 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Is There Life for Rich Sinners? by Fr. Lope C. Robredillo November 4, 2001 In the ministry, I have encountered many Christians who are of the belief that being saved is a matter of one's being sinless. They think that if a person does nothing
wrong, he will eventually be saved. And for them, to sin is usually identified with transgressing any of the Ten Commandments. How often have I heard some of them being comfortable with themselves, self-assured, as they
were that they had really nothing to confess since they had followed the Decalogue? Their claim to clean living, in a culture that identifies sin with transgression, could hardly be disputed of course. However, one may
agree with the claim, though, Luke would probably hesitate to go along with that kind of reasoning. Today's Gospel is a pericope on Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke
19:1-18). But prior to this narrative, Luke tells us the story of a man from the ruling class who has been faithful in following the Law. Asked by Jesus about the commandments, he replied: "I have kept all these since I was a boy" (
Luke
18:21). Walking before the Law, he was certain that he was blameless. But he could not be saved for all the blamelessness of his life, because he would not part with his wealth. Challenged by Jesus to sell all he had and distribute it to the poor, he became sad (
Luke 18:23), and Luke would have us understand that the ruler refused to comply with Jesus' demand. Which elicited a comment from Jesus: "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God!" (
Luke 8:24). Juxtaposed with the story of the man who belonged to the ruling class is the narrative of Zacchaeus. According to Luke, Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus when he went to Jericho, and unable to see Jesus on
account of his small stature, he climbed a Sycamore tree. When Jesus saw him, he told him to hurry down because he would stay at his house, and Zacchaeus welcomed him with delight (Luke
19:1-5). It maybe noted that like the young ruler, Zacchaeus was wealthy, but probably unlike him, if we judge simply on the basis of the Gospel data, Zacchaeus was not blameless. On the contrary, probably almost every contemporary of Jesus would have described him like any other tax collector: a person of greed. Small though he was, he was big with ambition and greediness. In a poor country like Israel in Jesus' time, it would have been difficult for a man like him to be rich without using people, disregarding our concept of justice and rights. Of course, as a tax collector, he was notorious, for the occupation of tax collectors at that time was base in the popular estimation. For one thing they were considered traitors, working for a hated foreign power that oppressed the Jewish people. Why would Zacchaeus secure employment from the Romans if not for the dirty money? For another, tax collectors were in charge of deciding how much each family had to pay, and usually they raised the tax assessment so they could keep for themselves the difference between the money collected and the amount they had to turn over. No wonder the Jews ostracized them. That would have included Zacchaeus. He was rich, but at the expense of his own people. That is why, the righteous, like the Pharisees and the scribes, murmured against him. Practically, he was a thief, one who, unlike the young ruler, could not claim to have followed the Law.
And yet, unlike the rich ruler, Zacchaeus experienced salvation: "Today, salvation has come to his house" (Luke
19:9). What happened? How could the rich young man, who was known to be blameless since he followed the Law since childhood, not enter the Kingdom of God, whereas Zacchaeus, equally rich, but avoided and despised, and never bothering about the commandments, could attain eternal life? Why is it that Zacchaeus suddenly because a parable that the rich can be saved? The reason is that, unlike the young ruler, Zacchaeus allowed God to work in him; he became a host to Jesus who was bringing salvation to his house.
For, as the First Reading and the Responsorial Psalm state, it is in the nature of God to be merciful to those who welcome Him in their lives; He overlooks their sins (Wisd 11:23; Ps
145:8-9). Understandably, Jesus the living parable of God's forgiveness, sought out Zacchaeus the sinner, even as the Son of Man came to seek not the righteous but sinners (Luke
15:4-7). What God does is allow "the scoundrel forsake his way, the wiched man his thoughts; let him turn to the Lord for mercy, to our God who is generous in forgiving" (Iss
55.7). It may be recalled that it was important for Jesus that the community of Israel experienced wholeness. For this is what salvation, the reason for his coming into the world (1 John
4:14), means -- the experience of integrity and wholeness by the community. And in allowing Jesus to enter his house and his life, Zacchaeus experienced forgiveness and liberation. He knew wholeness--a new freedom from the world of greed, avarice and trickery.
