Beating Jeeps into Jeepneys...

Jeepney readings have at least three distinct characteristics, three explicit choices, textual, theological, and contextual, made by the reader. First, as far as textual choices are concerned, it involves reading texts by disregarding, setting aside, or resisting imperial rhetoric, its agents and those who mimic them (getting rid of the jeep's machine gun mount). This means privileging what Renita Weems calls “random aberrant outbursts in a world otherwise rigidly held together by its patriarchal attitudes and androcentric perspective.” This means privileging the subaltern in texts, not just the “voices from the margins” but also the “voiceless from the margins,” what Leela Gandhi describes as “the ones who disappear because we never hear them speak. They only serve as medium for competing discourses to represent their claims,” like the pais in Matthew 8:5-13 and Onesimus in Paul’s letter to Philemon. This fundamental choice, this switch of focus from center to periphery allows the marginalized in the text to “mirror” the plight of the marginalized in front of it. This is akin to Delores Williams’ argument about the power of Hagar’s story to inform and inspire the continuing struggle of many African-American women.

Jeepney hermeneutics involves a fundamental theological claim that the insights, stories, and answers the Bible provide (like the three-seater jeep) are not enough and may even be wrong or hurtful for the questions being asked by many communities, thus the need to create space for other texts that help inform—not define—peoples’ lives and struggles (therefore, the necessity of the sixteen, or more, passenger jeepney). Jeepney hermeneutics creates space for other voices, for Filipino “traditions, myths, legends, to harness insights, values and inspiration towards the full flowering of communities and persons” (Mananzan). Jeepney hermeneutics then takes seriously the affirmation that God and God’s activity is bigger than the Bible, bigger than Christianity, and even bigger than Jesus Christ. God did not arrive in the Philippines in 1521. God was already here. According to Mark Taylor: “The Bible, once the “sword” of the imperial spirit, will have to find its new possibilities amid many other spirits that its Christian bearers often spurned.”

How does one do Jeepney Hermeneutics?

It begins with one’s view of scripture. As Vanderbilt University's Daniel Patte points out in conversation, “Traditional roles of scripture are problematic, when they involve submission to the text, or more exactly, defining the authority of the text in terms of moral prescriptions or vision (ideology, religious views, etc.) that it posits or carries.” Many interpreters of Scripture begin with the theological affirmation, explicit or not, that the Bible is “God’s Word” and that it offers access to the Complete and Final Revelation of the One True God, Jesus Christ. Jeepney hermeneutics presupposes that the Bible is a “jeep,” a sword, an imperializing text – a dangerous text, as demonstrated throughout history by the many horrendous crimes committed in its name (see for instance, Susanne Scholtz, ed. Biblical Studies Alternatively: An Introductory Reader [2002]).

Imperializing texts, according to Musa Dube, take many forms and are written by a variety of people, even by the colonized, either collaborating with the dominant forces or yearning for the same power. She adds, “Regardless of who writes imperializing texts, they are characterized by literary constructions, representations, and uses that authorize taking possession of foreign spaces and peoples… Reproduction of imperial strategies of subjugation is also evident among many interpreters.” I draw heavily from Dube’s work with the following questions in explaining why many biblical texts are imperializing and why many of their interpretations are the same. (1) Does the text have an explicit stance for or against the political imperialism of its time? (2) Does it encourage travel to distant and inhabited lands and how does it justify itself? (3) How does the text construct difference: is there dialogue and liberating interdependence, or is there condemnation and replacement of all that is foreign? Is there celebration of difference authentic or mere tokenism? (4) Does the text employ representations (gender, ethnicity, sexuality, divine, etc.) to construct relationships of subordination and domination?

The Jeep...

The U.S. Army, back in 1940, required an all-terrain reconnaissance, go-anywhere, vehicle that seated three and had a mount for a 30-caliber machine gun. Filipinos have turned this military vehicle into a sort of mini-bus that can accommodate about twenty people. There are those who look at a jeepney and call it Frankenstein’s monster. There are others who see it as a “Filipino home on wheels,” complete with an altar.

