Chinese Dumplings And Communion
The story – told by one of my seminary professors – is probably apocryphal.
But it makes the point.
Allegedly, a Sixteenth or Seventeenth Century Spanish saint whose brother – a missionary friar in the New World – committed suicide, thus – according to the theology of the time – sentencing himself to Hell for all eternity.
Giving new meaning to the idea “blood is thicker than theology or religion,” the good Sister wrote God: “If you condemn my brother to Hell, I want no part of You.”
[EDITORS’ NOTE: Today, happily, our Churches no longer hold such dogmatic positions. Recognizing the role of mental health issues in suicide, celebrating the goodness and “trusting in the mercy of God,” our Churches afford the hope and consolation of all of the rites Christian burial – including in “consecrated ground” - to the families and friends of persons who have committed suicide. We pray for those who have died and for and with those who mourn.]
Often, when recalling my Chinese friends “David” and “Sicko,” I remember that – probably mythical and almost certainly cloistered - Spanish Sister and want to shout “Good for you, Sister! You tell Him!”
During the early 2000s, because Chinese students at universities far removed from Beijing rarely encountered native-born “American English” speakers, visiting professors were politely expected to give a major – “90-minutes” – lecture open to everyone.
Walking back to my apartment after my introductory presentation at the Xi’an Jiatong University School of Nursing, I was surrounded by a small mob of – almost exclusively female - students trying to impress each other with their English.
In a mismatched wardrobe that bespoke his poverty and the poverty of his hometown, David struggled mightily to keep up with the moving scrum and my English. Except for the grace of God and Divine Intervention and because the crowd kept nudging him to the periphery, I might never have seen him. But I did. And began a conversation with a Chinese version of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp.
Ohhh, the horror!
The silence of the moving crowd was palpable.
And David and I kept talking.
All the way to the well-guarded gates of my apartment complex. “Any time you want to practice your English, you just come over,” I told him, stopping to assure the guard that David would always be welcome. The mob stopped moving. Frozen in place and silence by my words.
The president of his Traditional Chinese Medicine undergraduate school’s Communist Party student organization and a Party member as he studied Western Medicine, “Sicko” never missed one of my lectures – just to practice his English. (He heard a character in an American movie referred to as a “Sicko” and adopted it as his English name.) He used to give a Traditional Chinese Massage unlike anything America has ever seen – always ending with the words “Now the atomic bomb,” as he applied his elbows in the closing act.
The three of us became so tight that, when five Florida friends visited China, David and Sicko became self-appointed guides and translators.
“In the morning, we’re going to the Cathedral for Mass and we’ll meet you at The World Famous Dumpling Restaurant after that,” I explained on Saturday evening.
“Oh no,” came the response. “We’ve never been to church. We will go with you.”
And they did. Sitting just to my right and behind me in a small alcove of Xi’an’s Cathedral of St. Francis, they duplicated my every gesture. If I stood, they stood. When I sat, they sat. When, in union with the bishop and priests at the altar, I extended my right hand during the words of Consecration, they…
At Communion time, I whispered “You stay here. I’ll be right back,” never imagining that they would follow me, approaching the bishop and priests distributing consecrated hosts.
But they did. Solemnly bowing to the bishop. Extending their palms. Receiving Communion.
Walking to The World Famous Dumpling Restaurant (With over 250 types of dumplings, that’s actually the name.), David explained, “My grandparents are Buddhists. They always eat after they pray.” When asked what Party officials would say about his attending Mass and receiving Communion, Sicko declared, “You are my Lǎoshī (teacher, master, model)!”
Over time, both have become outstanding – and, in David’s case, internationally respected – physicians and healers, responding to earthquakes and other disasters, providing tender, well-informed care – often for the poorest of the poor.
When the time comes, I will ask the Creator if David, Sicko and I will have a chance to share dumplings together in His Kingdom. If not, I will quote the good Sister: “I want no part of you.”
I often think of that cloistered nun and David and Sicko when I hear folks calling for a “Christian nation.”
The idea of America or the United States as a “Christian nation” is oxymoronic and profoundly unbiblical.
There is no – NO – indication of the Twenty-first Century concept of “nation” – with legislative bodies, guaranteed rights, judicial systems and constitutions - in Judeo-Christian scripture. Prior to and after the Jesus event, people were bound together by familial and blood ties, the geographic areas they occupied and the deity or deities they feared and placated. Even the descendants of Abraham were tribal – bound together by their unique monotheism, their absolute abhorrence of the human sacrifice practiced by rival kingdoms, tribes and clans, and their shared experiences of exile, slavery and, ultimately, the Exodus from Egypt.
The ministry of Jesus was never “nationalist.”
The story of the Syrophoenician woman is found in Mark, the first Gospel written, and Matthew 15:21-28. Mark 7:24-30 tells us:
“Jesus went to the vicinity of Tyre [on the Mediterranean coast of southern Lebanon]. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
“’First let the children eat all they want,’ he told her, ‘for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’
“’Lord,’ she replied, ‘even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’
“Then he told her, ‘For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.’
“She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.”
No Christian nationalism – as a “religious” or “political” movement” – there.
Try Matthew 8:5-13 and Jesus’ relationship with the Roman centurion - a story so important it also appears in Luke 7:1-10:
“When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.
“’Lord,’ he said, ‘my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Shall I come and heal him?’ The centurion replied, ‘Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it.’
“When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.’ And his servant was healed at that very hour.”
On Pentecost (Acts 2: 1-31) – often referred to as the beginning of Christianity, Peter first preached to
“Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.”
Writing well before any of the Gospels were produced, Paul repeatedly referred to himself as an “apostle to the Gentiles.”
“For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles…”
Romans 11:13
“I have been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.”
Galatians 2:7-8
And
“I was appointed preacher and apostle (I am speaking the truth, I am not lying), teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”
I Timothy 2:7
Of course, Paul was not there on the night before the Crucifixion. If he had been, he might have repeatedly shared with his friends from Jerusalem to Rome the words of Jesus:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
John 13:34
Standing before Pontius Pilate, the man with the authority to set him free or allow his execution to go forward, Jesus makes it clear:
“My kingdom is not of this world… my kingdom is not from here.”
John 18:36
Finally, in the Great Commission – the departing admonition of Jesus to his disciples – at the conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew, we find the most salient response to anyone who might proclaim “Christian nationalism”:
“Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
Matthew 28:18-20
To those who call for the United States to become a “Christian nation,” I will repeat the words of the cloister Spanish Sister: “I want no part of you.”
‘Cause, in the Kingdom of God, I look forward to sharing Chinese dumplings with David and Sicko.
And we’re gonna invite the good Sister and her brother.