Readings for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time: JER 38: 4-10; PS 40: 2-4, 18; HEB 12:1-4; LK 12: 49-53
Today’s gospel excerpt presents real difficulties for a thoughtful homilist. That’s because it shows us an apparently confrontational Jesus — one who sounds completely revolutionary. It raises an uncomfortable question: why would the Church choose such a passage for Sunday worship? What are we supposed to do with a Jesus who doesn’t sound like the soft-focus “Prince of Peace” in our stained-glass windows?
In the context of Zionist genocide and starvation of Palestinians, perhaps this is providential. Maybe this gospel can help us understand a truth that polite Christianity often avoids: people living under the heel of settler colonialism supported by empire — even people of deep faith — sometimes find themselves pulled toward resistance that is anything but gentle.
We forget that Jesus and his community were not free citizens in a democracy. They were impoverished, heavily taxed subjects of an occupying army. Roman power loomed over their fields, their marketplaces, their synagogues. By today’s international standards, they were an occupied people with the legal right to resist.
And in Luke’s gospel today, Jesus says, without apology:
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing… Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
In Matthew’s parallel account, the language sharpens:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
These are not the soundbites that make it into Christmas cards. They make us ask: what happened to “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies”?
Some scholars, like Reza Aslan, suggest that Jesus’ nonviolence applied primarily within his own oppressed community, while his stance toward the Roman occupiers was far less accommodating. Others, like John Dominic Crossan, argue that Jesus was unwaveringly committed to nonviolent resistance, and that later gospel writers softened or altered his message to make it more palatable in times of war.
Either way, the backdrop remains the same: an occupied land, a foreign military presence, a people dispossessed. In that context, fiery words about “division” and “swords” are not abstract theology. They are the language of a people under siege, the language of survival.
This is where the parallels to our world are hard to miss. Today, in the land we call Israel-Palestine, we see a modern occupation with its own walls, checkpoints, home demolitions, and armed patrols. We see Palestinian families pushed off their land in the name of “security.” We see the weight of military might pressing down on those who have little power to push back.
This is not to glorify violence but to say that this kind of daily humiliation, dispossession, and threat inevitably breeds anger, desperation, and — for some — the temptation to meet force with force. The gospel today, like the headlines from Gaza and the West Bank, confronts us with the messy, often tragic choices that emerge under occupation.
As Christians, we have to wrestle with this. Would we cling to a nonviolent ethic, like the Jesus Crossan describes? Or, living under bulldozers and armed patrols, would we find ourselves understanding — perhaps even empathizing with — those who choose other paths?
Jesus’ words today refuse to let us take the easy way out. They call us to name the real causes of conflict — not some vague “ancient hatred,” but the concrete realities of military domination, settler colonialism, and American imperialism. They challenge us to imagine what peace would require: not simply the silencing of the oppressed, but the dismantling of systems that oppress them in the first place.
Because if we only condemn the flames without questioning the spark, we miss the deeper gospel truth: that justice is the only soil in which true peace can grow.
An AI-Assisted Homily on Overwork, Jesus, and Choosing the Better Part
Readings for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15: 2-5; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10: 38-42
Facing the Final Question
What will you regret most when you’re dying?
Chances are, like most people, it won’t be that you didn’t work hard enough. Instead, you’ll wish you’d spent more time with your loved ones—more dinners with friends, more laughter, more life.
“Every male patient I nursed said the same thing: they missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.” — Hospice Nurse
Women often expressed the same sorrow, though many—especially from older generations—hadn’t been the household breadwinners. Still, the verdict was nearly universal: we’ve built lives around the treadmill of work, and at the end, that’s what we mourn.
A Culture Addicted to Work
Let’s be honest: our culture worships overwork.
Especially in the United States, where the average worker puts in three more hours per week than their European counterparts. That’s nearly a month more labor every year.
And when it comes to vacation time? The average American takes less than six weeks off per year. The French take nearly twelve. Swedes? Over sixteen.
Into this burnout culture comes today’s Gospel reading from Luke—a bracing call to step back and reconsider our priorities. A reminder that Jesus, too, challenged the grind.
Jesus, the Counter-Cultural Radical
We often forget just how radical Jesus was.
Deepak Chopra, in The Third Jesus, reminds us that Christ actually instructed his followers not to worry about money, food, or the future.
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” — Jesus (Matthew 6:25)
And today’s Responsorial Psalm adds more layers. The “Just Person” is praised for refusing to lie, slander, or take bribes. That all sounds virtuous—nothing shocking there.
But then comes the line:
“They lend not money at usury.”
Wait—what? Lending at interest is considered robbery in the Bible. Imagine if Christians and Jews actually followed that commandment. Our entire debt-driven economy would have to be reimagined.
Rethinking Martha and Mary
Now let’s talk about Mary and Martha.
Most traditional sermons interpret the story spiritually: Martha represents worldly busyness, while Mary models a quiet, contemplative life devoted to prayer.
But that interpretation misses the human, grounded context of the Gospel.
In Un Tal Jesús (“A Certain Jesus”) by María and José Ignacio López Vigil—a powerful retelling of the Gospels popular across Latin America—Jesus is portrayed as joyful, deeply human, and radically present.
In their version, this story doesn’t take place in a quiet house, but in a noisy Bethany tavern run by Lazarus, with Martha and Mary hustling behind the scenes. Passover pilgrims are crowding in. It’s hot, chaotic, and full of life.
Martha is working furiously. Mary? She’s seated beside Jesus—laughing.
Jesus Tells Riddles
Jesus: “What’s as small as a mouse but guards a house like a lion?” Mary: “A key! I guessed it!”
Jesus: “It’s as small as a nut, has no feet, but climbs mountains.” Mary: “A snail!”
Jesus: “Okay, one more. It has no bones, is never quiet, and is sharper than scissors.” Mary: “Hmm… I don’t know.” Jesus: “Your tongue, Mary. It never rests!”
They’re cracking jokes, swapping riddles, enjoying one another. Not praying. Not planning. Not “producing.” Just being.
Martha, frustrated and overworked, finally bursts out: “Jesus, tell my sister to help me!”
And he answers gently but firmly: “Mary has chosen the better part.”
Jesus and the Sacredness of Play
That might sound scandalous to us—Jesus dismissing work?
But it’s entirely consistent with his teachings. Jesus valued community over productivity, joy over profit, presence over anxiety.
And that should make us pause.
What if we took that seriously?
What if we reorganized our lives—and our economy—around the idea that play, rest, joy, and social connection are sacred?
What if we voted for leaders who supported:
Shorter workweeks
Guaranteed time off
Universal income
Job sharing
A culture centered around well-being instead of output?
In the End, What Really Matters?
Because when we reach the end, we won’t say:
“I wish I’d worked more overtime.” “I should’ve answered more emails.” “I’m glad I missed those birthday dinners.”
We’ll long for the laughter we didn’t share, the walks we skipped, the stories we never heard, the moments we missed with the people we loved most.
Readings for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles: ACTS 12:1-11; PSALM 34: 2-9; 2 TIMOTHY 4: 6-8, 17-18; MATTHEW 16; 13-19.
Every morning as I watch Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” I feel sickened by the reports from Gaza. No doubt that most reading these words have similar experiences. And why not?
In Gaza as everyone knows genocidal Zionists are systematically causing the deaths of untold thousands of children and their mothers. The Zionist monsters starve, bomb, and even gun down their victims as they line up at distribution sites where food is used as bait. The brutes are causing a manmade drought intentionally aimed at depriving infants of water for the formula they cannot live without.
