Last year, in a post called “Communion under the Anglo Jesus,” I wrote about my experience attending an Episcopal church near Memphis, about a six hour drive from my home in Atlanta. I had been invited to give a “Yeshua in Context” seminar there. It was my first Episcopal adventure and it was a very good one. While it is apparently true that in many places Episcopal leaders have left behind important things like faith in Messiah, not so at this place. I wrote then about something that happened to me in that worship service, as I participated with these new Christian friends. I received communion there and looked up from where I was kneeling to see the enormous stained glass window and its image of Jesus, Jesus as a pale-faced, European. It occurred to me that this church, like many others, was on a journey to at last understand the “Christ” in the word “Christian” in a way that penetrated the veil of Anglo Jesus. They were moving in their understanding from Anglo Jesus to Yeshua. You can read the entire post here.
This weekend, I was back with my friends in Memphis. This time they asked me to teach a one-hour class on the use of the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, the midrashic way of thinking that pervades the use of scripture by the New Testament writers. Then in the afternoon, I taught a four-hour seminar on “Eyewitnesses in the Gospels.”
My second experience in Episcopal worship was also a good one. It makes me sad for the majority of Christians who have no liturgy, who have no rich tradition and ritual informing their devotion.
But it is a different journey of understanding that interests me in this morning’s post. This church is one of thousands on a journey more familiar to Messianic Jewish Musings readers, a journey from Anglo Jesus to Yeshua. Why is it so important? Why is it important for a church to appreciate deeply that the gospel comes from the story of Israel and that the story of Israel is not finished? With all of the issues that confront the twenty-first century church, is getting beyond supersessionism really that important and what rewards lie beyond the veil in the place where our Jewish Messiah resides?
The Changing Face of Christianity
Postmodernism has been changing Christianity — for the better — over the past two decades. I keep up mainly by reading the single most popular (but equally excellent) blog of Scot McKnight (he has 200,000 reads a month). He constantly refers to events, new books, and articles on other sites. I get a good feel for thinkers and shapers who are taking Christianity at last past some sad diversions created by the revivalist movements of the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. It’s about time Christianity got beyond tent meetings, sensationalism, a pie-in-the-sky gospel, and selective reading of the Bible (only about 20% of the verses in the Bible are really compatible with what Scot calls the soterian gospel, the primary gospel of Protestant Christianity in America until recently).
In all the important things followers of Jesus are doing, in all the important improvements in Christianity’s response to the gospel, why should the Jewish roots thing be important? Why does a little thing like getting past the Anglo Jesus to the Real Yeshua matter?
Well, before answering that question, let me say that change is spreading throughout the Christian world. Here in America, Christianity is smaller. It may not seem that way because of the mega-churches. But a smattering of “Home Depot-Walmart-Target-Costco” sized churches should not foo, you regarding overall numbers and trends. Postmodernism and the fake sense of community that people get from Facebook and cable television have made actual gatherings with other people seem passe. Church attendance is down. And going to a place where people might know you, might miss you if you decided one week not to show up, is a dinosaur.
But among those who do gather — in reasonably sized churches or in small groups that are part of unreasonably sized churches — change has been spreading. People read the Bible more thoroughly. People question old sacred cows of evangelicalism (young earth, a shallow view of biblical inspiration, a 1-2-3 gospel). And, as you well know, people all over the place have discovered “the Old Testament” and “Jewish roots.”
Is It Just About the Right Answer?
The journey from the Anglo Jesus to Yeshua is about far more than the “right answer.” The priests who lead this church in Memphis have a rapt audience of highly educated people who thrive on their teaching. Person after person told me “Father Jeff and Father Renee have been explaining the story of Israel to us and showing us Jesus in his Jewish environment.”
Getting the right answer to a math question is important if you are getting a report card. It is a rather small goal for a follower of Messiah. The church moving beyond supersessionism (“the church supersedes Israel”) is important for far more than correctness.
As Scot McKnight says in The King Jesus Gospel, the story of Jesus is the continuation of the story of Israel. It is a story that is not finished. It is a story about God who is bringing all things to Unity-in-Messiah. Things of disunity — war, death, suffering, enmity, isolation — are going to disappear. The actual plan of God was not to throw out salvation dust over the earth and to magically infect anyone it fell upon. No, his plan was to choose one family, a family who would become a nation, and to spread the faith-disease through that people to catch the whole world, every tribe and language, in the happy affliction of love.
