St. Luke's Episcopal Church of Merida
Calle 55 No. 581-bis por 76, Centro 97000 Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

MISIÓN ANGLICANA DEL BUEN PASTOR Domingo, 20 de septiembre, 2020 Celebración de la Eucaristía y distribución de despensas. (English follows)... Y los primeros serán los últimos y los últimos serán los primeros! ¡Así es Señor! Por eso aquí estamos. Gracias a todas y a todos por la fiel colaboración y por las generosas donaciones. La comunidad agradece con el corazón. P. José THE ANGLICAN MISSION OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Sunday, September 20, 2020 Celebration of the Eucharist and distribution of groceries And, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first! Here we are, Lord! Thanking all and each one of you for your faithful collaboration and your generous donations. Thanking you form the heart! P. José

MISIÓN ANGLICANA EL BUEN PASTOR DE DZUNUNCAN 20 de junio, 2021: Cuarto Domingo después de Pentecostés Acción de gracias por la vida de nuestra hermana Reina Let...icia (English follows) Cuarto domingo después de Pentecostés en la Misión del Buen Pastor. Eucaristía dominical, dando gracias a Dios por la vida de nuestra hermana Reina Leticia, victima del covid-19. Cena comunitaria después de la Eucaristía. Damos las gracias a todos los participantes y colaboradores. Que el Señor les bendiga siempre. P. José BUEN PASTOR ANGLICAN MISSION OF DZUNUNCAN June 20, 2021: Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Eucharist of thanksgiving for the life of our sister Reina Leticia Fourth Sunday after Pentecost at our Buen Pastor Mission. Sunday Celebration of the Eucharist in thanksgiving of our sister Reina Leticia, victim of covid-19. Community dinner following. A heartfelt thanks to all the participants and all the collaborators. God bless you always! P. José

10:00 am CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST AT SAINT LUKE'S EPISCOPAL OF MERIDA. How wonderful it was to be physically together again, To sing together, to share the... Word and break the bread, to give thanks to the Lord for all of the Lord’s blessings! ALL ARE WELCOME NEXT SUNDAY! See more

MARK 6: 1-13 COMMUNITIES FREE FOR THE MISSION I.THE TEXT: Jesus left that place and went to his hometown. His disciples followed him. 2 When the day of resta h...oly day, came, he began to teach in the synagogue. He amazed many who heard him. They asked, Where did this man get these ideas? Who gave him this kind of wisdom and the ability to do such great miracles? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? So, they had no faith in him. 4 But Jesus told them, The only place a prophet isn’t honored is in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house. 5 He couldn’t work any miracles there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and cure them. 6 Their unbelief amazed him. Then Jesus went around to the villages and taught. 7 He called the twelve apostles, sent them out two by two, and gave them authority over evil spirits. 8 He instructed them to take nothing along on the trip except a walking stick. They were not to take any food, a traveling bag, or money in their pockets. 9 They could wear sandals but could not take along a change of clothes. 10 He told them, Whenever you go into a home, stay there until you’re ready to leave that place. 11 Wherever people don’t welcome you or listen to you, leave and shake the dust from your feet as a warning to them. 12 So the apostles went and told people that they should turn to God and change the way they think and act. 13 They also forced many demons out of people and poured oil on many who were sick to cure them. II. COMMUNITIES CHARACTERIZED BY FREEDOM. We continue with the gospel of Mark. On this Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, after the healings of the woman with a bleeding disorder and the daughter of Jairus (5: 21-43), we continue with the first thirteen verses of chapter 6. We will divide our text into two parts: the rejection of Jesus in his hometown (vv. 1-6); and the mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God (vv. 7-13). We now go on to comment each part very briefly. 1. THE REJECTION OF JESUS IN HIS HOMETOWN. Mark begins his text by telling us that Jesus went, with his disciples, "to his hometown" (v. 1). For lack of geographical indications, we deduce that it is Nazareth. By the expression to his hometown (or to his people, or to his homeland, as we read in other translations), we understand it to be the place where he was born and grew up before becoming a traveling preacher. In Jewish culture, the hometown of a person is always the hometown of the father, since by marriage the wife always came to live in her husband’s home, or in her in-laws’ home. The most accurate term then would be "homeland." Jesus returns "to his homeland", that is to his native town, understood as the town of his father. We then see that, by means of this expression, Mark condenses several levels: the family, socio-political, and religious levels. Jesus returns to his family (patriarchal family), he returns to the place of his socialization and politicization (Galilee, a place colonized by the Roman Empire), as well as to the place where he learned and practiced his religion (legal Judaism, that is, focused on the rigorous observance of the Law and on the Temple). And, on the Sabbath day, as an observant Jew, he goes to the synagogue. Here, it is necessary to know that in each town or city, the synagogue is the center of the social, political and religious life of the towns people, being the house (the home) the center of the social, political and religious life of each family. The synagogue is then the meeting place par excellence of the town. In other words, on the Sabbath day, Jesus is present in the heart of his hometown, the synagogue. And, Jesus spoke in the synagogue. This was a common practice. Among the men there were always some who would get up to read a text of the Scriptures and comment on it (see Luke 4:16). He amazed many who heard him. They asked, Where did this man get these ideas? Who gave him this kind of wisdom and the ability to do such great miracles? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? So, they had no faith in him (vv. 2-3). We have to understand faith as trust that allows the attitude of open-mindedness to hear something new. The listeners, logically known to him, did not trust him. They did not trust what he taught (v. 2); they were not open to receive his message. So, all the questions. They want to remind him that he belongs to his family, to his hometown. It is interesting to note that they call him a carpenter, that is, someone who is poor and ordinary, someone without great training, without social and religious distinction. When the family of Jesus is named, the father is absent and the sisters are not named. In a patriarchal society, it is very strange for the mother to be named, unless they wish to hint at some irregularity, something dishonorable or suspicious about his birth. The fact that the sisters are not named indicates that they are children of patriarchy, children of a society where women are treated as the property of men, that is, mentioned, but made invisible. They try to put Jesus in his place. They try to place him in the social, political and religious context of his/their hometown. They try to place Jesus within the context of his/their hometown, because from what they heard and saw, Jesus was totally out of his/their context. What Jesus said and did made them believe that he had become an outsider. The hometown, the home, and the synagogue, were the institutions considered depositories and guarantors of the Jewish tradition and, right now, they understand Jesus as someone who is outside of (or foreign to) all these institutions. When they discover the freedom and independence of Jesus, in his thinking and his actions, they reject him, they expel him. They consider him a subversive person. This also means that the listeners are not capable of opening their minds and hearts to listen and accept a new teaching. They are not capable of getting out of the molds of their traditions. They are not free for the novelty of the God of Life. Why? Because for them their God is the God of the Law and the God of Tradition. (They view the Law and Tradition as closed systems of things past.) They seem not to have enough freedom to accept another image (another understanding) of God. And, because they are not free, then the teaching of Jesus (and his person) is received as a threat - the threat of the unknown. Therefore, he must not be trusted. He must be rejected. He must be expelled. He must become an outsider. They prefer to rely on what they know and what gives them a sense of security, no matter who falls (Mercedes Navarro Puerto). Jesus now has to continue teaching and healing as a homeless person, a marginalized person. He knows now that he will not be able to count on the support of the people of his hometown. Jesus leaves his hometown, then, because he does not accept the family, socio-political and religious order that they want to impose on him, the order in which he was born and grew up, and that now he rejected. Mark is already preparing us for the tragic end of Jesus’ life he will not be able to count on the support of the people of Israel, and for this reason he will be condemned and crucified. And, it is here that we continue with our reading, because Jesus, rejected by those of his hometown, rejecting for himself the type of closed Judaism practiced by the people of his hometown, now presents himself as a prophet who gathers his disciples, and sends them to announce the formation of a new hometown, a new earth and a new world, that is, a new community the community of the kingdom of God. 2. THE MISSION OF THE PROCLAMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Rejected in his hometown, expelled from the synagogue, Jesus now teaches in nearby towns (v. 6) and opens his message to all Israel. Here the symbol of the twelve, who are sent two by two (v. 7). The way they are sent is already a sign of community. The formation of the new earth and new world will not be the work of one person. It will be everyone’s work, always two by two, always together. It will always be an experience of dialogue and solidarity. And, they will have to travel as poor, free of ties, light in luggage, so that they also feel the need to receive They have to go as poor among the poor so that they know how to be in solidarity; so that they know how to receive and be thankful; so that it does not happen that one day they forget the poor and become obsessed with their security and well-being. His followers will go barefoot, like the most oppressed classes of Galilee. They will not wear sandals. Nor a spare tunic to protect themselves from the cold of the night. People have to see them as identified with the least of the least. If they alienate themselves from the poor, they will not be able to announce the Good News of God, of the Father of the forgotten (Antonio Pagola). They are bearers of the message of the kingdom of God, but it is not a kingdom that is built by imposing itself, but rather by receiving. It is a gift. Always a gift. It is a new earth and new world that are built on solidarity and gratitude. We see clearly that part of the message that the twelve preach is their way of being on the journey, their way of presenting themselves: in solidarity and with gratitude. What they preach with their words and with their gestures, is confirmed by their way their journey through life. Here we have the defining characteristics of the new community. The message of the kingdom is the same we heard from Jesus, after he left the desert: The appointed time has already passed, and the kingdom of God is near. Turn to God and accept God’s good news with faith (1, 15). It is a message of metanoia, of a change of mind and heart, a change of life, and all this must be accepted with trust, as good (and not bad). Why? Because now there no longer reigns relationships of power/imposition and obedience/submission, lord/master and subject/servant. Now, the essentials for the journey and for life itself are: companionship/solidarity and gratitude. III. FOR THE MISSION OF THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL. When we meditate on the text, it seems that Mark wants to warn us about something very important: following Jesus in freedom means rejection. We will be expelled. We will be considered outsiders. Following Jesus IN FREEDOM AND WITH FREEDOM also implies our displacement - displacement from everything that is empire, patriarchy and religion of the Temple. It necessarily implies being free to be poor, following the example of the disciples; being free to walk two by two, following the example of the disciples; being free so that our mission, that of proclaiming the kingdom of God, is characterized by solidarity and gratuitousness, once again, following the example of the disciples. That is why our Church, in her mission, is defined primarily as a synodal Church. This is why we often hear that we are a Church governed by synods (and led by bishops). The word synod comes from sun-odós, that is, walking together or, then, traveling in company. We cannot be Church in any other way - we walk together, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. And, here is the importance of each sister and each brother feeling accompanied and seeking to accompany as well - in the poverty of their being and their journey; in solidarity with the poorest and most humble; and in gratuitousness, because everything is a gift, everything is an undeserved gift from God. What does all of this mean for us, personally? And, for our communities, as well? How do we present ourselves to others, especially to the most humble sisters and brothers among us? Evangelical poverty has to do with the way we allow ourselves to be treated and how we treat others. True solidarity always leads to evangelical poverty and vice versa: accompanying and allowing ourselves to be accompanied with the simplicity and lightness of the Lord’s disciples. Let us be very careful with power and clericalism ... because we live in a society of power and in a Church of clericalism. We are defined by the power that we have or do not have and even the laity of our communities have already been clericalized. How extremely jealous we are of our titles and our clothes, while our sisters and our brothers are starving I repeat: let us be very careful with power and clericalism. And let us not forget that the Church of tomorrow, the Church of the future, will not be a Church of the clergy it will be a Church of the laity. And this implies that it will be a poor and humble Church. If we persist in maintaining the Church-Christendom regime ... then, our days are counted. Not the Lord’s Church. The Church will always exist, until the parousia. But, our imperialist and clericalist way of being Church will die. From Canada to the Southern Cone, the cry of the victims of empire and Christendom (clericalism) can no longer be ignored. Let us listen to the victims ... and accompany them in solidarity, which means that we also have to allow them to accompany us. This is the hardest part, because it means that it will be them, the victims, who will lead us into evangelical poverty. (The reader may want to consult the book: THE CHURCH CRACKED OPEN: DISRUPTION, DECLINE, AND NEW HOPE FOR THE BELOVED COMMUNITY, Stephanie Spellers; Also, the following article from THE GUARDIAN is very interesting. https://www.theguardian.com//church-of-england-urged-to-dr) Mark’s text is very clear. Jesus is blunt: the kingdom of God will not be imposed by power and force, by wealth and splendor. It will be received and proclaimed by the simple and the poor, by the humble and the forgotten. If we are not able to place ourselves on this journey ... then, we will be like those of Jesus’ hometown. They were good people and their intentions were the noblest: they wanted to defend the Law, their traditions, and their religion. And, they were unable to accept the newness of the Spirit of God, manifested in Jesus. The truth is that, despite our good intentions and our zeal for our laws, traditions and our religion, we run the same risk: the risk of being unable to accept and proclaim the newness of the Spirit of the God of Life, made present in the person and life of Jesus, still present today, with us, thanks to his resurrection. I conclude with a quote. It is from the famous Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it was written in May 1944, while in the dreaded Gestapo prison, in Berlin: Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to humankind and the world. Our earlier words are therefore bound to lose their force and cease, and our being Christians today will be limited to two things; prayer and justice among all. All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer and action. By the time you have grown up, the church’s form will have changed greatly. We are not yet out of the melting-pot, and any attempt to help the church prematurely to a new expansion of its organization will merely delay its conversion and purification. It is not for us to prophesy the day (although the day will come) when people will once more be called so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming as was Jesus’ language; it will shock people and yet overcome them by its power; it will be the language of a new righteousness and truth, proclaiming God’s peace with all people and the coming of God’s kingdom. ‘They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it’ (Jer. 33.9). Till then the Christian cause will be a silent and hidden affair, but there will be those who pray and do justice and wait for God’s own time. May you be one of them, and may it be said of you one day, ‘The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter till full day’ (Prov. 4.18). (D. Bonhoeffer, Letters from Prison) For our Diocese of Southeast Mexico. For our communities. For Saint Luke’s and Buen Pastor. José, brother and priest

