For anybody to fight about who is the greatest at any time is a disgrace. For the disciples of Jesus to fight about who is the greatest is especially ludicrous, making one wonder if they had understood a word Jesus had said. Very possibly they hadn’t. That they should fight over who is the greatest at table the night before Jesus died is beyond ludicrousness. If they had fought in this way after Jesus had washed their feet, as recounted in John, then their fight is transfinitely ludicrous.

Jesus shows transfinite patience to the disciples by not acting the way most of us in authority would. An argument among people under our authority as to who is the greatest has the potential to spill over into a dispute with the one in authority over the same question. But Jesus explains that it is the Gentiles who wish to exercise lordship over others and it should not be that way with them. Stepping on toes and maybe even necks is what most worldly authorities would have done in Jesus’ position but that is precisely what Jesus did not do. There is an edge to Jesus use of the word “benefactors” for those practicing lordship; such people used their benefactions more to assert their superiority and social control than to be charitable to others. Jesus goes on to say that he has come among the disciples as one who serves, not one who lords it over them.   Gregory the Great did not coin the phrase that the Pope is the servant of the servants of God, but he was the first to make extensive use of the phrase and thus make it such a quotable quote through the ages. The phrase certainly picks up the meaning of Jesus’ words to the apostles as captured in Luke.

A deeper sign of Jesus’ infinite patience with his disciples (and us) is his assurance that they will sit on twelves thrones to judge the tribes of Israel. This assurance is startling since it seems to go counter to what Jesus had just been talking about. But does it? If being a ruler means being a servant, as Jesus suggests and Gregory the Great averred, then maybe sitting on a throne to judge a tribe of Israel is not such a good deal for the judge. We tend to think that being a judge means being judgmental; that judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel means accusing them of their wrongdoings. But what if a judge is a servant? In his response to the disciples’ infighting, Jesus is surprisingly unjudgmental, although he makes it clear that they haven’t gotten it right just yet. Jesus continues to serve them through his example, such as washing their feet and leading them gently but firmly to a new way of seeing the world and, more importantly, living in it.   The thing is, Jesus didn’t judge the disciples (and us) by browbeating them; Jesus judged them by serving them humbly. The twelve tribes of Israel is an expression for a renewed Israel, Gentiles and Jews alike. Judging them, then, means serving them the way Jesus served them and the way Jesus serves us. It is our acts of loving service that will judge all people who exercise lordship by browbeating others. The Pope isn’t the only one called to be a servant of the servants of God. All of us are so called. The trouble with calling Jesus the King of Kings is that we are tempted to swell with pride with being part of this imperial court. We do much better to call Jesus the Servant of Servants.

Oceanic Theology



What might it mean for Christian theology today to live with and love the deep mysteries of life? And, to live with and love what the apostle Paul names “the depths of God” (1 Cor 2, 10).  In the main hall of the Divinity School of Silliman University on the island of Negros in the Philippines, the Religion and Arts students of 1995 have painted a vibrant mural. The theme is based on Matthew 4, 19, with the island of Negros portrayed as a traditional fishing boat, sailing over the beautiful blue-green waters of the sea. In the boat, a Filipino Christ extends his hands out over the waves, surrounded by the colourful faces of Filipinas and Filipinos from Negros. The mural portrays an image of hope as people of various cultures, ages, faiths and livelihoods together extend a community fishing net across the brilliant water.

But the mural portrays more. The mural invites people into a relation of partnership, rather than colonialist dominance or cultural paternalism. While the dream of reaching out in partnership across the sea is far from the daily, lived-experience of fisherfolk in Negros, this horizon of hope is still held passionately. For fisherfolk, the sea connects them with others, rather than separates them — an amazing and risky reality for an archipelago of  several  islands!    From my perspective as a newcomer, the mural illumines the possibility of an alternative world inspired by an archipelagic imagination. The word, archipelago, can be defined as “a group of islands” or more holistically, a “sea studded with islands”. Thus, to imagine our world as an archipelago would mean to recognise diversity between beings and places without losing the possibility of relationship between them. An archipelagic imagination seeks fluid boundaries without reducing any one subject to “the Same”. The image opens up a horizon where one’s identity is constituted in and through a communal, even cosmological ontology of “inter-being”, where people remain responsive and accountable to each other, other beings, the land and the sea.

For example, an archipelagic imagination can be heard in the contextual theologies of women and men of Oceania. As Keiti Ann Kanongata’a from Tonga explains, “the Pacific way” is doing theology in communion and not in isolation, thus “unity in a freedom of diversity” produces life for the people of Oceania. While globalisation seeks to bring people closer together, from Kanongata’a’s perspective, the bonds of Oceania as a “people community” are being weakened at the local level through new forms of colonialization, greed and false promises. She yearns for the recovery of “Pacific wisdom” drawn from the diversity of peoples “that will … re-kindle in us our gift of extended family, ainga/kainga”. Thus, contextual theology is about interdependence and kinship across the ocean of island nations.

