BARTIMAEUS

A fascinating thread that flows through Mark's narrative is the failure of the named disciples to understand the ministry of Jesus and the discipleship it requires. This failure is most pronounced in chapters 8,9,10, and 16. In 8,9,and 10 three times Jesus tells his disciples that he will be crucified and will be raised up. Three times his disciples do not believe him nor do they accept what he will do. Simon Peter actually rebukes him.

The male disciples fail Jesus first. The women disciples fail him next, in chapter 16. Don't forget that they went to the tomb expecting to anoint a dead body. No named disciples, male and female, believed Jesus in Mark. This is why the Gospel ends with women who are silent and afraid. Because the One they expected to find dead inside a locked tomb in Jerusalem was risen, in Galilee, and waiting for them!

In the Markan world of unbelief, we have Bartimaues, a named blind beggar, who does believe and follows Jesus. Twice he declares that Jesus is the Messiah (Son of David). Twice he cries out, "Kyrie eleison!" (Lord, have mercy). He calls Jesus, "My Teacher" and, after being healed, follows him.

Many times those of us who confess that we believe and follow Jesus ignore people on the wayside; people like Bartimaeus. Many times we tell them to shut up. Many times we pretend they are not there. Many times we turn our backs on them.

Many times they are actually the ones who do believe and follow Jesus. Because Jesus hears their cries when nobody else does.

#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar
#StopTheKillingsPH

*art, "Jesus cures the man born blind," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

**One can also argue that Bartimaeus (Son of Timaeus) refers to Plato's Timaeus which discusses true sight as discerning the perfect world of "forms" as eternal and separate from the physical world. Mark might have been arguing that that true sight actually comes from following the Son of David, the perfect in physical form.

RANSOM

Many people use this Sunday's lection to support the idea that Jesus paid the price for our sins. God is holy and humanity is sinful (and has tainted the whole of creation). The only way to appease God's righteousness is for God's sinless Son to die a horrible death on the cross for our sins.

There are also those who believe that Satan has all of us kidnapped and God pays for our ransom with the life of God's Son, Jesus.

The Greek term used for ransom in the passage denotes payment to release prisoners or liberate slaves which resonates with the promise of freedom in the Exodus and Jubilee narratives. Unlike the world's other Lords and Masters, Mark's Messiah serves instead of being served. He is ready to be last instead of being first. He does not have a throne with James on his right and John on his left. But he is crucified with rebels: one on his right, another on his left. He is ready to be a ransom to set prisoners and slaves free. He offers his body and his blood so that the hungry can eat and the thirsty can drink.

Simply put, he is willing to offer his life so that others may live. He chose to give his life, instead of doing it because God told him to. And he challenges those who follow him to do likewise.


#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar

*image, "Black Liberation Theory" in Beyond the Classroom (from Saint Leo University Community).
 

SELL EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!

Many rich people allegorize this Sunday's lection. For them "selling everything you have and giving all the proceeds to the poor" actually means something else. It is about putting God first in their lives. It is practicing "Christ above all". It means if you love God more than your money and you give regularly to charity, then it is okay to be rich. There are those who say it is not directed to the rich but to the super rich. My favorite is the interpretation that the message is exclusively for the rich young man in the passage. No one else's.

The pandemic has exposed the evils of the economies of death that run our world today. Close to 5 million people have died and tens of millions are jobless yet the richest 2,000 billionaires's wealth increased from 8 to over 12 trillion dollars! OXFAM reports if these people shared just 1/7 or about 14% of their income for 2020, they can eradicate world poverty! Thirty-five percent of the world's richest people are born rich, will never need to work one second in their lives, and will die richer! The United States of America has enough resources to feed 40 billion people! That's over 5 times the population of the world, yet ten thousand children starve to death every single day!

Do you know why there is a Second Coming?

Because we--those of us who call ourselves Christian whose cupboards are filled and do not need to pray "give us today our daily bread"--have failed miserably to do what Jesus commanded us during his First Coming. We have removed the "Poor" from the "Gospel to the Poor" that we are supposed to proclaim. We have not brought down the powerful from their thrones nor have we sent away the rich empty. Instead, we have embraced power, profit, and privilege. We have turned our backs on the One who called us to be salt, seed, and light and have, instead, connived with empire in order to rule the world.

We have failed to feed the hungry, to offer drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick, to visit the prisoners, and to welcome the stranger. We have forgotten that we are each other's keepers. We have been afraid to storm the halls of power to tell the rich and the super rich to sell everything they have and give all the proceeds to the poor because we have been complicit in legitimizing the systems, structures, and theologies that keep the rich richer and the poor miserable.

We have forgotten that the Earth is not inherited, but borrowed from our children--and when we are gone, these little ones who are first in the kingdom of heaven, will be the first to take the brunt of our mistakes.

We have ignored Jesus’s judgment in the second half of Sunday's lection: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

#GospelForThePoor

#IAmWithJesus

#FreePalestine

#JusticeForMyanmar

#EndTheCultureOfImpunity

#StopTheKillingsPH

#neveragain

#neverforget

*sculpture, "Educating the Rich on the Globe" by Tom Otterness (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

JESUS ON DIVORCE

 

In many dominator societies, then and now, marriage provides an economic safety net for women. Divorced women could remarry to allow them the safety net marriage provided. Widows could also remarry for the same reason, levirate marriages being the best example.

In Sunday's lection from Mark 10, Jesus was asked about divorce by some married Pharisees who already knew the answer. They actually knew two answers to their question. (Yes to divorce because of the wife's adultery, and yes to divorce because of the wife's adultery and other things the husband finds objectionable about her.) Deuteronomy 24, which the Pharisees were alluding to, specifies that only husbands can divorce their wives.

