Kenzo

We had a joyous event in my office last week.  Our colleague Bernice David became a grandmother. The baby’s name is Kenzo, which I think is an awfully cute name for a baby.  Bernice shared pictures with us.  Kenzo is adorable.  In one of the pictures, the new grandmother is holding her new grandson.  She has a smile that goes from ear to ear.  In our world, this sharing of pictures, in this case by email, is how we present a new arrival to the world.  In the world of Mary and Joseph, a sacrifice in the temple of a pair of turtledoves or two pigeons was the accepted protocol for presenting the child to the world.

We expect the proper response to the presentation of a new baby to be oohs and aahs and talk of how cute the new arrival is.  In Kenzo’s case, this was quite easy to do.  But Mary and Joseph were greeted by a rather strange response from an old man named Simeon when he saw Jesus for  the first time:  “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”  (Lk. 2:34-35)

The birth of a baby is generally received as good news in a family.  Simeon’s words to Mary and Joseph hardly sound like good news.  They do, however, sound like truth.

Kenzo was born into a middle class family.  That made him more fortunate than many babies born in America last week.  According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 22% of children born in America are born into families who live below the official poverty level.  They also estimate that 45% actually live in families with marginal incomes but not quite low enough to meet the government’s official definition of poor.  And this will come as no surprise, but the rates of poverty among children are highest among children who are black, Hispanic, and Native American.

That is absolutely unacceptable.  It is so totally unacceptable, that every single child born in America today is, whether we recognize it or not, a child “destined for the falling and rising of many . . . a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”

How we respond to this absolutely unacceptable reality speaks volumes about what our true inner thoughts are, and those of our culture.  How we respond to this absolutely unacceptable reality speaks volumes about whether our inner thoughts have anything whatsoever to do with being a disciple of Jesus, a 21st century missionary who meets Jesus in the person of the poor.  It is impossible to ooh and aah over the baby Jesus brought by Mary and Joseph to be presented in the temple or because of whom we gathered in darkened churches to sing “Silent Night” just a few weeks ago and not respond to the reality in our own neighborhoods of children living in poverty.

The fact that there are children living under the threat of war or the threat of not having a roof over their heads or the threat of not having food in their bellies is, just as Simeon said, “a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”  The question, of course, is what does it reveal about us?

Peace,