A Visit with Human Rights Lawyers

(The Precept-Aspect of Biblical Religion)

our host: Human Rights Lawyers

On the Ethics of the Kingdom

Human rights lawyers will be our hosts this time. Why so? It is because we are going to talk about ‘laws,’ precepts, requirements, ethical demands, rules of conduct. Up to this juncture in our journey, we have considered the proclamation-aspect of Jesus’ message; in this stop-over we are making the acquaintance of the precept-aspect. These two aspects are present in biblical religion generally.

The Old Testament has a classical expression of this proclamation-precept combination. ‘I am the Lord, thy God, who brought you out of the slavery of Egypt’ would be the proclamation-aspect. ‘Therefore, obey my statutes and ordinances’ would be the precept-aspect. 60 The proclamation-part announces salvation. The precept-part puts down the ethical demand on the Israelite.

This same pattern is found in the New Testament. Read Mk 1:14-15 thus:
 

Let us gain this insight into the proclamation and precept aspects by taking a preliminary step, that is, by first recalling an aspect of the Kingdom of God, namely, that it is a goal.

Kingdom As Task and Goal. We have seen that the Kingdom is both task and goal. As task, it is something to be busy about. It means that disciples are to generate life-blessings for the whole household of humans and nature.

As goal, it is a destination to be reached, a reward to be attained by the individual, a prize to be won, a treasure to be enjoyed. It is a finish line to be arrived at, a final home to go to, a new earth to inherit, a definitive salvation to be possessed. 61

Kingdom As Goal: Prominent in the New Testament. Although today many of us perhaps find the task-aspect more appealing because we like to put in our bit to the Kingdom work, it is the goal-aspect that is more prominent in the New Testament.

Jesus announces the Kingdom as a definitive salvation to be possessed and invites people to attain it. Earlier the Jews were in expectation of the coming of the Kingdom of God as a salvation to be attained. Jesus then responded to this expectation and invited people to enter into it. The following New Testament signposts speak of the Kingdom of God as a goal to be reached, as a definitive salvation to be attained, as a possession to be inherited, as something to enter into:

This then is the precept-aspect of the Jesus message. With the help of our new hosts, human rights lawyers, this will be the focus of our current stop-over.

Samples of the Precept-Aspect

I will now simply enumerate representative ethical teachings of Jesus. After you go through the list, you will perhaps sympathize with certain scholars who say that this is the ethical teaching of one who was expecting the imminent end of the world. It is an impossible ethic!

Others would say it is a radical and demanding ethic which, with gritted teeth, will power and the grace of God, one must grin and bear. I tried this kind of spirituality in my years of formation. I found it to be a ‘rubber band spirituality.’ Pull, stretch, strain, force and the rubber band either breaks or I snap back to where I started and ‘tell the same sins to the priest!’

Could there be another way of comprehending these ‘ways of acting and being’? Are they perhaps natural rain-drops when the cloud is full? Are they not the most spontaneous drizzles, nay, outpours, of a cloud that is seeded with the Spirit of God? Is this not what one would ‘instinctively’ do and say if in touch with the Source? Read and see these samples from Matthew: 63

And remember, a cloud is silent. The rains may come down hard and strong and loud, but the cloud is always still.

This is the kind of ethic that you don’t try hard to follow by doing. It is more the kind of ethic that happens to you by just being … being in touch. For, the best kind of spirituality is one that happens to you rather than one that you make happen. This is so in the best of Asian religious traditions. Be in touch and there are no longer precepts— only the spontaneous dance-movements of the heart.

Some Non-Moralistic Ways of Being Moral

The Most Basic Precept: Metanoia, a Change of Life. We have nearly forgotten our hosts….

Our hosts, outstanding human-rights lawyers, who know their theology more from life and practice than from speculation on human nature, begin our session by asking this question: ‘What is the most basic precept of Jesus?’ We go into a huddle and, after a rather long interval and many discussions, finally come to a consensus: Jesus’ most basic precept is ‘conversion.’ Our hosts are both amused and pleased. Amused, because it took us a long time to arrive at an answer. Pleased, because we gave the correct answer.

We go on to share that the original Greek word, metanoia, is an excellent word, meaning precisely, ‘self-transformation,’ ‘total change of life,’ ‘basic reorientation of one’s life-values,’ ‘radical sharing of one’s wealth.’ Our hosts are too modest to say that they practice this metanoia, for many of them do not make a living out of their practice in behalf of human-rights victims. We also noted that metanoia is poorly translated as ‘repent,’ or ‘be sorry for one’s sins’ and that it means infinitely more than ‘going to confession to a priest.’

