Lockdown & Signs of Hope 2020

The Forgotten lives: The Parable of Ten Women - Remembrance Sunday 2020 - Reflecting on Matthew 25: 1-13

 

As a child I remember the ‘parable of the ten virgins’ enacted as a musical play by the moms in our local Bethany Lutheran Church in India, where all the ten women were dressed in white, holding lanterns in their hands and journeying to meet the bridegroom. On the journey they were tired and lowering the flame of their lanterns, they all fell asleep. Suddenly at repeated loud shouts, they woke up one after the other, and started to adjust the flame for more light. Five of those women carried a bottle of oil and were filling their lanterns to increase the flame, and the other five did not have sufficient oil and were struggling to trim their lanterns. These five women with no extra oil requests their friends to lend some oil, at which the others replied that it wouldn’t be sufficient to both and directs them to a dealer to buy for oil at that night. The groom arrives and takes the five women who had their lanterns burning with him and entered the wedding banquet. When the other five women came and knocked the door calling him Lord, Lord, the reply that came was he does not know them. The facial expressions of the five women who made it into the wedding banquet were gloomy that their five other friends couldn’t make it inside. The woman narrator of the play concludes by announcing keep awake, be prepared to meet the returning groom, for he can come at any time of the day or night. The play was written, directed, sung and enacted by the moms of our Women’s fellowship in our local Church. This enacted parable stayed in my memory all along, and now when I am reading Matthew 25: 1-13, it comes alive, making me nostalgic of my local congregation. 

 

As we reflect this parable this week, allow me firstly to discuss the role of women in parables, which provides a political hermeneutical key in understanding this parable. Nicola Slee in her article “Parables and women’s experience,” observes the male dominance in the parables in New Testament, which is explained by the dominant presence of male characters and their roles in the parables. She notes that in the Gospel of Matthew alone there are a collection of 104 parables and sayings, out of which there are 85 characters mentioned, where 73 are men and 12 are women. Even among the 12 women, 10 are the bridesmaids, which makes all together only 3 instances where women are mentioned in the whole 104 parables. This therefore calls us to recognise the under-representation of women and their ‘invisibility’ in the Scriptures, challenging the readers to read this parable by ‘hearing to speech’ the voices of women from this text. The parable exposes the politics of recording a parable, for as men writers & narrators they hardly mentioned any women in the parables, and exposes the politics of male dominant language in it. In verse 2, he introduces five among the ten as ‘foolish’ and other five as ‘wise.’ The male writer begins with a prejudice against the first five by calling them ‘foolish.’ In our mom’s church play, all the ten women entered the stage as friends with lanterns in their hands, all of them were dressed in white, the first five were trying to help the other five by showing them the way towards dealers in buying the oil, and they had gloomy faces towards the end when they did not make it to the banquet. This enactment explains that if it were women recording their own stories, representing their own experience and narrating it in their own language, the parable would have had a totally different take and meaning to it. This therefore calls us to confess the politics of patriarchy in the text, and invites us to a subversive reading of the narratives of the parables from the invisible, decolonised and under-represented communities. The politics of re-presentation must be addressed in any hermeneutical engagement of Biblical texts, this parable of the ten women challenges us towards that.

Secondly, this is a parable of the ten unnamed women. Most translations have recorded the women in this parable as virgins, some others as bridesmaids, however, the politics of re-presentation challenges us not to define any one’s identity by their role or status or occupation. Caste system in India and elsewhere has been operated on the notions of purity and pollution, for people are divided into dominant castes and outcastes based on descent and occupation. To recognise people as people and not with any of their roles or status or occupation is an important marker for a just and equal society.

 

This parable then is a recognition to the fact that the divine in Jesus communicates the eschatological message of last judgement through these unnamed, under-represented and unduly presented women, whom the first century Christians till our twenty-first century Christians think are incapable of being the bearers of the Gospel. This parable of the ten unnamed women therefore is an affirmation in the strength of women as bearers, instruments, agencies, and resources of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In our mom’s play, when it was written and performed by all women, one could feel the dancing of the Gospel coming alive, for the Spirit of God through our moms gripped us all to turn towards God, and made a lasting impact and impression in the lives of the audience there.

