ZACCHAEUS'S EXAMPLE

In the Gospel of Luke, we have “enemies who love": those who actually serve the least, who actually take the side of those whose only hope is God, who completely subvert expectations.

If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, then we will grow, grow, and grow in the realization that over and over in the New Testament, we are reminded how the people hated the Romans, the Samaritans, and tax collectors. But in Luke, the Roman Centurion, the Samaritan on the road connecting Jerusalem to Jericho, and Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, are presented as models of faith. They are "enemies who love."

The Centurion not only loved the Jewish people and built their synagogue, he also loved his slave dearly and sought help from the Jewish community when the latter was ill and close to death. We all know about the Samaritan who was a neighbor to the Jew who fell into the hands of robbers.

Then, there is Zacchaeus in Sunday's lection. There are two important things in the passage that many English versions do not emphasize. Scholars have been raising these points for a long time.

First, he was young, not short. And he was a very young but very rich chief tax collector, not just your regular hated publican. The passage tells us how the people ostracized him. For them, he definitely did not belong. For them, he, most definitely, was not a child of Abraham.

Second. The verbs in verse 8 are in the present tense. Even present progressive. Not future. Zacchaeus did not promise to give back half of his possessions to the poor. He did not promise to pay back those he has defrauded four times as much. HE WAS ALREADY DOING BOTH! He was already doing acts of justice which Jesus commanded the rich to do in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

For Jesus, Zacchaeus was, most definitely, a child of Abraham!

Friends, many times we love playing God. We decide who are in and who are not. We decide who are saved and who are doomed. Salvation is God's gift. It is not ours to give.


*art, "Zacchaeus welcomes Jesus," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN

Pharisees loved God and country, were very religious, highly trained, upright, and totally against the Roman Occupation of Palestine. They were loved by the masses in contrast to the elitist Sadducees who belonged to the ruling class. Let us not forget that Paul, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Gamaliel were Pharisees.

In Sunday's lection, the Pharisee was telling the truth. Everything he said in his prayer was true.

Publicans or tax collectors were probably the most hated people during Jesus’s time. They worked for Rome and were considered collaborators and traitors.

In Sunday's lection, everything the tax collector said in his prayer was also true.

Both men were truthful. What's the difference?

The tax collector judged himself and found himself needing God's mercy. The pharisee judged the tax collector and found the tax collector needing God's mercy.

Then and now, we all need God's mercy. Especially those of us who, like the pharisee, think we don't.

*art, "The Pharisee and the Publican," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

THE WIDOW AND THE UNJUST JUDGE

This Sunday's lection is not about prayer. Most of the time we hear sermons that tell us that if we persist, like the widow, in prayer, pleading to God, then God, like the judge, will relent.

Stop imagining that the judge in the story is God. He is not. He is a judge--an unjust judge, at that, like many in our country today. (There are exceptions, of course, like RTC Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar.)

And then there's the widow. Widows are among the three most dispossessed people in Bible times (along with orphans and strangers), pleading for justice like so many in our country today. The thousands of widows caused by Duterte's War on Drugs. Tens of thousands of widows brought about by militarization, by large-scale mining, by human trafficking, by the US-led War on Terror, by powers and principalities fueled by insatiable greed and lust for profit. All crying out, all relentless, all persistent in their quest for justice.

And the unjust judge relents. Not because he had a change of heart. The situation changed because the widow never gave up. Morning, noon, and night. Rain or shine. She was in his face. Standing her ground. She never lost hope. She wore him down. She fought for justice and justice prevails at the end.

Friends, justice must alway prevail. This is why we should always choose justice.

*art, "Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow," John Everett Millais (1829-1896), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

KRISTER STENDAHL AND THE NINE LEPERS

During my first year of graduate school, I had the privilege of presenting a paper at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. I did not expect Krister Stendahl* to be in the audience--he was in the front row. I did not expect him to come up the stage after the presentation and introduce himself to me--he did.

