REV. ARIEL SIAGAN
IEMELIF
Acts 6:1-7
Ps 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19
1 Pt 2:4-9
Jn 14:1-12
Many New Testament scholars agree that the Gospel of John is written for a beleaguered community torn from many sides. John’s community experience incessant harassment from their enemies. These enemies are (1) a well-established religious community and (2) a King who reads their loyalty swerving towards subversion. They earned their enemies because of their subversive belief that Jesus Christ was resurrected and now reigning from heaven. This theological belief has political implications that could spell life and death. This belief launches them into a political mission that directly offends the ruling elite.
What does it mean of Jesus’ claim as the way, the truth, and the life?
Chapter 14 of the Gospel of John began with an encouragement, “Do not let not your hearts be troubled” which could be imagined to be addressing a community that regularly negotiates its identity and mission among communities that possesses greater political savviness and better governmental influence and infrastructure. Thus, Jesus’ claim as the way, the truth, and the life can be understood through the experience of participating in a subversive political program and political persecution and suffering at the hands of the ruling elite. It can only be articulated from the point of view of those who accept political tasks regardless of inevitable suffering. From this point of view, let us try to reimagine what Jesus’ way, truth, and life mean for those who put on their shoulders a political mission.
Jesus’ way is a political program meant to establish a Kin(g)dom in opposition to the ruling class . Such a task is not a walk in the park, it’s the road less traveled, a journey of pain and suffering that culminated in Jesus’ eventual death in Calvary. Jesus’ truth emanates from the testimony of those experiencing marginalization from the ruling nobility. It is an intentional bias to hear and believe the stories of the suffering of the marginalized rather than deny them. It is the audacity and daringness to go to the fringes of society–to listen to, build, and be present. Jesus as life can be understood from its opposition to death. The result of their political program is life for their community, meaning the erasure of their marginal position. Jesus as the way, truth, and life is a political program, and suffering as a consequence is embodied..
In the Philippines, those who hold a liberating political vision are harassed and vilified. As Filipinos, we should ask ourselves whether we are still under a functioning democracy or an authoritarian ruler. Not a few have been red-tagged, and not a few who have been red-tagged experienced profound suffering. Some were unjustly incarcerated while many have been killed. The government seems to be the one setting into motion the malicious red tagging done to community activists. I have deep respect for activists. I know activist friends who passionately helped distribute food during the pandemic. I know some of them are staunch defenders of human rights and life. Some of them are religious people who advocate for the rights of migrants, urban poor, fisherfolks, and workers in factories. I always would want to support and pray for them. I know that their tireless commitment and passion emanate from a vision of a better society. I know that some of them not just distribute food, they are also educating and encouraging their people to join the vision that they have. These activists raise the political consciousness of the people they work with. I don’t wonder if their tireless commitment and passion to change society is energized by the political vision they hold true. Their tireless commitment and passion are so pronounced that the military and police find it subversive. Such is the case of Isabelo Adviento who was detained in 2022 for actively leading food distribution during the pandemic. He is also the fourth nominee of the Anakpawis partylist. He continually talk and organized peasant and farming communities so that they won’t be vulnerable to exploitation at the hands of big agricultural businesses and by the government themselves.
The community of John who believes Jesus as the way, the truth, and life have set put them into opposition against community that maintains an unjust order. These enemies try to annihilate them because they hold a different vision of life that is made concrete by a political program aiming to change the structures of society for the better. The same is true with activists and mass leaders of today. Those people experiencing political persecution from the state may have held a different vision of life that counters the vision of the state.
Time and again as Christians we are called to heed suffering, to hear and believe their testimonies, for one should not argue with suffering. Time and again as Christians we are called to envision a better society and to create it now. Let us reason together a political program that will set into motion the erasure of poverty, marginality, and inequality that are experienced by the majority. Let us work together on a political program that will set the condition for love, compassion, justice, and peace to spring forth from the ground.
Balik-Tanaw is a group blog of Promotion of Church People’s Response. The Lectionary Gospel reflection is an invitation for meditation, contemplation, and action. As we nurture our faith by committing ourselves to journey with the people, we also wish to nourish the perspective coming from the point of view of hope and struggle of the people. It is our constant longing that even as crisis intensifies, the faithful will continue to strengthen their commitment to love God and our neighbor by being one with the people in their dreams and aspirations. The Title of the Lectionary Reflection would be Balik –Tanaw , isang PAGNINILAY . It is about looking back (balik) or revisiting the narratives and stories from the Biblical text and seeing, reading, and reflecting on these with the current context (tanaw).
