“Bringing light and hope to the masses in these changing times”
21 March 2022
Keynote, WVC Annual Session
Pitac, Tibiao, Antique
By Frank J. Hernando
Scripture Texts:
Numbers 6:24-26
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.
Ephesians 4:4
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called.
John 1:5
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
INTRODUCTION
Maayong hapon sa inyo tanan nga kauturan ko. Isa ka mainit nga pangamusta gikan kay Bishop Melzar D. Labuntog, ang aton General Secretary. Iya ginapaabot ang iya nga pagpakig hugpong kag pangamuyo nga ang ika—72 nga WVC Annual Session diri sa UCCP Pitac mangin makahuluganon kag madinalag-on.
Karon nga ika-apat nga tuig sang aton quadrennium theme amo ang, “Bringing good news of light and hope to the masses in these changing times.” "Pagdala sang maayong balita sang kapawa kag paglaum sa katawhan sa nagabag-o nga panahon." Gusto ko mamalandung sini nga tema kaupod ninyo sining WVC Annual Session.
O N E….The good news of God’s face is shining on the people.
I have chosen the text from Numbers chapter 6: 24-27, to expound the theological understanding of God’s blessing and how God’s light that originates from God’s face shines on us and God’s people.
Bringing good news of light, is the act of presenting light or knowledge and understanding in a dark and desperate situation. The coined phrase “groping in the dark” is a literal description of not seeing your way or your surrounding and use your hand to find your way. Verse 25 ‘Kabay pa nga pakamaayuhon kamo sang Ginoo. Kabay pa nga ipakita sang Ginoo ang iya kaayo kag kaluoy sa inyo. Kag kabay pa nga magmaalwan ang Ginoo sa inyo kag hatagan niya kamo sang maayo nga kahimtangan.’ “Sa sini nga paagi mapahayag nila sa mga Israelinhon kon sin-o ako, kag pakamaayuhon ko sila.”
This gives us the idea that while our minds are clouded with so many concerns and to a certain extent we couldn’t figure out what needs to be done, we come to God in prayer for illumination, kita nagapangamuyo para masanagan ang aton hunahuna kag makahimo ta mga /tikang para maangkon ta ang kaluwasan sa mga butang nga naggapus sa aton.
In our Judeo-Christian tradition, we end our worship service with a blessing or benediction. This prayer of blessing is equally powerful to the worshiper as they mentally prepare to move from the worship place to exit and move back to their homes or go to other places during the day and during the week. There is that psychological and spiritual feeling of being zapped by the Spirit, bestowing a renewed power and reassurance that we are not alone, that the light from God’s face will continually shine upon us.
Larry Broding tells about the Jewish practice of giving a blessing, he says: this famous verse of blessing from Numbers actually has two components: those giving the blessing and the blessing itself. God instructed the priests to give the blessing on the people (and, by extension, on the nation). In medieval Jewish commentary known as Midrash, some writers noticed a contradiction; how could God command the priests to bless the people, when God himself promised to bless the people directly (Deuteronomy 26:15)? In typical rabbinic fashion, the writers used Scripture to explain Scripture: My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Here he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices. (Song of Songs 2:9) Pareho sa usa. Tan-awa, ara siya sa guwa nga nagatindog sa kilid sang amon dingding kag nagalingling sa akon sa bintana. In this interpretation, God is the lover peering behind the wall. When the priests raised up their hands and spread their middle and ring fingers to form a triangle image, the fingers symbolized the lattice of the window through which God could see and be seen.
T W O….The good news of God’s blessing on those who live out God’s covenant of peace
Moreover, we learn from our Bible study of the prophetic books in the Old Testament that God will prosper the life of God’s people when they follow the provisions of the covenant. When leaders of God’s people would not fail to institute justice based on the communal land tenure system and the just appropriation of resources, in such a way that no family would be impoverished and no one oppresses and exploits their neighbors. Each person and each family should live in peace, or in sustainable socio-economic life.
