A LITTLE LESS THAN GOD- A TRIBUTE TO MOTHERS

A Little Less Than God: A Tribute to Mothers 5/13/2012 -Winfred B. Vergara

“My Mom is a never-ending song in my heart of comfort, happiness,

and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune.”

                                                                                   - Graycie Harmon

Of all God’s creatures, none could match the mothers as the closest representation of God’s tender loving care. That is why God premised His promise of everlasting love by saying, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Yet even if this is possible, I will not forget you.” Isaiah 49:15) Jesus, in expressing his compassion over Jerusalem, lamented by saying “How often have I wanted to gather you together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!” (Matthew 23:37)

Whenever I have time to reflect upon my life, I am always reminded of the words from Abraham Lincoln, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe it to my mother.” I am sure these words are also true to most of you out there. So let me, on this Mother Sunday, pay tribute to my mother on how she had made an impact on who I am, what I am and hope to be. May my words inspire you to pay tributes to your own mothers too.

A Little Saint

My mother, Clarita (1922-2008)  was named after a saint and seemed to have lived like one. “Clarita” (Little Clara) refers to St. Claire of Assisi, the female counterpart of St Francis, the patron saint of peace-loving people. Many of you have not seen my mother, but if you have known me, you would have known my mother also. It is because all my good traits, I learned from my mother. The not-so-good ones, I submit, I learned it by myself. What are the traits I learned from my Mom? Let me name just a few:

Filial Piety

The first trait I learned from my mother is the traditional Asian respect to the elderly. The word mother in Philippines is “Nanay,” and my mother had the habit of calling elderly women as “Nanay” and elderly men as “Tatay”--- and I carry that tradition in my own life. The fifth of the Ten Commandments says,  “Honor thy father and thy mother” and this is the only commandment with a promise---“that you may live long on the earth.”(Exodus 20:12).  My mother was the eldest and only daughter in the family of six children and she also lived the longest. Her siblings died before they reached sixty but my Mom was eighty-six years old when she died. I believe she had received the promise of the 5^th commandment. Why? Because she honored her parents!  I remember growing up, that my mother was the one who really cared for my grandfather and grandmother when the latter were old, blind and had Alzheimer’s. It was not an easy task for a woman who had to take care of six children herself, but she persevered in taking care first of grandpa, and later of grandma. while not neglecting her own children.

Love of learning

The second trait I learned from my mother is the thirst for education. While she herself did not finish Grade School because of World War II, she had always inculcated in us the value of learning. Education is one of the equalizers in Philippine society and Filipino parents would sacrifice to great length to send their children to school. For our family, that was very hard. We were six children  (the 7^th died at childhood). My father was a veteran but did not receive any pension. It was because just after the War with Japan in 1940-1944, he was conscripted to proceed to the Korean War but my mother insisted that he did not go. My father resigned from the military and worked as a tailor but his income was not enough to send us all to school. So when I reached High School, I stowed away in a ship bound for Manila, became a street kid and finally worked as a janitor-houseboy in exchange for school.

What motivated me to risk leaving my village and struggled against all odds to obtain education? This is the story: At age 7, my mother enrolled me to Grade 1 at the barrio elementary school. At that time in 1957, there was a nutrition feeding program for the children of indigent families and I was one of those who belong to the category. So at lunchtime, we would line up with our glass bowls to receive nutritious corn pudding and milk, courtesy of CARE, a program in our barrio, introduced by the Peace Corps volunteers from America. In one of those free lunches, while I was given the pudding in my glass bowl, it was too hot that I dropped it. The bowl fell on the cement floor and broke into pieces. I went home crying because that was our only glass bowl. So my mother made me a bowl made of coconut shell! I went back to school but my classmates made fun of me. In our village school, a glass bowl or ceramic bowl was like a badge of social status; a bowl from coconut shell was to be the poorest of the poor. I was ridiculed by my classmates and some would bully me because of my coconut bowl.  So from that time, I hated school but my Mom would patiently talk me to it. And when I became stubborn, she would spank and practically push me to school with a broom made from coconut sticks! Then she gave me an advice which I will never forget: “My son, you can be more than what your classmates can be, if you study hard and get education. Do not be ashamed even if you are poor. Most important is you are good in class and you get education. But if you don’t go to school, my broom will spank you forever!”

Today, I could say: I finished Grade School, I completed High School, I obtained two Bachelors degrees, two masters’ degrees, two doctorate degrees--- and I have visited the classrooms of some of the best universities in the world---all because of my Mother’s Broom!

