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OUR JEWISH ROOTS
December 23, 2012, The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Luke 1: 39-55
Michael L. Lindvall, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York
Theme: Christian roots are deep in Judaism.
Almighty God, as you draw nearer to us in these late Advent days, may we draw nearer to
you. As Mary heard her cousin’s greeting and responded with a song of acceptance and
obedience, may we hear your word in Scripture and respond with like acceptance and
obedience. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be
acceptable in your sight O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
I put off writing this sermon Friday morning by opening the stack of Christmas cards that had
filled my mail cubby. One of them was from an organization called “Interfaith Community.”
I know the group well; in fact they occasionally use our Watson Hall for their activities.
Interfaith Community claims to be the only institution in the world that provides education,
support, and worship opportunities to Jewish-Christian families – families in which one parent
is Christian and the other Jewish. It was the message on the card’s cover that grabbed my
attention. It read “Interfaith Community – two religions, one family.” “Two religions, one
family.”
As you can imagine, it’s a delicate theological dance they do at Interfaith Community. I do a
bit of that delicate dance myself every year at the Park Avenue Carol Sing and Tree Lighting.
In spite of the fact that we sing some thoroughly Christian hymns that night, it’s not only
Christmas trees up and down Park Avenue that will light up, it’s also a string of hawthorn and
cherry trees commemorating Hanukkah. And, of course, a good number of the folks in the
crowd belting out “Hark, the Herald” are Jewish. So on that first Sunday in December, I have
to word things very carefully to encompass both Jewish and Christian faith affirmations.
This is not a new delicate dance. It’s a very old delicate dance, about 2,000 years
old. Consider the scene painted in the Bible passage Don just read from Luke’s
Gospel. Mary is visiting her cousin Elizabeth. Both women are pregnant, Mary
with Jesus, Elizabeth with John, John the Baptist. Elizabeth greets her cousin by
-1* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
saying, “Blessed are you among women.” Elizabeth feels her child stir in her
womb. Mary responds with a long speech traditionally called “The Magnificat,”
so named for its first word in the Latin translation. We hear this passage right
before Christmas most every year. This year, I want to draw your attention to two
things about this familiar passage, two very obvious things we often overlook in
spite of their obviousness.
The first is this: both Elizabeth and Mary are thoroughly Jewish women. To call
either of them Christian – at least at this point in their lives – is an anachronism.
These are two young Jewish women, cousins having lunch and talking about their
exceptional pregnancies, worrying over what was to come. The second thing I
would have you note is the fact that the words Mary speaks – that poem we call
The Magnificat – is thoroughly Jewish in its theology. In form, it’s very much like
one of the Psalms in the Old Testament. Mary’s words hint at the child she will
bear, a child who will be Messiah, a Hebrew word that means “Anointed One.”
The expectation of this Anointed One was Jewish to the core. But most of the
Magnificat actually talks about how God will work justice in Israel. Listen again
to how it ends: “He (God) has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his
mercy, according to the promises he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his
descendants forever.”
Judaism and Christianity have a unique relationship. It’s unlike Christianity’s
relationship with any other religion. This is because our Christian roots are deep in
Judaism. For us in our New York world, this relationship is not merely theoretical;
it’s an immediate “next-door-neighbor” relationship. When people ask me about
religious identity in our part of the City, I say Brick’s neighborhood is “A third
Jewish, a third Roman Catholic, a third Protestant, and a third nothing.” Most of
us have Jewish friends; many of us have Jewish relatives. Many of you have
Jewish spouses; some of you were born into Judaism.
When we talk about this relationship, there are two perilous dangers to navigate the
ship of conversation between. To draw on Homer’s image, call them the “Scylla
and Charybdis” of this discussion. On the one side of the passage, there is the
perilous creature called “Christian supersessionism.” On the other side of the
narrows is an equally deadly creature called “religious relativism.”
-2* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Let me explain. Supersessionism basically posits that Christianity “supersedes”
Judaism. It infers that Judaism is nothing but an incomplete, preparatory faith,
which only makes sense when completed by Jesus Christ. Relativism, the danger
on the other side of this passage, negates or minimizes the very real distinctions
between the two faiths. In so doing, relativism compromises both Christian and
Jewish affirmations. To find a way between these two dangers, in this sermon I
want to draw a thumbnail sketch of the differences between Judaism and
Christianity in two strokes.
The first stroke is this. Christianity is not commensurate with ethnicity in the way
Judaism is. You’re not born into Christianity in the way you’re born into Judaism.
Judaism is generally ethnically particular; Christianity is ethnically universal.
Several years ago when emerging from a downtown subway station, I was
approached by two young men in the black suits and broad-brimmed hats worn by
many ultra-Orthodox Jews. I guessed that they were Lubavitchers, a branch of
Hasidism especially committed to bringing secular, non-practicing Jews back to
religious practice. They came up to me and said politely, “Excuse me, sir, are you
Jewish?” Caught off guard I answered, “No, sorry, I’m not.” They answered,
“Sorry for bothering you then; have a nice day,” and backed away.