 

Thirdly, this parable is about keeping us awake and to wait on the hope in God, for none of us knew the day nor the hour for the return of the Son of Man (13v.) This parable is a wakeup call to each of us who have fallen into deep slumber of falsehood, seduced by false saviours of modernity. Today, secularism, market, globalisation, state etc. have been sedating communities to fall asleep offering false hopes, and deviating, even obstructing an encounter with the divine. This parable is inviting us to recognise that the divine in Christ has been visiting us daily at odd hours in different forms like in people with no food, no shelter, who are in prisons etc, which is explained towards the end of this chapter 25, and we have been busy going around to trim our lanterns and meeting the dealers of market, missing opportunities to meet and eat with the divine. This parable of ten women is challenging us to stay awake to recognise God who in Christ is coming to us in unexpected people, to meet and dine with them. In our mom’s play, there was a shout from the background that said in a loud repeated voice that the bridegroom is returning. The sound was too loud that no one could miss hearing that shout. Five women got up at that shout, and other five took time to wake up. When they were trimming their lanterns, the other five then woke up and discussed about oil. Stay awake by waiting on God’s hope, and the message that reverberates from this parable is to be prepared for the visitation of the divine in our localities. 

 

Finally, this parable of ten women de-envelops a theology of unpredictability, for no one knows the day nor the hour of the return of the Son of Man. This parable contests all kinds of predictions on God, calling us to recognise that God does not act on the terms and conditions of human predictions, but God acts on God’s own terms and times. Unpredictability has been a theological category, for the God of the Bible has always preferred to be a God associated in calling people, in sending people, in encountering people, in incarnating as human, in pouring out as Holy Spirit on communities who are on margins, all happening in the fullness of God’s own time. God in Christ has been returning in the unpredictability of our times, for the call is to keep awake and be prepared to meet God at God’s time and God’s place, which are totally different from human predictions and expectations.  In our mom’s play, after the shout from the background that the groom is coming, a woman dressed as bridegroom suddenly stands up from the audience to walk up to the stage to meet those women. No one noticed during the play, that the bridegroom was seated among us, for we were all so immersed in the play to actually recognise that the groom was one among us. None of us could predict in the play that the bridegroom comes from within the community of audience.

 

On this Remembrance Sunday, we are called to remember several unsung heroes and sheroes of wars, whose lives were lost, whose histories were lost and whose memories are also lost. It was said that approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War I, not representing their country or their geography, but risking their lives and ultimately paying their lives. Over 74,000 Indian soldiers lost their lives, fighting on a distant foreign land for a foreign cause & countries. Those Indian soldiers included Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, people of faith and no faith and had to sacrifice their lives.

 

On this day, may we re-member those & several other people, whose names, lives & histories have been erased & forgotten and whose lives & their deaths were unrecognised, unnoticed and undocumented. It is time to dis-member their lives, histories & local narratives of resilience as war soldiers, sepoys, jawans & several others.

 

Particularly during this current pandemic in 2020, there are several people’s lives that are forgotten. The lives of people seeking asylum, people who are living in refugee camps, people who are struggling to live in hunger caused by the loss of jobs, people who are vulnerable, and many more whose lives are forgotten. This text invites us to recognise that God is present among such forgotten people, and our call is to listen to their plights and strive towards justice and peace.

 

Allow me to conclude this reflection by quoting the sermon Martin Luther preached in 1522 on this same text Matthew 25: 1-13, where he said, “Therefore, let each one see to it that he has these two together: the oil, which is true faith and trust in Christ; and the lamps, the vessel, which is the outward service toward your neighbour. The whole Christian life consists in these two things: Believe God. Help your neighbour. The whole Gospel teaches this. Parents should tell it to their children at home and everywhere. Children too, should constantly foster this Word among themselves.”

 

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta,

5th November 2020

 

Pic credit: https://upcendicott.org/sermons/2015/3/15/on-wisdom-and-folly-a-sermon-on-matthew-251013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the context of child hunger, Christ the anchor of hope by sharing our food

 

In the context of increasing child hunger, Jai ho invokes Christ as the anchor of hope by sharing food and resources and thereby striving for equality. At the table all are equal and eat food together. 

When tricked by Law, treat with Love - Reflecting on Matthew 22: 34-40

 On Halloween last year, few children on our street went around the houses asking “Trick or Treat?” and they really looked forward to a treat of chocolates, which they enjoyed doing. Tricking people with difficult questions is in a way trying to confuse people in agreeing to one’s requests. Way back in Jesus time, particularly as recorded in Matthew chapter 22, we see Jesus being tricked by the Pharisees and Sadducees with certain difficult questions. In this chapter we notice three trick or treat questions that Jesus had to encounter from the religious leaders. The first of those was a political question, 22:15-22, where they ask about paying taxes to the emperor. The second was a doctrinal question in 22: 23-33, where they ask about levirate marriage, husband and resurrection. The third set of tricks or treat questions to Jesus is from the passage from this week’s lectionary reading 22:34-40, which is an ethical/legal question about the greatest of the laws in the Torah.  

