Immediate Word

Dear Fellow Preacher,

Happy new church year! On November 30, 2003, the First Sunday of Advent, we turn to Year C of the lectionary. Advent is a time of anticipation, of retrospection, and of introspection (that is, reflection about the future, the past, and the present).

The reference in Jeremiah 33:15, part of the First Reading, to a "righteous Branch to spring up for David" prompts our lead writer, George Murphy, to reflect on the significance for Christian-Jewish relations of our affirmation that the Jewish baby born on the first Christmas is our Lord.

In some places in the West (to say nothing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the political, military, and religious situation in the world of Islam), anti-Judaism is on the rise. Given the often tragic episodes in Christian history of what we usually call "anti-Semitism," how can we understand God's relation to the Jewish people at the same time as we affirm our conviction about the centrality of Jesus? Because of the unique mother-daughter relationship of Jews and Christians, the question is ongoing and acute. Murphy faces such questions head-on, and other members of The Immediate Word team respond. George Reed provides worship resources, and we also have a children's sermon from Wes Runk.



Waiting For The Birth Of A Jewish Baby

by George Murphy

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36

"Rabbi warns of risk of wearing skullcaps" was the heading of a short news item in the inner pages of my local paper (the Akron Beacon Journal) on 20 November. You might think that it was some odd little tabloid-style story, but it is only too serious. The chief rabbi of France has warned Jewish men that they could become targets of anti-Jewish violence if they wear yarmulkes in public. He suggested baseball caps as a safe alternative.

The immediate cause for the rabbi's statement was an arson attack on a Jewish school. This is just one small sign of growing anti-Jewish sentiment and action, especially in Europe. Three weeks ago the cover story of U.S. News & World Report of 3 November was titled, "The New Anti-Semitism," and examples of anti-Jewish actions in France, the Netherlands, Greece, the Ukraine, Slovakia, and Germany were cited. Anti-Jewish statements and violence may take new forms, but even the casual student of history knows that anti-Judaism has been around for a long time.

With this in mind we turn to the scripture texts for this coming Sunday, 30 November, the first of the Advent season. The First Lesson, Jeremiah 33:14-16, promises the coming of "a righteous Branch" who will fulfill God's promises to Israel. This branch will be a descendant of David who will rule God's people justly, as a king should. It is one of the texts that Christians have seen as pointing to the Israelite Jesus as Messiah and Lord and Son of God. (The words of this text are quite similar to those of Jeremiah 23:5-6, which was part of the lectionary readings for last week, November 23, the last Sunday of the church year, Christ the King.)

The baby whose birth we will celebrate on Christmas, about whom we will sing, "O come, let us adore him," is Jewish. In our Christmas scenes, Joseph shouldn't just be kneeling reverently beside the manger. He should be whispering in the newborn child's ear, "Shema Yisrael, adonai elohenu adonai echad" ("Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD"). "From Israel," St. Paul says, "according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is God over all, blessed forever" (Romans 9:5).1 That ought to burn away any possible reasons for general anti-Jewish attitudes on the part of Christians. Anyone who attacks the Jews strikes God.

Because of their insistence on worship of the God of Israel alone and because of some of their distinctive customs, Jews were discriminated against and persecuted before the birth of Jesus. Christianity arose out of Judaism, but there have been tensions and conflicts between Jews and Christians from the earliest days of the church. While there was prejudice against Jews in the Roman Empire, Judaism was a legal religion (religio licita) while Christianity was not. Thus Jews could be in a position to cooperate in the persecution of Christians.2 But roles were changed drastically when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the late fourth century, and since then Christians have often been responsible for slander, discrimination, persecution, and violence directed against Jews.

The Holocaust, in which six million Jews died, cannot be called a Christian phenomenon: Nazi hatred of the Jews was based on racial rather than religious grounds (to the extent that the two can be separated). Nevertheless, centuries of prejudice against Jews certainly made it easier for the attempt to exterminate them to be carried out.

We might have expected that the memory of the death camps would have put an end to anti-Jewish discrimination, but the founding of the State of Israel and Arab opposition to it have introduced new factors. This isn't the place to review the relations of Israelis and Arabs over the past sixty years, but it would have to be said that both bear major portions of the responsibility for the hostilities that continue between them. A person can conscientiously oppose Israeli policies without being anti-Jewish. But the words, "Six million is not enough," painted recently on a Berlin synagogue, are not a reasoned political or religious thesis. Those who are simply anti-Jewish can now cloak their words and actions under the guise of anti-Zionism.

