REVELATION ON REVELATION

 

THE SHORTEST SHORT INTRODUCTION TO REVELATION
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THE LOST BOYS

Luke 15 has three parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

Many among us grew up with allegorical interpretations of these parables. The sheep, the coin, the son all represent the sinner who is lost then found and saved by God.

My friends, let us try to read the parables as parables about shepherds and sheep, women and coins, and fathers and sons. The shepherd is not God. Nor the woman. Nor the father.

The shepherd is responsible for sheep under her care. The woman is responsible for her coins. The father is responsible for his sons.

If sheep, coins, and sons go astray, we ask those responsible: why?

For so long our interpretations have shielded and protected those responsible for sheep, coins, and sons. It is time we ask the shepherd, the woman, and the father: why did you lose them?

For so long we have shielded and protected David and Eli from what happened with their "lost" sons. We still do so with today's Davids and Elis.

*Art, "The Prodigal Son," JESUS MAFA, Cameroon, 1970 (available at the vanderbilt divinity library revised common lectionary art galleries).

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THE PARABLE OF THE FIG TREE

 

For three years the owner of the Fig tree has waited. For three years he was patient. For three years he longed for one thing, fruit from his tree. Three years pass and there were none. So, he orders his gardener to chop it down. Waste of good soil. His gardener pleads, "Give it another year. I will dig around it and put manure." Give it another year.

We call them people with "green thumbs." People who love plants. People who sing and talk to them like they were people. People like the gardener who pleads, "Give it another year." People who celebrate the inter-connectedness of all life. People who believe in second chances for everyone and everything. People who know the magic properties of manure.

Then there are people who treat everyone and everything as property, as commodity, as disposable, as opportunities for extraction and exploration. And every single day they acquire square kilometers of prime agricultural land, ancestral domain, and public lands for profit.

There's a term for this insatiable greed: development aggression.

And everything and everyone in the way--everything that does not produce profit--is chopped down; is told, "May no one ever eat fruit from you ever!" Not just Fig trees.

*Art, "Children eating Figs" (M365 copilot generated image). https://a.co/d/6IdSfim

THE PARABLE OF THE WIDOW AND THE UNJUST JUDGE

Homilies on this parable 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 that did not fear God nor respect people. Jesus describes him as an unjust judge. He is like so many in the world's justice systems that serve the powerful, the propertied, and the privileged. (There are exceptions, of course, like the ICC and the ICJ.)

And then there's the widow. Widows are among the three most dispossessed people in the Bible (along with orphans and refugees), fighting for justice like so many in our country today: the thousands of widows caused by Duterte's anti-poor 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. Nakulitan lang siya. 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 fought for justice and justice prevails at the end. Then and now, widows who fight for justice never give up.

Dear Friends, justice always prevails. This is why we should always choose justice. And always stand with widows and orphans and those whose only hope is God.

*Art, "Persistent Widow" from FreeBibleImagesdotorg.

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HENS AND FOXES

 

Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus.

Is he handsome? With piercing blue eyes? With shoulder length blond hair? White? This is Trump's Jesus.

In Sunday's Gospel Reading, the most definitely nondescript, most probably brown-eyed, and Galilean Jesus compares himself to a hen, and calls Herod a fox. Now, this hen is calling us to follow him. This hen is also calling the rich--which includes Trump, Musk, Bezos, and their ilk--to sell everything they have, to give the proceeds to the poor, and to follow him.

Now, this hen is a prophet, like John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, Huldah, Anna, Amos, and Miriam, who speaks for God: The God who always takes the side of orphans, widows, and refugees.

Foxes want hens dead. Then and now. Herod wanted to kill Jesus. But this particular hen was not afraid of this particular fox. He had a mission to complete. And it was waiting for completion in Jerusalem.

Close your eyes again. Imagine Jesus. Not your Personal Lord and Savior. Nor Trump's.

But Jesus, the Prophet: Jesus who is risen among today's hens--mothers, sisters, daughters, relatives, and allies--fighting for justice for their kin extra-judicially killed in the War on Drugs; Jesus who is one hen among many hens--undeterred by death threats from foxes--rising up and "gathering their brood under their wings."


*There are hens who do not fear foxes. MS365 copilot generated image.

