Below is a Video of a sermon whose title, “Let’s Pretend,” is taken from one of the chapters of C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity. The book is a compilation of radio shows Lewis did during World War II. Some of his explanations of the basic things Christians believe don’t hold up in retrospect, but the book helped me a lot when I first joined the faith. The title of this chapter also fit in with the special Sunday this was, when the church’s Filipino members conducted the whole service, with me preaching the sermon. And there was also the luncheon afterwards, complete with lechon, the roasted pig delicacy Filipinos are famous for.
“Let’s Pretend” struck me immediately as appropriate for this Sunday because it also fit in with one of the main qualities of Philippine culture: it’s musicality, especially it’s uncanny ability to do Western music better than most Western people can do it. I’ve written about this before. In “Filipinos in the Land of the Hyper-Real” I use Arjun Appadurai’s phrase “hyper-competent reproduction” to understand this, and I provide links to outstanding examples of Filipinos out-doing their Western counterparts, I believe. There’s Arnel Pineda, the Filipino singer—once homeless and singing on the streets—who is now the lead singer of Journey. There’s Charise doing Celine Dion doing “My Heart Will Go On and On.” The video accompanying this article features Pops Fernandez and Martin Nivera doing “Beauty and the Beast.” I also provide a link to what I believe was the late Anthony Bourdain’s best show, “Manila,” the first show of the seventh season of his Parts Unknown series. Use these two links to get a fuller sense of the Filipino’s uncanny ability to imitate Western music…plus more.
There’s just a short step from “imitation” to “pretending,” the latter being a deeper word for what could be happening. There are at least two senses of the word “pretending,” one negative, one extraordinarily positive. Negatively, to “pretend” is to act in ways that cover up the truth that you are not really generous, or patient, or caring. You may in fact be the 
opposite of these things and are trying to fool people for your own advantage. But “pretending” in the positive sense is when you act in a certain way in order to eventually become generous, or patient, or caring in the end. It’s a kind of practice to become those positive things, and, in the Christian faith, we especially “pretend” to be like Jesus by imitating him. I focused on one thing in particular, knowing there are many more things about Jesus we should emulate, practice at, or “pretend” to be in order to become more like him. That one thing was peace. Among the lectionary readings for the day was the 23rd Psalm, and at the beginning I played my take on the 23rd Psalm, one of my earliest compositions, “Lay Your Head Down.” The 23rd Psalm may be the most peaceful passage in the entire Bible, and we could do worse than turning to it often to begin to become as peaceful as Jesus was, even when pressured from all sides.
But there’s a final twist to this “pretending.” In his “Let’s Pretend” chapter, C.S. Lewis says this: ” In a sense you might say it is God who does the pretending. The Three-Personal God, so to speak, sees before Him in fact a self-centered, greedy, grumbling, rebellious human animal. But He says, ‘Let us pretend that this is not a mere creature, but our Son. It is like Christ in so far as it is a Man, for He became Man. Let us pretend that it is also like Him in Spirit. Let us treat him as if it were what in fact it is not. Let us preltend in order to make the pretence into a reality.'” God pretending we could be like Christ is, for me, the very definition of what Grace is. The reading from Ephesians, one of three scriptures used this Sunday, speaks of God changing us by showering us with Grace.
Besides the reading of the scriptures of the day, the Video below opens with an excerpt of a Filipino choir singing the popular devotional song “Ang Tanging Alay Ko” (My Only Offering). Thanks to all my Filipino brothers and sisters for making this a truly beautiful service, and especially to Mila and Boyette Valdez who led us in putting it all together.
♦ Go HERE for a complete list of sermons, like “Pentecost Means No ‘Supremacies,’” “Sacred Doing,” and “Theology and Race.”