(At this point I have to pause for what might have been put in an endnote, but which I want to be sure gets sufficient emphasis: The misleading term "anti-Semitism" should be replaced by "anti-Judaism." It is difficult to change established terminology, but the attempt should be made in this case. "Semitic" is a term for a group of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and other tongues, and it is also used in a vaguer racial sense to include a number of peoples originating in the Middle East. But "anti-Semitism" in practice means anti-Jewish and not, for example, anti-Moabite or anti-Arab. "Anti-Semitic" sounds somewhat more antiseptic than "anti-Jewish" and makes possible misguided statements like, "Arabs can't be anti-Semitic because they're Semites"-badly misguided in view of the anti-Jewish propaganda of some Arab radicals. This is not to deny that there is anti-Arab as well as anti-Jewish prejudice, but they aren't just two variations on a single theme. We should call a spade a spade, not a geotome.)

What should be the response of American Christians to this increase in anti-Judaism? Christians ought to be opposed to the persecution or oppression of any group of people on ethnic or religious grounds; we should be concerned about the welfare of Native Americans or Sikhs as well as Jews. But Christian-Jewish relations involve basic theological issues as well as human rights concerns, and some of those theological issues are different from those encountered in dialogue between Christianity and other religions.

The Word became Jewish flesh, "born of the Virgin Mary," and the Christian story is intimately connected with that of the people of Israel. The very fact that we read from the Hebrew scriptures as part of our worship and can see our passage from Jeremiah as an important part of our tradition testifies to the inseparable connection that Christianity has with the Jewish faith.

If we do believe that the Word who "was with God" and "was God" "became flesh" in Jesus (John 1:1-2, 14), we must also say that there is profound truth about God and God's will for the world that Judaism has not yet grasped. But we have to emphasize "has not yet grasped." St. Paul devoted three chapters (9-12) of Romans to this problem of the relationships between Christians and Jews, and while he says that "Israel failed to attain what it was seeking" (11:7), he insists that "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew" (11:2) and that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (11:29).

This suggests that an adequate Christian understanding of Judaism cannot be content either with the claim that it has been made obsolete nor with the idea that the two faiths are two equally valid paths to the same end. One way of stating the matter is to say that both are looking for the fulfillment of all God's promises at the end of history in the Messiah, but Christians believe they know who that Messiah is while Jews presently are waiting for the matter to be revealed. In the Gospel for this Sunday, Luke 21:25-36, Jesus says that when all the catastrophic signs of the end of the world are happening, "Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing nigh." If we are on two roads to the same goal, one has lighted signs that tell what that goal is, while those who travel the other road must do so without such markers.

Yet we all "walk by faith, and not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7), and Jews who follow their road may be more persistent and faithful than many Christians. A poem by Robert Browning, "Holy-Cross Day,"3 though unfortunately much too long to quote here, expresses this theme very well. It is set in Rome in 1600 on Holy Cross Day, when the Jews of the city were traditionally required to hear a Christian sermon. The poem begins on a somewhat farcical note, with a Christian imagining that the Jews are smitten to the heart by a bishop's preaching while the comments of the Jews to one another show that they're contemptuous of the whole business and are just putting on the Christians in order to get through the tiresome ordeal for another year.

But then the Jews' reflections turn serious, as they remember "Ben Ezra's Song of Death." That rabbi had reminded his sons and grandsons of God's command to their people to stay awake until the coming of the Messiah. And maybe, he says (addressing that Messiah now), we dozed off and missed you when you came. If so, it was our fault.


Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus.

But, the Judgment over, join sides with us!

Thine too is the cause! And not more thine

Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine,

Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed!

Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed.


This should be a sobering thought for Christians, even those who do follow Christ in both word and deed.

How then might we preach on the Jewishness of Jesus and its implications for the faith and life of Christians? At this time of year and this time in world history we should try to do that in ways that will be helpful both in preparation for Christmas and for living toward the final consummation of a history that, with all the hatred and violence we see around us, still seems far from its goal.

It may be of value to remind people that we do read and study and preach on texts from the Hebrew scriptures. It isn't obvious that we should do so, and there have been attempts-from Marcion in the second century till today-to eliminate the Old Testament from the Christian canon or downplay its significance. (One of my friends was told that during Lent she shouldn't preach on the Old Testament readings but on "Christian texts"!) But such attempts generally end up in some type of gnosticism in which redemption is separated from creation. So it might be helpful simply to ask, "Why are we reading from an old Jewish book of six hundred years before Christ in order to prepare for the coming of Christ?" and then address that question in the sermon.

At the same time, people need to be aware that we are reading the Hebrew scriptures from a Christian standpoint, as people who believe in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. When we read Jeremiah 33:14-16, or any of the other familiar texts that we see as messianic prophecies during the Advent and Christmas seasons (e.g., Isaiah 9:2-7), we see them as referring to Christ because we read them in the light of Christ. It is appropriate for us to do that. But that is not the same as thinking that the prophets or their readers centuries before Christ understood them that way.

