“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works.” Matthew 5: 14-16
I was able to let our light shine last Tuesday night at Sacred Heart University where I was privileged to participate in a panel of seven religious professionals representing a variety of world religions. Our assignment was to speak for seven minutes on the topic: ‘What We Would Like Others to Know About Us.’ It was one of those opportunities to let the light of liberal religion shine.
I didn’t attempt to slip in a sermon – I recited poems from Sandburg, Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Miller Williams and Rumi, each of which says something about the basic aspects of our approach to religion; our idea of universal salvation, our commitment to social justice and social service; our idea about the common core of compassion shared by every world religion, and our affirmation about the need for a sense of humility and a sense of awe.
It’s always gratifying to let our light shine and to be part of the work toward mutual respect and understanding. The religions that were represented included: Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Unitarian Universalist.
Prior to the presentation we met one another and shared a meal in the faculty dining room. The atmosphere was one of genuine warmth, respect and appreciation and it included the lightness of humor.
The event was organized by the Rev. Jean Ehret, who serves as a chaplain and professor at Sacred Heart, and whose warm smile set just the right tone.
There is something–a common ingredient–at the heart of every religious faith. It’s a human thing. It’s about care, compassion, mutual sympathy…it’s about basic human kindness. That which is at the essential common core of all the religions reminds us that we’re all members of one human family who share planet earth on its journey through time and space.
Just as there is something positive at the core, at the heart of all the religions of the world, so, it seems, there is a another side to all the religions, including ours; and it’s not pretty. There’s a kind of competitiveness; and there’s that slippery slope of superiority.
This aspect of religion is depicted in the story of Cain and Abel; do you remember? The story says that each of them brought the gifts of their labor to the altar as a gift to God: and ‘God had regard for Abel’s gift, but for Cain’s gift he had no regard.’ So Cain killed his brother Abel.
Then there was the story of Esau and Jacob, twin brothers; and Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing.
This competitiveness is depicted in the story of Joseph and his brothers: Joseph was the father’s favorite because he was the love child, born of one of the four women with whom Jacob had these twelve sons; and he gave Joseph a coat of many colors which really angered his brothers, so they beat him up and sold him into slavery.
The competitiveness among the various religions is certainly depicted in the Genesis stories, the myths that illustrate our human condition—our competitive nature that sometimes goes too far resulting in divisiveness that can lead to war and destruction, including self-destruction.
So I’m always on the lookout for the good common ingredient in all the world’s religions, so I was very enthused to read a book by Julie Galambush that she called The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book. As the title suggests, the book digs in to the roots of Christianity, so firmly embedded in Judaism. It’s about the gradual historical process whereby the Christian religion emerged from its Jewish roots.
I’m very pleased that Dr. Galambush will be speaking here in two weeks, on April 1. I know that several folks have been reading her book.
Like most of you, I grew up thinking of Christianity as very separate from Judaism, even antagonistic to it.
I didn’t think about Jesus being Jewish. Jesus was the Christ, so, in my mind, he was Christian—the ultimate Christian.
I didn’t know, then, that Christ is the term for Messiah (the anointed one) passed from the Hebrew to Latin. The idea of a Messiah sprang from domination by Roman and Greek rulers, so the hope was that God would someday send someone to free the people of Israel, just as Moses had liberated them from captivity in Egypt.
I remember an incident during a month-long visit I made to the Soviet Union twenty-seven years ago. I sold a pair of jeans to a couple of young men, which they appreciated and befriended me, taking me behind the scenes. As we were walking down the streets of Kiev, passing a statue of Lenin, at which he made a sign of angry disrespect, one of them turned to me and said, “We dream of someone coming to liberate us!” I was a bit stunned; his strong vehemence was in such sharp contrast to the speeches we had been hearing from Party Members around our peace-talk tables.
Ah, yes: the dream of a messiah, a savior.
So, when the Jews were dominated by the Roman occupation of Jerusalem there was a strong wish for a savior, a Messiah who would come to liberate them.
Judaism at the time of Jesus was not a unified religious system—nor is it a unified religious system now—but the Judaism during the time of Jesus was centered around the Temple in Jerusalem, and around the teaching in the Torah, the books of Moses, which were eventually expanded into what we call The Old Testament.
Along came Jesus, who some in the Jewish community claimed to be the long-awaited liberator, the Messiah. After his death, which had been predicted in Hebrew scriptures, they wrote about him.
Psalm 22 describes the crucifixion: “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? … I am scorned…all who see me mock at me…I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint…Yea, a company of evil doers surround me, they have pierced my hands and feet—they divide my garments among them and for my raiment they cast lots.”
This description later appears in what came to be known as The New Testament, describing the scene at the crucifixion.
