Rabbenu

Is Torah Obedience a Contemptible Yoke? The Legacy of Cryptosupersessionism

2007-09-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

On my website Rabbenu.org, I have posted a brief essay exploring what I term "cryptosupersessionism." I say there that we have inherited a submerged and entrenched cluster of presuppositions which assume the expiration of that status and those status markers which formerly pertained to the Jewish people. I also indicate that this inherited bias must be repudiated if we would walk in faithfulness to God and in solidarity with our people.

What biases about the status of Jewish religion and the theological status of the Jewish people do you recognize cling to you and your circles?

Do You Ask Questions?

2007-07-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

Dr. Dauermann made a very strong final point in this week's sermon available here. I have included an excerpt as a highlight below:

Finally, I think that any conclusions we draw about people's eternal destinies need to be made with a heightened awareness of what we are talking about, rather than in the arid neo-Platonic realm of pure theological ideas. Eternal destiny should never be a subject for banter. I would want to sit down in a room with a bunch of us, and a group of right wing theologically conservative Messianic believers, and slowly review the lives of people like Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Chofetz Chaim, and Elie Wiesel for example, and then ask: "Does our theological system demand that we insist that these people will spend eternity in the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, in everlasting conscious torment? Does this comport with what we know of God?" Or do you sense that there may just be something wrong here?

I think it is better for us to embrace the rigors, uncertainties, and agonies of beseeching God for better answers, than to accept the closure that comes from acquiescence to a system of theological thought that gives us tidy answers but a terrible God.

Certainly, there are aspects of this that all of us can react to. The challenge is whether we are willing given that doing so may expose the iceberg of uncertainties under the surface.

Have you considered these questions with G-d previously?

The Passion of Pinchas and God's Prophetic People

2007-07-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

In the parsha sermon this week on Pinchas, Dr. Dauermann asked the question "What about me? What about you? What about us?"

With the example of Abraham Klausner's heroic effort to advocate for and reunite Jews after WWII, how might we find new ways to do what we can? How might we move beyond declaring injustice someone else's problem and just shrugging our shoulders?

The Mission Statement of Ahavat Zion and The Prophecies of Balaam

2007-06-29T17:07:00.001-07:00

For a more detailed treatment of this topic, see the full article here.

At Ahavat Zion, we have recently streamlined our mission statement to read as follows:

We are a West Side Jewish congregation passing on to the next generation our commitment to:

* Torah living
* Jewish unity
* Spiritual renewal
* The Land of Israel
and
* Yeshua the Messiah

Ahavat Zion is affiliated with the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations and the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council.

In large measure, this mission statement is based on future perfect paradigm. This metaphor, developed by Futurist Stanley Davis, advocates planning backwards from te future to the present. To the degree that you know or envision a desirable future, you then seek to plan from here to get there.

Ezekiel 37 is one of the passages that portrays where God is leading the people of Israel. But does this crop up elsewhere in Scripture? Surely it does, and the prophecies of Balaam are one place where that happens.

Some Thoughts on Reading Darrell Guder (Part Two) - On the Messianic Jewish Movement, Evangelism, and Israel as God's "Good News People"

2007-05-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

This posting is part of a continuing series of interaction with a book I am currently reading, "The Continuing Conversion of the Church," by Darrell Guder , a warm and highly competent missiologist, now Academic Dean at Princeton Seminary. My writing here is not by way of formal essays, as much as reflections as part of an ongoing process

Guder extensively explores what is meant by the gospel. Much that he says is instructive for the Messianic Jewish movement, either by way of agreement or by way of contrast.

He reminds us that the gospel is first of all “the gospel of God,” “the good news of God.” He sees the gospel as a message of God’s goodness, “a goodness which God has made known, has revealed, and which defines God’s purposes” (29). And because of Israel’s history with God, the gospel of Christ/Messiah is not the first good news of God they have encountered: “God’s people have experienced this goodness; it has been Israel’s gospel from the call of Abraham onward. . . . Through the particular encounter of God with Israel, the good news that God is loving and purposeful enters into human history and becomes knowable” (29). I would certainly add to this, that Israel’s good news has also always been that God is Redeemer. Therefore, using a bracket, I would modify one of Guder’s cogent statements as follows: “Jesus’ coming and his message are good news, as it has always been good news when God [comes to rescue his people and] makes God’s self and purposes known” (30).

Due to its pervasive supersessionist world-view, missiology in general fails to note how Israel’s experience with God is a proleptic foretaste of the gospel. Coining the term “crypto-supersessionism” might be of help here, which term means “supersessionist presuppositions functioning at a subconscious world-view level which, while unacknowledged, become evident in their effects.” Such crypto-supersessionism is evident even in dispensationalist Jewish mission circles where supersessionism per se is flatly rejected. Even in these circles, crypto-supersessionism is known by its fruits: anti-rabbinism, anti-nomianism, and anti-Judaism. Due to such assumptions, both the Jewish missions culture and the church fail to take due note of Israel’s repeated and continuing experiences with “the gospel of God,” when God has come to rescue his people and make himself and his purposes known. These experiences are proleptic, that is, they anticipate the greater good news that comes through and with Yeshua the Messiah.

This connection between Israel’s prior and ongoing experience with God and the gospel of Yeshua the Messiah requires that all conceive of the gospel presented to the Jewish people as “more of the same (that Israel has known) and much more than that.” This viewpoint highlights the tension between continuity and discontinuity, between oldness and newness, that must be maintained if we would rightly testify to the works of God.

Once one grasps this principle, this paradigm of continuity/discontinuity, oldness/newness, “more of the same and much more than that," becomes apparent in Scripture.

For example, when God calls Moses in Exodus 3, especially verses 5-10, and as expanded in Exodus 6:1-9, he establishes that this good news, this gospel, is both what they have experienced before (I am the LORD [who] appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty (3:2-3), and yet something new, (“but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them”) (3:3b). And see the passage in chapter six, how it also highlights oldness and newness, and how very much this too is gospel, the good news of redemption for Israel, couched in the context of promise fulfillment:

1 But the LORD said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, yea, with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land." 2 And God said to Moses, "I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they dwelt as sojourners. 5 Moreover I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold in bondage and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment, 7 and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'" 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel; but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel bondage.

Of many other passages that could be cited, Isaiah 63:7ff., so beautiful, it breaks the heart, speaks perhaps most poignantly of the continuity of God’s past mercies as a ground of hope for deliverance now.

7 I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel which he has granted them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 8 For he said, Surely they are my people, sons who will not deal falsely; and he became their Savior. 9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. 10 But they rebelled and grieved his holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them. 11 Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses his servant. Where is he who brought up out of the sea the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his holy Spirit, 12 who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, 13 who led them through the depths? Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. 14 Like cattle that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. So thou didst lead thy people, to make for thyself a glorious name.

15 Look down from heaven and see, from thy holy and glorious habitation. Where are thy zeal and thy might? The yearning of thy heart and thy compassion are withheld from me. 16 For thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name. 17 O LORD, why dost thou make us err from thy ways and harden our heart, so that we fear thee not? Return for the sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy heritage. 18 Thy holy people possessed thy sanctuary a little while; our adversaries have trodden it down. 19 We have become like those over whom thou hast never ruled, like those who are not called by thy name.

The language contrasts the light of God’s steadfast love, his hesed, and the darkness of Israel’s turning away, spoken of here in such relational terms—“Surely they are my people, sons who will not deal falsely; and he became their Savior” (v. 8). Notice the echoes of the Exodus here, and of the language and the message of Moses’ call, “In all their affliction he was afflicted . . . in his pity he redeemed them . . he lifted them and carried them all the days of old” (See also Psalms 105-106).

The Isaiah passage speaks of continuity and discontinuity, of (incipient) promise and fulfillment, of the mercies of the past, the troubles of the present, and the hope of new good news from God. Past, present, future, all intermingle in this paean of praise to Israel’s God. After reviewing God’s history with Israel and theirs with Him (vv. 7-10), the passage speaks in verses 11 to 14 of how later deliverances were grounded in the precedent mercies of God in the Exodus and wilderness wanderings. This again echoes the rhythm of God’s dealings, continuity/discontinuity, oldness/newness, more of the same and much more than that. Then, in verses 15-19, the prophet applies this pattern to the current dilemma of God’s people, using language intermingling past and present, toward the hopes of a new redeemed future.

All of this calls for a dramatic redrawing of the approach long favored by the Jewish missions culture and the church whereby the Older Testament is seen primarily as prophetically predicting the realities of which the Newer Testament speaks. Such an approach is crypto-supersessionist when and where it assumes that the Older Testament is but a preparation for the Newer. It relegates the people of the Older Testament, and by extension the Jewish people throughout time, to the status of preparation but not the status of participation. Without disparaging Messianic prophecy as a phenomenon, I suggest that the patterns of Scripture and the texture of God’s dealings mandate that we also see the Older Testament as more of the same that the church knows as the gospel, “the good news of God.” Against the background of a religious culture which has become habituated in seeing the Jewish people as fundamentally lost, without hope, and without God in the world, (terms Paul properly applied to pagans), the church, the Jewish missions culture, and Messianic Judaism must learn to see Jewish people as “God’s good news people,” that people who have repeatedly experienced, remembered, and anticipated “the good news of God.” In fact, if the Jewish people were not God's good news people, there would be no good news from God for the rest of the world!

Am I saying that we therefore ought not to “bother the Jewish people with our Jesus?” Emphatically, No! Do we have anything new, important and crucial to say to the Jewish world? Emphatically, Yes! But in all our saying, we must deeply know that the Jewish people are “the good news people.” It is the habit of the church and missions culture to view Jews as bad news people. According to this construct, all Jews are necessarily going to hell, except those few who believe in Jesus—that’s bad news; the Jews have a leadership that fails to lead them toward God, and seeks to prevent their finding His embrace through Yeshua the Messiah—also bad news; their religion is one of fruitless legalism and rule-keeping devoid of the power of the Spirit and relational reality which is only possible through Yeshua the Messiah—bad news for the Jews again. The church, especially the conservative church, and the missions culture, seem decidedly negative about the Jewish people’s spiritual prospects and spiritual experience. This theme plays like a tape loop in the actions and theologizing of supersessionist and crypto-supersessionist Christianity. Missing from this message is the awareness that the Jews have long acquaintance with good news from God. As mentioned earlier in my adaptation from Guder, “Jesus’ coming and his message are good news, as it has always been good news when God [comes to rescue his people and] make God’s self and purposes known” (30). And this is good news for the Jewish people, not merely “as well,” but actually, God’s good news first for the Jews, for the Jews have always been God’s good news people, and the bearers of that good news for the rest of the world.

When we present the gospel of Yeshua the Messiah to Jews, we ought to highlight the continuity of this gospel not simply with Jewish prophecy, but with Jewish communal experience throughout time and to the present day. For example, is not the founding of the Modern State of Israel, the regathering of Jews from the four corners of the earth, and related matters good news from God? Of course it is!

In this regard, it is proper to insert just one word in the song of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people [again], and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life" (Luke 1:68-74).

In Yeshua the Messiah the God of Israel has kept his promise to his people, and not to them alone. It is best that we consider these mercies as an occasion when God has done it again, and has outdone himself. It is a Dayenu experience! God did this, then this, then that, then this, but now he has outdone himself yet again.

The good news of Yeshua is not the first good news from God that the Jewish people ever heard. Rather, this is more of the same and yet, much more than that!

And more to come on this subject.

The Worst Sin of All - A Sermon for Parshat Behar/B'chukotai

2007-05-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

This is a sermon I preached last shabbat, May 12, 2007, at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue. It concerns a sin in which all of us are too practiced.

Our Torah text this week has the phrase, "v'kashlu ish b'echav" and they shall each one of them stumble over his fellow [Lev 26:37].

Of course, in context, the peshat meaning of this phrase, its simple reference, is to people fleeing from disaster. However, our tradition comments on these words in another way, pausing to consider the meaning of one stumbling over one's brother or sister. The tradition pauses to discuss what it means to cause your brother or sister to stumble.

Rashi comments that the meaning of our verse is as follows: "One shall stumble through the iniquity of another, for all the people of Israel are responsible for one another." Of course this is in line with what we discussed last week about thinking of ourselves as being related to "klal Yisrael," the community of Israel of all places and all times.

A Reform Jewish authority reminds us, "We, as Klal Yisrael, share mutual responsibility and mutual benefits. Jews feel a bond with other Jews, wherever they live in the world. Kol Yisrael arevim ze baze--All Israel is responsible for one another."

Theodore Herzl said, "We are a people, one people."

Yeshua of course spoke of causing one's brother or sister to stumble, in the context of causing one's brother or sister to sin. In this he and Rashi are in full agreement. Remember Rashi's statement, "One shall stumble through the iniquity of another, for all the people of Israel are responsible for one another."

Yeshua's words are striking: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck he had been cast into the sea." [Mark 9:42].

In this context and in others, of course to stumble is to sin--to stray from G-d's path.

The matter for our consideration today is to highlight one of the chief ways we cause others to stray from G-d's path; one of the chief ways we are in danger of causing others to stumble. In fact, in Jewish life, what I am speaking of today is considered to be one of the most serious of all sins against others in the community. And what is that?

It is illustrated for us in today's New Covenant reading. When the crowd of men brought to Yeshua the woman caught in adultery, many of us might imagine that the worst sin is sexual sin. We certainly act that way! Let someone be caught embezzling, or gossiping, or shaving his taxes a bit, and we cluck our tongues and move on. But let someone be caught in a sexual sin and we go all to pieces with ourselves. You might imagine that the terrible sin being treated in this passage is sexual looseness. But you would be wrong. No, another, more heinous sins is demonstrated here. And what is that?

Yeshua hints at it when he stoops down to write in the dirt at his feet when the woman is brought to him. Why does he do this? I believe it is because he is embarrassed for her. And here we come to what in Jewish life is one of the most serious of all sins: embarrassing someone, especially in public. The men who brought her to Yeshua were oblivious to the fact that they were committing such a horrible sin. While they were concerned about someone else's sin, they themselves were committing one even more grave.

There is a tremendous lesson here, one that especially needs to be taught this week, at this time here at Ahavat Zion. You see, whenever we undertake to teach about G-d's commandments and the imperative to keep them we risk stirring up the kind of attitude that inhabited these men.

It's what I call being a commandment commando, or perhaps a virtue vigilante.
Years ago I knew a Pastor named Higgs. He was a fine man. He told of having once pastored an independent Baptist church where everything was just so: people didn't smoke, they didn't dance, they didn't chew, the men didn't wear beards and always had their hair neatly trimmed, and the ladies stayed away from ostentatious jewelry, obvious makeup, and short hemlines. You get the picture.

Jim told the story of how one day a young lady who never had been to their church wandered in. Now she didn't know the rules too well. In fact, her hemline was too short. Before she could even sit down, as Jim told it, one of the "saints" in the congregation went up to her and commented on how inappropriate her hemline was. Well, that young lady turned around, went out the door and never came back. Now who committed the greater sin, the girl with the short hemline or the woman who carelessly embarrassed her? The message the scripture today is clear: it was the righteous commandment commando who committed the greater sin.

Our tradition is steeped in the importance of not unduly embarrassing someone. For example, “Torah tells us that Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden for having partaken from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eaten of its fruit. However, the Torah never tells us what kind of tree it was. Why? Had the tree been identified, people might have said, "This is the tree that brought so much affliction on the world." G-d wanted to spare even the tree the embarrassment of being singled out.”

There are three b'rakhot, blessings, attached to the recitation of the Shema in our service, two blessings before the Shema, and one after. The first one preceding the Shema is said in front of the open ark. The cantor chants, "Blessed Art Thou O Lord, who formest light and createst darkness, who makest peace and createst all things." Just before he says that blessing the ark is open with the Torah exposed to view: before he says the first word, he is supposed to close the curtain of the ark. Why? So he should not demean the Torah by praising something else [the formation of light and darkness] while the Torah is open to view.

Now, if our tradition takes care about showing due respect to inanimate objects, not embarrassing them, how much more ought we to take care lest we embarrass people who are made in the image of G-d?

One Talmudic discussion specifies that if someone has repented of his former sins, you may not recall those sins to him, nor even mention that kind of sin in his presence. You must not remind a convert of her roots outside of the covenant. And the greater the station of the person shamed the greater the sin in shaming him.

A story to illustrate the lengths to which people should go to avoid shaming others. Once R. Gamaliel II said, "Send seven scholars to the upper chamber early in the morning and we will set up the calendar of the year. When he got there he discovered eight had come, and he stated: "Whoever came without being invited must leave." Samuel the Small said, "I am the one who came without permission, not to participate but to learn." Gamaliel said, "Sit down, my son. You may stay, but the Halacha states that only those who have been specifically appointed to the task may participate." In fact, it was not Samuel who had not been invited, but rather another scholar. However, Samuel wished to spare him the embarrassment and stood up himself.

Another story: "At the Passover Seder, one of Rabbi Akiva Eiger's guests accidentally spilled some wine onto the tablecloth. Noticing his guest's embarrassment, the Rabbi discreetly shook the table so that his cup of wine also tipped over. Then he stated, "Something must be wrong with the table. It is not standing properly.

In our adult Bar Mitzvah class we are exploring ways to honor God in Jewish ways. That is good. Many us are becoming zealous to study the commandments, which G-d has assigned to the Jewish people. That is also good. But if we would keep the commandments, and if we would honor the standards of Jewish piety, we must also remember not to play the role of commandments commandos, zealous to correct others. Or as Yeshua put it, being so concerned to remove the speck from someone else's eye that we fail to deal with the beam in our own.

Our tradition reminds us by the way that we are obligated to correct others when they transgress. Lev 19:17 states "Hochach tocheach et amitecha v'lo tissa alav hatah"--"you shall reprove your neighbor or you will incur guilt yourself." I am NOT saying that we should never correct another: that would be very dysfunctional. But there are ways to correct someone when they are transgressing the way of holiness G-d has placed before us. Here are some hints as to how we might properly administer correction.

• We must not simply rebuke the transgressor. We are obligated to teach people the right thing to do before they have occasion to do the wrong thing.
• We must always bear in mind that G-d is a G-d of process. He is perfect, but not a perfectionist. In a couple of weeks we will be celebrating the gift of Torah at Sinai. Does anyone imagine that the Jewish people were flawless in obeying Torah the day after they received it? Of course not! People are in process, and we must learn to accept them as such.
• We must learn hear again the word of Scripture, which states, "The Kingdom of G-d does not consist in food and drink, but in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." This does NOT mean that food and drink are matters of indifference, but rather that they are not the point. Commandment Commandos strain out the gnat and swallow the camel: they correct people for minutiae while they are guilty of a far more grave sin in embarrassing or mishandling them, and later, perhaps, gloating as they proudly tell others of how they had occasion to correct some ignoramus.
• Our tradition states that when we rebuke people or correct them, we must do so in private.
• Even when we do so in private, we must take care not to shame them. The story was told to Rabbi Noson Tzvi Finkel of a person who had rebuked a neighbor sharply, and then stated, "I wasn't able to effect a change in that person, but at least I made his face turn red like a beet." Rabbi Finkel commented, "Our sages explain the verse Leviticus 19:17 states 'rebuke your fellow man' is followed by the words 'and don't incur guilt because of him' to teach us that even when rebuking our others, we are forbidden to embarrass them. Yet you are proud you embarrassed this person!"
• If someone who is easily embarrassed transgresses, you should not rebuke her directly. You should first engage them in discussion of other matters and hit obliquely as possible about the area in question.
• Speak pleasantly and softly to someone when you must correct their behavior and as much as possible present the preferred behavior as being in their best interests. As the Chofetz Chaim said, "If you are sincere in your actions and words, your message will penetrate the most stubborn heart."
• You must take great care not to grow angry when rebuking someone, for rebuke delivered in anger will not be heeded, and the purpose of rebuke should be correcting the other person for their own good and not for your satisfaction!
• Each situation is different, and each person is different, so the manner of admonishing someone or the decision whether or not to admonish someone in a particular case should be evaluated. Sometimes it is better to let matters slide until a more opportune occasion or to perhaps leave the correction to someone else who will be better received.
• Certain kinds of transgressions that are detrimental to the spiritual well being of the entire congregation ought to be handled by the elders or rabbi.
• If someone has sinned against you, it is better that you correct them than that you harbor resentment in your heart.
• It is meritorious to overlook a fault.
• You should draw a distinction between matters of commandment and matters of custom--the former are always more important. Don't sweat the small stuff. By doing so, you might drive a person away from the faith or from the congregation, which is of course a grave sin.
• We should learn to cultivate gratitude for having been corrected.

Above all, we must be careful to not simply become list-makers. Some people have a need to be right, and a need to not be wrong. In many cases this is because of their temperament or the way they were brought up. Such people often have an overdeveloped need to correct others, because this shows others they are wrong while reassuring the corrector of how right she is. These list-makers are always seeking to update their list so that they will have the very best and up to date list of the authentic rules. They are overly preoccupied with rules and have a tendency to relate to rules better than they relate to G-d or to people. Paul spoke of such people who major in the categories of "Do not handle. Do not taste. Do not touch. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility and severe treatment of the body. But they are of no value in checking self-indulgence" [Col 2:23-24]. Elsewhere he speaks of those who hold to the form of religion but in their conduct fail to exhibit its power. They are hung up on the details and oblivious to the substance.

Let's be sure we are a congregation, which avoids embarrassing others like the plague--for embarrassing people needlessly is a plague. Let's seek to promote right practice in the most effective way possible: by setting a good example ourselves and by conducting ourselves in such a manner that we are the kinds of people that others WANT to learn from, rather than being the kinds of people whom other flee from.

It is a great sin to set a stumbling block in someone's way: and humiliating others in the name of G-d is perhaps the worst stumbling block of all.

Some Thoughts on Reading Darrell Guder (Part One) - On the Messianic Jewish Movement and Evangelism

2007-05-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

(Last week, Darrell Guder, Academic Dean of Princeton Seminary, spoke at Fuller Seminary, here in my home area. He is a nice man, quite a scholar. As part of my own continuing education, and preparation for a book I am writing, I am reading some of his work. What follows is some interaction with his book "The Continuing Conversion of The Church" [2000]. More to come, by the way!)

Darrell Guder speaks of how he “began to see this separation between evangelism and community as a problem of ‘reductionism,’ with questionable consequences for all concerned. The church, which is intended to be the evangelizing community, tends to reduce or neglet its essential missionary character” (ix).

This got me thinking.

When Darrell Guder speaks of the church as “intended to be the evangelizing community, [but which] tends to reduce or neglect its essential missionary character,” I ask “How are MJ congregations evangelizing communities and to what do we bear witness in all our being and doing?” For too many of us and for too long, our reflex in answering such questions has been to pull out a Bible verse or bunch of Bible verses, operating out of an assumption that describing our calling as servants of the gospel only requires of us that we have an adequate knowledge of Scripture, and hopefully an encyclopedic and impressive knowledge. As impressive as such persons might be, what this position misses is that our witness is not simply some slotted answer or packet of authoritative and safely orthodox information in the communally approved Bible translation. This is no witness. This is no gospel. This is a crumpled napkin in place of a Royal Decree.

No, the only gospel witness worthy of the name must be breathless and trembling. “The God of our Fathers has visited us! He has come to rescue us! He is Alive! He is King! He has Come to Deliver Us! Come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God our Maker! He is Risen, just as he said! I have seen the Lord! The hour has come and the Kingdom of heaven is at hand! Repent and believe the Gospel!” Such proclamations are not position statements. They are not bullet points. They are not planks in some organizational platform whereby this group can separate itself from another group, demonstrating its own greater purity. No! This is no gospel at all!

If our witness is not breathless and trembling, if it does not stumble and tumble out of trembling lips and flushed tear stained faces, then it may be a report of facts, it may be a witness to a proposition, it may be testimony to some kind of a four-colored conference folder and organizational platform, it may be some short answer on a theological quiz, some bumper sticker, or some manifesto of religious positioning, but it is not in any manner a witness to the gospel. For the gospel to which we bear witness is the ever-astoninishing, worship-inducing, fall-on-your-faces, holiness and awe, hard breathing, heart-pounding, community-revolutionizing report that the Holiest of holy ones, the Creator of all, who spoke and the world came into being, whose very Presence requires our honor, love, praise, adoration and obedience, has come to be among us and bids us follow him now!

I am reminded of Moses at the bush. The good news Moses brought to the Israelites was not the message of who God was, or who he had been. His report to his people was no oral exam on whether he had properly studied the approved books and positions. No, Moses was sent to tell the children of Israel that the Ever Present One, the Eternal Now, had come to rescue them, and to bring them out from under the burdens of the Egyptians to a good and spacious land, in fulfillment of His promises to their ancestors.

But Hashem is not simply the Self Existent One, so that Moses’ missional message, and by extension, ours, would be some sort of metaphysical report, “Go back and tell them you have just encountered Ground of All Being.” Rather, Moses’ message and ours is that the One in the Bush that burns continually, The Ever Present One, has taken decisive action to deliver His people, to relieve their burdens, to reveal Himself, inspiring total, astonished worship, honor, glorification and praise. The only gospel that is truly the gospel is full of fear and trembling and joy. The only gospel that is truly the gospel reports that God is here now, taking decisive action to redeem us. The only gospel that is truly the gospel bids us rise up and follow Him now!

So we return to Guder’s statement, that “The church, which is intended to be the evangelizing community, tends to reduce or neglect its essential missionary character.” This is no less true of the Messianic Jewish movement.

For the Messianic Jewish Movement to be some sort of an evangelizing community, it needs an evangel—a gospel—a good news that revolutionizes its life, which it therefore embodies and communicates in all its being, speaking, and doing. The good news can never be a static message—a collection of propositions. No! And the good news is not something to be delivered by disinterested surrogates, like some sort of mail-deliverers who have no idea of what is within the envelope they put into your mailbox. No! Those charged with communicating the good news are people who have experienced its power—its force—its revolutionizing life-giving strength, its embodied livingness and glory.

Think of Moses coming down the mountain with the good news that he had met with God there who had given him the Covennant by which Israel should henceforth live. Moses’ face shone—he was himself evidence of the message be proclaimed. Are we? Or are we just surrogates delivering a message which we hardly comprehend and experience, if at all?

Letter to the Editor on a Misguided Critique of Messianic Judaism - Part Two

2007-04-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

Friends,

In the fullness of time, the Editor of the Fredericksburg paper wrote me asking for a shorter version of the letter I first sent her. Below you will find the shorter version I sent, and the URL for their edited version which they published.

Just bringing you all up to date. Shalom.

The recent article by Joe Katz reminds me of what children might say about a big, gabled, somewhat gothic neighborhood house, frightening one another away by saying it is haunted. However, just as when one actually meets the people in the house, and discovers them to be warmly human, even if a bit quirky, so when one actually meets the people dwelling in the “House of Messianic Judaism,” one finds us to be somewhat average!

Mr. Katz’s facts and perceptions are disordered and distorted. For example, he alleges that Messianic Judaism is but the creation of Moishe Rosen’s Jews for Jesus. In order to do so, he employs a mixture of half-truths, untruths, and boogey-men. attempting to level the many varieties of Messianic Judaism into one malicious conspiracy. However, anyone at all familiar with Messianic Judaism will know us to be extremely diverse, and that wide swaths of the movement take sharp issue with Jews for Jesus on a number of matters, and that one Jews for Jesus staff member wrote a book denouncing Messianic Judaism, for which Moishe Rosen, Jews for Jesus founder, wrote the Foreword. This is hardly the unified conspiracy Mr. Katz alleges to have exposed!

Mr.Katz is not lying, but rather frightened and misinformed. He cares about Jewish continuity and Jewish-Christian relations, as do we. For example, this week I will be speaking at a local church on why Christians have low credibility with many Jews, providing eight reasons why the Jews are not a has-been people, as alleged in some Christian theological constructs, and why Jewish continuity should be the concern of all well-meaning Christians.Instead of standing outside our gate, crying “Boogey-man,” I recommend that he and your readers muster courage and come inside the Messianic Jewish house to meet the sometimes quirky, highly diverse, but genuine people who live within.

As one of them, I welcome you, and wish you all, Shalom.
Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD

Professor of Spirituality - Messianic Jewish Theological Institute of the
Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations

To see how they edited it and published it visit the following URL:
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/042007/04282007/276552

One Good, or Bad, Thing Leads to Another

2007-04-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

The following is a sermon for Parshat Shemini, which includes the account of Aaron's sons Nadav and Avihu offering "strange fire/unauthorized fire" before the Lord, and being struck down for it. The sermon considers how one one bad decision tends to lead to another, and one good one to another as well.

1 Now Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before the Lord alien fire, which He had not enjoined upon them. 2 And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord meant when He said:

Through those near to Me I show Myself holy,
And gain glory before all the people."

And Aaron was silent.

4 Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, "Come forward and carry your kinsmen away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp." 5 They came forward and carried them out of the camp by their tunics, as Moses had ordered. 6 And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, "Do not bare your heads and do not rend your clothes, lest you die and anger strike the whole community. But your kinsmen, all the house of Israel, shall bewail the burning that the Lord has wrought. 7 And so do not go outside the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, lest you die, for the Lord's anointing oil is upon you." And they did as Moses had bidden.

8 And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: 9 Drink no wine or other intoxicant, you or your sons, when you enter the Tent of Meeting, that you may not die. This is a law for all time throughout the ages, 10 for you must distinguish between the sacred and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean; 11 and you must teach the Israelites all the laws which the Lord has imparted to them through Moses.

What do we learn from this account? What was it that Nadav and Avihu did wrong and why did they do it? As recorded in chapter nine, hey had just seen God manifest his power by coming down in fire to ignite the altar, and apparently, they were just so very jazzed by that that they go a little boozed up and tried to get God to do it again. I draw that conclusion from God’s word to Aaron and his sons after this incident, that they ought not to drink liquor when they tend the altar of the Lord. What is the lesson for us? Is this about being teatotalers? No, it’s not so much a lesson in abstinence, as a lesson in humility.

Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan, of our own UMJC concurs, and reminds us that our sages had reached the same conclusion, which should not entirely surprise us since our ancestors took the text of Scripture very seriously and thought deeply about it.

Rabbi Kaplan comments rightly, how the text calls their offering “’esh zara ’asher lo’ tzivva ’otam”an alien fire which God had not commanded them.” He then quotes contemporary Jewish scholar, Baruch Levine, who suggests they were offering something extra which Hashem had not commanded, and that “their offering was well-intentioned but done improperly, an offering not prescribed by God.”

Rabbi Kaplan notes as well how the subsequent reference to the prohibition against priests drinking wine when they perform their duties suggests that Nadav and Avihu had gotten too boozed up celebrating the dedication of the Mishkan and their own investiture as priests.

He reports how another ancient source, Sifra, “suggests the foolhardy act of the two young priests proceeded from unrestrained exuberance. They too in their joy, as soon as they saw the new fire, stood forth to heap love unto their love’ (Parashat Shemini Mekhilta Demiluim 32). Here, our ancestors attribute their poor judgment not to booze but to unrestrained enthusiasm.

We might therefore draw a lesson about drinking, or a lesson about exuberance: about the need to keep a cool head at all times, especially in the service of God. It seems that one of the core lessons is that we who claim to serve God is that we must respect the boundaries he has set, and not get cute.

The same lesson is evident in the first part of our Haftarah. In putting the Ark of God on an ox cart, the Levites had gone outside of the boundaries God had set—the Ark was meant to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites. And because, either in exuberance or in ignorance, the Ark was being transported as it should not have been transported, Uzzah reached out to steady it and did what he should not have done—he touched the holy Ark itself, something which no one was supposed to do.

This reminds one of a lesson taught by our tradition: “mitzvah goreret mitzvah, v’avon goreret avon”—one mitzvah leads to another, and one sin leads to another. One compromise of God’s standards is likely to lead to another, until eventually, one finds oneself far from where one ought to be.

But there is another interpretation of this principle, that one person's mitzvah leads to another's good deed, and one person’s sin leads to another’s transgression.

Let’s look at these two principles in concluding today.

First, it is important to pay attention to the smaller details of obedience, because one good habit, one good action, leads to others.

Second, it is important to pay attention to how we live, because our good example can embolden someone else to do what is right. How many times have you been inspired by someone else’s example? How often have others been inspired to do what is right due to your example? Yes, one mitvzah leads to another: whether your own or someone else’s.

Third, one sin leads to another. Nadav and Avihu got boozed up, this led to their offering an offering God had not commanded. Uzzah and his friends put the Ark of God on an ox-cart, something they should not have done. This led to another transgression—reaching out and touching something not meant to be touched.

Similarly, we must examine our own lives, how one compromise leads to another. We must also consider how our sins can become a stumbling block for others, something Scripture speaks of repeatedly—putting a stumbling block in someone else’s way. Yeshua spoke of this in frightening terms: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me; and whoever ensnares one of these little ones who trust me, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the open sea!” (Matthew 18:5-6).

Finally, lets finish on a positive note. It is within our power to begin forming good habits, knowing that good habits drive out bad ones. Each of us would do well to focus one at a time upon areas where we have formed bad habits. Starting with one habit, we should form a plan on how to replace that bad habit with a new one, practicing that consistently and intentionally for six weeks. By that time, the new habit will be so ingrained as to be subconscious—you won’t even have to think about it!

Let’s choose something relatively benign and very common as an example. Suppose you have a bad habit of misplacing your keys when you return home. You often have to scramble around the house looking for them when you must go somewhere, and this upsets you and everyone around you. You need to form, and then follow, a plan.

First, choose a logical and always available place where you should put those keys whenever you come home. It must be a place no one will disturb.

Second, whenever you come home, as you come in the door, put the keys in that place/on that place saying aloud “I am putting the keys in the/on the______.” I know this sounds silly, but believe me, saying it aloud elevates your attention and forms the new habit much more deeply and faster.

Third, continue reinforcing this habit for from three to six weeks (it depends on how quickly you habituate to the new practice). At that point, you will have conquered a problem habit, ready to move on to another!

Let’s go for it, shall we? One good habit leads to another. And one mitzvah leads to another. Let’s take stock of our habits, identify the bad ones, and one by one, replace them with something better. Bad habits decrease our freedom and joy, good habits increase our freedom and joy.

What choice will you make?

A Letter to the Editor on a Misguided Critique of Messianic Judaism

2007-04-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

Friends,
The following is a Letter to the Editor sent in response to
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/042007/04152007/274992
Please read that first.

To the Editor,

I was saddened to read the recent article by Joe Katz which, while well-intentioned, was full of half truths, untruths and boogey-men. It reminds me of what children might say about a big, dark, and somewhat gothic looking house, frightening one another away with “cross my heart and hope to die ‘true to life stories’’ about how the house is certainly haunted.

