Abstract
This chapter connects with David Kim’s notion of “critical nostalgia” to show how the power of a community’s story and story-telling enables that community to live in faith, hope, and love, with the memory of where that community has come from and its shared struggles and joys. Critical nostalgia engages the question “So what now?” and the pastoral dimension of an ascension contextual ecclesiology, an ascension homiletic, and an ascension hermeneutic that is sacramental. This chapter sees the ascension shaping and forming three key characteristics of Filipino culture: prayer in community, feasting and food in community, and water for the community. Through prayer, feasting, and water (and sacramentally: Word, Eucharist, baptism), the diaspora’s struggle is hopeful/hope-filled risk, as our community strengthens ties in the diaspora, and bridges with the hometown of the United States and the homeland of the Philippines.
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Notes
- 1.
David Kyuman Kim, “Worlds Made a Part” in New Overtures: Asian North American Theology in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of Fumitaka Matsuoka by Eleazar S. Fernandez, editor. Upland, CA: Sopher Press, 2012. p. 358.
- 2.
Ibid., 364.
- 3.
Ibid., 365.
- 4.
I began thinking and reflecting in earnest about these issues and realities of being a Filipino American Christian in the Presbyterian Church (USA) during the four years I was in the care/call process of ordination into the Ministry of Word and Sacrament through the Presbyterian Church (USA). Then in 2008, I received an invitation from the National Presbyterian Taiwanese Council to give a series of keynote addresses at their annual conference on the theme “Do More (by Doing Less).” There, in this series of addresses, I discuss many of the issues I raise in this volume, particularly the notion of identity/identities in Asian American churches. What is evident in those keynote addresses is the sacramentality of our ecclesial life as Asian American Christians. What is not evident in the written text, but occurred at the conference, was the presence of a makeshift baptismal font, a chalice, and a paten (bread plate) on a table adjacent to the podium from which I was speaking. These sacramental elements were present throughout the conference to demonstrate phenomenologically the sacramental character of the gathered church. Providentially at the time and now for this volume, I refer to my friend and colleague Bruce Reyes-Chow, who in 2008 became the second Asian American Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Bruce is of Filipino Chinese American descent. These keynote addresses are appended to this volume as Appendices 1, 2, and 3.
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Presa, N.D. (2018). Ascension and the Diaspora in Action: A Pastoral Word. In: Ascension Theology and Habakkuk. Asian Christianity in the Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76342-2_5
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