IMMANUEL!

I have always argued that Immanuel, "God-with-Us," serves as the thread that binds the 28 chapters of the Gospel of Matthew together. Sunday's Gospel Reading, in 1.23, proclaims that Mary's son will be called Immanuel, meaning "God-with-Us" (echoing Isaiah 7.14). At the end of the Gospel, in 28. 20, Jesus proclaims, "I am with you always..." God-with-Us to the end of the age!  

The Gospel has one promise to its hearers and readers. It is not complete understanding. It is not triumph nor victory. It is Immanuel. 

We will never, ever, be alone. 

What does it mean to experience Immanuel, to experience God's presence in our lives? Many times we forget that the best way to experience God's presence in our lives is to be God's presence in someone else's life. 

Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty. Visit the prisoners. Welcome the stranger. Care for the sick. Clothe the naked. Befriend the lonely. Protect the most vulnerable. Stand with Palestine. 

Be God's presence in someone else's life. This Christmas. And always. 

THE GREATEST

Sunday's Gospel Reading reminds me of Muhammad Ali. Today, people will not hesitate to describe him as "The Greatest"--with the same energy he called himself "The Greatest," to boot! 

But those same peoole who praise Ali now often forget--deliberately, even--the times in Ali's life when many treated him with hostility, disdain, and called him a "loud-mouthed nobody". Especially in the 1960s. 

His close friendship with Malcolm X, his decision to become a Moslem, and his being a conscientious objector against the Vietnam War made him one of the most hated men in America. Like John the Baptist, he was one voice crying in the wilderness. 

Sunday's reading also reminds me of young Emmet Till. His abduction, torture, and lynching at age 14 in 1955 for allegedly offending Carolyn Bryant and the acquittal of his murderers illustrate the depth and breadth of racism, injustice, and evil that victimize the most vulnerable in society: children. 

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the world continues to treat prophets and children as dispensable and replaceable nobodies.  Prophets are silenced while children are traded. Prophets are vilified while children are comodified. The criminalization of anti-genocide protests worldwide and the murder of thousands of children in Gaza illustrate this tragic reality. 

Sunday's reading reminds us how Jesus feels about prophets and children. For him, they are the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. But that's for Jesus. He always took the side of those in the margins. 

How about us who take pride in calling ourselves followers of Jesus? Where do we stand? 

*images of Emmet Till (from the Emmet Till Research Collection, Florida State University Library) and Muhammad Ali (shadow boxing underwater, 1961).

**The song "Greatest Love of All" was composed for the Muhammad Ali biopic in 1977. George Benson did the original recording. Whitney Houston's 1985 version made it a worldwide hit. 

PREPARE YE!

"Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" and "Day by Day" from Godspell are two of my favorite childhood songs. Every time I think of John the Baptist, the former starts playing in my mind. 

Sunday's Gospel Reading is about John. Ancient Israelite tradition expected the prophet Elijah to return and prepare the way for the Messiah. Christianity believes that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and, thus, his forerunner, his "Elijah" is John the Baptist. 

The word of God came to John in the wilderness. Not in Jerusalem, not inside Herod's temple, not even in a synagogue, nor through the Saducees, Pharisees, and Scribes. 

The wilderness conjures up a lot of ambivalent images for us who study scripture. God appeared to a hardheaded Moses through the burning bush in the wilderness. The Israelites wandered almost aimlessly in the wilderness for forty long years. Many of them died there, including Moses. Like John, the wilderness played a key role in Jesus' early ministry. The wilderness does not seem like a very hospitable place.

Yet, many times, God reveals Godself in the wilderness--in spaces and places we don't expect God to be. In spaces and places we don't want to be! 

God anointed John to prepare people for a new way: not the way of Emperor Tiberius, Herod, his brother Philip, Pontius Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas, or their ilk. Not the way of many Pharisee and Sadducees whom John called a brood of vipers. He told them, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham." 

God's way requires repentance: a complete turnaround; a 180; a change in the opposite direction; deciding to stop pretending but actually living our lives loving God by serving people, especially those whose only hope is God. 

If we don't follow God's way, if our creeds don't translate to deeds, if we don't repent, then God is able, from stones, to raise up God's children. 

*art, "John the Baptist preaching in the desert," (JESUS MAFA 1973), available at the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

JESUS HAS AIDS

If I said Jesus has cancer. Or diabetes. Or asthma. No one will give a fuss. 

But most of us have problems when we hear that Jesus has AIDS. Because we have been socialized to identify AIDS with promiscuity, with illicit drug use, with divine punishment, with sin. And the Jesus of our Creeds cannot be promiscuous, will not touch or even be in the same room with weed, and, of course, is a perpetual virgin, and sinless. 

