Biblical Reflection

by Sharon Rose Joy Ruiz-Duremdes
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in the Philippines

General Introduction

The imperialist globalization offensive is wreaking havoc on the peoples of developing countries. We have become virtually TAPS and SINKS of the powerful countries: TAPS – free suppliers of raw materials and cheap/docile labor. SINKS – reservoirs into which foreign products and capital are dumped. Among those adversely affected by this social arrangement are the indigenous peoples (In the Philippines, the indigenous peoples want to be called national minorities. As a sign of respectful sensitivity, therefore, I shall refer to them as national minorities or NMs).

I believe that this consultation was called not so much to listen to the NMs. They have told their stories over and over and over again. Whether we are hearing them is another point. If I read correctly the Concept Paper for this Consultation coming out of Dr Daniel Thiagarajah’s office, we are gathered here to reflect on how the plight of the NMs impacts our "God Talk" or theologizing.

I am not a theologian. I am a Christian pilgrim or sojourner looking for a way of making my faith relevant to the irrelevant and disjointed inconsistencies of our times. I am not an NM so I may not be able to fully grasp to their situation. But I want to.

I believe I have heard our NMs enough to know their hurt, their anger, and their pain. My two reflections at this Consultation will be:

1. A telling again of the stories of the national minorities and what I believe the Bible is saying about those stories.
2. Ramblings on how a theology in the making is taking very seriously the plight of the NMs.

May I say that my reflections are situated in a specific context – the Philippine setting. But, as Dr. Daniel implies, whether it be the minjung of Korea, the Burakim of Japan, the aboriginals of Australia, the Dalits, Adi Vasis or tribals of India, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Oranges of Malaysia, the First Nations of Canada, the national minorities of the Philippines – the common denominator is structural violence – an issue of justice.

And so, while I shall be drawing on my Philippine experience, I am confident that I will be raising a common voice.

Biblical Reflection # 1

This Land Is Mine… God Gave This Land To Me
(I Kings 21)

Land grabbing that leads to landlessness is the major problem of the national minorities. Because the land gives life to the national minorities, it is held sacred. Because the land sustains the national minorities, they cannot make claims to it. Instead, it is the land that claims them. And so land cannot be parcelled out to a person or a group. It cannot be titled out to one and passed on to another as one would do a piece of property. Land is to be shared by all.

In the story found in I Kings 21, the whole problematic situation begins with King Ahab’s command to Naboth: "Let me have your vineyard; it is close to my place, and I want to use the land for a vegetable garden. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or, if you prefer, I will pay you a fare price." A command that emerges from an insatiable appetite for more, so typical of most rich and powerful leaders. It brings to mind Kind David’s obsession with Bathsheba.

King Ahab projects a calloused disregard – nay, disrespect – for Naboth’s very life. The land of Naboth has more than just a sentimental value for him. Being an inheritance from his ancestors, the land is a living testimony of his lineage. Therefore, it has to be protected. At all cost! The kingly command is the highest form of disrespect because it reduces human relationships to a mere financial transaction – to money talks. He did not need the land. He had vast tracts of land, which he could give away in exchange. But he wanted to posses the land for his pleasure… to be his "vegetable garden".

We can understand Naboth’s reply. It must have been said with the pathos and power that attends a profound sense of stewardship: "The Lord forbid that I should let you have it!" The King must have been obsessed by Naboth’s land. He was depressed by the refusal. He was angry. Like a child, denied of what he wants, he sulked and would not eat. He was angry. He had to get that piece of land – by hook or by crook! Thanks to Jezebel, his wife. The land became theirs. Not only did the King now have possession of the land of his delight. The owner of the land was liquidated. The opposition was silenced.

The episode exposes the bankruptcy of the ruling class. In an extremely arrogant and cruel exercise of power, Jezebel used the existing practices or rituals to pursue her evil plan. And she had willing accomplices who were only too glad to carry out the scheme to its completion, in exchange, I am sure, for favors and funds. Note that the accomplices were all part of the party in power: the men in the city, the elders, the nobles. The story is a picture of how the rich and powerful do what they want and get what they want, in total disregard of people’s moral, legal, and human rights. They have no qualms about employing the whole political structure which they control, their economic dominance, and their power to dictate the meaning of life for the people.

The national minorities in each of our countries will have no difficulty in naming policies, laws, and programs legislated and formulated by the powerful which have done nothing but disenfranchize the former. In my country, the national minorities are protesting against the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA). On the surface, the Act seems to protect the IPs but, upon deeper study, it destroys the culture of a proud race.

But the episode does not end at this seemingly gloomy and depressing juncture. Naboth’s deep love for the land and his cultural traditions embolden him to resist. "The Lord forbid that I should give up my land! This land is mine. God gave this land to me!" Naboth knew that if he capitulated to the ruler, he would lose everything for his whole life was rooted in the land. Losing his land meant losing the whole basis for sustaining life. He and his family would be dehumanized. They would become dependent and enslaved.

And so Naboth stood up to resist. It did not matter that he was disobeying a royal edict. The only response to an undeserved command, to an injustice is resistance. And it is the victim that must carry out the act of resistance. No one else will do it for them. Those who stand in the wings and watch are either opportunists or cowards. Naboth had to suffer the consequences of his daring move. The lowly peasant that he was (but also a symbol of the Tribes), he was fully aware of his situation. He understood the ramifications and consequences of giving up. By standing up for the land and his right to be on the land, Naboth was ensuring a life of dignity for his descendants. He was exercising a sense of responsibility and commitment to his family and his people.

