tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79989182026-06-12T06:53:39.714+08:00READING THE BIBLE INSIDE A JEEPNEY: Celebrating Colonized and Occupied Peoples' capacity to beat swords into plowshares; to transform weapons of mass destruction into instruments of mass celebration; mortar shells into church bells, teargas canisters to flowerpots; rifle barrels into flutes; U.S. Military Army Jeeps into Filipino Mass Transport Jeepneys.Revelation Veluntahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16752398800250394778noreply@blogger.comBlogger482125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7998918.post-53694181634580736412026-06-12T06:53:20.204+08:002026-06-12T06:53:39.713+08:00

Jesus moves through towns and villages like a jeepney on a hard and dusty route. Not above the people, but among them, close enough to see the weary faces, close enough to feel how fear sits inside their bodies.  In Sunday's Gospel Reading, Jesus sees the crowds as harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd and then sends others into that same wounded world. 

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 Like many people, I was nurtured in a "touchy-feely" culture. Many of our pains, physical or otherwise, were soothed and massaged away by the healing touch of our loved ones. Holding, hugging, and kissing were all integral parts of our growing up years. Touching helps in making us feel safe, loved, and not alone. We learned the science behind all these touching moments much

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William Carrey's 87-page pamphlet, "An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen," was an exposition of Matthew 28: 19-20. Published in 1792, it is considered as the first published work on the theology of missions.Centuries later, interpreters of the passage, which is Sunday's Gospel Reading, still resonate with Carrey's exposition. Many

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Why are so many people having problems with the casting of multi-awarded actress Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan's Odyssey?Did these same people have problems with the casting of Charleston Heston, Ben Kingsley, Val Kilmer, and Christian Bale? All played an Egyptian Moses.How about Max von Sydow, Robert Powell, Jeffrey Hunter, and Willem Dafoe? All played a

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John’s Pentecost happens behind locked doors, not in power centers. Not in Rome. Not in the White House or Malacañang. Definitely not in the Philippine Senate! Jesus breathes Spirit into frightened people, not officials. This matters—especially now. This is not a Spirit that descends from above. This is a Spirit that squeezes in.Read inside a jeepney, sin is never neutral. It is

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Sunday's Gospel Reading is part of John's Farewell Discourse—his parting words before the cross. They are not unlike José Rizal’s Mi Último Adiós, written on the eve of his execution. Jesus speaks before Golgotha. Rizal writes before the firing squad. Both face death not with bitterness, but with love. Both die because of love.In John 17, Jesus leaves behind not a sermon, but a prayer

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On the night before his death, Jesus speaks to his friends not from a place of safety, but from the edge of loss. Sunday's Gospel Reading  is part of the Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel. Jesus knows what is coming. Arrest. Execution. Absence. And so he speaks again and again about the Advocate—the Helper, the Holy Spirit—who will come, who will abide, who will remain. But his

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Sunday’s Gospel Reading offers us an alternative vision—one that stands in stark contrast to a world where displacement, dispossession, discrimination, and disenfranchisement are lived realities, especially for the most vulnerable among us. This vision is not sentimental escapism. It is deeply grounded in the Gospel of John, and it is a vision shaped by communities struggling under

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Many of us grew up hearing John 10 through a heavily allegorical lens. The shepherd was never really a shepherd. The gatekeeper was never really a gatekeeper. The sheep were never really sheep. The thieves and bandits were reduced to abstract villains. In the process, the earthy realism of the text—and its social bite—was often lost.John’s Gospel does not dissolve history into

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Friends, reading Luke 24 inside a jeepney draws attention to how revelation often arrives quietly, from the margins, and through the ordinary rhythms of the road. Revelation is not forced upon the believer but unfolds in lived experiences, especially in moments of disorientation and desperation. The Emmaus disciples embody this: grief-stricken, confused, depressed, and walking

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Friends, fear has a way of locking doors.  Fear locks the mind, the heart, the future.  The disciples were not cowards—they were wounded. They had hoped, trusted, and loved, and now they were afraid that death might come knocking for them too. Like it did with Jesus. Scripture must be read where people actually live—not only in temples or classrooms, but in homes,

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 For the Gospel of Matthew, Easter does not begin with alleluias. It begins with women walking—quietly, fearfully—toward a tomb.Sunday's Gospel Reading tells us that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go at dawn carrying grief, unanswered questions, and love that refuses to stay home. They are not celebrating yet. They are simply faithful enough to keep moving.I have argued for thirty years

