The Spirit’s Road

	Fr. Roger Vermalen Karban

The readings for Sunday, January 6, 2002, the Epiphany of the Lord, are Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2:1-12.

In a recent homily I asked the young members of our parish community why they enjoyed reading Harry Potter novels. Though most just shrugged, smiled, and tried to avoid looking at me, Kyle Reinhold quietly responded, “Because you never know what’s going to happen next.”
That’s the same reason so many early Christians liked their faith. They never knew what road the Spirit was going to take them down next.

Today’s feast celebrates this discovery dimension of our faith.
Accustomed to identifying faith with religion, many of us think the former is just a set of truths — mostly church statements and dogmas — to which we adhere. We study them, put them into creeds, recite them on special occasions, then sleep better at night — totally bored.

Our ancestors in the faith could not have understood such a sterile description of the most exciting experience of their lives. Faith for them was a new way of looking at everything and everyone they encountered; a force which constantly expanded their minds and hearts.

We hear that force at work even in the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures. In today’s first reading, for instance, Third-Isaiah realizes the tedious, post-exile work of rebuilding Jerusalem will have effects beyond Judaism. “Nations (Gentiles) shall walk by your light,” he promises, “and kings by your shining radiance. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you.” Do we, like the prophet, believe that what we do here will one day have an unexpected effect beyond here?

Jesus’ first followers did. Though they all began their faith journey as practicing Jews, by the middle of the first century they had evolved into a community which welcomed people of all religious, nationalities, and races. They never could have anticipated such openness and universality on Easter Sunday night. Yet the more they uncovered the implications of the risen Jesus among them, the more they noticed him working in people they formerly had excluded from faith.

Paul, in our Ephesians passage, refers to this Gentile phenomenon as “. . . the mystery made known to me by revelation. It was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” This statement can only mean the historical Jesus gave his followers no instruction about admitting non-Jews into their communities; the instruction only came later, from the Holy Spirit.

When the liberal element of the early church, inspired by this Spirit, started bringing Gentiles into the community without first making them Jews, problems arose with the conservative element. This seems to be one of the reasons Matthew includes the famous story of the magi in his Infancy Narrative. These travelers are not kings; they’re Gentile astrologers who find Jesus by the forbidden pagan practice of following stars.
There’s no way we can habitually put down non-Christian religions and still celebrate today’s feast. Matthew tells us that belonging to the “true faith” guarantees us nothing if we don’t live that faith.

What saves the magi is their knack of searching for God’s presence among us. Ironically, Matthew’s Jewish/Christian community could more easily identify with these pagan star-followers than with their fellow Jews who, like Herod’s wise men, had answers to questions they never asked.

Remember how Deutero-Isaiah asks God to open his ears every morning, and Mark’s Bartimaeus wants only to see? True followers of God are on a constant quest to discover God. They never presume they already have God.

Even Harry Potter readers would be excited by that kind of faith.