MATTHEW 21: 23-32 SINCERE WITNESSES OF THE GOD’S JUSTICE AND COMPASSION I.THE TEXT: 23 Then Jesus went into the temple courtyard and began to teach. The chief p...riests and the leaders of the people came to him. They asked, What gives you the right to do these things? Who told you that you could do this? 24 Jesus answered them, I, too, have a question for you. If you answer it for me, I’ll tell you why I have the right to do these things. 25 Did John’s right to baptize come from heaven or from humans? They discussed this among themselves. They said, If we say, ‘from heaven,’ he will ask us, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘from humans,’ we’re afraid of what the crowd might do. All those people think of John as a prophet. 27 So they answered Jesus, We don’t know.Jesus told them, Then I won’t tell you why I have the right to do these things. 28 What do you think about this? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go to work in the vineyard today.’ 29 His son replied, ‘I don’t want to!’ But later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the other son and told him the same thing. He replied, ‘I will, sir,’ but he didn’t go. 31 Which of the two sons did what the father wanted? The first, they answered. Jesus said to them, I can guarantee this truth: Tax collectors and prostitutes are going into God’s kingdom ahead of you. 32 John came to you and showed you the way that God wants you to live, but you didn’t believe him. The tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. But even after you had seen that, you didn’t change your minds and believe him. II. A QUESTION OF CONVERSION AND OF SERVICE, NOT OF POWER. The text for this seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost places us in the final part of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus has already entered Jerusalem and has already expelled the merchants from the Temple (Matthew 21: 1-27). We note that Jesus now comes into direct conflict with the Jewish leaders, that is, with the Temple priests, the Pharisees, and the Doctors of the Law. Later. They will conspire to put Jesus to death. And they will succeed. Let us not forget that the Temple was the greatest symbol of God’s presence among God’s people, the most important symbol of Jewish identity: God was with God’s people and God’s people, Israel, was God’s chosen people, a light for all the peoples of the world. And, what does Jesus do? He cleans the Temple. He purifies it. For Jesus, the Jewish leaders had transformed the Temple into a gathering place for thieves (v.13). Thieves are people who steal ... The Temple had become a place of robbery, of exploitation. The Jewish leaders interpreted the Law in such a way that it served to keep them in power, with all their privileges and entitlements, at the cost of the dignity and lives of so many others. Who are these others? Matthew tells us that later, after purifying the Temple, the blind and the lame came to Jesus, and He healed them (v.14). They are the othersthe sick and the suffering, the humble and the poor. All this because, for the Jewish leaders, religion was a matter of power, of authority, over others. Hence the question: With what authority do you do this? Who gave you this authority? (v.23) They truly believe that they are the only religious authority. God belongs to them and they are convinced that they speak and act in the name of God. They had seized upon God for their preeminence over others. They had enclosed God in a Temple and in the external and literal fulfillment of the Law, and they had become God’s owners. Owners of God; owners of the Law. For them, religion (the Law) was not a question of justice and mercy, of conversion to life and service to others, but rather a question of power of power over others. They imitate in their personal and institutional lives the same asymmetric relationships of the Roman Empire (of all empires). It is the same social order that must be maintained, no matter the cost: those (men) who can enter the Temple and those (women) who are excluded from the Temple (and from all social life); the pure and blessed by God, the observers of the Law, respected by all, and the impure and the sick, the cursed and sinners, the others (considered as pigs and dogs), who were to be ignored, kept away, avoided, as they could contaminate society. It is an extremely divided and discriminatory, exclusive, and oppressive society, where a few (all males) exercise their power over others. And they do it in the name of God. The parallelism with the Roman Empire is evident ... because the emperor was also considered divine ... The same social order, the same asymmetric relationships ... III. SINCERE WITNESSES OF GOD’S JUSTICE AND COMPASSION. Jesus illustrates all this with the parable of the two sons (vv. 28-32). It is the first of three parables, with which Jesus exposes his thinking about religious leaders. The other two are the following: the parable of the murderous vineyard workers (Matthew 21: 33-46), and the parable of the banquet of the Kingdom (Matthew 22: 1-14). Jesus is very direct and doesn't really measure his words. For him, the religious leaders are: 1. Those who say they will obey God’s will, but in effect, they do not do so; 2. Those who have seized power and murder anyone who will hinder them; and 3. Those who will have no place at the banquet of the kingdom of God. In today’s parable, we note that the most important thing for Jesus is not what is said, but what is done. This is what happened to the two brothers. Which of the two obeyed his father’s will? The first, they answered (v. 31). The first had told the father that he would not go to work in the vineyard. But, then, he changed his mind and went (v. 29). The other son replied to his father that he would go to work in the vineyard, but he did not go (v. 30). The interesting thing is that this parable also applies to the disciples of Jesus and to their communities. The most important thing is not to speak what we suppose God wants to hear, perhaps to appear good in the eyes of others, so that we are accepted and respected by them. The most important thing is our praxis, our witnessing, our experience as followers of Jesus. There is the very serious danger of thinking that religion is exclusively a matter of orthodoxy (correct doctrine) ... when it really is, above all, a matter of orthopraxis (correct practice). The problem is deeper: it has to do with the fact that many times what is said is the exact opposite of what is done. It has to do with hypocrisy, with pretense, with falsehood ... In the words of the theologian Jesús María Castillo, this is what happens many times with religious leaders: in their preaching they speak against the attachment to money, but they resemble anything but a poor person; they occupy seats of power and dignity speak, and yet speak against pride; they are severe sex censors, and yet they hide and protect sex offenders. Jesus reinforces his criticism by assuring religious leaders that tax collectors and prostitutes are going into God’s kingdom ahead of you. (v. 31). Jesus insults them. Prostitutes were despicable people in Jewish society. However, tax collectors for Rome were considered even worse than prostitutes. They were socially dead people for Jewish society, as they had become accomplices of the Roman Empire. They were traitors of the Jewish identity, traitors of the people of God. Both prostitutes and tax collectors were hated people, excommunicated people from society, and, of course, people who could not in any way enjoy God’s blessing. What Jesus declares, then, is nothing more and nothing less than the inversion of the socio-religious order. How is this possible? Now, the cursed of God will precede the supposedly blessed of God in the kingdom of heaven. We have here echoes of the saying very dear to Jesus and, we think, also very dear to the community of Matthew: The last will be first and the first will be last (Matthew 19: 30 and 20: 16). Perhaps, all this to tell us that we too can easily fall into the same category. We can install ourselves in institutional religion, a type of religion so legalistic that it ends up oppressing and suffocating people, it ends up killing everything that is the novelty and the surprise of the Spirit of God. We can fall into the habit of not stopping talking about God, not stopping defending institutional religion and its doctrines (orthodoxy) to the extent of neglecting following the Lord, that is, of being the witnesses of justice and compassion that the Lord expects of us (orthopraxis). Yes, it is possible to spend one’s life talking about Jesus, without ever following him. Very easily we can transform ourselves into functionaries of God (Eugen Drewermann) into professionals of religion and forget the will of God, which is dignity and life for the rejected of society, for the victims of empire. It is not bad will, but there is a way of understanding religion that does not contribute to a fuller and more dignified life. There are very religious people who accuse, threaten, and even condemn in the name of God, never awakening in anyone’s heart the desire for a higher life. In this way of understanding religion, everything seems to be in order, everything is perfect, everything conforms to the law, but at the same time, everything is cold and rigid, nothing invites life (José Antonio Pagola). The truth is that we can be very religious, but not very Christian. We can have a lot of religion, but very little faith or no faith at all ... We are led to wonder if we really follow Jesus or are just talking about Jesus and nothing else; if we really are disciples of Jesus or mere functionaries of religion. A tremendous reflection for all of us - all of us, clergy and laity of the Diocese of southeast Mexico. Because the world is tired of functionaries of God, of professionals of religion. Now, the world seeks witnesses - sincere witnesses of God’s justice and compassion, women, and men truly committed to proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom of God. José, presbyter, and brother