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Today, we ride in silence. Good Friday is the day the Church stops pretending.  No alleluias.  No shortcuts to the resurrection. Only the long, heavy road to the cross.Jeepney hermeneutics teaches us that faith is never a private journey.  Today, as you and I climb into the jeepney of Good Friday, we discover it is already full—full of the crucified of our time. We sit beside:

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Matthew 21:1–11 tells the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem not on a warhorse but on a borrowed donkey—an act of deliberate, disruptive symbolism. Through a jeepney hermeneutic, this moment becomes a moving tableau of how God chooses to ride into the centers of power: not armed, not armored, not triumphant, but woven into the life of ordinary people.A jeepney is loud, colorful,

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When my father died, two people-- two pastors, on two separate occasions-- congratulated me for his death. When Lazarus died, his two sisters Martha and Mary, on separate occasions, spoke with Jesus. Martha told Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!" Mary, weeping, told Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!"NO ONE,

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John 11 is a story of suffocating grief, communal lament, and a God who refuses to let death have the final word. Reading the passage inside a jeepney invites us to a journey not of private spirituality but of public, embodied solidarity—God riding with the people whose lives are cramped, crowded, and crushed by evil forces beyond their control.A jeepney is a space where strangers

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In Sunday's Gospel Reading from John 9, Jesus meets a man who has been blind from birth. The disciples want a theological explanation—“Who sinned?”—but Jesus refuses to let suffering become a debate topic. He turns their gaze from blame to healing, from theory to solidarity.In our world today, many communities live like the man born blind—spoken about, judged, displaced, and silenced,

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Below is a short homily on Matthew 8:5–13, deliberately centered on the “pais”, the centurion’s slave, and shaped by Jeepney Hermeneutics*—that is, reading the text from below, from inside crowded, precarious spaces where power is felt most sharply and often most painfully.===================================“The One Who Never Speaks”: A Very Short Homily on Matthew 8:5–13If we

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In Sunday's Gospel Reading from John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman—someone doubly marginalized: ethnically suspect, religiously “other,” and socially vulnerable. Many readings treat her as the first missionary and this encounter as an evangelistic crusade template. I see two empire-wounded people meeting at a well, both shaped by histories larger than themselves. I love this

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 The Prophet Joel’s words—“Beat your plowshares into swords”—sound strange to those of us trained to work for peace. We know the more famous reversal: beat swords into plowshares found in Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3. But Joel speaks to a people who have been trampled, displaced, and humiliated by invading powers. One empire after another. This is not a call to aggression. It is a cry from the

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Isaiah 2:4 imagines a world where nations “beat their swords into plowshares” and “learn war no more.” Inside a jeepney, we read this not from palaces or war rooms but from the crowded, noisy, wounded spaces where the masses struggle to survive. The jeepney is a theology classroom on wheels—full of stories, fears, jokes, prayers, and the stubborn hope of commuters who know what it

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Sunday's Gospel Reading  contains, arguably, the favorite Bible verse of most Christians: John 3:16. (As an aside, the Protestant Bible has over 31,000 verses while the Roman Catholic has over 35,000!)I like this narrative because two men--Jesus and Nicodemus--are talking about something men do not have and an experience men never go through: wombs and birthing. When Nicodemus

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Sunday's Gospel Reading from Matthew is also found in Mark and Luke. The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness in Mark. In Luke and Matthew, the Spirit leads Jesus. Being driven and being led are very different descriptions. The former conjures an image of Jesus going with hesitation, even reluctance. The latter paints a picture of readiness and willingness. The number 40

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Amy Jill Levine and Peter Haas, my Jewish teachers in graduate school, taught that one of the best ways to understand the TaNaKh-- especially the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) and the Nevi'im (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve [Hosea to Malachi])--is to focus on who speaks for God in these traditions. In the Torah (Law), God speaks through

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The Church as "Body of Christ" and "Bride of Christ" are Pauline metaphors. There are more metaphors and three of my favorites come from Jesus: Salt. Light. A grain of wheat. The first two come from Sunday's Gospel Reading from Matthew. The third is Johannine. We have heard so many homilies about these three. We are the salt of the earth, we give flavor to life. We are the light

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