The story ends with the day of reckoning. A judgment is pronounced on the land grabbing case. The God of justice, through the prophet Elijah, confronts King Ahab. "Have you killed and taken possession?" (Vs.10). True to form and nature, God once again shows on whose side God is. Naboth is vindicated. He was right. His cause was just.

Moreover, the vindication is also an invitation for other victims of injustice to do the same, namely, to resist. To defend and uphold one’s rights. To rage against the dying of the light. And to pour out one’s outrage against discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization.

It is very revealing that with every challenger’s death is an upsurge of the power of life. The groundswell of opposition breaks forth with so much more renewed vigor. The struggle for justice takes the form of a continuing struggle for land and life. And as the collective force of the oppressed gains inspired momentum, the judgment against greed and injustice reverberates with an even stronger volume and force.

The national minorities, like Naboth, continue to this day to say NO to the social and political forces that drive them to poverty, dehumanization and enslavement. And where does this put you, theologians? Right as the heart of the struggle, lending your skills to the people’s cause and placing your resources at their service.

Bible Reflection # 2

Encountering Yahweh In The Poor

Theology, as I understand it now, did not start in the awesome halls of a Seminary. It did not start with the voluminous books of Barth, Tillich, Pannenberg which I had to plough through and make sense of. Theology, for me, began when I asked the question about why the Filipino peasants, the workers, the fisherfolk, the women, the children, the national minorities are suffering and what possible means are available in removing that suffering. Theology, for me, started after I heard Ric Guiao, an Aeta community organizer in Central Luzon in the Philippines said, "We are no longer human beings because the land that used to cradle us and to whom we belong, is no more."

In the hallowed halls of the Seminary, we played around with "interesting" formulations on the nature of God. There were painstaking attempts to answer the question: "Who is God?" But I was disappointed that my understanding of the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God did not change the plight of the poor people in my country.

As I continued to immerse myself in the objective reality of the poor, my question changed from "Who is God" to "Where is God?" There was a shift from the nature of God to the locus of God. Is God in heaven – wherever that is? Is God down here in the slums with the urban poor, in the rice fields with peasants, in the factories with the workers, in the forests with the national minorities? On which side is God? On the side of the oppressors or the side of the oppressed? Why has God chosen to take that side? What is God doing? What does God expect of me?

I discovered that the questions I asked presumed some form of confrontation between two contending forces. In my country, life is lived out in the context of a confrontation… a struggle, if you will. The struggle is between the rulers and the ruled… the oppressor and the oppressed… the exploiter and the exploited. When we see how the rulers ride roughshod over the rights of the ruled… when we see the emergence of the moneyed class at the expense of the many… when the landlord’s dogs live more comfortably than a farm hand, it is unmistakably clear that life is a battle ground where the forces of justice and truth confront the forces of evil. And it makes sense to us when the Bible calls us to live out our lives in the context of warfare or combat. (Ephesians 6:11)

For me, theology emerges from this confrontation which defines out objective reality. Theology, has for its raw material the lives of people: where they are at the moment, what they are going through, and what they wish to become. As a Roman Catholic brother says: "concrete reality and history are the principal fountainhead of all reflection and knowledge, even theological knowledge, and our consciousness, even religious consciousness, is conditioned by the same concrete reality and history… the primary focus of theology is the concrete human situation…"

National minorities experience oppression, discrimination, marginalization. They find themselves in a context of injustice. This causes their poverty and powerlessness. On the other hand, this culture of poverty and powerlessness breeds a force that is more human and sensitive to the issues of fairness, truth, and justice. From the ranks of the "sinned against" emerges a force that springs from their God-given humanity a craving for self-expression and realization.

When we reflect on God’s word, we see that God’s will "comes almost always as a call to the creation of a new situation, to the righting of the status quo." Order comes only within the context of the dynamics of transformation. We also see that God’s will has always been and must always be seen in concrete historical situations. It is in these situations and nowhere else that God’s commandments are worked out. There are no two ways about it. If the national minorities are to transform their situation, they will necessarily have to engage in a class struggle for to propose harmony between oppressor and oppressed, in the name of Christian love and reconciliation, is to reinforce the unjust structures and to weaken the struggle for change. It is to forever remain blind to the "unmistakable lesson of history that no significant human group, empire or class has voluntarily yielded power, that no changes have taken place except through the pressure of those below or outside" the mainstream of political activity.

The Bible says that old wineskins cannot be used for new wine. The "new person" does not peacefully co-exist with the "old person". They engage in a death struggle. "Reconciliation is not achieved by some sort of compromise between the new and the old but through the defeat of the old and the victory of the new." Defeat and victory pre-supposes conflict… a fighting back on the part of those who are prevented by the powerful to enjoy the fruits of abundant life. To fight back or to struggle means to cease tolerating oppression. To resist the oppressor means to exercise radical love. Radical love demands that we abandon neutrality in the same way that God takes a bias for the poor.

The struggle for justice and liberation imbues those who are involved in it with a profound spirituality that gives them the capacity to transcend the suffering that accompanies participation in that struggle. Moreover, for Christians, it is in the victims that Christ is to be found. There can be no doubt that we encounter the Christ in the victims of oppression for Christ himself was a victim of oppression. The resurrected Jesus chose to identify himself to the doubting disciples through the nail prints in his hands – scars that were the marks of torture and repression. Only after Thomas had placed his hands into Jesus’ wounds could he say: "My Lord and my God!" In other words, the victims’ scars point us to the presence of the living Christ. Wounds and scars can only be found in the place of struggle.

The national minorities are engaged in a struggle for justice and liberation which exacts their very lives from them. Where does that put you, theologians? I say: A theologian is only a theologian when he/she lives in resistance.