 

In verse 36, we read that in the presence of the religious leaders of the temple and law, a certain lawyer was asking Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?” By asking such a question about the greatest commandment, this certain lawyers and the religious leaders’ lust for power and privilege is only exposed. Since the lives of these religious people in the temple are always conditioned and led by power, principalities, privilege and prestige, they try to look for the greatest in everything including the commandments. This question is also like a legal expert asking today among all the Acts of the Parliament (as the UK doesn’t have one codified written Constitution like in other modern States), which Act is the greatest? It is surely a difficult question to pin down to one particular law or Act, and name that as greatest. As each and every law or Act that was made has a history, context and situation, certain discussion on it, by which they had to come into effect. For example, in the UK, the Equality Act 2010, is an Act of the Parliament that legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in the wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. By bringing this example, the point I am trying to make is that each Act or a law has a background that needs to be taken into consideration, and one cannot put against another Act or law as the greatest. The expert in Law, a certain lawyer when asked Jesus, “which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”, they were really trying to trick Jesus, fix Jesus with Law which the religious community held very sacred and dear to them.

 

There were 613 laws in the Torah, and to pick one law as the greatest law was not only a herculean task for Jesus, but also was an awkward task of pulling one among all important laws. Jesus as always rose up to the occasion and replied to this lawyer, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (37-40v) For Jesus, when the lawyers, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and other religious leaders of the temple tried to trick with the Law, Jesus always treated them with love, which is love for God and love for neighbour, for he emphasised that these two commandments are like two pillars on which the entire laws and prophets hang.

 

These two pillars, therefore, become the core pillars where Christian discipleship finds its basis. There are five important directives for our discipleship in understanding these two pillars. Firstly, without any of these two pillars, the entire Law and the prophet’s messages will simply fall and cannot withstand. For me both these pillars are in perfect equilibrium, by which I want to say that neither of these pillars are taller than the other, for both the pillar of loving God and the pillar of loving neighbour are of equal height, equal width, equal length and equal in every measurement. Secondly, both these pillars co-exist, for neither of them can exist on its own. Loving God is directly proportional to loving neighbour, and loving neighbour is a reflection of loving God. Neither the Law nor the prophets can hang on just one pillar. Thirdly, it is important to recognise that it is love that is the common material on both these pillars, love for God and love for neighbour, for the message of law and the prophets have all been entwined on this core foundation of love. Fourthly, with both these pillars of loving God and loving neighbour, it is love which becomes the hermeneutic in interpreting the law and the prophets. Fifthly, with love being the core and common for both these two pillars, love becomes the commandment of life, of Cross and of the Kingdom of God.  

 

In drawing a relevance of this text, today we recognise there are many tricks that are being played against our Christian living and discipleship. In whatever situations and with any kind of tricks, the gospel of Jesus Christ is to treat with love, and only with love. The first learning for us as a church in the 21st century is, love should be the hermeneutic of interpreting our scriptures. Today, there are many people who try to trick people and situations quoting scriptures out of their contexts. Love should be the interpreting principle in every situation and to every person. Love for God is not expressed by hatred towards neighbours based on any text, in any given situation. Scriptures need to be understood as love letters of God to a faith community in a given context with a relevance to the readers in demonstrating love for God and for neighbours. Anything that discounts love, cannot stand the test of understanding scriptures. The second learning for us as a church is today when we are tricked by forces of market in accumulating more and more material goods, when we are tricked by forces of racism to enjoy privilege and power, when we are tricked by forces of greed to overpower the creation, we as followers of Jesus Christ are called to treat with love, again by demonstrating love for God by loving our neighbours as ourselves. Love for God and love for neighbour is in affirming equality, justice and peace for all in the creation. Love is always about selflessness and self is all about lovelessness. The third learning for us as a church today is, when we are tricked by the forces of secularism, downplaying the role and relevance of faith in the public sphere, we are called to treat with love, and demonstrate love in action. The test for our love for God is only visible in our love for neighbours. In my love for God, I will never lose my love for neighbour, and in my love for neighbour I can ever lose my love for God. For both these two pillars are so intrinsic and important in my understanding of faith in Jesus Christ.

