Big topic for the sermon. If I did it over, I might begin with the social justice idea and see how the rest of the sermon would grow out of that beginning. After preaching the sermon, I'm still not sure I figured out where I wanted to go with it! Although it did not make the sermon, I discovered there are several stories Jewish rabbis tell in their sermons that have a corollary story Presbyterian ministers tell in their sermons. At one point, the sermon included and example or two of such stories.
“The Crosses We Wear: Connected to Our Jewish Heritage”; November 15, 2020, SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp; Isaiah 61: 1-4
Isaiah 61: 1-4
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
2
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
Introduction: The cross I wear today is one of the more recent additions to my cross collection.
It is a square looking, red cross made up of 5 crosses - four smaller ones on the side and one bigger one in the middle.
This pattern goes back to the 11th century; you can see the design on the uniforms the crusaders wore; Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, The order creates canons as well as knights, with the primary mission to "support the Christian presence in the Holy Land".[1]
In the early 13th century, the pattern becomes the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with it came the red color and its name Jerusalem cross.
20th-century Episcopal church service cross ((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_cross)
This Jerusalem cross was given to me by the group from St. Andrew that I helped lead on its trip to Israel a few years ago.
When I wear it, I have two very different thoughts - one, it reminds me of relationships that developed as we traveled through the Holy Land.
But, it also reminds me of how our Christian faith lived out in this particular place is connected to our Christian roots in Israel and our Jewish heritage from which Christ and Christianity came.
Reflect this morning on some of our common heritage that connects us as Christians with our Jewish brothers and sisters, and in seeing those connections, see how God might be working in and through us today.
Move 1: We begin with the affirmation that the God who we worship and serve is the same God whom the Jewish people worship and serve.
a. The God who called the world into being and breathed the breath of life in Adam and Eve is the same God of Abraham and Sarah is the same God who sent Christ into the world is the same God to whom we turn.
1. “In the beginning was the word and word was with God and the word was God”
2. The mysterious God in one does not allow us to separate the Triune God, so as we lay claim to Christ, we lay claim to our connectedness with all those who have come before us all the way back to the beginning.
3. our faith grows out of the faith of our Jewish brothers and sisters who came before us.
b. As we lay claim to following the same God, we also remember the uniqueness of God.
1. Both faith traditions proclaim the God who is one.
2. In the world of polytheism in which the Israelites and the early church lived, this was a unique and powerful claim.
3. In our time, with so many competing interests, worship of idols of our own making, and a growing lack of belief in God, to make this claim calls us back to God.
c. God of covenant.
1. God made covenant with Abraham and Israel and called them to be a light in the world.
2. We understand our faith in the God we know through Christ to be a covenant, and we recognize the call we have to follow Christ into the world.
3. Covenant and call - the promise of the God of creation to love us and be faithful as well as the command to go and follow.
We share with our Jewish sisters and brothers belief in the one God of covenant and call.
Move 2: Jesus, whom we know as our Lord and Savior, comes to us from his place and connectedness to his Jewish tradition.
a. Trace Jesus genealogy and where does it lead?
1. In Luke, it takes us back to Adam and Eve, the first humans God created.
2. In the Gospel of Matthew, the genealogy takes us back to Abraham, the father of Israel, the one with God made covenant and called to be a unique people in the world.
3. Jesus’ genealogy traces back through King David, arguably the greatest leader and king of the Israelites.
4. Jesus himself was raised as in the Jewish tradition.
5. We who tie our lives of faith to jesus, link ourselves to his heritage as well, a heritage that runs through the Israelites.
b. In fact, Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the city of David.
1. Jesus’ life and ministry were lived out in the land of Israel.
2. One of the powerful parts of traveling to the Holy Land was walking in places where Jesus might have walked.
3. Or, taking a boat ride across the lake where Jesus might have done so as well, or perhaps the place where Jesus even walked on water.
4. And for Jesus, those places were the places where his ancestors had lived out their faith in God.
5. I remember walking through one area where the passageway rose and fell, and in doing so we walked where archaeologists have found layers of civilization built on top of each other. Each layer dug up revealed the previous generation that had lived in that place.
6. there is a compelling and powerful sense of connectedness in being in the places where Jesus lived and died; in recognizing that as we connect with Christ, we connect with the history of God’s people leading up to Christ and the history of God’s people since the coming of Christ.
Move 2: WE are also reminded that we are connected to Jesus and the Jewish tradition by Christ’s own emphasis on justice and concern for the poor.
a. familiar passage from Isaiah.
1. A powerful message of God’s concern for the poor and the oppressed, God’s call for social justice.
2. We hear these words and recognize God’s desire for the Israelites to be people who cared for the widows and the orphans and the strangers in their midst.
3. The prophet Isaiah ensures that God’s people hear God’s concern.
b. Those words are also proclaimed by Jesus.
1. We remember in the Gospel of Luke, we have the dramatic scene of Jesus standing up in his home synagogue as he begin she ministry.
1. Jesus reads the first two verses we red in the Isaiah passage at this moment.
2. And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
3. Jesus, the Son of God, arrives with a powerful claim - the God who cares about the poor and the oppressed has sent Jesus himself to live out that concern.
4. A claim that God’s people had heard for generations.
5. a claim on us as we follow Christ into the world to show God’s concern for the poor and the oppressed.
6. a claim that binds Jews and Christians together.
Move 5: we also share with our Jewish sisters and brothers our call to be people of hope as we wait.
a. The Presbyterian Church in 1987 published a paper entitled, A Theological Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews.
1. We affirm that Jews and Christians are partners in waiting. Christians see in Christ the redemption not yet fully in the world, and Jews await the messianic redemption. Christians and Jews together await the final manifestation of God’s promise of the peaceable kingdom. (1987 Presbyterian church, USA published a paper and commended it for study entitled: A Theological Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews (https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/_resolutions/christians-jews.pdf)
2. Advent will be here soon. We know Advent and its call for us to be people who wait in hope for the God who came in Christ to come again.
3. We share that hope in God with our Jewish brothers and sisters.
4. Admittedly, as Christians we have a different vantage point because we know Jesus as the Messiah.
5. But we are connected in our hope in God who will come again and restore God’s kingdom once and for all.
b. As we share that hope in God to act decisively in the future, we share a common worldview.
1. A shared belief that God is not done.
2. A shared belief that what we see in the present moment is not the final answer, but that God is at work doing a new thing.
3. A shared belief that God calls us to be at work now as we join with God in ushering a new kingdom.
Move 4: We struggle in our time to live out our connectedness wiht our Jewish heritage.
a. In some ways, what we hold in common also reveals the points of separation.
1. Despite our common history, the Christian claim of Jesus as Messiah creates separates us from Jewish understandings of who Christ is and their expectation of the Messiah still to come.
2. History of place that leads to Jerusalem being claimed as the home of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
2. Or the history of modern-day Israel - created in the 20th century both because of the history of the place and also because of the need for the Jewish people to have a home.
3. We also see how issues of justice shape our relationship with the Jewish people and Israel.
4. In fact, the Presbyterian Church, USA finds itself divided over how is God’s justice lived out in the Holy Land around Israeli and Palestinian issues.
5. 1. Anti-Semitism continues to be at work in our world.
6. Even as we point to our common heritage and our belief in the same God, there are many differences as well.
b. But, our hope is the God with whom we find our common ground.
1. The God who continues to do a new thing.
2. a God whose promises to Israel and to the followers of Christ will be fulfilled.
3. A God in whom we share a history and a future.
conclusion: I wear the Jerusalem cross now as a reminder of our shared history and as a sign of our shared hope.
Amen.
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