The military jeep was, and still is, a sort of imperializing text. A jeepney resists this text. The inventors of the jeep never imagined that this weapon of mass destruction can be transformed into a public transport vehicle. The jeepney is an “unexpected reading” of a jeep.

Jeeps, Jeepneys, and Jeepney Hermeneutics

Mark Lewis Taylor, during the 2000 Society of Biblical Literature meeting, celebrated the publication of the Dictionary of Third World Theologies (Virnia Fabella and R.S. Sugirtharajah, eds.) and called it "A Dictionary for Resisting Empire." For him, the volume summarizes critical reflection arising from people's movements in resistance to "empire," i.e. to the hegemony of Western powers whose metropole centers seek an ever-strengthened global power to subordinate and control each and every facet of the lives of masses of peoples. For him, the book preserves and marshals the archival power of Third World peoples' own discourse of resistance and liberation. To this developing archive I have proposed one model of Filipino decolonizing reading, jeepney hermeneutics. If the Filipino jeepney is a “resistant reading” of the U.S. military jeep, then jeepney hermeneutics is a "resistant reading" of the Bible. Biblical Studies is one area that remains a stronghold of colonial scholarship, especially among Protestant Churches. Many Filipino social scientists call this collective condition of the Filipino psyche as colonial mentality. Historian Renato Constantino traces it to the systematic mis-education of the Filipinos. Theologian Eliezer Fernandez argues that the Philippines can be called a "mental colony" of the United States of America. The late Fr. Carlos Abesamis, SJ, had argued that nothing is the matter with foreigners doing foreign theology (for themselves). The issue is that Filipino theology is a photocopy of Euro-American theology. Jeepney hermeneutics challenges this colonial mentality in biblical studies by drawing on the Filipinos’ legacy of resistance. From mortar shells to church bells, from implements of death to instruments of music, from jeeps to jeepneys, Filipinos have turned weapons of mass destruction to symbols of mass celebration. The colonization of biblical studies, especially in the field of hermeneutics, among Protestant communities in the Philippines requires no special pleading. Thus there is the need for a decolonized hermeneutics—a jeepney hermeneutics. Jeepney hermeneutics acknowledges the depth and the breadth of meanings represented by the Filipino Jeepney as symbolic of a people’s ability to beat swords into ploughshares.

Remembering FPJ

Most Filipinos love stories, telling them, listening to them, or watching them. Filipinos who do not enjoy movie watching are quite rare. I remember the moviehouses in the barrios where we used to go during summer vacations. Most of these had double programs. Your ticket bought you two movies to watch. A few had triple programs. We saved up for those triples, especially if they starred the late Fernando Poe Jr. who should have turned 74 today. We came in before lunch and came out six or so hours later. My kuya (older brother) and I are FPJ fans. In grade school I saw my kuya, on two occasions, apply the FPJ rapid-punching technique on two bullies bigger and taller than him. The technique worked. I was 7 when I first went to see a movie by myself. It was FPJ’s Asedillo. It was the first movie I saw that painted a totally different picture of America, and Manuel Quezon, and the period of American occupation many among our elders, even today, longingly call “peacetime.” It was the movie that introduced me to the Sakdal uprising of the 1930s. I was in high school when I saw Aguila. I consider it one of the best movies Philippine cinema has ever produced. Aside from FPJ, it had Christopher de Leon, Jay Ilagan, Sandy Andolong, Eddie Garcia, Johnny Delgado, Charo Santos, Amalia Fuentes, and a host of top caliber artists. Basil Valdez sung the theme song. The 3 ½ hour movie presents a stark portrait of Philippine society and offers at least four ways of dealing with its reality: join the underground, go to America, learn to deal with it, or live with the indigenous communities. If you haven’t watched Aguila and Asedillo. Go and do so. Then you will know why those who call FPJ the Arnold Swarzenegger of the Philippines don't know what they're talking about. And as you watch Asedillo and Aguila (both are available online), remember that FPJ was busy helping prepare relief goods for distribution on the night he suffered a massive stroke. Better still, we can remember FPJ's birthday by celebrating our birthdays, anniversaries, and special occasions by reaching out to those whose only hope is God, by contributing the best we can offer to those who need God the most, by being each other's keepers the best way we can. Especially today.