READING REVELATION INSIDE A JEEPNEY

 

REVELATION ON REVELATION

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FORTY DAYS WITH SATAN

 

Sunday's Gospel Reading from Luke is also found in Mark and Matthew. The Spirit drives or throws Jesus into the wilderness in Mark. In Luke and Matthew, the Spirit leads Jesus. Being thrown and being led are very different descriptions. The former conjures an image of Jesus going with hesitation, even resistance. The latter paints a picture of readiness and willingness.

Wilderness conjures up a lot of ambivalent images for us who study scripture. Hagar and Ishmael encounter God in the wilderness. God appeared to Moses through the burning bush in the wilderness. The Ancient Israelites wandered almost aimlessly in the wilderness for decades. Many of them died there, including Moses. John the Baptist was a "voice of one calling in the wilderness." The wilderness does not seem like a very hospitable place. Yet, God's surprises abound in the wilderness!

And then there is the number 40, a long time in scripture. It rained 40 days and nights during the time of Noah. Forty years separated the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan River. The Synoptic Gospels tell us that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness being tested. Matthew and Luke add that he fasted. This narrative is the basis for the 40 days of Lent.

We imagine that Jesus was alone in the wilderness during those 40 days of testing. He was not. The Synoptics tell us Jesus had company. Wild beasts. Angels. And Satan! God's surprises do abound in the wilderness!

My friends, let us never forget: Satan did not betray Jesus. Judas did. Satan did not deny Jesus. Peter did. Satan did not plot to arrest and kill Jesus in secret. The chief priests and scribes did. Satan did not abduct, torture, abuse, and murder Jesus. The Romans did.

Satan is not behind the War on Terror and the War on the Poor. Satan is not responsible for economic systems and structures that privilege profit over people and planet. Nor is Satan responsible for the genocide in Gaza. We all know who are responsible and should be held accountable for all these.

Lent began yesterday, Ash Wednesday. Students of "Redeemer/Champion Myths" know that heroes/heroines undergo testing and trial to help prepare them for their mission. Who among us wants to spend 40 days in the wilderness being tested by Satan? Jesus went. Took the test. And he passed.


*Microsoft 365 copilot generated image of Jesus and Satan in the wilderness.

METAMORPHOSIS

For many pop culture enthusiasts, the most popular example of a metamorphosis would be Dr. Bruce Banner's transformation into the Hulk. For the rest of the world, our introduction to the term came via one of our earliest science lessons in grade school: observing and documenting the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.

These days students observe caterpillars in school AND train Caterpie in Pokémon!

Sunday's Gospel Reading from Luke is about metamorphosis, although most English Bibles use "transfiguration."

If we read our Bibles and pray every day, then we know that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all experience mountain-top encounters with God. All three went through very trying and challenging times in their lives and their encounter with God enabled them to complete the tasks that God has called them to do. The three went up caterpillars, they came down butterflies.

Metamorphosis.

But not everyone who encounters God come back as butterflies--like Peter. In the mountain Peter experienced something so special, so unique that we expected him to come out as a butterfly, yet he does not.

He opposes Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem. He denies Jesus. Three times! He attempts to cancel his metamorphosis.

Have you ever seen caterpillars stop the "magic" that turns them into butterflies?

Everyone who encounters God in God’s Mountain needs to come down. When Moses came down, he led in the birthing of a people whose love for Yahweh was expressed in love for neighbor, especially the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers. When Elijah came down he continued the struggle against Israel’s oppressive kings and began a prophetic tradition that ended with John the Baptizer. When Jesus came down he followed the path that led to Jerusalem and eventually to the cross.

All butterflies begin as caterpillars.

To believe in God's "magic" to effect metamorphosis is to believe that goodness will always triumph over evil, that hope is stronger than despair, that faith conquers fear, that love is greater than indifference, that life will always, always, conquer death! To believe in metamorphosis is to believe in God's power to transform each and every caterpillar into a butterfly.

Yes, in the end, even Peter.

And, yes, even you and me!


*Art is a Microsoft 365 copilot generated image of two children and a butterfly.
 

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

Historical Jesus scholars say that "love your enemies" is an authentic Jesus saying. My Jewish teachers agree that these statements are unique to this particular first century Jewish rabbi.

Sunday's Gospel Reading is Luke's version of the aphorism. It is also found in Matthew. New Testament scholars argue that material shared by Matthew and Luke come from a much earlier tradition ("Q" for quelle [German] or source).

