Homily for Dec. 17 and Christmas Vigil

Homily for December 17
and the Christmas Vigil
2010
Matt 1: 1-17 (+18-25)
Ursulines, Willow Drive, N.R.
Willow Towers, New Rochelle

You hear all that list of names, and you say to yourself, “Boring!”

From St. Leo the Great: “To speak of our Lord, the son of the blessed Virgin Mary, as true and perfect man is of no value to us if we do not believe that he is descended from the line of ancestors set out in the Gospel. . . . For unless the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful humanity, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Father’s substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan.” (Readings, Dec. 17, LOH 4:320-21)

Raymond Brown: this is a summary of the entire gospel.

1. “Genealogy” could also be translated as “beginning.” The Greek word (Matt 1:1; cf. 1:18) is genesis, a conscious hearkening to the 1st words of the Bible. J.C. is a new creation. It’s fitting that the NT begins with Matthew even tho Mark’s gospel is the 1st historically.

2. God’s plan of salvation begins with Abraham and runs up to the Christ.

3. The promises made to Abraham and David are fulfilled in J.C.

4. Abraham was called from among the nations to begin God’s work. At the close of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus sends his disciples to the nations to complete the work.

5. The genealogical roster includes heroes: Abraham, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Joseph. It includes scoundrels: Jacob, Judah, David, most of the kings, whom R. Brown summarizes as “idolators, murderers, incompetents, power-seekers, and harem-wastrels.” It includes the famous and the unknown. All are God’s instruments. The roster symbolizes the Church (“here comes everybody!”), whose leaders and whose ordinary people are both saints and sinners.

6. Jacob-Israel, who gave his name to God’s people was the 2d-born; he was a deceiver and a liar. Judah, the father of the leading tribe of Israel, was the 4th-born son and refused to follow the law in regard to his daughter-in-law and consequently impregnated her thinking she was a prostitute.

7. The 4 OT women are all disreputable; 3 are foreigners (Tamar and Rahab Canaanites, Ruth a Moabite). Tamar displayed herself as a prostitute, Tamar was a prostitute, Ruth’s approach to Boaz may have been unseemly, Bathsheba was an adultress. They foreshadow the apparent disrepute of Mary’s pregnancy. The foreigners became part of God’s people and instruments of his redemptive plan, which reaches out to all the nations.

God’s ways aren’t our ways. We’re redeemed not by our own merits but by the graciousness of God.