[Our lessons were Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; and Mark 1:14-20.]
We often tend to use the term “call” and “calling” in the context of ordained ministry. We talk of people attempting to discern a calling to ordained ministry and, here at St. Christopher’s, the vestry recently called a priest to be our new rector. But “calling” has a much broader meaning than that.
In fact, one of the Greek words that is used for the church, ekklesia, refers to an assembly of those who are called together or called out of ordinary life to worship. And that is us. We are called together, we are called out of the world to worship God.
God calls to us all the time and in many ways. And, as Jonah, found out, God can be pretty persistent.
The book of Jonah, of which we heard a portion, is an interesting book, and not just because of the story of the fish. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh to tell them that if they repent, they will be spared. Jonah didn’t want Nineveh to be spared, so he ran away. He got on a boat and fled to the other end of the world. But up came a storm and, to save themselves, the sailors tossed Jonah overboard, since he said he was running from God. Along came a great fish to swallow him and, after three days of prayer by Jonah, God has the fish spit Jonah up on dry land. God repeats the call, Jonah goes reluctantly and preached only grudgingly, but the king and people repent! God changed his mind and didn’t destroy Nineveh and Jonah sulked.
“O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
We often feel the same way. We often feel that there are people, normally those who are different from us, who really don’t deserve to be saved. Fortunately for Jonah, God doesn’t always answer prayers. And there are other calls by God, even today.
An American anthropologist and doctor, Paul Farmer, responded to a conviction that everyone deserves medical care. With four other doctors he founded Partners in Health, and is changing the lives of the poorest of the poor in Haiti, Peru, and Rwanda. This remarkable man is a shining light in the midst of a hurting people. All because he answered a call to heal the poor.
Dr. Muhammad Yunus responded to an inner conviction that poor women deserve to receive loans with the lowest interest possible so that their lives could be changed. He knew that changing the lives of women for the better could help improve the lives of their whole families. On that conviction—that call—he founded the Grameen Bank, and the practice of giving microloans to women and the poor in general is now flourishing.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu heard God’s call, which filled him with the conviction that all human beings, regardless of the color of their skin, are created in the image of God. That call led him to work with another great human being, Nelson Mandela, to bring an end to the evil of apartheid.
In our reading from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus begins to call his disciples. He called two sets of brothers: Simon and Andrew and James and John. There is an urgency to Jesus’ call and to their response, as symbolized by saying they immediately followed Jesus. Some years later, Paul would tell the church in Corinth that time is short. The time to answer God’s call is now, there is no time to waste.
Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The Kingdom of God is not the afterlife and it is not intended to be some distant time in the future. The Kingdom of God is that time and place when God’s will is done and God’s justice prevails: the hungry are fed, the sick are made whole, and the poor are well treated.
When we answer God’s call to help those in need, we are acting to bring the Kingdom of God that much closer.
When we answer God’s call, we don’t know where it will lead us. Neither did Samuel last week or Jonah or the disciples. Answering God’s call is sometimes painful. Sometimes, it can be fatal, as Jonathan Daniels found out in the 1960s when he was martyred while protecting a black child in Alabama in the 1960s. It can make you seem out of step with the wisdom of the world, which tells you to maximize personal gain at the expense of all else. But when we do answer God’s call to bring the Kingdom into being, we know we are answering the deepest wishes of our own hearts.
In these dark times, the light of Epiphany shines upon all who respond to God’s call, wherever they are from. When what they say and do brings light, they are all blessed by God. May the light of Epiphany shine upon us so that we hear and respond to God when He calls us by name.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Campaign Against Torture--Succeeds!
Last summer, I received an e-mail from the National Religious Committee Against Torture asking for support in an effort to urge then-President Bush to issue an executive order forbidding the use of torture by the U.S. Government. I was moved to write a letter to the editor of the Macon Telegraph and somewhat to my surprise, it was printed. (I know at least one person read it on the paper's web site because they complained that I hadn't said anything about abortion!)
Since then, NRCAT has sent periodic e-mails asking me to sign online petitions to then-President Bush and President Obama asking them to act. I was proud to sign. And today, came the result...
