The Banquet of the Kingdom of God

    The other day, the official Gospel reading of the Church dealt with a parable of Jesus about the “kingdom of God.”  Jesus often spoke of that kingdom (often as a banquet!); in fact it is absolutely central to his thinking and the self-perception of his own mission. (Sometimes the phrase used is “kingdom of heaven.”)

   First thing to say is that what we have are stories provided to us by people from the earliest Christian communities of the first century. They purport to provide us with the message of Jesus. It is a message, however, that is already interpreted for the benefit of those communities at a particular time in history when they faced very particular challenges. Obviously they are intended to reflect the sayings of Jesus, his own stories. However, it is much more difficult to trace back from the Gospel text the exact words of Jesus as spoken in a very different context several decades earlier. (We often forget that major distinction.)
    Secondly, we have to get beyond the image of “kingdom.” It too comes from a very particular time in history where the major systems of governance were patriarchal and authoritarian - particularly in the Middle East where Jesus and the first communities lived. By Jesus time, the idea of king had already taken on mythical proportions. However, underlying that word is the notion of a world-order with a “governing principle” that holds it in place. In face of the despotic rulers of the time, Jesus proposed another model, very different.
    Thirdly, we have too often, much too often, transposed the “kingdom of God” into something that we encounter only in the after-life, only once we have “died and gone to heaven.”  This was hardly the case for Jesus. Even though, before Pilate, he said that his reign was not of this world, he did not in any way make that transposition.
    If you read the texts carefully, and if you try to make the stories of the “kingdom” coherent with the entirety of Jesus life and sayings, it becomes clear that the “kingdom of God” (a just world order we might say today -- one with solidarity and compassion at its centre) is present in the here and now. It is in the here and now that we discover this “kingdom of God” dimension of reality and made a fundamental choice for it. Only in the here and now can we encounter it because we live only in the here and now. The here and now is all we have, all we will ever have and it is a banquet, a fullness, an abundance, a magnificent vista.
    Think about it.

Further comments on the True Commission Report (Honduras)

(In the last blog -- see below -- I spoke of a report on human rights violations in Honduras over the last three years. Now I wish to offer some comments on the importance of this document.)

    Following the Honduran coup d’état in 2009, which removed democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya from office, there was an unprecedented resistance by the population. The repression was fierce and even three years later still continues. Thousands have been arrested, dozens have been killed, many have been tortured. The government of President Lobo, following elections in 2010, established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to look into violations of human rights between the coup d’état and the subsequent election. Not content with the mandate of that commission, civil society members established their own “True Commission” to look into all violations of human rights since the coup d’état. The panel was made up largely of well-known international human rights figures such as Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina and Elsie Monge from Ecuador. Recently they have published, in Spanish, their final report. It is long, 300 pages backed up by many hundreds of pages of further documentation. An English version of the report is in preparation. However, given the importance of this report and its usefulness to other sectors of the global community, I offer in what follows, a brief summary of some aspects of the report that drew my attention.

1.      The report is important for what it reveals of the extent of the repression and the impact of that repression on Honduran society.

2.      The report is also important for the way in which it is constructed. The methodology followed by the members of the True Commission form an important model for any future investigation into the impact of human rights violations, particularly the use of violence by  the forces of order, in any part of the world.

   The report begins with a presentation of the political and social context in which the coup d’état and the subsequent repression took place. It reviews the many earlier coup d’états and the manner in which Honduras has been governed by powerful interest groups supported by foreign, largely US interests including the US military.

   The panel investigated several thousand cases and divided them into several categories of violation of human rights, for example, violation of physical integrity, violation of freedom of assembly and of expression, sexual violation, racial attacks, etc. In each category they provided detailed information about several cases which they considered typical. It also looks at how the repression fell on various sectors of society: teachers, unions, the gay community, public service functionaries, women, children, peasants, indigenous peoples.

   However, the most significant research provided by the report deals with the impact of the repression on the individual victims, on various sectors of society and on society as a whole. It becomes increasingly clear that the horror of assassination and other repressive action of the police and military was designed to terrorize the population into submission by paralyzing it with fear. While it is clear that torture and brutality have an immediate impact on the well-being of the victims, what is less clear are the ramifications of that brutality and violence over a longer period of time and throughout society. Here the report makes a significant contribution The authors look into some of the immediate impact of acts of brutality (such a rape) on specific individuals. However, they also look into the impact of those actions on the social sectors involved: on the gay community, campesino communities, the unions and others. They also look into the way in which the aggregate of repressive action by the police and military had a significant impact on society as a whole, not just in creating enormous tension but also in seriously affecting the mental health of the entire population.

   The conclusions drawn by the panel, two of whom were Honduran and who had to withdraw from the commission and flee the country, are those we might expect : a call to a much greater responsibility on the part of the government for monitoring and assuring respect for human rights, a larger place for direct participation of the population in society through freedom of assembly and of expression, sanctions for those who violate human rights, etc.

   It is my opinion that the approach taken by the commission has opened a path to a much deeper understanding of the impact of official repression by military and para-military forces that should be of concern and interest for human right organizations around the world.