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.

Pain has no Sabbath!

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 in 2018! 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!

NOW!

MOTHERS AND PROPHETS

Almost all our favorite characters in the Bible are prophets: from Miriam, to Moses; from Elijah to John the Baptist; from Huldah to Anna. God gave us these prophets. God also gave us their mothers.

Bible scholars argue that the Bible was probably written by men for men and most of its central characters are men. Women characters who take center-stage in the biblical narratives are quite rare. Rarer still are mothers who are both named and who get to speak.

Let me offer two.

Let’s start with Hannah. She was loved but she was barren and in a society where barrenness was considered a curse, she cried and prayed and pleaded to Yahweh to remember her and Yahweh did. She gave birth to a son and named him Samuel, which meant, “I have asked him of Yahweh.”

And in her prayer in 1 Samuel 2, comparable to the power and the passion of Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1. 46-55, we encounter a mother’s faith, a faith I’m sure she taught her son, a faith that continues to challenge us today… Let me read some of her prayer’s most powerful affirmations… The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength, God kills and brings to life, God brings down to Sheol and raises up, God raises up the poor from the dust, God lifts the needy from the ash heap.

However you read Hannah’s Prayer the message is clear—God will make things right. And most important, God is on the side of the poor, of the oppressed, of the hungry, of those whose only hope is God. This was the faith of Hannah, the same faith her prophet son, Samuel, had. Most of us probably remember the son more than his mother. The message has not changed. Hannah and Samuel’s faith remain. We worship and serve a God who actually takes sides.

If we read our Bibles then we know that the God we serve and worship has always been on the side of the poor.

From Genesis to Revelation, we read about our covenant relationship with Yahweh that requires us to take care of the widows, orphans, strangers and foreigners, yes, illegal immigrants, refugees, internally displaced communities, the Rohingya among us. From Genesis to Revelation, we are enjoined to feed the hungry, offer drink to the thirsty, welcome the sick and the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and the imprisoned.

We know whose side God is on but are we on the right side? Those of us who take pride in calling ourselves Christian, are we on God’s side?

Do we let poor widows, orphans, and strangers give everything they have, even the little money left to buy food, so that we can build our temples and our buildings as monuments to our messianic complexes and imperial theologies?

Mary of Nazareth believed in a God who brings down rulers from their thrones but lifts up the humble. She believed in a God who fills the hungry with good things but sends the rich away empty. And this faith, we know she taught her Son, the One we call Lord and Savior. Hannah and Mary knew what God required of us. It is not burnt offerings or ten thousand rivers of oil or mighty buildings. Then and now, God requires of us to do justice and to love kindness and to take sides…

And the message will never, ever, change. We worship and serve 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. We worship and serve a God who, in the fullness of time, in the life and ministry of one Jesus, son of Mary from Nazareth, did the greatest act of taking sides—God became one of us. God left heaven to be with us. And God continues to take sides—as we encounter God among the least of the least, among the hungry and the thirsty, among the prisoners, the strangers, and the sick, among the homeless and the naked, among those devastated by nature’s wrath and by humanity’s greed, among those whose only hope is God.

Let me share with you a story told by John Dominic Crossan, probably the most read Historical Jesus researcher today: He imagines a conversation with Jesus. He asks Jesus what he can say about Crossan’s research. Jesus says he has done great work, his research is excellent, and his reconstruction of Jesus is the closest to the real person. Crossan is ecstatic about Jesus’ praise, until Jesus adds: “One thing you lack.” And Crossan, asks: “What is it, Lord?” And the reply: “Sell everything you have, including all the royalties you’ve received from the books you’ve written about me; give the proceeds to the poor, and follow me.” Crossan says, “I cannot, Lord.”

Yes, my dear sisters and brothers, the final test. Those of us who take pride in calling ourselves Christian, worship and serve a God who takes sides; but most importantly, the Christ we worship and serve wants us to sell everything we have, give all the proceeds to the poor and follow him.

Hannah and Mary gave the very best they could offer to God: their children. And their children did so, as well. They offered the very best. They gave their lives for others.

As we welcome 2018, are we ready to do so? Did our mothers teach us to do so?  I  believe they did. I know they did.

Amen.

NEVER AGAIN!

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 1.7 trillion dollars were spent on the arms industry. Over half a trillion 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.

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 not to. We need to take other roads.

And we need to do all these to make sure that the massacre of innocent children does not happen again. Anywhere. Ever.


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

TRANSGRESSING BORDERS

Going outside boxes is hard. Leaving our comfort zones? Equally hard. The Magi’s quest took over two years transgressing borders. In search of a child. A complete stranger. A stranger they believed would liberate his people from oppression.

