WE ARE THE ANSWER TO OUR PRAYERS

We know Sunday's lection. It is the story of the mother who came to Jesus. Her daughter was sick. (The girl was probably twelve years old.) She begged Jesus for help. She was initially ignored. She was a Canaanite, a member of the peoples displaced and dispossessed by the Israelites, and Jesus treated her like a dog. Yet she persevered. And she persisted. And because she persevered, because she persisted, she changed Jesus’s mind. She got what she came for: her child was healed. Do not forget this. Ever. She was the "little bitch" who taught Jesus a lesson.

Like the mother who persisted and persevered, we are the answer to our prayers. We are the families split apart by forced migration. We are the parents whose children are dying from a virus worse than covid-19: hunger. We are the children whose parents are snatched away from us by the evil culture of impunity that pervades our land.

We are today's Canaanites, displaced, dispossessed, treated like dogs, those whose pleas are never, ever, heard. We are also the mothers who will do anything and everything for our children's welfare. We are also the fathers who will storm the gates of hell to get our children food, shelter, and education. 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.

We are the answer to our prayers! We are the change that we desperately need. We are the warm bodies who will help birth the future. And we have much to do, you and I, because tomorrow is already here.

Today is the tomorrow we helped birthed yesterday.

*art, "The Daughter of the Canaanite Woman" by Peter Koenig (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

FACING THE RAGING STORM

I have always argued that Immanuel, God-with-Us, serves as a powerful theme for the Gospel of Matthew. We can ask while going through the gospel, "What does it mean to experience God's presence in our lives?" More often than not, the answer is, "Be God's presence in someone else's life!" Jesus was such a presence. The gospel begins and ends with the promise of Immanuel!

The pandemic has been described as a raging storm. There are those who say that we are all in the same boat. There are more who cry, no! There are a few in cruise ships. The majority are in boats--really small boats. And there are millions who don't even have boats during this raging storm. 

This Sunday's lection reminds us that it is always safer to be inside the boat, especially during a storm. But there are times we need to get off the boat during a raging storm, because Jesus is not in the boat. Immanuel is not where we want him to be.

He is out facing the storm. And he is calling us out of our boats, like he did with Peter. Do we have the faith to do so? 

*art, "Walking on Water" by Peter Koenig (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

FIVE BARLEY LOAVES AND TWO FISH

Sunday's lection, which has parallels in Mark, Luke, and John, has Jesus telling his disciples to feed the hungry multitude. His disciples make up excuses: send the crowd away; let them feed themselves; we don't have enough funds to address the situation.

Their excuses sound so much like our excuses today.

In John's version, a young child, possibly 12 years old or younger, offers what he has: five barley loaves and two fish. And the miracle of feeding of the 5000 begins. There is a tradition that says. "Barley tastes good... to cows, sheep, and horses!" The poor, the anawim, ate barley. It was all they could afford. The rich had storehouses of wheat, and fattened themselves with it.

Do not forget this. Ever. The barley loaves and the fish that led to the feeding of the POOR, HUNGRY multitude were offered by a POOR, HUNGRY child. Many times, God's liberating acts begin when one-- just one we usually do not expect-- takes that step forward, that leap of faith, that offering of bread and fish.

*art, "Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish," (JESUS MAFA) from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives. 

PEARLS AND HIDDEN TREASURES

Sunday's lection contains several parables of Jesus. Scholars call the one about the pearl and the one about the hidden treasure twin parables. Wealthy men find things of immense value that "they sell everything they have" in order to possess a pearl for one and 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 first words Jesus says to the rich young man who wanted to follow him, "Sell everything you have." 

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. Sell everything you have. I don't think it ever will. 

*art, "The Hidden Treasure," JESUS MAFA 1973, Cameroon (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives). 

WHEAT AND TARES

I’m sure most of us have heard a sermon about this parable. I’m sure most of us heard an allegorical interpretation. I’m also sure that most of us heard an interpretation of this parable that challenged us to be good wheat. 

Incidentally, scholars say only the rich could afford wheat bread in Ancient Palestine. The poor ate barley.