MATTHEW 22: 1-14 POOR COMMUNITIES WALKING WITH THE STREET POOR I.TEXT: Jesus again used parables in talking to the people. 2 The Kingdom of heaven is like thi...s. Once there was a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. 3 He sent his servants to tell the invited guests to come to the feast, but they did not want to come. 4 So he sent other servants with this message for the guests: ‘My feast is ready now; my steers and prize calves have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast!’ 5 But the invited guests paid no attention and went about their business: one went to his farm, another to his store, 6 while others grabbed the servants, beat them, and killed them. 7 The king was very angry; so, he sent his soldiers, who killed those murderers and burned down their city. 8 Then he called his servants and said to them, ‘My wedding feast is ready, but the people I invited did not deserve it. 9 Now go to the main streets and invite to the feast as many people as you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, good and bad alike; and the wedding hall was filled with people. 11 The king went in to look at the guests and saw a man who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ the king asked him. But the man said nothing. 13 Then the king told the servants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him outside in the dark. There he will cry and gnash his teeth.’ 14 And Jesus concluded, Many are invited, but few are chosen. I. COMMUNITIES THAT INVITE AND CELEBRATE. On this Sunday, the nineteenth after Pentecost, we have the parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22: 1-14). Its socio-political and religious context is one of great tension. Jesus is aware of his imminent death, and, for the third time, accuses the religious leaders of Israel of their hypocrisy and their infidelity towards God and the Law. Throughout the history of Israel, they were not able to accept the prophets, sent by God, and now they are not able to accept him either. It should be noted that the accusation is against the religious leaders, that is, the chief priests and the Pharisees, and not against the people of God. The people recognize Jesus as God’s prophet. It is the religious leaders who reject Jesus. They took over the Law and the Temple and transformed religion into a heavy burdens difficult to carry, while they are not willing to lift a finger to move them (Matthew 23: 4). For Jesus, they had transformed the Law into an instrument of maintenance of the social order (the status quo) in favor of the Roman Empire. In other words, to maintain the pax romana, they had emptied the Law of its prophetic meaning. It was no longer good news for the poor and humble, descendants of the slaves in the lands of the Egyptian Empire - the anawin of the God of Life. Before, in the lands of Egypt, God’s Word had been anti-empire (Exodus 3: 7-15). Now, certain accommodations had been made ... not in favor of the poor and humble, but in favor of the religious leaders, in favor of the Temple. First, they did not listen to John the Baptist (first parable: 21: 28-32) and, later, they preferred to put God’s own son to death (second parable: 21: 33-44). Now, with the third and last parable, Jesus makes them see how they have become so insensitive and hard of heart, that they do not have time to consider God’s invitation to the banquet of love and life. They became indifferent to love and the life that springs from love. They became more concerned with their farms and their stores (v. 5), their personal and class interests. And, those who realized the threat, the danger, of a festive religion, a religion full of love, and joy, and life, they grabbed the servants, beat them, and killed them (v.6). The empire, whether political or religious, does not tolerate a liberating festive religion, that is, a religion that can be described as a banquet, a religion that is the consequence of unconditional love that generates life, and life in abundance (John 10: 10), for everyone. A banquet religion? A religion of liberation? Intolerable. Never. However, the God of Life is the God who never surrenders to any empire - Egyptian or Roman or of any other name. The God of Life is the uncontrollable God because this is God’s love and this is God’s life. God cannot be conditioned. God cannot be limited. Then he called his servants and said to them, ‘My wedding feast is ready, but the people I invited did not deserve it. Now go to the main streets and invite to the feast as many people as you find’ (vv.8-9). And, guess who they found on the streets? They found the hungry and the thirsty, the unemployed, and the homeless and the landless, the naked and the sick, the suffering, and the lost, and the forgotten. Those we call street-people searching street-people ... searching for food and for work, searching for housing and for a piece of land, searching for health, searching for dignity ... searching for love and for life - the love and life that the empire stole from them. They are invited to the wedding banquet of the king’s son, to the banquet of love and life, to the banquet of the liberation of the ego, so that the encounter with the other may be possible - and may be fruitful in love and life. And so, the wedding hall was filled with people (v.11), with people who had never been invited to any party ... to nothing... Never. Ever. Here, we have the true meaning of religion and, I would say, the true meaning of the spirituality that should fill the hearts and lives of the disciples of Jesus: it is an invitation to the banquet of love and life, where the ego is de-centered in favor of the encounter with the other, so that there is love, so that there is life. It is clear to Jesus that religion (and its consequent spirituality) cannot be reduced to a set of laws and precepts, to a heavy burden, to be fulfilled at all costs, with the penalty of exclusion and condemnation (social death). No! For Jesus, religion is an invitation to the feast of love and life - love and life that makes possible the encounter with the other, that is, that makes possible (the) liberation (of the ego) and hospitality, acceptance, and celebration that makes community possible. The religious leaders of Jesus’ time understood all this, but their hearts were closed. Each one of them was closed in his own ego. They had already built their castles. And, whoever builds castles always ends up as a prisoner in them. III. POOR COMMUNITIES THAT WALK WITH THE STREET POOR. The second part of the parable (vv. 11-14), it seems, does not flow from the first part. It seems that it was added later to the Gospel of Matthew. Be that as it may, the point is that you have to enter the party with your wedding clothes (v. 11). But, how can the poor and marginalized buy wedding clothes? Where will they find the money? They barely have for their everyday clothes We are not talking about actual clothes. As much as the king represents God, and the banquet the covenant of love and life between God and God’s people, the wedding clothes represent baptism, that is, accepting Jesus Christ as liberator of the ego and as the consequent praxis of life. What is at stake here is the identity of the disciple, as well as the identity of the community. No one can be part of the banquet if they are not able to dress themselves with the clothes of the person and life of Jesus, the Lord. It is not enough to listen to the invitation and enter with others (cultural Christianity). Here, Paul’s words to the Colossians (3: 12-17) come to mind: You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity. The peace that Christ gives is to guide you in the decisions you make; for it is to this peace that God has called you together in the one body. And be thankful. Christ's message in all its richness must live in your hearts. Teach and instruct one another with all wisdom. Sing psalms, hymns, and sacred songs; sing to God with thanksgiving in your hearts. Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through him to God the Father. For Paul, these are the wedding clothes. We must put on Jesus, the Lord, (intentional Christianity), until we can affirm, like Paul, in his letter to the Galatians (2: 20): It is no longer I who lives, it is Christ who lives in me! Jesus wants to tell us that it is not really enough to be materially poor. It is not enough to be from the street. Searching is not enough. We have to put on the dream of a better world, a world filled with love and life, for everyone. In order for us to be admitted to the banquet of love and life, we have to be aware of the power of our presence and our voice, united with the presence and voice of others, our sisters and brothers out there on the streets of the empire. We have to strip ourselves of the ideology of empire, and clothe ourselves with the utopia of the kingdom of God. In Matthew’s time, it was dangerous to be a follower of Jesus. More than dangerous, it was revolutionary, because it was anti-empire. It was so dangerous that you really had to be aware that you were no longer alone, that you now belonged to Jesus, the Lord, and you were a member of the Lord’s community (t)his community that wanted to revolutionize the world, because it no longer mattered to be Jewish or Greek, slave or free, man or man. woman; because united to Christ Jesus, you are all one (Galatians 3:28). The first communities of the Jesus of Nazareth, Christ, and Lord, were conscious that they were really the leaven of a new world. They were communities where everyone lived clothed with the dress of the king’s son wedding banquet the wedding banquet of Jesus, the Lord. To be in community was to celebrate his life, his passion, his death, and resurrection. So, it was to dream and fight for his cause - the cause of the kingdom of God, a world without empires, a world full of love and life. Let us not dream of empires, but of the banquet of the kingdom of God. Let us dream of poor communities; communities of street sisters and brothers, each one dressed, with the baptismal gown - each and every one, hand in hand, fighting for a world where no one has to beg for dignity and life the dignity and the life that belonged to her or to him in the first place. This, I wish for our Diocese. For our communities. For Saint Luke’s and for Buen Pastor of Merida. José, brother, and presbyter