We agreed that metanoia is seen in lawyers like Jose Diokno and Evelio Javier. In the time of Jesus, it was practiced by his first followers who gave up their boats, nets, parents, servants (Mk 1:18,20), their tax-collection business (Mk 2:14), their wealth (Lk 8:2).65

Dissolving the Darkness. One of our hosts makes this remark: Conversion or self-transformation is really going from darkness to light. We then discuss various ways of doing this. One of us shares an excellent way which she learned from an Eastern sage. It is the meditation of silence. In that meditation one is directly in touch with the Source. That Source is not only living water. It is also light. The sage said: Now, in a dark room, you do not get rid of the darkness by throwing it out of the window. You dissolve the darkness—and that ever-shadowy ego—by simply lighting a candle. And the lighted Candle is in you, is you. You just have to stir and quicken the flame—in silence.

The Greatest. The next question was both expected and easy. What is the first and greatest commandment? We are almost too ashamed to say the self-evident: love God. And close on its heels: love your neighbor.

In addition, however, we were all puzzled by another self-evident observation: after 2000 years of Christian love, among the most loveless and exploitative societies are Christian societies.

Another Weighty Commandment. Our hosts go on to the next question: Is the ‘law of love’ the only premier commandment of Jesus? Having forgotten one of our hard-earned learnings, we say ‘yes.’ We expect warm affirmation. Instead we get half-approval. They open the New Testament. They point out that we have given only one half of the correct answer. For Jesus, in addition to the love of God and love of neighbor (Mk 12:28-34), tsedaqah, mishpat, checed and ‘emet or social justice (Mt 23:23) constitute ‘weightier matters of religion.’ It is weightier than giving one-tenth of your livelihood for religious purposes. Thus for Jesus social justice is also a chief commandment.66

Some in our group justify our half-erroneous answer by saying: but (the concept of) love includes (the concept of) justice; when you love, you do justice. Our hosts are not impressed. They say they are not philosophers and are not wont to reduce biblical texts to syllogisms. They say they can discuss history better, either contemporary history, in which they are involved, or past history. We trace the past history of ‘Christian love’ and are led to see once more this somewhat embarassing picture: after centuries of love, it is in Christian societies that you see the rich man’s mansion and the bishop’s palace rubbing walls with the hovel of the poor, religious houses, with the shanties of the destitute.

Our hosts give a broad hint to pastors and priests: give a moratorium to ‘love’ and give ‘justice’ a chance. We have a good lead from the 1971 Synod of Bishops: ‘Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel.’ 67

Our hosts, who do a lot of forensic work in law courts in behalf of the poor, are curious about the parable of the ‘last judgment’ of Mt. 25. Here is the heart of the parable.

It is straightforward and clear: Open your heart and hand to another human in need. If you do, you are the sheep that will possess the Kingdom. If you don’t, you are the goats that will wind up somewhere else.

It is noteworthy for being the only saying of Jesus that explicitly spells out criteria for belonging or not belonging.

There are two dubious readings of this signpost, however. First, some scholars say that the ‘least of my brethren’ 68 did not refer to the poor, but to the disciples of Jesus, whom Jesus had called his brothers elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel. This may be so and we need not make this a point of contention. However, using our Third World glasses, what do we see? We see a Jesus who was obsessed with ‘good news to the poor.’ Would such a Jesus be loathe to call the poor his brothers and sisters and make compassionate deeds to them a criterion for salvation?

Second, we are witness to the following kind of spirituality. ‘Seeing Christ in others.’ ‘Doing good for the sake of Christ.’ ‘I help the sick, the needy and the poor, because I see Christ in them’: Well, what if Christ were not to be found in them? You would then not lift a finger? In any case, what we have here is a mis-reading of Matthew 25. Jesus did say that as long as you did it to the poor, you did it to him, but he did not say, ‘because you saw me in the poor.’ On the contrary, the startled sheep and goats are thoroughly baffled: ‘When did we see you hungry …?’ This, I take it, indicates that when they fed/did not feed the hungry, they did/did not see Jesus in the hungry, much less feed them ‘because we saw Christ in them.’ So these are people who fed the hungry without seeing Jesus in them. And the parable might even suggest—though this might be stretching it too far—that Jesus would be happiest when you thought he was not there and you did it anyway! After all, he can very well take care of himself. Our hosts, particularly the women-lawyers, relish this particular insight.

Perhaps we would do well to see in the poor what Jesus and God saw in the poor: the human being. Our hosts agree.

