LIFE UNDER OCCUPATION

All four of my grandparents experienced World War II and its horrors. Both my grandfathers were soldiers. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was captured by the Japanese Occupation forces several times, and tortured every time. But nothing will compare to the pain, shame, and suffering that thousands of young women and girls went through as "Comfort Women" during that war. (Historians tell us that up to 400,000 were forced into sexual slavery from 1938-1945.)

I can imagine that both Simeon and Anna were already alive at the beginning of the Roman Occupation of Palestine in 63 BCE--and both experienced its accompanying horrors. They were still under Occupation when the Baby Jesus was brought to the temple. I am sure that Palestinian friends and colleagues have relatives and friends who remember Palestine before 1948--before the current horrific Israeli Occupation, now on its 75th year.

When one has been scarred for years, even decades, of struggling against inhumanity, brutality, and insatiable greed, how does one go on? How does one hope in the midst of despair? How does one have faith in a world held captive by fear? How does one love when so much indifference exists? How does one live when death is but a heartbeat away?

Sunday's lection shows us that Simeon and Anna, who were both in their twilight years, looked to the future and saw God's life-sustaining acts in the midst of empire's death-dealing ways. They saw the future through an infant being dedicated to God. Empires create systems, structures, and walls that create strangers, that divide, that alienate, that pit one against the other, whether the division is based on class, race, creed, sex, gender, religion.

The birth of the Messiah, an infant whose name means "Yahweh saves," brings about the falling and rising of many. It brings complete strangers together. It births community! Communities birth accompaniment and solidarity and liberation. The birth of the Messiah, my dear friends, tears down walls. It has. It does. It will!

Yes, including Trump's Wall and the State of Israel's Apartheid Wall in Palestine.

*art from Vanderbilt Divinity Library. JESUS MAFA, 1973 (Cameroon) "Presentation of Jesus in the Temple."

TAKE ANOTHER ROAD

It is time we took another road. Over and over again we take the same road. We never learn. We imagine that doing the same thing will change the outcome. It never has. It never will.

The Empire strikes back--always. In the case of the Magi, innocent children were massacred. And innocent children will continue to die as long as we try to save Baby Jesus from Herod. We should stop. He is not a baby anymore. He also does not need saving. The Magi did that already.

The Empire always strikes back. There are more Herods today. They are purveyors of war. Last year alone, over 2 trillion US dollars were spent on the arms industry. Over half a trillion more was spent in the illegal drug trade. The War on Terror and the War on Drugs have left a trail of suffering and death on the innocent. Over 20,000 people, mostly women and children, have been massacred by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza and the West Bank using US-made arms and weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, you and I need to be wiser. We need to be Magi-er. We need to be more sensitive to the warnings in our shared dreams. We need to know when to beat swords into plowshares. And when to beat plowshares into swords. We need to take other roads.

We need to do all these to make sure that the massacre of the innocents in the Holy Land and elsewhere ends now! We need to make sure that the Herods and their ilk are made responsible. We need to act, wherever we are, right now!

["Scene of the Massacre of the Innocents," Leon Cogniet, 1824]

MIRIAM AND MARY

There's something about Miriam we often overlook: we usually say she's Moses's sister. First and foremost, Miriam was a prophet. There's something about Mary we often overlook: we usually say she's Jesus's mother. Mary was also a prophet.

There's something about Miriam and Mary we often overlook: both play major roles in the Bible's most important narratives, the Exodus and the Christ Events. We know their names come from the same root. That root is actually Egyptian and many scholars say it means "rebelling against a bitter system."

Mary's Magnificat is probably one of the most powerful prophetic passages in the New Testament. Mary, a young Palestinian woman, followed a God who scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.

This young Palestinian woman followed a God who takes sides, a God who takes the preferential option for the poor, a God who brings down kings and kingdoms, a God who weeps with those who weep and who cries with those who cry.

