Sunday Homilies – Page 2 – About Things That Matter

Jesus’ Healing Action Tells Women To Disobey Men: Control Your Own Bodies

Readings for 13^th 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.

U.S. Divide & Rule Strategy vs. China’s Unifying Belt & Road Initiative

Readings for Pentecost Sunday: Genesis 11: 1-9; Psalm 104: 1-2, 24, 35, 27-30; Romans 8: 22-27; Acts 2: 1-11.

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 Post fretted 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.

Palm Sunday Reflection: The Revolutionary Jesus

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.

My Homilist’s Writer’s Block in the Face of Genocide

This is the 5^th Sunday of Lent. I’ve read the liturgical selections as found on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website. Anticipating Easter in just two weeks, the first reading is about Ezekiel’s 6^th century BCE promise of resurrection to a Jewish people in their Babylonian Exile. The day’s selection from the Gospel of John describes Jesus’ raising of his friend Lazarus from his moldering grave.

In in the face of what the odious Benjamin Netanyahu doing in Gaza (with 95% support from his constituents) it all nearly turns my stomach. It has shut down my ability (and desire) to write anything sympathetic to any tradition about “God’s People” returning home.

Think of the ironies contained in today’s readings!

In the selection from Ezekiel, the prophet writes about the sixth century BCE Babylonian Exile. Exile, he laments, has meant death for his people.

So, to encourage them, he writes of a future when graves will be opened, where the dead will rise, and return to Israel, their home. More than that, the prophet promises that the returnees will embody God’s own Holy Spirit.

Then the liturgical response drawn from Psalm 130 acknowledges God as the liberator of the oppressed. It sings of a God whose mercy responds to the prayers of captives by expressing forgiveness and kindness.

Who among us can read such sentiments without throwing up?

I mean, the Zionist Jews with their people’s lamentable history of exiles and occupations by foreigners and with their experience of pogroms, and Holocaust at the hands of Christians have suddenly been revealed as the monsters they’ve always been. Absolute monsters!

Yes, it’s true: the Jewish people have more than once risen from the dead and returned “home” just as Ezekiel promised. But this time since 1948 and especially since October 7^th, 2023, contemporary Zionists have completely assumed the identity of their oppressors. They’ve become Nazis! Yes, Nazis!

And the hell of is: so have we Americans. With “Genocide Joe” Biden leading the way, virtually all the U.S. senators and members of Congress have enthusiastically supported Israel’s ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, infanticide, femicide, and starvation tactics. They (and we who fail to protest) are just as guilty of genocide as the Nazi apartheid Zionists.

And in the face of it all, where in the collective west are Christian voices united in protest and calling genocide what it is? Why is Pope Francis not unambiguously joining Jesus portrayed in today’s Gospel selection as railing against death and promising resurrection? Why are he and other Christian leaders not publicly weeping before the mountains of dead bodies who (unlike Jesus’ friend) can’t even claim the dignity of proper burial?

It’s all too much for me.

And so, I’m sorry. In the face of the Zionists’ current genocide against Palestine’s indigenous people, in the face of the apartheid Jews’ utter arrogance and cruelty, I find it impossible to write anything sympathetic to their religious tradition. I find it impossible to comment on “God’s word” that has been invoked so cynically to justify the sadistic slaughter of far more than 31,200 innocents, more than half of them children and their mothers.

My stomach is sickened. I can think of almost nothing else. My heart is broken. My faith is challenged. I can write no more.

Cornel West and God’s Love for Mr. Netanyahu and “Genocide Joe”

Readings for Epiphany Sunday: Is. 60:1-6; Ps. 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Eph. 3:2-3a, 5-6; Mt. 2: 1-12

Just last night, I found myself in a ZOOM conversation with colleagues at OpEdNews, where I’m a senior editor. The name of Cornel West came up. His discussion with Norman Finkelstein was referenced.

West, of course, is the great theologian and former Harvard professor who is running this year as an independent candidate to replace Joe Biden as president of the United States. Finkelstein is a widely published social scientist and descendent of Holocaust victims.

In their conversation, both men condemned Israel’s ongoing genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. Finkelstein found them unforgivable. In the latter’s opinion, Benjamin Netanyahu and by extension, Joe Biden are beyond any absolution for their crimes. Calling them and their supporters “brother” or “sister” is an abomination.

For his part however, West refused to give up even on Netanyahu. While the latter, he said, deserved removal from office and a lengthy prison sentence for his obvious war crimes, West still considered Israel’s prime minister a “brother” loved by God.

As a theologian myself, I found myself agreeing with both men. Netanyahu’s cynical religious pretensions are despicable. His invocations of the Bible to justify his slaughter of innocents represents the worst and most blasphemous form of religion I can imagine.

I must confess that in my heart, I wish upon him the pain that Gazan babies and their mothers must endure as their limbs are amputated without anesthesia, because of the prime minister’s refusal to allow medical supplies into the concentration camp he’s mercilessly carpet-bombing. I have the same feelings towards Netanyahu’s sponsor, Joe Biden. He fully deserves the epithet “Genocide Joe.”

And yet, biblical readings for this Epiphany Sunday tell me that Cornel West is right. Despite shockingly primitive and cruel understandings of God found in the books of Genesis and Exodus, the Divine One of the Judeo-Christian tradition ultimately reveals God’s Self as the loving Mother/Father of EVERYONE regardless of our crimes, and especially (in today’s particular readings) – regardless of ethnic identification. To all of them, Yeshua’s final words apply. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

More specifically, the Divine One’s universal and unfailing love is the very theme of today’s readings.