Mr Katz would tell everyone in the neighborhood that Messianic Judaism is a haunted house, he would warn your readers away. However, just as when one actually meets the people in the gothic gabled house, and discovers they are warm, human, even if a bit quirky, so with Messianic Judaism.

Mr Katz appears well-intentioned. He really believes what he is saying, but, as one long involved in Messianic Judaism, as one who knows the people in Messianic Judaism’s great gothic gabled house, and as one who lives there, I want to tell your readers—we are not haunted nor are we people to be avoided.

What sorts of half truths does Mr. Katz express? First, he forecloses his argument by terminological sleight of hand: he simply alleges that we are a form of Christianity, and in no way, and in no case, to be considered a Judaism. He also tars with a broad brush leveling the many varieties and eccentricities of Messianic Judaism as if everyone in the Messianic Jewish house were the same. Not so! For example, anyone familiar at all with Messianic Judaism will know that wide swaths of the movement take sharp issue with Jews for Jesus on a number of matters. My point is not to discredit Jews for Jesus, but to say loud and clear: there is a wider variance in what the public broadly calls Messianic Judaism, which variance Mr. Katz ignores or seeks to dismiss. Instead, he seeks to scare people away from the Messianic Jewish house saying that we are all the same and divisive masquerading charlatans, to boot.

Painting with a broad brush dipped in bile, he attributes to us the most despicable of motives saying that our Jewish masquerade is simply an attempt to lure Jews to Christianity--and away from Judaism. He considers us to be nothing but soul-snatchers. Were you to visit our congregations you would instead find people struggling to work out their lives with God and man in Jewish space, normal people, trying make sense of the world while attempting to make it a better place.

His alarmist rhetoric may go over well with the kinds of uninformed people who enjoy being frightened, just as some people love riding roller coasters, or hearing ghost stories. But Mr Katz is telling a tall tale. Don’t believe him. Just because he believes it does not make it true.

Again, Messianic Judaism is a diverse and new phenomenon. While some Messianic Jews are very happy being called a Christian sect, others reject the label and insist they are Jews who regard the wider Jewish community as their primary community of reference, and themselves that part of the Remnant of Israel who believe in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. Mr Katz is entitled to dispute the veracity of those who make such claims, but he is not free to paper over these differences in an article which purports to set people straight. You cannot set people straight with crooked lines, and Mr. Katz’s article is full of crooked lines.

I don’t believe he is telling lies: I don’t think him to be willfully deceitful, which flaw he attributes to myself and people like me. But the facts demonstrate his article to be little more than a catalogue of stigmatizing untruths, misconceptions, and manipulative scare tactics, unworthy of him and of your paper.

I encourage people to re-read Mr. Katz’s article and note the consistently alarmist tone and the monolithic portrayal of all Messianic Jews as little more than religious con-men.The last three paragraphs are a good case in point. If what he says is true, that Messianic Judaism has a history as “a controversial, anti-Jewish, Christian organization,” that uses “destructive tactics [which] only lead to bickering between Jews and Christians, thus making it “more difficult for people of both faiths to work together to reach out to the nonreligious [being] harmful to the spirit of inter-religious respect and tolerance,” then, by all means everyone should avoid us. Fortunately, he is telling what we Jews call “bubbe-meises—old wives tales,” more appropriate for scaring children than informing anyone.

Mr.Katz means well: he cares about Jewish continuity—so do I. He cares about Christian-Jewish relations—so do I. In fact, this week I will be beginning a series at a local Church on “The Jewish Connection.” My first session speaks of why Christians have low credibility with most Jews, and provides eight reasons why the Jews are not a has-been people, contrary to the theme of some Christian theological constructs. But just because he means well, does not mean he is doing any service in what he says.

Instead of actually coming in and meeting the people in our great gothic gabled house, he is but standing outside our gate, warning people that the house is haunted. Would it not be better if you, he, and all your readers would instead muster courage and come inside to meet the sometimes quirky, but genuine people who live inside?

As one of them, I welcome you all, and wish you Shalom.

Stuart Dauermann, PhD
Rabbi of Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA
Professor of Jewish Spirituality, Messianic Jewish Theological Institute of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations

When All Hope is Gone

2007-04-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

Lk 23:55The women who had come with Yeshua from the Galil followed (Yosef of Aramathea, to the tomb where he place the body of Yeshua); they saw the tomb and how his body was placed in it. 56 Then they went back home to prepare spices and ointments. On Shabbat the women rested, in obedience to the commandment;
24:1 but the next day, while it was still very early, they took the spices they had prepared, went to the tomb, 2 and found the stone rolled away from the tomb! 3 On entering, they discovered that the body of the Lord Yeshua was gone! They were 4 standing there, not knowing what to think about it, when suddenly two men in daz zlingly bright clothing stood next to them. 5 Terror-stricken, they bowed down with their faces to the ground. The two men said to them, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has been raised. Remember how he told you while he was still in the Galil, 7 `The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be executed on a stake as a criminal, but on the third day be raised again'?" 8 Then they remembered his words; 9 and, returning from the tomb, they told everything to the Eleven and to all the rest. 10 The women who told the emissaries these things were Miryam of Magdala, Yochanah, Miryam the mother of Ya`akov, and the others in their circle. 11 But the emissaries didn't believe them; in fact, they thought that what they said was utter nonsense! 12 However, Kefa got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping down, he saw only the burial cloths and went home wondering what had happened.

The disciples are now reeling, knocked back on their heels, no, worse than that, knocked down to their knees by the worst news imaginable.

O, they had dealt with death before. Death was a fact of life in their first century world, not something that undertakers dealt with, but family, friends, neighbors. Preparing the dead for burial was then, as now, for religious Jews, the most honorable thing you could do for them—the mitzvah of all mitzvot—helping someone who was in no position to pay you back.

They had seen death before—the bodies of beloved family and friends whose spirits had returned to the God who gave them.

But this was different. This was infinitely worse.

The one who had died was the Prince of Life—or so they thought. It had taken years for the disciples to put it all together, but they had become convinced he was the Promised One, the Liberator from the heel of cruel, idolatrous Rome. Had they not seen him raise Elazar/Lazarus of Bethany from the tomb, four days after having died, wrapped, and laid in a tomb? What of the daughter of Jairus ? Had not Kefa and Yochanan, Peter and John, seen Yeshua raise her from the dead while the sound of the wailing mourners was yet ringing in their ears?

With all this and more, had they not been given ample reason to believe that he was the one who would call not just Lazarus, not just Jairus’s daughter, but all of the dead, even their own beloved dead, out of their graves as part of the grand sweep of the final and decisive triumph of the God of Israel and the Israel of God, when Israel would become the head and not the tail, and when all the nations would then stream up to Jerusalem to behold their vindicated glory?

And now, this. Their beloved, charismatic, wonder-working Rabbi, who made blind eyes see, lame men walk, and even the dead to come back to life, before their very eyes had been stipped naked, humiliated, scourged, whipped, beaten, broken, and hung on a Roman cross like so much dead meat.

In this passage we see a group of women from the circle of disciples coming to the tomb to dress his body for a proper burial. It had all been over too hastily three days earlier, and shabbat and Passover had intervened. Now they were coming to dress in spices his dead, and, by now, surely rancid body. Quite an act of love, of faith, of devotion , and of slow-moving, deliberate sorrow.

From this distance of 2000 years and light years of cultural distance, it is absolutely impossible for us to enter into the explosion of incredulous, uncomprehending, exhilarated and adrenalized joy mingled with terror that burst from them as they found the tomb empty, and heard the words of two luminous, otherwordly strangers asking them, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has been raised. Remember how he told you while he was still in the Galil, 7 `The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be executed on a stake as a criminal, but on the third day be raised again'?"

After they had run back to the group of mourners from which they had come, their words gushing, tumbling, and mangled in the torrent of their panting and excitement, the apostles and other disciples reacted just like we would: they didn’t believe a word these whacked out women were shouting at them. “These things just don’t happen. Don’t bother us now with your foolish fantasies while we are still on our knees picking up the pieces of our shattered lives.” Still, Peter/Kefa, ran to see for himself, just in case. He saw the empty tomb too, but, “because these things just don’t happen,” notice, the text says, “[he] went home wondering what had happened.” He was more confused than convinced.

In today’s passage we read about two others of this circle of disciples, one named Cleophas, the other unnamed. It is now much later the same day, and if you will note the details, you will see that they too are just devastated, shattered, and hardly able to go on.

13 That same day, two of them were going toward a village about seven miles from Yerushalayim called Amma'us, 14 and they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed, Yeshua himself came up and walked along with them, 16 but something kept them from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, "What are you talking about with each other as you walk along?" They stopped short, their faces downcast; 18 and one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only person staying in Yerushalayim that doesn't know the things that have been going on there the last few days?" 19 "What things?" he asked them. They said to him, "The things about Yeshua from Natzeret. He was a prophet and proved it by the things he did and said before God and all the people. 20 Our head cohanim and our leaders handed him over, so that he could be sentenced to death and executed on a stake as a criminal. 21 And we had hoped that he would be the one to liberate Isra'el! Besides all that, today is the third day since these things happened; 22 and this morning, some of the women astounded us. They were at the tomb early 23 and couldn't find his body, so they came back; but they also reported that they had seen a vision of angels who say he's alive! 24 Some of our friends went to the tomb and found it exactly as the women had said, but they didn't see him." 25 He said to them, "Foolish people! So unwilling to put your trust in everything the prophets spoke! 26 Didn't the Messiah have to die like this before entering his glory?" 27 Then, starting with Moshe and all the prophets, he explained to them the things that can be found throughout the Tanakh concerning himself. 28 They approached the village where they were going. He made as if he were going on farther; 29 but they held him back, saying, "Stay with us, for it's almost evening, and it's getting dark." So he went in to stay with them. 30 As he was reclining with them at the table, he took the matzah, made the b'rakhah, broke it and handed it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. But he became invisible to them. 32 They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn inside us as he spoke to us on the road, opening up the Tanakh to us?" 33 They got up at once, returned to Yerushalayim and found the Eleven gathered together with their friends, 34 saying, "It's true! The Lord has risen! Shim`on saw him!" 35 Then the two told what had happened on the road and how he had become known to them in the breaking of the matzah.

36 They were still talking about it when -- there he was, standing among them! 37 Startled and terrified, they thought they were seeing a ghost. 38 But he said to them, "Why are you so upset? Why are these doubts welling up inside you? 39 Look at my hands and my feet -- it is I, myself! Touch me and see -- a ghost doesn't have flesh and bones, as you can see I do." 40 As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 While they were still unable to believe it for joy and stood there dumb founded, he said to them, "Have you something here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 which he took and ate in their presence. 44 Yeshua said to them, "This is what I meant when I was still with you and told you that everything written about me in the Torah of Moshe, the Prophets and the Psalms had to be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds, so that they could understand the Tanakh, 46 telling them, "Here is what it says: the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day; 47 and in his name repentance leading to forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to people from all nations, starting with Yerushalayim. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 Now I am sending forth upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been equipped with power from above."

50 He led them out toward Beit-Anyah; then, raising his hands, he said a b'rakhah over them; 51 and as he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 They bowed in worship to him, then returned to Yerushalayim, overflowing with joy. 53 And they spent all their time in the Temple courts, praising God.

They are talking with one another about what had happened, about the scourging, the rejection of Yeshua by Israel’s leadership circle, the crucifixion itself, and these loony stories being circulated by a bunch of women who must have come unhinged by grief, because the kinds of things they were talking about just don’t happen. We read here of these two men are downcast, the Greek says, skuthropoi—sad, gloomy, downcast. They are so sunk in grief they cannot even recognize Yeshua who is walking with them—everything has gone dark in them and around them, even their perceptions and senses. They are in the pitch blackness of deep grief.

And when this stranger walking with them asks, “What’s the problem,” how do they respond? They talk about what is most on their minds and hearts: “"The things about Yeshua from Natzeret. He was a prophet and proved it by the things he did and said before God and all the people. 20 Our head cohanim and our leaders handed him over, so that he could be sentenced to death and executed on a stake as a criminal. 21 And we had hoped that he would be the one to liberate Isra'el!"

How telling . . . “we had hoped”. . . but no more. "Hope is gone, and all we are left with is this unbearable weight, dragging it along on the Road to Emmaus.”

There are a number of important lessons for us here, lessons for us in our own hopeless situations, seasons of life one feels one just can’t go on.

The first lesson is that at such times, we need the light of Scripture to illumine the darkness. The first thing Yeshua does is to bring them back to the Scriptures—and that is where you and I need to go when all grows dark for us. We need to read the Bible, but also to be able to turn to the Bible within our hearts, to the treasury of Scripture we should have within us from years of pouring over it, taking it in, and digesting it. Of course, if that has not been our habit, there won’t be much of a light to turn on when the darkness comes, as surely it will, sooner or later. If we have been chronicly neglectful in this matter, when the darkness comes, our battery may just be too low to light our darkness.

The second thing we need is for God’s mercy to prevail and for him to make Himself known to us in our times of darkness,just as Yeshua does for these disciples here, and later for the circle of the twelve when He drops in on them. In times of disaster, we will find ourselves asking, “Where is God in all of this,” and it’s a good question. Eventually, because God does some of his best work in the darkness, we will detect some glimmer of light, some pin-prick of illumination. We will need to follow that light because it comes from God and leads us back to him. It is the light of a new perspective on the entire situation, a light turning arising in our darkness where we will gradually begin to see things a bit differently than we did before.

The third thing we must do is to do as they did—to go and tell others—to spread the light of the Word, and the light of our new perspective, unaccountably renewed because, right in the midst of our shattered world, God has shown us something we had not seen before, something that makes everything everlastingly different.

Finally, for all of us here, 2000 years further down the road to Emmaus, there is something else to remember, a light for our darkness that has been shining since way back then. “He is risen, just like he said.” The resurrection of Yeshua, his ascension to the Father’s right hand, the marvelous works of the Spirit whom he sent among all the nations of the world for the past two millennia, these bright lights remind us that the darkness is not total, that the darkness is not the final word, but rather, blazing, glorious light filled with song.

Some years later, one from the apostolic circle said this:

1 The Word, which gives life! He existed from the beginning. We have heard him, we have seen him with our eyes, we have contemplated him, we have touched him with our hands! 2 The life appeared, and we have seen it. We are testifying to it and announcing it to you - eternal life! He was with the Father, and he appeared to us. 3 What we have seen and heard, we are proclaiming to you; so that you too may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete (1 Yochanan/John 1:1-4).

Weeping may endure for the night . . . but because He lives, we will live also. Life will go on, and on, and on, and on some more.

“Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Now, go tell the others.

Turning Our Disasters into Doorways

2007-04-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

(This is a Sermon on the Parasha for Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesach. It concerns a crisis in the life of Moses, not entirely unlike the crises some of us face from time to time.)

12 Moses said to the Lord, "See, You say to me, 'Lead this people forward,' but You have not made known to me whom You will send with me. Further, You have said, 'I have singled you out by name, and you have, indeed, gained My favor.' 13 Now, if I have truly gained Your favor, pray let me know Your ways, that I may know You and continue in Your favor. Consider, too, that this nation is Your people" (Shemot/Ex. 33)

Even though we are the people of God, and even were we great servants of God like Moses, this does not mean we will not encounter negative, painful, scary, and trying times and conditions. Here, Moses feels he can no longer deal with his circumstances: he just can’t take it any more.

Notice, he is not flipping out over some glitch, a stressful life, or a dysfunctional marriage. Certainly, not because he is having a bad hair day. It is a measure of his holiness that what bothers Moses is that the people of Israel have fallen into idolatry. He is undone by the fact that his people have built for themselves a golden calf and spiraled down into orgiastic rites because they couldn’t deal with the stress of his being away atop Mt Sinai for forty days and forty nights. He is upset because his own brother was complicit in this disaster. Moses is undone, destroyed, depressed . . . and over something really big.

We too will encounter situations, periods, conditions in life which leave us feeling decimated, and discouraged, whether over matters small or really big. Each of us, even the best of us, may well be called upon to face situations that drive us to our limits and beyond.

At such times, what can we expect of God? This is the issue I wish to examine with you in today’s consideration. I think it may help us all to adopt Moses’ requests and God’s promises found here a template for our own perspective.

14 And He said, "I will go in the lead and will lighten your burden." 15 And he said to Him, "Unless You go in the lead, do not make us leave this place. 16 For how shall it be known that Your people have gained Your favor unless You go with us, so that we may be distinguished, Your people and I, from every people on the face of the earth?"
17 And the Lord said to Moses, "I will also do this thing that you have asked; for you have truly gained My favor and I have singled you out by name."

Verse 14 tells us one promise we can claim: God tells Moses “I will go in the lead and lighten your burden.” Knowing that he does so for us, no less than for Moses, should be for us a source of reassurance, of protection, and of provision. Of course, we should all endeavor to be people with Moses’ kind of unflinching devotion to God, walking in the fear of Him all our days and in all our ways. And if we will but stumble along, in some measure seeking to honor the God whom Moses honored, we will recognize that the promise of the Divine Presence is the answer to our need, and give thanks as Moses did. In fact, that thankfulness will be a characteristic of our lives.

Moses goes beyond that to ask God for more—not just a deeper knowledge about him, and not even just companionship, but intimacy. Let’s look at this for a moment.

To know about God is a wonderful thing—the knowledge of who He is, the knowledge of His mighty works, the knowledge of his attributes, as some schools of religious thought speak of him, and of course, the knowledge of His Word, these are in themselves great things. But beyond that is companionship—knowing that this God is with us, experiencing in some measure that He is Emmanuel, God with us, on the Emmaus roads of our lives, that through the Holy Spirit, he has come to be with us—that he is our companion, this is wonderful, splendid and glorious. And certainly, one could argue that this brings a deeper, or at least different level of satisfaction than that prior and utterly foundational level, knowledge about God. In a sense then, one could say that the first level is knowledge about God, and the second level, a sense of companionship in the knowledge that God is with us.

But beyond this is a third level--knowing God, that is, intimacy with him. Moses speaks of this as “let me behold your Presence,” of which God says, "You cannot see My face, for man may not see my face and live!” Moses is asking for the deepest of intimacies with God. I don’t think I am being merely cynical when I say that it doesn’t often occur to most of us to even aspire to such a thing. We are usually too preoccupied with other, far lesser things.

And if I am right in my suspicions that our level of knowledge of God is woefully deficient, perhaps one reason is that we do not crave his nearness. But for those who will diligently seek God’s Presence, even in the midst of their dark nights of the soul, God’s promise and response to Moses may become ours as well: We may not quite see his face, but he will take us deeper, draw us closer, into greater intimacy with Himself.

18 He said, "Oh, let me behold Your Presence!" 19 And He answered, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name Lord, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show. 20 But," He said, "you cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live." 21 And the Lord said, "See, there is a place near Me. Station yourself on the rock 22 and, as My Presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with My hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take My hand away and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen."

But note this: Moses is still stuck with his situation. The Israelites remain a burden. And we are likely to be required to continue confronting our own burdens as well. But although the conditions of his life are unchanged, but the condition of his life is revolutionized. And so may it be for us, if we will take our eyes away from our situation, and truly seek the face of God.

Finally, in our parasha, we see how God provides guidance.

 1 The Lord said to Moses: "Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. . . .
4 So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first . . . (Shemot/Ex. 34).

Even if we must walk through difficult situations, we may always count on God’s willingness to provide us guidance as to how we ought to deal with them and conduct ourselves. He provided Israel with Torah, with covenant stipulations and guarantees. The word Torah is more properly “guidance,” than anything else—it is instruction that points the way we should go.

In the midst of our sometimes trying lives, the burdens we must bear, our sometimes irksome and difficult responsibilities, God promises guidance to those who truly seek it. Ya’akov/James says it this way in the Newer Covenant,

2 Regard it all as joy, my brothers, when you face various kinds of temptations; 3 for you know that the testing of your trust produces perseverance. 4 But let perseverance do its complete work; so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing. 5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach; and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in trust, doubting nothing; for the doubter is like a wave in the sea being tossed and driven by the wind. 7 Indeed that person should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 because he is double-minded, unstable in all his ways (Ya’akov/James 1).

What many miss is that this wisdom, this guidance, is promised to those undergoing trials. This is a promise for people like us facing circumstances like those Moses faces here—trying, burdensome circumstances. We must tend to our hearts, and ask of God within the context of a well-aimed life and mindset. We must seek to be done with being double-minded, ambivalent about seeking God, uncertain of His trustworthiness, and undecided about seeking to walk in his ways. We must aim our lives like an arrow, following his guidance as to where we should point ourselves.

In our trying circumstances, God provides us with an opportunity to go deeper, to find him going before us and with us, to grow in knowledge about him and his ways, in the certainty of his companionship and the surprising revelation of his nearness and intimate involvement in our lives.

Our trials remain with us. They continue to be trials, perhaps scary and painful, the kinds of things that wear us down, and that we would so much prefer to avoid. If we will take our trials as a spur to seek him earnestly, God may not change our conditions, but he will change our condition.

Through seeking, encountering, and discovering God in new ways, we can find him turning our valleys of disaster into doorways of hope.

May it be so for you. May it be so for me.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you (1 Peter 5:5-6).

Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isa 55:6).

A few questions for you to ponder as you go your way:

(1) What kinds of stresses, life situations are you preoccupied with right now?
(2) Stepping back and looking at your own level of preoccupation, is there an immaturity, self-centeredness, or tendency to self-pity which needs to be overcome?
(3) In these stress areas, have you implemented the best wisdom you know in dealing with them, and if not, why not?
(4) Are there any promises from God, perspectives from Moses, matters for prayer arising from our study of this passage that particulary impress themselves upon you at this time? If so, what new action, practice, or decision are you going to implement as a result? Why not pray about that now?

Messianic Judaism: Moving From Fringe, To Focus, To Future

2007-04-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has been among Jewish believers in Yeshua for forty years or more, as I have, has lived amidst a whirlwind of change. When I came to believe in Yeshua, there were effectively no Messianic Congregations, although some isolated experiments, more along the lines of Hebrew Christian churches, had been attempted here and there. The idea of Messianic Congregations simply did not enter our minds. Until the 1970’s, Jews who believed in Jesus routinely went to churches and tried to maintain or nurture their Jewish identity as a side issue, all the while being careful to balance that pursuit with the “higher purpose” of “preserving the unity of the Body of Christ.” While some sought to maintain their Jewish identities, almost no one ever asked, “How have I grown as a Jew lately?”

But, as Bob Dylan reminds us, “The times they are a-changing.” Now there are hundreds of Messianic Congregations, and, in the words of an old Jews for Jesus song, “eyes can finally see that Jewishness and Christ go hand in hand.” Today, thousands of Messianic Jews are eating kosher, keeping shabbat, debating halakha, and seeking to grow as Jews, phenomena both inconceivable and stigmatized just four decades past.

To understand these changes as being simply a matter of greater numbers, institutional growth, style, or organizational skill would be to misconstrue both the changes and the Change Agent. Leaders and laity, Jews and Gentiles, Church people and doctrinaire Messianic Jews widely agree that God seems to be up to something among Jews who believe in Yeshua. Not only are the numbers of Messianic Jews growing, Messianic Judaism is maturing, and becoming de-marginalized. Responsible leaders in both the Jewish and Christian communities are detecting a gravitational force moving Messianic Jews and Messianic Judaism from the periphery to the center, from fringe to focus.

Messianic Jews have come into focus partly because we have come into our own. It is as if we have awakened from a deep sleep. Now we are awake to our deep connection not only to the Jewish past, but also to the Jewish present and future. We see ourselves as we truly are, part of the Jewish people, the community of Jacob. Increasingly, we are recognizing how that citizenship obliges us to honor the covenants God made with our ancestors, both now and into the future. We are the community of the covenant. Increasingly, we realize that we have a collective destiny. We are a community of the future—in anticipation of the Age to Come.

This blog and related activities exist to serve this growing movement for Yeshua within the covenant community of Jacob, assisting both our leaders and our constituents in serving a destiny that draws nearer day by day. We want to be fully awake to what kind of movement we must be, and what kind of leaders we must have if we would maintain and hasten our transition from fringe to focus to future, serving the purposes of God.

Many Christians, alert to the identity of the Jewish people as a people of destiny, are drawing near to us as well, seeking to understand and respond to the impact of changing times upon their own identity and calling.

“The times they are a-changing.” This blog, and all of my efforts, are aimed at helping the Messianic Jewish movement not only to change with the times, but to be God’s instrument in helping make change happen.

May the favor of the Lord rest upon us.

"My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. . . . My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Ezekiel 37:24, 27).

Sufferings First, Glories to Follow: The Pattern of God's Dealings

2007-04-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

The beginning of the Torah reading from last shabbat provides a provocative and helpful perspective as we anticipate the coming commemoration of the death and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua.

1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Command Aaron and his sons thus: This is the ritual of the burnt offering: The burnt offering itself shall remain where it is burned upon the altar all night until morning, while the fire on the altar is kept going on it. 3 The priest shall dress in linen raiment, with linen breeches next to his body; and he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and place them beside the altar. 4 He shall then take off his vestments and put on other vestments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. 5 The fire on the altar shall be kept burning, not to go out: every morning the priest shall feed wood to it, lay out the burnt offering on it, and turn into smoke the fat parts of the offerings of well-being. 6 A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out (Vayikra/Leviticus 6).

Rabbi Chayim ben Attar, an 18th century Moroccan, notes that rather than beginning the discussion of the burnt offering with a description of how the offering is to be prepared, the text instead begins with a description of the disposal of the ashes from the night before—and all of this before even discussing how that offering may have been brought. Why begin the description with the disposal of ashes from an earlier offering? Rabbi Elazar Mushkin points out that Rabbi ben Attar “argued that it depicted Jewish history in which suffering seems to dominate, but in the end victory will reign” [“After the Ashes” in The Jewish Journal, March 25, 2005, page 40].

This insight is crucial not only to our understanding of Jewish history, but also to our appreciation of the story of Yeshua and the meaning of the resurrection of Messiah, and ultimately important to an understanding of the pattern of our own lives. It has always been, sufferings first, and glories to follow.

For example, over and over again, Messiah spoke to his disciples of how he must first suffer and die and afterward be raised on the third day. Always, it was suffering first, glory later. In Mark’s gospel, Peter speaks for all the disciples when he responds to Yeshua’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” The text goes on to say, “And he began to teach them all that the Messiah must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and after three days rise again” [Mk. 8:31]. Peter speaks of this in his first letter, saying the prophets spoke the same way. . .sufferings first, glories later. He says this: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Messiah in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Messiah and the glories that would follow” [1 Peter 1:11-12]. On the road to Emmaus, when Messiah made one of his earliest appearances after his resurrection, he struck the same note: “He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" [Lk. 24:25-26].

Sufferings first, and glories to follow.

Rabbi Mushkin tells a story illustrating how this pattern of Messiah’s life, sufferings first, glories to follow, is replicated in the experience of Israel and in our individual lives as well. He speaks of how Natan Sharanksy was invited to visit Russia a year after his election to the Knesset. It was the first time in history that a past prisoner of the Russian government returned as a leader in the free world. The Russian officials wanted to take him to the Bolshoi Ballet, but Sharansky insisted he wanted instead to visit the KGB prison where he had been incarcerated and tortured as a Refusenik.

Before finally taking him there as requested, and seeking to limit their own embarrassment, the Russians made sure the prison and his former cell were scrubbed clean and made as benign looking as one could possible make a Russian prison. As Sharansky and his wife, Avital, were escorted around the prison by very uncomfortable hosts, he made them more uncomfortable still. He asked that they take him to the punishment cell where he had once been tortured. The Russians at first wanted to deny that such a cell existed, and instead showed him an ordinary cell. But Sharansky was undeterred . . . and insistent.

Finally, he and Avital were brought to the cell, where he asked that they be left alone for fifteen minutes.

When they emerged from the cell, the members of the press who had been waiting outside clamored to understand why the Sharanskys had subjected themselves to such a retrograde, masochistic revisiting of his sufferings. Sharansky’s response was both penetrating and illumining. Here is what he said:

“It was the most inspiring moment of my life. When I was a prisoner of the Soviet Union, my jailers tortured and taunted me and told me that world Jewry had betrayed me and that I would never leave the prison alive. Today, the KGB does not exist, the Soviet Union does not exist, and one million Jews have left the punishment cell called the Soviet Union. This is what I went back to see. This is what I am thankful for."

People have long debated over Isaiah 53, as to whether the text speaks of the sufferings of Israel or of the Messiah. The answer is to this question is, “Yes.” Israel suffers as the servant nation, and Messiah suffers as the epitome of Israel. Yeshua is the one man Israel. And the pattern of his life is and will continue to be the pattern of Israel’s life until He comes again: sufferings first, and glories to follow. The pattern that Natan Sharansky noted, of his own sufferings and eventual exaltation to a position of rulership, the pattern that he noted of the sufferings of Russias Jews with their eventual liberation, while their enemies were judged and dismantled, all of this is part of the pattern of Messiah’s life, of Israel’s life, the pattern woven into the warp and woof of creation.

Paul the Apostle spoke as well of how this pattern is replicated in our individual lives. He said: “18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” [Romans 8:18-23].

But meanwhile, as Paul says, like the creation itself, and like all of God’s children, Israel groans and waits.

So what’s the point of all this? The sufferings and resurrection to glory of Messiah are good news on many fronts and in many ways.

[1] We are most apt to focus on the meaning of his resurrection for us as individuals, that through his death and resurrection we receive forgiveness of sins, and the hope of our own resurrection: “Because I live, you will live also.” And of course, this is true. But there is also a meaning for us in all of life. The death and resurrection of Messiah is a message of hope because it reminds us that suffering itself is not simply tragedy. Woven into the warp and woof of all creation is this pattern, “sufferings first, glories to follow.” If you are suffering, or know others who are suffering, this too is a message of hope.

[2] There is message of hope here as well for God’s people Israel. Since the Messiah is the one man Israel, what was true of him will be true for Israel as a whole: sufferings first, glories later. The Resurrection of Messiah is not only the vindication of His own claims, and a vindication of sinners who can now rest assured that their sins have been carried away through the cross and open tomb. The resurrection of Messiah is a vindication of Israel’s hope: that through this same Messiah, Israel itself will one day enter into the glories that have been prophesied of her, through this suffering, risen, and vindicated Messiah.

Commenting on the Torah passage with which this article began, Rabbi Mushkin concludes: “Jewish history is not only fire and ashes. It is the promise of a glorious destiny. Our job is to make that destiny happen sooner rather than later.” Rabbi Mushkin doesn’t realize that Yeshua our Messiah God’s agent in bringing all of this to pass, but Messianic Jews declare this to be the case.

In this season and every season, may the Holy One, Blessed be He, enable us to bear our own sufferings faithfully, to bind up the wounds of our people Israel, and help them to see what we see, to know what we know, and to serve whom we serve, in anticipation of glories which are sure to follow.

Set Your Course Toward the Lighthouse

2007-03-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

Our readings for Shabbat Tsav link us to the themes of the month of Nisan, the season of our redemption, and a time to think deeply about repentance and renewal. Our Haftarah is especially effective pointing to such paths or righteousness. In effect, this passage is one of many lighthouses in Scripture which powerfully orient those who would travel in God’s ways, just as Scripture in its totality constitutes such a lighthouse.

We begin in the seventh chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah.

21 Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat! 22 For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice. 23 But this is what I commanded them: Do My bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoin upon you, that it may go well with you.

Verses 21-23 are something of a thematic prologue for the passage under consideration, which will end with a thematic epilogue as well. And there is much of interest here. When God says “I did not speak with (your ancestors) concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice,” he is of course not saying, “I never mentioned this,” because, obviously he did. Rather, he is saying, “That was not my point.” Rather, his point was, then as now, to command them and us to do his bidding, to walk ONLY in the way that he enjoins upon us, that he might be our God and we his people.

God provides His word as a lighthouse—a fixed point of reference by which we ought to guide the ship of our life, that our lives might move in the right direction, and that he and we might be associated companions throughout life's journey. The assumption in Scripture, demonstrable in our lives and in the pages of the daily newspaper, is that we are surrounded by distractions and dangers that threaten to detour us from God’s pathways into dangerous depths that we little expect. See what follows here:

24 Yet they did not listen or give ear; they followed their own counsels, the willfulness of their evil hearts. They have gone backward, not forward, 25 from the day your fathers left the land of Egypt until today. And though I kept sending all My servants, the prophets, to them daily and persistently, 26 they would not listen to Me or give ear. They stiffened their necks, they acted worse than their fathers.
27 You shall say all these things to them, but they will not listen to you; you shall call to them, but they will not respond to you. 28 Then say to them: This is the nation that would not obey the Lord their God that would not accept rebuke. Faithfulness has perished, vanished from their mouths.

The problem for our ancestors and for us, is when we turn aside from the pathway marked out by God’s lighthouse. And what is the consequence? Falling into deeper and deeper evil and under the judgment of God. So Jeremiah turns to the language of mourning:

29 Shear your locks and cast them away,  Take up a lament on the heights,  For the Lord has spurned and cast off  The brood that provoked His wrath. 30 For the people of Judah have done what displeases Me — declares the Lord. They have set up their abominations in the House which is called by My name, and they have defiled it. 31 And they have built the shrines of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in fire — which I never commanded, which never came to My mind.

32 Assuredly, a time is coming — declares the Lord — when men shall no longer speak of Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but of the Valley of Slaughter; and they shall bury in Topheth until no room is left. 33 The carcasses of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them off. 34 And I will silence in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride. For the whole land shall fall to ruin.

8:1 At that time — declares the Lord — the bones of the kings of Judah, of its officers, of the priests, of the prophets, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be taken out of their graves 2 and exposed to the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven which they loved and served and followed, to which they turned and bowed down. They shall not be gathered for reburial; they shall become dung upon the face of the earth. 3 And death shall be preferable to life for all that are left of this wicked folk, in all the other places to which I shall banish them — declares the Lord of Hosts.

Yet brightness returns at the end of this haftarah, where the lighthouse is epitomized for us in words that are hard to forget. And here they are:

9:22 Thus said the Lord:  Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom;  Let not the strong man glory in his strength; Let not the rich man glory in his riches.  23 But only in this should one glory:  In his earnest devotion to Me.  For I the Lord act with kindness,  Justice, and equity in the world;  For in these I delight.

The lighthouse is the transferable light of earnest devotion to God and to His standards— Deeds of lovingkindness, righteousness and justice in the world. The standards of Torah display that light, Yeshua epitomized and reflected that light, and we should seek to reflect that light as well.

The other day I found myself driving behind an SUV that had a sticker in its back window that said “Veritas Aequitas,” Truth and Justice, a watchword from the motion picture "Boondock Saints." Not bad guidelines. The light of Scripture not only includes these guidelines, but more . . . and burns brighter still than the motto on the SUV!

