Reality Beyond the Obvious

 HOMILY, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, YEAR B

JANUARY 3, 2021

 

TEXT:                        Matthew 2:13-15,19-23

 

 

            The columnist George Will is one of my favorite writers.  He brings insight and perspective to very complex issues.  His ability to turn a phrase is unmatched.

 

            He did so this week in one of his Washington Post columns. The chilling nature of that column – which minimizes the exception we perceive 2020 to be, while bracing for what will come in 2021 or later – reminds us that we are not masters of our fate. We are, all of us, sojourners on this journey. Temporary visitors to this creation.  And, I would add from my perspective, we are all cradled as citizens in a realm that is not of this world. 

 

            That truth was simply illustrated in the story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt today.

 

            We all have felt the sting of the past year and the impact of the COVID pandemic.  George Will reminds us that such a traumatic experience is not unique in our world.  He details the ravages of the Spanish Flu early in the 20^th Century in which killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide.  And the Bubonic Plague of the 14^th Century, which killed 10 percent of the world’s population and one-third of all people in Europe.

 

            And he did not stop there.  Yellowstone Park, one of the most beautiful places on earth, was ground zero of a volcanic eruption 630,000 years ago and coated half the continent with ash. Other, more catastrophic eruptions have taken place in the last 200 years.

 

            His point is this:  We are not masters of our fate.  The world we live in will not end well – either with terminal cold, or incinerating heat.  We are sojourners – visitors to this place; refugees, if you will.

 

            As was the Holy Family. Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus fled Herod’s wrath into Egypt.  They found solace and safety there.

 

            In the 18^th Chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.”  That is true.  The Gospel – literally, the good news – is not terracentric… it is not earth-bound, limited to this creation.  The love of God and his redeeming power is transcendent – over, under, around and through all of creation. It is a parallel reality to what we know as reality – but more pervasive.  It escapes our notice, except in those moments of here and there, now and again. It is like smoke in our hands, but more abiding that the world we know around us.

 

             It is not dependent on our place in this world, or our citizenship in an earthly realm.