You know the result.
The Zionists do all that in blatant contravention not merely of all human values and international law, but of the Jewish tradition itself. Their genocidal atrocities also contradict the teachings of the one Christians identify as the greatest of the Jewish prophets and whom they worship as the incarnation of God himself.
For that reason, it’s impossible for me to understand how any of that can be squared with the teachings of Yeshua and his critical understanding of his beloved Jewish tradition. It’s impossible for me to comprehend how self-proclaimed pro-life Christians (so concerned about unborn fetuses) can stand by in silence and even applaud when tens of thousands of children along with their mothers, fathers, and grandparents are slaughtered before their very eyes.
Where’s the specifically Christian protest from Yeshua’s followers? Apart from his general calls for a ceasefire, how come the new pope isn’t showing more leadership on this question?
Contrast their and his relative silence with the prophetic words of Episcopal bishop Mariann Edgar Budde directly confronting her president and vice president on behalf of the most vulnerable in her own country. She was vilified and dismissed by Christians and Jews as disrespectful and overly political.
However, she was only following in Yeshua’s footsteps. After all, he confronted the leaders of his day as hypocrites, whited sepulchers, snakes, and broods of vipers (MT. 23:1-39). And he in turn was only following the examples of great Jewish prophets like Amos, Isaiah, and Elijah. All of them today would be called anti-Semitic, and “self-hating Jews.”
I write such painful words because this Sunday’s “Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul” celebrates another pair of self-hating Jews. Their following of Yeshua caused them to be seen as enemies of their people and of the Roman imperial power of their day. As a result, they were imprisoned and were ultimately victims of capital punishment.
And they in turn were only following the example of Yeshua himself as I’ve already said. He suffered ostracism, imprisonment, torture, and execution for his own unstinting opposition.
But wouldn’t outspokenness be dangerous for a new pope who’s just getting his papacy off the ground? Wouldn’t it be too polarizing and politically alienating for him to speak directly to Netanyahu, Trump and Vance the way Bishop Budde did? Even more, wouldn’t it be unthinkable for him to actually go to Gaza on papal pilgrimage?
In the context I’ve just described, the readings for the day suggest that those who claim to inherit the tradition of Peter and Paul and of Yeshua’s prophetism should never fear danger, ostracism, or political alienation. They should be the first to put their lives on the line, to risk imprisonment and even death to oppose those who prove unfaithful to the holy Jewish faith. Today’s readings assure the Divine Spirit of the universe will always have their backs.
The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles describes Peter’s harrowing escape from prison. The second reading has Paul claiming that he was “rescued from the lion’s mouth.” That was a clear reference to the famous story of Daniel in the lion’s den.
Yes, the founders of what became Christianity were the enemies of their days’ Jewish authorities – the same “leaders” who were also the sworn enemies of the One identified in today’s selection from the Gospel of Matthew as “the Christ” – i.e., as God’s anointed one.
Of course, Yeshua’s outspokenness brought him to death row too. He passed through the torture chamber where he was nearly beaten to death and crowned with thorns – afterwards only to be hung on a cross – the form of agonizing death that the Romans reserved for enemies of their emperors every bit as cruel and lacking in moral principle as Netanyahu, Trump, and Biden.
In fact, that’s the heart of the Christian tradition – identification with the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, tortured, and executed. That’s the meaning of the belief that God manifested the divine essence most fully among the poorest of the poor. God’s Self was maximally revealed in a construction worker, on death row, in a victim of torture, and assassination by the state. Contemporary theologians speak of such revelation in terms of God’s “preferential option for the poor.”
But there’s the difference between Peter, Paul, and Yeshua on the one hand and Pope Leo on the other. All three of the former were impoverished nobodies. They were poor Jewish workers standing up for their comrades in the face of oppression by what Romans characterized as the wealthiest, most militarily powerful empire in the history of the world. (Sound familiar?)
Unlike Yeshua, Peter, and Paul, the newly elected Pope Leo is not a nobody. Unquestionably, he potentially possesses one of the most powerful voices of moral conscience in the world.
Imagine if he used it with Yeshua’s outspokenness on behalf of those martyred children in Gaza!
Imagine if Pope Leo displayed the courage and commitment of his alleged predecessor, Peter or that of St. Paul. Imagine if he showed the fortitude of Bishop Budde or of Greta Thunberg and her colleagues who were recently turned back from bringing food and medical aid to starving Gazans. Compared to the pope, Budde and Thunberg are nobodies too.
So, imagine if Pope Leo decided that his first papal pilgrimage would be to Gaza. Imagine if he celebrated Mass in the ruins of the refugee camp in Khan Yunis? No one could ignore it. The Zionist and American perpetrators of genocide would be completely humiliated.
There’d have to be a ceasefire during his visit. Food aid would be released.
Imagine if he stayed in Gaza till hostilities finished.
That’s why I plead: Pope Leo, in the name of your predecessor, St. Peter, in the name of Paul, and above all in the name of the great Jewish prophet Yeshua, please go to Gaza! Use your power to put a stop to the monstrous slaughter!
Readings for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jeremiah 19:5-8; Psalm 1:1-6; 1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20; Luke 6: 17, 20-26
This Sunday’s readings reject the anti-DEI, anti-Wokeness memes of what Marianne Williamson calls the Trump/Musk power couple.
The selected texts remind us that the natural order is one of diversity, universal love, and complete inclusion (DEI) that prioritizes the needs of women, children, immigrants, and former slaves. As we’ll see, the tradition is outspokenly anti-rich and demands reparations.
The readings also suggest the truth recognized in all major faith traditions that awakening to such reality (rather than remaining asleep) is the whole point of the human project aimed at transcending childish egocentrism and ethnocentrism. The point is what our black brothers and sisters call being “woke.” Even more, it’s to achieve world centrism and ultimately cosmic centrism that understand and respect the unity of all creation.
By contrast, putting oneself first, putting one’s country first, idolizing wealth and the power it brings are all condemned in the teachings of Yeshua.
In other words, the Judeo-Christian tradition represented in today’s readings roundly rejects the villainizing of DEI and wokeness. Even more, they call Yeshua’s followers to a class consciousness and a fundamental option for the world’s poor and oppressed against the rich whom Yeshua condemns in no uncertain terms.
Let me show you what I mean in terms of class consciousness and the warfare of the rich against the poor.
Class Warfare
Whereas in the past it might have been possible to argue that we live in a classless society, that is no longer the case. The accession of Donald Trump to the office of president has rendered such argument moot. The man has declared war on the poor.
Think about the brazenness of it all.
I mean, after the display at Trump’s inauguration, it is now impossible for anyone to deny that Elon Musk and other billionaires play powerful roles in calling the shots. The shot callers include Donald Trump himself, Musk, Mark Zukerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook of Apple, and Sundar Pichai of Google. All of them were there occupying prominent seats the day that Trump took office. At times it even appears that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, rather than Mr. Trump is our country’s president. Our system is undeniably plutocratic.
And what is the basic argument of these people? Simply put, it is that THE RICH DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, WHILE THE UNDESERVING POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY.
They’re convinced that the world’s and our country’s problems are caused by the poorest people on the planet. Accordingly, we’re expected to believe that:
In a country of 320 million people, 12 to 15 million impoverished, undocumented, hardworking, tax-paying refugees are “invaders” and bringing us all down.
