North American College
Graduate House, Rome
Jer 31:31-34; Heb 5:7-9; Jn 12:20-33
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
2 Apr 2006
For many years it was not too much of an intellectual puzzle for me that God had made a special pact or covenant with the Jews, so that they became His people in a way no other people were.
I knew of course of the English writer Hilaire Belloc’s little verse “How odd of God to choose the Jews” and I realised that it was odd, because the Jews did not have too much going for them culturally against the ancient Egyptian and Persian civilizations, whatever might be said about the Babylonians and the fierce Assyrians.
And I realised too that the Catholic Church was now the chosen people (or was it all Christians or was it mainly Catholics and Orthodox?) and that the Jewish people retained something of their special position.
But my pondering over the usefulness and justice of God’s being choosy, of His choosing one people among many peoples for His own, was prompted by another set of changing attitudes in Australia at least.
When I started to work in parishes close to forty years ago there used to exist a group who identified themselves to at least some others as “bad Catholics”, e.g. to priests later in the evening at wedding receptions. I am not sure whether many of this group survive any longer in Australia (despite the fact that the Mass going rate is about one third of what it was fifty years ago). Today in Australia many feel that they don’t have to worship every Sunday nor believe all the Creed, nor seriously attempt to follow all the Commandments to be as good a Catholic as the Pope. Some of them claim to be OK because they are “following their conscience”.
With the decline in discipline and religious knowledge another group of Catholics concluded from the Church’s support for ecumenism that one Christian Church was probably as good as another, while in another area there was a great weakening across many parts of the Western world of the enthusiasm for missionary expansion. Some religious missionary orders no longer felt it necessary to preach Christ, especially to those who belonged to the other great religious traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, and devoted themselves to working for human development, or to listening and silent witness. We all realised deeply that God loved everyone, just as we fell silent on hell and purgatory disappeared into limbo!
While I welcomed the Second Vatican Council teaching on ecumenism, and on the importance of dialogue with other religious and with those of no religion, I realised that the extreme positions I had listed above were wrong and a betrayal of our tradition. The whole of the New Testament is united in its conviction about the importance of preaching Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Son of God and equally united in the conviction that they were partners in a new pact or covenant with God.
But if God loved everyone why did He make a special covenant with the Jewish people first of all and now with His Church? Was this just? Should we still be working strenuously to encourage others to join through baptism? What obligations follow from membership and how do the Scriptures approach these problems, if they grapple with them at all?
The beautiful first reading from Jeremiah is conscious of the ancient covenants and that there will be a new covenant when God’s law will be written on the hearts of the covenant members, when all from the greatest to the least will know God and their sins will be forgiven. Both Old and New Testaments believe in God’s election of His chosen people. I can only conclude that God realised in his love for us that if something was to happen it was not useful to ask everyone, but much better to call or appoint individuals and a group to begin and expand this work.
I think St. Paul has written about these problems better than anyone.
Paul believed that the Jews were the chosen people of the Creator, despite their sins and corruption and despite the fact that they had been victims of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans in turn.
Paul believed that Israel was called for the sake of the world, was God’s answer to evil. In other words the Covenant was God’s way of dealing with idolatry and sin. Through His people God will deal with the problems affecting the whole of creation.
In the letter to the Hebrews, whose authorship is contested, we hear St. Paul’s explanation of the next stage in the covenant story. Through the death of Jesus the Messiah the redefinition of God’s people was affected, because through his death and resurrection Jesus rescued his people just as Moses had rescued the Jews. Christ Jesus in the flesh learnt obedience and acquired perfection through his suffering, so that he became “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”.
God’s work is still done best by us, His chosen people, when we do as we should and this includes the duty to preach the gospel to those near us as well as to the ends of the earth.
Nor does this new covenant call us to political power, to smite our foes and oppress their descendants. In fact we are called to be like the grain of wheat which must die to produce fruit, to remove ourselves as a top priority to serve others rather than ourselves.
God often writes straight in crooked lines but it always remains a mighty privilege to be a member of God’s chosen people, just as it remains an awesome responsibility as ministerial priests to preach Christ crucified and risen and to serve the people of God in the world.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
