Romans 11: 25-32
Sorry, not Jewish
I wanted to be Jewish. Ever since Fiddler on the Roof hit the theaters, I felt I was Jewish inside, despite my German/Swede heritage. My junior high school—Lewis and Clark—was known throughout Omaha as “Lewie Jewie” because we had such a high Jewish population. Half of my friends were Jewish. Although a devout Christian from an early age, I wanted to be in on all of that chosenness.
A couple in one of my former churches were life-long Jews that had come to follow Jesus. It was traumatic to their families and a difficult road, but they found a home in our church. The woman was one of these who knows who is and who isn’t really Jewish. I always had a sneaking suspicion that my mother—while ostensibly German—might have actually been Jewish in her background, of which she knew very little. Her maiden name was Kutz, so I went crazy on the internet looking up the name, only to find “Camp Kutz” out east, whose mission statement was “Keeping Jewish children Jewish.” So there was hope.
In time, my friend, after speaking with a very knowing rabbi in the Valley, proclaimed to me: “Yes! Your mother is most likely Jewish!” Hallelujah! I thought, Praise G_d! No one was more surprised than my mother, who took some fascination and delight in the news. I called a couple of my old high school friends. “Guess what?” I said, “I’m a Jew too!”
Some years later, my brother availed himself of the DNA tests at ancestry.com. I was so looking forward to the results; I just knew there would be a circle somewhere surrounding Israel. Well, guess what? Not a drop. Not a stinking iota. What’s more, there’s not even a drop of German blood (which I don’t at all mind), but rather I am Scando/Eastern European. I haven’t told my old Jewish friends anything just yet. I expect they’re all just fine with me being a Christian.
THE HARDENING
Paul speaks of a “hardening” that came upon Israel in the birth of the Church. That hardening of heart is the same kind God effected in Pharoah. God can harden hearts as well as soften them.
It is, of course, my deepest wish that my Jewish friends might have a softened heart about Jesus, but I think it best to leave that to the work of God himself. The good news is, God is in perfect control.
I think of that hardening of heart this way: Imagine that there is an unbelievably-great concert coming to town. Tickets go on sale the day of the show and you and your friends find yourselves in a very long line to the ticket booth. You’re all excited to see the show and happy to pay whatever it costs.
As you’re waiting there, a guy comes around from the side of the building and announces: “Hey everybody, the son of the concert-owner is handing out free backstage passes back here!” Some people immediately leave the line and disappear around the corner, but others neither believe nor trust the offer. “It’s a trick to take our places in line!” some say.
Others stay in the line, saying, “Thanks, but no thanks—we’re happy just to wait our turn and purchase our tickets properly. We’ll pass.”
Yes, you and I have been given free backstage passes by the son of the owner, but that does not mean that those who wait in line and buy their tickets will not be getting into the show!
The Old Testament covenants are covenants-in-perpetuity (berith olam), which means they are still in effect.
Another biblical image of this hardening is the parable of the Prodigal Son, which we tend to think of only as a story about the younger son, but it is every bit as much a story of the older son who resents the party thrown on behalf of the wastrel’s return. The father goes out to plead with the older son, saying, “All that I have belongs to you!” and implores the son to come in to the party.
This is about Christians and Jews. The younger son—the wastrel—represents the nations, the gentiles who are grafted in to the family promises by Christ. The older son is Israel, still full inheritors of the promises of God. Like that older son, our Jewish brothers and sisters might not like to recognize that we have been brought into the House of God by the Father’s unreasonable generosity while they have to work it all out the hard way.
Now the chief problem with Christians trying to evangelize Jews is like this. How effective do you think that younger son would be going out to the field with a drink in his hand while wearing his father’s robe and ring, saying, “Come on, brother! Come on into the party!” In his present state, the older brother would be more likely to punch his nose than entertain his invitation.
One of the most common questions I get when working through the Old Testament with congregations is: “Why don’t the Jews receive Jesus?” It may seem natural, logical, and theologically coherent to us, but we’re working with a hardened people with good reasons to avoid our invitations.
A VERY UGLY HISTORY
Christians and the Church have a horrid historical relationship with Jews. It is to our enduring shame that we have persecuted and oppressed our spiritual siblings over the centuries as we have.
I regret how some of the New Testament—particularly John—reflects the initial antipathy. Yes, in the first hundred years, the Jews persecuted Christians. I’ll only say that in those stages, it was Judaism seeking to purify itself—the persecution was essentially Jew-on-Jew. But from there on, it has all been a monstrous campaign of abuse and injustice for which “Christians” were responsible.
The first 500 years saw constant debasement and vilification of the Jews, including the prohibition of marriage. The Jews were accused by early church fathers such as Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and St. John Chrysostom. They blamed the Jews for Christ’s crucifixion. To be clear, the New Testament “condemnations” were always of the political Temple Establishment, and never against Jewish people (like Jesus himself and all the Apostles!).
The venerable Council of Nicea—at the center of Christian orthodoxy—forbade even eating with Jews.