The U.S. with 4.5% of the world’s population (along with its European fellow colonialists) has a God-given right to control the entire planet.
Those formerly colonized in Latin America, Africa, and Asia should be sanctioned for uniting (e,g,, in BRICS+) to seek non-violent rectification of the colonial system that has impoverished them for more than 500 years.
The wealthy South African cohorts of their erstwhile countryman, Elon Musk, are now victims of black South Africans who must be sanctioned for treating them unfairly.
Uniformity, inequity, and exclusion are American and Christian values as opposed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
It’s ludicrous to awaken (become woke) to the absurdity of it all.
Let me say that again: All of this (and so much more) provides unmistakable evidence of the wealthy’s conviction that THE RICH DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, WHILE THE POOR HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY.
Think about it a bit further. To increase their money supply, the billionaires want lower taxes, less government regulation of their businesses, and continued subsidies to their corporations maintained or increased. Correspondingly, they want “wasteful” programs like those funding Medicaid, HeadStart, food stamps, and public schooling curtailed or eliminated. Even Social Security is questioned. For the rich, minimum wages are an abomination as are unions and the so-called “right” to collective bargaining. The rich see all such government programs and organizing as wasteful, i.e., as excessively enriching the lives of the undeserving poor.
Yes: For the upper class, THE RICH DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, WHILE THE POOR HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY. That’s what they believe! It can’t be said often enough.
It’s all a declaration of class warfare.
Today’s Readings
Today’s readings contradict all that. Look at my “translations” and summaries immediately below. Compare them with the originals here to see if I got them right.
Jeremiah 17:5-8: In the early 6th century BCE, the great prophet Jeremiah foretold the defeat of his people by the Babylonians (modern day Iraq) because of Judah’s social injustices and moral decay. Of course, his message of doom brought him death threats and cancellation. In today’s reading he says: We who pretend to be God’s People are cursed because we’ve prioritized the wisdom of the world (flesh) over the insights of the heart. Our failure to recognize the rhythms of history makes us like a dried-up bush in a parched desert. Only our hearts’ return to the Divine Mother-Father and to the Mosaic Covenant (that prioritizes the needs of the poor, widows, orphans, and immigrants) will restore our identity as a mighty tree planted near clear running water.
Psalm 1: 1-6: Yes, God’s law commands care for the poor, the widows, the orphans and immigrants. These are God’s “Chosen People” just as Israel once was when it too was poor and enslaved in Egypt. Then their hope was in the Great I Am rather than in the wisdom of Egyptian slavers with their wicked, sinful, and insolent oppression of Yahweh’s chosen. Never forget that. Such mindfulness will insure prosperity for all. Be encouraged too by the fact that the rich and powerful oppressors will inevitably be blown away like chaff in the wind. Blessed be the hope of the poor!
1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20: Yeshua’s return from the realm of the dead cannot be denied without destroying the faith and hope of the poor. He is the quintessential avatar of the poor and oppressed brought back to life from “death” that is no more than a temporary slumber. Alleluia!!
Luke 6: 17, 20-26: In the Gospel of Luke, Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” is delivered “on a stretch level ground.” Also, Matthew’s “Blessed are the poor in spirit” becomes a more down-to-earth “Blessed are you who are poor.” In both cases however, the penniless Yeshua promised ultimate political triumph, abundant food, joy, and heaven on earth to the poor, the hungry, the tearful, despised, excluded, insulted, and demonized. (He promises reparations!) Moreover, he cursed the overfed, apparently joyful rich and famous. In Yeshua’s Great Reversal, the rich are destined to be hungry, disconsolate, in tears, and disgraced. (Take that Messrs. Pilate, Herod, and Revs. Anas and Caiaphas! Take that Messrs. Musk and Trump and Rev. Huckabee!)
Conclusion
In an interview with NPR, Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore said that several pastors had told him disturbing stories about their congregants being upset when the ministers read from the “Sermon on the Mount ” where as we’ve just seen (in Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain”) Yeshua favors the poor over the rich.
“Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount – [and] to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?”
Moore added: “And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.”
But here are Yeshua’s words:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”
Readings for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time:Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19: 8,9, 10, 15; I Corinthians 12: 12-14, 27; Luke 1: 1-4, 4: 14-21
Last Tuesday Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde infuriated Donald Trump and JD Vance at Trump’s inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington. She did so by echoing in her sermon the Spirit of Yeshua of Nazareth whom this Sunday’s Gospel reading depicts as delivering his own inaugural address to his former neighbors in his hometown of Nazareth.
Bishop Budde’s words asked Mr. Trump “in the name of our God” to “have mercy” on LGBTQ people and immigrants targeted by his policies. Her words chimed with those of her Master who in his programmatic words proclaimed his work as directed towards outsiders – the poor, the blind, the imprisoned, oppressed, and indebted.
Evidently, Messrs. Trump and Vance prefer their version of God and a Jesus who puts America first. They seem to consider Americans (and Zionists) as somehow “chosen” by a God who joins them in despising those with non-binary sexual orientations. Instead of welcoming strangers (as Bishop Budde put it in tune with oft-repeated biblical injunctions) their God would build walls and evict them from our midst.
Ironically, the Trump/Vance position is not far from that articulated by Ezra, Israel’s 6th century BCE priest and scribe who invented the concept of a genocidal Israel as God’s chosen one. (You can read a summary of Ezra’s words immediately below.)
So, predictably, Mr. Trump and his followers (like Yeshua’s contemporaries rejecting him) wasted no time in vilifying Bishop Budde.
Instead, she deserves our admiration and imitation as a woman of vast integrity and courage. Let me show you what I mean.
Today’s Readings
Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
Following the Jews’ return from the Babylonian exile (586-538), the Jewish priest and scribe, Ezra rewrote the Hebrew’s largely oral traditions that eventually became their Bible. He unified those narratives about mysterious beings called “Elohim.” These were human or perhaps extraterrestrial “Powerful Ones,” some good-willed, some malevolent, who had never been universally considered divine. In Hebrew oral tradition, they had variously been called by names such as “Elohim,” “El,” “El Shaddai,” “Ruach,” Baal, and Yahweh. Ezra unified and rewrote those traditions as if all of them were about Israel’s now “divine” Powerful One (Yahweh). The tales included divinely authorized genocides of Palestinians (identified in biblical texts as Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Geshurites, Maacaathites, and Philistines). All of them had lived in the “Holy Land” long before the arrival of the ex-slave invaders from Egypt who ruthlessly decimated their numbers in the name of their Powerful One. In Nehemiah chapter 8, Ezra is depicted as spending half a day reading his conflated narrative [now called “The Law” (Torah)] to Israel’s “men, women, and those children old enough to understand.” The new narrative brings everyone to tears as a nationalistic and exclusive consciousness dawns that Yahweh-God had chosen them as his special people.
Psalm 19: 8,9, 10, 15
Despite the genocides, the people praised Yahweh’s words as simple, perfect, refreshing, trustworthy, wise, illuminating, pure, eternal, true, and completely just. They identified Ezra’s words as Spirit and Life.
I Corinthians 12: 12-14, 27
Yeshua, however, never called his Heavenly Father “Yahweh.” Instead, he (and his principal prophet Paul) understood God as a Divine Parent, the Creator of all things, the “One in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Yeshua (and Paul) rejected the idea of “Special People” in favor of all humanity as comprising One Human Body. For both men, no part of that Body (even the least presentable) was better or more important than any other. For Paul and Yeshua, Jews and non-Jews were the same. So were slaves and free persons. In fact, for Yeshua’s followers, those the world considers less honorable should be treated “with greater propriety.”
