Rev. Park Sang-seon gave the following sermon at CheonWon Church on August 6, 2023
Today, some of our members received letters of appointment from the People’s Committee for Unification Preparation, and I sincerely congratulate you. I believe that when 10 million people become one with a heart to prepare for unification, Heavenly Parent will work and be with us to create a Republic of Korea that welcomes the heavenly fortune of peaceful unification.
I decided on the title for today’s sermon I’d like to share grace with you: “The heart to attend our children.”
I’ll read a passage from True Parents’ words in Cheonseonggyeong, (p. 452-18):
“You must know the love of God, know the love of parents, know how to take care of your parents, know how to know the love of your husband, know how to take care of your husband, know how to love your children and know how to take care of your children. You should not just give orders to your children, but also know how to serve them. You also need to know how to serve others. Only then can we understand God’s love.”
Today’s title is “The Heart of Serving Children.” You may be wondering why I chose this topic.
I believe living a life of deeply understanding God’s love is the wish of all of us in our life of faith. That’s why I decided today’s sermon topic on “The heart of attending children.” Let’s first give some thought to what kind of heart it takes to attend children together with many brothers and sisters.
Thinking back to the old days, it was natural to say “We serve the king of our country,” and when we look at our family, it’s natural to say, “We serve our parents.” Saying it’s natural is the same as saying it comes naturally. Being with your parents means of course you should attend them. Living with your parents is natural and it’s expected, but sometimes living with your parents is difficult and very trying.
The word “attend” has various meanings, but the first thing you can know for sure is that it is not true that “I can serve my parents in whatever way I wish or please.”
That’s right. Why was it so challenging to live with the mother-in-law in the past? Let’s just say I can take care of my mother-in-law as I want, can I live happily ever after? Living with my mother-in-law, there’s not much I can do on my own. The salty and spicy food is not cooked to not suit my taste; it has to suit the mother-in-law’s taste.
If the tastes of the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were similar, there would be no reason to struggle with eating. But it’s because people have different tastes, that it is difficult to prepare food to eat: Because I cannot do things my way.
In a word, it makes no sense to speak of “attending by doing things my way.”
It is difficult and painful because I can’t do it my way; yet, when I have to endure, the word “attend” becomes meaningful.
In that sense, let’s think about the meaning of raising children. If you love your children, you can live with them without even thinking, “I’m taking care of them.” A life where you cannot sleep even though you’re so sleepy, cannot rest even though you’re exhausted, and cannot eat when you feel hungry—that is a life of attendance. It’s tough because there’s nothing I can do on my own. However, if the child is so lovable, you do not feel like you’re taking care of your child, and even when life is not easy, you don’t think it is difficult. When your child grows up well and becomes a fine upstanding son or daughter, you will think nothing of any hardships you went through while raising him or her.
If you tell a parent to live with such a child, they won’t think it’s hard or challenging. But there are times when children make life difficult for their parents. Sometimes they can sure make their parents suffer. There are times when you hear negative comments from people around you about your children. What if we admonish parents who have such children to stick it out living with them? We are urged to live together without breaking the parent-child bond because we have no other choice but to live together.
I don’t think the advice that you need to know how to take care of your children is meant for parents who are in a proud and happy position because their children have grown up well. I think it means that even if it is a child who gives his parents a hard time to where it deeply pains them and they want to sever the parent-child relationship—at such a time he and she must overcome and figure out how to get along with their wayward son or daughter. It is said that if you know how to take care of your children without even considering severing the relationship between the father and the son who hurts and makes his parents suffer badly—then you will more deeply understand Heavenly Parent’s love.
If we say that you can understand Heavenly Parent’s love more deeply once you know how to take care of your children, isn’t that what God our Heavenly Parent has been doing with the heart of caring for her/his children? If we suppose the omniscient and omnipotent Heavenly Parent carried out the Providence, wielding His power at His disposition, then why has the providence been so long and difficult? If we realize that human beings are Heavenly Parent’s children, where else could there be such disobedient and selfish children? It’s not that Heavenly Parent allowed such children to whatever they liked at His pleasure; rather, He could not even reveal the real power of God, as the Heavenly Parent in front of such children.