I did not expect him to remember me when we saw each other again in the following year's SBL meeting in Boston--he did remember me. He even remembered my paper, and asked if he could join me for lunch. Those very priceless moments with Bishop Stendahl seem surreal to this day.

He was interested in my argument that faith being a response to grace resonated with "utang na loob" being a response to "kagandahang loob". And that the best way to respond to grace by faith is to to pay it forward. The best way to love God, our Parent, is to love our sisters and brothers. I used the story of the ten lepers to unpack the concept. And the narrative is Sunday's lection.

We expected the ten lepers who were healed to go back to Jesus to express their gratitude. But only one returned to do so. And most of our interpretations have celebrated this one who returned. How about the "ungrateful" nine? Is it not possible that they paid it forward? Is it not better if an act of kindness is repaid by doing an act of kindness to someone else instead of returning the favor?

Isn't serving the people--especially widows, orphans, and strangers--the greatest expression of our gratitude for God's grace?

=========================
*Krister Stendahl (1921-2008) was Bishop of Stockholm (Sweden), theologian, and New Testament scholar. He served as professor and dean of the Harvard Divinity School. His works on Paul are required reading in many seminaries.

+art, "The Healing of the Ten Lepers," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

THE RACE AGAINST ERASURE

 

I am sure most of us have heard sermons about moving mountains (Mark 11. 22-23, Matthew 21: 20-22) or uprooting trees (Luke 17: 5-6) with our mustard seed-sized faith.

Sycamore-Mulberry trees have deep and wide root systems that are invasive and damaging to the soil system. These roots cause problems to other plants.

Historians offer information on two possible mountains Jesus may have been referring to: The Temple Mount and Herod the Great's Herodium.

Herod was called the Great Master Builder and was responsible for the man-made harbor at Caesarea Maritima, the fortress at Masada, the magnificent Temple Mount, and the Herodium (his palace and burial site). Herod, through forced labor and heavy taxation, literally moved mountains to build the last two monuments to his greatness.

It's hard to imagine a tiny mustard seed winning against a huge Sycamore-Mulberry tree, but I would like to believe that Jesus was challenging his listeners that it can be done--because it had been done. David brought down Goliath with one stone to the head.

Whether Jesus was talking about the Temple Mount or the Herodium, I would like to believe that he was challenging his listeners to have the faith that any man-made mountain that is built on exploitation, dehumanization, and oppression can be brought down, and thrown into the sea....

If we work together.

These days, huge man-made mountains and deeply rooted trees of prejudice, discrimination, homophobia, demonization, dehumanization, comodification, patriarchy, imperialism, and injustice reign in our world.

Fake news, misinformation, disinformation, disenfranchisement, red-tagging, and character assassination serve as the ruling classes' primary tools in its grand project of erasing dissent, resistance, and works of genuine transformation.

The race against erasure is now. It can be done. It had been done. David brought down Goliath with one stone to the head.

*image is from the "times of israel" (herodium/herods-mountain-hideaway)

LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN

Scholars tell us of two ancient stories that resonate with Sunday's lection. One is Egyptian, the other rabbinical. The former is about the reversal of fortunes in the afterlife. The latter was about Abraham's servant Eleazar (Lazarus in Greek) who walked the earth in disguise to check on Abraham's children's observance of God's command to care for the poor, especially orphans, widows, and strangers.

In Jesus's version, Lazarus wasn't in disguise. He was so poor, sick, and starving that his plight was described by Abraham as evil. He was in such a dehumanizing state that his company was street dogs. He died alone and was not even buried. Being buried is the last act of human decency that societies have practiced for millenia. Lazarus died and no one was around to bury him. God had to send angels to bring him to Abraham's bosom.

The rich man feasted every day. He also died. He was buried--I'm sure in grand fashion, with scores of professional crying ladies.

