From Straw to Stones

Gospel: Matthew 10: 17-22

Now that suburban Christmas is over, the days of the Christmas season begin in earnest with a string of feast days celebrating martyrs.  To those paying attention to the actual Christmas story, this string of feasts is not a radical departure but a fundamental continuation of the Christmas story.  That Jesus and his parents suffered homelessness and rejection, the hardship of being a refugee to escape death at the hands of Herod and his religious cronies portends our life as followers of Jesus.

The life of the one who genuinely seeks to follow the Lord Jesus is one of homelessness and constantly seeking refuge and safety in a world that rejects the message of love and peace.  The powers of the world will ever reject such a message, for power and wealth are had by division, warfare, and the exploitation of others.  To reject that path of the world is to embrace the way from the crib to the cross, a fragile existence in a world that ultimately is not our home.

During the octave of Christmas we reflect on this journey of Jesus' first days on earth that looked ahead to his entire life journey to the cross.  We reflect on our own journey as disciples of the Lord Jesus.  If we identify with the homeless and with refugees in our world as Jesus did, we are following the authentic path of the Christian life. For the one who was himself homeless and a refugee came to spend his life in caring for the poor and marginalized, making that the ultimate test of judgment.