So goes the common phrase, followed by an arbitrary division of the two kinds of people: people who put anchovies on pizza and people who don't; people who like Neil Diamond and people who don't; people who  divide the world into two kinds of people and... 
     But in fact there really are two kinds of people in the world, seen from God's point of view as he reveals it in the Sacred Scriptures.  There are Jews, and there are Gentiles.  This is the great division of the human race.
     Jews were the Chosen, Gentiles were everyone else.  Jews were God's people, Gentiles were the people of the false gods.  Jews were those among whom God dwelt, Gentiles were those who were without God and without hope in the world. This is the Scriptural picture.  Not by their own desire or accomplishment, not for any special merit or talent or impressiveness, but by the mystery of God's choice, the Jews were set apart to be the special possession of God.  They were given the covenant, the commandments, the promises, the temple, and from them was to come the Messiah, the anointed King of the human race.
     But from the beginning there were hints that this special choice of God was meant to benefit not only the Jews but the whole human race.  "All the nations shall be blessed in you," was the promise of God to Abraham, our father in faith.  And Isaiah spoke of the coming day when "all nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising."
     So we celebrate Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.  When those three kings, the magi, came from distant lands to do homage to the babe in the manger, they were a sign of what was still to come, when all nations would come to recognize their true king.  And though Jesus came to preach to the Jews, he then gave his disciples the solemn command: "Go and make disciples of all nations."  We, the Gentiles, have been grafted in to the tree of life, we have become spiritual children of Abraham and inheritors of the promises of God.  The ancient division between Jew and Gentile has been overcome, and those who were "far off" (the Gentiles) have been brought "near" (into the family of the Jews).
     It happens that we live in a time of great missionary expansion.  The Gospel had been spreading rapidly in many parts of the world, and kings and peoples are coming alive to Risen Christ.  Even as Europe is largely abandoning the faith, and the United States grows more distant from Him, others are recognizing their true King.  So it has always been: no one people or nation or ethnic group can claim to own Christ, not even the Jews, his own chosen and beloved people.  This is the glory of Epiphany: the delight of the nations who have seen a great light and come streaming to do homage to Christ.
     "When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself."
     Fr. Michael Keating