Christmas Homily, 12/24-25/04

Here is the pretty much final text for my Christmas homily. I am presiding at the 3:30 pm Mass on Christmas Eve, and the Midnight Mass. Here are the readings for each of those Masses:

Christmas Vigil

Gospel, Matthew 1:1-25
First Reading, Isaiah 62:1-5
Second Reading, Acts 1:16-17, 22-26

Midnight
Gospel, Luke 2:1-14
First Reading, Isaiah 9:1-6
Second Reading, Titus 2:11-14


Throughout the centuries, humankind has searched for God under one guise or another. The varieties of religions and religious experiences – as well as the many substitutes for religion, both ancient and modern – speak of this unending quest. And yet we never seem to find God in a fully satisfying way, in a way that finally fulfills St. Augustine’s expression of longing, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.”

The heart of the message of Christmas is that we cannot find God, and God knows that. So God has found us. We don’t have to search any more; God has found us in the place where we cannot avoid coming – the manger.

The significance of the manger is not just that it was a convenient substitute for a crib. It was the feeding trough for the animals. The word comes through French from the Latin “manducare,” meaning to eat. (You’re familiar with the root word if you have an Italian grandmother – “Mangia, mangia – eat, eat.” One of our local parishioner-owned restaurants has that name too, “Tutti Mangia” – all come and eat.)

And so the mystery of the incarnation, the “enfleshment” of God, the God who has found us, who has become human like us, is first revealed in a place where food is put for living creatures to eat. Can we have a more clear connection between the coming of Christ and the Eucharist? God has not only found us, he has come to be our nourishment, to satisfy our every hunger – because our every hunger is ultimately hunger for God.

In this “Year of the Eucharist,” which Pope John Paul designated from last October to next October, the Holy Father reminds us of an insight that comes from the very first days of the Church. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we are nourished from two tables, the Table of the Word and the Table of the Sacrament. It is the same Jesus, the Son of God whom we first encountered in the manger, who comes to us and nourishes us, who satisfies our hunger. At the Table of the Word, in the proclamation of his word in Scripture, he comes to satisfy our hunger for meaning, to bring understanding and wisdom into our darkness and confusion. And at the Table of the Sacrament, he comes under the form of ordinary food, bread and wine, he comes in his sacrificial death and resurrection, he comes to satisfy our hunger for God’s unconditional love, we are no longer alone, we are given the pledge of loving union and fulfillment that will never end.

The Holy Father has also called the Eucharist the manifestation of the Church, for in our communion with Jesus Christ, we are in communion with one another as well. What we truly are, members of his body, is openly proclaimed and the bonds of our unity with all other members of his body are strengthened. If we open our hearts to Jesus, he will open our hearts to his brothers and sisters as well.

We come here to be nourished at the twin Tables of Word and Sacrament, but in so doing we are transformed. If we let the Lord find us and nourish us here, he will transform us as well. We will go from here different than when we came. How different? If we let him, Jesus will open our eyes, as he opened the eyes of the blind, to see him where he is looking for us – in those who are still hungry and suffering in our world. “What you do to the least of my brothers or sisters, you do to me.”

And so, we are called to the manger. The infant Jesus does not want us just to gaze admiringly, but to come, and eat. Eat the body of his sacrifice, drink the blood of the New Covenant, poured out for us. Become one with him, as he has found us and become one with us. Be fed with the new hope of his loving presence, and be filled with his compassion that he may use us as instruments to touch, heal and nourish those in our world who continue to hunger for the God who has already found us.

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Additional notes:

I love the Gospel reading for the Vigil, even though most everyone else seems to hate it. To one who is familiar with our Old Testament heritage -- as we all all ought to be! (or make a New Year's resolution to become) -- these names evoke a striking panoramic picture of the great (and some not so great) ancestors of ours in faith. These are our own family ancestors, and we ignore them at the risk (a great risk) of a malnourished and superficial faith. The reading from Acts (St. Paul's address in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch) follows the pattern of many of the speeches in Acts: delving into the history of God's dealings with people in the past to illuminate the mystery and the meaning of Jesus' coming and mission. Isaiah's beautiful image of Israel (and us!) as God's very own cherished and beloved bride is very striking in its own right (even attributing erotic delight to God!), but I don't yet see it connecting really well to what the Gospel and the Acts readings are saying. I'm sure connections will come with further reflection. Any ideas?

