|
|
Jokes
Two men sitting on the bus are talking.
One guy says,
"Did you hear the one about the two Jews who are walking down the
street..."
The other guy says,
"Hold it!
Why are you always telling jokes about Jews?
I find it offensive.
Why must they always be about Jews?"
"You're right,"
his friend replies and starts the joke again:
"So, these two Chinese guys are walking down the street on the way to
their nephew's bar mitzvah..."
A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk
into a bar.
The bartender looks up and says,
"What is this, a joke?"
So the rabbi looks straight into the
bartenders eyes and says, …
The three of us went for a hike last week.
It was really, really hot.
We were sweating and exhausted when we came upon a small lake.
Since it was pretty secluded, we took off our clothes and jumped in the
water.
It felt great. It was wonderful.
Feeling refreshed, we decided to pick a few berries while enjoying our
"freedom."
As we were crossing an open area, who should come along but
a group of ladies from town.
Well, we weren’t able to get to our clothes in time, so the minister
and the priest here covered their privates and ran for cover.
Well, I
covered my face and ran for cover.
After the ladies had left and we got our clothes back on, the minister and
the priest asked me why I covered my face rather than my privates.
I told them,
"I don't know about you, but in MY synagogue, it's my face they would
recognize."
That last joke made me think however.
You have the Catholic Church going broke over child sexual
abuse cases.
Every few years we get a new report of some conservative
Christian minister misinterpreting the intent of being saved by grace and
getting into some sex scandal.
But what’s up with the Jews.
They got nothin’.
What is it about Jesus’ teachings that inspires
Christian clergy to do stuff that the Jews don’t do?
For this I do not have an answer.
However, this may point us to one of many things we can
learn from the Jews.
But of course it is hard to learn from people you don’t respect and
historically Christians have had a very hard time respecting the Jews despite
what our most important religious teachers have taught us; those teachers
being none other than Jesus and Paul.
We should be able to figure it out just from the scripture
we read this morning.
The Old Testament reading for today tells the story of
how the Jews began, with God protecting the family of Jacob by guiding them
to Egypt.
It shows God cared greatly for the Jews.
Then there was Jesus, a Jew, who began his ministry
clearly focused on the Jews.
He wasn’t even going to heal the non-Jewish woman’s daughter,
until he had an epiphany, a revelation, brought on by this woman;
and his ministry was changed for ever.
But it started with the Jews.
Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, ministered to the
Jews and died a Jew at the hands of the non-Jewish occupation forces.
While Jesus opened up his ministry to non-Jews, or
Gentiles, his primary audience was the Jews and all his disciples were Jews.
And his closest disciples, after his death, still
believed that to be a true follower of Jesus, you first had to be a Jew.
Then came Paul, who was also a
Jew, but who had a vision of Christ that reveled to him that the Gospel of
Jesus, God’s love, was not to stop at the Jews but was meant for the
entire world.
But when faced with the very question of had “God
rejected the Jews” –what is his response?
“No way!
I myself am an Israelite,” he says, “a descendant of Abraham, a
member of the tribe of Benjamin.
God has not rejected God’s people whom God foreknew.
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
So how are we to relate to the Jews?
As I mentioned, Christianity has not done a very good job
of this.
Christianity’s bad record started as far back as the
first century when some, not all, but some Christians started blaming the
Jews for killing Jesus.
And as the question raised by Paul indicates, even in
Paul’s time in the 50s, there were Christians who were pushing the
position that God had rejected the Jews.
Unfortunately, the teachings of Paul and Jesus did not
win out and for centuries Christianity taught that the Jews were evil and
that gave them permission, even the direction, to persecute and kill millions
of Jews.
Over the centuries between Constantine and Hitler,
Christians did Hitler proud, killing more Jews than Hitler could have ever
dreamed of.
And it is a Christian understanding of the Jews that
still persists today – oddly found in the pro-Israel stances (that’s
right – the pro-Israel stances) of much of conservative,
fundamentalist, right-wing Christianity.
The Jews have got to be confused.
It seems that many of those who are critical of Israel are actually pro-Jewish while those who are supportive
of Israel are actually anti-Semitic.
If that confuses you, just imagine what it’s like
for a Jew who lumps all Christians together, just as most Christians lump all
Jews together.
So let me try to sort it out.
Most conservative and right-wing Christians that are
supportive of Israel and support them no matter what atrocious behavior Israel
displays or injustice they enact;
they support them because they see Israel’s growing power as ultimately
bringing on Armegeddon, (Yeah!!) when all the world
will be at war and Jesus will come down with his forces and kill all
non-believers – which just happens to include -- the Jews.
So the conservative Christian apparent affection for the Jews is just a way
of giving the Jews enough rope to hang themselves
on.
Then there is the other side of Christianity, the more progressive
side, the side where you will find the UCC, that is very critical of Israel
and its expansionist policies, especially its oppressive occupation of Palestine
and its horrifying unjust treatment of the Palestinians.
But we do this from a stance of love, as members of the
same family of faith.
We do it as a sibling scolds their brother or sister, who
they love.
In great opposition to conservative, fundamentalist,
right-wing Christianity, the last thing we want to see is the death of the
Jews.
Here’s the real kicker when it comes to Jewish/Christian
relations.
While the conservatives’ final solution is the elimination of the Jews,
progressive Christians see the Jews as co-builders, with us, of the realm of
God.
Jesus’ gospel was a Jewish gospel, delivered to the
Jews and while the wealthy establishment folks, well connected to the
occupying Roman forces, rejected Jesus’ teaching, thousands and
thousands of Jews flocked to him as the new Messiah.
And, a significant number of Jews continued to see Jesus
as the hope for the future even after he was crucified.
It was those Jews who saw that not even Jesus physical
death was enough to kill his spirit and Jesus lived on.
So according to Jesus and Paul, how should we relate to
Jews?
We need to relate to them as family.
They are part of God’s family as are all people.
The Jewish people have the same direction from God as we
do – to build the Realm of God, a world that reflects and manifests the
love of God.
And just as you would chastise a loved one for acting in
an unloving way, we need to chastise one another when we act unloving.
The Jews need to correct us and we need to correct them whenever one of us
acts in a manner God abhors.
That’s how a loving family works.
And so what about Muslims?
Are they part of the family?
Jesus told a story
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers,”
Ah, you know the story. The story of the “Good -- Muslim.”
Samaritan – Muslim – neighbor – family.
AMEN.
|
