The Second Sunday after Christmas

In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God. Amen.

A happy New Year to you all! And a blessed last Sunday after Christmas!

The new year is often a time of intention setting, resetting, a time of thinking about what we want to learn and how we want to grow as individuals. We may think about fruits and vegetables that we want to eat, where we may want to travel, how we may want to engage the unknown, fresh, 365 days ahead of us.

And sometimes, at least for me, it can be a time of forgetting the existential and global scale of crises going on.

But sure enough, on the morning of January 3, just yesterday, we were all reminded of the complex and war-brimming world we inhabit.

It’s hard not to address, in some way, shape, or form, the most recent global shock. Just yesterday morning, our country launched an attack on Venezuela and captured their president and his wife and brought them back here to face trial.

Some Venezuelans rejoice saying that their country is now liberated from Maduro’s oppressive regime. Others see this as a profound threat to their sovereignty. Both are likely true. I won’t labor on about the complexities of this situation, I am a priest, not an international relations specialist, and you can read your news of choice for their hot takes. 

But.

The political realities which shape our world are very much intertwined with our selves, our faith, our hopes. It is the world - in all of its various shapes, including the political - which God calls us to act within. It is the world, the political world included, in which God seeks liberation of all people and the salvation of all people through the saving power of Jesus Christ.

Our Gospel today, after all, does not shy away from the complexities of global crisis and political existence.

In fact, shortly after our incarnate God was born of Blessed Mary, the Holy Family is warned to flee from their home to Egypt. Herod, as it turns out, wanted to eradicate any threat to his kingship and power through infanticide.

So the Holy Family migrates.

Jesus is a migrant.

In short, God is directly involved in the political realities of our world. Religion and politics are not as separate a sphere as we might want to think.

The life of the incarnate God involves border crossing. Migration for safety. Oppressive governmental regimes.

The life of the incarnate God involves a family seeking a better life for their child. It involves displacement and unknown languages and new customs.

The life of the incarnate God. The life of Jesus, the one whom we worship, involves being a refugee.

The life of the incarnate God begins with not just being with the most vulnerable, but being the most vulnerable. And it is political.

We look around at our world, at our nation, today and we see egregious actions being taken against the poor, the vulnerable, the oppressed, the immigrant, the refugee. We see hearts being hardened in our government. We see families being ripped apart.

Evil forces stalk the halls of power, and the darkness of the human heart is on full display with current machinations of global actors.

And it has always been this way. This is not new. This is always a threat.

And God experiences this too, as the Christchild, as a refugee.

What does this mean for our faith? What does this mean for us?

First and foremost, it shows God’s preferential option for the poor, for the most vulnerable. This term comes from the Roman Catholic Church’s rich history of social teaching wherein it is understood that the hungry, the weak, the sick, the lonely, the powerless, the oppressed, are particularly favored by God.

And it is to these people that we see Christ most powerfully present in.

And it is to these people that we are called to serve and support and fight for as deeply faithful Christians.

And God fully aligns with these people - not merely by many, many passages of Scripture where the Prophets proclaim God’s support for the widow, the orphan, and the alien. And when I say many, there are so many passages of scripture where God supports the poor and vulnerable - see Leviticus 19:9-10 where God sets aside a portion of the harvest for the poor and the alien. Or Proverbs 31:8-9 where God calls us to speak out in defense of the poor.

God fully aligns with the weak in society by becoming one of them.

Immanuel. God with us. God with the most vulnerable.

And so it is not a stretch, it is not some wild, woke theology to understand that the refugees and immigrants and impoverished peoples we see being wronged by governments throughout the world are those who Christ calls us to serve and support. 

And, it is in these people in whom we encounter Christ perhaps most powerfully.

The infant babe is fleeing from a murderous government.

The adult, is crucified by Roman imperial might.

Christ the refugee. Christ the crucified. Christ the one in a detention center.

The scale of the suffering of the world is overwhelming. And we are mortal, finite beings with only so much time and energy allotted to our bodies. We cannot be everything, everywhere, all at once. We cannot fix everything.

But we can pray. We can serve. We can support. All in different ways.

Critically, what the Scriptures teach us is that our service is resourced from our profound wellspring of faith. Faith in a God who acts for justice. Faith in a God who suffered with us and for us. Faith in a God who brings light and life.

Faith in a God in whom the darkness does not overcome.

When we are rooted in Christ. When we feed our faith. When we are fed spiritually, nourished by the very Body and Blood of our Lord, by strong community, steeped in the Holy Scriptures and prayer, we can more clearly, more fully, stand up to the forces of evil and darkness in our world one step at a time.

There is much to hope for in the New Year.

There is also much to work towards. Much to fight for. Much to ponder.

But if we remain rooted in Christ. If we are resourced by our God. If we recall that the incarnate God aligns Godself with the poorest, and most vulnerable, by becoming one of them, then we can see that the work we do in our communities is because of our profound faith in our loving, life-giving, and liberating God who became a human.

The incarnation is, afterall, political.

Amen.