Widows, Strangers, and Orphans

Most of us grew up memorizing the names of the Twelve Disciples. In the Synoptics they are all men. In I Corinthians and in the Gospel of John they are a collective, The Twelve. Better. 

When we are quizzed to name the best among the disciples, we would probably volunteer Peter, James, and John. Some will add Mary Magdalene. But only a handful would say Jesus's mother in John, the Samaritan woman in John, and the child who offered five barley loaves and two fish. Also in John. 

Yes, my friends, a widow, a stranger, and an orphan. The three kinds of people closest to God's heart. 

The Gospel of John celebrates the Discipleship of the Unnamed.  Whom do we see at the beginning, throughout, and at the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry in the gospel? It is Jesus’s mother. Motherhood is discipleship. For millions of people in the world, LOVE is spelled, M, O, T, H, E, R.

Among the four gospels, with whom does Jesus spend practically a whole chapter's length in conversation, in dialogue, in mutual exchange of ideas? A stranger. A Samaritan. A woman.

For so many people today who find themselves strangers in foreign lands; refugees because of war; displaced and dispossessed because of greed, hospitality is discipleship.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not tell us where the barley loaves and fish that led to the feeding of the hungry 5000 came from. John does. It came from one of the hungry 5000. A poor child. The rich in Jesus’s time ate wheat. The poor had barley. The child offered five barley loaves and two fish. Are these enough to feed thousands? Of course not. But these are enough to inspire and birth miracles.

From August 8 to 31, Union Theological Seminary received a special blessing from God. The Lumad Bakwit Iskul composed of those closest to God's heart: widows, strangers, orphans, and more came to live with us. To teach us. To challenge us. To test our convictions. To show us grace under pressure, selfless gratitude, and true grit. 

And to remind us of our promise. To go to Galilee. Where Jesus is already waiting for us. 

The International Day of the Disappeared and the Empty Tomb

We, who call ourselves Christian, should not forget that the One we call Lord and Liberator was an Executed God. He was abducted in the dead of night, unjustly tried, beaten, tortured, and executed between two rebels. Then his body was thrown into a borrowed grave. In the Gospel of Mark, at dawn on Sunday three of his disciples, all women, visit the grave to anoint his dead body. They find the grave empty. There was no body.

Jesus had disappeared.

The Gospel of Mark ends with the women described as silent and afraid.

Jesus had disappeared.

Today, August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared. We are invited to stand in solidarity with friends, colleagues, comrades, and families of the missing who continue to seek peace based on justice, and in remembrance of the thousands of desaparecidos in the Philippines, in Palestine, in many Third World countries, and around the world.

Like the women at the tomb, many of us are silent and afraid. Like the women in the tomb, we want to find The Disappeared. We want to find them alive. Or if they are dead, we want to find their bodies. We want to anoint them with fragrant oils. Maybe build a monument or set up a memorial for them. We want closure.

But the message of the young man in the empty tomb is as real today as it was thousands of years ago… Jesus is not in the tomb. He is risen. He is in Galilee… Waiting for you.

We believe in the resurrection. We believe that good will always triumph over evil; that faith is stronger than fear; that love is greater than indifference; and that life will always, always conquer death… We also believe that The Disappeared will rise again in the tens, in the hundreds, in the thousands who fight and struggle for justice, for peace, for liberation.

The Disappeared are not here. Like Jesus, they are risen. They are in Galilee where the good news is preached to the poor, where the hungry are given food, where strangers are welcomed, where liberation is proclaimed to the captives…

The Disappeared are waiting for us.

[reposted from August 30, 2011 blog entry]

READING TEXTS THAT WERE NOT WRITTEN FOR US

Let us get things sorted out first. Historians tell us that the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. They tell us that it was put together across one thousand years. Its latest materials is about 2 thousand years old. Its oldest, over three thousand. Take Paul's Letter to Philemon. It is a letter from Paul to Philemon. Paul and Philemon are dead. What we have is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a two-thousand year-old letter. In Koine Greek.

We love reading texts that were not written for us!  We do this all the time. Our spouse's cellphone messages. Or our children's. Literary classics. And, yes, Scriptures. I've argued for years that most people read scripture as windows to the past (historical methods), as story (literary methods), and as mirrors (cultural studies).