Crossing boundaries, discarding prejudices, tearing down walls: very, very hard. And very, very scary! And taking another road back is hard and scary, as well. The Magi went against the orders of Herod the King and innocent children were massacred. More often than not, then and now, when the powerful are threatened the most powerless get hurt.

Who among us have flown on airplanes? Who among us have looked out the windows of those airplanes and seen the land masses below? What did you see? Did you see the lines, the borders that separated one nation from another? Did you see the markers that identified each country's territory apart from another? Like in our color-coded maps? The boxes we make, our comfort zones, our prejudices, our bigotry, our racism, the thick and high walls around our homes and even our churches, that Apartheid Wall in Israel, and Trump’s White Walls, the borders that separate us are all man-made.

We put them up, which means we can tear them down! 

In the verses that most of us have been reflecting on this holiday season, from the first chapters of Matthew and of Luke, one element is crystal clear. Except for Mary and Joseph, all the characters who come together to celebrate the birth of the Messiah are strangers. Complete strangers.

Empires and Kingdoms create systems, structures, and lifestyles that create strangers, that divide, that alienate, that pit one against the other, whether the division is based on class, race, creed, gender, religion.

The birth of the Messiah, the fulfilment of the promise of Immanuel, the coming of Yeshua—which means Yahweh Liberates—brings complete strangers together. It births community! The birth of the Messiah, my dear friends, can tear down walls.

And as the Messiah showed us, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, proclaiming good news to the poor, all these tear down walls as well.  One word.  Immanuel.

But let us not forget. The best way to experience Immanuel, God’s presence in our lives, is to be Immanuel to someone else.  The key is not to wait for Immanuel but to be Immanuel to those who need God the most, to those whose only hope is God!

Today, as so many people struggle for life, for safe spaces, for dignity, each of us is invited to be active participants in the quest for a just and lasting peace, to be agents of love and faith and hope in the healing of our world, to tear down walls that divide, that disempower, that marginalize, that dehumanize, that kill.

Scary? Yes. Hard? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. But this is what the incarnation is all about. No one deserves to be alone, so God took the first step. God transgressed borders. God left heaven to be with us. God chose to be one of us. God took sides. And God took the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized.

And we, those who confess to follow God, should do the same. My friends, as we celebrate the Birth of the Messiah, I invite us all to cross borders like the Magi, to tear down walls that divide, to be God’s presence in others’ lives, to change our ways and take another road.

And like the Magi, by taking another road, the road less traveled, and even the road-less travel, let us participate in the healing of our world and in our own healing.

Immanuel.

NO ROOM

 No Room

This is the reality of our world today.  There is no room.

No room for refugees. No room for Lumads. No room for the Rohingya. No room for Palestinians. No room for PLHA. No room for LGBTQi. No room for the Other. Sadly, nothing has changed.

The first Christmas. We combine Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives. We re-enact it almost every December in our school plays and in our church pageants. St. Francis started the tradition in the 1200s. In our re-enactments, Joseph and a very pregnant Mary find no room in any inn. No one is ready and willing to welcome the couple. Eventually, they find shelter among animals, in a manger, where Jesus is born. Soon, visitors arrive: angels, shepherds, even the Little Drummer Boy in some of our plays, and then the magi bringing gifts. Incidentally, in one TV spot I saw abroad, one of the magi brings the Baby Jesus the newest Android Smartphone.

In artwork going around in our social networks, the Wise Men are blocked by Israel’s Apartheid Wall. Mary and Joseph experience an IDF checkpoint. No room for the Magi. No room for the Holy Family. Not even in Bethlehem.

We think our Christmas Plays end on a happy note because we either end it with everyone singing carols or with a rendition of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, sang by the choir or blasted through our sound systems.

We forget that the play ended the way it began: there was no room in the inn.

In rare occasions we do find people going against the script. Sometimes, someone from the audience, someone from our congregations would volunteer to welcome Joseph, Mary, and Joseph to their homes. Sometimes, we hear someone crying out: “There is a place for them in our home.”

Today is one of those times when we are challenged to affirm that “there is a place in our homes, in our churches, in our schools, in our communities.” Today, more than ever, we need to go against the script. We cannot afford to close our doors. We cannot afford to put up walls. Trump is wrong. Israel is wrong. Duterte is wrong.