The Smithsonian Institute has an interesting posting at about lighthouses to be found at http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/lighthouses/history.htm. From this we can extract five truths about lighthouses that can help us understand the place Scritpure must continually play if it would illumine our lives:

(1) Lighthouses serve to warn of danger from a spot that sailors could see from a safe distance both night and day.

So Scripture should be our constant reference point in order to continually alert us to the dangers confronting us. The passages from Deuteronomy and Numbers which we read in the Shema section of our liturgy remind us or the continual reorientation around Scripture: “ These words which I command you this day shall be with you “when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up . . . remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which lead you astray. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God” (Deut 6, 11; Num 15).

(2) Lighthouses serve as guides into harbors or anchorages.

Similarly, if we are to find the safe harbor and anchorage of eternal communion with God, we must learn to guide our actions by the light of His word. It is not enough to believe in the Light—one must follow it. Some people concentrate so much on right belief that they fail to see how much Scripture focuses on right conduct. This is something which Judaism has to teach the Christian world, something we need to learn, an orientation of our moment by moment lives: a focus on the deed. As Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Judaism is the religion of the common deed,” and so, we should all focus on our deeds—Is this action I am contemplating one that will commend me on the Day of Judgment? And if not, is there something I need to do to remedy the mess I’ve made? As Paul puts it in 2 Cor 5, “we must all appear before the Messiah's court of judgment, where everyone will receive the good or bad consequences of what he did while he was in the body.” This orientation, found deeply in Scripture, should guide every day, every hour, every minute, in every situation.

(3) Lighthouses provide a fixed point of reference to aid our ability to navigate in the dark when the shore or an offshore hazard cannot be seen directly.

If we were able in ourselves to detect the spiritual dangers confronting us, we would not need the Light of Scripture. But the fact is, we are blind, deaf, and habitually self-deceived. Indeed, Scripture says we not only deceive ourselves, we even tempt ourselves. Without the Light of Scripture we are lost. And it is not enough to say that we already know what Scripture says. This would be like a person saying that he once saw the lighthouse and has no further need to seek it or to orient his journey in its direction. No, we must return again and again to the lighthouse that we might avoid the hazards between us and our goal, and make the repeated course corrections of a God-led life.

(4) The distance at which such a light can be seen depends on the height and intensity of the light. The brighter the light and the greater its height above the sea, the farther it can be seen.

Sometimes people are inclined not to consult the light of Scripture because it is just too bright—its goals seemingly unattainable and far too ambitious. It is easy to see how people can feel that way, especially if their lives are not going very well. But such persons should realize that it is just this brightness, just this height from which Scripture shines, just this radiance permeating Yeshua, that constitutes the power the Light has to rescue us. Were the Light not so bright and so high, it would not penetrate the darkness with which we are so often surrounded.

(5) When the weather is bad, with rain, snow, or fog, visibility can be greatly reduced.

When our lives grow chaotic and compromised in some manner, when sin has held sway in our lives, when we are upset and thrown off course by forces from within and without, when some dark spiritual conspiracy has thrown a pall over of lives—at least for a time--when evil companions have influenced us to our own peril, in such circumstances and more, the light can be obscured and difficult to see. However, there is no darkness that can completely quench and overcome the Light. Yochanan’s Besorah, the Gospel of John, says it this way: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

What shall we do with all of this? Just this:

(1) One can scarcely overdo consulting the Bible constantly as a central habit of life—it is a Light for our path.

(2) Nor can one overdo pondering the holiness of life exemplified by Yeshua, seeking to find there a comparison point and compass for our own ways of relating to God and man. Therefore, make it your goal to become nothing less than Christlike, and to imitate others whose lives reflect the character of Yeshua.

(3) Powerful darkness and deceit dogs our steps and hinders our journey. Therefore, make it your constant habit to catch your own self-deceit, to edit evil companions out of your life, to always choose or return to the right orientation. The consequences of going deeper into darkness are horrific, involving nothing less than total devastation, despair, and destruction. Therefore, always seek the light, walk in the light.

While it is true that in Messiah we have forgiveness resources, this should never be taken as an indicator that sin is not serious, that wandering from the path of righteousness is not dangerous to our very survival. No, forgiveness helps us to return to the paths or righteousness for His name’s sake—and this is what we must do again and again—returning to the path which the Light illumines.

Jeremiah provides an epilogue that epitomizes what we have been saying here.

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom;  Let not the strong man glory in his strength;  Let not the rich man glory in his riches.  But only in this should one glory:  In his earnest devotion to Me.  For I the Lord act with kindness,  Justice, and equity in the world;  For in these I delight.

The first Psalm puts it this way:

1 How blessed are those who reject the advice of the wicked, don't stand on the way of sinners or sit where scoffers sit! 2 Their delight is in ADONAI's Torah; on his Torah they meditate day and night. 3 They are like trees planted by streams -they bear their fruit in season, their leaves never wither, everything they do succeeds

4 Not so the wicked, who are like chaff driven by the wind. 5 For this reason the wicked won't stand up to the judgment, nor will sinners at the gathering of the righteous. 6 For ADONAI watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed.

Follow the light. Head toward the harbor. And stay safe.

Sow What? A Meditation on the Parable of the Soils - Matthew 13

2007-03-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have been sick with something or other lately. I don’t know yet what it is, but I have had occasional vertigo, some listlessness, and alarmingly high blood pressure for the past week. It is not the flu, but apparently something that is “going around.” And yes, I did go to the doctor.

When we experience sudden illness we think of our own mortality—that we’re not going to live in this life forever. Actually, during this past week, when I have at times felt like death warmed over, I have had occasion to be grateful for illness. One of the things it does for us is remind us to weigh what our life ought to be about.

Today’s passage from the teachings of Yeshua is related directly to the issue of spending our lives productively. I invite you to consider four lessons from this text.

1 That same day, Yeshua went out of the house and sat down by the lake; 2 but such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there while the crowd stood on the shore. 3 He told them many things in parables: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he sowed, some seed fell alongside the path; and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Other seed fell on rocky patches where there was not much soil. It sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow; 6 but when the sun had risen, the young plants were scorched; and since their roots were not deep, they dried up. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 But others fell into rich soil and produced grain, a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as had been sown. 9 Those who have ears, let them hear!" 10 Then the talmidim came and asked Yeshua, "Why are you speaking to them in parables?" 11 He answered, "Because it has been given to you to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it has not been given to them. 12 For anyone who has something will be given more, so that he will have plenty; but from anyone who has nothing, even what he does have will be taken away. 13 Here is why I speak to them in parables: they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding. 14 That is, in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Yesha`yahu which says, `You will keep on hearing but never understand, and keep on seeing but never perceive, 15 because the heart of this people has become dull -- with their ears they barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, so as not to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and do t'shuvah, so that I could heal them.' 16 But you, how blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear! 17 Yes indeed! I tell you that many a prophet and many a tzaddik longed to see the things you are seeing but did not see them, and to hear the things you are hearing but did not hear them. 18 "So listen to what the parable of the sower means. 19 Whoever hears the message about the Kingdom, but doesn't understand it, is like the seed sown along the path -- the Evil One comes and seizes what was sown in his heart. 20 The seed sown on rocky ground is like a person who hears the message and accepts it with joy at once, 21 but has no root in himself. So he stays on for a while; but as soon as some trouble or persecution arises on account of the message, he immediately falls away. 22 Now the seed sown among thorns stands for someone who hears the message, but it is choked by the worries of the world and the deceitful glamor of wealth, so that it produces nothing. 23 However, what was sown on rich soil is the one who hears the message and understands it; such a person will surely bear fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirty times what was sown."

A perspective to adopt – What does it mean to invest our lives well? According to this text, we spend our lives well whenever we are growing in understanding and fruitfulness. Notice that the payoff verse of the parable, verse 23, reminds us, “What was sown on rich soil is the one who hears the message and understands it; such a person will surely bear fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirty times what was sown." We live well when we continue growing in understanding and fruitfulness.

What is understanding? Understanding in this context is an ever-renewing clarity on what it means to walk with God in our particular set of challenging circumstances and opportunities. What does it mean to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God not in general, but in the most minute details of my particular day to day life and within the full range of my relationships? Although there will certainly be overlap, my pathway of faithfulness and yours will not be the same, and cannot be the same. The areas where my integrity and love for God is being tested are different from yours, the relationships where my faithfulness must be worked out are mine, as yours are yours. But we do have this in common: growth in understanding means ever-renewing clarity on what the LORD our God is requiring of us in the here and now.

And what is fruitfulness? Fruitfulness is a life that consistently expands our knowledge of God and that pleases Him. As Paul describes this kind of life in Col 1:10, this is a life of “bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Fruitfulness is the kind of life that reflects well upon our Father in Heaven—it means bearing the family likeness. “Live such good lives among the pagans that . . . they will, as a result of seeing your good actions, give glory to God on the Day of his coming.”

It is “bearing fruit in every good work”—a fruitfulness evident throughout the entire range of life experience.

A process to choose— spiritual avoidance leads to spiritual poverty, spiritual acquisition leads to spiritual wealth. To put it otherwise, those who choose immaturity fail to grow, and those who choose to grow, mature. Yeshua names this process in verse 12: “For anyone who has something will be given more, so that he will have plenty; but from anyone who has nothing, even what he does have will be taken away.”

If we are not constantly acquiring more insight and more wisdom, if our spirituality is not expanding, it is shrinking—that is the only other choice. No one stands still. And there is no neutral place to stand. Yeshua articulates and assumes this perspective frequently: “Those who are not with me are against me, and those who do not gather with me are scattering . . . Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 11:33; 17:33). Spiritual shrinking leads in one direction, downward, and it only grows worse and worse.

It is the sick person who has no appetite. If he/she does not eat, he she will not get well, but will become more and more ill. The spiritually avoidant, the person only feebly and reluctantly engaged with the things of God, the person who just doesn’t want to be bothered right now, and who is too busy to make room for the demands of the Kingdom, the person who cannot be bothered to dig in and devour Kingdom living—living in the power of the Spirit, in unavailable to the initiatives of God. Such people are destined to become weak, enfeebled, and shrink back until they disappear. Not happy news!

And what is Kingdom living? It is wholehearted responsiveness to the invitation to engage with what God is up to in the world—to partner with the Spirit of God in tikkun olam—setting right a world that is out of joint. The invitation to Kingdom engagement is not simply general, but is specific—there are times when God nudges us to “Arise, leave your nets, and follow me.” If we are too busy to respond, or deaf to the invitation, we don’t just stand still: we fall behind.

On the other hand, one CAN choose the alternative—One can choose to knock, to seek, to find, to press on to make our own that for which Messiah has grasped hold of us. One can choose to authentically engage. The spiritually healthy person cultivates a healthy appetite, and grows stronger and stronger, and, as their spirituality expands, so does their appetite. Such persons are engaged today, and will be engaged tomorrow. And such persons continue to grow.

So the choice for all of us is to dwindle or to grow, to decrease or to increase. And if one is going to choose growth and increase, one will need to hear, to learn, to engage, to practice what one learns with conscientious regularity. If you cannot be bothered too engage with spiritual learning and to practice what you learn, you will end up suffering the effects of spiritual malnutrition.

Problems to avoid - The four environments where the seed is sown, the three soils, describe four mindsets, three of which strangle the productivity of the Word in our lives.

(1) Not bothering to engage, not bothering to understand. This is the seed sown along the path. The inability to understand is not due to a lack of intelligence, but rather to a lack of interest. Yeshua speaks rather caustically here of such people because they could have and should have understood, but such understanding only comes to those who seek it. And if we will not aggressively engage with the things of God, with the life of the Kingdom, we will become ever more dull of hearing As Yeshua says here, “. . . in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Yesha`yahu which says, `You will keep on hearing but never understand, and keep on seeing but never perceive, because the heart of this people has become dull -- with their ears they barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, so as not to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and do t'shuvah, so that I could heal them.'” It is a dangerous thing to close ones ears and eyes to the things of God, to defer engagement with the invitation to the Kingdom.

(2) Superficial non-sacrificial spirituality. This is the second kind of soil, sown on rocky soil. These are people who wrongly imagine that the invitation to Kingdom engagement is only life-enhancing, that it simply fills in the empty places, while making no demands, involving no risks, and requiring no sacrifice. Such a message is prevalent today—it is the common assumption about Yeshua oriented spirituality: but it is a lie. People who accept this lie tend to bail out and back off when encountering the social stigma, inconvenience, or painful consequences entailed in heedin the Kingdom invitation. As Paul put it later, “all who desire to life godly lives in Messiah Yeshua will suffer persecution.” Many people are not up for that: they succumb to their first reflex: to back off, to disengage, to retreat from what God is calling them to, to always protect what they have and minimize risk. And it is my observation that the older we get, the more self-protective we get—younger people take risks because loss does not seem fully real to them, but older people tend to conserve resources they consider to be finite and ever dwindling. The question is, when we hoard our resources of time, treasures, and talents, could it be that we ourselves are dwindling while the resources are protected?

This is not to say that the Kingdom of God is all suffering, sacrifice, and martyrdom. Far from it! But it is to say that, like everything else worthwhile, there is a price tag involved. And those who are not willing to pay the price, get nothing in return.

(3) Seduction by other priorities - Verse 22 speaks of this kind of person: “Now the seed sown among thorns stands for someone who hears the message, but it is choked by the worries of the world and the deceitful glamor of wealth, so that it produces nothing. “The worries of the world”—that is the fear response, and “the deceitful glamour or riches”—that is the surfeit response—the person who believes that material possessions and fame will lead to ultimate fulfillment. Of curse this is not so, but people get seduced by priorities and options in such a manner as to blunt the endge

A priority to honor- This brings us back to verse 23, where we began our contemplations: “However, what was sown on rich soil is the one who hears the message and understands it; such a person will surely bear fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirty times what was sown." We must be a people who above all take care to be receptive custodians of the Kingdom.

Yeshua teaches extensively about Kingdom engagement. Before I did, he used the metaphor of an invitation. Perhaps the bottom line for these teachings can be found in the simple phrase: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” This must become priority one, because that is the only way it works. We need to devour the truth and let ourselves be devoured by its demands. Paul puts it this way: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Of course this is paradoxical language: by definition, sacrifices are dead. What is a living sacrifice? A living sacrifice is someone who has allowed him/herself to die to an old priority system, an old way of thinking and being, that something new might live. Paul put it this way. So Paul could say to the Philippians: “For to me, life is the Messiah, and death is gain. . . When the Messiah was executed on the stake as a criminal, I was too; so that my proud ego no longer lives. But the Messiah lives in me, and the life I now live in my body I live by the same trusting faithfulness that the Son of God had, who loved me and gave himself up for me.”

There is an exchanged life here, that Someone else’s point of view and priority system should prevail in my life. This is what it means say a deep “Yes” to the Kingdom invitation.

It helps me to reduce all of this to one sentence, one metaphor. With that in mind, my goal at this time in my life is to make my life a whole burnt offering. It is not a once for all thing, but a daily challenge. I only know this: it is what I feed that will grow. If we sow to the flesh, if we nurture our immaturity and self-centeredness, we will become more and more immature, but if we sow to the Spirit, if we respond to the Kingdom invitation and its demands, we will grow.

What are you sowing to? Are you choosing to grow? Or are you on your way to the vanishing point?

On the New Covenant Not Simply Trumping the Old

2007-03-15T20:36:00.001-07:00

I wonder if it is not a bit artificial for us to imagine that we must find New Covenant texts to support practices coming out of an Old Covenant or Jewish communal context. It seems to me that supersessionism is at the root of this habit, which all of us have evidenced in one degree or another. In such a view, the assumption is that the New Covenant trumps the old in all its aspects, and that the New Covenant community trumps the old as well. Therefore, the only way we can justify practices is to find New Covenant evidence for them. This is supersessionism and leads directly into Hebrew Christian DIspensationalism which states that the Mosaic Code is now rendered null and void, and that the only practices we should entertain are those explicitly affirmed in the New Covenant Scriptures.

I don’t think it correct to imagine that the New Covenant Scriptures were given as a manual of practice for Messianic Jews, and certainly not as a replacement manual. Not all matters are taught in the New Testament—many things are either unaddressed or assumed. So it is that we see the Jewish believers in Jerusalem still leading observant Jewish lives decades after Pentecost (Acts 21). Richard Bauckham, consummate British scholar and expert on the family of Jesus, writes in his commentary on James, “As far as we can tell, the vast majority of Jewish Christians in the NT period continued to observe the whole law, taking for granted that they were still obligated to do so.” Notice not only the content of what he is saying, but also that he says “as far as we can tell.” This means that this is an inference drawn from NT practice and historical data, but not something that is specifically and systematically addressed. Therefore, since the New Covenant does not systematically address every matter, is it not artificial to require New Covenant corroboration for our practice in all points?

Perhaps we should rather assume that generally, things are permitted that are not otherwise forbidden.

Finally, we need to realize that ALL of us and everyone constructs their theology out of assumptions, constructs, and theories we bring TO the Scripture, and not simply derived from the Scripture. When I had the privilege of teaching at Indiana Wesleyan University, I was given a booklet written by one of the faculty there, Ken Schenck. On the subject of hermeneutics (the science of interpretation), he says the following:

“James does not tell us how to connect his ‘a person is justified by works and nt by faith alone,’ (Jas. 2:24) to Paul’s ‘a person is justified by faith and not by works of law’ (Rom. 3:28). An important step toward a mature use of Scripture is the acknowledgment that the glue that holds these concepts together in our thinking is not biblical glue—it ultimately cannot come from the Bible itself. Rather, it is glue that we bring from our personalities and backgrounds, not to mention the broader Christian (and Jewish!) traditions of which we are a part. This is nto a bad thing—it becomes bad primarily when we do not recognize it. . . We note that the most important steps in the appropriation of the Bible for today are steps that the Bible itself cannot tell us how to take” (A Brief Guide to Biblical Interpretation. Marion, Indiana:: Triangle Publishing, 2005:18).

Despite proof texts that many, including i myself, could adduce, it remains true that the life of faith inevitably involves human choices and prioritizations.

On the Greater Responsibility and Offensiveness to Some of the Jewish Way of Life

2007-03-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, one of my students asked this question:

 Although I thoroughly agree with anyone who seeks Teshuvah(repentance) and a return to a holy life rooted in Halakhah,Talmud Torah,Shabbat observance, etc., I feel that the “greater riches” issue needs to be firmly tempered with the other side of the balance which would seem to me to be “greater judgement”. Isn’t it this issue of a superior destiny, superior rewards, that makes Gentile Yeshua believers very nervous? Haven’t we over-emphasized the rewards stemming from the overwhelming kindness of the Father in giving the Torah to His people Israel as a standard of behavior, at the expense of the “sternness” (Romans 14) of the Father to those of whom more was expected because more was given?

To which I answered . . .

We cannot escape nor tamper with either side of the equation. If the Laws of Torah are God’s laws to us as Jews, then we do face greater culpability by virtue of our Jewish status, whether we wish to embrace that culpability or not. This is why Paul can say in Galatians 5 that anyone who receives circumcision is obligated to keep the whole Law. It is a covenant obligation—not simply a choice of style. As for whether Gentile believers get nervous or not, is that really the point? I don’t mean that we should be crass and uncaring about the reactions of our Gentile brethren, but neither can we nor should we redraw the boundaries of Messianic Jewish obedience to placate anyone or to include everyone. The laws are God’s laws, the obedience is the responsibility of the family of Jacob. It is our obligation (Gal 5:3), not to be negotiated away.

This does not make us better than anyone else, nor should anyone act as if this is the case. Rather, God has established different households in creation (this discussion in Pauline texts borrows categories from Aristotle). In the Jewish household, these laws, statutes and ordinances are our responsibility—not so for non-Jews. This is why Paul will say that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters, but keeping the commandments of God. This statement comes in the context of discussing his principle that each person should remain in the situation in which he/she was called, Jews to remain Jews and Gentiles to remain Gentiles. When he says that what matters is “keeping the commandments of God,” in context, he is advocating that each should keep those commandments appropriate to his/her station—male or famale, Jew or Gentile, child or adult—in each case the halachic standard varies.

You ask, “Isn’t it this issue of a superior destiny, superior rewards, that makes Gentile Yeshua believers very nervous? Haven’t we over-emphasized the rewards stemming from the overwhelming kindness of the Father, at the expense of the “sternness” Romans 14 of the Father to those of whom more was expected because more was given?” Well, I have never used, nor do I choose to use, nor should we ever use the terms “superior destiny, superior rewards.” This is horrendous language, because if one is superior, then there is no category left for the other but inferior! Horrendous! This is neither Scripture’s language nor mine. Rather, Scripture underscores that Israel and Church from among the nations have differentiated destinies and roles. And again, as for people getting “nervous” about this, what are we supposed to do? Jettison scripture? Soft-pedal obedience? Create a new tailor-made lowest common denominator Jew-Gentile Messianic Judaism which offends no one? If the commandments God gave at Sinai retain any mandatory force for the sons and daughters of Jacob, then all of the options just mentioned are a form of apostasy.

Yes, there is a sternness here as well, an unavoidable sternness which we cannot modify away, or trim back. Scripture is always clear on this matter: Amos 3:2 – “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.” Now some will object that with the coming of Christ, we need not fear that punishment. I am not convinced. Should we imagine that with the coming of Christ, since there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that obedience has become purely a matter of personal preference, “If it’s your style?” Do we believe that Jesus obeyed the Father for us so that we would no longer have to?

Yes, there is a sternness, and there is also an added privilege in being Jews (see Ps. 147:19-20; Romans 3:1-2; 9:1-5). But it is not legitimate to tailor our religion so as to avoid the sternness, to modify the privilege, to relativize the importance of obedience, or to avoid offending those who resent the uniqueness of Israel’s calling.

Which Torah Should We Observe, Written or Oral?

2007-03-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

There is a crucial issue imbedded in this question of which few take note: The Torah was not given to any of my Jewish readers, or to Stuart Dauermann, or even to Abraham Joshua Heschel—the Torah was given to the entire Jewish people throughout time. It was the entire people, both collectively and through their representatives, who took upon themselves the yoke of Torah at Sinai (see Ex. 24). This being the case, we ought not to conceive of our task as being (a) Looking at the Law as individuals and as a Movement; (b) Looking at the New Covenant as individuals and as a Movement; (c) deciding what we as individuals and as a Movement are going to do with the former in view of the latter. To so consider the issue is to act as though we are outside of greater Israel, that people throughout time to whom the Torah is given. We must also, on the basis of Matt 23:2-3, if not for other reasons, realize that under God, it is the leadership of Israel, and the people of Israel to whom interpretation of Torah’s demands and the responsibilility for covenant faithfulness have been given. In Matthew 23, when Yeshua says, “do whatever they tell you to do,” he is echoing the very words of Dt. 17:11 ff., which the rabbinic establishment use to support their authority. He is saying in effect, “The rabbis have the responsibility and the right to lead the way in interpreting halacha—the practical working out of obedience to this (Torah) covenant.” We as a Messianic Jewish community must work out the shape of our own obedience in respectful interaction with the history and the current reality of Jewish communal process.

To my mind this is similar to the case of Constitutional tax resisters. These are people who, looking at the Constitution and perhaps the Federalist Papers, draw the conclusion that the Federal Income Tax is unconstitutional and that therefore they should not be required to pay it nor will they. What is wrong with this picture? Just this: they have arrogated to themselves the right to interpret the Constitution independent of those bodies charged with its interpretation and the entire history of its interpretation since its inception.

Could not the same be said of us when Messianic Jews and MJ organizations act as if the task of Torah interpretation were ours, to be carried out in implicit separation from the very community to whom it was given and whose processes and leaders are the divinely appointed means toward its authorized interpretation?

Does this mean that we may not beg to differ, and may not have differences of opinion with the mainstream Jewish consensus? Of course not! Does it mean that we might not have contributions to the process which God wants us to insert, and which are important? Of course not! But it does mean that we must address the task of interpretation through respectful interaction with the tradition and those charged with its shaping and stewardship, and that when we do take exception, we do so in dialogue with that community and process, as participants, and not solitary isolation or disapproving removal from the wider Jewish community and its halachic process.

Finally, these are not decisions to be made by individuals—halachic norms are not only established by long and broad communal agreement, but also by broad-based contemporary communal process. In other words, the halachic norms your congregation adheres to should not, indeed, must not, be the product of your considerations alone, but should be the consequence of the knowledgeable and respectful deliberations of a broader group of rabbis. Such a group has formed within our Union, but is, as you may know, controversial for having done so. Sigh . . .

The Kind of Person God Won’t Use

2007-03-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

The following is a sermon for the Haftarah of Shabbat Zachor, ! Samuel 15. It concerns King Saul, the first king of Israel, and how his grandiosity and lack of integrity cost him everything.

Through Samuel, God told Saul to blot out Amalek—to deal radically with a cancer that had to be removed. But Saul had a better idea. And by failing to deal with matters the way God intended, Saul became the kind of man God could not use.

If we would avoid Saul’s fate, we must learn from his mistakes and not repeat them.

The thing about Saul was that he not only disobeyed: he lied to himself about it. He was a person whose sins were not his responsibility, but always someone else’s fault. Saul was someone who imagined his disobedience to be completely understandable.

It was not simply that he committed sin, it was that he was dishonest with everyone about his sins, begining with himself. And so the sin survived to grow—symbolized in this case by his allowing Agag the King of Amalek to live because he found it flattering to do so. (Jewish tradition posits that this surving Agag became the ancestor of Haman the Agagite, a notorious enemy of the Jews, who almost wiped out the Persian Jewish population, as recorded in the Book of Esther.

Another key indictment here is that people like Saul can and do sometimes substitute religious performance for obedience. God is not impressed. He says, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” This is not a passage against sacrifice—it is a passage against presuming to try and snow God, yourself, and others.

A third indictment in this passage is that such persons, often narcissistic persons, are generally prone to make cboices that make themselves look good. So it is that Saul looks good when he has an enemy king as a prisoner. He also looks good when he gives all his henchmen the plunder which he was supposed to destroy.

The upshot of these indictments is the removal of Saul from his position of privilege. He loses it all.

You may find a little or more than a little of Saul in yourself. Or perhaps you are afraid that you might repeat Saul’s mistakes. In that case, there are some things you can do.

First, make it a point to constantly tell the truth to yourself about your own compromises and sins. Be unflinchingly honest.

Second, decide now to stop the blame game—the reflexive habit of blaming others for your sins—“I wouldn’t do this, but they did that to me, so can you blame me?” “I can’t help myself!”

Third, beware of trying to impress God with religious camouflage. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” This means that you and I should not be concentrating on appearances, but on obedience, especially hidden obedience, obedience in the little things.

Fourth, examine yourself honestly to see if you have an overdeveloped need to look good. This means you deeply resent and obsess about anything that makes you look bad. It means you are always choose roles where you will come out looking good. IF you find in yourself a sickening need to always look good, realize that this is warped and immature. It is far better to do the right thing and look bad, than to do the wrong thing and look good.

Finally, realize that God can always knock you off your high horse, God can always remove you from your position, no matter how high and secure it is.

The bottom line then is this: learn to walk in the fear of God. Saul didn’t—and he lost everything.

As New Covenant believers, we have additional resources and insight into this dynamic.

17 By God's grace, you, who were once slaves to sin, obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching to which you were exposed;

Verse 17 tells us that when we become Yeshua believers, there should be a standard of teaching to which we are exposed. This standard of teaching should include a very high standard of holiness—of walking in righteous character, maturing into the kind of person who makes progress instead of making excuses. I am afraid I have not done a good job here proclaiming that kind of standard. I will try and do better, But meanwhile, we need to set a very high standard and hold ourselves responsible to it.

This verse also reminds us that we ought to obey this pattern of teaching from the heart. There’s that word again: obey, or obedience. We must obey from the heart. I fear that too many of us are half-hearted about obedience to God. We need to do the hard work of holding ourselves accountable—and of working toward this standard like we really mean it—from the heart.

If we don’t do that, then the rest of this verse won’t be true: “You used to be slaves of sin.” If we do not learn to obey from the heart, to give to God heartfelt obedience, we will remain slaves of sin—that is, people who are characterized by patterns of immature, self-serving, blaming, shoddy and ungodly behavior. The only way to freedom in Messiah in the area of personal sin is to “obey from the heart.” Another word for this is to “take responsibility.”

Verse eighteen says gives us a broad strokes picture this kind of perspective. We should see ourselves as those who have been set free from sin’s dominance through the work of Messiah, persons who therefore choose to no longer live immature, other-blaming, self-indulgent, narcissistic lives. Instead, we should be people who make an increasing habit of yielding ourselves to God.

I spent the past week with a godly man—with a man mature in the things of God, who is the world’s greatest expert in his field. What impressed me most of this man was his humble faithfulness in little things. Here he is, the world’s greatest expert in Christian ministry in his field, and he is working on an article long-hand, driving himself around, at the end of a long work day, going to his room to complete this article which will appear in Christianity Today in a couple of months. What will not appear in Christianity Today is the record of his humble service, and dependability in the simple details, that is so much better than sacrifice.

As James Kugel points out in his book, “On Being a Jew,” true spirituality involves being Klein instead of Gross—small instead of large. It involves learning to color within the lines that God has laid out. For too many of us, our ambition is expansive, as was the case for Saul. Could it be that it is far better to be modest in our service of God, attending to the little things, rather than looking for the next big thing?

As Luke 16:10 puts it, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” We would all do well to become focused on the small things, the little details. Saul, on the other hand was grandiose in his ambitions . . . and unfaithful to God.

Saul was the kind of person God couldn’t and wouldn’t use. If you want to be part of what God is doing in the world—don’t repeat his sins. Above all, you must wipe out Amalek in your life .. . . those things God says “No” to but which you habitually allow to survive because it makes you feel better to do so. Deal radically with Amalek in your life. And make it a constant habit to tell yourself the truth, stop blaming others, and to take responsibility to be and to do according to the call of God on your life.

It makes all the difference.

Toward Understanding the Meaning of Covenant Membership

2007-02-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

This is a Sermon on Parshat Mishpatim, presented February 17, 2007 Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA. It concerns our participation in the covenant responsibilities of the people of Israel.

“Good preaching focuses on who God is and what God does.”

That is what I read this week in a perceptive article by Marianne Meye Thompson. Dr Thompson said that good preaching should have lots of sentences where God is the subject of good strong active verbs, sentences that say God creates, sustains, saves, rescues, sends, helps, heals, delivers, fills, enables, etc. Further, she said that good preaching must do this before it gets to discussing people and their responsibilities, joys, sorrows, and spiritually souped up agendas. She made the point that often, sermons are too much about us—our lives, our responsibilities, our joys and sorrows—and that God seems to be secondary, or hardly on the radar screen in too much preaching.

Of course, she is right. Although we have needs and responsibilities, addressing these must flow out of our encounter with who God is, and what he does, and because God is God, he always has first priority.

So, my friends, in looking at today’s text, let’s begin with God. What exactly does our text say that God does not just for people in general, and not for Jewish people in particular, but rather, let’s look especially at this question:

How Does God Demonstrate His Covenant Faithfulness to Israel?

God provides for us and sustains us in life - “The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.” We were to bring these offerings because food comes from God—and it is God who gives us life and sustains us in it. This is why, even in urban Los Angeles, where Jews get their food from Vons, or Pavillions, or Ralph’s, or Gelson’s, or Whole Foods, or Trader Joe’s, we still celebrate harvest festivals like Sukkot and Shavuot—to remind ourselves that it is God who provides for and sustains his people Israel in life. And that is why, at special occasions, we say this blessing: Blessed are you O lord who has kept us in life, and established us, and enables us to reach this season.” He is the one who provides for and sustains his people Israel in life.

God protects us.

20 I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have made ready. 21 Pay heed to him and obey him. Do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My Name is in him; 22 but if you obey him and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

23 When My angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I annihilate them, 24 you shall not bow down to their gods in worship or follow their practices, but shall tear them down and smash their pillars to bits. . . . 27 I will send forth My terror before you, and I will throw into panic all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn tail before you. 28 I will send a plague ahead of you, and it shall drive out before you the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites.

When you come to think of it, Jewish religious life focuses a lot on this, doesn’t it. There’s Purim, where we celebrate His protecting us from that evil, wicked Haman. Then there’s Passover, when we celebrate his protecting us from Pharaoh. And there are other holidays like Yom HaAtzma’ut and Yom Yerushalayim, when we mark how God enables us to have victory over our foes in the founding of the modern State, and the liberation of Jerusalem. Even at the very end of our service, the words following the Mourner’s Kaddish remind us “Be not afraid sudden terror nor of the storm that strikes the wicked. Lay your plan, it shall fail, form your plot, it shall not prevail, for God is with us.” God protects his people.

God accompanies us in our journey through history. The same verses we just read tell us that God not only protects us, but that this protection comes from the fact that he accompanies us. I like the way Isaiah reflects on this passage we just read: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old” (Isa 63:9).

God provides for our health and well-being—our shalom. Not only does God sustain, and protect, and accompany his people: he also provides for our well-being—leading us into a life of shalom—of wellness and wholeness. Look how our text says it: "25 You shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will remove sickness from your midst. 26 No woman in your land shall miscarry or be barren. I will let you enjoy the full count of your days."

God reveals Himself to Israel not only in His word, but in His manifest Presence. This is what Paul refers to when he says, in Romans 9 – “to them belongs the glory”—that is, the Shekhinah, the manifestation of the Divine Presence. See, for example, 24:9-11, 15-18.

This is quite a list, isn’t it? God provides for us, sustains us in life, protects us, accompanies us, and maintains us in health and well-being, he comes to be among us. These are the things God promised he would do for Israel, and this is what he has been doing for us for thousands of years. This is what his covenant faithfulness looks like.

These provisions and promises only intensify with the coming of Messiah Yeshua—in Him God continues to provide for us, sustaining us in life, protecting us, accompanying us, maintaining us in health and well-being, so that not even death will separate us from the love of God which is in Messiah Yeshua.

How Should We Demonstrate Our Covenant Faithfulness to God?

How about this answer? "Thank God, He requires absolutely nothing of the Jewish people in return for his faithfulness to us. We can go on now and live as we please, live as comfortably as we want, as long as we pay some kind of lip service to the God who did so much for us. What we eat, how we pray, how we live with other people, how we respond to God’s commandments on a day to day basis, whether we go to synagogue for special occasions and keep shabbat in any manner, really depends upon what else is happening in our lives, and, after all, that’s really simply a matter of personal conscience, and it’s really nobody else’s business how we are doing and what we do or do not observe. The commandments can never tell us what we ought to do but only what we might do if that is our style and if we are going through a religious phase of some sort. The commandments are only for certain people—the very religious—and certain times—religious holidays and occasions and old age. Otherwise, we are free to live whatever kind of life we find meaningful as long as we avoid adultery, theft, and being outed on the six-o’clock news. After all, Yeshua paid it all, and said 'It is finished,' and besides, we aren’t under the Law any more."

