Thursday in the Fifth Week

Genesis 17:1-8; Psalm 105:4-11; John 8:51-59

I am having a lot of trouble with the Gospel readings this week.  Each day we have a first reading about what God is doing for the Israelites.  Then the Gospel readings portray Jesus vilifying his Judean audience, telling them they have lost the inheritance and have become children of the devil.  This poison has infected the Church from early days, but it is not the only way to read the “new covenant” of Jesus.  We can’t let it be.

In the letter to the Romans, Paul spends a lot of time trying to explain how he sees the relation between the Jews and the new Christian movement.  He talks about “grafting” the Gentiles into the Jewish branch, about remaking Israel.  That can be challenging enough to read, especially after centuries of anti-Semitism have shaped our reading.  But it’s a far cry from calling “the Jews” liars or children of the devil.  It doesn’t sound like Jesus to me.

John wrote his Gospel in a time when his branch of the new church was being expelled from synagogues.  He wasn’t content to claim to be grafted onto the branch; he seems to have wanted to burn the old branch and take its place.  For centuries, many Christians have followed him.  The poison has not only killed Jews; it has destroyed the souls of many who would follow Jesus.

How then do we understand the relationship between the earlier covenants and that of Jesus?  How can Christians celebrate what we find in following Jesus without accusing or patronizing Jews?  

One place to start is to study the evolution of Judaism.  Just as Christianity evolved, Judaism today is not the religion of the high priests and the Temple.  Reading the Christian Scriptures is not a sufficient guide for understanding, nor is historical material alone.  Reading alone is insufficient.  Go to a Jewish friend and ask to go to synagogue with them.  If you don’t have an observant Jewish friend, call the synagogue and go with a friend.  Ask the rabbi what you might read to understand contemporary Judaism.

And pray. Pray for mutual understanding, mutual deepening of our relationships to the One who remains faithful no matter what we do to one another.  Pray for reconciliation.  Pray for forgiveness and cleansing.  The failures of the high priests and Pharisees have been more than matched by the sins of Christian leaders and followers over the centuries.  Pray for us all.