Luke 1: 1-4, 4: 14-21
In the first sermon of his public life, Yeshua addressed his former neighbors. He was asked to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (a contemporary of Ezra) who dissented from genocides and mistreatment of captives. Here’s what Yeshua read:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.“ Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
When his neighbors heard his words, they wanted to kill him. Who did he think he was?! Everyone knows God favors the rich, not the poor. Just look at the Great Ones’ gaudy lifestyles and possessions. And those people in prison deserved to be there. Once freed, they’d threaten us all. And besides, the blind were sightless because of some sin they or their parents had committed. They deserved their lot in life. As for “the oppressed . . . There are no “victims.” Everyone knows that. Victimology is a hoax. Who did this Yeshua think he was?! Let’s kill him.
Conclusion
Yes, Yeshua, like Bishop Budde confronted his contemporaries to champion the One in whom we live and move and have our being.” For Yeshua that Divine One considers all humankind a single indivisible body. For him this meant incorporating those his world wanted to amputate as outsiders, invaders, criminals, and as official enemies like Samaritans, tax collectors, street walkers, the poor, imprisoned, the sightless, oppressed and indebted.
In Yeshua’s spirit, Bishop Budde urges incorporation of immigrants, LGBT outcasts, and official enemies such as the Palestinians, Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis, Sudanese, Libyans, etc. etc. None of them is our enemy. All of them, she says with Yeshua and Paul, are closer to us than our brothers and sisters. They are parts of our own bodies. None can be amputated.
Such universalism, such wakefulness always infuriates those who would divide and rule over us. It angers as well ordinary people (like Yeshua’s neighbors) who have been brainwashed into accepting prevailing nationalistic understandings of the Bible’s often genocidal “God.”
Today’s readings call us to wake up! Bishop Budde’s got it right. Trump and Vance are heretics.
It’s Christmas again. And Jesus is still under the rubble In Gaza (Just like last year).
He’s on an operating table There Having his infant arms and legs Sawed off Without anesthesia. Screaming for his Already dismembered mother Who’s been blown away By the U.S. and Israel. He’ll never kiss her again Or feel her warm embrace.
All but forgotten By holiday revelers With mindless “Merry Christmases!!”
Meanwhile Zionists weaponize the Bible So the slaughter might continue. Christians do the same Singing maudlin carols They don’t understand And buying silly trinkets In Wal-Mart. As if God were Santa Claus, A billionaire, Or a racist killer.
Worse still: As if God were A genocidal Amerikan!
It’s as if Yeshua were not Piss poor And homeless at birth Considered by imperialists As no more than an “animal” Among stable asses and oxen, The son of a disgraced Unwed teenage mother, An underpaid construction worker, A drunken friend of prostitutes Houseless as an adult The sworn enemy Of the Jewish power establishment And the rich That wanted that child From nowheresville Slaughtered.
(Good Christians don't like people like that)
As if Yeshua were just another Palestinian street rat, And not An unwelcome refugee in Egypt, A terrorist in Roman eyes, Their inmate on death row, A victim of torture And capital punishment.
“Good riddance,” The Romans said Just like us.
And the whole world Wasn’t watching then either. Few noticed Or cared.
But should we open our eyes We’d see a Yeshua So much more Than that.
He came to serve the poor. He said. God’s kingdom would be theirs So would the entire earth. Not Elon’s or Gates’ (Luke 6:24) Or Amerika’s Who’s blindness and arrogance Deserves eternal damnation Rather than the accolades The world bestows on Such fools Along with Herod and Pilate Anas and Caiaphas.
______
The pastor of Bethlehem’s Christmas Church said Something like that In his own Christmas sermon This year Just like the one Few noticed When he said it Last year.
Here’s his Xmas creche
Here’s Pope Francis with his Jesus In a keffiyeh-lined crib:
This year Listen To these holy men And to Yeshua’s silenced voice In the Sacred Land Of Palestine.
Once again, The real Christmas Story Is unfolding There Before our very eyes.
Bread & Puppet’s rendition of El Salvador’s martyred archbishop, Oscar Romero
Readings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time: I Kgs. 19:4-8; Eph. 4:30-5:2; Jn. 6:41-51
This Sunday’s readings are about prophets and bread.
They remind me of a recent visit my wife Peggy and I made to Glover Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Museum along with two of our eight grandchildren, Eva (age 15) and Orlando (12). The Museum presented the work of true prophets, Elka and Peter Schumann who, like today’s readings consistently connected prophecy with hard-to-chew bread. (Elka died two years ago at the age of 85).
The Schumann’sProphetic Puppets
I’m sure many of you have heard of Bread and Puppet. The Schumanns founded that theater in 1963 as an act of political protest. Originally their issue was poor housing conditions in New York City. Since then, their giant puppets – some more than 20 feet high – have made spectacular appearances at protests, parades, and demonstrations everywhere.
Over the years, Bread and Puppet’s focus expanded beyond housing concerns to include the Vietnam War, climate change, Nicaragua and the Contras, El Salvador, Archbishop Romero, liberation theology, Israel’s crimes in Palestine, and the general failure of capitalism. Every summer hundreds of volunteers have participated in the theater’s elaborate outdoor pageants highlighting those issues.
As a result, touring the museum last month and seeing hundreds of the Schumanns’ puppets represented a painful review of U.S. crimes over the past half century. Despite those sad reminders, the puppets also embodied an inspiring display of insight, creativity, commitment, joy, and courage. The Schumanns’ giant puppets have provided a truly prophetic deepening our collective consciousness.
The Schumann’sNourishing Bread
However, the mammoth puppets were so stunning and arresting that it’s easy to forget the part that bread played in the Schumanns’ work. After all, the name of their company is Bread and Puppet.” (And homemade bread was served at all Theater performances.)
Elka Schumann herself made the connection in a 2001 film about her work. The documentary was produced by her daughter Tamar and DeeDee Halleck. Elka said:
“We have a grinder over there, and we grind the grain ourselves. And the bread is not at all like your supermarket bread. You really have to chew it. You really have to put some work into it. But then you get something very good for that. And when our theater is successful, we feel it’s the same way. You’ve got to think. It doesn’t like tell you everything. It’s not like Wonder Bread: It’s just like there it is, here’s the story, this is what it means. You’ve got to do some figuring yourself in the theater, in our theater. And if the play is successful, then at the end you probably feel it was worth the work.”
Elka’s words underline the essentials of good theater, good art, good religion. They don’t tell you everything. You must put in some work trying to figure out the message, to unpack it all. Good theater, good religion is not like eating white bread from Piggly Wiggly.
Jesus’ Bread
As mentioned earlier, that aspect of theater and faith is important to note this particular Sunday, since the day’s readings highlight the connections between bread, prophets, and the teachings of Yeshua, the construction worker from Nazareth who like the Schumanns’ puppets was truly larger than life.
What Jesus taught in his illustrative parables – in fact, what’s found throughout the Bible – challenges us to think and question our own lives, the values of our culture, and our too easy “understandings” of life and “God.” That’s what the Schumanns were doing too.
