In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we find a story about a rich military officer, a centurion, who came to Jesus seeking healing for his sick slave. Jesus gave him his wish. Restore things back to where they were before. A sick slave is worthless to his master. A sick slave, so sick he is paralyzed, has no use to his owner. Almost every time this story is preached Jesus or the centurion gets to be the hero. We do not hear the voice of the sick slave. We do not even know his name. We do not know why he was sick or why he was paralyzed. We only know what his owner, what his master said.
Then and now, nothing has changed. The voices we hear are those of the owners, the masters, the rich, and those in power. Nothing has changed. They tell us that their slaves are indolent; that they are weak and sickly; that they are not trustworthy; that they are thieves; that they ran away; that they have no sense of indebtedness or gratitude; and, when their slaves die, owners, masters, the rich, and the powerful tell the world that they committed suicide.
The slave, pais in Greek, in the Gospels was a child, possibly twelve years old. Many of us do not know that he was a child slave. Then and now, it is possible that the reason why he was sick, the cause of his paralysis was his master. It is possible that he was beaten, maltreated, abused, and even raped.[1] But we do not hear his voice or his cries. We do hear Jesus’ and the centurion’s.
In St. Paul’s letter to Philemon there is another slave. Onesimus. We also do not hear him speak. He was a runaway. Countless interpreters of this story tell us that Onesimus, more than a runaway, was a thief. He was useless. He had no sense of gratitude. Almost every time this story is preached Paul or Philemon gets to be the hero. No one, ever, takes Onesimus’ side.
If we read the story, and read centuries’ worth of stories about this story, Onesimus is described as a tool, a commodity, an object. According to Paul, Onesimus was once useless; now, that he had become a Christian, he was useful. Profitable. Before he was just a slave; now he was a Christian; now he was a super slave. Hyper doulon in Greek.
Millions of people worldwide treat Filipinos as super slaves; because we are Christian. As such we can bear more pain. We can endure. Because we know English we can be cursed, belittled, humiliated, and treated like dogs in a language we understand.
The education system in our country is imperial. This began over a century ago when, during the American occupation of the islands, the first General Superintendent of Education commented that, “The Filipino people, taken as a body, are children and childlike, do not know what is best for them… by the very fact of our superiority of civilization and our greater capacity for industrial activity we are bound to exercise over them a profound social influence.”[2] Every day, in our schools, we prepare our children to become tools; we equip them to remain children and childlike and thus become slaves to the world.
Who benefits from all these? Who defines who are “useful” and who are “useless”? Why are the lives of the oppressed and marginalized getting worse? Why are the poor getting poorer? Every single day, over four thousand of our fellow Filipinos go abroad to look for work: work that barely pays the minimum wage. Why? Onesimus is alive. The pais is alive. Millions are like them; struggling to survive in foreign lands. And their numbers grow every day. Many of them are sick. Many are so sick they cannot walk. Many have run away to escape inhuman treatment and harrowing conditions. Many will never see the Philippines again.
President Aquino is not the answer to our cries for justice. Not his administration. Not the masters. Not the rich. Not the powerful.
In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark we find a story about a mother, a foreigner, a Canaanite who came to Jesus. Her daughter was sick. She was probably twelve years old too: like the pais, like the centurion’s slave. She begged Jesus for help. She was initially ignored. She was a foreigner. She was even treated like a dog. Yet she persevered. And she persisted. And because she persevered, because she persisted, she got what she came for: her child was healed. Even if she was humiliated, even if she was not taken seriously, even if she had to beg, even if she was treated as second-class, she got what she came for: a healing for her child. And she was the “little bitch” who she taught Jesus a lesson.
Like the mother who persisted and persevered, we are the answer to our prayers. We are the families split apart when loved ones leave for abroad. We are the families who have to bear the loneliness and the pain of separation. We are the parents whose children are buried in foreign lands. We are the children whose parents are taken away from us. We are the poor, the marginalized, those treated like dogs, those whose voices are never, ever, heard. We are the mothers who will do anything and everything for our children’s welfare. We are the fathers who will storm the gates of hell to get our children back home safe. We are the children whose outrage will break the silence of heaven. We will make sure that God hears our mourning, our anger, and our collective cries for justice.
Let us come together. Let us struggle as one: for justice, for dignity, for life, for liberation. We are the answer to our prayers.
[1] Like Rosario Baluyot.
[2] Atkinson quoted in Daniel B. Schirmer, “The Conception and Gestation of a Neocolony,” The Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol 5. No. 1, 1975, 43-44.
Reading the Bible inside a Jeepney: Celebrating Colonized and Occupied Peoples' capacity to beat swords into ploughshares; to transform weapons of mass destruction into instruments of mass celebration; mortar shells into church bells, teargas canisters to flowerpots; rifle barrels into flutes; U.S. Military Army Jeeps into Filipino Mass Transport Jeepneys.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Dancing, Women, and Prophets
The oldest Christian tradition, quite possibly formulated within the first decade from Jesus’ crucifixion, is the Christological hymn that Paul quotes in Philippians 2: 5-11. Hebrew Bible scholars agree that the oldest tradition from Ancient Israel, quite possibly already circulating a generation or two from the Exodus event, is found in the book of Exodus. Chapter 15: 20-21 to be exact. Let me read it in its entirety….
Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. 21 Miriam sang to them:
“Sing to the LORD,
for God is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
God has hurled into the sea
This passage, over three thousand years old, challenges many of our most cherished practices and traditions. First, the main characters in this oldest poem are women. Not men. Second, their faith expression is dancing, not preaching. Third, their leader is a prophet, not a priest; a woman, not a man; Miriam, not Moses.
Let me say it again: In this most ancient Old Testament account, we have women, we have dancing, and we have a prophet, Miriam. Dancing is one of the oldest forms of worship. Dance is a language of faith. Melinda Grace Aoanan once said: “To sing to to pray twice. To dance, on the other hand, is to pray three times!” To dance is to celebrate the cycles and circles of life. To dance is to offer thanksgiving for babies born and loved ones departed, for bountiful harvests and sweet-smelling rice, for dreams realized and abundant life for all. To dance, in Miriam and the women’s case, was to celebrate God’s liberating acts. DANCE IS A LANGUAGE OF FAITH.
Remember this, my friends. A people enslaved for centuries find themselves free. Yahweh had delivered them. God had heard their cries. God had come down to liberate them. God had accomplished what God had promised. And what is the first thing they do to celebrate their deliverance? THEY DANCE.
God continues to deliver people from bondage. God continues to liberate those who are imprisoned. God continues to hear the cries of the poor and of those whose only hope is God. And what are we supposed to do to celebrate God’s continuing liberating acts?
WE DANCE.
Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. 21 Miriam sang to them:
“Sing to the LORD,
for God is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
God has hurled into the sea
This passage, over three thousand years old, challenges many of our most cherished practices and traditions. First, the main characters in this oldest poem are women. Not men. Second, their faith expression is dancing, not preaching. Third, their leader is a prophet, not a priest; a woman, not a man; Miriam, not Moses.
Let me say it again: In this most ancient Old Testament account, we have women, we have dancing, and we have a prophet, Miriam. Dancing is one of the oldest forms of worship. Dance is a language of faith. Melinda Grace Aoanan once said: “To sing to to pray twice. To dance, on the other hand, is to pray three times!” To dance is to celebrate the cycles and circles of life. To dance is to offer thanksgiving for babies born and loved ones departed, for bountiful harvests and sweet-smelling rice, for dreams realized and abundant life for all. To dance, in Miriam and the women’s case, was to celebrate God’s liberating acts. DANCE IS A LANGUAGE OF FAITH.
