A New Reading Site – Part 2: Reading the Bible

Continuing from the thoughts I shared two weeks ago this week I want to expand on that theme a little. Being aware of my own reading site is of paramount importance when living in a very different culture from my own.

One exercise I have found fascinating during my time here is to attempt to deconstruct my own reading of the bible. The bible is a very ancient text; it has continued to be read through thousands of different cultural, political, economic and religious worldviews. Through all of this history up to today people have found within these texts meaning and inspiration, but crucially they have found this meaning and inspiration in very different ways. Too often we assume that the truths we find (or don’t find) in these texts are those which were intended by the original authors and those understood by all peoples throughout the world and throughout history. I all too easily assume that my interpretation is ‘The Interpretation’.

One of the challenges of reading the bible here is to try to put to one side what seems to me to be the most obvious interpretation of the text and instead to try to see it, as best I can, through the eyes of the people here.  The reading site of the people here is, of course, much closer to the reading site of the first Palestinian Christians who actually wrote the New Testament. The Philippines is a country of vast inequality, it is dominated by powerful neighbours, and it is a country of visible religious fervour.

Take the example of Matthew 23:14-30, the text to which we give the subheading  ‘The Parable of the Talents’¹. This is a text which reads very differently when read from the different perspectives of the rich world and the poor world.

In the rich world we understand this parable in completely non-economic terms; the master is a benevolent God who demands that we make best use of our abilities. We with all our wealth and opportunity look at the text from the perspective of the servant given Ten Talents. This parable has influenced us so much that we have even come to call our abilities ‘talents’. So most often preaching on this text in the rich world will be about making the most of our abilities and not being like the bad servant with one talent who wasted what God had given him. His punishment at the end of the story is just desserts for his wasteful behaviour.

Try reading this text from the perspective of the poor man of the story, the man given only one Talent. This man, like many people here, maybe struggles to find enough money to survive, this man’s opportunities are maybe very limited, each day this man might run the risk of not being unable to feed his children. Such is the world in which many people here in Cebu live.

From the perspective of this man the actions of the master (in the parable) cannot be those of a benevolent God, they are the actions of an unmerciful master, they are the all too familiar actions of the rich and powerful over the daily lives of many people here who are made to suffer merely for being poor. Thus the parable is no longer a metaphor for the kingdom of God, but a symbolic narrative of their real world where the already rich get richer and the already poor are trodden on. The consequences handed out to the servant with one talent at the end of the parable are not the actions of God but the callous reaction of the rich towards those who are unable or unwilling to participate in the economic world of the rich. Take for example the many people here who suffer for lack of the medical resources which the richer world takes for granted, or those who suffer from a lack of access to the education that the richer world takes for granted, while at the same time the richer complain about (what they call) high taxes. Those in poverty are all too often blamed for being poor.

One biblical story, but two very different reading sites produce two very different interpretations. Neither is necessarily right or of more value. The challenge to all of us is not to believe that our own perspective is the only possible perspective.

(¹ I have borrowed, and adapted, the two reading perspectives of this text from the ‘The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics’ by the American theologian ‘Ched Myers’)