Think about the prodigal son, Jesus’ response to the woman about to be stoned for adultery, his dialog with Pontius Pilate about the nature of truth, and the issues raised by the fact that Jesus was executed as a rebel against Rome. Think about the prophet’s dying prayer for his enemies, his injunction to treat others as we would like to be treated, his “beatitudes'” centralizing purity of intention, poverty, gentleness, bereavement, imprisonment, mercy, peacemaking, and passion for justice. At every turn his words and deeds are challenging and (if you puzzle over them) difficult but rewarding to digest.
Understood in terms of rejecting Wonder Bread’s superficiality, all those elements in the accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds should give “Americans” pause. They should call into question the very notion of patriarchy, our worship of the rich, our wars against the world’s poor, our attitudes towards empire and capital punishment, as well as our very denial of truth’s possibility (which Gandhi boldly identified with God).
That sort of hard-to-chew bread forms the backdrop implied in today’s readings. See for yourself. Here are my “translations.” You could find the originals here to tell if I got them right.
I Kings 19: 4-8
Prophets are lonely people Living on the edge of Death and despair. Elijah was no different. He even prayed for death On his way to Mt. Sinai. Instead, generous Spirits Fed him with bread and water Twice! He didn't have to eat again For the remaining 40 days Of his journey To God's holy mountain.
Psalm 34: 2-9
Elijah's miraculous bread Gave him a taste of Life's Supreme Goodness Directed especially Towards the threatened And afflicted poor. The taste of bread Replaces their shame And distress With joy and confidence In Life's protective Source.
Ephesians 4: 30-5:2
So, Elijah Should never have been sad. In fact, For those filled with God's Spirit (And bread!) There can be no room for sadness Bitterness, fury, anger, Shouting, reviling or malice. There is space only for Kindness, compassion, Forgiveness and love That mirror Life's own abundance And inherent generosity.
John 6: 42-51
John's community of faith Identified Jesus' teaching With the bread That fed Elijah. In fact, They called Jesus himself "The Bread of Heaven." Consuming his teachings Would strengthen them For "the journey without distance" (From heart to head). This still upsets outsiders Unable to overcome Fundamentalist literalism That yet confuses The Bread of Life With Wonder Bread, And fairy tales And spiritual nourishment With gross cannibalism
Conclusion
When I was a kid, I actually liked Wonder Bread. In fact, I still kind of do. Don’t you? I mean it’s a bit sweet; it’s easy to chew; it’s a nice base for peanut butter and jelly, and it goes down easy. It’s comfort food. My well-intentioned mother fed it to me and my three siblings without a second thought. I ate it the same way.
But then most of us got more conscientious about what we put into our bodies. With Elka Schumann, we realized that Wonder Bread didn’t really nourish us. So, we turned to bread that (initially at least) was less familiar and that required more chewing and changing of taste-preferences – a bit more work – maybe not as strong as Elka’s bread, but more substantial nonetheless.
For many of us who have stuck with faith as a source of meaning, it’s been the same. We outgrew the beliefs that no longer nourished. We woke up to the fact that Jesus’ teachings need adult interpretation that demands thought and decision about those issues I mentioned earlier — patriarchy, grossly unequal wealth distribution, perpetual wars precisely against the world’s poor, empire, capital punishment, and about agnosticism concerning the Truth that parallels our denial of what we know to be genuine relative to the great issues of our day.
Instead, we’ve reduced “faith” to childish fairy tales that none of us can believe. We’ve made it into Wonder Bread. And this at a time in history when acceptance of life’s essential unity – proclaimed not only by Elijah and Jesus, but by all the world’s great religious traditions – is necessary for our species’ very survival.
In the words of John, the Evangelist, I’m trying to say we need the Bread of Heaven, the Bread of Life now more than ever. We don’t need comfort food.
Thank you, Elka and Peter Schumann for using your puppets and bread to drive that truth home.
Readings for 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Wisdom 1:13-16, 2:23-24; Ps. 30:2, 4-6, 11-13; 2Cor. 8:7, 9, 13-16; Mk. 5:21-43
Last month my brilliant 15-year-old granddaughter shocked students in her high school freshman class by giving a speech about menstruation. Yes, menstruation! She called her talk “Bleeding in Silence: The Hidden Epidemic of Period Poverty.” (For those interested, I’ve pasted Eva’s words to the bottom of this posting.)
Eva’s speech was about how the patriarchal system fundamentally misunderstands how women’s bodies function. And in our man’s world, it’s women who pay the price for such ignorance. For instance, it influences the cost of “feminine hygiene products” and their availability while imposing unspoken prohibitions about even mentioning menstrual periods much less openly discussing and coping with them.
Eva’s presentation began with a video of interviews of male family members during a party over her school’s Easter break. On camera, she simply asked us “What do you understand by the word ‘menstruation?” It was surprising how quickly inarticulate, seemingly embarrassed, and (let’s face it) ignorant our responses were, even by those who (like me) should know better.
A principal conclusion of Eva’s speech was that lamentably, men know very little about how female bodies work. Women, of course know much more. Moreover, this disparity has major social repercussions when overwhelmingly male state administrators in a completely patriarchal system impose legislation about what they barely understand. e.g., about abortion, contraception sex education, and easy and cheap access to those hygiene products.
For instance, relative to abortion, the legislation ignores the fact that 70-75% of fertilized eggs end up aborting spontaneously. They’re unceremoniously flushed down toilets across the world in the menstrual period immediately following fertilization. Yet, a recent decision by the Alabama Supreme Court holds that all those unknown and unrecognized embryos are somehow “children.” At least that’s the implication of the court’s determination that frozen embryos are babies. How offensive to common sense is that? How contrary to what every woman implicitly knows.
I bring all of that up on this Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time because today’s selection from the Gospel of Mark centralizes a woman with a menstrual problem. It implies criticism of ignorant patriarchal laws regulating it, while strongly affirming a particular woman’s courageous decision to transgress those restrictions in favor of her own faith and common sense.
Jesus & Menstruation
In short, today’s reading uses the issue of menstruation to show how Jesus favored women who spoke for themselves and courageously exercised their own initiative even in the face of specific patriarchal legislation forbidding such agency. It has him even curing and praising a woman who disobeys precisely misogynistic laws. He ends up prioritizing her needs over those of a young female who was a passive captive to the religious patriarchy.
To make those points, Mark the evangelist creates what might be termed a “literary sandwich” – a “story within a story.” The device focuses on two kinds of females within the Jewish faith of Jesus’ day. In fact, Mark’s gospel is liberally sprinkled with doublets like the one just described. When they appear, both stories are meant to play off one another and illuminate each other.
In today’s doublet, we find two women. One is just entering puberty at the age of 12; the other has had a menstrual problem for the entire life span of the adolescent girl. (Today we’d call her condition a kind of menorrhagia.)
So, to begin with the number 12 is centralized. It’s a literary “marker” suggesting that the narrative has something to do with the twelve tribes of Israel – and in the early church, with the apostolic leadership of “the twelve.” The connection with Israel is confirmed by the fact that the 12-year-old in the story is the daughter of a synagogue official. As a man in a patriarchal culture, he can approach Jesus directly and speak for his daughter.
The other woman in the doublet has no man to speak for her; she must approach Jesus covertly and on her own. She comes from the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum from the 12-year- old daughter of the synagogue leader.
