Katie and I had dinner with one of Katie’s UN colleagues and her husband, Bill, in Manhattan a few weeks back. Turns out Bill had taught at a Presbyterian Seminary, preached for some years afterwards and recently retired. Since it’s one of my favorite topics, I explained my spiritual background, how I moved from Judaism through a reasonable representation of all the denominations of Christianity. Bill asked if I was a Trinitarian, that is, did I believe in the idea of the trinity. I answered, “Sure. Why not? In Genesis, God says, ‘Let us do such and so.’ The Holy Spirit is there with God from the second sentence of the Bible. The Spirit of God hovered over the waters. That’s two-thirds of the Trinity already. I could never wrap my mind around the nature of the one God, in two or three entities any more than anybody else can, beyond being convinced that God is real.” Bill laughed, and said, “I hold the idea pretty loosely myself, as I do the specifics of faith generally.”
Bill and I laughed together and agreed that people who are absolutely certain about these things, things so far above the human pay grade, maybe ought to rethink their certainty. Bill and I share the belief that focusing on the details of theology or dogma is probably not the way to lead folks to faith.
Bill and I are both strong believers in God, and in Jesus as son, and we have confidence in our faith. But we both approach what this means with humility. I can’t explain God, and don’t even try. But I do continue to wrestle every day with what it is that God asks of me.
Our readings today show Bill and I aren’t alone. The apostles struggled to understand Jesus but their lack of understanding was not a barrier to their faith. Even without perfect understanding, they were trying to live their faith. They told Jesus “all that they had done and taught.”
Now King David was certainly a man of action … with mixed results. Today’s readings especially from Ephesians opened up some of the mystery surrounding King David for me. David was a successful king and he quite naturally thought it was time to build God a house, a Temple. Ever since Moses, the ark of God had accompanied Israel in their journeys through the desert and into the promised land. Always on the move. David thought this was the time for a permanent home for the ark of God. Nathan the Prophet figured David was right, so without consulting God or waiting for God to weigh in on this decision, Nathan told David, “Sure. Go ahead.” Nathan spoke too soon.
God had something else in mind. That night God spoke to Nathan and set him – and David - straight. God’s message to David was this: No, you won’t make me a house. I will make you a house. A house made out of your body, your descendants. The house of David will become a kingdom of God for all eternity. Not David, but descended from David, completely human, and also completely divine. “Your offspring shall build a house for my name, and I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.”
Was God speaking about David’s son Solomon? No. Solomon’s kingdom didn’t last. After some glory years, Solomon left the House of Israel in a shambles of idol worship, rivalries, and intrigue. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom split into two nations, Israel and Judah. After constant wars, the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, later the Greeks and finally the Romans dispersed the remainder of Solomon’s kingdom.
But just as Jerusalem was being destroyed by the Romans, God’s promised Temple, the promised house of David was in process of being built all through the western world. This house of God, the church of Jesus the Christ, the Son of David and Son of God promised to David, the true house of God was coming into being.
Jesus’ teachings traveled through the network of synagogues that accompanied the Roman armies all through the Roman Empire. The synagogues became distribution points for Jesus’ teaching. Some congregations split off from their synagogues, bringing the teachings of Jesus into homes. Some synagogues were converted into churches. This was a new kingdom without kings, barons or court. A kingdom of Jews and gentiles, now brothers with the believers. People began to call this unusual joining of Jews and former pagans Christians.
The point of my rambling on about this is to point out something I’ve learned about Christianity – and about Judaism. Some fundamentalists claim Christianity has replaced, or succeeded Judaism, that God’s promises to Abraham, Moses and David are canceled, and that Jews have outlived their usefulness. A replacement theory. It’s an easy step from there to Jew hatred, Jew persecution and final solutions to the Jewish problem. The current wave of world-wide antisemitism is just the latest of many over the centuries. But Jews survive and Christianity survives. What I have learned is that the two, Jews and Gentiles are bound together by God’s promises and the reality of Jesus Christ.
