What might a Christian minister say to his congregation to prepare them for unjust suffering? What hope could he offer in the face of the uncertain future? Sermons and testimonies preserved from the period just before the evacuation help to develop a theology of Christian soul care during the internment.[1] Reflecting on such timeless truths from Scripture will prepare present-day Christians to face their own uncertain future. “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
Rev. Lester E. Suzuki (1909-1999) was a young Nisei pastor who became a follower of Christ through the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Honolulu.[2] He later answered the call to ministry from Dr. Frank Herron Smith, a former missionary to Japan: “The Pacific Coast wants five hundred Nisei to be Christian leaders.” Suzuki then served at the Japanese Methodist Church in Los Angeles where he eventually became the first Nisei pastor of a Nisei church.[3] He also helped to start an interchurch “Friends of Jesus” movement, gathering many youth to pray at 6:00 a.m. every Sunday morning. They spent an hour in song, prayer, and Scripture reading, then another hour of breaking bread over a meal, before dispersing to their various church congregations. In many ways, their fellowship modeled the first-century church (see Acts 2:42-47).
Suzuki could have avoided the internment because his wife’s family offered refuge in Colorado, but he chose instead to suffer with his fellow people. He sacrificed willingly like Christ “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7). Rev. Allan A. Hunter, pastor of the Mount Hollywood Congregational Church and the West Coast chairman of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), chronicled his friend’s evacuation: “Within a few days after the last sermon in his new church building, Lester, with his wife and two children, are themselves seated in a bus soon to leave. It is a strange experience, sitting there. One’s job is to cheer one’s flock. Lester goes up and down the line, but it’s no use pretending—the tears can’t be disguised.”[4] Suzuki would “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15b) as he comforted his people.
Once he boarded the bus, however, he resolved, “I’m not going to let it get to me. Seda [my wife] and I aren’t going to be bitter. This is our test. Maybe we can be reconcilers.”[5] Suzuki’s strength lay in the power of the cross as he lived out Romans 12:17-19, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” Suzuki trusted God to work all things together for good just as in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Still, Suzuki’s family suffered many difficulties as they made their new home in a horse stable at the Santa Anita racetrack. Then, a few days after arriving, he was appointed chairman of Christian youth activities in the assembly center and would prove to be a loving shepherd. One visiting minister overheard Suzuki praying for his people during a worship service:
O God, our Leader and our Master and our Friend, God of light and truth, in a strangely tangled time when confused cries echo through the world, we pray for the leadership of faith. Grant, we beseech Thee, the prophet vision. Here in our camp, we pray for all those who help in any way to build youth and all that is involved in it, that they may help to build character. . . . Help us never to shout “America” to receive blessings from her, but to be a blessing to her.[6]
Suzuki acknowledged the suffering and confusion of his people, but also clung to the sovereign majesty of God and accepted his circumstances as in the realm of God’s control. Instead of growing bitter, he prayed for wisdom to raise up Christian youth of godly character who would change the world for good. He taught the church, just as he prayed, that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35b).
His convictions would be challenged just three months later when certain Nisei in the camp began to strike against the harsh conditions. Suzuki believed it was wrong to grumble and complain (Philippians 2:14), yet he empathized with the plight of his people. He did not know what to do. So like his Lord and Savior in Gethsemane, he departed by himself to pray (see Matthew 26:36-39). He conversed with his heavenly Father for several hours in the middle of the night until he had completely surrendered the matter to the Lord. Suzuki’s faith was a source of strength for many in the camps who leaned on him during that difficult time.
[1] See Allan A. Hunter and Gurney Binford, eds., The Sunday Before: Sermons by Pacific Coast Pastors of the Japanese Race on the Sunday before Evacuation to Assembly Centers in the Late Spring of 1942 (Los Angeles: Unpublished manuscript, 1945), accessed at http://www.gtuarchives.org/documents/sundaybefore-small.pdf. This mimeographed collection of “last words” discovered in various sermons from the spring of 1942 carried the spirit of Jesus’ parting words to his disciples before his crucifixion (John 14-17). Less than a week after these sermons were preached, many Japanese American Christians would be incarcerated behind barbed wire for an indeterminate period of time.
[2] Additional information can be found in Lester E. Suzuki, Ministry in the Assembly and Relocation Centers of World War II (Berkeley, CA: Yardbird Publishing, 1979).
[3] This is now named the Centenary United Methodist Church in Little Tokyo.
[4] Hunter and Binford, The Sunday Before, 11.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
