Richard Bollman, S.J.

EPIPHANY 2009

Scripture Comment: Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-6; Matthew 2:1-12

This story of the Magi that we hear

is the only Christmas story in the Gospel of Matthew.

In his theological view of Jesus’ origins,

he emphasizes that the birth of Jesus occurs

according to the sacred traditions of Israel’s expectations:

he comes from a family in Bethlehem, the House of David.

And Matthew tells how the ruling power of Israel

resisted Jesus from the start.

These themes will occur again and again in Matthew’s Gospel:

resistance among the learned, while at the same time

the scriptures are being fulfilled.

So Matthew declares that the gentiles come first to do homage to the Christ,

and at the end of the Gospel Jesus gives the mission to the apostles

to go throughout the world and make disciples of all the nations:

which is to say, go out now and call the gentiles

to recognize the full story of Christ.

The first reading from Isaiah

provides a poetic vision of this great and universal attraction

of all nations toward the revelation of God through Israel.

And Paul’s letter to the Ephesians tells his audience

that as a matter of fact this vision is being accomplished already,

in the new world of faith that has emerged after Christ’s resurrection.

This is the Christmas story, then, on the 12^th Day of the Season.

HOMILY 2009: "Welcoming the Light"

So much darkness and anguish hangs over the middle east

it’s hard to see through to this old story of wise men, Christmas visits.

The magi would have come from Persia, contemporary Iran.

And Gaza is barely 60 miles east over the hills from Bethlehem,

those southern stretches of Israel subject to the rocket fire.

The front page of the Enquirer yesterday showed an Associated Press picture

that caught very well the frustration and futility of the conflict:

a Palestinian boy, a teenager maybe, his body arched back

and his arm in the motion of throwing a projectile, a rock probably,

at Israeli military units guarding his refugee camp near Jerusalem.

His face is obscured, maybe a mask, maybe just his shirt flying back.

Meanwhile, the rockets fire from Gaza, and the bombs fall,

and troops that were gathering that have now entered that little country.

It’s just hard to read about, the old bitterness and revenge.

And its not unique among the dark borders of our world these days.

I visited the hospital yesterday, out in Anderson,

an easy visit, not a critical illness, and the man in the bed,

was so easy to talk with. He has confidence in his physicians,

his expectation of recovery; several books were on hand for reading;

and there on the bed too, that Enquirer story, the picture.

We spoke about it a little while,

not politically, not examining the sides, bnt just in a sense of wonder

how it raises the mystery of our own being safe and well,

we the world’s minority who live in safety, who are well fed right now.

The contrast of the boy, his anger, his rock, his hopelessness,

and this serene hospital room, all white and orderly,

the pale blue sky and woods outside the window.

That’s the first thing I could say about the visit of the magi,

that the light of Christ, the light of life itself, is so precious in this world,

we want to be on the side of extending the light, helping to discover

its sources, its reality, the way we take it for granted:

just being able to live well from day to day.

It’s not just a source of gratitude, but of wonder,

that we should even sit here, and remember the old stories together.

And then to ask, "What is the light I am willing to welcome

into my own rigid places?"

It’s a good question at the closing festival of this Christmas season,

"what is being offered to me that is good news to my hardened heart?"

Don’t you find it true that Christmas has a way of exposing

where we are least free, least able to bend and change.

The celebration is usually family centered,

which raises not only moments of affection, but easily friction too,

or calls for help that you don’t plan for.

I just want to suggest, in the midst of gratitude and memories,

that you ask about the light that has come, the goodness or struggle

that you now seem more clearly,

to let something of the light of Christ flood in upon it.

We don’t manufacture Christmas, you know: it is a revelation,

even a surprise, the way it offers something to our own souls.

I’ve been finding that when I’m most discouraged or struggling with life,

I look for the light of God because I think

it will help me get things organized, or I’ll finally live up to God’s standards,

and then I find that my efforts to see and to change are not worth much.

My efforts keep me in the dark.

The whole purpose of the light

is to notice the love and the honest connection that comes through people,

no matter how I am ready for it or deserving of it.

It’s the discovery that I don’t make things better, but rather

it is the desire of God to solve things.

It’s when you are willing to relax your grip on someone,

even a quarreling child, it’s then that something else can happen.

I read a commentary on this passage from Isaiah, all its optimism,

written 500 years before Jesus, read today 2000 years later,

and the writer noted how is conveys "A vision of the assured hope

of God’s people, in a world whose times are in God’s hands."

Assured hope, in a world whose times are in God’s hands.

The times of the world in God’s hands: for our children, our nation,

for the darkened conflicts that don’t go away, the timing is not ours.

This caught me for a moment,

a little like finding the house were Jesus lives,

even with some clouds of artillery smoke above me.

Moments of light, however they come to you,

are a sign of something beyond itself, the one God in Christ,

the source for everybody. What St. Paul calls

the "unsearchable riches," that child of light, the person of Jesus.

This is the epiphany.

When I left the hospital room yesterday, I stopped awhile

in the lobby of Anderson Mercy hospital–almost always a quiet spot.

It’s not a traffic corridor, it’s a room set aside, three stories high,

with a big window on one side framing a tall Christmas tree.

At the hospital creche, the Magi had arrived, gorgeous painted figures

in all shades of purple, rose, deep ochre and reds, white and green,

beautifully placed, their eyes and gestures in a great dance of life

around the figure of the child. I loved looking it,

And I sat down then awhile and looked out the window.

These little invitations come: I guess I can just sit five minutes,

since I don’t travel with children, I’m not on a tight schedule I realize,

but maybe there are those five minutes for you too.

Just to notice, on the last day of Christmas,

if we are in the dark, trust the darkness, allow the uncertainties,

be patient: there is no other place where stars show up, than in the dark.

And if you are seeing the light,

ask for encouragement and daring to trust its unsearchable riches,

don’t think too hard, trust your instincts, tell your story.

There is room for your story too in the house where Jesus lives,

your own heart and soul, which longs to be visited.