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.

The pandemic has killed over 4.4 million of our sisters and brothers. Handwashing-- and by extension-- wearing masks and physical distancing are concrete expressions of being each other's keepers. Every time we do these, we protect not only ourselves but everyone around us.

#CommunityPantryPH
#COVID-19PH
#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine

*photograph from REUTERS.
 

DO WE ALSO WISH TO GO AWAY?

Our Gospel lection readings for the past several weeks have been on John chapter 6. Sunday's lection asks a question that demands an answer from all of us: "Do you also wish to go away?"

Part of the passage reads: When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you?" Because of this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"

Many among us grew up with Sunday School images of Jesus surrounded by masses of people. Many among us grew up believing that if Jesus were around, he'll be more popular than the Pope or Michael Jackson. Many among us think that if Jesus were elected US President, peace based on justice will reign.

There are those among us who believe that Jesus is the answer; that he is the solution to our problems; and that he will right all wrongs when he returns.

But the Gospel of John paints a different picture. Following Jesus is really hard. Following Jesus requires making very difficult decisions. Folllowing Jesus demands offering one's life for another.

By John chapter 6, Jesus had only the Twelve left. By the time of his arrest, there were only two left from the Twelve. At his crucifixion, only the Beloved Disciple was left.

You and I, are we here to stay? Are we committed to the highest calling of the Gospel? Or, like so many others, do we also wish to go away?

In the name of our God, creator, redeemer, and friend. Amen.

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine

WE ARE WHAT WE 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 doctrine 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 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. Spirit has molecules. 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, we are what we eat. For those of us who call ourselves friends of Jesus, I pray we really are!

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar

*art, "Bread and Fish," catacomb, 3rd century (from vanderbilt divinity library archives).

CARPE DIEM

My favorite lines in the movie Kung Fu Panda go, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, that's why we call it present." Unfortunately, research shows that many people spend up to 50% of their time regretting the past and 40% worrying about the future. That leaves 10% for the gift we call present.

I think this is why the "I Am" statements in John, including Sunday's lection, are important. Jesus did not say, "I was" nor did he say "I will be." Carpe diem. Jesus seized the moment!

Many times in our lives we are left immobile: trapped between what we could have done better and what we could do better instead of seizing the moment, the now. Because the hungry need bread right now. The thirsty need drink right now. So many of our sisters and brothers need help right now.

You are; I am; we are each other's keepers. Now.

#COVID-19PH
#CommunityPantryPH
#IAmWithJesus
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity

*image, "Artoklasia or Breaking of Bread Service (Greek Orthodox Church), from Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives.

WE ARE THE ANSWER. NOW!

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 only affects the poor. The rich are immune to it.

Last Sunday's lection reminded us that one poor and hungry child's offering was the beginning of the feeding of the 5000 poor and hungry people.

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, we are the answer to Jesus’s plea. And 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 tomorrow is already here, since today is the tomorrow we hoped for yesterday!

#IAmWithJesus
#CommunityPantryPH
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar

*photograph, "Bread of Life," (from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

THE PARABLE OF FIVE BARLEY LOAVES AND TWO FISH

There are many people who imagine this story-- which we find in all four canonical gospels-- as an actual event in Jesus's ministry. There are those who argue that it is a parable. All the parables we have looked at so far are stories that Jesus told. This one is different. It's a parable from the early church. Jesus is a character in the parable.

He sees the multitude hungry and, following the teachings of the Law and the Prophets, he tells his disciples to feed them. In the Synoptics, his disciples make up excuses. Send the crowd away. Let them feed themselves. In Sunday's lection from John 6, they tell him: we don't have enough funds to address the situation.

The excuses then sound so much like our excuses today.

Then a young child, possibly 12 years old or younger, offers what he has. Five barley loaves and two fish. And the miracle of feeding of the 5000 begins. There is a tradition that says barley tastes good... to cows, sheep, and horses! The poor, the anawim, ate barley. It was all they could afford. The rich had storehouses of wheat, and fattened themselves with it.

Do not forget this. Ever. The barley loaves and the fish that led to the feeding of the HUNGRY multitudes were offered by a POOR, HUNGRY child. Many times, God's liberating acts begin when one-- just one we usually do not expect-- takes that step forward, that leap of faith, that offering of bread and fish.

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine

*art, "Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish," (JESUS MAFA) from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

DAY OFF

One of the more fascinating characteristics of God in Genesis 1 is one many of us miss. God rests on the seventh day.

In other words, God takes a day off.

Sunday's lection offers us a glimpse of Jesus declaring a break for himself and his discples. Mark 6:31 reads: Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

They did go away to a quiet place and got some rest.

My friends, almost everyone needs a break. I say "almost everyone," because there are people who are born wealthy and who will die wealthier without ever working one minute of their entire lives. This post is not about them.

There are Church Workers whose official day off falls on Mondays. But they have never, ever, had a single day off. Even the land needs a Sabbath. And so does Mother Earth.

On July 19, Monday, please take the day off.


#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar
#JunkTerrorLawNow

*art, "take no cloak or sandals," from readingacts.

SALOME AND KAKAY

Kakay Pamaran's work on Salome is a brilliant thesis using Historical Jesus Research methods. She argues that the "princess's dance which led to the prophet's death" tradition is part of a much bigger extra-canonical Salome Corpus that is still waiting to be collected, catalogued, and celebrated.

Salome and Mary Magdalene are two of the most attested interlocutors of Jesus in extra-canonical Christian literature. There are scholars whose research have shown how Mary Magdalene has been systematically erased from orthodox traditions. Kakay's research pursues a similar trajectory. There are copies of Mark where Salome completely disappears from the list of the women who discovers the empty tomb. Matthew’s and Luke's accounts do not mention Salome.