Epiphany Sunday

Remember: the word “epiphany” means the appearance or manifestation of God – a revelation of who God really is.

On this Epiphany Sunday, Christians recall the tale of astrologers from “the East” who followed a miraculous star leading to the birthplace of Yeshua of Nazareth.

Epiphany recalls the time when such seekers recognized in Yeshua the long-awaited manifestation of the Universal God announced in today’s selection from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah and today’s responsorial Psalm 72 tell us clearly that God is not what ethnocentric believers expected or even wanted. S/he loves everyone equally, not just Jews, much less Americans.

That’s part of why Herod “and all Jerusalem with him” were “troubled” when they unexpectedly met the travelers who were seeking the world-centric and cosmic-centered manifestation of God that Isaiah had foreseen.

The God Herod and the Jerusalem establishment knew was like the one worshipped by Jewish Zionists today. He exclusively loved and favored Jews, the Hebrew language, and the Holy Land. He was pleased by Jewish customs and worship marked by animal sacrifice and lots of blood.

So, Herod and Jerusalem were “troubled” when the foreigners came seeking the Palestinian address of a newborn divine avatar. The astrologers claimed that the very cosmos (the Star!) had revealed God’s Self to them even though they were not Jews. Evidently, the wise men possessed (or were possessed by) cosmic consciousness. They realized Life’s Great Source not only transcended themselves and their countries, but planet earth itself. All creation somehow spoke of its divine Source.

Today’s selections from the prophet Isaiah, Psalm 72, and Paul’s letter to the Ephesians agree with the Wise Men. All of them speak of a Divine Being who is universal, not belonging to a particular nation or religion. This God is recognizable and intelligible to everyone regardless of language or culture.

That Divine One brings light to the thick darkness which causes us to limit God to privileged nations, races, and classes. The universal God brings peace and justice and champions of the poor, oppressed, lowly and afflicted. The newly manifested deity leads the rich (like the three astronomers) to redistribute their wealth to the poor (like Jesus and his peasant parents). This God wants all to have their fair share.

Matthew’s story says that the Jewish Yeshua manifested such a God. Yeshua was the complete revelation of the God of peace and social justice – a world-centered, a cosmic-centered God who loves everyone.

Herod’s and Jerusalem’s response? Kill him!

A universal God like that threatened Jerusalem’s Temple and priesthood. The Epiphany meant that such a God was not to be found there exclusively. If this God could not be tied down to time or place, then what would become of priestly status, temple treasure, the Jerusalem tourism industry?

Epiphany also threatened Herod’s position. Recognizing a divinity who led the rich to transfer their treasure to the poor threatened class divisions. A God on the side of the poor would embolden the lazy and unclean to rebel against those who used religion to keep the under-classes in line and resigned to their lot in life.

No, there could only be one solution: ignore the Star’s cosmic message, present a friendly face to these stupid foreigners, derive the crucial information from them, and then kill off as many impoverished babies as possible hoping in the process to stop God’s threatening, unacceptable Self-disclosure.

Today’s Readings

All of this is expressed in this Sunday’s readings. What follows are my “translations.” The originals can be found here

Isaiah 60: 1-6: Yes, God’s revelation has enlightened you, Jerusalem! It has been like a bright sun piercing dark clouds. But also know that same light has graced other nations making their inhabitants your own brothers and sisters. Please, embrace that disclosure of God’s immensity! The resulting collapse of national barriers will enrich you beyond your wildest dreams as all the earth’s treasures are shared among members of a Single Human Family.

Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-13: Thankfully (though very gradually) humanity is coming to realize that there is but a single God whose overriding concern is social justice as it affects the poor and oppressed. In fact, God’s will is the redistribution of wealth across geographical boundaries that are meaningless to Life’s Source.

Ephesians 3: 2-3a,5-6: Jesus himself taught that lesson as if for the first time: All of us, Jews and Gentiles are members of a single body. Living by that teaching (he said) will bring a New Order where God reigns instead of earth’s Caesars.

Matthew 2: 1-12: Recognizing God’s immensity manifested in the very cosmos, Arab astrologers accepted Yeshua’s universal revelation not only before his own people, but despite the plot of religious leaders to deny and annihilate its Messenger. Ironically, Arabs were more open to God’s Self disclosure than those who considered themselves God’s people! (Doesn’t the same seem true today?)

Conclusion

Regretfully, and despite my own theological pretensions, and even with these readings fresh on my mind, I could not bring myself to voice the scriptural insights I’ve just shared, nor my agreement with Dr. West in last night’s OpEdNews conversation. I remained silent. To my small mind, Finkelstein is right: Biden and Netanyahu are beyond absolution.

But today’s Good News is that God is bigger than that. As Ken Wilber would put it, “Everyone’s right and is doing the best they can.” That applies to Netanyahu and to Biden as well. They might deserve our opprobrium and jail time, but they’re still somehow our brothers and sisters.

Dr. West’s candidacy reminds us that only such largesse can save our degenerating country — our disintegrating world.

With King Herod and “all Jerusalem with him,” I still find that “troubling.” At the same time, it’s salvific, and encourages me to support Cornel West’s candidacy.

It’s an epiphany (revelation) of the Divine One’s true forgiving nature. Nothing less can save us now.

Christmas Cancelled in Bethlehem

Last week, Christian church leaders in the city of Bethlehem announced the cancellation of traditional Christmas festivities in the place traditionally associated with the Jesus’ birth.

And this for at least two obvious reasons. For one, the genocidal killings by colonial settlers in Palestine’s occupied West Bank have made it impossible for tourists to come to Bethlehem.

For another, Palestinian residents of Bethlehem have themselves cancelled festivities in an act of solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Gaza victimized by Apartheid Zionists and their partners in genocide, the United States of America.

