What is this? Is this Church? Why isn’t everybody in pews? Where’s the organ, the chancil, and the
altar? What about the sanctuary and all
those other hard to remember terms they don’t teach in seminary? And what about those funny guys in the long
dresses? How can this be worship? How can this be Church?
Well,
sometimes things are not always what they seem, and just because it isn’t what
we are used to, doesn’t mean it isn’t just as true. But mistaking something for its trappings, getting
fooled by the outside and not looking within is something we as humans will
always struggle with. We don’t like
change, we don’t like it when differences crop up into our lives. Between bills, work, family, and all the drama
that gets put into that mix we like things to stay the same, we like things the
way we are used to, the way we can handle them.
Humanity’s been like that since Adam and the fall, and it was no
different for people living in Jesus’ time as it is today.
Most
people don’t really appreciate how different Jesus’ ministry was, how so very
radical compared to what was going on at
the time. I want you to imagine
yourselves as Israelites living in Palestine, as 1st century Jews
living within walking distance of the Holy City. The temple and the synagogue
are the biggest contact points of your faith, the places where you fully
embraced your identity as Jews. The
synagogue was where you learned about your ancestral religion: Your learned
what to eat, what to wear, and what to do.
The temple, however, was where you most publicly proclaimed your
identity and where you performed the most important rites as an Israelite. Here the Day of Atonement was performed, here
the sacrifices and the various offerings were made to absolve all Israel of her
sins. Here was where you were supposed
to meet God.
But not
all of your fellow Jews are happy with things the way they are, indeed the
strife with your countrymen is almost equal to the strife you feel with your
Roman conquerors. In the first century
there are four major divisions of the Jewish faith that you must contend with,
all quite different from one another. There
were the Sadducees, the ruling class of Israel.
Surprisingly secular believers, they do not believe in angels or spirits
nor do they really believe in an afterlife.
They pick and choose from their Bible, taking the verses they like and
conveniently excluding what they don’t.
Only the first five books of Moses were Scripture to them, you see. Cutting out ¾ of your book means cutting ¾ of
your responsibility and where life would be at odds with the Prophets, the
Prophets could simply be discarded. Still,
while deeply flawed by power and compromised by convenience, it must be noted
that these are the only Jews among your people who are not racist, that do not
believe Gentiles are bad simply because they are gentiles and by extension they
do not believe Jews are good only because they are Jewish.
In addition to the Sadducees, however,
there are the Pharisees and they are not so far from our evangelical movement. They are a Scripture driven movement, a
missionary movement, and a grass roots association interested in keeping the
Scriptures central in the daily lives of their fellow Israelites. No one person leads it, no organization heads
it, rather it is rallied by its charismatic preachers who often decried their
government and were quick to advocate war against foreign powers. Their adherence to the whole of Scripture
often makes them legalistic, obeying the bare words on the page but caring
little for the spirit in which those words were given, but at the same time you
will be hard pressed to find a Jew more openly living their faith or more
interested in relieving the suffering of their people than this group.
After the Pharisees are the
Essenes, Puritans and End Time Believers.
They believe most of the country has fallen into horrible sin, so they do
not mix with the common Israelite, seeing them as too tainted, too unclean for
Holy Living. They have removed
themselves from society and live in the desert far away from the false government
and the false religion that have taken on God’s name. When God comes to judge their nation, it is their
intention to be “Left Behind”, looking forward to the destruction of the temple
and the coming of a great teacher.
There are also the Zealots, a group
of Jews who feel that the only response to an unclean and gentile ridden
government is its violent overthrow. They
were inspired by the Maccabees, the Jewish generals who threw off gentile
oppression and foreign entanglements by the sword. These are your constitution party members, the
liberty lovers and the militiamen seeking to return their society to its
perceived origins. They are believers in
their weapons and are fervent in their opposition to their government, but they
are also the Jews most willing to give their lives in defense of their friends.
But finally, there are the people
like you and me. People who are
somewhere in the middle, perhaps seeing one side or another but in all honesty
just trying to eek out an existence that both gives credence to your people and
shows faithfulness to your God. You know
the Temple isn’t perfect, you know the flaws of your leaders, and you know the
dangers of losing your way of life, but it’s also all you’ve got to work with. And so you work, you live, and you wait. You endure the times and raise a family,
doing your best with what you have…that is until someone comes along and shows
you a better way.
