Peace be with you.
About a month ago, I was able to take some time to see the movie Harriet. Sadly, it’s no longer in theaters but it’s starting to show up in some streaming services. The movie tells the story of Harriet Tubman, a slave who managed to escape from her southern slave owners to freedom in Philadelphia. Eventually she returned to assist slaves along the Underground Railroad to the freedom of the north. I was glad that the filmmakers retained her deep faith, at points attributing narrow escapes to divine visions. I was also impressed that they neither fetishize nor minimize the horrors surrounding slavery. At one point, Harriet wants to free her sister, Rachel, who is the primary house slave for her female slave owner and children. Harriet and Rachel get into a heated debate about what will happen to whom if she runs away and whether that matters. It was a good lesson on the complexities of life associated with making the right decision for ourselves while making sure that we don’t hurt those who are also affected by our choices.
Our first reading for today’s Mass probably sounds familiar. Jesus quotes it in the gospel for today. And it is also an option for Mass at Christmas. It’s a part of Sacred Scripture that we, as Christians, often look to as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments. It comes from the Book of the prophet Isaiah and is just 8 chapters in, so we’re still in the phase of this book in which the people are being warned to reform their lives or be prepared to be exiled. However, you may not entirely pick that up from the part that we just heard. It sounds very hopeful, that what seems to have been bad is getting better. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
However, if we dig a little deeper, we quickly find that appearances are deceiving. Let’s start with Zebulum and Naphtali, these regions which are initially said to be degraded before the sea road is declared good again. Zebulum and Naphtali are two of Israel’s children, so these are two of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe, when they enter the land given them by God, is given a piece of land they are responsible for caring for. Zebulum and Naphtali are given the most northern parts. The first group that attacks God’s people, the Assyrians, overrun and take over Zebulum and Naphtali and forcibly convert them to be non-Jewish, or Gentile, cities. The people that had lived there are exiled and the tribes of Zebulum and Naphtali cease to exist any longer. So, by degrading them, Israih is basically saying they’re destroyed, and yet the area has become one heck of a nice roadway as a consequence. No longer would the people of God have to stop and visit Zebulum and Naphtali. You can just pass by since it’s now controlled by the Gentiles. It’s kind like rejoicing at the death of a bitter relative because you will no longer have to worry about them showing up and ruining Christmas.
Isaiah uses the destruction and overthrow of these regions to foreshadow the overthrow of their leaders, which happens a few years later during the Babylonian captivity. The King and his court are taken to Babylon where they eventually die. They are called, anguish, distress, gloom, and darkness, not great adjectives from a political perspective. Still, the darkness will be overcome by a bright light, according to the prophet, pointing to a future of rejoicing. The last verse say, “For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder and the rod of their taskmaster, you have smashed as on the day of Midian.” You see, when the Israelites were arguing for a king way back in First Samuel, they were told that they would have to do all the work and the king would take both the credit for the work and the crops and animals they produce. It was God’s way of trying to talk them out of demanding a king. In this verse, God is envisioning a time when this situation would no longer exist and, instead, God would be their king and he neither needs glory nor produce. This is why we connect this reading so closely to the Christmas season.
For Jesus, this is the passage that comes to mind when his cousin, John, is being removed from ministry and he is taking over. He is in the Galille, the name of the region that used to be called Zebulum and Naphtali. He announces himself the light for the people who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. What’s striking and somewhat connected to the mission of Harriet Tubman, is that Jesus has to get his people to see the Gentiles as people worthy of a relationship with God. This isn’t just a nice highway that one can pass through quickly without worrying about the usual hospitality expectations. There are people living there, people who deserve to have just as much hope for forgiveness of sins as the Jews did. He had to help his people see that the Gentiles were capable of being saved because they were people created in God’s image and likeness and, therefore, deserving to hear about the Kingdom of God.
I think racism is, first and foremost, based on a notion of superiority, that one race is better than another by virtue of genetics or upbringing. The truth is that we all are in need of salvation, all of us have sinned, all of us need to repent. I think that’s why the Church encourages us to go to confession at least once-a-year and more often if we are conscious of committing a sin; to remind ourselves of our true light in Christ and to unite us as people who have sinned but are, nonetheless, united on a journey toward the kingdom that God alone can build for us.
