Amahl and What I Thought as I Listened to It

The set of Amahl and the Night Visitors. Lyric Opera of the North.
http://loonopera.org/amahl-and-the-night-visitors/

January 6th is Epiphany, so yesterday since I hadn’t done it already I listened to Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti. I first saw this short opera performed at my church – Covenant United Methodist – when I was eight or nine. It’s had a special place in my heart ever since. In college I watched as friends – voice majors in the School of Music where I was studying – sang the parts of the three kings, Amahl and his mother.

My ears perk up each time I hear, “Wake up, Kaspar” for I know the shepherds' chorus will soon sing my favorite, “Emily, Emily, Michael, Bartholomew, how are your children and how are your sheep?...” Yet in truth I love it all.

Still, yesterday I heard it differently. (Isn’t that the way it is. Each time is a new experience. Each time God as Spirit has new things to offer as she gets us to notice what'd been hidden.*) I usually listen as if it’s happening in a long-ago Middle East. And I did but I also heard it for today.

I heard a mother sing to her child, “Hunger has gone to your head” and “Unless we go begging how shall we live through tomorrow?” I listened as they went to bed then were awoken by the unexpected arrival of royal guests. I heard as she sent Amahl to gather their neighbors and tell them to bring whatever they had to share with the guests. In my mind's eye I watched as she admired, “Oh, these beautiful things, and all that gold!”

Biblical texts admonish us to care for widows and orphans –76 times for widows; 36 for orphans or fatherless – which is exactly who is suffering in Menotti’s opera.  Society didn’t do a good job of taking care of them back then – 2000 years ago or in the 50s when he wrote this – and we don’t do well now.

• Why are we so little moved when we see people on the street carrying their worldly possessions on their backs or in carts?
• How is it that we're okay with sending backpacks of food home with schoolchildren so they have some for the weekend instead of fixing the reasons that so many thousands of them are hungry?
• Why are we not squirming over our own comfort (that is, in truth, luxury) in the face of so much need?

Anyone who claims Jesus Christ as LORD is called to discipleship themselves. Being a disciple means more than private devotion and community worship. It means practicing compassion by caring for others’ physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs. It also means working to fix the root causes of society's dis-ease. This is justice.

Without justice the rest is just half-hearted mouthings. I’m pointing a finger at myself here too. You decide for yourself. Use the mirror test. When you look in the mirror of your spiritual practice, what do you see?

Today is the day we can make a difference. And tomorrow, that will be the day we can made a difference. And the next day, that will be …
_____
* I use she because the Hebrew word for the Spirit is feminine. And that’s the word Jesus would have known and used when he was speaking of the Holy Spirit.