Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Yr A 2026

Title

A Light to the Nations

Outline

One point that Israel did not get about the Messiah was his reaching out to the nations

It is there in our Isaiah reading, “It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” But it is cryptic about the how. The same is true about other passages on the topic in the Hebrew Scriptures. By the first century Jews were thinking in terms of proselytes, Gentiles becoming Jews, or military domination of the nations.

This is also true of John the Baptist

In one line he could say, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and in another line he could say, “the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel.” There is no mention of the nations in this last statement.

John knew that Jesus’ baptism would transcend his, for “he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.” And he knew the Jesus transcended him: “I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.” But how to include the nations eluded John and the apostles until the Jerusalem Council and its application by Paul.

Paul sums up his position in this sentence:

“to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” In Jesus Christ everyone everywhere who “calls on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” is sanctified and called to be holy. If they are in Christ they are in, part of the same body of Christ that is made up of ancient Israelite fathers and contemporary sons and daughters whether they are ethnically Jew of Gentile.

This is still be debated today.

There is the ongoing debate about the relationship of the Jewish people to the Church: is it antisemitism to say all who are believers in Christ are one in Jesus and heirs of the promises to Abraham? Certainly Paul would agree with that. What about Lumen Gentium’s inclusion of our separated brethren in the people of God. for why they are separated they are still brethren? Does that make us uneasy?

To grasp the full role of Jesus and the breadth and width of salvation history we have to read the full story, admit that its fullness was only glimpsed in the Hebrew Scriptures, note that John the Baptist did not fully get it, and realize that there was a struggle over it in the early Church.

The point is that in the end it is not ethnicity nor church culture but our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ that makes us one in the body of Christ. The difficulty comes in living this out while remaining true to the truth that our Lord has passed down to us through his Church.