THE CHURCH IS NOT A BUILDING...

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

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

We are uncomfortable with a Jesus who speaks of doom, destruction, and death. We do not wish to see Jesus brandishing a whip while 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--and violently angry, at that.

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 the phrase "Sunday best", 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.

And when the church ceases to serve its purpose, we should not be surprised when Jesus himself tears it down.

*photo, The Western or "Wailing Wall" in the Old City of Jerusalem (taken last 9 August 2016). 

LIVING OFF THE BACKS OF THE POOR

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. Not just our food, money, and house; even our mental and emotional health is given away for God's sake.

Thank God, most of us 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 many institutionalized 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 of 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.

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

CHOOSE!

Sunday's Markan lection is also found in Matthew and Luke. Most historians think that Mark's is the original version. The Pharisees ask Jesus about the greatest commandment, possibly expecting him to quote from the Decalogue in Exodus. Jesus responds with the "Shema" from Deuteronomy.

Sunday's lection answers a question many among us don't want to hear. Because the Hebrew word "shema" means to hear, to do, to act.

What is the question? How do we love God? The answer we don't want to hear? By loving our neighbor.

Take note of the "this" (singular) in Jesus's exchange with the scribe (in the Markan version) and the lawyer (in the Lukan version). The scribe says to Jesus, "THIS is much more important..." Jesus says to the lawyer, "do THIS and you will live."

Loving God is loving our neighbor.

To love God is to feed the hungry, to offer drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit the prisoners, to care for the sick, to welcome the stranger. To use the Bible as a land title to justify the displacement, dispossession, demonization, and destruction of Palestinians, for decades, is the complete opposite of loving God.

Don't forget that "loving" in loving our neighbor is "agape." Agape is not based on emotions. (That's "eros." ) Nor is it based on relations. (That's "filia.") It is and will always be based on decisions. Every moment of our lives, we decide for the other. We choose the least, the last, and the left out.

We choose to follow Christ, to love our neighbor, to serve the people!


*photograph: "I Choose...To Love My Neighbor" From the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, 2015), available from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

 

BARTIMAEUS

A distinct thread that flows through Mark's narrative is the failure of the named disciples to understand the ministry of Jesus and the discipleship it requires. This failure is most pronounced in chapters 8,9,10, and 16.

In 8,9,and 10 three times Jesus tells his disciples that he will be crucified and will be raised up. Three times his disciples do not believe him nor do they accept what he plans to do. Simon Peter actually rebukes him.

The male disciples fail Jesus first. The women disciples fail him next, in chapter 16. Don't forget that they went to the tomb expecting to anoint a dead body. No named disciples, male and female, believed Jesus in Mark. This is why the Gospel ends with women who are silent and afraid. Because the One they expected to find dead inside a locked tomb in Jerusalem was risen, in Galilee, and waiting for them! He was right all along!

In the Markan world of unbelief, we have Bartimaeus, a named blind beggar, who does believe and follows Jesus. Twice he declares that Jesus is the Messiah (Son of David). Twice he cries out, "Kyrie, eleison!" (Lord, have mercy). He calls Jesus, "My Teacher" and, after being healed, follows him.

Many times those of us who confess that we believe and follow Jesus ignore people on the wayside; people like Bartimaeus. Many times we tell them to shut up. Many times we pretend they are not there. Many times we turn our backs on them.

Many times they are actually the ones who do believe and follow Jesus. Because Jesus hears their cries when nobody else does.


*art, "Jesus cures the man born blind," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

**One can also argue that Bartimaeus (Son of Timaeus) refers to Plato's Timaeus which discusses true sight as discerning the perfect world of "forms" as eternal and separate from the physical world. Mark might have been arguing that that true sight actually comes from following the Son of David, the perfect in physical form.  

RANSOM

Many people use this Sunday's lection to support the idea that Jesus paid the price for our sins. God is holy and humanity is sinful (and has tainted the whole of creation). The only way to appease God's righteousness is for God's sinless Son to die a horrible death on the cross for our sins.

There are also those who believe that Satan has all of us kidnapped and God pays for our ransom with the life of God's Son, Jesus.

The Greek term used for ransom in the passage denotes payment to release prisoners or liberate slaves which resonates with the promise of freedom in the Exodus and Jubilee narratives. Unlike the world's other Lords and Masters, Mark's Messiah serves instead of being served. He is ready to be last instead of being first. He does not have a throne with James on his right and John on his left.

