Outsmarting the Old

Appreciating the feast of the Epiphany

01/02/2022

Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6 Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation. It was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Today’s feast of the Epiphany in a sense explains the deepest difference between the Old and New Testaments. In other words, as much as the two Testaments share in common, there is also a ginormous gap between the two. Maybe it can be illustrated by a little humor. An Irish priest and a rabbi get into a car accident. They both get out of their cars and stumble over to the side of the road. The rabbi says: “Oy vey! What a wreck!” The priest asks: “Are you all right, rabbi?” The rabbi answers, holding his head with his hands: “Yes, just a bit shaken.”

The priest pulls out a flask of whiskey from his coat and offers it: “Here, drink some of this, it will help calm your nerves.” The rabbi takes the flask and drinks it down, and says: “Well, what are we going to tell the police?” The priest answers with a smile: “I don’t know what you’re aft’ to be tellin’ them. But I’ll be tellin’ them that I wasn’t the one drinking.”

Now, if we imagine the rabbi as representing the Old Testament and the priest in the place of the New Testament, we can see an example of how the New outsmarts the Old. But of course, there is a more serious and significant way the New Testament outsmarts the Old Testament, namely, in who is welcome into the People of God. Put simply, who can be saved? In the Old Testament, salvation was determined by ethnicity: do you have Jewish blood running through your veins?

In the New Testament, by contrast, salvation is determined by baptism and the Eucharist, that is, are you born again by water and have Jesus’ Blood running through your veins? And this is the meaning of the Epiphany: salvation is not based on ethnicity but on the Epiphany, symbolized by the Magi who came from all over the world. In other words, everyone is welcome to salvation, and not just the Jews. That difference definitively distinguishes the Old and New Testaments.

I am convinced that no one knew how the New outsmarted the Old better than St. Paul. Why’s that? Well, because St. Paul was formerly a Jewish rabbi who converted and became a Catholic priest, indeed a bishop (that is, an apostle). It should not surprise us, then, to hear him say in the second reading to the Ephesians – and if you listen carefully, you can hear both the rabbi and the priest talking in the background: “Brothers and sisters, you have heard of the stewardship of grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation.

“It was not made known to people in other generations (that's the Old Testament), as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets (in the New Testament) by the Spirit.” And then comes the clincher: “That the Gentiles (all peoples) are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners (with the Jews) in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Did you catch all that? Basically, Paul means that salvation does not depend on ethnicity but on the Epiphany, where everyone is welcome to be saved. That is how the New outsmarts the Old, and how the new Paul outsmarted the old Saul.

My friends, do you know one of the main reasons I love I.C. Church? It is not just because we have a pretty church to worship in, or have a long, storied history stretching back to 1843, or that we own lots of buildings spread over some of the most prime property sitting at the crossroads of the city. While all that is impressive, it pales in comparison to the people that pile into the pews every Sunday. Just like the real gifts of the Magi were not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but rather the gift of themselves.

If you look around you at your brothers and sisters in this church – and I know that's what you're doing instead of paying attention to the homily – you will see all kinds of faces: brown faces and white faces, yellow faces and red faces, freckled faces and happy faces, some sad faces and other angry faces, several sleep faces and some baby faces, wrinkled faces and handsome faces (that’s my face), and homely faces, hairy faces and clean-shaven faces, poor faces and rich faces.

In other words, every face has a place here thanks to God’s grace. Why? Because we are not an ethnic parish but rather an Epiphany parish. It is not the blood in that runs in our veins that unites us but the Blood of Christ that runs through our souls that makes us one. And that is why the priest gave a drink to the rabbi as an example of how the New outsmarts the Old. And at every Mass the priest stands at the altar, raises a cup of wine, and says symbolically: “I’ll drink to that!”

Praised be Jesus Christ!