When the leaders are able to provide for the socio-economic needs of the people and have provided security, they experienced blessing from God. In our nation since 2020, when lock downs were imposed in the entire country, our economic and social life have been adversely impacted. In August of 2020, the number of unemployed persons reached to a peak of 7.0 million, while in May last year there are over 4+ million. The last fourteen months (March 2020-May 2021) at the time of the pandemic, there were among us church workers who could hardly survive, economically speaking, those in rural churches who do not have the internet connectivity could not hold their worship services and in effect could not collect offerings as source for their salaries or honorarium.
It has been our experience that the stringent lock downs and quarantine protocols imposed by the IATF and carried out by the LGU and the police have stifled the rights of people to be gainfully employed and violated people rights and neglected people’s welfare needs such as food, mass testing, free hospitalization and others. There were financial and in-kinds ayuda, but these did not suffice the dire need for food and medicines of the millions of families on a daily subsistence wages.
Worse still, the pandemic was an opportunity for the government to pushed its agenda for the approval of the Anti-Terrorism Law. Ini nga kasuguan ang magpadamo sang human rights violations, kay ang iyang Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) maka aresto kag maka-detain tubtub 14 dias, bisan wala sang kaso nga ginpasaka sa korte. This was the time as well for our Church, especially our mission for the indigenous people in UCCP Haran was subjected to redtagging and some of our church workers in the Bicol region were arrested due to trumped up charges hurled against them.
As a Church and as Filipinos, whether we have fixed income or farmers, or workers on a daily wage, have been impacted not so much by the Covid-19 virus itself but by the prolonged lock downs and by the implementation of repressive laws. Our nation lacks the blessing from God because of the sins of our leaders. In the middle of the lock down in 2020, we have learned of the corruption of the money of Philhealth, the use of brute force in cracking down on labor leaders and the arrest, incarceration, and killing of NDFP peace negotiators.
The biblical blessing in verses 24 to 26 is further explained by Larry Broding. In 6:24, the blessing called upon God to bless and keep the people. By blessing, the writer meant fulfillment of the covenant. God promised Abraham numerous descendants and land; the blessing called on God to make the population numerous and to enrich the land for an abundant harvest. By keeping, the writer meant saving the people from evil, any force that would weaken the covenant promises.
Meanwhile in 6:25, the blessing called upon God to show his face and his graciousness. Showing his "face" meant his presence; his graciousness meant his loving activity. When God made his covenants, he showed his face (revealed his presence) and his graciousness, choosing these people over any other; keeping the covenants would renew his presence and activity. "To look upon" had an active intent; it meant "to give favor to." The last part of the blessing in 6:26 was the end game of this and all Hebrew blessings: peace or "shalom," that sense of God's presence and peaceful dominion over the cosmos
T H R E E…The good news in the proclamation of our collective hope for God’s salvation
Our collective hope is centered on our faith in God through Jesus Christ. We are a people filled with indefatigable hope for the manifestation of God’s saving grace especially in the most challenging situations of life. On a personal level, we feel like we are losing control of our personal and family life. Even the most economically stable individuals can succumb to a feeling of alienation from oneself, family and significant people. There are times when we thought there is no way out of our troubles, or the insinuations of how bad our behavior was, or the blame game that people played out on us may be too much to bear. In silence, we need to listen to God, let God’s light shine upon our face and give us peace.
Our faith in God who revealed godself in Jesus Christ has survive thousands of years, many who have shared what we believe in have continued as loyal and committed members of the many and differentiated members of the body of Christ. Our Church, the UCCP has undergone many challenges as a young Church in the world. Our seventy three years old Church is still young in comparison to the Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed Churches in the world.
Management experts believe that persons’ generation and their life’s goals have a bearing on their job performance Classification of generations has been made by managementhelp.org:
Traditionalists or Silent Generation - 1945 and before
Baby Boomers - 1946-1964
Generation X - 1965-1976
Millennials or Gen Y - 1977-1995
Generation Z or iGen or Centennials - 1996-present
My generation of UCCP leaders are from Baby Boomers and Generation X generations. Baby Boomers have been branded as the generation who were educated in college in the 1980s, rose to leadership in the 1990s, many became corporate managers, and they have overcome economic depression by their determination to attain middle class life.