Martha, Mary, and Jesus

MARTHA, MARY, AND JESUS LUKE 10: 38-42 While doing his rounds Jesus finds St. Peter, at the pearly gates, looking worn out and very, very tired. “Rocky,” he says to his friend, “why don’t you take a break. I’ll handle the processing for you.” “Thanks, Jesse,” Peter replies with glee and leaves. With his rooster. Jesus takes over and as he looks down the long line of people being processed, he notices an old man who looked very, very familiar. Jesus feels he knows the old man. Eventually, he is face to face with the old man. Jesus asks, “Sir, what did you do when you were back on earth?” “I was a carpenter,” the old man replies. The reply got Jesus very excited. “What made your life very special then?” he continues. “I had a very special son,” was the reply. A carpenter who had a special son? This gets Jesus more excited! “What can you tell me about your son?” Jesus draws closer as he asks. “Nails and wood!,” the carpenter answers. Nails and wood? Jesus was beyond ecstatic. He blurts out, “Father?” The old man responds, “Pinocchio?” Diversity is a gift. Difference is a fundamental fact of life. No two people are exactly alike. No two fingerprints are exactly alike. The same goes with experiences. And UTS seminarians. Plurality is a gift. Father and son, nails, and wood do not always point to Jesus. They can also point to Pinocchio. There is always more than one reading of a text, including what Prof. McDivith calls “Living Human Documents.” Actually, there is legion. Interpretation is always particular and perspectival. Good news is always relative. When David killed Goliath, it was good news to Israelites, bad news to Philistines, and tragic news to Goliath’s mother! Our lectionary reading for Sunday, the story about Martha, Mary, and Jesus, has been interpreted throughout the centuries in so many different ways. Yes, legions. Prof. Antonio Pacudan has a very good essay on the Lukan passage in Anumang Hiram where he celebrates the discipleship of Martha. He also contrasts the characterization of Martha in the Gospel of John. In her essay, “Scandal in Bethany” (in Babaylan Volume 1), Prof. Lily Ledesma celebrates Mary and her quest for learning and education at the feet of Jesus (a typology that should remind us of Paul learning at the feet of Gamaliel). Two weeks ago, the Juniors in four groups role-played this passage. One group had Martha being portrayed by a man who was busy preparing the meal. The gathered community convinces Martha that the meal can wait so everyone can study together. Everyone then prepares the meal and all share the food, including the audience. Another group situates the interpretation of the passage inside a church building during worship where many of the members of the congregation are, like Martha, distracted by other things: their cellphones, talking with others, or, simply, impatiently waiting for the service to end. A group, broke the fourth wall, by conjuring up a narrator, a lizard (a very big lizard actually) on the wall, filling in the gaps in the familiar story. The fourth group had Martha and Mary reminding Jesus what he taught them, servant leadership, so Jesus actually prepares the meal for the gathered community. I have always believed that God’s greatest gift to UTS is not the land. It is not even the mango trees. It is its people: seminarians, staff, and teachers; the choir who just sang; the middlers who will sing after my message; the sixteen dedicated young women and men whom you have elected to the student government; all of you! The six different interpretations of the same text I just shared with you only help to prove my belief! Now, I would like to share my reading. If we read our Bibles and pray every day, we will grow, grow, grow in the realization that Luke and Acts are a two-part work, like Rizal’s Noli and Fili. Many students of the Bible do not read the Bible, they either read books about the Bible or very small parts. Many seminaries and bible schools are well-known for proof texting. UTS is not one of them. One of the best ways to understand scripture is to read each passage as part of a greater whole. Luke 10:38-42 is part of Luke 10. Luke 10 is part of Luke. Luke is part of Luke-Acts. Liberation Theologians have argued for years that Luke-Acts is the best source for underpinning the church’s preferential option for the poor. Good news is proclaimed to the poor. The Sermon on the Plain declares blessings to the poor and woes to the rich. The rich are challenged to sell everything they have, give all