“Messianic expectations, cosmic dualism (good v. evil) martyrdom, and resurrection—an entire constellation of beliefs absent from ancient Israelite religion—suddenly took center stage.” JG 8
Julie Galambush points out that every book in The New Testament was written by Jews who were writing primarily for a Jewish audience.
But who thinks of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Gospel writers, as Jewish? Who thinks of Paul as Jewish? Indeed, who even thinks of Jesus as being Jewish? Who, indeed, thinks of the book of Revelation as Jewish?
Over the years this collection came to be thought of as the Christian Bible and eventually was used to attack Judaism and to persecute the Jews.
Many times from this pulpit I’ve quoted my Hebrew Scripture’s professor, Harrell Beck who said, “There’s nothing new in the New Testament; it’s a theology of the Torah.”
Galambush writes, “Judaism as we know it today did not exist in Jesus’ lifetime. In the first century C.E. the Jews were not the one people and one religion portrayed by the Hebrew Bible and later, by the rabbis, but a socially and geographically diverse group with a broad range of norms and beliefs.”
James Carroll, who wrote the forward to The Reluctant Parting, says the book was written with Jewish readers especially in mind. As I read it I had the feeling that it was written for Unitarians, since most of us have had a parting of the ways from the religion of our upbringing, and though it may not have been a reluctant parting it was, nonetheless, an experience of feeling unconnected from our roots.
In the forward to The Reluctant Parting, James Carroll writes, “As long as the New Testament is read as an essential Christian condemnation of Jews and Judaism for the rejection of Christ as…the Jewish messiah…Jews and Judaism will be at risk. The misremembering of Christian origins has been lethal, and if it continues, it will be lethal again. The momentous achievements of post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian dialogue, in which contempt and suspicion were replaced by civility and respect, are not enough. The source of Christian contempt for Jews must be uprooted.”
Carroll says, “Christians must learn to read the profoundly ‘anti-Jewish’ texts as if they (those texts) themselves are Jewish…”
Much of the debate that caused the parting from Judaism to Christianity was the debate about the nature of Jesus—was he the awaited, hoped for, Messiah?
The concept of the Messiah is deeply rooted in Judaism. But the concept of the Messiah has many interpretations, as does everything in Hebrew theology and scripture – it’s meant to be a taking off place for discussion and good, healthy debate.
My favorite professor, Harrell Beck, said, “When you understand the concept of the Messiah you’ll know that it’s the person next to you.” That, of course, if a Unitarian friendly interpretation, which leads to the benediction: “Now say to thyself ‘If there’s any good thing I can do, or any kindness I can show, to any person, let me do it now, let me not defer or neglect it, for I may not pass this way again.” (Or ‘shall not’ pass this way again; the first meaning don’t miss this opportunity; the second suggests the realization of one’s mortality.)
Julie Galambush writes: “If Jesus’ painful and humiliating death proved anything, it was that he had not been the messiah.”
Another point of argument between Jesus and some who disagreed, was the concept of the Sabbath. Strict observers avoid all work on the Sabbath. My teacher, Dr. Beck, said, “The Sabbath is simply a time to stop trying to alter the universe.”
The more familiar way of saying that a Sabbath is simply a time to stop trying to alter the universe, is the common phrase about ‘being in the moment.’ The moment can’t be forced, or planned on the calendar: ah, it’s the Sabbath, time to be ‘in the moment.’
Being ‘in the moment’ doesn’t last a specific twenty-four hours. We can have mini-Sabbaths here and there throughout the day. A Sabbath moment can happen at any time, and will often take us by surprise. It has happened today, no doubt; looking out the window; looking into the face of a friend; tuning in to a hymn, a candle or a prayer.
When Jesus was accused of breaking the letter of the Sabbath law he asked the rhetorical question: “Is the Sabbath made for man, or is man made for the Sabbath?”
Another concept had to do with various notions of salvation; was it about an afterlife? When Jesus was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life he told the parable of the Good Samaritan: service is its law, we say.
“Messianic expectations, cosmic dualism (good v. evil) martyrdom, and resurrection—an entire constellation of beliefs absent from ancient Israelite religion—suddenly took center stage.” JG 8
I grew up in the Congregationalist church, the parent of our Unitarian origins in America. I was taught that Jesus was kind and gentle, more human than a God; so I thought that the essential meaning of my Christian religion was about kindness, summarized so nicely in that famous passage from I Corinthians:
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I’m just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices only in what is right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
“Love never ends; as for prophecy it will pass away, and as for tongues they will cease, and as for knowledge it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes the imperfect will pass away.
“When I was a child I spoke like a child; I thought like a child; I reasoned like a child; when I became a a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now we know in part but then we shall understand fully, even as we have been fully understood. So faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love.”