However, he is crucified with rebels: one on his right, another on his left. He is ready to be a ransom to set prisoners and slaves free. He offers his body and his blood so that the hungry can eat and the thirsty can drink.

Simply put, he is willing to offer his life so that others may live. He chose to give his life, instead of doing it because God told him to. And he challenges those who follow him to do likewise.

*image from "facts about the crucifixion of christ," learnreligionsdotcom.

SELL EVERYTHING YOU HAVE

Many rich people allegorize this Sunday's lection. For them "selling everything you have and giving all the proceeds to the poor" actually means something else. It is about putting God first in their lives. It is practicing "Christ above all". It means if you love God more than your money and you give regularly to charity, then it is okay to be rich. There are those who say it is not directed to the rich but to the super rich. My favorite is the interpretation that the message is exclusively for the rich young man in the passage. No one else's.

Do you know why there is a Second Coming?

Because we--those of us who call ourselves Christian whose cupboards are filled and do not need to pray "give us today our daily bread"--have failed miserably to do what Jesus commanded us during his First Coming. We have removed the "Poor" from the "Gospel to the Poor" that we are supposed to proclaim. We have not brought down the powerful from their thrones nor have we sent away the rich empty. Instead, we have embraced power, profit, and privilege. We have turned our backs on the One who called us to be salt, seed, and light and have, instead, connived with empire in order to rule the world.

We have failed to feed the hungry, to offer drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick, to visit the prisoners, and to welcome the stranger. We have forgotten that we are each other's keepers. We have been afraid to storm the halls of power to tell the rich and the super rich to sell everything they have and give all the proceeds to the poor because we have been complicit in legitimizing the systems, structures, and theologies that keep the rich richer and the poor miserable.

We have forgotten that the Earth is not inherited, but borrowed from our children--and when we are gone, these little ones who are first in the kingdom of heaven, will be the first to take the brunt of our indifference.

In fact, with ever stronger typhoons and ever hotter heat waves worldwide every year, they are taking the brunt of our indifference RIGHT NOW.

We have also ignored Jesus’s judgment in the second half of Sunday's lection: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."


*sculpture, "Educating the Rich on the Globe" by Tom Otterness (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

JESUS ON DIVORCE

 

In many dominator societies, then and now, marriage provides an economic safety net for women. Divorced women could remarry to allow them the safety net marriage provided. Widows could also remarry for the same reason, levirate marriages being the best example.

In Sunday's lection from Mark 10, Jesus was asked about divorce by some married Pharisees who already knew the answer. They actually knew two answers to their question. (Yes to divorce because of the wife's adultery, and yes to divorce because of the wife's adultery and other things the husband finds objectionable about her.) Deuteronomy 24, which the Pharisees were alluding to, specifies that only husbands can divorce their wives.

Jesus, in a later conversation with the disciples, says wives can choose to divorce their husbands.

Choices play a primary role in this pericope. Divorce is a choice. The option started with Moses. Marriage is a choice, and is arguably the better choice for Jesus since this option has God's blessing. Unfortunately, many times, only the men get to choose either.

In the Philippines, there is still no option to choose divorce because men in power decide which laws to pass. And they choose not to pass any law on divorce. They make the options that do exist-- annulment and legal separation-- costly and lengthy. They cover their ears to the cries of abused spouses-- especially wives-- and make a big show of using the law to protect the integrity of marriage and family. They forget that God knows how abusive spouses are, themselves breaking apart what God made one.

I am sure that there are a lot of people who would disagree with Jesus's reasoning on this particular matter. I do. And it's perfectly okay. In Mark 12, a group of married Saduccees come to Jesus with a question about a woman who had to be married to seven husbands one after the other. I love Jesus's response in that episode.

In the end, no one, especially a man, has the right to take away a woman's autonomy and freedom to choose.

*art, "Jesus on Divorce, Remarriage, and Adultery," (Marg Mowczko).

ENTERING THE KINGDOM MAIMED, LAME, OR ONE-EYED

Part of Sunday's lection has been used to scare children. Many grew up being told to cut off or pluck out body parts that cause them to sin. For a lot of young people, this meant at least three things: don't look at what will cause you to sin; don't touch what will cause you to sin; and don't go anywhere that will cause you to sin.

Three things. First, the passage is not for children. Second, there is no word for "sin" in the passage. Modern translations use "stumble" or "stumbling block". Better alternatives would be "snare" or "trap." Third, I believe the passage is addressed to a specific group of people: predators.