The older woman is without honor. She is poor and penniless. Her menstrual problem has rendered her sterile, and so she’s considered technically dead by her faith community. Her condition has also excluded her from the synagogue. In the eyes of community leaders like Jairus (the petitioning father in the story) she is “unclean.” (Remember that according to Jewish law, all women were considered unclean during their monthly period. So, the woman in today’s drama is exceedingly unclean. She and all menstruating women were not to be touched.)
All that means that Jairus as a synagogue leader is in effect the oppressor of the second woman. On top of that the older woman in the story has been humiliated and exploited by the male medical profession which has been ineffective in addressing her condition. In other words, the second woman is the victim of a misogynist religious system which saw the sacrificial blood of animals as valuable and pleasing in God’s eyes, but the blood of women as repulsively unclean.
Nonetheless, it is the bleeding woman who turns out to be the hero of the story. Her confidence in Jesus is so strong that she believes a mere touch of his garment will suffice to restore her to health, and that her action won’t even be noticed.
So, she reaches out and touches the Master. Doing so was extremely bold and highly disobedient to Jewish law, since her touch would have rendered Jesus himself unclean. She refuses to believe that.
So instead of being made unclean by the woman’s touch, Jesus’ being responds by exuding healing power, apparently without his even being aware. The woman is cured. Jesus asks, “Who touched me?” The disciples object, “What do you mean? Everybody’s touching you,” they say.
Finally, the unclean woman is identified. Jesus praises her faith and (significantly!) calls her “daughter.” So, what we end up finding in this literary doublet are two Jewish “daughters” – yet another point of comparison.
While Jesus is attending to the bleeding woman, the first daughter in the story apparently dies. Jesus insists on seeing her anyhow. When he observes that she is merely asleep, the bystanders laugh him to scorn. But Jesus is right. When he speaks to her in Aramaic, the girl awakens and is hungry. Everyone is astonished, and Jesus must remind them to feed her.
Mark’s Message for Us
What does all the comparison mean? The doublet represented in today’s Gospel addresses issues that couldn’t be more female – more feminist. The message here is that bold and active women unafraid of disobeying the religious or civil patriarchy in matters that women understand better than men. “Prioritize and act like the bleeding woman” is the message of today’s Gospel.
Could today’s gospel be telling us that bold and specifically feminist faith that sides with the poor and oppressed (like the hero of today’s Gospel) will be the salvation of us all who are moribund? Are women precisely as women today’s real faith leaders, rather than the elderly, white, out-of-touch men who overwhelmingly claim to lead in every sphere even those where women know far more.
Conclusion
Today’s Gospel suggests that it’s time for men to stop telling women how to be women – to stop pronouncing on issues of female sexuality whether it be menstruation, abortion, contraception, same-sex attractions, or whether women are called by God to the priesthood. Correspondingly, it’s time for women to disobey such male pronouncements, and to exercise leadership in accord with their common sense – in accord with women’s ways of knowing. Only that will save our national community which is currently sick unto death.
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Bleeding in Silence: The Hidden Epidemic of Period Poverty
By Eva Lehnerd Reilly
Whether they know the term or not, all women are necessarily aware of the realities of “Period Poverty.” Nonetheless, the concept remains completely foreign and even incomprehensible to most men. As a result, little is done to eliminate the problems the phrase represents. The phrase “Period Poverty” is defined as the lack of access to safe and hygienic menstrual products during monthly periods and accessibility to basic sanitation services or facilities as well as menstrual hygiene education.
Additionally, period poverty has social dimensions that include the stigmas surrounding this natural female process. To explain the problem, what follows will explore international dimensions of this issue, connect the phrase with patriarchy, misogyny and human rights and make recommendations for its elimination. This essay is arguing “Period Poverty” is a world health issue thus by refusing to acknowledge it we are proving that we still live in a society that is patriarchal, misogynist, and locked in an aggressive denial of the rights of women.
An International Problem
This issue affects billions of people worldwide in ways including stigma, dependence on transnational companies producing the necessary hygienic products, and the lack of understanding and acknowledgement of the problem. Stigma is one of the largest problems surrounding period poverty. Many countries and people believe wildly untrue period-related information. According to the Korean Journal of Family Medicine, Nepal “continues to believe in dangerous, incorrect ideas, for example, using tampons causes women to lose their virginity, or handling food while menstruating causes it to spoil the food.
Social stigma on menstruation remains even in more advanced nations: in the United States, 58% of women are ashamed of having a period, and 51% of men believe that it is improper to discuss periods at work.” (Jaafar, Hafiz, et al., 2023). The fact that stigma is so present in all different circles around the world shows how grand an issue this is and how many people are affected by it.
This is also an economic issue because women are dependent on transnational companies. Global Research and Consulting Group Insights explains that: “Multiple countries in the world impose the ‘tampon tax’ on menstrual products, frequently targeted as ‘luxury goods.’ This categorization enhances the chances that economic disparities, limit access to period products, and perpetuates the view that they are not a ‘necessity.’”(Ricardo da Costa, 2023). This tax is implemented often in particularly lower-income, less developed countries but it is far from unique to developing countries. In fact, GRC found that the elimination of the “tampon tax” in California would likely reduce government revenue by 55 million dollars. This shows how women’s reliance on companies to provide basic hygiene products is problematic because the government is trying to make financial gains by providing resources that should never be charged for in the first place.
Probably the largest problem of them all is the lack of awareness and understanding surrounding period poverty and the menstrual cycle in general. A Plan International study found that one in five boys and young men think that periods should be kept a secret. Furthermore, they associate this term with words like ‘messy,’ ‘gross,’ and ‘embarrassing.’ This tells us that the taboos set in place by society are greatly affecting young people and discouraging them from learning and understanding this issue. This is leading to the rise of a new wave of sexism.
Periods and Patriarchy
The term “patriarchy” refers to social conditions ruled by fathers–or more generally by men. In
The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner determines that this comes from lessons taught in childhood. She says that the “absolute authority of a father over his children provided men with a conceptual dominance of dependency, due to the helplessness of youth.” (Lerner, 90). Relative to period poverty, this fundamental condition has led some women to joke that if male biology included menstruation, they would likely be excused from work days before and during the entire menses process, plus they would be given a week off to recover. Additionally, menstrual hygiene products would be low or no cost, not subject to taxation, and as available as toilet paper and paper hand towels in every washroom.
In our patriarchal society no such accommodations are available for more than half our nation’s population. That’s period poverty. However, this goes farther than just the patriarchy. The issue is also affected greatly by misogyny, a term meaning hatred of women. This is revealed in attitudes surrounding mood swings, jokes about periods and even dates back to religious texts calling women ‘unclean’ during this time.
Particularly, in the third Book of the Pentateuch or Torah, known as Leviticus, it states that a woman undergoing menstruation is perceived as unclean for seven days and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening (Leviticus 15:19). This is simply outrageous and goes to show how our society is so deeply rooted in these feelings of hatred towards women and disgust towards natural occurrences.
Finally, access to period products is a human right. A human right is what belongs to human beings simply because of being human; it does not have to be earned, it is an entitlement. All women, simply because of being women, have menstrual periods. They therefore have rights connected with their inevitable circumstances. These include rights to free or very low-cost feminine hygiene products, widespread availability of such products and freedom from blame, ridicule, or penalty for time off for personal care during their periods. Now that we have established this, how can we fix this?