When texts are read as windows to the past, we are basically listening to the dead. Hearing echoes. We might not admit it but most of our cherished values come from the dead. From departed loved ones. The works of favorite authors and composers who died before we were even born. Then there's tradition. The narratives, beliefs, behavior of a particular family, community, people that has been handed down from one generation to the next.

When we read texts as a story we assume that the story "always happens." That the text has a life all its own. That there is meaning in how the story elements of plot, characters, and setting interact. This is why we name our children after characters in books, in movies, in songs. This is also probably why so many celebrities win in our elections. We vote for the "characters" they play instead of the real, flesh and blood, people behind these characters.

Finally, when we read texts as mirrors we presuppose resonance. What we read strikes a chord deep inside us: as individuals, as a community, as a people. Thus, these are "readings as." As people of color, as LGBT, as children, as Indigenous Community, etc.

One can argue that the first is reading texts as time-bound; the next, reading texts as timeless; and the last, reading texts as timely.

Interpretation is always perspectival and particular. Interpretation is always plural. In the end, as followers of Jesus, the key question has been, and will always remain, is our reading about loving God and serving people? Especially the least?

Jesus always took sides. We must as well.

YESTERDAY AND EVERY DAY

Yesterday 76 members of our seminary community, led by our president, joined the United People's SONA. It was, for many, a liminal moment. A rite of passage. A baptism of fire. Actually, more water than fire... And we were prepared with our umbrellas and raincoats. And boots! Yesterday, 76 members of our community woke up earlier than usual, others did not even sleep, to prepare streamers, banners, rice, hard-boiled egg, and Adobo. Yesterday 76 members of our community waited for our jeepneys to arrive and spent over 4 hours in those jeepneys going to and from Commonwealth Avenue. Yesterday, 76 members of our community walked 6 kilometers to be a part of the thousands who protested against the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, and the War on the Poor that Duterte and his cohorts have declared against the Filipino People. 

Yesterday, individually and corporately, 76 members of our community participated in embodying our core values: prophetic boldness, ecumenical openness, compassionate witness, contextual timeliness, and Christ like faithfulness. Yesterday, Monday, July 23rd 2018, 76 members of our seminary community experienced what majority of our people experience EVERY DAY.

Every day, millions wake up at dawn to ride jeepneys, buses, and trains in order to go to work. Every day they have to line up to get these rides that take up to four to six hours of their lives in traffic. Every day, millions walk 6 or more kilometers a day to go to school or work. Or to get clean water. Every day, countless people spend hours under the sun, without umbrellas, or under the rain, without raincoats, toiling. Farmers, fisher-folk, laborers… Mostly overworked, grossly underpaid. Trying to make ends meet. 

Many surviving, each day, on one meal of rice and hard-boiled egg. No adobo. Struggling against death forces; working for life in its fullness. Do not forget this. Ever! For so many of our sisters and brothers our yesterday is their Every Day! 

Remember our core values? I'm pretty sure all of us know them by heart already. Those values are best embodied, like we did yesterday, in the every day of the masses. Eventually, our yesterday will be a weekend integrating with basic communities. Then two summer exposures of 6 to 7 weeks each. Then a full year. 

In the fullness of time God decided to go on community integration. We call it the incarnation. In the Gospel of Mark, God is always coming out. Out of heaven; out of the home his disciples wanted to be the locus of his healing; out of the tomb! He was a woodworker based in Nazareth most of his life. Then he leaves Nazareth. He started spending a day or two among the fisher-folk by the Sea of Galilee. A weekend with farmers. A year with the masses, displaced, dispossessed, disenfranchised, who protested against the conjugal dictatorship of the Roman Empire and the Judea Elite. 

In the fullness of time, God decided to leave heaven to be with those whose only hope is God. And God is still with them, every day. As they work for life in all its fullness. And God is waiting for us. Yes, for you. And for me.

So that eventually, our yesterday becomes every day. Amen.

[post-People's SONA reflection]

Volume 2, coming soon!

Reading the Parables of Jesus inside a Jeepney came out eight months ago. Thank you so much to everyone who got a copy, the Kindle or Print-on-Demand version. Many among you actually got more than one copy. Some even have both versions! Thank you as well to the UCCP's National Christian Youth Fellowship that distributes the book in the Philippines.