Christ adds meaning to scripture-he does not just fulfill predictions. If we see the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3 as proof of the resurrection, it's because Jesus put that meaning into it (Mark 12:18-27 and parallels). We should try to understand the Old Testament first from the standpoint of its writers and their immediate audience, and then in the light of the New Testament. This is important for clarity in understanding the Bible, and it also is germane to the question of how we understand Judaism. If we don't make this distinction, then we're likely to think-as Christians in debate with Jews often have-that Jews are just being ignorant or obstinate in refusing to see Old Testament texts as referring to Jesus.

The faithfulness of God is a broad theme that would include as one aspect God's faithfulness in the divine promises to Israel. "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." Romans 9-11 is not just a discussion of a "problem" but is a statement that God remains trustworthy even though human beings may not be. The promises given through the prophets of Israel such as Jeremiah were fulfilled, although that happened in ways that were unexpected, and after a lapse of centuries that might have led many people to think that they were never going to come true. God's promises are fulfilled on God's schedule.

The lengthy Psalm 89 is an excellent expression of this theme. In fact, "faithfulness" is a recurring key word in it-God's faithfulness in creation, to Israel, and in promises to David and his descendants. But then a complaint is raised on behalf of the king, who is assailed on every side: "Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?" (v. 49). It portrays the kind of situation in which God's people have often been required to trust in God's faithfulness-in the time of Jeremiah, or of Jesus, or today.

The fact that the Jews play significant roles in some apocalyptic speculations today might also be addressed. Paul says that "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26) but gives us no idea of how that will be worked out. We ought to be able to say with Jeremiah that "in those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety" without guessing how God is going to accomplish that.

The support of the State of Israel by some conservative Christians in America is connected with their belief that the conversion of the Jews is an important part of end-times scenarios based on Daniel, Revelation, and other biblical texts. Jews may be happy to have this political support for the state of Israel, but they are hardly enthusiastic about the idea that they will either become Christians or be destroyed. Quite apart from the shakiness of those eschatological scenarios, we ought to wonder if our attitude toward the Jewish people should be determined by the belief that they've got a part to play in a pre-determined script.

We shouldn't, however, be either too cynical or too apologetic about the role of the church in America in these matters. One letter responding to the article I mentioned in U.S. News & World Report was by an Orthodox rabbi who suggested that the reason "the new anti-Semitism" is much more prominent in Europe than in America is that the United States is still in some meaningful sense a Christian nation, while Europe is now in a post-Christian era. We should repent of the sins committed against Jews in the name of Christianity, but today we also need to be blunt in saying that most of the resurgent threat to Jews comes from other quarters, and we need to resolve to stand together with the Jewish people against it.

But again, standing with the Jews against persecution does not require endorsement of the policies of the State of Israel. Many Jews would argue that some of the policies of recent Israeli governments will have effects that in the long term are detrimental to that state and to the Jewish people. Complicated political questions are probably dealt with best in an educational setting rather than in a sermon, but any homiletic treatment of issues relating to the Jews should make it clear that solidarity with the Jewish people and support of Israel are not identical.

While our First Reading for the First Sunday of Advent offers a way to speak about these issues, there will be other opportunities. Mel Gibson's film The Passion has not been released yet, but it has already received a great deal of criticism for being anti-Jewish and, specifically, for reviving the idea that Jews have a unique responsibility for the death of Jesus. It's quite likely that The Immediate Word will be devoted to these questions when the film is finally out.

Finally, with all the complex issues that could be addressed, the bottom line is that the Savior and Lord for whose birth and coming again we prepare in Advent is Jewish. Individual Jews, like people of any background, may be good or bad, faithful or faithless.

But the Jew Jesus of Nazareth is the sign of God's faithfulness to all people, and a call to those who follow him to stand with his people when they are attacked.


Notes


1. This translation is that of NRSV margin, but a good case can be made for adopting it as primary, as is done by NIV.

2. Acts 17:5-7 and 13 are biblical examples; another example is The Martyrdom of Polycarp 13, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 42.

3. In Poems of Robert Browning (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), pp. 268-72.


Team Comments


Carlos Wilton responds: We Christians have much to repent of when it comes to our historic treatment of the Jewish people. Somehow the fundamental fact of Jesus' Jewishness seems to have been lost, even on the part of some of our best theologians. Martin Luther is a particularly deplorable example. In a 1543 treatise, "On the Jews and Their Lies" (Luther's Works, American Edition, volume 47; trans. Martin H. Bertram; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955, pp. 137-306) he engaged in this anti-Jewish rant-one that, in the mid-twentieth century, the Nazis would expropriate for their own purposes:

First, set fire to their synagogues or schools. Second, I advise that their houses be ... destroyed. Third, I advise that all their prayer books ... in which such ... lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, to be taken from them. Fourth, I advise that their Rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. Sixth, I advise that ... all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them. And if this is not enough, let them be driven like mad dogs out of the land. (pp. 172-74)

As much as many of us honor the memory of this great German reformer, when we read a hateful passage like that, there is nothing to do but hang our heads in shame. Yes, we have much to repent of, as a church.