Because he allowed Jesus to come to and work in his life, he vowed to stop his greed and became generous. Thus, he promised to give half of his property to the poor and, if he defrauded anyone, to pay him back fourfold (
Luke 19:8), an amount four more that what the Law required (Lev
6:1-5). It appears thus that even though Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Luke
18:25), yet Zacchaeus became an example of a rich man--notorious at that--who experienced salvation. Precisely because he allowed Jesus to enter into his life, he became an example of a saved rich person, becoming a new creation in Christ (2
Cor 5:17). The old Zacchaeus, along with his old values and lifestyle, passed away. Salvation, then, is not simply about being unblemished or about doing nothing wrong. It is really about permitting God to
enter into our lives, and changing us into loving persons, generous to the poor and the disadvantaged. And in our time, He has provided us an opportunity to come to our lives as members of the Christian community--He comes to
us in the Eucharist. He is with us in this sacrament because we are sinners. In the Eucharist He is there, in the form of bread and wine, to seek and save the lost. That is why we begin the Mass with an
acknowledgment of our sinfulness to God. It is also a personal and communitarian encounter with Jesus. What a blessing wuold it be, if all of us who come to the Eucharist experience this personal encounter. For it
is in this encounter that Jesus himself gives us the grace of salvation. Of course, the proof that we really received that grace, that we really received that grace, that we really encountered him in the Eucharist, is when,
like Zacchaeus, we experience liberation from the world of greed--we go home after the Mass as changed persons and communities. We go home, bringing with us the lesson of breaking the bread; we break our bread with the poor.
by Fr. Lope C. Robredillo November 11, 2001 As a consequence of the September 11, 2001
terror attacts in the United States when three hijacked commercial placed toppled the twin-towers in Manhattan and wrecked havoc in the Pentagon, the only Superpower in the world launched large-scale operations against Osama bin
Laden, his al Qaida organization, and the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, who were being blamed for the suicide attacks. The US campaign was ostensibly directed towards destroying international terrorism, but from another
point of view, the campaign could also seen as aimed at the survival of America as a nation. Survival, after all, is one of the basic instincts of women, men, peoples and nations. Indeed, that we do everything
within our possibilities to assure that our health does not fail, that we normally look at suicide with repulsion and not, despite the enormous problems we face, as a good exit (except for a few who some would judgge as not in
their normal state of mind)--that merely indicates that we all love life, however miserable it might be, and we wish to survive. In fact many of us cling to life so much that, even in the face of inevitability of death, we
devise means by which prolong it: operation, transplant, expensive medicine, to mention a few. it may be noticed, too, that we construct monuments, sire children and create masterpieces in the hope that, consciously or
not, our name and honor will live on long after we have expired. Our human desire to live on and be remembered by perpetually is probably inseparable from our belief that they should be life after death. The pyramids of
Egypt, judged from their structure, function and content, testify to that belief in survival after death. In some countries in Africa, time was when the wives, slaves and servants of kings were buried alive with them in the
belief that they would still serve them in the next life; hence, the graves of kings were provided with rooms. Of course, in our time, there may be some people who do not believe that one survives after physical death, but
one can be sure that even they devise means to perpetuate their memory. They will not want to die like dogs. That there are individuals who deny that there is life after death--this is nothing new under the sun,
of course. In Israel at the time of Jesus, the Sadducees, a religio-political "party" largely drawn from the priestly class of the Jewish society, but which included many lay aristocrats, were such. They did not accept
teachings not found in the five books of Moses, like the resurrection of the dead, which represents a later development in the Jewish faith. They rejected the oral tradition of the Pharisees, which included that belief.
For them, if God rewards a human person, He does so in the present life, and they felt that they were blessed by God, what with their positionof power and privilege in economy and in social life. There can be no reward after
death since there is, they claimed, no after life. In today's Gospel (Luke
20:27-38), Luke mentions them for the first and the last time. He portrays them as coming to Jesus with a mocking question with the intention of ridiculing the teaching of the resurrection, which Jesus shared with the Pharisees.
To demonstrate how absurd that very belief was, some Sadducees cited a hypothetical story that reflected the practice of the time--the story of a woman who was able to marry seven brothers in succession, since,
according to the stipulation of the levirate law (Deut
25:5-10), if a husband died childless, his brother would to marry his wife. For the Sadduccess, the levirate law made the belief in the resurrection ridiculous, for it assumes that there would be a fight in heaven over women to whom brothers have been given in marriage. To stress their point, they asked Jesus whose wife the woman would be in the resurrection (
Luke
20:28-33). In response to their question, Jesus used two arguments--and a third may be added--that would have been convincing to the Jews. The first one was drawn from the nature of resurrection life. He distinguished two modes of human life. In the former, it is essential that men and women marry to assure perpetuation of the species in the face of the inevitability of death. In the latter, procreation is no longer appropriate because all will live like angels, and the problem of successive marital relationships is thus rendered irrelevant.
