WHO BELONGS
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
January 05, 2020
My youngest
sister is Korean-born, and she has all the physical appearance of that. She is
now well into her 40’s and still has jet black hair and deep brown skin. I am more
than a little jealous of her good looks. I have a photograph of her on a shelf
in my office, and recently I was conversing with a parishioner who noticed it
and asked me who it was. When I explained she said, “Is she adopted…or are
you?” I had never before considered the question that way. I realized at that
moment that I had always assumed that the answer would be obvious to anyone who
saw us together, even without knowing our backgrounds. But why in the world
should I assume that?
The question
put before me the fact that I still carry around with me some assumptions about
race, specifically about what I think constitutes the natural or “normal”
condition in MN or maybe even in my own family and what are the “exceptions.”
Or more accurately, who are the exceptions. I felt humbled and challenged by
that realization—and rightly so. I prefer to think that I am not someone who
walks around with presumptions about people that are based on race and culture,
but maybe I am.
I don’t
think of her as my Korean sister. I think of her as my sister. She’s never been
an “exception” to me.
And I
remember her once telling me something that I found amazing. She and I both
grew up in lily-white suburbia back in the day, and she said that it never
occurred to her that her physical appearance was different from anybody else’s
until she got to high school. I wondered how that was possible. I still do.
This year we
were together on Christmas Eve, and she was laughing at the fact that she works
as a server at a family-owned Thai restaurant in Maple Grove and most of the
customers just assume she’s part of that family because the natives here aren’t
necessarily very good at making distinctions. Korea? Thailand? Who knows?
That may be
true and amusing when it comes to dining out, but it is dead serious when it
comes to other things—like immigration and like religious faith. My sister’s
story about high school told me that children do not naturally become obsessed,
or even curious, about racial and cultural differences. Somewhere along the way
they learn to sort people out, the so-called “normals” from the “exceptions.”
Normal relative to what? Exceptional compared with whom? This is all entirely
relevant to our liturgical feast today, and our Sacred Scripture readings for
Epiphany. Because just behind this seemingly charming story of the visit of the
Magi to the manger is a conflict about race, culture, and religion.
Simply put,
the Magi should have failed all three tests. They were probably from Persia
(what ironically today we call Iran), not from Israel. They were pagans,
star-worshippers, not Jews. And they knew nothing about the traditions of the
bible. They had to ask where the infant king was to be born, when every
observant Jew already knew that Bethlehem had been prophesied for centuries as
the place. (Herod, of course, the so-called King of Israel, didn’t know that)
The Magi in this story are decidedly not “normal” among the Jews. In that
respect, they don’t really belong there at all. But for Matthew, they are the
wise heroes.
Where were
all the normals around Jesus’ crib? Nobody among them was interested. The Magi
brought priceless gifts and their worship, while the citizens of Israel didn’t
bother to come at all.
And here’s
the point of the gospel: St. Matthew was writing it to the citizens of Israel.
This story would have stung any Jew who dared to hear it. These foreigners
perceived and adored the Messiah whom none of the locals recognized—worse than
that, their leader Herod and his religious advisory council was out to kill him
when the baby should be discovered. This Christmas good news was first hailed
by the alien travelers.
We often
tend to think that the Jewish faith was first opened to being shared with us
Gentiles when St. Paul came along, sometime after Jesus’ death and resurrection
and Paul’s conversion. Paul speaks of that today in our 2nd reading.
But both Prophet Isaiah and Matthew’s gospel tell a very different story. This
Savior was intended for everyone from the very beginning—every race, every
culture, every language, every religion. It is we who were very slow to
recognize it, perhaps blinded by our own biases about who/what is “normal” in
our religion/society, and who/what is “exceptional”—or maybe even evil.
We are still
often slow and blind even today. Whenever we make the gospel less compelling
than a person’s cultural or racial or religious or immigration status, we need
an Epiphany. Whenever we are inclined to believe that God’s care and compassion
is meant only for some human beings—the normals—and not others, we need an
Epiphany. Whenever we begin first to evaluate people with adjectives, like
white, black, Korean, Iranian, Muslim, Jewish, alien, migrant, rich poor,
Democratic, Republican, gay, straight, ordained, lay, virtuous, sinful, normal,
exceptional…we need an Epiphany.
“Is she
adopted, or are you?” What a profound way to pose the question. We are all
adopted by the same God in the same way. We are his beloved creatures.
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