The Yeast

When we were very young, my siblings, cousins, and I enjoyed going to the bakery. (Actually I still do.) We would go very early in the mornings to watch the bakers do their thing. The smell of freshly baked bread is wonderful. We would be fascinated by how the dough rose as if by magic. I can imagine young Jesus and his friends doing the same thing. Fascinated by the rising dough as the bread was baked fresh in the village's shared oven.

Eventually we all learned it was not magic. It was yeast.

Archeologist have discovered bread with yeast that's over 4000 years old. Moreover, yeast is a living organism, breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.

Just the tiniest amount is needed to bake bread. Like the tiniest amount of salt is needed to add flavor to food or to preserve it. Like the tiniest mustard seed grows big to offer shade and a home for birds.

Like what tiny tax collector Zacchaeus did. Giving half of his possessions to the poor and paying back four times everyone he cheated.

The Pearl and the Hidden Treasure

Most of you know these parables. Scholars call it twin parables. Wealthy men find things of immense value that "they sell everything they have" to possess the pearl for one, a hidden treasure for the other.

Pearls were most valued in Antiquity. Actually until the 19th century when diamonds replaced them.

The key to understanding the parables are the words inside the quotation marks. If you read your Bible, then you know those are the words Jesus says to the rich man who wanted to follow him. Sell everything you have, give the proceeds to the poor....

The rich man goes away sad. The rich men in the twin parables, after selling everything they had, go away joyful!

Jesus's challenge to the rich has not changed.

The Unforgiving Servant

Again, the king in the parable is not God. And the story is really not about forgiveness but imperial occupation. We often forget that Palestine was under Roman Occupation during Jesus's time. Before the Romans were the Greeks, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians... After the Romans came the Byzantines, the Early Muslim Dynasties, the Crusaders, the Later Muslim Dynasties, the Ottomans, the British, and now the Israelis.

For me the key to making sense of the parable is the ten thousand talents. That's about 30 billion pesos! When Rome conquered Palestine in 63 BCE, the taxes the empire required from its colony was ten thousand talents.

By the time of Jesus, Palestine has been under Roman Occupation for almost a hundred years. Exploitation was rampant and tax collectors were among the most hated in the land. And Rome executed up to 500 people daily to remind everyone that defiance was unacceptable behavior.

So the king cancels a huge debt which was not really owed. Then and now the powerful has records, books, and documents that show how much the powerless owe. And payment always requires more than what is owed.

And the servant who's supposed debt was canceled? He does exactly what the exploitative system has shaped him to do, be the face of the colonizer to the colonized. More often than not, the colonized never see the face of the colonizer. Only his agents who come from among the colonized.

Then and now the colonizer remains benevolent. Then and now America remains such to several generations of Filipinos. Then and now millions of Filipinos believe that the American occupation was a gift from God.

Read the parable again. The King comes out smelling like a baby's behind. The colonized are portrayed as seeking the king's favor. Classic divide and conquer technique.

The Friend at Midnight

This parable, like the one about the widow and the judge, is also not about prayer.

It is midnight. Everyone, humans and animals, are indoors and asleep. A neighbor, a friend, gets a surprise visitor on a journey. Since everyone in the peasant village shared an outdoor oven, your friend knows you still have fresh barley loaves. He bangs on your door. Everyone in your house wakes up. Humans and animals. Probably everyone else in the village as well. He asks for bread. The bread you saved for your family. He imposes on your friendship in order to feed his visitor. A complete stranger to you. He shamelessly takes advantage of your friendship in order to fulfill everyone's obligation to welcome strangers. With a simple meal.

You respond. Giving him the three loaves he asked for and, actually, more than he asked for. And you don't do it because of your friendship. You do it because you would have done the same thing.

This is not a parable about prayer. It is the story behind a simple meal prepared to welcome a stranger in a peasant village. To this day, each and every meal that is offered to welcome a stranger in villages, in barrios, in far-flung sitios has a story to tell.

The Ten Girls

Your Bible will have a note saying  that some ancient manuscripts show the ten bridesmaids were waiting for the bride and the bridegroom.

Many times people read this parable like it were a wake. Like someone died. Like it's the end of the age. It's a wedding! And for communities then and now, it's about new beginnings. Moving forward.

The groom is not Jesus. The bride is not the church. The groom is the groom and the bride is the bride. And both were very late for their wedding. It happens.

The bridesmaids, all ten of them fall asleep waiting. Five were wise. Five were naive. Not foolish. The Greek supports the reading. And all ten girls were, yes, girls. About 12 years old.

Five were mature for their age and prepared. Five acted their age and did not. Those who prepared were not prepared to share. Those who did not prepare were afraid of the dark.

The bride and the groom were so used to locking doors at night. Force of habit. Remember, the banquet began way past midnight. They forgot it was their wedding, all are welcome, so doors need not be shut.

Everyone in the parable made mistakes. A wedding is a celebration of life. It's about new beginnings and moving forward.  There's no reason to be afraid of the dark. There's no reason not to share the little we have. And there's no reason to shut anybody out.

The Widow and the Judge

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

Stop imagining that the judge in the parable is God. He is not. He is a judge. An unjust judge actually. Like many in our country today.

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

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

Justice always prevails.

#RiseUpForLifeAndForRights
#JusticeIsOurPrayer
#StopTheKillings

The Lost Coin

A few months after Nanay was laid to rest we went through her things. It was very hard. We choked up when we found the bills she kept. A 50 here. A 100 there. Inside a book. Tucked in a blouse pocket hanging in her closet. Inside an old letter's envelope. In a bottle in the kitchen cupboard.

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

This is why I love the Parable of the Lost Coin. The woman had ten coins. Each can buy a measure of wheat enough to feed one person. But only the rich ate wheat. Each can buy three measures of barley enough for three. Her ten coins were barely enough for her family to last ten days on barley. Just cheap bread.

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

Many among us forget that for so many people, then and now, shalom is actually one coin. Just enough to buy cheap NFA rice for one day.

Just enough to survive for one more day!