Homily:
Christmas – Vigil Mass
Having been
here for close to six months now, I have been asked a lot of questions by many
of you as you all try to get to know me a little better. Many of those questions centered around my
family, my interests, where I went to seminary, my life as an engineer before
entering the seminary and—much to my delight—what types of food are my favorite
to eat. The one question that I feel
like I most often received, however, is one that is probably the most
complicated for me, or anyone else for that matter, to answer: “So where are
you from?”
Looking
just at the bare facts, answering that question really isn’t that complicated
at all. For many of us here, in fact, it
is rather simple: “I’m from Logansport.
I was born and raised here and I’ve lived here all my life.” For folks like myself, that answer gets a
little more complicated, but it is nonetheless still digestible: “I was born
and raised in Joliet, Illinois, I went to college in Flint, Michigan and then
moved to Indiana, where I’ve lived for the past 12 years.” But even this bare-bone answer contains
indicators that reveal other things about me, that is, about “where I am
from.” Almost to the person, once
someone hears that I grew up near Chicago they assume that I am a Cubs fan
(which, of course, is the only valid assumption to make, since being a Cubs fan
is the only morally correct choice for any Christian to make: for it is a sign
that one is in possession of the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity,
without which it would be impossible to remain a fan of the Chicago Cubs).
If we start
to ask questions beyond that basic question, however—such as those I’ve already
mentioned: how big is your family, where did you go to school, did you play
sports—we begin to find that the answer to the question “where are you from” is
far more complicated and nuanced (and, perhaps, embarrassing) than we might be
ready to share.
Today, we,
as the Church, celebrate God’s coming to us as a human person. The absurdity of that statement is so great
that we could stay here until Midnight Mass trying to talk ourselves into a way
to rationalize why God—who is without limits—would ever want to put on this
limited human nature, but you all would never allow me to do that, so I suppose
we won’t try. No, today we
acknowledge—and celebrate—that the eternal God entered time and, thus, that
God, who has no beginning or end, no past or future, but only an eternal
present, now has a history. In other
words, in celebrating that the Son of God has come to us in the flesh, we are
celebrating—at least in part—that he came
from somewhere.
In our
Gospel reading today, we hear where that somewhere
is. And much like our own answers about
“where we are from,” the Son of God’s newly-acquired history is
complicated. Taking a look back at his
genealogy, we find that Jesus’ heritage contains not only shining examples of
righteousness and faith, but also men of whom it is safe to say that most
followers of Jesus would have rather left out.
In between are men whose lives were a complicated mix of righteous deeds
tarnished by poor decisions and others who, quite frankly, were so unremarkable
that they’d be all but forgotten if they weren’t part of this lineage. I’d venture to say that these very same
descriptions could be applied to each and every one of our family trees.
At the end
of this line comes, however, Joseph, the poor carpenter from Nazareth. Although it is noted that he is a righteous
man (and rightfully so, for he should be noted for that), if it wasn’t for his
role in giving the Son of God a history—that is, a heritage—Joseph would
otherwise have been one of those unremarkable names on this list (that is, if
it would have even gotten there in the first place). Notice, we didn’t hear Mary’s genealogy, but
rather Joseph’s. And why? I mean, isn’t Joseph just a ‘fill-in’ so it
doesn’t look strange that the Son of God is raised in a single-parent
home? I mean, can’t we just drop Joseph
out of the picture all together? No, we
can’t. To understand why, we have to go
back to the beginning.
In the Book
of Genesis, right after our first parents, Adam and Eve, committed the first sin,
God condemns them to a life of suffering: the man must labor to bring forth
food and the woman will suffer pain in childbirth. But then, he makes a promise: that an
offspring of the woman (that is, Eve, the mother of all mankind) will one day
crush the head of the serpent—that is, the evil one, who tempted Eve into
sin. And so we see that the Son of God
who was to come and redeem all of human kind needed to be born of a woman. Thus, we see Mary’s indispensable role. As the years went on, the prophets of Israel
began to reveal God’s plan that the Messiah—that is, God’s Son who would come
to crush the head of the serpent—would emerge from the royal lineage of King
David. Thus, we see now Joseph’s
indispensible role: for it is through him that the Son of God received his
heritage as a “Son of David.” And so,
while Mary gave God his humanity, Joseph gave God his history. And the parallels don’t end there.
In the
Annunciation to Mary, the angel waited for Mary’s response: for the Holy Spirit
would not overshadow her unless Mary gave her consent, and she had every right
to say no. As we read today in the Gospel, the
Annunciation to Joseph by the angel in his dream holds the same suspense. Joseph had every right to divorce Mary. He even had the right to divorce her
publicly, inducing even greater shame on her.
Because he was a righteous man, however, he had decided to do it
quietly, knowing that, although he couldn’t rightfully take her into his home,
she would be shamed enough just by being a single mother. This is when the angel bursts onto the scene
and says, “I know that this goes against every righteous bone in your body, but
go ahead and take Mary into your home anyway, because God has a plan.” And so, just as God asked Mary to make space
for him in her life, so, too, did he ask Joseph to make space in his. And just as Mary reversed Eve’s sin of
disobedience by listening and responding to God’s will, so, too, does Joseph
reverse Adam’s sin of consenting to Eve’s disobedience by consenting to Mary’s
obedience and thus receiving her into his home.
My brothers
and sisters, I don’t think that it would be a surprise to any of us if I said
that our world has become increasingly hostile to God. Day after day, it seems, the media culture is
closing itself off from God and we are so afraid of being left out that we are
rushing to get in with it. Packed in
like sardines, there is, it seems, no more room for God in our lives. Yet, we are here, aren’t we? Many of us have been here all year and some
of us haven’t been here since last year, but nonetheless we are all here. Perhaps that means that there is still room
for God in our lives. If so, then there
is a message for you here today.
Now, I
cannot know what it was that motivated any of you to come here today, whether
you came by your own free choice or out of obedience to a parent, grandparent,
spouse or fiancée, but I can tell you this: If you are here today it is because
God wanted you to be here. And if you
can hear my voice then I can tell you assuredly that God wants you to hear this
message: Do not be afraid to take God into your home, for it is by the Holy
Spirit—the Spirit of goodness, righteousness, and truth—that he comes to
you. God wishes to bless you with his
presence—his healing, consoling, and strengthening presence—if only you would
make a space for him.
Perhaps,
however, we are afraid. We’re afraid
that if we give him a little space, that he’ll take over everything. Don’t worry, though; just like with Mary and
Joseph, he won’t take more than we give him.
He doesn’t need much to start out, anyway: perhaps just a wood box out
back with some straw to sleep on. And if
we’re afraid that we won’t know what to say to him when he comes, well, then, why
don’t we just start with a simple ice-breaker: “So, Jesus, where are you from?”
Given
at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 25th, 2012
Solemnity
of the Nativity of Our Lord
Good stuff Fr DP :)
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