This morning the Gospel lesson I heard, John 20:19-31 — which is the lesson suggested by the Revised Common Lectionary and would have been read from tens of thousands of Christian church pulpits all around the world, I suppose, maybe more — began with a statement that the doors of the house where the disciples were meeting “were locked for fear of the Jews.”  The lesson ended with John’s affirmation that his words were “written so that you (his readers) would come to believe (or continue to believe) that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

When the lesson was finished, we all joined in a printed affirmation which, like using of the Lectionary to select the Sundays’ scripture readings, also seems to have become more common in churches in recent years. The reader said, “This is the Word of the Lord,” and we all said, “Thanks be to God!”

The doors were locked for fear of “the Jews,” words written so that I and other readers of John’s book would come or continue “to believe” and “have life in (Jesus’) name.”

The disciples, who were themselves Jews, were hiding in fear of “the Jews?” I am to believe such a thing, sounds like, in order to have some sort of life in Jesus’ name? And I am also to believe, and say, that what I’ve heard is the Word of the Lord, and I should be thankful to God?

Good grief! I’m glad the children had already left the sanctuary by the time all of this happened. I wish they had been gone all of those times over the years when I also read it and said it as a worship leader and preacher. In the thickening fog of my dotage I begin to understand why Boomers and Millennials and others just don’t believe this stuff anymore and choose not to come.

I mean, how is hearing what sounds like our faith ancestors feared Jews categorically and then affirming it as God’s Word different from hearing a proposition that all Muslims should be feared categorically, or all Negroes, or all Irish, Latinos, or Swedes?

Such a thing would be nonsense, unkind, unpatriotic, and heresy…right?

So why do we let it continue in church without apology or much explanation or adjustment? Talk about misinformation and fostering it! Why did I let myself do it? For 45 years! Good grief!

I should be ashamed of myself! I am. A little anyway. At the same time I’m hopeful the future church will do better than I did. There are signs. I think.