President Barack Obama today signed several executive orders relating to how we carry on the war on terrorism. One them requires the U.S. Government to follow the Army Field Manual on interrogations. The field manual expressly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding.
Statement from National Religious Campaign Against Torture President, Linda Gustitus:
President Obama asked this country during his campaign to join him in changing the world. By requiring the CIA to abide by the restrictions in the Army Field Manual in conducting interrogations of detainees, by closing the CIA’s secret prisons, and by providing the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all US-held detainees, he has already changed the world with respect to America’s use of torture. He has rejected the use of torture as an interrogation technique and allowed the United States to again find its moral bearing.
The establishment of a task force to study whether the CIA should be able to use additional interrogation techniques beyond those approved in the Army Field Manual is a cause for concern. We call on the President to ensure that any additional techniques are humane, effective, and available for public scrutiny. We cannot afford to risk a return to the secret abuses of the past. Specifically, the President should publicly affirm that any additional interrogation techniques comply with the “golden rule”–that they would be both moral and legal if used upon a captured American.
The religious community has labored faithfully for three years to end U.S.-sponsored torture. We are grateful today for this important step. The dark, dark days of the past are behind us, and we all must work to make sure they never return again.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Inaugural Prayer
I'm sure this is showing up in a lot of places, but here was the prayer given today at the concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington today by the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire:
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears–for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger–at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort–at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience–and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility–open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance–replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity–remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand–that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears–for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger–at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort–at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience–and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility–open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance–replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity–remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand–that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.
Connections
[Our lessons were 1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20); Psalm 129:1-5, 12-17; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; and John 1:43-51.]
Our reading from Samuel is set in dark times for the people of Israel: the word of the Lord was rare in those days and visions were rare. It’s not hard to feel that we are living in times like that today. Every day brings a new dose of bad news: fighting in Gaza, more businesses fail and jobs are lost, record cold weather in many parts of the country can bring us close to despair.
But, the lamp of God had not yet gone out. And God remained connected with his people, calling out to Samuel by name. Even in times of fear and sorrow, God remains connected to us, calling us by name. Our challenge is to hear that call amidst the noise and bustle of daily life. And when we hear that call, we answer, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
We don’t tend to listen very well—to people or to God. God has a habit of challenging our preconceptions and prejudices, just as he did with Nathaniel’s prejudice—“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”—in our reading from John’s Gospel. We tend to see what we expect to see and hear what we expect to hear and we filter out what doesn’t match up. These perceptual filters can be strong and can keep us from seeing new things.
Fortunately, Nathaniel was willing to discard his prejudice against country bumpkins from Nazareth and accepted Philip’s invitation to “Come and see!” What he heard and saw was enough to cause him to proclaim to Jesus, “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Jesus responded in two ways, first, by saying “You will see greater things than these” (or as we might say today, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”) and by saying that Nathaniel would see heaven op
ened—again, language of unveiling as we heard last week at Jesus’ baptism—and that the angels of God would be ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is the language of the revelation to Jacob at Bethel, where the angels are ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. The difference is that Jesus is the ladder; Jesus is what connects heaven and earth.
This connection—this ladder—has always been there. The means for us to connect to God has always been there. It’s we who have failed to see it or ignored it. As Verna Dozier writes in her book The Dream of God, “Both the people of the Torah and the people of the resurrection were escaping from God’s awesome invitation to be something new in the world.”
“To be something new in the world!” To be new by being always open to the needs of God’s people, to be new by being open to the new directions our lives will take if we are willing to become that ladder ourselves. For that is what God offered Jacob and Jesus offered Nathaniel and offers us today. Not just to be connected, but to be the connection between God and the world.
In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul talks of another kind of connection—our connection with each other. In our culture, we revere individualism. The one clearly American form of fiction is the western, whose hero is normally the strong, silent loner. In the United States, we often think of religion in the same way. We often focus on an individual relationship with God and tend to overlook our membership in the common Body of Christ. Each one of us is a part of that One Body. What is important is that we not become so focused on ourselves and our individual lifestyles to do things that are not beneficial to the community.