Lest we try to take comfort in the fact that Luther was a man of his times and was merely reflecting the views of his culture (which we, in our enlightened modern maturity, have outgrown), then we have only to take a look at the pictures displayed on the walls of our churches and Sunday Schools. How many of our churches display, somewhere on their walls, pictures of a Nordic-looking Jesus? One example is the famous painting by Holman Hunt, illustrating Jesus' saying, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (see the image at http://www.rejesus.co.uk/expressions/faces_jesus/gallery/hunt.html).

Contrast to that an image of Jesus that was imaginatively constructed by modern scholars for a recent BBC television program, to emphasize his Jewishness: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1243339.stm

On one level it is true, of the Holman Hunt painting and others like it, that every culture naturally reinvents Jesus in its own image. (There are, after all, Japanese and African depictions of Jesus.) Yet in light of the church's historic oppression of the Jews, the portrait of Jesus as a northern European-by far the most common portrayal in our churches-is illustrative of our willful self-deception about his Jewish origin that continues even to this day.

In light of this sad record, the fact of Jesus' Jewishness can hardly be stated too often from the pulpit. You have done well to remind us of this, George.

George Murphy responds: Luther's "On the Jews and Their Lies," which he wrote toward the end of his life, should certainly be condemned. But it should also be remembered that twenty years earlier he wrote another essay in a quite different spirit, "That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew" (in volume 45 of Luther's Works, American Edition). A paragraph at the end will give an idea of Luther's approach here:

If we really want to help them [the Jews], we must be guided in our dealings with them not by papal law but by the law of Christian love. We must receive them cordially, and permit them to trade and work with us, that they may have occasion and opportunity to associate with us, hear our Christian teaching, and witness our Christian life. If some of them should prove stiff-necked, what of it? After all, we are not all good Christians either. (p. 229)

The Nazis did appeal to the later anti-Jewish pamphlet in support of their ideas. But they also complained that it had been suppressed for centuries, and in fact it had gotten little circulation from Luther's time until the twentieth century. Thus claims that this writing of Luther helped prepare the way for Nazism are greatly overstated. (These claims are due in large part to the statements about Luther by William Shirer in his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich [London: Fawcett, 1962]. Shirer's expertise in dealing with the Nazi period itself should be distinguished from his abilities in dealing with earlier history.)

Carter Shelley responds: George, not only have you called our attention to the implications of the birth of a Jewish baby and Messiah for Christians and Jews alike but you have also raised a vitally important concern: Christians' historic anti-Judaism stance and persecutions over multiple centuries and continents. To those you have already mentioned I add one example identified by Judith Plaskow in her essay, "Anti-Judaism in Feminist Christian Interpretation," which appears in Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Introduction, vol. 1, ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 117-29:

Scholar Katharina von Kellenbach identifies "three rules of formation of the anti-Jewish myth that have defined the Christian representation of Judaism":

The rule of formation as antithesis sets up a set of dualistic oppositions and then identifies Judaism with the negative side, Christianity with the positive side of each dualism. Letter vs. spirit, works vs. faith, particularism vs. universalism.

The rule of formation as scapegoat builds on these antitheses to blame Jews for the evil in the world. "The idea that the Jews are responsible for a long trail of crimes culminating in the death of Jesus has its roots in the Gospels and remains central to many contemporary accounts of Jesus' trial and crucifixion."

The rule of formation as prologue identifies Judaism with the religion of the "Old Testament" and thus with Christian prehistory. Insofar as Judaism continues to exist, it is only an empty relic, because God's promises to Israel have been transferred to the church as the new elect.

As early as the nineteenth-century suffragette and feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, instigator of The Women's Bible, there has been a link between feminist radicals' criticism of Judaism's patriarchal restrictions on women's spheres of influence and power countermanded by an affirmation that Judaism's sexism finds its foil in Christian feminism. As a case in point, Jesus is often identified as a man who treated women as equals while his Jewish brethren continued to ignore, degrade, and refuse women equal opportunities. Judith Plaskow warns against such naïve, dualistic thinking. Rabbinic literature provides multiple protections for women. Moreover, there are many places in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Talmud, and the Mishnah where explicit provisions are made to protect the rights of Jewish women. Furthermore, there is "no Gospel evidence that Jesus supported women" in the present-day sense of the word. Jesus was a Jewish man who treated women like people, but just as his earthly ministry did not come with a political agenda for Jewish zealots, it did not carry an explicitly feminist platform (120-21).

