Talk Three: Jesus the Jewish Rabbi
Christians will only be
able to combat antisemitism both in the Church and the world if we better
understand where we ourselves come from.
In my last talk at this time, I pointed to how our history as a Church
begins with the promises of God to Abraham, promises which are repeated
throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, culminating in the promise of a ‘son of David’,
the great King of Israel. Such an
understanding may not prevent us falling into the sin of antisemitism, but it
may at least make us pause for thought.
While we pause to
contemplate where we have come from, we may also like to consider the example
of the Lord we follow. Nowadays, most of
those of us who are Christians are Gentiles.
We are not Jews. Most of the work
we do as a Church is directed towards other Gentiles. Jesus himself told his disciples to ‘go into
all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’. No matter what mistakes we may have made in
the process, we have, as a Church, sought to do this.
In our attempts to
bring people to believe in Christ, we have sought to make him as attractive to
people as possible, and this has resulted in us leaving out those bits that we
ourselves find unattractive or those bits that we think they will find
unattractive. So, for example, today we
seek to show people how welcoming, inclusive, and forgiving Jesus was - which
is true, he was - but we leave out the fact that he said that anyone who didn’t
leave all that he had could not be one of his followers.
We also don’t tell
them that he was a Jewish Rabbi who saw his ministry as being to the Jewish
people in fulfilment of the Jewish Scriptures.
Instead, we make Jesus into a universal religious teacher whose teaching
is for all people whatever their background.
This, apart from making Jesus’ teaching sound no more than pious
platitudes of the kind that you might find in a self-help manual, also distorts
who Jesus really was.
His mother pointed out
that Jesus’ birth was in accordance with the promise made to her Jewish
ancestors. Zechariah, the father of John
the Baptist, the one who was to prepare the way for Jesus, was told that John
would ‘turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.’ Rather than being a teacher of universal truths, Jesus’ teaching
can only be understood in relation to the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus sought to explain and interpret them. This may at times have been in a radical and
shocking way, but he would have nothing to do with any suggestion that he had
come to get rid of the Hebrew Scriptures:
‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets;’ he said, ‘I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.’
When asked by a lawyer what he must do to
inherit eternal life, Jesus replied that the lawyer must keep the ten
commandments. When asked what is the
greatest commandment, Jesus recites the Shema, which was and is at the heart of
Jewish prayer and worship. Jesus dressed
as an observant Jew, prayed as an observant Jew, and lived as an observant
Jew. He also avoided contact with
Gentiles and confined his ministry to the historic boundaries of Israel. For the avoidance of any doubt, on one
occasion he specifically states: ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel.’
[Music:
Gideon Klein, Duo pour violon and alto en 1/4 de ton: Lento]
Gideon Klein, Duo pour violon and alto en 1/4 de ton: Lento]
Clearly Jesus’ life and ministry was to have significance for other than his own people. But that was to come later. First, he came to his own.
After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus says to his disciples:
‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’
As Christians this is where we need to begin. We will only understand Jesus’ teaching and significance when we understand not only who he was, but also the people to whom he came. When St John in the Book of Revelation has a vision of the exalted Jesus in heaven, he sees:
'the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David’
This is not only who Jesus was; it is who he still is.
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