CALL ME SAKURAGI

During my childhood days, there was this famous anime series which most of the children in my generation loved to watch. The anime was about basketball, and the title was Slamdunk. The story revolved around the life and struggle of the main character named Hanamichi Sakuragi.  Before becoming a varsity player in basketball, he had a bad reputation, of being a troublemaker, siga, hot tempered, etc. Because of this, people were afraid of him, even his schoolmates. No one wanted to be in his company because they already labeled or stereotyped him as a bad guy. Usually, others called him by this alias: ‘the red haired guy.’ But there was a girl, his classmate named Haruko, who recruited him to join the varsity team. She saw his goodness and believed in his true potentials. In fact, she never addressed Sakuragi by any other names, but she called him by his first name, Hanamachi.

The story of Zacchaeus speaks of a wealthy man and a tax collector. During the time of Jesus, tax collectors were considered public sinners because they betrayed their own people by collecting taxes for the Roman Empire. They paid Rome a fixed amount and collected as much as they can, pocketing the excess. Actually, the Gospel never mentioned anything good about Zacchaeus. Aside from being a persona non grata, he was also described physically as a short man, pandak. This was how the people saw Zacchaeus, and it was quite true, but not all the truth. On the other hand, Jesus saw in Zacchaeus what nobody saw – his inner goodness. That is why Jesus called him by his very name; ‘Zaccheaus, come down quickly.’ In Hebrew, the name Zaccheaus means ‘the pure or innocent one.’ This was what Jesus saw in Zaccheaus, his being pure and innocent--unlike what the other people saw about him.

Sometimes in our life, we experience being associated by other people with names or titles which are discriminating like kalbo, mataba, patay-gutom, masama, bobo etc. similar to what Sakuragi and Zaccheaus had experienced. But these names do not define us. Rather, those names given by God and our love ones are the one that define and reflect the goodness in us. In my experience, I admit, during my high school days I was considered as pasaway. Many of my friends and classmates could not believe that I wanted to enter the religious life. I could not blame them for such reaction because that was the way the judge me as a person. However, I still pursued my desire to become religious. I responded to the call of God. Although I am not worthy, yet he still believes in me. He is the one calling and forming me in becoming a good religious or person. Maybe we also shared a similar experience in life. Somehow we are like Sakuragi or Zaccheaus – who were judged as sinners. But still God is calling all of us to conversion. He sees goodness in us because we are created in His image and likeness. God loves the sinners just as much he loves the saints. And like Zaccheaus, He called us by our own names. He says in Isaiah: “I have called you by name. You are precious and honored in my sight. I love you and you are mine.”