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CROSSING THE JORDAN AND TAKING SIDES

We know what we are supposed to do: help change the world. But before we even think of changing the world, we need the world to change us.

Thus, integration with communities--immersion into different ways of life--is a prerequisite. The late Fr. Carlos Abesamis, in conversation, said that having the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other is not enough. Newspapers will never be a substitute for immersion, nor will television, radio, or social media.

Immersion transforms people! Immersion has done so for many of us! In the fullness of time, even God went on Immersion. We call it incarnation. Immersion changed God.

Sunday's lection reminds us that one of the most powerful images of immersion in the Bible is baptism. Baptism is about taking sides. When John baptized people in the Jordan, they crossed from one bank to the other, from one side to the other side. They re-enacted the crossing of the Jordan.

It is about doing what Ernesto "Che" Guevarra did: swimming from one bank to the other bank of the Amazon River, knowingly putting himself at risk of a deadly asthma attack and drowning, yet choosing the side of those whose only hope was God.

Baptism is crossing the Jordan: choosing justice and taking possession of liberty, land, and fullness of life that God wants for all people, especially for occupied peoples. Crossing the Jordan can lead to death. John the Baptist crossed the Jordan and was executed by Herod. Jesus crossed the Jordan and was crucified by the Romans.

And you and I are called by our baptism to cross "Rivers of Jordan" wherever we are. Every moment of our lives, we need to choose justice. May we have the courage to do as John and Jesus did.

Choose justice. Always justice.


*art, "John baptizing Jesus," Mural at the Church of Enda Yesus, Axum, Ethiopia (image available at the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).

READING THE PARABLES OF JESUS INSIDE A JEEPNEY

 

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GOD IS ONE OF US

 

The Canonical Gospels begin their narratives in different ways. Mark begins with an adult Jesus who is baptized by John in the Jordan. Matthew has a birth narrative that features Magi who spent about two years searching for the child. Jesus was already a toddler when they reach Bethlehem. Luke's has shepherds who visit Jesus as a baby lying in a manger. John's origin story, which is Sunday's lection, begins in "The Beginning."

Incidentally, a lot of people who memorize Bible verses know John 1.1 (with Genesis 1.1 and, almost everyone's favorite, John 3.16). The Word became Flesh and lived among us. God has stopped watching from a distance.

Stories of Gods taking on human form abound in many of the world's mythologies. Many of the heroes of ancient peoples were demigods or super humans. For the Gospel of John, when the Word became Flesh, the Word was totally and fully Flesh. In other words, God was not Superman disguised as Clark Kent. God was Clark Kent.

For the Gospel of John, God Incarnate gets tired and thirsty; eats and drinks with family and friends; experiences love and loss, and cries, like all of us. God Incarnate takes the side of the poor, feeds the multitudes, experiences betrayal, and suffers torture and crucifixion by empire. Like many among us.

God bleeds. God dies. God is one of us.

My Friends, to believe in the incarnation is to embody justice, accompaniment, solidarity, and life-giving, like Jesus did. The incarnation required a warm body: Jesus’s. The incarnation still requires warm bodies: yours and mine.


*"Christ Child" by Mike Chapman (relief sculpture at Westminster, London), photograh by Diane Brennan. Vanderbilt Divinity Library image collection.

TURNING POINTS

The Temple in Jerusalem plays an important role in Luke. The gospel begins with Zachariah in the Temple. It ends with the disciples in the Temple. Sunday's reading is about Jesus, aged 12, in the Temple. Those of us who grew up in Sunday School are familiar with the story.

I'm pretty sure that most of us have memorable experiences when we were 12 or thereabouts. I'm also sure that there were moments when our parents or elders were at their wits' end trying to find out where we've gone. For many among us, those winged moments served as turning points in our lives.

Jesus was gone for four days in the story. Mary and Joseph spent 3 anxiety-laden days looking for him.

They find him in the Temple and when asked to explain he tells them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" Mary and Joseph then realize that Jesus is not just their first born. He is more than that. He has ceased being a boy. Things will never be the same again. They've reached a turning point.

Sure, he comes home to Nazareth with them but things have changed. Things will never be the same again.

*art, "Jesus among the Teacher," JESUS MAFA, 1973, Cameroon (available at the vanderbilt divinity libray digital archives)

THE SONG OF MARY

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

Melinda Grace Aoanan reminds us-- via her radical rendition of "Ili, ili" that is based on the Magnificat-- that the latter was a song. It was a lullaby Mary sang or chanted for Jesus.

This young woman from Nazareth followed a God who took sides, a God who took the preferential option for the poor, a God who brought down kings and kingdoms, a God who wept with those who weep and who cried with those who cry. And she taught her son well. Very well indeed.

Mary's faith persists to this day. Yet the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her fail to see this faith among the lowly and the hungry as they struggle against life-negating and death-dealing forces-- among those whose lives are dedicated to helping bring about peace based on justice and the realization of God's reign on earth.

Moreover, the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her tag so many of the faithful who are working for "life in all its fullness" as enemies of the state or as communists, as if communism were a crime in the country. It is not. Worse, they criminalize dissent and illegally arrest so many on trumped up charges like murder and illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

Jesus had many teachers. But before everyone else, there was young Mary of Nazareth: The Prophet who sang. His mother. And she taught her son well. Very well indeed.


+Melinda Grace Aoanan, "Singing Our Magnificat..." in Pinay Magnificat: Living Out Our Theology (Quezon City: NCCP, 2017), 23-31.

*image "The Visitation--Mary and Elizabeth meet." JESUS MAFA (Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives)

ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN

 

All the canonical gospels feature John the Baptist. But most scholars agree that Sunday's Lukan lection comes from "Q" (short for "quelle" meaning, source)."Q" is theorized as an earlier collection of Jesus tradition that was only accessible to Matthew and Luke.

John, like the prophets before him, did not pull punches. He calls everyone to repentance, to change direction, and to follow God's way of justice.

My favorite part of the passage is how John addresses those who think they do not need to repent or change their ways because they are God's "Chosen", that they are God's favorites. John basically tells them, "God can make Abraham's children out of a pile of stones." (John's retort resonates with Jesus' "stones crying out" response to some religious leaders in Jerusalem).

John's message remains relevant and powerful today, especially to us who think we're "Chosen". We need to repent. And repentance means doing, not thinking, nor praying: specifically, it's doing acts of justice. Or we face God's wrath.

We all need to repent! God can still make Abraham's children out of a pile of stones.


*image, "John the Baptist preaching in the desert," JESUS MAFA, 1973, Cameroon, from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.