Jesus, in a later conversation with the disciples, says wives can choose to divorce their husbands.

Choices play a primary role in this pericope. Divorce is a choice. The option started with Moses. Marriage is a choice, and is arguably the better choice for Jesus since this option has God's blessing. Unfortunately, many times, only the men get to choose either.

In the Philippines, there is no option to choose divorce because men in power decide which laws to pass. And they choose not to pass any law on divorce. They make the options that do exist-- annulment and legal separation-- costly and lengthy. They cover their ears to the cries of abused spouses-- especially wives-- and make a big show of using the law to protect the integrity of marriage and family. They forget that God knows how abusive spouses are themselves breaking apart what God made one.

I am sure that there are a lot of people who would disagree with Jesus's reasoning on this particular matter. I do. And it's perfectly okay. In Mark 12, a group of married Saduccees come to Jesus with a question about a woman who had to be married to seven husband's one after the other. I love Jesus's response in that episode.

In the end, no one, especially a man, has the right to take away a woman's autonomy and freedom to choose.

*art, "Jesus on Divorce, Remarriage, and Adultery," (Marg Mowczko).

#IAMWITHJESUS

#StopTheKillingsPH

#endthecultureofimpunity

#JusticeForMyanmar

#FreePalestine

CUTTING OUR LIMBS OFF

Part of Sunday's lection has been used to scare children. Many grew up being told to cut off or pluck out body parts that cause them to sin. For a lot of young people, this meant at least three things: don't look at what will cause you to sin; don't touch what will cause you to sin; and don't go anywhere that will cause you to sin.

Three things. First, the passage is not for children. Second, there is no word for "sin" in the passage. Modern translations use "stumble" or "stumbling block". Better alternatives would be "snare" or "trap." Third, I believe the passage is addressed to a specific group of people: predators.

The first section of the passage is Jesus's judgment directed to those who take advantage of children, those who set snares and traps to exploit the little ones in God's kingdom, those who use, abuse, and reuse the anawim. Compared to the judgment coming to them, it would be better for them if great millstones were hung around their necks and they were thrown into the sea.

The second portion of the passage is a challenge directed to those who might still be saved from being thrown into the sea or being thrown into Gehenna+ where worms never die and the fire is never quenched. There is still hope as as long as they are prepared to enter life in the Kingdom of God maimed, lame, or one-eyed.

Many among us are not comfortable with an angry Jesus. Maybe we have been following the wrong Jesus.

#GodsReignIsForChildren
#IAmWithJesus
#FreePalestine
#JusticeForMyanmar
#StopTheKillingsPH
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity

*art, "The Angry Christ" (Alfonso Ossorio).
+Ancient traditions say that children were offered as burnt sacrifices at Gehenna. Recent archeological studies argue that it was used as a crematorium.

THE GREATEST

Sunday's lection reminds me of Muhammad Ali. Today, people will not hesitate to describe him as "The Greatest," except maybe Floyd Mayweather. But there was a time in Ali's life when many treated him with hostility, disdain, and called him a "loud-mouthed nobody".

If you watch his fights in the 1960s, you can hear people booing him. Many came to his fights wanting to see him get a beating. His close friendship with Malcolm X, his decision to become a Moslem, and his being a conscientious objector against the Vietnam War made him one of the most hated men in America. Even to this day, people in power intentionally forget his contributions to the civil rights movement. Then there are those who still call him Cassius Clay, still binding him to the slave name of his ancestors.

Sunday's lection reminds us about who are the greatest in the Kingdom of God: children. Not because they are playful. Not because they are forgiving. Not because they are innocent. But because then and now, despite our rhetoric to the contrary, the world treats them as nobodies.

The world spends more money on cosmetics, chocolate, ice cream, perfume, and pet food than on basic education and access to safe drinking water. Close to one billion children cannot read or write. Close to one billion children, mostly girls, spend up to 20 hours each day fetching water. Around ten thousand children starve to death every single day. Around half a million children die each year from diarrhea. Food is the solution to the first. Water, to the second. Our world has never been a child-friendly world.

So, what does it mean for us to proclaim that children are greatest in the Kingdom of God?


*art, "Jesus welcomes the children," JESUS MAFA collection (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).
 

WHO DO SAY I AM?

Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus. Is he handsome? With piercing blue eyes? With beautiful shoulder length hair? And is undeniably white?

In Sundays lection, the most definitely nondescript, most probably dark brown eyed, unkempt, and Palestinian Jesus asked his followers, "Who do people say I am?"

How did they respond? John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets. Do we associate "prophet" with Jesus, like our Moslem sisters and brothers do? One of the oldest historical traditions in the Hebrew Bible is about another prophet, Miriam. But many of us do not associate prophet with her as well. Sister of Moses, yes. But prophet? No.

Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus. Not your Personal Lord and Savior. Not the Prince of Peace nor the Lord of Lords. But Jesus of Nazareth, the Prophet. Like John, like Elijah, like Jeremiah, and, yes, like Miriam... Is he immersed with the struggles of the Palestinian people? Is he part of the Black Lives Matter movement? Is he in solidarity with farmers fighting for genuine agrarian reform?

Did he walk shoulder to shoulder with Kerima Lorena Tariman, Mon Ramirez, Randy Echanis, and Zara Alvarez in the quest for peace based on justice? Will he continue to speak truth to power and do much more?

Is he still calling us to follow him and, like him, take up the cross? Or have we been, all this time, following the wrong Jesus?

#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#IAmWithJesus
#FreePalestine
#JunkTerrorLawNow
#JusticeForMyanmar
#StopTheKillingsPH
#COVID-19PH

*art, based on the work of Tom McElligott for the Episcopal Ad Project. Updated 2018 by Rev. Emmy Kegler.