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Advent-Christmas 2005
Dear KAIROS family:
A good person has been taken captive in Baghdad. As I pen this reflection
he is still being held. Jim Loney is a member of the Christian Peacemaker
Teams and is a person of peace and peace making. This Advent/Christmas
has taken on an urgent meaning.
I wonder if Jesus wants us to think about Him this Christmas. Would
he consider that to be misplaced? Should our minds and hearts be
centred not on the Jesus of history but on the divine presence incarnate
in history, culture and the body politic. Is it not that to which
Jesus pointed. He did not speak of himself but of the Reign of God
in history and time. Maybe our questions should be: Who are we?
Who do we carry around inside of us? It is said that Christmas is
not about the victory of any empire, god, tribe or human enterprise.
It is not history written by the conquerors. It is a story about
the non-conquerors, the unsuccessful, the non-empire builders. Christmas
is a story of an outsider, a child being born on the run, the immigrant
and the refugee. The wisdoms of the world in the Magi come to this
child of Christmas. It is in this story that Christians find their
roots and their politics. The Resurrection reminds us that life
is stronger than death. Christmas tells us where this truth is to
be found and a life lived. It is in solidarity with the broken,
the wounded, the marginal, the outsider that we find our hope and
our meaning. This is the message of the Christmas story.
In the scriptures Jesus points to the outsider as the bearer of
incarnate wisdom. It is the Samaritan Woman at the well and the
Good Samaritan on the journey who see clearly. Jesus reminds the
Samaritan woman that “people now will no longer worship in
the Temple nor on the Mountain but rather in Spirit and Truth.”
The Good Samaritan sees, has compassion, touches, binds up wounds,
takes the person fallen among robbers to an Inn to be looked after
promising to give more if more is needed. Why did the priest and
the Levite pass by? They were not bad persons. Maybe the Samaritan
– the outsider – could see, have compassion, touch because
he was not loaded down with baggage of doctrines, liturgies, moralities
and purity cults that prevented the Priest and the Levite on their
way from seeing the incarnate divine presence in the one who had
fallen among robbers.
Let us celebrate Christmas with the awareness that we do not stop
with the child but that we ourselves give birth to the ‘divine
child’ – incarnate wisdom on a regular basis in our
children, in our creativity, in our work, in all our relationships.
Jim Loney is such a person.
On behalf of the Board of KAIROS I want to wish all the members
of our KAIROS family and friends a hope filled Advent and a peace
filled Christmas. We have hope and inner peace because we together
can make a difference in small and large ways.
The joy and peace of Christmas be with you all,
Paul E. Hansen C.Ss.R.
Chair, KAIROS Board
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