But there’s a third reason as well – a theological one that needs highlighting this Christmas weekend.

The motive was explained last Friday on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.” Ms. Goodman began with a clip of the Reverend Isaac Munther, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem.

Standing before a nativity scene with the figure of Jesus in a keffiyeh surrounded by rubble, Rev. Munther said:

“Christmas is a ray of light and hope from the heart of pain and suffering. Christmas is the radiance of life from the heart of destruction and death. In Gaza, God is under the rubble. He is in the operating room. If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble, in every child struggling for life in destroyed hospitals, in every child in incubators. Christmas celebrations are canceled this year, but Christmas itself is not and will not be canceled, for our hope cannot be canceled.”

Elaborating on that theme, Reverend Mitri Raheb, the president of Bethlehem’s Dar al-Kalima University, offered an explanation that echoed the liberation theology perspective on Palestine that my wife and I encountered in the summer of 2006, when we visited the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.

Dr. Raheb is the author of a book with a revealing title, Decolonizing Palestine: the Land, the People, the Bible. Here’s what he said:

“The Christmas story actually is a Palestinian story, par excellence. It talks about a family in Nazareth, in the north of Palestine, that is ordered by an imperial decree of the Romans to evacuate to Bethlehem, to go there and register. And this is exactly what our people in Gaza has been experiencing these 75 days. It talks about Mary, the pregnant woman, on the run, exactly like 50,000 women in Gaza who are actually displaced. Jesus was born actually as a refugee. There was no place at the inn for him to be born, so he was put in a manger. And this is exactly what also the kids that are coming to life these days in Gaza are experiencing. You know, most of the hospitals are damaged, out of service, and so there is no delivery places for all of these pregnant women in Gaza. And then you have the bloodthirsty Herod that ordered to kill the kids in Bethlehem to stay in power. And in Gaza, over 8,000 kids, they have been murdered for Netanyahu to stay in power.

And you have this message that the angels declared here, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth,” which was actually a critique of the empire, because glory belongs to the Almighty and not to the mighty. And the peace that Jesus came to proclaim is not the peace, the Pax Romana, the peace that is based on subjugation and military operation, but on human dignity, equality and justice. And this is actually what we call for. And I have to say I find it really a shame that in this season, where every church hears these words, “peace on Earth,” that the United States is vetoing even a ceasefire. It’s a shame.”

Yes, shame on all of us taxpayers and voters.

So much for “Merry Christmas!” this 2023.

GOP Attacks on Higher Learning: What’s Education for Anyway? And How about Religion?

Readings for the Third Sunday of Advent:Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11; Luke 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54; 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28.

Last week, Americans were treated to a high-level display of hypocrisy, double standards, and pure ignorance regarding higher learning. The spectacle occurred during a House Education Committee hearing about on-campus demonstrations supporting Palestinians in Gaza.

The procedure raised questions not only about alleged anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but also about the very purpose of higher education.

For me in the context of biblical readings for this third Sunday of Advent, the hearing also touched issues of faith and its dictates regarding the conflict in Gaza. As we’ll see, today’s readings suggest that Christians should stand with Palestinians in their conflict with an Apartheid state turned genocidal – and against the United States now unquestionably revealed (in the words of Scott Ritter) as “the world’s bad guy.”

Let me deal with each of those points successively.

The Hearing & Anti-Semitism

During the hearing just referenced, rightwing congress member Elise Stefanik (R NY) grilled Harvard president Claudine Gay, her MIT counterpart Sally Kornbluth, and University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill about allowing pro-Palestinian demonstrations on their campuses.

According to Ms. Stefanik, the demonstrations ran the danger of threatening pro-Zionist students.

Ignoring her own history of alleged anti-Semitic positions as well as her votes funding the Zionist genocide of Gazans, the congresswoman’s questioning deceptively linked the term “intifada” to advocacy of extermination of Jews.

Similarly ignoring Zionist claims to “Greater Israel” extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, the congresswoman’s questioning implied that any use of the phrase “from the River to the Sea” uniquely threatened Jewish students. Clearly, Congresswoman Stefanik, along with many Democrats, was anxious to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on Campus.

For their part, the university presidents at last week’s hearing were correspondingly anxious to protect first amendment guarantees on their campuses in today’s context where any talk of Palestinian rights is interpreted as anti-Semitic.

The whole affair had commentators like Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, viewing the presidents’ grilling and its fallout as an attempt by champions of Zionism to distract from actual genocide (of Palestinians in Gaza) while centralizing highly marginal hypothetical speech about repeating Hitler’s horrendous genocide of Jews.

Meanwhile, right-wing commentators on Fox News offered outright condemnation of the three women presidents’ unwillingness to give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to loaded questions about a complex constitutional issue of free speech.

According to Bill Bennett, the former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, the whole affair illustrated, how American education at all levels has declined into what some have called “cesspools of liberal propaganda.”

Education’s Purpose

All this raises questions about the purpose of education in general and of higher education in particular. What is it for?

What do you think?

The relatively new prevailing answer equates the university’s function with pre-professional training. If courses don’t directly prepare students for “the world of work,” they’re a waste of time.

That approach, of course, discards traditional approaches to learning in general as preparation for living meaningful lives that transcend considerations of jobs and income in favor of free discussion and representation of all points of view – even those advocating genocide.

This more traditional approach unabashedly believes that free speech and debate will broaden students’ horizons. And doing so will inevitably challenge students to move from positions of egocentrism and ethnocentrism, from narrow tribalism and patriotism to something like world-centrism and even to cosmic consciousness.