The first section of the passage is Jesus's judgment directed to those who take advantage of children, those who set snares and traps to exploit the little ones in God's kingdom, those who use, abuse, and reuse the anawim. Compared to the judgment coming to them, it would be better for them if great millstones were hung around their necks and they were thrown into the sea.

Never, ever, forget: aside from pastors who pray, there are also pastors who prey.

The second portion of the passage is a challenge directed to those who might still be saved from being thrown into the sea or being thrown into Gehenna: where worms never die and the fire is never quenched. There is still hope as as long as they are prepared to enter life in the Kingdom of God maimed, lame, or one-eyed.

Many among us are not comfortable with an angry Jesus. Maybe we have been following the wrong Jesus.


*art, "The Angry Christ" (Alfonso Ossorio, 1916-1990).
+Ancient traditions say that children were offered as burnt sacrifices at Gehenna but recent archeological studies argue that it was used as a crematorium.

CHILDREN AND JESUS

Sunday’s lection is about welcoming children. To welcome a child is to welcome Jesus. Do we really welcome children?

25,000 children, aged 5 and younger, die every day from hunger. 10,000 die daily from diarrhea. Close to a billion people, mostly girls, cannot read or write. Up to 800,000 million women, mostly young girls, spend up to 20 hours a day looking for safe water. We all know the antidote for hunger. It’s food. The antidote for diarrhea? Safe water.

The United Nations and related organizations tell us that we need 666 billion dollars to address hunger, poverty, basic education, health care, food security, water, and sanitation worldwide. Tragically, the world would rather spend 2,400 billion dollars, just for 2023, on weapons of mass destruction than welcome children.

My dear friends, we need to repent. We have failed miserably. We need to ask God for forgiveness. We have forgotten what welcoming Jesus requires. We need to welcome widows, orphans, and strangers. We need to welcome those whose only hope is God. We need to welcome the nobodies. We need to welcome the unwelcomed.

We need to welcome children.

Because only then do we get to welcome Jesus.

*art, "Jesus welcomes the Children" (JESUS MAFA 1973, Cameroon), from the vanderbilt divinity library art collection. 

SATAN CARES FOR YOU

This week, I want us to imagine Satan. Many among us grew up with images of and ideas about Satan that do not come from the Bible. Pop Culture? Yes. Scripture? No.

In the book of Job, Satan is with other heavenly beings in the presence of God. In the book of Zechariah, there is a vision of God with Satan to God's right. In Mark, Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and nights. He was not alone--he was with Satan. In 1 Chronicles 21, the anger of the LORD is described as Satan. In Numbers 22, the use of the Hebrew term "satan" actually means blocking one's way forward.

In Sunday's lection, Jesus calls Peter, Satan. Why? This is Peter, the leader of the disciples. Peter, whose house served as Jesus's home. Peter, the Rock. Satan? Why?

My friends, never, ever, forget this. Satan does not have horns, a tail, and a pitchfork. Many times in our lives, the adversary is not the enemy. Many times, the one who opposes our decision, our mission, our advocacy is a loved one. Family. Friends. Even a best friend. Like Peter.

Why, you ask? Because they love us. Because they think we are making a mistake. Because they want what they believe is best for our well-being. Because they do not want us to undergo great suffering, harassment, or red-tagging. Because they do not want us to be killed.

They behave like Peter.
 

*art, "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" by James Tissot (1836-1902), from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives.

IN MEMORIAM: DANIEL PATTE

The world of Biblical Studies will always identify Daniel Patte with Structural Exegesis, Scripture Criticism, and SEMEIA. Those of us who had the privilege of working with him know that he was a brilliant scholar, a prolific author, a highly-skilled editor, and an excellent professor. And he especially loved the books of Matthew and Romans. 

But Daniel was more than a teacher, a mentor, and a friend to me (and a lot of other students at Vanderbilt and elsewhere), he was also my PhD adviser. I served as his TA (for his NT Themes classes), his RA (when he was General Editor of SEMEIA), and webmaster (for the Religious Studies Department which he chaired).

Our family spent a lot of time at Daniel and Aline's home. The first meal we ever had when we arrived in Nashville was at the Pattes. Our last meal, five years later, as well. 

The couple were "parents" to me and Grace, and "grandparents" to our sons, Lukas and Ian. Time spent with them were precious moments. Lukas's first experience with a vintage rotary dial telephone was at the Pattes. We have baby pictures of Ian being carried by "Lolo" Daniel. (Ian, a few years ago, got to read his Lolo's book on Matthew and Structural Criticism.)

Three of my best students at UTS are structural exegetes. Daniel would be proud of them. 