I wonder if you don’t find something very wrong with this sort of mentality. Let me illustrate with a story about a Messianic leader, whom none of you know. He is part of another association of Messianic congegations, and is convinced that the Law of Moses is now extinct, having been fulfilled in Christ, and that the only Old Testament laws we have to keep are the Law of Christ, those laws taught in the New Testament.

Now, I know that most of you don’t agree with this viewpoint. But I want you to feel the issue on a visceral level, not simply logically. This same man, a leader in his congregational association, was at one of their conferences some years ago, and had expressed his views on these matters, denouncing the kinds of views we hold here. To make his point, at a meal that afternoon he made a point of ordering shrimp and eating it with great gusto—just to make his point that we are “not under the Law of Moses,” but under the “Law of Christ.”

Aside from the other arguments we could muster in this matter I want to ask you one question: Do you not feel in your gut how unseemly this was for him to do? Do you not feel, as I do, that for a Messianic Jewish leader to eat pork or shrimp to make a theological point indicates a certain contempt for the ways of our ancestors and the heritage God gave us, ways for which people suffered and died? Are you not uneasy and even outaged by this kind of contemptuous dismissal of such a way of life by someone who believes he has the theological right to do so? I don’t know about you, but this makes me very uneasy: I am ashamed of such conduct. It disgusts me.

The blessings we have just enumerated are covenant blessings—they are the benefits promised to us by a covenant keeping God. But in that covenant, there are behaviors that are appropriate to us as well if we would honor our heritage, and honor God by keeping the covenant, and if we would expect God to continue honoring the covenant from His side.

If God is the subject of certain verbs—proclaiming, saving, sustaining, protecting, accompanying—then we too are the subjects of certain verbs—there are certain covenanted things—agreed upon things—which the Jewish people as a people are supposed to do in order to honor our covenant with Him. If there are verbs that apply to God, there are also verbs that apply to us. What are they? If find five.

First, if we would be faithful to God’s covenant we will increasingly live in conformity to his ethical guidelines. Chapters 21, 22 and the first eleven verses of 23 are almost entirely a collection of such stipulations, mitzvoth bein Adam l’chavero—commandments between a man and his fellow. This falls into the category of “gemilut hasadim”—deeds of covenant faithfulness—faithfulness to our covenant responsibility to God, and to others.

Second, if we would be faithful to God’s covenant we will increasingly honor God by appropriately observing and guarding shabbat. There is a fleeting reminder of that here, which is later ampliflied extensively. In this ontext we read this: Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and that your bondman and the stranger may be refreshed (23:12). Here it is a manifestation of ethical guidance, later it is a covenant requirement—the fourth of the ten commandments, in remembrance of creation and of the redemption from Egypt. Covenantally faithful Messianic Jews will not treat Shabbat like they do all the other days of the week.

Third, if we would be faithful to God’s covenant we will increasingly honor God by observing and guarding the Holy Days of our calendar (23:14-20a). These are not simply days off, or Jewish holidays—they are times to especially honor God, and to let them slide or to be careless in following them is to forget our covenant responsibilities and our covenant relationship—these are not things we may do, but rather things we are supposed to do as people who know ourselves to be forever indebted to the Holy One.

Fourth, if we would be faithful to God’s covenant we will endeavor to eat like Jews should (23:20b). The phrase at the start of our reading, “You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk” is just a part of the wider teachings in Torah about covenantal eating. The technical term is kashrut. Now I am not going to argue nor explain today what foods Jews should eat and not eat, and what it means to eat kosher. I will be discussing this at another time. But for now, what is crystal clear is this: Covenant-honoring Messianic Jews should eat like covenant-keeping Jews.

Fifth, if we would be be faithful to God’s covenant we will increasingly participate in worshipful prayer to the God of our ancestors in company with the people of Israel. “Come up to the Lord, with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, and bow low from afar” (24:1). Any of us who honor God must do so by worshipping Him in communal prayer with Israel. As I teach elsewhere, just as all the sacrifices of Israel were seasoned with salt, so I believe that Messianic Jewish prayers in union with the prayers of all Israel are the salt on the sacrifice of israel’s offerings of prayerl. Covenant-honoring Messianic Jews will be people who are growing in Jewish communal prayer. .

Sixth, if we would be faithful to God’s covenant we will constantly grow in lives of Torah knowledge and Torah obedience, for this is the guidance that God gave to the Jewish people as the way of life whereby we as a people might honor our covenant with Him. (See how this is stressed in 24:3, 7-8, 12).

Seventh and finally, if we would be faithful to God’s covenant we will recognize that these are covenant stipulations to which our people have already agreed and made themselves and us accountable. See 24:3, 7. We see this covenant responsibility confirmed yet again, and in unambiguous terms in Deut 26:9-15. It is unavoidable in Scripture that this is the life to which God called us and to which we pledged ourselves in gratitude to him.

If we would be people who honor the God of the covenant and the covenant of God, then we must grow in these areas.

Consider the following passage from the B’rith Chadasha:

Matt 21:28 "But give me your opinion: a man had two sons. He went to the first and said, `Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 29 He answered, `I don't want to'; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to his other son and said the same thing. This one answered, `I will, sir'; but he didn't go. 31 Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they replied. "That's right!" Yeshua said to them. "I tell you that the tax-collectors and prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you! 32 ForYochanan came to you showing the path to righteousness, and you wouldn't trust him. The tax-collectors and prostitutes trusted him; but you, even after you saw this, didn't change your minds later and trust him.

We need to compare this parable with another Jewish parable, from our tradition.

When God sought to give the Torah, no nation other than Israel would accept it. What happened may be illustrated by the parable of a king who had a field that he wished to turn over to tenants. When the king called the first of them and asked, “Will you accept care of this field?” he replied, "I have no strength. Such work is too hard for me. “ And so, too, the second, the third, the fourth—not one would accept the care of the field. The king then called the fifth and asked him, “Will you accept the care of this field?” The man replied, “Yes.” “With the understanding that you will till it?” “Yes.” But when that tenant entered the field, he let it lie fallow. With whom is the king angry? With those who declared, “We cannot accept the care of it,” or with the one who accepted its care but, upon coming to the field, let it lie fallow? Is it not with the one who accepted the responsibility? Simlarly, when God revealed Himself on Sinai, there was not a nation at whose doors he had not knocked, but not one would accept it. But when He came to Israel, they exclaimed, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and obey” (Exod 24:7). Therefore it is proper that you all should obey” (Ex. Rabbah 27:9).

When we think about these parables side by side, we will see how Yeshua’s parable has a strong application to ourselves.

We are the people who said we would keep the covenant—that we would work the field—and then didn’t do it, just as Yeshua speaks of those who said they would work the vineyard and failed to do so. At the end of his parable, Yeshua describes the pathway of repentance as changing our minds—I would suggest the pathway of repentance for the MJ movement is for us to change our minds, and moreso, our conduct, about the pathways of Torah. Like the figures in Yeshua’s parable, we, as part of the Jewish people, agreed to obey and then didn’t do it. I think the pathway of covenant faithfulness for us is to, in Yeshua’s name, return to the pathways we left long ago, not only in word, but in deed.

I began quoting one preacher, let me close by quoting another: Martin Marty says this about preaching. “What is a sermon but a bidding of people to a way of life they would not otherwise have entertained?” That is what I have done today—I am bidding you, I am bidding me, I am bidding us to a way of life that we would not otherwise have entertained. More to the point, the Spirit of the Word and the example of our forbears is bidding us to this way of life. Will we listen? Will we say, “na’ase v’nishma—We will do it and will hear?”

The questions I want to put before those of us whose ancestors stood at the foot of Sinai are these:

• What are the real reasons many of us resist the idea of committing to a life-long growth in covenant faithfulness?

• And if we are through resisting, are we ready to grow?

I hope you are! Let’s grow together.

Confidence: The Wonder Drug

2007-02-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

This is a short lead article for my congregational Newsletter, "Ohr Chadash." I think the advice it cites is good advice for all of us who are leading organizations, congregation, social systems of one kind or another. I hope ite helps some of you.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the Class of 1960 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She is a nice Jewish girl who really knows what she is talking about.

One of the things she talks about is confidence—not personal confidence, but organizational confidence. She says that leaders of organizations, and by implication, congregations, need to be confident that their people can themselves exercise leadership.

She says that the most essential ingredient in leadership is not self-confidence, but confidence in others: “Leaders must believe they can count on other people to come through. . . . when leaders believe in other people, confidence grows, and winning becomes more attainable.”

She goes on to talk about how leaders deliver confidence. She says it takes three things:

(1) espousing high standards in their messages,

(2) exemplifying these standards in the conduct they model, and

(3) establishing formal mechanisms to provide a structure for acting on those standards.

I don’t know about you, but this seems like excellent advice! What do you think?

On Celebrating the Otherness of Others

2007-02-16T10:51:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the SEMI, the weekly newsletter at Fuller Seminary, from which I graduated, and where I have on occasion taught as an Adjunct in the area of Jewish Studies. It was a requested article for an issue on cultural diversity.

Except for those very rare missionaries who so devote themselves to the well-being of another people as to become fully one with them in more than sentiment, becoming fully and permanently citizens of the receptor culture, almost all of us, at least this side of the Parousia, remain outsiders to the cultural matrices of others. We can be knowledgeable outsiders, we can be welcome outsiders, we can be assimilated outsiders, but will remain outsiders.

And this is not bad—it is simply an unavoidable truth, To assume otherwise is to grossly underestimate and miss the fact that “culture” names not something one has, but rather who one is. To miss that fact would be like being a man who appreciates women presuming to say that he fully understands women and sees things as a woman does, feels things as a woman does—experiencing and living out of a woman’s sense of being. To speak thus is to be a fool. A man will always in some sense be an outsider to a woman’s sense of being, and a woman to a man’s. This does not mean one should not seek to grow in understanding of the “other.” But it does mean that one ought to respect and affirm the otherness of others even when one affirms their equality. Equal does not mean the same.

Amidst the cultural diversity at Fuller, we need to learn to respect the otherness of others. We must be careful to not resent the strong sense of commonality individuals will have with others in their people-groups, which is likely to make us sense our own otherness. We must also realize how little we really grasp of the otherness of others. We ought not to imagine and demand that they translate for our consumption what it truly means to be who they are and who their people group knows itself to be. Some things can never be translated, nor even reduced to language.

We need to not project upon persons from other cultures some facile fantasy that “After all, we are all just the same under the skin.” Not so! The current war in Iraq demonstrates how naïve the U.S. Government was, not recognizing that Shi’ites and Sunnis see even each other as outsiders, and regard Western “liberators” and the Western way of life as the foulest of intrusions. We are not all the same, nor will we ever be such.

This goes against the grain the prevailing Christian theological paradigm, a viewpoint evident since the Epistle to Diognetus’ portrayal of Christians as a third race. This prevailing theological worldview assumes that heavenly realities transcend and dissolve cultural distinctives and particularities. What we once were makes no difference: now we are Christians, and all Christians are the same. Is that really true? I think not!

Such fantasies are rooted in a spiritual vision eschatology that conceives of the eternal state as a static transcendent and disembodied beatific vision, a view foundational to a post-Augustinian Christendom. Such a vision imagines eternity as a place where we shuck off our cultural particularity, or, if you prefer, transcend it. I advocate replacing this viewpoint with a New Creation eschatology that anticipates the resurrection of a multi-peopled humanity in all of its rich cultural diversity and particularity.

At Fuller, we have an “eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth - to every nation and tribe and language and people” (Rev 14:6). The trick is to balance our concern about this universal gospel with the particularity of cultural identity both here and around the world. The trick for us is to hold fast to the universal gospel that binds us together, while recognizing that the other-culture sisters and brothers to whom we are bound in this life are always going to be “other” to us, and we to them.

Let’s learn to live together with “others” in all their otherness and in the bond of peace, and let us do it here. Let us learn to truly celebrate, rather than seeking to transcend or worse, ignore, how different we all are. And let’s always give to others the room and permission to be different. After all, isn’t that what they accord to us?

Seeds, Weeds, and Walking the High Wire: The Remnant (Pt. 1)

2007-01-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

I identify the Messianic Jewish Movement as part of the Messianic Jewish Remnant of Israel. It will help to first differentiate between two uses of the term. Dan Johnson demonstrates that Scripture presents two different modalities of remnant identity, one being survivors of a time of judgment, the other being the seed from which God’s continuing purposes will be realized. He points out how the verb form used in Gn 7:23, “only Noach was left (vayisha’er akh noakh), along with those who were with him in the ark,” is related to the noun sh’erit (remnant). This is the first appearance of the verb in Scripture. Just as Noach/Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark were a sign of God’s continuing purpose for the earth, and instruments for its realization, so the eschatological remnant of Israel discussed in Romans 9-11 is meant to be a sign, demonstration and catalyst of God’s continuing purposes for the Jewish people.

The survivors of judgment motif is evident in Romans 9:27:

“And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.’” This in turn references Isaiah 10:22, a word of temporary judgment: “For though your people Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.”

The other use of “remnant,” as a seed sign of hope, is apparent in Isaiah 11:10-16.

10 On that day the root of Yishai, which stands as a banner for the peoples - the Goyim will seek him out, and the place where he rests will be glorious. 11 On that day Adonai will raise his hand again, a second time, to reclaim the remnant of his people who remain from Ashur, Egypt, Patros, Ethiopia, 'Eilam, Shin'ar, Hamat and the islands in the sea. 12 He will hoist a banner for the Goyim, assemble the dispersed of Isra'el, and gather the scattered of Y'hudah from the four corners of the earth. 13 Efrayim's jealousy will cease - those who harass Y'hudah will be cut off, Efrayim will stop envying Y'hudah, and Y'hudah will stop provoking Efrayim. 14 They will swoop down on the flank of the P'lishtim to the west. Together they will pillage the people to the east - they will put out their hand over Edom and Mo'av, and the people of 'Amon will obey them. 15 ADONAI will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian Sea. He will shake his hand over the [Euphrates] River to bring a scorching wind, dividing it into seven streams and enabling people to cross dryshod. 16 There will be a highway for the remnant of his people who are still left from Ashur, just as there was for Isra'el when he came out from the land of Egypt.

This seed nature of the remnant is also evident in Isaiah 37:31-33.

Meanwhile, the remnant of the house of Y'hudah that has escaped will again take root downward and bear fruit upward; 32 for a remnant will go out from Yerushalayim, those escaping will go out from Mount Tziyon. The zeal of ADONAI-Tzva'ot will accomplish this.' 33 "Therefore this is what ADONAI says concerning the king of Ashur: "' (check number of “)He will not come to this city or even shoot an arrow there; he will not confront it with a shield or erect earthworks against it.”

Although here, as in Isaiah 11, the term remnant denotes survivors of judgment, the second theme of the remnant as a seed of hope is evident. John Paul Heil demonstrates how Romans 9-11 focuses on this second usage of the term "remnant," and how the Apostle uses the term as a sign of hope even in Romans 9:27-29, normally viewed as a judgment text.

Heil shows that standard translations of Romans 9:27-29 obscure the strong note of hope in Paul’s language, and fail to heed intertextual voices. Contrary to those who see the text as a judgment text, Heil views Romans 9:27-29 as foreshadowing the climactic note of victory, “and so all Israel will be saved,” in Romans 11:26. After meticulous exegesis, he offers this translation of Rom 9:27-29, revealing Paul’s use of remnant as a sign of hope:

But Isaiah cries out on behalf of (not “concerning”) Israel (= still unbelieving Israel, not those from the Jews (9:24) who believe in Christ): “If the number of the sons of Israel be (not ‘were’) as the sand of the sea (which they will be in accord with God’s word of promise in Gen 16:13; 22:17; 28:14; 32:121), surely, at least (not ‘only’) a remnant will be saved! For definitely deciding a word (that Israel will be as numerous as the sand of the sea), the Lord will accomplish (it) on the earth” (Isa 10:22-23; 28:22b; Hos 2:1a). And as Isaiah had foretold (and still foretells), “If the Lord Sabaoth had not left for us (= the unbelieving majority of Israel) a seed (= a remnant who will believe and be saved), we would have become like Sodom and we would have been made like Gomorrah” (Isa 1:9).

Heil highlights what is often missed, that the remant is a sign of hope concerning the Divine purpose for the rest of Israel. This remnant is not simply the residue left after a time of judgment, nor a sign there are others who comprise the remnant as well, but rather, this remnant is the earnest of God’s continuing purposes for Israel as a whole.

Following both Johnson and Heil, I use the term remnant to indicate that communal seed of hope which is meant to serve as a sign, demonstration, and catalyst of God’s gracious purpose for all Israel. Serving as this sign, demonstration, and catalyst is the job description of the Messianic Jewish Remnant.

We may differentiate between a variety of Jewish remnants. What might be termed the General Jewish Remnant, fully known only to God, is his sum-total Jewish Remnant in the earth, objects of His grace, and precious in His sight—comprised of those who are explicitly Yeshua believers, and others whom God judges to be faithful Israel. This includes those who have gone before, and those who will come after us. The Messianic Jewish Remnant is the body of Yeshua-believing Messianic Jews within that group seeking, however imperfectly, to live in continuity with Jewish life and community. Not all Jewish believers are part of the Messianic Jewish Remnant in this sense, although all are part of the General Jewish Remnant. I reserve the term “Messianic Jewish Remnant” for those Jewish Yeshua-believers seeking to live in continuity with Jewish life and community.

Other Jewish Yeshua-believers, living assimilated Jewish lives in churches,are also part of the General Jewish Remant, with the likely exception of those Jewish people who seek to obscure or deny their Jewish identity. But we ought not say that the Messianic Jewish Remnant plus other Jewish Yeshua believers is the sum total of the General Jewish Remnant. My caution is due to Yeshua’s warnings that many who are first will be last, and the last first, and to God’s warning to Elijah as repeated by Paul, that the true extent of the remnant is greater than we can know.

Therefore, claiming remnant status does not entitle us to deny that status to others known only to God. To insist on doing so is to repeat the error for which God chastised Elijah.

Some write more extensively on remnant theology, discussing matters such as the role of the remnant in the Millennium, the role of the 144,00, and related issues. These are not my concerns. My concern is a missiological one: to address the responsibilities of the Messianic Jewish Remnant now, especially regarding our relationship with rest of the Jewish world.

But that will follow in future postings.

Seeds, Weeds, and Walking the High Wire: The Weed of Anti-Rabbinism

2007-01-23T20:46:00.000-08:00

A third, closely related weed, is anti-rabbinism—opposition to “the rabbis” as a class. The way the term “the rabbis” has been used in Messianic Jewish circles, although less widely than formerly, demonstrates a polemical disdain fit only to be uprooted and discarded. A quick search of one Jewish mission website using the search term “religion of the rabbis” turned up quotes such as the following:

When I talk about being a Jew, I'm talking about something that is different from the religion of the rabbis. I'll be quick to tell you that I do not follow the Jewish religion.

You might be surprised that the Jewish Bible, the T'nach, does not mention rabbis. According to Scripture, the priesthood was to be in charge. What is now considered "traditional Judaism" began at the Council of Yavneh, when a group of rabbis met and made certain decisions in light of the destruction of the Temple and the growth of Christianity. What decisions they made, we can only surmise. But after Yavneh, rabbis were in control of the religion.

Regardless of the degree to which one agrees or disagrees with the author’s historical reconstruction, we find here an appalling categorical hostility toward Judaism, toward the rabbis, and their religion. Can the rabbis be wrong? Certainly! Has the rabbinical establishment been almost entirely opposed to Jewish Yeshua-faith? Surely! But should we therefore distrust all rabbis and all rabbinic writings as has commonly been the case in our thinking, discussion and polemical rhetoric? Must we consider the rabbis and their teachings to be guilty until proven innocent? Should we consider all of them to be seducers and enemies of Yeshua-faith, to be avoided by all who would exercise due caution? Must we assume, as some have stated of us, that those seeking irenic relationships with rabbis do so only to pander for approval, prepared to sell out the gospel as a means to that end? In the service of truth, I cannot go there. In fact, this weed nauseates me.

This antipathy to “the rabbis” extends beyond distrust to disdain. A typical mission publication states, “Unfortunately, most rabbis have accepted the role of an apologist for Judaism, rather than a spiritual authority who can aid in or inspire a true encounter with God.” Will you join me in finding this comment presumptuous? How do we know the motivations of “most rabbis?” Where do we sign up for a dose of such omniscience concerning the motivations of the majority of an entire class of people? I submit that what we are hearing are echoes of Justin Martyr and the Adversos Judaeos tradition.

We ought not comfort ourselves that these are someone else’s statements, not our own. Axiomatic suspicion of and distancing from the rabbis and their religion lingers in the air like a stench of a corpse only recently removed from the room. Things are better among us, but not well--not yet.

As another case in point, consider our respected friend Dr. Michael L. Brown. One of his recent blog postings includes ample evidence of the weeds of categorical anti-Judaim and anti-rabbinism persisting in our ranks. For example, he states that he has “come to the conclusion that rabbinic traditions have little or no place in our private lives or public services.” Brown continues, “While it is one thing to follow the rabbinic calendar as a matter of convenience, it is another thing entirely to pray the prayers of the rabbis or utilize their varied religious expressions and methods.” He asks, “How can we pray the prayers of men whose very faith presupposes that Yeshua is not the Messiah?” These positions will sound very familiar to most of us in the Messianic Movement, because this viewpoint is not his alone.

I am asking all of us to reconsider our attttudes and to spread the word: “The rabbis” should not be used as an epithet of scorn. We need to recognize and repudiate the tradition of anti-Judaism and anti-rabbinism as weeds, not wheat. Uproot them.

Seeds, Weeds and Walking the High Wire: The Weed of Antinomianism

2007-01-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

This posting is the fourth part of a series on where the Messianic Jewish Movement needs to be heading and why.

Sowing and growing the seeds of zikkaron/anamnesis and prolepsis is no uncontested operation. There are always weeds. I will name four. The weed of antinomianism is the first.

For more than thirty years, in Jewish Yeshua-believer circles, Arnold Fruchtenbaum has held a unique position as a tightly organized and highly focused Bible teacher. Although his audience among us is less than it once was, the spores of his perspective on Torah observance continue to sprout stubborn weeds throughout our Big Tent. I have chosen him because he is an especially focused example of the matter I am addressing. However, nothing I say should regarded as indicative of disrespect. I like Arnold Fruchtenbaum, and respect him. However, his views are problemmatical.

Fruchtenbaum says that the authority of the Mosaic Law has been annulled with the death of Messiah.

The Law is a unit comprised of 613 commandments, and all of it has been invalidated. There is no commandment that has continued beyond the cross of Christ. . . . It has completely ceased to function as an authority over individuals. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum. Hebrew Christianity: Its Theology, History, and Philosophy. Seventh Printing. (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries Press, 1995), 86.

He teaches that although there are those who may choose to obey some aspect, or even many aspects, of the Torah, as a badge of Jewish identity or means of identity preservation and inter-generational transmission, such actions must only be treated as matters of personal preference, and never regarded as either obligations or communal norms. For Fruchtenbaum and the Dispensationalism he champions, Torah obedience no longer has mandatory force. The one exception he allows is for those commandments required by Newer Testament teaching, by what he terms “the Law of Christ.”

It is right that we respect Fruchtenbaum and others like him who have worked hard and served well. However, spores spread by his brand of Dispensational theology posit the nullification of the Torah of Moses as a mandated standard of Jewish practice, and transplant personal volition and New Covenant standards in the place formerly occupied by Jewish life. We might even consider this a form of neo-Marcionism, under which the expired, defunct, and impotent Older Testamental statues, ordinances, and commandments of God are replaced by a more “enlightened” canon, the Law of Messiah.

If we are only under the Law of Messiah, in what ways, beyond simply familial nostalgia and genetic markers, are we, our calling, and our legacy, actually, rather than simply theoretically, different from other Yeshua believers? This perspective converts our covenantal Jewish identity into a genetic claim nurtured by nostalgia and collections of memorabilia, sustained by periodic get-togethers with other Jews.

Adherents to such a perspective are exiles from ongoing Jewish life and community, consigned to remember Zion by the waters of a strange theological Babylon, But how can we sing the songs of Zion in such a foreign land, exiled from the life of Torah, our spiritual homeland, and from the community to which we are joined by covenant?

Living under the Newer Covenant Law of Messiah, while treating the life of Torah obedience as “nice if that’s your style,” substitutes the cut glass of nostalgia for the bright diamond of Jewish covenantal life and community. Abandoning Israel’s call to covenant faithfulness dooms the Messianic Jewish Remnant to irrelevance. Instead, we condemn our families, our congregations, and our entire Movement to eventual assimilation, while nullifying our capacity to assist wider Israel in achieving and fulfilling its foreordained destiny and to walk in that faithfulness to which Hashem calls them--and us as well.

Seeds, Weeds, and Walking the Highwire: More on Zikkaron/Anamnesis

2007-01-20T21:43:00.000-08:00

This posting is the third part of a series on where the Messianic Jewish Movement needs to be heading and why.

The Holy Past is Present as Catalytic Memory: Our Holy Calendar
Brevard Childs, whom we consulted in our earlier postings, reminds us as well that honoring our holy calendar is crucial to remembering the saving acts of God. We cannot bypass our responsibility to honor the events of our holy calendar and their attendant covenant obligations through recourse to personal choice or the liberty of the Spirit. When our calendar confronts us with God’s saving acts and our history with him, the Spirit gives us liberty to do only one of two things: we may desecrate the holy day or honor it. No third option is possible.

Providing an example, he states, “The festival of unleavened bread serves as a reminder to future generations of Yahweh’s law. . . . Israel does not remember festivals, but observes them in order to remember [the saving acts of God and their attendant obligations].” The purpose of honoring our holy calendar through ritual observance goes far beyond maintaining a sense of Jewish identity, or differentiating our identity from that of the Church. The purpose of ritual observance is to remember and honor our covenant pledge, the binding oath of the children of Jacob.

The Holy Past is Present as Catalytic Memory: Once-for-All, Yet Once Again

These redemptive events of the Older Testament shared a genuine chronology. They appeared in history at a given moment, which entry can be dated. There is a once-for-all character to these events in the sense that they never repeated themselves in the same fashion. Yet this does not exhaust the biblical concept. These determinative events are by no means static; they function merely as a beginning (Childs, 83).

The Messianic Movement cannot and must not devolve into a religious equivalent of “The Society for Creative Anachronism,” which is “an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe.” We are not called to return to past glories. We must have a living relationship with the holy Jewish past shaped by who and where we are now in the flow of history. As Childs reminds us, “Each successive generation rewrites the past in terms of her own experience with the God who meets his people through the tradition. . . . These successive layers cannot be seen as subjective accretions covering the ‘real event.’ The remembered event [in the now] is equally a valid witness to Israel’s encounter with God as the first witness (Childs, 89).

We see new facets of the past as we grapple with the Holy One in the present, using the template of the past as a framework for self-understanding. When we encounter the story of the Exodus, we grapple with the God who redeemed us just as truly as did the Exodus generation. Our response now to the record of his saving mercies is as real and as consequential as was theirs, and the consequences of careless disregard, no less significant. We are as culpable for ingratitude as were they. “Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

The Holy Past is Present as Catalytic Memory: With Judicial Power

“Each generation of Israel, living in a concrete situation within history, was challenged by God to obedient response through the medium of her tradition. Not a mere subjective reflection, but in the biblical category, a real event as a moment of redemptive time from the past initiated a genuine encounter in the present” (Childs, 83-84). The events of Israel’s redemption were such significant realizations in history of divine redemptive intervention, that together with the rituals, rites, and commandments they entail, they have the authority to assess each successive generation of Israel, including ours. Our response to these events, rites, rituals and obligations, is our response to God, for which we are accountable.

The Haggadah, echoing the Talmud, agrees. It reminds us, “In every generation a man is bound to regard himself as though he personally had gone forth from Egypt. (cf. TB Pesachim). Torah tells us of Passover, "'This will be a day for you to remember [v’haya hayom hazzeh lachem l’zikkaron].” The LXX translates zikkaron as “anamnesis.” It is also the term used in the Newer Covenant underlying the phrase, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

The holy past is no mere collection of data to be recalled, but a continuing reality to be honored or desecrated. As a zikkaron, a holy memorial, the redemption from Egypt is so authoritatively present with us at the seder, that a cavalier attitude toward the event marks as “The Wicked Son,” unworthy of redemption, anyone who fails to accord it due respect. In zikkaron or anamnesis, the holy past is present with power, assessing our response.

This is a new perspective for some of us and surely for most of our Movement. It makes us wriggle with discomfort because it contravenes our axiomatic commitment to autonomy. We reflexively think ourselves to only be responsible when we choose to be so. The Bible, and our tradition disagrees; hence the discomfort.

That anamnesis has intrusive and unavoidable authority to judge our response is proven in Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Table. In First Corinthians 11, he states that those who fail to discern the reality present among them in the zikkaron/anamnesis, who drink the Lord’s cup and eat the bread in an unworthy manner, desecrate the body and blood of the Lord and eat and drink judgment upon themselves. He makes this point unambiguous when be states “This is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died.”

Because of this numinous power of zikkaron/anemesis, honoring the holy Jewish past and the holy Jewish future as re-presented in the liturgy, ritual, and calendar of our people must become a lived reality in our movement. Our only other option is to dishonor God and to trifle with his holy saving acts. I think it no exaggeration to say that failure to properly honor our holy past, present as zikkaron/anamnesis, is just as truly an act of desecration as was the failure of the Corinthians to honor body and blood of Messiah present in their midst in the bread and the wine.

Seeds, Weeds and Walking the High Wire: Prolepsis and Zikkaron/Anamnesis

2007-01-19T16:50:00.000-08:00

This posting is the second part of a series on where the Messianic Jewish Movement needs to be heading and why.

“Prolepsis” is a Greek term that has passed into English usage because there is no suitable English equivalent. It refers to “the representation or assumption of a future act or development as being presently existing or accomplished.” Prolepsis names the future as dynamically present to shape and empower present thinking and conduct.

We must become a proleptic movement. As a community of covenant responsibility, God is calling us to focus on an idealized Jewish future, theologically and canonically developed in Scripture, clarified in communal discussion, and enshrined in our sacred calendar, liturgy, and ritual life. This idealized future is our destiny. It must live within us, and we must live for it. Because the Holy One holds us responsible to be signs, demonstrations and catalysts of this proleptic future, we must become a community in which the future has arrived. This is our first mustard seed idea. Its significance will becomes clearer as we discuss its companion.

A Second Mustard Seed Idea: Zikkaron/Anamnesis

Our second mustard seed comes from the other end of the same pod. It focuses on our relationship to the past rather than our relationship to the future.

The Hashivenu motto, “Bring us back to you, Hashem, and we shall return; renew our days as of old,” was the seed of the Hashivenu vision. Proponents of the Hashivenu perspective have long known that contemporary Messianic Jewish renewal requires we reconnect with the holy Jewish past.

For a few years I have been maturing in my understanding of what this means. Now I see how this seminal idea is rooted in the biblical understanding of remembrance, as expressed in such terms as the Older Testamental zikkaron, and its Newer Testamental equivalent, anamnesis. I see as well that we will never comprehend who we are called to be and what we are called to do until we understand what the Bible means by “memory”—zikkaron, or anamnesis.

In 1962, Brevard Childs wrote Memory and Tradition in Israel, a monograph on the nuances of how the Older Testament uses words from the zkr word group, words related to remembrance. A number of his insights help clarify the Hashivenu vision and demonstrate why the mustard seed of memory is a non-negotiable imperative if we would embody Israel’s destiny. Childs helps us understand how, in God’s design, the past is present among us, holding us accountable, transforming us, and propelling us forward.

The Holy Past is Present as Catalytic Memory: Obedience

Childs says, “Present Israel stands in an analogous situation with the people of the Exodus. Israel is still being tested [as to whether we will demonstrate by our obedience that we remember the saving acts of God and our covenantal obligations].” (Childs, 50-51). Typically, we are commanded to do “this” because God did “that.” A failure to obey is a failure to remember both what God has done, and the response he demands. Zikkaron-memory is more than mere recalling. Such memory entails honoring God’s redemptive mercies by embracing covenant obligations.

Childs reminds us, “As in the past, Israel‘s history continues to be God’s forcing his people to decide between life and death.” We choose life by obedience, death by disobedience. “Memory plays a central role in making Israel constantly aware of the nature of God’s benevolent acts as well as of her own covenantal pledge.” [Childs, op. cit., 51]. The keyword here is “pledge.” Israel cannot fulfill its destiny nor honor its legacy apart from honoring this pledge. And if we are part of the Messianic Jewish Remnant of Israel, this must be is true for our Union as well.

More to come. More on zikkaron.

Seeds, Weeds, and Walking the High Wire: Discerning the Times

2007-01-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

This posting is part of of a series on where the Messianic Jewish Movement needs to be heading and why.

Yeshua taught "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed." In every generation, God gives his servants mustard seed ideas with divine power to transform the landscape. In this extended series we will be examining two such seeds. Our job will then be to plant and tend them, while God gives the increase. We will also examine some "weeds" which hinder their growth, and then consider how these two seeds constitute moorings for a high wire which we must walk in faithfulness to God.

David Stern points us toward one mustard seed in his translation of Messianic Jews (Hebrews) 11:22: “By trusting, Yosef, near the end of his life, remembered about the Exodus of the people of Isra'el and gave instructions about what to do with his bones” [Heb 11:22, emphasis added]. Reflect for a moment. Joseph lived long before Moses, before any Hebrews were enslaved, centuries before the Exodus. How is it, then, that he “remembered about the Exodus?” This can only mean that he remembered what God had prophesied to his ancestor Abraham centuries earlier:

Know this for certain: your descendants will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves and held in oppression there four hundred years. But I will also judge that nation, the one that makes them slaves. Afterwards, they will leave with many possessions. As for you, you will join your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. Only in the fourth generation will your descendants come back here, because only then will the Emori be ripe for punishment (Genesis 15).

On the basis of the prophetic word, Joseph remembered in advance the destiny of his people, coordinating plans and actions around a confident vision of things to come. Focused, united, and vigorous, we must also devise and accomplish strategic plans, anticipating and facilitating the foreordained destiny of Jacob’s children.

Ours is a kairos moment, a doorway of opportunity. Missiologists call this “adventus”—a time of divine in-breaking. We need to hear Paul addressing not others, but us, speaking not long ago, but now, chiding us: “You know at what point of history we stand; so it is high time for you to rouse yourselves from sleep; for the final deliverance is nearer than when we first came to trust.”

