Render unto Caesar

Render unto Caesar what he owns. What bears his image. His property.
But never, ever, render unto Caesar what he does not own. People. Each one bears God's image. People are not property.

JEEPNEYS AND REVOLUTIONS

Jeepneys, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, best represent the Filipinos’ on-the-spot survival instincts conditioned by centuries of desperate situations. Lest we forget, the “people” in People Power are the millions who face the violence of hunger every day, those who barely get the minimum wage. They are the “bakya” crowd, the “masa,” the “ochlos” in the Gospel of Mark. The late Luis Beltran, popular radio political commentator, called them “bubwit.” These are the millions who are underpaid, who are overworked, and who will never get a bank loan approved for a small house, a second-hand car, and yes, a 1.6 million electric jeepney!

These are the masses who patronize the 600,000+ drivers who drive over 200,000 jeepneys throughout the country every single day. Yet, these are the masses who overthrew Marcos and “Erap.” According to Teodoro Agoncillo, Renato Constantino, and Reynaldo Ileto, the “Revolt of the Masses” that overthrew Spain was exactly that—a revolt of the masses!

“No uprising fails. Each one is a step in the right direction.” Ileto memorializes this famous saying of peasant leader Salud Algabre in his Pasyon and Revolution. Algabre was one of the leaders of the anti-American Sakdal uprising in 1935. For me, what Salud Algabre ultimately does with that short yet profound statement is memorialize all those unnamed legions of freedom fighters that have been victimized by the violence of institutionalized forgetting. These include the indigenous communities of Igorots and Lumads, forcibly driven out of their ancestral domain, in the name of development, that now find themselves displaced in their own homeland. These include rural “messiahs,” like Hermano Pule and Macario Sakay, who led anti-colonial movements against Spain and America yet are marked as bandits and thieves in Filipino and American history books. (Incidentally, if you know your Greek, the “lestes”—rebels or freedom fighters—crucified with Jesus are called bandits and thieves in the English translations.)

And these would include jeepney riders—farmers, fisher-folk, students, women, those whose only hope is God—collectively struggling to dismantle structures of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and systemic violence in all its forms.

Since the late 40s, jeepneys have been integral to the lives of many Filipinos who are not full participants in the economic system. Albert Ravenholt’s case study notes that jeepneys “relate so intimately to the daily life of Filipinos throughout the archipelago” yet government and financial institutions do not provide support of any kind to their manufacture and/or sale. Jeepneys are the masses’ response to the ravages of war.  They are the most concrete expressions of a people's capacity to beat swords into plowshares. Unfortunately, the Philippine Government has basically left public mass transportation systems in the hands of the private sector. Jeepneys, tricycles, pedicabs are the masses’ response to the government’s impotence and indifference.

Why is it that there’s practically no traffic in Metro Manila during Holy Week? Because public roads are free of private vehicles that cause all the traffic in the Metropolis. Heck, 80-90% of public roads are used by private vehicles, most of which have one passenger. Why was there heavy traffic during the October 16-17 Nationwide Strike against the jeepney phaseout? Again, because jeepneys do not cause traffic. Private vehicles do. And everyone in the LTO, DOTC, and LTFRB know this as true.

Raveholt continues, without establishment support, manufacturers, which are usually family operations, work on the kumpadre/kumadre system and seal deals with a handshake and palabra de honor. Young people who learn how to drive on jeepneys see jeepney driving as the best option for livelihood, given their very limited opportunities to find work elsewhere. With no credit schemes available from banks, these young Filipinos have no choice but to approach private money lenders who eventually, because of exorbitant interest rates, get to own the jeepneys themselves. Many work as OFWs and, after saving enough, come home to get their own jeepneys.

Ravenholt notes: “Jeepney drivers are so influential as molders of public opinion that successive attempts seeking to bar them from Manila’s main streets have been thwarted…In the twenty years or so that I have been involved in social activism in the Philippines, I have observed that the only thing that can paralyze the country’s business and government infrastructure, literally bringing everything to a halt is a jeepney strike.” 

No. Actually, there are two: a jeepney strike and a “People Power” uprising from the masses that ride jeepneys.

No other public vehicle is better equipped to navigate the Philippines’ narrow and dimly lit streets at night. No other person is better equipped to drive a jeepney at night than a Filipino. The people’s revolt that overthrew the US-supported Marcos dictatorship in 1986 began and ended at night. I was there, with about two million other folks, most of whom ride jeepneys.  Clifford Geertz reminds us: “Some of the greatest revolutions occur in the dark.”