Daniel was one of the only two people (the other being Grace) who believed, decades ago, that "Reading the Bible inside a Jeepney" will work as a hermeneutical method. 

===

Rest in peace, my dear friend. You were God's gift to so many people. Thank you for believing in me. I will see you in the morning!

#danielpatte

THE LITTLE BITCH WHO TAUGHT JESUS A LESSON

 

Sunday's lection from Mark has a Syro-Phoenician (a Canaanite in Matthew) who comes to Jesus for help. Her little daughter was sick. She begged Jesus for healing. She was initially ignored. She was even treated like a dog (the Greek could be translated "little bitch"). Yet she persevered. And she persisted. And because she persevered, because she persisted, she got what she came for: her child was healed.

Robert Warrior, whose “Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians” turned Hebrew Bible scholarship on its ear, notes that in the narrative, the “little bitch” does not become a follower of Jesus. She seeks him out because he has something she needs. She receives what she came for and walks away never to be mentioned again. She changes Jesus. Maybe she went back to her people and fought against the colonizing Romans in her own way with her own gods. The importance of her story is not whether she followed Jesus but that, without her, Jesus would have remained a narrow-minded bigot who viewed Indigenous People as dogs.

The little bitch who taught Jesus a lesson was alone in the text. But in front of the text, she is not. She is Filipina. She is Palestinian. She is Mexican. She is IP. She is Legion. She is transgressing borders. She is reclaiming what is hers. And she is fighting for her children’s lives and resisting empire her own way with her own gods.

And she continues to teach us.

**Prof. Daniel Patte, who passed away last September 2, urged me do the chapter on the "Little Bitch" in the 2003 book, The Gospel of Matthew: A Contextual Introduction for Group Study, we co-wrote with Justin Ukpong and Monya Stubbs.

*art, "The Canaanite Woman asks for healing for her daughter" by Bazzi Rahib, Ilyas Basim Khuri (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

HANDWASHING

 

Medical science linked the connections among handwashing, community health, and hygiene in the 19th century by observing discrepancies in mortality rates between two hospital wards. Of course, handwashing has always been part of diverse peoples' minimum community health protocols. Who among us remember our childhood when our elders repeatedly told us to wash our hands before meals, after using the toilet, when we come home from work?

The ritual described in Sunday's lection requires using a cup to wash each hand three times. It is a ritual that is founded on God's commandment--being each other's keepers-- that has become something else by Jesus's time: a sign of division.

When handwashing becomes nothing more than a sign that defines who are insiders and who are outsiders, who are pure and who are impure, who are clean and who are defiled, then we have a problem. Jesus calls it hypocrisy.

It is especially hypocritical and heartless, given that the people in Jesus's time who had access to clean water to begin with were also the ones who defined who was unclean, denied honor to the defiled, shut their doors to outsiders, and never lifted a finger to help them be clean.

Handwashing is a concrete expression of being each other's keepers. Every time we wash our hands, we protect not only ourselves but everyone around us.

But let us never forget that handwashing requires water. There are 2.2 billion people on earth who have no access to water. And children, mostly girls worldwide, spend 200 million hours each day collecting water.

*photograph from Medium's Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases.

DO YOU ALSO WISH TO GO AWAY?

Sunday's Johannine lection resonates with a theme that permeates the Gospels: discipleship. It reminds those of us who call ourselves Christian that following Jesus of Nazareth has never been--and will never be--a picnic nor a walk in the park. The cost of discipleship is very high.

The cross that Jesus talks about does not refer to the challenge of being married to your spouse, nor the responsibility of taking care of elderly relatives, nor the burden of pastoring a metropolitan church, nor to any of the other metaphorical "crosses" we have come up with.

The cost of discipleship is very high. It's completing the tower. It's winning the battle. We don't go build without finishing. We don't wage war in order to lose.

Thus, upon realizing the difficulties involved in following Jesus, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. Prompting Jesus to ask the Twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"

Many among us want to go to heaven, but are afraid to die. Many among us want to be resurrected, but are afraid to be crucified. Many among us want to see a new day, but are afraid of the night. We cannot have one without the other.

My friends, we cannot trully follow Jesus unless we are ready to carry our cross. Salt melts away. Light burns out. A grain of wheat dies... When Jesus calls us, he bids us, "come and die."



*art, "The Cost of Discipleship," from maplecreekchurchcom.

