Change to Eucharistic Prayer B?
We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation; in the calling of Israel to be your people; in your Word spoken through the prophets; and above all in the Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son.
Today, at the big ‘ol confirmation (59! candidates from about 10 churches), the Bishop celebrated. When he said Eucharistic Prayer B, he changed the words to:
We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation; in the calling of the children of Abraham to be your people;
And I’m trying to decide what I think about this. I think I understand what the bishop was trying to do. He was trying to make God’s “chosen people” more inclusive - not just the Jews and the Christians, all the descendants of Israel, but also the Islamic people, who are descendants of Abraham as well. On the surface, it seems like a good idea to be inclusive, but I’m not sure it works in this context.
God did choose the people of Israel for a specific purpose - to set themselves apart so that they could have a singular relationship with the one true God. From the context of that relationship, Jesus was born and thus opened everyone to a relationship with the one true God. The boundaries of the special relationship were broken open and everyone had access to God.
Now, this doesn’t mean that God didn’t have a special relationship with the descendants of Ishmael. It also doesn’t mean that God didn’t (or doesn’t) have a special purpose for God’s relationship with the people of Islam. But it wasn’t this special purpose - God’s relationship with Islamic people does not appear to have the same purpose as the relationship that God began with the descendants of Israel.
And, for me anyway, it would seem that in the context of the Eucharistic Prayer, we are thanking God for the special relationship with the Israelites because it led to the “Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son.”
I don’t know..I’m sort of mulling it around. What do you think?