Remember this, my friends. A people enslaved for centuries find themselves free. Yahweh had delivered them. God had heard their cries. God had come down to liberate them. God had accomplished what God had promised. And what is the first thing they do to celebrate their deliverance? THEY DANCE.
God continues to deliver people from bondage. God continues to liberate those who are imprisoned. God continues to hear the cries of the poor and of those whose only hope is God. And what are we supposed to do to celebrate God’s continuing liberating acts?
WE DANCE.
Monday, December 13, 2010
For the Student Christian Movement at 50...(December 11, 2010 at UP CRL)
If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, we will grow, grow, and grow in the knowledge that there are two kinds of sermons in the New Testament that can get one killed. Both we find in Luke’s work. In Acts, Paul preaching goes on and on and on that eventually Eutychus, a young person sitting by the window, falls asleep and falls to his death. In Luke, Jesus preaches a “gospel for the poor and liberation for the captives” in Nazareth, before his town mates, and almost gets killed for doing so.
As you celebrate your 50th birthday as a progressive movement of Christian students, let me remind you of the SCM’s favorite bible passage.
Jeremiah 1:7-10
1:7 The LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you. 1:8 Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,” says the LORD.1:9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. 1:10 Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” This is the kind of message, then and now, that can get the messenger killed.
So, Jeremiah’s reaction to God’s call was natural. When he said, “I am too young,” he meant more than his age. He was afraid. Jeremiah’s mission was to proclaim judgment and redemption. He was to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted. Do not forget, Jesus was almost killed when he preached his first sermon. It was natural to be afraid. Even Moses was afraid when God called him to deliver God’s people from bondage. Jeremiah’s message to nations and kingdoms still stand. Moses’ call to liberation is as important as it was 3 thousand years ago. And Jesus’ message of good news to the poor, the one that eventually led to his arrest, torture, and public execution, is as vital and as relevant as the first time it was preached.
Sixty-two years and one day ago, in a rare moment of grace, humanity came together and proclaimed that the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family serve as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world; that it is essential, if humans are not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last a resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law; that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; and that they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood/sisterhood. We pledged our collective commitment to these declarations.
Moreover, sixty-two years and one day ago we proclaimed that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Sixty-two years ago, humanity pledged “never again” to the injustices wrought on the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and their children, and we declared “enough!” to the inhumanities effected by emperors, kings, and their ilk.
Unfortunately, sixty-two years and one day later, there are still emperors, and kings, and rulers who wield power over life and death. There are still sons and daughters whom these kings order to be tortured and killed. There are still countless and nameless sons, daughters, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers who are abducted, never to be seen again. Everyday, in our country, in Palestine, in so many parts of our world, daughters and sons, many not even 12 years old, are violently taken away from their loved ones: snatched, imprisoned, and violated.
Sixty-two years and one day later, there are still young children who are arrested in the dead of night for throwing stones at tanks and armored personnel carriers. There are still rural health workers who are illegally detained and branded as communist bomb-makers for working among the poorest of the poor in the most far-flung barrios. And there are still bishops, pastors, deaconesses, and youth leaders whose bodies are impaled for opening their homes, their hearts, and their lives to those whose only hope is God.
Today, December 11, 2010, is exactly sixty-two years and one day later. The emperors and kings are still alive. Their empires and kingdoms still stand. But so is Jeremiah. So is Moses. And Miriam. And Deborah. And Jesus. They were alone in the biblical text. Right now, today, in our context, they are not. They are legion. They are alive in the Student Christian Movement. As they have been for the past fifty years.
Emperors and kings have the power to kill. But God's power is greater than death. The empire can kill Bishop Alberto Ramento but God can raise up ten more to take his place. Kings and rulers can kill Edison Lapuz and Eden Marcellana but God can raise up one hundred to take their place. For every prophet whose blood is spilled for love of country, for serving the people, for ministering to those whose only hope is God, God will raise up a thousand more...
As you celebrate your 50th birthday as a progressive movement of Christian students, let me remind you of the SCM’s favorite bible passage.
Jeremiah 1:7-10
1:7 The LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you. 1:8 Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,” says the LORD.1:9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. 1:10 Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” This is the kind of message, then and now, that can get the messenger killed.
So, Jeremiah’s reaction to God’s call was natural. When he said, “I am too young,” he meant more than his age. He was afraid. Jeremiah’s mission was to proclaim judgment and redemption. He was to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted. Do not forget, Jesus was almost killed when he preached his first sermon. It was natural to be afraid. Even Moses was afraid when God called him to deliver God’s people from bondage. Jeremiah’s message to nations and kingdoms still stand. Moses’ call to liberation is as important as it was 3 thousand years ago. And Jesus’ message of good news to the poor, the one that eventually led to his arrest, torture, and public execution, is as vital and as relevant as the first time it was preached.
Sixty-two years and one day ago, in a rare moment of grace, humanity came together and proclaimed that the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family serve as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world; that it is essential, if humans are not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last a resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law; that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; and that they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood/sisterhood. We pledged our collective commitment to these declarations.
Moreover, sixty-two years and one day ago we proclaimed that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Sixty-two years ago, humanity pledged “never again” to the injustices wrought on the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and their children, and we declared “enough!” to the inhumanities effected by emperors, kings, and their ilk.
Unfortunately, sixty-two years and one day later, there are still emperors, and kings, and rulers who wield power over life and death. There are still sons and daughters whom these kings order to be tortured and killed. There are still countless and nameless sons, daughters, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers who are abducted, never to be seen again. Everyday, in our country, in Palestine, in so many parts of our world, daughters and sons, many not even 12 years old, are violently taken away from their loved ones: snatched, imprisoned, and violated.
Sixty-two years and one day later, there are still young children who are arrested in the dead of night for throwing stones at tanks and armored personnel carriers. There are still rural health workers who are illegally detained and branded as communist bomb-makers for working among the poorest of the poor in the most far-flung barrios. And there are still bishops, pastors, deaconesses, and youth leaders whose bodies are impaled for opening their homes, their hearts, and their lives to those whose only hope is God.
Today, December 11, 2010, is exactly sixty-two years and one day later. The emperors and kings are still alive. Their empires and kingdoms still stand. But so is Jeremiah. So is Moses. And Miriam. And Deborah. And Jesus. They were alone in the biblical text. Right now, today, in our context, they are not. They are legion. They are alive in the Student Christian Movement. As they have been for the past fifty years.
Emperors and kings have the power to kill. But God's power is greater than death. The empire can kill Bishop Alberto Ramento but God can raise up ten more to take his place. Kings and rulers can kill Edison Lapuz and Eden Marcellana but God can raise up one hundred to take their place. For every prophet whose blood is spilled for love of country, for serving the people, for ministering to those whose only hope is God, God will raise up a thousand more...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Give Us This Day our Daily Bread...
The different religious groups in Palestine in the first century, like many groups today, were known by the prayers they offered. Jesus’ disciples wanted the same thing so Jesus obliged. If we read our Bibles then we know that Luke’s Jesus prayed a lot. But Jesus’ prayers, and the prayer he taught his disciples, were not individualistic, pietistic supplications. They were community prayers; prayers on actualizing God’s reign on earth. In the Gospel of Luke and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, the test of one’s relationship with God was proven by one’s relationship with people, especially the poor, the orphans, and the widows; those whose only was God. The test of one’s love for God is proven by one’s love for one’s neighbor.
When Luke’s Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he was lifting up a peasant’s petition for today’s food, echoing the farmer’s prayer for daily sustenance in the book of Proverbs; he was mouthing the hope of the dispossessed farmers for land and the dream of the daily wage earners for justice; he was also declaring explicitly whose side God was on.