We cannot afford to be inhospitable. We cannot afford to spend Christmas without opening our homes to the Christ who confronts us through the least among the least: the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the prisoners, the unclothed, the complete stranger, the orphan, the widow... the thousands left homeless and devastated by the Marawi Siege; the tens of thousands victimized by years of unabated mining, logging, militarization, and the culture of impunity; the countless others, human beings like you and me, who have been sacrificed in the War on Terror and the War on Drugs.  

The cycles of violence, of dehumanization, of exploitation, of disenfranchisement, of victimization have to stop. All these are man-made which means we can unmake them. Things need to change. Now.

There should always be room.  If there is none, you and I have to make sure there is. This is what Jesus did.  He gave his life creating room for the least, the lost, and the last.

This is what we must do.

[images from cifwatch.com and desertpeace.wordpress.com]

Mina, Romana, and Americana

The mina was 1/60 of a talent. If a talent was worth 15 years' wages, the mina was 3 months' wages.

This Lukan parable resonates with the one about the talents in Matthew. That one celebrated 100% profit. This one celebrates
1,000% and 500% returns on investment.

But there's more. It also promises death to anyone who opposes the current dispensation.

Empire has been not changed. Its idea of peace has always been peace based on victory in war. Peace based on silencing dissent. Then it was Pax Romana. Today, it is Pax Americana.

Most of Jesus's audience would have known the history behind the parable. Herod Archelaus, Herod the Great's Son, went to Rome to get Caesar's blessing. His enemies went there as well to raise their opposition. Archelaus gets the Empire's blessing and promptly has his enemies killed. Just like the nobleman who became king in the parable.

Jesus was a child when all these happened. His exposure to the evils of greed, lust for power, and systemic violence began early. The same applies to the children in Marawi, in Palestine, in many parts of our world where so many are treated as sub-human, as commodity, as illegals, or as animals.

When Jesus said, God's reign is for children, he envisioned a world that was the complete opposite of Empire.

Patches, wine, and change

One does not use new cloth to patch up a tear in an old garment. Nor does one pour new wine into old wineskins. Does not work. Never did. Never will.

Self explanatory.

But did Jesus mean something else? The parable is possibly an answer to the question about fasting. The Pharisees and John the Baptist and their followers fasted. Jesus and his group did not. Old ways, new ways. One way, another way. Forcing the new into the old does not work. Never did. Never will.

The old will eventually give way to the new.

Again, this is about good and good. There are people who fast. There are people who don't. It's also about change. And about waiting.

We love our old garments. We also love aged wine. Change is hard. For most of us. But it is inevitable. Eventually, we get new garments. And we finish our favorite wine.

The old will eventually give way to the new. Clothes. Wine. Every. Thing.

Many interpretations of this passage pitted the Pharisees, John's group, and Jesus's against each other. And, usually, the Christian way is always the right way. The only way.

But we have to remember, in the first quarter of the First Century, all three were Jewish liberation movements against Roman Occupation. All three were movements for genuine change.

All believed that change was inevitable. It might be protracted but it will come.

Two House Builders

Many of Jesus's parables involved two characters. Two sons, two men praying, two sets of flock (sheep and goats), two groups of five girls, two look-alike plants (wheat and bastard wheat), two debtors...

Often, when we are presented with two choices, two options, two paths, we assume that the choice is between good and bad so we automatically choose the good. But, in reality, many of the choices we make are not really that clear-cut. Usually it's between good and better. Or, for the majority, between bad and worse.

As I have done in the past, I will not offer a reading based on Matthew's appropriation of Jesus's parable (that the house builders represent the doers and the non-doers of Jesus's teachings) but on how the story may have resonated with its original hearers.

How many people do you think had the resources to build houses on rock during Jesus's time? How many people do you think had the resources to even build houses--any type of shelter or dwelling--at all?

Why to you think Jesus challenged everyone to feed the hungry, offer drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned, and welcome the stranger? Because during his time, for most of the people, homes built on rock was an impossible dream, homes on sand was a long shot, homelessness was the stark reality.

Why do you think Jesus said, "Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but humans have no place even to lay their heads"?

The Bad Samaritan

Yes, we love the parable. It is one of the two favorites among Christians. The other being the Prodigal Son.

We identify with the Samaritan. We name our institutions after him. But before we continue patting each other's backs and celebrating, let us remember what Samaritan meant during Jesus’s time.

There were at least three groups of people that were most hated and despised during Jesus’s time. Centurions, tax collectors, and Samaritans. These were the bad guys. Jesus's enemies pejoratively call him a Samaritan.

Priests and Levites were the good guys. The models of society in word and deed. They were expected to help the wounded. They did not.

The bad guy did. Ironically, to this day, the bad guys still do. Help the wounded, rescue the dying, save the half-dead. But we don't call them Samaritans anymore. We call ourselves that now. We even added a qualifier, Good Samaritan.