That family was and is us Jews. As long as the Church has been alienated from its Jewish roots, there has been trouble at the root. The garden has not been healthy. This is not just about history — Christianity is largely to blame for massacres, pogroms, and the Holocaust — but more than history. It is also about the future. Messiah isn’t coming back until his people — Israel and the Church — are prepared. God will bring redemption to the world but he expects his children to start the work before he completes it. The family of Jacob and the blessed ones in Abraham from all nations must be reunited.
Practical Benefits of Jewish Roots
Would you expect to find Jewish roots in an Episcopal church in Memphis, Tennessee? Members told me after my presentation on Midrash and New Testament: “That’s exactly like some of the things Father Jeff has been saying but you helped us understand the Jewish source.”
In conversation after conversation I found people who felt alive with discovery. The story that changed their lives is all the deeper now as they realize the sea is much bigger than they first thought. It traverses the shore from creation to covenant, from Abraham to Apocalypse, from the Promise to the Parousia, from Sinai to Second Coming. We swim in deep waters of grace, waters that should all be explored as every drop is life and peace.
And something happens for people when they stop seeing the Bible as disconnected, as a book in which eighty percent of the revelation is outdated and life exists only in a fraction of the last twenty percent. God seems bigger. The gospel goes back further in human history. The story is more profound.
The wonderful people I met in Memphis see the world as a unity. Their denomination already emphasized the importance of holy ritual (a great lack in much Christianity) and now they understand the unity of the story of God and humanity. Jew and gentile are one.
In fact, an older, intermarried couple attended the whole event, coming from more than an hour away. The husband is Jewish, and quite knowledgeable, and open to attending Christian worship as a Jew comfortable in his own skin, though not as a follower of Yeshua himself. He enjoyed the seminar, laughed at my jokes, and very comfortable around these people who very much want to learn from him. There is not a hint of the stereotyping of Jews so prevalent in Christian sermons (featuring those bad guys, “the Pharisees”).
And it has happened twice now, that I as a Jew, have worshipped with them, knelt at the front under the Anglo Jesus stained glass window, and remembered with them the sacrifice of our Messiah. It was particularly gratifying to me to notice this time in their liturgy — right in the Book of Common Prayer — that the words right before the Eucharist are about “Christ our Passover.” The realizations of the New Testament are coming back into reality.
Derek,
Do you have an official stance on Young Earth? I will not think badly about you if it is outside of the mainstream.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach debated the late Christopher Hitchens, advocating that evolution was a guided process. He pointed to Genesis and the sequencing of creations from simple to complex.
0. Time (in the beginning)
1. Energy (light)
2. Space (vault)
3. Matter and Elements (lea and land)
4. Flora
5. Luminaries (constellations were different under dinosaurs, tripple moons, etc.)
6. Sea fauna and terrestrial fauna.
7. Intellectual life.
I know you were an admirer of Carl Sagan in your youth. I am conflicted because I wonder why believer feel as though they have to continue to abandon their citadels to Atheists, but then another side of me asks if they were our citadels to begin with.
Drake:
I am definitely saying I do not agree with YEC (Young Earth Creationism).
A good person to follow: RJS on Scot McKnight’s blog.
Derek, you mention in the post above that you consider postmodernism a good movement within Christianity. I am curious if you’ve ever come in contact with or have thoughts on the more recent manifestation of postmodernism via the Emergent Church. I have had some very close encounters (and continue to) with some people ascribing to the Emergent/Postmodern mindset. They all believe many of the stories (i.e., Noah’s flood, creation, Adam and Havah, etc.) are all loaner ‘myths’ from Ancient Near Eastern cultures that the Israelites ‘tweaked’ to their own satisfaction. I quickly questioned anything that second guesses the infallibility of the Torah.
I’m wondering your thoughts on this movement and its inherent ecumenical traits as it is a bi-product of Postmodernism.
Thanks and Blessings in Messiah,
Gabriel
Postmodernism has good and less-good aspects. Emerging Christianity has many good aspects and many that are as shallow as the forms of Christianity it is leaving. As for the relationship of Creation and Flood stories to the stories of Egypt and Mesopotamia, that is a fact. I write on that topic often. But what to do with that fact is key. I highly commend the (out-of-print, but available) commentaries of Umberto Cassuto on that topic or the JPS Commentaries on Genesis and Exodus).
But overall, postmodernism is having a good effect on Christianity. Most forms of Christianity in our time are based on modernism, not the Bible. And modernism has even more problems than postmodernism, in my judgment.
Derek,
You have a very pragmatic approach to the Bible, I notice. It’s wrenching but enticing.
This leads into another question. Also one I will not judge you for.
I don’t think I ever really hear you say things such as “the Spirit impressed upon me…or the Holy Spirit tells me…” as though you have an innate hesitancy in evoking it.
