LAST WORDS: MATTHEW

 

If one reads Mark and Matthew from beginning to end, one will discover that both narratives privilege Galilee as locus of God’s activity. Most of Jesus’s ministry happens in Galilee. In the Matthean and Markan narratives Jerusalem is bad news. Jesus is betrayed in Jerusalem. Jesus is arrested, abused, tortured, and executed in the Holy City. Jesus dies in Jerusalem.

One can even argue that God abandons Matthew's Jesus in Jerusalem, thus at the point of death he cries, “Eli, Eli lama sabacthani?” or “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

As the deaths in the Israeli genocide perpetrated on Palestinians pass 50,000, I am sure that many are crying, “Our God, our God, why have you forsaken us?!”

Many of us who grew up in church and in Sunday school remember the countless number of Bible verses we memorized. Many of us hated the ritual. I know I did when I was growing up. We thought those verses were useless until something happened in our lives and then the verses suddenly took on a life all their own. The Jesus of Matthew was rooted in the Hebrew Scripture. At the lowest point in his life, near death, betrayed and disavowed by his closest friends, Jesus was not blaming God. He was quoting Scripture.

Psalm 22 to be exact.

Many among us have witnessed people pass from this life to the life beyond and quite a few were quoting scripture. Or singing hymns. Remember that Matthew does not end with Jesus dying on the cross. The gospel ends with God raising Jesus from the dead. Psalm 22 begins with despair but ends with triumph and an affirmation of faith in a God who saves; a God who is always there; a God who liberates. Especially the least among the least. Go and read it. Jesus’ last words in Matthew celebrate the promise of Immanuel.

In life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone. We are never, ever, alone. God is with us! Jesus did not die alone. Nor did the thousands who have died under the rubble in Gaza, in Myanmar, in places where profit is more important than people and planet. They did not die alone, God was there.

No one dies alone. Immanuel!

TO BE CONTINUED

*Photo:
News ID: 1549059
Source: IRNA

LAST WORDS

It is Holy Week and as I write these words over 3,500 of our sisters and brothers have perished from the March 28th earthquake in Myanmar. Thousands more have been injured. Thousands more are unaccounted for. I cannot imagine the pain of those who have lost loved ones and those whose loved ones are still missing in the aftermath of this disaster. I also cannot imagine the pain of those who have lost loved ones in Gaza. Since the departed fell victim to the evils of genocide, thousands of bodies have yet to be recovered from under the rubble.
This means no wakes, no necrological services, and no goodbyes for the bereaved.
Last words are important to many of us. Especially these days. I am sure that the last text message from a dear doctor or nurse who died in Gaza will be cherished forever. That final phone call from a grandparent in Mandalay. That last Facebook message from a beloved colleague. That last minute video call from a spouse. Last words. Now, all precious. Priceless.
My late mother’s last words to me, when we were in the very cold Emergency Room of the Philippine Heart Center, were: “Anak, mainit, paypayan mo ako (Child, It’s hot, fan me).” My late father’s final text message to me was: “Thank you.” Precious. Priceless.
“Tama na po, may exam pa ako bukas.”
(Please, enough, I have exams tomorrow.)
These were Kian Delos Santos’s last words, before he was murdered, one of the victims of Duterte's War on Drugs which was actually a War on the Poor. Kian's final spoken words, heard by witnesses, helped convict his murderers.
And, of course, the most famous last words ever memorialized would be Jesus’s as found in the gospels. Tradition calls these the “Seven Last Words.” Mark has one. So does Matthew. Luke has three. So does John. If you add those up, they total eight. Since Mark’s and Matthew’s versions are almost the same, tradition calls both “The Fourth Word.”
Most of us have heard homily after homily every Good Friday year after year on these utterances. Precious and priceless. But let us never forget: these last words from the cross are actually last words of someone who fell victim to an extra-judicial killing. Arrested at night. Murdered by state authorities.
Like Kian.
TO BE CONTINUED.

*Photo from Rappler

 

WITH 5,000 AND ONE

 

In Graduate School I had the rare privilege of attending meetings of the Jesus Seminar. During one meeting in New Orleans, I asked the group, "Why did Jesus need to go to Jerusalem?" His Galilee-based, grassroots movement was doing great. Going to Jerusalem was suicide. Even his disciples knew this; they did not want to him to go to Jerusalem, especially Peter. It did not make sense. But Jesus went anyway.