Sevati Tuwere of Fiji claims that in the future, “the setting for the articulation of Oceanic theology is the sea, the Ocean”. He draws from the Fijian concept of vanua, meaning literally land and sea, which holds together the place of traditions and ancestors, the people’s means of livelihood, the sense of time and event, and a reassuring sense of identity. Tuwere claims that there cannot be two histories — one before and one after the missionaries’ arrival. He explains, “The history of the land and sea which includes our myths, and belief and value systems is part of this history of salvation.”   The ocean is not a void or emptiness that isolates us and rigidly defines people as separate from others. In thinking like an archipelago, we can acknowledge the fluid, elemental and non-possessable matrix in which we move and live and have our being. Thus the coast may be understood as a margin, an edge, but it need not be an end, for with an archipelagic imagination, edges lead to new possibilities.

Righteous Anger

I grew up believing anger was a “bad” emotion. So I’ve needed several years of Christian counselling even to admit I get angry, much less to learn I can express those feelings righteously! Thankfully, God’s Word sets clear parameters for getting peeved.

What does God say about this? The bad news for hotheads is that Scripture contains many more verses warning believers against blowing their cool than verses advocating such behaviour. The writer of Proverbs connects anger with foolishness: “Fools quickly show that they are upset, but the wise ignore insults” (Proverbs 12, 16). And the apostle Paul recommends letting our heavenly Father fight our battles: “My friends, do not try to punish others when they wrong you, but wait for God to punish them with his anger. It is written: ‘I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12, 19).

Sometimes, however, God allows his people to fuss and remain faithful. Such is the case when King David furrows his brow and huffs:

God, I wish you would kill the wicked! Get away from me, you murderers!

They say evil things about you. Your enemies use your name thoughtlessly.

Lord, I hate those who hate you; I hate those who rise up against you.

I feel only hate for them; they are my enemies (Psalm 139, 19—22).

Or when Nehemiah gets upset after learning about the wealthy Israelites’ exploitation of the poor: “Then I was very angry when I had heard … these words” (Nehemiah 5, 6). What’s noteworthy in these situations is that David called down curses on sworn enemies of God, and Nehemiah directed his irritation at the “haves” repressing the “have-nots.” Both men were angry because of ungodly people or activities.

And Jesus expressed anger—at the Pharisees who exhibited such hard hearts (Mark 3, 1-5) and at the crass commercialism that sullied the temple (Matthew 21, 12-13; Luke 19, 45-48)—to convey extreme displeasure over sin. Those reasons are the key to righteous anger.    How does this affect me? As Christ-followers, we’re totally appropriate getting upset over sin, too. Evils such as abuse, racism, pornography, and child sex trafficking should incense us. But no matter how reprehensible the people or activities we’re condemning, we still aren’t justified to sin in our responses: “When you are angry, do not sin, and be sure to stop being angry before the end of the day” (Ephesians 4, 26). Those of us with confrontational personalities might want to ask ourselves the question, Is my motive to be right or to be righteous? before ripping into the offending parties.   Such considerations also help us be pokey in getting peeved: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1, 19—20). Instead of replying immediately, simply counting to ten before reacting usually leads to much better results in a contentious situation.

Then after we take offence, we should take redemptive action. Christians must get involved with organizations working to free children from slavery and volunteer at shelters working to protect battered women. We must lead the charge against hatred and oppression and cruelty! Ultimately, if our outrage results in restoring people into loving, healing relationships with Jesus, it’s righteous anger.

Seven Storey Mountain

 We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.    I was not sure where I was going, and I could not see what I would do when I got (there). But you saw further and clearer than I, and you opened the seas before my ship, whose track led me across the waters to a place I had never dreamed of, and which you were even then preparing to be my rescue and my shelter and my home….

What is “grace”? It is God’s own life, shared by us. God’s life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely selfless love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists  by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness….

Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection: you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by word, then by example.   Yet if this sublime fire of infused love burns in your soul, it will inevitably send forth throughout the Church and the world an influence more tremendous than could be estimated by the radius reached by words or by example.

See, see Who God is, see the glory of God, going up to Him out of this incomprehensible and infinite Sacrifice in which all history begins and ends, all individual lives begin and end, in which every story is told, and finished, and settled for joy or for sorrow: the one point of reference for all the truths that are outside of God, their center, their focus: Love.    We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!