The Fr. Raymond Brown's monumental book, The Birth of the Messiah, tells just about all there is to know about the genealogies in both Matthew (1:1-17) and Luke (3:23-34). Here's a rundown on the ancestors of Jesus in Matthew:

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah are well-known figures in the Old Testament, whose stories are recounted in Genesis 12-50. Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob (whose name was also Israel, see Genesis 32:29), was the ancestor of the largest and most powerful of the twelve tribes of descendants (see Genesis 49:8-12). Perez and Zerah were twins born to Tamar, Judah's daughter-in-law, after she deceived him into thinking she was a prostitute (see Genesis 38).

Hezron, son of Zerah, is named in the list of Judah's descendants who migrated to Egypt with Jacob's whole family (see Genesis 46:12). Ram (or Aram), the son of Hezron, is listed as the father of Amminadab, who is referred to as one of those wandering in the desert after Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, about 400 years after Jacob's family had migrated there. Matthew compressed that whole period into two generations. Nahshon, Amminadab's son, was an important leader of the tribe of Judah during the 40-year wandering in the desert (see Numbers 2:3; 7:12-17).

In the genealogy at the end of the Book of Ruth (4:18-22 as well as a much more detailed genealogy in 1 Chronicles 2), Salmon is listed as the son of Nashon and the father of Boaz, but he is not mentioned anywhere else. The indication that Rahab was the mother of Boaz is problematic, since she lived about 200 years earlier (see Joshua 2:1-24; 6:22-25). Again Matthew compresses a rather long time, the period of the Judges, into a single generation. The story of Ruth and Boaz is found in the Book of Ruth, and the concluding genealogy (4:18-22) lists the succession of Boaz, Obed and Jesse, the father of David.

The stories of David, Bathsheba the wife of Uriah, and Solomon are well known (see especially 1 Samuel 16; 2 Samuel 11-12; 1 Kings 1-11).

Solomon did not end his life in favor with the Lord, and his son Rehoboam could not hold the kingdom together. A rebellion in the north, led by Jeroboam, Solomon's servant, split the kingdom in two parts, Israel in the north , and Judah in the south. Rehoboam remained king in Judah (see 1 Kings 11-12.), succeeded by his son Abijah (or Abijam in some versions; see 1 Kings 15:1-8), neither of whom were regarded as faithful monarchs. Asaph undoubtly refers to Asa, Abijah's son and successor as king; and his son and successor was Jehoshaphat (see 1 Kings 15:24). He and Asa his father were regarded as good kings (see 1 Kings 22:43) but flawed. His son Joram (or Jehoram; see 1 Kings 22:51) was not such a good king, having married the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (2 Kings 9:16-24). Chronicles adds that he murdered his brothers and died of a lingering illness of the bowels (see 2 Chronicles 21). Uzziah (or Azariah) was not the son of Joram, but his great-great grandson; Matthew compressed three generations and 60 years here. (See 2 Kings 14:21; 15:1-5.) His reign was prosperous, but he was regarded as punished with leprosy for arrogance (see 2 Chronicles 26). Little is recorded of his son Jotham (see 2 King 15:32-38), but his son Ahaz (see 2 KIngs 16) compromised with the king of Assyria, which helped bring down the downfall of Judah not long after. His policies were strongly opposed by Isaiah, and occasioned the famous messianic prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. His son Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 18-20) was regarded as a devout religious reformer who resisted the Assyrian threat, but his son Manasseh (Genesis 41:51) was one of the worst kings of all. He reverted to idolatry and human sacrifice, as well as political compromise with the Assyrians (see 1 Kings 21). Amos (or Amon) was just as bad, and soon assassinated (see 1 Kings 21:19-26), while his young son Josiah attempted both religious and political reform (see 2 Kings 22-23). Jechoniah (or Jehoiachin; see 1 King 24:8-17) was actually the grandson of Josiah, and the king under whom the Babylonians finally conquered Judah and led its citizens off to captivity in 587 BC.

Shealtiel is a figure about whom nothing is known exept his appearance in several genealogies (in Haggai, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 Chronicles) which give contradictory information, not unexpected in the social upheaval of the Babylonian captivity. Zerubbabel ("born in Babylon"), on the other hand, was a major figure in the postexilic period of rebuilding (see Ezra 2:2, and a number of other references).

The names from this point on appear not to have a direct Scriptural source. After the immediate post-exilic period (about 538 BC), documented in Ezra and Nehemiah, there is no consistent historical scriptural record of the years covered by these names. Matthew's sources may have been hsitorical documents that were not preserved, legends, and traditions. some of the names have symbolic reference to earlier times, e.g. Zadok and his son, Ahimaaz (here Achim?) were priests under both David and Solomon. Matthew may have included them to reinforce Jesus' priestly role. Also, Jacob and Joseph certainly seem to echo the patriarchs of the second part of Genesis.