Survival and entrepreneurship

 The third value I learned from my Nanay is plain survival. In our barrio, during my childhood, there were only five wealthy families. Philippines was largely feudal and my barrio was one example of the encomienda system which we inherited from Spanish colonialism. The five families were the owners of the farm lands. The rest were farming tenants, fisher folks or poor families. There were only two seasons: planting season and harvest season. The agricultural months of the year were divided into these: June-July-August were planting months; November-December-January were harvesting months; February-March-April were festival months, where the harvested rice are often consumed. Did I miss three months? Yes, they were August-September-October. They were called “the lean months.” During harvest season, the poor would join harvesting the rice and for which they receive a share of the harvest. If you harvested twelve bundles of rice stalks, the eleven go to the farm owners, one would go to you. The shares you get would then be stored in rice barns and later dried in the sun and be pounded with mortar and pestle and converted into grounded rice. The rice supply would last for a few months and during lean months, what should we do to alleviate hunger?

First, to economize on the rice, my mother would cook rice only in half of the caldero (pot) and put chopped cassava or sweet potatoes to fill the other half.  Second, we would walk miles to go to town and line up for the government’s emergency rice program. At one time, I almost got crushed in a riot of people rushing to obtain what we called the RCA rice. RCA (Rice & Corn Administration) had a characteristic smell (like a chemical to make the rice last longer) yet  it was good rice. Third, she went into cassava cakes business. At night, she would cook cassava cakes; early in the morning, she would go to the fishermen’s wharf and barter the cakes with fish; before noon, we would go up the mountain and barter the fish with rice from the farmers. So as a child, I would carry for my Mom a large basket of cassava cakes to the pier; two pails of fish to the mountain; and a sack of rice back to our barrio. That must be the reason why I did not grow up taller! (?) I carried heavy loads to the shore, up to the mountain and down to the valley. That was the time when child labor was not a crime but simply a family survival tactic. 

Unconditional Love

Finally, the fourth value that my mother taught me was sacrificial love. I remember a story popular in our farming village. It was about a mother and her son. She was a loving mother but he was a stupid son. He fell in love with a woman on the other side of the mountain who told him, “I would accept your offer of love if you can give me the heart of your mother.” Maybe it was just a figure of speech or that the woman was wicked. The boy however thought about it and in a moment of madness, took a knife, stabbed his mother and took her heart out. He then ran towards the mountain to offer the heart to his object of affection but he stumbled on the paddies and the heart fell in the mud. He scooped the heart and as he was wiping it, the heart spoke:” Son, are you hurt?”

That story was like a horror movie to me then but when I became a priest, it dawned upon me that it powerfully illustrated God’s love. God also forgave our stupidity in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ’s suffering and death (like that of the mother’s) was a substitution for our own suffering and death.  The prophet Isaiah said, “He… was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisements that made us whole and by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53).

I remember how my mother suffered every time one of us children got sick. Once I was very ill with “El Tor,” a form of dysentery. I lay dying but did not have the strength to take medicine. I would vomit it every time it was spoon fed to me. Then I heard my Mom praying, “God, let the sickness be upon me, for I can’t bear to see my son die.” I was thankful that God, in His wisdom, did not grant her naïve prayer but it surely motivated me to take the bitter herbal medicine (boiled leaves and bark of star-apple or kaimito tree!) and cooperated with the healing process—and I lived to tell the story. “

A Mother’s Legacy

My mother did not leave us with any worldly inheritance; she and my father brought us up in their own poverty. But she taught us how to live with honor and dignity. She left us with a legacy of values which can not be bought. She taught us faith and hope and showed us the power of sacrificial, unconditional love. Maybe that is why three of us brothers became ministers: Pepito became an elder of Jehovah’s Witnesses; Alberto became a priest of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente and I became an Episcopalian priest.

“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children,“ wrote William Makepeace Thackeray, I daresay of older children of God too.  A Jewish proverb also says “God could not be everywhere so He invented mothers.” Of course, God is everywhere but He must be glad that mothers are there to share His tender loving care to God's children.

WHAT IF GOD 'UNFRIEND' US?

WHAT IF GOD ‘UNFRIEND’ US?
(A Reflection by Fred Vergara, Chapel of Christ the Lord, 815 Second Avenue, New York City, April 25, 2012)

Recently on the plane, I was seated beside two teenagers who were having a very animated conversation. From what I overheard, they were into social networking. One of them said, “I’ve just unfriended Ashley?” Oh really? Why?” replied the other.” Oh she’d been annoying me with her tweets but this time in FB, she really messed up. Our friendship is over! I say, over as in over!” And she proceeded to tell her companion about what Ashley did, even though she knew, I was overhearing it. After which, her companion said, “Good for her. She deserves to be unfriended.”