Do we know at what point of history we stand? Surely we cannot act for the progress of the Kingdom unless we discern the times in which we live. Like arrows finding their target, the Apostle’s words strike home to our hearts: “It is high time for us to rouse ourselves from sleep.” We must allow ourselves to wake up and then awaken many others to the challenges facing us in changing times. May everyone hear the Bridegroom’s voice!

We are being called to go beyond following the lead of our ancestors Joseph and Abraham. We must go beyond making preparations for anticipated end-time events. Such talk would be nothing new. For centuries, prophecy conferences and prophetic scenarios have defined, refined, and proclaimed prophetic scenarios. Messianic Judaism must go beyond such prophetic fascinations, furors, and fixations to meet the challenge of shaping proleptic communities and institutions embodying and serving Israel’s destiny.

Serving this destiny requires that we understand three key terms: prolepsis, zikkaron and anamnesis. These describe two reference points that plot out the pathway of faithfulness to our calling.

In our next posting, we will speak about prolepsis.

Eight Tent Pegs Fastening Abraham's Tent: The Perpetuity of Israel's Election

2007-01-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

While it is common to call the Jewish people “The Chosen People,” opinions differ as to how long and under what conditions that chosenness endures.

Jewish tradition comments about the Tent of Abraham, where he received the three visitors in Genesis 18. We are told that his tent was open on all four sides (Genesis Rabbah 48:9). This allowed Abraham to let any passing stranger know that s/he was a potential guest. Also, Abraham could see people in all directions. He could then go out from his tent and offer them food, drink and a place to rest. Thus Abraham is the human paradigm of hospitality to strangers.

Through Yeshua the Messiah, strangers from the nations have come into Abraham’s Tent. So it is that Walter Kaiser renders Genesis 9:27, "God will enlarge Japhet, But He will dwell [v'yishkon] in the tents of Shem." God would would dwell, would be present, in the tents of Shem, from whom would come Abram, in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Does God still dwell in Abraham’s tent, among the Jewish people? Did the coming of Yeshua of Nazareth render Abraham’s tent primarily a place for Gentile guests, and only contingently and secondarily still a place for the Jews, the seed of Abraham and Sarah? Did these guests replace the descendants of Abraham and Sarah?

I want to suggest eight reasons why the Jewish people still dwell with God inside Abraham's Tent, and why the others from among the nations have not displaced the descendants of Jacob, who can then only return to the tent in Yeshua's name. These eight reasons are eight tent pegs fastening Abraham’s tent as a dwelling place for the children of Abraham and Sarah, and not only them, establishing the continuing and unique election of the Jewish people as a people.

1.The promises to the patriarchs/matriarichs to bless Abraham’s physical seed. See for example Genesis 17:19; 21:12; 28:13. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all promised that their seed after them will be guarded and blessed by God. As Paul will say later, "they are beloved for the sake of the fathers."

2. God’s oath to Abraham, on the occasion of the binding of Isaac - Genesis 22. Hebrews 6:18 reminds us that a promise is one thing, an oath, another. God has not only promised the continuing election of the descendants of Abraham and Sarh--he has sworn it. God's oath to Abraham is later successfully invoked by Moses as the grounds whereby God repents of his intention to judge Israel at the time of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:7-14).

3. God’s promise that his faithfulness to Israel will endure as long as the fixed order of the sun, moon, stars, and sea (Jer 31:35-36).

4. God’s faithfulness is not only as steadfast as the creation itself, but is in fact even more abiding. ‘for the mountains may move and the hills be shaken, but my loyalty shall never move from you, nor my covenant of friendship be shaken—said the Lord, who takes you back in love (Isa 54:10).

5. A fifth tent-peg, links the perpetuity of God’s promise, and thus of Israel’s election, to God’s own person: “But because I, ADONAI, do not change, you sons of Ya'akov will not be destroyed.”

6. “Isaiah 66:22 records the divine promise to preserve Israel’s ‘descendants and name’ in like manner to his preservation of the new heavens and the new earth, thus extending Israel’s secure election beyond this creation into the eschaton.

7. The economy of mutual blessing, the seventh tent peg. Israel’s election is secure because of its irreplaceable role in the consummation of all things. R. Kendall Soulen reminds us that:

Biblical ontology takes the form of an economy of mutual blessing, in which God summons the households of creation to receive God’s blessing in the company of an other. Because it belongs to the glory of the biblical God to love the human family in a human way, in the fullness of its corporeality and completeness, God’s economy of mutual blessing exhibits a certain order or taxis [linear arrangement], a taxis summarized by a first-century Jew in the phrase, ‘to the Jew first and also to the Greek’ (Rom 1:16)

In sum, the goal of God’s work as Consummator is that future reign of shalom in which the economy of difference and mutual dependence initiated by God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah is fulfilled in a way that brings fullness of life to Israel, to the nations, and to all creation [Soulen, R. Kendall, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 121, 131].

8. Yeshua is the eighth tent peg, of a different kind—the tent peg of the seed of Abraham, and from the tribe of Judah, upon whom all else hangs (Zechariah 10:4). As such, he is the guarantee of the consummation of all of God’s purposes for both Israel and the nations. The only other choice is to imagine that with the coming of Jesus, the ultimate seed of Abraham and Sarah, the Jewish people were categorically evicted from Abraham’s tent unless and until they acknowledged Jesus as Messiah. Some, such as N.T. Wright, believe this to be so. But this seems to overstate and misstate the view of Scripture, which sees even Jewish hardening toward the gospel as part of God’s saving purposes. And of course, Paul is at pains to protest that God is not through with the Jewish people. If all the promises of God are "Yes" in Yeshua, this will most certainly include the promises--and oaths--made to the Jewish people!

Book Review - Michael Wyschogrod: "The Body of Faith: God and the People Israel"

2007-01-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

Wyschogrod, Michael, The Body of Faith: God and the People Israel (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996).

Wyschogrod is a Modern Orthodox Jewish scholar-philosopher, born in Germany, who taught at Baruch College, at the University of Houston, and at a number of other institutions in the USA and abroad. He is perhaps the closest the Jewish community has to a biblical theologian, and for this reason, is more accessible to Christian readers than most.

He holds for the priority of election as a category that must be recovered by the Jewish community. He sees the entire seed of Abraham and Sarah as elect and as one, despite ideological variations and differences. All Jews as obliged to live out the meaning of their election through maintining Jewish communal coheshion and intergenerational survival. Despite denials and avoidance of all kinds, Jews are meant to live lives of Torah faithfulness as a context and manifestation of authentic relationship with the Living God. He sees the Jews as “the abode of the divine presence in the world. It is the carnal anchor that God has sunk into the soil of creation” (256). As such, Jewish survival and fulfillment of its communal mission is important not simply to the Jews, but to the entire world—for God has chosen to make Hiself one with this people, and to join His name to theirs.

Chapter 1, “A Partial Knowledge,” discusses the eclipsed role of philosophy in Judaism, and he deals with Jewish revelation as being a “dark knowledge,” because it awaits an apocalyptic and therefore discontinuous future consummation. Chapter 2 continues the discussion of philosophy, and how the Christian theological tradition has embraced a philosophical approach alien to Jewish epistemology. Christian theology and philosophy abstracts principles, while Jewish revelation and experience are in the nature of story. The Christian and Jewish worlds contrast both epistemologically and existentially. Israel’s election is communal and corporeal, and this people coheres as an extended family rather than in ideological mutuality. “The foundation of Judaism is the family identity of the Jewish people as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . . . the seed of Abraham elected through descent from Abraham, This is the crux of the mystery of Israel’s election” (57).

Chapter 3 , “The Personality of God,” further confronts the divide between the Jewish and biblical revelation of God and that of philosophical theology. God is seen as a character in the great story in which Israel plays a central role. He is a person who, by creating a real world of real actors, and by becoming part of the story, freely takes on a certain vulnerability. This God is diametrically opposite to the static Prime Mover of the philosophical theological tradition, whether Christian or Maimonidean.

Chapter 4, “Created Being,” is even more philosophical than the foregoing, and examines the relationship between being and God. “The chapter argues that nonbeing is the necessary corollary of being and that nonbeing, expressed in action, is violence” (xxxv). It also considers the issues of being, non-being, and existence, and how these pertain to thought about and the reality of God.

Chapter 5, “Ethics and Jewish Existence,” considers the issue of the nature and purpose of law, especially God’s law. Again, philosophical theology is seen as concerned with generalities and overarching principles, while Judaism concerns itself with particulars. Here he also discusses how God’s specific-incident based law can be rightly applied to new circumstances in such a manner as to conform to the Lawgiver’s desires. The Jewish people and the reality of God are seen to be prior and other than principles and philosophy. The reality that is Israel partakes of the unassailable otherness of existence itself: “God appears in history as the God of Israel and there can therefore be no thought about God that is not also thought about Israel” (175).

Chapter 6, “The Unrealized,” speaks of the apocalyptic again, and contrasts a minimalist and a maximalist messianism. The former postulates a conservative and somewhat rigid and fearful continuity between the Torah Judaism of today and the eschaton, while the latter recognizes that in the nature of the case, the saving acts of God bring in unforeseen newness. He advocates for a Judaism open to the future, one that preserves the Jewish people, faithfully awaiting a surprising consummation.

For its scope, clarity, and brilliance, The Body of Faith stands alone, a tour de force that welcomes us into the mind and soul of a great man and profound thinker who, in Abraham and like Abraham, stands before God. Bold and courageous, he confronts comfortable assumptions, Jewish and Gentile, secular and religious. He challenges the Jewish world to live out the meaning of its corporeal election, and the Christian world to recognize that its supersessionism is not only inappropriate, but that any dismissal of the continuing election of Israel removes God from the world.

Wyschogrod’s language is unfailingly careful and precise. His voice is authoritative without self-aggrandizement. He comes across as a humble man, who, out of his service to the truth, has had to speak prophetically to communities that may not like what they hear. While some books must be reread because they are obscure, this one warrants rereading because Wyschogrod calls us to greater depth and breadth than we are accustomed to. The book merits a hadran: a final word which says, "hadran alach--we shall return to you." Like a classical Jewish text, this one warrants repeated, even perpetual study.

Abraham's Obedience and Messianic Judaism

2007-01-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

To be followers of God in the train of Abraham is essentially to be persons who recognize ourselves to have been commanded and who obey. This contrasts with the pop-Christian reflex which sees Abraham as essentially a person who believes, and which imagines “belief” as being prior to and separate from action. Contrary to the adamant opinions of some, this will not do. Faith and action are inseparable. Although they can be separated in thought, that is, although we can discuss faith and action as two separate rational categories, they are not and cannot be separated in life, because such “faith,” apart from works is dead. It is inert, lifeless, and really not faith at all.

In the Bible, Abraham is essentially the man who obeys, and his belief (Genesis 15:1-6) derives its significance in how it supports and illustrates his obedience. This sense is at war with postmodern Messianic Judaism where we tend to see ourselves as those who know, those who understand, who are enlightened in some manner—who have faith. But it is too easy for such “believers” to see obedience as “nice but secondary.” This is not only not Judaism: it is not true to the Bible, nor is it true to Truth and the One who is the True and Living God.

The Bible sees Abraham first and foremost as one who obeyed God. Indeed, God’s first words to him are not words of explanation or comfy relational chit-chat, but rather words of command: “Get up, get out, get going.” If we as a Messianic Jewish Movement would be children of Abraham in fact and not just in name, then we too must become reflexively obedient. This will require a Holy Spirit revolution freeing us from the reflexes of post-Enlightenment postmodernism.

In “The Body of Faith,” Michael Wyschogrod comments helpfully “Israel replied 'We will do and we will hear’ when it heard God’s demands. Only obedience responds to the word of God as demand, so that a proper hearing can only come after the doing” (173). I add that only reflexive obedience honors God for who He is: anything less is to reduce God to an equal--or less, which is idolatry. Only obedience honors God.

This is why kashrut and shabbat observance are crucial—because they treat God as central. What we do with our mouths and with our time are entirely his business because he is God, and if we balk at this "intrusion" into "our lives," we are demonstrating we just don't get it--we don't really understand who God is, who we are, and what are the rules of the game. When we presume to differ, or to “take matters under consideration,” we become those who use and abuse God’s name without treating him as God. God commands. Only our explicit obedience demonstrates that we understand who he is and who we are.

Na’aseh v’nishmah always go together. We might translate the terms, “We will do, and by so doing, we will demonstrate that we understand who you are and who we are."

Do we?

A Belated Hanukkah Message (Also Good for New Year's Resolutions!)

2007-01-02T23:02:00.000-08:00

The only light we have to give is reflected light.

We are like the moon, not like the sun. The sun has light in itself, the moon has not light but what it reflects. But that reflection can be absolutely beautiful.

Not only that, one cannot look at the sun, but can look at the moon.

Similarly, people cannot look directly at God, who is the ultimate light—but they can look at us. And we can only be lights if we reflect the light of God.

How shall we do this? In honor of the eight days of Hanukkkah, I suggest eight ways. And these are good avenues to pursue throughout this New Year.

1. We reflect the light of God when we spend time in seeking His face—we with unveiled faces . . .

2. We reflect the light of God when we spend time in His word, not simply looking for information or arguments to explain this or that, but looking at the word as a place where we meet with God, He with us, and where we meet his authority and directions for our lives.

3. We reflect the light of God when we spend time in God[s precence seeking to understand the excellency of Messiah. What was he like? What impact did he have on people who really got to know Him?

4. We reflect when we cultivate a right perspective—“if that light in you be darkness, how great is the darkness!”

5. We reflect the light of God when we become people who expose the unfruitful works of darkness instead of cooperating with them.

6. We become people of light when we show others the right way to walk, and how to avoid the dangers around them.

7. We reflect the light when we live under the rule of God. It is not enough to have warm fuzzy feeling about God or about ourselves, or even to be “nice people.”

8. To be a light requires work—it is neither easy, nor is it automatic. Most of all it calls for something utterly foreign to the spirit of the age: self-denial. When people deny themselves, their desires, and appetites in order to do the right thing, the light is blinding.

Come house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. Happy New Year!

Do Jews Need The Gospel, Should We Proclaim It To Them, and If So, Why?

2007-01-02T16:12:00.000-08:00

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God—this includes all Jews. And religious Jews would have no difficulty admitting this.

I know myself to be a man of unclean lips who needs to be touched with the coal from off of God’s sacrificial altar in order to be cleansed. I know myself to be a person totally dependent upon the redemption which is in Messiah Yeshua.

But I did not always know myself to be a Jew with covenant obligations.

Certainly pagans need to repent. Certainly adherents to idolatrous religions need to repent. Certainly Jews need to repent. But we also need to ask in each case the following question: “Repent for what?” Biblically, the answer to this question is different for Jews than for non-Jews.

Some, new to the paradigm shifts I advocate, imagine that I am weak on the teaching of repentance for Jews. Not true! On the contrary, I think I am more disquieted about Jewish sin than most people in our movement. I am calling for a deeper repentance for all Israel and for all of the Messianic Jewish Movement than that we have inherited from the Hebrew Christian/Jewish Missions culture, a deeper repentance than generally inhabits the heart of Messianic Judaism as I have encountered it.

R. Kendall Soulen helps us with this clarifying statement:

According to the biblical witness, God’s work as Consummator takes enduring shape in the history that unfolds between the Lord, Israel, and the nations. Accordingly, human sin is never merely the sin of the creature against the Creator-Consummator. Human sin is also always the sin of Jew and Gentile, of Israel and the nations.” (R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996:153).

The sins of the Messianic Jewish Movement and of the Jewish people are far more dire and extensive than simply the record of individual human failings. Biblically, these sins include, and indeed are foundationally, our failure communally, familially, and individually to live in covenant faithfulness to the God of Israel.

Do we and all Jews need the atonement Yeshua provides? YES, by all means YES! But for reasons deeper than we have heretofore realized and proclaimed. We, the seed of Abraham and Sarah, whose ancestors, standing at the foot of Sinai, said “na’aseh v’nishmah—we will do and we will hear/obey—all that the Lord has spoken we will do”—must repent of our general, continual and pervasive neglect of the covenant obligations to which they implicated us and of which God spoke of all the way back to Genesis 18:16-29 and 26:1-5, much less at the Holy Mount.

All of the seed of Abraham in the Messianic Jewish Movement, and all of Israel, needs the atonement Yeshua provides not simply because we are individual sinners who need to be saved by grace. We need His atonement and we need to repent because we are covenant breakers and because every day we as individuals, families, congregations, as a Union, and as a wider Messianic Jewish community fail to live in manifest Torah-based covenant faithfulness, we break the word of our ancestors to which we ourselves are honor-bound (Deut 29:9-15), and we rob God of glory (see Deuteronomy 4:4-8; Jeremiah 35:1-19).

We as a movement need to repent of covenant unfaithfulness—and this means not simply asking for forgiveness, but also returning to the faithfulness we have for so long neglected. This is a message that is alien to almost the entire Jewish missions movement. But can we say that this is a message that Messianic Judaism has, not in theory but in practice, unambiguously affirmed? I think not.

Of the seventeen sermons in Acts, nine are given to Jewish audiences [ten if you include Paul’s word to Herod Agrippa]. Repeatedly the context of repentance there is NOT repentance from individual sin, not seeking atonement and forgiveness for being sinners who need to be saved by grace, but more precisely, the need to find forgiveness for having been so out of touch with who God is and what He is up to in the world, that the community was complicit in the death of Messiah, rejecting Him who God had raised from the dead, rejecting the Messiah whom God had sent, as they had they prophets before Him. And in these sermons, the language of covenant is also invoked, so that, for example, Peter could say in Acts 3:25: “you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers.” Stephen as well combines these two factors when he says in Acts seven. “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

Do we see it? The sins of Israel, and of the Messianic Movement, from which we need to repent, are twofold, as is our responsibility. We are responsible to love, honor and obey: To love the Lord our God by honoring the Messiah whom He sent, and obeying the covenant he made with our ancestors.

We Messianic Jews misunderstand and misrepresent the New Covenant call for Jewish repentance because we tend to construe it in individualistic terms, thinking and preaching that “Jewish people need to repent because they are individually sinners before a holy God.: There is truth in that statement, but that is far less than, and even OTHER than the New Covenant’s perspective. Rather, as Soulen so brilliantly notes, in the Bible, “Human sin is . . . always the sin of Jew and Gentile, of Israel and the nations, against the Lord, the God of Israel.”

We need to repent because we have sinned as Jews, because we have been covenantally unfaithful to the God of Israel, in addition to what we have already repented of, our dishonoring the God of our ancestors in rejecting the Messiah whom he sent.

What should we do when we meet Jews who are endeavoring to be covenantally faithful. Should we call them to embrace the Messiah whom God sent? Absolutely! But we should also commend and applaud them for their pursuit of Jewish faithfulness. This is not generally the way we go about things! Not only are religious Jews doing what they should be doing: They are doing what we should be doing.

We must overcome the Second Century reflex of commending the gospel by downgrading Judaism. Rather, we should be telling them about Yeshua because we have been commanded to do so and because he IS the Messiah whom God sent, and it is a sin, yes, but more than that, a scandal and insult to the Holy One when Jews fail to welcome him.

I also suggest that we need to jettison couching our message in an avoid-hell find-heaven mode. Even though this approach is a non-negotiable for the Jewish missions movement and for many if not for most in the UMJC, it is not once demonstrated in the sermons of the apostles, and increasingly, the wider missions world has come to see that the emphasis is not biblical, and is effective in varying degrees depending upon contextual factors.

Last month I spoke at a well-known national mission training center. The last question I was asked concerned what I would say to a hasidic Jewish man my questioner had met at an airport. Here is what I would say: “Sir, if Yeshua is not the Messiah, then you had better make absolutely certain. For if He is, and you do not embrace him, then you dishonor the God of your ancestors.”

Jews should believe in Jesus. Jews should also be communally covenantally faithful. Anything less, is sin. But that includes the Messianic Jewish Movement.

Are we in the Messianic Jewish Movement ready to repent of our own covenantal neglect and covenantal ambivalence? I suspect that the answers in our movement are uneven. For many of us, the answer is “Yes! But how?” But it cannot be denied that there are also some who will say, “I don’t see things that way—we are not under the law,” or perhaps, “Not entirely,” or, “Are you trying to make us all Orthodox?” or perhaps, “Please explain further.”

By all means, let us preach Yeshua to all the people of Israel. But not because of their special neediness, which has often been predicated on the alleged futility of the Jewish way of life, but because He IS the Messiah whom God sent in fulfillment of his promise, whom God raised from the dead, whom our leaders rejected, but whom Israel is called to receive.

I think it better that we concentrate on why Jews OUGHT to believe in Yeshua rather than why they NEED to believe in Yeshua. The latter approach tends to focus on proving to the Jewish person their own neediness, sinfulness, and the inadequacy of their religious commitments. I submit that this approach is reflexive in the approach to Jews we learned from the missions culture, and that it needs to be forsaken as both ineffective and inaccurate. I prefer the other approach, of stressing why Jews ought to believe in Yeshua, because it focuses instead on Yeshua’s credentials and on why God-honoring Jews should welcome him.

We must urge the Jewish community to repent wherever we find that these“heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with our fathers,” are guilty of:

(1) rejecting the Messiah sent from God, and

(2) failing to obey the Law sent from God.

This call to repentance is enduring and vital. But it is a call directed not simply to the wider Jewish community, but also to all of us in the Messianic Jewish Movement, to our leaders, to our Union, and to our entire ambivalent context, “who received the Law as delivered by angels but did not obey it.”

It is time to welcome the Messiah whom He sent. But it is also time to glorify God through communal covenant obedience.

Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!

A Word About Worldview and Supersessionism

2006-12-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Cultural Anthropology’s discussion of worldview helps us understand why abandoning supersessionism must revolutionize mission, and will do so at a rate of speed and efficiency dependent upon our level of awareness, willingness and cooperation.

Worldview may be defined as "the central assumptions, concepts and premises which are shared by a particular group of people and upon which they base their activities"[Paul Hiebert and R. Daniel Shaw, The Power and the Glory (Pasadena, CA: 1993), 63].

Because worldview assumptions are subconscious and therefore unquestioned, they are powerful, pervasive and determinative of the behaviors, perceptions, evaluations, decisions and actions of members of any given social group, culture or subculture. Worldview assumptions are the “of courses” of a social group, culture or subculture. When someone questions or points out a worldview assumption to members of a given group, the members of the group will respond reflexively, “Of course! That’s the way things are! Anyone knows that!”

Supersessionism, a pervasive, powerful, determinative and often subconscious Christian worldview assumption, shapes the theologizing, imagining, strategizing and expectations of the Church in the following ways in varying degrees:

• The Church assumes its own spiritual hegemony, centrality and finality.
• The Church assumes that Israel has been unseated and itself installed as the present elect people of God.
• The Church assumes that the Jewish people is now just like any other nation/people group.
• The Church assumes that moral and ethical failures of the modern Israeli government disprove and negate any divine authority to their territorial claims in the region.
• The Church assumes that Jews must become Christians if they would become the people of God.
• The Church assumes that the Jewish way of life, Torah-based covenant faithfulness, is both futile and expired as a God-honoring path of faithfulness.
• The Church assumes that its program eventuates in the Kingdom of God, equating the mission of the Church with the mission of God (formerly, some equated the Church with the Kingdom of God, but this is dwindling viewpoint today).
• The Church assumes that the unity of the people of God necessitates the hegemony of the Church: that the terms people of God and Church are synonymous.
• The Church assumes that the Great Commission is not only Yeshua’s final marching orders to the people of God, but also God’s last, definitive, and comprehensive missional directive.

In varying degrees, thinkers in various wings of the Church have called into question each of these assumptions. These people are early awakeners who have made these assumptions conscious and begun to question them. Still, because supersessionism is one of the Church’s worldview assumptions, these statements are a true reflection of widespread Christian attitudes, expectations and thinking.

But when supersessionism is repudiated as being based on faulty premises, it becomes clear that all of these statements are assumptions, not axiomatic truths. All of them are presumptuous. And all of them are wrong.

Review of Robert Wuthnow's "Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their Journeys of Faith"

2006-12-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

Robert Wuthnow. Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their Journeys of Faith. Beacon Press; New Ed edition (March 10, 2000)

Robert Wuthnow is Gerald R. Andlinger Professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Center for the Study of American Religion at Princeton University, a well respected and published sociologist of religion with over ten books published. In this one he examines and compares how Jews and Christians experience spirituality in the context of their families of origin, He focuses on the factors fostering inter-generational persistence or erosion of religious commitment.

Wuthnow compares the experiences of people in three broad contexts In Part I, "The Sacred at Home," he considers the home--"Family Rituals [Chapter 1], Home for the Holidays [Chapter 2], and Generations of the Spirit [Chapter 3]. In Part II, Going to Services, he considers the impact of communities and houses of worship: Houses of Worship [Chapter 4], The Ties That Bind [Chapter 5], Learning to be a Leader [Chapter 6]. In Part III, Moving Away, he considers what happens when the subjects moved away from home: Points of Departure, Chapter 7], Remembering the Past [Chapter 8], and The Move to Spiritual Practice [Chapter 9].

Finally, in Part !V, E Pluribus Unum, he considers how these diverse communities in America can live together in productivity and peace: Bridging Diversity [chapter 10], and Seeing with Four Eyes, [Chapter 11].

The book was written to discover the nature of the new winds blowing in the spirituality of Americans. As one friend of his put it, "The one thing I am sure of...is that things are changing profoundly--and the clergy don't have a clue that it's even happening" [xi]. He gathered data through a variety of national surveys and interviews, with respondents ultimately numbering two hundred: 107 woment and 93 men, intentionally very diverse in religious background and practice. Forty three of the respondents were not Judaeo Christian in their outlook.

Wuthnow represents his purposes as follows:

My aim is to recapture what it has meant for a significant proportion of the American public to have grown up religious. I am interested in how people conceive of their religious upbringing, and in understanding what seems memorable and significant to them, more than I am in abstract theories of religious socialization. My methodology has been to ask ordinary people to talk at length about their experiences and memories and to encourage them to tell the stories they use to make sense of their spiritual journeys.

Effective religious socialization comes about through embedded practices that is, through specific, deliberate religious activities that are firmly intertwined with the daily habits of family routines, of eating and sleeping, of having conversations, of adorning the spaces in which people live, of celebrating the holidays, and of being part of a community. Compared with these practices, the formal teachings of relgious leaders often pale in significance. Yet when such practices are preetn, formal teachings also become more important.
The past is not static. It is a remembered past and thus one that people are continually revising, making sense of, and reinterpreting. Many people of course hae little in their childhood to remember about religioun. But those who grew up in a religious household continue to have a very substantial impact on the Character of American religion [xxxi-xxxii].

Personal journeys play a significant role in his research, as this is a common and contemporaneously appropriate way of examining religious character-formation and the trajectories of people's lives.

His emphasis is upon "the particularity of religious traditions, paying special attention to the distinctive local practices that encouraged people to fee that is was special to be growing up Jewish or Irish Catholic, or to take pride in being African American Baptists or Asian American Presbyterians" [197]. Despite such pride in one's own way of religious life, pluralism and respect for others is possible so long as people see their way as best for themselves rather than best for all. "Loyalties are thus local, imbedded in th customs of one's family and community, and their localism is evident to participants even at an early age" [197]. He also discusses how his respondents are able to live pacifically with other religions due to a deep pluralistic mindset, something which is uncomfortable to me but seems endemic to the post-modern age. Closely related but more palpable is his discussion of multi-culturalism which he rightly distinguishes from old-line Liberalism [219-220].

In the final chapter, his discussion of fundamentalism and how its adherents regard themselves and are regarded by others is fascinating. While pointing out the stridency of fundamentalist rhetoric, the commitment to holding to and advocating a superior truth, the insularity and tendency to reject the wider culture, Wuthnow points out how popular and media portrayals of fundamentalists are biased and inaccurate. He sees a wider divergence among fundmentalists than is usually noted. In reference to all his respondents and the groups they represent, he neatly parses the inner gyroscopes and ways and means such persons navigate between the own strong convictions and commitments and their ability to both respect and understand others.

Finally he comes to the summation statement that "spirituality has been a significant feature of the American past and that it remains so for many people, albeit in different versions than those of their parents and grandparents. Spirituality has ben most effecive in shaping the values of children when it has been practiced at home as well [as] in formal organizations. In the past, people practiced spirituality at home under the most diverse (and adverse) conditions. The lesson from this history should be that spirituality is likely to survive as a feature of American childhood--if parents and grandparents are committed to its importance" [235-236].

This very readable book is a must-read for all concerned with effectively and faithfully transmitting their religious heritage from generation to generation, or seeking to understand the genesis of their own religious convictions or lack of same. Wuthnow is perhaps America's premier sociologist of religion. Read this book and find out why the title is well-deserved.

Truly, the Lord is Present in This Place

2006-12-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

(The following is a sermon on Parashat Vayetze presented December 2, 2006 at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, California. It concerns the strange ways of God, and how our stereotypical expectations may sometimes blind us to His presence).

Genesis 28:10 Jacob left Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran. 11 He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it. 13 And the Lord was standing beside him and He said, "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. 14 Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. 15 Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." 16 Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it!" 17 Shaken, he said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven."

Whether consciously or not, many people, perhaps most people, have a well-established idea of the kinds of things God does and doesn’t do. They imagine they know the ways he acts and doesn’t act, and the things he approves and would never approve. Such people are quick to say “O God would never do that.” They are also the kinds of people who are quick to bail out on God because he didn’t do what they expected Him to do.

In such cases, the problem usually is not with God—the problem is with people’s expectations. People have flimsy, plastic hand-made models for how God is supposed to act, and when He doesn’t do that, instead of getting angry with themselves for constructing a false model of God, they get mad at God for not measuring up to their misconception. The Bible has a word for such misconceptions: they are called “idols,” and all of us are natural born idolaters.

Have you ever heard someone say “I could never believe in a God who would_________” Or, “God would never_______” How do we harmonize such statements with some of the outlandish things God is reported to have done in the Bible: telling the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites, or impregnating a teenaged virgin named Mary, or sending lying spirits to deceive the idolatrous King of Israel [1 Kings 22]. Yet, God did these things and more. Yet people have their favorite images of God, they have their plastic preferences. Because people have such a plastic and predictable model of God, they risk missing out on the subtleties of His Presence.

I find a reminder of this reality here in this passage: "Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it!"

I have a few thoughts to consider with you today, and they are all related.

The first is this: Are there habits of thinking, doing and perceiving that have caused or do cause you to you fail to notice what God is up to in your life?

The second is this: Have there been situations, even recent situations, when you realized in retrospect that God was in a situation and you did not know it at the time?

Rabbi Yaakov Haber speaks relevantly to these issues in his commentary on this parasha found on the web at http://www.ou.org/torah/haber/thoughts/5760/vayetze60.htm

He points out how we “sometimes fall asleep on hallowed ground.” As examples, he speaks of the Chatam Sofer (Rabbi Moses Schreiber, 18th-19th cenury Chief Rabbi of Bratislava) who chided those who sleep through shabbat, and mentions as well the importance of spouses not missing those special moments of real holy connection—of truly listening and to and caring for one another, and for their children. He also mentions as well a sign he saw in Jerusalem shul which says, “If you talk during davening, when will you daven?” The point is, one comes to synaogogue to seek and serve the Holy One—don’t miss the moment. Truly, the Lord is in this place . . . but do you know it?

The third is this: What habits of thinking, doing, and perceiving might we develop to help us take more careful notice of the activity of God in and around us?

The fourth is this: Do you have a low vision of yourself, or are you perhaps so angry at your lot in life, that you assume that God is not at work in your life, or through your life? Do you think that God works through others but not through you? Then consider this poem by John Henry Cardinal Newman. It could change your perspective. And if it does, it just might change your life.

GOD HAS CREATED ME

God has created me
to do Him some definite service.
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another

I HAVE A MISSION
I may never know it in this life
but I shall be told it in the next

I AM A LINK IN A CHAIN
A bond of connection between persons
He has not created me for naught
I shall do good -- I shall do His work
I shall be an angel of peace
A preacher of truth in my own place
while not intending it
if I do but keep his commandments

THEREFORE I WILL TRUST HIM
whatever I am, I can never be thrown away
if I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him
in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him
if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him

HE DOES NOTHING IN VAIN
He knows what he is about
He may take away my friends
He may throw me among strangers
He may make me feel desolate
make my spirits sink
hide my future from me – still

HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS ABOUT.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Having a Fear-Not Faith

2006-12-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

(This is a sermon for Parashat Toldot, presented November 25, 2006 at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, California. It concerns the most frequently repeated command in the Bible, and wny all of us would do well to obey it).

The command, ‘Fear not” or “Be not afraid” is the most frequently repeated command in both the Hebrew Bible and the B’rith Chadasha. It is found 122 times in the Hebrew Bible and another couple of hundred times in the B’rith Chadasha.

“Fear Not” can be a potent message of hope. Karol Wojtyla, who would later be Pope John Paul II, while a university professor in Krakow, urged his students living under Communism: "Do not be afraid" and they were enabled to maintain their Christian faith and resist Communist indoctrination. When he became Archbishop of Krakow, he proclaimed: "Do not be afraid!" and strengthened the Polish people to maintain their lives of faithfulness under the Communists.

When he was elevated as Pope, in his first sermon at his inaugural mass on Oct. 22, 1978, he proclaimed to the whole world, "Do not be afraid!" He reprised that sermon in his historic speech in 1979 when he spoke to the striking shipyard workers in Gdansk, Poland, urging: "Do not be afraid," strengthening the Solidarity Movement that had so much to do with unseating Communism in Poland.

He knew that more than anything else, the Polish people were in danger of being controlled by the fear of retaliation, fear of an uncertain future. He called upon all to instead be controlled by confidence in God: by faith, not fear.

“Fear not” is a message we need to hear over and over again. Even people who bury their heads in the sand, cannot escape the reality that we are living in a fearful times.

I have never been more pessimistic and concerned about the world political scene than I am now. How about you? I have never been more apprehensive about a coming presidential election than I am now. How about you? I have never been more concerned about the mounting threats to Israel as I see Lebanon falling under terrorist rule, and Iran forming a coalition with Syria. How about you? I have never been more concerned that politically-motivated and foreign-directed violence will again visit our shores than I am now. How about you?

Health issues threaten us too. People in our congregation have been diagnosed with cancer, and some of us react by drawing our coats about us more tightly, doing what we can to make sure we don’t catch their “cooties,” whatever that might mean to us. To people preoccupied with their health, or their lack of it, the message comes again, “Fear not.”

Some of us are financially fearful. I have tax woes, I have children who need educational monies I cannot provide. And I know I am not alone. I need to hear the message from above, “Fear not.”

I know I am not alone when gnawing fears come knocking on my door as unannounced, unwelcome visitors when I least want to hear from them.

