Sermon for Sunday, February 3, 2008JEWS AND CHRISTIANS4th in a series on Confronting the Controversies By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: John 19:13-22 13 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge's bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, "Here is your King!" 15 They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but the emperor." 16 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; 17 and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. 19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 20 Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,' but, "This man said, I am King of the Jews.” 22 Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." The passage we just heard from the gospel of John and others like it have been the basis for the tragic conflict and bitter feelings between Christians and Jews over the centuries. Some have read that gospel in particular and found reasons for violent anti-Semitism and bigotry. Some historians say that the centuries of anti-Semitism were part of the foundation that let Hitler and the Nazis become so successful in their attempts to wipe out all Jews in Europe. Later translations of the gospel of John even recognize that it was the Jewish leaders, the priests and others who were collaborating with Rome, who plotted for the death of Jesus their fellow Jew. But any discussion of the relationship between Christians and Jews must begin, I believe, with a profound attitude of repentance on our part for what we and our Christian ancestors have allowed to happen to the Jewish people. Even Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant reformation, made horrible statements about Jews. In our own time, Baptist denominational leader Bailey Smith said a few years ago that God does not hear the prayer of a Jew. That must have been quite a surprise to people like Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Jesus—all Jews, of course. Smith’s own church has had an attitude that anyone who does not say the right words about Jesus even if they are from the same religious tradition as Jesus, will spend eternity in hell. And some fundamentalist groups have had an explicit goal of targeting and converting Jews. We have had other examples of more enlightened attitudes. Pope John offered the prayer on the front of your bulletin, one of confession and repentance for how Christians have demonized the very people we originated from—the first followers of Jesus were all Jews and saw themselves at first as Jewish “followers of the way”. My friend Rod Wilmoth, retired Methodist minister who served at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist church in Minneapolis, used to tell his large congregation that they needed to be getting along with their Jewish neighbors right now because they were all going to be in heaven together. And one of the best resources for you to begin to do some reading about what Christians and Jews have in common is in Adam Hamilton’s book on world religions in his chapter on Judaism where he shows an attitude of openness and acceptance and grace. Paul the apostle struggled in the book of Romans with the conflicts he saw in his time thirty years after Jesus death and resurrection—particularly in chapters 9-11—and affirms God’s love for the Jews and that as God’s chosen people, that chosenness is irrevocable. We need to repent and confess the centuries of intolerance and the violence coming from that intolerance. And we need to take a new look at how similar we are as Christians and Jews and how much we have in common: The Bible that Jesus had is our Bible as well. Thirty nine books of our Bible—what we call the Old Testament or the book of the Old Covenant—is Jesus’ Bible also. I have included in your bulletin a reminder of how much we owe to the Hebrew Bible and how we forget its importance. Often in our 32 week Disciple Bible classes the students say about in January how relieved they are to be through with studying the Old Testament and finally be getting into the more familiar ground of the New Testament. After I heard that comment for a couple of years, I put together the sheet that celebrates the roots of our Christian faith in the Bible that Jesus had, and that is the purpose of the insert sheet that reminds us of how greatly impoverished we would be without the Bible that Jesus had. If we had more time we would look at some of those images and stories and celebrate them as part of our Christian faith. Jews and Christians have most of the Bible in common. We also must remember that Jesus never called himself a Christian!! Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and most of what he taught is not unique or original with him, it is a distillation of the best of Jewish teaching and theology. His “great commandment”—to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves is from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The golden rule—treat other people the way you want to be treated—is not unique to Jesus but was stated in almost the same form by Rabbi Hillel in about the same time period as Jesus. Jesus’ outreach to those who were rejected and despised and outcast is in the best tradition of the Jewish prophets who advocated for the least and the last; in fact, Jesus on more than one occasion referred to himself as a prophet. We do have the primary difference between us about how we understand Jesus; the Christian understanding is that through the resurrection God has declared Jesus to be savior and messiah (Acts 2). But I am impressed with how much more we are like each other than different We must begin as Christians who want to understand our Jewish roots by finding out how much we have in common: most of the Bible, the Jewishness of Jesus, and the fact that we worship the same God. One of the goals we have in our congregation when we take groups to Israel to do on site Biblical education is that our pilgrims understand how close we are to our Jewish brothers and sisters. In those trips there are particular times I feel I am on holy ground such as in the garden of Gethsemane where there are olive trees that are 1800 years old and where one can imagine in that peaceful setting Jesus praying in anguish all night on that Thursday before he was executed. But some of those times have to do with the Jewish tradition that we have in common. I remember the last visit when our forty person group had some quiet time on the thirty five acre Temple Mount where the Jewish temple used to stand and where now the Muslim Dome of the Rock dominates the scene. I was humbled and awe struck at being on the site where Jesus and his fellow Jews considered to be the holiest place in the world, the place that is still considered that at the western wall of the temple mount where the huge stones date from the time of Jesus. And I took time for silent prayer in that very holy place. And one other memorable experience for Judy and me in Jerusalem was not a visit to an ancient Biblical site but the rare chance to worship on a Friday night in the reform synagogue in Jerusalem with our Jewish guide and her family. And Judy and I have brought home with us from those visits a mezuzah to place at the door post of our home that contains the words from Deuteronomy that Jesus knew so well—Listen Israel, the Lord is God—only the Lord, and you shall worship the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. The Bible does not say to use that mezuzah only if you are Jewish—I believe it says that to all of us. Do you remember the song of longing for a home and longing for God from the play Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat? We can understand a bit more about our Jewish neighbors by hearing a piece of that song from Mike Mosier. Close Every Door from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber
How can we better understand and relate to our Jewish neighbors and friends? We celebrate what we have in common—the same God, most of the same Bible. We both have Abraham as our ancestor. We believe in an immortal soul and life after death. We believe in living by the great commandment and in doing good and living ethically and exercising justice and compassion and humility. And we have at least one more thing in common—the story of a God who liberates us from bondage and oppression. The Jews rehearse that story each year in the Passover celebration. We Christians rehearse a part of that story every time we celebrate communion because it was at the Passover meal on Thursday night that Jesus took the bread and said a prayer which our Jewish brothers and sisters still say: Blessed are you Lord God King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. Judy and I use that prayer each night at dinner to bless our meal and I commend it to you as well as a meal time prayer. It is another way to connect us with Jesus’ words at communion that whenever we eat together we are to remember him, and another way to connect us to Jesus the Jew. |