This week we begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We are called to be one “so that the world may believe.” Like Nathaniel, we are called to overcome our long-held prejudices and re-examine our assumptions. We are called to respond as Samuel did, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
We are invited by Jesus to “Follow me.” Not to a calm and static life but to a journey of risk and discovery, sometimes sacrifice.
And we are invited in the words of Philip to Nathaniel to “Come and see.”
“Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”
Give us ears to hear Jesus calling, “Follow me.”
Help us find ways to “Come and see.”
That the world may believe!
Our reading from Samuel is set in dark times for the people of Israel: the word of the Lord was rare in those days and visions were rare. It’s not hard to feel that we are living in times like that today. Every day brings a new dose of bad news: fighting in Gaza, more businesses fail and jobs are lost, record cold weather in many parts of the country can bring us close to despair.
But, the lamp of God had not yet gone out. And God remained connected with his people, calling out to Samuel by name. Even in times of fear and sorrow, God remains connected to us, calling us by name. Our challenge is to hear that call amidst the noise and bustle of daily life. And when we hear that call, we answer, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
We don’t tend to listen very well—to people or to God. God has a habit of challenging our preconceptions and prejudices, just as he did with Nathaniel’s prejudice—“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”—in our reading from John’s Gospel. We tend to see what we expect to see and hear what we expect to hear and we filter out what doesn’t match up. These perceptual filters can be strong and can keep us from seeing new things.
Fortunately, Nathaniel was willing to discard his prejudice against country bumpkins from Nazareth and accepted Philip’s invitation to “Come and see!” What he heard and saw was enough to cause him to proclaim to Jesus, “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Jesus responded in two ways, first, by saying “You will see greater things than these” (or as we might say today, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”) and by saying that Nathaniel would see heaven op
ened—again, language of unveiling as we heard last week at Jesus’ baptism—and that the angels of God would be ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is the language of the revelation to Jacob at Bethel, where the angels are ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. The difference is that Jesus is the ladder; Jesus is what connects heaven and earth.This connection—this ladder—has always been there. The means for us to connect to God has always been there. It’s we who have failed to see it or ignored it. As Verna Dozier writes in her book The Dream of God, “Both the people of the Torah and the people of the resurrection were escaping from God’s awesome invitation to be something new in the world.”
“To be something new in the world!” To be new by being always open to the needs of God’s people, to be new by being open to the new directions our lives will take if we are willing to become that ladder ourselves. For that is what God offered Jacob and Jesus offered Nathaniel and offers us today. Not just to be connected, but to be the connection between God and the world.
In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul talks of another kind of connection—our connection with each other. In our culture, we revere individualism. The one clearly American form of fiction is the western, whose hero is normally the strong, silent loner. In the United States, we often think of religion in the same way. We often focus on an individual relationship with God and tend to overlook our membership in the common Body of Christ. Each one of us is a part of that One Body. What is important is that we not become so focused on ourselves and our individual lifestyles to do things that are not beneficial to the community.
This week we begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We are called to be one “so that the world may believe.” Like Nathaniel, we are called to overcome our long-held prejudices and re-examine our assumptions. We are called to respond as Samuel did, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
We are invited by Jesus to “Follow me.” Not to a calm and static life but to a journey of risk and discovery, sometimes sacrifice.
And we are invited in the words of Philip to Nathaniel to “Come and see.”
“Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”
Give us ears to hear Jesus calling, “Follow me.”
Help us find ways to “Come and see.”
That the world may believe!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Beginnings
[Our readings were Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19: 1-7; and Mark 1:4-11.]
In the beginning…
On this first Sunday after the Epiphany, when we remember the Baptism of our Lord, we focus on beginnings.
The sacrament of Baptism is itself a beginning, where new members of the Church are born again. Certain days in the church year—the Easter Vigil, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day and this First Sunday after Epiphany—are especially appropriate days for baptisms. This day has particular meaning for me, as it was 21 years ago on the First Sunday after Epiphany that my wife and I stood before the members of St. Andrew’s Church in San Antonio as our son was baptized.