What is the international symbol for HIV AIDS prevention? When you turn the symbol on its side, what does the symbol represent? 

My dear friends, the world has AIDS. Close to 40 million of our sisters and brothers are living with HIV. Since the beginning of the epidemic, 44 million of our sisters and brothers have died.  

For God so loved the world with AIDS that God sent God's son... Do we have problems with that interpretation? Or we only think that the world that God loves in our favorite Bible verse is that part without AIDS? 

And what did God's Son say, the One God sent to a world with AIDS? 

For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. I had AIDS and you, like the priest and the Levite, did not even stop to help me and passed on the other side of the road. I have AIDS and you left me to die, on the street, abandoned, alone, full of sores, like Lazarus.

Jesus has AIDS. He is the two-year old orphan whose parents died from the disease. He is the young prostituted woman victimized by human trafficking. He is in San Lazaro, in RITM, at the Lung Center waiting for a blood transfusion. He is your spouse. He is your child. He is your parent. He is the one wrapped in your embrace this very moment. He is the one whose face you see in the mirror. 

Jesus is a person living with HIV and AIDS and he is one of us. He is God-with-Us. 

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JUDGMENT DAY

The Season of Advent has begun and many expect a Christmas reading for Sunday. Matthew's passage is not. It's part of the Synoptic Gospels's mini Apocalypse (so, we find parallels in Mark and Luke). Scholars agree that the passage reflects traumatic memories from the Fall of Jerusalem around 70 CE. 

A lot of people look forward to the End of Days or the Second Coming because it promises eternal rewards and punishment. Of course, there are millions of card-carrying Christians who expect that they will be rewarded, while so-called infidels--namely, anyone who has not accepted Jesus as their Personal Savior and Lord--will be punished. The "saved" will be taken away while the "damned" will be left behind. Trump and his ilk believe themselves part of these "saved" people. 

Many others look forward to the day that God will make things right, especially for those who have been dispossessed, displaced, disenfranchised, discriminated, and dehumanized by prejudice, greed, injustice, and evil. 

There are also those who dread the End of Days or the Second Coming because they know they have failed to do what Jesus, in his First Coming, commanded them to do: preach Good News to the Poor, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take care of the sick, visit the prisoners, clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger. 

Judgment Day will come. Nobody knows which day or which hour, but it will happen. Like in the days of Noah. God's Day of Justice is coming. Jesus said so. 

Judgment Day is coming. For. All. Of. Us.

And it might come today. 

*art, "Two Women at the Mill," (James Tissot, 1836-1902) from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

REMEMBER ME...

Sunday's Gospel Reading is part of the church's tradition about Jesus's last words on the cross. You find one statement in Matthew; one in Mark; three in John; and three in Luke. Sunday's Lukan passage is also the basis of Jacques Berthier's famous 1978 Taize hymn, "Jesus, Remember Me."

Many social scientists tell us the worst punishment for Filipinos is solitary confinement. Many Filipinos turn on radios and televisions when they are alone--not to listen or watch, but simply to create a semblance of community.  God did not create us to be alone. No one deserves to be alone. Worse, no one deserves to be forgotten.

This was the plea of the man who was crucified with Jesus: Remember me. We often forget that many people do not fear death. What they really fear is oblivion; that they will be forgotten; that no one will remember them.

God's gift of grace creates communities. And these communities of grace are founded on a shared commitment to memory and remembrance. God does not want anyone to be alone. God does not want anyone to be forgotten. 

God remembers. Always. 

You and I, as followers of Jesus are challenged to race against erasure and to dedicate our lives to celebration, to commemoration, to ritualization. 

And to remember. Always. 

*art, "Dismas," (Thomas Puryear Mims, 1906-1975), at the Benton Chapel (Vanderbilt University). Tradition names the repentant man crucified with Jesus as Dismas.

THE CHURCH IS NOT A BUILDING

Sunday's Gospel Reading reminds us of Herod the Great's major renovations on the Jerusalem Temple that, according to Jesus, was built from the offerings of widows and other very poor people. 

Jesus said, "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down!" And he was right. 

We are uncomfortable with a Jesus who speaks of doom, destruction, and death. We do not wish to see Jesus brandishing a whip while driving out those who were selling and buying in the Temple, including the moneychangers. We do not want to acknowledge that Jesus can be angry--and violently angry, at that.

We are so used to the Jesus we have created in our image. We are so used to the huge cathedrals and grand buildings we have created to make us comfortable when we come together in his name. We have even come up with the phrase "Sunday best", air conditioning, and exclusive seating inside these walls we have built as imposing monuments of our faith in God. Remember Jesus’s words, "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." 