 

In the context of growing child hunger, particularly when the government in the UK has voted against providing food to children during holidays, we as a church are called to treat it with love. For child hunger is a reality today, and it needs justice and compassion as expressions of love. When we as a church collected food and opened a food pantry at a local school today, it was our expression of love for God by showing our love for our neighbour. We as a church should not compromise in showing our love in action, for the call for us as a church is only to love God and love our neighbour. A church that is self-seeking about its own survival and which is not demonstrating the love of God to all neighbours, loses its relevance and significance in a community, for it is only love for God and love for neighbour that matters for the being and becoming of church led by the Spirit of God.

 

I want to conclude this reflection with the cartoon from Rev. David Hayward from Canada who draws his cartoons in the name of @nakedpastor, where he explains love in the context of texts. When people try to trick us with laws, we are called to treat with love.

 

 

 

May the God of love who is embodied in Jesus Christ fill our lives with love for God and love for neighbour, so that we are indefatigable in demonstrating that love towards all of God’s creation. May the world know us as Christians by our love, yes, they will know that we are Christians by our love.

 

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta,

23rd October 2020

 

Harvest Homily 2020 - rajpatta

Voices of harvest 2020 - rajpatta

Pledge to build peace bridges with those on the edge: Harvest in a world of hunger - Reflecting on Leviticus 23:22

The recent announcement of the 2020 Nobel Peace prize to the World Food Programme (WFP), one of the largest global humanitarian organisations, that has been addressing hunger and promoting food security is a wakeup call to the world to recognise the grave reality of the global food crisis today, where millions of people today suffer from or face the threat of hunger. The Norwegian Nobel Committee (NNC) announced that the WFP was given this peace prize, “for its push for international solidarity and for multilateral cooperation, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.” In 2019, the WFP provided assistance to close to 100 million people in 88 countries who are victims of acute food insecurity and hunger. Especially in the face of the global pandemic this year, the WFP has demonstrated an impressive ability to intensify its efforts to address hunger, starvation, violence and conflict. WFP has stated, “Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.” In awarding this peace prize to WFP, the NNC has also exposed the intrinsic link between hunger and armed conflict and explained this link as “a vicious circle.” It further said, “war and conflict can cause food insecurity and hunger, just as hunger and food insecurity can cause latent conflicts to flare up and trigger the use of violence. We will never achieve the goal of zero hunger unless we also put an end to war and armed conflict.”

 

When the world this year is taken over by the Covid global pandemic, among 318 nominations for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, WFP receiving this award under the category of peace has some theological significance that needs to be discussed. Before we do that, we need to set this conversation into perspective, and therefore firstly, we need to recognise that hunger is the deeper translation of conflict, and WFP, as an organisation striving to address such a conflict receives a global peace award, testifies to it. Secondly, it is time to acknowledge that ‘hunger triggers violence, and violence leads to hunger.’ Thirdly, it is food that has the strength to fight against the present chaos.

 

So, when we have now recognised hunger as the deeper translation of conflict, we now need to unpack hunger in numbers in our given context today. It is reported by the UN that 690 million people in the world are undernourished, which is about 8.9% of the world population in 2019. In the UK it is reported that 8.4 million people are struggling to afford to eat. 4.7 million of these people live in severely food insecure homes. This means that their food intake is greatly reduced and children regularly experience physical sensations of hunger, explains Fairshare, an organisation in UK fighting hunger and tackling food waste. Children from Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic group communities in the UK are more likely to be in poverty, which is about 46% compared to 26% of the rest of the communities. India is one of the world’s largest food producers, yet ironically, the country is also home to the largest population of hungry people and one-third of the world’s malnourished children. At another level, it is also reported that hunger could kill more people than the COVID pandemic in 2020, pushing another 132 million people into hunger than projected for 2020. Not to forget the number of children going hungry during holidays in the UK has been on a phenomenal rise. Covid also has exposed that today we live in a world filled with inequalities, including who gets food and who are not able to get food.

What does all these numbers explain to us? It explains that hunger is a reality in our localities, and it raises an alarm to know that there are many people who are going hungry every day in our known vicinity. This is only a bird's eye view of the world of hunger every day in 2020.

 

As I am preparing for a harvest Sunday service, I have been thinking what is the significance of such a Sunday when there is so much hunger for food in the world today? Are we celebrating harvest, just because we have always celebrated it in the month of October in the UK, and in February in India, since it is part of a Christian calendar? What is the message of harvest for my children living in an urban context? Amidst these questions, I read this verse as a message for us this harvest.

