When we were very young, my siblings, cousins, and I enjoyed going to the bakery. (Actually I still do.) We would go very early in the mornings to watch the bakers do their thing. The smell of freshly baked bread is wonderful. We would be fascinated by how the dough rose as if by magic. I can imagine young Jesus and his friends doing the same thing. Fascinated by the rising dough as the bread was baked fresh in the village's shared oven.
Eventually we all learned it was not magic. It was yeast.
Archeologist have discovered bread with yeast that's over 4000 years old. Moreover, yeast is a living organism, breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.
Just the tiniest amount is needed to bake bread. Like the tiniest amount of salt is needed to add flavor to food or to preserve it. Like the tiniest mustard seed grows big to offer shade and a home for birds.
Like what tiny tax collector Zacchaeus did. Giving half of his possessions to the poor and paying back four times everyone he cheated.
Saturday, November 04, 2017
The Pearl and the Hidden Treasure
Most of you know these parables. Scholars call it twin parables. Wealthy men find things of immense value that "they sell everything they have" to possess the pearl for one, a hidden treasure for the other.
Pearls were most valued in Antiquity. Actually until the 19th century when diamonds replaced them.
The key to understanding the parables are the words inside the quotation marks. If you read your Bible, then you know those are the words Jesus says to the rich man who wanted to follow him. Sell everything you have, give the proceeds to the poor....
The rich man goes away sad. The rich men in the twin parables, after selling everything they had, go away joyful!
Jesus's challenge to the rich has not changed.
Pearls were most valued in Antiquity. Actually until the 19th century when diamonds replaced them.
The key to understanding the parables are the words inside the quotation marks. If you read your Bible, then you know those are the words Jesus says to the rich man who wanted to follow him. Sell everything you have, give the proceeds to the poor....
The rich man goes away sad. The rich men in the twin parables, after selling everything they had, go away joyful!
Jesus's challenge to the rich has not changed.
Friday, November 03, 2017
The Unforgiving Servant
Again, the king in the parable is not God. And the story is really not about forgiveness but imperial occupation. We often forget that Palestine was under Roman Occupation during Jesus's time. Before the Romans were the Greeks, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians... After the Romans came the Byzantines, the Early Muslim Dynasties, the Crusaders, the Later Muslim Dynasties, the Ottomans, the British, and now the Israelis.
For me the key to making sense of the parable is the ten thousand talents. That's about 30 billion pesos! When Rome conquered Palestine in 63 BCE, the taxes the empire required from its colony was ten thousand talents.
By the time of Jesus, Palestine has been under Roman Occupation for almost a hundred years. Exploitation was rampant and tax collectors were among the most hated in the land. And Rome executed up to 500 people daily to remind everyone that defiance was unacceptable behavior.
So the king cancels a huge debt which was not really owed. Then and now the powerful has records, books, and documents that show how much the powerless owe. And payment always requires more than what is owed.
And the servant who's supposed debt was canceled? He does exactly what the exploitative system has shaped him to do, be the face of the colonizer to the colonized. More often than not, the colonized never see the face of the colonizer. Only his agents who come from among the colonized.
Then and now the colonizer remains benevolent. Then and now America remains such to several generations of Filipinos. Then and now millions of Filipinos believe that the American occupation was a gift from God.
Read the parable again. The King comes out smelling like a baby's behind. The colonized are portrayed as seeking the king's favor. Classic divide and conquer technique.
For me the key to making sense of the parable is the ten thousand talents. That's about 30 billion pesos! When Rome conquered Palestine in 63 BCE, the taxes the empire required from its colony was ten thousand talents.
By the time of Jesus, Palestine has been under Roman Occupation for almost a hundred years. Exploitation was rampant and tax collectors were among the most hated in the land. And Rome executed up to 500 people daily to remind everyone that defiance was unacceptable behavior.
So the king cancels a huge debt which was not really owed. Then and now the powerful has records, books, and documents that show how much the powerless owe. And payment always requires more than what is owed.
And the servant who's supposed debt was canceled? He does exactly what the exploitative system has shaped him to do, be the face of the colonizer to the colonized. More often than not, the colonized never see the face of the colonizer. Only his agents who come from among the colonized.
Then and now the colonizer remains benevolent. Then and now America remains such to several generations of Filipinos. Then and now millions of Filipinos believe that the American occupation was a gift from God.
