Yesterday I went to church in Moka for the first time. The congregation was small (including Jennifer and me, the pastor, and the parishioners, there were eleven people total in attendance that morning); and so the service was intimate, to say the least.
I've been wanting so much to get connected to the Church in Japan and to feel part of some larger Christian community in my area. But I've been in a bit of a slump on account of the fact that there just isn't an English-speaking church in Moka or anywhere nearby. I've followed Jennifer to church a couple times to places outside of Moka (last weekend to somewhat disastrous but mostly just humorous results when what was described to be an English-speaking Evangelical church turned out to be a Spanish-speaking Jehovah's Witness congregation; but if you want to know more about that, I'll let you read Jennifer's account), but have never exercised much initiative on my own part to find a "church family" with which to associate myself.
The church I attended on Sunday was conducted entirely in Japanese, so I understood nothing of the Message and very little of the service as a whole; yet, it was powerful and refreshing and entirely beautiful just to be there worshiping with other believers.
How is this possible? The answer is, Jesus.
I don't understand how Christianity works in Japan. By this I mean, my own grasp of Christianity is so embedded in Western culture and has been shaped and influenced by two-thousand years of Western thought. And Japan is not Western. At all. And this general clashing of worldviews is one of the myriad reasons why only about one percent of all people in Japan refer to themselves as Christians. And yet there are people in this country who know and love and serve Jesus Christ, despite the centuries of culturally-biased gunk that cling stubbornly to our collective notion of this person that English speakers call Jesus but in Japan is known as イエス ("iesu"). But though the numbers are small, they are still a testament to the truth that God is so much bigger than language or culture or boarders or continents.
A Sunday school class for children ran concurrent to the church service in an adjacent room. After the service had finished, a boy came into the chapel holding a heavy white book. I noticed with surprise and delight that it was the exact same illustrated Bible that I had owned as a child (except this one was, undoubtedly, written in Japanese). But I assume, with a tinge of sadness, that the pictures must be the same: that Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are all depicted with white skin and auburn hair. I think about my friend Ebi confessing only two nights before that she, as a child, had bought into an assumption that White people where somehow innately superior to Asians. Today she has, at least consciously, outgrown this perception, and yet how heartbreaking it is to hear this! How devastating that there are children who don't know that they have been made in God's image; that they are beautifully and lovingly crafted individuals with a unique capacity to give glory to their Creator.
Sometimes I feel weighed down by the spiritual deadness that pervades Japanese culture. People don't seem to really believe in much of anything. Most people cling to their work, and the people (mostly women) who don't have to work constantly find other (mostly materialistic) avenues for passing their time. Fanaticism and radicalism, in general, are looked down upon. Which makes things tough for Christians because following Jesus can look like a pretty fanatical and radical thing. But God is bigger than all these variables. And so, regardless of them, the Church exists in Japan. It is small, but against incredibly unfavorable odds, it exists.
I want to go back to this church, and I ask that you would continue to pray for the community that I'm surrounded by here in in Moka. And please pray for Japan.
20090306
Proof That I'm Turning Japanese
MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Pedigree charts - Historical photos
Yeah! I look like Ayumi Hamasaki!
P.S.: Thanks Vicki.
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