Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

 Lectionary: 239

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.

I took a seat in a lovely restaurant a few weeks ago. Because I was eating alone, I set my book on the table and the waiter asked, "What are you reading?" Always delighted to meet another reader, I told her, "Wendell Berry!" 

"Is he a Christian?" she asked,
Surprised, I said, "Yes, I believe so."
"Are you?" she demanded. 
Again caught off guard, I replied, "I hope so." 

Later, I realized I was wearing my Roman collar. 

But the incident threw me back sixty years to the old Catholic-Protestant polemic when the denominations habitually scolded one another for their differences. In the middle of the last century, before the Second Vatican Council and "none" described no one's religious preference, we were always reforming our opponents. We believed we had a mission to dishonor the faith of other Christians. It still goes on.

(The waiter later realized I might give her a tip and we finished the meal pleasantly.) 

As we accompany the Lord each day, listening to his word and learning his way, we too fulfill the law and the prophets. Life is a form of being; it opposes that form of being which is death. We're not sent to reform someone's life. We were not born to be scolds. 

But many Christians, Catholic and Protestant disrespect the faith of Jews, as if that was Jesus's purpose. As if he had been sent to reform the faith of his ancestors. 

Sixty million Jews were murdered during the Nazi madness. The killing was mechanized and industrial. It entailed the active participation and passive compliance of  European and American nations whose citizens are, or had been, Christian. The Shoah was a culmination of centuries of antisemitism, the fulfillment of a dream of many Christian people, their laity and clergy. Antisemitism remains in the sculpture and art of some churches, and their owners still hesitate to remove them. 

As I read Abraham Joshua Heschel and study the scriptures both old and new, I begin to understand the meaning of faith and fulfillment. I see that only the Jewish Mary and her son fulfilled the law and the prophets. The rest of us stumble in the way. 

I have been reading Heschel's A Passion for Truth, his last publication. It has surprised me as it seems a tormented finale to a life of faith and deep reflection. The American philosopher pondered the lives of the Lutheran Kierkegaard and the Jewish Reb Mendl, known as "The Kotzker."  Both men took their faith very seriously and worried incessantly about the Problem of Evil. Can anyone live by the truth? Can any human satisfy the LORD? Must God be forever disappointed? Are we, after all, nothing but dirt? 

Inclined to melancholy like Kierkegaard and the Kotzker, I turn often to our scriptures for consolation and hope. I take shelter from God's wrath in the words and songs of religion and I hope to be gathered with the faithful -- another face in the crowd -- when That Day comes. But is that hope enough? Does it complete what is unfulfilled in my Christian, Catholic, priestly, and Franciscan calling? 

I might take shelter in scolding others for their different beliefs. But Lent is not the season for that.