King of the Jews - Lord of all Nations

Jesus was Jewish. His mother, Mary, and Joseph were Jewish. Like the Jews of their day, they observed all the commandments of the Old Testament and worshiped in the Temple. In today’s gospel, the magi call Jesus, “The King of the Jews”, and the New Testament affirms that He is the Messiah the Jewish people had long awaited. When Jesus began preaching, all His followers were Jewish including the apostles.

Why, then, are we Christians and not Jews?

This is a good question that young people in particular often ask. Though it would take more than an eight minute sermon to answer it fully, we can discuss it as it relates to the feast we are celebrating today - the Epiphany of the Lord.

The simple answer as to why we are Christians rather than Jews is that we believe in Jesus. Christianity revolves around the person of Jesus Christ. All the rules, practices and teachings that we as Catholics observe center on coming to know, love and serve Him better. Therefore, we are Christians because we believe that Jesus Christ is more than a prophet or wise teacher. We believe that He is God and, most importantly, that we can have a relationship with Him.

The Jews have always been God’s chosen people. From all the nations on the earth, He selected them to be the people who would experience His special care and love. To them alone, He revealed His commandments and worked miracles to bring them to the Promised Land. Why did He do that? So that the other nations would see how good and wise the people of Israel were and come to believe in the one, true God. Our Heavenly Father’s dream was to make Israel a model of his power and love so that other nations would abandon their pagan idols and be drawn into His loving embrace. Through the prophet Isaiah God says in today’s first reading: “Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.”

In particular, God promised to send a Messiah to the people of Israel. He would be a just king and ruler whose kingdom would never end. Not only would he rule over Israel, but his dominion would extend over the whole world as we hear proclaimed in today’s responsorial psalm: “May he rule from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” Through the Messiah, God’s dream to unite all peoples and nations into one kingdom of peace and justice would be fulfilled.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ is this Messiah. He is the one whom all the prophets of the Old Testament foretold as we read in today’s gospel: “And you, Bethlehem,...from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” He is the King of the Jews whose birth was heralded by the star. At the same time, He is born to rule over all peoples - Jews and non-Jews alike as Saint Paul teaches us in today’s second reading: “...the Gentiles (that is, non-Jews) are co-heirs...in the promise in Christ Jesus…” Jesus is the Messiah who unites people of every race, nation, language and way of life into the one Kingdom of God.

The word “epiphany” means “revelation”. On this feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, we celebrate the revelation of Jesus as Messiah not only for the people of Israel but for all the nations. The Magi, or “Wise Men” are not Jews. Because they do not have the Bible to guide them, they relied on the stars to try to understand God’s will. Nonetheless, they receive the news of Jesus’ birth with great joy. Upon seeing Him, they fall down in worship and offer Him gifts. They recognize that He is the King not only for the Jews but for them as well. And we can believe that when they left Bethlehem they stopped looking for guidance from stars and began to look to Jesus instead for true wisdom and knowledge.

We rejoice today because God offers to us non-Jews all the blessings He first gave to His chosen people. In a real sense, through Jesus, we are made citizens of the new Israel, with all the rights and privileges that go with it. Now, the question is, will we make use of all those rights and privileges? Will we accept Jesus as our Lord and Messiah? Will we live by the light He offers us or will we prefer the dim light of other stars? Will we follow Jesus or choose other masters? The Magi risked everything to follow the star to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem to see for themselves the newborn King of the Jews. Are we willing to leave our comfort zone, to change our attitudes and risk everything to let Jesus rule over our lives?

The word “catholic” means “universal”. We are Catholics because we believe that Jesus’ Kingdom is universal, embracing all people. There is no person no matter what his or her race, religion or language whom God does not love and want to save. It is up to us, now, to take up Israel’s mission of being a light to the nations. We are to live in such a way that others notice our goodness and ask about the God we worship. God’s dream now is to make each of us stars leading others to Jesus so that His Kingdom can conquer the world one heart at a time and so that everyone can come to know the peace that only Jesus, the King of the Jews and Savior of the World, can give.

To Conscience!!

These comments are inspired by an opinion piece I discovered on-line by a retired priest named Fr. Emmett Coyne which was brought to my attention thanks to the blogging of Deacon Greg Kandra. Fr. Coyne's piece can be found on Deacon Kandra's blog at http://deacbench.blogspot.com.

In all fairness to Fr. Coyne, he is not attempting a systematic treatment of conscience in the life of the voting Catholic. Nonetheless, he lays out the issue in a way which I think obscures the important points he is raising.

I always feel uncomfortable when conscience and authority are assumed to be at odds with each other. In point of fact, they are partners. Conscience depends on external moral authorities, and external moral authorities rely on conscience. Fr. Coyne demonstrates this by using authorities to support his argument for conscience. He tells us the story of his friend whose allegiance to the Democratic party compelled him to leave priestly ministry, recalls the heroic witness of Franz Jagerstatter who refused to join the German army in World War II and cites the classic work on conscience by Cardinal Newman, "A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk". Fr. Coyne's position as a Catholic priest is also a source of authority for his argument. Since I cannot pretend to be his equal in terms of service to the Church nor probably in terms of education, I will have to rely on the authority of reason and my powers of persuasion to make my case. Either way, conscience always makes reference to external moral authorities. This is because the moral life is a shared, community effort.

Not only do our consciences rely on authority to help them in their formation, but authority itself relies on conscience. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, to give one example, is comprised of men who are themselves endowed with consciences. They bring their consciences to bear daily when interpreting and applying the Church's teaching. And, what is the Church's teaching if not two thousand years of committed Christians in conscience applying the truths of Sacred Scripture to the demands of everyday life?

It is true that conscience and authority often find themselves at loggerheads. Nonetheless, defining or illustrating them as warring factions, I fear, obscures their role in the moral development of Christians and the witness of the People of God in modern society.

All this being said, the heart of the issue is that each individual Catholic must vote according to his or her conscience. The hierarchy may not dictate a candidate or political party to us. Nonetheless, Catholics have a right to receive guidance from the Church's teaching authority in the development and exercise of their consciences. This includes guidance as it relates to political and social issues. I agree with Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, Colorado when he argues that abortion is the "foundational" moral issue of our time. That is, the issue of abortion challenges us as a nation to decide whether the right to life will extend to all human beings or whether one group of humans will be able to judge the lives of others as unwanted, undesirable or burdensome and so worthy of destruction. War, unequal distribution of wealth, the death penalty and the environment among others are no doubt pressing moral issues. Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine that any of these trumps abortion in scope or in its sheer number of victims.

One might argue that the sum of those other moral issues outweighs the one issue of abortion and necessitates a vote for a pro-abortion candidate as a lesser evil. Or, one may argue that even the most devoted pro-life candidate will not be able to overturn Roe-vs-Wade single-handedly. I wouldn't expect to be convinced by those arguments personally, but they could be made more or less successfully as a proportionate reason for voting for a pro-abortion candidate. My sense is that this is Fr. Coyne's position. If he had focused on making a case for this proportionate reason, his article would have been more helpful.

The real tragedy in all this is that we have lost the ability to speak to one another about these moral issues. We tend to set up opposing camps and fire barbs at each other from behind our fortified walls. One wonders whether being Republican or Democrat, pro-life or pro-abortion, liberal or conservative is now any different from being a Red Sox fan or a Dodger's fan. When we set up a discussion of conscience and authority as antagonists rather than partners in the search for truth, we only make dialogue more difficult. By giving the impression that the conscientious Catholic may poo-poo the hierarchy in political and social matters, I fear that Fr. Coyne's article contributes to the antagonism rather than facilitates the dialogue.