Lazarus, come forth!

We can do better. It is time to call it, “Basta! We got to raise Lazarus to the table.” Can we work on a major rewiring? Ours is the choice whether to break or to propagate that separatist legacy which drives ministers, clientele and donors off to extreme poles. Is that legacy the only way to program each other, the only way to program future generations?

Had charity works been less polarized, we wouldn’t have to grapple with that how-who-what-when-where-why to own that bag of history on residential schools and slavery. Reconciliation-themed events and webinars still call indigenous and black communities ‘they’ even as many in our midst are indigenous and black. That third-person reference is a subconscious bias that sections out part of the same population as the others.

Printed and audio-visual channels debate over migrant and housing challenges as if no migrant nor unhoused person ever reads or watches those media – which is not true. People talked about are of our same audience and readership. Some do watch and read—just as some of us watch and read—as folks talk across, around and about them. How would we feel if talked across, around and about?

Buddhas are many. Besides the Laughing Buddha, I know just two of them. The first is the one called forth by Thích Nhất Hạnh, “The next Buddha will come in the form of a community, not in the form of a single individual.” Indeed I learned the notion of community very profoundly from a stay in Plum Village.

The other Buddha whom I know is Kṣitigarbha. It is the Buddha whose mission is to empty hells, who vowed not to become Buddha 成佛 until the very last soul is liberated out of hell. In my mind I dub Kṣitigarbha as the Buddha of the hell, who descends to hell with a sword and a spear breaking all chains and setting every prisoner free.

I didn’t know about Kṣitigarbha until an introduction by art historian Jiang Xun 蔣勳 a few years ago. That was the eureka moment. For the first time I understood why, “He descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead.” What was Jesus doing down there? Well, just that, to redeem our very last soul.

It’s time to stop telling Lazarus, “Stay where you are, hang in there, let me continue feeding you year after year.” Let us raise Lazarus to the table, just like how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, “Lazarus, come forth!”

At checkpoints whether kingdom here or kingdom come, at judgement whether this day or the final, we would be asked where Lazarus is, not whether we fed Lazarus. Our answer ought to be: Lazarus who, there’s nobody under the table.