Read the parable again. The King comes out smelling like a baby's behind. The colonized are portrayed as seeking the king's favor. Classic divide and conquer technique.
Thursday, November 02, 2017
The Friend at Midnight
This parable, like the one about the widow and the judge, is also not about prayer.
It is midnight. Everyone, humans and animals, are indoors and asleep. A neighbor, a friend, gets a surprise visitor on a journey. Since everyone in the peasant village shared an outdoor oven, your friend knows you still have fresh barley loaves. He bangs on your door. Everyone in your house wakes up. Humans and animals. Probably everyone else in the village as well. He asks for bread. The bread you saved for your family. He imposes on your friendship in order to feed his visitor. A complete stranger to you. He shamelessly takes advantage of your friendship in order to fulfill everyone's obligation to welcome strangers. With a simple meal.
You respond. Giving him the three loaves he asked for and, actually, more than he asked for. And you don't do it because of your friendship. You do it because you would have done the same thing.
This is not a parable about prayer. It is the story behind a simple meal prepared to welcome a stranger in a peasant village. To this day, each and every meal that is offered to welcome a stranger in villages, in barrios, in far-flung sitios has a story to tell.
It is midnight. Everyone, humans and animals, are indoors and asleep. A neighbor, a friend, gets a surprise visitor on a journey. Since everyone in the peasant village shared an outdoor oven, your friend knows you still have fresh barley loaves. He bangs on your door. Everyone in your house wakes up. Humans and animals. Probably everyone else in the village as well. He asks for bread. The bread you saved for your family. He imposes on your friendship in order to feed his visitor. A complete stranger to you. He shamelessly takes advantage of your friendship in order to fulfill everyone's obligation to welcome strangers. With a simple meal.
You respond. Giving him the three loaves he asked for and, actually, more than he asked for. And you don't do it because of your friendship. You do it because you would have done the same thing.
This is not a parable about prayer. It is the story behind a simple meal prepared to welcome a stranger in a peasant village. To this day, each and every meal that is offered to welcome a stranger in villages, in barrios, in far-flung sitios has a story to tell.
The Ten Girls
Your Bible will have a note saying that some ancient manuscripts show the ten bridesmaids were waiting for the bride and the bridegroom.
Many times people read this parable like it were a wake. Like someone died. Like it's the end of the age. It's a wedding! And for communities then and now, it's about new beginnings. Moving forward.
The groom is not Jesus. The bride is not the church. The groom is the groom and the bride is the bride. And both were very late for their wedding. It happens.
The bridesmaids, all ten of them fall asleep waiting. Five were wise. Five were naive. Not foolish. The Greek supports the reading. And all ten girls were, yes, girls. About 12 years old.
Five were mature for their age and prepared. Five acted their age and did not. Those who prepared were not prepared to share. Those who did not prepare were afraid of the dark.
The bride and the groom were so used to locking doors at night. Force of habit. Remember, the banquet began way past midnight. They forgot it was their wedding, all are welcome, so doors need not be shut.
Everyone in the parable made mistakes. A wedding is a celebration of life. It's about new beginnings and moving forward. There's no reason to be afraid of the dark. There's no reason not to share the little we have. And there's no reason to shut anybody out.
Many times people read this parable like it were a wake. Like someone died. Like it's the end of the age. It's a wedding! And for communities then and now, it's about new beginnings. Moving forward.
The groom is not Jesus. The bride is not the church. The groom is the groom and the bride is the bride. And both were very late for their wedding. It happens.
The bridesmaids, all ten of them fall asleep waiting. Five were wise. Five were naive. Not foolish. The Greek supports the reading. And all ten girls were, yes, girls. About 12 years old.
Five were mature for their age and prepared. Five acted their age and did not. Those who prepared were not prepared to share. Those who did not prepare were afraid of the dark.
The bride and the groom were so used to locking doors at night. Force of habit. Remember, the banquet began way past midnight. They forgot it was their wedding, all are welcome, so doors need not be shut.
Everyone in the parable made mistakes. A wedding is a celebration of life. It's about new beginnings and moving forward. There's no reason to be afraid of the dark. There's no reason not to share the little we have. And there's no reason to shut anybody out.
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
The Widow and the Judge
The parable is not about prayer. Most of the time we hear sermons that tell us that if we persist, like the widow, in prayer, pleading to God, then God, like the judge, will relent.