When Luke’s Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he does not expect the powerful landlords of his time to distribute the lands they have amassed; he does not expect the Roman or Jewish courts to pass laws that protect the poor and the dispossessed; he does not expect the rich to sell everything they have, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him…
When Luke’s Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he celebrates the peasants’ sharing of the little they had, even rising at midnight to give three loaves of bread to a persistent friend in need; he affirms poor communities’ capacity to share meals and all things in common, selling their meager possessions, and distributing the proceeds to all, as they had need; he believes that God’s reign has come and God has chosen to reveal it among shepherds, among the poor, the imprisoned, and the oppressed…
We, those who take pride in calling ourselves Christian, do not have the monopoly on bread. The bread that can meet the world’s hunger is the bread we cook together. Each one contributing what each can. Because we—Christian or not—are each other’s keepers.
God’s shalom is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, just wages for teachers and laborers, decent homes for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, care for the elderly, the sick and the dying, land for the tenants of Hacienda Luisita and millions of other dispossessed farmers, freedom for the Morong 43 and other political prisoners, solidarity with those whose only hope is God.
Last Monday, July 26, many of us were given the privilege to join those whom God has chosen to side with: the farmers, the fisherfolk, the laborers, indigenous peoples, the masses… outside congress for the People’s SONA. They taught us a lot. We still have much to learn from them. They will teach us how to cook bread for the world, together. They will teach us how to struggle for life, for justice, for liberty, and for land.
More importantly, they are the only ones who can really show us what it means to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
When Luke’s Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he was lifting up a peasant’s petition for today’s food, echoing the farmer’s prayer for daily sustenance in the book of Proverbs; he was mouthing the hope of the dispossessed farmers for land and the dream of the daily wage earners for justice; he was also declaring explicitly whose side God was on.
When Luke’s Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he does not expect the powerful landlords of his time to distribute the lands they have amassed; he does not expect the Roman or Jewish courts to pass laws that protect the poor and the dispossessed; he does not expect the rich to sell everything they have, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him…
When Luke’s Jesus prays, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he celebrates the peasants’ sharing of the little they had, even rising at midnight to give three loaves of bread to a persistent friend in need; he affirms poor communities’ capacity to share meals and all things in common, selling their meager possessions, and distributing the proceeds to all, as they had need; he believes that God’s reign has come and God has chosen to reveal it among shepherds, among the poor, the imprisoned, and the oppressed…
We, those who take pride in calling ourselves Christian, do not have the monopoly on bread. The bread that can meet the world’s hunger is the bread we cook together. Each one contributing what each can. Because we—Christian or not—are each other’s keepers.
God’s shalom is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, just wages for teachers and laborers, decent homes for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, care for the elderly, the sick and the dying, land for the tenants of Hacienda Luisita and millions of other dispossessed farmers, freedom for the Morong 43 and other political prisoners, solidarity with those whose only hope is God.
Last Monday, July 26, many of us were given the privilege to join those whom God has chosen to side with: the farmers, the fisherfolk, the laborers, indigenous peoples, the masses… outside congress for the People’s SONA. They taught us a lot. We still have much to learn from them. They will teach us how to cook bread for the world, together. They will teach us how to struggle for life, for justice, for liberty, and for land.
More importantly, they are the only ones who can really show us what it means to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Saturday, July 24, 2010
FOR PNOY: FREE THE 43; FREE IN 43
Among the Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan who chanced upon the wounded Jew on the road connecting Jerusalem and Jericho (in Luke 10: 30-37), the Samaritan was the one who showed mercy, the one who was neighbor to the person who was left half-dead, the one who stopped and helped a brother in need. That is why we call the Samaritan Good. He did what God’s Law required. He did what Jesus commanded. But more importantly, he did what sisters and brothers do for one another.
Like the Morong 43. We call health workers Good Samaritans. We even have Good Samaritan Hospitals to celebrate what they do for the sick, for the wounded, for the ill, for those whose only hope is God. Community-based health workers, most especially, minister to the “least among Jesus’ sisters and brothers.”
Thus, the Morong 43’s illegal arrest last February, their imprisonment, the torture many of them have experienced, the harassment they have endured, the lies that the military spun about them during the last months of the Arroyo regime, and their continuing illegal detention under the Aquino administration have driven countless people to exclaim, “Only in the Philippines are Good Samaritans demonized and victimized!”
This madness should stop now. This gross violation of human rights must end now. Senator Ninoy Aquino Jr. was illegally detained by the Marcos dictatorship for several years. Vowing to end political repression, President Cory Aquino, released all political prisoners during the early days of her term.
We call on President Noynoy Aquino, in honor of his late parents, Ninoy and Cory, to order the release of the Morong 43 and all political prisoners. We call on PNoy to order their release as part of his First State of the Nation Address on July 26, 2010.
If he does not order their release on Monday, we call on people of faith everywhere to begin a 43-day prayer chain to start the same day. We will pray for each of one of the Morong 43 in each of those 43 days. We will pray and hope and demand that they be set free on July 27. If they are not, we will pray for their freedom on July 28, and on July 29, and the next day… On each of those 43 days, we will pray that God give PNoy the wisdom, the humility, and the courage to do what is just and what is right. And on the 43rd day, on September 6, 2010, we will hold thanksgiving rites to celebrate the release of the Morong 43 and the release of all political prisoners.
43 days of prayer:
for each of the Morong 43;
for freedom for the Morong 43;
for PNoy to do what is just and what is right.
Again, we call on President Noynoy Aquino to honor the memory of his late parents.
Free the Morong 43. Free all political prisoners.
Like the Morong 43. We call health workers Good Samaritans. We even have Good Samaritan Hospitals to celebrate what they do for the sick, for the wounded, for the ill, for those whose only hope is God. Community-based health workers, most especially, minister to the “least among Jesus’ sisters and brothers.”
Thus, the Morong 43’s illegal arrest last February, their imprisonment, the torture many of them have experienced, the harassment they have endured, the lies that the military spun about them during the last months of the Arroyo regime, and their continuing illegal detention under the Aquino administration have driven countless people to exclaim, “Only in the Philippines are Good Samaritans demonized and victimized!”
This madness should stop now. This gross violation of human rights must end now. Senator Ninoy Aquino Jr. was illegally detained by the Marcos dictatorship for several years. Vowing to end political repression, President Cory Aquino, released all political prisoners during the early days of her term.
We call on President Noynoy Aquino, in honor of his late parents, Ninoy and Cory, to order the release of the Morong 43 and all political prisoners. We call on PNoy to order their release as part of his First State of the Nation Address on July 26, 2010.
If he does not order their release on Monday, we call on people of faith everywhere to begin a 43-day prayer chain to start the same day. We will pray for each of one of the Morong 43 in each of those 43 days. We will pray and hope and demand that they be set free on July 27. If they are not, we will pray for their freedom on July 28, and on July 29, and the next day… On each of those 43 days, we will pray that God give PNoy the wisdom, the humility, and the courage to do what is just and what is right. And on the 43rd day, on September 6, 2010, we will hold thanksgiving rites to celebrate the release of the Morong 43 and the release of all political prisoners.
43 days of prayer:
for each of the Morong 43;
for freedom for the Morong 43;
for PNoy to do what is just and what is right.
Again, we call on President Noynoy Aquino to honor the memory of his late parents.
Free the Morong 43. Free all political prisoners.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Bad News for Good Samaritans
If we read our Bibles and pray every day, we will grow, grow, and grow in the knowledge that serving God and serving our neighbor is actually one commandment. This is explicit in Luke 10. If God is our parent, as Jesus taught us, then we are family—Kapamilya at Kapuso—we are sisters and brothers. God’s question to Cain, found in Genesis, remains the same—“Where is your brother? Where is your sister?”
