AND PHARISEES

The Bible is not a book. It is a library with 66 books if you're Protestant, 73 if you're Roman Catholic, 81 if you're Orthodox, and 24 if you're a Jew. Those 24 books (or scrolls) which make up the Hebrew Bible was Jesus's library. Christians have appropriated the Hebrew Bible, turned the 24 books into 39, and call it Old Testament. The New Testament is 27 diverse interpretations of Jesus and what it means to follow him.

Sunday's lection, from Matthew 23. 1-12 with its shorter parallels in Mark and Luke, clearly illustrates this diversity in Scripture. Whose voice are we hearing? The Historical Jesus of the 30's, Mark's Jesus of the 70's, or Matthew's Jesus of the 90's? The synoptics points out the hypocrisy of the teachers of the law or the scribes. Matthew's version adds "and pharisees."

That's how we know that Matthew's extended discourse addresses the growing conflict between the Jews and the Christians in the 90s. After the Roman Jewish War of the early 70s that destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, two Jewish communities began to take different yet parallel paths. One was Rabbinic Judaism, with its synagogues, grounded on the written and oral Torah. The other group was made of Jews who believed that the Messiah has arrived and whose community eventually expanded to include the uncircumcised.

This explains the several "and pharisees" in the passage. In other words, Matthew was saying, if Jesus were here he would be saying all these things against these pharisees.

We do something similar all the time. We try to make Jesus address our contemporary situations. If Jesus were here, what would Jesus do? If Jesus were here, would he support Netanyahu and the IDF? If Jesus were here, would he not be in Gaza among the Palestinians right now? If Jesus were here, would you be on the same side? We have actually pushed this appropriation too far by proclaiming JESUS IS THE ANSWER to every question.

Dear friends, if Jesus were here and he was the answer, he'd probably be executed within a year because he would not be the answer most of us want him to be.

*art, "Christ Teaches Humility" by Robert Scott Lauder (1803-1869), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives,

THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

Sunday's lection from Matthew 22 is also found in Mark 12 and Luke 10. Most historians think that Mark's is the original version. One of the scribes asks Jesus about the greatest commandment, possibly expecting him to quote one from the Ten Commandments in Exodus. Jesus responds with the "Shema" from Deuteronomy. 

The answer Jesus gives according to the passage is one some of us don't want to hear. The Hebrew word "shema" means to hear, to do, to act. The question is: How do we love God? The answer we don't want to hear: By loving our neighbor.

Take note of the "this" (singular) in Jesus's exchange with the scribe (in the Markan version) and the lawyer (in the Lukan version). The scribe says to Jesus, "THIS is much more important..." Jesus says to the lawyer, "do THIS and you will live." Loving God is loving our neighbor. THIS is more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus observes that the scribe is not far from the Kingdom of God. 

To love God is to feed the hungry, to offer drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit the prisoners, to care for the sick, to welcome the stranger. 

To justify 75 years of violent and oppressive occupation of Palestine as a "God-given right", to redtag faith communities who serve the most vulnerable, to dispossess and disenfranchise indigenous peoples of their ancestral lands and ethnic identity, and to feed the insatiable greed for wealth and power while millions are dying and tens of millions find themselves barely surviving from one day to the next is the complete opposite of loving God. 

Finally, the "loving" in loving our neighbor is "agape." Agape is not based on emotions. (That is "eros." ) Nor is it based on relations. (That is "filia.") It is and will always be based on decisions. Every moment of our lives, we decide for the other. We choose the least, the last, and the left out. We choose to follow Christ, to love our neighbor, and to serve the people! 

We choose and we act.

*art, "Love for One's Neighbor," (detail from a choir screen, National Museum of Scotland), from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives. 

WHOSE IMAGE, WHOSE TITLE?

Coin collectors highly value the denarius in the photo. It dates back to the time of Jesus. Most historians think that the denarius the Pharisees and Herodians showed Jesus as described in Sunday's lection most likely comes from the same series. Most of us know the dilemma Jesus faced when he was asked the question abot paying taxes to Caesar. On one hand, the Pharisees (who resisted Roman Occupation) probably expected him to say NO. On the other hand, the Herodians (who supported the Roman supported Herodian dynasty) probably expected him to say YES. 

Jesus tells them to show him the coin for the poll tax, the denarius, and asks, "Whose image is this, and whose title?"  