And that someone comes…a man, a
lowly carpenter’s son, rumored to be of illegitimate birth. He is a rabbi, but he is not like the other
rabbis. He has no education, no formal
training. He didn’t apprentice himself
to another teacher like the others did, he simply took up the mantle one day
and, shockingly, people listened. But people
did more than listen, they followed. They
followed by the thousands. And when this
rabbi took disciples, he didn’t take the cream of the religious crop. He didn’t go to the Scriptoriums, the
religious schools for their best students, he took everybody. He took fishermen, tax collectors, Zealots! He even taught women! And what did this man teach? He taught that the root of all evil was
neither Sadducee nor gentile, but the love of money and power and any Jew was
quite susceptible. He taught that
gentiles were not an enemy of the religion or the state and they were indeed capable
of great faith. He taught the Temple was
about to be judged and replaced with nothing, that the new holy community could
be comprised with just two people without any buildings or sacrifices for sins. He taught that there are no unclean foods and
that working on the Sabbath is not necessarily against the law if those works
are for good. He taught that the
Scriptures are Holy and Good, but they need filling to be complete. But more than any of that, in a land of
schisms and disagreements, in a land more and more given to violence this rabbi
taught that Peace was the answer, that love for neighbor was the solution, that
simple faith in God even unto death was the way.
Now,
all of you may be wondering, what in the name of the Holy of Holies does this
have to with our gospel text? Well, I’ll
tell you. As a Jew or even a Gentile in
the first century the question arises, indeed begs to be asked how then is this
Jesus still a Jew? How can this sect of
Christians still consider themselves part of Judaism when they will eat any
food, have no use for temple or sacrifice, are willing to include gentiles into
the people of God, and understand their Hebrew Scriptures as now secondary to
the message of the gospel? Yes, this
Jesus might be important, indeed he might be the most important man who ever
lived, but how can Christianity be thought of as having Jewish roots?
And the
answer is that appearances can be deceiving.
What looks one way can in fact be another and THAT is a theme that Luke
deeply addresses in his gospel. Luke
begins his tale as a Gentile would.
Important people, people of divine importance, are often heralded
before-hand. So important is this Jesus,
however, that even Jesus’ herald John is heralded beforehand. Yes, this all occurred as a gentile would
think fit, but these heralds are not gentile, they are Jewish. Jesus and John are born to Jewish
parents. John’s father is a Jewish
priest and Jesus’ parents have him circumcised and presented at the Temple
according to Jewish law. The inherent
Jewishness of the Jesus story is hammered home time and time again and the relevance
of the Jewish scriptures and their filled-full-ment in Jesus is not some
outlying afterthought or a tangential footnote, but is central to the
fulfillment of God’s promises to his people.
Indeed, where the story seems least Jewish, it in fact shows quite the
opposite. Joseph and Mary are recorded
in Luke as obeying the Roman census. Most jews rebelled at every census, but Joseph
and Mary did not. Their scriptures told
them to obey the gentile king, to pray for them and indeed intercede for them
while under their rule. The Prophets
proclaimed this, and Mordecai in Ruth lived this, even to the point of seeking
royal permission to defend themselves against Haman and their enemies. Joseph and Mary were not less Jewish for
obeying Caesar; they were in fact more Jewish than all the rest of their
countrymen. And so it is for this part
of the story, Jesus having just proclaimed the faith of a centurion now goes
into Nain and raises a widow’s son, just like Elijah the Jewish Prophet did so
many centuries before. But unlike
Elijah, who raised a gentile widow’s son, Jesus goes to the Jews and returns a Jewish
widow’s only son back to her. God has
indeed returned to bless his people. They
were not left out.
So yes,
things changed. The trappings of the
past, the trap-things, the outside appearances that ensnared, yes they were
discarded but the heart was no less true to its heritage. God is not an exclusive God. Claiming the Gentiles did not mean dismissing
the Jews, and the blessings of the future in fact did not include the cursing
of the past. Both were upheld and one did
not happen at the expense of the other. So
it is with us. So often we look at the
future and we see great cataclysmic change.
We look at our society and our children. We say “look how different it’s
all going to be”…except it’s not. 2000
years from now we will still be silly, ridiculous humans in need of Jesus, but I
will not lie to you, my friends, things will look different. We will have a different president, we will
live in a different world. Our children
will grow, they will not be exactly like us and our church will look very
different in the years to come. It’s
only looks. God is the God of the old
and the new, and he gives the same heart to them both if we ask Him. So yes, things will change, just not
really. And we can take heart in
that.
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