We see that Jesus’ spirituality was life in the spirit, within the historical conflict, in a communion of love with the Father and the people. This spirituality was the result of his opening to the Father’s gift and of his liberating commitment to the life aspirations of the oppressed. For Jesus the world wasn’t divided between the pure and the impure, as the Pharisees wished; it was divided between those who favored life and those who supported death. Everything that generates more life — from a gesture of love to social revolution — is in line with God’s scheme of things; in line with the construction of the kingdom, for life is the greatest gift given to us by God. Whoever is born is born in God to enter the sphere of life. At the same time Jesus’ spirituality contradicted that of the Pharisees, which consisted of rites, duties, asceticisms, and the observance of discipline. Fidelity is the center of life for the Pharisees; the Father was the center of life for Jesus. The Pharisees measured spirituality by the practice of cultural rules; Jesus measured it by the filial opening to God’s love and compassion. For the Pharisees sanctity is a human conquest; for Jesus it was a gift of the Father for those who opened up to his grace. Jesus’ spiritual vigor stemmed from his intimacy with God, whom he familiarly called Abba — that is, Father (Mark 14:36). Like all of us who believe, Jesus had faith and he spent hours in prayer to nourish it. Luke recorded those hours in which Jesus allowed his spirit to be replenished by the Father’s Spirit: “But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed” (Luke 5:16); “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12); and “Now it happened that as he was praying alone” (Luke 9:18). In that communion with the Father, he found strength for struggling for the scheme of life, challenging the forces of death, represented particularly by the Pharisees, against whom the Gospels present two violent manifestos (Matthew 23 and Luke 11:37–57). And in this sense, all who struggle for life are included in God’s scheme, even if they lack faith. “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’” (Matt. 25:37–40).
It is your fellow man, and especially the one who lacks life and needs justice, in whom God wishes to be served and loved. They are the ones with whom Jesus identified. Therefore, there is no contradiction between the struggle for justice and the fulfillment of God’s will. One demands the other. All who work along that line of God’s scheme for life are considered Jesus’ brothers and sisters (Mark 3:31–35). This is the best way to follow Jesus, especially in Latin America’s present situation. I prefer to say that Jesus had a spirituality of the conflict — that is, a vigor in his commitment to the poor and to the Father who granted him immense internal peace. True peace is not obtained by erecting walls; it is the result of trust in God. Courage is not the opposite of fear, faith is. That faith gave Jesus the necessary will for carrying out the scheme of life, even by sacrificing his own life in confrontation with the forces of death, such as oppression, injustice, and religion made sclerotic by rules and rites.
After the talk few questions were asked. The audience seemed inhibited. It was late, and I went with Jorge Timossi and Marcela to have some rum at Marta Harnecker’s house.
I gave the second talk at our Cuban convent. There were fewer people, around 50 of them. My subject was “The Scheme of Life in Jesus.”
Jesus’ way of fulfilling God’s will was through a commitment to the scheme of life. This is made very clear in this account of St. Mark’s: “One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, when Abi’athar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?’ And he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath’” (Mark 2:23–28).
The account shows a conflict between Jesus’ group and that of the Pharisees. Jesus and his disciples picked the ears of corn, which the law of God forbade on the Sabbath, which was considered a holy day when no work was allowed. Jesus knew this, but as usual he didn’t apologize. Instead, he referred to the testimony of David, whom the Pharisees respected greatly and who had apparently behaved much worse than Jesus and his disciples, respecting neither the Sabbath nor the very house of God, the temple. He didn’t pick mere heads of grain; he took the Host, as we would say today, ate some and gave some to his compañeros. Jesus knew that David’s behavior also went against the religious rules. What strong reason led Jesus not only to justify David’s behavior but to behave in the same manner? The answer is in verse 25: “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him?” That is, man’s material need, the basic foundation of life, was the most sacred thing for Jesus. Idolatry deprives human beings of sacredness, transferring it to liturgical observances and to the material of the cult, such as the temple. For Jesus it was impossible to speak of spiritual life apart from the material conditions of existence. There is nothing more sacred than man, the image and likeness of God. The hunger of that man was an offense to the Creator himself. A religion that cares for the supposed sacredness of its objects but turns its back on those who are the real temples of the Spirit is worthless.
In São Bernardo do Campo, a city where I work with workers, whenever there are strikes and the government takes over the union, the priests of the local parish open their doors so the metalworkers can hold their meetings. Other priests are shocked and believe that this is a profanation of the temple. They don’t understand that, to Jesus’ way of thinking, there is nothing more sacred than the right to life. And a strike, a union meeting, is a collective effort to obtain better living conditions. Hence, Jesus’ conclusion in Mark’s account: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The most sacred thing that can exist — such as the Sabbath — should be at the service of human life, not the other way around. A church that places its patrimonial interests ahead of the demands of justice, life, and the people among whom it is inserted is certainly a church that considers man less important than the Sabbath and, like the Pharisees, reverses evangelical priorities.
In his practice Jesus didn’t separate spiritual needs from the material demands of human life. This is made very clear in the parable of the multiplication of the loaves (Mark 6:34–44). A multitude, “Five thousand men,” had just heard Jesus’ sermon. His disciples came to him and suggested, “This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late: send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.” The people’s hunger wouldn’t be a problem to one who preached spiritual life, but Jesus reacted: “You give them something to eat.” You can’t send a hungry crowd away. This, too, is a problem you should confront. It is interesting to observe that the disciples used the verb to buy, and the teacher, to give. Yet the disciples didn’t understand Jesus’ proposal: “Shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” There were some who thought that money was enough to meet the people’s needs. It was the bolo [cake] theory of the Brazilian military regime: first have it grow, accumulate a lot of capital, and only then begin to distribute it among everyone. Jesus replied, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” He didn’t ask how much money his disciples had; rather, he asked how many goods, how many loaves, they had. Wanting to meet the needs of the collective’s life through income