Romans 11: 1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened, as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.” Again, I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring! For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
These words are in our New Testament. Paul’s Letter to Romans. Chapter 11. But we don’t seem to get it. The idea is when the Jews see Christians living as Jesus taught, in the true fruit of the spirit, they will become jealous that you’ve found the pearl of great price. Then the Jews, as did I, will come to faith in Jesus. And along the way, so will your own Christian faith be strengthened.
It’s a simple proposition. And it’s part of God’s plan. In short, I’m a Christian because I saw Christians living as Christians. It didn’t start out that way. As a Jew, I had never read the New Testament. All I knew about Christianity then was Christians didn’t like Jews.
My first birthday in 1938 was on that day in November now called Kristallnacht, or “night of glass” for the smashing of the windows of the Jewish shops in Germany. I was too young to remember that day, but I remembered what happened a few years later. Movietone News showed the latest pogroms in Europe, the camps, the ovens, the piles of spectacles and teeth and hair, the complicity of the population helping the Nazis round up their Jewish fellow citizens and haul them away in trucks. I heard the stories of the hundreds of years of persecution that are part of my family history. The story was always the same. The church sanctions this. God’s blood is on our heads. Christ-killer is what I was called by a neighbor kid.
It's ironic that Luke’s gospel records among Jesus’ last words, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” I was so pleased when the church finally seemed to listen. Vatican 2 was the first acknowledgment by the Catholic Church that Jews were not the enemy. Not even an enemy. We were elder brothers in the same faith. If Vatican 2 had not happened, I do not think it would have been possible for me to even set foot in a church. But that’s not what brought me in. It was Jesus Christ acting in Christian people that brought me in.
I’ll mention one person, Axel Carlson: Our little dairy farm in Massachusetts had three live-in hired hands to milk cows and help in the dairy. Axel arrived just after I was born and worked and lived on the farm until his death more than 40 years later. This always surprised my mother who thought he was too soft to last a month. But Axel was sent to us and he stayed. His example of gentleness, kindness, goodness, peace-making, serenity and charity lifted my sister and brothers and me many times over the difficult years of living as poor Jewish farm kids in an inhospitable suburban environment. Axel broke up fights on the farm, separating the fighters and saying, “No brothers. Not what we do.” Axel sent us kids to the store with more money than necessary to buy cigarettes and said, “You keep the change.” Axel bought me my first car - my ticket to college and off the farm - and disguised his generosity by “hiring” me to drive him on a road trip to Minnesota to explore his family roots. Axel was a guardian angel to us all.
A second person: One Sunday morning in 1967, sitting in the back of the Congregational Church in the Highlands in White Plains, the Rev. Dr. Alden Mosshammer read Paul, Romans, Chapter 12 verse 2. He proclaimed it the way scripture is meant to be proclaimed.
And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Be changed in heart and mind and action. Live the will of God.
I didn’t believe yet. But suddenly I saw the possibility this could be true. When I got a paperback copy of the New English Bible, I realized it was the Torah, with the New Testament added at the back.
I read from Matthew to Revelation. I read the genealogy of Jesus’ family. Jesus is the house of David, the Son of God promised to David’s posterity. This is the House God promised to David. This is the flower of Judaism, the bright and morning star. This is the sure guide and goal for each and all of humanity. And I believed.
So, I urge each of you: Don’t be reluctant to step in and take your part in God’s plan. Be filled with the Spirit of the living God. Do not be ashamed or embarrassed to proclaim the love of God and of his son Jesus Christ, who is alive and in the world. The two people I named were quiet evangelists. We can each do likewise.
Whether it’s by acts of charity, helpful support, kindness, walking with someone on a difficult path, sincere words of comfort and understanding. Show your faith in your life. Whatever your gifts and calling are, Be Jesus to someone.
Say in your heart, along with the apostles, the disciples, the Prophet Isaiah and David the shepherd and King; Here am I, Lord. Send me.