THE OTHER RICH YOUNG MAN

In the Gospel of Luke, we have “enemies who love:" those who serve the least, who take the side of those whose only hope is God, who completely subvert expectations. 

Historians tell us how so many in Occupied Palestine hated the Romans, the Samaritans, and tax collectors. But in Luke, the Roman Centurion, the Samaritan on the road connecting Jerusalem to Jericho, and Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, are presented as models of faith. They are "enemies who love."

The Centurion not only loved the Jewish people and built their synagogue, he also loved his slave dearly and sought help from the Jewish community when the latter was ill and close to death. We all know about the Samaritan who was a neighbor to the Jew who fell into the hands of robbers.

Then, there is Zacchaeus in Sunday's Gospel Reading. There are two important things in the passage that many English Translations do not emphasize. Scholars have been raising these points for a long time.

First, he was young, not short. And he was a very young but very rich chief tax collector, not just your regular hated publican. The passage tells us how the people ostracized him. For them, he definitely did not belong. For them, he, most definitely, was not a child of Abraham. 

Second, the verbs in verse 8 are in the present tense. Even present progressive. Not future. Zacchaeus did not promise to give back half of his possessions to the poor. He did not promise to pay back those he has defrauded four times as much. HE WAS ALREADY DOING BOTH! He was already doing acts of justice which Jesus commanded the rich to do in order to enter the Kingdom of God. 

The Synoptic Gospels all narrate the story of the rich young man who could not follow Jesus's command to the wealthy. Zacchaeus is the other rich young man who could. And did. 

For Jesus, Zacchaeus was, most definitely, a child of Abraham!

Maybe there's still a path to salvation for the very, very rich old and young men in government who have defrauded the masses worse than Zacchaues did. 

*Art, "Zacchaeus welcomes Jesus," JESUS MAFA, 1973, Cameroon (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

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THE PHARISEE AND THE TAX COLLECTOR

Pharisees loved God and country. They were very religious, highly trained, upright, and totally against the Roman Occupation of Palestine. They were loved by the masses in contrast to the elitist Sadducees who belonged to the ruling class. Let us not forget that Paul, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Gamaliel were Pharisees. 

In Sunday's Gospel Reading from Luke, the Pharisee was telling the truth. Everything he said in his prayer was true. 

Tax collectors, like Zacchaues and Levi (aka Matthew), were probably the most hated people during Jesus’s time. They worked for Rome and were considered collaborators and traitors. 

In Sunday's lection, everything the tax collector said in his prayer was also true. 

Both men were truthful. What's the difference? 

The tax collector judged himself and found himself needing God's mercy. The pharisee judged the tax collector and found the tax collector needing God's mercy. 

Then and now, we all need God's mercy. Especially those of us who--like the pharisee-- think we do not. 

*art, "The Pharisee and the Publican," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

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THE PARABLE OF THE WIDOW AND THE UNJUST JUDGE

Homilies on this parable tell us that if we persist, like the widow, in prayer, pleading to God, then God, like the judge, will relent.

Dear Friends, let us stop imagining that the judge in the story is God. He is not. He is a judge that did not fear God nor respect people. Jesus calls him an unjust judge. He is like so many in the world's justice systems that serve the powerful, the propertied, and the privileged. 

And then there's the widow. Widows are among the three most dispossessed people in the Bible (along with orphans and refugees), crying out for justice like so many in Gaza, in the Philippines, in Myanmar, and other places today. 

Development aggression, militarization, large-scale mining, human trafficking, and the culture of impunity perpetuated by powers and principalities fueled by insatiable greed and lust for profit have produced thousands of widows. All crying out, all relentless, all persistent in their quest for justice. 

And the unjust judge relents. Not because he had a change of heart. The situation changed because the widow never gave up. Morning, noon, and night. Rain or shine. She was in his face. Standing her ground. She never lost hope. She fought for justice and justice prevails at the end. Then and now, widows who fight for justice never give up. 

Justice always prevails. This is why we should always choose justice. And always stand with widows and orphans and refugees and everyone whose only hope is God. 

Justice will always prevail. 

*Art, "Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge," from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://a.co/d/7ACdLTy

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KRISTER STENDAHL AND THE NINE LEPERS

I had the privilege of presenting a paper at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting during my first year of grad school. I did not expect Krister Stendahl* to be in the audience. He was in the front row. I did not expect him to come up the stage after the presentation and introduce himself to me. He did. 

I did not expect him to remember me when we saw each other again in the following year's SBL meeting. He did remember me. He even remembered my paper, and asked if he could join me for lunch. Those very priceless moments with Bishop Stendahl seem surreal to this day, over two decades later. 

He was interested in my reading of Romans 1 about faith being a response to grace which resonated with "utang na loob" being a response to "kagandahang loob". And that the best way to respond to God's grace by faith is to pay it forward. The best way to love God, our Parent, is to love our sisters and brothers. I used the story of the ten lepers to unpack the concept. And the narrative is Sunday's Gospel Reading.

We expected the ten lepers who were healed to go back to Jesus to express their gratitude. But only one returned to do so. The Samaritan. And most of our interpretations have celebrated this one who returned. How about the "ungrateful" nine? Is it not possible that they paid it forward? Is it not better if an act of kindness is repaid by doing an act of kindness to someone else instead of returning the favor? Again, reading "from grace to grace" as paying it forward. 