In fact, many educators (like me) would say that’s the whole purpose of education – to help students and professors grow beyond egocentrism and ethnocentrism towards world centrism (where all humans are seen as brothers and sisters) and even to the mystical viewpoint that concludes “there is really only one of us here.”

In fact, reaching that cosmic vision is arguably the whole purpose of life. At least that seemed to be the position of all the world’s great religious traditions including their Judeo-Christian branch. Reaching that point of course would automatically exclude wars of any kind on the grounds that they are all suicidal.

Today’s Readings

And that brings me to the biblical selections for this third Sunday of Advent. Transcending even academic “objectivity,” today’s passages call us to take sides. They call us to side with the Palestinians against their apartheid colonial butchers.

For the readings reveal what scripture scholars call our Great Mother-Father God’s “preferential option for the poor.” They reveal that the Great Spirits themselves take sides. They demand justice for the poor (like the children of Gaza and their mothers) in their struggle against the rich [like the Apartheid Zionists and their genocidal IDF with its (U.S.-supplied) planes, bombs, missiles, and tanks].

Let me show you what I mean by “translating” today’s liturgical selections. Please read the originals here to see if I got them right.

Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11

If you’re possessed by the Holy Spirit, if you have Christ consciousness, you must imitate the Great Mother herself. You must make a “preferential option for the poor.” It prioritizes healing hearts broken by imperial powers. Begin by recognizing the fact that poverty and debt render the poor hostages and prisoners of the rich. However, just like the wealthy, poor husbands and their brides deserve their own sparkling jewels. Put otherwise, wealth redistribution is a simple matter of divine justice which imitates the abundance and generosity of Nature herself.

Luke 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54

Yeshua’s mother recognized all this. Myriam was a poor peasant herself. And yet she, rather than some rich woman, was chosen as the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. So, she militantly praised the Divine One for feeding the hungry while specifically rejecting the rich. She glorified the Great Source for standing with Myriam’s people when they were unjustly occupied by imperial Rome.

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24

Paul of Tarsus experienced Myriam’s consciousness as well. It expressed, he said, the Spirit of Yeshua himself whose prophetic program was identical with Isaiah’s (Luke 4:18). Yes, Paul said, Yeshua’s “preferential option for the poor” represents the criterion separating authentic interpretations of the Lord’s message from those of deceptive charlatans. The latter “solve” problems by war, rather than by peace which respects soul, body, spirit, and the absolute integrity of human community.

Isaiah 61:1

Lest you forget, we repeat: Christ’s Good News is addressed primarily to the poor, not the rich.

John 1: 6-8, 19-28

That’s what John the Baptizer recognized too. He was poor people’s alternative High Priest. His Temple was the Jordan’s wilderness, not Herod’s urban Temple. Yet, neither John, nor Elijah before him, nor any of the great prophets was anywhere near as radical as Yeshua. John merely baptized with water; Yeshua, his disciple, would administer a baptism that conferred the very Spirit of God – the fiery Spirit that preferred the poor to the rich.

Conclusion

Like secular universities, religious people within the Judeo-Christian tradition should never censor free speech. That’s because good-willed people hold all kinds of opinions. Even advocates of genocide deserve places at the table, in congressional hearings, at teach-ins, discussion groups, and bull sessions. Our Constitution’s First Amendment (every bit as important as the Second) demands that.

But today’s readings invite subscribers to the Judeo-Christian tradition to go further still. They summon followers of Isaiah, Myriam, Paul, and Yeshua to stand with the poor and powerless – with victims of empire and colonialism. The readings urge adoption of the divine “preferential option for the poor” by imagining what today is impossible, but as our aspirational North Star. And that means standing with Gazans against their genocidal oppressors.

To me at least, that further means:

Getting informed about the tragedy unfolding before our eyes.
Recognizing and naming the crime of genocide even when its perpetrators were once victims of genocide themselves.
Denouncing all violations of international law as such including indiscriminate attacks upon and wholesale slaughter of children, women, and the elderly.
Also including policies of collective punishment, carpet bombing, destructions of medical facilities, use of chemical weapons (such as white phosphorous) and assassinations of teachers, doctors, and members of the press.
Identifying “national leaders” like Israel’s Netanyahu and U.S. “Genocide Joe Biden” as international criminals.
Calling for the latter’s arrest and trial by the international court. (If that can be done for Russia’s President Putin for much lesser crimes, why not for Netanyahu and “Genocide Joe?”)
Similarly identifying Apartheid Israel and its enabler the United States of America as criminal nations.
Calling for their expulsion from a restructured United Nations that strips a nation representing 4.2% of the world’s population from overriding the will of the overwhelming majority of the U.N.’s membership.

Xi Jinping To Biden: You Can Do Multipolarity The Hard Way or the Easy Way; It’s Your Choice!

Readings for the 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Psalms 128: 1-5; 1^st Thessalonians 5: 1-6; Matthew 25: 14-3

What do you do about an economic system you no longer believe in? What if it’s just interested in the monetary bottom line – making money without doing any real work. What if it shows no concern for women and their children?

Do you simply go along with something like that?

The readings for this Sunday show that it’s an age-old question.

Last week’s meeting between Joe Biden and China’s president, Xi Jinping raised it again.

Let me show you what I mean.

Biden Meets Xi

So, they finally met. Xi Jinping and old man Biden in San Francisco. That happened last Thursday at the insistent request of U.S. president’s team.

According to Alexander Mercouris, Xi showed up on his own terms predetermining where the summit would take place, making sure the streets would be cleaned up, and that there would be no anti-China demonstrations. China also set the meeting’s agenda.

