Yet the beauty of it is learning that all of those pieces, even the painful ones, fit perfectly together to create the masterpiece that is me. Stories, pain, conflict, joy, resilience, creativity, courage, and even anger have all brushed their unique strokes and colors onto the canvas of my life and invite me into an opportunity to become whole as I welcome all of the pieces of myself.
The God of Advent is not a God of wealth, privilege, or status. The God of Advent is lowly–identifying with a forsaken place of our world.
What if the problem is not our perceived foreignness at all, but our perpetual propensity to play the game? Maybe the way out of this perception is not ultimate economic empowerment, but a transfigured desire that perpetuates the possibility inherent in the empty space of Advent.
In “The Need for Asian American Theological Scholarship,” Chiwon Kim highlights how the domination of white male voices has shaped what has been accepted as “conventional theology.”
By Isaiah Hobus
I
n 2007, the Black Liberation theologian James Cone was interviewed by the esteemed journalist Bill Moyer. The interview was a precursor to Cone’s groundbreaking text, The Cross And The Lynching Tree. In the interview, Cone illustrated the connection between the cross and the lynching tree; that is, it is through the lens of the lynching tree that one can understand the tragic meaning of the cross and God’s solidarity with crucified people. In this case, Cone mentions the over 5000 lynching victims during the lynching era of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, Cone does not see tragedy as the end of the story of the lynching tree. Rather, he explains that the Christian gospel is what takes us through tragedy to beyond tragedy, by way of the cross, to victory in the cross. After explaining this, Moyers counters, saying, “but the victims of lynching are dead.” Cone’s response struck me:
No, their mothers and fathers are not dead, their brothers and sisters are not dead. I am alive. I have to give voice to those who did that and all of us do. That is why we can not forget it!
Upon hearing this comment, my mind immediately was drawn to the stories of tragedy carried on by myself and other Asian Americans. Through an objective lens, Moyers is correct: over 5000 victims of lynching are dead and the tragic experiences of millions of diasporic Asian American people shape their existence. Currently, 23 million Asian Americans live in this country, yet 71% of the adult population was born in another country. For many of us, including myself, stories of tragedy are embodied through our family’s immigration. However, to Cone’s point, according to the paradoxically terrible beauty of the cross, death and tragedy are not the end of the story. God’s powerless solidarity in crucifixion with crucified people brings life (victory) out of death. I realized that it is the bearing of the cross by others: its solidarity, its binding to experience, and its sharing of personhood that carries on stories of tragedy. In other words: it is through the tragic love of the cross that God’s story incarnates into and reshapes the stories of people, and it is through the tragic love of the cross participated in by people that brings resurrection out of tragedy. Cone helped me realize how integral stories and narrative are to both the human experience and God’s action in the world. I ultimately saw how the cross bridges God’s story of redemption to the tragedy of the Asian American Diaspora.
As the story of my own life has progressed, I have begun to understand how many labels I carry in the context of American society. I am an Asian American, I am mixed, I am the son of a Korean adoptee, and I am a second-generation immigrant. Through American eyes, my difference to the cultural majority is often either viewed through the lens of tokenism or reproach. I am not seen as a human equal. By and large, my difference is generalized instead of mutually encountered as a story. For many Asian Americans, their exterior is generalized by American society as an “other,” that belongs in “its own country.” Simultaneously, even if we were to return to what Americans by and large deem as, “our country,” we still experience alienation, for we are too American for our countries of heritage. This is the experience of being a perpetual foreigner, never wholly belonging to a space and never home. While America’s racialized society sees my Asianess and the labels of my existence through the lens of cheap tokenism that brushes over historic trauma or reproach that can’t sit with difference; to me, my Asianness is the tragic story of my mom coming into this country.
Every time my externality stands out to others through long stares, flushed faces, and racial microaggressions; the internality of my mom’s story rises to the surface. My mom’s story begins with her birth mother. She went into labor prematurely, whether she induced herself or it was natural has been left to speculation. She began labor just outside of Seoul, South Korea. When my biological grandmother had my mom, she would not have survived unless it was for the first incubator used in Korea. My mom was abandoned here by her mother. My mom believes she was born out of wedlock, and her mom abandoned her due to cultural patriarchal shame that she might face with her family. Subsequently, she was placed in the Korean adoption system. In the adoption system she was malnourished, lacking loving support from others. Eventually, in Korea, she was taken into a foster home for about three months where she was brought back to health. After being moved around in the adoption system, when she was three years old, the adoption system brought her to America where she was adopted by a white couple with two little boys in Minnesota.