Friends, our comforts have made us forget that the church is not a building. It never was. It never will be. It has always been people: people who love; people who serve; people who offer their lives so that others may live, like Jesus did.

And when the cathedrals and buildings we've put up cease to serve their purpose, we should not be surprised when Jesus himself tears them down. 

*I took this photo of the Western or "Wailing Wall" in the Old City of Jerusalem last 9 August 2016. The wall is a remnant of the retaining walls Herod built for the Temple Mount. 

MOURNING HAS BROKEN

(In honor of those who survived and in memory of those who perished when Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda hit the Philippines on 8 November 2013.)

Mourning has broken, like ev’ry mourning

Lives have been broken, thousands left dead

Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, 

Poor folk rebuilding, hon'ring their dead

Sweet the world’s caring, manna from heaven

Each other’s keepers, one body, one mass

Working together, welcome each morning

God recreating every new day.

Welcome the sunlight, rise from our mourning

Labor ‘til twilight, so children can play

Crucified peoples, God’s resurrection

Our liberation, three days away!

Mourning has broken, like ev’ry mourning

Lives have been broken, thousands are dead

Grace for our mourning, grace for each morning, 

Praise for the springing, life for the world. 

*NEXSAT satellite image of Typhoon Haiyan from the US Naval Research Lab (November 7, 2013, 2:30am)

THE ASSOCIATE PASTOR

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, one of my teachers at Princeton, shared this story with me. It resonates with Sunday's Gospel Reading.

Now there were seven brothers who were all pastors. The first served as Administrative Pastor in a big church. A woman pastor served as Associate Pastor. The first brother died so the church appointed the second brother as Administrative Pastor. The woman remained Associate Pastor. The second brother died so the church appointed the third brother to take over. The woman remained Associate Pastor. The third brother died as well, and so in the same manner, all the brothers died. All were appointed Administrative Pastor. And the woman remained Associate Pastor. 

Finally, the woman also died. In the resurrection, which brother will she work with as Associate Pastor? 

Our faith communities affirm that everyone is created in God's image. We believe in the priesthood of all who believe. We declare that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female.

Yet women, in so many situations, remain subordinate to--or worse--property of men. They cannot be ordained in many denominations. Their salaries are 80% of men's, if not lower. And they are harassed in places and spaces that are supposed to be safe. 

Friends, you and I as followers of The Way, need to work harder to make sure that our faith affirmations become realities for women, children, and the most vulnerable among us. 

*Image from Shedarts Store, San Jose, CA. 

THE OTHER RICH YOUNG MAN

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

Historians tell us how so many in Occupied Palestine 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 Gospel Reading. There are two important things in the passage that many English Translations 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. 

The Synoptic Gospels all narrate the story of the rich young man who could not follow Jesus's command to the wealthy. Zacchaeus is the other rich young man who could. And did. 

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

Maybe there's still a path to salvation for the very, very rich old and young men in government who have defrauded the masses worse than Zacchaues did. 

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

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THE PHARISEE AND THE TAX COLLECTOR

Pharisees loved God and country. They 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 Gospel Reading from Luke, the Pharisee was telling the truth. Everything he said in his prayer was true. 

Tax collectors, like Zacchaues and Levi (aka Matthew), 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 do not. 

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

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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.

Dear Friends, let us 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 calls him an unjust judge. He is like so many in the world's justice systems that serve the powerful, the propertied, and the privileged. 

And then there's the widow. Widows are among the three most dispossessed people in the Bible (along with orphans and refugees), crying out for justice like so many in Gaza, in the Philippines, in Myanmar, and other places today. 

Development aggression, militarization, large-scale mining, human trafficking, and the culture of impunity perpetuated by powers and principalities fueled by insatiable greed and lust for profit have produced thousands of widows. 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 fought for justice and justice prevails at the end. Then and now, widows who fight for justice never give up. 

Justice always prevails. This is why we should always choose justice. And always stand with widows and orphans and refugees and everyone whose only hope is God. 

Justice will always prevail. 

*Art, "Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge," from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://a.co/d/7ACdLTy

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KRISTER STENDAHL AND THE NINE LEPERS

I had the privilege of presenting a paper at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting during my first year of grad school. 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. 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, over two decades later. 

He was interested in my reading of Romans 1 about faith being a response to grace which resonated with "utang na loob" being a response to "kagandahang loob". And that the best way to respond to God's grace by faith is 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 Gospel Reading.

We expected the ten lepers who were healed to go back to Jesus to express their gratitude. But only one returned to do so. The Samaritan. 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? Again, reading "from grace to grace" as paying it forward. 

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).

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