“For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that for your sake he became poor although he was rich,
so that by his poverty you might become rich. ” (2 Cor 8:9)
Jesus is in our world. He is in our history. Jesus is here! But do we recognize Him?
There is so much violence in our world, both local and international. So much noise, so much chaos, so much injustice. How will we see and hear Jesus among us?
Jesus’ birth 2,000 years ago is described in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. While scripture scholars have debated the historical details of the infancy narratives, we know that the evangelists were not only trying to convey something about the facts of these events, but also deeper theological and spiritual truths.
Bethlehem, a small town near Jerusalem. We know that Bethlehem is important to the evangelists because the city connects Jesus to the royal line of King David, fulfilling the expectations of Old Testament prophets. However, we find out quickly that Jesus was not born into a political dynasty or a position of wealth and privilege. When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem from Nazareth, they could not find a place to stay. They were not greeted by friends or relatives. Nearby residents did not take them in. Instead, they were strangers, apparently unwelcome and lacking in means, forced to take rest in a makeshift place, possibly where animals were kept.
Some theologians believe that by placing Jesus’ birth in a manger, the evangelist Luke was directly answering the prophet Isaiah’s lament: “The ox knows its owner; and the donkey knows the manger of the Lord, but Israel has not known me, my people has not understood me. ” (Isa 1:3)Here Luke is emphasizing that with Jesus’ birth in the manger, we have a reversal: before Jesus’ birth, the people did not recognize God. With Jesus’ birth, the people could now recognize and know God, intimately, by seeing His Son.
Second, the evangelist places Jesus in the manger to connect him with the condition of poverty. Here again we have a reversal, this time about the Kingdom ushered in by Jesus:Jesus is King, but He refused earthly riches and power. In Genesis, Adam was not content with what he had in the Garden, but grasped the fruit of the tree which he was convinced would make him like God. In contrast, St. Paul tells us, “Though He was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself…” (Phil 2:6-8).
In the mystery of the Incarnation, God became man, retaining His divinity even as he assumed a human nature. Jesus was truly God and truly human, two natures in one divine person. As St. John tells us in the Gospel we will read on Christmas Day: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. ” (Jn 1:14)His self-emptying means not that He shed his divinity in becoming a human person, but that He refused the trappings of divinity and the grandeur of kingly power. But Jesus’ poverty was not limited to physical poverty. His self-emptying—alsoa kind of poverty—means that, though sinless, He took on the human condition and accepted suffering and death for our sake, thereby reconciling us with God, giving us a share in the divine life and opening up to us the riches of eternal life.
Through his humble birth, Jesus also elevated the dignity of the human person, especially the poorest among us, the stranger, and the unwelcomed. Indeed, He is in the poor, the weak, the outcast, the wounded, the fallen, the victim, and the alone!He is here and He reminds us, “Whatsoever you do for the least of my people, you do for me. ” (Mt. 25:40).
As we reflect on Jesus’ own poverty and the lack of welcome the Holy Family received as they arrived in Bethlehem, we must ask ourselves some difficult questions.
How do we treat the stranger?Are we welcoming, or do we turn the stranger away?Would we have shut our doors on Mary and Joseph in their time of need?
How do we treat the poor?Do we avoid the poor and ignore their neighborhoods because they make us uncomfortable?Would we have driven out of our way to avoid passing through the poor town of Bethlehem, missing the birth of Jesus on our way to the safety and comfort of the suburbs?
In Luke’s gospel, we are told that Mary and Joseph found themselves homeless in Bethlehem on their return there for a census. Census data in our own state shows that New Jersey is the second most expensive state for homeowners and the fourth most expensive for renters, with monthly housing costs nearly 50 percent higher than national averages. The state also has the nation’s highest property taxes. All of this has placed affordable housing out of the reach of the poor and even those of modest means.
Yet, even though New Jersey municipalities are legally obligated to provide affordable housing, they have been given a way to opt out of this through Regional Contribution Agreements (RCAs), whereby wealthy suburban towns pay the poorest towns to accept a share of their affordable housing. This arrangement is inherently unfair, for it concentrates the poor in the most impoverished cities, locking them into enclaves of disadvantage, out of sight and out of mind, with jobs and opportunity out of reach.
Finally, as we reflect on Jesus’ poverty, we might ask ourselves some hard questions about our constant reach for ever higher levels of monetary attainment. Recently, the New York Times drew attention to the increasing gap between the richest and poorest Americans. In an article, “The rich are getting richer and much faster,”the Times cited data from a new Congressional Budget Office report that found that the total 2005 income of the three million individual Americans at the top was about equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans.
Before the birth of Jesus, the conventional wisdom of the time suggested that righteousness was tied to material wealth and sinfulness with a life of misery and material want. Jesus, however, again inverts expectations. In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the poor man is carried by angels to the embrace of Abraham, while the rich man suffers eternal torment. There is nothing wrong with wealth, per se, but Jesus is reminding us that we must have a special concern for poor—a preferential option for the poor. Wealth is not an end in and of itself, but it exists to be shared and used for the benefit of the common good. As such, we must work to ensure just wages for our brothers and sisters while we use our wealth to lift up those most in need. We also must be careful not to become so captive to our wealth that we forego a life of humility and interior poverty that allows us to see Jesus in our neighbor and which calls to mind our total dependence on God. We must not become so focused on material gain that we fail to recognize and appreciate the riches of God’s grace and the gift of His Son.
Jesus is here. May this Christmas feast open our eyes and hearts so that we may see and love Him in whatever guise He takes!
May Jesus fill your life and being now and throughout the coming year!
Most Reverend Joseph A. Galante, D. D. , J. C. D.
Bishop of Camden