Historically, I learned that my mom's journey to America was also a result of America’s Cold War relationship with South Korea. The effects of post-colonization of Japan and the Korean War left South Korea in economic and social turmoil and reliant on the United States. Since 1953, America has received over 110,000 adopted Korean children. Adoptees ranged from biracial children of U.S servicemen, children left hoping to be temporarily placed in the system by parents lacking economic resources, and children overtly abandoned by their parents—like my mom. The commonality stringing these children together, however, is their existence as outsiders: first in Korea and then in America. Each child is an approximation of perpetual foreignhood: misplaced in diaspora and never home. Starting in the ‘50s, the adoption of Korean children by white families was a growing commodity. This only grew in the decades that followed. In Korea, adoption became a tragic national custom while in America it was a celebrated humanitarian project. Korea was unable to care for my mom, so she was sent to America. When my difference is acknowledged implicitly or explicitly through tokenism or reproach, I feel the immediacy and pain of the continued life of my mom’s story.
To this day, my mom has not had contact with her biological parents or returned to South Korea. Subsequently, the only Asian American people in my family are myself, my sister, and my mom. I not only wear my mom’s story externally through my skin pigmentation, my slanted eyes, and dark thick hair, but my mom’s story is a deep internal reality I carry. I believe this is a result of my mom pouring her story into both me and my sister. Through bringing us to culture camps, making Korean food, and displaying cultural artifacts she poured her story into the life of me and my sister. My mom gave voice to her story of tragedy. Thus, my Asianness is inherently juxtaposed to my mom’s story of abandonment and immigration. I cannot forget, for her story will inherently and forever be a part of me and my family. This, I believe, is Cone’s point.
I believe my mom’s story is a contemporary cross where God is present, just as God was present in the crucifixion of Christ. It is a cross I, with perspective, have already seen God’s ministry (Missio Dei) at work, and I believe it is still being brought to fullness in God’s redemptive Kingdom. It is a cross I, along with my present and future family, am called to bear daily, and participate in the presence of the redeeming cruciform love of God. The redeeming cruciform love of God is God's determination to take the human story into God’s story: bringing about the fullness of God’s reign on earth in Christ, drawing all people to God’s self, and reconciling the entirety of the world (Lk 17:21, Jn 12:32, 2 Cor 5:19). God does not leave the human story to itself, rather God breaks into that story, reshaping it toward its end: reconciled into the Triune life of God. God reveals this through the tragic story of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’s story was not one of privilege. Rather, he was a carpenter's son, born in a barn, living as an outsider, being rejected by his own people (Jn 1:11), only to be condemned as a criminal and blasphemer and hang on a cross. This story of ultimate tragedy is the means of God’s restoration and reconciliation of our tortured world. This is the way of the cross, and this is how Cone sees beauty in tragedy:
Though the pain of Jesus’ cross was real, there was also joy and beauty in his cross. This is the great theological paradox that makes the cross impossible to embrace unless one is standing in solidarity with those who are powerless. God’s loving solidarity can transform ugliness—whether Jesus on the cross or a lynched black victim—into beauty, into God’s liberating presence. Through the powerful imagination of faith, we can discover the ‘terrible beauty of the cross and the tragic beauty of the lynching tree.’
Through solidarity with crucified people, the crucified God incarnates into and reshapes tragedy, bringing about resurrection through God’s liberating presence. To Cone, this paradox offers beauty to the tragedy of lynching. The tragic love of the crucified God brings about healing to the crucified people of history—including diasporic Asian Americans. When others participate in this loving solidarity (the way of the cross), giving voice to and remembering tragedy, the universal victory of the cross actualizes in particularity. In other words, through human action correspondingly participating in the risen and living Christ’s liberating presence, the cross’ victory becomes concrete and life becomes present in death.
Take, for example, the bearing of the cross by the families of the lynching victims or the bearing of the cross by myself, my sister, and mom, or even my biological grandmother who still, despite the pressure of shame, self-sacrificially bore the cross of deciding to have my mom. In each case, life became present among death through solidarity, the binding of experience, and the sharing of personhood. I contend that in each cross, God’s liberating presence is breaking into tragedy and bringing about resurrection.
You, along with my mom and I, may share a similar story of tragedy and longing for belonging amidst the displacement of Asian American people. Please know that your story lives on through the loving solidarity of personhood borne by God in the cross and others bearing the cross. Know the cross is beauty beyond tragedy and resurrecting cruciform love amidst death. Know you can bear the tragedy of the cross daily, as the Gospel’s witness toward (Mk 8:27-9:8; Mt 16:24-28; Lk 9:23-27; Jn 12:23-26), actualizing victory in the cross. The crucified God through cruciform love incarnates into and reshapes the trajectory of your story. When I asked my mom about Cone’s crucifixion formulation (through tragedy, to beyond tragedy by way of the cross, to victory in the cross) she told me she believes this is her story, that the cross saved her, and it was the cross that has brought about wholeness in her anger, abandonment, and experience as an outsider. This is resurrection in tragedy. Go and participate in the liberating presence of Christ, by way of the cross, actualizing its victory.
Photo by Laura Allen on Unsplash
Isaiah Hobus is a recent graduate of Bethel University with a degree in biblical and theological studies, and currently a Master’s of Divinity student with an emphasis in Christian community development at Northern Seminary. He is also a youth outreach associate at a nonprofit ministry for teens, Treehouse Hope in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where he mentors teenagers. In his spare time, he enjoys reliving his days as a college athlete in cross country and track through runs, sticking his nose in a book, and guzzling black coffee.