When I reached my destination, I could not wait to find out if there is a word “unfriend” in my old dictionary and I could not find it. There is a word “unfriendly,” an adjective which means “hostile or antagonistic.” But the word “unfriended” that I heard is a verb. So I googgled “unfriend” in my computer and I found it in Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia. Actually, I found two words “unfriend” and “defriend” which obviously means the same thing.

The definition of unfriend in Wikipedia is this: “Unfriend is the act of removing a friend from your Facebook account.” It goes on to explain, “Compulsive people prune their friends list periodically, removing people they no longer have contact with. More often however, unfriending is done when a particular friend’s update or self-promotions become so annoying that you can no longer stand hearing or reading them…you may also unfriend someone when they piss you off.”

One example use of the verb is this, “Suzy thought Joe was being rude, so she had to unfriend him from her page.” One story tells of a Facebook fan who committed suicide because someone had ‘unfriended’ her on Facebook and MySpace. The last words she uttered, “OMG, I was unfriended!” And she jumped from a building!

I think it is unfortunate that friends can be tossed aside with nothing more than a few taps on a computer keyboard simply because they messed up. Scriptures tell us, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We are all imperfect, we all make mistakes, we all stumble and fall in our words and actions. Friends are there to help us stand when we fall.

The age of computer has given us plenty of opportunities to communicate. Often we act, in the words of Bill Gates, “with the speed of thought.” We write our message via email, text, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and many other social networks. We respond in matter of minutes or seconds. The problem however, is that when we read emails or tweets, we do not see the person and could not read his or her facial and bodily expressions. Sometimes they are tweets not necessarily for us. And so we judge the message based on what we read. And without having seen the person at the time that he or she sent the message, we can get pissed off and decide to “unfriend.”

One of the modern pop songs (by Joan Osborne) that is very popular among teens, says in part “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us, Just a stranger on the bus ,Trying to make his way home?” The incarnation of God in Christ is one of the great mysteries of our faith. God became human like us. It is a mystery hard to fathom but it is comforting to know that in this mystery of God-in-man, “He was tempted in every way as we are, and yet did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

In the Bible, God had wrestled with the temptation of unfriending His people. Israel’s idolatrous tweets and self-promotions were pissing Him off. The prophet Elijah said that the people of Israel were “limping in two opinions” and challenging them to choose one or the other: “If God is God, follow Him; but if Baal is god, follow him.” In the contest of miracles at Mount Carmel, Elijah tried to execute what he thought to be God’s “unfriending” only to find out later that God was not willing “unfriend.” This “ritual of the limping dance” (theologian Kosuke Koyama has a wonderful reflection about this) continues because “people continue to be people and God continues to be God.” (Read the entire story in 1st Kings 18).

Another prophet Hosea said that Israel was being unfaithful and they “will be destroyed for lack of knowledge.” The prophet said that the people did not know, or that they forget, that the gold and silver and the oil, they lavished on Baal, the false god of prosperity, comes from God. But in spite of their unfaithfulness, God was not willing to “unfriend.” Listen to the soliloquy of God:

“When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my Son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to the images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms, but they did not realize that it was I who healed them, led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love….But how can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not carry out my anger, for I am God, not a man, the holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.” (Hosea 11:1-9)

In other Scriptures but in similar fashion, God says, “I will not leave you, I will not forsake you…for I have inscribed (tattooed) you in the palm of my hands.” (Hebrews 13:5, Isaiah 49:16)

I think it is quite liberating to know that while God has become “one of us, “He also continues to be “not one of us.” Unlike the two teenagers on the plane, God would not unfriend us no matter how much mess we make of our lives. God’s forgiveness, love and grace are always ours, regardless of our nasty tweets, updates and actions. All of us mess up, all of us are imperfect, and all of us err, one way or another. But no matter how much we mess up, God’s love for us is unconditional. We are God’s “friends forever. “

Maybe that is the kind of godly character that we, humans, should have, to be “friends forever,” with God and with one another. Amen.

PALM SUNDAY: Significance of Palms at Holy Week

PALM SUNDAY SERMON: SIGNIFICANCE OF PALMS ON HOLY WEEK
Fred Vergara (Sermon at St. Michael & All Angels, Seaford, New York, 4/1/2012)

“Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’” (Mark 11:7-10). 