The challenge to anti-Judaism feminist Christian scholars, teachers, and pastors is (1) to recognize our own bias and potential bigotry about Judaism and women, (2) to name and identify those biases and bigotries wherever they appear in scripture and interpretation, (3) to address anti-Judaism in Christian sources while seeking to better understand Jewish women's history, and (4) to read "the New Testament not as the antithesis or refutation of 'Judaism' but as an important source for Jewish women's history. If the Gospels are seen as reflecting part of the continuum of first-century Jewish practice with regard to women, they tell a different story about Jewish women's lives than if they are read appositionally" (124-26).

On the importance of justice and righteousness for God, God's Messiah, and God's people: The thing that strikes me as the most significant in verses 14-16 in Jeremiah 33 is the promise of "a righteous Branch to spring up for David" ... who will "execute justice and righteousness in the land." Back as far as the prophecies of Amos to the Northern Kingdom, Israel, God's charge upon God's people has been a demand for justice and righteousness. In Amos 5:21-24 these words carry significance for both God and the people. God serves as the champion of justice and righteousness because God's own self is justice and righteousness. The people can make no such claim when Amos addresses them with a laundry list of hypocrisies and wrongs, yet God holds out to the people the charge, the opportunity, and the possibility that they can embody both justice and righteousness if they will but do so. By the century and a half that passes between the time of Amos and the time of Jeremiah, David's descendants have had many opportunities to repent, change, and respond to God's holy call. They fail. Hence Jeremiah 33 finds the prophet in prison while awaiting his deportation (which will be aborted by friends carrying him off to Egypt instead). Paradoxically, Jeremiah, a man who knows the value of a good visual aid to emphasize a key point (remember the potter's wheel and the iron yoke), has chosen this time of deepest desolation and the seeming end of not only the promised land but also the chosen children of God to buy a little real estate. Jeremiah, the prophet of doom and gloom, my personal favorite for his whining and desperate confessions to God, actually anticipates not only a future beyond "the waters of Babylon" but also a brighter future in which God will not only forgive and forget but a future in which God will provide a new king who will be able to do what all of David's past descendants have not been able to do: "execute justice and righteousness in the land."

Now back to the earlier reference to justice and righteousness as aspects of both God's person and will. God who is justice and righteousness requires human beings to live in the world as just and righteous people. Can we do it? Not hardly. The very anti-Judaism that has sullied Christians, Muslims, and secularists alike testifies to our inability to treat one another as brothers and sisters in this world in which we live. The irony is that we Christians have failed to model inclusiveness or acceptance consistently at any point in our history. It doesn't matter whether one is talking about the pogroms in Russia, genocide in Nazi Germany, exclusion clauses in Country Club memberships, or the recent bombing of a Jewish school in France; Christians have rarely offered justice or righteousness to the non-Christians of the world. The greater irony is that God merged the justice of a Davidic King with the righteousness of a Levitical priest in that Jewish babe born in Bethlehem. Through the incarnation, once and once only has God entered our world combining the justice and righteousness of God with the application of justice and righteousness to humanity. Those two aspects of God's will for humanity come into being in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords born to Mary.

A careful examination of the significance of the terms "justice" and "righteousness" in Old Testament theology and prophecy can be pursued through the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, which offers pages of insight and information on both.

Here is a partial list of books and movies that tell the tale of anti-Judaism (an asterisk identifies movies based on books):

Diary of Anne Frank,* by Anne Frank

Exodus,* by Leon Uris

Sophie's Choice,* by William Styron

QB VII,* by Leon Uris

Schindler's List,* by Thomas Keneally

Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

Gone to Soldiers, by Marge Piercy

Fiddler on the Roof,* based on stories by Sholem Aleichem

The Pianist,* by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Life Is Beautiful

Stan Purdum responds: George, I'm glad you made the comment that Christianity and Judaism are not simply two equally valid paths, for I suspect that in mainstream America, that is more likely to be the assumption than any hateful anti-Judaism. And of course, if one has to choose, that is preferable to anti-Judaism, but it also suggests that some Christians aren't all that sure what Christianity is about.

I have seen only a couple of episodes of the TV show 7th Heaven (that "parsonage" family comes off as so unreal compared with any I know that I have a hard time taking it seriously), but in one that I saw the minister was sick and going to be out of the pulpit for a while. This was quickly solved when the local rabbi offered to fill in. After all, he covered his own congregation on Saturday so he was available for Sunday duties, so what else was required? Everybody on the show thought that was just fine. It was a sort of "rabbi-minister, six of one, half a dozen of the other" attitude. The show actually missed an opportunity to say something distinctive about Christianity.