In our liturgy, baptism is expected to take place in front of the whole congregation as a part of the chief service on a Sunday or other feast day. This is because the entire church is involved; while there are sponsors or godparents, everyone attending promises to “do all in [our] power to support these persons in their life in Christ.” In a few minutes, we will renew our baptismal vows and make a new set of promises to God.
In the beginning…
On this first Sunday after the Epiphany, when we remember the Baptism of our Lord, we focus on beginnings.
The sacrament of Baptism is itself a beginning, where new members of the Church are born again. Certain days in the church year—the Easter Vigil, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day and this First Sunday after Epiphany—are especially appropriate days for baptisms. This day has particular meaning for me, as it was 21 years ago on the First Sunday after Epiphany that my wife and I stood before the members of St. Andrew’s Church in San Antonio as our son was baptized.
In our liturgy, baptism is expected to take place in front of the whole congregation as a part of the chief service on a Sunday or other feast day. This is because the entire church is involved; while there are sponsors or godparents, everyone attending promises to “do all in [our] power to support these persons in their life in Christ.” In a few minutes, we will renew our baptismal vows and make a new set of promises to God.
We will state again our renunciation of evil and renew our commitment to Jesus Christ and promise, with God’s help
- to continue in the Church’s teaching, community, sacraments, and prayers
- to never give in to evil, and, when we inevitably stray, to change our paths and return to God’s path
- to proclaim the Gospel not just with our lips but with our lives
- to look for Christ in every person, following his commandment to love all of our neighbors as ourselves
- to work for the justice and peace of the Kingdom of God throughout the world, and to remember that every human being has been created in God’s image
There is a common thread in our readings today: each of them refers to beginnings and in each of them the Holy Spirit is seen to act.
We have the beautiful Priestly creation story from Genesis—the ultimate beginning. Before there was Light, there was a “wind from God” sweeping over the waters. The Hebrew word here is ruach which can be translated alternatively as “wind,” “breath”, or “spirit”. The Holy Spirit—the “wind from God”—was present and acting in the Creation.
In our reading from Acts, we hear of some problems in the infant Church in the town of Ephesus. Paul learns that the people there who had been baptized were baptized after the manner of John the Baptist, not in the name of Jesus. The problem with this is that the Holy Spirit was missing from the process, indeed they had not even heard of a Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them again in the name of Jesus and this time, the Holy Spirit came upon them. The Holy Spirit is a part of every Christian baptism. And so, as Jesus commanded the disciples at the end of Matthew’s Gospel to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” the Church has done and this Trinitarian formula is still honored, even in Churches who don’t have a strong liturgical tradition.
We have Mark’s description of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. As Acts notes, John’s baptism is a baptism of repentance of sin. “Repentance” is more than feeling bad at having sinned; it is a turning from the path that led to that sin so that it will not be repeated.
Jesus joined in the crowds of humanity being baptized, not because he had sinned, but both to show our common human nature and so that God may be revealed.
The details vary a bit between the Gospel about what, if anything, John and Jesus said and who heard the voice from heaven. But clearly the Holy Spirit appeared in this baptism and here in Mark, the heavens are torn apart, the boundary between heaven and earth is breached. Jesus’ baptism is thus connected with the two other times when the boundaries are “torn apart”—in the Transfiguration and at Jesus’ death, when the veil of the Temple, the boundary of the Holy of Holies, was torn from top to bottom.
Karl Barth wrote that God’s claiming of Jesus as his son in this reading summarizes the essence of the Gospel: God does not remain hidden in the heights of heaven but descends to the depths of earthly life so that we might see and hear him.
This naming of Jesus as the Son of God will be repeated at the Transfiguration; it is that title which convicts Jesus of blasphemy at his trial; and it is that title which the soldier repeats at the foot of the cross. Golgotha confirmed the title Jesus received at the River Jordan. God’s hailing of Jesus as “Son” was Jesus’ entrance onto the path that led inevitably to the Cross. And, just as with Jesus, our baptism starts us on a road where we bear our own cross and saving our own life only by losing it.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Exile and Return (Second Sunday after Christmas--January 4, 2009)
[Our lessons are Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 84; Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a; and Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23.]
Our Gospel reading today, unusually, focuses on Joseph, and hints at horror. Joseph, in response to an angel’s warning in a dream to flee to Egypt, acts without hesitation and takes Mary and the infant Jesus to safety.
