FIG TREES

The Season of Advent has begun and we expect a Christmas related reading. Sunday's Lukan lection is about the Apocalypse. We also find this passage in Mark and Matthew and many scholars call it the "mini-apocalypse." They agree that the passage reflects traumatic memories from the Fall of Jerusalem around 70 CE.

A lot of people look forward to the End of Days or the Second Coming because it promises eternal rewards and punishment. Of course, there are millions of card-carrying Christians who expect that they will be rewarded, while so-called infidels-- namely, anyone who has not accepted Jesus as their Personal Savior and Lord-- will be punished.

Many others look forward to the day that God will make things right, especially for those who have been dispossessed, displaced, disenfranchised, discriminated, and dehumanized by greed, injustice, and evil.

There are also those who dread the End of Days or the Second Coming because they know they have failed to do what Jesus, in his First Coming, commanded them to do: preach Good News to the Poor, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take care of the sick, visit the prisoners, clothe the naked, welcome the strange, and end all forms of violence against women, children, and the most vulnerable. 

The day will come. Nobody knows which day or which hour, but it will happen. Thus, the lesson of the Fig Tree. We must be patient. You don't plant Figs today and expect fruits tomorrow. We must study the signs. Have the leaves changed color? Are flowers in bloom. We must be discerning. Friends, the day will surely come. Jesus said so.

So, we wait. And, every moment, try our very best to follow the life that Jesus lived.

#IAmWithJesus
#GodsReignIsForChildren
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar
#IDEVAW
#Advent2021

*photo by Emil Salman (Haaretz) 

KINGS AND THEIR KINGDOMS

The Romans executed Jesus as a messianic claimant, as an enemy of the state, as a rebel. Josephus and Tacitus both wrote that he was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate.

In the world where Caesar is Lord, sin is legislated. Resistance is criminalized. Dissent is demonized. The merger of political and religious power predates Pontius Pilate's and Joseph Caiaphas's conjugal dictatorship. If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, we will grow, grow, grow in this realization: sinners are, more often than not, synonymous with the poor, oppressed, and marginalized in the Gospels. Who can afford the offerings in the temple? Who has the resources to bribe authorities? Who writes the law and for whose benefit?

Nothing has changed. The political and religious elites' culture of impunity continues in crushing the poor underfoot.

Sunday's lection features a conversation between symbols of two completely opposite gospels: Rome's and God's; the Good News for the Rich and the Good News for the Poor. Both talk about kings and kingdoms, but totally opposite kings and kingdoms.

Tragically, so many among us confess, "Jesus is Lord," but in word, thought, and deed, we side with Pilate. Our lust for power, prestige, and privilege, our envy for the powerful, prestigious, and privileged paint lives that scream, "Caesar is Lord".

#IAmWithJesus
#StopTheKillingsPH
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine

*art, "Jesus before Pilate," (James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum), available at the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives. 

NOT ONE STONE WILL BE LEFT

Sunday's lection reminds us of Herod's Temple that, according to Jesus, was built from the offerings of widows and other very poor people.

"Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down!" And Jesus was right.

We are uncomfortable with a Jesus who speaks of doom, destruction, and death. We do not wish to see Jesus driving out those who were selling and buying in the Temple, including the moneychangers. We do not want to acknowledge that Jesus can be angry.

We are so used to the Jesus we have created in our image. We are so used to the huge cathedrals and grand buildings we have created to make us comfortable when we come together in his name. We have even come up with "Sunday best" attire, air conditioning, and exclusive seating inside these walls we have built as imposing monuments of our faith in God. Remember Jesus’s words, "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."

Friends, our comforts have made us forget that the church is not a building. It never was. It never will be. It has always been people: people who love; people who serve; people who offer their lives so that others may live, like Jesus did.

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#FreePalestine

#JusticeForMyanmar
#GodsReignIsForChildren
#LetGraceBeTotal


*photo, The Western or "Wailing Wall" in the Old City of Jerusalem (I took this picture in August 2016).

THE WIDOW'S OFFERING

We grew up hearing sermons on stewardship based on Sunday's lection from Mark 12 (which is also found in Luke 21). Jesus said, "This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance but she, out of her poverty, has put in all that she had to live on.”

We grew up being taught to be cheerful givers, like the poor widow, and offer everything we have to live on to the Lord and the Lord's work.

Thank God, we have outgrown these teachings. Now, we are learning to follow the One whose life and ministry was dedicated to widows, orphans, and strangers, the One who preached a Gospel for the Poor, the One who offered his life so that others may live.

Now, we are learning how structures and systems--religious or otherwise--rob people of even the barest that they have. Now, we realize that Jesus was actually denouncing the temple elite's unjust system of dispossessing the already dispossessed in the name of God. I think the incident at the temple was one of his ways of declaring, “Enough! This temple has become a den of thieves!”

Yet, many of our churches and our programs continue to thrive and live--off the backs of the poor and suffering.

Friends, don't forget this, ever: Jesus condemns the scribes who devour widows' houses. Moreover--if you read his precise words--Jesus does not tell us to "go and do" as the widow did.

#IAmWithJesus
#GospelForThePoor
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar
#StopTheKillingsPH

*art, "The Widow's Mite," JESUS MAFA 1973 (available at vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).