Frankin Delano Roosevelt was right, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself,” because if we succumb to fear, we will be controlled by it, and we will become immobilized, easy victims.

God tells us He is with us,

1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 4 Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. 5 Fear not, for I am with you [Isa 43].

As Psalm 23 says it, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” Of course, that is the secret of a fear-not faith: the knowledge that a good, caring and omnipotent God is with us, at our side, and on our side, if we are on His.

It is interesting that the Bible includes both the command to not be afraid and the command to be afraid. These come together in Luke 12, where we read this:

4 "My friends, I tell you: don't fear those who kill the body but then have nothing more they can do. 5 I will show you whom to fear: fear him who after killing you has authority to throw you into Gei-Hinnom! Yes, I tell you, this is the one to fear! 6 Aren't sparrows sold for next to nothing, five for two small coins? And not one of them has been forgotten by God. 7 Why, every hair on your head has been counted! Don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows.

The fear we are speaking of here is apprehensiveness, it is anxiety. It is phobia, the kind of fear that can control our lives. Yeshua is telling us to not be controlled by our fear of people, because there is a limit to what they can do to us. Instead, we are to be controlled by our fear of God—He is the one we are to fear, and here I believe the meaning is fearing His judgment, fearing His displeasure, fearing displeasing Him either because of your love for Him or our dread of His chastening rod.

The Luke passage closes with this word of encouragement, “Don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows.” We ought not to be controlled by anxiety about our well-being either. God will look out for us. We are of more value than many sparrows.

When we have a fear-not faith we will always remember, and always remind ourselves, that in every situation, God is greater than the things we fear. This is the key. Corrie ten Boom, that Dutch Christian heroine who saved Jews from the Nazis, said it this way: “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.” She knew the secret of a fear-not faith.

One sign that we have this kind of faith, this kind of hope, is that despite all that life might hand us, we will know what it is to rest in the Lord—to put things into His hands and relax, even if only a little.

The riddle for all of us is this. To what kinds of people does God give the admonition, “Do not be afraid” or “Fear not”? The answer is, to people who are already God-fearing. To people who are flippant with God, who repeatedly play games with Him, who have no respect or proper fear of Him, the message is a different one. And that message is “Fear Him.” That is why we read in the Book of Proverbs, “reishit chokhma yir’at Adonai”---“the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 12, says this:

6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

That’s good advice for us too—to walk in the fear of God, willing to displease people in order to please Him, yet knowing that the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, As Yeshua told his disciples, recorded later in Luke, Chapter 12,

22I tell you, don't worry about your life -- what you will eat or drink; or about your body -- what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Think about the ravens! They neither plant nor harvest, they have neither storerooms nor barns, yet God feeds them. You are worth much more than the birds! 25 Can any of you by worrying add an hour to his life? 26 If you can't do a little thing like that, why worry about the rest? 27 Think about the wild irises, and how they grow. They neither work nor spin thread; yet, I tell you, not even Shlomo in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these. 28 If this is how God clothes grass, which is alive in the field today and thrown in the oven tomorrow, how much more will he clothe you! What little trust you have! 29 "In other words, don't strive after what you will eat and what you will drink -- don't be anxious. 30 For all the pagan nations in the world set their hearts on these things. Your Father knows that you need them too. 31 Rather, seek his Kingdom; and these things will be given to you as well. 32 Have no fear, little flock, for your Father has resolved to give you the Kingdom!

Fear not. Be not afraid.

And if you do not fear God, if you are what the Bible therefore calls “a fool,” then, the best advice is this: “Fear Him.”

May all of us walk in the fear of God, and, as often as necessary, may we hear Him saying to our hearts, “Fear not.”

The Messy Ways of God and Man

2006-11-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

This is a sermon for Shabbat Vayera, presented, November 11, 2006 at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA. In the sermon, I call for us to reconsider our hard and fast categories, especially as applied to other people. The text under discussion is Genesis 20.

If the Bible is not a book that surprises you, you either are not reading it at all, not paying attention, reading it superficially, or simply reading your own views into it.

The Bible just may be the world’s most surprising book. Just when you thought you had God down, just when you thought you had everything buttoned down and figured out, you will read something which causes all but the dead to rise up and say, “What?”

Today’s passage is one that surprises us. Let’s pause for a while to notice how and why.

The first surprise is that Abraham fudges on the identity of his wife so as not to tempt the people of the land to take her and knock him off. I remember being on a plane about 25 years ago, and having a conversation with an Orthodox Jew who suggested that Abraham was merely being ingenious here.

But you can see from the context, that what Abraham did was politically savvy but spiritually wrong, because Torah records Abimelech’s righteous rebuke.

The second surprise is the moral compass of the pagan king, Abimelech. He is appalled when God tells him who Sarah really is and reacts in all the right ways to the information he is given. This should remind us of the Book of Jonah, where it is the pagans who get things right, and the prophet who gets things wrong.

The third surprise is that even though Abraham is a trifle smarmy in this account, God still considers him a prophet. As a prophet, he has authority in prayer, which, when offered, brings healing to Abimelech’s household.

What shall we make of this?

First, we need to reconsider the sharp lines we often draw between God’s good people and “the world.” These lines make for tidy thinking but have little to do with reality. Here in our story, we see the “believer,” the “good guy” doing the bad things, and the “unbeliever”—the outsider, responding rightly to God.

All kinds of people have their pet ingroups and outgroups. People in the ingroup are viewed as always behaving properly, as having wise things to say, as being people in the know who are worthy of imitation. The outgroup people are categorically yahoos. They don’t know how to act, think, or talk.

That’s the kind of rhetoric we have been hearing on the political scene for years. George W. Bush has been represented as being an illiterate, fascistic idiot, barely able to speak, think, read, write, or dress himself. On the other side of the spectrum, the leadership of the Democratic Party has been represented to us as a bunch of pot-smoking, baby-aborting, marriage destroying, mindless peaceniks prepared to give in to Islamic Fundamentalism if the other side smiles nicely for the camera.

This kind of categorical thinking about religion, politics, and people, is wrong. One way we know it’s wrong is that life is not like that—good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and sometimes it’s impossible to tell the bad guys from the good guys.

Religious people, who ought to know better, are often the worst offenders in this area. They, really “we,” have well-defined boundaries as to who is in, who is out, who speaks nothing but the truth, and who speaks nothing but lies. So Zionists are always right, Palestinians, always wrong. Conservative theologians always right, Liberals always wrong. For such people, Evngenlical Protestants are all saved,
Catholics, seldom, Christians are in always better than Jews, or. conversely, Jews are always better than Christians. Christians know the truth about God, and people who don’t believe in Yeshua know nothing about God. Hooray for our crowd, and to hell with everyone else.

But the truth is, as in today’s Torah reading, sometimes you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys without a score card, and our score cards are not usually the same as God’s.

That’s why I like this statement by Christian writer Anne Lamott: “You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” She’s got it right, doesn’t she? No, wait a minute, she can’t have it right: she’s a Liberal Christian. O well, you see how it goes.

Last week, Ted Haggard, a prominent, respectable and powerful evangelical leader, Pastor of a 14,000 member church, and President of the thirty-million member National Association of Evangelicals [NAE], was ousted from both positions when it came to light that he had been using the services of a gay escort, on a monthly basis, for about three years.

He has resigned from his position with the NAE, and been removed from his position as Pastor. He now faces a three to five year process of hard-nosed “Church discipline,” involving deconstructing his large ego, probably narcissistic as is often the case with public figures, being raked over the coals in a take no prisoners manner, but also receiving prayer and support. It will be hard.

Do Haggard’s peccadilloes reveal him to no longer be a good guy, but simply a bad guy who was finally exposed as such? Are all conservative religious leaders in the end simply hypocrites? For many people, used to hard-boundaried categorical thinking, the answer to either or to both questions must be, “Yes.”

But reality is different. God’s people do bad things and those we think of as not being God’s people at all, at times do good things, great things, holy things. If you’re trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys by who’s wearing the white hat, don’t waste your time. All hats are shades of grey.

There are many lessons we need to learn here. First, we need to learn to not pile on or desert someone who falls from grace, which often means that he or she disappoints us by failing to measure up to our image of them. They are not bad people, at least not usually. Rather, they are more likely good people having a bad time, going through a time of weakness, stress, and compromise. They can pull out it, but not if we throw rocks at them or turn our backs instead of standing by them and giving them a helping hand.

Second, we need to learn not to idolize people, putting them on pedestals. If we idolize people we worship a lie. People are not perfect, not even close. When we treat them as icons of perfection, we set ourselves up for disappointment, and we set them up for a fall. It’s a dangerous thing to be Ted Haggard with 14,000 people thinking of you as an Anointed Apostle of God. It’s so easy to fall from such great heights.

Third, we need to realize that everyone is a work in process. Sometimes the people we admire will disappoint us. This doesn’t meant they stopped being admirable. It does mean that even giants stumble. The flip side of this is that people we have written off are also works in progress. Often it is just such people who will end up astounding us with their righteousness, goodness, self-sacrifice and holiness.

I don’t like Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House. My impression is that she is strident and smug, which is how I view Barbara Boxer, whom I also dislike. But I need to be prepared to believe and see that Nancy Pelosi and even Barbara Boxer may prove a beneficial and memorable moral voice in our nation. They just might do that. And the Democrats may just do better than the Republicans. At times, the most righteous things we can do is wait and see.

Abraham only expected unrighteousness from pagans. He was wrong. Some of us may expect nothing but disaster from Democrats. Or we may think that now that the Democrats are in power in the House and Senate, we just got rid of the dodos. We may be wrong in this too.

We need to seek and be prepared to find the grace, truth, and the goodness of God manifest in unexpected places. And we need to make sure that wherever we are, we make our light shine. Feed the hungry, help the poor, comfort the grieving, be forbearing with one another, love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you, become part of the solution instead of part of the problem, instead of simply standing off to the side saying, “Ain’t it awful.”

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. But don’t be surprised if you find them in unexpected places.

A Book Review - Anne Lamott - Plan B

2006-11-10T23:29:00.000-08:00

Anne Lamott is a San Francisco Bay Area native down to the cellular level not only in her preferences, but in her political and social views. She is unabashedly a lefty, the daughter of lefties, and she want everyone to know it from page one of this volume, where she serves notice of her identity by beginning with a diatribe against George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. She is saying, "Look, Sweetheart, this is who I am, so let's get this straight. If you can't take it, then back up, close the front cover, and get the hell out of my book!" I am one of the people who stayed, and glad I did.

Unlike her earlier "Traveling Mercies" which began with a sequential biography of her journey towards God, or perhaps His journey towards her, this book is a non-chronological collection of essays gently demonstrating the fragile yet invincible grace of God evident in the friendships, conflicts, disasters, and tangles of the human condition--her own, that of her teenage son Sam, those of her friends and family, those of her church, and the people she encounters as a lusty, narcissistic, radicalized leftist, mellowing with age, experience, and grace.

Lamott places a poem before Chapter One that subtly but unerringly foreshadows the theme of this collection of twenty-four portraits of life and grace. By Lisel Mueller, it is titled "Monet Refuses the Operation," and chronicles and contrasts the painter's view of reality with that view defended by more "rational," less artistic people. Of course, Lamott is Monet as well, and his words might as well be hers as he says, "The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another . . ."" The point is, the world is not simply what it seems, and as with Emily Dickinson' poem, "All the earth is crammed with heaven and every bush aflame with God, but only those who see take off their shoes." Lamott sees. She sees the pain, the sorrow and the darkness, but she also sees the burning bush, and invites us to draw near and to take off our shoes and join her there.

It is obvious to me that she wants not only to sensitize us to how God moves amidst the ordinary, but also to comfort the wounded hearts of readers bruised by life, and longing for the soothing touch of God, whether they realize it or not. Lamott succeeds in this without being preachy, superficial, or simplistic.

She never loses sight of life's ugliness, instead finding the grace of God shining brightest in the darkest places. "Without all the shades and shadows, you'd miss the beauty of the veil. The shadow is always there, and if you don't remember it, when it falls on you and your life again, you're plunged into darkness. Shadows make the light show" (162).

This book is mellower than "Traveling Mercies," written five years later. Here we see a Lamott coming to terms with her life, finally content, but still radical, still disturbed by life's injustices, still struggling. But she is coming to terms with life as it is, and herself as she is, feeling just a little bit safer in the arms of God. She knows better than before the strength of the everlasting arms.

This is not a tightly organized book, but a collection of snapshots of life as she finds it. Some people will be impatient with the gentleness of the book. She paints miniatures, not murals. Nevertheless, upon her small canvases, she paints with great artistry and sensitivity.

Prepare to be changed in how you relate to older relatives, to the sick, to the downtrodden, to social justice issues, to undesirable tasks. As for me, I was more than once moved almost to tears by her integrity and intensity of relationship with her son. Her transparency enabled me to look more deeply at my own parenting. Of such glimpses, tears are born.

Anne Lamott teaches all of us here about how to live with ourselves, with God, and with each other. Who can afford to miss the lesson?

A Book Review - Anne Lamott - Traveling Mercies

2006-11-06T10:51:00.000-08:00

Anne Lamott. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

When not traveling on book tours, or out of town doing public speaking or teaching writer’s workshops, Anne Lamott can be found in her native Marin County, California, probably hanging out with her son Sam, who is a little boy in this book. Anne is a single mom, and never was married to Sam’s dad, who is one in a succession of lovers she has had in her quest to fill the gap left by her now deceased Dad, whom she loved as much as sunshine, air, and life itself. Anne embodies a unique blend of sorrowful sensitivity, sharp observation, unashamed candor, unmarred eloquence, and spiritual sweetness and vulnerability. Her humor delights and astonishes, as does her wisdom, often expressed in brief epigrams worth becoming the armataure around which you just might restructure aspects of your life. I love the woman and trust her because above all, she is unafraid to be real.

However, this fearlessness did not come naturally, and Anne has had a very messy life. In Traveling Mercies she pulls the bandages off her wounds that we might see. In her “Overture,” titled “Lily Pads,” she retraces her fragile journey into the arms of God, telling us how she was dragged kicking, screaming and crawling, into the Kingdom by pierced hands, and how her wounds are now healing. What follows is twenty-four chapters divided into seven sections: Mountain, Valley, Sky; Church, People, Steeple; Tribe; Kids, Some Sick; Body and Soul; “Fambly”; Shore and Ground. She reveals glimpses, sparks, glimmers of God’s glory in the mundane relationships and neurotic struggles of her life, teaching us about forgiveness, grace, and hope. Never preachy, she is always vigilant to preserve life’s mixed quality, light in the midst of darkness, hope in the midst of despair, joy, wet with tears of sorrow. You won’t find a plastic Jesus on the dashboard of her car, or anywhere in this book.

Lamott’s candor, humor, faith and groundedness are everywhere apparent, as in this quotation: “God: I wish you could have some permanence, a guarantee or two, the unconditional love we all long for. ‘It would be such skin off your nose?’ I demand of God. I never get an answer. But in the meantime I have learned that most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of people” (168).

The book is aptly titled. She is sharing with us the some of the mercies she’s found traveling the bumpy, potholed pathways of life in the raw. If you are looking for pat answers, look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for mercy and a little light in the midst of your darkness, find it here.

Children of Abraham by Faith

2006-11-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

This is a sermon on Parashat Lech Lecha, presented Shabbat, November 4, 2006 at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA. It calls us to examine just what we mean when we refer to ourselves as "children of Abraham by faith."

1 Now ADONAI said to Avram, "Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
4 So Avram went, as ADONAI had said to him, and Lot went with him. Avram was 75 years old when he left Haran. 5 Avram took his wife Sarai, his brother's son Lot, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, as well as the people they had acquired in Haran; then they set out for the land of Kena'an and entered the land of Kena'an.

It is our habit to call ourselves “children of Abraham.” Not only Jews do this, Christians and Muslims do as well. And in the Christian and Messianic Jewish tradition, when we call ourselves children of Abraham, we usually focus on having the same kind of faith as Abraham.

In the shadow of the Reformation, we tend to take pride that we believe in faith, not works. We don’t all know exactly what that means, but we take pride in it nonetheless. My concern in this drash is that we tend to feel, if not say, that we believe in faith instead of actions. Most of us would protest that this is not true. But how about this? Do we not tend to believe in faith instead of obedience? I would say that on the level of comfortable assumptions, and my observation of how nice people like us operate, this is exactly what too many of us believe, too much of the time.

And if I’m right, then this preference for something we call “faith” over obedience indicts us for not having faith at all. Certainly not Abraham’s kind of faith.
Just look at today’s parasha and notice here, and in all the parshiot about Abraham, how Torah describes Abraham’s characteristic response to the commands of God. One thing’s for sure: he doesn’t just say, “I believe you God!.” No, something else happens, more often than not.

That something is clear from the very time Avram is presented in the Bible as the subject of a verb. We find this at the beginning of verse four: “vayelech Avram--So Abram went.” God has spoken, and the very next thing we read of Avram is that he does what God said.

This is the faith of Abraham—it is obedient action expressing trust. That’s what Abraham’s faith was, and is—nothing less, nothing more, and nothing else. And if we are going to call ourselves children of Abraham who share in Abraham’s faith then we too should be people who lives are characterized not by words of agreement with God, but rather deeds of agreement with God, what is also called obedience.

Abraham is the icon of faith because, more often than not, he displayed reflexive obedience. It’s like what happens when you go to the doctor’s office and he hits your knee cap with that little rubber hammer, and, if your body is not ready for the scrap yard, in immediate response to the stimulus of the hammer, your lower leg reflexively moves forward. And if we are truly children of Abraham by faith, we too will obey as a reflexive habit of life.

I don’t think it an accident that time and again, the Torah records Abraham’s obedience in immediate proximity to his hearing the word of the Lord. In the next chapter, chapter 13, we read that God tells him, “Get up and walk through the length and breadth of the land, because I will give it to you." In the very next verse, the text says this: “Avram moved his tent and came to live by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hevron. There he built an altar to ADONAI” (Gen 13:16-17).

Here again, the word of the Lord comes, and Abraham obeys—this is what it means to be a person of faith. It means to hear the word of the Lord obediently and respectfully.

This reflexive obedience characterizes Abram/Abraham throughout Torah. It is strikingly evident in the account of the binding of Isaac, toward the end of Abraham’s life. In this account, we read, “1 After these things, God tested Avraham. He said to him, "Avraham!" and he answered, ‘Here I am.’ 2 He said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitz'chak; and go to the land of Moriyah. There you are to offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will point out to you.’” The very next verse says this, “Vayashkem Avraham baboker--Avraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with Yitz'chak his son. He cut the wood for the burnt offering, departed and went toward the place God had told him about.” Here, as a very old man, as before when he was just embarking on his journey of faith, we see Abraham obeying immediately, reflexively, characteristically.

The question arises concerning us: are we people such as Isaiah speaks of, “The kind of person on whom I look with favor is one with a poor and humble spirit, who trembles at my word.” And will this trembling be evident in immediate obedient action?

I like the way Reform Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf puts it:

By definition, you cannot freely choose to be commanded. . . If there is a God, there cannot be a fully autonomous human being. . . . How you know God’s will for you, and whether you’re able to do God’s will are difficult question, but they are secondary to the belief that, if you know, when you know, however you know God’s will, there is no choice about performing it. There is only obedience or sin.

I would only add this to what Rabbi Wolf said so well: “When you know, however you know God’s will, there is no choice about performing it. There is only the obedience of faith or sin.

If we have Abraham’s kind of faith, then we will obey. And if we don’t obey God as a habit of life, let’s not deceive ourselves: we don’t have the faith of Abraham.
We would do well to take to heart these words from the beginning of Hebrews 11:8: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.” If we are children of Abraham, then we will obey too whenever and wherever we are convinced that God has spoken.

A Book Review - Anne Lamott, Blue Shoe

2006-11-03T15:41:00.000-08:00

It is good for a cerebral type like me to read some fiction once in a while. Here I review a novel I just finished, purchased on a pilgrimage to the Holy Temple of Book Stores, the Strand, in New York City. You fiction mavens out there might enjoy this review. Any others, why not just skip this one?

Anne Lamott. Blue Shoe. New York: Riverhead Books, 2002.

The S.F. Bay area’s Anne Lamott is well known through her fiction (Joe Jones, Crooked Little Heart, All New People, etc.) and non-fiction (Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith). Both loved and distrusted for her outspoken faith and hilarious candor about messy issues like politics and sexual mores, Lamott is unflinching in reminding us that life is a bundle of contradictions for people like her, like me, like all of us, on the way but not there yet. A Guggenheim fellowship recipient, she has been a Mademoiselle book reviewer and a California restaurant critic. She has taught at UC Davis and teaches writing workshops across the U.S.

In Blue Shoe, Lamott allows us to eavesdrop and peek in on the tensions, struggles, and alliances made and broken by three generations of the family of Mattie Ryder, a forty something, perfect size 12, divorced mother of two young children, struggling to support her househool and to just make it through the night amidst the discouragements of life. Her narcissistic Liberal activist mother. Isa, looms over the narrative as does the shadow of her dead father, Alfred. Mattie’s is very much a typical Marin County family: well educated, artsy, hedonistic, liberal, free-living. The blue shoe named in the title is a vending machine trinket Mattie treats like a good luck charm. Tracing its origins connects Mattie and her brother Al to secrets that will wound before they heal.

Despite Mattie’s (and Lamott’s) transparent Christian faith, there are no plaster saints in this book, but only gritty, real people. Lamott is a disciplined author, and knows it is best to show rather than tell. Like a sea shell left on the shore by a receding wave, the theme of this book emerges from the experience of its characters rather than being placarded anywhere. The theme explicitly emerges in Chapter Ten, where Mattie tells her brother, “Yesterday I had an epiphany. I realized that all I have to do is to tell the truth, and let go of the results” (223). Her theme could be expressed in this wry version of a familiar New Testament text: “The truth shall set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”

This is my first Lamott novel, so I can’t compare it to others she has written. She succeeds here in opening her theme up to us like the leaves of an avocado, inviting all to slowly savor the subtle flavors and fragrances arising from her narrative. The pace is slow moving, and this too is a credit to Lamott’s artistry, because real life is not a quickly dispatched explanation, but a slow process of experience and discovery sorted out from the random tangle of the everyday.

I recommend Blue Shoe to anyone prepared to see life and relationships in full color rather than black and white. Lamott calls us to openness to new information, and to willingness to seek out and face unexpected or uncomfortable truths. The rich web of relationships clustered around Mattie Ryder is transformed as a result. If our experience would reflect theirs, we will need courage, curiosity, and perhaps a lucky blue shoe of our own.

The Cube Model of Messianic Jewish Spirituality

2006-10-31T15:02:00.000-08:00

Among the challenges facing Messianic Judaism is defining the elements intrinsic to its own spirituality, balancing those elements, and relating them to the person and work of Messiah, Jewish tradition, and what we have been taught about the Holy One, Blessed be He. This model attempts to address these concerns via a visual metaphor

The Cube Model of Messianic Spirituality is a six sided cube, with each translucent side representing one of six aspects of Messianic Jewish Spirituality: Torah, Avodah, Gemilut Hasadim, Ritual Life, D’vekut, and Mitzvah. The Cube is made of stained glass, and the leading joining all the sides together is comprised of a compound of three ingredients, [acronym, EMeT]: Emunah [faith, faithfulness]; Masorah [tradition]; and Teshuvah [Repentance, Return]. The Light within the cube is the Divine Presence, and through any and all of the sides of the cube shines the image/face of Messiah who is Himself the embodiment of perfection in Jewish Spirituality in all of its aspects. The cube may be rested on any of its sides, depending upon situational and personal factors.

The choice of six sides and therefore six aspects of Messianic Jewish Spirituality is arbitrary, although the model seems comprehensive. One might just as easily have chosen four or five elements, or more than six.

The sides of the cube are translucent, signifying that while each side retains its unique character, one can view the other sides [and thus aspects of Messianic Jewish Spirituality] through any one of the sides. In addition, each of these sides is illumined by the Divine Presence and each reveals Yeshua.

One of the sides is Torah. Torah is holy instruction rooted in the Chumash, the Tanakh in its entirety, and the sacred texts and related discussion in Jewish life, including the B’rith Chadashah and holy teachings related to it.

Another side is Avodah. Avodah is the life of prayer, especially liturgical prayer.

A third side is Gemilut Hasadim. Gemilut Hasadim, “Deeds of Lovingkindess” signifies the ethical dimension of Messianic Jewish life, founded upon Imitatio Dei (the imitation of God) and treatment of all humans as bearers of the Divine image.

Ritual Life is a fourth side. As per Lawrence Hoffman, I would define ritual as “the habitual scripted, and repeated patterning of time so as to commuicate, preserve, or create meaning and achieve satisfaction by means of anticipation and fulfillment in a context of shared [communal] understanding.” The short definition is “what we habitually do at established intervals as a means of conveying or preserving community values, meaning and identity.” [see Lawrence Hoffman. The Art of Public Prayer: Not for Clergy Only].

D'vekut is the fifth side. D’vekut is cleaving to the Divine. In Hasidic circles, this is seen to occur through cleaving to the Tzaddik, the Rebbe who is seen as the intermediary between the community and Hashem. It is Yeshua who fills that function in our communal life: by cleaving to Him in faithful obedience, we experience the Divine Presence in transformation, empowerment, and intimate communion.

MItzvah is our sixth side of the cube, Mitzvah is the awareness and acceptance of living under covenant and commandment. As members of the Community of Iisrael we may obey, or disobey, but we cannot avoid the commanding voice of God embodied in His commandments, which are not irksome when embraced in reciprocal love.

The cube is constructed of stained glass. Stained glass is used for its colorfulness, its connotation of the holy, and its translucent nature. Just as stained glass only stays together because of the leading joining piece to piece, so Messianic Jewish spirituality adheres through the presence of the compound of Emet--Emunah, Masorah, and Teshuvah.

Emunah, faithfulness is an important constiutent part of our "leading." Messianic Jewish spirituality will not work if one is simply going through the motions. Emunah signifies not simply agreement, but rather ongoing commitment founded in trust and evidenced in faithful living.

The second component of our leading is tradition, or "Masorah." Messianic Jewish spirituality is lived out in the context of
Jewish community both relationally and conceptually. We seek to live among, with, and as our fellow Jews, informing our practice by the canons of Jewish tradition.

Teshuvah is the third component of our leading. Teshuvah is a lifestyle of returning again and again to faithfulness
to the G-d of our ancestors, walking in his ways, and returning to those ways whenever we wander from them. It also signifies the imperative for Messianic Jews to repent of departure from the ways given to our fathers, and to return to Jewish life out of faithfulness the covenant between our ancestors and our God (See Deut 29:10-15).

The Divine Presence illumines our spirituality It must be the Divine Being who illumines our spiritual lives and who is revealed through our spiritual disciplines. In addition, the Divine Presence [the Ruach HaKodesh] illumines Yeshua to us, who is seen through the disciplines of Messianic Jewish Spirituality. In addition, the Divine Spirit empowers our lives individually and collectively as the people of God.

At the center of all of this, exemplifying the life to which Messianic Jews are called is Yeshua, our Righteous Messiah. The Incarnate Word, Yeshua, is our spiritual model, who embodies the spiritual perfection toward which we strive.

Any model of spirituality must make allowances for individual differences. Accordingly, the cube may rest on any of its sides depending upon the temperament, giftedness, development stage, or life situation of the individuals involved. Some would argue one or the other side to be primary. Historically, Torah has been regarded as foundational in Jewish life—the side upon which the entire cube rests. However, in practical terms, each of us has one or the other aspects of the cube which is foundational to the others in our life and experience. For example, it appears that functionally, Avodah, the life of liturgically informed prayer, was foundational to the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel. In my own life, at one time study/Torah, that is guidance from our holy texts, was the foundation upon which everything else rested. Later, it was Avodah that undergirded all the rest.
What is written here pertains especially to those under the holy bonds of Israel's covenants with God, but I trust there is something here for all of us to contemplate.

And of course, there is more that could be said.

Kingdom Building vs. Building the Kingdom

2006-10-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

This sermon was presented Shabbat B'reishit, October 21, 2006, at Congregation Ruach Israel, Needham, MA. It contrast building one's personal kingdom with building the Kingdom of God.

The Haftarah Machar Chodesh (I Samuel 20:18 - 20:42) contrasts King Saul and his son Jonathan in how they related to David. Saul is obsessed with building and protecting his Kingdom. First Samuel portrays Him as a study in jealousy and self-involvement. He is a personal kingdom builder. Jonathan is the Crown Prince—the heir apparent. In contrast to his father, he is willing to risk his personal kingdom because of his covenant of friendship with David. And it is David, not Jonathan, who will be the next king of Israel.

Jonathan admires David from the time he first sees him in the encounter with Goliath. The text tells us that this was when “His soul was knit to the soul of David.” The women of Israel, ecstatic over David’s military prowess, sing his praises: “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands.” This further infects Saul’s already diseased soul. Jealous, narcissistic, paranoid and determined, he dispatches David on various military fools’ errands, trying to get him killed by the Philistines. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s admiration for David only grows.

Like so many truly good people, inclined to believe only the best about others, Jonathan thinks his father’s animosity toward David is a passing storm, now blown over. But in this Haftarah, he realizes things are far worse than he imagined. If David doesn’t go into hiding immediately, Saul will certainly have him killed. Jonathan and David, coming to terms with this reality, recognize they must part for David’s sake. But not before they renew their covenant of friendship, saying, "Go in peace! For we two have sworn to each other in the name of the Lord: 'May the Lord be [witness] between you and me, and between your offspring and mine, forever!'”

This is a finely crafted tale of covenant making and covenant keeping, of unselfish caring for the well-being of another. This is all the more striking when we view Jonathan’s unselfishness against the dark background of Saul’s competitive and paranoid personal kingdom building.

What kinds of covenants do we have with those around us? And what might it mean for us to be more like Jonathan, looking out for others, even against self-interest, rather than being like Saul, who looked out only for himself? Three terms from our tradition help answer these questions: Ahavat Yisrael, Ahavat Habriot and Ahavat Chesed.

I recently read a wise assessment by Jewish religious professional who said that the greatest need of our time is for all Jews to cultivate a sense of Ahavat Yisrael (love of all one's fellow Jews), and to recognize that any Ahavat Yisrael that does lead to Ahavat HaBriot (love of humanity as a whole) is counterfeit.

In a sense this is a communal application of Hillel’s dictum—“If I am not for myself who will be for me?” but put in the collective—“If we Jews, or we Messianic Jews, are not for ourselves, who will be for us?” We need to look out for the people with whom we are affiliated, our own people.

But if that Ahavat Yisrael which does not lead to Ahavat HaBriot is bogus, we need to heed the second phrase of Hillel’s dictum—“If we are for ourselves alone, who are we?” If looking out for our own concerns is our only real horizon of interest, if we, like Saul, are jealous and obsessive personal kingdom builders, threatened by the success of others, then what are we? Not much! We must go beyond this to become a community of individuals with a wider horizon, people for whom the lives, the needs, and the reality of others are not peripheral concerns, but are instead the center of that arena where our love for God is demonstrated, validated, and perfected.

Although Torah says, and Messiah confirms, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, the underlying ethic of the general culture is too often “Look out for number one,” or, “Mind your own business-don’t get involved,” or even, “Get them before they get you.” This predatory worldview echoes the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, who wrote, "Each man is the other man's wolf." Builders of their own personal kingdoms move through the world focused on getting all they can out of others, on not being taken advantage of, hoarding time, advantage, and resources—looking out for number one. These are people on the take rather than people on the give.

Those who serve the King of Kings and build his Kingdom have a wider vision—they recognize and honor their covenant relationships and obligations with their various circles of association, not only with family, friends, and spiritual kinship groups, but also with all living things, with Creation itself, and with humanity as a whole. In our tradition, this is called “Ahavat Habriot”—the love of living things, expressed in Ahavat Chesed, covenantal caring for its own sake. Those who practice Ahavat Chesed and Ahavat Habriot relish and seek out opportunities to be honorable and unexpectedly kind, guided by a passion for justice and mercy, in humble service to God.

In a recent workshop at a local church, a Christian woman raised a question born of her insecurity about sharing her faith with brilliant and well-educated Jewish co-workers. “How can I share my faith with my co-workers when they are so smart and well-educated?” I told her that sharing one’s faith is not a matter of matching I.Q.’s point for point, nor of comparing educations degree for degree. What penetrates and sinks into the marrow of people’s bones is the quality of our relationships—the degree to which we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. When we live this way, the gravitas of our lives establishes the truth of our faith in ways that bypass all defenses and differences of status.

Poet Adrienne Rich wrote this in 1991:

In those years, people will say,
We lost track of the meaning of we, of you
We found ourselves reduced to I

And the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible:
We were trying to live a personal life
And yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
Along the shore, through the rage of fog
Where we stood saying ‘I’

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

And may that be true of all of us as we live out Ahavat Yisrael—the love of our own people, Ahavat Habriot—the love or all people and of all living things, and Ahavat Chesed—covenantal caring, seeking justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God just for the holy beauty of it all and the joy of pleasing Him.

So shall we reject Saul’s pathetic scepter of personal kingdom building, and take up Jonathan’s princely crown of service to the King of Kings, the Son of David.

"If we are not for ourselves, who will be for us? And if we are for ourselves alone, what are we? And if not now, when ?" (Pirkei Avot, 1:14).

"After the Holy Days are Over": A Message for Shemini Atzeret

2006-10-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

This message is being posted late, but I trust it will still be nurturing to some of you.

Today’s Haftarah is taken from the end of Solomon’s prayer at the Dedication of the Temple. The context mentions that the dedication festivities took eight days. This is why this passage is used for the Haftarah of Shemini Atzeret, which comes on the eighth day, the end of the Sukkot season.

From this passage, I will draw some lessons for all of us as to how to proceed in our own lives at a time when a Holy Day season is at an end.

54 When Solomon finished offering to the Lord all this prayer and supplication, he rose from where he had been kneeling, in front of the altar of the Lord, his hands spread out toward heaven. 55 He stood, and in a loud voice blessed the whole congregation of Israel:

56 "Praised be the Lord who has granted a haven to His people Israel, just as He promised; not a single word has failed of all the gracious promises that He made through His servant Moses.

Holy seasons are times for each of us to reflect on how God has provided us a homeland, not once, not twice, but three times---under Joshua, after the Babylonian Captivity, and again, in 1948, against incredible odds, and amidst fierce opposition. They are times to become more aware of and grateful for God’s provision.

57 May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He never abandon or forsake us.

Holy seasons are times for each of us to reflect on the ways of God in our history, to learn from them, and for each of us to recognize that God is the same now as then: if we disdain his authority we will face the same consequences as the people we study during the Holy Seasons. If we honor Him, we can expect to be rewarded like they were.