But, tragically, we still do not stop and help. We have even come up with the best excuses for our inaction, apathy, and indifference. Especially if the wounded is Black, Palestinian, Rohingya, LGBT, or PLHA.

The bad guys do not care about labels. They just continue helping the wounded along the world's bloody ways. And they actually have help. Innkeepers.

Josephine Anne and Mustard Seeds

A pint-sized woman with a big heart for the country. This is how friends and family have described Josephine Anne Lapira. Her description reminds me of the mustard seed in Jesus’s parables. It is the smallest of seeds which becomes the greatest of all shrubs, putting forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, wrote that “mustard 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. 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 made-up balance of a well-manicured garden, with the birds’ unpredictable feeding habits, and worse, their droppings.

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.

Jesus likens the reign of God to a weed. It grows where it is not wanted and eventually takes over the place. All wild mustard have to be cut down lest they disturb the domesticity of the gardens tended by the rich, the powerful, and the religious elite.

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 well-manicured gardens.

They always do!

What gardeners never understand is this: for every mustard they cut down.  Ten will take its place. For every ten, one hundred. For every hundred, a thousand.

Josephine Anne and everyone like her will rise again. They always do.

When Does the Healing Start?

WHEN DOES THE HEALING START?

The Leper, Jesus, and US
(A Responsive Meditation Based on Mark 1. 40-43)

Leader:
A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. (NRSV)

Millions of people today experience the plight of the leper in the Markan passage every single day. We call them People Living with HIV and AIDS. The healthy stays away from them. The healthy have stopped talking with them. The healthy have stopped interacting with them. They do not touch them anymore. They stand from afar and watch them die.

People:
What is the difference between illness and disease? Disease is physical. Illness is social. We, the un-sick, create and name the illnesses that keep us safely distanced from the sick. We, the un-sick, create the borders that keep the sick away from us. We, the un-sick, have access to the funds and the medicines that can help the sick live longer lives. We, the un-sick, decide who is ill and who is not.

All:
Many times, we, the un-sick, create the rules, the fences, the sanctions, the systems that make the sick sicker, the weak weaker, and the dying dead.

Leader:
In the Markan passage, we find the story of a leper. A person very much like a person with HIV or AIDS. He is considered unclean. People are told to keep away from him. People are told not to speak to him. People are told not to touch him. Though alive, society considers him dead.

People:
What is life without companionship? What is life without conversation? What is life without the warmth of a human touch?

All:
God did not create people to be alone. In life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not supposed to be alone.

Leader:
To celebrate Immanuel is to celebrate God-with-us. We are not alone. We shall never, ever, be alone. No one deserves to be alone. Yet, many among us, the leper of ages gone, the person with HIV or AIDS today, are alone.

People:
To celebrate Immanuel is to follow Jesus, Love Incarnate.

All:
In the Markan passage, we find the story of a leper. A person very much like a person with HIV or AIDS. He is considered unclean. People are told to keep away from him. People are told not to speak to him. People are told not to touch him. Though alive, society considers him dead.

Leader:
Yet Jesus, Love Incarnate, came near him, spoke to him, and touched him. Jesus did what society told him not to do. In the companionship, in the conversation, in the warmth of a human touch, the walls the un-sick created to separate and to isolate the sick were torn down.

People:
When does the healing start? Does it start with medicines or with technology? Does it start in hospitals or in churches? Does it start with prayer or with the much-needed deposit or all-important HMO card? When does the healing start?

All:
Or do all healings start when we realize that we are each other's keepers, that we are all God's children and thus sister and brother to each other, and that one's pain is everybody's pain, and that one's struggle is everybody's struggle, and that one’s sickness is everybody’s sickness, and that one's healing is everybody's healing, and that one's resurrection is everybody's resurrection.

HOMILY:

Leader: Going outside boxes is hard. Leaving our comfort zones; likewise. The magi took over two years, border-crossing, in search of a child, a complete stranger; a stranger they believed would liberate his people from oppression.  The Ancient Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years in their collective quest for land and liberty.


Crossing boundaries, discarding prejudices, tearing down walls, very, very hard. And very, very scary...

Who among us have ridden airplanes? Who among us have looked out the windows of those airplanes and seen the land masses below? What did you see? Did you see the lines, the borders that separated one nation from another? Did you see the markers that identified each country's territory apart from another? Did you see the colors that differentiated one area from another, like in our maps?