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow—our primary task, no, our primary responsibility as a child of God is to be each other’s keepers. The only way to serve God our Parent is to serve God’s children, is to love our brothers and sisters. This is the surprise of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25. This is the message of the Johannine gospel and epistles. This is the heart of the Letter of James. This is the gist of the Law according to Paul as found in Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14.
This is the point of the Parable of the Samaritan. Among the Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan who chanced upon the wounded Jew on the road connecting Jerusalem and Jericho, the Samaritan was the one who showed mercy, the one who was neighbor to the person who was left half-dead, the one who stopped and helped a brother in need.
That is why we call the Samaritan Good. He did what the Law required. He did what Jesus commanded. But more importantly, he did what sisters and brothers do for one another. Like the Morong 43. We call health workers Good Samaritans. We even have Good Samaritan Hospitals to celebrate what they do for the sick, for the wounded, for the ill, for those whose only hope is God.
Community-based health workers, most especially, minister to the “least among Jesus’ sisters and brothers.”
Thus, the Morong 43’s illegal arrest, their continuing illegal detention, the torture many of them have experienced, the harassment they endure, and the lies that the military has spun about them have driven a shocked world to ask, “Has the Arroyo administration gone mad?” Only in the Philippines, under this morally bankrupt administration, are Good Samaritans demonized and victimized.
This madness should stop now. If there is a hell, then Arroyo and her minions do not deserve to go there. They deserve worse.
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow—our primary task, no, our primary responsibility as a child of God is to be each other’s keepers. The only way to serve God our Parent is to serve God’s children, is to love our brothers and sisters. This is the surprise of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25. This is the message of the Johannine gospel and epistles. This is the heart of the Letter of James. This is the gist of the Law according to Paul as found in Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14.
This is the point of the Parable of the Samaritan. Among the Priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan who chanced upon the wounded Jew on the road connecting Jerusalem and Jericho, the Samaritan was the one who showed mercy, the one who was neighbor to the person who was left half-dead, the one who stopped and helped a brother in need.
That is why we call the Samaritan Good. He did what the Law required. He did what Jesus commanded. But more importantly, he did what sisters and brothers do for one another. Like the Morong 43. We call health workers Good Samaritans. We even have Good Samaritan Hospitals to celebrate what they do for the sick, for the wounded, for the ill, for those whose only hope is God.
Community-based health workers, most especially, minister to the “least among Jesus’ sisters and brothers.”
Thus, the Morong 43’s illegal arrest, their continuing illegal detention, the torture many of them have experienced, the harassment they endure, and the lies that the military has spun about them have driven a shocked world to ask, “Has the Arroyo administration gone mad?” Only in the Philippines, under this morally bankrupt administration, are Good Samaritans demonized and victimized.
This madness should stop now. If there is a hell, then Arroyo and her minions do not deserve to go there. They deserve worse.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The World Needs Soup
Poverty: Bane or Blessing of Ecumenical Relations
Maryhill Mission Lectures, 25 May 2009
"...When Jacob had cooked soup, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, 'Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.' Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, 'First sell me your birthright.' Esau said, 'Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?' And Jacob said, 'First swear to me"; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil soup; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright." (Genesis 25: 29-34)
The World Needs Soup
The world needs soup. Unfortunately, millions of people cannot even have or afford a decent cup of hot soup. Many in this country are so poor they gargle water for breakfast, take hot water for lunch, and force themselves to sleep at night in place of supper. Mas emphatic sa Tagalog: Marami tayong kababayan na mumog ang agahan, nilagang tubig ang tanghalian, at tulog ang hapunan.
Kailangan ng mundo ang sopas. When Esau, in the Genesis text above, came to his brother, he was close to death. And he asked for soup. For billions of dispossessed people today who struggle against death forces everyday, John 10:10’s ”abundant life” is soup. When our sisters and brothers’ homes and livelihood are destroyed by flash floods, our relief operations bring soup. When we offer feeding programs to our malnourished grade school children, we bring them soup. When our churches and church-related institutions welcome the homeless and street-children into our “soup kitchens,” guess what we offer them?
But as Matthew 25: 31-46 and Luke 4: 18-19 remind and challenge us, soup is more than food for the hungry and drink for the thirsty. It is also just wages for workers, homes for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, care for the sick and dying, welcome to the stranger, land for the landless, liberation for those in bondage and captivity, solidarity with those whose only hope is God.
The United States of America has resources to feed 40 billion people. That figure is six times the current population of the world, yet, according to UNICEF 25,000 children—5 years old or younger—die each day due to poverty. UNICEF estimates that it will only take 6 billion dollars annually to make sure that every one on earth receives basic education. It will take 9 billion dollars each year to make sure that everyone gets safe water and sanitation. 12 billion dollars a year would ensure that all women will receive reproductive health services, while 13 billion will ensure that each human being will receive basic health care. Yet, we know that three out of every four people in the world survive on 1 dollar or less than 50 pesos a day. The world—especially that larger part of the world that calls itself Christian—apparently does not prioritize or find important to allocate funds, services or resources to provide the “soup” for food, education, and basic health care.
Consider these figures: The United States spends 8 billion dollars each year on cosmetics. Europe spends 11 billion a year on ice cream. The US and Europe spend 12 billion annually on perfume and 17 billion a year on pet food. Japan spends 35 billion annually on business entertainment. Europeans spend 50 billion a year on cigarettes and 105 billion on alcoholic drinks. And, most unfortunate of all, the world spends 780 billion each year on weapons of mass destruction, on the most effective and efficient implements to kill people.1
And to bring these figures closer to home: Filipinos spend 7 billion pesos a year on whitening soap. Pitong bilyong piso taon-taon ang ginagastos natin para sa sabong pampaputi.
What Ecumenism?!
Over half a century ago, in Prapat, the very first regional ecumenical organization, the East Asia Christian Conference, was organized. At that time many in the West seemed against the conference that brought together ecumenical leaders from Asia and Africa who were united against colonialism and Western hegemony. Prapat become a landmark in Asia’s ecumenical history as it set out to overcome the West’s domination of the ecumenical journey. Prapat made clear the direction that the Asian churches intended to take: to become the subjects, not objects, of ecumenical history. The united declaration was “working together for our common task.”
Unfortunately, the Congress of Asian Theologians’ meeting in Chiangmai in 2004 noted that Asia, almost 50 years after Prapat, remains “dependent on financial support from mother churches in Europe or America, and that the present state of ecumenism and the churches in Asia reflect the fragmentation of these churches and their limited, exclusive theologies. It is ecumenism tending towards stagnation and the protection of the status quo of churches in the Pax Americana. D. T. Niles’ “Christianity as a potted plant” in Asia is, today, actually more of a transplanted forest! Ecumenism in Asia has become an “us” and “them” affair.2
Laura Donaldson, a Cherokee, writing in Semeia 75 convicts us when she asked, “What civilization invented the most brutal system of conquest and exploitation the world has ever known? Christian. Who made slavery the basis for capitalist expansion? Christians. What religion has been the most responsible for the genocide of aboriginal peoples? Christianity. In my view, the Christian church has a much more substantial record of pure evil than any final good.”
The first one thousand years of Christianity was one millennium of war and destruction in the name of Jesus Christ. And those “civilizing missions” have not stopped. Even today, the most oppressive and dehumanizing societies are led by “Christian” centurions who have no qualms maiming and destroying those who are not “one of them.” And we know at least two of these Christian “centurions.” One was in the White House for two terms. The other is still in Malacanang.