Before that, however, the Chinese president gave two speeches to high level representatives of the U.S. business community, including Elon Musk and Bridgewater CEO, Ray Dalio. At both, he received standing ovations for saying that China’s doors are open for mutually beneficial business deals.

And the point of those agreements would not be to advance “America First,” or “China First” agendas, but to benefit everyone on the planet – prioritizing women and children.

China’s system, Xi implied, is not about favoring the wealthy according to some trickle-down theory. It’s about improving the lives of everyone, beginning with the least – as shown by China’s elimination of extreme poverty in its own context.

Perhaps despite all that, the U.S. business community liked what it heard. Again, those standing ovations. It likes Xi. It knows which side its own bread is buttered on.

But then came Xi’s meeting with Biden. What happened there?

Well, according to the Chinese readout as summarized by Mercouris, President Xi gave our old man a stern lecture.

America and China are at an unprecedented crossroads, Xi said. The U.S. can either take the path of cooperation or of opposition. The choice is up to America since it’s responsible for most of the world’s turmoil. Its response to virtually every problem is military.

According to Xi, choosing cooperation will help both countries prosper and the entire world as well. The path of opposition promises to end in tragedy for everyone.

China has its own problems, Xi went on. It has no desire to replace America as world hegemon. However, in our planet’s new multi-polar context, it will not abide U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs.

For instance, tensions between China and Taiwan will inevitably be resolved according to their shared timetable. The U.S. should therefore stop arms shipments to Taiwan. The latter is, after all, recognized as part of China by the State Department itself. Trying to further widen any gap between Taiwan and China promises those tragic consequences that Xi had referenced earlier.

And what was old man Biden’s response?

Platitudes and false smiles. Nothing about lifting sanctions or cancelling plans for more arms shipments to Taiwan. Just something about American and Chinese military officials maintaining communication and vague references to cooperation on climate change.

Then, after marveling at the luxurious design of Xi’s Chinese-made limousine, Biden bid his counterpart adieu smiling broadly. As Xi’s car drove away, the old man gave a triumphant fist pump as if he had accomplished something significant.

Subsequently, “our leader” convened a brief press conference where he promptly dismissed Xi as a “dictator.”

So much for diplomacy, not to mention maturity – from an octogenarian!

Today’s Readings

To repeat: I bring all of that up because today’s readings centralize something like the choice Xi Jinping described – between on the one hand something like the American hard, unfeeling exploitative economic system where the rich reap where they did not sow and on the other hand, a system like China’s that takes care of women and children.

That is, according to today’s liturgy of the word, prioritizing human need entails centralizing the role of women. Meanwhile, systems that primarily serve the rich are condemned in Jesus’ famous Parable of the Talents.

See for yourself. Here are my “translations” of today’s readings. You can find the originals here.

Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31

Deeply centered women are the anchors of the world – far more than the superficially beautiful and apparently charming. The value of virtuous women is beyond precious jewels. They not only benefit their own families with food and clothing; they also recognize and share what they have with the marginalized and poor. In fact, homemakers should be paid for housework and given high positions in government.

Psalms 128: 1-5

Whether they know it or not, such women and those they care for are blessed. They are following the Divine Mother’s path. The gardens they cultivate (actual and metaphorical) overflow with rich foods. Face it: they are responsible for the very continuance and prosperity of humanity. The men in their lives should honor them accordingly.

I Thessalonians 5: 1-6

In fact, women’s pregnancy processes provide an apt image for the Divine Mother’s New World that we all anticipate. The enlightened among us (as opposed to those living in darkness) can already feel that the labor pangs are about to begin. Alert and clear-headed, the light-bearers stand ready like midwives to assist in the birthing.

Matthew 25: 14-30

Such assistance in service of our Mother’s New Reality calls for departure from business as usual – from a system that rewards the 1% who do no actual work, but who rely on investments that end up enriching the already affluent while further impoverishing and punishing the poor and exploited.

Parable of the Talents

As I was saying, the readings just reviewed are about economic systems – one that treats its beneficiaries like the family they are, the other that prioritizes money and profit. The first three readings from Proverbs, Psalms and 1^st Thessalonians reflect the values of a tribal culture where women’s productive capacity was still highly valued.

On the other hand, Jesus’ Parable of the Talents centers on the male world of investment and profit-taking without real work. In the end, the story celebrates dropping out and refusing to cooperate with the dynamics of finance, interest, and exploitation of the working class.

Taken together, the readings put one in mind of the contrast between China’s more people-oriented economy over against the U.S. exclusively profit-oriented system.

More specifically, Jesus’ parable contrasts obedient conformists with counter-cultural rebellion like the one embodied in Xi Jinping’s “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” The former invest in an economic system embodied in their boss – “a demanding person” the parable laments, “harvesting where he did not plant and gathering where he did not scatter.”

In other words, like neo-liberal capitalism itself, the boss is a hard-ass S.O.B. who lives off the work of poor women farmers like those celebrated in the Proverbs selection. The conformists go along with that system to which they can imagine no acceptable alternative.

Accordingly, the servant who is entrusted with five talents (more than 2 million dollars!) gains 2 million more and the one given two talents doubles his money as well.

Meanwhile, the non-conformist hero of the parable (like China) refuses to adopt a system where, as Jesus puts it, “everyone who has is given more so that they grow rich, while the have-nots are robbed even of what they have.”

Because of his decision to drop out, the rebel suffers predictable consequences. Like Jesus and his mentor, John the Baptist, the non-conformist is marginalized into an exterior darkness which the rich see as bleak and tearful (a place of “weeping and grinding of teeth”).

