… Since Paul was invited to speak in the synagogue in Antioch [v Pizídii] to clarify this new teaching, that is, to explain and proclaim Jesus, Paul begins with the history of the salvation of the ( Acts 13, 13-21). Paul got up and started like this: «God of this people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted this people when they lived abroad, in the land of Egypt» (v. 17) … and narrated the entire history of salvation. Štefan did the same before the torture of the ( Acts 7, 1-54), and Paul does so again. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews also does, when he tells the history of Abraham and „all our fathers“ ( Heb. 11 1-39). We sang the same thing today: « I want to praise the Lord’s mercy forever; throughout all generations to proclaim your faithfulness with their mouths» (Ž 89,2). We sang about David’s story: « I found my servant David» (v. 21). Matúš ( do the same. Mt 1, 1-14) and Luke (. Lk 3, 23-38): when they start talking about Jesus, they give his family tree is O in the background behind Jesus? There is a certain history.
History of grace, history of election, history of promise. The Lord chose Abraham and walked with his people. At the beginning of the mass, in the entrance chant, we read: „God, when you walked at the head of your people, you made your way and lived with them…“. There is the story of God with his people. Therefore, when Paul is asked to explain the reasons for believing in Jesus Christ, he does not begin from himself; he starts from history. Christianity is a particular doctrine, yes, but not only that. It is not only those contents that we believe: it is history that carries this teaching, which is God’s promise, God’s covenant, a matter of God’s election. Christianity is not just some kind of ethics. Yes, it is true; it has moral principles, but we are not Christians purely because of an ethical vision. It’s about something more. Christianity is not a certain elite of people chosen for the truth. This elitist understanding then continues to stick in the Church. For example: I am from that institution, I belong to this movement that is better than yours, than this, than that. That is an elitist understanding. No, Christianity is not this: Christianity belongs to a certain people, to a people chosen by God selflessly.
Because we do not have this sense of belonging to the people, we will be „ideological Christians“, with a small doctrine confirming the truth, with ethics, with morality – that’s good – or with the elite. We feel part of the God-chosen group – Christians – and others will go to hell, or if they save themselves, it’s out of God’s mercy, well, they’re the eliminated ones… And so on. If we do not have awareness of belonging to the people, we are not true Christians. That is why Paul explains Jesus from the beginning, starting from his belonging to the people. And how often do we fall into this partiality, whether dogmatic, moral, or elitist? Elitist understanding harms us so much, and we lose that sense of belonging to the holy faithful people of God, who were chosen by God in Abraham and promised him a great promise, Jesus, and made him walk with hope, and made a covenant with him. People’s awareness.
NI am constantly captured by that passage Deuteronomy, I think it is the 26th chapter where it says: „ Once a year when you go to present a sacrifice to the Lord, the first fruits, and when your son asks you: But father, why are you doing this?, you should not say to him: „For God commanded it“, but: „ We were one nation, we were like this and the Lord set us free…“ ( Dt 26, 1-11). To recount history, as Paul did here. Transmitting the story of our salvation. The Lord advises in the same place in Deuteronomy: „ When you enter a land that you have not conquered, that I have conquered, and when you eat fruits, which you did not plant, and you will live in houses that you did not build, when presenting the sacrifice you will say“ – this is the famous Deuteronomic creed – „My father was a wandering Ara mean, then he descended into Egypt in small numbers… he stayed there for four hundred years, then the Lord freed him, took care of him…“ He tells history by singing, remembering a nation, and stating it is a nation.
In this history of God’s people, until the coming of Jesus Christ, there were saints, sinners, and many ordinary people, good, with virtues and with sins, but all of them. The famous “west” who followed Jesus had a nose that belonged to a certain people. Whoever claims to be a Christian but does not have this sense of smell is not a faithful Christian; he is somewhat distinctive and somewhat feels justified without the people. Belonging to the people, having the memory of God’s people. And this is what Paul, Stephen, and Paul teach again, apostles… And the author’s advice in the Letter to the Hebrews is: „Remember your ancestors“ ( Hebrews 11:2), that is, to those who preceded us on this path of salvation.
If someone asked me, „ What do you think is the deviation of Christians – today and at any time – the deviation that is most dangerous for Christians?“I would say without hesitation that it is a lack of memory of belonging to the people. When this is missing, dogmatisms, moralisms, ethicists, and elite movements come. People are missing. A people who are always sinners, we are all them, but who are not fundamentally wrong, who have a nose for being the chosen people who follow the promise and who made the covenant, which he may not fulfill, but he knows about it.
Let us learn from the Lord this awareness of the people, which the Virgin Mary sang so beautifully in her Magnificat ( Lk 1, 46-56), which Zacharias sang so beautifully in his Benedictus ( Lk 1, 64-79) – we pray those hymns every day, morning and evening. People’s awareness: we are the holy faithful people of God who, as the First and then the Second Vatican Council says, have a sense of faith in their whole being and are infallible in how they believe.