#NoToJeepneyPhaseout

The Parable of the Talents

A rich man entrusts his property to three of his slaves. To one he gives five talents; to the second, two; to the third, one. The one with five traded with them and earns five more. The one with two, doing the same, earns two more. The third, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

After a long time, the master returns and settles accounts with them. The first and second slaves are found trustworthy and put in charge of more things and invited to enter into the joy of their master. The third who returns the one talent he received is thrown out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Why?

Because he was not willing to become a party to the ways of his master who was harsh, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering where he did not scatter seed. Moreover, his master expected 100% returns on his property which the other two slaves did.

Lest we forget, a talent is 15 years' wages. At minimum rates, in Philippine pesos that is about 3 million pesos. The first got 15 million and earned 15 million. The second, 6 million and earned 6 million. 

The third slave was brave enough to say no to a system that was built on profit, greed, and violence. And he was punished for doing so.

My friends, this parable is not about one's talents in singing, dancing, leading Bible Studies, teaching Sunday School, and other "talents." It has never been about these.

His parables got Jesus executed.

The Prodigal Son

There was a man with two sons.

He was rich. He had property. He had land. He had slaves. He had two sons. The younger asks for his inheritance and squanders it. He goes back home and is welcomed back by his father. With a feast, a robe, sandals, and a ring. The older is angry, feels slighted, and left out so the father reminds him that “you are always with me and all is mine is yours.” 

In the end, everybody lives happily ever after. Father and sons. Still propertied. Still landed. Still slaveholders. Still rich.

My friends, we should stop identifying rich fathers, rich landowners, and rich slaveholders with God. Parables of Jesus were subversive speech. They indicted the status quo. They challenged Pax Romana.

They were the reasons Jesus was executed.

The Centurion and his Beloved

Palestine had been under Roman Occupation for almost a century during the time of Jesus. With the death of Herod the Great, direct control was put in effect. Thus, a Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, run Judea by the time of Jesus’s ministry.

Historians tell us that most Jews hated the Romans. They hated Roman Centurions more. And the feeling was mutual. Hatred for centurions was especially pronounced because the centurion, not the emperor nor the Roman senators, served as the face of the empire for majority of the occupied peoples. In other words, centurions were the enemies; the concrete presence of the occupying forces; the oppressor; the colonizer. Moreover, a centurion led the detachment that executed Jesus.

If we agree with the historical argument that Matthew and Luke shared a source that predates both gospels, then we have a Jesus tradition that celebrates inclusivity at its finest. 

The narrative, especially Luke's version, introduces Jewish leaders that defy our stereotype. They love the centurion. It also presents a centurion that defies our stereotype. This centurion loves the Jewish people, even building a synagogue for them. Finally, it presents a Jesus who makes many uncomfortable. He heals the centurion’s younger male lover or boyfriend who was very ill and close to death.

Many of you here know that two words play important functions in the narrative. Doulos and pais. Doulos is always translated slave. While pais is usually translated servant. But we also know that pais can be translated servant, son, daughter, child, child servant, or younger male lover or boyfriend. Or beloved.

Caesar Augustus, probably because of the debacle the Legions experienced in Germany because there were so many wives, children, and slaves with the soldiers decreed a ban on heterosexual marriages for members of the Roman Imperial Forces. The ban was still in force during Jesus’s time. The ban lasted until 197 CE. Thus, it was not uncommon for Roman soldiers to have same sex relationships, especially with younger men.

The Occupied Jews knew this meaning of pais, Matthew, Luke, and their source knew this meaning of pais, Greek writers and philosophers spoke of pais this way, I’m pretty sure Jesus did as well. And when the centurion came to him, most probably at his wits end looking for healing for his ill and dying beloved, Jesus healed him.

Jesus did not heal him because he loved the sinner but hated the sin. He healed him because he was sick and close to death. Lest we forget, the Jewish elders, the centurion, and Jesus were united by one objective, the healing of the Centurion's younger partner; his beloved. 

Jesus did not care whether the centurion was a Gentile, an enemy of his people, and uncircumcised. He did not care if he had the right religion, the right creed, the right skin color, the right sexual orientation and gender identity …

What Jesus saw instead was this enemy who loved the Jews so dearly that the Jews loved him back. He only saw the love of the centurion for his ill and dying boyfriend, a love that transgressed borders in order to seek healing and restoration for the beloved.