A story is told of an atheist who filed a discrimination suit against the state. He complained that all the major religions in the U.S. have holidays but not one for him. Christians have Christmas and Easter and Jews have Hanukah and Passover but not one for those who say there is no God. The judge who received the complaint readily explained: “Sir, your case has no merit. First, the word holiday originally comes from the words “holy day.” Second, you actually have a holiday.  According to Psalm 14:1 “Only a fool would say ‘there is no God!’” So you actually have April 1^st –April Fool’s Day---as your holiday. Case dismissed!”

I think it is interesting that this Palm Sunday 2012 also falls on April 1^st, so this is a great time for the fools and the “fools for Christ” (1^st Corinthians 4:10) to be together.  So Happy Palm Sunday and Happy Fools’ Day! I think I’ve covered everyone.

Palm Sunday - Start of Holy Week
The liturgy of the Palm Sunday begins with the blessing of the palms. True to prophecy (Zechariah 9:9) that the Messiah-King would ride on a donkey, the event commemorates the “triumphal entry of Jesus to Jerusalem.” Along the way, people (men, women and children) rejoiced and spread out garments and palm branches and waved palm leaves shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!” Palm Sunday begins our weekly celebration of the Passion Story of Jesus. What is the significance of the Palms in the context of our life as Christians?

A.    Palm as Symbol of a Victory

Among the Jews, a palm branch is a symbol of rejoicing. As soon as news of triumph is announced, people would cut palm branches as signs of a victory party. In Roman culture, a palm branch is also a symbol of victory.  It is no wonder that in welcoming the entry of Jesus to Jerusalem, he would be met with a great throng of people waving palm branches. They were Jews living as colonials of the Roman Empire.

It is said that the early Christians used the palm branch to symbolize the victory of the faithful over the enemies of their souls. Christian martyrs were usually shown holding a palm frond as a holy attribute, representing the victory of spirit over flesh. In some of the Christian tombs or catacombs, aside from the ichtus (fish symbol of Christ), a picture of a palm would also be there to signify that a martyr was buried there.

Of course, victory in Christian life is spiritually discerned. We are not talking about military conquests or socio-economic triumphs. We are talking about the triumph of the spirit against the assaults of the enemies, spoken in our baptism as “the world, the flesh and the devil.” It is a renunciation of all that hinders us from realizing our authentic selves as “imago Dei” (image of God), human beings who live and believe in God.

B.     Palm as Symbol of Life

A palm trees (tamar in Hebrew) represents survival and life since it is one of the few trees to grow in arid environments. Palm trees in the desert means either an oasis or water below the surface. In Palestine, there are many kinds of palm trees. There is the coconut palm tree, the ornamental palm tree and of course, the ever present palm dates. In many communities, the red date palm trees line up the streets, surround the village and are a great source of livelihood.

As a symbol of life, the towering palm trees also symbolize the pride and the strength of the community to withstand the assaults against their very survival. Ahmad Abu Samra, a Palestinian, recently reported that in the Palestine of today, the Israel Army have been destroying palm trees in order to starve the residents of Deir Al Balah so that they would leave the area.  Over the years of Intifada (Palestinian uprising against the Israelites who occupied their lands), Israelite bulldozers have leveled their farms and destroyed dozens of palm trees. In the spirit of dignity and defiance, the local residents said, "This will not break our will. Our palm trees will remain tall and as long as there is breath in our bodies, we will plant them again and water them with our blood like those before us.”

C.     Palm as Symbol of Righteousness

The palm tree is unique among the other trees in that the higher it grows up; the deeper its roots go down. Its imposing leaves, which are the heart of the palm tree, are fresh green or white and often remain unchanged over time. For me, it aptly describes our Christian journey to spiritual maturity. The higher we go in our spiritual lives, the deeper our roots in Christ shall be. To paraphrase theologian, Paul Tillich, God is both the Height of Meaning and the “Ground of Being.”

An ancient art often depict Jesus in heaven among palms. In the Old Testament, “palm fronds” (fern-like branches) were associated with rejoicing after the harvest on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:40; Nehemiah 8:15). In the New Testament, the redeemed are “standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. ...wearing white robes and...holding palm branches in their hands.”(Revelation 7:9).The palm branches therefore remind us of our righteousness in Christ, given to us, as a gift at baptism, in Christ’s death and resurrection. We are made righteous by the Blood of the Lamb.

