God's Plan -- Then and Now

	Fr. Roger Vermalen Karban

The readings for Sunday, January 4, 2004, Epiphany are Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6 and Matthew 2:1-12.

Though today’s feast emphasizes the revelation (epiphany) of Jesus as God to the Gentiles, our readings also emphasize the revelation of how Gentiles fit into God’s eternal plan.

We can never forget that our ancestors in the faith were Jews, not Gentiles. And as Jews, they presumed they were yahweh’s chosen people; completely distinct from those non-chosen individuals who populated the world around them. To say they had a superiority complex is an understatement. Since they knew nothing of an afterlife as we know it, they never said Gentiles couldn’t get into heaven. (Until about 100 years before Jesus’ birth, Jews had no idea there even was a heaven.) They simply presumed the joy and fulfillment they experienced in their Yahweh-filled lives was missing from the lives of their Gentile neighbors. Most Israelites believed non-Jews were outside any plan Yahweh had for the world. Yahweh worked through Jews, not Gentiles.

But one element in Judaism, the prophets, constantly tried to integrate Gentiles into Yahweh’s over-all plan. As reformers of their religion, prophets were concerned with broadening the mentality of their people. They habitually reminded Jews that Yahweh wasn’t limited by the restrictions they put on their faith.

Third-Isaiah’s message in our first reading is well-known. Yet, few of us understand that one of his goals is to get Jews in Babylon to leave the security and wealth of the country in which their ancestors were exiled, and return to rebuild Jerusalem. The prophet believed it was Yahweh’s will that they do both. Once they did, they’d see how their faith in Yahweh affected those outside Judaism.

“Nations (Gentiles) shall walk by your light,” the prophet promises, “and kings by your shining radiance ... Caravans of camels shall fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of Yahweh.” In other words, “If you do what God expects you to do, even those who don’t share your faith will benefit from your faith, and begin to relate to you and your God.”

As far as we can tell, the ancient Jewish prophets believed these “faithful” Gentiles would convert to Judaism in the process of relating to Yahweh. That was how early Christians dealt with Gentiles who wanted to relate to Jesus. They welcomed them into the church only after they converted to Judaism.

Eventually people like Paul came along and began to accept Gentiles into the Christian community as Gentiles, not as Jewish converts. We hear his belief in today’s Ephesians pericope. “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.”

Twenty years after Paul’s martyrdom, Matthew shows that he shares his conviction about Gentiles. He includes a story in his infancy narrative in which pagan, Gentile astrologers discover Jesus by using pagan techniques: following a star. Notice that Herod’s Scripture scholars, knowing from their studies where the Messiah is to be born, refuse to go the few miles down the Jerusalem-Bethlehem road to find him. Only the non-Scripture reading astrologers go to Bethlehem.

We can’t hear these three readings without asking which people we’re excluding from God’s plan today. Though we’re willing to accept outsiders into our company as long as they convert to our beliefs, customs and morality, we rarely see that people can still be part of God’s plan without converting. Perhaps we, like the first Christians, are called to convert to a larger plan of God than our self-righteousness permits us to see.