Today, the world spends more money on dog food than on basic health care or basic literacy programs for the most vulnerable communities. Today, 25,000 people starve to death daily while one country has enough resources to feed 40 billion people! (That's six times the population of the world.)

Today, Lazaruses abound outside our homes, our offices, and our places of worship: homeless, jobless, hopeless... Suffering alone! And we, like Cain, smugly assert, "Am I my brother's keeper?" We, like Senator Jinggoy Estrada, tell the victims and surivors of the evil Martial Law Regime, "What is there to apologize for? Move on na tayo." Unless we change, unless we repent, we will be in agony, tormented by flames in Hades. With the rich man. And with Jinggoy.

*art, "The Rich Man and Lazarus," JESUS MAFA, 1973, from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

THE DEBT MANAGER

Sunday's parable from Luke 16 has been interpreted so many different ways. Some work. Some do not, especially those that insist that the rich master is a metaphor for God.

The rich master is a rich master. Charges are brought against his debt manager or steward for dishonesty. Apparently, other debt managers want him out of the picture, thus the charges.

The manager--finding his position in jeopardy and knowing he cannot do manual labor and is ashamed to beg--does what most anyone would do in his situation: use the system of debts and indebtedness to his advantage. Find a way to make sure that he does not end up on the streets. He cuts his losses by literally cutting his commission.

What he does gets him his job back. His rich master commends him. And those in debt are now beholden, not just to the rich master, but also to the manager.

This is the way things actually work. This is the evil of debt, then and now. That is why the rich are still rich and continue to get richer. This is why the poor plea, "Forgive us our debts!" This is the way of empire. This is the economy of death.

This is the complete opposite of the Kin(g)dom of God.

*art, "Parable of the Unjust Steward," (2012), Andrei Mironov [from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives]

THE PARABLE OF THE LOST COIN

A few months after Nanay was laid to rest we went through her things. It was very hard. We choked up everytime we found the bills she kept. A fifty-peso (1 USD) bill here. A hundred-peso (2 USD) bill there. Inside a book. Tucked in a blouse pocket hanging in her closet. Folded in an old letter's envelope. Rolled up inside a bottle in the kitchen cupboard.

Like many Filipinos, our family lived from payday to payday and Nanay's "backup system," which so many use, helped keep us afloat.

This is why I love Sunday's Parable of the Lost Coin. The woman had ten coins. Each can buy a measure of wheat enough to feed one person. But only the rich could afford to eat wheat. The poor ate barley. Each of her coins can buy three measures of barley enough to feed three or four. Her ten coins were enough for her family to survive ten days on cheap bread.

And she misplaces one coin! So she searches for it like her family's life depended on it. Because it did. And when she finds the coin, she celebrates with friends and neighbors.

Of course there are people whose cupboards and refrigerators have provisions for weeks. Even months. Some have provisions that will last until The Second Coming!

Friends, many among us forget that for so many people who plea, "Give us today our daily bread," God's shalom is actually just one coin. Just enough money to buy the cheapest rice for one day. Just enough to survive for one more day!  

*art, "The Lost Drachma," James Tissot (1836-1902), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives

THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

Sunday's lection from Luke 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.

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. When Jesus calls us, he bids us, "come and die."

*art, "The Cost of Discipleship," from inductivebiblestudy app, 2020.

"KNOW THY PLACE"

Sunday's lection resonates with our experiences around the dinner table (which, in many cases, is not really round). We know who sits where. In many homes we know who sits at the head and at the foot of the table. We are expected to know our place. And this seating arrangement applies in our churches as well. How many times have we experienced being told that these seats or those pews are for the exclusive use of this or that family? When I was younger I assumed that the name plates were in honor of the donors. I soon realized--after being told to move--that those name plates identified who had exclusive rights to those pews.

Years ago, I visited a church where I felt totally unwelcomed. I did not wear the required three-piece suit for men. I also had the wrong skin color.