Accordingly, the righteous are likened to a palm tree. The Psalmist says, "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree" (Ps 92: 12). Like the palm tree, a Christian is continually growing up in spiritual height but likewise extending the roots deeply, strongly and humbly. In this Holy Week, may we learn from the ways of the Palm Tree, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CONTEXTUALIZATION: FILIPINO AMERICAN LIBERATION

Caption: Early Filipinos in
America called Manongs were farm workers in California and Hawaii.



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CONTEXTUALIZATION OF PEOPLE’S LIBERATION – Fred Vergara (3/27/12)

Contextualization is a term that refers to application of the Bible into the context in which people find themselves. And it is amazing how people who read the Bible against the background of their particular contexts have found answers to their basic questions.

A case in point in the story of Exodus. For a long time, we have been accustomed to looking at this biblical account as a story of liberation. Many Christian writers and theologians present exodus as a model of how God favors the oppressed against the oppressors. The famous movie The Ten Commandments present Exodus as a fascinating drama of how God called Moses to set God’s people free. The remaining biblical account tells of Joshua, Moses’ successor, who finally crossed the river Jordan and entered Canaan, the promise Land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

So much of our understanding of Exodus are gleaned from the context  of the Israelites but what about that from the context of the Canaanites? In modern Israel, the Palestinians are those who identify with the Canaanites and they look at the Exodus story, not as a liberation story but as a story of terror. In his book, Towards a Palestinian Liberation Theology, Naim Ateek who happens to be a Palestinian Christian, in fact an Anglican priest, cursorily examines how from his own personal experience and from the experience of his people, it is the Palestinians who need liberation from the very same people who claim a holy heritage  as God’s chosen people. I was in Palestine in 2008 and have seen the oppressive situation of the Palestinians in contrast to the power structure of the Jewish state.

Close to our yard, the Native Americans are also reinterpreting Exodus from their own context. An indigenous writer, Roland Allen Warrior,  in an article, “Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians” also affirmed that like the biblical Canaanites, Native Americans also suffered conquest and genocide from those who escaped from the Old World and laid claim to the promised land of the New World. While the English and European Pilgrims  ended up with the taking possession of the “land of the free and the home of the brave”; the Native Americans ended up in losing their lands.

And there is still one interesting contextualization from my own racial-ethnic context. Filipino Americans are finding resonance to the views articulated by Palestinian and Native American theologians but with a twist. A Filipino theologian, Eleazar Fernandez, is developing a narrative which interprets the immigration of the Filipinos to the United States not an exodus to Canaan but an exodus to Egypt. Filipinos were once colonials of the United States. For fifty years from 1898 to 1946, America took over from Spain as a colonial master of the Philippine Islands.

The first wave of Filipinos in America  in early 1900’s were young males from Luzon (particularly Ilocanos) who were recruited to work in the farms of California and Hawaii and the canneries of Alaska. Like most people of color, they also suffered under “the sweltering heat of racism” and were treated like second-class citizens. Due to the anti-miscegenation law, they were not allowed to marry Caucasians and most of them ended up bachelors until they died.  The second wave of Filipino-American immigrants in post World War II, were U.S. navy men and War Brides of United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). The U.S. War in the Pacific against Japanese Imperial forces endeared Filipinos to the Americans for their gallantry and valor. The succeeding Filipino Immigration following the 1965 Immigration reform brought Filipino professionals to the United States and increased their number through family reunification. It is estimated that there are around four (4) million Filipinos in the United States, majority of them have become American citizens.

The four million Filipinos in America is part of the 11million Filipinos in global diaspora who together send around $34 billion annually to their native land, an amount constituting some 14% of the Philippines Gross National Product (GNP). Given the fact that Filipinos abroad (America, Asia and Europe) send not only money but also goods delivered through hundreds of thousands of Balikbayan (“back to country”) boxes, it is no wonder that the Philippine government would often call Pinoys (other name for Filipinos outside the Philippines)  as their modern heroes.

The situation of the overseas Filipinos is both a bed of roses as well as a bed of nails. Suffering and hope intersect in the lives of overseas Pinoys  especially those who work as domestic helpers, construction workers, factory assembly line workers. Many are victims of human trafficking and all kinds of human exploitation. Tremendous pastoral care is needed especially to families who are separated due to global migration and resettlements.

