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CHRISTIAN GOSPEL IN A MINORITY CONTEXT

Lee In-Ha

Gospel Text: Luke 4: 16-22:

Then Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to the synagogue. He stood up to read the Scriptures and was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written,

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind;

to set free the oppressed

and announce that the time has come

when the Lord will save his people."

Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down, All the people m the synagogue had their eyes fixed on him, as he said to them, "This passage of scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read." They were all well impressed with him and marvelled at the eloquent words that he spoke. They said, "Isn't he the son of Joseph?"

My presentation is not a systematic one but represents fragmented reflections on my involvements in various issues that have arisen in my life situation.

I would like to begin talking about myself. Christianity came to me through a Japanese teacher who was a Christian. Thus I was nurtured in the Japanese church. This experience contributed two elements to the development of my thought – one, positive and the other negative. The positive element is that Christianity has a universal truth which embraces every human being, including both Japanese and Koreans. At the same time I learned that Christianity adapted to the trends of the time. This was the time of the Second World War, and the Japanese Church was playing a role that fitted the imperial system. Japanese Christians compromised the Christian Gospel with the situation. This was why my understanding of the Gospel was distorted.

Right after the war, the call came to me to serve my own people who were liberated from Japanese colonial domination. I made a decision to go into theological training. At the same time I decided to join the Korean Christian Church in Japan. When the history of the suffering of the Korean Christians was introduced, I was very shocked by the fact that 50 pastors were killed because of their resistance to Shinto shrine worship, which was part of the imperial system. I learned anew that Christian faith is something that demands us to commit our lives to it. This understanding of faith enriched my life.

However, this new understanding remained mere knowledge. My theological training in a Japanese school which was western-oriented alienated me from our people who were suffering.

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Three experiences had great impact on me and enabled me to break through. The first of them is an event which occurred about twelve years ago. My church was celebrating its 60th anniversary of mission among the Koreans in Japan. We seriously studied the history of our church. We discovered that the church was unable to function as a force to change the situation or to stand at the forefront of the people's struggle for freedom from bondage in Japan. We were led to rethink what the church should be. Such a theological exercise opened my eyes.

The second impact came from my involvement in the ecumenical movement. I was invited to serve the WCC's Program to Combat Racism as a commissioner. The church has always issued statements that racism is wrong and against God's will but it has never done anything about it. Through this program, the church expresses its solidarity in a more concrete way with the oppressed. This experience was very enlightening to me.

The third impact came from my involvement in the struggle of a Korean youth, called Mr. Park for correcting the injustice done by a large electric company called Hitachi. He was fired by Hitachi because of his Korean background. This was a clear case of discrimination against an ethnic group. This case was taken to the District court. The struggle went on for four years and the court ruled in favour of Mr. Park. This victory has led not only to his re-employment but brought new hope for the Korean people.

The impact of these three experiences challenged me to ask: what does my theology mean today? My conclusion was that we must listen to the word of God in the actual historical context. We sometimes think that we have to establish our faith first and then go into the situation to work as Christians. If this is the case, faith remains abstract. We have to encounter Jesus in our own life situation and listen to the word in that particular context. Otherwise, faith becomes abstract and meaningless. The late Prof. Mori Arimasa says "Faith is not merely experience; it comes from beyond the experience." Nevertheless, faith without experience, is not true faith. Bonhoeffer talks of the "ultimate" and the "penultimate". I don't mean that the historical situation has ultimate meaning but the ultimate language has to be listened to in the historical situation. That is to say we have to listen to God who is working in history, to encounter Jesus Christ through whom God is working in history. If that is true, what will be my people's situation? What does it mean for the Koreans in Japan to regain their humanity and to be liberated from the dehumanising situation?

In this context, when we listen to the Scriptures, both Old & New Testaments, there we encounter the vivid and fresh word of God. For instance, in the Book of Exodus, God heard the cries of the oppressed people. God revealed Himself in the effort to free his people from the Egyptians. In the Book of Isaiah [ch: 40] we read the text telling us of the liberation of the people who were under the Babylonian regime. I shall read the first verse. " 'Comfort my people,' says our God. 'Comfort them'!" We sometimes hear this at the time of Christmas without looking at it as an address to the people in bondage – the

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forgotten people. Amos says "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream." The prophet discerns justice as God's will.

