THE STRANGER

Who are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the unwelcomed, and the prisoners that Jesus challenges us to serve, to take sides with, and to love? The stranger. 

Who are the widows, the orphans, the indigenous peoples, and the refugees that-- over and over--the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms enjoin us to care for, to hold dear, and to treat as sisters and brothers? The stranger.

Who are the daily wage earners, the laborers who survive from paycheck to paycheck, the homeless, the jobless, and the most vulnerable in a world ravaged by death-dealing structures and systems we are supposed to prioritize? Yes, the stranger. 

If we read our Bibles and pray every day, then we will grow in the realization that--most often than not--God comes as a stranger. God did when God encountered Hagar in the wilderness. God did when God shared the promise of Isaac's birth. God did when God judged the arrogance and inhospitality of Sodom and Gomorrah. God did when God wrestled with Jacob at Jabbok.

God came as a stranger when God was born in a manger instead of a palace; in Galilee instead of Jerusalem; among the odorized and the otherized; and grew up in a mud hut instead of a white house. 

In Sunday's Gospel from Luke 24, two disciples on the road to Emmaus encounter the Risen One as a complete stranger. They spend most of the day with the stranger and when they invited him to spend the night with them, verse 30 reads, "When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them". The "breaking of the bread" opened their eyes and they recognized the Lord. 

God comes as a stranger. This is why we welcome the dispossessed, the displaced, the disenfranchised. This is why we open our homes, our churches, our spaces to Lumads, to People Living with HIV and AIDS, to refugees, to Palestinians, to those whose only hope is God.

God comes as a stranger. 

This is why we always, always offer sanctuary. And during these trying times, sanctuary can mean that extra room in our house, the available spaces in our church offices and buildings, the vacant rooms in our dormitories, and, yes, that extra bed. Safe spaces. A simple meal. Even a piece of bread. 

*Art, Luke 24: 1-53, Resurrection (from The Cartoonist Bible). 

LAST WORDS: JOHN

The Gospel of John celebrates the discipleship of the unnamed. The Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well, who runs to her people to share her experience with Jesus, is unnamed. The child who offers the five barley loaves and two fish so that Jesus can feed over five thousand people is also unnamed. The beloved disciple who plays a role bigger than Simon Peter in the story is also unnamed. But most important of all, the only disciple who we find at the beginning and at the end of Jesus’s life is also unnamed: Jesus’s mother.

As the number of confirmed deaths in Gaza pass 50,000, the world that stands with Palestine has begun putting together a list of heroes. From world leaders whose hearts are in the right place, to doctors, nurses, volunteers, and journalists who have offered their lives so that others may live. John’s Gospel reminds us that for every named hero that we should celebrate, there are ten or more unnamed ones we must never forget. In Gaza. In Myanmar. In the Philippines...

We find two unnamed people—Jesus’s mother and the beloved disciple—at the foot of the cross. Jesus says to them, “Woman behold your son; behold your mother.” Jesus asks that his two faithful disciples take care of each other.

Love is the key theme of the Gospel of John. God chose to become human because of love. The world is supposed to be blessed by our love for each other. Jesus in John leaves his followers only one commandment—for us to love one another as Jesus loved us. Mothers behold your sons; sons behold your mothers; parents behold your children; children behold your parents. We are all members of the household of God and our primary task is to live in love for each other: each one willing to offer one’s life for the other.

The word is Agape. It is love that is not based on emotion. It is love that is not based on relation. It is love based on decision. Right now, there are mothers who have lost sons and daughters. Let us choose to be their sons and daughters. Right now, there are children who have lost their parents. Let us choose to be their parents.

Then Jesus says, “I thirst.” Again, in the Johannine story, particularly in his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus is the Living Water. Thus, many people find it puzzling that the one who says he is Living Water is suddenly thirsty. And he is given vinegar by his executioners. Like Matthew’s, Mark’s, and Luke’s quotations, John’s “I thirst” represents a quote from the Old Testament--Psalm 69.

Faith draws strength from the past. Like Daniel’s three friends who faced death yet believed in a God who will deliver them as God has delivered in the past, Jesus affirms the same unwavering faith in a deliverer God. And God did deliver Daniel’s three friends. And God delivered David (who wrote the Psalm). And Jesus believed God will deliver him, as well.

Then Jesus says, “It is finished.” The End. Jesus is dead. Remember the only commandment Jesus left his followers in the Gospel of John—greater love has no one than this, that one offers one’s life for another? Jesus does exactly that. His life was an offering. And we are challenged to do the same. At the beach Jesus asks Simon Peter three times if he loves Jesus… We are asked the same thing.

Can we choose to love as Jesus loved? Jesus was not alone when he faced the cross. And his last words on the cross affirmed his faith in God, in people, in the transforming power of love and life, and empowered him to face death.