The second argument was taken from the passage of a book that was acceptable to the Sadduccess, because it was part of the Pentateuch. After all, it was from the Pentateuch that they tried to justify their
case. According to Mosses, whose authority the Sadduccees accepted, God is God of the living, not of the dead (Exod
3:6), and if the Pentateuch calls God the Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it follows that the threesome are alive, not dead. But as the three have died long ago, God must have resurrected them, if Moses' claim, which the Sadduccees submitted to, is true. The First Reading (2
Macc
7:1-2.9-14) puts forward another argument for resurrection. It raises the question of justice. When Anthiocus Epiphanes systematically persecuted the Jews, introducing Hellenistic beliefs and practices in the process, many Jews were martyred for their opposition to his program of Hellenization. The death of these martyrs, however, gave rise to the question of how God could give justice to their lives, as they were murdered for their faith in Yahweh. The answer is found in the belief that God would vindicate them in the resurrection of the just. Thus, the fourth of the seven brothers who were tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law says: "it is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope of being restored to life by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life" (2
Macc 7:14b). For Christians, of course, such arguments may not be necessary. The evidence--and our assurance--that there is life after death is the resurrection of Jesus himself. That Christ is
alive--this is the source of our hope, for in Christ all will be made alive: "Christ is now raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. Death comes through a man; hence, the resurrection of the
dead comes through a man also. Just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will come to life again, but each one in proper order: Christ is the fist fruits and then, at his coming, all those who belong to him" (1
Cor 15:20-22). Our resurrection is thus linked with the resurrection of Jesus: "If we can have been united with him through the likeness of his death, so shall we be through a like resurrection" (Rom
6:5). In view of this, we can state that to raise monuments, raise children and leave a memorial behind may be important to remember us by, but what is decisive is to live, after our sojourn on earth, forever with Christ. Consequently, it is really out of character of the Christian hope to engage in large-scale operations and kill many people in the process with the end in view of surviving on this earth. Under the species of eternity, our earthly survival is very short. Rather, what we should work for with more intensity and strive after is our life after death--compared with which our survival on earth is but a moment.
by Fr. Lope C. Robredillo November 18, 2001 Every time a catastrophe occurs
self-proclaimed prophets and diviners arise and immediately deduct apocalyptic conclusions. When the two commandeered commercial planes crashed into the World Trade Center, some people, for example, became instant
numerologists, pointing to the recurrence of the number eleven: the tragedy occured on September 11, exactly 111 days before the year ends; the passengers were on the American Airlines flight number 11
; the twin-towers look like number 11 from a distance; and both have 110 floors; Sept. 11 is the 254th day of the year, and 2+5+4 equals 11
; and if you write Sept. 11 in numbers and add them up (9-1-1), the sum you get is 11. That is to say that the calamitous event -- for those who see apocalyptic meanings in numbers -- was not accidental; the exact time
came for it to pass, it being a part of a larger plan cooked up in heaven that only God knows. Others were no less ingenious; they referred to an alleged prediction of the 16th century French astrologer and seer Michael de
Notredame (Nostradamus): "In the City of York there will be a great collapse, twin brothers torn apart by chaos. While the fortress falls, the great leader will succumb. The third big war will begin when the city
is burning." One notes, of course, that the "prediction" is almost so accurate that it could have only been a creation of an imaginative Nostradamus enthusiast. But the Bible has been inexhaustibly used in the
apocalyptic deductions from current historical events, and this is very true of the Gospel reading (Luke
21:5-19) today and its parallels. This section is a discourse on the destruction of the temple and its distinction from the end of the world and the eventual return of Christ. In it Jesus said that before the Judgment Day nation would rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and that there would be earthquakes, famines, pestilence and signs from heaven (vv 11-12). Many, however, read this out of context, and in association with the books of
Daniel and Revelation, used it to interpret fearful events and catastrophes and began to claim to have discovered the exact date, concealed in Scriptures from the many but known only to a privileged few like them,
when the world comes to an end. In 1991, a TV channel in the US, in one of its religious programs, calculated that the beginning of the crack of doom coincided with the crisis in the Persian Gulf on the basis of Daniel
and the apocalyptic discourse of the Lord. Of course, in recent history, we have this long line of prophets who pretended to have known the exact date of the Lord's return. One recalls, for instance, William Miller who set the date of the second coming in 1843, and then on October 22, 1844, awaited by some 50,000 Adventists, and they were greatly disappointed. Or Charles Russell, founder of what became the Jehovah's Witnesses, who taught that the end of the would come in 1914, during the First World War, confident that "millions now alive will never die."