In the context of Filipino American liberation theology, the narrative that fits, according to  Eleazar Fernandez, is not Moses leading the oppressed Israelites from Egypt but Jacob bringing his family to Egypt. In this case, the promised land of Canaan is the Philippines (Lupang Hinirang) which has fallen on hard times due to centuries of colonization and exploitation from various empires. If Israel had been colonized by Syrian, Assyrian and Babylonian Empires in the past; Philippines too was colonized by Spain, America and Japan empires. For Filipino Americans struggling in the United States, North America is Egyptian empire where Jacob and his family were reunited by their son, Joseph, who successfully interpreted the American Dream. While some of them share in the prosperity of because the Empire, many are struggling and hoping to one day return to the promised land of their birth, hoping that by that time, it would already be a land flowing with milk and honey.

I guess the point of biblical contextualization is not necessarily to negate the narrative from one context, such as the Hebrew narrative of God as a liberator God, but  to discover and bring out other peoples’ narratives,  because the progressive revelation of God in Jesus Christ, ultimately points out that the God of liberation is not just the God of liberation of one elect people. As a matter of fact, Jesus as the Son of God also became the Son of Man so that we will all become sons and daughters of the one true God. The God incarnate in Jesus Christ is therefore not a tribal God but a universal God. He came not to liberate one tribe and condemn the others but that He came so that that all may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

LENTEN MEDITATION: LEADERSHIP AS SERVANTHOOD

 

“You know that the rulers of this world have power over the people and the leaders have complete authority. But it shall not be so among you…(Mark 10:35-45)”

In 2006, I was part of a group of church leaders who visited the People’s Republic of China as guests of the China Christian Council and the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). I observed that the protocol officer would always give careful attention to the seating arrangement. Whether in business meetings or at banquets, we would always be meticulously arranged in the order of importance.

At some point, I was seated either at the left or the right of a major dignitary and it made me feel good to be close to power. Cameras and people’s attention are focused on the celebrity and when you are near the popular figure, you somehow share the limelight.

I could therefore understand why the apostles James and John, the sons of Zebedee,  would ask Jesus about their place in the seating arrangement: “Teacher, we want you to do for us…When you sit on your throne in your glorious kingdom, we want you to let us sit with you, one at your right and one at your left” (Mark 10:35-37). Like me, they wanted to share the limelight.

The problem arose when the ten other apostles overheard it and got jealous because they too wanted to be on the same spots. There was no Chinese protocol officer to announce the seating order and so the team was thrown into chaos as the spirit of envy and personal ambitions threatened their unity.

Leadership often has two challenges: technical and adaptive. Technical challenge refers to the traditional functions of authority which are to provide direction, protection and order. Adaptive challenge refers to how a leader responds to the dynamics of power when a community experiences conflict and disorder. Jesus demonstrated adaptive leadership by redefining power: “If you want to be great in the Kingdom, you must be the servant of all; and if you want to be first, you must be the last of all. For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:44-45).

Leadership from human perspective has always been one of authority and power. Whenever one’s security is threatened, leaders would invoke that power: physical, military, social, political or ecclesiastical. For example, whenever a country’s security is threatened by another country, it is almost automatic that the government of that country, would parade its armed forces, not necessarily to fight but as a show of force.

From his perspective as God-come-down, Jesus taught that ultimate power is achieved through powerlessness and ultimate authority is gained by relinquishing that authority. St. Paul expounded the power of powerlessness to the Christians in Philippi. Philippi was the city named after the powerful King Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great and Philippians are awed with power. Paul explained: “Though He was God, Jesus did not count equality with God a power to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient unto death...Therefore God has highly exalted him and given Him a name that is above every name...” (Philippians 3:6-8). 

The glorious Kingdom, which the apostles had imagined was not the same as the kingdom that Jesus envisioned: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Leadership in that Kingdom is defined not by the power that would make one feel secure or important but by a total abandonment of such power and in total vulnerability to the will of God.

In this season of Lent, let us reflect upon our leadership as God’s servants in the world. By the relationship we create, by the words we say and by the works we do, let us lead as Jesus leads. Amen.

MISSION QUARTERLY REPORT (January-March 2012)

(Photo 1: Visit to the Iglesia Filipina Independiente in Manila, Feb. 8-10, 2012). Advance Party to the Presiding Bishop's Visit. Left to Right: Fred Vergara, Peter Ng, Rev. Margaret Rose (PB Deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Collaboration. At center is The Most Rev. Ephraim Fajutagana, Obispo Maximo of the IFI; Mrs. Julie Esclamado and Bishop Vic Esclamado, IFI President of the Supreme Council of Bishops.

Photo 2: Peter Margaret and Fred displaying the raw and young mango fruits, taken from Cabiao, Nueva Ecija, where one of the Asset-Based Community Development of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines is located.)