Psalm 22 which Jesus quotes in Matthew and Mark, Psalm 69 which he quotes in John, and Psalm 31 which he quotes in Luke celebrate a God who delivers, a God who liberates, a God who will always take the side of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed, a God of widows, orphans, and strangers, a God who will not forsake us. And God did not forsake Jesus.

My friends, are we ready to choose to love as Jesus did? In life, in death, and in what awaits us beyond death, do we believe in the God who will never forsake us?

(Fifth of Five)

*Image of mother and son adopting each other, Microsoft 365 copilot generated.

 

LAST WORDS: LUKE

 

God is always on the side of the poor in Luke. Jesus’s birth is announced to poor shepherds. Jesus's first sermon is a proclamation of good news to the poor. And this God--who loves the poor so much--is most often described as a loving parent. From Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist; to Mary, the mother of Jesus; to Father Abraham who takes poor Lazarus into his bosom… the Gospel of Luke reminds us of God’s unconditional love as father.

Why? During Jesus’s time, fathers were the heads of the basic unit of the hierarchical Roman society, the family. They had the power of life and death over everyone in the family. And the Emperor, on top of the pyramid of power, was the “Father of all fathers.” In Jesus’s upside-down kingdom that celebrated the discipleship of equals, there was only one father: God.

At the cross, two of Jesus’s last three words in Luke are addressed to his father. Jesus says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” If God is our parent and we are all God’s children, then God's children include "enemies": the centurion and the soldiers who crucified Jesus. Forgiveness is one of the greatest expressions of loving enemies.

Jesus in Luke challenges his followers to love their enemies and to do good to those who hate them. He did both all his life until his death. Luke offers us three “enemies who love:” the Roman centurion who built a synagogue for his Jewish friends; the Samaritan who cared for a wounded Jew; and Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who gave all his riches to those whose only hope was God.

Jesus says to one of the rebels crucified with him, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Yes, it is rebel, not thief or robber the way most English translations render the Greek "lestes". (And these rebels were mostly dispossessed farmers and runaway slaves.) The Romans invented crucifixion for enemies of the state.

When God saves, God saves communities and peoples. To celebrate the incarnation is to celebrate that God has left heaven to be with us. No one lives and dies alone. God is always with us. Near death, Jesus reminds his fellow victim that he is not alone. No one dies alone!

Then Jesus says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Luke follows Mark and Matthew’s lead here. Jesus also quotes a Psalm. In this case Psalm 31. It is also like Psalm 22, a Psalm of deliverance. Jesus believed in a God who will never forsake. And God does not forsake Jesus. Many of us pray Jesus's prayer before we sleep at night. We commit everything to God, yet we stay up all night thinking of so many things only God has control over. Let us follow Jesus. Even in death, he knew that he was safe in God’s hands.

When Nanay died at the ICU of the Philippine Heart Center no one among her family was there. Not Tatay. Not my brother nor my sister. Not me.

But she was not alone.

Friends, no one, ever, dies alone.

TO BE CONTINUED.

(Fourth of Five)

*Image generated by Microsoft Copilot

LAST WORDS: MARK

In Mark, Jesus cries, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabacthani” and breathes his last. Unlike the other gospels, the risen Jesus does not appear in the Markan ending. The gospel ends in 16:8, where we find women silent and afraid. What we have in the story is a young man who tells the women that Jesus is not there, he is risen and is going ahead of them to Galilee. And he will be waiting for them there. And they are afraid.

Jesus is not inside a locked tomb. He is not in Jerusalem. He is not in heaven. He is not where we want him to be. He is back in Galilee where his ministry began. And he is waiting for us there. And we are afraid. Why?

Because we know that this path will eventually lead to the cross. We know that following Jesus will lead to persecution, suffering and, yes, death. Unlike Matthew, Luke, and John where we find beautiful stories of the resurrection like Jesus appearing to Magdalene, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, by the beach and eating breakfast with his followers, we find in Mark a young man who confirms a promise: Jesus is risen just as he told you.

We do not see Jesus. We are told he is risen. We are challenged to believe!

And it is only in going back to Galilee, in places we do not want to go, in ministering among the poorest and the most oppressed, among widows, orphans, and strangers, that we will eventually find him.

The last words of Jesus in Mark are dying words.

But the last spoken words in Mark come from a young man: “He is not here. He is risen!” The gospel does not end with Jesus’s triumphant words as a risen Lord but with a young man’s affirmation of Jesus’s earlier promise about God’s resurrection power.

To believe in the resurrection is to believe that hope is stronger than despair, that faith is greater than fear, that goodness triumphs over evil, that love is more powerful than indifference, and that life will always, always conquer death.

“He is not here. He is risen!” Do we believe the young man’s words?

Is our faith stronger than our fears?

TO BE CONTINUED.

*Photo: cool Christian wallpapers blogspot.