August 26, 2018, 14th Sunday after Pentecost * You Are What You Eat

          Prof. Revelation Velunta, Union Theological Seminary, Cavite 

 

http://bakernord.case.edu/events/holt-gimenez/

Psalm 34:2-3, 16-23
Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18
Ephesians 5:21-32
John 6:60-69
You are what you eat…

I think, therefore I am. Most of us know this famous dictum. My father-in-law argues that “I eat, therefore I am” is more applicable to Filipinos. Eating, like breathing, is fundamental to life. From childhood, most of us develop an intimate relationship with food. That is why it is so common to hear people say, “I love ice cream, I love crispy pata, I love pancit.”
These days, because of our collective stand on ending contractualization, we say, “I used to love Jolibee!”
Since the seminary has opened a Food Park, a Karen-Deria, that is designed to be healthy and affordable, we are thinking of naming food after people: Pork Eli-empo; Pakbet Iloc-Anno; Chicken Pork Adebbie; Ensaladang Paco-dan; Afrie-tada; Esfa-Sol Toquero; Maiz Connie Hielo; Lizette Pearl Coolers; Chicken So-Pascua; Sizzling Cle-Tofu; Pan del Rosario; and Baby Back Reeve.
Sadly, the majority of Filipinos survive on sardines and instant noodles every day. UNICEF reports that 30,000 children, five years old and younger, starve to death every single day. Actually, for billions of people in the world, God’s shalom is not peace on earth nor the end to all forms of violence and exploitation. For them, God’s shalom is a hot bowl of soup!
If we read our Bibles and pray every day, we will grow, grow, grow in the realization that almost every instance when people are hungry, when people are thirsty, when people are naked, strangers, sick, or imprisoned, we are challenged, no, we are commanded to give food, to offer drink, to clothe, to welcome, to visit, and to set free.
Historical Jesus Research tells us that life during the first century of the Common Era was very, very hard. The average life expectancy was 28. Fifteen percent of the population were day laborers. 90% were poor, the majority being farmers and fisher-folk. Poorer still were the dispossessed farmers and displaced fisher-folk, victims of the puppet monarchy’s infrastructure projects in honor of Augustus and Tiberius.
Human beings need at least 2000 calories a day to survive. Half of the population during Jesus’s time subsisted on 1000 calories per day. They were slowly, painfully starving to death. Maybe now, we understand better what the line in the Lord’s Prayer means: GIVE US TODAY, OUR DAILY BREAD.
This Sunday’s lectionary reading for the Gospel of John is about eating Jesus’s flesh and drinking his blood. This passage has been interpreted in so many different ways throughout the centuries. It serves as a basis for our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers’ theology of transubstantiation. Others call this John’s version of the Eucharistic ritual found in the latter part of the Synoptic Gospels. Others locate this as a part of the “I Am” discourses of the Johannine Jesus. There are those who argue that John 6 was added later, much like Chapter 21, to address the tension with the Jewish communities (thus the discussion on manna from heaven).
The Gospel of John declares, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God became human. In the fullness of time, God decided to become one of us. Oftentimes we say that the Gospel of John is the most spiritual of the gospels. We forget that many of its powerful metaphors are material, physical, and earthy: water; bread and fish; shepherds, sheep, and lambs; tears and death; wombs, births, and rebirths.
Now, we are commanded to eat the Word made flesh and drink his blood. And take and eat like manna, one day at a time. And we will live.
There are people whose daily lives revolve around coffee. There are those who cannot function well without rice. Then, there are those who share an intimate relationship with pan de sal and margarine, with mami and siopao, with San Miguel Beer and peanuts.
And there are those who are addicted to Jesus.
Loving, craving, eating Jesus on a daily basis, like manna, is dangerous. It is life-changing, transformative, and very, very risky! It requires giving up one’s life for another.

It means eventually becoming what you eat, being like Jesus—love in the flesh, food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, clothing for the naked, a friend to the stranger and the sick, freedom to the captives, salt of the earth, light in the darkness, bread for the world.

To offer one’s “flesh and blood” is to offer the whole self. Jesus did. This is the path to abundant life for all. Self-giving. Offering “flesh and blood” so that others may live. And we, whom he calls his friends in the Gospel of John, are invited to do the same.
Sisters and brothers, people say, you are what you eat.
For those of us who call ourselves friends of Jesus, I pray we really are! Amen.##

August 19, 2018, 13th Sunday after Pentecost * I am the Living Bread

Agong Capus, IFI

Psalm 34:2-3, 10-15

Proverbs 9:1-6

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58

 

From the Gospel of John, Jesus has revealed himself to the people that has endeared him to the many but angered the few.  He has healed a sick man on the Sabbath, led in the feed of  5000 hungry people with “five loaves of bread and two fish”. When Jesus was teaching in his hometown, Capernum, it has given much hope to many ordinary people but has gotten the ire of religious authorities. “Who is this man who claimed to come down out of heaven?”, they questioned.

In the text, Jesus said, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.

Bread is the staple food in Jesus’ time. Much as rice is in the Philippines.  Food that nourishes the body but enables us to develop at full capacity.   But rice production has been on a decline for decades now.  Trade liberalization has lowered if not eliminated tariff for imported rice.  Add to this the historical problem on feudal relations that monopolizes land ownership and prioritizes land conversion for cash crop or monocropping.