However, Jesus promises that exile from the system of oppression represents a first step towards the inauguration of the very Kingdom of God. It is filled with light and joy.

Conclusion

China has taken more than that first step. It has rejected the U.S. model of world hegemony in favor of a multi-polar world.

If you don’t believe that, just think of China’s elimination of extreme poverty for almost a billion human souls. Its Belt and Road Initiative (now enrolling at least 150 countries) is a model of what the U.S. used to celebrate as “foreign aid,” but without strings attached or connection to regime change.

And all of this as well without juvenile fist pumps, name-calling, or sanctions that expel the disobedient into that darkness outside with its wailing and grinding of teeth.

Yes, we need a change of economic systems – and of leadership that shows the maturity, patience, and diplomacy of Xi Jinping.

Scott Ritter, Hamas, Terrorism, & the Judeo-Christian Tradition

Readings for the 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time: Malachi 1: 14b-2: 2b, 8-10; Psalm 131: 1-3; 1 Thessalonians 2: 7b-9, 13; Matthew 23: 1-12

The liturgical readings for this 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time are about the hypocrisy of national “leaders” who bring disgrace to their office and who become for their people a curse rather than a blessing.

They pretend to know more than the ones they “serve.” As a result, though they might say the right words about freedom, peace, and even “God,” every action they perform contradicts the basic divine imperative (found in all the world’s Great Religions) to treat others as we would like to be treated.

Consequently, the only policy these hypocrites know is war. In Israel-Palestine, they supply weapons to kill women and children (centralized in today’s readings) and they prefer continued slaughter to cease-fires.

Religious pretenders all, they disgrace themselves before the world’s poor majorities who know exactly what lawless settler-colonialists (and their facilitators) are always about. As Haitian film maker, Raul Peck has shown, they’re always about ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, and outright extermination. Always!

Today, the whole world is watching the script unfold once again in Apartheid-Israel.

A Pro-Palestinian Demonstration

All of that was brought home to me two weeks ago when I attended a pro-Palestinian rally in New Haven, Connecticut near the Yale campus.

By my estimate the highly enthusiastic crowd that gathered there numbered between 2000 and 3000 people. We marched from the New Haven Green through the town’s center chanting slogans like “Free, free, free. . . free Palestine!” The whole experience was highly inspiring.

The signs people carried were inspiring too and very thought-provoking. One caught my eye more than others. It made me think more deeply about Hamas. It caused me to realize that contrary to acceptable opinion in the United States, Hamas is not “pure unadulterated evil” (as our confused president’s handlers made him say). Neither is it simply a “terrorist organization.”

The sign I’m referring to read “OCT. 7 IS AN OUTCOME NOT A TRIGGER.”

I took that to mean “IF YOU PUT HAMAS’ ‘TERRORIST’ ATTACKS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT, THEY BECOME FAR MORE UNDERSTANDABLE THAN THE MUCH WORSE APARTHEID-ISRAELI RESPONSE TO THE HORRIFIC EVENTS OF OCT. 7^TH.”

So, before we get to this Sunday’s readings, let’s once again think more deeply about Hamas. This time, my guide will be Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector in Iraq who tried to tell our government that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. He was relieved of his post as a result. As usual, the White House and Congress preferred lie to truth.

Hamas

According to Ritter, Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, a NATO member, agrees.

For Ritter, Hamas is no more terroristic than were Americans like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty whom the British called “terrorists” during the Revolutionary War.

Hamas, he says, is also no more terroristic than was Menachem Begin, the future Israeli Prime Minister. Back in 1946, Begin headed the Zionist Irgun gang which set off explosives in the King David Hotel, killing 91 people and injuring 45 including women and children. (Later, invading Israeli settlers ended up killing 15,000 Palestinians whose homes and other property they stole outright.) Begin’s goal in that strike against Great Britain was to bring international attention to the Zionist campaign for a Jewish homeland.

Seeking similar international attention for the largely ignored Palestinian cause, Hamas has at succeeded in putting Palestinian statehood back on the table. According to Ritter, its bold action has shaken up a calcified, Zionist-and-American-dominated Middle East.

In that sense, October 7^th was highly successful and a game changer. In fact, it eliminated the principal obstacle to peace in the Middle East – Israel’s opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state. Simultaneously, by provoking a predictable overreaction by Apartheid-Israel, Hamas has succeeded in turning a global majority against the Zionists.

In Ritter’s eyes, rather than an act of terrorism, October 7^th was a brilliantly planned military assault carried out with far more precision and far less collateral damage than what we witness Israel doing now.

The former U.S. Marine analyst points out that such observations are supported by the testimony of Kibbutzim survivors of the Oct. 7^th Hamas attacks. The survivors claimed that it the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were responsible for most of the casualties falsely attributed to Hamas. The IDF’s indiscriminate fire killed large numbers caught in crossfire between the Hamas cadres and the IDF.

Ritter concludes with a probing question. If you’re against Hamas’ tactics, he asks, tell me what you would do as an alternative. Gazan resisters have tried non-violent approaches with the First Intifada (1987-1993) and Second Intifada (2000) and in the Great March of Return in 2018. The demonstrations achieved virtually nothing for the Palestinians on Israel-Palestine’s West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Instead, direct action by Palestinians saw hundreds of peaceful protestors killed and maimed by Israeli snipers. Very few in the West remember that, even if they were aware of their implementation at the time.

Such failures have heightened despair, desperation, and anger in the Gazan concentration camp. Every Gazan man, Ritter claims, wakes up each morning with one thought in mind. Perhaps like Jews in Auschwitz, he thinks of the Israeli concentration camp guards and wonders, “How can I hurt them today?”

Such desperation led to the desperate acts of October 7^th.