Related Illustrations

from Carlos Wilton

A story is told of former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Arthur J. Burns, a Jew, who joined an informal White House prayer group in the late 1970s. The prayer group was predominantly composed of Christians. No one quite knew how to involve Arthur Burns in the group. At the end of each prayer session, one of the members would ask another member to close the meeting with prayer. But Arthur was never asked, perhaps more out of respect than ignorance or prejudice. But then one week a newcomer unknowingly asked Burns to close the meeting with prayer. Many of the people there were a bit surprised and wondered what would happen. Burns, without missing a beat, reached out his hands and bowed his head, and the other participants instinctively clasped each other's hands and bowed their heads. Burns prayed, "Lord, I pray that you would bring Jews to know Jesus Christ. I pray that you would bring Moslems to know Jesus Christ. Finally, Lord, I pray that you will bring Christians to know Jesus Christ. Amen."

-Joe Parrish, in a message posted on the Ecunet computer bulletin board, 5/16/99

*****

Albert Goess tells a story about a German chaplain in World War II. It moves me profoundly because it touches my need for hope in the face the abyss of death. In Hitler's army, religious chaplains, mostly Lutheran and Catholic, were allowed to come along without rank. They were something like Red Cross workers.

And thus it happened that a Lutheran minister found himself billeted in Budapest, Hungary. It was 1944. The Russians were advancing the eastern front. The Jews of the city had not yet been seized but the wealthy ones were forced to provide space in their houses for German personnel. And so the chaplain found himself in the home of two Jewish physicians, father and son. They were grave, dignified men.

There was, of course, no social contact, but they appeared at the door of his room and politely and deferentially inquired if his quarters were comfortable. He asked for a small bureau or chest for storage, which they promised to supply. And then, standing there hesitantly, wearing the yellow star of David affixed to their coats, the older one suddenly said, "Reverend, you will protect us, won't you?"

What fearful things can underlie our words, the asking of a simple question. Protect them! One might as well ask to stay the wind, or turn the night into day. Already terrible stories were circulating of the deportation and murders. The chaplain stammered something about being a Red Cross worker and that they need fear nothing from such. But these were lame phrases, just something to say. He looked at them, across a terrible chasm, and suddenly was moved to say, "Sh'ma Ysroel, adonai elohenu adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one."

They were overwhelmed. They pressed his hand in silence, and left.

What could that mean, what good did it do, to utter those words? They express the age-old faith of Israel, and they mean nothing unless one believes that there is One who holds all in his eternal gaze, who is part of our pain and transcends it, who is our rock, our fortress, our deliverer.

-Frank Fisher, in a sermon posted on the Ecunet computer bulletin board, 04/00

*****

Some of the most profound modern remarks against anti-Judaism on the part of Christians were spoken by Karl Barth, as seen in these quotations from different sources:

"The continued existence of Jewish people, despite over two millennia of man's attempted destruction, is the only concrete evidence that God has any veracity."

"The problem of Israel is-since the problem of Christ is inseparable from it-the problem of existence as such. The man who is ashamed of Israel is ashamed of Jesus Christ and therefore of his own existence."

"The Bible ... is a Jewish book. It cannot be read and understood and expounded unless we are prepared to become Jews with the Jews." (Church Dogmatics, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, et al. [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956], 1/2:511)

"The Church must live with the Synagogue, not ... [merely] as with another religion or denomination, but as with the root from which it has itself sprung."

"[The Church] "still owes everything to those to whom it is indebted for everything." (Church Dogmatics, IV:3, p. 878)

*****

As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in one of his final works, while Christianity is "commonly believed to be a joint product of Hebraic and Hellenic cultures" and "has embodied in its own life the permanent tension between the Greek and the Hebraic ways of apprehending reality ... this does not change the fact that when it is true to itself [Christianity] is Hebraic rather than Hellenic." (The Self and the Dramas of History [first published in 1955; reprint, Lanham, N.Y.: University Press of America, l983]; pp. 89-90)

We Christians have still, I think, a very long way to go before we shall have reclaimed that Hebraic heritage that is the sine qua non of our "being true to ourselves," i.e., of Christian authenticity. The "impact" of the Holocaust upon Christianity is at best-even amongst the minority that has become sensitive to it-in process. If that process is to approximate the goal that is its potential, it must consider dialogue with Jewish thinkers and people not only something from which it may benefit, but something absolutely necessary. If Christians turn to Jews today, and are wise, they will do so, not out of charity or mere "interest," and certainly not out of the politeness of those Brotherhood Weeks of the immediate past, but out of sheer necessity. Our future-Christian future!-depends upon the right recall of our past, namely our deepest past; and that past, which has been obscured by so much of our own doctrinal as well as political past, i.e., by Christendom, is better remembered and, on the whole, better lived by Jews than by most of us.

