Walking in the light in these darkened days
Reflection of NCCP Bahaginan /Ecumenical Virtual Sharing Session
12 April 20
Scripture Text:
1 John 1:5-7
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
· Magandang umaga sa inyong lahat. I am requested by the UCCP General Secretary, Bishop Melzar D. Labuntog to share a brief theological reflection for this Bahaginan or Ecumenical Sharing. He could not be with us even on virtual communication because his physician advised him to limit his speaking engagement. We hope to have him back soon in Quezon City. Meanwhile, Ms. Faith Justice Sanchez-Angeles will share the UCCP updates later.
· It wasn’t too long ago when Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the Auxiliary Bishop of Manila challenged the IATF quarantine protocol of Enhanced Community Quarantine imposed in NCR plus Bubble Provinces. He said that the state is intervening in the affairs of the Church by disallowing the holding of Holy Week religious services.
· He invoked the separation of the affairs of State and the Church. There will be no big mass gathering in the Church but we allow 10 percent of seating capacity masses. This was received with fierce reply from the Presidential spokesperson, Harry Roque, saying that the government will use its police power to stop the holding of religious service violative of the quarantine protocols.
· In one of the meetings of One-Voice with Bishop Pabillo, the time when he just recovered from Covid-19 infection, said that infection of Covid-19 must be considered as regular influenza. I agree with him, the reason why I jokingly asked my colleagues, “Wala na bang trangkaso or flu na hindi Covid-19?” The ECQ protocols have been reimplemented when the reported cases of infection were on daily peak at 8,000 to 10,000 cases. These were translated to more than 200,000 active cases in a week.
· Our national office was one, among NCCP member churches, to have reported infection of Covid-19 last year and all the staff had to be tested, then the second round of infections happened in February and again all the staff had to get RT-PCR test to check who got infected. UCCP national office has to identify the isolation place and it was a debated decision with the local church in Project-6. Then we were informed that the national office of the IFI also succumbed to infection and their offices had to close for half a month due to isolation and quarantine process.
· Within the period of two weeks, we lost a number of church members and church workers in the UCCP and we mourn for their untimely demise due to sudden occurrence of severe symptoms of heart disease and other chronic diseases which led to complication and eventually died as Covd-19 related causes. There is a need to add adjectives or paired words e.g. Ischaemic heart diseases, neoplasms, and cerebrovascular diseases,[1] to describe the fatality than just “died of Covid-19.” Is it not deception on the part of the DOH and the government that the head count of fatalities on the daily headline are only of Covid-19?.
· Aside from the darkness that the government and the World Health Organization is highlighting is the alarming pandemic that has no cure, that millions have already died and the solution to curb the spread and impact of the virus is to get vaccinated, and for the Philippines, that means vaccination of at least 70 million individuals to get a herd-immunity. But where are the vaccines? Many people inquired. This makes the social darkness even darker.
· Our text from 1 John 1: 5-7 clearly indicates that those who believe in God who was revealed in Jesus Christ must believe in him as God’s Messiah who have shown humanity what it is to live in the light and abhor deception of the power of darkness.
· Robert M. Brusic wrote in his exegesis of the text: How can we have fellowship with God (who is light) while walking in darkness? How can we say we have no sin when we are sinners? We lie if we do these things, and the truth, which we confess, is not in us. By denying that we are sinners, not only are we liars, but we make God out to be a liar as well. It is bad enough that we should be liars; it is truly ludicrous to make God, who is truth, a liar. What we say and do, then, are not matters to be taken lightly; they have serious consequences. Our confession and action not only demonstrate what we are, but they also reveal what we really think God is. Making God a liar by our smug activity separates us from the truth. Consequently, the word is not in us.[2]
· The Covid-19 pandemic made contrasts on what are the truths about our society: the inefficiency and inadequacy of our health care system that the increase of patient admittance would easily overwhelm it. The unemployment of not less than 4 million has increased by 400 thousand for just two weeks of reimposition of ECQ when workers lost their jobs due to SMEs closure. The pre-existing socio-economic deprivation of millions of Filipinos left them at the margins of the Metropolis, living is squalor due to lack of decent employment and poor urban planning.
· We have asserted the need for social justice in our country, the immense need for peace talks and the prioritization of social services for the people. We were like a shrill voice in the dark tunnel when the tyrannical strategies were imposed on us, making churches victims of red-tagging, illegal arrests and the freezing of accounts of UCCP-Haran in Davao and religious congregations like the RMP.
· Finally, on this Eastertide, we declare that the light of God in Jesus Christ overcomes the power of death and challenges the imperial and coercive state powers like in the Philippines to do justice and set free the people from the bondage of powerlessness and oppression.
· We bring good news of piercing light, pulsating new life, not just today, but in our everyday life in our homes, in society and the world. We should assert the value and dignity of life in our society, articulate the live-giving programs for the people.
· Let us make our faith alive in prophetic witness, articulating new ways of doing our mission so that fear of diseases like Covid-19, death and even of tyranny will be vanquished. May the vision of God's kingdom is made clearer in our experience of Easter. Amen. +++
[1] Philippine Statistics Authority reports that: The top three causes of death in the country in 2020 were ischaemic heart diseases, neoplasms, and cerebrovascular diseases. Incidentally, these were also the leading causes of death in 2019. In 2020, deaths due to ischaemic heart diseases were the leading cause of death with 99.7 thousand cases or 17.3 percent of the total deaths in the country. This was an increase of about 2.3 percent from the 97.5 thousand deaths or 15.7% of the total deaths in 2019. On the other hand, neoplasms, commonly known as “cancer”, came in second with 62.3 thousand deaths or 10.8 percent. Cerebrovascular diseases were the third leading cause which accounted for 59.7 thousand deaths or 10.4 percent of the total. Neoplasms and cerebrovascular diseases both showed a decrease of -9.3 percent and -6.0 percent, respectively, from the previous year. Deaths due to diabetes mellitus (37.3 thousand or 6.5% share), which ranked fourth in 2020, had an annual increase of 7.8 percent. Meanwhile, deaths due to pneumonia, which recorded 32.6 thousand cases (5.7% share) in 2020, posted a -48.1 percent decrease from 62.7 thousand (10.1% share) in 2019, making it the fifth leading cause of death for the year.: https://psa.gov.ph/content/causes-deaths-philippines-preliminary-january-december-2020
[2] http://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/17-2_China/17-2_Brusic.pdf
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