Many people today would call Magdalene a prostitute or adulteress and Salome a temptress or seductress. All these are false. Fake news. Kakay's work calls the church to repent of its violent sins of systematic erasuring and institutional forgetting.

More importantly, Kakay's work challenges the church to open the canon and discover the diverse, pluriform, and multivocal Christian traditions that make up the 99% that orthodoxy have marginalized.

*Kakay Pamaran, Salvae Salome: Corpus, Myth, Canon, and the Quest for Salome (Union Theological Seminary, Philippines Master of Theology thesis, 2021).

HOMECOMING

Homecomings conjure up positive images for a lot of people, especially these days. For many, homecoming is almost synonymous with reunion--especially during these trying days.

We can touch again. We can hug again. We can play again. We can talk in person again. We do not have to worry as much about infecting each other with unknown illnesses. This is the homecoming, the reunion most of us picture.

But Sunday's lection on Jesus's homecoming paints a different picture. His townmates ask, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" Mark's 'The carpenter from Nazareth, the son of Mary' (read, bastard) was a hard sell. It was certainly a hard sell for the other Nazarenes; in the Lukan version of this story, they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff.

I always ask my students to imagine a daughter or sister or friend who is barely out of her teens being pregnant and telling everyone that the father of her child is the Holy Spirit. Mark's 'The carpenter from Nazareth, the son of Mary' (read, bastard) was a hard sell. Then and now.

To this day, the bastard from Nazareth who lived his life with and for those whose only hope was God; who preached good news to the poor; who challenged the rich to sell everything they have and give the proceeds to the destitute; who defied empire and its life-negating systems; and who commanded everyone who followed him to offer one's life for a friend; remains a very hard sell.

You can't exactly sell a way of life that carries a high risk of being executed by the state, can you?

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar

*art, "Jesus as a child in Nazareth," (JESUS MAFA) available at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives.

TOUCHING MOMENTS

Like many people I know, I was nurtured in a "touchy-feely" culture. Many of our pains, physical or otherwise, were soothed and massaged away by the healing touch of our loved ones. Holding, hugging, and kissing were all integral parts of our growing up years. Touching helped in making us feel safe, loved, and not alone. We learned the science behind all these "touching moments" much later. 

If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, we will grow, grow, and grow in the realization that many of the healing narratives in the Gospels involve touching. Sunday's lection has two sections: the first part has a woman suffering for twelve years who touches Jesus's cloak; in the second part, Jesus touches a twelve-year old girl's hand and tells her to rise up.

The pandemic has left millions dead and tens of millions disenfranchised. Most of the quarantine protocols are anti-poor because these assume that everyone has a home to work from and that everyone has work. 

Physical distancing has made so many socially distant. Alone. Depressed. Afraid. In desperate need to touch someone, or be touched.

If there's a will, there's a way. Even in a pandemic. 

*art, "Healing of the Daughter of Jairus," (JESUS MAFA) available at vanderbilt divinity library archives.

**read How to Hug During a Pandemic (The New York Times) 

 

STORM AT SEA

In Sunday's lection, the disciples find themselves in the middle of a raging storm. Jesus is with them but he is asleep. Only the Gospel of Mark shares the detail that he was sleeping on a pillow. Scholars say that pillow was actually a sack of sand for ballast.

What's fascinating about this narrative is that the fisherfolk did not wake Jesus up until they themselves were already afraid.

Jesus, the carpenter, was sleeping in the safest part of the boat, beneath the stern deck. So, when the disciples--who lived by and off the sea in calm and stormy weather--came to wake him up, there was really reason to be afraid. The storm was life threatening!

Jesus woke up and calmed the storm.

When fisherfolk--then and now--sound the alarm, lives are at stake. When indigenous communities cry out for help, they have done everything possible to avert disaster. When farmers declare that their livelihood is endangered, they have exhausted all avenues for relief.

Many among us, despite the storms of life, are asleep and safe because of what others are doing. But there are storms that are so dangerous, for everyone, that we need to be awakened and be put to task.

It is time for us to arise and face the raging storms.

#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#IAmWithJesus
#JunkTerrorLawNow
#JusticeForMyanmar
#StopTheKillingsPH


*art, "Jesus lulls the storm," JESUS MAFA, available from Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives.

THE SEED

 

Most of us were required to do this science project early in grade school. Bring soil in see-through pots or containers, as well as some seeds. In many cases in the Philippines, we brought mongo beans. We called this project, "The Life Cycle Of A Plant."

Many times our next science project was "The Life Cycle Of A Frog." But this is topic for another time.

Back to the mongo beans. We waited patiently for the seeds to break ground. For six year olds, waiting for hours takes forever. Then we see the surprise. Slowly but surely, the tiny seeds become plants...and we watch in awe and wonder.

People whose hearts beat with the heartbeat of Mother Earth know this parable. Not as a story, but as the reality of life. Life begets life. Each seed bears a promise. All life breathes!

Many times we forget that God's creation helps God create. The waters bring forth fish of all kinds; the earth brings forth plants and animals. Many times we forget that we--you and I--are latecomers to the cycles and dances of life.

Maybe it's time we just step back and watch in awe and wonder. Like we did when we were six years old.

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#SpiritIsMatter

*image from Science 101: Iowa Agriculture Literacy

BINDING THE STRONG MAN

Parables are subversive. Subversion is often considered a crime. A crime warrants punishment. A punishment's severity depends on the magnitude of the crime. If a crime is considered severe, like insurrection, then it warrants execution. Therefore, parables can get one dead.

With that logic in mind, consider this: Sunday's lection 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.

Many 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. Many 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 led 5,000 in that "cleansing" and was executed 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.

*art, "Binding the Strong Man, " [Arrest of St. Patrick] available from vanderbilt divinity library archives.