On Wednesday, before I hopped in the car and headed up to Jaffrey, I took part in a panel discussion on Asian and Asian American identity.
This sounds more impressive than it was – the conference is an Annual event that is planned and executed by Asian and Asian American students at Northfield Mount Hermon, where I teach – so as a teacher of Japanese American heritage I am always asked to take part. I sit with four other Asian American faculty members and together we field questions about what it means, and how it feels to be Asian American.
One of the students asked if we agreed with her that the rice in the dining hall was an outrage. There was general agreement about that.
One kid said: “I didn’t know, until a year ago, that every family does not have a rice cooker!”
There was a long and very fascinating debate about whether the Asian American students considered themselves “people of color.” When asked for a show of hands, only three or four students raised their hands.
In response to this, one young woman spoke eloquently about how, even though she did not think of herself as white, she also didn’t feel comfortable pretending that she suffered to the same extent that other people of color suffer.
This made her feel a bit confused and alone. It felt, to her, like American society doesn’t really bother taking serious account of our people of Asian descent.
Many of the young people in the room nodded in agreement.
As the time slot for the faculty panel portion of the day was about to end, a young woman raised her hand to ask the last question.
“I’m Queer,” she said, “but I don’t really want to tell my parents. I know that it wouldn’t be good. Do you have any advice for me?”
It was wonderful how confident she was to claim her queer identity among all the students and teachers present. This was clearly a safe space for her. At the same time, though, she was clearly nervous about her parents.
One of the teachers on the panel was also queer. She said two things to this student: first she told her that eventually she would have to be honest with her parents, and who knows, that they might… they might… surprise her. After she said that she said:
“If it doesn’t go well, and your family does not accept you, then you will have to embrace the idea of “found family.” For a lot of LGBTQ folks, we have to learn how to find our own family. Recognizing someone who can be your mother or someone trustworthy enough to be a good brother – it’s a skill. You get better at it over time.
**
Psalm 22, the reading that practically filled up our entire bulletin this morning, may seem familiar to you, in parts.
You may recognize the opening lines of the psalm as the words that Jesus Christ uttered as he was dying on the cross:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (Matthew 27:46)
When the psalmist complains that people mock him saying:
“Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”
It is eerily similar to Luke’s crucifixion story that reports that
leaders scoffed at Jesus, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” (Luke 23:35)
Finally, the psalmist’s complaint that his enemies will
divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots
is a direct parallel, again, to Luke’s crucifixion story, which tells that,
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing.
(Luke 23:34)
So, what are we to make of the almost verbatim way that the gospel writers lifted material from psalm 22 when they recorded the events of Christ’s crucifixion?
Why would they do this?
Well…
Biblical scholars who notice these things have a ready answer. The scholarly consensus is that the gospel writers borrowed liberally from Hebrew scripture in order to double down on their assertion that Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.
When Jesus said and did things that directly echoed the language that, for hundreds of years, had been associated with the Divine – this established Christ’s credibility as the son of God.
This is all very well – and far be it for me to get into an argument with Biblical scholars who make a living picking apart all the jots and tittles of the gospels and psalms – but thankfully, this is not what I am particularly interested in.
I’m less interested in Jewish prophecy, as I am that the gospel writers chose to make allusions to Psalm 22.
In case you didn’t notice, Psalm 22 is a bit like a game of ping-pong.
If you look at the first word of each stanza you can see it – “Yet…”, “But…” “Yet…”
The psalmist can’t decide about God. Psalm 22 is the back and forth struggle. At one point God is utterly absent, and then, in the next stanza God is back.
But surely this is not how Jesus feels! Jesus, whose baptism is visited by the Holy Spirit? Jesus who is transfigured on the mountaintop? Jesus who heals lepers, gives sight to the blind? Jesus who calms the storm, and walks on water? Jesus who even raises people from the dead? Certainly Jesus, of all people, can feel confident about his relationship with God.
And yet, in spite of all the evidence of Christ’s undeniably real connection to the divine, the gospel writers did not echo a confident psalm – of which there are plenty to choose from. They chose a tortured, uncertain, almost frightened psalm. Psalm 22.
Did they know something about Jesus that we don’t?
**
Let us return for a moment to the young Asian woman who I spoke of at the beginning of this morning’s sermon.
It is manifestly clear to me that her greatest fear is this: if she tells her parents she is queer, she might lose their love and their support.
In a sense, she is struggling with the same thing that Jesus and the psalmist struggle with.
She is unsure. Her emotions are playing ping pong. Sometimes she thinks it will be fine… and then she thinks, No… it won’t be fine. They will disown me.
To her, the most important thing is love.
This is true for all of us… and this pervasive and simple truth is the reason why it is often said that God and love are one and the same.
If love is the most important thing, then love must be God. And God must be love.
The passage from first John from which I constructed this morning’s call to worship, makes this point quite clearly:
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us (First John 4:11-13)
If we use this logic, and replace the word, God, (and all the pronouns that refer to God), in Psalm 22 with the word “love” a very revealing thing happens.
Rather than spend an hour going over it with you, I suggest that you take the bulletin home and look it over yourself. See how love transforms Psalm 22, embedding it more deeply in the lived experience of being human.
Jesus loved us. And so when we turned against him, it was love that turned against him.
My Love, my Love, why have you forsaken me?
If the young Asian woman offers her vulnerability to her parents and is turned away, she too, will say:
My Love, my Love, why have you forsaken me?
Love is the most important thing in our lives… yet it is uncertain.
There is nothing, like love, that keeps us guessing.
And that is why, when it is given to us, so freely and with grace, we recognize in it, the presence of God.
I think of this when I remember our beloved Cynthia who we lost this week.
All of us – when we remember her, how can we not think of love – the love that she gave us, and the love we gave her in return?
I first met Cynthia, when she, and a bunch of other church ladies drove me around Jaffrey.
After the tour, and after the interview with the search committee in the parlor, Cynthia showed me the sanctuary, and the church offices.
I remember this quite distinctly, like it was yesterday. I remember exactly where we were standing, on the pavement between the church and the parish hall, about where that sink hole is. She put her hand gently on my arm and said:
“Do you think you could love our little church?”
Well, I didn’t know exactly what to say, but I knew that this woman seemed like love itself to me.
I recognized love, freely and gracefully given.
If, as Jesus taught us, love is how we recognize a Christians, than we, who have had the privilege of knowing Cynthia, have been given a great lesson.
Love is fearful when it is uncertain.
And when it is certain… when it plays out before you in a smile, in a wink, in a gentle hand on your arm…
It is… divine.
Let us pray:
Dear Love
Do not forsake us
You are holy,
our ancestors trusted you
and you delivered them.
To Love they cried, and were saved;
in Love they trusted,
and were not put to shame.
Love has rescued us.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek love shall praise Love.
All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to Love;
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before Love.
For dominion belongs to Love,
and Love rules over the nations
Posterity will serve love;
future generations will be told about love,
and proclaim love’s deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that Love has done it.
Amen