In the Gospels, Jesus stands in front of the people and introduces God's Kingdom in the language of the Nazarene Declaration (Lk. 4). Paul, in his letter to the Romans, talks about the "righteousness" of God. He doesn't deal with pure moral concept. It is the concept of the right relationships between God and people, which always requires the right relationship between people and people. Paul talks about the reconciliation of the people. He does not mean that two people become friendly. He talks, in his letter to Corinthians (2Cor 8:9) of a different kind of exchange ('reconciliation' means "exchange" in Greek) that is taking place in a reconciling event – that the rich become poor and the poor become rich. In the Song of Mary or the Magnificat (Luke 1:51-53) this aspect is revealed.

When we accept this message in our contexts we have to discuss seriously the structural evil rooted between the oppressors and the oppressed. We cannot participate in the combating of this structural evil with mere individual sympathy. The structural evil is interwoven into the social, political and economic systems. The power of the Gospel has to completely reshape these relationships. We are asked to take up the task of being 'change-agents' in this situation.

I am aware of the criticism of such an understanding of the Bible. Critics say it is very selective. And this criticism is directed towards the theology of liberation and contextual theology. But we have to bear in mind that the redemptive history found in the Scriptures itself is very selective. We see in the Gospels in the Kingdom which Jesus speaks of, that the least child, the weakest woman, sinners and tax collectors, the alienated and neglected, those despised by the majority of the society were considered first. And then Jesus dined with these people and he was considered as one of these people because of his behaviour. Prof. Arai Shashaku talks about the "importance of the behaviour of Jesus." In recent New Testament studies, the question of historicity of Jesus is raised. Of course, we can doubt some aspects of the life of Jesus — whether it was historically true or not. But we cannot doubt one thing: that Jesus dined with the poor, the despised and the oppressed of his own society. In his behaviour, he points out that the last comes first, the first comes last. This is the real truth of God's Kingdom.

The question arises, "Is God only for the oppressed?" Prof James Cone, the black theologian while in Japan for a visit was asked this by one of the Korean church elders, who was also obsessed by the question, "Is this God, the God of the Japanese too?" Prof Cone said that God is for everybody. Jesus was with the poor, but at the same time, he loved the rich too. He loved the young ruler and asked him to repent his past, to return his wealth to the poor. Again, the question arises whether it is the rulers who are the only ones to repent their past. What about the poor? Not only the rich, but the poor and the oppressed have to repent their past too. They forget to trust in God, and live in despair; they give up, behaving as if there is no hope; they cannot see that God is

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on their side in the struggle for freedom. Hence, they must recover their own hope and faith in God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ talks to the people in their own different contexts. It never generalises. For the Koreans in Japan, repentance is necessary. We are guilty of being subservient and submissive. We have to determine to take the path towards human dignity, and to adopt a stance of offering ourselves to be made more and more in the image of God. We must repent our past and the message of the Scriptures is very relevant to the situation of my own people.

Let me conclude my talk with the eschatological perspective of history. We are always trapped in a small world when we talk of the minority or the marginalised. In 1974 the Korean Christian Church in Japan organised a consultation on "Mission Strategy among the oppressed." A very penetrating observation was made by a representative of the Burakumin community when he said that "minority issue is not the kind of issue which pinpoints a problem in a corner of the society. Where minority questions are dealt with in a given society, they raise the question of the system of the world itself. When the people are marginalised into the corner of a society, something is wrong with the whole system."

Therefore, we are dealing with the future of humanity, and in this sense with eschatology – a city in which all things are made new as described in Revelations 21. We have to envisage a new vision. That suggestion, we find in the Book of Revelation. We are involved in this eschatological event and that is why we can courageously deal with these issues. At the same time, such a vision means that our concerns are a challenge, not merely to particular nations, but to the whole world. The proclamation of the Gospel uttered by Jesus was the promise of the coming of God's Kingdom. In its value judgment, human life is understood upside down – the least, weakest and oppressed are considered first. The restoration of the minorities from oppression is promised. All nations and peoples are allowed to bring their honors and glories into the new city. There are no big powers as we understand today. The identity of each race and minority is fully recognised and respected. This vision was given to us through the redemptive ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. People of the world are called into this new community. Our struggles in the suffering of the people is not in vain but rather in hope.