What the Holy Family was fleeing was a hideous evil. Herod “the Great” did not hold on to power by being merciful and gentle. If you were seen as a threat, you were eliminated, ruthlessly, without mercy, and without concern as to your guilt or innocence.
So when Herod learned that people were saying that a newborn boy in Bethlehem was being called the King of the Jews, he decided to take no chances. No one could tell him which child was the King? No problem at all, just kill all the children!
This evil, this violence and fear, is as much a part of the Christmas story as the manger and the shepherds and the wise men. Palestine was a violent place where the poor were systematically brutalized and this simple peasant family was vulnerable enough that they had to go into exile to save their infant son’s life. We don’t know how many children were less fortunate and were killed.
Jesus’ family knew the experience of exile, of the need to flee their country because someone wanted them dead. While most of us here in America haven’t known that experience, unfortunately, it’s far too familiar to many people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and we don’t have to go back more than a few years to see it in Europe. Some have been in exile for many years and have little hope of returning home. The story of the Holy Family’s exile in Egypt should help us identify with the plight of all refugees.
In our Collect for this day, we praise God for creating and restoring the “dignity of human nature” and, in our Baptismal Covenant, we promise to “strive for justice and peace… and respect the dignity of every human being.” Anything we do, from contributing to the feeding and clothing of the homeless to advocating humane care and repatriation of refugees, is a mandate of our covenant with Jesus in Baptism.
We hear the theme of exile and return in our reading from Jeremiah. Jeremiah is writing about the return of the remnant of Israel from many years’ exile in Babylon. God will turn the mourning of the exiles into joy. The Church proclaims hope to the exiled—a hope of returning to their homes one day.
For we too are exiles, exiled in a world that promises great material wealth while it fails to satisfy our deepest desire to be in our spiritual home with God. We have not yet reached our true home and the refugee experience of the Holy Family reminds us that even Jesus, who began life as a homeless person in a stable, could lack a true home on earth.
Our Gospel reading today, unusually, focuses on Joseph, and hints at horror. Joseph, in response to an angel’s warning in a dream to flee to Egypt, acts without hesitation and takes Mary and the infant Jesus to safety.
What the Holy Family was fleeing was a hideous evil. Herod “the Great” did not hold on to power by being merciful and gentle. If you were seen as a threat, you were eliminated, ruthlessly, without mercy, and without concern as to your guilt or innocence.
So when Herod learned that people were saying that a newborn boy in Bethlehem was being called the King of the Jews, he decided to take no chances. No one could tell him which child was the King? No problem at all, just kill all the children!
This evil, this violence and fear, is as much a part of the Christmas story as the manger and the shepherds and the wise men. Palestine was a violent place where the poor were systematically brutalized and this simple peasant family was vulnerable enough that they had to go into exile to save their infant son’s life. We don’t know how many children were less fortunate and were killed.
Jesus’ family knew the experience of exile, of the need to flee their country because someone wanted them dead. While most of us here in America haven’t known that experience, unfortunately, it’s far too familiar to many people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and we don’t have to go back more than a few years to see it in Europe. Some have been in exile for many years and have little hope of returning home. The story of the Holy Family’s exile in Egypt should help us identify with the plight of all refugees.
In our Collect for this day, we praise God for creating and restoring the “dignity of human nature” and, in our Baptismal Covenant, we promise to “strive for justice and peace… and respect the dignity of every human being.” Anything we do, from contributing to the feeding and clothing of the homeless to advocating humane care and repatriation of refugees, is a mandate of our covenant with Jesus in Baptism.
We hear the theme of exile and return in our reading from Jeremiah. Jeremiah is writing about the return of the remnant of Israel from many years’ exile in Babylon. God will turn the mourning of the exiles into joy. The Church proclaims hope to the exiled—a hope of returning to their homes one day.
For we too are exiles, exiled in a world that promises great material wealth while it fails to satisfy our deepest desire to be in our spiritual home with God. We have not yet reached our true home and the refugee experience of the Holy Family reminds us that even Jesus, who began life as a homeless person in a stable, could lack a true home on earth.
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