If any of us were forced to live under similar circumstances, Ritter concludes, we’d likely be thinking the same way. With Patrick Henry’s famous words in mind, he speculates that if you asked Gazans if they would give their lives to free their people, most of them would probably reply affirmatively. For this reason, Hamas communiques refer to the thousands and thousands of victims of Apartheid-Israel’s terrorism as “martyrs.”

Today’s Readings

Please keep all of that in mind as you read this Sunday’s liturgical selections. I’ve “translated” them below. You can read the originals here to see if I got them right.

Malachi 1: 14b-2: 2b, 8-10

The Great Goddess promised Jewish priests that they and their people will be cursed if they forgot the nature of Mosaic Covenant. It was forged to protect slaves escaped from Egypt – to protect the poor and powerless. Priestly hypocrisy, She promised, transforms into curses any “holy words” uttered to bless Israel. The whole people suffers when official decisions favor the rich instead of God’s impoverished and oppressed. After all, everyone without exception has dignity in the eyes of the One Creator. Ignoring that simple fact violates the essence of God’s Law.

Psalm 131: 1-3

Favoring the poor is the key to peace. That however is something the rich cannot see as they concern themselves with their “great things” and their “sublime” matters which they deem beyond the ken of the poor majority. But even a still and quiet child on its mothers lap exhibits more wisdom than the haughty. What children embody gives hope for peace.

1 Thessalonians 2: 7b-9, 13

The apostle Paul understood that truth. He went even further. For him nursing mothers offered lessons about generosity and self-giving. They embodied the love of our Great Mother. Accepting that helped Paul see everyone as a sister or brother worthy of his service and hard work. His vision enabled him to communicate the very word of the Great Goddess to any who cared to listen.

Matthew 23: 1-12

That’s what Yeshua did too. He understood the power of the Mosaic tradition about the liberation of the oppressed. However, he also saw that the politico-religious “leaders” of his day were hypocrites. They said the right words, but never lived them. Rather than bringing the “Good News” of God’s peace and love, their laws and policies made matters worse for the poor. Their concern was not that of the Great Mother, but with retaining personal power, profit, pleasure, and prestige. “Don’t be like that,” Yeshua said. Consider no one your Master, no one your Father. Instead, be humble and serve. Think for yourselves!

Conclusion

Those words speak for themselves. Like the ancient Jews, we’re led by hypocrites and liars. They should not be our masters. Though old and feeble, they are not our fathers. They are worthy of contempt and curses.

Far from embodying the Golden Rule, their guideline seems to be lawlessness, revenge, extermination, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Don’t be like them, Yeshua says. Their actions speak louder than their lying words.

Could Hamas Be the Unlikely Agent of God’s Revelation?

Readings for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Exodus 22: 20-26; Psalm 18, 2-4, 47, 51; 1 Thessalonians 1: 5c-10; Matthew 22: 34-40

Thank God for Hamas.

Yes, thank God for Hamas. At least that’s what I’m thinking. Hamas could be the unlikely agent of God’s revelation.

That Hamas possesses such agency seems likely in the light of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions in general and in that of the liturgical readings for this Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. All three can enable discerning people of faith to see past western propaganda to what Hamas is actually up to. Hamas is lifting the veil to help us identify who’s responsible for most of the world’s problems. It’s the United States and Israel. Both represent brutal criminal enterprises.

That’s my two-point message for today. it’s one that we’d do well to let into our consciousness blinded by nonstop propaganda that hates Muslims and the poor, that hates non-whites, and those who dare to defend themselves against imperialists, colonialists, and racists.

So, don’t expect here the de rigueur denunciation of Hamas’ “atrocities.” In terms of freedom and justice for Palestine’s oppressed, that requirement is deceptively counterproductive. It creates a detestable false equivalency between the tactics of resistance fighters on the one hand and the infinitely worse barbarisms of their overlords on the other. Once again, it ends up justifying Israel’s slaughter of their concentration camp captives.

[By the way, Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Munir Akram, recently said something like that to the General Assembly. He refused to criticize Hamas unless Israel was also criticized as the root cause of the crisis in Israel-Palestine. But, of course, the U.S. and Israel refused to allow such critique. (Be sure to view Akram’s speech above.)]

No, my points for us living within a nearly impenetrable “veil of ignorance” are to affirm that (1) Hamas may well be the agent of God’s revelation, and (2) the scriptural traditions of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions suggest that strongly.

Hamas

To begin with what do we know of Hamas? I mean, what do we really know that’s not filtered through western (i.e., through imperial and colonial) propaganda machines?

The answer is, “almost nothing!”

Think about it. What we know of Hamas comes from its inveterate enemies. It’s like getting information from the Nazis about Jews in the 1930s. And we fall for it every time. I think Goebbels said something about that.

In other words, our information about Hamas comes from proven compulsive liars (like the colonialist Benjamin Netanyahu, the imperialist Joe Biden, and their lackey press corps). Uniformly, they tell us:

Hamas represents “pure unadulterated evil.”
Simply put, they are “terrorists.”
There is no distinction between them and the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza.
All of them (including women, children, and even infants) are guilty.
After all, they elected Hamas to govern them in 2006.
That proves that all Gazans are inhuman. They’re simply animals. They have no human rights. Yes, they’re beasts and can be treated as such.
The Hamas violence on October 7^th provides further evidence.
It came out of the blue and was “unprovoked.”
Hamas cadres wantonly killed innocent young people spraying them down with machine gun bullets at a rave dance. (Nothing about crossfire.)
Unlike Apartheid-Israelis who hold more than a thousand Palestinians in custody (often without charge) Hamas has no right to take political prisoners.
After all, hostages and political prisoners are not the same.
Hamas militants even beheaded infants and children. Joe Biden said he saw the photos. (Later, his team “walked that back.”)
They raped women. (No evidence. Again, a claim “walked back.”)
Their rockets, not Apartheid-Israelis, destroyed a Gazan hospital. (Without investigation, Joe Biden believes that too – on the word of the highly principled Benjamin Netanyahu.)
They’re worthy of condemnation because they have chosen violence over the non-violent tactics so obviously favored by virtuous Apartheid-Israelis and Apartheid-Americans. [Nothing about Palestinians’ non-violent “Great March of Return” (2018), Apartheid-Israel’s brutal response killing hundreds, and the general lack of coverage in the west’s mainstream media.]