58 May He incline our hearts to Him, that we may walk in all His ways and keep the commandments, the laws, and the rules, which He enjoined upon our fathers.

Holy seasons are meant to be times of renewal—of intensification and improvement of our walk with God. So let me ask you this: have YOU improved, have you changed for the better as a result of the Rosh Hashan/Yom Kippur/Sukkot season? If you haven’t, then you didn’t get the point, perhaps because I didn’t make the point.

I work out in a gym, about five days a week. There are some people who come to the gym to work hard. They are focused and disciplined. There are others who spend most of their time talking. They wear flattering and expensive gym clothes, and hardly ever work up a sweat. . For them, the gym is a place to shoot the breeze, admire members of the opposite sex, hopefully, be admired by others, and just hang out. They will go home congratulating themselves for how they spent a couple of hours in the gym, nor realizing how little time they spent really working out.

Holy seasons are times for spiritual work-outs. Are you in better shape than you were three weeks ago? If not, you missed the point.

59 And may these words of mine, which I have offered in supplication before the Lord, be close to the Lord our God day and night, that He may provide for His servant and for His people Israel, according to each day’s needs — 60 to the end that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord alone is God, there is no other.

Holy seasons are times to reflect on how we shouldn’t live life as though it was all about us. This is why the confessions of sin in the Ten Days of Awe are all about our relationships with others. We should come out of this season equipped, motivated and committed to spreading the knowledge of God to other people. We should come out of holy seasons more keenly aware of how our good or bad example brings others closer to God or drives them away.

Maybe you realize that you wasted the holy season we have just come through. It is not too late to learn and apply some lessons—better late than never. It is like the person like me who starts working out in earnest when he is in his sixties. It’s no use bewailing a misspent youth—and lost opportunities to get in shape. Now is the time, and if you get started now, you can push back the clock. Similarly, there is still time to learn the spiritual lessons we should have learned during the recent holy days:

There is still time to reflect on how God has been good to Israel and given us a homeland against incredible odds, keeping us in life, establishing us, and enabling us to reach this season.

There is still time to seek renewal, repenting of things that need to be forsaken, seeking the strength and wisdom to make wrong things right and to make a new start.

There is still time to begin working out: to get into better physical shape or spiritual shape through cultivating the right habits.

There is still time for each of us to turn our attention to the needs of others around us, to fight against our normal tendency to be so very ingrown and self-protective.

In other words, there is always room for improvement, and the gates of repentance are always open. So do it now!

And Solomon concludes with a benediction which is perfect for us as well:

61 And may you be wholehearted with the Lord our God, to walk in His ways and keep His commandments, even as now."

"Be Younger Next Year" is a recent book by physician Harry Lodge and Chris Crowley. The book has the kind of common sense advice all of us should take. And if we do, we will feel younger as the years go by. I know it’s working for me! The book is a good investment for all couch potatoes, middle aged and older.

Here are their seven principles. After each, I have provided some applications to our spiritual health. I think we would all do well to put these principles into practice in our spiritual and physical lives.

1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life

And exercise spiritually every day. Are you stretching yourself spiritually, seeking to learn to carry more weight, to "run the race" faster? Or are you bogged down with self pity and inertia. Is your prayer life a matter of whim or a matter of principle? Do you have a program for growing spiritually? Or do you expect to be spoon fed? [Remember the final scenes of "Driving Miss Daisy"]

2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life

See the above for a spiritual application.

3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life

See #1 above for a spiritual application.

4. Quit eating crap!

What do you read, what do you see, what do you listen to? Is it good for your spiritual life? And in addition to cutting out the crap, what spiritually enriching things are you going to start "eating"—seeing, listening to, reading. What’s your plan of action?

Are you reading and watching spiritual fluff?

5. Spend less than you make

We need to learn to conserve our resources in order to invest them well. It means not only not wasting money—it also means not wasting time. Use your time and money wisely—for the glory of God and for the good of all.

6. Care
All of us are conscious of how others treat us. How do you treat others? How aware do you want to be of the lives of others you know? Care more.

7. Connect and commit.

Good ideas are worthless unless put into action. You need to begin connecting more with others whose influence is good for you, and whom you ought to influence for the better. And you need to start moving in a more positive direction starting today and continuing week in and week out.

I hope this helps all of you!

Explaining a Hiatus

2006-10-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

To all my friends on the Rabbenu Blog,

In recent weeks, four factors contributed to my being absent from this site.

First, I was working on an overdue 14,000 word scholarly paper, now completed. Second, I was dealing with some depressing personal circumstances. Third, I have been traveling out of town.

Finally, I am by nature a self-revealing person, and too sensitive for my own good. There are some people who write to a blog like this feeling entitled to subject the writer to a constantly dripping Chinese water torture of criticism of one's thoughts, one's spirituality, one's right to address the issues addressed here. While attacks and polemics are part and parcel of sharing one's views on a blog, the constancy of the kind of bile I allude to here tends to rob the enterprise of its native joys. This made it easier for me to prolong my hiatus.

Now I am back. I was glad to hear from some of you who indicated I was missed. It's good to know.

Peace.

On Not Repenting

2006-10-03T12:47:00.001-07:00

This is one of the sermons delivered at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA, during the Ten Days of Awe this year.

When I look at these magnificent words from the Prophet Hosea, a question wells up within me. With promises like this, why doesn’t everyone repent and quickly, too?

Look at what he says:

5 I will heal their affliction,
Generously will I take them back in love;
For My anger has turned away from them.

Such a guarantee!
6 I will be to Israel like dew;
He shall blossom like the lily,
He shall strike root like a Lebanon tree.
7 His boughs shall spread out far,
His beauty shall be like the olive tree's,
His fragrance like that of Lebanon.
8 They who sit in his shade shall be revived:
They shall bring to life new grain,
They shall blossom like the vine;
His scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
9 Ephraim [shall say]:
"What more have I to do with idols?
When I respond and look to Him,
I become like a verdant cypress."
Your fruit is provided by Me. (from chapter 14)

The fruit of such repentance will be fruitfulness, delightful fragrance and joy! Who would not repent with such incentives?

Such guarantees and promises are echoed in the other prophetic readings of the day. Micha says this:

Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You,
Forgiving iniquity
And remitting transgression;
Who has not maintained His wrath forever
Against the remnant of His own people,
Because He loves graciousness!
19 He will take us back in love;
He will cover up our iniquities,
You will hurl all our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
20 You will keep faith with Jacob,
Loyalty to Abraham,
As You promised on oath to our fathers
In days gone by.

So the question occurs again, if the promises are so generous, and the guarantees so iron-clad, why don’t more people repent?

One reason people don’t repent is indifference to God. People don’t repent either because they don’t really care about God and the things of God, or they believe the search for God is fruitless, confusing, and a waste of time. I spent the first nineteen years of my life assuming that nobody knows God in any way, shape or form, so why would I bother looking for Him? It was only when I met people who seemed to have something I lacked which they uniformly attributed to their experience with God, that I began to take notice and considered repenting.

Another reason people don’t repent is antagonism toward God. These are people who are either angry at God for something for which they blame Him, who don’t believe in Him and angrily protect their right to say so, or who are threatened by God because they don’t want to make room for His interference in their lives.

A third reason people don’t repent is that they imagine that what they currently know and experience of God is all they need. They have no appetite for God or His Presence, content to merely nosh at His table from time to time.

A fourth reason people don’t repent is that their God concept precludes it. People whose God is either a remote Force to be tapped into when convenient, or an inner cosmic stirring, or an all-wise always=affirming non-judgmental nice guy (or nice girl for that matter), none of whom require much of us nor visit us with retribution for our spiritual indifference, our selfishness and self-involvement, and the havoc we might cause others. People with such a God concept see no need to repent because everything is either already taken care of, or because God doesn’t hold us responsible for the lives we live, but only wants to be sure we are enjoying ourselves.

A fifth and very common reason people don’t repent is that they have succeeded in distracting themselves with other matters, so that there is no felt need for forgiveness or reassurance from God, nor a sense that something is missing from their lives when awareness of Him is absent.

Look at the Prodigal Son for example. In this story we read about his repentance---how he came to himself, arose, and journeyed back toward his father, whom he had abandoned some time earlier. The question arises, what about all the other days he was away from home and father? The answer is he was distracted by wine, women and song, and the work he had to do. But when the money ran out, so did the wine, women and song, and even his work proved to be a source of trial to him. Some people do not repent until the things with which they distracted themselves are either gone, or simply do not work any more.

A sixth reason people do not repent is the theological one, that there is a principle at work in all of us, a kind of stubborn autonomy, that reflexively stiff arms or seeks to manipulate others and especially God, an inner gyroscope that seeks to avoid or sidestep accountability. This is what is called “sin.”

A seventh reason people do not repent is that they have insulated themselves from an awareness of how far they fall short of right standards. We kid ourselves into thinking we’re not so bad, and this is perhaps true in many areas of our lives. But all of us have some area where we stubbornly behave as we should not, or fail to behave as we should. And we are angry or perhaps afraid whenever anyone, even God, dares to broach pointing that area out to us. All of us fall short of God’s standards. Every one of us have areas where things are not good at all. All of us need to repent—to return to God, to ask for forgiveness, and to ask for strength to amend our ways, taking concrete steps to do so. For this is what repentance is, as indicated by the opening words of our Haftarah:

3 Take words with you
And return to the Lord.
Say to Him:
"Forgive all guilt
And accept what is good;
Instead of bulls we will pay
[The offering of] our lips.
4 Assyria shall not save us,
No more will we ride on steeds;
Nor ever again will we call
Our handiwork our god,
Since in You alone orphans find pity!"

I encourage us all to repent during this season because God is more holy than we dare imagine, and His antipathy to sin is like the blinding light of a desert sun compared to the darkness of the world’s deepest mine-shaft. He warns us in Torah that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” And it is. Therefore repent.

I encourage us all to repent during this season because there is infinitely more to knowing God than any of us have experienced. We are like people standing on the outside of Ali Baba’s cave, looking in, satisfied with the mere glimmer of the treasures within, not realizing that we are invited to come inside and to touch, taste, and handle all that lies there. There is more, infinitely more, to the delightful treasure of knowing God. Therefore. Repent.

I encourage us all to repent during this season because we are more sinful, twisted and spiritually deformed than we dare to face—not in every area of life equally, but in certain areas of our lives certainly. Spiritual life and accountability for how we have been living is all about making strides toward realizing our spiritual potential as beings meant to reflect the glory of God in our own characters. We all fall short—even the best of us. Not only is it a tragedy to fail to grow up in this manner, God holds us accountable for not doing so. Therefore, repent.

I encourage us all to repent during this season because the forgiveness and provision of God is lavish and immediate. He stands ready to forgive and assist all those who truly repent, who return to God, who ask for forgiveness, who ask for strength to amend their ways, taking concrete steps to do so. Therefore, repent.

5 I will heal their affliction,
Generously will I take them back in love;
For My anger has turned away from them.
Your fruitfulness comes from the Living God.

Let us all draw near to Him at this season.

But I Don' t Wanna! - A Meditaion on the Story of Jonah

2006-10-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

A different focus presents itself each year when we read the story of Jonah. This simple story has so many lessons to teach. As I considered the story and what I would say about it this Yom Kippur, two more angles suggested themselves to me, both of which we all need to consider on this, the holiest and most introspective of days in our calendar.

The first angle is this: This story shows how God is willing to forgive some people whom we are not willing to forgive. This was certainly true of Jonah—he was not willing to forgive the Assyrians, and the people of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, Nor did he want God to forgive them.

Now, it would be too easy and not at all useful for us to then draw a parallel and say, "Should we then forgive the Nazis for what they did? Is God ready to forgive them? " I doubt it, and of course, that is too big an issue. It is also a really "safe" issue because it is so global. Let’s bring it down to ground level, to where your rubber meets your road.

Are there people in your life you hold grudges against? I am sure that for most of us the answer is "Yes."

One way to know this imagine the sound of your own voice finishing the following sentence. "Well, I’m sorry. But . . . ." Usually after such a beginning, what follows is a justification for an attitude or action that should not be defended!

The question our tradition asks of us then is this: Do you imagine that God is on your side in this grudge? Do you honestly believe He agrees with your perspective? Do you find yourself not caring what He thinks on the matter? Have you stiff-armed the Holy One out of this matter because your grudge is so precious to you that you will not let it go nor allow Him to pry it from your hands?

Why are you so threatened by this issue that you refuse to open the door to this person? Would you want someone else to treat you in this manner over a matter or matters of similar gravity to the one(s) you are festering about?

I’ve got bad news for you. Generally speaking, our grudges stink. And the longer we hold on to them the more the drag us down, hamper our spiritual lives, and the more they twist the delicate parts of our inner being that are meant to be forgiving and godly. In other words, when you bear a grudge, you get deformed.

So don’t think of whether you ought to forgive the Nazis or the Islamo-Fascists today. That is a waste of time and energy. And it is so very safe. Think about some area where you are being petty—yes, you! And realize that God knows about it. He also knows that the pathway out of pettiness is the pathway to growth in godliness, to greater peace of heart, and to the release and reassignment of all that energy you have been devoting to refusing to do what you know in your heart of hearts needs doing—that is, forgiving that person.

I was at a conference once, and I don’t remember where. It was when I first became interested in and committed to prayer for the sick. Two very nice people came up to me, definitely retirement age, a husband and wife. The wife was the sweetest kind of blue-haired white Angli-Saxon grandma with a nice smile. The husband was a nice quiet fellow who proceeded to tell me that his wife had some sort of abdominal pain or some sort or another that kept her from sleeping well and that the doctors had looked into things, and nothing was wrong. They had also received prayer for the matter and nothing got better. As is my habit at such times, I prayerfully listened to them and sensed I should ask her this question. "Is there somebody in your life that you are refusing to forgive, someone against whom you are holding a grudge?" She paused for a moment, smiled sweetly and said, "No, no one I can think of!" I still felt the leading of God to ask the same question, and again the answer came back the same way. However, I had an inner hunch that this might be the issue, and didn’t feel God had given me any other insight to share with them. I prayed briefly for the lady, that God would reveal matters to her on this issue, and let them go

The next morning they came to me smiling, and one or both of them reported to me, "You know, it came to us last night! Some years ago our daughter married a man we could not approve of, and I have never forgiven her or him for getting married." I think she might have said also, "I haven’t spoken to him now in years!" Clearly, this sweet blue haired old lady was carrying some crud in her gut. And when she let go of it, guess what? No more abdominal pain.

You may not be a blue-haired lady, but do you have crud you are carrying around? And what is it doing to you? How is it twisting you? How is it contaminating your relationship with God and with people? Are you carrying a grudge where it is not really likely that God Himself would take your side in the matter? Isn’t today the right time to cut it out?

And equally inconvenient angle of the Book of Jonah is the examination of Jonah’s own repentance, which is reluctant, messy, and comes in stages.

At first he refuses to go to Nineveh. It takes being swallowed by a great fish for him to do so—and when he recognizes that his very life is at stake if he doesn’t obey, he repents and goes. God had to hold Jonah’s feet to the fire. Jonah’s rebellion had pushed God aside. And God pushed back using the storm, and Jonah’s being cast overboard, and the great swallowing fish to get Jonah’s attention and to cause him to repent.

Have you pushed God aside in your life? Is there something you have known for a long time that God wants you to do, or to stop doing, and yet you refuse? Have circumstances in your life broken down so that you think that maybe God is pushing back? Is there some area where an immature part of you is saying "But I don’t wanna?" That’s what Jonah did, you know. He is quite immature in our story. He sits down and sulks outside of Nineveh to see what might happen and tells God, "I just want to die!"

Again, is there some immature place in your life where you are refusing to do what you know you should, where you are saying to God and to life, "I don’t wanna>" and where you are holding fast to your immaturity?

Will God have to send storms, and great fish, and abdominal pain into your life for you to get the point? Or are you willing for Him to help you "wanna"?

Our New Covenant reading today touches on this dilemma. It speaks of how we can know what we should or should not be doing, but find ourselves habitually refusing to do what is right, and doing what is wrong instead.

14 For we know that the Torah is of the Spirit; but as for me, I am bound to the old nature, sold to sin as a slave. 15 I don't understand my own behavior - I don't do what I want to do; instead, I do the very thing I hate! 16 Now if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am agreeing that the Torah is good. 17 But now it is no longer "the real me" doing it, but the sin housed inside me. 18 For I know that there is nothing good housed inside me - that is, inside my old nature. I can want what is good, but I can't do it! 19 For I don't do the good I want; instead, the evil that I don't want is what I do! 20 But if I am doing what "the real me" doesn't want, it is no longer "the real me" doing it but the sin housed inside me. 21 So I find it to be the rule, a kind of perverse "torah," that although I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me! 22 For in my inner self I completely agree with God's Torah; 23 but in my various parts, I see a different "torah," one that battles with the Torah in my mind and makes me a prisoner of sin's "torah," which is operating in my various parts. 24 What a miserable creature I am! Who will rescue me from this body bound for death? 25 Thanks be to God [, he will]! - through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord! To sum up: with my mind, I am a slave of God's Torah; but with my old nature, I am a slave of sin's "Torah."

Here, Sha’ul describes the dilemma of a person knowing and even delighting in God’s standards, but yet finding at work in him an inner stubbornness that avoids doing what he knows in his heart of hearts he should be doing. There is an immature, rebellious principle at work in the human heart that, confronted with the right path, will stubbornly insist, "But I don’ t wanna!"

The problem is, this is no joke, no more than being dead meat in the body of a great fish was a joke for Jonah.

No, it is deadly serious. Not only can this destroy and derail our spiritually usefulness, it can actually cost us our life sooner or later!

"The old man" is the human person locked into a losing battle with this inner principle, the human person not plugged into the resources of release made available through Yeshua the Messiah. Rav Sha’ul finished his account on a note of praise, beginning by describing this fruitless wrestling match between our best selves and that stubborn, resistant principle raging in all of us. Here is what he says, again. ". 24 What a miserable creature I am! Who will rescue me from this body bound for death? 25 Thanks be to God [, he will]! - through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord! To sum up: with my mind, I am a slave of God's Torah; but with my old nature, I am a slave of sin's "Torah."

It appears that what Sha’ul is saying here is that through the Messiah, rescue resources, resources of release, are made available to us. By crying out to God in the context of faith in our Messiah, His disarming of the sin mechanism can become apparent in our lives, so that we will find through the Holy Spirit, the resources to bypass that "I don’t wanna" reflex, and with the help of God, to just do it!

I have given us a number of assignments for this High Holy Day Season to which I now add another. Today, prayerfully search your heart and answer this question: "What is one area or issue in your life where you have been saying, ‘But I don’t wanna!’ to God? What is that area where you need to give in to the Holy One."

May you cry out to Him and through the resources of the Ruach haKodesh, and faith in our Messiah, may you give in and just do that thing God requires of you, bypassing your "I don’t wanna."

Otherwise, on this Yom Kippur, prepare for a fish dinner. But it just may not be be you who eat the fish.

It may be the fish that eats you.

God's Mercy to All Through Three Suffering Sons

2006-09-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

The following is a sermon presented at Rosh Hashana services at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA, on September 23, 2006. It is based on the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashana, Genesis 22, the Akkedah, that is, the Binding of Isaac.

We saw last night how this season of the year focuses on our need to receive mercy ourselves, and to demonstrate that mercy to one another. Indeed, the story is told of one of our rabbis who suggested that it is only when we seek mercy for others that we receive mercy ourselves, as it is written of Job “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

This season of seeking mercy speaks to us far more widely than of our personal lives, our struggles and our sins. The Bible’s scope is usually wider than that, and today’s Torah reading speaks to us of God’s merciful purposes for Israel and the Nations.

And if there was ever a time when we needed mercy for Israel and the nations, it is now.

The root of it all is the story of the Binding of Isaac, the Akkedah

Today we have the interesting opportunity to consider a midrash on this account as provided by Paul in his letter to the Romans.

In Romans 8:32, Paul indicates that he is thinking of the Akkedah, when he says, “He who did not spare even his own Son, but gave him up on behalf of us all - is it possible that, having given us his Son, he would not give us everything else too?”

Here he is echoing the language of the Akkedah.

11 But the angel of ADONAI called to him out of heaven: "Avraham? Avraham!"He answered, "Here I am." 12 He said, "Don't lay your hand on the boy! Don't do anything to him! For now I know that you are a man who fears God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." 13 Avraham raised his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. Avraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 Avraham called the place ADONAI Yir'eh [ADONAI will see (to it), ADONAI provides] -as it is said to this day, "On the mountain ADONAI is seen."

15 The angel of ADONAI called to Avraham a second time out of heaven. 16 He said, "I have sworn by myself - says ADONAI- that because you have done this, because you haven't withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will most certainly bless you; and I will most certainly increase your descendants to as many as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the cities of their enemies, 18 and by your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed - because you obeyed my order."

Abraham did not withhold his son, his only son, identified as his beloved son at the beginning of the chapter. And it is because he did not withhold his son, that both Israel and the nations receive promised blessings from God.

Paul echoes this argument very powerfully indeed in Romans 8, where he speaks of another Beloved Son, the Messiah.

31 What, then, are we to say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare even his own Son, but gave him up on behalf of us all - is it possible that, having given us his Son, he would not give us everything else too? 33 So who will bring a charge against God's chosen people? Certainly not God - he is the one who causes them to be considered righteous!”

The language here is identical to the language in the Septuagint of Genesis 22. In Genesis 22, Abraham spared not his son—he withheld not his son. Through Issac being sacrificially given up, Israel and the nations are blessed. In Romans 8:31-33, through Messiah being sacrificially given up, Israel and the nations are blessed.

All of this is rather well known and predictable. But there is a reference to this theme, a bit more hidden, another reference to the sufferings of a beloved son, which sheds entirely new and necessary light on intercommunal relations between Israel and the nations.

At this stage in his argument, Paul is considering the mystery of the fact that most of the Jewish people not flocked to believing in Yeshua. In Paul’s mind, it was the purpose of God that things should be this way. In Romans chapter 9, he says that it was God who hardened the heart of Israel toward this reality, as a means whereby the other nations might have opportunity to buy into the good news of Yeshua, as Gentiles,

Paul sees all of this as rooted in God’s ancient promises to the patriarchs, for example, to Abraham at the binding of Isaac, to bless both Israel and the other families of the earth. He compares this ornate purpose to an olive tree, rooted in the promises to and faithfulness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This root is holy.

Paul extends this metaphor to that of an olive tree with Jewish branches and Gentile branches. Speaking to the Gentiles as grafted in, Johnny come lately wild olive branches, with the people of Israel being the natural branches, Paul says this.

16 . . . if the root is holy, so are the branches. 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you - a wild olive - were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree, 18 then don't boast as if you were better than the branches! However, if you do boast, remember that you are not supporting the root, the root is supporting you. 19 So you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." 20 True, but so what? They were broken off because of their lack of trust. However, you keep your place only because of your trust. So don't be arrogant; on the contrary, be terrified! 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he certainly won't spare you!

This is the today’s third reference to a suffering beloved son. Israel is God’s son, or as he tells Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Israel is My firstborn son.” Just as Abraham did not spare Isaac his son, and just as God did not spare the Messiah, his son, so God did not spare his son Israel. Through the binding of Isaac, Israel and the nations are blessed, through the sacrifice of Messiah, Israel and the nations are blessed, and through the temporary divine blinded condition of Israel, unable to recognize that Yeshua is indeed the Messiah, all the nations on earth are blessed.
What does this mean?

It means that God is up to something in the world that is not the sole franchise of the Church, nor of Israel. God is determined to bring blessing to Israel and the Nations.

Second, it shows how wrong-headed and wrong-hearted are those who criticize the Jewish people for not recognizing that Yeshua is the Messiah. Every Gentile who claims to love Yeshua should be grateful for and not contemptuous of Jewish resistance to the good news of Yeshua. From Paul’s point of view, Jewish resistance to Yeshua is God’s idea—the means whereby the door is opened for Gentiles to become the people of God without their having to become Jews first. They can come as Gentiles, as wild olive branches.

Third, it means that Yeshua is the Messiah through whom both Israel and the nations receive the mercies promised to our ancestors. That most of our Jewish people don’t see this now is no impediment to God’s showing them His mercy, and is in the end, a temporary expedient that will eventually pass away, when "Out of Tziyon will come the Redeemer; he will turn away ungodliness from Ya'akov and this will be my covenant with them, . . . when I take away their sins" . . .when "they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son."

During this season of the year, when we think about the mercies of God, it is important to remember than they come through the sufferings of Isaac, of Yeshua, and of the Jewish people.

Let’s learn to be grateful. Whether Jew or gentile. All of us. As Paul says concerning the Jews and Gentiles in and around the community of Yeshua believers in chapter 15:

7 So welcome each other, just as the Messiah has welcomed you into God's glory. 8 For I say that the Messiah became a servant of the Jewish people in order to show God's truthfulness by making good his promises to the Patriarchs, 9 and in order to show his mercy by causing the Gentiles to glorify God - as it is written in the Tanakh, "Because of this I will acknowledge you among the Gentiles and sing praise to your name." 10 And again it says, "Gentiles, rejoice with his people." 11 And again, "Praise ADONAI, all Gentiles! Let all peoples praise him!" 12 And again, Yesha'yahu says, "The root of Yishai will come, he who arises to rule Gentiles; Gentiles will put their hope in him."

And as he says at the conclusion of his argument in Romans 11, concerning the people of Israel to the Gentiles in Rome:

For, brothers, I want you to understand this truth which God formerly concealed but has now revealed, so that you won't imagine you know more than you actually do. It is that stoniness, to a degree, has come upon Isra'el, until the Gentile world enters in its fullness; 26 and that it is in this way that all Isra'el will be saved. As the Tanakh says, "Out of Tziyon will come the Redeemer; he will turn away ungodliness from Ya'akov 27 and this will be my covenant with them, . . . when I take away their sins." 28 With respect to the Good News they are hated for your sake. But with respect to being chosen they are loved for the Patriarchs' sake, 29 for God's free gifts and his calling are irrevocable. 30 Just as you yourselves were disobedient to God before but have received mercy now because of Isra'el's disobedience; 31 so also Isra'el has been disobedient now, so that by your showing them the same mercy that God has shown you, they too may now receive God's mercy. 32 For God has shut up all mankind together in disobedience, in order that he might show mercy to all.

33 O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments! How unsearchable are his ways! 34 For, 'Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor?'c 35 Or, 'Who has given him anything and made him pay it back?' 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Mercy

2006-09-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

This is a sermon prsented Erev Rosh Hashana, September 23, 2006, at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA. It is based on the for the first Day of Rosh Hashana, Genesis 21 and 2 Samuel 1-2, which speak of Sarah and Yitzchak, Hagar and Ishamel, and Hannah and Samuel.

Hagar, Sarah, and Hannah, three women, and Yishma’el, Yitzchak, and Shmu’el, three sons. Different people with different destinies, but all of them had one thing in common. All experienced the mercy of God.

The Hebrew term is for “compassion,” sometimes translated “mercy,” is “rachamim” and it is related to the noun “rechem” which means womb. In groping for a word to describe God’s merciful compassion, the Hebrew tongue settled on this comparison.

God’s mercy toward us may best be approximated by thinking of the bond a woman has for the child of her womb.

And all three of the women in our readings had that strong bond with their sons: a bond which caused them to seek out what was best for them. Hagar wanted her son to survive and thrive, Sarah wanted her son to inherit free of the interference of an alternate heir, that is, Ishmael, and Hannah loved and doted on the son who became hers in her older age through God’s mercy shown to her.

And if you will think for a moment about these women and what they felt for their sons, you will understand just a little bit about God’s mercy.

The prophets remind us, however, that God’s mercy is even greater than a woman’s mercy toward the child of her womb. “Can a woman forget her child at the breast, not show pity on the child from her womb? Even if these were to forget, I would not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).

Nevertheless, remembering the compassion a woman has for the child of her womb is a good way of remembering the compassion of God.

Now compassion very much like mercy. We might think of compassion as a feeling, an inner response, literally a “feeling with” someone. it is a deep form of sympathy and empathy. But compassion often leads to mercy. If compassion is one’s inner response to a beloved other, then mercy is what one does—or what one refrains from doing—toward that other.

I want to look with you for a moment at mercy.

Who deserves God’s mercy?

The answer is, no one. Mercy means receiving the benefit you do not deserve instead of the negative consequences you DO deserve. I will say it again. No one deserves God’s mercy: if they did, it would not be mercy.

Paul picks up this argument in Romans chapter nine, when her reminds us of what God told Israel through Moses. He says this:

15 For to Moshe he says, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will pity whom I pity." 16 Thus it doesn't depend on human desires or efforts, but on God, who has mercy.

Now my point is this: mercy is undeserved, and it is something God does.

Now I will ask you a question about God’s mercy. When we stand up and protest that some individual or some class of people does not deserve God’s mercy, what is wrong with our thinking? Two things: first of all, of course, they don’t deserve God’s mercy—no one does. Secondly, a big mistake we make is the underlying assumption behind such conduct. We are really usually saying, “That person/those people don’t deserve mercy because they are not like me,” or in other words, “They don’t deserve mercy, but I do.”

Our tradition and the Scriptures remind us that this mentality is entirely off base. It leads to all sorts of self-congratulation, and abuse of others. We learn to love ourselves and people like us, and to hate people unlike us. We see “our kind of people” as candidates for mercy, and see “their kind of people” as obviously candidates for wrath and destruction.

But it is not that simple.

And every year at Yom Kippur, our tradition confronts us with the story of Jonah, who wanted to deny mercy to the Assyrians, the terrorists of his day, and implacable enemies of Israel. Jonah wanted to deny them the mercy which God wanted to extend to them. Is it not a wonder that the Jewish people have kept alivve and intact a Scrripture which repeatedly confronts us in ways we prefer not to be confonted? And is it not a lesson we need to learn at this time of year, that we are not entitled to seek the mercy of God ourselves when we categorically deny it to others.

I like to quote Lesslie Newbigin, who says that we must not spend our time postulating the possible fate of other people—nor their status as candidates for God’s mercy or not. He points out how many of Yeshua’s parables and teachings highlight the element of surprise and the unexpected at the final judgment. Many who are first will be last, and the last first. Things are not as they appear.
During this season when we are supposed to be seeking the mercy of God, I want to leave us with some challenges.

It is important that during these Ten Days of Awe, we all get in touch with the fact that we do not deserve God’s mercy,

It is important that during these Ten Days of Awe, we all get in touch with the fact that we need God’s mercy, because what we deserve is very unpleasant.

It is important that during these Ten Days of Awe, that we all get in touch with the fact that that we need to be very careful about denying mercy to others, for to deny mercy to others is to pretend we deserve it ourselves. We do not.

This is the time of year for us to beseech God for His mercy toward us and toward our people, and to dig deep down to find the humility and the grace to extend mercy to those to whom we normally deny it.

Our attitude should be as found in this very familiar High Holy Day prayer.

Our Father our King
Be gracious unto us
And answer us
For we are wanting
In good deeds
Deal with us in covenant mercy
And save us

Roses and Thorns

2006-09-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

For reasons stated on this blog, by God’s design, the community confirms the validity of a prophet’s call. Also, people experience and Scripture demonstrate that people who insist on being self-validating in their claims to have "heard from God" are more often than not self-deluded, even if benignly so. Hence, the wisdom of checking out our perceptions not only against Scripture and sound reason, but also against the voices of community and tradition. Some people find this irksome, as if such a teaching pretends to obliterate the truth that God does speak to individuals. What people miss is that God’s truth can be both/and rather than either/or. And sometimes it doesn’t occur to either/or people that yes, God does speak to individuals, and yes, God does validate or invalidate prophetic words through the community, and yes, God does validate or invalidate the community's perceptions through prophetic insights, and that, yes, the truth may just be both/and.

But it is.

So, without at all contradicting what I have said elsewhere on this blog about all of these matters, I would like to share here about how I think God spoke to me through a series of recent incidents.

Recently, two friends criticized me in public in a manner they later regretted. The Jewish tradition calls this “halvanat panim,” and it is considered a major ethical breech. Jewish religious culture’s sensitivity to this is not unlike Sino/Japanese culture’s sensitivity to not causing someone to “lose face.”

My coping mechanism of choice when such things happen is to withdraw. However, in both of the cases I allude to here, instead, I wrote privately to each of the parties, and resolved matters. Still, I was thinking of how difficult and wounding human relationships can be.

Later that same week, I was moving a very heavy electric piano into my wife’s van. In doing so, I brushed against a bare rose bush and caught a thorn in my thigh. I then discovered my trouser let was wet with blood, as I had bled profusely.

Then it all came together in my mind. Human relationships are like living together amidst a thorn bush. It is unavoidable that people wound us and that we wound others. This is the nature of relationships of any kind of intimacy. The task in living together is to learn to expect wounds, to learn not to wound others, and take care to bind up wounds—both our own and those of others.

In my experience, one of the earmarks of God's speaking is that it is never coercive. In fact, heeding the voice of God inevitably increases freedom. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"(2 Cor 3:17).

I invite you to think about the thorniness of your own intimate relationships. May God help you to bind up more wounds than you cause. And may he bind up your wounds too.

Abraham Lincoln has a related insight. He said this: "We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."

Rejoice. And again I say, rejoice.

And smell the roses.

On Hearing God's Voice - Part Three

2006-09-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

Some have questioned, challenged and attacked my statement on the previous posting in this series that part of discerning the voice of God is the confirmation of the community. I have chosen not to post the comments because of previous communications with the commentators, but would like to briefly address the issue here and support my position.

First, I am not surprised at the response. As I said, our spiritual assumptions are so individualistic that we are blind to the more commuunal texture of much that the Bible says. I do not blame blind people for stumbling, and my interlocutors are blind, or if you prefer, deaf to this voice of Scripture, as are many in our culture.

Second, as I said before, I most certainly DO believe that God speaks today to individuals, and know the experience myself.

Third, I stand by my position that it is the Scriptural and sensible norm to test one's perceptions against the wisdom of trusted advisors and communal tradition. My interlocutors are outraged at this, presenting cases where prophets, Yeshua himself, and prominent Bible figures did not do so, and where the "wisdom" of the community was at odds with the will of God. True. Nevertheless, the thrust and counsel of Scripture supports my position as part of a sane approach to discerning the will of God.

Fourth, I would challenge my interlocutors who give examples of people like Yeshua, David, Gideon, Paul, etc., "Are you saying that YOU are Yeshua, David, Gideon or Paul, and that you hear the voice of God as accurately as did they?" Good question. And good reason why God has advised a system of checks and balances.

For example, in Deuteronomy 18 we are told,"21 And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?' -- 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him." Notice, it is the community which decides if the word of the prophet is valid or not. My interlocutors heap scorn on this position, but, as you can see, it is part of God's counsel to us.

Similarly, in Deuteronomy 13 we are told,

1 If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder which he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and cleave to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.

