PENTECOST

Many scholars agree that Sunday's lection contains John's version of the Pentecost. If the Acts' version happened 50 days after Jesus’s resurrection, John's happened on Easter evening.

I would like to share my take on verse 23.

Sin is legislated. Resistance is criminalized. Dissent is demonized. The merger of political and religious power predates Pontius Pilate's and Joseph Caiaphas's conjugal dictatorship.

If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, we will grow, grow, grow in this realization: sinners are, more often than not, synonymous with the poor, oppressed, and marginalized in the Gospels.

Who can afford the offerings in the temple and thus be cleansed of their sins? Who has the resources to bribe authorities and thus be declared not guilty? Who writes the law and for whose benefit?

Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus sins (against the Sabbath) and heals sinners. Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus declares sinners forgiven...to the consternation of the people who legislate sin.

In John 20:23, Jesus, after breathing on them to receive the Holy Spirit, commands his disciples to forgive and not to forgive. A better translation, echoing Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, is worded "to set free or to bind."

Jesus' command has not changed. Set free the poor. Bind the powerful who keep them poor. Friends, are you and I faithful to his command?

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

JESUS PRAYS FOR US

There are those among us who grew up in Christian communities that taught "all prayers need to end with 'in Jesus's name.'" There are those among us who grew up in churches that had regular prayer meetings and 24-hour prayer chains or prayer warriors. I am sure some of us have experienced falling asleep while we were praying.

Sunday's lection is part of what scholars call Jesus’s Farewell Discourse (chapters 14-17). Jesus knows he will be separated from his friends very soon. Imagine a line, a boundary, a threshold that Jesus had to cross, alone. A line his friends could not cross--not yet.

What does Jesus do? He prays for his friends. More importantly, he asks God to protect his friends. He asks God three times in his prayer.

I believe most of us read our Bibles and pray every day. Many of us pray several times a day. There are those among us who pray without ceasing. Oftentimes, our long prayers are often only about ourselves. There are also those who pray for those whose only hope is God. Then there are those, in these trying times, who need to cross lines, boundaries, and thresholds who need our prayers.

In all of these, we pray to Jesus. We ask. We beg. We cry. We are the ones praying.

Thus, many among us miss the point of our lection. Jesus is praying for his friends--not for himself. He prays for his loved ones when he, a man slated for execution by the state, has every reason to pray for himself!

In the midst of hopelessness and despair when we are most vulnerable and alone, Jesus lifts us in prayer. Good news indeed! JESUS. PRAYS. FOR. US!


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

 

I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ORPHANED

The infant mortality rate in the ancient world was 50%. Aristotle said that many of the babies who survived childbirth died before their seventh day! Many mothers died at childbirth so their children only survived because of wet nurses. Research has also shown that half of the population were fatherless by the time they reached 15 years of age.

Orphans were the most vulnerable people in the ancient world.

1 Esdras 3:19 and 4. 1-12 talk about the greatest contrasts in human life: free and slave, rich and poor, king and orphan. And the widest gap is in the contrast of the king and the orphan. The king was on top of the power structure, the ophan at the bottom. The king had absolute power, the ophan had none. Thus, in many ancient laws, the king is tasked to care for orphans. In the Hebrew Bible, God commits Godself to always care for orphans! In the Hebrew Bible, God reveals Godself as a wet nurse.

Jesus, in Sunday's lection, echoes the same commitment, "I will not leave you ophaned." He knew what being an orphan meant. I am sure most if not all his disciples were ophans as well.

Orphans remain one of the most vulnerable people today. Someone right now--alone, abandoned, afflicted--needs to hear Jesus's comforting words: "I will not leave you orphaned."

And who can they hear it from? A teacher. A pastor. A farmer. A no-longer distant relative. Just as the face of God can be on anybody's face, so too can the voice and compassion of a mother come from anybody.

*image, "Wet Nurse," (Roman Antiquity, from Google Zoeken, CTT0).

 

ROOMS FOR EVERYONE!

Sunday's lection provides an alternative vision to a world where displacement, dispossession, discrimination, and disenfranchisement occur on a daily basis, especially against the most vulnerable in our society.

