Any student of the Judaeo-Christian Bible, including what is known as the deutero-canonical or apocryphal books of the Old Testament, will see the obsession the subject matter has with a confederation of Middle-Eastern tribes called Israel. Even when among the Gentiles the Apostles look back at Israel for both good...and bad...examples. The most controversial book of this Bible, The Revelation, a/k/a The Apocalypse, of St. John has a lot to say about the centrality of Israel in the matter of the last days. This emphasis has let to Christian Zionism, Supercessionism, and a whole slew of other weird ideas to get an anti-Semitic Gentile readership and faith community over what is, in effect, the place of Israel in the Bible.
Today's Gospel reading at Mass reinforces that uncomfortable "Israel first" idea (you can read it here, in either track as there are alternate Old Testament and Psalm selections for today). There is a long selection where Jesus Our Lord has His Apostles roam through firmly Jewish territory, making a point to avoid Gentile settlements, the Samaritan territories, any community not affiliated with the Temple in Jerusalem, to proclaim the Good News. He is adamant that they take no provisions and live off the generosity of the Jewish communities they encounter.
Uh, okay, whatever happened to, "God so loved the world," and, "In Him shall the Gentiles hope," and all that?
It is not the first time Jesus had strictly limited the audience. If one recalls, He at first tried to convince the Syro-Phoenician woman whose daughter needed exorcism/healing that His business was with the Jews alone, but then relented under pressure when she asserted that she knew darn well and good that God's grace to others, to her, came from His relationship with Israel. In speaking with St. Photini (a Samaritan) at Jacob's Well outside Sychar, He asserted that salvation came from the Jews; that didn't stop Him from proclaiming the Good News in Samaria, however.
So why the emphasis on the people of Israel being the first to get the message?
There are multiple passages where God through His prophets proclaims that His people, this fractious collection of Middle Eastern tribes who had aligned themselves to Him and not (in theory anyway!) to the pantheons of gods of the surrounding peoples, will be a source of blessing eventually to all nations, that Grace would not remain with Israel alone but that Israel would be instrumental in spreading it abroad. This means that this people had to be prepared, and have they ever been prepared! Before Jesus' ministry Israel had been set aside, groomed, admonished, suffered, struggled, and grew with the ever-present oversight of God through the Law and the Prophets for well over a thousand years. Jesus ministry focused on that population that had been formed in the building blocks of the Gospel for centuries. He chose leaders exclusively from that people to spearhead that mission, first among the people of Israel (who, incidentally but not accidentally were the first to be filled with the Spirit at Pentecost and who led, almost exclusively, many more of Israel to the Way in that event). This was all preparation work for a core group of Israelites to be strengthened in the Gospel so that they eventually would be thrust out into the world, using the Jewish synagogues spread all over the Mediterranean word as their first bases of operation, and from there spread the Grace of God to the surrounding nations. These were lost sheep, to be recovered FIRST so that other sheep could be recovered later.
We should as Christians never forget the debt we owe this Middle Eastern collection of tribes. From their struggles sprung the Good News enshrined in the Law and the Prophets of the Grace of God, the relief of the oppressed, the hope of the poor, and the deliverance from the ultimate enemy, Sin and Death. Did all of them embrace the Way and head out among the Gentiles? No, but we should not hold that against them, for in them we still have a witness of the old ways from which we sprung and to which we still owe everything. If anyone is to be judged it is by God alone. Should we try to bring them into the fold. No, Our Lord plainly stated if they don't want to come along, then leave them. Do they bring their woes upon them? Only in as much as we all inadvertently bring woe upon ourselves by not heeding the signs around us (in this specific case in the Gospel, getting under Rome's skin...Rome wasn't having any of that).
No, we are not called to judge, we are not called to criticize, but we are called to acknowledge that those who have led us to the Grace of God came first and foremost out of the training grounds that are the people of Israel. This is why God in Jesus first concentrated on them and only on them, so that through this humble people the rest of us slaves to Sin and Death might ourselves have our own Passover and Deliverance through Jesus, God's Anointed and indeed God Incarnate.
The art featured on this post is "The Commissioning of the Twelve Apostles" by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sistine Chapel - Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6636269
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