“Jesus, The Jews, and The Christian Church”

John 13:31-35 and Romans 11 Selected

Fifth Sunday of Easter + May 2, 2010

Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ

400 Glenwood Drive

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404

P. T. Barnum was an American original. His flamboyant showmanship puts today’s television talk show hosts to shame. He had a positive genius for capturing the public’s attention. His most famous quip expresses his philosophy in a nutshell: “A sucker is born every minute.” And Barnum knew just how to separate a sucker from his money. Thousands flocked to see the strange exhibits in his museum. They enjoyed the spectacle so much that they didn‘t want to leave fast enough so that others could get in. With an inspired bit of humor Barnum put up a sign over a doorway: “THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS.” Expecting to see some fresh novelty visitors discovered that an “egress” is, in fact, an exit!

Today, most of us wouldn’t be amused by Barnum’s display of deformed and disabled people in his (so-called) “freak show.” Two of those on display were the original Siamese twins, two men joined together at the breast. Wonderful to relate, they did their best to live a normal life. They were even married to two women and had children! Still, we can only imagine how difficult it must have been for them to be always and forever linked together. Most poignant of all, when the first brother died the other brother knew he must also die very soon. They could have no life apart from each other.

I want you to hold that powerful image of the Siamese twins in your mind as we think together about the relationship of Christianity and Judaism. I want us to think about Paul’s question in our scripture lesson this morning: “Has God rejected his people?” Now you know Paul’s answer to that question: “By no means!”

Yet, sadly, there have been and continue to be Christians who disagree with Paul and answer “Yes!” There have been and continue to b those who believe that in Jesus of Nazareth, God finished God’s revelation to human beings so that all previous and subsequent religious disclosures have to be measured against the Christian claim of uniqueness for our faith. For those who believe this way, the whole meaning of Israel’s relationship to God was fulfilled and completed in Jesus. That means the only reason one would continue to read the Jewish scriptures would be to see what they imply about the coming of Jesus the Christ. Perhaps you recall the old bit of fundamentalist doggerel

“The Old is in the New contained,

The New is by the Old explained.”

This belief that Jesus is God’s last religious word has a long history within Christian theology. Some people point to the words in John’s Gospel declaring that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life.” But they also want to add the word “only” to that affirmation: Jesus is “the only way, the only truth, and the only life.” Surely there are less imperialistic and arrogant ways of understanding those words.

Even if we agree there is no other way to God’s presence than the way of Jesus a vital question has to be asked: “What is that way?” It seems to me that anyone who reads the Gospels with any openness would conclude that the way of Jesus was the way of obedience to the leading of God’s spirit. His way was the way of profound trust in the love of God for all people. His way was the way of forgiveness for those who strongly disagreed with him. His way was the way of compassionate concern for those in need. As John’s Gospel recalls Jesus: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

When you and I describe the essence of Jesus’ teachings in this way, I don’t know any devout Jew who would not agree that such a way is indeed the way in which God is known, people saved, and life filled with peace and joy. It is striking to me that when Jesus was asked how he would summarize the essence of his faith, he chose to do so in the classic expression of Judaism, the Shema: “Shema, Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echod.” “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” If this is the way of Jesus, how could any Jew possibly disagree?

I believe the same thing can be said for the rest of the claim that Jesus is not only the way but also the truth and the life. I think the problem over the centuries is that Christians have been tempted to make God’s revelation to them in Jesus such a unique event in human history that they cannot conceive of how God could be concerned for other religious people. Such people have taken unto themselves to decide how God can or cannot be present with the human family. Such a limited understanding of God is contrary to everything Jesus taught and lived. It is certainly contrary to the faith of the Apostle Paul who told the Athenians that God has not left Godself without a witness to all people and, indeed, in all religions.

While we as Christians can only be thankful that we have seen the face of God in Jesus of Nazareth, there is no need for us to deny that others have seen the face of God in other faiths and other religious teachers. And the more we learn about other faiths the more we will discover how the God who is real to us is also real to them. Before we are so quick to condemn or reject we need to understand.

This is particularly true in the relationship of Christians with Jews. We need to ponder with our Jewish neighbors and friends how they have known and experienced the presence of God down through their long history. Let them remind us again of all that God meant to Israel before Jesus. Let them share the long and often bitter pilgrimage of the Jewish people since the time of Christ. Let them speak of the insights and religious sensitivities of people like Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Abraham Heschel. Let them bear witness to the power of God in the midst of the Nazi Holocaust. Let them share the deep meaning and purpose for the future of Judaism they see in the nation Israel. Listening to such a testimony could open the eyes of some who dismiss Judaism as an antique religion of outmoded laws and practices. It would certainly challenge the words of such anti-Semites as Louis Farrakhan that Judaism is “a gutter religion.” It would certainly confound the simple prejudice of that Baptist leader who announced that “God does not hear the prayer of Jews.”