MARK 6: 1-13 COMMUNITIES FREE FOR THE MISSION I.THE TEXT: Jesus left that place and went to his hometown. His disciples followed him. 2 When the day of resta h...oly day, came, he began to teach in the synagogue. He amazed many who heard him. They asked, Where did this man get these ideas? Who gave him this kind of wisdom and the ability to do such great miracles? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? So, they had no faith in him. 4 But Jesus told them, The only place a prophet isn’t honored is in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own house. 5 He couldn’t work any miracles there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and cure them. 6 Their unbelief amazed him. Then Jesus went around to the villages and taught. 7 He called the twelve apostles, sent them out two by two, and gave them authority over evil spirits. 8 He instructed them to take nothing along on the trip except a walking stick. They were not to take any food, a traveling bag, or money in their pockets. 9 They could wear sandals but could not take along a change of clothes. 10 He told them, Whenever you go into a home, stay there until you’re ready to leave that place. 11 Wherever people don’t welcome you or listen to you, leave and shake the dust from your feet as a warning to them. 12 So the apostles went and told people that they should turn to God and change the way they think and act. 13 They also forced many demons out of people and poured oil on many who were sick to cure them. II. COMMUNITIES CHARACTERIZED BY FREEDOM. We continue with the gospel of Mark. On this Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, after the healings of the woman with a bleeding disorder and the daughter of Jairus (5: 21-43), we continue with the first thirteen verses of chapter 6. We will divide our text into two parts: the rejection of Jesus in his hometown (vv. 1-6); and the mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God (vv. 7-13). We now go on to comment each part very briefly. 1. THE REJECTION OF JESUS IN HIS HOMETOWN. Mark begins his text by telling us that Jesus went, with his disciples, "to his hometown" (v. 1). For lack of geographical indications, we deduce that it is Nazareth. By the expression to his hometown (or to his people, or to his homeland, as we read in other translations), we understand it to be the place where he was born and grew up before becoming a traveling preacher. In Jewish culture, the hometown of a person is always the hometown of the father, since by marriage the wife always came to live in her husband’s home, or in her in-laws’ home. The most accurate term then would be "homeland." Jesus returns "to his homeland", that is to his native town, understood as the town of his father. We then see that, by means of this expression, Mark condenses several levels: the family, socio-political, and religious levels. Jesus returns to his family (patriarchal family), he returns to the place of his socialization and politicization (Galilee, a place colonized by the Roman Empire), as well as to the place where he learned and practiced his religion (legal Judaism, that is, focused on the rigorous observance of the Law and on the Temple). And, on the Sabbath day, as an observant Jew, he goes to the synagogue. Here, it is necessary to know that in each town or city, the synagogue is the center of the social, political and religious life of the towns people, being the house (the home) the center of the social, political and religious life of each family. The synagogue is then the meeting place par excellence of the town. In other words, on the Sabbath day, Jesus is present in the heart of his hometown, the synagogue. And, Jesus spoke in the synagogue. This was a common practice. Among the men there were always some who would get up to read a text of the Scriptures and comment on it (see Luke 4:16). He amazed many who heard him. They asked, Where did this man get these ideas? Who gave him this kind of wisdom and the ability to do such great miracles? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? So, they had no faith in him (vv. 2-3). We have to understand faith as trust that allows the attitude of open-mindedness to hear something new. The listeners, logically known to him, did not trust him. They did not trust what he taught (v. 2); they were not open to receive his message. So, all the questions. They want to remind him that he belongs to his family, to his hometown. It is interesting to note that they call him a carpenter, that is, someone who is poor and ordinary, someone without great training, without social and religious distinction. When the family of Jesus is named, the father is absent and the sisters are not named. In a patriarchal society, it is very strange for the mother to be named, unless they wish to hint at some irregularity, something dishonorable or suspicious about his birth. The fact that the sisters are not named indicates that they are children of patriarchy, children of a society where women are treated as the property of men, that is, mentioned, but made invisible. They try to put Jesus in his place. They try to place him in the social, political and religious context of his/their hometown. They try to place Jesus within the context of his/their hometown, because from what they heard and saw, Jesus was totally out of his/their context. What Jesus said and did made them believe that he had become an outsider. The hometown, the home, and the synagogue, were the institutions considered depositories and guarantors of the Jewish tradition and, right now, they understand Jesus as someone who is outside of (or foreign to) all these institutions. When they discover the freedom and independence of Jesus, in his thinking and his actions, they reject him, they expel him. They consider him a subversive person. This also means that the listeners are not capable of opening their minds and hearts to listen and accept a new teaching. They are not capable of getting out of the molds of their traditions. They are not free for the novelty of the God of Life. Why? Because for them their God is the God of the Law and the God of Tradition. (They view the Law and Tradition as closed systems of things past.) They seem not to have enough freedom to accept another image (another understanding) of God. And, because they are not free, then the teaching of Jesus (and his person) is received as a threat - the threat of the unknown. Therefore, he must not be trusted. He must be rejected. He must be expelled. He must become an outsider. They prefer to rely on what they know and what gives them a sense of security, no matter who falls (Mercedes Navarro Puerto). Jesus now has to continue teaching and healing as a homeless person, a marginalized person. He knows now that he will not be able to count on the support of the people of his hometown. Jesus leaves his hometown, then, because he does not accept the family, socio-political and religious order that they want to impose on him, the order in which he was born and grew up, and that now he rejected. Mark is already preparing us for the tragic end of Jesus’ life he will not be able to count on the support of the people of Israel, and for this reason he will be condemned and crucified. And, it is here that we continue with our reading, because Jesus, rejected by those of his hometown, rejecting for himself the type of closed Judaism practiced by the people of his hometown, now presents himself as a prophet who gathers his disciples, and sends them to announce the formation of a new hometown, a new earth and a new world, that is, a new community the community of the kingdom of God. 2. THE MISSION OF THE PROCLAMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Rejected in his hometown, expelled from the synagogue, Jesus now teaches in nearby towns (v. 6) and opens his message to all Israel. Here the symbol of the twelve, who are sent two by two (v. 7). The way they are sent is already a sign of community. The formation of the new earth and new world will not be the work of one person. It will be everyone’s work, always two by two, always together. It will always be an experience of dialogue and solidarity. And, they will have to travel as poor, free of ties, light in luggage, so that they also feel the need to receive They have to go as poor among the poor so that they know how to be in solidarity; so that they know how to receive and be thankful; so that it does not happen that one day they forget the poor and become obsessed with their security and well-being. His followers will go barefoot, like the most oppressed classes of Galilee. They will not wear sandals. Nor a spare tunic to protect themselves from the cold of the night. People have to see them as identified with the least of the least. If they alienate themselves from the poor, they will not be able to announce the Good News of God, of the Father of the forgotten (Antonio Pagola). They are bearers of the message of the kingdom of God, but it is not a kingdom that is built by imposing itself, but rather by receiving. It is a gift. Always a gift. It is a new earth and new world that are built on solidarity and gratitude. We see clearly that part of the message that the twelve preach is their way of being on the journey, their way of presenting themselves: in solidarity and with gratitude. What they preach with their words and with their gestures, is confirmed by their way their journey through life. Here we have the defining characteristics of the new community. The message of the kingdom is the same we heard from Jesus, after he left the desert: The appointed time has already passed, and the kingdom of God is near. Turn to God and accept God’s good news with faith (1, 15). It is a message of metanoia, of a change of mind and heart, a change of life, and all this must be accepted with trust, as good (and not bad). Why? Because now there no longer reigns relationships of power/imposition and obedience/submission, lord/master and subject/servant. Now, the essentials for the journey and for life itself are: companionship/solidarity and gratitude. III. FOR THE MISSION OF THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL. When we meditate on the text, it seems that Mark wants to warn us about something very important: following Jesus in freedom means rejection. We will be expelled. We will be considered outsiders. Following Jesus IN FREEDOM AND WITH FREEDOM also implies our displacement - displacement from everything that is empire, patriarchy and religion of the Temple. It necessarily implies being free to be poor, following the example of the disciples; being free to walk two by two, following the example of the disciples; being free so that our mission, that of proclaiming the kingdom of God, is characterized by solidarity and gratuitousness, once again, following the example of the disciples. That is why our Church, in her mission, is defined primarily as a synodal Church. This is why we often hear that we are a Church governed by synods (and led by bishops). The word synod comes from sun-odós, that is, walking together or, then, traveling in company. We cannot be Church in any other way - we walk together, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. And, here is the importance of each sister and each brother feeling accompanied and seeking to accompany as well - in the poverty of their being and their journey; in solidarity with the poorest and most humble; and in gratuitousness, because everything is a gift, everything is an undeserved gift from God. What does all of this mean for us, personally? And, for our communities, as well? How do we present ourselves to others, especially to the most humble sisters and brothers among us? Evangelical poverty has to do with the way we allow ourselves to be treated and how we treat others. True solidarity always leads to evangelical poverty and vice versa: accompanying and allowing ourselves to be accompanied with the simplicity and lightness of the Lord’s disciples. Let us be very careful with power and clericalism ... because we live in a society of power and in a Church of clericalism. We are defined by the power that we have or do not have and even the laity of our communities have already been clericalized. How extremely jealous we are of our titles and our clothes, while our sisters and our brothers are starving I repeat: let us be very careful with power and clericalism. And let us not forget that the Church of tomorrow, the Church of the future, will not be a Church of the clergy it will be a Church of the laity. And this implies that it will be a poor and humble Church. If we persist in maintaining the Church-Christendom regime ... then, our days are counted. Not the Lord’s Church. The Church will always exist, until the parousia. But, our imperialist and clericalist way of being Church will die. From Canada to the Southern Cone, the cry of the victims of empire and Christendom (clericalism) can no longer be ignored. Let us listen to the victims ... and accompany them in solidarity, which means that we also have to allow them to accompany us. This is the hardest part, because it means that it will be them, the victims, who will lead us into evangelical poverty. (The reader may want to consult the book: THE CHURCH CRACKED OPEN: DISRUPTION, DECLINE, AND NEW HOPE FOR THE BELOVED COMMUNITY, Stephanie Spellers; Also, the following article from THE GUARDIAN is very interesting. https://www.theguardian.com//church-of-england-urged-to-dr) Mark’s text is very clear. Jesus is blunt: the kingdom of God will not be imposed by power and force, by wealth and splendor. It will be received and proclaimed by the simple and the poor, by the humble and the forgotten. If we are not able to place ourselves on this journey ... then, we will be like those of Jesus’ hometown. They were good people and their intentions were the noblest: they wanted to defend the Law, their traditions, and their religion. And, they were unable to accept the newness of the Spirit of God, manifested in Jesus. The truth is that, despite our good intentions and our zeal for our laws, traditions and our religion, we run the same risk: the risk of being unable to accept and proclaim the newness of the Spirit of the God of Life, made present in the person and life of Jesus, still present today, with us, thanks to his resurrection. I conclude with a quote. It is from the famous Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it was written in May 1944, while in the dreaded Gestapo prison, in Berlin: Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to humankind and the world. Our earlier words are therefore bound to lose their force and cease, and our being Christians today will be limited to two things; prayer and justice among all. All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer and action. By the time you have grown up, the church’s form will have changed greatly. We are not yet out of the melting-pot, and any attempt to help the church prematurely to a new expansion of its organization will merely delay its conversion and purification. It is not for us to prophesy the day (although the day will come) when people will once more be called so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming as was Jesus’ language; it will shock people and yet overcome them by its power; it will be the language of a new righteousness and truth, proclaiming God’s peace with all people and the coming of God’s kingdom. ‘They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it’ (Jer. 33.9). Till then the Christian cause will be a silent and hidden affair, but there will be those who pray and do justice and wait for God’s own time. May you be one of them, and may it be said of you one day, ‘The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter till full day’ (Prov. 4.18). (D. Bonhoeffer, Letters from Prison) For our Diocese of Southeast Mexico. For our communities. For Saint Luke’s and Buen Pastor. José, brother and priest

MATTHEW 21: 33-46 NOT OWNERS, BUT SERVANTS I.THE TEXT: 33 Listen to another parable, Jesus said. There was once a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fen...ce around it, dug a hole for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip. 34 When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent his slaves to the tenants to receive his share of the harvest. 35 The tenants grabbed his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again the man sent other slaves, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all he sent his son to them. ‘Surely they will respect my son,’ he said. 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the owner's son. Come on, let's kill him, and we will get his property!’ 39 So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? Jesus asked. 41 He will certainly kill those evil men, they answered, and rent the vineyard out to other tenants, who will give him his share of the harvest at the right time. 42 Jesus said to them, Haven't you ever read what the Scriptures say? ‘The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all. This was done by the Lord; what a wonderful sight it is!’ 43 And so I tell you, added Jesus, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits. 44 45 The chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables and knew that he was talking about them, 46 so they tried to arrest him. But they were afraid of the crowds, who considered Jesus to be a prophet. II. WE ARE NOT OWNERS, ONLY SERVANTS. The Church offers us, in the Liturgy of the Word of this eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, the last of the three parables of the vineyard in the Gospel of Matthew, commonly known as the parable of the homicidal tenants (21, 33-46). According to many exegetics, this parable is, without a doubt, the harshest and most direct, a denunciation, against the religious leaders of Israel. We think it was written after the year 70. We know that in the year 70 the Roman Empire made its strength felt. It invaded the holy city of Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and razed the city. The Empire attacked the heart of the people of God, the greatest symbols of its identity, the city, and the Temple. Israel saw no other alternative, but to disperse itself. Thus, the Roman exile, also known as the Edom exile. Many of the religious leaders, and much of the Jewish elite, were exiled, killed, or sold as slaves. It is very probable that the young community of Matthew saw in all this the hand of God. God does not destroy the vineyard; it is God’s plantation. The tenants are the ones who frustrate the harvest. God simply destroys them and entrusts his vineyard to others to other tenants who will give him his share of the harvest at the right time (v. 41). Matthew thinks of the Church, the new people of God. The parable itself is not difficult to understand. The tenants are the religious leaders of Israel, the servants are the prophets, the figure of the owner represents God and, logically, his son is Jesus. In short, we have the history of Israel (vv.33-36), the history of Jesus himself, the omen of his death, and the history of the kingdom (vv.37-39, 42). It is evident that Jesus feels the inevitability of his death. He knows about the maneuvers and plots of his adversaries ... his destiny has already been decided: crucifixion and death. Therefore, Jesus provokes, accuses. The leaders of Israel did not accept the Son of God himself. They grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him (v.39). But look! The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all (v.42) - the main stone of the new construction, the Church, the new Temple, that is, the community, where Jesus now lives, crucified, and risen. We have to be very careful here. As negative as the interpretation of the parable may seem, it can never be explained as a total rejection of Israel, as a whole. The parable does not accuse the people of Israel, but rather the tenants who, being mere servants, proclaimed themselves owners of the vineyard. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves: This is the owner's son. Come on, let's kill him, and we will get his property! (v.38). In other words, the religious leaders of Israel appropriated for themselves the role of the owner of the vineyard, that is, the role of God. And this is the sin of all sins: the arrogance of those in leadership positions, of transforming themselves into powerful and almighty people, masters and lords. They are not owners, but servants - humble servants of God’s vineyard. They are the ones whom God rejects, and not God’s vineyard, not God’s people. (We condemn anti-Semitism in the strongest possible terms, and this is not what this parable is about!) Matthew also means that no one can claim the privilege of owner of the vineyard. We are all servants and nothing more. Every ministry in the community is a service and the owner of the community is one and one only: God, the Lord of life! III.WHAT CHURCH DO WE WANT TO BUILD? Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Christianity was that, with the edict of Milan, in the year 313, the Church, which was a persecuted Church, became a persecuting Church. Very quickly Jesus was decontextualized and from the street prophet of Galilee was transformed into the Pantocrator. And, indeed, what a transformation. The Nazarene, called Jesus, who lived with the poor and marginalized, with the victims of empire, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom of God of justice and life, reaching the point of freely offering his life for them, this Jesus was suddenly transformed into the Lord of the universe, the King of kings. With the edict of Milan, the Church entered the imperial establishment and everything changed. To maintain the order and progress of the empire (read: conquest and control, submission and oppression, of so many peoples), it had to become the owner of the Gospel, it had to transform Christianity (the Jesus’ movement) into Christendom. As a consequence, for centuries, the Church’s fear of its own prophets led thousands and thousands of them to their death; the Church’s hatred of the Jewish people led, directly and indirectly, millions and millions to their death; the Church’s hatred of so many other peoples, peoples of other religions and cultures, also led millions and millions to their death. In Europe and here in Latin America, and in so many other parts of the world, as well. And what about the Church’s treatment of women, all women, of ethnic and sexual minorities ... still today? Our arrogance! Our imperial arrogance! Here, I offer you the words of the theologian José Antonio Pagola. It is a long citation, but one that is worth reading and thinking about. This parable was not picked up by the evangelist to feed the pride of the Church, the new Israel, against the Jewish people, defeated by Rome and scattered throughout the world. The concern is another: can the same thing happen to the Christian Church, the same thing that happened to ancient Israel? Can we frustrate God's expectations? And if the Church does not produce the fruits that God expects, what will God do to carry out God’s plans of salvation? The danger is always the same. Israel felt safe: Israel had the Holy Scriptures; it had the Temple; its worship was scrupulously celebrated; the Law was followed to the letter; institutions were defended. Nothing new seemed necessary. It was enough to keep everything in order. It is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a religion: when the voice of the prophets is drowned out, and the priests, feeling that they are owners of the Lord’s vineyard, want to manage it as their own property. It is also our danger. Why haven’t we ever wondered about the vineyard’s harvest? In the parable, what does the part that belonged to the owner of the vineyard really consists of? (v.34) We have the answer in Matthew 25: Come, you who have been blessed by my Father; receive the kingdom that is prepared for you since God made the world. Because, I was hungry, and you fed me; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was an immigrant, and you took me in; I was without clothes, and you gave them to me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to see me (vv. 34-36). The part that corresponded to the owner of the vineyard is the kingdom of heaven prepared since God made the world, for those who are hungry and thirsty, for those without land and without a home; for the naked, the sick and the imprisoned, that is, for the victims of empire. It is to them that the kingdom of heaven belongs - and we are nothing more but their humble servants. Here in southeast Mexico, what Church do we want to build, having Jesus, the Christ, as our main stone? (v. 42) What Church do we want to live, celebrate, and share with others - with the poorest and most humble among us? I dream of a ministerial Church, a servant Church, a Church that willingly spends its time and energies at the feet of the victims of the empire (John 13: 1-30), who, here in the southeast of Mexico, number in the millions. I dream of a Church that is prophetic, without fear of the ministry of the margins, following the example of Jesus, embracing, celebrating, and sharing with those rejected by society; with those who really feel hunger and thirst for justice, stripped of their dignity, because they do not fit into the social heteronormality that is imposed on them; the literally tired and sick from so much work or no work at all; those without a piece of land to cultivate and build their home; immigrants, refugees, those, who, against all hope, continue to seek a more dignified and just life; those imprisoned by a judicial system that only favors the powerful, the lords of empire. I dream of a Church working in the Lord's vineyard, reaping and sharing the fruits of solidarity and communion, of justice and compassion, of love and life. For our Diocese. For our communities. And, above all, for Buen Pastor and Saint Luke’s of Merida. Jose, presbyter, and brother