Many of our present Church leaders, whether from this generation or in the succeeding generations, have committed their lives to the ministry of Jesus Christ. They are not perfect human beings, neither angels nor saints, but their commitment to be part of making the UCCP vibrant and witnessing Church is remarkable. Despite the challenges, they pursue a leadership that shows God’s blessings to our local churches and conferences and to the Filipino nation.
Moreover, the Faith and Order Commission (FOC) outlined what is Light and Hope in The UCCP Statement of Faith. It says,
The “light and hope” of our faith that speak to us during this time of pandemic are also discernible in the letters of The UCCP Statement of Faith.
• When we start understanding that the earth is God’s and all that dwells therein; that the earth no longer belongs to temporal sovereigns and empires but entrusted to all of God’s children and everyone in the earth community.
• When we confess that Jesus is no longer simply one who sits on a throne in heaven but one who came down, lived with the poor and vulnerable and gave his life that the least may live.
• When we start affirming that the Spirit of God is creatively and powerfully at work in history and creation, empowering people to challenge the powers and principalities (sinful structures) that are wreaking havoc on the life of people and the planet.
As a Church we have carried out programs at the national level that express our common vision, mission and objectives. These programs were responses to the needs and aspirations of the local churches and conferences to bring about the light and hope to the communities where are churches are located, the nation and the world:
• Production of Sunday School Materials. All Sunday School lessons on the Declaration of Principles for E.Y. 2020 – 2021 were already published. This material is part of our Catechetical Curricula, together with UCCP Statement of Faith and Vision, Mission and Goals. Our Writers Pool consists of five church workers. 2. Conceptualization for the next Sunday School guide was conducted via Zoom Communications. The material will focus on Church Membership and will be accomplished by 10 church workers and lay people. 3. Christian Education and Nurture Month Resource Guide was published in our website. We provided the liturgies and sermons for Children’s Sunday and CEN Sunday. However, the material for Youth Sunday and Fellowship of the Least Coin were provided by the National Christian Youth Fellowship and National Christian Women’s Association, respectively.
• Salary standardization for Conference Ministers. CMs monthly salaries which are below 18k have been subsidized. Support assistance for retired church workers, hospitalization and mortuary assistance have been given. There are other programs being conducted to improve the leadership and training of church workers through the conferences and jurisdictions.
• Our WMS showed a new high in January 2021 with a total of 1.8M. We have averaged 1.36M in the last 5 months (January-May 2021). This was our average before the pandemic started. We have exceeded 10M in 10 months (Jan-Nov. 2021) vs. a target of 8M for the year. This is a very positive trend considering the following circumstances: Church worship gathering is limited to 50% at best! Unemployment and underemployment remain high. Considering that we continue to experience various forms of lockdown, circuit breaker, bubble, and other new names they may come up with, this is a very impressive performance.
• The Joint Venture Agreements for the hospitals were established with the Apple One Medical Group, Inc. The real properties where the hospitals and the Sunergia building are standing on are all on-lease, and no UCCP land property has been sold in perpetuity. The lease rentals will fund the Church Workers Welfare Fund, National programs, share to the Conference programs, Retirement of Church Workers, etc.
• Humanitarian responses through relief and rehabilitation programs have been made through the support of our international partners. The UCCP Humanitarian Agency has recently been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it is called United Care.
• The setting up of the Church Workers Fund, for supporting the Church Workers salaries and benefits, which has an initial fund of 50 million but needs around 250 million pesos to generate income for the benefit of our church workers.
• There are other programs that will be mentioned during the sharing of Bishop Fely Tenchavez.
In view of the May 9 Philippine elections, given our faith in the God of history we will be guided how we should choose our leaders in the country who by their commitment and work for justice and peace will eventually bring blessings to the entire nation and not to intensify the disparity among the economic classes in society. We hope that this will be less violent and generally a peaceful transition in leadership will ensue.
With the collective leadership and ministry of the Western Visayas Conference, we hope that the local churches will be truly become the locus or centers of the mission of the Church, wherein the local church lay leaders and church workers will have mutual understanding of what the local church should be doing for the prosperity of the communities where they are located.
