Getting the Job Done

Both Jesus in the New Testament and Moses in the Old, were asked to draw lines, lines that would draw some people out based on something that didn’t matter.  Both absolutely refused.

 

While Moses and the seventy elders were meeting with the Lord, two men named Eldad and Medad remained in the camp prophesying, which means, speaking on behalf of God.  Joshua, Moses’ right-hand man, insisted that Moses stop them.  Moses refused.  “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!"  The problem was not that they were false prophets.  They weren’t.  The problem was that they weren’t authorized prophets.  Getting the job done is more important than having the right credentials.  

 

The situation with Jesus was similar.  It seems that there was someone going around casting out demons in Jesus’ name.  It isn’t that he was saying he could do something he couldn’t.  He could.  It isn’t that he was taking advantage of people, taking their money in return for selling them snake oil.  He wasn’t.  It was that the disciples didn’t know him.  This unknown exorcist’s offense is that he didn’t have the proper franchise from Jesus’ inner circle.  And so John complained, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 

 

Jesus, like Moses, saw the fallacy of this.  Isn’t being against demons more important than making sure someone has the right stamp of approval from the “official” disciples of Jesus?  And so Jesus said to John and the other disciples, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” 

 

In Jesus we can stop bickering about who has paid their dues and start doing the work of God.  We can stop worrying about whether he’s part of the “right” denomination and start doing the work of God.  We can stop checking out whether we like someone personally or not and start doing the work of God.”

 

What matters is that the man was casting out demons.  He was even giving Jesus the credit for it.  Oh sure, his exorcism style may have been a little unorthodox.  He may not have used the right words in Elizabethan English right out of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  He may not have worn exactly the right vestments.  Why do we care about that?  The point is the man got the job done.  People were being freed. 

 

When it comes to Jesus, what matters is getting the job done.  When it comes to casting out demons, what matters is not what words you use, but getting rid of the demons.  “Whoever is not against us is for us.”  That ought to be enough for us.

 

I learned this poignantly as part of a duly authorized and official delegation of The Episcopal Church seeking to bring our church into full communion with nine other denominations.  The sticking point had to do with credentials and authorizations, the historic episcopal succession in particular.  All of the churches there recognized the importance of this succession of laying on of hands as a symbol of the church’s unity across the ages.  Not all were so sure about the whole idea of bishops.  The Presbyterians had problems with the idea of a personal episcopacy.  The United Methodists didn’t particularly like it, but they could probably bring themselves to do it.  The United Church of Christ could go along with it as long as they could call the bishop something else. 

 

But the Gospel truth got put on the table by a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  He made this point, which brought the Episcopalians absolutely up short.  He said, “You all say we have to have the laying on of hands in an unbroken succession stretching back to the apostles.  Back when we wanted it, you wouldn’t give it to us.  So we just went on about our business and God gave it to us.  What makes you all think we need it now or would want it now?”  It is an awfully good point.  What matters is getting the job done.  Joshua, John, and we should be ashamed of ourselves when we put anything else above that.

Peace,
+Stacy

Salvation is from the Jews

During my first visit to the Land of the Holy One (as Bishop Suheil Dawani of Jerusalem refers to it, focusing our attention to God rather than real estate), I made a pilgrimage to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum.  I found it odd that it had not been included in the itinerary to begin with and odder still that the Christian institution where I was staying refused to give me directions.

While there I saw there a pen and ink drawing I will never forget.  It was of Jesus crucified.  In the background were SS soldiers taking away a group of Jews.  One of the soldiers had come back to take Jesus off the cross and herd him away with the others.  It is well for us Christians to remember that image.

It is something we so easily forget, if indeed we are ever taught it to begin with.  It does not fit with reality as we imagine it.  It is more than a little disquieting, and it ought to give us pause.  It is this.  Jesus was a Jew.

The separation of Jesus from Judaism is a great heresy.  In fact, it is worse than heresy.  It is the Old Testament sin of idolatry in that any image of Jesus other than a Jewish one remakes God into our image rather than accepting God as God actually has chosen to reveal Godself.  And the revelation is of a thoroughly Jewish savior.

Not only was Jesus Jewish, but during his lifetime, and beyond, Jesus demonstrated extraordinary devotion to his people and the Jewish faith of his day.  It is crucial for us to realize that, far from being antithetical or even overly critical of Judaism, the life and teaching of Jesus were well within the boundaries of his own faith tradition.  Certainly he did not intend to found a new religion but assert the meaning of his own in his day.

