It Undermines Humane Standards of Conduct

Something I have learned from doing interfaith work over my life.

All people think their religion is better than others.

I don't care if you are Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or whatever.

And the reason is that people's religion is usually the best one for that person.

I am no exception Christianity, and more specifically Lutheran Christianity, I have found is best for me.

It is the religion that makes the most sense to me, and for me.

There should be no problem with this.

It is fine to believe that the religion you practice is the best one for you.

The problem is that we don't always let that be the end of it.

We tend to want other people to also believe that our religion is the best.

I have had to learn this over a long period of time.

I have had to learn this by having discussions with other people about their religions.

I had to learn this through reading books about other religions and about my own.

I learned that Christianity has its own prejudices.

Our prejudice about Christianity shows up in all sorts of ways.

It certainly is shown in how we read and understand the Bible.

We tend to read into the text the idea that the original writers of the New Testament wanted Christians to understand that Christianity was far superior to other religions.

In particular, it was superior to Judaism.

And from this has sprung anti-semitism within the Christian church.

I won't this morning go through our history of the horrible things we have done in the name of Jesus to our Jewish siblings.

All I will say this morning is that there is a lot there.

And it is horrible, and we as the Church need to confess our sin of being part of this prejudice.

This morning I want us to see not just this idea that we messed up and should feel bad for it, but I want us to re-frame the way we understand the Bible and our faith is Jesus Christ.

I want to use as our test case our reading from the Gospel of John.

When we read this passage we read into it the idea that before Jesus came into the world there was something wrong with religion.

What I believed as a kid (I am assuming because I was taught it at some point) was that Christianity was based on grace and Judaism was based on the law.

And through Jesus God has given us grace.

That is what makes Christianity better than Judaism.

And the Gospel from John seems to support that idea.

That "God came to his own people and they did not accept him."

But to "those who believe in him  he gave the power to become children of God."

This is to misunderstand John and to misunderstand Jesus and God.

God's own people are us.

As John tells us God created the world.

Not some of the world but the whole thing.

Through God's word the world with the plants, animals, and humans came into being.

So the people that are God's own is all of us.

And it is not that they didn't accept Jesus it is that they didn't accept what Jesus had to tell them about the nature of God.

God is about love and grace.

And for some that is really hard to understand and even harder to accept.

And let me tell you that I have met in my life people of every faith that is about love and grace.

People that live that out, and people that understand it better than some people who call themselves Christians.

The cosmic scene in John is not meant to tell us that Christianity is better than Judaism, but that God's love was given to the world, and the world couldn't accept it.

The world in John is a code word for anything that is against God.

And hatred, bigotry, meanness, is against God.

Love and grace are God.

And when we love our neighbors with generous grace and service we do the works of Jesus.

There is no doubt that within the Gospel of John there is tension with what John refers to as "the Jews".

This comes from John's own experience within his community of being expelled from the Jewish synagogue.

As my New Testament professor once told me that we see in the New Testament a family fight.

It is a fight between Jewish-Christians and Jews who didn't believe Jesus to be the Messiah.

That tension is played out not just in John but in most of the New Testament.

It is human in those cases to paint your enemy in the most unflattering light.

We can't take what was a human fight over religion and make it into a codified hatred of other people based on God.

I don't care what religion someone is, I care about what it is that they do because of that religion.

If you are a Christian that spews hatred towards Jews then I can't believe that you know the Jesus that is talked about in holy scripture.

It is through love that people know that we are Christian.

It is through service that we show them Jesus Christ.

It is through grace that we live in God.

And that is true of any true religion.

Like I said I learned this through my years of doing interfaith work.

And I have always had a curiosity about my faith, and the faith of others.

But I really didn't get to know people of other faiths until college.

One of the people who meant a lot to me at that time was women named Patti Mittleman.

She was the director of the Hillel house on campus.

This was the Jewish student group.

This made her the Jewish college chaplain.

Over my time in college we did lots of interfaith things together.

And I got to know her pretty well.

She was actually a convert to Judaism.

Patti used to say, "they don't recommend it."

But she converted when she married her husband Alan.

Her husband Alan taught religion at Muhlenberg.

One summer I actually spent some of it at their house, and some of it at the Hillel house.

I kept kosher that summer while staying there.

Using separate plates for meat and dairy.

Learning about why that spiritual discipline was important to them.

The thing about Patti was that she was filled with love and grace.

She was always really kind to me, more than I deserved.

Often when she talked about me I wondered who she might be talking about.

She was one of my cheerleaders, and someone who I looked up to.

She was Jewish, but what did that really matter.

She practiced her love of God in a way that was different from me.

But She showed the world God's love all the time.

She died about a year ago, and I realized that she showed that love to lots and lots of students just like me.

I carry a piece of her all the time in my heart.

I knew this morning that I was going to be preaching about anti-Semitism, because of the stabbings that happened over Hanukkah.

Our Rabbi here in Concord posted on Facebook an article about how afraid and angry our Jewish siblings are right now.

This issue is not about something happening somewhere else.

Our Rabbi here in Concord has had death threats against her.

That is why it is so important for me to speak out about it.

I reached out to Alan (Patty's husband) to ask him what he would like Christians to know about anti-semitism.

He responded, "I think that anti-semitism never stops with the Jews.

It degrades all who endorse it and undermines humane standards of conduct.

It’s not really about the Jews either.

It’s about the hateful fantasies and delusions of people who project their disordered imaginations onto the Jews."

I agree with Dr. Alan Mittlemen.

When we hate someone for their religion, or race, or sexual orientation, or what country they come from it undermines humane standards of conduct.

We Christians know the greatest love "that of a Father's only Son".

How can we not give that to the world?

How can we not love others as we ourselves have been loved.

That is the message of the Gospels, and anything else is simply a projection of our own prejudices.

God loves the world.

God loves us.

We love others.

It is really that simple and also really hard to live out.

In God's grace and love let us today live it out.
Amen