Religion began both East and West long before the Hebrews appeared. Before their covenant and law, myth-and-ritual emerged around the globe with evolving humanity. In Mediterranean lands the great mysteries arose, with liturgy and sacraments and union with the god (the books of Ephesians and Colossians have them in mind: Christianity is the true Mystery). Then came a different sort of faith, a response to certain traumatic events in the life of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The call of Abraham to leave home and journey to the promised land becomes a metaphor for three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abraham’s sons Ishmael and Isaac feature in the drama in which God made covenant promises that both should beget many faithful children, and father great nations. (You can read all about it in Genesis 15-18).
We will speak about Islam next time; here we note the way in which the three religions share a common heritage from Abraham. Each has developed its own structure: liturgy, doctrine, social customs. The “incorporated” of our title means this public face that turns so many off “organized religion.” Outsiders judge us by our actions and attitudes rather than our creeds—and rightly so. Abraham’s two children share a passionate belief in the unity of God, rejecting any idea of a partner or Son. The Jewish creed (the Sh’ma) is “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord,” (Deuteronomy 7:4) and the Muslim (the Shahâdah) is “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.”
This stress on divine unity enlightens our doctrine of Tri-unity: unity is equal with trinity. To say simply “Jesus is God” (and so God is Jesus) is a form of docetic heresy which argues Jesus was not human and is identified with Apollinaris who denied Christ’s humanity. The classic formula was: ”Worship the Father through the Son by the Spirit.” True worship of God happens as we share in Christ’s new humanity offering himself with his people. “Our Father, hallowed be thy name.”
After the destruction of the Temple (70 AD) Judaism developed a religion of synagogue and home, awaiting the promised Messiah. Its own story became a kind of messianic suffering, with the Holocaust the most poignant symbol. If we say to Jews: “The Messiah has come!” their answer is cogent: “If so, why is the world so little changed?” Then we are forced into a defence that becomes other-worldly or futuristic: “Wait till he comes again.” For how can God be Lord of history with so much suffering, violence and inhumanity?
They remain within God’s covenant, as Paul argues in Romans 9-11—the classic locus on predestination in fact concerns Christianity’s relation to the calling of Israel: “has God rejected His people? By no means! … For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:1, 29). Jews have suffered terribly, because they’re perceived as The People of God. Karl Barth considered anti-Semitism part of the “war against God,” and so a telling indication of the respect we owe them. Ironically, it’s the same Paul who rejected Jesus’ own religion of Torah-observance and a coming Kingdom in favour of a cosmic Christ. This spin on the old religion involved a virulent attack on Jewish faith (e.g. Galatians 5:12!) to support Paul’s thesis that Christianity has superseded it. Anti-Semitism was not far behind.
The “whole burnt offering” (Holocaust) of the Old Testament (e.g. Numbers 28) has been fulfilled in our time. Out of that persecution emerged a religion scarred but faithful. One of the most striking results was a conviction that humans are called “to mend the world” (Tikkun Olam), to share the divine purpose of renewing this creation—marred by evil but still good. Their stirring toast “To Life!” (l’Chaim) is a kind of grace note qualifying all that went before. Indeed, Judaism recalls that “theology of the cross” beloved of Luther and Calvin, correcting the traditional “theology of glory” exalting Christ as triumphant ruler of the world, as in so many of our hymns.
Judaism may seem a religion of laws and rituals but at its heart there is a love for the biblical Lord and for His word. Modern rabbis such as Martin Buber and Joshua Heschel have proved immense help in understanding the biblical story. If we dismiss them as merely obeying law but not gospel, we forget the love that God’s law inspired (e.g. Psalm 119). Their continuing witness to the presence of God in the home is beautifully seen in the Sabbath ritual, in which women have the better role. Our children learn Hanukkah songs along with Christmas carols, and play dredl; many Christians have learned to observe the Passover Seder:
“Every one of us in every generation must look upon themselves as if they had personally come forth out of Egypt. It was not our fathers and mothers alone that the Holy One redeemed, but ourselves also did He redeem with them.”
For our subject, the bottom line is the mission of the Church. The old missionary imperative can no longer be fulfilled by “plucking brands from the burning” (Amos 4:11). For one thing, we’re no longer privileged as a Western product, bringing culture and technology along with Gospel. Other nations won’t allow us to proselytize, and —in part a strange by-product of our mission—other religions are self-conscious about themselves and some, particularly Buddhism, are themselves missionary. Hinduism has incorporated Jesus into its spirituality.
Does this mean our mission has failed? Or only that God works in other ways than expected? Simple conversion to Christianity is no longer the sole aim, as we see from the reports of what our mission funds accomplish—in the pages of the Record and Glad Tidings we read of building churches and schools, providing clean water, etc. All good works, and describing the new face of mission.
Therefore let us turn in humility to those others who have their own faith and works, and who resist our witness because they have their own story to tell us. Such open dialogue is the way ahead in our age of religious pluralism. Especially concerning things divine.
ONLINE STUDY GUIDE FOR MAY
- Medieval Jewish Rabbis were published just in time for the 16thC Reformers to draw on their exegesis for their own biblical commentaries. See Dan Shute, “Translator’s Introduction” in Commentary on the Lamentations, Peter Martyr Library vol. 6 (Kirksville MO: Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, 2002) xv-xli. For modern Rabbis see Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (1962) and Martin Buber, Between Man and Man (1947) and Two Types of Faith (1986).
- Our belief that God is Tri-unity means that worship is “to the Father through the Son by the Spirit.” Does your congregational service reflect that kind of complex Being?
See T.F. Torrance, “The Mind of Christ in Worship: The Problem of Apollinarianism in the Liturgy,” chapt. 4 of Theology in Reconciliation (1975).
- Read Romans 9 – 11. How does Paul’s argument run? What does he mean by the “full inclusion” of the Jews (11:12)? Do you agree with the conclusion that “all Israel will be saved” (11:26)?
- What does the Holocaust (Hashoah) mean to you? Does your congregation observe Yom Hashoah Remembrance Sunday in May? See the writings of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor — e.g. Night .
- What can we learn from Jewish persecution? Is there in their perennial suffering a lesson about our reading of scripture? See J.C. McLelland, “Fiddler on the Dump,” Celebration and Suffering (1984), pp. 21-30; also A Seder (PCC: Heritage Resources, 1982).
