the production of clothing and kitchen appliances, was to be a joint venture. The factory would be situated in Kae–Sung, a city just north of the 38th parallel, the border that divides North Korea from South Korea. South Korean businesses would supply all the materials for the clothing and all the parts for the kitchen appliances. North Korea would provide all the laborers, 50,000 in all, most of them women, to sew the clothes and assemble the parts. South Korea would supply all the supervisors, mostly men. The North Korean government would receive payment for labor, and South Korea would receive all the final products, which they would either export to other countries or sell domestically.

As you can imagine, South Koreans took an interest in knowing how this exchange was going. So the South Korean media carried news about this joint venture. It seems that South Korean businesses even provided the lunches and desserts for all the factory workers to eat. Among the desserts were candy bars, which, it was noted, sometimes found their way into the North Korean black market.

Details about the exchange were chronicled and published: the quantity of parts and pieces supplied; the number of products assembled; the number of lunches provided; even the number of candy bars. At the beginning, each detail took on such significance, as though they were indications of a historical moment, as though this industrial site had the potential to reunify a people who shared a common race, a common language, and a common history.

But strangely there was never any news, even over time, of exchanges that would qualify as more human-interest stories. Completely absent were stories about relationships, friendships, romances. On the one hand this would be expected; surely all interactions between North and South Koreans would be highly monitored and regulated. Fraternization would not be allowed. On the other hand, what could be more unexpected? Given human nature, wouldn’t you expect at least one romance to blossom? Yet in all the news about the Industrial Center of North and South Korea, there was never any mention of such an infraction. As tragic as such an infraction would be, the greater tragedy is its absence.

I am always on the lookout for human-interest stories, not only because I have to preach occasionally, but because they often tell us something about what, against all odds, moves human beings, you and me, and by virtue of teaching us about what moves human beings against all social, political, economic, or ideological odds, they may even tell us about how God is at work in history.

You see, if we want to tell the story of how God is at work in history, I suspect we have to know about more than just the exchanges that are permitted by those in power; we have to know about the exchanges of perspective and the changes of heart that defy even the most controlled plans. I suspect that in addition to knowing about the intended outcomes and the steps taken, we have to know about the decisions regretted, the sorrows felt, and the confessions made. Those exchanges of perspective, changes of heart, the regrets and confessions—those must be the moments when history is really made, when history is made in God’s favor.

It is hard to believe that these days, when every day the headlines speak of more of the same: of the decisions and actions of people and parties in power, of ruling regimes with military force, as though they are the real makers of history, as though they have in their power the final say. To be sure, the decisions and actions of all these powerful players are important because they have life-and-death consequences for so many. But it would be a mistake to think that these are the actions and consequences that make up history as God would see it or as God would tell it.

This is the point that the prophet Jeremiah preached. His prophecy addressed Israel at a time of great political upheaval. In the period of just one generation, Jeremiah saw the Assyrian Empire, which had been at its peak, disappear and the Babylonian Empire sweep into power. He saw Jerusalem destroyed and Israelites deported. So traumatic was this event that Israel struggled to make sense of it. To Israel, Jeremiah spoke his prophetic vision: He refused to see the misfortunes of Israel from a purely political perspective. He did not think that the only actors in history were the Babylonians and Assyrians. Even though the destruction and deportation seemed so final, he nevertheless insisted on interpreting the history of Israel as though the political events and their consequences did not have the final say. He insisted on interpreting the history of Israel as he thought God would see it or tell it.

For Jeremiah, the events that mattered most to God, the history that God would tell, would consist of moments of repentance. In God’s eyes, those moments in which there were changes of heart, enlargements of perspective, or confessions of wrongdoing were the pivotal moments of history. In the passage we read, we can see how Jeremiah made his point. At first he began by pointing out the faults in other peoples’ relationships with God. At first he faulted people other than his current audience. He faulted their ancestors, whom God led out of Egypt and through the wilderness. He faulted the priests, then the legal experts, then the rulers, and then the prophets of Baal. None of these people were faithful to God. Not one of them even asked, “Where is God?” Suddenly he turned his accusations against his present company: “Therefore I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children.” By his accusations, Jeremiah intended to drive his audience to repent.

But he didn’t rely on his prophetic accusations alone to drive Israel to repent. Jeremiah exposed Israel on a worldwide screen so that the eyes of the world would look upon Israel and be shocked. To all those looking, Jeremiah said, “Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing.” Jeremiah invited the world’s perspective, the world’s comparison, and the world’s criticism. “Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked.”

Most people don’t want to have their actions projected for the whole world to criticize. And yet as prophets like Jeremiah, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela knew, sometimes that is precisely what is required. Sometimes every moral point of reference has been lost, because no one has been asking, “Where is God?” Sometimes situations are so dire that there is no chance for a new situation to be engendered out of the present circumstances. It is at those times that prophetic vision and a world watching are most needed to move people to repent, to undergo a change of heart, to enlarge their perspective, to feel sorry for what they have done.

In one of his books on the lessons the church can learn from the prophet Jeremiah, friend of this congregation Walter Brueggemann writes that Jeremiah teaches the church how to blush. Given the scrutiny to which Jeremiah exposed God’s people, this makes sense. No matter how hard it is to take the criticisms of others, to see oneself reflected in the eyes of the world, we—all of us—need others to tell us, from their perspective, what they see, how they feel. What we hear may not be the full truth, but there will likely be some bit of truth in their critique. And how we respond to their criticism will determine whether or not we are making history in God’s favor.

The great American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr wrote, and I believe it, “The ultimate nature of an event is not what it is in its isolation only but what it is in its connection with all other events” (The Meaning of Revelation, p. 83). None of us has in view all of history. Only God sees an event from all possible views. From our limited view, it is impossible to know all the ways in which one event is connected to every other and how all events are connected to God. One thing though is for certain, if we want to strive to know the ultimate worth of anything: taking the prophet’s lead, we will have to look outward to the margins to gain perspectives different from our own.

What we call historical events, like the American Revolution, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, the Reformation, Apostle Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, all these events took place because someone took to heart the perspectives and criticisms of those on the outside. The history that counts in God’s eyes consists not only of what leaders do when they exercise their power over others. History is made when people have a change of heart. It’s as simple as when a heartfelt connection is made between a South Korean manager and a North Korean worker. It’s as significant as when, fifty years ago, tens of thousands of people across all races gathered side by side on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to listen to Martin Luther King speak. Whenever, against all odds, our hearts are moved and our minds are changed, that’s when history as God would tell it is made.