the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus. The Acts tell of communities where no one was in need and where ministry to widows and orphans and strangers were a priority. I have previously argued that the Roman Empire was built on five pillars. First. The Legions, 6000 soliders each, protected the borders of the empire. There were 28 Legions. Second. The Roman roads secured communication, transportation, and delivery of goods and services. Third. Power resided on the landed and the rich, where fathers possessed everyone and everything in the family and had power of life and death over each. Fourth. Ideology. Actually, theology. Rome is a gift from the gods, and Caesar was the Son of God. Caesar was LORD. Each subject of the empire was required faithfulness. Pistis. Fides. Fifth. Now those who defied Pax Romana was either jailed, exiled, or executed. Death to enemies of the state came via crucifixion. The first century movement that included Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Martha and Mary of Bethany, and many others was, I dare say, built on five pillars as well. First, if the Roman Empire had legions to secure the borders of the Roman empire, “God’s empire” had house churches all over, and Martha’s home was one of these. Second, Rome’s economics was built on roads which they guarded and controlled; God’s empire was built on the open table. An open table is where everyone, even those who could not share anything, was welcome to partake of bread, to share wine, to have fellowship. EVERYONE. Third, if Rome’s empire drew its power from the powerful and those who possessed, God’s empire came from the powerless, the poorest of the poor, those whose only hope is God, the dispossessed. Fourth. For Rome, Caesar Augustus was the Son of God. For God’s Empire, Jesus, the carpenter, the Galilean, the one who spoke with a strange Northern accent, was the real SON OF GOD. Jesus, not Caesar, is LORD. Fifth, Rome had the power execute anyone, but God can raise up everyone that the empire executes. In response to Rome’s threat of death and execution, the movement believed in the promise of Resurrection in God’s empire. Read against a backdrop of these pillars of the Basileia movement, we can find historical memory in the passage we are studying: Martha and Mary’s home was a house church, open to everyone. A sanctuary. Martha was involved in the ministry of the open table, Eucharistic table ministry. Jesus’s admonition to her that “there is need for only one” is a reminder to us that, one dish was enough, “tama na ang isang ulam,” especially for the poorest of the poor who were most welcome in these house churches. The fact that Jesus is called LORD three times in the passage reminds us of the movement’s most fundamental, SUBVERSIVE affirmation, JESUS IS LORD AND NOT CAESAR! And what about choosing the better part? But what is the better part? Martha and Mary’s sanctuary was a simple home, not a cathedral most churches today want their worship places to be. Jesus admonished Martha that the open table needed just one dish for everyone, not a feast or a banquet most of us believe are expressions of prosperity and fullness today. Moreover, Jesus’s lordship is not a declaration of absoluteness or greatness but a critique on those who abuse power and oppress the people for life, healing, restoration and resurrection for all. Jesus’s lordship is about taking the side of those who need God the most. The better part is evident in the story before this one: the Samaritan. In the midst of death, pain, suffering, abandonment, indifference, the Samaritan chooses life, healing, restoration. Resurrection. As we come together to share the open table, let us remember what the open table represents. Let us also remember what the affirmation, Jesus is Lord, requires from each of us and from all of us. Moreover, on Monday, July 22, we will be given the privilege to join those whom God has chosen to side with: the farmers, the fisherfolk, the laborers, the masses, those whose only hope is God… outside congress for the People’s SONA. They have much to teach us. We have a lot to learn from them. They will teach us how to struggle for life, for healing, for justice, for liberty, and for land. They will teach us how to celebrate over one simple dish. They will show us what taking sides really means. They will show us the real meaning of rising up and not giving up against all odds. Finally, they will show us what resurrection is really all about. AMEN. Revelation Enriquez Velunta Union Theological Seminary, Philippines 18 July 2013