Practical Recommendations
The Journal of Global Health Reports found that 500 million people lack access to menstrual products and hygiene facilities and since half the population is female and over half of university students are female, this issue can no longer be ignored. Men need to be part of the solution. We need to all work together to ensure a positive and supportive environment that allows menstruating people to participate in all aspects of life (e.g., going to school/work, and sport). In a Plan International study of over 300 men, 49% said their education on periods was poor or non-existent and just under one third (32%) said that talking about periods made them feel uncomfortable, increasing to 53% in the youngest respondents aged 16-18 years. This shows that many people (men in particular) are not receiving adequate education leading to misinformation and increased stigma associated with menstruation.
The takeaway is that we are in desperate need of a far greater and earlier education about periods in schools. There are three things to note surrounding this being a world health issue: 1) Poor menstrual hygiene often causes physical health risks, 2) globally, 1.7 billion people live without basic sanitation services, 3) girls with disabilities disproportionately do not have access to the facilities and resources they need for proper menstrual hygiene. The former Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at UNICEF said it best: “Meeting the hygiene needs of all adolescent girls is a fundamental issue of human rights, dignity, and public health.” (Rodriguez, Global Citizen). With all that in mind, allow me to conclude my argument.
Last week Russia’s Vladimir Putin got the red-carpet treatment when he and virtually his entire government leadership met with Xi Jingping and his governing counterparts for a two-day summit in Beijing.
The collective west was apoplectic in response.
What were these two villains up to? Surely, they’re conspiring to take over the world.
The Washington Postfretted about connections between Russia and China on the one hand and with Iran and North Korea on the other.
But of course, what transpired last week in China is far bigger than any of that. It’s not just a worrisome alliance between the countries just mentioned. Ultimately, it’s a question of pacts between China, Russia, and the entire Global South (aka the Global Majority) that’s now taking practical form in BRICS+. And the threat there is not primarily military. It’s economic.
It’s the fearful (to the west) specter of a world order of cooperation, mutual benefit, and majority rule replacing that of western neocolonial empire with its ancient “divide and rule” tactics.
In the context of this Pentecost Sunday homily, you might even call such replacement “spiritual,” “biblical,” or (yes) “Pentecostal.”
Let me show you what I mean by elucidating what the west can’t understand about Russia and China’s shared project, about the difference between that project and the one favored by the collective west, and finally about the connections between all of that and today’s readings for this Pentecost Sunday.
The Project of the Collective West
What the collective west cannot understand about China is that its worldview is radically different from its own.
Especially since the Reagan-Thatcher era, the west has returned to the Hobbesian and social Darwinian superstition that human beings are primarily individuals constantly at one another’s throats.
They’ve become convinced that humans are basically selfish and locked in a “war of all against all.” Hence, “forever wars” are normal and the best we can do.
Westerners have also come to believe that government is somehow the enemy, that its size must be reduced to such an extent that it (as Grover Norquist said) can be drowned in a bathtub. This means that market regulation and taxation must be reduced to a minimum.
Even more importantly, the prevailing western belief system holds that its somehow natural and divinely ordained that just 4.2% of the world’s population (i.e. the United States) should run the world. White people are exceptional. In traditional terms, the DICTATORSHIP of the collective west’s bourgeoisie (of the G7) is part of the natural order.
As a result, any threat to such hegemony must be crushed.
Westerners take all that as self-evident truth forgetting that IT’S JUST A POINT OF VIEW – that btw happens to perfectly support huge wealth disparities and favorable profit margins of the military industrial complex. They forget that there are alternatives – other viewpoints that happen to be working far better than the positions just listed.
The Project of Russia and China
And that brings us back to Beijing.
China, Russia, and the Global Majority have a different approach to political economy. And virtually no one in the west gets it.
And it is here that China leads the way. It is led by a workers’ party that as such seeks to replace the “divide and rule” dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the leadership of working classes and their political representatives.
This simply means that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP} aspires to walk a fine line that prioritizes the welfare of the majority over that of corporations, billionaires, and of a state entirely beholden to their interests. The CCP has the final word. It protects local currency. Without stifling private enterprise, it protects its majority from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Accordingly, the CCP for example easily exercises eminent domain to advance projects (e.g. high-speed rail) deemed necessary to serve the common good. The CCP recognizes and suppresses as “corruption” egregious exercise of power on the part of the billionaire classes.
In short, Chinese political theory rejects “divide and rule” in favor of common good, multi-polarity, national sovereignties, and international cooperation. It seeks a world with room for everyone, with abundance for all, and where independent nations trade freely for mutual benefit. It is a world governed by international law directed by the United Nations. That’s the vision of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Pie in the sky, you say?
Not really. Witness China’s success in eliminating extreme poverty in record time. Witness the success of its Belt and Road initiative. Witness all the countries lining up to join BRICS +.
For China, the west’s “divide and rule” gives way to multipolarity and cooperation. In contrast to the United States’ forever wars and its 700 military bases throughout the world, China hasn’t fired a shot outside its borders in more than 40 years and has only one military base outside its borders.
Today’s Readings And that brings us to the readings for this Pentecost Sunday. They too contrast “divide and rule” strategies with those of mutual understanding.
What follows are my “translations” of the readings. Check out the originals here to see if I’ve got them right.
Genesis 11: 1-9: So, you think the “divide and rule” principle came from the Romans? If so, you’re wrong. “Divide and rule” came from the mysterious “Powerful Ones” (the biblical Elohim) who once ruled this earth. Where they came from no one knows. Perhaps from another planet or from all those leagues under the sea. In any case, they were terribly threatened by the humans they needed to supply them with the beef, gold and young virgins. (Powerful Ones always seem to require those.) So, when the Elohim saw humans cooperating to build cities with skyscrapers reaching to the heavens, the Powerful Ones intervened. They somehow made it impossible for people to understand each other. Suddenly they were divided into incomprehensible language groups. Ever since, other Powerful Ones (yes, like the Romans and the “Americans”) have aggressively adopted their own “divide and rule” strategies. They invent borders along with cultural, religious, and racial identities to keep humans apart lest they discover the immense power of universal cooperation.
Psalm 104: 1-2, 24, 35, 27-30: Far from dividing humans, Yahweh’s Great Spirit wills a New Earth whose creatures share the same breath and live in complete harmony, not division. Yahweh’s earth provides abundance for all including food and every good thing imaginable. Everything belongs to humans as a gift from Yahweh. She is indeed to be praised.
Romans 8: 22-27: This abundant Spirit of God is on our side as we earthlings struggle to replace the results of the Powerful Ones’ “divide and rule” strategies with God’s New Earth and its abundance for all. That shared plenty is what we’re all hoping for even though it’s hard to see in this purposely divided world. Resist! Be strong! Believe! Hope! God’s New Earth is possible! Another world is on the horizon. It is necessary.
Acts 2: 1-11: Fifty days after Yeshua’s assassination, his Spirit of community replaced the Elohim’s “divide and rule” scheme. With the descent of Yeshua’s Spirit, all language barriers vanished. Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, all understood that they shared a single Spirit uniting them all. They vowed to resume building the City of God –TOGETHER.
Conclusion
Yes, today’s readings suggest that China, Russia, and the Global Majority represented by BRICS + are on the right track. The United States and the collective West are not.
If Planet Earth is to survive, something like China’s approach to government, national sovereignty, common good, abundance for all, international cooperation, and multipolarity must replace Hobbes, social darwinism, forever wars, minority dominance, and divide and rule.
Ironically, the CCP is closer to the spirit of Pentecost than the “Christian” west.
