YESTERDAY AND EVERY DAY

Yesterday 76 members of our seminary community, led by our president, joined the United People's SONA. It was, for many, a liminal moment. A rite of passage. A baptism of fire. Actually, more water than fire... And we were prepared with our umbrellas and raincoats. And boots! Yesterday, 76 members of our community woke up earlier than usual, others did not even sleep, to prepare streamers, banners, rice, hard-boiled egg, and Adobo. Yesterday 76 members of our community waited for our jeepneys to arrive and spent over 4 hours in those jeepneys going to and from Commonwealth Avenue. Yesterday, 76 members of our community walked 6 kilometers to be a part of the thousands who protested against the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, and the War on the Poor that Duterte and his cohorts have declared against the Filipino People. 

Yesterday, individually and corporately, 76 members of our community participated in embodying our core values: prophetic boldness, ecumenical openness, compassionate witness, contextual timeliness, and Christ like faithfulness. Yesterday, Monday, July 23rd 2018, 76 members of our seminary community experienced what majority of our people experience EVERY DAY.

Every day, millions wake up at dawn to ride jeepneys, buses, and trains in order to go to work. Every day they have to line up to get these rides that take up to four to six hours of their lives in traffic. Every day, millions walk 6 or more kilometers a day to go to school or work. Or to get clean water. Every day, countless people spend hours under the sun, without umbrellas, or under the rain, without raincoats, toiling. Farmers, fisher-folk, laborers… Mostly overworked, grossly underpaid. Trying to make ends meet. 

Many surviving, each day, on one meal of rice and hard-boiled egg. No adobo. Struggling against death forces; working for life in its fullness. Do not forget this. Ever! For so many of our sisters and brothers our yesterday is their Every Day! 

Remember our core values? I'm pretty sure all of us know them by heart already. Those values are best embodied, like we did yesterday, in the every day of the masses. Eventually, our yesterday will be a weekend integrating with basic communities. Then two summer exposures of 6 to 7 weeks each. Then a full year. 

In the fullness of time God decided to go on community integration. We call it the incarnation. In the Gospel of Mark, God is always coming out. Out of heaven; out of the home his disciples wanted to be the locus of his healing; out of the tomb! He was a woodworker based in Nazareth most of his life. Then he leaves Nazareth. He started spending a day or two among the fisher-folk by the Sea of Galilee. A weekend with farmers. A year with the masses, displaced, dispossessed, disenfranchised, who protested against the conjugal dictatorship of the Roman Empire and the Judea Elite. 

In the fullness of time, God decided to leave heaven to be with those whose only hope is God. And God is still with them, every day. As they work for life in all its fullness. And God is waiting for us. Yes, for you. And for me.

So that eventually, our yesterday becomes every day. Amen.

[post-People's SONA reflection]

Volume 2, coming soon!

Reading the Parables of Jesus inside a Jeepney came out eight months ago. Thank you so much to everyone who got a copy, the Kindle or Print-on-Demand version. Many among you actually got more than one copy. Some even have both versions! Thank you as well to the UCCP's National Christian Youth Fellowship that distributes the book in the Philippines.

I cannot thank you enough. Volume 2 will be out very soon. I hope you continue reading more of the Parables of Jesus inside a Jeepney. With me.

Duterte and the Parable of the Trees

Most of us identify parables with Jesus. But two of the most powerful parables in the Bible are found in the Old Testament. One is more popular, Nathan’s when he confronted King David. The other is the Parable of the Trees.

Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, “Reign over us!”
But the olive tree said to them, “Shall I leave my fatness with which God and people are honored, and go to wave over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the fig tree, “You come, reign over us!”
But the fig tree said to them, “Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the vine, “You come, reign over us!”
But the vine said to them, “Shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and people, and go to wave over the trees?”
Finally all the trees said to the bramble, “You come, reign over us!”
The bramble said to the trees, “If in truth you are anointing me as king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, may fire come out from the bramble and consume the cedars of Lebanon.” (Judges 9:8-15)

The tree is a common metaphor for Ancient Israel. In the parable, trees go seek for a king. The Olive, the Fig, and the Grape are asked. All say, no. All are much smaller than the Cedar of Lebanon and are, therefore, incapable of “waving over” or reigning over them. All three know the purpose of their creation and were not tempted to covet a role that was not theirs.

Finally, they ask the Bramble.

Scholars tell us that bramble are opportunistic and insatiable.  They are capable of sucking the life out of other trees. Moreover, they have the capacity to deprive other trees of sunlight and starve them to death!

The Philippines has a Bramble in Malacanang. He is opportunistic and insatiable. He has sucked the life out of thousands among the people he has sworn to protect and serve. Every day, his minions and programs, anti-poor, anti-youth, anti-life, deprive the most vulnerable and the basic masses of the fullness of life that God wills for God’s children.

  

ONE DOES NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE

One should not live on bread alone. There is always more than one way of reading a text. I am pretty sure you’ve heard countless homilies on the First Temptation. I offer another one.

Given the reality of hunger and starvation under the Roman Empire, eating plays an important theme in the Lukan landscape. Luke’s Jesus as a baby was laid on a manger or a feeding trough. Jesus’ body, represented by bread, is broken and shared among his disciples. 5000 eat together in the wilderness. Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness, ate nothing, and is challenged to turn stone into bread.

One does not live on bread alone. A person does not live on bread alone. God did not create us to eat alone!

The empire is built on greed, power, possession, property, and commodification. For the empire, when one is hungry, one eats. When one is thirsty, one drinks. One eventually eats and drinks even if one is not hungry or thirsty. One eventually hoards. Like the Rich Fool. Like the rich young ruler. Like Zacchaeus until his encounter with Jesus. Thus, the rich in Luke is told to sell everything they have and give the proceeds to the poor.

Humanity was not created to eat alone. Eating is a communal thing. The most sacred of our rituals is a community breaking bread together. The most remembered ministry of the early church was its open table. Remember that line from the prayer our Lord taught us? Give US today our daily bread. Give US. It's not Give ME!

Our daily bread conjures up manna from heaven. God gave manna to the Hebrews so that everyone could have food one day at a time. Hoarding was not allowed. Each one was expected to make sure that everyone had food for one day. Today. Tomorrow is in God’s hands. Unfortunately, we don’t believe so. We play God and make sure that we have food not just for tomorrow but for as long as we can. This is why today, this day, 25,000 children will starve to death while there’s one country in the world that has resources enough to feed 40 billion people!

Finally, lest we forget and start thinking that we Christians are supposed to provide all the bread that the world needs, let’s go back to scripture. The five barley loaves and two fish that birthed the miracle that fed 5000 hungry people in the wilderness did not come from Jesus. It came from one of the hungry.  According to the Gospel of John, it came from a poor, hungry child with five loaves and two fish. The bread that Jesus took, blessed, broke, and shared during the last supper, a great thanksgiving that eventually became our most cherished sacrament, did not come from Jesus.

No one deserves to be alone. God did not create us to be alone. God did not create us to live, to eat, to die alone. This is why we confess that in the fullness of time God became one of us. Immanuel! 

So that we will never, ever, be alone.