God is not a parent who has had His children serving in attendance before Him for ages and ages. Not at all! All this time Heavenly Parent has been living in total attendance to his children. The reason I say that God lived for all these centuries and millennia caring for his children is because he never cut off the relationship of parent toward the very children who caused him endless trouble and agonizing heartache.
Because Heavenly Parent is such a parent, True Parents’ word is that in order to deeply understand the love of a parent, you must know how to take care of your children.
If your child is like a filial and pretty child, it’s no burden taking care of your child. Wouldn’t life be manageable? Sometimes it is not as smooth as that. Consider, we make diligent effort to learn all we need to know about cars. We don’t get upset if our car doesn’t run well. Rather, we scold ourselves on account of the mechanical aspects we have not learned well. Yet sometimes we get angry with our own children!
The idea that you can do whatever you want with your children is fundamentally wrong. Why are you angry with your child? It is because of the ingrained idea that the child should listen to me as his or her parent. Such a parent is angry because he or she thinks their child does not listen when he should have listened. If I knew in the first place that I should not just deal with my child any old way I please, I wouldn’t get angry.
If you have a boss at the workplace, does your boss act as you want him to? Are you a person who works according to your own thoughts? In the first place, I don’t get angry with my boss because I know that the boss at the office or workplace is not a person who acts according to my thoughts. Even if an employee complains inwardly, they know they must not get angry outwardly.
Getting angry is like threatening that if the other person doesn’t do as I say, it won’t be good for them. The bottom line is, I get angry because I have the intention of making them listen to me.
A car owner doesn’t get angry at the car because it knows that no matter how much I chastise it, it won’t do what I say. Rather, what have I neglected? I check the car over, assuming I did something wrong or failed to notice something.
The same goes for your boss at work. Even if you feel aggravated about something that is wrong, you won’t get angry because you know he’s not going to listen to you. Rather you ponder, “What did I do wrong?” and I look back to see if I overlooked something.
Why are you angry with your children? It’s because I’m adamant that my children should listen to me. If you think they’re not listening, you become annoyed, half-threatening, angry, and telling them to listen to me.
What about husband and wife? Do husband and wife both get angry at each other? Why are you angry? The most fundamental reason is because I hold onto the idea that my spouse should listen to me. I get angry because I think they’re supposed to listen to me because I’m right, but they don’t. To get angry is to threaten dire consequences if they don’t listen to me.
I’ll say it again. I can’t even get a car worth $10,000 dollars to listen to me. To make myself like it, I have to learn about it first. We have to study. To make a car run well, we must first study and learn what to do. After that, we have to act according to the principles by which the car performs optimally.
Are my wife, my husband, and my children no better than a car made of iron? In order for your wife to like you, you must first learn about your wife. You have to study her. And after getting to know your wife, then perhaps you can coax your wife to do what you want.
The love between husband and wife is like a musical instrument that produces the most beautiful sound. You need to know how to make it sound good. You need to know first. If you don’t play the instrument well, it will make a rasping sound. Even at home, the wife can make a more beautiful sound than any instrument in the world. There is a way to make a beautiful sound. You have to know how to do it, practice and learn it. But if you don’t practice, don’t learn, and just show your temper, does a beautiful sound come forth?
What about the husband? There is probably no wife who doesn’t like her husband to work diligently day and night. As a husband you need to know when you are strong. It’s not about having a temper that makes you strong; you have to know how to do things. It’s easy if you know the method, but you can’t just show your temper without knowing the method. Do you know what one of the best ways is? If you let a man know he’s cool, you’re already halfway there. It doesn’t matter how old he is.
How is your relationship as a couple? Shouldn’t married couples live with each other? Or should you live on your own? Are you living in harmony with each other? Living at your own pleasure and convenience is not living while attending well. You should always think about what your partner or your dependents are lacking this very moment. You have to be mindful of what the other person needs right now. Since the weather is hot right now, you want to eat a nice meal out in a cool place, but if you demand she prepare a meal quickly because you’re coming home soon, is that considerate toward your partner? Am I simply living my own life whatever way I want?
