Word to the Wise
Thursday, March 30, 2017 - 4th Week of Lent - Thurs
[Exod 32:7-14 and John 5:31-47]"Do not think I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse youis Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words." [John]
The Gospel According to John has occasionally been accused of "anti-semitism" because of the way it refers to "the Jews." This is anachronistic because what we call anti-semitism today did not exist in the time of the gospel. What did exist and does show up in the gospel is the conflict between those Jews who did accept Jesus and those who did not. The ones who did not were in the majority in most synagogues and they were expelling those who did. The conflict had its impact on the composition of the Gospel According to John. An example appears in today's gospel scripture. When Jesus says that Moses wrote about him, this reflects the early Christian community's practice, which has continued, to see the Old Testament in the light of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. The evangelist has Jesus' accusing his Jewish adversaries of failing to understand the Torah.
This position is not the official position of the Church in our day, although it was common teaching for centuries. The understanding of our own faith is to see the Old Testament as "prefiguring" Jesus. St. Paul refers to the Torah as a "pedagogue" that prepared us for Jesus. Understandably, the Jewish community does not interpret the Torah nor the rest of the Hebrew Bible in this way. The covenant that God made with them is still valid and irrevocable. The Second Vatican Council and subsequent church teaching has rejected any effort to "convert" the Jewish community to the Christian approach. The truth of the Old Testament about that covenant remains. However, we Christians embrace Jesus as the one whom God has sent, and that shapes everything in the Gospel According to John and all Christian life. He is the fulfillment of the previous covenant, without replacing its truth.
The ugly incidents that have recently been reported of vandalism in Jewish cemeteries show that "anti-semitism" is alive and active. Such acts are contrary to the gospel and should be rejected entirely by any faithful Christian. AMEN
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