Mark 5, 21-43 COMMUNITIES OF RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY I.THE TEXT: 21 Jesus again crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee in a boat. A large crowd gathe...red around him by the seashore. 22 A synagogue leader named Jairus also arrived. When he saw Jesus, he quickly bowed down in front of him. 23 He begged Jesus, My little daughter is dying. Come, lay your hands on her so that she may get well and live. 24 Jesus went with the man. A huge crowd followed Jesus and pressed him on every side. 25 In the crowd was a woman who had been suffering from chronic bleeding for twelve years. 26 Although she had been under the care of many doctors and had spent all her money, she had not been helped at all. Actually, she had become worse. 27 Since she had heard about Jesus, she came from behind in the crowd and touched his clothes. 28 She said, If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll get well. 29 Her bleeding stopped immediately. She felt cured from her illness. 30 At that moment Jesus felt power had gone out of him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? 31 His disciples said to him, How can you ask, ‘Who touched me,’ when you see the crowd pressing you on all sides? 32 But he kept looking around to see the woman who had done this. 33 The woman trembled with fear. She knew what had happened to her. So, she quickly bowed in front of him and told him the whole truth. 34 Jesus told her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness. 35 While Jesus was still speaking to her, some people came from the synagogue leader’s home. They told the synagogue leader, Your daughter has died. Why bother the teacher anymore? 36 When Jesus overheard what they said, he told the synagogue leader, Don’t be afraid! Just believe. 37 Jesus allowed no one to go with him except Peter and the two brothers James and John. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a noisy crowd there. People were crying and sobbing loudly. 39 When he came into the house, he asked them, Why are you making so much noise and crying? The child isn’t dead. She’s just sleeping. 40 They laughed at him. So, he made all of them go outside. Then he took the child’s father, mother, and his three disciples and went to the child. 41 Jesus took the child’s hand and said to her, Talitha, koum! which means, Little girl, I’m telling you to get up!42 The girl got up at once and started to walk. (She was twelve years old.) They were astonished. 43 Jesus ordered them not to let anyone know about this. He also told them to give the little girl something to eat. II.WOMEN WHO RESIST. For the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, the Liturgy of the Word offers us the wonderful text of Mark 5: 21-43. In it we have the healing of Jairo’s daughter and the healing of a woman with a bleeding disorder (permanent menstrual bleeding). These two healings are intertwined, as they are narrated according to the technique of intercalation or interposition. For Mark, there is a relationship between these two healings: to understand the meaning of the second healing, we have to be witnesses (and understand the meaning) of the first healing. For the sake of brevity, we are going to divide the text into two parts: 1. The healing of the woman with a bleeding disorder, vv. 25-34; and 2. The healing of Jairus’s daughter, vv. 21-24 and 35-43. 1. THE HEALING OF THE WOMAN WITH A BLEEDING DISORDER. Jesus has already returned from the other side of the lake, from the land of Gerasa, and now he is on the Jewish side of the lake. He is once again on the lakeshore, symbolic space of calling (1: 16-20 and 2: 13-14), of cures (3: 7-12), and of the parables of the kingdom (4: 1). It is very interesting to note that, at the beginning, Mark introduces us to Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, who, placing himself at the feet of Jesus, begs him for the life of his daughter. In fact, according to Jairus, she is dying (v.23). Before moving on, we have to capture the full meaning of this presentation. Jairus is the head of the synagogue and intercedes for his daughter who is dying. The relationship is one of father-daughter-sickness-death. Then, we imagine the religious atmosphere of Jairus’ house, being a leader of the synagogue: one of strict obedience to the purity code, especially in reference to women. We also imagine the broad socio-cultural context of Jewish and Greco-Roman culture: Jairus is the pater familias, that is, he is (literally) the owner of his family, along with his animals and other property. Introducing Jairus and his plea at the beginning of the text, Mark offers us the context of the two healings: despite obedience to religious and cultural codes (code of purity and patriarchy), the result is sickness and death. Jairus’ daughter is ill, and so ill, that death seems imminent. Let us not forget that disease and death are always symptoms of oppression and violence, manifested in the body, affecting the identity of the person in relation to her/himself and to society. In the case of Jairus’ daughter, it is very clear that the oppression and violence are religious and social, since Jairus is the head of the synagogue and a pater familias. Both women are sick and both of them are victims of the Jewish purity code and of patriarchy, the Jewish and Greco-Roman social code. There is also another relationship between the two women. The woman with a bleeding disorder had been ill for twelve years (v. 25), and Jairus’ daughter was a young woman who, being twelve years old (v. 42), had reached the age of an adult, that is, she could now be given, by her father, in marriage. The two women are ill and their illnesses are the result of oppression and violence. What does the number twelve mean? The twelve tribes of Israel, the entirety of the people of Israel. In the narrative, the two women are presented therefore as symbolizing the people of Israel. It is the entire people of Israel that is sick, its body is sick, and it needs to be freed from oppression and violence - the oppression and violence of the Temple religion (synagogue) and of the patriarchal culture of the Greco-Roman empire. Let us not forget that in the patriarchal system, God is always conceived as male and God’s people as female. What can we say about the woman with a bleeding disorder? She is a walking-dead person, better said, a socially dead person. Because of the purity code, imposed by the Temple religion (the synagogue), she is an impure person and consequently, a person expelled from society, condemned to her own loneliness. She is a non-person. Also, her illness has left her poor, because she had spent all her money on doctors and had not been helped at all. Actually, she had become worse (v. 26). She is a woman without identity, without family (without a husband, a pater familias, an owner). Her constant menstrual bleeding made her constantly impure. Anyone or anything she touched would become impure. And, she is poor, that is, she has little or nothing to live on. Really, this woman is a cursed woman of Israel. She cannot, in any way, be counted among the daughters and sons of the God of Israel. So, we ask: What is this woman doing in the crowd, following Jesus? This is not her place We realize now that she is a woman who resists. Her presence in the crowd, following Jesus, is her act of resistance against her illness, against all the excluding codes of religion and society. These are power codes and they exist to control the bodies and minds of women and the poor in (men’s) society. As a woman without a husband, an impure and poor woman, her space should be non-existence, that is, exclusion and invisibility. Yet there she is, like any other woman, listening to Jesus, following Jesus. She did not resign herself to living her life as a walking corpse, hidden, without existence. Her presence in the crowd is her act of resistance. It is, in fact, an act of rebellion. And, she touches Jesus’ clothes. It is an act of faith. But it is also an act of rebellion, because she knew that by touching Jesus’ clothes, he would become impure, just as impure as she. How dare she? Yet, Jesus does not scold her; he does not condemn her. He simply asks who touched him, offering her the opportunity to assert herself, to have a voice, to tell the whole truth about herself (v. 33), to regain her identity and dignity as a person. And Jesus answers her: Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness (v. 34). She is now a free and healed person - healed of her illness and much more: healed of the oppression and violence that were the causes of her illness, because she now has a voice, has an identity, enjoys visibility; now she exists as a person; now she is a daughter of God. Thanks to her act of resistance, thanks to her faith in Jesus, her faith that was returned to her by Jesus as an act of self-confidence, she was freed from her illness, she was freed from her loneliness, from death itself. 2. THE HEALING OF JAIRUS’ DAUGHTER. Jairus witnessed the healing of the woman with a bleeding disorder. For Mark, Jairus has to learn from the process lived by the woman who was sick before and that now is a free and peaceful woman (free for the possibilities of the shalom of the God of Life). Jairus already heard the whole truth of this sick woman, heard what was the torment of her life, how she had lived incarcerated in the purity code and the patriarchal systems, imposed by the men of religion and society. And Jairus witnessed how a walking-dead woman was resurrected to freedom and peace, that is, to life; how her faith in Jesus was returned to her as faith in herself, as an act of self-confidence, so that she would regain her existence as a person, with identity and dignity. Jairus has to understand that Jesus is someone who heals and liberates, who opens life possibilities for all human beings who are oppressed and violated by the injustice of religious law (the purity code) and socio-political law (patriarchy). The healing of the woman with a bleeding disorder helps us understand the healing of Jairus’ daughter, a twelve-year-old girl, who is dying (v. 23). The woman with a bleeding disorder had been sick for twelve years. For twelve years, she had been locked in the constant flow of her menstrual blood. For Jairus’ daughter, upon reaching the age of twelve, the age at which she begins her life as an adult woman, the age of her first menstruation, she becomes aware of what awaits her. Before, living in her father’s house, she felt safe and pure, and now ... now she realizes that she will have to live in a world of adult males, who only expect her to be a wife-servant and a mother and nothing more. Now she comes to the awareness that the purity code is a trap constructed by religious men (like her father) who will limit her as a human being and as a woman. Now she will be the object of desire and possession, and her identity as a person will only depend on her ability to be a mother, on her ability to produce - to produce male children for her husband and for (patriarchal) society. How can she be an adult in such a society? How to accept adulthood, if it implies imprisoning herself in a world of males, who will possess and dominate her, who will exploit and rape her as a human being, who will only dignify her if she produces male children? Death seems sweeter ... The truth hidden in the heart of this young woman is that all human beings are born free and with dignity. Her whole being refuses to accept the oppression and violence that awaits her. Her illness, her imminent death, is already an extreme act of resistance and rebellion. From her unconscious springs the cry against all oppression and violence imposed by the purity code of religion and the patriarchal system of society. If it cannot be otherwise ... better death. It is interesting to note that Jesus, before entering Jairus’ house, asks him not to be afraid, to only have faith, to trust (v.36). And suddenly Peter, James and John, as well as the mother of the young woman, enter the scene. They had been absent all along. We become aware that the scene has been symbolically changed. We are already in the house-church. We are no longer in Jairus’ house, where the pater familias reigned autocratically. Here and now, the Lord of the house is Jesus, and it is he who, taking the young woman by the hand, orders her: Talitha, koum! which means, Little girl, I’m telling you to get up! (v.41) We have another resurrection experience, as the young woman got up and began to walk, a symbol of freedom and dignity. He also told them to give the little girl something to eat (v.43). Jesus does not command the mother to feed her daughter. Patriarchal codes no longer count. It is the entire community that is responsible for the nourishment of the young woman so that she may continue to live as a person risen in the Lord, that is, a person with open horizons - horizons of freedom and dignity. And, nothing more is heard from Jairus ... Did he understand everything that just happened? Did he understand that now his daughter is a person who has been raised and can walk all by herself? III. COMMUNITIES OF RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY. What is this wonderful story from Mark telling us? Can we detect some historical memory of Jesus and the first Christian communities? For Xabier Pikaza, it is clear that the text explains to us that for the first Christian communities the norms of Jewish sexual purity were to be surpassed. According to Antonio Pagola, we see how Jesus acts, always in favor of the freedom and dignity of the most oppressed and violated in religion and society, especially in favor of women. We see how Jesus lived always committed to freeing women from social exclusion, from the oppression of men in the patriarchal family and from religious domination within the people of God. It would be anachronistic to present Jesus as a modern-day feminist, committed to the fight for equal rights between women and men. His message is more radical: the superiority of the man and the submission of the woman do not come from God. This is why among his followers this has to disappear. Jesus conceives his (social) movement as a space without male domination. I agree with Pikaza and Pagola, but I would also add something else. The story of Mark 5: 21-43, which we have just commented, leads us to the conclusion that if we want to be faithful to the Gospel, our communities must necessarily be spaces of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity. And this because Jesus is, with his person and his life, the resistance and rebellion of the Father against all oppression and violence, against everything that damages the freedom and dignity of human beings. Jesus is also the solidarity of the Father with all the victims of all purity codes imposed by religion and the social system of patriarchy. From the earliest times, Christian communities were alternative living spaces. They presented an alternative to the official religion of the Temple (this is why the first believers were expelled from the synagogues) and to the life of the Roman Empire (this is why they were persecuted). The first Christian communities were really subversive communities. For the Jewish synagogues they constituted an offense, because they were lax with respect to the conditions to access and form part of the people of God; for the cities, in general, they were rather subversive, because among them they experimented with alternative models of society for the first believers in Christ, faith in the God who raises (the oppressed and violated) from the dead is realized in the transformation of daily social spaces. It seriously means that theo-centrism is not compatible with humanly constructed hierarchies, be they social or religious (Martin Ebner). In Latin America we have a long tradition of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity that goes from the original peoples against the Conquerors and their Christendom, to within Christendom itself, such as Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolomé de las Casas. And this tradition has never ceased, since unfortunately the exploitation and violence of the peoples of Latin America has never stopped. Here we remember the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in Argentina, and the mothers of the 43 of Ayotzinapa, Mexico and many other women who have always resisted and rebelled against oppression and violence, against death itself. We remember the multitude of LGBTTT+ activists, and human rights activists, who have been tortured and murdered throughout Latin America - sisters and brothers who protested against religious purity codes and against patriarchy. What are our communities like? How do we resist and rebel? How do we practice solidarity? As today’s text teaches us, our communities have to rediscover the evangelical tradition of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity. In this way, and only in this way, will we become credible communities for our sisters and brothers fighting for freedom and dignity, for compassion and life. For our Diocese of Southeast Mexico. For our communities. For Saint Luke’s and Buen Pastor. José, brother and presbyter