This aphorism represents Jesus’s most powerful challenge to empire's divide-and-conquer strategy. What is the worst situation of enmity between persons or peoples? Their being enemies. Jesus’s call to "love your enemies” subverts enmity.

In the gospel, we have “enemies who love,” who actually serve the least, who actually take the side of those whose only hope is God, who completely subvert expectations. There is Zacchaeus, the rich, chief tax collector who gives back to the poor and pays back four times everyone he had defrauded. There is the centurion, who not only loved the Jewish people and built their synagogue but loved his slave dearly and sought help from the Jewish community when the latter was ill and close to death. Then, of course, we have the Samaritan who was a neighbor to the Jew who fell into the hands of robbers.

Loving our enemies is very hard. It is not based on emotions nor on relations. Loving our enemies requires a decision. It is agape. The One who calls us every day to follow him, chose to love his enemies to the very end.

Loving our enemies is very hard. But to do so is to follow Jesus.

+art, "Hands, All Together," Avandale Patillo United Methodist Church, 2007 (from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

BLESSED ARE THE POOR

The Greek word for poor is "ptochos": people who are destitute, people who are so poor that begging and stealing become options for them to survive. They are drowning in misery.

War, slavery, and indebtedness leave people widows and orphans and refugees. War, slavery, and indebtedness leave people destitute, displaced, and dispossessed.

The Hebrew Bible, over and over and over, challenged the Ancient Israelites and Judahites to care for widows, orphans, and refugees. War, slavery, and indebtedness were all part of the structures and systems of evil that made the rich richer and the poor miserable.

During the time of Jesus, the 1% owned and controlled the land and practically everything else. Half of the population was slowly starving to death. Life expectancy was 28 years.

The poor that Luke--and also Matthew--talk about are those who pray "The Lord's Prayer". They beg God to give them today the food they need because they live from one day to the next. They also beg God to cancel their debts. Yes, debts. Not sins nor trespasses.

There are people who love to pray this prayer while they have cupboards--or even storehouses--of food enough for a week, a month, a year, or longer. There are people who love to pray the prayer while being the reason why so many are suffering from indebtedness.

These people are not poor. They should stop praying the prayer.



*Art, "The Sermon on the Mount," JESUS MAFA, Cameroon 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY AND SOLIDARITY!

 

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GO FISH!

When we were growing up, we used to sing a song in Sunday School that went, "I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men if you follow me."

Life during the time of Jesus was extremely difficult. Historians paint a Roman-occupied Palestine where the average life expectancy was under 30, the majority was suffocating in debt, and half of the population was slowly starving to death.

At the bottom of the social structure were farmers and fisherfolk. Nothing has changed. Farmers and fisherfolk remain at the bottom of the social structure today. Over 1.5 million families in the Philippines are fisherfolk. The poorest two out of every five poor people in the country are fisherfolk.

In Sunday's Gospel Reading Jesus calls fisherfolk to follow him in order to fish for people. A carpenter calls fisherfolk to fish. Jesus does not call anyone to worship him. Or to believe in him. Or to accept him as their Personal Savior and Lord. Or even to be a carpenter. Jesus calls us to follow him. To do what? To fish for people.

Many ancient peoples were afraid of the seas. They feared drowning; they feared the turbulent waves; they feared the ancient, eldritch leviathans they imagined lurking beneath the surface.

But Jesus does not call us to fish people out of their fear of the deep.

During Jesus's time, the Empire owned and controlled the seas! Taxes were imposed on fishing, on boats, on nets, on everything! In our lection, Simon tells Jesus that they were fishing all night and caught nothing.

Jesus's call to fish for people is a call for us to follow him in taking out people from systems and structures that oppress, that dehumanize, that subjugate, that murder.

And who are the people who experience the evil of these systems and structures every single moment of their lives? Fisherfolk. Genuine transformation always comes from below, from among those at greatest risk of drowning, from the toiling masses, from among those whose only hope is God. The call has not changed. People, especially the most vulnerable, are drowning in imperial waters. Trump back as POTUS makes things worse.

Jesus is calling us right now to follow him and fish for people.


*Art, "Miracle Catch" by Mike Moyers. To purchase Moyer's works, please visit mikemoyersfineartdotcom. Image accessed from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

THE SHORTEST SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE PARABLES OF JESUS

THE SHORTEST SHORT INTRODUCTION
TO THE PARABLES OF JESUS
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