THE EXORCIST

Savior. Lord. Friend. Healer. Messiah. These are the more popular terms we use to describe Jesus. "Exorcist" usually does not come up in the list.

Sunday's lection from Mark offers us a glimpse of Jesus as an exorcist. Exorcisms make up a significant portion of Jesus's ministry in Mark, in Matthew, and in Luke. In John, on the other hand, Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed.

In Antiquity, a lot of illnesses, unusual or deviant behavior, and unbelievable feats of human strength were ascribed to spirits. It was a common belief that these spirits could take possession of people, which resulted in physical or mental affliction. That these spirits were unclean, even evil, was a later development.

In Mark, these unclean spirits know who Jesus really is: The Holy One of God. Only in Mark do we find one explicit identification of these unclean spirits with Rome: Legion (in 5.9). A Legion was composed of six thousand soldiers and the Roman Empire had about 30 legions deployed all over its territories.

Do not forget this. Ever. The worst kind of possession is imperialism. True then, true now. The worst kind of possession is when the colonizer has "possessed" or "occupied" the colonized's heart; when the colonized speak the colonizer's tongues, reproduce the colonizer's ideology, worship the colonizer's gods, and fight the colonizer's wars.

The silence and indifference of most of the "Christian World," who confess to follow the Palestinian Jesus, on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians is proof of this continuing imperial possession.

My friends, we need an exorcism. Right now!



*art, "The Possessed" (JESUS MAFA) from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.

GO FISH!

I am pretty sure that many among us used to sing a song that went, "I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men if you follow me."  I haven't heard this song sung in years. Probably because we have stopped fishing for people. 

Why is that? We have stopped FOLLOWING JESUS.

What have we done instead? We praise Jesus. We worship Jesus. We proclaim, "Christ above all!" We do everything in our power to make other people look like us; pray like us; act like us. We have stopped doing what Jesus actually told us to do in order to fish for people. FOLLOW HIM! 

Why is that? Because following Jesus is hard. It is dangerous. It means loving our neighbor, including our enemies. It means taking up the cross. It means going against empire. It means being red-tagged, vilified, and demonized. It means being crucified. It means offering one's life as a ransom for many. 

My friends, Jesus is  waiting for you and me to follow him to Galilee. Right now! 

*image, "St. Peter and St. Andrerw," by Peter Koenig (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)

COME AND SEE!

No king, no prophet, no priest ever came from Nazareth. Maybe this is why Luke and Matthew came up with Bethlehem birth stories. And the 'Joseph-from-the-house-of-David-was-the-father' tradition as well. And, of course, the demigod mythology. Mark's 'The carpenter from Nazareth, the son of Mary' (read: bastard) was a hard sell.

Yet to this day, the Nazarene who lived his life with and for those whose only hope was God-- who preached good news to the poor, who challenged the rich to sell everything they have and give the proceeds to the destitute, who defied empire and its life-negating systems, and who commanded everyone who followed him to offer one's life for a friend--his way of life remains a very hard sell.

Can't exactly sell a way of life that carries a high risk of being executed by the state, can you?

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Gaza? Can anything good come out of Palestine? Philip's answer to Nathanael is as true today as it was then. COME AND SEE!

But these days, before we can go and see, we need to make sure that a permanent ceasefire is declared. We also need to make sure that the State of Israel and its allies led by the United States of America are held accountable for the evil they have unleashed on the Palestinian People.

My friends, today and tomorrow (January 11 and 12) at 10am (in Palestine and South Africa) the United Nation's International Court of Justice will hold public hearings on the case of genocide filed by South Africa against the State of Israel. Everyone dedicated to peace based on justice is enjoined to join the global Cyber Intifada on all social platforms (Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) to share videos, pictures, statements, and other forms of evidence to demonstrate Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian People.

We must all use the hashtag #EndIsraelsGenocide and post at the same time (10am in Palestine and South Africa, 4pm in the Philippines) and keep the campaign going for two hours. Today and tomorrow!

#EndIsraelsGenocide
#CeaseFireNow
#FreePalestine

*art, "The First Two Disciples" (JESUS MAFA), from Vanderbilt Divinity Library archives.

THE HEAVENS WERE TORN APART

Sunday's lection from Mark talks about the baptism of Jesus by John. Matthew and Luke have parallel versions. Only Mark reports that the heavens were torn or ripped apart when the Spirit descended upon Jesus.

There are so many people who are fixated on going up to heaven. There are those who do most of what they do in order to secure themselves a place up in heaven. There are also those who believe that investing their 70 to 80 earth years on "heavenly" endeavors--putting numerous bills in the offertory, donating land, and building air-conditioned churches--will get them a reward in the after-life that spans eternity.

Now, there are those who read their Bibles, pray everyday, and grow, grow, grow in the realization that many times in scripture, God does everything possible to live among God's people here on earth whether it is God descending on Sinai, journeying with the Israelites via the tabernacle, taking residence at the temple in Jerusalem, and fulfilling the promise of "Immanuel." Of course, our lection says that the Spirit descended, came down, like a dove. I would like to believe that the Spirit tore or ripped the heavens apart because the Spirit could not wait to leave heaven for earth.