They answer, "The emperor's."

One side of the coin has the image of the emperor and reads, "Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus" while the other side reads, "High or Chief Priest." That coin, my friends, was an affront to Israelites. It violated at least two of the Ten Commandments. (Let us not forget that the titles "Son of God" and "High Priest" were only ascribed to Jesus many years, actually decades, later. They were originally ascribed to the emperor. )

Then Jesus says, "Give back therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

Render unto Caesar what he owns. What bears his image. His property.

But never, ever, render unto Caesar what he does not own: people. People are not property. People are not commodities. 

But most importantly, do you know why God despises graven images and false titles, like what that coin symbolized? 

Because God has already created God's image. 

God already has a title for them: God's sons and daughters. 

People. Everyone! Especially those we think are not children of God. 

KINGS, WEDDINGS, AND GAZA

Why do we identify the King in Sunday's parable with God? Or the masters, fathers, and landlords in Jesus's other parables?

The king is a king. He is on top of an intricate system of honor and shame, patronage, property, and privilege. He is rich. He is powerful. He hosts a banquet. His invite is turned down. He is shamed. He gets back at those who shamed him. He has them killed and burns down their city.

Then he gathers the dregs of society to his banquet. He finds one of the dregs not wearing the wedding robe, which the King obviously provided--where do you expect the dregs of society to get clothes for a royal wedding?

The King is a King. He is rich. He is powerful. He is benevolent, but he has been shamed--again! He has his minions bind the man, hand and foot, and thrown out to where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This is how many among us, who proudly call ourselves God's People and God's Chosen, tragically imagine God and God's Kingdom. This is why so many among us support the "burnings and the killings" in Gaza because God's People and God's Chosen have been shamed.

P.S. My friends, there is no war in the Holy Land. The State of Israel has an army, a navy, an air force, 90 nuclear warheads, and the US Government! Palestinians have none of these. There is no war in the Holy Land. What is there is Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories and the largest open-air prison on earth, Gaza.

*art, "The Marriage Feast" by (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

THE PARABLE OF THE "WICKED" TENANTS

Once upon a time there was a rich absentee landlord who planted a vineyard. He leased it to tenants and left for another country. When harvest came, he sent slaves to collect his share of the produce. The tenants beat one, stoned one, and killed another. The landlord sends more slaves. The tenants treat them the same way as they did the first slave. Finally, the landlord sends his son. The tenants, seeing the son, said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized the son and killed him.

Now, when the absentee landlord comes, what will he do to the tenants? He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at harvest time.

The rich absentee landlord had every right to do what he did. He owned the land. He had the titles to prove it. He had a valid contract with the tenants. They broke the terms of the contract. And worse, killed his heir. The rich landlord had every right to kill each and every one who had a hand in his heir’s death. Everyone! At the end of the parable, the landlord was still rich. He still has slaves. He has new tenants. He has lost a son. But he has avenged his heir by destroying all the “wicked” tenants who had actually tried to seize his land for their own.

The rich, absentee, landlord is not God. The heir is not Jesus. The rich, absentee, landlord is a rich, absentee, landlord. Like the Cojuancos, the Consunjis, the Enriles, the Villars. The heir is a landlord in training. Like the heirs of the Cojuancos, the Consunjis, the Enriles, the Villars. The heir will eventually get the land. Then after him, his heir. Anyone who tries to seize the landlord’s property will have a miserable death. 

Don't forget this fact--ever. One-third of the world's wealth is inherited wealth. There are heirs who are born to wealth, who will never work one second in their entire lives, and who will die wealthier. 

Then there are the millions who live from one day to the next. Those whose lives are tied to the land yet are dispossessed, dislocated, and disenfranchised. Farmers, peasants, tenants beware: if you organize and collectively try to seize lands that belong to the rich by whatever means, you and your kin will have a miserable death. 

Like each and every one of the tenants who was killed in the parable. 

https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/lupang-ramos-agrarian-reform-a2212-20190315-lfrm2

FATHERS AND SONS

Stories about two sons abound in the Hebrew Bible. Cain and Abel; Ishmael and Isaac; Esau and Jacob. I can imagine Jesus’s original audience thinking of these pairs when he told the parable of the Two Sons. The Gospel of Matthew used this parable to address the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time (about 60 years after Jesus's ministry). For Matthew's Jesus, the tax collectors and the prostitutes were the older son. The members of the powerful religious elite were the younger.

