Studying old and new

During a recent interfaith dialogue on diversity in religion, the Jewish representative stated: “We Jews are traditionally open-minded. We can believe almost anything, belong to any political faction or hold any theological opinion, and we’re still Jews. There’s only one group we unanimously exclude from using that title: ‘Jews for Jesus.’” When my turn came, I reminded him with a smile that most of the writings in our Christian Scriptures were composed by Jews for Jesus. My statement probably created more problems for the Christians in the audience than it did for the Jews. After 1,900 years of separation, prejudice and persecution, we presume we profess two diametrically opposed faiths.

New God?

From the Christian perspective, we’re the fulfillment of everything Jews anticipated through the centuries. They should acknowledge that Jesus fulfills their ancient hopes and dreams, convert to Christianity, and “deep-six” their inferior belief system. After all, why would anyone follow the “Old” Testament when they could just as easily follow the “New?” Some Christians have gone so far as to teach that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New. The Jewish God, they claim, was a God of vengeance, anger and destruction. Our God is forgiving, loving and peaceful. If someone you know holds such a theology, it’s certain he or she has neither read what Paul said about Judaism in his letter to the Romans, nor listened to Yahweh’s loving words to Israel in Sunday’s first reading (Hos 2: 16-17, 21-22). Where’s the vengeance in a God who longs to take His estranged “wife” (Israel) on a second honeymoon, back to the wilderness where their Exodus relationship began? Yahweh promises, “I will espouse you to me forever” (not just until Christianity comes). “I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know Yahweh.” Scripture scholars agree that the historical Jesus didn’t start a new religion; He simply concentrated on those traditions of Judaism which many of His contemporaries ignored. We see this in the Gospel (Mk 2: 18-22) when the question of fasting surfaces.

New things

In a similar situation during the 16th century, Cardinal Cajetan, after having examined Father Martin Luther’s suspect teaching, wrote Pope Leo X, “The Church hasn’t heard some of these things (which Luther was teaching) for a long time.” Few people have the courage to go back to their faith’s earliest traditions. And usually those who do are regarded as radicals. That seems to be why Mark’s Jesus adds two mini-parables to His theology on fasting. They demonstrate that unless one buys into His reform mentality, His teaching comes across as destructive and divisive - parallel to sewing an unshrunk patch on a pre-shrunk garment, or pouring new wine into old wineskins. Even Paul doesn’t go beyond the Hebrew Scriptures to defend his preaching and ministry (II Cor 3: 1-6). “Our qualification,” he reminds the Corinthians, “comes from God, who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of Spirit; for the letter brings death; the Spirit gives life.” Just before those lines, Paul contrasts “tablets of stone” with “tablets that are hearts of flesh.” He’s obviously referring to Yahweh’s promise in Jeremiah 31 “to place my law upon them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Jeremiah, like Paul, speaks of a “new” covenant. But it’s Yahweh’s “new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” He says nothing here about a covenant with non-Jews. Could some Christians be trying to live their faith independent of Judaism? If so, they’re doing something the historical Jesus neither intended or even thought possible. He presumed His followers would always be Jews for Jesus.

(02-27-03)