The July 2006 Manila Declaration3 of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches says:
Western Christianity has been closely related to empire since Roman days. Since then it has spread throughout the world, and now it is being used to provide ideological legitimization for today’s empire. Globalized Christendom and the ‘crusades’ it embarks upon today are symbiotically intertwined with global capital and the power of the global empire. In its triumphalistic pursuits, it discounts if not condemns all other religious faiths and cultures. The indigenous religions of many communities are destroyed and Islam is vilified.
The convergence of Christian religion with Western modernity has destroyed the religious and cultural life of peoples and their communities throughout the world. The powers and principalities of the global market and empire are being baptized by these theological distortions of ‘Christianity’, which promote religious conflicts and bigotry globally.
The Christian religion of empire treats others as ‘gentiles’ to be conquered, as the ‘evil empire’ to be destroyed, or as the ‘axis of evil’ to be eradicated from the earth. The empire claims that the ‘goodness’ of the empire must overcome these ‘evils’. Its false messianic spirit is imbued with the demonic.
These false claims destroy the integrity of faiths, and radically erode the identity of Christian faith in Jesus Christ. As the spirit of empire penetrates souls, the power of global empire possesses the bodies of all living beings. Lord of its domain, it builds temples for the global market to serve Profit (Mammon).
The empire uses ‘democracy’ as an umbrella term for the kind of political regime that it would like to see installed all over the world. Bringing democracy to countries that do not yet have it is claimed as the defining purpose of US foreign policy. For the US, democracies abroad are regimes that support or follow its dictates.
IS POVERTY A BLESSING TO ECUMENICAL RELATIONS? NO. IS IT A BANE OR A CURSE? NO. POVERTY IS OUR FAULT. MANY OF US, WHO TAKE PRIDE IN BEING CALLED CHRISTIAN, HAVE EITHER COLLABORATED WITH EMPIRE OR HAVE PRETENDED IT IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY OR HAVE SIMPLY DID NOT CARE.
In the Feeding of the 5000, found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus seeing the hungry multitudes, tells his disciples, tells us—who love to call ourselves his disciples—to give them something to eat. And what do the disciples do? They tell Jesus, “Send the crowd away” and “Are we going to spend our own money to feed them?” and “Six months wages worth of bread would not be enough to feed them.” It has been 2000 years. We are still coming up with excuses. In the story, a young child offers what he had, five loaves and two fish, in response to Jesus’ challenge.
Today, the multitudes are still hungry and we are still making up excuses.
Which Jesus
Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine Jesus, the one many of us call our Personal Lord and Savior. If the Jesus we imagine looks like an American or European movie star, white, blond, and with blue eyes, then we’re following the wrong Jesus. If the Jesus we imagine is the same Jesus who told McKinley to take possession of the Philippines, and told Bush to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, then we’re following the wrong Jesus. If we imagine the same Jesus that Gloria Arroyo prays to before she gives the orders to General Jovito Palparan abduct and harass our priests, nuns, pastors, church workers, and militant grassroots organizers then we’re following the wrong Jesus. If the Jesus we imagine tells us to build huge buildings and air-conditioned chapels in his honor instead of reaching out to the poor and the marginalized among us, then we are following the wrong Jesus. If the Jesus we imagine has prepared a mansion in heaven for us, and wants us to spend eternity with him in an other-worldly place, and has no problems when his followers kill people and cultures in his name, then, definitely, we are following the wrong Jesus.
If the Jesus we imagine has no problem with poverty, does not care to address its root causes and its eradication, and believes that being poor is either God’s will or is a result of indolence or is a test of faith, then we are following the wrong Jesus.
Millions of people worship this Jesus, what the World Alliance of Reformed Churches calls the Constantinian Jesus. Patron. Emperor. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. Master of the Universe. Millions follow this Imperial Jesus. Millions have been killed and massacred in the name of this Jesus.
We are so used to that word "Gospel," that it has lost its original meaning. But in antiquity, when the Roman empire went off and conquered another land in the name of their god Caesar, and killed all the men, raped all the women, and destroyed all the homes, the soldiers would come back parading throughout the land announcing "the Gospel according to Caesar," the Good News of the latest victory of Caesar, that another land has been conquered for their god Caesar, and that Caesar's enemies have been killed.4
When the Gospel of Mark announces the “beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he actually announces the most radical, subversive proclamation during that time—Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar; God’s reign has come, and Rome’s has come to an end. Put in another way, in Greek the empire was called basileia; the emperor, basileus. For almost everyone in the empire, Rome was basileia; Caesar was basileus. I said, almost, because for Christians, God’s reign was basileia; Jesus was basileus.
In Jesus’ alternative or counter-empire, there was only one commandment: love for neighbor, especially the least. In Luke 10:28, Jesus tells a lawyer that love for God and love for neighbor is one commandment. He tells the parable of the Samaritan to make his point.
Paul summarizes all the commandments in Romans 13:9 as love for neighbor. James is more explicit in 2:15-17 when he wrote, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace… and yet do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” The message of the Johannine letters is straight-forward: if you say you love God, whom you do not see, but not your brothers and sisters, whom you see, then you are a liar. In Mark 17: 21, Jesus tells a rich young man, “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor… then come follow me.”
Now, if the Jesus we imagine is the Jesus of the Gospels, the compassionate Jesus whose insides were crushed at the sight of injustice, the Jesus who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, who visited the sick and the imprisoned, who welcomed strangers, and clothed the naked, who proclaimed liberty to the captives, and who gave his life so that others may live, the one who told the rich to sell everything they have and give all the proceeds to the poor, then, my dear friends, we are following the right Jesus.
The WARC calls this Jesus the Galilean One. The One who left heaven to be with us. The One who is not in Jerusalem where we expect him to be. The One who is in Galilee where we don’t want him to be, among the poor and the marginalized are. The One who left his followers only a single commandment: “Love your neighbor.” The One whom the Empire eventually executed.
And those who follow this “Executed God” are persecuted, harassed, and, yes, like him, murdered. And many of his followers in the Philippines are called communists or, worse, terrorists!
The world does not need pre-cooked or instant noodle soup. This is the recipe of the Constantinian Jesus and his followers. Dole-outs. Always with strings attached.
More importantly, the world does not need people like Jacob who used soup to take advantage of his famished brother.
God’s Oikos: We are Family—All of US
More often than not, we define ecumenism as about “us” and “them.” Insiders and outsiders. Saved and unsaved. Christian and not. Now, if God is our parent, as Jesus taught us, then all of us are brothers and sisters. All of us.
Contrary to what Cain said, we are each others’ keepers.
God’s household is God’s project. Who are members of God’s oikos depends on whom God chooses to be part of it. It is, and never will be, our choice. Let us look at four episodes from the biblical narratives that are quite familiar to most of us:
1. 1 Samuel 16 : Jesse and his seven oldest sons under-estimated David. No one, not his father, nor his brothers, not even David, thought that David was worthy to be king. But God chose the least of Jesse’s sons. God’s oikos include family members who are in the margins.
2. The Story of Jonah : Jonah disobeys God because he wanted God to destroy the “evil” empire. But God saves Nineveh. God saves whomever God wants to save. God’s oikos include those we hate and despise.
3. Luke 10: 25-37 : Samaritans were bastards, demon-possessed, and worshipped the wrong God. It is the Samaritan who serves as keeper of his wounded brother. God’s oikos include those we think don’t deserve to be God’s people.
4. Matthew 25: 31-46 : Both blessed and cursed were judged with one standard—being each other’s keepers. God’s oikos include those who do not expect to be part of it yet do exactly what brothers and sisters should do for each other.
The blessed were not blessed because they did what they did for God’s sake. They were blessed because they did what they did for people’s sake. A parent’s greatest joy is for his/her children to care for each other, not to outdo each other in gaining the parent’s favor.