Conclusion
Bringing light and hope to the masses in these changing times is allowing God to make the Church a blessing to the Filipino people. The life and ministry of the Church are the means through which God’s face shines through the difficult situations in life. The life of the Church should provide hope for the members and the communities. We know that God’s love and care continue to sustain us and we should not fail to proclaim that God in Jesus Christ is our source of unity, healing and reconciliation.
God’s intention through Jesus Christ is to act-out our hope in concrete expressions of our faith. That we embody God’s justice and love in the world, not just talking about it, but by living it out. Not through vain articulation of ideas that divide the church, but by showing our genuine concern for people in desperate situations in the communities we live in. As God’s people we have to say the blessing once again:
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace. Amen.
Ang Ginoo magpakamaayo kag magtipig sa inyo,
Ang Ginoo magpakita sang iya kaayo kag kaluoy sa inyo
Kag ang Ginoo magmaalwan sa inyo kag hatagan niya kamo sang kauswagan kag paghidaet.’
------------ -------
Source material: Larry Broding (Copyright 1999-2021).
http://www.word-sunday.com/Files/Seasonal/MotherOfGod/FR-MotherOfGod.html
For Numbers 6: 22-7
What does the word "blessing" mean to you? How do you know you have been blessed?
The Vulcan hand greeting was one of the more memorable images from the 1960's iconic television series, Star Trek. According to Leonard Nimoy who played the Vulcan "Mr. Spock," the idea for the hand greeting came from memories of his youth as an Orthodox Jew. Once a year, the men of the congregation who were known as "Kohen" (i.e., descendants of Aaron) would place their prayer shawls over their heads, raise their hands in the way made famous by the Vulcan hand greeting, and repeat the Aaronic blessing from Numbers. Nimoy said the sight of the blessing left an overwhelming impression on him as a child.
As Nimoy's story above tells us, this famous verse of blessing from Numbers actually has two components: those giving the blessing and the blessing itself. God instructed the priests to give the blessing on the people (and, by extension, on the nation). In medieval Jewish commentary known as Midrash, some writers noticed a contradiction; how could God command the priests to bless the people, when God himself promised to bless the people directly (Deuteronomy 26:15)? In typical rabbinic fashion, the writers used Scripture to explain Scripture:
My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag. Here he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices. (Song of Songs 2:9, NAB)
In this interpretation, God is the lover peering behind the wall. When the priests raised up their hands and spread their middle and ring fingers to form a triangle image, the fingers symbolized the lattice of the window through which God could see and be seen. (For more information, see the commentary of Rabbi Ismar Schorsch from an article in Belief.net)
While this interpretation might not date back to the time of Jesus, it is insightful. The person blessing was one who mediated the presence and power of God.
The blessing itself was highly stylized. It consisted of three verses (Numbers 6:24-26) with two clauses each. In Hebrew, 6:24 had three words, 6:25 had five words, 6:26 had seven words. The progression to seven words indicated the complete blessing of God, since the number seven symbolized fullness. To make that point clear, in 6:27 God stated "I will bless them;" the "I" in Hebrew made the verse emphatic.
In 6:24, the blessing called upon God to bless and keep the people. By blessing, the writer meant fulfillment of the covenant. God promised Abraham numerous descendants and land; the blessing called on God to make the population numerous and to enrich the land for an abundant harvest. By keeping, the writer meant saving the people from evil, any force that would weaken the covenant promises.
In 6:25, the blessing called upon God to show his face and his graciousness. Showing his "face" meant his presence; his graciousness meant his loving activity. Again, notice the connection to the covenant. When God made his covenants, he showed his face (revealed his presence) and his graciousness, choosing these people over any other; keeping the covenants would renew his presence and activity.
In 6:26, first part of the blessing in this verse repeated the blessing in 6:25 (turning face toward people and showing graciousness) but also intensified the blessing. "To look upon" had an active intent; it meant "to give favor to." The last part of the blessing in 6;26 was the end game of this and all Hebrew blessings: peace or "shalom," that sense of God's presence and peaceful dominion over the cosmos. (In his greetings, Paul wished his audience "grace and peace;" both words were interchangeable since both referred to the presence and activity of God for the faithful).