EAM OFFICE QUARTERLY MISSION UPDATE

(January-March 2012

Episcopal Asiamerica Ministries (EAM)

Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara, Missioner

HIGHLIGHTS

Consultation on Alternative Theological Training (Oklahoma City, January 12-15 ) –Collaborated with Ethnic Missioners in a gathering of bishops, priests and lay leaders for cross-cultural conversation and sharing of alternative education and ordination tracks. EAM presented its Pilot Project on “Doctor of Ministry in Asia-America Ministry” in partnership with the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which starts on June 2012 with initial six EAM clergy. Will also be working on a Christian Education grid towards faith formation and ministry of all the baptized.

Forum on Filipino American Christianity: Like Milkfish in Brackish Water Book (San Francisco, January 27-28) – Led a well-attended symposium of a culture-specific approach to mission and evangelism, a new paradigm of mission in American and global context. Presentation and discussion included “chosenness” as servanthood;  Philippine religious history; motifs in Filipino American immigration history; Symbols and stereotypes of Filipino American immigrants. Filipino American Christianity is likened to a Philippine fish called “bangus” (milkfish) for its three characteristics: adaptability, hospitality and versatility.  A contextual Filipino American liturgy was held at St. Martin & Holy Child Episcopal Church in Daly City.

Worship on the Way: A Resource – As chair of the Pacific Asian American Canadian Christian Education (PAACCE) of the National Council of Churches, I wrote the preface to this new ecumenical resource authored by Russell Yee, off the press by April 2012. This is a collection of diverse Asian North American contextual worship styles. Liturgy is the work of the people and culture matters.  It will become one of the resources for Asian American ministry.

Visit to Asia (Manila and HongKong, February 1-15) – As part of the Presiding Bishop Visit to Asia, involving the Partnership Office for Asia and the Pacific and the Ecumenical and Interfaith Collaboration,  I participated in the planning of Concordat Meeting with the Iglesia Filipina Independiente.  In parallel visit to the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP), we were introduced to one of their  “Asset Based Community Development projects,” which featured a self-help program that turned a problem into an asset. In this project, headed by the town mayor of Cabiao, the water hyacinths which were once a cause of flooding, has been transformed into handicrafts products, deodorizers and charcoal. The community is looking for markets for its products. In the IFI, we visited the Aglipay Central Theological Seminary, which has grown over the years.  IFI has now a total membership of around 8 million and needed more clergy to supply pastoral leadership. Upon return to the U.S., I stopped by HongKong to minister to the Migrant Workers at St. John’s Anglican Cathedral and discussed with Canon Thomas Pang, provincial coordinator and Archbishop’s adviser on Christian Education about the possibility of Asia-America Theological Forum in 2013.

Asia-America Theology Forum 2013 (EAM and Asia Pacific Partnership ) – As a result of our Asia Visit, we are exploring an Asia-America Theology Forum to be held at Trinity University of Asia campus on February 2013 to gather representative Asian and Asian American theologians and scholars. With an initial theme  “One Host, One Banquet, Many Guests,” our hope is to present many and diverse voices in Asia-America global Christianity. This project will involve multilateral and multidimensional collaboration.

New Community Clergy and Lay Conference (Feb. 29-March 4, 2012)

'New Community Gathering' unites Episcopal ethnic ministries

By Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] Stories of faith and personal witness animated the historic Feb. 29 - March 3 "New Community Gathering" in San Diego of about 300 Asian, Black, Latino and Native American clergy and laity from across the Episcopal Church.Community engagement, mission focus and collaboration ranked high on the agenda for the event, themed "Reclaiming our Mission; Reinterpreting Our Contexts and Renewing Our Communities."Organized through the Ethnic Ministries offices of the Episcopal Church (http://www.episcopalchurch.org), the gathering challenged enthusiastic participants - as well as the wider church - to embrace renewal through creative mission, sharing resources and honoring ethnic and community context.Full story: http://bit.ly/w8PIhu

Future Travel/Events:

Mar. 9-11- Washington, DC: Design Team for Why Serve Discernment Conference for Young Adults of Color to be held in Virginia Theological Seminary sometime September 2012

April12-15: Tampa, Florida: IFI Convention and International Forum on Migrants Ministry

April 16-17: Tampa, Florida: Concordat Council Meeting

April 28- Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry of Long Island, New York Asian Festival and Conference on the theme “Beyond Survival: Ministry in the 21^st Century.”

