Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 456

Thus says the LORD of hosts:
In those days ten men of every nationality,
speaking different tongues, shall take hold,
yes, take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say,

"Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you."

Zechariah's marvelous vision of the nations streaming to Jerusalem to worship the Lord echoes the sentiment of the later Isaian prophets, as the city and its temple were being rebuilt. The deeply conservative Jews had kept the faith during their forced exile in Babylon. They had prayed for the day of restoration when they could return. And it happened!

But the world had changed and their mission had changed. Rather than rebuilding an independent sovereign nation, they should build a religion which accepts and integrates strangers of all nations. Judaism had become something the world had never seen -- a stateless religion spread throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe. As the centuries passed Jews in the diaspora would speak many languages and develop many different styles for keeping the faith, even as they continued to worship their God and ponder their scriptures. 

And non-Jews would be attracted to their religion by their resolute fidelity and their reasonable doctrines. That the world is created and governed by one God, and not by a host of competing gods; and that same God demands moral integrity of his people because they represent him: Judaism makes sense to thoughtful, serious people in every part of the world. 

But some of the rebuilders in Jerusalem were not so eager to welcome strangers with their different ways. Their ancestors had neither been delivered from Egypt nor suffered the humiliation of exile in Babylon. How could they expect to know the Lord? What claim did they have on God or God's or people? Those Jews whose hearts were not deeply invested in God's mercy, whose self-esteem was anchored in the appearances of faith rather than fidelity to God, took a dim view of anyone taking hold of the edge of their garments and saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you."

Unfortunately, as later history would show, many Christians would not disagree with the inhospitable Jews. They suppose they have found salvation without going to Jerusalem or worshiping in the temple, literally or figuratively. Their Jesus has renounced his Jewish origins. 

As both a descendant of Abraham and an evangelical preacher of Jesus, Saint Paul describes the way of salvation for gentiles as adoption and as being grafted onto the tree. Because of their faith in the Lord they would not be second-class citizens Although I am not genetically a child of Abraham, I have been adopted through the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. And I am grateful for the gift. It is undeserved and unearned but very welcome. 

Someone asked me recently about the opposition between the Old Testament and the New Testament. They have heard -- as we all have -- that the God of the Old Testament is demanding, arbitrary, and sometimes merciless; and that the God of the New Testament is the opposite. I suspect that kind of thinking is another form of antisemitism; and more insidious for being unintended. It's what everybody thinks who has neither studied our true religion nor looked deeply into the false doctrine, its origins and its consequences. 

True faith in Jesus teaches us enormous gratitude for our Jewish origins and our receiving the faith of Abraham. We take our place in this sixth dispensation as we wait for that final dispensation when the Son of Mary will be all in all.