The last verse stated that when the name of God was invoked, he would bless the people (invocation of YHWH's "name" was the same as calling upon the power of God).
For Jews, this blessing and the ones giving the blessing were bridges back to the covenants God made to his people. For Christians, God blessed his people through one mediator, Jesus Christ. He was the presence of God who gave his followers God's power. In this sense, the blessing became a prophecy God fulfilled. Christ was this one blessing; his life (grace) is our blessing.:
------------ -------
Source reference: John Allen, The Politics of Incarnation—John 1:1-18, https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-incarnation-john-11-18/
For NT
The Politics of Incarnation—John 1:1-18 (John Allen)
To those familiar with a Western account of the incarnation, Native American frameworks can provide illuminating and challenging alternative perspectives. Within such perspectives, rather than the grand cosmic flow of history, it can be our more immediate spatiality that comes to the fore.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
The Word became flesh and lived among us, but it did not take Christians too long to get wordy about Jesus. In the first hundred years after Jesus’death, Christians battled over what words would precisely describe the divinity of Jesus, his relation to the Trinity. The more scientific impulses of our nature sought to take the great mystery of the incarnation and place it into an understandable framework. Jesus, the man of Nazareth, became in the early Christian imagination one who shared God’s very essence, or substance. Unless of course you were one of those who thought that Jesus shared a similar substance to God, or perhaps that the whole business of substances was an inappropriate way to discuss such a transcendent God.
These debates were carried out throughout early Christian history, and they were carried out by brilliant and faithful disciples who were seeking to make sense of the miraculous and mysterious story of Jesus Christ for their time. They also tended to emphasize in their thought scripture that offered clues as to how Jesus and God were to be understood in relation to one another and in relation to human history.
The prologue to John has long been seen to indicate that Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem, was somehow the embodiment of a person of the Trinity, who existed co-eternally with God. This is a vision of the mechanics of the incarnation that concerns itself primarily with the question of history and time. Prevailing Christian theologies have persisted with this emphasis on history and time. Christians today imagine human history divided into Old and New Covenants. We anticipate Christ’s coming again in the future. We hope that the world is progressing ever closer to God’s kingdom and perhaps we suspect that it is first plunging towards some apocalyptic end.
In his book God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, Vine Deloria notes that, whether liberal or conservative, American political ideology uses “the idea of history as a thesis by which they validate their ideas.”[1] All familiar western political ideologies judge themselves and each other as history unfolds. They seek schemas that appear to aid in the progression of history.
Deloria notes that in contrast, Native people have tended to consider the world from a spatial viewpoint. Accordingly the practice of seeking religious truth was one of “continuous process of adjustment to the natural surroundings and not a specific message valid for all times and places.”[2] In such a way of seeing the world, any sense of time and history becomes subordinated to the present experience of the community in their place.
This is a challenging framework for western minds to contort themselves into, but I suspect that if we could begin even to glimpse such a vision of the world the incarnation would begin to feel different. Now Jesus has not come to interrupt history and set it on a new course that will unfold under God’s careful and attentive presence. Instead, God came to live in Galilee. The Word became flesh and lived among us.
This portrait of God and Jesus in the prologue to John offers a grand cosmic vision of an unfolding history. But they also state that God’s intention is to become like the stuff of this world and live in specific moments in our world, in our communities, in our lives. The challenge that I hear to contemporary Christians in this vision of the incarnation is to talk a little less and let their words take on some flesh and skin and live in the world.
God’s incarnational intention is that God’s story gets lived out in recognizable ways in the world. Not only over some grand cosmic saga, but also in the way we engage the specific broken places in our communities and even in the forgettable interactions we have with our neighbors.
God’s incarnational intention is that God’s presence becomes unmistakable in our midst because the faithful have put their bodies, and not just their language, into effect for what they believe to be true.
God’s incarnational intention is that the faithful enact our hope in liturgy and protest. That we embody God’s justice and love in the world, not just by speaking it, but by living it out. Not through testing philosophical edicts against the long arc of history, but by showing up in the world we have, as the people we are, to make God into
