Bishops' Blog

Magi and Mission

Raymond Brown was a Roman Catholic priest and a great Biblical exegete in the 20th century. I commend his little book ‘An Adult Christ for Christmas,’ from which I am cribbing the idea for this blog.

Shaman, indigenous healer, astrologer, mystic, philosopher: any or all might translate who the ‘wise men’ were. Brown’s insight is this: their insight could bring a person to the general area where truth, light, and sanctity are found. But Brown goes on to point out that only the reference to the Scriptures of Israel can take the searcher to the very spot where the Christ-child lay.

Brown finds in this contrast a deep truth of Christian theology. By the ‘natural knowledge of God’ it means what we humans can understand of God by reason. Such knowledge however is broken, partial, and unclear- it gets us into the vicinity, but not there.

All of this leads then to the Feast of Epiphany as the celebration of the Christian mission. Now the nations are summoned to the light. And this involves the seeking heart, drawn to God, distorting Him, resisting Him, be as they made in His image and idolaters. The Epiphany would play itself out again and again over two millennia.

My New Year's Resolutions 2020

Most people have come to the proper conclusion that resolutions don’t work - a few weeks in we realize anew that we are incorrigible!  But I keep trying, so let me share with you mine, since they impinge on theology, actually.

2020 will of course  be an unremittingly political year. While I didn’t always agree with him, I did like John Howard Yoder’s book titled, ‘The Politics of Jesus.’ Our Lord may not be a Democrat or a Republican, but He has definite things to say to us about the topic nonetheless. It is for a clearer sense of this my own life that I strive in 2020.

I have come to the conclusion that the news is not good for my soul, full as it is of anger, and stirring up the same in me.  Or at least I will listen to it in Slow Spanish, where my energy will be consumed trying to recall some verb form or other. 

I will daily pray for the political figures that rile me the most; the New Testament required prayer for Caesar, no less.  I will in the immediate purview of my life turn so-called issues into the faces of actual people for whom God has given me a care.  I will ask the Lord to teach me how his grace is perfected in my own weakness, offending as it does my desire to control.  I will give thanks, as a Christian, for our flawed democracy, requiring as it does the art of compromise, since you and I are all good enough to aspire to it and evil enough to need it. I will give thanks for the concrete, local openings for the Holy Spirit in my and our own life, amidst so much that is daunting in this old world.  First among these are young leaders, to whom we pray for the wisdom to hand things over. 

Peace,

GRS