We used to sing "Mansion Over the Hilltop" in church to affirm this alternative vision from the Gospel of John. Most modern Bible translations now use "rooms" or "dwelling places" instead of "mansions". (The New King James Version still uses "mansions".)

Sunday's alternative vision has at least three challenges for us who take pride in calling ourselves followers of the Risen One.

First, God's house has space--safe space--for everyone! All are welcome there. Second, Jesus will make sure everyone has a room. He will prepare each and every room. Finally, Jesus himself will welcome everyone to God's house! So that where he is, we will all be there also.

The vision is God's vision for the world God loves, not God's vision for heaven or anywhere else. The vision requires hard work. And we, my friends, you and I, are part of the realization of this vision.


*art, "All Are Welcome," book cover of the New York Times bestselling book by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman.

THE SHEEP AND THEIR SHEPHERD

Many of us grew up with this passage from John 10. Many among us grew up with allegorical interpretations of this passage. The shepherd is not really a shepherd. The gatekeeper is really not a gatekeeper. The sheep are really not sheep. The thief and the bandit are not really thieves nor bandits.

Real sheep do know the voice of their shepherd. Sheep do follow their shepherd in and out of the sheepfold. Sheep do run away from those whose voice they do not know. Ask any shepherd.

Life in all its fullness is not inside the sheepfold. Never has been, never will be. No green grass. No fresh springs. All these are outside of it, in the wilderness. This is why the shepherd calls out the sheep by name and leads them out--into the wilderness. This is why the shepherd goes ahead of the sheep and they follow him--into the wilderness and into the quest for life. Life in all its fullness.

Friends, many times we forget that life in all its fullness is found outside the boxes we have created to contain it. Many times the life that really matters is waiting for us out in the wilderness. We just need to heed the voice of the Risen One who is already out there waiting for us.

*art, "The Good Shepherd," Julien Dupre (1851-1910), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.  

THE RISEN ONE COMES AS A STRANGER

Who are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the unwelcomed, and the prisoner 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 foreigners that, over and over, the Law and the Prophets 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 the pandemic that we are supposed to prioritize? Yes, the stranger.

If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, then we will grow in the realization that, most often than not, God comes as a stranger. 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; grew up in a mud hut instead of a white house.

God does as the Risen One: waiting for us to meet up in Galilee; reminding us that we will never be alone; calling the rich among us to sell everything we have, to give the proceeds to the poor, and to follow... In Sunday's lection, two disciples on the road to Emmaus encounter the Risen One as a complete stranger. Their eyes were eventually opened and their hearts strangely warmed when the stranger broke bread with them.

God always 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 always comes as a stranger. This is why we always, always offer sanctuary. And these days, 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. Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors. Or five barley loaves and two fish.

*art, "Jesus appears at Emmaus," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (Cameroon), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

THE RESURRECTION REQUIRES WARM BODIES

We love imagining the resurrected body. I have heard long discussions on how resurrected bodies are supposed to look, including what superhuman abilities these new bodies will have. Sometimes, our imagination gets the better of us.

Of this, I'm sure: despite their differences (and there are a lot), the four gospels all tell us that the Risen One has a body. In Sunday's lection from the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." The Risen One has a body, and that resurrected body still bears the marks of the crucifixion. God knows who is responsible for each wound.

Every single day so many of our sisters and brothers--who serve the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized--are red-tagged, abducted, tortured, brutalized, and crucified. Take heart! God knows. God remembers.

God will never forget the crucified. God will raise up each and every one of them. God always remembers the marks of each crucifixion. And God knows who is responsible for each of those wounds!

Dear Friends, then and now, the resurrection requires warm bodies that embody justice, solidarity, and life-giving. The resurrection requires warm bodies that will rise up for those who have fallen, that will continue the struggle for peace based on justice, and that will inspire more live-giving.

The resurrection always requires warm bodies. The resurrection requires your body. And mine.

*art, "Jesus appears to Thomas," JESUS MAFA (from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).
*ganda!