Even if God's goodness to me didn't look the way that I thought it should, I'm going to worship him because he's worthy of worship.
The Bible has always showed me that I don’t necessarily need to adhere to the patriarchal structure of society and it was the Bible that helped me understand my value as a woman.
The biblical story of David and Goliath has helped me to contextualize much of my life as a Japanese American: I’ve tried to convince myself that I could make someone else’s “armor” fit.
So much of our experience as Asian Americans is the constant struggle to honor our own culture and experiences while being good citizens without losing what makes us unique.
While Asian Americans may not fit neatly into the white-Black binary, we are not excluded from reckoning with the racial history of this country...Through remembrance, we take ownership of our history - even if none of us were there.
Today’s seminaries face the necessary task of de-centering white theology and scholarship and moving toward a holistic multicultural Christianity.
By Tom Sugimura
T
o my children,
You have heard recently about Asian Americans being mocked or harmed because of their ethnic origin. This is not a new occurrence in our country’s history, but it may be new for you. So I want to share with you some truths to help you think rightly about it.
First, you are loved. Your mom and I love you (Psalm 127:3-5). Your siblings love you, though it may not always seem like it (Psalm 133:1). You have many friends and a church family that will love you at all times (Galatians 3:28).
Most importantly, God loves you so much that he gave his Son to die for you (John 3:16; 1 John 4:7-11) and he created you to reflect his image in your own unique way (Genesis 1:27). As such, you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-16). So remember that you are loved. Even when hateful people say or do things to harm you, it cannot change your identity or your value (Romans 8:35-39).
When people sin against you as they eventually will do, be wise in your response (Colossians 4:5-6). Sometimes it is best to ignore the fool and stay out of the mud (Proverbs 26:4). At other times, you might instruct the well-meaning person to see their ignorance (Proverbs 26:5). In some cases, ask for help from authorities (e.g., your teacher, your boss at work, the police) whom God grants the power to establish peace and justice (Romans 13:1-4).
The wisest response might even be to fight or to protest peacefully. This is especially true when you are defending those who cannot protect themselves (Proverbs 31:8-9). God does not permit you to sin against those who sin against you, but his Word grants us a variety of responses. This is the way (Proverbs 23:19).
When you face adversity, trust that God is both sovereign and good (Isaiah 46:9-10). Racism was a daily experience for grandma’s father. He lived through the Chinese Exclusion Act and had to take a stranger as his picture bride because Chinese women weren’t allowed to enter the country without being already married. He witnessed God’s love when Christians brought your grandma to church while she was just a child. Then he experienced it again when the pastor visited him in the hospital after surgery. Your great-grandpa put his faith in Jesus because that was the first act of real kindness ever shown to him by a White man.
We don’t know every reason behind our suffering, but we know our God is both sovereign and good. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). He will make all things right—if not in this life, then ultimately in the life to come (Revelation 21:1-5).
People sin (Romans 3:10-12) against you, perhaps for the color of your skin or the stereotype of your culture. Yet remember that you and I are also sinners, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We cannot view their racism as more deserving of God’s judgment than our own pride or discrimination against others (Matthew 7:3-5; Romans 6:23). We all need a Savior who will forgive our sin (1 John 1:9; Proverbs 28:13) when we place our trust in him (Romans 10:9, 13).
Not only that, but Jesus can also heal you from any shame or scars resulting from racial hatred (Romans 10:11). He knows personally how much it hurts to suffer (Hebrews 4:15), yet he himself refused to respond in sinful anger against those who reviled him (1 Peter 2:21-24).
Finally, do not be anxious when you are tempted to avoid certain people or situations because you fear their opinion of you (Proverbs 29:25). Instead, put your trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6; Philippians 4:4-6). Pray for his peace when you are afraid and his wisdom when you don’t know what to do (James 1:2-6). Pray that God will protect your heart (Proverbs 4:23) and grant you the right words to say (Luke 12:11-12). Pray for those who persecute you that they might turn to God themselves (Matthew 5:43-45).
Then pray that any who still suffer will find lasting hope in God (Lamentations 3:19-26). “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
* A version of this article first appeared at Sola Network
Photo by Kate Macate on Unsplash
Tom Sugimura pastors New Life Church in Woodland Hills, California, leads the Greenhouse Church Planting Residency, and trains counselors at The Master’s University. He and his wife, Amanda, are raising four rambunctious children whose stories can be found in Hope for New Dads. Tom also blogs regularly at Grace & Truth about the intersection between life and Scripture.
Even as we are called to fight the good fight, Christ’s constant invitation to us is to surrender, to rest, and to be still.
Our minds matter, so do our bodies. Offering our bodies in view of God's mercy is a step that the church cannot afford to neglect.
The fullness of Immanuel, God with us, encompassed a physical body and a rich cultural background. This season, let’s worship all of who Jesus was.
How could the “model minority” suddenly become the target of such violence? For others, it comes as no surprise, as they have always recognized the precarious nature of our racial status.