True Parents said that to deeply understand Heavenly Parent’s love, you must also know how to take care of your children. She must know how to take care of her children, but her husband must also know how to take care of his wife. And the wife should also know how to attend her husband well. She must study and learn how to attend him well. As we study and learn about husbands, wives, and children, we can finally open our eyes to God’s love. This is because Heavenly Parent is the one who knows his wife, her husband, and their children the best. As much as you understand your wife, husband, and children, you will understand and realize Heavenly Parent’s love.
When Heavenly Parents raised their children, they did not raise them with anger and temper. They weren’t angry and unwilling to hear me out. Heavenly Parents were well aware that as their children were growing up, they did not listen to God but set about doing whatever they felt like. Heavenly Parent advised us clearly about the way to die and the way to live, but didn’t get angry and ask why we didn’t listen and make a big deal of it. And when we got angry, God didn’t threaten us if we wouldn’t listen to Him. As a result, it took 6,000 years for the children to grow up and finally find the right path. Since Heavenly Parent has been carrying out the providence for a long time, tending to His children all the while, He said that in order to have a deeper understanding of Heavenly Parent’s love, you must likewise know how to attend your children.
You can’t take care of your children by expecting them to listen to you and do what you expect of them. To take care of your children, you need to know them. You need to study your child’s thoughts. You must always pay attention to whether your child is lacking something. You should be interested in your children more than you’re interested in cars.
The same goes for husbands and wives: serve each other well. First of all you have to abandon the idea that the other person has to listen to you. How can we get angry when our spouse doesn’t listen to us and threatens us if we don’t listen to him or her? That is fundamentally wrong thinking. The partner is not the sort of being who listens to me and moves according to my expectations.
You have to live with your spouse and children. Living just as you please is not helpful toward understanding and knowing God’s love. In order to attain a greater love, a more beautiful love, I have to change the way I want to do things. If you only think about what you like, you will never go to a bigger and more beautiful world.
We are in the middle of our 6-month period of activities since we started with True Mother and resolved to create a Republic of Korea where Heavenly Parent can operate freely. We are working hard to enlighten the people of Korea and guide them to the path to a deeper understanding of Heavenly Parent’s love. Yet we shouldn’t be troubled if the people of the Republic of Korea aren’t listening to us. Our own children are also people with whom parents cannot just do as we please. It is the same: expecting our neighbors and friends to listen to us is a wrong idea right from the start.
However, what we can do is to live with the heart of serving the people whom Heavenly Parent created as His children for as long as it takes until we receive them as His proud children. This is the mindset we need above all.
Let us deeply engrave in our hearts the words that we can understand Heavenly Parent’s love more deeply when we know how to serve our children. If we want to build relationships with our friends and neighbors, the heart of serving them must be the root.
As we wrap up today’s message, let us read a passage from True Mother’s words:
“I have to complete all the programs that Father planned while He was on earth so that our descendants will suffer less. So, you have to actively cooperate so that we can complete the program laid out before us. You must live a life of thoroughly attending True Parents. … Day and night, 24/7, you should not leave your Parents. Only then can you be called children. Do so with the mindset to step into the position of True Children.” (Dec. 20, 2014, CheonHwa Palace, USA)
True Mother is doing her best to complete the providence. We should become her children lending strength to and supporting such our True Mother. True Mother wants us to become true children, to live a life of attending True Parents, and to live in oneness with True Parents 24 hours a day.
Especially during this 6-month course, we are devoting ourselves to enlightening and educating all the people of the Republic of Korea with a heart of serving them. In this way Heavenly Parent’s Holy Community can grow and then the Republic of Korea can greet the heavenly fortune of peaceful reunification and become completely one in attendance of True Mother. I am sure that if we do our best, Heavenly Parent will be with us and all the good spirit world will join in with us to lead us on the path of victory. Let us gain victory through this six-month period and welcome the heavenly fortune of a heavenly unified Korea! Thank you.