I believe that one of our basic problems as Christian people is that most of us are almost totally ignorant of Jewish life and thought since the New Testament period. I recall the amusing little story of the Christian Sunday School class that was visiting in a new-by temple and one of the little boys asked the Rabbi where they kept the fire for the burnt offerings! More serious than this sort of ignorance is our willingness to see Judaism only through the eyes of those New Testament writers who were struggling with it some 2000 years ago. Yet even so great a controversialist as Paul could say to the Roman Christians that God has in no way rejected God’s people Israel. “You,” said Paul, “You Gentile Christians (and remember he’s talking about you and me), count yourselves fortunate that God has been willing to graft you onto the tree of Israel. It ill behooves a branch to pretend that it is greater than the tree.”

Now some of you may be uncomfortable when Paul and I begin to talk this way. Most of us have been brought up to believe that Christianity is the best, indeed, perhaps, the only true religion. How should we then relate to other religious faiths? I like what theologian Richard Niebuhr has to say about this. For him, the question is never, “Is one religion uniquely superior to another?” The question is, rather, “What is it about my faith that means most to me and to others?” When we gather with those of other religious traditions, each is called on to bear witness to the ways in which God has been real for him or her. Each shares his or her deepest insights. For Niebuhr, only God is absolute and final. All revelations of God, including religious revelations, are relative to human history and experience. As human beings, we can only witness to what has been real for us; we cannot presume to know all of God and what God has been and done for other people.

Now it is my deepest faith that what others have found to be real and true and good in their lives will not conflict with the way, the truth and the life which God has revealed to me in Jesus Christ. As far as I am concerned, my willingness to share in dialogue with those of other faiths in no way limits my own faith that Jesus is an authentic and decisive revelation of God. I am only grateful that in God’s mercy God has allowed me to see God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But for many devout Christians the problem seems to be, “Well, if Christianity is not unique or the best, then why are we Christians?” The question is usually so poorly phrased that an answer is difficult. But let me try. Some of us are here today as Christians because we have found in the present and continuing experience of the community we call the Church and in that cluster of events, ideas, acts and meanings in which Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure, answers to some of our lives’ most troubling and puzzling questions. As for the questions to which we have not yet found answers, the Christian faith and the Christian Church have given us strength and sufficient clues so that we wait between the time of the question and the time of the answer with patience and trust and hope. We make no pretense as Christians that we have all the answers to life’s most difficult questions, but we do affirm that God has given us enough to go on. As Christians, we believe it is one minute past midnight and we are convinced that the dawn is on its way. That experience of living in the time of the not-yet is the continuing experience of both Christians and Jews.

Christians sometimes deplore the fact that Jews do not recognize the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams in the messiahship of Jesus. Yet, the same Christians would have to admit that the Kingdom of God in its full sense has not yet come for us either. Else why do we pray each Sunday for the Kingdom’s coming? Of course, as Christians we believe that the Kingdom of God was made real and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, but we also know that that Kingdom has not yet come. We are privileged to be those who have seen the glorious preview of an even more glorious coming attraction!

Now I would not disagree that there are real differences between Jews and Christians as to their understandings about some of the responsibilities we have in preparing for this coming Kingdom of God, but I would suggest that the differences may not be as sharp between Jews and Christians as they have sometimes been among Christians. It is continually amazing to me that when I meet in dialogue with Jews that our differences are usually less than we both expected.

In that spirit, I believe that many thoughtful Christians and Jews are prepared to hope that while Christians continue to give thanks to God for the disclosure of God in Jesus, Jews will likewise give thanks for Jesus of Nazareth through whom the Gentile world has come to know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So also Christians should be prepared to give thanks to God for God’s disclosure of God in the life of Israel, which includes the work of Moses and the prophets and the continuing evidence of God’s love and goodness in the life of Judaism today. Finally, I hope that we shall begin to discover that we share a common mission to make known the ways of God among all the children of humankind and to prepare for that great and coming Kingdom of God where truth, justice and peace are part of all human lives and institutions.

Pilgrim church shares a unique opportunity at this important and crucial time. We are a pluralistic church representing the best of many Christian traditions. We stand in a community with a significant and concerned Jewish population. We have the opportunity to dialogue with our Jewish brothers and sisters in ways that will deepen and enrich both our religious traditions. In so doing, I am convinced that we will only be doing greater honor to our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And to that God be the glory. Amen