Stop imagining that the judge in the parable is God. He is not. He is a judge. An unjust judge actually. Like many in our country today.
And then there's the widow. One of the three most dispossessed people in Bible times (along with orphans and foreigners). Pleading for justice. Like so many in our country today. The thousands of widows caused by Duterte's War on Drugs. Tens of thousands of widows brought about by militarization, by large-scale mining, by human trafficking, by the US-led War on Terror, by powers and principalities fueled by greed and hate. 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.
Justice always prevails.
#RiseUpForLifeAndForRights
#JusticeIsOurPrayer
#StopTheKillings
Stop imagining that the judge in the parable is God. He is not. He is a judge. An unjust judge actually. Like many in our country today.
And then there's the widow. One of the three most dispossessed people in Bible times (along with orphans and foreigners). Pleading for justice. Like so many in our country today. The thousands of widows caused by Duterte's War on Drugs. Tens of thousands of widows brought about by militarization, by large-scale mining, by human trafficking, by the US-led War on Terror, by powers and principalities fueled by greed and hate. 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.
Justice always prevails.
#RiseUpForLifeAndForRights
#JusticeIsOurPrayer
#StopTheKillings
The Lost Coin
A few months after Nanay was laid to rest we went through her things. It was very hard. We choked up when we found the bills she kept. A 50 here. A 100 there. Inside a book. Tucked in a blouse pocket hanging in her closet. Inside an old letter's envelope. In a bottle in the kitchen cupboard.
Like many Filipinos we lived from payday to payday and Nanay's "backup system," which so many use, helped keep us afloat.
This is why I love the Parable of the Lost Coin. The woman had ten coins. Each can buy a measure of wheat enough to feed one person. But only the rich ate wheat. Each can buy three measures of barley enough for three. Her ten coins were barely enough for her family to last ten days on barley. Just cheap bread.
And she misplaces one coin! So she searches for it like her family's life depended on it. Because it did. And when she finds the coin, she celebrates with friends and neighbors.
Many among us forget that for so many people, then and now, shalom is actually one coin. Just enough to buy cheap NFA rice for one day.
Just enough to survive for one more day!
Like many Filipinos we lived from payday to payday and Nanay's "backup system," which so many use, helped keep us afloat.
This is why I love the Parable of the Lost Coin. The woman had ten coins. Each can buy a measure of wheat enough to feed one person. But only the rich ate wheat. Each can buy three measures of barley enough for three. Her ten coins were barely enough for her family to last ten days on barley. Just cheap bread.
And she misplaces one coin! So she searches for it like her family's life depended on it. Because it did. And when she finds the coin, she celebrates with friends and neighbors.
Many among us forget that for so many people, then and now, shalom is actually one coin. Just enough to buy cheap NFA rice for one day.
Just enough to survive for one more day!
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
The Wedding Banquet
Why do we identify the King in the parable with God?
The King is a King. He is on top of an intricate system of honor and shame, patronage, property, and privilege. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent. He hosts a banquet. His invitation is turned down. He is shamed. He gets back at those who shamed him.
He has them killed and burns down their city.
Then he gathers the dregs of society to his banquet. He finds one of the dregs not wearing the wedding robe which the King obviously provided (where do you expect the dregs of society to get clothes for a royal wedding?). The King is a King. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent but he has been shamed again! He has his minions bind the man, hand and foot, and thrown out to where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We should stop identifying kings in the parables of Jesus with God.
The King is a King. He is on top of an intricate system of honor and shame, patronage, property, and privilege. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent. He hosts a banquet. His invitation is turned down. He is shamed. He gets back at those who shamed him.
He has them killed and burns down their city.
Then he gathers the dregs of society to his banquet. He finds one of the dregs not wearing the wedding robe which the King obviously provided (where do you expect the dregs of society to get clothes for a royal wedding?). The King is a King. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent but he has been shamed again! He has his minions bind the man, hand and foot, and thrown out to where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We should stop identifying kings in the parables of Jesus with God.
The Wheat and the Tares
I’m sure most of us have heard a sermon about this parable. I’m pretty sure most of us heard a metaphorical or allegorical interpretation. I’m also pretty sure that most of us heard an interpretation of this parable that challenged us to be a good wheat.
Incidentally, only the rich could afford wheat bread in Ancient Palestine. The poor ate barley.