The late Rev. Alberto Palma Velunta Jr., Tatay, has two sons, my older brother and I. Thus, the parable of the two sons is quite a personal one for me.

The father asks both his sons to help out in the vineyard. The older said no but afterward changed his mind and went. The younger said yes but afterward changed his mind and did not go.

During Jesus’s time, the family--the basic unit of Roman society--was run and owned by the father. Augustus, Roman Emperor, was Father of All Fathers. Fathers had the power of life and death over everyone in his family. Everyone was the father's property.

The two sons in the parable both disobey their father: the older by word, the younger by deed. We know that fathers, back then, killed children who disobeyed them. Tragically, there are still fathers today who kill their children for disobeying them; fathers who treat their children as property.

But not the father in the parable. No one is thrown into places where there is darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. No one is banished. No one is punished. No one is treated as property.

The father is probably like Joseph, Jesus's father. Like Tatay. Like your father. I don't remember the number of times my brother and I have disobeyed Tatay. Growing up, I'm sure Jesus and his siblings did too. I don't remember how many times my own two sons have disobeyed me and their mother.

And, for me, that's the point of the parable. Parents do not remember their children's disobedience because they do not count them. Children are people, not property. And people change. I'm sure there were more times the sons disobeyed their father if we continued the story. But I want to believe that eventually they got to the point where they did not have to be told what to do. Because in our family, there did come a time that Tatay or Nanay did not need to tell us what to do. Or what not to do. 

I'm sure this is true in your own families too. 

P.S. Do note that in Matthew's interpretation of Jesus's parable, everyone--yes, everyone will be going to the Kingdom of God. Tax collectors and prostitutes will just go ahead of everyone else. After all, the sons in the parable share the same father. Created in the image of God, we all share the same parent too. 

 

DAY LABORERS

In Jesus's parable, why do we identify the rich landlord with God? Why do we call his actions acts of benevolence and grace? Why do we always take the side of the rich and the powerful in the stories Jesus told?

And worse, why do we demonize the grumbling day laborers? Mga arawan. Have we forgotten that Jesus preached a gospel for the poor?

A denarius was subsistence wage. It could buy a measure of wheat--one day's worth for one person. Or three measures of barley, enough for three people for one day. Just bread. Nothing else. This is why the poor ate barley.

During Jesus’s time, half of the population was slowly starving to death. During Jesus’s time 15% of the population were day laborers. Mga arawan! They survived from one day to the next. Each day laborer in the parable was promised one denarius. Each one received a denarius. Enough to buy barley to feed three for one day. Texts from Antiquity tell us that barley tasted good. For horses and cows!

Why were the day laborers who worked for 12 hours grumbling? Because they expected to receive more than one denarius each. Why? Because the landlord gave those who worked for one hour one denarius each. Everyone who worked more than one hour, especially those who did 12, expected to receive more. Everyone who worked more than one hour expected that his particular landlord was different; that this particular landlord would not do what other landlords did; that this particular landlord would not take advantage of the poor whose only choice was a denarius or nothing.

But the landlord was not different. He did what other landlords did. He took advantage of the already disadvantaged. He used a denarius, subsistence pay, to pit the day laborers against each other. He even took one of them aside, not the whole group, and arrogantly reminded him of his benevolence and generosity.

The parable is not about God or God's grace. It's about the rich's greed. It's about divide and conquer. It's about taking advantage of those who struggle to survive from one meal to the next. It is about how the rich get richer. It is about how the powerful stay on their thrones. It is about systems and structures founded on profit, private property, and privilege that make sure that significant numbers of the population survive from one day to the next, are underemployed, or unemployed.

Do not think for one moment that the denarii the landlord gave to those day laborers made a dent on his riches. Do not think for one moment that the "generosity" of Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, or closer to home, the Villars, Consunjis, Cojuangcos, Sys, Tans, Gokongweis, and Ayalas make a dent on their wealth. While tens of millions have been left homeless, jobless, and starving in the past three years, the wealth of the world's richest has quadrupled!

Do not forget this, ever! One third of the world's wealth is inherited wealth. There are people born rich who will never work one second in their entire lives yet will die richer!


*photo, "Day Laborers brought in by trucks from nearby towns," from wikipedia.