We live in a pluralistic world where
we come into contact with many people of no faith and many people of distinctly
different faith. As a Christian and a
faith leader one of my highest callings amidst so many different faith
perspectives is to live my faith with humility.
I don’t try to pretend I have all the answers. Clearly, I do not. Sometimes my sermons every Sunday are me
trying to figure out this thing called faith.
But a big part of living my faith
with humility is recognizing that just because someone else’s faith is
different does not mean their faith is any less true, any less beautiful and
complex and good. I was with Native
leaders from the Pokagon Band this past week and I can tell . . . they want to
know, intuitively, whether I think my Christianity makes me better than
them. Or do I see wisdom and truth in
their tradition that offers the possibility of changing me.
In
the same way, I have served two different churches where a local rabbi became
my best friend. They are always
interested. Do I think Christianity is
the new and improved form of Judaism such that their Jewish faith falls
short? Or am I humble enough to see
Judaism as a deep, broad, and diverse path which has a wisdom that is longer
than Christianity? During Advent, that
is a critical question. Because the
Scripture verses chosen for Advent make it seem like Jesus is the answer to
every Jewish prophetic prediction. They
shall call him Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace . . . gotta be Jesus. By his stripes we are healed . . . gotta be
Jesus. “My God, my God why have you
abandoned me!” Ah, well, look, that is
the Psalmnist in Psalm 22, predicting what Jesus would say on the cross!
I
remember in high school being blown away by all the ways the gospels correlated
with something from what I used to call the Old Testament and what I now call
Hebrew Scripture. As I studied further
though, I learned from scholars like former priest, John Dominic Crossan, that
there was another reason Jesus was seen as the fulfillment of so much Hebrew
Scripture. Gospel writers and other New
Testament writers actively made “prophecy historicized.” In other words, New Testament writers would
search the Hebrew Scriptures for content that would give authority to the life,
teaching, and ministry of Christ.
They
did this so Jews in the First Century would see Jesus as part of a long line
teachers and prophets who spoke and acted according to the tradition—not to
break with the tradition. But
eventually, Christianity, which began as a cult within Judaism, was either
thrown out of the synagogue or broke from the synagogue. Christianity became distinct from Judaism.
Later
on, Christian thinkers and teachers became known for supersessionism or
fulfillment theology where Jesus became the answer for every future prediction
made in Hebrew Scripture. At its worst,
this suggested that Christians somehow replaced Jews as the chosen people. Rabbis and Christian pastors I respect state
quite bluntly these days, in light of current events, that there are no chosen
people.
Now while most Christian teachers and
scholars in my seminary did not see Jesus as the fulfillment of all Jewish
prophecy, they continued to preach from the Revised Common Lectionary for
Advent. And in Advent, we have one after
another Jewish prophecy that Jesus seems to fulfill. But again, what if gospel writers went back
into Hebrew Scripture prophecy and used it to give Jesus’s life, teaching, and
ministry more heft within their tradition?
That was not done to replace the Jewish faith but to extend it see it
continuing to be lived—until Christianity and Judaism went their separate ways
far out into the future.
What
many pastors and preachers might not ever tell you is that many of things later
attributed to Jesus were not about prophecies far out into the future but many times
a statement and reference to things going on presently in their community. Some of the suffering servant passages which
later got attributed to Jesus’s torture and death were actually statements
about the untold suffering the whole Jewish people went through during the
Babylonian Exile.
Some
of those statements are profoundly dangerous for the Jewish people as the Scripture
passages suggest Jews as total innocents in the world who unjustly go through untold
amounts of suffering, dislocation, and death.
Or . . . if the Jewish people weren’t innocents, they certainly inherited
more suffering and death than they deserved as God’s chosen.
Meanwhile,
Jewish prophets before the Babylonian Exile suggest that their suffering is a
direct result of the sin of the Jewish political and religious elite who
defrauded the poor, made violence an everyday experience for the wider Jewish
populace, and set as values their own wealth and gain. Regardless of sin, no people deserves the
desolation, violence, and death brought to the Jewish people from the Exile but
stories about innocence or deserved holocaust or genocide do not serve us as we
discern paths to peace.
Christians
picked up those narratives of innocence and deserved genocide too easily, and,
even worse, those stories have been picked up by Christian Nationalism to do
the worst of our nation’s history. Those
narratives have not allowed our nation to be honest about its history and
allowed our government to make claims about who we are that are entirely
fictional. We are not innocents in the
world and the belief that we are has allowed us to wield the sword in horrific
ways believing that the violence we do does not destroy peoples or disfigure
who we are.
So what do preachers and pastors say
with this being the reality? Are they
honest? Do they tell you that gospel
writers actively scanned Hebrew Scripture to help Jesus fit within the long
line of poetic tradition? Do they share
that many of the prophecies were about what people saw way back then and are
not about a Jesus far out into the future?
Or are they a little less honest to say, “Look, Jesus, is being talked
about by all these prophets, his actions fulfilling detailed statements about a
Promised One who would come to save us?