I want to focus on the weeds. Masamang damo! Or more appropriately, weeds or tares that look so much like wheat that Palestinians to this day call it “bastard wheat.” You can actually call this narrative the parable of the wheat and the bastard wheat!
The parable is akin to the one about sheep and goats. It's about judgment. God’s judgment. Not ours. There will be time to separate the wheat from the bastard wheat. In God’s time.
Why God? Because wheat and bastard wheat are actually sisters and brothers! God created both. So, God will judge. God will separate. Definitely no one else. Only God.
And since God is a God of surprises, God’s judgment will probably surprise both those who self-righteously think they are the good wheat and those whom the good wheat label as bastard wheat.
Incidentally, only the rich could afford wheat bread in Ancient Palestine. The poor ate barley.
I want to focus on the weeds. Masamang damo! Or more appropriately, weeds or tares that look so much like wheat that Palestinians to this day call it “bastard wheat.” You can actually call this narrative the parable of the wheat and the bastard wheat!
The parable is akin to the one about sheep and goats. It's about judgment. God’s judgment. Not ours. There will be time to separate the wheat from the bastard wheat. In God’s time.
Why God? Because wheat and bastard wheat are actually sisters and brothers! God created both. So, God will judge. God will separate. Definitely no one else. Only God.
And since God is a God of surprises, God’s judgment will probably surprise both those who self-righteously think they are the good wheat and those whom the good wheat label as bastard wheat.
Tomorrow
Our youngest turns 21 tomorrow!
I was away when Ian was born. For the first six months of his life I was the voice in the micro cassette recorder his Nanay Gracie kept by his bed, the person on the pictures she posted on the wall by his head, the man who wrote the letters she read to him and his Kuya Lukas everyday.
The first time we met I was so nervous. I was afraid he'd think I was a stranger. I was wrong. When Gracie put him in my arms I sang him the lullaby he's heard me sing on tape. He fell asleep right away.
I will forever be thankful to Gracie, and to Lukas, as well, for making sure Ian knew me before we met each other face to face.
And we've been close ever since. When he was two, he fell in love with "Lay's" potato chips. When he was three he asked me why I hadn't written a song for him. I did one for Lukas when he was a baby. So, I wrote "This Song is about you, O Ian." When he was four, we started watching "To Kill a Mockingbird" almost every day. Like Lukas, Ian learned to read by reading the Bible. And he started writing his own Bible verses! His Lolo Mel used to share these verses at the Church Among the Palms when he was pastor there.
When he started kindergarten, Ian and I started walking to school together every morning. We did this almost daily until he finished high school. 11 years! Ian calculated that we walked over 400 kilometers!
Lukas left the nest in 2010 when he started teaching at Diliman. He was 20. Gracie worked in South Korea in 2011, then taught in Indonesia from 2012 to 2015. Today, she's the National Coordinator of the UCCP's Christian Education Program and is based in Quezon City.
Ian moved to UP Los Baños in 2013. He's tried very hard to come home every weekend these past few years. And he texts me every single day. Thank you, son! You don't know how much I appreciate what you do.
November 1 is a holiday. It's All Saints Day. Families and clans will be together. Remembering their dearly departed.
Our family will also be together. Gracie is home. And so is Lukas. And, of course, Ian. We'll all be home. Rare these days. Happiness!
But tomorrow is extra special for us. Yes, it's All Saints Day but we'll be celebrating a birthday.
Our youngest turns 21 tomorrow!
I was away when Ian was born. For the first six months of his life I was the voice in the micro cassette recorder his Nanay Gracie kept by his bed, the person on the pictures she posted on the wall by his head, the man who wrote the letters she read to him and his Kuya Lukas everyday.
The first time we met I was so nervous. I was afraid he'd think I was a stranger. I was wrong. When Gracie put him in my arms I sang him the lullaby he's heard me sing on tape. He fell asleep right away.
I will forever be thankful to Gracie, and to Lukas, as well, for making sure Ian knew me before we met each other face to face.
And we've been close ever since. When he was two, he fell in love with "Lay's" potato chips. When he was three he asked me why I hadn't written a song for him. I did one for Lukas when he was a baby. So, I wrote "This Song is about you, O Ian." When he was four, we started watching "To Kill a Mockingbird" almost every day. Like Lukas, Ian learned to read by reading the Bible. And he started writing his own Bible verses! His Lolo Mel used to share these verses at the Church Among the Palms when he was pastor there.
