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Welcome to another episode of Jubilee Life Coaches blog. I am Coach Brian. I have been a pastor for over 30 years, and lately I have been working as a Christian life coach. I bring a balance of Christian counseling and reform theology to our worldview. Today's episode is about a principal in Seoul who knelt for her students and the table Jesus asks us to set for neighbors who cannot repay us. On the evening of September 17, 2026, a woman in a light blue jacket knelt on the floor of a school in Seoul. Her name is Chomyong-suke. She is the principal of Yomyung School. It is the only accredited alternative middle and high school in Seoul for young people from North Korea. About a hundred students study there. The school has been borrowing an empty elementary school building. That arrangement ends this coming February. The education office wants to give the school a permanent home on part of the same land. Many residents nearby want it gone. That evening, the room grew loud. A neighboring high school principal tried to speak up for Yum Young and he was cut off. So Principal Cho knelt. Then a voice came over a loudspeaker. It belonged to an official of the residents' opposition committee. Everyone, we should kneel too! Four or five residents hurried forward and knelt in front of her. Some of them, still on their knees, loudly told her to leave. Her knees asked for neighborly welcome and acceptance. Their answer? Not in my neighborhood. Here is what makes it so sad. This neighborhood has seen kneeling before. Back in 2013, the education office announced a public school for students with developmental disabilities to be built in this same neighborhood. It would be called Sojin School. Until then, many disabled children in the area rode long distances to schools in another district. Many residents fought it. They wanted a hospital on that land instead, one their lawmaker had promised. On September 5, 2017, at a public debate, mothers of disabled children knelt one by one in front of the residents. They asked for one thing. Let our children go to a school near home. The photograph of those mothers went around the country and public opinion turned. Sojin School finally opened in 2020, seven years after it was announced. Same neighborhood, nine years apart. Under fights like these in Korea, there is often one quiet question: what will this do to the price of my apartment? A 2018 study looked at apartment prices around special schools in Seoul. It found that a special school's location was not a significant factor. The fear is real. The research simply does not back it up. Jesus named this master. He said, No one can serve two masters, and then you cannot serve God and money. The very next verse begins, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. Money and anxiety in the same breath. Mammon is a master that pays its servants in fear. So I go back to that school floor, knees bent before a principal. But before whom were they really bent? The committee says the problem is procedure. One resident at the meeting suspected it came down to real estate. I cannot rule on any one person's heart. But Scripture tells us that one day, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Until that day, our knees bend towards something. I believe Mammon received worship that evening, dressed as humility. And before I point at anyone, I have to ask where my own knees bend. In IFS, internal family systems, we would call that fear a protective part. It is rarely evil, it is afraid. Many Korean families carry memories of war, of poverty, of the financial crisis of 1997. A part that says, hold on to the house or your children will fall did not come from nowhere. But here I part ways with IFS. A calmer self is not enough. We need a new master. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Israel was told to remember, love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Korea has its own Egypt. In December of 1945, 27 refugees from the north started a small church in Seoul. Today it is Yungnak Church. As more refugees came south, that church pitched tents on its empty ground for people who had no home. And Yommyung School itself was founded by churches and believers who helped North Koreans during the great famine of the 1990s. Jesus once sat at a dinner and rewrote the guest list. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. Jesus also told us how this story ends. On the last day, the king will sit on his glorious throne. To some he will say, I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. To others he will say, I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. Both groups are surprised. Both ask the same question, Lord, when did we see you? And the king answers, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. I was a stranger. Those words land hard on a school floor in Seoul. These students came from the north. In the south, they are still strangers in many ways. But notice something. The sheep did not keep a list. They did not even know they were serving the king. Their welcome was not a ticket into the kingdom. It was the fruit of hearts the king had already made new. Michael Horton, writing in the Journal of Reformed Theological Seminary, says justification gives us a father instead of a judge. It also gives us neighbors instead of threats. If my standing before God does not depend on my neighbor, I am free to serve my neighbor. If my security does not depend on the price of my apartment, I am free to welcome a school. And that table has room for the residents who shouted too. They cannot repay him either. Neither can I. Still, the need is far greater than the supply. Seoul has only 32 special schools, and eight of its 25 districts have none. Some children spend more than an hour just getting to class. Principal Cho says she will not hold a grudge against the residents. She wants to show love rather than justice. She asked Korean churches to pray from 2 Thessalonians, as for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. And she asked one more thing. Pray that her students will see more people who encourage them. Here is one question to sit with this week. Who feels like a threat to you right now? And what might change if you first saw that person as a neighbor God has placed near you? Well, that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining us today. Don't forget, in Christ we are free to live. Now let us go and live to free others for Christ's sake. This is Jubilee Coach. Until next time, Godspeed!