Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’
The Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday of Advent in Year A, taken from the Gospel of Matthew, contains a passage I think provides a key to understanding a different and controversial passage from the same Gospel. When John the Baptist saw the religious leaders coming to be baptized, he challenged them to demonstrate their repentance in concrete actions, not just in playing “show and tell”. He then said to them: “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.'” This criticism is reminiscent of a passage in Jeremiah where he ...