The Kingdom of Heaven is Within/Amongst You

Homily given by Fr. Pat Earl, a Priest at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, Washington, DC

HOLY FAMILY - A - 20007
Sirach 3, 2-7, 12-14 / Col 3, 12-21 / Matthew 2, 13-15, 19-23
Title: People Like Us

I want to talk about Christmas and about the feast we celebrate today: the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. But I want to begin with yet another story – an ancient story from the Middle East. It tells of a traveler in a desert who saw something approaching and thought at first it was a monster. Then it became an ugly man. But when the traveler looked into the man’s eyes, he realized he was his brother. Mistaken identity giving way to true identity – by looking more deeply. That’s the point of the story, I think, and that leads us to Christmas and this feast of the Holy Family.

Christmas is the feast of Incarnation – the feast of God being found in human flesh and life. And Christmas is the feast which invites us to look more deeply. There’s a little book I’ve read with the simple title Reverence. Its author is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who teaches philosophy and political thought. He says reverence is a forgotten virtue – sadly forgotten because it is the virtue which keeps us human beings from forgetting that we are all deeply human. Our reverent, thoughtful dealing with one another leads to the recognition all around of our deeper worth – our deeper truth. Reverence moves us from mistaken to true identity. It’s the look of the traveler into the man’s eyes.

Christmas reverence leads us to the recognition that God takes on human flesh and life in us and through us. God is with us! We are Emmanuel! God’s Christmas gift – the “good news of great joy” – is the announcement that the human – real people – people like us – is where God chooses to dwell. So we are not to seek God in some kind of other-worldliness, but rather to find him at home in the human. People – people are holy! People are very full of God.

And so to our feast today. Our families are where we will find the real, fleshy, touchable, seeable life of God. They are holy families. You are holy families! Would it not be a wonderful thing to really look into the eyes of our family and there find the living God? Christmas and this feast both tell us that is our true identity. We are where God chooses to reside and reveal himself.

Today’s gospel story from Matthew tells us something more about the Holy Family and our holy families. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were political refugees. For political reasons they were dislocated to Egypt and then relocated to Nazareth. Immigration was real for them. What people did with immigrants – how people treated immigrants – affected them as to where they could live and have a home. Yet their true identity – their deeper worth and truth – we capture in the words: Holy Family.

Christmas reverence requires we look more deeply into the eyes of refugees and immigrants in our midst. They too are holy families – holy strangers – very full of God. In Oklahoma, which recently made it a felony to knowingly harbor undocumented immigrants, Tulsa Bishop Edward Slattery issued a pastoral letter outlining a diocesan response to the new state statute, saying: “When it becomes a crime to love the poor and serve their needs, then I will be the first to go to jail.” The bishop is practicing Christmas reverence.

Again let us listen to Paul’s words to us from the second reading:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, ...with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

We give thanks for the gift of being holy families. In Christmas reverence we do not limit the gift just to ourselves. There is room in our inn.