-Douglas John Hall, "A Jewish Challenge to Post-Constantinian Christianity" (http://www.doubleclicked.net/ICJS/hall.html)


Worship Resources

by George Reed

OPENING

The issue of anti-Jewish thought can be addressed from several perspectives. One is an understanding that the God we worship is the God of all creation and all people; one is an understanding that God is faithful to the covenant with Israel and with Christians; and one is the understanding that we share our faith but we do not judge the faith of others. The theological perspective of the preacher and the congregation will determine which of these one might take. The resources, hopefully, will provide some help to all three approaches.

Music

Hymns

"The God of Abraham Praise." Words: from The Yigdal of Daniel ben Judah, ca. 1400; paraphrase by Thomas Olivers, 1760, alt.; music: Hebrew melody, Sacred Harmony, 1780; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875, alt. Public domain. As found in UMH 116; Hymnal '82 401; LBOW 544; TPH 488; TNCH 24; CH 24.

"O God, Our Help in Ages Past." Words: Isaac Watts (1674-1748); music: William Croft (1678-1727). Public domain. As found in UMH 117; Hymnal '82 680; LBOW 320; AAHH 170; TNNBH 46; TNCH 25; CH 67.

"El Shadai." Words: Michael Card and John Thompson, 1981; music: Michael Card and John Thompson, 1981. (c) 1981 Whole Armor Pub. Co. As found in UMH 123.

"Seek the Lord." Words: Fred Pratt Green, 1986; music: George Henry Day, 1940. Words (c) 1989 by Hope Publishing Co; music (c) 1942, renewed 1971, The Church Pension Fund. As found in UMH 124.


Songs


"He Has Made Me Glad." Words and music: Leona von Brethorst. (c) 1976 Maranatha! Music. As found in CCB 3.

"From the Rising of the Sun." Words and music: Anon. Public domain. As found in CCB 4.


CALL TO WORSHIP


Leader:
Lift up your soul to God.

People:
In you, O my God, I trust.

Leader:
Make us to know your ways, O God;

People:
Teach us your paths.

Leader:
Lead us in your truth and teach us

People:
For you are the God of our salvation.


COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER


O Faithful God of the Covenant who has never forsaken us: Grant us enough faith in you to reach out in love to others, especially those of your chosen people, Israel; through Christ our Lord. Amen.


or


We come into your presence, O faithful God, to worship and adore you. We also come so that in the light and power of your Spirit, we might be transformed into your faithful people who share your love with the world for which our savior gave his life. Accept our praises and renew our lives in your image; through Jesus Christ your prophet and our Savior. Amen.


Response Music


Hymns


"Let There Be Peace on Earth." Words: Sy Miller and Jill Jackson; music: Sy Miller and Jill Jackson; harm. by Charles H. Webb, 1987. (c) 1955. Assigned to Jan-Lee Music, (c) renewed 1983. As found in UMH 431; AAHH 498; CH 677.

"O God Who Shaped Creation." Words: William W. Reid, Jr., 1987; music: Dale Wood, 1968, 1988. Words (c) The United Methodist Publishing House; music (c) 1969, 1988 Contemporary Worship 1: Hymns; harm. (c) 1988 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. As found in UMH 443.

"O God of Every Nation." Words: William W. Reid, Jr., 1958; music: Welsh hymn melody; harm. by David Evans, 1927. Words (c) 1958, renewed 1986 the Hymn Society of America; harm. by permission of Oxford University Press. As found in UMH 435; Hymnal '82 607; LBOW 416; TPH 289; CH 680.

"How Like a Gentle Spirit." Words: C. Eric Lincoln, 1987; music: Alfred Morton Smith, 1941. Words (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 115; TNCH 443; CH 69.

"God of the Sparrow; God of the Whale." Words: Jaroslav J. Vajda, 1983; music: Carl F. Schalk, 1983. Words (c) 1983 Jaroslav J. Vajda; music (c) 1983 G.I.A. Publications, Inc. As found in UMH 122; TNCH 32; CH 70.


Songs


"I Am Loved." Words: William J. Gaither and Gloria Gaither; music: William J. Gaither. (c) 1978 William J. Gaither. As found in CCB 80.

"Great Is the Lord." Words and music: Michael W. Smith and Deborah D. Smith. (c) 1982 Meadowgreen Music Co. As found in CCB 65.

"Unity." Words: Tim Reynolds; music: Tim Reynolds; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.


PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON


Leader:
There is one Creator who made all who dwell upon the earth. Because of God's love for all the world, Jesus sought out the lost. Let us confess our likeness to the rest of the sinful world.