It is of interest to note that all these predictions are based on a certain reading of Scriptures. But for one not initiated in studying them, what is puzzling is that, even when these claimants to prophetic
knowledge read the same scriptural text, they give different interpretations and dates. And what is more baffling, they always get it wrong, as the fact that wer are still alive proves. The reason for this is not
difficult to determine, however. In the place, these attempts to date the end of the world are founded on an overly literal and symbolic interpretation of the Bible. But even more fundamental than this, they rest on a
failure to understand the nature of the biblical book or the Bible itself and the intention of the writer of the book or passage on which they anchor their predictions. To begin with, what a particular passage means depends
on the nature of the form of literature. Unlike scientific history, for example, a fable cannot be taken as historical. What poetry conveys cannot be put on the same level as what prose has to say. That is why we
speak of the truth of poetry, the truth of history, and the truth of fiction--all of them conveying a certain truth, but not in the same way and degree. When a lover says, "I can give you my whole heart and soul," that is
poetry which cannot be put in prose without distorting its meaning. The same is true with the present scripture text. If one were to interpret Luke
21:10-19 literally, one might say that the second coming, clearly distinct in Luke
from the fall of Jerusalem, would be preceded by wars, earthquakes, plagues and famine, fearful omens in the sky and persecutions. When such events happen, one may not be surprised that many, with a literalist interpretations, will raise the question of whether they are seeing the fulfillment of the Lord's prediction. But the text is not about the prediction of the things to come; rather, it is about interpretation of event's Luke's community was confronted with. That interpretation is clothed with a literary genre called apocalyptic, found in such books as
Daniel, Isaiah and Revelation, among others. In this genre, the interpretation of an event is characterized by an extravagant use of various images, symbols, signs and figures of speech, taken from contemporary
literature. It usually deals with cosmic transformation that precedes the day of the Lord, with the assurance that those who remain faithful to the end will participate in God's victory, even if the present realities seem to
show the powerlessness of God over his enemies, and those who persecuted his people will face the inevitable judgment. Thus the First Reading: "The day is coming... when all the proud and all evildoers will stubble...
but for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays" (Mal 4:1-2a). If today's Gospel, therefore, speaks of wars, cosmic changes and persecutions, they are not to be taken as
signs of the impending end, but as literary medium, taken from contemporary literature, to express the theological message that those who can carry on the cause of Christ, amid threats, persecutions and imprisonment, can always
expect to suffer setbacks, and they can even experience the feeling of the absence of God when they cry for help. Ultimately, however, they have the assurance that, for all the appearance of forces of evil gaining the upper
hand, the triumph of what is right and salvation for those who remained faithful to the end is certain. For this reason, those who take up the cause of God in Christ must hold fast to the end. "By patient endurance you
will save your lives" (Luke
21:19). Consequently, they must not be afraid to bear witness to God's love. On the contrary, the assurance of victory should animate them to labor for the coming of the kingdom of God. It is relevant to point out that the Second Vatican Council says something to this effect: "Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectancy of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come" (
Gaudium et spes, 39). by Fr. Lope C. Robredillo November 25, 2001
Two decades ago or thereabouts, I read a book entitled Night, written by a Hungarian Jew--was it a certarin Wiesel?--about the execution of three men by the Gestapo in front of thousands of spectators in a Nazi concentration
camp (in Auschwitz? Buchenwald?). The three were mounted onto chairs, and when the nooses were placed on their necks, two of them shouted, "Long live freedom!" while the third, a child, simply kept silent. The someone
from among the crowd commented, "Where is God?" presumably asking why such a cruel fate should befall the threesome. At a given signal from the head of the camp, the chairs tipped over, and in a jiffy, two of them were
dead. The small boy, however, was still alive, and for about an hour, he hung there, suspended between heaven and earth, suffering the agony of dying slowly. Then, the same man from the crowd, who probably could not
comprehend why such a child should suffer agony, asked again, "Where is God?" Then in answer to the question, a voice was heard, "Where is God? There he is -- hanging in the gallows." That can sees God in a
condemned child hanging in the gallows, that is something concealed from the eyes of many, for one does not normally associated God with defeat, or condemnation in the hands of sinful men. Our image of God is one who is
always triumphant, always in control of everything, and ever above human contingency and suffering. The same may be said of Kingship. In our common understanding, a reigning king is always associated with absolute
authority and power. A ruling king who acts like a slave, who is in fact a slave--that is something beyond imagination. But that precisely what Jesus is: a servant-king. It is therefore understandable that,
in today's Gospel (Luke
35-43), the Jews could not believe in the kingship of Christ. If anything, he was, in their perception, exactly the opposite. That is why the leaders mocked him; if he were a king, they thought, God would not have allowed him to die just like that; if he were God's anointed, he should have saved himself (
Luke
22:35). The soldiers, too, mocked him in the same vein, placing an inscription over his head: "King of the Jews" (v 36). And one of the criminals derided him, convinced, as he was that Jesus could not have been Christ for he was powerless; to prove his messiahship, Jesus should have saved himself and the two of them of shared his fate (v 39).
But Jesus' kingship can be perceived only by those who have faith. Only one who has faith can see the kingship of Jesus in powerlessness, weakness, pain a dn suffering. And precisely because he is king --
Luke is subtly suggesting that rather trying to understand the kingship of Jesus in terms of what we know from kings who ruled in history, we have to understand what it really means to be a king in terms of the kingship of
Jesus. That is to say, the analogue by which we judge what actions are proper to a king is none other than Jesus himself. It is the way that Jesus rules that gives us the standard and meaning of kingship. Kings
stand or fall on their conformity or non-conformity with the life of Jesus. Because Jesus is a king, as the inscription over his head itself reads, his kingship from the cross is thus a critique of how secular kings and leaders
must comport themselves. In today's Gospel (Luke
23:35-43), Luke focuses on the declaration of faith by the good thief. Unlike the bad thief who shared his fate on the cross, but who uttered blasphemous words to Jesus, demanding that the latter should prove his messiahship by saving them from the cross, he looked on Jesus with eyes of faith. Because of this faith encounter, he was moved to acknowledge his sinfulness, and appealed to the compassion of Jesus: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (
Luke
23:42). He could make this appeal because he knews, through the eyes of faith, that Jesus is the real King who could grant him salvation. And his hope was not disappointed: "Truly I say to you today you will be with me in paradise" (
Luke 23:43). This recalls the words of Jesus to Zacchaeus, "Today, salvation has come to this house" (Luke
19:9). Both Zacchaeus and the good thief were notorious and lost, but, by their faith and by opening their lives to Jesus, they received salvation. And because he could dispense salvation to those who have faith, Jesus is thus a king.
At the same time, Jesus' comportment is actually a scathing critique of secular kingship. Luke seems to be saying that now we have a new paradigm of kingship: to be a king is not to subjugate and dominate people
and do them violence; kingship is not about the exercise of absolute authority and power: "Earthly kings lord it over their people. Those who exercise authority over them are called their benefactors. Yet, it
cannot be that way with you. Let the greater among you be as the junior; the leader as the servant" (Luke
22:25-26). Kingship is rather about searching for the lost and saving them, like the good thief and Zacchaeus, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, the woman of ill-repute, etc. It is about forgiveness. It is about service in the manner of a slave (
Luke 22:26). Far from doing violence, a real king allows himself to be derided or even crucified for the sake of the lost (Phil 2:11). As can be gleaned from the Second Reading (Col
1:12-20), Jesus is a king who frees people from the power of darkness and brings salvation to them by his own death, not by absolute power of darkness and brings salvation to them by his own death, not by absolute power or force: "He rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Through him we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (
Col 1:13-14). Understandably enough, the attitude of the Bible toward human kingship is ambiguous. Although there is a tradition that approves of the institution of kingship over Israel (1 Sam
9:1-10:16; 11), a different strand of tradition altogether rejects it. Precisely because it saw how kingship was exercised by its pagan neighbors, Israel rejected it; in Jotham's fable, only a useless person would accept it (
Jdgs) 9:8-20). Historically, of course, Israel had bad kings (1 Kgs 16:25-28.30-33), as did Judah (2 Kgs
16:2-5). An example of a despotic monarch who was guilty of apostasy and lawlessness was Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:1-18). That is why some prophets like Samuel were not in favor of its institution (2 Sam
8:101-8), and Jeremiah minced no words in his indictment against Jehoiakim: "Your eyes and hearts are set on nothing except on your own gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion" (Jer
22:11). Of course, Israel looked on David as an ideal king, one who shepherds the people of Israel (2 Sam
5:3, First Reading), but that is because the Jews were of the belief that David approximates the king that God had in mind: "He tended them with a sincere heart, and with skillful hands he guided them" (Ps
78:72). Of course, Jesus who in Luke is David's son (Luke
18:38; 20:41), is the ideal king. More than David, he is the King God had in mind, because the Spirit of God is with him; in him all the qualities that a human king must have reside in him. And as crucified king, who gave his life for the salvation of all, he continues to be an embodiment of God's critique of our present kings, princes, dictators, presidents and powers-that-be who continue to take their rule in terms of power and domination, not in terms of suffering and servanthood.
|
|||||||||||||
HOME
| CBCP News
| Bishops
| Jurisdictions | Commissions | |
|||||||||||||