Bartlett                 Pentecost 4                           28 June 2009

HE HEBREW SCRIPTURES AND JUDAISM

I'd have to say that I didn't become a corrosion technologist out of some passionate desire for that vocation, I just ended up there by accident or good fortune.

   Perhaps most of us are like that; we don't plan I lives too much - we go with the flow and let life take it where it may.  But if I was honest about it, I am sure

I would have rather have been a history teacher. 

The truth is I just love the subject, just ask the family.  There have been many occasions when the salt and pepper shakers have been moved strategically

across the dinner table to re-enact the Charge of the Light Brigade or the kids have had to endure Henry V's speech before the Battle of Agincourt,

or rather Shakespeare's version of it.  History tells us so much about human behaviour, about heroism and self sacrifice, about greed, about cunning,

about ego - its all there.  And as they say, "history does repeat itself" and it gives us an insight into what lies ahead.  That is fundamentally why I'm so

despondant about "global warming".  History suggests to me that nations just won't agree when there is the slightest chance that they might be disadvantaged

- greed and the pursuit of power seems to prevail over the common good.  But my love of history got me thinking about today's Bible readings and about

Jewish-Christian history. 

Today's two Lectionary readings could not been more different.  The first, from 2 Samuel, is a poem.  The Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament is full

of poems.  It seems that the old prophets were either praising God for his bountiful goodness and to them or crying in anguish about their woes and the

hopelessness of their situation.  The reading we are about to hear is one of the latter.  It is a cold, obscure and complex poem.

In contrast, the New Testament reading from Mark is about two of Jesus' miracles - the curing of a haemorrhaging woman and the raising of a young girl

from death.  They are stories of healing joy, hope and liberation.

These two readings say much about our misunderstanding of the Jewish peoples and Judaism.  To my mind, for two long we have seen the Jewish people

through the Old Testament, "the eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" sentiments.  But it seems to me that much of our view of the Jewish peoples,

even today, is coloured by our prejudices of a bygone era.  Not that Israel's present political stance is helping the cause very much with its brutal

treatment of Palestine, but we need to see Judaism in the historical context. So my sermon includes a dose of history, including some salt and pepper

shakers.

SERMON

Before I get on to the history and salt and pepper, let me first say something about today's gospel reading - the haemorrhaging women and the raising of the

little girl from the dead.  These events occur very early in Jesus ministry, but are so typical of him and they set the tone for what lies ahead.  Standing against

the social morays of the day - reaching out to women, the second class citizens of humanity.  Flying in the face of Jewish law by allowing an unclean person,

a menstruating woman, to touch him and finally to do the impossible - the raising of a little girl from death. In the context of the times, what strikes me most

about these stories, and what I think is at the core of both of them, is not the supernatural acts that some people seem to focus on, but rather the message

behind them and their audacity.  I really think we get bogged down in the detail, what I call the Sunday School approach.  Frankly, it is not the curing of this

one woman that is important or the raising of one child from the dead.  Lots of people recover from bleeding problems and the young girl would grow up and

eventually die of old age anyhow.  It is the symbolism of what Jesus did that is the key to these stories.

For Jesus to converse in public with women, a person who was essentially a non-entity, part of the chattles of her husband, father or brother was just not

acceptable.  But worse, she was menstruating and was therefore unclean under Jewish law - untouchable.  This action by Jesus was an intolerable challenge

to the social exclusions of the day and to rigid, pointless and arbitrary laws set down progressively by the scribes and wise men of the Old Hebrew

Scriptures over the centuries.  It seems to me that Jesus' key message of this miracle was not the alleviation of this woman's suffering, but rather the

point that God does not play favourites, that the poor and sick need all our support and compassion and any laws that marginalise and alienate people,

as exampled by a bleeding woman, must be strenuously openly opposed.

The second event, like the raising of Lazarus, told later in the John's gospel, is even more profound.  In this gospel story, Jesus is saying that death,

the great bogy of humanity, that inescapable termination of bodily function that we all face, that empty nothingness beyond the grave can be overcome,

it is not our enemy.  In Christ all things are possible.

But now let me get back to the salt and pepper shakers. As I said before, the two readings we've just heard typify our attitude to and misunderstanding

of the Jewish peoples and Judaism - that the Jews were an introspective exclusive race, steeped in rules and regulations which focused on justice and

retribution, rather than compassion and inclusion. Undoubtedly, like all races, they had their faults and Jesus was not averse to pointing to his peoples failings,

particularly the powerful elite.  Yet much of our view comes through the Christian experience which has been dogged by misunderstanding and bigotry

which began in the early medieval period and is still prevails in places today.  Let me expand on that.

By any measure the Jewish people are a truly remarkable race.  Apart from perhaps the Chinese and Japanese, I can think of no other race on earth

whose beliefs, culture and traditions stretch back five or more millennia and certainly none have been subject to the dislocation, persecution and hardship

suffered by the Jews.  But what happened to those other civilisations, the Hittites, Jebbusites, Philistines and all the other "ites" mentioned in the Bible. 

They have all vanished without trace.  The mighty Pharoses of Egypt and the Kings of Babylon, Persia and Assyria too have been erased from the earth. 

Even Rome, the empire that covered most of the known world in biblical times completely erradicated - no one even knows how Latin was spoken anymore. 