This love is akin to the love that feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, welcomes the stranger, visits the sick, proclaims good news to the poor, liberates the captives, clothes the naked, and sets the oppressed free!

This is the love that believes that hope is greater than despair; that faith is stronger than fear; and that life will always conquer death. This is the love that transforms the world. 

#MarcosNoHero

Jose Rizal is not buried in the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani.
Nor is Antonio Luna. Not Claro M. Recto. Nor Gabriela and Diego Silang. Not Macli-ing Dulag!

Nobody really knows where lie the bodies of thousands of Filipinos—heroes and heroines—who offered their lives fighting against the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese.

Nobody really knows where lie the bodies of countless students, church workers, laborers, farmers, fisher-folk, comrades—heroes and heroines—who disappeared during the Marcos Regime. And the countless more who have disappeared during the Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo, and Aquino regimes.

Philippine soil from the Cordilleras to Mount Apo is nourished by the blood of fallen sisters and brothers in unmarked, mass, shallow graves. Just like Andres Bonifacio, the First President of the Philippines, who at 34 was executed with his brother, Procopio, and whose bodies were robbed of garments and then thrown naked into a hastily dug grave.

Heroines and heroes, all of them. And each of them are alive. In our collective memories. In our shared history of struggle. In our hearts. In the visions of justice, peace, land, and liberation for all that their sacrifice offered us.

Marcos, on the other hand, is no hero. A hero’s burial does not make one a hero. Never has. Never will.

#MarcosNoHero

Jose Rizal is not buried in the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani.
Nor is Antonio Luna. Not Claro M. Recto. Nor Gabriela and Diego Silang. Not Macli-ing Dulag!

Nobody really knows where lie the bodies of thousands of Filipinos—heroes and heroines—who offered their lives fighting against the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese.

Nobody really knows where lie the bodies of countless students, church workers, laborers, farmers, fisher-folk, comrades—heroes and heroines—who disappeared during the Marcos Regime. And the countless more who have disappeared during the Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo, and Aquino regimes.

Philippine soil from the Cordilleras to Mount Apo is nourished by the blood of fallen sisters and brothers in unmarked, mass, shallow graves. Just like Andres Bonifacio, the First President of the Philippines, who at 34 was executed with his brother, Procopio, and whose bodies were robbed of garments and then thrown naked into a hastily dug grave.

Heroines and heroes, all of them. And each of them are alive. In our collective memories. In our hearts. In the visions of justice, peace, land, and liberation for all that they shared with us.

Marcos, on the other hand, is no hero. A hero’s burial does not make one a hero. Never has. Never will.

THE PARABLE OF THE WEDDING BANQUET

Why do we identify the King in the parable with God?

The King is a King. He is on top of an intricate system of honor and shame, patronage, property, and privilege. He is rich. He is powerful. He hosts a banquet. His invite is turned down. He is shamed. He gets back at those who shamed him. He has them killed and burns down their city.

Then he gathers the dregs of society to his banquet. He finds one of the dregs not wearing the wedding robe which the King obviously provided (where do you expect the dregs of society to get clothes for a royal wedding?).  The King is a King. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent but he has been shamed again! He has his minions bind the man, hand and foot, and thrown out to where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And this is how we imagine the Kingdom of God?   

Parables are the opposite of myths. If myths are stories that create order, parables subvert. Parables are subversive speech. The Roman Empire killed Jesus. Historians Josephus (Jewish) and Tacitus (Roman) both report the crucifixion. Jesus was, most probably, executed for the movement he started and the parables he weaved. 

COMING OUT

#nationalcomingoutday #comingout #kabahaghari

I would like to believe that the incarnation is really about God coming out. In the Gospel of Mark, God comes out of heaven. One can argue that God actually escapes from heaven. Compared to the Matthean and Lukan versions which state that “the heavens were opened,” the Markan passage states “the heavens were torn” apart. In Mark, God comes out of heaven and does not return!

I would like to believe that the incarnation gives us a clearer vision of who God really is: the God who wants to be one of us; the God who takes sides; the God who is waiting ahead of us in Galilee where many of us do not want to go; the God who loved sinners, prostitutes, lepers, rebels, outcasts, and eunuchs; the God who dearly loved Mary of Magdala, Simon Peter, the Beloved Disciple, and, yes, the young man in the garden; and, finally, God-with-us, Immanuel, the One who will never, ever, forsake us.