FLESH AND BLOOD

The Four Gospels begin their narratives in four different ways. Mark begins with an adult Jesus who is baptized by John in the Jordan. Matthew has a birth narrative that features Magi who spent about two years searching for the child. Luke's has shepherds who visit Jesus as a baby. John's origin story begins in "The Beginning." The Word became Flesh and lived among us. God has stopped watching from a distance.

Stories of Gods taking on human form abound in many of the world's mythologies. Many of the heroes of ancient peoples were demigods or super humans. For the Gospel of John, when the Word became Flesh and Blood, the Word was totally and fully Flesh and Blood. In other words, God was not Superman disguised as Clark Kent--God was Clark Kent.

For the Gospel of John, God Incarnate gets tired and thirsty; eats and drinks with family and friends; experiences love and loss, and cries, like all of us. God Incarnate takes the side of the poor, feeds the multitudes, experiences betrayal, and suffers torture and crucifixion by empire. Like many among us.

And then God dies. Like all of us will. Like all of us who are Flesh and Blood.

My Friends, to believe in the incarnation is to embody justice, accompaniment, solidarity, and life-giving, like Jesus did. The incarnation always requires warm bodies, flesh and blood: yours and mine.


*art: Christ Child, also known as In the Beginning or the Millennium Sculpture, is an outdoor sculpture by Michael "Mike" Chapman, located under the portico of St Martins-in-the-Fields at Trafalgar Square in London, United Kingdom.

WE ARE THE ANSWER TO OUR PRAYERS

There is a virus that has killed more people than any pandemic. It is hunger. And the "vaccine" has always been available. It is food. Historians tell us that up to half of the population during Jesus’s time was slowly starving to death. This deadly virus has only ever affected the poor. The rich are immune to it.

The story of the Feeding of the 5000 reminded us that one poor and hungry child's offering of five barley loaves and two fish brought about the miracle that fed the multitudes.

This Sunday's lection reminds us not to focus on the manna, nor on the bread and fish, but on the source of the offering: The poor child; God; and Jesus who says, "I Am the Bread of Life."

My friends, it is time we realize that, like the child with five barley loaves and two fish, like Jesus, we are the answer to many of the world's pleas. And the gifts we can offer today, right now, are more life-giving than the ones we plan to give tomorrow.

We often forget that we play the primary role in the realization of our dreams, that we are the change that we desperately need, that we are the answer to many of our prayers, and that the tomorrow we always look forward to is already here, since today is the tomorrow we prayed for yesterday!

*image from Christ Episcopal Church at Eagle Lake. 

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Sunday’s lection from John is about eating Jesus’s flesh and drinking his blood. This passage has been interpreted in so many different ways throughout the centuries. It serves as a basis for the Roman Catholic church’s theology of transubstantiation. Others call this John’s version of the Last Supper or Eucharistic ritual found in the latter part of the Synoptic Gospels. Others locate this as a part of the “I Am” discourses of the Johannine Jesus.

The Gospel of John declares: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God became human. In the fullness of time, God decided to become one of us. Oftentimes we say that the Gospel of John is the most spiritual of the gospels. It is, since spirit (which is ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek, and anima in Latin) actually means breath. “Hininga."

Simply put, spirit is oxygen for people and carbon dioxide for plants. Spirit, in other words, is matter. Thus, the Gospel of John abounds with powerful metaphors which are material, physical, and earthy: water; bread and fish; shepherds, sheep, and lambs; tears and death; wombs, births, and rebirths. Now, we are commanded to eat the Word made flesh and drink his blood. And we will live.

There are people whose daily lives revolve around coffee. There are those who cannot function well without rice. Then, there are those who share an intimate relationship with pan de sal and Reno liver spread, with mami and siopao, with San Miguel Beer and adobo peanuts. Finally, there are those who are addicted to Jesus.

Loving, craving, eating Jesus on a daily basis, like manna, is dangerous. It is life-changing, transformative, and very, very risky! It requires giving up one’s life for another.

It means eventually becoming what you eat, being like Jesus—love in the flesh, food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, clothing for the naked, a friend to the stranger and the sick, freedom to the captives, salt of the earth, light in the darkness, bread for the world.

To offer one’s “flesh and blood” is to offer the whole self. Jesus did. This is the path to abundant life for all. Self-giving. Offering “flesh and blood” so that others may live. Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And he did. And we are invited to do the same.

Sisters and brothers, people say, you are what you eat. For those of us who call ourselves friends of Jesus, I pray we really are!

*art, "The Last Supper," painting from Cathedral of Sancti Spiritus, Cuba (from vanderbilt divinity library archives).