I don’t know how to ask, but I will try:
Are you hesitant to evoke the HS because — like other assumptions — people overextended faith into realms it was not aimed to address directly (such as natural science and church doctrine) and lazily concluded that the Spirit would put them on cruise control/autopilot?
In your Adventures in Churchland article, Benjamin was told to doff the Law by a Bible Study leader who said he was “compelled by the Spirit.” Heh. You have also said that the Spirit is not given to interpret doctrine. I’ve believed that for years but I don’t meet many people who say it.
I do believe the Hand of G-d has been on me when I look back, but I’m not sure the dopamine release from any liturgy is it. When I was 11 I was “saved,” (I did not want to go to hell.) I remember approaching the altar expecting light and shockwaves and blinding beauty. Then I remember trying to banish it from my mind so G-d would do it as a surprise to the humble. Since then, I’ve never spoken in tongues (I told G-d if he wanted me to, he would make it happen himself), I’ve never healed anyone, I’ve never done anything preternatural in by life. I don’t have a major “witness” on this, but I’m wondering if I even need to. Sometimes I feel rotten over it, other times I think my friends saw a weather balloon and wanted it to be an angel.
1. Is the Spirit overused/misunderstood?
2. Have you ever encountered the Spirit in a palpable sense?
3. Is it possible for a person to have the Spirit, but it not manifest into a phenomenon?
Just a quick and un-thorough reply. I think people have no idea what it means when they say, “God told me” or “God showed me” or “the Spirit led me.”
I would reserve that sort of language for a direct prophetic revelation. I have not had such a revelation.
I am open to discussing the experiential, mystical side of knowing things, but it would need a longer treatment with lots of room to make sure I am not mis-heard.
“God told me” or “God showed me” or “the Spirit led me.”…. I would reserve that sort of language for a direct prophetic revelation.”
It’s all just part of Christianese vernacular…
I’m sorry if this seems off topic, but it is very “on topic” for me and my current journey.
You said: “I received communion there and looked up from where I was kneeling to see the enormous stained glass window and its image of Jesus…”
What are your feelings about a (Messianic) Jew taking communion? Obviously, you don’t have a huge problem with it, but how does it fit in with your understanding of your faith and the first century Jesus? Does communion equal “the Lord’s supper?” I ask this because of the possibility of my attending a Christian church at some future point. I had planned to just avoid taking communion and would be interested in your perspectives on the matter.
Another point of curiosity…do you wear a kippah at all times like many religious Jews? If so, it would have been interesting to see how people reacted to see an obviously Jewish person take Holy Communion.
James:
I did wear my kippah, yes. If Yeshua is Messiah, it is not unfitting for a Jew to observe his honor with non-Jews in a setting that is other than Jewish worship. There were no images in the worship and in my opinion, the liturgy was not in any way disrespectful of Jewish norms. I can say that I know other Messianic rabbis who find a communion or Eucharist appropriate. I have observed communion at Hashivenu meetings with many other rabbis.
I don’t believe there is a rule that communion can only be observed by Messianic Jews at Passover. That is our main practice in our congregation (doing it only during the seven days of Passover), but I do not feel limited to this. Though Yeshua said “when you do this,” I do not think the Corinthian congregation was wrong to observe it every week (see 1 Cor 11). Yeshua was not likely putting a limit on how often it could be done.
It’s still a long road between here and there and I may not have to confront that situation at all. As I recall, I believe I asked you a similar question almost a year ago (darn my swiss cheese, middle age memory), but since then, my circumstances have changed remarkably.
Derek…. I have a close Jewish friend who is a leader at an MJ congregation. He visited a church service recently with his daughter who is married to a Christian. Yes, he too wore a keepah (he wears it everywhere) but refused to partake in the elements as they were being passed around (he just passed them along). He doesn’t believe it was an appropriate thing to do as a Jew outside of Passover. Other objections come to mind – the elements themselves were not kosher certified, which is a consideration for those who care about kashrut.
We must hang out sometime. Deli? I would like to pick your brain untethered by people jumping bad on you.
Sure. I come up for air third week of March (briefly).
Derek,
it was wonderful to see you again. In our study on Ezra 8 today we began with a rehash on your lectures. It was so helpful. Thanks also for the kind words about St. Andrews.
You have helped us in our efforts here to go deeper into the past and closer to the Source (literally and figuratively; and “literaturely”).
As regards some question above, I sometimes think we moderns are reading Genesis with the wrong questions in mind. It is like thinking a street address is a phone number. You never end up getting the call to go through because it isn’t a phone number. And too often we refuse to make the journey needed to find the house. I agree with you on your views.
We look forward to your next visit. Peace friend!