Mothers and Prophets

MOTHERS AND PROPHETS Oxnard United Church of Christ, 13 May 2012 Every time a child is conceived, God begins creating two miracles. Two: a new life and a mother. Almost all our favorite characters in the Bible are prophets: from Miriam, to Moses; from Elijah to John the Baptist; from Huldah to Anna. God gave us these prophets. God gave us their mothers. I am here this morning to talk about two of these mothers… Let’s start with Hannah. Most of us here probably remember her story. She was loved but she was barren and in a society where barrenness was considered a curse, she cried and prayed and pleaded to Yahweh to remember her and Yahweh did. She gave birth to a son and named him Samuel, which meant, “I have asked him of Yahweh.” And in her prayer in Chapter 2, comparable to the power and the passion of Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1. 46-55, we encounter a mother’s faith, a faith I’m sure she taught her son, a faith that continues to challenge us today… Let me read some of her prayer’s most powerful affirmations… The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength, God kills and brings to life, God brings down to Sheol and raises up, God raises up the poor from the dust, God lifts the needy from the ash heap However you read Hannah’s Prayer the message is clear—God will make things right. And most important, God is on the side of the poor, of the oppressed, of the hungry, of those whose only hope is God. This was the faith of Hannah, the same faith her prophet son, Samuel, had. Most of us here probably remember the son more than his mother. The message has not changed. Hannah and Samuel’s faith remain. We worship and serve a God who actually takes sides. If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, which I hope everyone in Oxnard does, then we will grow, grow, grow in the knowledge that the God we serve and worship has always been on the side of the poor. From Genesis to Revelation, we read about our covenant relationship with Yahweh that requires us to take care of the widows, orphans, strangers and foreigners, yes, illegal immigrants, among us. From Genesis to Revelation, we are enjoined to feed the hungry, offer drink to the thirsty, welcome the sick and the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and the imprisoned. We know whose side God is on but are we on the right side? Those of us who take pride in calling ourselves Christian, are we on God’s side? Do we let poor widows give everything they have, even the little money left to buy food, so that we can build our temples and our buildings as monuments to our messianic complexes? Mary of Nazareth believed in a God who brings down rulers from their thrones but lifts up the humble. She believed in a God who fills the hungry with good things but sends the rich away empty. And this faith, I know she taught her Son, the One we call Lord and Savior. Hannah and Mary knew what God required of us. It is not burnt offerings or ten thousand rivers of oil or mighty buildings. Then and now, God requires of us to do justice and to love kindness and to take sides…And the message will never, ever, change. We worship and serve a God who takes sides. A God who takes the preferential option for the poor. A God who brings down kings and kingdoms. A God who weeps with those who weep and who cries with those who cry. We worship and serve a God who, in the fullness of time, in the life and ministry of one Jesus, son of Mary from Nazareth, did the greatest act of taking sides—God became one of us. God left heaven to be with us. And God continues to take sides—as we encounter God among the least of the least, among the hungry and the thirsty, among the prisoners, the strangers, and the sick, among the homeless and the naked, among those devastated by nature’s wrath and by humanity’s greed, among those whose only hope is God. Let me share with you a story told by John Dominic Crossan, probably the most read Historical Jesus researcher today: He imagines a conversation with Jesus. He asks Jesus what he can say about Crossan’s research. Jesus says he has done great work, his research is excellent, and his reconstruction of Jesus is the closest to the real person. Crossan is ecstatic about Jesus’ praise, until Jesus adds: “One thing you lack.” And Crossan, asks: “What is it, Lord?” And the reply: “Sell everything you have, including all the royalties you’ve received from the books you’ve written about me; give the proceeds to the poor, and follow me.” Crossan says, “I cannot, Lord.” Yes, my dear sisters and brothers, the final test. Those of us who take pride in calling ourselves Christian, worship and serve a God who takes sides; but most importantly, the Christ we worship and serve wants us to sell everything we have, give all the proceeds to the poor and follow him. Hannah and Mary gave the very best they could offer to God: their children. And their children did so, as well. They offered the very best. They gave their lives for others. Are we ready to do so? Did our mothers teach us to do so? For most of us, our mothers taught us how to care and how to share. They showed us how to live in love, how to pray. Our mothers taught us how to live through life’s pains. They showed us how to give our lives for our friends. Our mothers taught us how not to be afraid. Their love showed us that, whatever happens, we will never, ever, be alone. For many people, IMMANUEL, God-with-us, is actually spelled M O T H E R. Again, I ask: are we ready to offer our very best? Did our mothers teach us to do so? I believe they did. I know they did. Amen.