And, do not forget this, ever: the Spirit that came down has not gone back up to heaven. And Jesus likewise. He is still down here on earth, particularly in places and spaces where we do not want him to be; in places and spaces where we are afraid to go; in places and spaces like Gaza, the West Bank, and Mindanao, "The Land of Promise".

He is waiting for us to join him as he works among the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the dehumanized, the occupied, and the silenced. Right now.


*art, "John baptizes Jesus," JESUS MAFA, 1973 (Cameroon), from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives. 🙏

LIFE UNDER OCCUPATION

All four of my grandparents experienced World War II and its horrors. Both my grandfathers were soldiers. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was captured by the Japanese Occupation forces several times, and tortured every time. But nothing will compare to the pain, shame, and suffering that thousands of young women and girls went through as "Comfort Women" during that war. (Historians tell us that up to 400,000 were forced into sexual slavery from 1938-1945.)

I can imagine that both Simeon and Anna were already alive at the beginning of the Roman Occupation of Palestine in 63 BCE--and both experienced its accompanying horrors. They were still under Occupation when the Baby Jesus was brought to the temple. I am sure that Palestinian friends and colleagues have relatives and friends who remember Palestine before 1948--before the current horrific Israeli Occupation, now on its 75th year.

When one has been scarred for years, even decades, of struggling against inhumanity, brutality, and insatiable greed, how does one go on? How does one hope in the midst of despair? How does one have faith in a world held captive by fear? How does one love when so much indifference exists? How does one live when death is but a heartbeat away?

Sunday's lection shows us that Simeon and Anna, who were both in their twilight years, looked to the future and saw God's life-sustaining acts in the midst of empire's death-dealing ways. They saw the future through an infant being dedicated to God. Empires create systems, structures, and walls that create strangers, that divide, that alienate, that pit one against the other, whether the division is based on class, race, creed, sex, gender, religion.

The birth of the Messiah, an infant whose name means "Yahweh saves," brings about the falling and rising of many. It brings complete strangers together. It births community! Communities birth accompaniment and solidarity and liberation. The birth of the Messiah, my dear friends, tears down walls. It has. It does. It will!

Yes, including Trump's Wall and the State of Israel's Apartheid Wall in Palestine.

*art from Vanderbilt Divinity Library. JESUS MAFA, 1973 (Cameroon) "Presentation of Jesus in the Temple."

TAKE ANOTHER ROAD

It is time we took another road. Over and over again we take the same road. We never learn. We imagine that doing the same thing will change the outcome. It never has. It never will.

The Empire strikes back--always. In the case of the Magi, innocent children were massacred. And innocent children will continue to die as long as we try to save Baby Jesus from Herod. We should stop. He is not a baby anymore. He also does not need saving. The Magi did that already.

The Empire always strikes back. There are more Herods today. They are purveyors of war. Last year alone, over 2 trillion US dollars were spent on the arms industry. Over half a trillion more was spent in the illegal drug trade. The War on Terror and the War on Drugs have left a trail of suffering and death on the innocent. Over 20,000 people, mostly women and children, have been massacred by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza and the West Bank using US-made arms and weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, you and I need to be wiser. We need to be Magi-er. We need to be more sensitive to the warnings in our shared dreams. We need to know when to beat swords into plowshares. And when to beat plowshares into swords. We need to take other roads.

We need to do all these to make sure that the massacre of the innocents in the Holy Land and elsewhere ends now! We need to make sure that the Herods and their ilk are made responsible. We need to act, wherever we are, right now!

["Scene of the Massacre of the Innocents," Leon Cogniet, 1824]

MIRIAM AND MARY

There's something about Miriam we often overlook: we usually say she's Moses's sister. First and foremost, Miriam was a prophet. There's something about Mary we often overlook: we usually say she's Jesus's mother. Mary was also a prophet.

There's something about Miriam and Mary we often overlook: both play major roles in the Bible's most important narratives, the Exodus and the Christ Events. We know their names come from the same root. That root is actually Egyptian and many scholars say it means "rebelling against a bitter system."

Mary's Magnificat is probably one of the most powerful prophetic passages in the New Testament. Mary, a young Palestinian woman, followed a God who scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.

This young Palestinian woman followed a God who takes sides, a God who takes the preferential option for the poor, a God who brings down kings and kingdoms, a God who weeps with those who weep and who cries with those who cry.

This young Palestinian woman is alive today. Yet the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her fail to see her among the lowly and the hungry as they struggle against life-negating and death-dealing forces: in Gaza, among the Lumads of Mindanao, in Myanmar, and among Occupied Peoples. Moreover, the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her tag so many who are working for "life in all its fullness" as enemies of the state, as terrorists, or as communists.

So, Jesus had John the Baptist as teacher. But before there was John, there was Mary: The Prophet. And she taught her son well. Very well indeed.



*image "The Annunciation. Gabriel and Mary." JESUS MAFA (Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives)