[Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Tuesday

Sat Mar 23 22:32:31 PDT 2013

j'aime la vie

Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago at saipantribune.com>; editor <editor at saipantribune.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 24, 2013 1:26 pm
Subject: OpEd Tuesday

Tuesday's Temple Tour

Raised in mainlineReformation tradition of Christendom, steep in Biblical scholarship where webecame clear that the paper idolatry reflected in the “Bible says” syndrome isan aberration rather than the rule, we were spared the literalism that bedevilsmany of fellow wayfarers on the footsteps of the carpenter from Galilee.

I will assume that thereader has a healthy appreciation of the Biblical stories but is in no wayattached to the nit-picking, verse-quoting, authority-seeking user of holywrit.  As far as the Biblos (literally, many books) is concerned, the writings took morethan a century to accomplish covering more than two centuries of memory, meantto be rich in metaphor on the spiritual journey of the writers, but not intoday’s sense of accounts of events.  Nor is it similar to adocument that showed up mysteriously in the hands of the Prophet Mohammed astold by some about the Koran, or of the Book of Mormons of Joseph Smith in upstate New York before his colleagues took off for Missouri and Utah.

The Gospels of the NewTestament are four of possible 50 gospel writingsabout Jesus, decided to becanonical 300 years after the fact.  Theearliest account we have of Mark was written two generations after the event, seenfrom the perspective of a defeated people after the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 72.

The dramaturgy evolvedfrom the incarnate baby Jesus in amanger (Matthew and Luke) through the transcendentperspective of humans distancing themselves from the demands of their bodies (wenow observe a 40-day fast called Lent from the Medieval age), to the full engagement of the blessedchosen person into the plain of historywe call the Holy (wholesome) Week; from the triumphant entry intoJerusalem to the victory of the empty tomb, preceded by the earthiness of acommon meal and a wrenching Friday afternoon crucifixion affirming a resurrection back to Galilee and on to glory.  

These are languageof drama, not history. We do not always remember that the "nevertheless" story between the hosanna palm fronds on the entry to Jerusalem to the common meal in the Upper Room, into the third hour afternoon on Friday, have since been symbolized in the High Mass as the Eucharist.

Let’s recap.   Incarnate is the perspective of the “I”, ofeach of us born a free and winsome creative individuals who are one out of twomillion sperms mysteriously chosen by an ovum to create one, unique,unrepeatable gift of humanity of which, there was none like it before, andthere will never be another one like it ever again.   The “it” that “I” am, is somebody.  So are “you”!

Transcendence is theperspective of the Greeks’ “theos” (God) from the heights of Mt. Olympus.  In our time, that would be from the farthestreaches of the Hubble telescope.  Fromthat perspective, we are not even a pixel in the HDTV of life.  Our planet is but the third rock to the sunin a stellar solar system minuscule in the Milky Way, shadowed by the Andromedagiant next door, and we haven’t taken the trillion of light years perspectiveyet.  “I” am clearly a nobody in theuniversal scheme of things.

History is the “human”perspective.  The somebody that is “I”and the nobody that is “me” are merged in the historical “we” of which “I am” afinite part.  The human perspective, BTW,is recent, perhaps, no more than 10,000 years in a planet that is 4.3 billionyears old.  This is where the story ofthe Jesus the Christ journey fits.  Hisstory is carried by a group of people who call themselves the “ecclesia”, thehousehold of God (the theos, of thetranscendent view).  We might want to getclear that the word “Christ” is not the last name of Jesus; it is the role hisdisciples confessed he played, and the one his followers are to play as well.

My Christian reflection today isthe practical implication of this week’s story, particularly on the account’sTuesday of that Holy Week before the nightmares of Gethsemane.  The book of Luke quotes Jesus saying: “It iswritten, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it ‘a den ofrobbers’” (NIV light edition).

Less we take the easyway out, gloss over this part of the story by piously going back to the portals of thetemple and demonizing the taxman, we might look at it from the perspective of2013, and ask the question: who in our time is demeaning persons just becauseof who they are?  Who is making the household of God a palace of perdition?  In the 60s, onward even today, they are the good folks who discriminate against persons ofcolor.  The Civil Rights movement took achunk of our energy and awareness.

Today, members of theUnited Methodist Church of the Village in New York City rally to remind thenation that the Supreme Court is reviewing a case involving two ladies whovowed love and affection for each other 42 years ago and remained constant in their fidelity.  They solemnized their vows in “marriage” inCanada later (there are now many places where the union is legal) while livingthrough the challenge of multiple sclerosis that took the life of one of theparties.  The surviving one inheritedjoint property against which the IRS (yes, Mathilda, the taxman is still with us) is levying a tax of more than $300 grand, acharge it would not make were the relationship hetero.  Homophobia is entrenched deep in the officialstructures of our society, and into the recesses of our gentrified souls!

The United MethodistChurch as a denomination is on record as being against samesex unions, butindividual Church members from Bishops to laity take the other view, in spite ofthe official policy.   We stoke the same flames with our renegade sisters and brothers.

Who shall fling theirbodies into the prejudicial barbwires of history? Who dares march into the temple of our Jerusalems?  My Nike shoes say, Just Do It!  I do.

 j'aime la vie

Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate.  In all, Celebrate!

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