In spite of the occasional conversion of Gentiles to Judaism, the traditional
understanding of Jewish identity is that it’s based largely on birth, not choice.
Jewish tradition has seldom emphasized proselytizing because, for the most part,
it’s understood that Jews are more born, not made. This is why Lubavitchers focus
on “evangelizing” other Jews and Jews only. The point is that the “old covenant,”
the covenant with Israel, was made by God with a particular people, not with all
humanity.
Another story. The church I served back in Ann Arbor was surrounded on three
sides by fraternities and sororities, and on the fourth side by the Hillel Foundation,
a large ministry to Jewish students at the University of Michigan. We shared a
parking lot successfully (no mean feat). When our church renovated the building,
-3* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
the Hillel let us use their classrooms on Sunday mornings at no charge. It was a
happy relationship.
I came to know the director of the Hillel, a guy named Michael Brooks, quite well.
I hold him in high regard as an intellect and man of faith. Once when we were
discussing this Jewish-Christian intersection over lunch, Michael offered a koanlike utterance I shall never forget. “You know,” he said, “If Christianity hadn’t
come along, it would have been necessary for us Jews to invent it.” Deeply ironic,
of course, because a Jew named Jesus did invent it!
But Michael’s other point was, I think, that Christianity expands the possibility of
relationship between God and people beyond Jewish identity to all humanity. And
this, Michael implied, had to happen. This expansion of God’s relationship to all
people was somehow part of the plan. Thus, Christianity – by definition –
becomes a missionary religion. Christianity by its nature reaches out and invites
all to consider Christ. Because of this, it has grown to be the largest and most
rapidly growing religion in the world. The Pew Center says that are there are now
2.2 billion Christians in the world, but just 14 million Jews. That immense
numbers gap is simply because Christianity – by definition – reaches out to all
people in a way that – by self-definition – Judaism does not. This is because
Christianity understands the “new covenant,” the “New Testament,” to be between
God and all humanity who respond to God through Jesus Christ. You might even
say that, in a sense, the “new covenant” makes it possible for all “to be Jews,” or at
least to be “like Jews” in binding covenant relationship with the one God, the God
of Israel.
The second stroke in my thumbnail sketch of the key differences between Judaism
and Christianity is to note an equally obvious truth. Judaism and Christianity
differ in that, for Jews, the mediator between God and people is Torah, the written
word, instruction, or law. Torah is words, words offered to shape a life faithful to
God. God gave Torah – written teaching – as a gift to God’s people. God’s people
respond by obeying Torah. For Jews, you might say that Torah is “the glue” that
binds God and people.
-4* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
I recently attended Sabbath services at Temple Emanu-El down on Fifth Avenue. I
was struck by the most solemn part of the service, “the adoration,” during which
the Torah screen was pulled back to expose the exquisite Torah scrolls. They were
brilliantly illuminated; the rabbis and congregation faced them, first in silence and
then as the choir chanted a long prayer of praise.
For Christians, the glue that binds God to humanity is Jesus Christ. God’s gift, the
expression of God’s truth, is in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
Not just Jesus’ words, but his life, his death and resurrection, his very self, are the
expression of the Divine nature, spoken to all humanity; and all people are invited
to respond and enter into this “new covenant” by living in Christ. So in Christian
worship, prayers of adoration are offered not to any words, not even to the words
of Scripture, but to the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ becomes, in
a sense, our “torah.” But, please note, the “old Torah” is not rendered entirely
obsolete for Christians. We still read Hebrew scripture, what we call the Old
Testament; we still pray the Psalms; we still work to obey the Ten
Commandments.
So my two-stroke thumbnail sketch of the difference between Judaism and
Christianity looks like this: Stroke one: Christianity expands, even universalizes,
God’s relationship to humanity. Stroke two: Christianity “incarnates” the covenant
in the person of Jesus Christ. But the coming of Christ does not invalidate or
supersede the covenant God made with Israel, because God’s promises are sure
and eternal.
Jesus Christ is the new thing God offers all humanity. He is the new thing that will
be the focus of our worship services tomorrow and the day after. I’ll expand on
this tomorrow night, but let me close by offering a summary of it. The core of our
Christian faith, the reason for Christmas, is our trust that in Jesus Christ, God has
spoken a new Word to all humanity, a word spoken in terms that all humanity can
understand. God has spoken a Word in the form of a flesh-and-blood person like
us. At the heart of Christian faith is this radical affirmation that in Jesus of
Nazareth, “God is spoken,” spoken for all humanity to hear. His teaching, his life,
his very way of being, his way of dying, his way of living again, all become for
-5* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Christians, “the Word,” the Word God speaks to you, the Word God speaks to me,
the Word God speaks to all the world – all the world.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
-6* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written
accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.