LENT I SERMON: THE KINGDOM OF GOD

 

(Photo of me presiding at Eucharist in the Church of the Primacy of Peter in Tabgha, by the Shore of the Sea of Galilee, site of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Mark 6:30-46) and the fourth appearance of the resurrected Christ (John 21:1-24) where He asked Peter three times, "Do you love me more than these?" and to which Peter replied, three times, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Photo taken, August 2008 Israel, Palestine.)

The Kingdom of God (Mark 1:9-15)

There was a story of a farmer who had a horse. One day, as he was selling his produce in the market, he left his horse tied to a fence. Two thieves stole the horse. Actually, they had a scheme. One of the thieves took the horse away and the other stayed behind and tied himself with the rope of the horse. When the farmer came, the horse was no longer there but he saw the man tied to the fence. The thief told to the farmer that he had committed a sin and God punished him and turned him into a horse but on that blessed day, God has forgiven him and turned him back into a man. The farmer believed this incredible story and though he was sad  that he lost a horse, he was also glad that the man was forgiven . A couple of weeks later, the farmer saw the lost horse tied to a fence near a tavern. The farmer came to the horse and said, “My friend, did you sin again?”

The first Sunday of Lent begins our incredible story of human sin and God’s forgiveness played throughout the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. In Mark 1:9-15, we learn that the actual ministry of Jesus began in baptism. As Christians, our ministry should also begin at baptism. It is in baptism that Jesus was affirmed by the Father as His beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit. Then the Spirit led Jesus  into the wilderness to be tested. Following his victory over temptations, Jesus traveled throughout Galilee announcing the message: “The time has come…The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

What is the kingdom of God? It is the central message of the Gospel. “The kingdom of God” is mentioned 68 times in ten different parts of the New Testament; its synonym, ‘the kingdom of heaven, ‘is mentioned 32 times in Matthews gospel. Because they refer to the same thing, we can say that altogether, “the kingdom of God” is mentioned 100 times in the New Testament. It must therefore be the central message of Jesus.

Jesus did not come to build a church edifice; he did not come to establish a denomination; he did not even come to found a religion. He came to inaugurate the kingdom of God.  But what is this kingdom or rule of god? Where can it be found? Jesus mentioned two seemingly contradictory  statements about  where the kingdom of God is.  In Luke 17:20-21, he said, “the kingdom of God is in your midst.” If the kingdom is in our midst, then surely, the kingdom of God is in this world, for we live in this world. But in John 18:36, he said, “my kingdom is not of this world.” If it is not in this world, then it must be in another world. It must be in a place outside of our existential  life. It must be …in heaven!

Theologians who studied the meaning of the kingdom of God have coined a phrase to capture a comprehensive symbol of the kingdom of God. The phrase they used is “the already not yet.” To them the important question is not where the kingdom of God can be found; the important question is where it is built and how it is being built in the life of the believers.

The kingdom of God is the rule of an eternal sovereign God over all creatures and things (Psalm 103:19; Daniel 4:3). This kingdom was inaugurated by Jesus. By  his life, death and resurrection, this kingdom is already at work among the believers. In other words, we who have believed and who have been baptized, the kingdom of God is already at work. It is seen in the good works that we do. It is seen in the things that we say. It is seen in the relationship that we create. Whenever you speak God’s word and whenever you do God’s work, you proclaim the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is within you! The address of the kingdom is your heart’s address.

This kingdom however is not yet fully consummated. It is already but not yet. We have our one foot already in heaven but our other foot is still on earth. The death of Jesus has saved us from the condition of sin but our flesh and blood remain susceptible to the temptation to sin. St. Paul, confessed at one time saying, “the good that I want to do, I do not do; the bad that I do not want to do, I do. Who can save me from this tendency to sin? Thanks be to God who gives us victory in Christ.”

As human beings, we are not immune from sin; but as Christians, we are offered the resources to repent and to change. We are in the world but we are not of the world. That is why every Sunday Eucharist, we go into a general confession, we receive an absolution, and we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, so that we can be sanctified and be molded in the image and character of Jesus. The Holy Eucharist is therefore both the altar of the world where the sins of humanity are collected---and the banquet of the Lord where the forgiveness of God is being offered free for the sins of the world. In the Eucharist, we stand to sing praises to the King of this kingdom; we sit to listen to His Word; we kneel to intercede for the world. We enter into the presence of the King to worship and we depart to serve.   

By the life that we lead, by the relationships that we create, by the love we share, and by the deeds we do in Jesus' Name, we participate in the building of the Kingdom. One of the post-Eucharistic prayers in the Filipino Prayer Book says, “Lord, you are the Bread of Life broken for us. May we, Your children, be like this Bread broken and given for the world.”Indeed. Amen.