The International Day of the Disappeared and the Empty Tomb

We, who call ourselves Christian, should not forget that the One we call Lord and Liberator was an Executed God. He was abducted in the dead of night, unjustly tried, beaten, tortured, and executed between two rebels. Then his body was thrown into a borrowed grave. In the Gospel of Mark, at dawn on Sunday three of his disciples, all women, visit the grave to anoint his dead body. They find the grave empty. There was no body.

Jesus had disappeared.

The Gospel of Mark ends with the women described as silent and afraid.

Jesus had disappeared.

Today, August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared. We are invited to stand in solidarity with friends, colleagues, comrades, and families of the missing who continue to seek peace based on justice, and in remembrance of the thousands of desaparecidos in the Philippines, in Palestine, in many Third World countries, and around the world.

Like the women at the tomb, many of us are silent and afraid. Like the women in the tomb, we want to find The Disappeared. We want to find them alive. Or if they are dead, we want to find their bodies. We want to anoint them with fragrant oils. Maybe build a monument or set up a memorial for them. We want closure.

But the message of the young man in the empty tomb is as real today as it was thousands of years ago… Jesus is not in the tomb. He is risen. He is in Galilee… Waiting for you.

We believe in the resurrection. We believe that good will always triumph over evil; that faith is stronger than fear; that love is greater than indifference; and that life will always, always conquer death… We also believe that The Disappeared will rise again in the tens, in the hundreds, in the thousands who fight and struggle for justice, for peace, for liberation.

The Disappeared are not here. Like Jesus, they are risen. They are in Galilee where the good news is preached to the poor, where the hungry are given food, where strangers are welcomed, where liberation is proclaimed to the captives…

The Disappeared are waiting for us.

[reposted from August 30, 2011 blog entry]

READING TEXTS THAT WERE NOT WRITTEN FOR US

Let us get things sorted out first. Historians tell us that the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. They tell us that it was put together across one thousand years. Its latest materials is about 2 thousand years old. Its oldest, over three thousand. Take Paul's Letter to Philemon. It is a letter from Paul to Philemon. Paul and Philemon are dead. What we have is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a two-thousand year-old letter. In Koine Greek.

We love reading texts that were not written for us!  We do this all the time. Our spouse's cellphone messages. Or our children's. Literary classics. And, yes, Scriptures. I've argued for years that most people read scripture as windows to the past (historical methods), as story (literary methods), and as mirrors (cultural studies).

When texts are read as windows to the past, we are basically listening to the dead. Hearing echoes. We might not admit it but most of our cherished values come from the dead. From departed loved ones. The works of favorite authors and composers who died before we were even born. Then there's tradition. The narratives, beliefs, behavior of a particular family, community, people that has been handed down from one generation to the next.

When we read texts as a story we assume that the story "always happens." That the text has a life all its own. That there is meaning in how the story elements of plot, characters, and setting interact. This is why we name our children after characters in books, in movies, in songs. This is also probably why so many celebrities win in our elections. We vote for the "characters" they play instead of the real, flesh and blood, people behind these characters.

Finally, when we read texts as mirrors we presuppose resonance. What we read strikes a chord deep inside us: as individuals, as a community, as a people. Thus, these are "readings as." As people of color, as LGBT, as children, as Indigenous Community, etc.

One can argue that the first is reading texts as time-bound; the next, reading texts as timeless; and the last, reading texts as timely.

Interpretation is always perspectival and particular. Interpretation is always plural. In the end, as followers of Jesus, the key question has been, and will always remain, is our reading about loving God and serving people? Especially the least?

Jesus always took sides. We must as well.