Yet Judaism is alive and well.  The simple truth is that they would not have survived the long centuries of their total dispersion and fragmentation,

had not it not been for their belief in a Creator who held them tight; cemented by religion that moulded to their need to adapt and transform to the conditions

that prevailed.

The uniqueness of Judaism, to my mind, lies in the way one people, with one literature and one way of life has survived encounters with so many different

cultures under so many different religious, economic and social systems and yet remained cohesive.

Ironically, it wasn't so in biblical times.  The first split came at the end of King Solomon's reign when in 935 BC the kingdom split into two.  This is really

where I need the salt and pepper shakers.  The Judaeans in the Southern Kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem couldn't abide those Israelites in the

Northern Kingdom with their capital in Samaria and indeed they fought wars against each other. Incidentally, these Samaritans in the Northern Kingdom

had very similar beliefs and customs to those in centred on Jerusalem in the South.  Indeed, some of the great prophets of the time, Elijah, Amos and

Hosea were in the North.  And they were geographically close - the capitals were only about 50 Km apart. But even in Jesus' time the Samaritans

were despised in the South and Jesus exampled the "Good Samaritan" as a way of confronting his followers with their racist exclusive attitudes.

Yet it still came as a shock for the Judeans when in 721 BC the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom and assimilated the population. 

But the greatest shock, and pivotal to how they coped with their ultimate dispersion around the world, came when in 587 BC Babylon's King

Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and carted the elite off to captivity in Babylon.

Jewish belief in biblical times was strikingly different from all their neighbours in that they believed in just one Deity.  Fundamental to understanding

Jewishness is that, down through the ages, their beliefs are rooted in three biblical events.

Firstly, their unshakable belief of God's promise to Abraham that he was their God and they were his people; a promise that

was the essence of what was scrawled in chalk on the sides of the lorries the Jews used to break the Arab blockade of the Holy
Land back in 1948.  It still remains a stumbling block in Middle East diplomacy down to the present - that belief that God was

on their side and they are reclaiming what God had ordained.

Secondly, the Liberation of Israelites from  bondage in Egypt, their escape with Moses across the Red Sea and the purifying trials

they suffered in their years in the wilderness with Moses.  They believe that this succession of momentous events in the book of

Exodus as confirmation of God's faithfulness to that promise.

Thirdly, was the understanding developed by the prophet Ezekiel, arguably the father of Judaism, and later by the Esra and

Nehemiah that God does not need to dwell materially in one place, but always remains spiritually among his faithful people. 

No matter where they are or whatever their circumstances - be they become dispossessed, beaten or bullied, God will remain faithful. 

Let us not forget that our own faith is also grounded in these experiences, but it seems to me  that the very survival of the Jewish people over the last

two millenia has only been possible because of their unshakable belief in these three tenants - that God will remain faithful wherever they are or how

oppressed they may be.

But back to the salt and pepper shakers. Then in 539 BC the Persians conquered Babylon and many Jews drifted back home.  So from Esra's time we

have two centres of Jewish population, Judea and Babylon. 

Then in 333 BC Alexandra the Great's swept through Asia and the Jews came under Greek influence and spread more widely through the middle East. 

A couple of centuries later they came under Roman domination and slowly spread throughout the great Roman Empire.  So much so that by 70 AD,

when the Roman Army under Titus, destroys Jerusalem and the Temple, Jewish  people were widely dispersed throughout the empire.

In the centuries that followed, in the main, Jewish populations lived to peacefully alongside Christian and later Islamic populations and Jerusalem,

in particular, was a harmonious multi-cultural city.  However, in the 11th Century, medieval Europe began to become conscious of its Christian

character and strength.  So when in 1095AD Pope Urban II proposed a crusade to rescue the tomb of Christ people flocked to the cause. 

Seven brutal, misguided and pointless crusades over the next two centuries bred religious intolerance that has continued to this day. 

But the damage went much further.  A reckless rabble rouser Peter the Hermit and other uninformed and unscrupulous quasi religious adventurers,

deciding that as well as traipsing across Europe to kill the infidels, they should meet out punishment to Christ's killers, the Jews in their midst. 

And so began the mindless barbarity of massacres, pogroms and banishments that Jews have suffered across Europe over the last 1000 years. 

They have been the scapegoats for just about everything, from the Christ's death and the bubonic plague to economic woes in a way that no others

have been singled out.

Now I am not suggesting that there have not been faults on both sides throughout this long and painful history.  There is no doubt in my mind that

Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people at this moment is appalling and inexcusable, but I think we need to recognise the danger that our views are

coloured by much baggage.

So where am I going with all this.  It is simply this.  When we strip away the complexities of our belief system and reflect on what Christ really said

was our core mission in life is, those stories as reflected in the bleeding woman and the resurrected child, it is this - "to love God with all our heart and soul

and mind and strength and to love our neighbour as ourself".  Now I'm no expert of Judaism, nor Islam for that matter, but I suggest to you that this is

the foundation of their belief system too - and that which unites us all is far more important than that which has divided us through the millennia. 

May God give us the courage, the faith and the love to live out this, Christ's greatest commandment.

Let us pray

Lord we reflect on our sorry world with all its divisions and conflicts, with its greed and inequities.  Make us instruments of peace and reconcilliation. 

Help us to build bridges and to rejoice in the things that bind us all rather than to stress over those that divide.  Enable us to see Gods goodness in all

those we meet on life's journey, so that they may see your goodness and grace in us also.  Amen            

Don Bartlett