When he started kindergarten, Ian and I started walking to school together every morning. We did this almost daily until he finished high school. 11 years! Ian calculated that we walked over 400 kilometers!
Lukas left the nest in 2010 when he started teaching at Diliman. He was 20. Gracie worked in South Korea in 2011, then taught in Indonesia from 2012 to 2015. Today, she's the National Coordinator of the UCCP's Christian Education Program and is based in Quezon City.
Ian moved to UP Los Baños in 2013. He's tried very hard to come home every weekend these past few years. And he texts me every single day. Thank you, son! You don't know how much I appreciate what you do.
November 1 is a holiday. It's All Saints Day. Families and clans will be together. Remembering their dearly departed.
Our family will also be together. Gracie is home. And so is Lukas. And, of course, Ian. We'll all be home. Rare these days. Happiness!
But tomorrow is extra special for us. Yes, it's All Saints Day but we'll be celebrating a birthday.
Our youngest turns 21 tomorrow!
Monday, October 30, 2017
The Lost Sheep
Shepherds are very important characters in the Hebrew Bible. Abel was a shepherd. So was Zipporah and her sisters. Moses and David as well. The Prophet Amos. There are more.
Unfortunately in Palestine during the Roman Occupation shepherds were despised and were in the lowest rungs of the social order with dung sweepers. Most of them day laborers, even the Gospel of John portrays them as unworthy hired helpers. The Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, tells us that shepherds were the first who received the good news about the birth of the Messiah. Matthew and Luke have the Parable of the Lost Sheep.
The parable talks about a shepherd. A hired help. The scum of society. He was given the responsibility to care for 100 sheep. And he does take care of each one of them. He searches for one who is lost. He celebrates with friends and neighbors when the lost is found.
He may be poor. He may not be hired tomorrow. But today he was given responsibility for 100 sheep. And 99 do not make 100.
Unfortunately in Palestine during the Roman Occupation shepherds were despised and were in the lowest rungs of the social order with dung sweepers. Most of them day laborers, even the Gospel of John portrays them as unworthy hired helpers. The Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, tells us that shepherds were the first who received the good news about the birth of the Messiah. Matthew and Luke have the Parable of the Lost Sheep.
The parable talks about a shepherd. A hired help. The scum of society. He was given the responsibility to care for 100 sheep. And he does take care of each one of them. He searches for one who is lost. He celebrates with friends and neighbors when the lost is found.
He may be poor. He may not be hired tomorrow. But today he was given responsibility for 100 sheep. And 99 do not make 100.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
The Parable of the Great Surprise
Sheep and goats is a collective term. Most people cannot tell them apart. Especially sheep and goats in Asia and Africa. But shepherds know.
Blessed and cursed is a collective term. People, especially those who are so sure they are blessed, claim they know how to tell them apart. And they have Bible verses to prove it! Especially the blessed and the cursed in a world where 25000 children starve to death every day; where close to 6 billion people survive on 2 dollars a day; and where some people have 7 Mercedes Benzes because "God loves them so much God does not want them to experience vehicle coding."
But the Shepherd in the parable knows. Who are the real blessed ones and who are not. Not me. Nor you. Only the Shepherd knows how to separate them.
Those who were blessed did not expect to be blessed. And those who were not did not expect to be cursed. Their Bible verses did not help.
Every. One. Was. Surprised!
Don't forget this. Ever. God is a God of surprises!
Blessed and cursed is a collective term. People, especially those who are so sure they are blessed, claim they know how to tell them apart. And they have Bible verses to prove it! Especially the blessed and the cursed in a world where 25000 children starve to death every day; where close to 6 billion people survive on 2 dollars a day; and where some people have 7 Mercedes Benzes because "God loves them so much God does not want them to experience vehicle coding."
But the Shepherd in the parable knows. Who are the real blessed ones and who are not. Not me. Nor you. Only the Shepherd knows how to separate them.
Those who were blessed did not expect to be blessed. And those who were not did not expect to be cursed. Their Bible verses did not help.
Every. One. Was. Surprised!
Don't forget this. Ever. God is a God of surprises!
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THE GOOD SHEPHERD
I believe most of us know Psalm 23 by heart. We are not talking about one or two verses here. This is a whole chapter from the Bible that mo...
