Jesus’ new teaching with authority! To me, it would be described as crossing boundaries. When I was a kid, I loved watching an animated movie based on the Korean War. In the animation, North Koreans were pictured as violent wolves with red faces that killed innocent South Koreans, so we called them the reds. It was a vivid image that scared me all the time just as others had, so to speak, the red complex. Needless to say, I had been educated that North Korea was our enemy and against them we had to defend our country, democracy, and freedom.
In the gospel, Jesus crosses the well-established boundaries by healing the unclean man. No one at that time wanted to talk, contact, and treat the unclean as neighbors. This boundary was considered to protect people from defilement and became a division between the good and bad, friends and enemies which led to hatred and exclusion. Jesus does not respect these boundaries. He trespasses them, simply ordering to the grumbling, “Quiet! Come out of him!”
To me, Jesus’ teaching—love your enemy and bless and pray for them—was foreign and totally new. How can we South Koreans love North Koreans who tried to get rid of us and even bless and pray for them? They are wicked as well as ungrateful, no matter how much we send humanitarian aids for the starving and mal-nutritional children. There was a deep boundary that I thought no one could cross over and should.
Here I want to talk about the movie called “Freedom Writer.” The background of the movie is set in a high school in Los Angeles where the students segregates themselves, especially after 1992 Los Angeles Riot. The Hispanic never converse with the blacks; the Cambodians never allow anyone to walk through their ghetto; and the whites are a minority group. In the classroom, each group has its own territory that no one dares to cross. Then a new teacher, one day, invites them to play the Line Game, drawing one line in the middle of the classroom. The game is pretty simple. People who stand aside need to step up to the line when they hear something that they can relate to. “Is there anyone who is born in America?” All step up to the line. “Is there anyone who has a girl friend or a boy friend?” Obviously everyone steps up, giggling at each other. “Is there anyone who has been shot at?” After a little shocking silence, most hesitantly step up. “Stay there, if anyone who has lost a friend because of gun violence?” Most stay still. “Is there anyone who has lost more than one friend?” The dead silent prevails; some drop the heads, sobbing. “More than two?” Some move back, but many still remain, looking at each other. This is such a powerful moment when for the first time they look at one another differently in the line for they see the others’ same sorrow and pain. The teacher asked, “Four?” Some are still there. The teacher asks all to pray for the victims of the violence.