Friends, let us never forget that the early church was known for its open table, its radical hospitality, and its proclamation of good news to the poor. The church is not a building. The church is not an exclusive club. The church, the one Jesus challenges to be light, salt, and seed, are people who love.

*art, "The Poor Invited to the Feast," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

PAIN HAS NO SABBATH

 Critical parts of Jesus’s mission are to proclaim release to the captives and to let the oppressed go free. We know these. Both mean the same thing: liberation! Sunday's lection is Jesus doing his mission of liberation. In Jesus’s response to the leader of the synagogue 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 stop during Sabbath? 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. Every single day! 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!


*image, "Christ Healing the Crippled Woman who was Bent Over, " from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library Digital Archives (copyright source: Prof. Patout J. Burns and Prof. Robin M. Jensen)

T R O U B L E M A K E R S

What does this fire that Jesus brings in Sunday's lection do? It disrupts, it divides, it disturbs the "Peace": Pax Romana.

The peace founded on victory in war. The peace defined, justified, legislated and imposed by the powerful, propertied, and privileged. The peace built on the blood and bodies of the displaced, dispossessed, and disfigured. The peace that produces so many widows, orphans, and strangers.

The peace where the father was head of the family and everyone was his property. And the peace where the rich got richer and declared heaven-blessed while the poor got worse and judged accursed! The peace where the Emperor was the father of all fathers.

Historians tell us that Christians were never called peacemakers in the earliest days of the Jesus movement. They were called troublemakers. They disrupted. They divided. They were disturbers of Rome's Peace.

These days, the powerful, propertied, and privileged keepers of "Peace and Order" have different names for troublemakers (who, thank God, still include many Christians). They are called activists, militants, dissenters, leftists, communists, rebels, Palestinians, and yes, terrorists!

Troublemakers are the reasons we have hope!

#25percentrevolution
#IAmWithJesus
#JusticeForNewBataan5
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity

*image from "Queer Eye for the Lectionary."

RICH FOOLS

I read somewhere that Rockefeller was asked how much money would satisfy him. His answer? More. In the part of the Philippines where I reside, there are vast tracts of land, thousands of hectares, owned by one family. Ibon Foundation has reported that the net worth of the richest Filipinos rose during the pandemic as millions faced joblessness, homelessness, and hopelessness.

Historians tell us that in First Century Palestine, practically all the land was either owned or controlled by the ruling elite: the one percent. And, yes, this group included the religious leaders.

In Sunday's parable, the rich man had a problem. His harvest was so plentiful his barns were not enough to contain them. His solution? Bring down his old barns and build bigger ones. Half of the population then was slowly starving to death. How about sharing his over-abundance? Never crossed his mind.

God calls him a fool and strikes him dead that night. Lesson? We should stop associating wealth and wisdom. God does not.

Scientists tell us that 666 billion dollars can address the world's biggest problems: poverty, hunger, illiteracy, health and sanitation. And Oxfam reports that one-seventh of last year's income of the world's richest can address all these. Tragically, the world spends more and more and more each year on weapons of mass destruction. Last year, close to two trillion dollars were spent on weapons!

How about sharing their over-abundance? How about sharing the fabled "Marcos Gold" now to address the devastation to lives, livelihood, and infrastructure from the magnitude 7.3 earthquake that hit the Ilocos and Cordillera Regions yesterday? Or just return billions of ill-gotten wealth to the toiling Filipino masses? Never even crosses their minds.

Tragically-- like what happened yesterday, and the days before, and what will happen tomorrow-- about 25,000 children from the poorest countries, aged 5 and younger, will die from starvation today.

Warning to rich fools: unless you change, God will strike you dead. Probably tonight.

#IAmWithJesus

#25percentrevolution

#EndTheCultureOfImpunity

#FreePalestine

#JusticeForMyanmar

#JusticeForNewBataan5

#ReadingTheParablesOfJesusInsideAJeepney

*image from Crosswalk (What Can We Learn from the Parable of the Rich Fool?), 6 July 2021.