Word to the Wise
Thursday, April 2, 2009 - Thursday in the Fifth Week of Lent
[Genesis 17:3-9 and John 8:51-59]Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM!
In recent years there has been an effort on the part of many good people and groups, even on the part of the Vatican, to build bridges between Christian, Jewish and Islamic communities of faith by emphasizing the common acceptance by all three of Abraham as a "father in faith." Eventually the theological challenge of Jesus' identity must arise. That challenge is represented in the line quoted above from today's gospel! The dialogue there represents some of the debate going on at the time in the Christian/Jewish milieu and it continues today. Jesus' revelation of his existence prior to Abraham's is shocking to his listeners who have a different sense of time! However, the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke is clearly designed to show that Jesus is not only descended from David but from Abraham as well! It gets us into some pretty thick theological discussion, a bit too much for a daily homily, to show how Jesus is historical as well as transcends history! What is clear from history is that this truth about Jesus is very threatening to our Jewish and Moslem brothers and sisters. We appear to be making a human prophet into God. The response must be that WE are not doing this. We are accepting what we know as a matter of faith to be revealed truth. Jesus is not God because we believe He is. We believe He is God because He has told us so. This claim is at the heart of the controversial document Dominus Jesus which came out several years ago from the doctrinal congregation then headed by the current Pope! We have to continue to build bridges, however, even if we disagree about how we are going to meet on them! AMEN
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