The Jeepney has been described as a Filipino home on wheels.5 There is always space for the unexpected visitor, the complete stranger around our dining tables. There is always space for the unexpected passenger in a jeepney. “Ang siyaman nagiging sampuan.” God’s oikos has space for the most unexpected, even the most unwelcome member because, let me reiterate, God’s oikos is God’s project, not ours.
If God is our parent, then we are brothers and sisters. We are family. Sa pamilya ng Dios, walang anak sa loob at anak sa labas. Lahat anak. We are each other’s keepers. We were during the time of Cain, during the time of Jacob. We are now.
Every moment of our lives, God, our parent, is asking us—where is your sister, where is your brother?
ECUMENICAL RELATIONS IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT BEING EACH OTHER’S KEEPERS.
The Parable of the Stone Soup
A long time ago in a barrio far away came a very old woman. She was probably just passing by because she took the dusty road that bordered the small community. Because it was almost dark, she stopped by the roadside and began to build a fire. She took out an earthen pot from the bag she lugged around and, after filling it with water, set it over the fire. Out of the same bag she brought out a small river stone and a pinch of rock salt and put these in the pot.
An old woman alone by the road is hard to miss. Soon children were upon her. “Lola (Grandma),” they asked, “what are you doing?” “I’m cooking soup,” she answered, “why don’t you join me?” They sure did and after a while there was a huge circle of children gathered around the fire as the old lady narrated stories about elves and fairies and dragons. It was late. It was dark and the children were still out so their parents began looking for them. They eventually found them with the old lady. “Lola,” they asked, “what are you doing?” “I’m cooking soup,” she answered, “why don’t you join me?” They sure did and after a while there was a huge circle of children with their parents gathered around the fire as the old lady continued telling stories of elves and fairies and dragons.
“Lola, “ a mother volunteered, “I still have leftover meat at home. We can put it in the pot.” “We have vegetables we can add to the pot too!” another remarked. And so everyone brought back what they could and put these in the pot. Eventually, the whole community shared not just stories but a hot pot of soup that began with a cold river stone and a pinch of rock salt.6
The world needs soup. But, the world does not need pre-cooked or instant noodle soup. The soup that can meet the world’s hunger, as Mother Mary John Mananzan7 puts it, is the soup we cook together. Each one contributing what each can. Because we are each other’s keepers. That soup could mean food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, just wages for workers, homes for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, care for the sick and dying, land for the landless, liberation for those in bondage and captivity, solidarity with those whose only hope is God.
Those of us who call ourselves Christian do not have the monopoly on soup.
Cain was wrong, Jacob was wrong. We are each other’s keepers. We are—all of us—brothers and sisters. Kapatid, igsoon, kabsat. Kapatid is from Patid ng Bituka. We are parts of one gut. We, all of us—Christians, Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, and those who are so unlike us—are family. God’s oikos.
Joan Baez’s song was right. It has always been right. No one is an island. No one stands alone. Each one’s joy is joy to me. Each one’s grief is my own. We need one another so I will defend. Each one is my brother, each one is my sister.8 Each one is my friend. Kapatid, igsoon, kabsat.
THERE IS MUCH TO DO.
COME, IT IS TIME FOR US, SISTERS AND BROTHERS, TO COOK…
Revelation Enriquez Velunta
Union Theological Seminary, Philippines
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND (Joan Baez)
No man is an island,
No man stands alone,
Each man's joy is joy to me,
Each man's grief is my own.
We need one another,
So I will defend,
Each man as my brother,
Each man as my friend.
I saw the people gather,
I heard the music start,
The song that they were singing,
Is ringing in my heart.
No man is an island,
Way out in the blue,
We all look to the one above,
For our strength to renew.
When I help my brother,
Then I know that I,
Plant the seed of friendship,
That will never die.
NOTES
1 Statistics available from Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats, GlobalIssues.org, Last updated: Sunday, March 22, 2009
2 From discussions and presentations at the Hong Kong Consultations of the Rerouting Ecumenism in Asia Project of the Christian Conference of Asia, 9-12 November 2006.
3 Presented by Kim Yong Bock at Philippine Christian University, 21 July 2006. The document is available online at http://www.peaceforlife.org/resources/faithresist/2006/06-0715-ecumenical.html.
4 Available at http://www.fatherjohndear.org/sermons_homilies/repent_believe.html)
5 For more on decolonizing readings of the Bible and Jeepney Hermeneutics, please check out the Union Seminary Bulletin, Volumes 1, 3, and 4 (UTS, 2002, 2007), The National Council of Churches in the Philipppines’ journal Tugon Volume 14, Nos. 1 and 2, or visit http://jeepney.blogspot.com.
6 From Anumang Hiram Kung Hindi Masikip ay Maluwang: Iba’t-Ibang Anyo ng Teolohiyang Pumipiglas, Revelation Velunta, Ed. (Union Theological Seminary, 2006), pp. 4-5.
7 Aside from Mother Mary John Mananzan’s ideas, many arguments in this brief essay resonate with insights from John Dominic Crossan and the members of the Jesus Seminar, Mark Kline Taylor, Ched Myers, Daniel Patte, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Renate Rose, William Herzog, Laura Donaldson, Elizabeth Dominguez, Melinda Grace Aoanan, and Fr. Carlos Abesamis.
8 Full lyrics at the end of the essay.
Maryhill Mission Lectures, 25 May 2009
"...When Jacob had cooked soup, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, 'Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.' Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, 'First sell me your birthright.' Esau said, 'Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?' And Jacob said, 'First swear to me"; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil soup; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright." (Genesis 25: 29-34)
The World Needs Soup
The world needs soup. Unfortunately, millions of people cannot even have or afford a decent cup of hot soup. Many in this country are so poor they gargle water for breakfast, take hot water for lunch, and force themselves to sleep at night in place of supper. Mas emphatic sa Tagalog: Marami tayong kababayan na mumog ang agahan, nilagang tubig ang tanghalian, at tulog ang hapunan.
Kailangan ng mundo ang sopas. When Esau, in the Genesis text above, came to his brother, he was close to death. And he asked for soup. For billions of dispossessed people today who struggle against death forces everyday, John 10:10’s ”abundant life” is soup. When our sisters and brothers’ homes and livelihood are destroyed by flash floods, our relief operations bring soup. When we offer feeding programs to our malnourished grade school children, we bring them soup. When our churches and church-related institutions welcome the homeless and street-children into our “soup kitchens,” guess what we offer them?
But as Matthew 25: 31-46 and Luke 4: 18-19 remind and challenge us, soup is more than food for the hungry and drink for the thirsty. It is also just wages for workers, homes for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, care for the sick and dying, welcome to the stranger, land for the landless, liberation for those in bondage and captivity, solidarity with those whose only hope is God.
The United States of America has resources to feed 40 billion people. That figure is six times the current population of the world, yet, according to UNICEF 25,000 children—5 years old or younger—die each day due to poverty. UNICEF estimates that it will only take 6 billion dollars annually to make sure that every one on earth receives basic education. It will take 9 billion dollars each year to make sure that everyone gets safe water and sanitation. 12 billion dollars a year would ensure that all women will receive reproductive health services, while 13 billion will ensure that each human being will receive basic health care. Yet, we know that three out of every four people in the world survive on 1 dollar or less than 50 pesos a day. The world—especially that larger part of the world that calls itself Christian—apparently does not prioritize or find important to allocate funds, services or resources to provide the “soup” for food, education, and basic health care.