People:

We confess, O God, that we are sinners. We have not lived out of your image. We have defiled your likeness, ignored your Spirit and followed the teachings of others rather than Jesus. Because we are ashamed of ourselves, we have looked down on others and tried to make ourselves look good by comparison. But we know that we are all sinners. We have all failed. But we also know that we are all loved and we are all sought by you, our loving Redeemer God. Forgive us our selfish ways. Help us, by the power of your Spirit that dwells in us, to reach out and lift up others rather than to cast them down. Help us to celebrate your love for us and to share that love with others. Amen.


Leader:
God is a faithful God who does not remember our sins against us but is forgiving and full of compassion. You are forgiven in the Name of Jesus Christ. Share God's love and forgiveness with all you meet this week.


or


Leader:
We come before the faithful One of Israel. Let us confess our wayward hearts and ways.


People:

You, O God, are the faithful One. You are sure and unchanging so that your people called you their Rock and their Fortress. Though you have made us in your image, we do not always reflect your faithfulness. We are drawn away by many desires and many strange voices. We abandon you and your way that leads to life eternal. Forgive us and by the power of your faithful love, draw us back into your shadow and make us faithful. Amen.


Leader:
God is faithful. God does not abandon us even when we abandon God. You are forgiven and redeemed. Share God's faithful love and compassion with those your encounter this week.


GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.


O God, who came looking for our first earth parents and clothed them when they felt naked, we praise you for your faithful compassion.


O God, who saved Noah and his family in the ark, we praise you for your faithful compassion.


O God, who blessed Sarah and Abraham with a child in their old age, we praise you for your faithful compassion.


(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)


God, we confess that our hearts are not faithful like yours. Instead of clothing the naked, we judge them as shiftless and lazy. Instead of blessing you for preserving the lives of others, we wonder what possible good they could serve for us. Instead of remembering your faithful promise-keeping to us, we complain because we do not have more when so many have so little. Forgive us our faithless living and refresh us with your Spirit that we might once again reflect your faithfulness.


We thank you for all the ways we have experienced your faithful presence in our lives-

from the solidness of the earth and its cycles to your wondrous presence with us when we worship. Most of all we thank you for your faithfulness is seeking after us through the love of Jesus Christ.


(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)


Into your faithful hands we commend those who are on our hearts. There are those who are sick in body, mind or spirit. There are those suffering from abuse, loneliness and deprivation of the goods of this world. There are those who have not yet heard that you love them. Unite our hearts and our prayers with your great Spirit of love and compassion that wholeness and peace may be theirs.


(Other petitions may be offered.)


All this we offer to you in the Name of Jesus, who taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father ...."


Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations


UMH: United Methodist Hymnal

Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church

LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship

TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal

AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal

TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal

TNCH: The New Century Hymnal

CH: Chalice Hymnal

CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book

PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition


A Children's Sermon

by Wesley T. Runk


Jesus Is Coming


Luke 21:25-36

"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves." (v. 25)

Object: some signs such as "Beware Of Dog" and "Garage Sale"

Good morning, boys and girls. Today is the first Sunday of the new church year. It is also the first day of Advent and a time for all of us to get a fresh start.

I like the first of almost anything. I love the first bite of my favorite sandwich, the first time I wear new clothes, and the first part of every new day. I like to finish first when I run a race or if I have to take a test. So being first or celebrating the first day of Advent is a pretty natural thing.

Advent is a time for us to get ready. We are supposed to be preparing ourselves for a pretty important something that is going to happen to all of us someday. How many of you know what we are getting ready for when we celebrate Advent? (let them answer) You are right when you say we are getting ready for Christmas but even more important is that we are getting ready for the return of Jesus, his Second Coming.

The Bible tells us about the time that Jesus talked to his disciples about how and when he would come back to earth again. Jesus said there would be signs that we would understand. I usually understand signs and I think you probably do also. I brought along a couple to see if you could tell me what you thought a certain sign meant. (hold up your "Beware Of Dog" sign) What does a sign like this mean? (let them answer) That's right; it means that there is a dangerous dog that may bite you if you trespass or go on someone's property where you don't belong. The people are warning you that their dog may bite. Here is another sign for you to tell me what you think it means. (hold up your "Garage Sale" sign) What does this sign mean? (let them answer) That's right; it means that someone is having a sale of things that they want to get rid of. It isn't a store or a supermarket, but the people sell their things out of the garage.

Signs tell us a lot about what is going to happen. Jesus said that when he came back there would be signs in the sun and moon and stars. He also said that we would be able to tell that something special was going to happen because of the noise of the sea and the great waves that rolled in the sea. These were signs, and people who knew what to look for could expect to see Jesus come back to live among them once more.

Advent is a time when we look for the signs that Jesus may be coming, and we prepare ourselves to welcome him back into our hearts and into our homes. The next time you see a sign that tells you something like my signs did this morning, I hope that you will think about the signs that Jesus is going to send out before he comes back to be with us.


The Immediate Word, November 30, 2003, issue.


Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.


All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.