That’s what we know about Hamas. Am I right or wrong?

And every one of those allegations is a lie or at best a prevarication containing a tiny grain of truth. Every one of them!

I won’t waste my time or yours debunking them one-by-one. You can find that information elsewhere.

Instead, let me tell you briefly what we’re never told about Hamas. (You can find all this on Wikipedia):

To begin with, it is a political organization democratically elected by the people of Gaza in 2006.
It is also a religiously inspired social services collective that funds welfare projects helping people survive the hardships of hostile governments throughout the Middle East.
It represents a kind of Islamic theology of liberation that (in the name of the biblical and Koranic God of the poor) serves the impoverished and embraces the right to revolution recognized by Article 51 of the UN Charter.
For instance, in Gaza, Hamas provides food, water, medical and rent assistance for residents. It funds nurseries, schools, orphanages, soup kitchens, women’s activities, library services, and sporting clubs. That’s the foundation of its popular support.
And, of course, Hamas also has a powerful military wing to defend Gazans from the atrocities that Apartheid-Israelis have routinely inflicted on Palestinians for the last 70 years.
As such, according to international law, it enjoys the legitimacy accorded those resisting illegal occupation by foreign powers. (As illegal occupiers and aggressors, Apartheid-Israelis have no such corresponding rights.)
With all that in mind, Hamas atrocities turn out to be no different (except in their lesser severity) from those of the Apartheid-Israelis which preceded and followed upon them.
In the Palestinian case, they are acts of anger and vengeance for a whole series of brutalities inflicted upon them by their oppressors for the last 70 years. Those acts are far more understandable and justifiable than the acts of Apartheid-Israel that preceded and followed them.

Agent of Revelation

Moreover, (and this is a principal point in this homily) whatever you might think of its tactics today, Hamas is functioning as the agent of God’s revelation as articulated in this Sunday’s readings.

And here I’m using the word “revealing” in its etymological sense – removing the veil.

That is, (according to Scott Ritter ) Hamas has forced Apartheid-Israel and Apartheid-America to show their true colors. As a result, we finally see the blood drenched palette every day on our TVs. Simply put, the colonizer and its imperial sponsor have revealed themselves as brutal reincarnations of that other genocidal European force whose name can barely be printed in the mass media. Apartheid-Israel and Apartheid-America are revealing themselves to be racist, white supremacist, and N*zis.

According to Ritter, such revelation is what Hamas’ strategy is all about. They desperately realized that the settler invasions and occupations of Palestinian lands coupled with Israel’s Abraham Accords with surrounding Arab nations signaled a window closing on any hopes for an independent Palestinian state.

So, Hamas decided to force Israel’s and America’s brutal hands. They took up arms against their concentration camp captors. And the captors reacted in exactly the way Hamas knew they would – by bombing the concentration camp itself. Their keepers responded with wholesale slaughter of women and children – with obvious war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and outright genocide.

And the world finally noticed. The Hamas tactic worked. Everyone (outside the western bubble) now sees Israel and the United States for the criminal enterprises they are.

Both the latter claim to embrace the Judeo-Christian tradition. But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s all hypocrisy.

Just read today’s first selection from the Book of Exodus. It’s so short and to the point that I risk quoting its first paragraph verbatim here:

“Thus says the LORD: ‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.’” (Ex 22:20-26).

And then there’s today’s Gospel selection from Matthew. Confronting the upperclass Pharisees and Sadducees whom the Jewish Yeshua saw as blaming the victims of the Romans (in the case of the Pharisees) and directly cooperating with their imperial oppressors (in the case of the Sadducees) he reminds them that they must love those they despised. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he says.

Those words expressed the Christ’s mystic insight that all humans are one single entity. We are all equally “chosen.” We are more than brothers and sisters. Our neighbor is Our Self. In killing Palestinian women and children, elders, teachers, doctors, nurses, first responders – and Hamas supporters – we are committing suicide. We’re killing our common indwelling Spirit.

All that promises to become even more apparent as Israel’s genocide of Palestinians continues while the whole world is watching. The horrific revelation will continue.

Conclusion

So, yes, I’ll dare to say it: thank God for Hamas. Yes, it’s removing our veil of ignorance. In that sense, it is the agent of God’s re-veil-ation. The thousands and thousands Apartheid-Israel is executing before our eyes are martyrs reminiscent of the early Christians. They are revealers too.

The world’s poor, the Global majority living in the West’s former colonies and current neo-colonies see that more clearly than any of us. While Israel and the U.S. scandalously oppose a cease fire, the Global South (i.e., the world’s vast majority) supports it.

It’s far past the time for westerners like us join their chorus demanding that the criminal Apartheid-Israel state and its criminal American counterpart STOP THEIR CRIMINAL OPPRESSION.

Like Scott Ritter, I find myself praying for the complete defeat and humiliation of Apartheid-Israel — and of the United States on every front.