Consider these figures: The United States spends 8 billion dollars each year on cosmetics. Europe spends 11 billion a year on ice cream. The US and Europe spend 12 billion annually on perfume and 17 billion a year on pet food. Japan spends 35 billion annually on business entertainment. Europeans spend 50 billion a year on cigarettes and 105 billion on alcoholic drinks. And, most unfortunate of all, the world spends 780 billion each year on weapons of mass destruction, on the most effective and efficient implements to kill people.1
And to bring these figures closer to home: Filipinos spend 7 billion pesos a year on whitening soap. Pitong bilyong piso taon-taon ang ginagastos natin para sa sabong pampaputi.
What Ecumenism?!
Over half a century ago, in Prapat, the very first regional ecumenical organization, the East Asia Christian Conference, was organized. At that time many in the West seemed against the conference that brought together ecumenical leaders from Asia and Africa who were united against colonialism and Western hegemony. Prapat become a landmark in Asia’s ecumenical history as it set out to overcome the West’s domination of the ecumenical journey. Prapat made clear the direction that the Asian churches intended to take: to become the subjects, not objects, of ecumenical history. The united declaration was “working together for our common task.”
Unfortunately, the Congress of Asian Theologians’ meeting in Chiangmai in 2004 noted that Asia, almost 50 years after Prapat, remains “dependent on financial support from mother churches in Europe or America, and that the present state of ecumenism and the churches in Asia reflect the fragmentation of these churches and their limited, exclusive theologies. It is ecumenism tending towards stagnation and the protection of the status quo of churches in the Pax Americana. D. T. Niles’ “Christianity as a potted plant” in Asia is, today, actually more of a transplanted forest! Ecumenism in Asia has become an “us” and “them” affair.2
Laura Donaldson, a Cherokee, writing in Semeia 75 convicts us when she asked, “What civilization invented the most brutal system of conquest and exploitation the world has ever known? Christian. Who made slavery the basis for capitalist expansion? Christians. What religion has been the most responsible for the genocide of aboriginal peoples? Christianity. In my view, the Christian church has a much more substantial record of pure evil than any final good.”
The first one thousand years of Christianity was one millennium of war and destruction in the name of Jesus Christ. And those “civilizing missions” have not stopped. Even today, the most oppressive and dehumanizing societies are led by “Christian” centurions who have no qualms maiming and destroying those who are not “one of them.” And we know at least two of these Christian “centurions.” One was in the White House for two terms. The other is still in Malacanang.
The July 2006 Manila Declaration3 of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches says:
Western Christianity has been closely related to empire since Roman days. Since then it has spread throughout the world, and now it is being used to provide ideological legitimization for today’s empire. Globalized Christendom and the ‘crusades’ it embarks upon today are symbiotically intertwined with global capital and the power of the global empire. In its triumphalistic pursuits, it discounts if not condemns all other religious faiths and cultures. The indigenous religions of many communities are destroyed and Islam is vilified.
The convergence of Christian religion with Western modernity has destroyed the religious and cultural life of peoples and their communities throughout the world. The powers and principalities of the global market and empire are being baptized by these theological distortions of ‘Christianity’, which promote religious conflicts and bigotry globally.
The Christian religion of empire treats others as ‘gentiles’ to be conquered, as the ‘evil empire’ to be destroyed, or as the ‘axis of evil’ to be eradicated from the earth. The empire claims that the ‘goodness’ of the empire must overcome these ‘evils’. Its false messianic spirit is imbued with the demonic.
These false claims destroy the integrity of faiths, and radically erode the identity of Christian faith in Jesus Christ. As the spirit of empire penetrates souls, the power of global empire possesses the bodies of all living beings. Lord of its domain, it builds temples for the global market to serve Profit (Mammon).
The empire uses ‘democracy’ as an umbrella term for the kind of political regime that it would like to see installed all over the world. Bringing democracy to countries that do not yet have it is claimed as the defining purpose of US foreign policy. For the US, democracies abroad are regimes that support or follow its dictates.
IS POVERTY A BLESSING TO ECUMENICAL RELATIONS? NO. IS IT A BANE OR A CURSE? NO. POVERTY IS OUR FAULT. MANY OF US, WHO TAKE PRIDE IN BEING CALLED CHRISTIAN, HAVE EITHER COLLABORATED WITH EMPIRE OR HAVE PRETENDED IT IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY OR HAVE SIMPLY DID NOT CARE.
In the Feeding of the 5000, found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus seeing the hungry multitudes, tells his disciples, tells us—who love to call ourselves his disciples—to give them something to eat. And what do the disciples do? They tell Jesus, “Send the crowd away” and “Are we going to spend our own money to feed them?” and “Six months wages worth of bread would not be enough to feed them.” It has been 2000 years. We are still coming up with excuses. In the story, a young child offers what he had, five loaves and two fish, in response to Jesus’ challenge.
Today, the multitudes are still hungry and we are still making up excuses.
Which Jesus
Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine Jesus, the one many of us call our Personal Lord and Savior. If the Jesus we imagine looks like an American or European movie star, white, blond, and with blue eyes, then we’re following the wrong Jesus. If the Jesus we imagine is the same Jesus who told McKinley to take possession of the Philippines, and told Bush to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, then we’re following the wrong Jesus. If we imagine the same Jesus that Gloria Arroyo prays to before she gives the orders to General Jovito Palparan abduct and harass our priests, nuns, pastors, church workers, and militant grassroots organizers then we’re following the wrong Jesus. If the Jesus we imagine tells us to build huge buildings and air-conditioned chapels in his honor instead of reaching out to the poor and the marginalized among us, then we are following the wrong Jesus. If the Jesus we imagine has prepared a mansion in heaven for us, and wants us to spend eternity with him in an other-worldly place, and has no problems when his followers kill people and cultures in his name, then, definitely, we are following the wrong Jesus.
If the Jesus we imagine has no problem with poverty, does not care to address its root causes and its eradication, and believes that being poor is either God’s will or is a result of indolence or is a test of faith, then we are following the wrong Jesus.
Millions of people worship this Jesus, what the World Alliance of Reformed Churches calls the Constantinian Jesus. Patron. Emperor. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. Master of the Universe. Millions follow this Imperial Jesus. Millions have been killed and massacred in the name of this Jesus.
We are so used to that word "Gospel," that it has lost its original meaning. But in antiquity, when the Roman empire went off and conquered another land in the name of their god Caesar, and killed all the men, raped all the women, and destroyed all the homes, the soldiers would come back parading throughout the land announcing "the Gospel according to Caesar," the Good News of the latest victory of Caesar, that another land has been conquered for their god Caesar, and that Caesar's enemies have been killed.4
When the Gospel of Mark announces the “beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he actually announces the most radical, subversive proclamation during that time—Jesus is Lord, and not Caesar; God’s reign has come, and Rome’s has come to an end. Put in another way, in Greek the empire was called basileia; the emperor, basileus. For almost everyone in the empire, Rome was basileia; Caesar was basileus. I said, almost, because for Christians, God’s reign was basileia; Jesus was basileus.
In Jesus’ alternative or counter-empire, there was only one commandment: love for neighbor, especially the least. In Luke 10:28, Jesus tells a lawyer that love for God and love for neighbor is one commandment. He tells the parable of the Samaritan to make his point.
Paul summarizes all the commandments in Romans 13:9 as love for neighbor. James is more explicit in 2:15-17 when he wrote, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace… and yet do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” The message of the Johannine letters is straight-forward: if you say you love God, whom you do not see, but not your brothers and sisters, whom you see, then you are a liar. In Mark 17: 21, Jesus tells a rich young man, “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor… then come follow me.”
Now, if the Jesus we imagine is the Jesus of the Gospels, the compassionate Jesus whose insides were crushed at the sight of injustice, the Jesus who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, who visited the sick and the imprisoned, who welcomed strangers, and clothed the naked, who proclaimed liberty to the captives, and who gave his life so that others may live, the one who told the rich to sell everything they have and give all the proceeds to the poor, then, my dear friends, we are following the right Jesus.