John Dominic Crossan volunteered John 7, where Jesus' brothers tell him, "No one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world!" NT Wright told me, "You should write a paper on it."

We all know how Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem ends. But I don't think for a moment that Jesus went because of what his brothers said.

Gabriela Silang did not need to take over leadership after Diego was assassinated in 1763. Jose Rizal did not need to come back to the Philippines in 1892. Andres Bonifacio did not need to go to the Magdalo camp in Cavite in 1896. Ernesto Che Guevara did not need to go to Bolivia in 1967. The scores of medical professionals, journalists, UN workers, and volunteers who went to Gaza to help the Palestinian People did not need to go there. We also know how these stories ended.

Historians tell us that when Jesus entered Jerusalem he did so with over 5000, made up of mostly farmers and fisherfolk...and a donkey's colt. Most of us forget the colt Jesus rode on as he entered the city. (We are so used to people-centric, actually male-centric, readings of the Bible.)**

Pontius Pilate also entered the city from the opposite direction with a Roman Legion. (That is 6,000 armed soldiers, including 300 cavalry!).

Jesus did not need to go to Jerusalem. Jesus did not need to cleanse the Temple with a whip. But he did anyway. Mark reports that every single day the authorities tried to arrest him, but they were afraid of the masses who protected him. So, they arrested him at night, with a Roman Cohort. (That is one battalion!)

Jesus did not need to go to Jerusalem. But he did so anyway. He had a mission from God. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing!

How about us? Do we have the faith and the heart to accomplish the mission God is calling us to do?


*Art, "Entry into the City" by John August Swanson (available from the vanderbilt divinity library digital art collection).
**We also forget the Good Samaritan's donkey.

THE SHORT INTRODUCTION TO "THE SHORTEST SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE SERIES"

 

There are people who pretend to read the Bible.
They will proudly say they read their Bibles and pray every day--but in reality, they've only memorized Genesis 1:1, Psalm 23, and John 3:16.

There are people who study the Bible who actually don't read it because they are required to read voluminous books about the Bible. They have encyclopedic knowledge about the history of Biblical translations, the structure of the Roman Empire during Jesus' time, and the mythology of various angels and beasts mentioned in Revelation--but they've never opened the Bible itself.

There are people who want to read the Bible but are told to read introductions to the Bible that are longer than the Bible. By the time they finish reading those intros, they often feel like not reading the Bible anymore--or never reading again for the rest of their lives, even.

For people who want to start reading the Bible but who want to have a helpful introduction, here's your answer. Prof. Revelation Velunta has written The Shortest Short Introduction to the Bible Collection. Each volume is so short, you can start reading the Bible after a few minutes.

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IN MEMORY OF HER

Mark and Matthew also have versions of Sunday's Gospel from John. In Matthew's and Mark's narratives, the woman who anoints Jesus with expensive perfume is unnamed. Jesus tells his disciples to remember what she did in memory of her. John's Gospel does exactly that: the woman who anoints Jesus is named. She is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.

A reading of the canonical gospels focused on his followers would show that--more often than not--they cannot understand what Jesus does and what he says. Over and over Jesus has to explain his words and his actions.

Over and over Jesus tells them about his suffering and his resurrection--and they misunderstand and disbelieve him. All four gospels end with women coming to the tomb to anoint a dead body! No one among Jesus’s twelve male disciples believed that he will rise again.

But one woman in the whole narrative does believe: the unnamed woman in Mark and Matthew; Mary of Bethany in John. She anoints Jesus for burial because there would be no body to anoint later. There would only be an empty tomb—as the named women disciples led by Magdalene discover when they came Easter morning with their anointing oils.

Friends don't forget this, ever: only one person believed that Jesus will be raised up: a woman.

And she was right!

Art, "Jesus speaks about forgiveness", JESUS MAFA, 1973, Cameroon (available online at the vanderbilt divinity library art galleries).
 

REVELATION ON REVELATION

 

THE SHORTEST SHORT INTRODUCTION TO REVELATION
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