This young Palestinian woman is alive today. Yet the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her fail to see her among the lowly and the hungry as they struggle against life-negating and death-dealing forces: in Gaza, among the Lumads of Mindanao, in Myanmar, and among Occupied Peoples. Moreover, the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her tag so many who are working for "life in all its fullness" as enemies of the state, as terrorists, or as communists.

So, Jesus had John the Baptist as teacher. But before there was John, there was Mary: The Prophet. And she taught her son well. Very well indeed.



*image "The Annunciation. Gabriel and Mary." JESUS MAFA (Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives)

THE GREAT I AM NOT!

There are a lot of people who think they are the messiah. A few have been in the Oval Office. Several have been in Malacanang Palace. Some are pastors and priests. Many are legends in their own minds. They believe that they are God's gift to the nations, institutions, and organizations they serve. They think they are indispensable, irreplaceable, and think that without them, all hell will break loose.

Our true calling, as followers of Jesus, is to bear witness to God's messiah and his liberating work. Just like John the Baptist. If Jesus is the Great "I am" then John is the Great "I am not." John proclaims, ""The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Yes, like John, we are not the messiah. We are called to bear witness to the messiah. And like John we are to do our witnessing in the wilderness. Not in the comfort and security of our own Jerusalems. Nor inside the four walls of our magnificent temples, imposing church buildings, and prestigious seminaries. Nor while we are seated in our living rooms chatting via "Zoom" with a digital Bible in one hand and an electronic newspaper in the other.

Wilderness conjures up a lot of ambivalent images for us who study scripture. God appeared to a hardheaded Moses through the burning bush in the wilderness. The Israelites wandered almost aimlessly in the wilderness for forty long years. Many of them died there, including Moses. Like John, the wilderness played a key role in Jesus' ministry. In Mark, the Spirit had to force Jesus into the wilderness after his baptism. There, Jesus had to deal with Satan. The wilderness does not seem like a very hospitable place.

Yet, we are called to bear witness in the wilderness: in places we do not want to go; to those desolate areas we fear, and be one with communities—poor and desperate—whom many call "God-forsaken."

We are called to proclaim the good news of the incarnation: that God has not forsaken; that God is not in heaven anymore; that God is here with us; that God is in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in every place where people struggle for life, for land, for dignity, and for peace based on justice.

John the Baptist was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. These days, we are more fortunate. We, you and I, are legion.

*art: "John the Baptist," fragment of a mosaic, from the Yorck Project 12th Century, Ayasofya Muzesi Building, Istanbul, Turkey (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives). 

CROSSING THE JORDAN

We know what we are supposed to do: help transform the world. But before we even think of changing the world, we need the world to change us.

Thus, integration with communities-- immersion into different ways of life--is a prerequisite. The late Fr. Carlos Abesamis, in conversation, said that having the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other is not enough. Newspapers will never be a substitute for immersion. Nor will television, radio, or social media. 

Immersion transforms people! Immersion has done so for many of us! In the fullness of time, even God went on immersion. We call this incarnation. Immersion changed God.

Sunday's lection reminds us that one of the most powerful images of immersion in the Bible is baptism. Baptism is about taking sides. When John baptized people in the Jordan, they crossed from one bank to the other; from one side to the other side. They re-enacted the crossing of the Jordan.

It is about doing what Ernesto "Che" Guevarra did: swimming from one bank to the other bank of the Amazon River; knowingly putting himself at risk of a deadly asthma attack and/or drowning, yet choosing the side of those whose only hope was God. 

Baptism is crossing the Jordan: choosing justice and taking possession of liberty, land, and fullness of life that God wants for all people, especially for occupied peoples like our Palestinian sisters and brothers. 

Crossing the Jordan can lead to death. John the Baptist crossed the Jordan and was executed by Herod. Jesus crossed the Jordan and was crucified by the Romans. 

And you and I are called by our baptism to cross rivers of Jordan wherever we are. Every moment of our lives, we need to choose justice. May we have the courage to do as John and Jesus did.  

*art, "John the Baptist preaching in the desert," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (available at the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).