The WARC calls this Jesus the Galilean One. The One who left heaven to be with us. The One who is not in Jerusalem where we expect him to be. The One who is in Galilee where we don’t want him to be, among the poor and the marginalized are. The One who left his followers only a single commandment: “Love your neighbor.” The One whom the Empire eventually executed.
And those who follow this “Executed God” are persecuted, harassed, and, yes, like him, murdered. And many of his followers in the Philippines are called communists or, worse, terrorists!
The world does not need pre-cooked or instant noodle soup. This is the recipe of the Constantinian Jesus and his followers. Dole-outs. Always with strings attached.
More importantly, the world does not need people like Jacob who used soup to take advantage of his famished brother.
God’s Oikos: We are Family—All of US
More often than not, we define ecumenism as about “us” and “them.” Insiders and outsiders. Saved and unsaved. Christian and not. Now, if God is our parent, as Jesus taught us, then all of us are brothers and sisters. All of us.
Contrary to what Cain said, we are each others’ keepers.
God’s household is God’s project. Who are members of God’s oikos depends on whom God chooses to be part of it. It is, and never will be, our choice. Let us look at four episodes from the biblical narratives that are quite familiar to most of us:
1. 1 Samuel 16 : Jesse and his seven oldest sons under-estimated David. No one, not his father, nor his brothers, not even David, thought that David was worthy to be king. But God chose the least of Jesse’s sons. God’s oikos include family members who are in the margins.
2. The Story of Jonah : Jonah disobeys God because he wanted God to destroy the “evil” empire. But God saves Nineveh. God saves whomever God wants to save. God’s oikos include those we hate and despise.
3. Luke 10: 25-37 : Samaritans were bastards, demon-possessed, and worshipped the wrong God. It is the Samaritan who serves as keeper of his wounded brother. God’s oikos include those we think don’t deserve to be God’s people.
4. Matthew 25: 31-46 : Both blessed and cursed were judged with one standard—being each other’s keepers. God’s oikos include those who do not expect to be part of it yet do exactly what brothers and sisters should do for each other.
The blessed were not blessed because they did what they did for God’s sake. They were blessed because they did what they did for people’s sake. A parent’s greatest joy is for his/her children to care for each other, not to outdo each other in gaining the parent’s favor.
The Jeepney has been described as a Filipino home on wheels.5 There is always space for the unexpected visitor, the complete stranger around our dining tables. There is always space for the unexpected passenger in a jeepney. “Ang siyaman nagiging sampuan.” God’s oikos has space for the most unexpected, even the most unwelcome member because, let me reiterate, God’s oikos is God’s project, not ours.
If God is our parent, then we are brothers and sisters. We are family. Sa pamilya ng Dios, walang anak sa loob at anak sa labas. Lahat anak. We are each other’s keepers. We were during the time of Cain, during the time of Jacob. We are now.
Every moment of our lives, God, our parent, is asking us—where is your sister, where is your brother?
ECUMENICAL RELATIONS IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT BEING EACH OTHER’S KEEPERS.
The Parable of the Stone Soup
A long time ago in a barrio far away came a very old woman. She was probably just passing by because she took the dusty road that bordered the small community. Because it was almost dark, she stopped by the roadside and began to build a fire. She took out an earthen pot from the bag she lugged around and, after filling it with water, set it over the fire. Out of the same bag she brought out a small river stone and a pinch of rock salt and put these in the pot.
An old woman alone by the road is hard to miss. Soon children were upon her. “Lola (Grandma),” they asked, “what are you doing?” “I’m cooking soup,” she answered, “why don’t you join me?” They sure did and after a while there was a huge circle of children gathered around the fire as the old lady narrated stories about elves and fairies and dragons. It was late. It was dark and the children were still out so their parents began looking for them. They eventually found them with the old lady. “Lola,” they asked, “what are you doing?” “I’m cooking soup,” she answered, “why don’t you join me?” They sure did and after a while there was a huge circle of children with their parents gathered around the fire as the old lady continued telling stories of elves and fairies and dragons.
“Lola, “ a mother volunteered, “I still have leftover meat at home. We can put it in the pot.” “We have vegetables we can add to the pot too!” another remarked. And so everyone brought back what they could and put these in the pot. Eventually, the whole community shared not just stories but a hot pot of soup that began with a cold river stone and a pinch of rock salt.6
The world needs soup. But, the world does not need pre-cooked or instant noodle soup. The soup that can meet the world’s hunger, as Mother Mary John Mananzan7 puts it, is the soup we cook together. Each one contributing what each can. Because we are each other’s keepers. That soup could mean food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, just wages for workers, homes for the homeless, justice for the oppressed, care for the sick and dying, land for the landless, liberation for those in bondage and captivity, solidarity with those whose only hope is God.
Those of us who call ourselves Christian do not have the monopoly on soup.
Cain was wrong, Jacob was wrong. We are each other’s keepers. We are—all of us—brothers and sisters. Kapatid, igsoon, kabsat. Kapatid is from Patid ng Bituka. We are parts of one gut. We, all of us—Christians, Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, and those who are so unlike us—are family. God’s oikos.
Joan Baez’s song was right. It has always been right. No one is an island. No one stands alone. Each one’s joy is joy to me. Each one’s grief is my own. We need one another so I will defend. Each one is my brother, each one is my sister.8 Each one is my friend. Kapatid, igsoon, kabsat.
THERE IS MUCH TO DO.
COME, IT IS TIME FOR US, SISTERS AND BROTHERS, TO COOK…
Revelation Enriquez Velunta
Union Theological Seminary, Philippines
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND (Joan Baez)
No man is an island,
No man stands alone,
Each man's joy is joy to me,
Each man's grief is my own.
We need one another,
So I will defend,
Each man as my brother,
Each man as my friend.
I saw the people gather,
I heard the music start,
The song that they were singing,
Is ringing in my heart.
No man is an island,
Way out in the blue,
We all look to the one above,
For our strength to renew.
When I help my brother,
Then I know that I,
Plant the seed of friendship,
That will never die.
NOTES
1 Statistics available from Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats, GlobalIssues.org, Last updated: Sunday, March 22, 2009
2 From discussions and presentations at the Hong Kong Consultations of the Rerouting Ecumenism in Asia Project of the Christian Conference of Asia, 9-12 November 2006.
3 Presented by Kim Yong Bock at Philippine Christian University, 21 July 2006. The document is available online at http://www.peaceforlife.org/resources/faithresist/2006/06-0715-ecumenical.html.
4 Available at http://www.fatherjohndear.org/sermons_homilies/repent_believe.html)
5 For more on decolonizing readings of the Bible and Jeepney Hermeneutics, please check out the Union Seminary Bulletin, Volumes 1, 3, and 4 (UTS, 2002, 2007), The National Council of Churches in the Philipppines’ journal Tugon Volume 14, Nos. 1 and 2, or visit http://jeepney.blogspot.com.
6 From Anumang Hiram Kung Hindi Masikip ay Maluwang: Iba’t-Ibang Anyo ng Teolohiyang Pumipiglas, Revelation Velunta, Ed. (Union Theological Seminary, 2006), pp. 4-5.
7 Aside from Mother Mary John Mananzan’s ideas, many arguments in this brief essay resonate with insights from John Dominic Crossan and the members of the Jesus Seminar, Mark Kline Taylor, Ched Myers, Daniel Patte, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Renate Rose, William Herzog, Laura Donaldson, Elizabeth Dominguez, Melinda Grace Aoanan, and Fr. Carlos Abesamis.
8 Full lyrics at the end of the essay.
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