The boxes we make, our comfort zones, our prejudices, the thick and high walls around us, our accurate maps, even that Apartheid Wall in Palestine, and the borders that separate us are all man-made. We put them up, which means we can tear them down!

In Mark 1, a leper and Jesus meet, the sick and the un-sick, the impure and the pure, the dead and the living, the un-Jew and the Jew. Society, culture, ideology, and religion put up three invisible walls that separated them: no one is supposed to go near lepers, no one is supposed to talk with them, more importantly, no one is supposed to touch them.

It is a sin to approach lepers. It is a sin to talk with them. More importantly, it is a grave sin to touch a leper.

In three short verses, Jesus and the leper defy those rules. Together, they sin big.

Complete strangers they come near. They talk. They touch. Complete strangers, they break down three walls of separation and create three circles of contact. And the healing of both begins.

And we are invited to do likewise, to be active participants in the quest for a just and lasting peace, to be agents of love and faith and hope in the healing of our world.

Most of us have much to be thankful for. Many just celebrated Thanksgiving.  God has been good to us through the communities that welcomes and cares for us. But thanksgiving unless shared and celebrated with those whose only hope is God is not really thanksgiving, it's investing, waiting for returns.

To be thankful is to share, to take risks, to cross borders, to tear down walls and thus encounter the stranger. Scary? Yes. Hard? Yes. Dangerous? Yes.

But this is what the incarnation is all about. God crossing borders. God leaving heaven to be with us. God choosing to be one of us. God taking sides...

Thus, we are never, ever, alone. No one deserves to be alone.  NO ONE.  My friends, every moment of our lives we are challenged to cross borders, to tear down walls...one brick at a time... And beyond the walls...like the leper and Jesus, creating and nurturing circles that provide safe spaces where we can come together, where we can talk, where we can touch. Let us participate in the healing of the world and in our own healing. Let us, together, create circles of care.

People:
When does our healing start? Does it start with medicines or with technology? Does it start in hospitals or in churches? Does it start with prayer or with the much-needed deposit or all-important HMO card? When does our healing start?

All:
Our healing starts when we realize that we are each other's keepers, that we are all God's children and thus sister and brother to each other, and that each one's pain is everybody's pain, and that each one's struggle is everybody's struggle, and that each one’s sickness is everybody’s sickness, that each one's healing is everybody's healing, and that each one's resurrection is everybody's resurrection.


Women:
Like the leper and Jesus, today with People Living with HIV and AIDS, we are challenged to cross borders, to tear down walls, one brick at a time.

Men:
And beyond the walls, with People Living with HIV and AIDS we are called to create and nurture safe spaces where we can come together, where we can talk, where we can touch.

All:
With open arms, open hearts, open minds, open doors—in our homes, in our places of worship, in our institutions, whenever and wherever—let us participate in the healing of the world and in our own healing. Let us, like the leper and Jesus, create circles of care.

AMEN

Master and Slave

Every day over 6,000 Filipinos leave the country to work overseas. Every day 10 come back in a box. Millions are domestic helpers. Millions more are caregivers. Countless survive in sub-human conditions. People are most Third World nations' biggest exports. If we think that slavery in its most dehumanizing forms does not exist in the 21st century society, then we are deluding ourselves.

Slaves, in Jesus's parable in Luke 17. 7-10, should never expect to rest from their labors. Slaves should never expect thanks. Slaves should know their place, should stay there, should accept that they are worthless, and should never, ever, expect otherwise.

My friends, God did not create masters. God did not create slaves. God did not create the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. God did not create any of the systems and structures that commodify, degrade, and emasculate people.

We did all these. Which means we can undo them all. And we must.

Now.

Binding the Strong Man

If parables can get one dead, then this parable is one of Jesus's most subversive.

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first binding the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

One word.Insurrection. Scholars say the kingdom refers to the State. More specifically, Rome and its puppet government in Palestine. The house refers to the Temple. More specifically, the religious elite beholden to empire. Satan, of course, refers to Rome. As a side note: Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, and Joseph Caiphas, the High Priest, the two people directly responsible for Jesus's execution, were close friends. Both were removed from power in 36 CE.

Historians agree that the "cleansing of the temple" was Jesus and his followers' attempt to "bind the strong man and plunder his house."

Lest we forget, Jesus was crucified as an enemy of the State, as an insurrectionist. The charge, "King of the Jews," supports that. He was crucified with two other insurrectionists or rebels, not thieves or robbers.

We do not like this Jesus.

This Jesus is so unlike the one we grew up with; so unlike the one our colonial masters taught us to obey without question; so unlike the one whose portraits and paintings, usually blond and blue-eyed, adorn our places of worship.