Christmas Homily 2011

HOMELESS FAMILY FOUND IN SHED

 

The birth of Jesus Christ over 2000 years ago is still news. This birthday is “in the news” each December, because of the music, the decorations, the gift giving, the celebrations, the commercialism and even the church services surrounding Christmas day. For the Christian believer of course, the birth of Jesus is the Good News of salvation.

 

For us Catholics, what news headline would best capture the news of the birth of Jesus Christ?  “Savior Born for All Nations” certainly expresses our faith in the meaning of Jesus.  “Messiah Born in Bethlehem” connects this birth with the Old Testament tradition that prepared its way.  No brief caption says it all, but let me suggest one headline that tells an important truth about the birth of Jesus Christ, a truth that easily gets lost in weeks of buying and spending.  The headline?  “Homeless Family Found In Shed.”

 

I am not trying to hijack the birth of Christ for political or economic commentary, nor am I trying to trivialize this mystery of divine love.  However, our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, on one occasion prayed in these words: “that the Spirit of Christ, who was poor and humble, may bring about in the Church more effective solidarity with the distressed and underprivileged.”

 

The fact that Jesus lived in poverty was not an accident it was a part of God’s plan.  Jesus was born in a borrowed stable and buried in a borrowed tomb.  While she was pregnant Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and prayed the Magnificat, in which she praised God who “has lifted up the lowly” and “filled the hungry with good things.”  In St. Matthew’s Gospel we are told that very quickly the homeless Holy Family became immigrants in Egypt. Later on, much of the teaching of Jesus sprang from his love for the poor and his own experience of poverty.  He pointed out the generosity of the poor widow; he told parables about people headed toward debtors’ prison; he bothered with penniless beggars, when few others did.  When Jesus described the final divine judgment of all women and men, it was in terms of whether or not they had fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless, welcomed the stranger and visited prisoners and the sick. In these difficult economic times, with millions of hungry, homeless and jobless people, this teaching resonates all the more loudly.

 

But Jesus showed his deepest compassion toward a kind of homelessness that is different from having no roof over your heads.  It is the homelessness of unbelief.  The light that Isaiah says shines on the people in darkness (in that first reading) is the light of faith.  The darkness of unbelief leads us to stumble along blindly, wholly lost and wholly consumed with ourselves.  The land of gloom Isaiah speaks of is all too familiar to us: a land obsessed with grabbing and having, worshiping success and ignoring misery, bitterly divided between haves and have-nots, distrustful of strangers and betraying loved ones and friends and tolerating violence as long as it happens across town or across a bridge.

 

Into this sad spiritual country at Christmas comes Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the just and eternal Judge, born as an infant, born as Paul says, to redeem us, to be “our blessed hope.”  How does Jesus give us this hope?  By giving us something to believe in?  No.  He does it by giving us someone to believe in – Himself. Jesus Christ becomes our Truth. Instead of making up and changing our own truth from time to time, instead of borrowing truth for a while from someone who writes a bestseller or talks well on TV, instead of denying desperately that there is any such thing as truth, we believers have Jesus the Lord as our Way, our Truth and our Life.  Our minds and hearts do not have to wander homeless - we have a home in the heart of Christ, who calls us together as a family of faith, in his Church.

 

The Son of God emptied himself and took on human homelessness so that all of us could come home from the exile of sin to the welcoming arms of the Prodigal Father.  Through our Catholic faith Jesus Christ relieves our hunger and thirst with his Body and Blood in Eucharist; he covers our spiritual nakedness with the garments of faith and truth and wisdom; Jesus visits and frees and forgives us when we are imprisoned or sick in our sins; he makes brothers and sisters out of strangers in the community of the Church.  We are the spiritually homeless people and the roof Jesus puts over our heads is his Catholic Church, welcoming all.

 

After this homily, when we stand up to profess our faith, we will not declare that our deepest faith is in the President, or the Congress, or the State Legislature, or the stock exchange, or the cost-of-living index, or the armed forces or Social Security. Instead, we will proclaim that our deepest faith is in the Father who created us, in the Son, born at Bethlehem and crucified and risen at Jerusalem, who redeemed us, and in the Holy Spirit, who fills us with the life of the Father and Son and unites us as a living Church.

 

In the Catholic Church we are called to become those people Paul describes in the second reading, the people Jesus cleanses for his own, eager to do what is right.  We are invited to become the people for whom the light shone, and the angels sang on that blessed night, “Glory to God in high heaven, peace on earth to those on whom his favor rests.”  

 

What does that mean in practice for our daily lives? Remember, Jesus who was born in a stable is concerned with all human suffering, physical as well as spiritual.  Jesus was not a social activist but a savior from sin, a giver of grace and eternal life, as well as the supreme expression of God’s love for us.  However, as Lord he did teach that we cannot receive or return God’s love, unless we share it daily and concretely with one another, especially with those most in need of our loving.  We cannot honor his birth if we cosmeticize the stable and observe his birthday with just a spending spree.  The carols, the lights and the beautifully carved figures in the crèche honor Christ only if they lead us to imitate his generous love for the most needy among us.  Jesus became poor to make us rich in God’s life, now and forever.  We complete the circle of that love when we share what we have with our neighbors in need.

 

May God bless all of you and your families in this Christmas season, and give you joy and closeness to him in the New Year. May your celebrations and your quiet times be filled with a sense of the presence of the Infant of Bethlehem. Because of our gratitude and our generosity, may the Good News among us continue to be “Homeless Family Found in Shed.”