MATEO 20, 1-16 COMMUNITIES WHERE THE LAST ARE ALWAYS FIRST I.TEXTO: The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at daybreak to hire workers for his ...vineyard. 2 After agreeing to pay the workers the usual day’s wages, he sent them to work in his vineyard. 3 About 9 a.m. he saw others standing in the marketplace without work. 4 He said to them, ‘Work in my vineyard, and I’ll give you whatever is right.’ So, they went. 5 He went out again about noon and 3 p.m. and did the same thing. 6 At about 5 p.m. he went out and found some others standing around. He said to them, ‘Why are you standing here all day long without work?’ 7 ‘No one has hired us,’ they answered him. He said to them, ‘Work in my vineyard.’ 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told the supervisor, ‘Call the workers, and give them their wages. Start with the last, and end with the first.’ 9 Those who started working about 5 p.m. came, and each received a day’s wages. 10 When those who had been hired first came, they expected to receive more. But each of them received a day’s wages. 11 Although they took it, they began to protest to the owner. 12 They said, ‘These last workers have worked only one hour. Yet, you’ve treated us all the same, even though we worked hard all day under a blazing sun.’ 13 The owner said to one of them, ‘Friend, I’m not treating you unfairly. Didn’t you agree with me on a day’s wages? 14 Take your money and go! I want to give this last worker as much as I gave you. 15 Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or do you resent my generosity towards others?’ 16 In this way, the last will be first, and the first will be last. II.THE LANDOWNER-BROTHER WHO WANTED WORK AND BREAD (DIGNITY) FOR ALL. Jesus continues to walk towards Jerusalem with his disciples teaching them what their attitudes and the attitudes of the community should be about. Another word for "attitudes" is the word spirituality. Jesus is transmitting to his disciples his own spirituality, which is always the breath of God that animates the life of each one of us and of the community as well. It is our way of being in the world. It should be noted that the Gospel of Matthew contains three parables whose context is the vineyard, today’s parable (Matthew 20, 1-16), Matthew 21, 28-32 and 21, 33-43. The vineyard is the symbol of Israel, understood as the people of God or, then, the symbol of the field of the kingdom of God. For this reason, working in the vineyard means dedicating oneself to the service of the people of God, to the service of the kingdom of God, already present in our history. There is another point to consider. Today’s parable leads us to think about the problems that existed in Matthew’s community. One of the essential questions in the first Christian communities was what to do and how to treat the last, those others (non-Jewish) who had just adhered to Christ and joined the community. The question was not simply how to accept the poor and the humiliated, the outcasts of the empire and the Temple, but, also, how to accept the least of the least ... the pagans, the uncircumcised, those that Jewish society classified as pigs and dogs, those who were (supposedly) excluded from God’s blessing because they were not members of God’s people they were God’s enemies. What place should they occupy in the community? And, we are talking about males. We are not talking about women, because women were simply non-existent, that is, they did not enjoy social and legal existence. They were socially and legally non-existent beings, socially and legally dead beings. They were the property of men. They were, then, the least of the least. It is also noteworthy that even before reading the parable, Matthew gives us its hermeneutical key (interpretation key). It’s in Matthew 19:30: Many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first. It is with this same saying that Matthew concludes today’s parable: In this way, the last will be first, and the first will be last (v.16). It is a saying that Mateo wants the community to remember and remember well. In other words, the problem was very serious. Many exegetes have named this parable the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. However, the accent is not so much on the complaints of the workers, but in the attitude of the landowner. He is a landowner less concerned with his financial gain and more with providing work and bread (dignity!) to all who seek it. He is not an imperialist landowner, a lord who conquers and exploits ... without caring in any way for the life (and dignity) of his workers, especially of the most vulnerable and forgotten in society, those left behind. Perhaps, it would be better to name the parable as the parable of the landowner-brother (who wanted work and bread for everyone). There are others, exegetes and pastoralists, who have named this parable as the parable of the scandalous mercy and goodness of God (José António Pagola). I agree! However, I think that goodness and mercy should be translated as justice. It is a parable about the scandalous justice of God. Scandalous, because it indeed shocks us. It indeed transcends our sense of justice. But such is the justice of God! III.THE PARABLE OF THE SCANDALOUS JUSTICE OF GOD. In my opinion, I think that the parable of this Sunday, the sixteenth after Pentecost, serves very well to explain what God’s justice is like. It's definitely not comparable to the justice of the empire. The logic of the justice of the empire is meritorious. The person will be awarded what he or she deserves - what he or she deserves according to her or his merits. Considering the parable, if they are hired first and work more, it is logically only fair that they have more. They deserve it. They deserve better consideration, better pay. The physically and intellectually stronger people well, the same thing. They will be hired first and will be well paid as well. This is how we started and developed a culture of merits and privileges, of prerogatives and entitlements... because special attention will always be offered to the strongest, the most capable ... they will always be first. And, over time these first will in no way want to give up their place, or lose their privileges. They will feel entitled. Alliances will be made. Laws will be established. The empire will take care of them and they will take care of the empire. And the people who weren’t hired? The most fragile? The most vulnerable? Who will take care of them? The empire will take care of them too. According to the empire’s sense of justice, they will occupy the last places and will be remunerated according to the places they occupy ... and many will never be hired, that is, they will simply be forgotten. Jesus wants to tell the disciples that the reality of their communities should be otherwise; that they should not follow the meritorious logic of the justice of the empire. God is different. God’s justice is different. The landowner of the parable, the owner of the vineyard, does not seem too concerned with the economic rentability of his vineyard. What worries him is the life and dignity of his workers, even those who were left without work, waiting all day in the town’s square. The landowner did not stop thinking about them. And, even at five in the afternoon (v.6), he went out to hire workers. Nobody hires workers at the end of the day. This landowner does. Why? Because before being a landowner, he is a brother. Before thinking about his profit, about his money, he thinks about ALL of his brothers and their lives. He thinks about their dignity and does something about it. Who is God for me, for us? And, how do I live justice in my life? How do we experience it in the life of our community? How do we treat those who, according to the criteria of the empire, do not know much, do not produce much, do not serve much and, to top it all, are always late, always the last? How do we treat them? How do we relate to them? What place do they have in our communities? Another way of asking the same question is to speak of pastoral plans and pastoral care - diocesan, community pastoral care. What are our pastoral plans about? What attitude (spirituality) do they reflect? What type of pastoral care are we living and celebrating in our diocese, in our communities, so that the last become the first? The parable of the landowner-brother has socio-political repercussions as well. What causes are we supporting, individually and as a community, in the societies where we live, so that there is more justice, God’s scandalous justice, so that the last become the first? Once again, we speak of pastoral care. We must review our pastoral plans and methods. Communities closed in themselves, self-referential, ecclesiocentric and clerical? Or, communities open to the proclamation of the kingdom of God in today’s world, in solidarity and communion with the anguish and sufferings of so many sisters and brothers who are the least of the least? Questions for Saint Luke’s Episcopal of Mérida. Questions for our diocese and for our communities. José, presbyter, and brother