I would like to believe that you believe these as well.

THE PARABLE OF THE SAMARITAN AND THE INN-KEEPER

We know this story already. Surveys show that this story is one of the two most Christians call their favorite. The other is the Prodigal Son. Both come from Luke. Those of us who have read and studied Luke know that this gospel has a particular bias for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the foreigner, and the outsider…

A man is near death along the bloody way that connects Jerusalem and Jericho and the people we expect to stop and help ignore him. Two people actually help. The Samaritan and the Inn-keeper. Both nurse the man back to health.

In the past 100 days, several thousand people have died. They were near death but because we, like the Priest and the Levite in the story, chose not to stop and chose to ignore them. We chose to let them die. We found them near death, victims of a menace we call drugs, but we chose to let them die rather than nurture them back to health.

In the next 100 days, more will die. Thousands.

Unless we, all of us, decide to be Samaritans and Inn-keepers. We must demand a stop to the killings. We must carry our near-death sisters and brothers to safe places where they can heal. If we do not know how to do this, we must learn. We must open our hands, our hearts, our homes, our churches, our hospitals, our schools, so that we can nurture our near-death sisters and brothers back to health.

And we must do this now!

OF GARDENS AND WEEDS

In Memory: Bishop Alberto Ramento
Luke 13. 18-19

Gaius Plinius Secundus (aka Pliny the Elder) in his Natural History 19.170-171 wrote that “mustard [sinapi kokkos] …grows entirely wild… and when it is sown, it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.”

John Dominic Crossan tells us that the mustard in the parable was a wild weed shrub that grew to about five feet or even higher. Even in their domesticated form they were a lot to handle. Mustard in a well-kept garden not only spread beyond expectations but also attracted birds of all forms thus disturbing the natural balance of a well-manicured garden, with the birds’ unpredictable feeding habits, and worse, their droppings. St. Francis of Assisi, who, as legend has it, was very close to wild creatures, and who, as the story goes, would not even hurt a fly, was also against the pulling out of weeds.

Gardeners, of course, did not want weeds in their gardens. They did not want wild mustard at all cost. They spend time creating the perfect balance in their gardens: putting in the best, throwing out the worst. A well-manicured garden has no room for wild mustard so they cut mustard young and at the roots. The mustard weed though have a way of coming back.

They always do.

The parable likens God’s reign, God’s empire to a weed. It grows where it is not wanted and eventually takes over the place. Jesus, who advocated an alternative culture of radical egalitarianism, an open commensality of free healing and eating, of miracle and meal among the peasant and marginalized communities of Galilee was executed at age 30 when his vision clashed with that of the urban religious and political structures of power in Jerusalem.

The wild mustard from Galilee that sprung in the domesticated garden of Judea, that attracted all kinds of birds that gardeners despised, was swiftly cut down. Do not forget this—The God we worship is an executed God. He was executed by the empire for the life he lived in solidarity with the poor and the stories of compassion he told.

Many scholars of first century Palestine now agree, enemies of Rome who were executed by crucifixion had their naked bodies left hanging on crosses for the vultures and wild dogs to feast on, thrown into mass graves, or hastily buried in borrowed tombs.

Nobody really knows where lie the bodies of hundreds of students, church workers, community leaders, farmers, fisher-folk, laborers, and activists who disappeared during the Marcos Regime. And the countless more who have disappeared during the Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo, and Aquino administrations. Philippine soil from the Cordilleras to Mount Apo is nourished by the blood of fallen sisters and brothers in unmarked, mass, shallow graves. Just like Andres Bonifacio who at 34 was murdered with his brother and whose bodies were robbed of garments and then thrown naked into a hastily dug grave.

All were wild mustard that had to be cut down lest they disturb the domesticity of the gardens tended by the rich, the powerful, and the religious elite the majority of whom take pride in calling themselves, their institutions, and their structures “Christian.”

But Jesus’s vision lives on. And those of the others live on. Today, we especially remember the vision, the mission, and the ministry of Bishop Alberto Ramento. Like his Lord, he was executed by “domesticated gardeners who do not want wild weeds that invite unwanted birds.”