It is also well for Christians to keep in mind that Jesus loved his own people more than, or at least prior to, Gentiles.  (Lk. 13:34.)  The ministry of Jesus was itself almost entirely confined to Jews.  He showed, at best, only minor interest in Gentiles to whom he was not particularly receptive (Mt. 15:26).  It was the Gospel reading of only two Sundays ago in which Jesus is shown as a bit harsh and dismissive of Gentiles.  Speaking to a Gentile woman seeking healing for her daughter, he referred to non-Jews as dogs (Mk. 7:27).  We tend to overlook it.  In Matthew’s version of the same story, Jesus is quite explicit.  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15:24).

Elsewhere Jesus sends the twelve to proclaim good news, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.  The apostolic mission, however, has a specific exclusion.  “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 10:5-6).  In the thinking of Jesus, at least prior to the resurrection, the salvation he represented seems to have been only for Israel (Mt. 19:28; Lk. 22:28-30).  After the resurrection is not all that different.  All the resurrection appearances, after all, were to Jews.  Jesus shows a much more favorable inclination to the universality of his teaching, commanding his disciples to teach and baptize all nations (Mt. 28:19) and suggesting something similar in saying, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also” (Jn. 10:16).  Still, the priority for Jesus is on the Jews.  Everything begins in Jerusalem.  (Lk. 24:47.)

The relationship between Judaism and Christianity has puzzled scholars for centuries.  For Paul, there was little more to be said than that it was a mystery.  If we Christians take Jesus seriously, though, there is no doubt we must take Jews seriously, and much more than seriously.  We must take them respectfully, lovingly, admiringly, and gratefully.  Salvation, after all, according to Jesus, comes to us from the Jews.  (Jn. 4:22.)  Without Judaism and the Jewishness of Jesus, the cross is left empty from the start.

So, on this the observance of Rosh Hashanah, let us remember that our own roots are firmly set in Judaism and that we are inheritors of God’s kingdom not by right of birth but by grace, which I’m quite sure is how Jesus sees it.  Happy New Year.  Shabbat Shalom.

Peace,

+Stacy

Equal Opportunity Disappointment

Two weeks of political conventions.  First the Republicans in Tampa.  Then the Democrats in Charlotte.  Both gave making their case their best shots.  It seemed to me there was one overriding theme—the middle class.  What is best for the middle class, staying the course or a change in direction?  I found myself disappointed all the way around.

I will admit that I often feel the middle class is something I only have a tenuous grasp on.  The housing downturn was not kind to me.  I rarely think of net worth as a concept that applies to me, but such as it is, it is mostly tied up in residential real estate.  Or perhaps I should say it was tied up in real estate.  Now, it is sort of not there anymore.  I ought to be, and am, concerned about what is good for the middle class.  After all, that is what is in my best interest.

And so, for that reason, I can certainly see why both our political parties would make their pitches to the middle class.  If nothing else, there are more of us than there is anything else.  A stable democracy depends on a stable middle class.  We are the backbone of the country, after all.  One could well argue that what is good for the middle class is good for the whole.  But, you know, it would be every bit as possible to say the same thing about the rich, and indeed, in other years, we have.

Twenty years ago Democratic strategist and Bill Clinton campaign manager James Carville famously reminded his team, “It’s the economy, stupid!”  This year, the strategists on both sides must have emblazoned on the walls, “It’s the middle class, stupid!”

I suspect that is the demographic on which this election will turn.  I wish it were faith.

I think it is equally possible to be a Christian and be a Republican or a Democrat.  But what I don’t think is that it is possible to be a faithful Christian and be only, or even primarily, concerned with the middle class.  The Christian issue may be the economy, but it is not the middle class.  It is the poor.

I know I’m hopelessly unrealistic here, but what I wish we could have is a convention when we asked ourselves what is best for the poor.  And then I wish we would vote accordingly.  One might decide to vote for the Republicans or one might decide to vote for the Democrats, but the question would be who has the best plan for the poor.  Isn’t that what the Christian platform ought to be about?

What I wish we would see is a Christian leader stand up and say that the moral imperative was about the poor, stand up and say that the priority of God is the poor, stand up and say that the widow and the orphan and the alien are particularly favored by God.  What I wish is that the Church would call the politicians to account on behalf of the poor, not on behalf of itself and not on behalf of its own pocketbook.  All the talk about moral righteousness in the platforms of either party seems just babble otherwise.

I realize there are those who would say otherwise, but being a Christian citizen, it seems to me, is about asking this fundamental question:  what policies are best for the poor?  What policies are best for peace?  What polices are best for reconciliation?  What policies are best for the care of creation?  And then it is about acting and voting accordingly.  I don’t know how to answer those questions.  That is for each of us to decide.  But what I believe with all my heart is that these are the questions that faith must have answered. 

I found myself equally disappointed by both the conventions in failing to ask them.  This may not be smart politics.  It may not be smart at all.  But here’s what I think.  It isn’t the middle class, stupid.  My sisters and brothers, it’s the poor.

Peace,

+Stacy