 

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigners residing among you. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 23:22

 

This Levitical law reminds the community of this text to know that God is a God who provides food for all, with a special provision to those people who are poor, migrants, foreigners living in your locality. At the heart of God all people are equal and all people deserve equal food. It is we the people, the society that have created divisions among people, and with our practices dividing the gap between the haves and the have-nots. In a way one of the questions we need to keep asking is can we address these structural divides, the root causes of poverty, and try to address them, which for me is a faith calling.

 

I want to bring into your attention three things from this given verse. Firstly, this verse emphasises a preference to the people on the edges – the poor and the foreigner residing among you. Reading it in our context, it is those people who are on the margins of our society today, people who are as asylum seekers, people who are as refugees, people who are as migrants, people who are on food vouchers, people who have lost the jobs, people who cannot afford to eat a proper meal a day, that needs to be given a preferential option. For among such people and communities, God comes alive, for God is working with them in addressing hunger.

 

Secondly, this verse is a call to build peace bridges with a definite provision. Harvest is a call not to accumulate food all for one-self, or reap the entire fruits of the field for one-self. The law reminds them not to do certain things, which is not to reap to the very edges of a given field or gather the gleanings of the entire harvest. The law is to leave certain parts and portions of the harvest for the people on the edges, which is an act of building bridges of peace. If hunger is a deep translation of conflict, the poor, the stranger, the migrant, the refugee when they don’t own a land, harvest should remind us that we are called to build bridges by sharing our fruits, harvest, gifts and care with those on the edges and address this conflict called hunger. These people on the edges are more likely to go on hunger as they can’t afford a harvest, but as a faith community, we need to ensure a local food programme providing food for them. Building bridges of peace is God in Jesus’ activity, and the divine invites us to join with Jesus in building peace bridges with those on the edges.

 

Thirdly, this verse is a call seeking a pledge to practice just compassion towards the poor and the hungry and proclaim food as a faith issue. This verse is a Levitical law that demanded a pledge, a commitment from that wandering community, to see to it that this law is put into practice in its fullest sense. Harvest demands a preference, a provision and a practice of sharing food with the poor and hungry. The pledge is not limited to one crop or a certain crop in the year, but to every harvest of every fruit in the field. Harvest calls for a just compassion. The one who works hard on the field can ask, since I have been working hard, I need to enjoy all the fruit of the harvest. But this verse counters such arrogance of selfishness and calls for a compassion based on justice, with a preferential option to the least and the last in the society. Harvest should challenge us to ensure that there should be food for all. Food serves as an important factor in community building, and harvest demands an unequivocal pledge and commitment in addressing hunger and food insecurity.

 

For us as churches harvest today is about sharing food, providing food and striving towards tackling hunger and inequalities in our society. In the context of climate change, this harvest invites us as a church to pledge to care for our planet overcoming all those ‘dominion’ narratives against the creation. As churches we are called to be with our local communities in challenging poverty and in demanding our governments to accountability to ensure welfare of all people and not just the few. With nearly 6 million people in UK struggling to pay their household bills during this period, the call for #resetthedebt is a campaign we can as a church join work for today. In my reimagining church today, I envision churches to be hubs of serving food for all, addressing poverty, tackling hunger, sharing our resources. So, as a person of faith living in an urban context, harvest is a time to reflect on the creation, is a time for sharing and caring those that are poor and hungry and is a time to pledge to work towards addressing climate change in saving our planet.

 

This year’s #Worldfoodday on the 16th of October 2020 theme: “Grow, nourish, sustain. Together. Our actions are our future” is an invitation for our churches to engage in actions for food security addressing hunger.

 

Allow me to conclude this reflection by sharing the “Ten Commandments of Food” produced by the World Council of Churches, for us as a food for thought and action this harvest time:

1. You shall give thanks for the food you eat.

2. You shall provide food for those who have no food.

3. You shall eat mindfully and in moderation.

4. You shall be grateful to those who grow and prepare food for your table.

5. You shall not waste food.

6. You shall reduce the ecological footprint of food production and supply.

7. You shall protect the biodiversity of the sources of food.

8. You shall support fair wages for farmers' efforts.

9. You shall strive for all people to have access to affordable and nutritious food.

10. You shall rejoice and share the sacred gift of food with all.

May the God of harvest, who is always generous in compassion be with us in our pledge to build peace bridges with people on the edges and work with us in our efforts to tackle hunger and address poverty in our times today.

 

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta

15th October 2020