I want to focus on the weeds--masamang damo! Or more appropriately, weeds or tares that look so much like wheat that Palestinians to this day call it “bastard wheat.” You can actually call this narrative the parable of the wheat and the bastard wheat!

The parable is akin to the one about sheep and goats. It's about judgment. God will judge, not us. There will be time to separate the wheat from the bastard wheat, in God’s time. 

Why God? Because wheat and bastard wheat are actually sisters and brothers! God created both. So, God will judge. God will separate. Definitely no one else. Only God. 

And since God is a God of surprises, God’s judgment will probably surprise both those who self-righteously think they are the good wheat and those whom the good wheat label as bastard wheat.

In the name of the Crucified and Risen One, the Bastard son of Mary, whom we call Lord and Savior.

Amen.

*image from Bernat Casero. 

THE SOWER

When Jesus spoke about kings and fathers and masters and landlords in his parables he was not alluding to God. He was speaking about kings and fathers and masters and landlords. (How the early church and the gospel writers appropriated these parables as allegories for their concrete life setting decades later is topic for another post.)

Sunday's lection is about a sower. Yes, a farmer. Then, like now, farmers were among the poorest of the poor. Displaced. Dispossessed. Disenfranchised. During Jesus's time, almost 90% had no land to call their own. Life was so hard half of the population was slowly starving to death. Life was so hard the average life expectancy was 28!

The parable is not about a farmer who did not know how to sow. The parable is about farmers who had no access to agricultural land; farmers who had to sow where it would take a miracle for the seed to actually grow. Along the path, among rocks, among thorns. And the seed that fall on good soil? The good soil owned by the rich, the powerful, and the privileged? They all grow, bringing a yield of a hundred, sixty, thirty fold. A bountiful harvest indeed. For the rich, the powerful, and the privileged.

Do not forget this. Ever. Parables are subversive speech. Parables got Jesus executed.

*art, "The Parable of the Sower," JESUS MAFA 1973 (Cameroon), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

THE GIFT OF REST

The reality of burn out, of running out of steam has been described as akin to battle fatigue, the feeling of being drained, the feeling of being spent. Thus arose the need for an integrating and rejuvenating spirit, the same breath of life coming, blowing as a second--or third--wind. Those in the struggle need support systems and mechanisms for re-charging and for re-animating. Those in the struggle need to be re-assured that they are not alone. They have to be able to draw strength from the collective reality that--despite being separated by time and space--they have sisters and brothers who have walked, are walking and will walk the same hard road they have chosen to follow.

Few get the opportunity to go on sabbaticals and retreats. Jesus is reported to have gone on retreats when he prayed alone. The transfiguration has been interpreted as Jesus' way of seeking his "second wind" in light of what lay before him at Jerusalem.

How does Jesus himself get the energy to face death? He rests.

How about the majority of people who have to face the nitty-gritty details of struggling through today? How about those who will never, ever, get the luxury of a sabbatical leave or even a weekend free? How about the people who have to confront the violence of poverty as a daily experience of life? Where do they get their first, or second, or third wind? By resting.

The religious leaders in Jesus' time accused him of being a "drunkard and a glutton," no doubt because he loved to host fellowship meals in the homes he stayed in. He loved attending weddings and other community gatherings. Most of his parables centered on these gatherings. It is within the struggling communities' celebrations, not outside, that we receive this "rush" of life. Rest.

Tired and weary, laborers on strike sit down together to have a round of drinks. It is here where people share their frustrations, their dreams, their hopes--amidst the bubbles of beer and the cigarette smoke--that the spirit blows. Soon they are back in the picketlines. Empowered by the brew? No. By rest.

High school students attending a murdered activist's funeral march stop for a little rest. A few are ready to quit because of the heat. Some are ready to quit because of the long 20-kilometer march. A lot more are ready to quit because of the presence of truncheon-wielding police. They share a loaf of bread. It is not much but everyone gets to have a bite. And they continue. Strengthened by the dough? No. By rest.

*image, "My Yoke is Easy and My Burden is Light," photograph from Ecuador (2007), from the vanderbilt divinity library archives.