Isn't serving the people--especially widows, orphans, and strangers--the greatest expression of our gratitude for God's grace? 

*Krister Stendahl (1921-2008) was Bishop of Stockholm (Sweden), theologian, and New Testament scholar. He served as professor and dean of the Harvard Divinity School. His works on Paul are required reading in many seminaries. 

+art, "The Healing of the Ten Lepers," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

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MASTERS AND SLAVES

MASTERS AND SLAVES

Every day over 6,000 Filipinos leave the country to work overseas. Millions are domestic helpers. Millions more are caregivers. Countless survive in sub-human conditions. People are the third world nations' biggest exports. If we think that slavery in its most dehumanizing forms does not exist in our 21st century society, then we are kidding ourselves. 

Slaves, in Sunday's Gospel Reading from Luke 17, should never expect to rest from their labors. Slaves should never expect thanks. Slaves should know their place, should stay there, should accept that they are worthless, and should never, ever, expect otherwise. Why? Slaves are property. They are commodities. Bought, sold, and exploited. 

Dear friends, God did not create masters. God did not create slaves. God did not create the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Nor the Manila Acapulco Galleon Trade. God did not create any of the systems and structures--including theologies--that commodify, degrade, and exploit people.  

God did not create the death-dealing economies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. 

God did not create the white supremacist, bigoted, racist, fascist, and homophobic "Christianity" that Trump and his MAGA cohorts revel in unashamedly.

God did not create the systems and structures of corruption, bribery, and impunity involving billions of taxpayers' hard-earned money funneled to the coffers and pockets of Marcos, Duterte, and their ilk. 

All these are man-made. All these choose profit over people and planet. 

We created all these. Which means we can undo them all. And we must. 

Now.

*Image from Brittanica, Stowage of Slaves in Ships during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. 

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LAZARUS... AND DONALD TRUMP

Two ancient stories resonate with Sunday's Gospel Reading. One is Egyptian, the other Rabbinical. The former is about the reversal of fortunes in the afterlife. The latter was about Abraham's servant Eleazar (Lazarus in Greek) who walked the earth in disguise to check on Abraham's children's observance of God's command to care for the poor, especially orphans, widows, and strangers. 

In Jesus's parable, Lazarus wasn't in disguise. He was so poor, sick, and starved that his plight was described by Abraham as evil. Left by the rich man's gate, he was in such terrible state that only street dogs kept him company, licking his sores. He died waiting for crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. He died away from any human contact and, thus, was not even buried. Being buried is the last act of human decency that societies have practiced for millenia. Lazarus died and no one was around to bury him. God had to send angels to bring him to Abraham's bosom. 

The rich man feasted every day. He also died. He was buried--I'm sure in grand fashion--with scores of professional crying ladies. 

Today, the world spends more money on ice cream and cosmetics than on basic health care, safe water, or basic literacy programs for the most vulnerable communities. Twenty-five thousand people starve to death each day while one country has enough resources to feed 40 billion people! (That's five times the population of the world.) 

Today, Lazaruses abound outside our homes, our offices, and our places of worship: homeless, jobless, hopeless... Suffering alone! With street dogs as company. And we, like Cain, smugly assert, "Am I my brother's keeper?" 

Unless we change, unless we repent, unless we sell everything we have and give all the proceeds to the poor, we will find ourselves in agony, tormented by flames in Hell. With the rich man. And Donald Trump! 

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reading the parables of jesus inside a jeepney

*Art, "The Rich Man and Lazarus," JESUS MAFA, 1973, from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

THE UNJUST DEBT MANAGER

Sunday's parable from Luke 16 has been interpreted so many different ways. Some work. Some do not, especially those that insist that the rich master is a metaphor for God. 

Sunday's parable from Luke 16 resonates with the ongoing investigations and exposés concerning corruption--worth billions--in the Philippines’ flood control and other public works projects. 

The master in the narrative is quite wealthy. Charges are brought against his debt manager or steward for dishonesty. Apparently, other debt managers want him out of the picture, thus the charges.

The manager--finding his position in jeopardy and knowing he cannot do manual labor and is ashamed to beg--does what most anyone would do in his situation: use the system of debts, interest, and indebtedness to his advantage. Find a way to make sure that he does not end up on the streets. He cuts his losses by literally cutting his commission.

What he does gets him his job back. His rich master, who knows he is wicked and unjust, commends him. And those in debt are now beholden, not just to the rich master, but also to the manager. 

No repentance. No restitution. No justice!

This is the way things actually work. This is the evil of debt, then and now. That is why the rich are still rich and continue to get richer. This is why Marcos's Independent Commission on Infrastructure, the Senate's Blue Ribbon Commitee hearings, and other livestreamed investigations are all for show and will not make a dent on the status quo. Genuine change never, ever, comes from the top of the pyramid. Justice will never, ever, come from the wealthy and their debt managers. 

This is why the poor plea, "Forgive us our debts!" An economy of debt is an economy of death. This is the way of empire.

This is the complete opposite of the Kingdom of God.

*art, "Parable of the Unjust Steward," (2012), Andrei Mironov [from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives]

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