Yes, I Still Love Jesus: A Letter to Mom

Dear Mom,

I had it all set up and prepared to go. I got as close as putting the big screen TV on top of the altar table, “in remembrance of me” etched into the wood. For my message on Sunday, I was going to honor you on Mother’s Day by using a PowerPoint presentation and the music you loved, music that in turn honors Christ. The hope was to inspire people with the message of Christ found in that music. But as I looked at the TV on the altar, I began doubting that purpose. It didn’t feel right. It was as if you were saying, honor Jesus, not me. Preach Jesus, that would make me happiest. 

So that is what I’m going to do.

Years ago when you doubted my answer, you asked me, do I still love Jesus? I answered yes, of course. But I didn’t want to get into a long discussion about theology and the Bible so I stopped there. 

Here’s my longer answer today. 

I still love Jesus. I must admit, for a long time I had trouble admitting this. I looked at those who claimed to love Jesus but had hurt me and people more vulnerable than me, and felt disgust and aversion. If love of Jesus led to such harm, such hurt, such hate, maybe love of Jesus is not a choice I should make, I surmised.

I must be honest. The hypocrisy I see hasn’t gotten any better. I still can’t understand how anyone who claims to love Jesus could be so calloused and cavalier in their lack of compassion to vulnerable people. I still can’t understand how anyone who claims to love Jesus could be okay with words, deeds, and policies that seem to hate Jesus and his message.  Knowing our faith says God in Christ loves us so much that he’d rather die than to see any of us suffer, I can’t understand how any of the so-called faithful can reject the way of love again and again and again, and are okay with the affliction of suffering. 

That said, I still love Jesus. Human hypocrisy is not Jesus’ fault. And those who are the most oppressed cling to his name most.

I remember the song you’d often sing. I often hear it in my mind. ”There’s Something About That Name”

That song remains true to me and moves something in me that is beyond thought and theology.

I love Jesus of Nazareth, the iconoclast who rebelled against the powerful of his day, the one who stood up to the hardheartedness of his age and the hatred all around him without ever losing hope or turning away from love.  I love the one who chose first and foremost the most vulnerable among us again and again, advocating for them, lifting them up as the chosen ones, pointing to their humanity, their humility, and their beauty. I love how Jesus was the underdog of all underdogs, how he was someone who’d have been the least likely to be the Messiah in his high school yearbook. I love how he followed his highest calling despite the ridicule he received. He was raised to do what his daddy done, after all. I love how he understood the financial hardship and struggle we went through and the working-class life we knew. 

But it goes even deeper than that. 

I remember a discussion I had in Korea in 2000. It was with a Korean teacher at the school where I taught. We were discussing religion, about Jesus and the Buddha in particular. He was a devout Christian. As you know and what hurt you deeply then, I was a Buddhist. I still value Buddhism and find it to be a beautiful tradition, but then I was all in, Jesus seeming distant. 

As we were talking, the Korean teacher asked a question I’ll never forget. The Buddha taught disciples for many years. That’s fine. But did he do anything like what Jesus did – die on a cross out of love for people?

At the time I shrugged the question off. I said 50 years of teaching and living as a simple monk required a lot of sacrifice. But I knew it paled in comparison.

Christ’s love took him to the cross. It’s one thing to be an iconoclast and resist the ways of the world. It’s another to see the cross and all it meant ahead and not run away. Such love for humanity. Such love for the people. Such love for his followers and friends, a love so profound that he laid down his life for them, and through them, all.

In my first month of Clinical Pastoral Education at Albany Medical Center in New York, I faced many challenges, tragedies, griefs. I ministered to people in the saddest, most traumatic moments of their lives, the question “why God?” loud and unavoidable. 

In the wake of this, who did I turn to for strength, for comfort, for peace? Who was it that I turned to light my way and give me hope in the wake of a heartbreaking visit? Was it the Buddha? Was it Kuan-yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion? No, it was Jesus, the one you sang about and love. 

One evening, disaster struck and I was the on-call chaplain called to comfort a shattered family in the ER. After meeting with the family, I walked the dimly lit corridor back to the on-call sleeping room. An image of Jesus came into my mind. It was an image of Jesus we see a lot, like the one in St. John’s Cemetery where grandpa is buried. Jesus is alive, his arms open wide, ready to embrace the weary and burdened, including me that night and including the one’s I just prayed for in the torrents of grief.

So, do I love Jesus? With every fiber of my being.

And for this, in many ways, I have you to thank. Your love of Jesus moved you to sing of him so much. I learned those songs. I sing them myself now and mean them.

Love,

Don