It is one thing to say that Jesus fulfills a long line of Jewish values
encouraging steadfast love, justice, and righteousness. It is quite another thing to say that Jews
several hundred years earlier predicted the arrival of Jesus.
Jesus
does not replace Judaism. He is not the
new and improved version. Rather, Jesus
and Paul made choices within the wide and vast diversity of Judaism to
interpret Judaism as powerful and meaningful for the people of their time.
Ok, that’s a long explanation to
say. As your pastor, I am trying to live
out this humble faith knowing that I don’t have all the answers. But I want to honor those of different
faiths, particularly Jews who have meant so much to my faith through the
years. And I I am trying to do right by
you so you see me trying to do my very best to communicate what I see.
So
what I chose to do for Advent is select verses from Hebrew Scripture that were
not finding their fulfillment in Jesus but were teaching from Jesus’s long
tradition as a Jew these ancient values, these deep values, sometimes these
countercultural values.
As
I said last week, I often worry that we don’t see some of the powerful parts of
our tradition because we romance the Advent and Christmas story. My most fervent prayer is that before we
celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, I help you remember who he was, what
is coming into the world, so that you might join hands with this long, ancient
tradition. And that is why this week,
when we light the candle of love, I want you to hear from the core of Jesus’s
teaching what was meant by that in the Gospel of Matthew.
Because
the other strong Scripture which defines Jesus in Matthew, found nowhere else
in the other gospels, is when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats. And Jesus does so by asking, did you extend
love to people who have their backs against the wall? You join Jesus and the Empire of Heaven if
you give people who are hungry something to eat, those who are thirsty
something to drink. Do you welcome the
stranger? Visit the ill and those in
prison? Those who do all that . . . they
are welcomed into the Empire of Heaven.
That is one of the critical Scripture passages which will eventually
define this Christ Child.
The
other is the Scripture passage we have before us today. It is Jesus’s sermon on the mount, the
Beatitudes, a radical statement over and against the Roman imperial gospel
which blessed the wealthy, spread the gospel through military conquest (you
know you are next when they start calling you “the barbarians”), and silenced
all those who disagreed with them through political execution. The Romans said that they did these things by
divine decree. Jupiter and the pantheon
of gods were clearly on their side . . . because, well, look at the state of
the world. Rome and its Caesar
ruled.
This
understanding that might makes right and reflects the divine order affirmed the
status quo and justified Roman Caesars taking divine titles for themselves like
god and son of god. But this
understanding also made the Jews, a conquered and enslaved people born out of
liberation by a God who had not chosen the winners to break the waters and give
them birth, particularly problematic.
As
we go forward this next week to celebrate Christmas remember the content of the
Beatitudes part of the radical, countercultural nature of our tradition. Jesus is not speaking into a vacuum. He is remember the God of the Exodus to extend
the tradition even further. Jesus hears
the wider Roman wider culture say that god loves the rich. Jesus says, “Blessed or honored are you
destitute, the ones left for dead.”
Jesus hears the wider Roman wider culture say that god accumulates the wealth
of nations for us as we slay your fathers and sons of fighting age. You are given over to us by the gods. Jesus says, “Blessed are you who mourn.” Jesus hears Caesar say to prophet after
prophet, “You are not to be critical of the crown. We are the ones who bear the good news of
might and power over peoples. Roman gods
encourage us to mete out wrath upon those who question, organize, and offer an
alternative to the bread and circuses we drop from on high in coliseums throughout
the empire.” Jesus says, “Blessed are
the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because
of justice, for theirs is the empire of heaven.
And the values of heaven are far different than those of Rome.”
That
is the content of the child we will celebrate in less than a week. He is strongly, intentionally seeking out a
way of being that is contrary to Roman empire.
And found in almost every one of the deep faith traditions is a way, a
path, that is contrary to the pursuit of material wealth, the justification of
violence over and against a people thought to be lesser, and truth-tellers who
stand into the wind to say and live contrary to the party line on behalf of God’s
good earth, the poor and oppressed, the sick and the dying, those thought to be
the sinner and the outcast. Those
truth-tellers very often do so even when they are threatened, beaten,
persecuted, and executed.
As
we head into Christmas, I say we join those long-line of truth-tellers to reach
across the great divides of culture and faith, to live humbly enough to extend
our hands and say that we believe that Roman imperial theology is a lie. Like Jesus, we see a God who is moving and
living and breathing to remind us that there is another way, another peace, a
more profound Truth. Magi have been
reading the stars, interpreting dreams, and are aware that all of creation is
ready to break into a song that is ancient but new. Angels are at the ready, a veritable army
referred to as a host, now showing themselves to those who have been laid low
by life, showing themselves to disarm fear and infuse courage. And a small displaced family seeks shelter
from the ravages of the world. They
become hunted by the client king Herod who believes himself to be the King of
the Jews and certainly will not stand for any claims contrary to Caesar.
Courage,
my dear friends, for the Beatitudes still stand while Rome has fallen. God has been waiting. And now we are ready to join hands to piece
together the Empire of Heaven, more appropriately known as the Beloved
Community. Let us live into the content
of the Beatitudes as Christmas comes.
Amen.
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