“This bread is my flesh, which i will give for the life of the world”,  Jesus, the son of a carpenter, is one who identifies himself to the lowly, destitute, forgotten and abused. He  is full of compassion, just, revolutionary and liberator.  He, as bread that gives life to the world, has invited us in a communion with the people whom he came to serve.  He who questions authorities and powers that continue perpetuate injustices and social ills calls us to a journey that liberates and empowers.

Brgy. Saad, Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur is home to 211 Subanon families. They are one group of indigenous people in Mindanao who have lived a strong community life that enable them to make the land productive and address food consumption enough for their community that lasts even during lean season.   Bread that gives life to generations, bread shared by all.  For decades they have also survived natural disasters and government’s neglect, discrimination and in recent years series of harrassment, threat and intimidation by state forces.  Their ancestral land is sitting on a rich coal reserve that has already been identified through a mining exploration both by foreign and local businesses.

When majority of our resources has been held by the few through laws and policies for their own insatiable greed for wealth and power, from whom shall we seek bread? When our communion is hindered by the forces that benefits from these injustices, what then is imperative?

In the gospel of John, the text continues,” 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remain in me and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”  Drawing from the indifferent responses of the authorities, Jesus shocks them with this graphic pronouncement.

Jesus continue to shook us from our reverie, from our indifference, apathy, neutrality and misdoings.  He continue to reveal himself in our midst as the anawim struggle out against all forms of oppression and dehumanization.

The Manobo in Surigao del Sur remain vigilant amidst escalating militarization in their ancestral land and environmental protection against large-scale mining. Destruction of schools, domain and livelihood with attendant coercion, and trump up charges continue to hound them.  Nutri-Asia, PLDT and thousands of Filipino workers sustain their collective action calling for an end to labor contractualization.

Hear the cries of the people!

• Victims and families of drug-related killings keep on calling for an end the killings, they are  seeking justice.  Addressing the drug problem as both social justice and  medical issue must be the prime responsibility of the state. It has the sole responsibility in putting an end to the drug cartel and erring customs officials
• Peasants, comprising 70% of the total population, continue to demand genuine land reform and capital support and fair trading.

Amidst gross human rights violations, the anawim continue to champion their causes for bread to be shared by and for  all. For when bread is present, more so, abundant for all , we can fully develop our potentials and commune in a life-giving relationship.##

August 5, 2018, 11th Sunday after Pentecost*Eucharist through our encounter with the poor

Prof. Jerry Imbong

 

Boy Dominguez

Psalm 78: 3-4, 23-25, 54
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15
Ephesians 4:17, 20-24
John 6:24-35

 

Yesterday, together with some delegates from the World Council of Churches (WCC), we visited the striking workers of CoreAsia Paper Industries in Valenzuela City. The workers had been on strike for almost one month already due to union busting and illegal dismissal of its workers. Many of the workers are work on a contractual basis and receive below minimum wage of P350 a day. The minimum wage in Metro Manila is P512 a day. Some complained of unsafe working conditions and unjust labor policies in the company.

As we moved around the workers’ community, we heard the same stories: contractualization, below minimum wages (some receive P180 a day or US$3.60), 12-hour working period without overtime pay, illegal termination, union busting etc. It is hard to imagine that this “plastic capital of the Philippines” is also the home of the worst forms of exploitation and slavery.

A pastor from India, pastor Thomas asked one of the workers: “can you see God in all these experiences?” The worker simply replied, “parang wala, mahirap ipaliwanag.” (it’s as if He is absent, it’s hard to explain). Indeed, the dehumanizing experience of the workers mirrors the seeming absence of a loving God. While listening to their stories, I also ask myself, “where is God in all these? Is God blind, deaf to the cries of the poor.”

In the old testament, God “heard the grumbling of the Israelites” and gave them bread to eat. In the gospel, Jesus told his disciples to work for “food that endures to eternal life.” When I was studying theology, we were taught that we can encounter the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and through our encounter with the poor. I would like to believe that the two are inseparable. My experience in Valenzuela confirms the dialectical relationship between the two: the body of the Crucified Christ can be seen in the battered, bruised, tortured, abused and naked bodies of the suffering poor.

My experience with the workers in Valenzuela yesterday was “Eucharistic” in the sense that I was able to share my life with the life of the workers in the community. This I think is the essence of the Eucharist: Jesus’ own body being broken and shed. Jesus did not merely give bread nor a bit of his property; he gave his life for the liberation of others. He was killed because he championed justice, truth, the poor and exploited. He took an unflinching stand against injustice, deception, greed, and exploitation. Like the bread that he broke and gave his disciples, his body was broken, scourged and crucified by the power of the day and their agents. The signifies this being broken for others. St. John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, a Church Father from the fourth century explains it succinctly: “To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ, given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest!” He warned the early Christians against hypocricy:

“Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: ‘This is my body’ is the same who said: ‘You saw me hungry and you gave me no food’, and ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me…

What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.” The followers of Jesus can find in the Eucharist inspiration for commitment to integrating social justice. By committing themselves to the cause of the poor, Christians help in building genuine communities of sharing and caring. But this will require a radical change in their lives; away from the individualistic acquisition. “to put on the new self” as the second reading suggests, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. To partake in the banquet of the Lord is to partake in the struggles of the poor for liberation. Eucharistic feast means no one should be in need and the wealth produced by the handiwork of human labor and power  should be for the needs of all.##