Notice again that it is the community that tests the validity of the prophetic experience: it is not the prophet who determines the validity of that experience.

In the Newer Testmant, the same principle is in effect, even in the case of those whose "words from the Lord" do not have the kind of canonoical status that the Older Testament prophets manifested. Here too, the validity of a prophetic word is determined by communal process, and the mind of God is also determined communally in a manner scarely reflected in modern practice.

In 1 Corinthians 14 we read of the gift of prophecy as it operates in
the assembly--people with a true gift of prophecy, by the way, as they are referred to by Paul as prophets. In verse 29 we read this: " 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let
the others weigh what is said." The term for "weighing" is
"diakrino/diakrisis" from which we get the word "discern," and which
means "judge, separate discriminate, to learn by discriminating to
determine or decide. Judging the evidence. Decide differentiate prove
test discriminate. To dissect to get to the basic parts or elements."

Paul was teaching that when the prophets spoke in the assembly, it was
the responsibility of the others to weigh--to evaluate--what
was said, to determine the validity of the word given, and in fact, what was wheat and what was chaff in the prophetic statement.

The use of group process in making decisions and in discerning the
voice of God is common in the Newer Testament, one of the most glaring
examples being Acts 15, where it took a group process to discern the
mind of the Spirit on the matter of the Gentiles' status.

Here is more material on the subject. [The Mennonites are big on this
issue, but this is not from a Mennonite source]. The following
material, except for the last sentence by myself, is all from
http://www.urbana.org/_articles.cfm?RecordId=298

The book of Acts records four occasions when the church sought to discern God’s will (see Acts 1:12-26; 6:1-7; 11:1-18; and 15). Members of the New Testament church believed that God would guide individuals andcommunities; they expected to be led by the Spirit (see Galatians 5:18, Romans 8:14). Their relationship with God, their awareness of the presence and gifts of the Spirit, their practice of prayer, their reception and proclamation of the good news, and their infectious love
of the community present a convincing picture of a way of life with discernment at its core.

Early Christians feared the voices of false prophets, so they tested
the spirits [communally—see what I said earlier from Deut 13 and 18]. Only the presence of the Spirit of God would determine what served the common good of the community and would offer the love and knowledge to provide the community with authentic spiritual leadership. . . .

When the church in Jerusalem heard that Christians were arguing about whether converts should be circumcised, the apostles and elders met to
consider the question. They came to one mind and heart through
discernment (read Acts 15). . . . The early church used the language of discernment:

“Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole
church, decided . . .” (Acts 15:22) or “It seemed good to the apostles
and elders, with the whole church . . .” (nrsv). Paul and Barnabas
were sent to Antioch with a letter that said, “We have decided
unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you” (verse
25). Again, the letter reads, “For it has seemed good to the Holy
Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these
essentials” (Acts 15:28-29). All of this is the language of
discernment [and, I would remind you, of communal process].

So let's not have any more disparagement of the voice of the community. God sees fit to involve the community in validation or invalidation of those who claim to speak in the name of God. I would suggest that those who refuse to agree this is so have a problem not with me, but with Scripture and appropriate caution.

Shalom, my friends!

On Hearing God's Voice - Part Two

2006-09-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

The other night I had coffee with a friend who is doing his dissertation on a study of individualism as it affects matters of spirituality, especially here in the United States. Very interesting stuff. More than we realize, we have accepted the individual as the basic integer of spiritual reality—this is an unquestioned given, but not necessarily truth. In fact, one could argue that the Bible emphasizes the collective, the communal, the familial to a degree scarcely noticed, much less honored in our generation.

One witness to this is some of the hostile comments I have received but not posted on this blog which take issue with my suggestion that one must test what one perceives to be the voice of God against the wisdom of tradition and of the community. Such objectors evoke the names of prophets Elijah and Isaiah, figures like Paul, and Yeshua, and harangue me for not insisting instead that it is the individual, standing alone, Bible in hand, who should, who can, who does hear and discern the voice of God. Such parties apparently infer that my insistence in testing one’s perceptions against the wisdom of the community and its leaders now and in the past [tradition] is a form of self-aggrandizement for myself as a leader, and a form of faithless wimping out, as if I did not believe that people can and should hear from God themselves.

Of course I do believe that people can and should hear from God themselves. But the question remains, is the community and its wisdom to be a non-issue when compared with the individual’s experience and judgment?

Years ago when I was co-leading a drop-in center in San Francisco, a young man who had been visiting our services reported to us that God was leading him to go to Israel. This was a matter of concern to us, because this young man was generally a bewildered and impractical person, and didn’t seem to have a job nor be capable of holding one. When we inquired as to how he knew God was leading him that way, he told us that when he prayed, if his right elbow started to twitch, it was a “Yes” from God, and if his left elbow started to twitch, it was a “No.” Now, I know that I have at least one commentator out there who will write me and ask, “So how do you know, Great Rabbi Dauermann, that God doesn’t speak to him in that manner? Who are you to say it isn’t so?” as if my reticence on the matter were simply a matter of smug, overweening pride. To such a person I would say that it is rule of thumb that God is not stupid nor given to treating the bizarre as the norm. I would say that for this young man to avoid submitting his “guidance” to the judgment of experienced elders, and the experience of the community throughout time, was at best naïve, prideful, foolish and dangerous. And it would have been irresponsible for me and my colleague to have shrugged our shoulders and said, “Well , who are we to say. Maybe that is the leading of God. We’ll help you pack!”

Another example, also true. I met a young woman in the SF Bay area who claimed that the risen Christ had come and visited with her one week end and spent the week-end giving her a seminar in Bible study. Aside from the fact that such an encounter would certainly be out of the ordinary, this young woman’s subsequent life demonstrated a moral instability that undermined here claim. What are we to do? Are we to simply shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, who are YOU to say that Jesus didn’t visit with her that week-end? And if God spoke to Moses, and Elijah, Jesus and Paul, why not her?” Well, again, without denying that God can and does speak to individuals, I would say that God is not stupid or foolish, and that as a rule of thumb, we all do well to check our perceptions of his leading against the wisdom of the community and the tradition. And if any of you consider me a wimp for saying so, enjoy yourselves. I can handle it.

I would suggest five criteria that should be aligned when we are seeking to validate or invalidated something that claims to be a leading from God:

(1) Is this in line with the thrust of Scripture [and not simply one proof-text];
(2) Upon consulting with them, is this leading confirmed by leaders and mentors whose character and track-record demonstrates them to be reliable?
(3) Is this leading in line with the tenor of the wisdom of the people of God in general—the voice of tradition?
(4) Does heeding this leading lead you in the direction of humility and growth in godly character?
(5) Is following this “leading” reasonable in view of at least the preponderance of the foregoing?

I think following such guidelines is far more reliable than heeding twitching elbows and perspectives that imply or state a direct comparison between the experience of canonical prophets and apostles and ourselves.

And if that makes me out to be a wimp, well, I’ll just have to learn to live with that.

The Secret of Congregational Growth

2006-09-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

(This sermon on the Haftarah of Parashat Ki Teitzei was preesented September 2, 2006, at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills. CA. It calls for a paradigm shift in how we view the challenge of congregational growth.)

What is the secret of congregational growth? Scripture supplies us with an answer to this question in today’s Haftarah reading, Isaiah 54:1-10.

1 "Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in travail! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her that is married, says the LORD. 2 Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; hold not back, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. 3 For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. 4 "Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. 5 For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.

6 For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. 7 For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. 8 In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer. 9 "For this is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. 10 For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

The fundamental secret of congregational growth is the intent of God. Here, with the people of Judah in a sorry state, preparing to eventually go off into exile, God says, “That’s not going to be the end of the story! I will bring you back and your going to have to knock down some walls because you are going to expand, expand, expand."

The only difference in Judah’s situation was to be the intent of God.

We read in the Psalms, “Unless ADONAI builds the house, its builders work in vain. Unless ADONAI guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain” [Psalm 127:1]. So all of our efforts at building the household of God would be futile, were it not for the intent of God that it should be built.

But can we know that this is His intent?

The building of the household of God has always been at His initiative. Even when David wanted to build a house for God, God said, “No.” But God DID want a house for His name built; just not by David, but by his son, Solomon.

And in the wildnerness, it was the Lord Himself who told Moses and the children of Israel to build him a Tabernacle—even providing the blueprints Himself.

But what about us? Well, there’s just two more passages I want to look at with you this morning. The first is in Matthew 16, beginning in verse 13.

13 When Yeshua came into the territory around Caesarea Philippi, he asked his talmidim, "Who are people saying the Son of Man is?" 14 They said, "Well, some say Yochanan the Immerser, others Eliyahu, still others Yirmeyahu or one of the prophets." 15 "But you," he said to them, "who do you say I am?" 16 Shim`on Kefa answered, "You are the Mashiach, the Son of the living God." 17 "Shim`on Bar-Yochanan," Yeshua said to him, "how blessed you are! For no human being revealed this to you, no, it was my Father in heaven. 18 I also tell you this: you are Kefa," [which means `Rock,'] "and on this rock I will build my Community, and the gates of Sh'ol will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven." 20 Then he warned the talmidim not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Now, in this passage there are a few things I want us to note.

First, coming to the knowledge the Yeshua is the Messiah is central and it is supernatural.

Second, this certitude that Yeshua is the Messiah is foundational to the community he wants to build.

Third, Messiah IS building his community.

Fourth, even the gates of hell will not overcome it. It is meant to be a dynamic and prevailing community.

Fifth, this kingdom is one with spiritual authority.

Sixth, there was a time when it was in eclipse, but no longer. It is interesting to note that the passage begins with the supernatural recognition that Yeshua is the Messiah, and ends, in verse 20 saying, "Then he warned the talmidim not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah." This was because the time was not yet for Him to be fully revealed. Yeshua wanted to strictly monitor when things were to come to a head with Him being betrayed, crucified, buried, risen and ascended. He told the talmidim not to say anything yet.

But "yet" has come. Yeshua has been betrayed, crucified, buried, risen and ascended and the time is now for Him to be revealed, no longer in eclipse.

The intent of God, the intent of Messiah, the intent of the Spirit is clear—to build a holy community on the foundation rock of Yeshua the Messiah.

How is that to be done and what do we have to do with it? Let’s look at another passage, in Ephesians 4.

7 Each one of us, however, has been given grace to be measured by the Messiah's bounty. 8 This is why it says, "After he went up into the heights, he led captivity captive and he gave gifts to mankind." 9 Now this phrase, "he went up," what can it mean if not that he first went down into the lower parts, that is, the earth? 10 The one who went down is himself the one who also went up, far above all of heaven, in order to fill all things.

In the building of His community, God has given to each of us graces—the word is charis—empowerments from God that contribute to the growth of the Messianic Jewish community—built on the rock of faith in the Messiah.

11 Furthermore, he gave some people as emissaries, some as prophets, some as proclaimers of the Good News, and some as shepherds and teachers. 12 Their task is to equip God's people for the work of service that builds the body of the Messiah, . . .

Some people have leadership gifts—gifts for training others. That includes me—I am a teacher, a shepherd, an equipper of God’s people, as are other elders here and scattered throughout the communities of God's people.

So we see here that there is a three way partnership: God is the architect and builder; teachers and shepherds are the contractors; and the rest of the community is the workforce, and all the gifts and abilities necessary to get the job done are divinely provided. But what is the job?

13 until we all arrive at the unity implied by trusting and knowing the Son of God, at full manhood, at the standard of maturity set by the Messiah's perfection. 14 We will then no longer be infants tossed about by the waves and blown along by every wind of teaching, at the mercy of people clever in devising ways to deceive. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in every respect grow up into him who is the head, the Messiah. 16 Under his control, the whole body is being fitted and held together by the support of every joint, with each part working to fulfill its function; this is how the body grows and builds itself up in love.

The goal is not only the numerical growth of the congregation, but also its communal maturation—the body building itself up in love. Maturing as people, becoming more like the Messiah, the perfection of human potential.

So where does that leave us? A few thoughts:

(1) God’s intent is clear. It is supernatural yet entirely normal for congregations to grow in size and in depth.
(2) He provides the means whereby this happens—giving all the training and all the gifts necessary to get things done.
(3) If congregational growth is normal, and atrophy is abnormal, then we must ask ourselves—what are we doing to hinder the intent of God?
(4) Suggestion—it is as each of us does his part that the normal process of growth occurs: “Under his control, the whole body is being fitted and held together by the support of every joint, with each part working to fulfill its function; this is how the body grows and builds itself up in love.
(5) So the final question for all of us is this: If everyone in the congregation was as involved as I am, what would that mean?

The secret of congregational growth is the intention of God. The only question for us is, are we going to get in the way of God’s intent being accomplished? Or will we get with the program?

Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself off, and Start All Over Again

2006-08-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

(This sermon on the Haftarah from Parashat Shoftim was presented August 26, 2006, at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA)

What is God’s diagnosis and what is his prescription when His people are in the doldrums, especially a congregation of His people? Today’s Haftarah provides an interesting diagnosis and prescription for this ailment.

12 I, I am He who comforts you!
What ails you that you fear
Man who must die,
Mortals who fare like grass?
13 You have forgotten the Lord your Maker,
stretched out the skies and made firm the earth!
And you live all day in constant dread
Because of the rage of an oppressor
Who is aiming to cut [you] down.
Yet of what account is the rage of an oppressor? (Isa 51:12-13)

His diagnosis is that we are controlled by things that ought not to dominate our concerns. And the root of this problem is forgetfulness. Like a doctor interviewing a patent and doing a case study, Hashem asks us, “Have we forgotten who He is, what He has done, what He can do? Our sense of obstacles, of ennui, of being too busy, too sinful, too tired, too unavailable for participation in the life of God’s people is a sign of forgetfulness of who He is and what life with Him is all about . . .if we ever knew at all.

The Prophet, speaking for Hashem, goes on to offer His diagnosis of a second kind of forgetfulness.

14 Quickly the crouching one is freed;
He is not cut down and slain,
And he shall not want for food.
15 For I the Lord your God —
Who stir up the sea into roaring waves,
Whose name is Lord of Hosts —
16 Have put My words in your mouth
And sheltered you with My hand;
I, who planted the skies and made firm the earth,
Have said to Zion: You are My people!

The Holy One, the Great Physician, asks us this: Have we have forgotten who God has made us to be as a congregation of God’s people, and what we are supposed to do? In this text, he told his people Israel that he had put His words in our mouth, sheltered us with His hand, and said to Zion, “You are my people.” Should we not take these words seriously ourselves—should we not grasp hold of our Divinely given destiny and mission as Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue? Or have we simply forgotten?

We turn now from the diagnosis to the prescription. What does Hashem tell us we must do to amend our ways, to pull out of the ennui, the disengagement, the victim mentality that tends to afflict us?

17 Rouse, rouse yourself!
Arise, O Jerusalem,
You who from the Lord's hand
Have drunk the cup of His wrath,
You who have drained to the dregs
The bowl, the cup of reeling!

Even if you feel you have blown it with God in the past, you should, and we should as a congregation, rouse ourselves from our lethargy—and notice, this is NOT something God can do for us. This is not something to wait upon from God—God says to us, “Rouse yourselves, Arise!” It is OUR responsibility. And if we don’t, then we will simply continue to languish. In our congregation, and in any congregation, there will be people in various stages of spiritual illness—this spiritual lassitude—some slightly ill, some quite ill, some very ill and immobilized.

The Prophet goes on to name another symptom of this illness, this lassitude, this potentially deadly disease that can afflict a congregation of God’s people.

18 She has none to guide her
Of all the sons she bore;
None takes her by the hand,
Of all the sons she reared.
19 These two things have befallen you:
Wrack and ruin — who can console you?
Famine and sword — how shall I comfort you?
20 Your sons lie in a swoon
At the corner of every street —
Like an antelope caught in a net —
Drunk with the wrath of the Lord,
With the rebuke of your God.

That symptom is an unwillingness, an unavailability to be really engage in the life and calling of the Kingdom of God as expressed in the life our one’s congregation. It is a sign of serious congregational disease when none are available for leadership and for responsibility.

The health of our congregation, and of any congregation, will be directly proportionate to the percentage of us who step forward to take responsibility for congregational nurture, outreach and life.

To sum things up, the Prophet delivers final directives for us if we would recover and live in spiritual health.

52:1 Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, holy city!
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Shall never enter you again.
Arise, shake off the dust,
Sit [on your throne], Jerusalem!
Loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive one, Fair Zion! (Isa 52:1-2)

We are to awaken ourselves, to shake off our negative, defeatist persona, and, as if donning a garmnet, “clothe ourselves in splendor, and put on our robes of majesty. We are to shake off the dust of our victim, captive mentality, and take our seat on our throne—adopting a regal persona appropriate to who we are as the people of the kind of God who has called us with a holy calling, who has put His words in our mouth, sheltered you with His hand; and said to us, “You are My people!”

And finally,

Turn, turn away, touch naught unclean
As you depart from there;
Keep pure, as you go forth from there,
You who bear the vessels of the Lord!
For you will not depart in haste,
Nor will you leave in flight;
For the Lord is marching before you,
The God of Israel is your rear guard (Isa 52:11-12)

If we would go forth into this kind of life, we must remain aware that God has called us to a holy calling—it is a mighty way of life, a life of Divine calling and divine companionship, but it requires of us ongoing disciplined commitment, and disengagement from the things that defile. As the Newer Covenant puts it, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Cor 7:1).

Or, we can just settle for the life of forgetfulness and oppressiveness from which the Lord wants to deliver our community.

For additional confirmation of this perspective, see Colossians 3, which similarly speaks of putting off old garments and putting on new —shucking off an old, sinful, defeatist sense of self, and stepping into the new sense of self that Hashem has provided in Messiah [see also Rom 13:11-14, Eph 4:17-32, and 1 Peter 5:1-9]. In reading Colossians 3, and these other passages, pay special attention to the metaphors of taking off one persona and putting on another.

God has done so much for us. The only thing he will not do is what he calls us to do here—to rouse ourselves, to awaken ourselves, to step up to responsibility ourselves, and to ourselves embrace the life of purity appropriate to our high and holy calling.

A Grab-Bag of Life Changing Insights from Parashat Ekev

2006-08-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

A Grab-Bag of Life Changing Insights from Parashat Ekev
Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD

The following is an analysis of life changing principles found Parashat Ekev. As you read through this, have your Bible handy, and investigate the texts behind the principles that ring your chimes! And then put them into practice!

1. [7:12-15] Even though bad things do happen to good people, by being obedient to Hashem we multiply our chances of good things happening to us.
2. [7:16-20, 25 ff.] Learn to deal radically with that which contaminates. [Cf. Matt . 7:29-30].

a) Curiosity killed the cat, and sometimes won't do you much good either.
b) Sometimes objects are not just things; there is such a thing as spiritual contamination.

3. [7:17-21] - Fearful thoughts are automatic; maintain momentum by counterbalancing them with strengthening thoughts and memories
4. [7:21 ff.] Hashem is a God of process. He has reasons why he does not intervene instantaneously which we might not understand even if told.
5. [8:2-4] Hashem is more interested in our character than in our comfort.

a) It is helpful to think back on the uncomfortable times in your life and to reflect as to what Hashem might want to teach you through them.
b) Beware of a God-concept in which you are the star and Hashem exists to meet your needs. This is one of popular religion’s chief idolatries.
c) People who live this way are bound to be disappointed and will remain immature.

6. [8:2-4] A relationship with Hashem is an ongoing process of deepening trust demonstrated in obedience.
7. [8:2-4] Hashem's absence is more apparent than real.
8. [8:6-10] Learning to say thank you is essential to spiritual health. Gratitude and happiness go hand in hand. Dennis Prager believes that cultivating a sense of gratitude is the key to happiness. Come to think of it, the ungrateful person is never happy, and the grateful person usually is.
9. 8:11-18] Prosperity is more dangerous to spirituality than want is. It is when we are doing well that we are most apt to forget what Hashem has done and what we owe him as a result.

a) [8:17-18] Beware of the tendency to take credit for what God does.

10. [8:19-20] Even God's favored children are held accountable.
11. [9:1-6] Do not confuse Hashem's blessing with his commendation.
12. [9:7-10:11] There are limits to positive thinking: Don't forget to remember and learn from your mistakes.

a) This is contrary to popular expectations that I must never think anything negative about myself. If you forget your mistakes you are apt to repeat them. If you remember them, you are more apt to avoid them. So learn from your mistakes!
b) Learn from your mistakes in order to not repeat them.
c) In order to learn what they cost you.
d) In order to remember with gratitude the measures that had to be taken for you to be spared the consequences you deserved.
e) A good leader and a good parent is a good historian.

13. [9:25-29; 10:10-11] - Remember: we are not fatalists. Where there is God, where there is faith, where there is life, there is hope.
14. [10:1-5] - It is a good idea to keep mementos and artifacts in order to keep important memories alive.
15. [10:8-9] Serving God is a privilege, not a right. Don't ever take it for granted.
16. [10:12 ff., 11:1,22] Maintain your perspective: make sure you don't lose sight of the meaning of the whole through preoccupation with the parts. Especially, remember that the prime directive every day in every way is to grow in consistently "Showing love to the ADONAI your God by walking in his ways and clinging to him" [11:22]
17. [10:19] - Remembering when we were down and out helps us to be compassionate with others in the same situation. Forgetting where we came from makes us callous and unconcerned. Hashem wants us to remember.
18. [11:2-9] We are responsible to learn from our experience with God. Our constant question should be "What did I/should I learn from this?"

a) Hashem does not call us to live only in the present.
b) We must evaluate the past as a key to present actions leading to a brighter future.

19. [11:22] Loving Adonai, walking in his ways, and clinging to him must be seen in the context of taking care to obey the mitzvot.

a) Keeping Hashem's commandments is the main way He has commanded Jews to show their love to Him.
b) But it is possible to keep Hashem's commandments out of mere force of habit, conformity, religious scrupulosity, perfectionism, or pride. This does not please Hashem at all!
c) This is because all of the aspects mentioned in this verse are meant to go together: loving Adonai by walking in His ways, which the Jewish commentator Sforno reminds us means imitating His character, and clinging to Him as if in marital faithfulness to Him. It is in the context of this kind of intense love relationship that keeping the mitzvot has value. And, from a biblical and Jewish point of view, saying you love Him and yet don't want to bother with the commandments makes no sense: "If you love me, keep my commandments."
d) Finally, Rashi helps us by suggesting that "taking care to obey all these mitzvot" requires of us that we continually study Hashem's Torah that it be not forgotten. This can be said of all of God's word. We must study it diligently, for how else can we obey unless we know what is commanded us?
e) There is nothing mightier than a person who obeys God!

Why?

2006-08-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

The following is a sermon on the Haftarah for Parashat Re'eh, presented August 17, 2006 at Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills. It explores the questions, "Why do you do the things you do and what are you getting out of it?"

1 All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You without money, come, buy, and eat! Yes, come! Buy wine and milk without money - it's free! 2 Why spend money for what isn't food, your wages for what doesn't satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and you will eat well, you will enjoy the fat of the land. 3 Open your ears, and come to me; listen well, and you will live - I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the grace I assured David. 4 I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the peoples. 5 You will summon a nation you do not know, and a nation that doesn't know you will run to you, for the sake of ADONAI your God, the Holy One of Isra'el, who will glorify you [Isaiah 55].

The first question I have for us today is this: Why does Hashem ask “Why?” Doesn’t he know? He is asking “Why” because he wants us to ask “Why.”

So my second question is this: Why does he want us to ask “Why?” Because he wants us to examine what really drives our life and what we are really getting out of it.

One of the questions underlying this passage is this: What is a good investment of one's life—one's energies, and especially, the only truly unrenewable resource that we have—our time. In order to answer that question, we have to ask this: What profit do we really expect to gain out of all this effort?

Koholet, the Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes meditates on this issue throughout his 12 chapter book. Two quotations will have to suffice for today.

Ecc. 1:1 The words of Kohelet the son of David, king in Yerushalayim: 2 Pointless! Pointless! - says Kohelet -Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters! 3 What does a person gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come, generations go, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, the sun sets; then it speeds to its place and rises there. 6 The wind blows south, then it turns north; the wind blows all around and keeps returning to its rounds. 7 All the rivers flow to the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers flow, there they keep on flowing. 8 Everything is wearisome, more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, the ear not filled up with hearing.

9 What has been is what will be, what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there something of which it is said, "See, this is new"? It existed already in the ages before us. 11 No one remembers the people of long ago; and those to come will not be remembered by those who come after them.

12 I, Kohelet, have been king over Isra'el in Yerushalayim. 13 I wisely applied myself to seek out and investigate everything done under heaven. What a bothersome task God has given humanity to keep us occupied! 14 I have seen all the activities that are done under the sun, and it's all pointless, feeding on wind. 15 What is crooked can't be straightened; what is not there can't be counted. 16 I said to myself, "Look, I have acquired much wisdom, more than anyone ruling Yerushalayim before me."Yes, I experienced a great deal of wisdom and knowledge; 17 yet when I applied myself to understanding wisdom and knowledge, as well as stupidity and folly, I came to see that this too was merely feeding on wind. 18 For in much wisdom is much grief; the more knowledge, the more suffering.

Ecc. 5:10 The lover of money never has enough money; the lover of luxury never has enough income. This too is pointless. 11 When the quantity of goods increases, so does the number of parasites consuming them; so the only advantage to the owner is that he gets to watch them do it. 12 The sleep of a working man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the overfullness of the rich won't let them sleep at all. 13 Here is a gross evil which I have seen under the sun: the owner of wealth hoards it to his own hurt. 14 Due to some misfortune, the wealth turns to loss; and then if he has fathered a son, he has nothing to leave him. 15 Just as he came from his mother's womb, so he will go back naked as he came, and for his efforts he will take nothing that he can carry away in his hand. 16 This too is a gross evil, that in every respect as he came, so will he go; thus what profit does he have after toiling to earn the wind? 17 All his life he eats in darkness, in frustration, in sickness and in anger.

Returning to our question as to what a person seeks to gain out of the investment of his or her life, especially his or her time, the short answer is this: a sense of meaning—significance—a sense that all the sacrifices that were made were worth it all.

Unfortunately, most people are only dimly aware of what drives them.

I know of a man who spent is entire adult life as an OB-GYN and hated ever minute of it. Why? Because he really wanted to be an artist, but became a doctor to please his father. And many people are like that: they live their lives to please others, and come to the end of their lives feeling, "What a waste." This man lived his life to please his father, others live their lives to please everyone else but themselves. In either case, it's a waste, isn't it?

The Prodigal Son was driven by a mistaken idea of what the good life was—wine, women and song—but he came to the point where he realized that living his life to satiate his desires was a waste of his life, and that the real satisfactions of life lie in being at His Father’s house where he was appreciated and where his labors counted for something, where life had connectedness and enduring meaning. His life has been dominated by a need to satisfy his desires, but, like the doctor who should have been an artist, he came to see that his life of given to pleasures was really a tragic waste.

Another mistake people make is investing their lives in diversions. The story is told in Luke 12 of the Rich Fool.

Luke 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Rabbi, tell my brother to share with me the property we inherited." 14 But Yeshua answered him, "My friend, who appointed me judge or arbitrator over you?" 15 Then to the people he said, "Be careful to guard against all forms of greed, because even if someone is rich, his life does not consist in what he owns." 16 And he gave them this illustration: "There was a man whose land was very productive. 17 He debated with himself, `What should I do? I haven't enough room for all my crops.' 18 Then he said, `This is what I will do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and I'll store all my wheat and other goods there. 19 Then I'll say to myself, "You're a lucky man! You have a big supply of goods laid up that will last many years. Start taking it easy! Eat! Drink! Enjoy yourself!"' 20 But God said to him, `You fool! This very night you will die! And the things you pre pared -- whose will they be?' 21 That's how it is with anyone who stores up wealth for himself without being rich toward God.

I like that quotation in verse 15: “even if someone is rich, his life does not consist in what he owns.” It's not that being rich is wrong. It's just wrong, tragically wrong, to make your riches the meaning of your life. This takes us right to the heart of today’s lesson, to the “Why” we are dealing with. Why do you do the things that you do? What, after all, is a worthwhile investment of your life?

Scripture would seem to teach us that we need two things to make our lives truly meaningful—connectedness and enduring [rather than transient] meaning. We spend our lives trying to please others, or in the vain pursuit of power, pleasure, and pride, and we are driven, driven, driven. And somewhere along the way we are destined to find that these things, as amusing and pleasurable as they are, are actually diversions rather than investments in a life of connectedness and enduring meaning.

Yeshua highlights all of these things for us as recorded in Matthew 6:

6:19 Do not store up for yourselves wealth here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and burglars break in and steal. 20 Instead, store up for yourselves wealth in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and burglars do not break in or steal. 21 For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also. 22 `The eye is the lamp of the body.' So if you have a `good eye' [that is, if you are generous] your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if you have an `evil eye' [if you are stingy] your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No 24 one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first. You can't be a slave to both God and money.

Although the passage sounds like “pie in the sky when you die bye and bye,” the meaning of storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven is this: the life of real satisfaction is one of connectedness to God and to the enduring meaningfulness of investing ourselves in the kinds of things that please Him and bring Him honor. All else is drivenness, desire, and diversion, and ultimately, a waste of time, money, and effort—for nothing else really satisfies--nothing.

Yeshua goes on to speak of worrying. Now when he says “don’t worry,” he is not saying “Be mindless and irresponsible.” Rather he is speaking to us about what preoccupies us, what drives us and keeps us awake at night. This is obsessive, preoccupied worry. Perhaps the key concept in this paragraph is the admonition: “Don’t be anxious about these things.”

Matt 6:25 Therefore, I tell you, don't worry about your life -- what you will eat or drink; or about your body -- what you will wear. Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds flying about! They neither plant nor harvest, nor do they gather food into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they are? 27 Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why be anxious about clothing? Think about the fields of wild irises, and how they grow. They neither work nor spin thread, 29 yet I tell you that not even Shlomo in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these. 30 If this is how God clothes grass in the field -- which is here today and gone tomorrow, thrown in an oven -- won't he much more clothe you? What little trust you have! 31 "So don't be anxious, asking, `What will we eat?,' `What will we drink?' or `How will we be clothed?' 32 For it is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. 33 But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Don't worry about tomorrow -- tomorrow will worry about itself! Today has enough tsuris already!

So we return to today’s Haftarah reading which asks us: “2Why spend money for what isn't food, your wages for what doesn't satisfy?”. Why do we invest our lives in what proves only to be a diversion rather than an investment?

Paradoxically, this passage reminds us that we ought to invest ourselves, and especially our time, in what is free—the life of engagement with God, with the things of God, with the everlasting covenantal relationship with God bound up in “the everlasting covenant, the grace God assured to David” which points to the Messiah, through whom we come into deep connectedness with God and a life of enduring meaningfulness.

The question then for all of us is this: Is your life driven [like the doctor I mentioned and the Prodigal Son], is it a life of diversion, like the Rich Fool, or is it devoted to the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?

In the words of Koholet, “all else is pointless, feeding on wind.”

At the very end of his book, Koholet draws the moral of our story in sharpest terms:

13 Here is the final conclusion, now that you have heard everything: fear God, and keep his mitzvot; this is what being human is all about. 14 For God will bring to judgment everything we do, including every secret, whether good or bad.

Some day God will bring into judgment what our life was really about.

Shouldn’t we do the same thing today?

Why do you do the things that you do? What is your life really about? Are you “feeding on wind,” desiring, driven and diverted, or are you devoted?

“Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Mel Gibson, James Dobson, and Whitewash

2006-08-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family has recently come out with press release about Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semitic statements. What follows is that press release and the text of a letter I sent to Dr. Dobson's attention.

http://www.family.org/welcome/press/a0041593.cfm
Dobson Comments on Mel Gibson's Outburst
Pro-family leader stands behind "Passion of the Christ"
Colorado Springs, Colo. –– Focus on the Family Chairman James C. Dobson, Ph.D., today issued the following statement in response to Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semitic comments:

"As is now generally known, Mel Gibson recently made some very hurtful and unfortunate anti-Semitic comments while under the influence of alcohol. We certainly do not condone that racially insensitive outburst. Mel has apologized profusely for the incident and there the matter should rest. Mel has also indicated his willingness to seek help to overcome his alcoholism, and has asked the Jewish community for forgiveness. What more can he do?

"This incident is not relevant in any way to 'The Passion of the Christ,' which is one of the finest films of this era. Our endorsement of it stands as originally stated. We did not believe it was anti-Semitic in 2004, and our views have not changed since that time."

Sirs,

I am a Messianic Jew, 61 years old, a former missionary to the Jews, now leading a Messianic Synagogue in Beverly Hills. I hold an M.A. and PhD in Intercultural Studies from the Fuller Seminary School of Intercultural Studies. Currently, I am Professor of Jewish Spirituality for the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations. I have spent nearly four decades as a liason person between the Christian and Jewish communities.

In all of these capacities I am writing to express my deep disapointment and alarm at Dr Dobson's apologia for Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semitic tirade which your press release mischaracterizes as an "outburst." While it was heartening to read the first sentence of the second paragraph characterizing the comments as "very hurtful and anti-Semitic," this is overshadowed by a pervasive attempt to explain away and absolve him from any real culpability. For example, the release points out that he made the comments "while under the influence of alcohol," that he "has apologized profusely and there the matter should rest," that he "has indicated a willingness to seek help to overcome his alcoholism, and has asked the Jewish community for forgiveness. What more can he do?"

Dr Dobson seems to be saying that "the alcohol made him do it" and that making apologies and undergoing treatment should be the end of the matter. The good Doctor knows that apologies are one thing, forgiveness is one thing, but reconcilation another. The "what more" Mel Cibson can do is to admit that he is an anti-Semite. Where else did these thoughts come from? A demon? Demon Rum? If a woman wrote to one of your counselors saying that her husband, while under the influence of alcohol said "I never loved you and just married you for the sex," would Dr. Dobson say that all he needs do is apologize and go to A.A. Meetings, and that she should then let bygones be bygones? Or would he not say that these comments are indicative of a deeper problem that needs addressing, and furthermore, that such hurtful comments mean that reconciliation might never happen?

In Dr Dobson's attempt to rescue the reputation of "The Passion of the Christ," he has whitewashed a stain far more indelible than "an outburst." Or were the speeches of Joseph Goebbels "racially insensitive outbursts" too?

Finally, suppose Rabbi Abe Foxman of the American Defamation League got drunk and made statements such as these: "Those Gentiles, they're all so stupid. They should all go to hell and take their Jesus with them." And then suppose Rabbi Foxman apologized and said he was going for treatment. Would Dr Dobson let matters go as easily as he is letting Mel Gibson off the hook?

I doubt it. Something is wrong. Jesus never did like whitewash.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Dauermann