Sunday Homily, January 6, 2-13, Epiphany C
Readings:
Isaiah 60, 1-6, Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem, Your light has come.
Psalm 72, Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Ephesians 3, 2-6, The Gentiles are coheirs.
Matthew 2, 1-12, Magi from the east arrived.
Isaiah, a review
Here is another of those passages which make me love Isaiah so much. I have mentioned this before. He is my favorite.
Today we have Isaiah III talking again to the Jews who have returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian Captivity, about 550 years before Christ. It helps to picture the mood of these people. Are you a Sooner Fan? How did you feel at about midnight Friday night? Multiply this by 10 and you have how the Jewish people felt after 50 years of slavery and their town destroyed like New Orleans or parts of NY & NJ.
When he says Jerusalem or Zion, he is talking to these beaten down people. Later centuries church leaders began to make these words have two meanings. Jerusalem, then, applies to us.
Sources: Good News Bible, The New Interpreter’s Bible
An Epiphany
I would like to talk this morning about the Epiphany in our every day lives or on special events. I define an epiphany as a new awareness, a new understanding, greater appreciation.
I did something Friday morning that I had never done before in my life and about which I have been curious. I did a route for Meals on Wheels.
This came about because next door to us lives an 18 year old girl who is a senior at Greenhill and getting ready to attend Colgate next fall. The girl, Sydney, texted me the other day inviting me to join her on her community service program. It is helpful for her to have an adult or companion on her runs, her parents were busy, and we have done these things before.
We picked up our food at the V.N.A., the Visiting Nurses Assoc. head office on Mockingbird near the entrance to Love Field. This was eye opening enough for another homily. We had 17 people listed on a page and they all resided in a high rise apartment building just east of Central going toward Fair Park. The building has 13 floors with about 15 apartments per floor.
Three observations:
- These people are not wealthy and they were mostly black. What they are is so grateful and so friendly. In the lobby, the corridors, and in the elevators, greetings, chats, cordiality, and grateful comments like, “What you are doing is really good.” And this even from folks who were not getting meals, but just observing. I felt such consolation being around these people.
- My neighbor and friend Sydney. I tell her, “Sydney, you are ruining my life again,” as she drives me over to pick up the meals at the Visiting Nurses’ Office.
First, she showed me long distance bike riding. She & some other girls rode down the west coast from like Seattle to San Francisco a few years ago. The idea was planted and when Dembney last winter mentioned Ragbrai and Iowa, even though I told him he was crazy at the time, look what happened to me last July.
Sydney next got me to serve meals at the Bridge. That led Rosemary and me to the Austin St. Shelter, and then to Soul’s Harbor with Brent, where we are really plugged in, even as a community.
And now what: Meals on Wheels, a marvelous phenomenon. This girl has been an epiphany for me.
3. Third observation: this extraordinary service program for high school kids. When I taught English & Latin & history at Jesuit in the mid-60’s, there was no service program. I come back to the States in 1990, and most private secondary schools all have the program.
Sydney told me the Greenhill program sets 24 hours a year. I noticed Jesuit has 100 hours for seniors.
The programs are terrific, not just for the high school kids, but also for old geezers like me who get invited along as adult companions and have such marvelous experiences.
Friday was an epiphany experience for me. It led to something unexpected and beautiful.
What is your recent epiphany?
For whom are you an epiphany?