Interpellating Moralistic Spirituality. Somewhat mortified and chastened, but not entirely crushed, we are ready for more conversation with our hosts. We decide to take the initiative and make small talk about the law profession. How is Philippine law practice and do they enjoy being lawyers? To our surprise, they do not have much time or liking for law, or precisely, law for law’s sake. It is their turn to take the offensive once more. Why, they want to know, is it that for the typically good Christian, religion consists in the precept aspect? Religion is identified with commandments. Religion and life tend to be moralistic. Fortunately, our journey has equipped us with enough resources for a sensible response. We agree with their observation. And we say that a Jesus-inspired religion would dwell equally, if not more, on the proclamation aspect. We explain that the proclamation aspect has to do with food, land, health, justice, peace, human rights. They smile. Wanting to impress, we throw in a few big words: integral salvation and evangelization, mission of Jesus, fullness of life, life-blessings, new heaven and new earth, Kingdom of God. Talk of getting off the hook! And with lawyers! Delicious, if you can take it from the first mouthful.

Our hosts, with an impish look, now ask our permission to play a guessing game. We oblige. Guess, they ask, what quote or inscription do you frequently find in Filipino church patios and sanctuaries? We think for a few moments and almost altogether burst out into embarassed laughter. In Church premises we often find, in big, big letters and written in big, big tablets, the ten commandments of Moses! A religion of commandments indeed! Lurks a police-God behind?

We wonder whether instead of the decalogue of Moses, the beatitudes of Jesus, as some churches have them, would be an improvement. We are not sure for, a moralistic interpretation on the part of the beholder would in fact be more disastrous. It would lead one to abet not only moralism but also oppression! 69 Our hosts are too kind and too polite to remind us that their motto and acronym, FLAG, carry a different tone and spirit: Free Legal Assistance Group. No police-God here. Rather, a counsel for the oppressed.

Moral Conversion Is Not Kingdom of God. By this time we, the laywers and us, are more at ease with each other. We return to an old point which we earlier met.70 Hopefully it will make more sense at this juncture.

Some pastors and catechists tend to talk of the Kingdom of God as moral conversion. The Kingdom of God consists in repentance or conversion of hearts. That is incorrect. This is perhaps due to a misunderstanding of one of our key-passages: The Kingdom of God is at hand … repent and believe in the gospel (Mk 1:14-15). Repentance or conversion is a response/requirement for entering the goal, the Kingdom of God. It is not the Kingdom of God itself. The Kingdom is a new world, new history, new humanity. Conversion is precept. Kingdom of God is proclamation.
 

The Kingdom of God Is Blessings, Not Moral Acts. This is the place to further sharpen our understanding of the Kingdom of God. This point has been implicit. It is time to make it explicit. Below are two columns. One of them is the Kingdom of God. The other, strictly speaking, is not.
 

Well, the Kingdom of God, strictly speaking, is not moral acts and virtues. It is about life-blessings. Of course, they are closely related, and in actual life, the life-blessings of the Kingdom of God are usually realized through the practice of good moral acts and virtues. Yet, the two are not the same. Thus, for example, our bodily resurrection is a blessing we will enjoy and experience rather than a moral act we will exercise.

Good moral acts and virtues are, of course, desirable and salutary. But in a retreat, for example, preaching about good moral acts is not necessarily preaching about the Kingdom. ‘Let us practice Christian love, selflessness, generosity, kindness, fair-play, honesty and respect, for that is what the Kingdom of God is….’ Well, that may be a good homily on the practice of virtues, but it is not, strictly speaking, about the Kingdom of God as such. For, as we have seen again and again, Kingdom of God means rice, health, land, jobs, fresh water and fresh air, sunshine and rain, the indwelling Spirit, a just world order.

So then, do you see the difference between preacher A who says: "Let us love one another for that is the Kingdom of God," and preacher B who says: "Authentic land distribution, viable alternatives to globalization, self-determination for the powerless, rights for women and children, well-being of Mother Earth—these are God’s summons to us today. God dares us to invent a just and humane global order, for the Kingdom of God for our time is just that: a planet in which we anticipate the experience of ‘the new heaven and the new earth in which justice dwells’" (2 Pet 3:13).

If Jesus were walking this earth today, he would probably not say: ‘The Kingdom of God is faith, hope and charity.’ Rather he would most likely say: ‘The Kingdom of God is food, jobs and security.’

Some Name-Dropping. We end this session in a light note. We do a mock recitation by doing some name-dropping. We say we should not mix up kerygma with paraenesis,71 proclamation with precept, the declarative with the imperative, virtue to be practiced with blessing to be enjoyed. Our hosts are ‘properly’ impressed by this bit of erudition.

Be Still and Know …