Although Christianity is often construed as a new religion quite distinct from Judaism, today’s gospel is a reminder that the Christian faith is actually not a new religion, but rather the culmination of a millennia-long process begun in Eden. After our First Parents’ act of disobedience (and in what is sometimes referred to as the proto-gospel) God tells Adam and Eve, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel. Striking at the serpent’s head involved (among other things) the calling of Abraham, and Moses—the one who would receive the same Law Jesus speaks of coming to fulfill and not abolish. Gentile believers are, in the words of Paul, shoots of the wild olive grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated one (that is, the Jewish People). As such Christians are not a new olive plant but one with the original one. We don’t know the future of Judaism in relation to Christianity, but Paul is convinced that we belong together. And so he asks, rhetorically, how much more will the Jewish people, who belong to it by nature be grafted back into their own olive tree. Since we believe this is the will of God, let us pray for that day when wild and cultivated olive will form one vibrant and life-giving tree witnessing to the saving and loving fidelity of the God of Israel manifested in the promised Savior, Christ our Lord.