March 20, 2007

If, as John’s Gospel suggests, Jesus went regularly to the annual festivals of his people in Jerusalem, what was so different that last time that it resulted in his execution? If, as Mark’s Gospel suggests, he only went there once, why did he do it then? What, in other words, was Jesus’ intention in making what proved to be his final, fatal visit to Jerusalem and its Temple that Passover of 30 CE?

After the evening service on Ash Wednesday, I was led off for coffee and conversation by a group of seminary students who wanted to air their frustrations about the recent meeting of Anglican primates. The primates had issued a call for the Episcopal Church in the U.S. to declare that it will not authorize same-sex blessings and will not elect another openly gay bishop. If the Episcopal Church refuses to take that step, it impairs its place in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The public university at which I teach has an ethnically and religiously diverse student body. Accurate figures are hard to come by because the university doesn’t officially collect the data, but probably about half the undergraduates are Catholic, one-quarter Protestant, and perhaps 5 percent Muslim and 5 percent Jewish. This variety makes for interesting classes.

During John Paul II’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2000, the frail pontiff visited the Western Wall, the remnant of the ancient Jewish Temple. With quivering hands he placed in a crevice of the wall a piece of paper on which he had written a prayer. His visit to Judaism’s holiest place was one of several acts on a trip that signaled a new era in the church’s relationship with the people John Paul called “elder brothers” in the faith.

Nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Days of Glory has received plenty of praise for its sometimes stirring story of North Africans fighting for France during World War II. But far more attention has been paid to its underlying goal of getting France to reinstate pensions for the men who fought for the motherland but had their benefits slashed or eliminated once their home countries gained independence and were no longer part of the French empire.