In 413, Christian monks desecrated Jerusalem’s synagogues and massacred Jews at the Western Wall (ever wonder why they call it the “Wailing Wall”?). Once Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, things just stayed bad. The Emperor Justinian forbade all Jewish Scriptures and Jewish Studies. Up to the 1100s, a series of Popes repress and condemn Judaism, offering at best a kind of unfriendly tolerance, but interspersed by periods of persecution. In the12th century—three Crusades (ostensibly to take back the land stolen by Muslims) go out of their way to attack Jews as well.
The Black Plague, aside from affecting Jews and Christians alike, is blamed on the Jews.
Up to 1300: Jews throughout Europe forced to wear round patches to identify themselves Jews. This begins 600 years before Nazi Germany. Almost routinely, Jews are blamed for infant mortality, and are said to be witches.
Between 1340-1550. Jews are expelled from almost every major European city.
In 1826, Pope Leo XII confines all Jews to ghettos and seizes all of their property.
And then we get to the 20th century and the Holocaust, of which I need not tell you more.
In short, we Christians, like the Prodigal Son, have little-to-no credibility when it comes to speaking to Jews about God! Not a few Jews have come to believe that the New Testament is little more than a manual on “How to kill and persecute Jews.”
HOW DO CHRISTIANS REACH OUT TO JEWS ABOUT JESUS?
- 1.We don’t
- 2.We spend the rest of our lives earning the right to be heard and re-establishing trust and credibility through a campaign of humble servility to our Jewish friends.
- 3.We give love and support to them at every turn, owning the worst details of our ugly history. [Aside: you may be thinking, “What? That wasn’t us! That was those awful Catholics, politically-motivated and mad with power! That’s not Christianity nor has it ever been!” I agree almost completely, but it is not our time to avoid blame, but to pick up the cross and show them Christlikeness that the Church has failed to show them for nearly 2000 years.]
JEWISH SUMMER CAMP
I loved summer church camp. I lived for summer church camp. When one of my closest Jewish buddies came back from Jewish summer camp, I was wanting to hear all about it.
I assumed it was just like church camp but with Jewish themes. I imagined them sitting around the campfire at nights, recalling the mighty acts of God through the Old Testament. I imagined them singing “Father Abraham” and other songs celebrating Jewish heritage. I imagined sermons exhorting the campers to live with moral fortitude and align their lives, hearts, and souls with The Law. “Is it like that?” I asked my friend.
“Not so much,” he said, “The only message was ‘Whatever else you do, don’t become a Christian!”
Do I even need to say more about the need for Christians—especially evangelicals—to be cool and something like extremely tactful? I suspect most of us had no idea what kind of a hole we had dug for ourselves over the centuries. The hole may not be our fault, but be clear: we are born standing in the bottom of it.
what is even more disturbing to evangelicals is paul’s clear wording
Some of you will hate this, to which I’ll say both sorry and too bad. Paul makes it crystal clear that God is not done with the Jews. Verse 26:
And so all Israel will be saved
Look at those words a moment. Read on, v 28:
as regards election they are [the] beloved
Paul says, “They are the Elect.” Paul elsewhere makes it clear that we Gentiles who receive Christ are simply grafted into the Elect People through him. We are not a people unto ourselves, but become part of the Chosen People through Jesus, and our election depends upon our being brought into those promises made to Israel.
WE are the adopted, immigrant, children in the household of God—the bastard step-children now putting our feet up on the very Jewish coffee table. How DARE we act like we own the place!
In case you doubt, or think that because we’re Christians we sit at a superior table, Paul tells us in verse 29:
the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable
You and I are only “saved” by the promises of God which we access by faith in Christ. Our standing with God is entirely dependent upon the gifts and the calling which he gives us. Those gifts and callings went first to the children of Abraham, and they are not annulled by Christ, but rather affirmed by him and our presence in God’s house will only be managed by Christ’s grace in brining us in under his own authority.
BACK TO EVANGELISM
To put it briefly, the best evangelism to Jews is Jewish evangelism. It seems to me it requires Jews who believe in Jesus to talk to other Jews about Jesus.
I pray for my Jewish friends. Nothing would bring me greater joy than to hear that any of them had come to faith in Jesus. I consider them brothers and sisters even now, as we all should, for they may very well be at that table with us in heaven. Do not imagine—as some have—that God will not fulfill his every promise to them.
“But he DID,” you say, “in Jesus!”
I agree with that, but I think we must remember that we have gained access on very easy terms—the Grace of Christ—and I will also proclaim that all who shall be saved—every soul at that heavenly table in the great banquet—shall be there only because they have been saved by Christ.
Will Jesus save all of Israel? Scripture proclaims a yes. Where we differ with Judaism, we should keep our mouths shut. We are the lucky guests, not the natural children.
What we can do and ought to do is prescribed for us in 1 PETER 3:15:
In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;
Let us earn the right to be heard first. Let the people of God see us as their loving servants and meet them with humbleness, kindness, and mercy, just as Jesus showed to us.
We are the younger brother, the adopted, immigrant child. Let us pray that the Lord will now soften the heart of our older brother, that he may heed the call to come in to the house, join the party, and welcome his wayward sibling back to the family. †