Readings for Palm Sunday: John 12: 12-16; Isaiah 50: 4-7; Psalm 22: 17-24; Philippians 2: 6-11; Mark 14: 15-47
Today is Palm Sunday. For Christians, it begins “Holy Week” which recalls Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), his Last Supper (Holy Thursday), his torture and execution (Good Friday), and his resurrection from the dead as the culmination of a long history that began with the liberation of Hebrew slaves from Egypt (Holy Saturday).
As just noted, the saga begins today by recalling what the Christian Testament remembers as the day when Jesus was greeted by chanting throngs as he entered the city seated on a donkey while the crowds waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna.” They spread their cloaks before the animal that bore him to the temple precincts where he famously evicted money changers and vendors of sacrificial animals.
The event is full of political significance for those of us whose government has proudly inherited the mantle of the Roman Empire. That’s because the supposed events of Palm Sunday were probably part of a much larger general demonstration of faithful Jews including Jesus against the oppression that is part and parcel of all imperial systems including our own. As such, today’s narrative calls us to resistance of U.S. Empire as Rome’s contemporary successor.
To understand what I mean, consider (1) the significance of the Jerusalem demonstration itself and the role that palms played in its unfolding, (2) the demonstration’s chant “Hosanna, Son of David” and (3) the meaning of all this for our own lives.
Jerusalem Direct Action
For starters, think about what actually happened in Jerusalem during that first Demonstration of Palms.
Note at the outset that if the event wasn’t a whole-cloth invention of the early church, it’s highly unlikely that Jesus would have entered Jerusalem as a universally acclaimed figure. That’s because the gospels make it clear that all during his “public life,” Jesus confined his activities of healing and speaking to small villages where his audiences were poor illiterate peasants.
Given their small numbers, poverty and the expenses of travel and lodging, their massive presence in Jerusalem would have been highly unlikely. This meant that Jesus’ profile would have remained exceedingly low in larger cities and nearly non-existent in his nation’s capital city, Jerusalem. He would have been largely unknown there.
Again, if the event happened at all, it is more likely that the part Jesus and his disciples played in it was marginal and supportive of a larger parade and demonstration supported by well-organized revolutionaries such as Judah’s Zealot cadres whose raison d’etre was the expulsion of the occupying forces from Rome.
This also means that the demonstration’s climax with its “cleansing of the temple” would probably have represented a much larger assault on the sacred precincts where only large numbers of protestors would have stood any hope of impact rather than an individual construction worker supported by 12 fishermen.
(Remember, the residence of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, was actually attached to the temple itself. So were the barracks of Jerusalem’s occupying force. The annex was called the Fortress Antonia. During the Passover holidays, everyone there would have been on high alert rendering any small demonstration – and probably any large one — virtually impossible. If the temple itself were not crawling with Roman soldiers, they would have been surveilling the whole scene.)
But even if Jesus were welcomed by the frantic crowds as depicted in the gospels, the event would have been precisely intended to be seen by the Romans as highly political and perhaps even decisive in defeating their hated occupation and bringing on in its place what Jesus described as the Kingdom of God.
(Jesus’ high hopes surrounding the incidents of this final week in his life are suggested by the words Mark records at the Last Supper in today’s gospel reading: “I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” In other words, Jesus evidently thought that the events of this first “holy week” would signify a political turning point for Jews in their struggle against Rome. Their uprising would finally bring in God’s kingdom.)
Jesus’ Anti-Imperialism
In any case and whatever its historical merits, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is presented as anti-imperial. The waving of palms, the chanting of the crowd, and Jesus’ mount all tell us that. In Jesus’ time, the waving palms on patriotic occasions (like Passover) was like waving a national or revolutionary flag. That had been the case ever since the successful rebellion led by the Jewish revolutionary Maccabee family against the Seleucid tyranny of Antiochus IV Epiphanes 150 years earlier.
So, crowds greeting Jesus with palms raised high while chanting “Hosanna, Son of David” (save us!) would have meant “Hail to the Son of David, who will lead us to regain our freedom from the Romans, the way the Maccabees led the revolution against the Seleucid tyrant!” Jesus’ choice of a traditionally royal donkey as his mount would only have underscored that message. Only kings rode donkeys in processions.
All of this means that the story of “Palm Sunday” as presented in today’s reading depicts an overt threat to the imperial system of Rome supported by Jerusalem’s Temple establishment.
Anti-Imperialism Today
So, what’s my point in emphasizing the political dimensions of Palm Sunday? Simply put, it’s to call attention to the fact that followers of Jesus must be anti-imperial too.
That’s because imperialism as such runs contrary to the Hebrew covenant that protected the poor and oppressed, the widows, orphans, and resident non-Jews from the depredations of local elites and outside military powers.
And that’s what empire represents in every case. It’s a system of robbery by which militarily powerful nations victimize the less powerful for purposes of resource transfer from the poor to the already wealthy.
Such upward redistribution of wealth runs absolutely contrary to the profound social reform promised in Jesus’ notion of the Kingdom of God. There, everything would be reversed downward. The first would be last; the last would be first (Matthew 20:16). The hungry would be fed and the rich would suffer famine (Luke 1: 53). The rich would become poor, and the poor would be rich. The joyful would be saddened and those in tears would laugh (Luke 6: 24-25).
Contradicting those grassroots aspirations is the very purpose of U.S. empire today with its endless wars, nuclear arms, bloated Pentagon budgets, and glorification of the military. All of that is about supporting the status quo and preventing Jesus’ Great Reversal.
That’s why American armed forces maintain more than 800 military bases throughout the world. All of them are engines of stability in a world of huge inequalities. (Btw, do you know how many foreign bases China maintains? One!!) Maintaining stability in a world crying out for change is why the U.S. is currently fighting seven wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Niger – and who knows where else) with no end in sight. (Today’s designated enemy, China, is fond of pointing out that it hasn’t dropped a single bomb on foreign soil for 40 years.)
Conclusion
Recently, a conservative church friend of mine told me that his primary identity is as a follower of Jesus. I found that wonderfully inspiring.
On second thought however, I wondered which Jesus he was referring to. Was it to the revolutionary Jesus of Palm Sunday? Or did his Jesus support U.S. empire? Did he promise individualized prosperity as the result of following him? Was his Jesus politically involved? Or did he simply ignore politics in favor of internal peace and a promised heaven after death?
The questions are crucial. There are so many Jesuses of faith. And, of course, we’re all free to choose our favorite. By the same token however, we have to explain how an “other-worldly” Jesus would have appealed to his impoverished audiences like those depicted in today’s gospel. My guess is that an other-worldly guru would have had zero appeal to them.
Why would such a Jesus have been seen as threatening to Rome? Again, he would not have been.
Yes, there are many Jesuses of faith. However, there was only one historical Jesus. And it seems logical to me that the historical Jesus must be the criterion for judging which Jesus of faith we accept — if any.
Today’s recollection of the parade down Jerusalem’s main street, with crowds waving revolutionary symbols, and its assault on the sacred temple precincts (including Roman barracks) remind us that the historical Jesus stood against empire. Like every good Jew of his time, Jesus not only hoped for empire’s overthrow, but worked to that end with its promised Great Reversal.
No wonder Jesus was so popular with his poor and oppressed neighbors. No wonder Rome executed him as an insurgent. No wonder that particular Jesus seems so foreign to us who now live in the belly of empire’s beast. No wonder he remains so despicable to our religious and political mainstream.
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