MISIÓN ANGLICANA BUEN PASTOR DE DZUNUNCÁN Domingo, día 27 de junio, 2021: Quinto domingo después de Pentecostés Celebración de la Eucaristía, Acción de gracia...s por la vida del hermano Román Lara, y Cena comunitaria (English follows) ¡Fuimos capaces de escapar la lluvia, gracias a Dios! Celebramos la Eucaristía, dando gracias a Dios por la vida de nuestro hermano Román Lara, esposo de nuestra hermana Mayra. Y, seguimos después con nuestra cena. Terminando la cena la lluvia. Todo agradecemos al Señor. También agradecemos a todos los participantes y colaboradores, sobre todo a los miembros de la Junta del Buen Pastor que cocinaron. Gracias a los donadores. Todo eso es posible también gracias a Ustedes. ¡Bendiciones de Dios para Ustedes! P. José BUEN PASTOR ANGLICAN MISSION OF DZUNUNCAN Sunday, June 27, 2021: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Celebration of the Eucharist, Giving thanks for the life of our brother Román Lara, Followed with Community Supper. Thank God, we were able to escape the rain! We celebrated the Eucharist, giving thanks for God’s gift of Román Lara’s life, and then followed with our community supper. That’s when the rain came thank you, Lord! A heartfelt thanks to all the collaborators and all of you who donate, making sure this miracle happens every Sunday. Special thanks to the members of the vestry of Buen Pastor who cooked the delicious food! God bless you all! P. José

LA MISIÓN ANGLICANA DEL BUEN PASTOR Domingo, 27 septiembre, 2020 ¡Trabajando en la viña del Señor! (English follows)... Celebración de la Eucaristía y cena en Buen Pastor. Con la colaboración de todas y todos que mucho agradecemos. ¡Todas y todos alegre y generosamente trabajando en la viña del Señor! P. José THE ANGLICAN MISSION OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Sunday, September 27, 2020 Working in the vineyard of the Lord! Celebration of the Eucharist and supper following. All this possible with the collaboration of all of you. A heartfelt thanks! Together, working in the vineyard of the Lord, with joyful and generous hearts! P. José

MARCHA DE LA DIVERSIDAD Mérida, Yucatán, 26 de junio, 2021. IGLESIA EPISCOPAL SAN LUCAS DE MÉRIDA Diócesis del Sureste de México Iglesia Anglicana de México... Rompiendo silencios y ciclos de violencia con justicia y compasión. Caminando juntos. Celebrando vidas. Abriendo horizontes. GAY PRIDE PARADE Merida, Yucatán, June 26, 2021 SAINT LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF MERIDA Southeast Diocese of Mexico Anglican Church of Mexico Breaking silences and cycles of violence with justice and compassion. Journeying together. Celebrating lives. Opening horizons.

SAINT LUKE'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF MERIDA Merida, September 17, 2020 Dear sisters and brothers,... I am writing to you with good news! We are now authorized by the Yucatan government to officially open Saint Luke’s, for our Sunday celebrations, and other weekly activities. Logically, and this is very clear to all of us, always with the necessary health precautions, so that each and every one of us feels protected and safe. We must not lower our guard! It is wonderful that we can again gather and celebrate, IN community and WITH the community, the presence of the Lord in our lives. At the September 7th Vestry meeting, we decided to ask our community when each sister and/or brother intends to physically return to services at Saint Luke’s. With this information, we will have an idea as to how many people will attend on Sundays, so that we can prepare ourselves to receive you. Please, take note that we will begin this returning process by celebrating outside, in the courtyard. Therefore, kindly let us know, to myself or to any other member of the Vestry, when you will be physically returning to Saint Luke’s this coming Sunday or sometime later? You may send this information via WhatsApp (999 247 1519) or by email ([email protected]) or via the Saint Luke’s Social WhatsApp chat. This is a personal decision and, as I always say: Slowly we go Some may come this Sunday, and others will wait. This is quite fine. But, know that we are here for you and that we await you with immense joy. Also, please, know that we will continue to have the service available to all via Zoom. I think we all agree that this pandemic has been a challenging time for all of us. Some challenges were welcomed others not. This is a time when the poor have become even poorer. Many have lost their businesses, others their jobs and a vast majority of sisters and brothers are economically in a very precarious situation ... Psychologically, we are all tired, and some of us are exhausted. More than ever, this pandemic has been a time for support and mutual help, for solidarity and communion, and as always for prayer. I want to especially thank our many sisters and brothers for their support to Buen Pastor and Saint Luke’s. Some continue to drop off their contributions at Saint Luke’s or at my home, while others use Givebutter. Dear Lord! You are all a miracle! We would not have been able to help so many without your steady and generous assistance. I must confess that I would love to see you all on Sunday, at Saint Luke’s. This is my heart speaking... My reasoning is telling me something else: Life and health are precious gifts to be treasured. So, take your time and physically return to our Sunday celebration of the Eucharist when you are ready. Take good care of yourselves and know that there is not a day that I do not pray for you. God bless you always. Father José