But wild weeds have a way of coming back. When you least expect them. Ask any gardener. You can never completely eradicate wild weeds like mustard. They have a way of sprouting in places where they disturb, disrupt, and dismantle the status quo.

They always do!

Jeepney Hermeneutics

"There are examples, however, of critical theory that is distinctly Asian or a modification of Western modes of thought with Asian interests. Using Western theory and method is inescapable and can even be considered a witting tool, used by the colonized when they try to “write back and work against colonial assumptions, representations, and ideologies” (Sugirtharajah, 1998, p. x). The Filipino Jeepney hermeneutics is one such venture, demonstrating the capacity to transform tools of mass destruction into resources for life (as in the writings of Revelation E. Velunta). Thus while cultural studies is not just an Asian American interpretive mode of discourse, it may be utilized by Asian interpreters in a more critical manner."

(Asian/Asian American Interpretation, Source:
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies, accessible online at http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t453/e1)

PAIN HAS NO SABBATH

Luke 13: 10-17 10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17


When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. (NRSV) The Gospel of Luke is a favorite among many Filipino Christians. Two of the best loved parables of Jesus are in Luke, the Samaritan in Chapter 10 and the Prodigal Son in Chapter 15. The Roman Catholic Church’s Preferential Option for the Poor is grounded on this gospel. The UCCP particularly loves Luke 4 (and Matthew 25). Lest we forget, the gospel that Jesus was anointed to proclaim is good news to the poor. And Luke is the best source for understanding the challenge of this gospel that takes the side of those whose only hope is God, of those who need God the most.

Critical parts of Jesus’s mission are to proclaim release to the captives and to let the oppressed go free. Both mean the same thing: liberation! Our reading for today is Jesus doing his mission of liberation. In Jesus’s response to the leader of the synagogue (verse 15) he mentions three characters who are all bound and have to be released. The ox and the donkey are both tied. They have to be released in order to get water. If they are not released, if they do not get water, they might get dehydrated or worse, die. The woman, whom Jesus calls a daughter of Abraham—which incidentally is the only time in the whole Bible that the description is used—is also bound. Satan has bound her for 18 long years. Medical experts who have studied this passage say that those were 18 agonizingly painful years. Whether she had tuberculosis of the spine, spondylitis ankylopoietica, osteoarthritis of the spine, or osteoporosis of the spine, she was in terrible pain. Every single day. She had to be released. She had to be set free.

My friends, the exchange between Jesus and the synagogue leader is not about good and bad. It is about good and good. How do we choose? Justly. The synagogue leader was saying: you can heal her any other day except today. He was arguing: what is one more day of suffering to someone who has already endured 18 years of agonizing pain? That’s 6570 days of pain. What is one day more? Jesus, on the other hand, was saying: why do I need to heal her any other day when I can do it today! For Jesus, suffering is suffering. Why wait for tomorrow when we can stop it today! The synagogue leader’s opinion is justice delayed. Jesus’s retort was justice right now! The woman despite her agonizing pain, despite her suffering went to the synagogue regularly. Did you think for one second that her pain rested during those Sabbath days? Did you think her suffering stopped while she sang, chanted, and studied the Torah? Do not forget this, ever: suffering does not have Sabbaths. Oppression has no rest days. Evil does not rest.

Do you think the suffering, humiliation, and discrimination that Palestinians experience as they go through Israeli checkpoints twice a day stop during Sabbath? Do you think the daily average of 45,000 people, half of them children under 5, who die in the Congo, stop because the killers behind the world’s worst genocide have to go to church on Sundays? Do you think our Lumad sisters and brothers get Sundays off from the displacement, dispossession, and militarization they experience from the AFP, CAFGU, and private armies of mining corporations? Do you think the pains, the suffering, and the diseases that afflict close to a billion of the world’s children caused by malnutrition, poverty, and hunger cease every time they attend mass or praise and worship? Suffering does not have sabbaths. Oppression has no rest days. Evil does not rest!

Thus, the struggle for life, for liberation, for wholeness, for abundant life for all has no rest days as well. This is why Jesus always healed on the Sabbath. This is why he proclaimed release to the captives and set the oppressed free on the Sabbath. This is why we are challenged to do the same! My friends, today is the day of liberation. Of course, we can wait for tomorrow but tomorrow might be too late. Proclaim release to the captives! Let the oppressed go free!

TODAY!