In my head, Bad Bunny and Rabindranath Tagore have a lot to say to each other, a lot in common. But their energy is so different that I ended up focusing just on Bad Bunny. So as much as I like this sermon title, Mr. Tagore will have to wait for another day.
So there was a football game last—what was it, Sunday? The Seahawks were playing somebody. Did anyone happen to watch it? It seems that we won. And there was a halftime show. I remember watching college games with my dad as a kid, and there would be marching bands out on the field in their uniforms, making formations while they also played music at the same time. Lots of drums and brass, and a drum major and baton twirlers and sometimes some flags whipping around.
Halftime shows have changed since then. This one had slightly higher production values and a bit of a bigger budget.
I don’t follow popular music performers, so I had never seen Bad Bunny or heard his music. I had heard he was from Puerto Rico, which a group of us visited in 2019 to help fix people’s houses after Hurricane Maria walloped the island in 2017. Maybe about 20 of us from UCC and Christian Church/Disciples of Christ congregations in the Pacific Northwest stayed for a week at a church camp in the center of the island and met a lot of truly gracious people whose homes were still a mess 18 months after the hurricane. So when I heard that Bad Bunny was from Puerto Rico, images of that island came to mind. But that doesn't mean I listened to his music or even knew what he looked like.
First impressions of the halftime show on Sunday: It was all in Spanish. I speak a little Spanish, but it was flying by so fast I couldn’t catch much, had no idea what he was saying. So I felt a little excluded. There were a lot of young adults dancing very athletically, very sexually. If you were watching, perhaps you found this off-putting. Why do they have to grab their crotches? For some of us, it’s been a very long time since we were flinging our bodies around on a dance floor trying to look sexy.
But there was more to it than that. We started with workers in the sugarcane fields. That’s rural Puerto Rico, and from what I understand, it’s really hard labor to make the sugar that gets sent to us. There were older men playing dominos. There were street vendors and little cantinas, a real community feeling. One vendor gives Bad Bunny a bottle of soda, which he then gives to the next person he meets. Another vendor gives him a ring in a fancy little box; he gives it to a guy who immediately gets down on one knee and proposes to his girl, who is thrilled. We’re seeing community life here. Bad Bunny is sharing that with us, whether we speak his language or not.
There’s a wedding, and apparently this was a real wedding, or at least a real reception. Can you imagine telling your kids you got married on the field during the Super Bowl halftime show? And the wedding is super joyful, so much happiness. People of all generations are dancing and smiling: older people, little kids. And we’re invited. Bad Bunny has invited 135 million of his closest friends to dance, to celebrate, to come to the party. Cardi B shows up. Lady Gaga comes and sings in her swishy blue dress. Ricky Martin gets his moment to sing, too. Bad Bunny climbs up a utility pole, representing all the power outages that continue to plague the island, all the corruption that keeps things from actually working. And while guys on neighboring poles are doing these 360 flips, Bad Bunny sings there, too. We get to see the good and the bad.
There’s one moment that flashes by so fast you might have missed it if you went to get more guacamole: Bad Bunny hands his Grammy to a little boy—who is apparently dressed to match a photo of Bad Bunny at that age—and the message is apparently, “Believe in yourself. Someday you’re going to earn this Grammy award.” What an affirmation! All kids need somebody in their corner urging them on like that.
Then at the end Bad Bunny says “God bless America”—the only English words in his whole spiel. All these flags come out. And Bad Bunny names off every country in the Americas: Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, working his way up to Central America, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, out to the Caribbean, Cuba, Haiti, on up to Mexico, the US, Canada, and of course Puerto Rico. We are all Americans—from the Americas. No one is better or worse than another. In this age of criminalizing brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people who live in the US and hunting them down like rabbits, Bad Bunny says we all have value, no matter what part of the Americas we come from. And we’re not going to let ICE or anyone else steal our sense of humanity, our sense of community, our heritage, or our joy. In fact, we’ll even invite you to our party at the most American Super Bowl halftime show. Come get to know us. Come sing with us. Come dance with us, whatever your age. Come celebrate that we are all one big community. All of us.
Perhaps you noticed the enormous billboard in the background during this halftime show. It had lots of different things, but at the end, in big black letters on a plain white background so it was really clear, it read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Who knew that Bad Bunny was going to preach a word in a language we don’t understand at our own national game halftime show? Who knew he was going to invite 135 million viewers to dance and sing and celebrate and love each other across borders?
What a joyful message. What a dangerous, subversive message. No wonder some people felt so threatened that they arranged to have an alternative halftime show on another channel that felt safer. And to be clear, it wasn’t the sexuality of the dancing, or the speaking in Spanish that so unnerved them. It was that there might be something worth hearing from a singer who is not white and who doesn’t sing in English but who invites us all to love each other anyway, even as our government is trying to criminalize and kick out most of the people who look like him.
Some politician suggested that Bad Bunny be deported. News flash: Puerto Rico is a colonized territory of the United States. Bad Bunny is a US citizen.
Isaiah prophesies of a leader coming to bring a time of justice and peace.
The spirit of the Creator shall rest on him [or her],
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of God.
Maybe that leader is Jesus. Maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s Bad Bunny.
with righteousness [this leader] shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth
And what follows is a peaceable realm.
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The ICE officer shall live next to the immigrant. The LGBTQ couple will have dinner with the conservative Christians. Think about what that looks like: those who have the power to hate the oppressed will broaden their views. And those who are most vulnerable will offer love and acceptance and grace. It’s a terrifying vision for all parties. But it’s the only way we get past all the hate and narrow-mindedness that keeps us imprisoned.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of God
as the waters cover the sea.
This is a countercultural wisdom of loving across borders and divisions, across language barriers, across generations, across species. Bad Bunny held up a football that said, “Together we are all America.” That is a statement; it is also an invitation.
Bad Bunny is unapologetically his best self: fully Puerto Rican, fully musical, fully affirming the gifts of the Spanish-speaking territories and nations in the face of this war on immigrants. We get to be unapologetically our best selves, too. And authentically invite everyone to our party. Because no matter what happens, we will not let anyone steal our joy when all of God’s children are celebrated. Amen.