Mark 5, 21-43 COMMUNITIES OF RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY I.THE TEXT: 21 Jesus again crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee in a boat. A large crowd gathe...red around him by the seashore. 22 A synagogue leader named Jairus also arrived. When he saw Jesus, he quickly bowed down in front of him. 23 He begged Jesus, My little daughter is dying. Come, lay your hands on her so that she may get well and live. 24 Jesus went with the man. A huge crowd followed Jesus and pressed him on every side. 25 In the crowd was a woman who had been suffering from chronic bleeding for twelve years. 26 Although she had been under the care of many doctors and had spent all her money, she had not been helped at all. Actually, she had become worse. 27 Since she had heard about Jesus, she came from behind in the crowd and touched his clothes. 28 She said, If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll get well. 29 Her bleeding stopped immediately. She felt cured from her illness. 30 At that moment Jesus felt power had gone out of him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? 31 His disciples said to him, How can you ask, ‘Who touched me,’ when you see the crowd pressing you on all sides? 32 But he kept looking around to see the woman who had done this. 33 The woman trembled with fear. She knew what had happened to her. So, she quickly bowed in front of him and told him the whole truth. 34 Jesus told her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness. 35 While Jesus was still speaking to her, some people came from the synagogue leader’s home. They told the synagogue leader, Your daughter has died. Why bother the teacher anymore? 36 When Jesus overheard what they said, he told the synagogue leader, Don’t be afraid! Just believe. 37 Jesus allowed no one to go with him except Peter and the two brothers James and John. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a noisy crowd there. People were crying and sobbing loudly. 39 When he came into the house, he asked them, Why are you making so much noise and crying? The child isn’t dead. She’s just sleeping. 40 They laughed at him. So, he made all of them go outside. Then he took the child’s father, mother, and his three disciples and went to the child. 41 Jesus took the child’s hand and said to her, Talitha, koum! which means, Little girl, I’m telling you to get up!42 The girl got up at once and started to walk. (She was twelve years old.) They were astonished. 43 Jesus ordered them not to let anyone know about this. He also told them to give the little girl something to eat. II.WOMEN WHO RESIST. For the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, the Liturgy of the Word offers us the wonderful text of Mark 5: 21-43. In it we have the healing of Jairo’s daughter and the healing of a woman with a bleeding disorder (permanent menstrual bleeding). These two healings are intertwined, as they are narrated according to the technique of intercalation or interposition. For Mark, there is a relationship between these two healings: to understand the meaning of the second healing, we have to be witnesses (and understand the meaning) of the first healing. For the sake of brevity, we are going to divide the text into two parts: 1. The healing of the woman with a bleeding disorder, vv. 25-34; and 2. The healing of Jairus’s daughter, vv. 21-24 and 35-43. 1. THE HEALING OF THE WOMAN WITH A BLEEDING DISORDER. Jesus has already returned from the other side of the lake, from the land of Gerasa, and now he is on the Jewish side of the lake. He is once again on the lakeshore, symbolic space of calling (1: 16-20 and 2: 13-14), of cures (3: 7-12), and of the parables of the kingdom (4: 1). It is very interesting to note that, at the beginning, Mark introduces us to Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, who, placing himself at the feet of Jesus, begs him for the life of his daughter. In fact, according to Jairus, she is dying (v.23). Before moving on, we have to capture the full meaning of this presentation. Jairus is the head of the synagogue and intercedes for his daughter who is dying. The relationship is one of father-daughter-sickness-death. Then, we imagine the religious atmosphere of Jairus’ house, being a leader of the synagogue: one of strict obedience to the purity code, especially in reference to women. We also imagine the broad socio-cultural context of Jewish and Greco-Roman culture: Jairus is the pater familias, that is, he is (literally) the owner of his family, along with his animals and other property. Introducing Jairus and his plea at the beginning of the text, Mark offers us the context of the two healings: despite obedience to religious and cultural codes (code of purity and patriarchy), the result is sickness and death. Jairus’ daughter is ill, and so ill, that death seems imminent. Let us not forget that disease and death are always symptoms of oppression and violence, manifested in the body, affecting the identity of the person in relation to her/himself and to society. In the case of Jairus’ daughter, it is very clear that the oppression and violence are religious and social, since Jairus is the head of the synagogue and a pater familias. Both women are sick and both of them are victims of the Jewish purity code and of patriarchy, the Jewish and Greco-Roman social code. There is also another relationship between the two women. The woman with a bleeding disorder had been ill for twelve years (v. 25), and Jairus’ daughter was a young woman who, being twelve years old (v. 42), had reached the age of an adult, that is, she could now be given, by her father, in marriage. The two women are ill and their illnesses are the result of oppression and violence. What does the number twelve mean? The twelve tribes of Israel, the entirety of the people of Israel. In the narrative, the two women are presented therefore as symbolizing the people of Israel. It is the entire people of Israel that is sick, its body is sick, and it needs to be freed from oppression and violence - the oppression and violence of the Temple religion (synagogue) and of the patriarchal culture of the Greco-Roman empire. Let us not forget that in the patriarchal system, God is always conceived as male and God’s people as female. What can we say about the woman with a bleeding disorder? She is a walking-dead person, better said, a socially dead person. Because of the purity code, imposed by the Temple religion (the synagogue), she is an impure person and consequently, a person expelled from society, condemned to her own loneliness. She is a non-person. Also, her illness has left her poor, because she had spent all her money on doctors and had not been helped at all. Actually, she had become worse (v. 26). She is a woman without identity, without family (without a husband, a pater familias, an owner). Her constant menstrual bleeding made her constantly impure. Anyone or anything she touched would become impure. And, she is poor, that is, she has little or nothing to live on. Really, this woman is a cursed woman of Israel. She cannot, in any way, be counted among the daughters and sons of the God of Israel. So, we ask: What is this woman doing in the crowd, following Jesus? This is not her place We realize now that she is a woman who resists. Her presence in the crowd, following Jesus, is her act of resistance against her illness, against all the excluding codes of religion and society. These are power codes and they exist to control the bodies and minds of women and the poor in (men’s) society. As a woman without a husband, an impure and poor woman, her space should be non-existence, that is, exclusion and invisibility. Yet there she is, like any other woman, listening to Jesus, following Jesus. She did not resign herself to living her life as a walking corpse, hidden, without existence. Her presence in the crowd is her act of resistance. It is, in fact, an act of rebellion. And, she touches Jesus’ clothes. It is an act of faith. But it is also an act of rebellion, because she knew that by touching Jesus’ clothes, he would become impure, just as impure as she. How dare she? Yet, Jesus does not scold her; he does not condemn her. He simply asks who touched him, offering her the opportunity to assert herself, to have a voice, to tell the whole truth about herself (v. 33), to regain her identity and dignity as a person. And Jesus answers her: Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness (v. 34). She is now a free and healed person - healed of her illness and much more: healed of the oppression and violence that were the causes of her illness, because she now has a voice, has an identity, enjoys visibility; now she exists as a person; now she is a daughter of God. Thanks to her act of resistance, thanks to her faith in Jesus, her faith that was returned to her by Jesus as an act of self-confidence, she was freed from her illness, she was freed from her loneliness, from death itself. 2. THE HEALING OF JAIRUS’ DAUGHTER. Jairus witnessed the healing of the woman with a bleeding disorder. For Mark, Jairus has to learn from the process lived by the woman who was sick before and that now is a free and peaceful woman (free for the possibilities of the shalom of the God of Life). Jairus already heard the whole truth of this sick woman, heard what was the torment of her life, how she had lived incarcerated in the purity code and the patriarchal systems, imposed by the men of religion and society. And Jairus witnessed how a walking-dead woman was resurrected to freedom and peace, that is, to life; how her faith in Jesus was returned to her as faith in herself, as an act of self-confidence, so that she would regain her existence as a person, with identity and dignity. Jairus has to understand that Jesus is someone who heals and liberates, who opens life possibilities for all human beings who are oppressed and violated by the injustice of religious law (the purity code) and socio-political law (patriarchy). The healing of the woman with a bleeding disorder helps us understand the healing of Jairus’ daughter, a twelve-year-old girl, who is dying (v. 23). The woman with a bleeding disorder had been sick for twelve years. For twelve years, she had been locked in the constant flow of her menstrual blood. For Jairus’ daughter, upon reaching the age of twelve, the age at which she begins her life as an adult woman, the age of her first menstruation, she becomes aware of what awaits her. Before, living in her father’s house, she felt safe and pure, and now ... now she realizes that she will have to live in a world of adult males, who only expect her to be a wife-servant and a mother and nothing more. Now she comes to the awareness that the purity code is a trap constructed by religious men (like her father) who will limit her as a human being and as a woman. Now she will be the object of desire and possession, and her identity as a person will only depend on her ability to be a mother, on her ability to produce - to produce male children for her husband and for (patriarchal) society. How can she be an adult in such a society? How to accept adulthood, if it implies imprisoning herself in a world of males, who will possess and dominate her, who will exploit and rape her as a human being, who will only dignify her if she produces male children? Death seems sweeter ... The truth hidden in the heart of this young woman is that all human beings are born free and with dignity. Her whole being refuses to accept the oppression and violence that awaits her. Her illness, her imminent death, is already an extreme act of resistance and rebellion. From her unconscious springs the cry against all oppression and violence imposed by the purity code of religion and the patriarchal system of society. If it cannot be otherwise ... better death. It is interesting to note that Jesus, before entering Jairus’ house, asks him not to be afraid, to only have faith, to trust (v.36). And suddenly Peter, James and John, as well as the mother of the young woman, enter the scene. They had been absent all along. We become aware that the scene has been symbolically changed. We are already in the house-church. We are no longer in Jairus’ house, where the pater familias reigned autocratically. Here and now, the Lord of the house is Jesus, and it is he who, taking the young woman by the hand, orders her: Talitha, koum! which means, Little girl, I’m telling you to get up! (v.41) We have another resurrection experience, as the young woman got up and began to walk, a symbol of freedom and dignity. He also told them to give the little girl something to eat (v.43). Jesus does not command the mother to feed her daughter. Patriarchal codes no longer count. It is the entire community that is responsible for the nourishment of the young woman so that she may continue to live as a person risen in the Lord, that is, a person with open horizons - horizons of freedom and dignity. And, nothing more is heard from Jairus ... Did he understand everything that just happened? Did he understand that now his daughter is a person who has been raised and can walk all by herself? III. COMMUNITIES OF RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY. What is this wonderful story from Mark telling us? Can we detect some historical memory of Jesus and the first Christian communities? For Xabier Pikaza, it is clear that the text explains to us that for the first Christian communities the norms of Jewish sexual purity were to be surpassed. According to Antonio Pagola, we see how Jesus acts, always in favor of the freedom and dignity of the most oppressed and violated in religion and society, especially in favor of women. We see how Jesus lived always committed to freeing women from social exclusion, from the oppression of men in the patriarchal family and from religious domination within the people of God. It would be anachronistic to present Jesus as a modern-day feminist, committed to the fight for equal rights between women and men. His message is more radical: the superiority of the man and the submission of the woman do not come from God. This is why among his followers this has to disappear. Jesus conceives his (social) movement as a space without male domination. I agree with Pikaza and Pagola, but I would also add something else. The story of Mark 5: 21-43, which we have just commented, leads us to the conclusion that if we want to be faithful to the Gospel, our communities must necessarily be spaces of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity. And this because Jesus is, with his person and his life, the resistance and rebellion of the Father against all oppression and violence, against everything that damages the freedom and dignity of human beings. Jesus is also the solidarity of the Father with all the victims of all purity codes imposed by religion and the social system of patriarchy. From the earliest times, Christian communities were alternative living spaces. They presented an alternative to the official religion of the Temple (this is why the first believers were expelled from the synagogues) and to the life of the Roman Empire (this is why they were persecuted). The first Christian communities were really subversive communities. For the Jewish synagogues they constituted an offense, because they were lax with respect to the conditions to access and form part of the people of God; for the cities, in general, they were rather subversive, because among them they experimented with alternative models of society for the first believers in Christ, faith in the God who raises (the oppressed and violated) from the dead is realized in the transformation of daily social spaces. It seriously means that theo-centrism is not compatible with humanly constructed hierarchies, be they social or religious (Martin Ebner). In Latin America we have a long tradition of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity that goes from the original peoples against the Conquerors and their Christendom, to within Christendom itself, such as Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolomé de las Casas. And this tradition has never ceased, since unfortunately the exploitation and violence of the peoples of Latin America has never stopped. Here we remember the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in Argentina, and the mothers of the 43 of Ayotzinapa, Mexico and many other women who have always resisted and rebelled against oppression and violence, against death itself. We remember the multitude of LGBTTT+ activists, and human rights activists, who have been tortured and murdered throughout Latin America - sisters and brothers who protested against religious purity codes and against patriarchy. What are our communities like? How do we resist and rebel? How do we practice solidarity? As today’s text teaches us, our communities have to rediscover the evangelical tradition of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity. In this way, and only in this way, will we become credible communities for our sisters and brothers fighting for freedom and dignity, for compassion and life. For our Diocese of Southeast Mexico. For our communities. For Saint Luke’s and Buen Pastor. José, brother and presbyter

Please join us tomorrow via Zoom for our service at 10am. The program and the link to attend can be found by clicking on the image below. Or join us live and in person for the service! We are located on Calle 55 y Calle 76, in Centro.

MARCHA DE LA DIVERSIDAD Mérida, Yucatán, 26 de junio, 2021. IGLESIA EPISCOPAL SAN LUCAS DE MÉRIDA Diócesis del Sureste de México Iglesia Anglicana de México... Rompiendo silencios y ciclos de violencia con justicia y compasión. Caminando juntos. Celebrando vidas. Abriendo horizontes. GAY PRIDE PARADE Merida, Yucatán, June 26, 2021 SAINT LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF MERIDA Southeast Diocese of Mexico Anglican Church of Mexico Breaking silences and cycles of violence with justice and compassion. Journeying together. Celebrating lives. Opening horizons.

MISIÓN ANGLICANA DEL BUEN PASTOR 4 de octubre, 2020 Celebración de la Eucaristía, celebración de cuatro bautismos, y dos primeras comuniones.... (English follows) Damos gracias a Dios, pues domingo, día 4 de octubre, día del Señor y recordando Francisco de Asís, con la participación de más de cincuenta feligreses, celebramos la Eucaristía en la Misión del Buen Pastor, con la celebración de cuatro bautismos y dos primeras comuniones. Para la cena un excelente plato de mole con arroz. ¡Estamos en el cielo! ¡Gracias a Dios! P. José BUEN PASTOR ANGLICAN MISSION October 4, 2020 Celebration of the Eucharist, Celebration of four baptisms, and two first communions. Thanks be to God, this past Sunday, October 4, day of the Lord, and remembering Francis of Assis, with the participation of over fifty sisters and brothers, we celebrated the Eucharist, with four baptisms and two first communions. And, blessings of blessings, for supper, we were served a dish of delicious mole! This is heaven alright! Fr. José

MISIÓN ANGLICANA EL BUEN PASTOR DE DZUNUNCAN 20 de junio, 2021: Cuarto Domingo después de Pentecostés Acción de gracias por la vida de nuestra hermana Reina Let...icia (English follows) Cuarto domingo después de Pentecostés en la Misión del Buen Pastor. Eucaristía dominical, dando gracias a Dios por la vida de nuestra hermana Reina Leticia, victima del covid-19. Cena comunitaria después de la Eucaristía. Damos las gracias a todos los participantes y colaboradores. Que el Señor les bendiga siempre. P. José BUEN PASTOR ANGLICAN MISSION OF DZUNUNCAN June 20, 2021: Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Eucharist of thanksgiving for the life of our sister Reina Leticia Fourth Sunday after Pentecost at our Buen Pastor Mission. Sunday Celebration of the Eucharist in thanksgiving of our sister Reina Leticia, victim of covid-19. Community dinner following. A heartfelt thanks to all the participants and all the collaborators. God bless you always! P. José

MISIÓN ANGLICANA BUEN PASTOR DE DZUNUNCÁN Domingo, día 27 de junio, 2021: Quinto domingo después de Pentecostés Celebración de la Eucaristía, Acción de gracia...s por la vida del hermano Román Lara, y Cena comunitaria (English follows) ¡Fuimos capaces de escapar la lluvia, gracias a Dios! Celebramos la Eucaristía, dando gracias a Dios por la vida de nuestro hermano Román Lara, esposo de nuestra hermana Mayra. Y, seguimos después con nuestra cena. Terminando la cena la lluvia. Todo agradecemos al Señor. También agradecemos a todos los participantes y colaboradores, sobre todo a los miembros de la Junta del Buen Pastor que cocinaron. Gracias a los donadores. Todo eso es posible también gracias a Ustedes. ¡Bendiciones de Dios para Ustedes! P. José BUEN PASTOR ANGLICAN MISSION OF DZUNUNCAN Sunday, June 27, 2021: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Celebration of the Eucharist, Giving thanks for the life of our brother Román Lara, Followed with Community Supper. Thank God, we were able to escape the rain! We celebrated the Eucharist, giving thanks for God’s gift of Román Lara’s life, and then followed with our community supper. That’s when the rain came thank you, Lord! A heartfelt thanks to all the collaborators and all of you who donate, making sure this miracle happens every Sunday. Special thanks to the members of the vestry of Buen Pastor who cooked the delicious food! God bless you all! P. José