I cannot thank you enough. Volume 2 will be out very soon. I hope you continue reading more of the Parables of Jesus inside a Jeepney. With me.

Duterte and the Parable of the Trees

Most of us identify parables with Jesus. But two of the most powerful parables in the Bible are found in the Old Testament. One is more popular, Nathan’s when he confronted King David. The other is the Parable of the Trees.

Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, “Reign over us!”
But the olive tree said to them, “Shall I leave my fatness with which God and people are honored, and go to wave over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the fig tree, “You come, reign over us!”
But the fig tree said to them, “Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the vine, “You come, reign over us!”
But the vine said to them, “Shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and people, and go to wave over the trees?”
Finally all the trees said to the bramble, “You come, reign over us!”
The bramble said to the trees, “If in truth you are anointing me as king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, may fire come out from the bramble and consume the cedars of Lebanon.” (Judges 9:8-15)

The tree is a common metaphor for Ancient Israel. In the parable, trees go seek for a king. The Olive, the Fig, and the Grape are asked. All say, no. All are much smaller than the Cedar of Lebanon and are, therefore, incapable of “waving over” or reigning over them. All three know the purpose of their creation and were not tempted to covet a role that was not theirs.

Finally, they ask the Bramble.

Scholars tell us that bramble are opportunistic and insatiable.  They are capable of sucking the life out of other trees. Moreover, they have the capacity to deprive other trees of sunlight and starve them to death!

The Philippines has a Bramble in Malacanang. He is opportunistic and insatiable. He has sucked the life out of thousands among the people he has sworn to protect and serve. Every day, his minions and programs, anti-poor, anti-youth, anti-life, deprive the most vulnerable and the basic masses of the fullness of life that God wills for God’s children.

  

ONE DOES NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE

One should not live on bread alone. There is always more than one way of reading a text. I am pretty sure you’ve heard countless homilies on the First Temptation. I offer another one.

Given the reality of hunger and starvation under the Roman Empire, eating plays an important theme in the Lukan landscape. Luke’s Jesus as a baby was laid on a manger or a feeding trough. Jesus’ body, represented by bread, is broken and shared among his disciples. 5000 eat together in the wilderness. Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness, ate nothing, and is challenged to turn stone into bread.

One does not live on bread alone. A person does not live on bread alone. God did not create us to eat alone!

The empire is built on greed, power, possession, property, and commodification. For the empire, when one is hungry, one eats. When one is thirsty, one drinks. One eventually eats and drinks even if one is not hungry or thirsty. One eventually hoards. Like the Rich Fool. Like the rich young ruler. Like Zacchaeus until his encounter with Jesus. Thus, the rich in Luke is told to sell everything they have and give the proceeds to the poor.

Humanity was not created to eat alone. Eating is a communal thing. The most sacred of our rituals is a community breaking bread together. The most remembered ministry of the early church was its open table. Remember that line from the prayer our Lord taught us? Give US today our daily bread. Give US. It's not Give ME!

Our daily bread conjures up manna from heaven. God gave manna to the Hebrews so that everyone could have food one day at a time. Hoarding was not allowed. Each one was expected to make sure that everyone had food for one day. Today. Tomorrow is in God’s hands. Unfortunately, we don’t believe so. We play God and make sure that we have food not just for tomorrow but for as long as we can. This is why today, this day, 25,000 children will starve to death while there’s one country in the world that has resources enough to feed 40 billion people!

Finally, lest we forget and start thinking that we Christians are supposed to provide all the bread that the world needs, let’s go back to scripture. The five barley loaves and two fish that birthed the miracle that fed 5000 hungry people in the wilderness did not come from Jesus. It came from one of the hungry.  According to the Gospel of John, it came from a poor, hungry child with five loaves and two fish. The bread that Jesus took, blessed, broke, and shared during the last supper, a great thanksgiving that eventually became our most cherished sacrament, did not come from Jesus.

No one deserves to be alone. God did not create us to be alone. God did not create us to live, to eat, to die alone. This is why we confess that in the fullness of time God became one of us. Immanuel! 

So that we will never, ever, be alone.