Methodist, Jewish, Elder

Rebekah Simon-Peter, her new name, tells her story of moving from Reformed (liberal) Judaism into Orthodox Judaism into the Christian faith as a result of experiencing an appearance from Jesus in her book A Jew Named Jesus: Discover the Man and His Message. She’s now a Methodist elder/minister and working to reconcile communities in a ministry called BridgeWorks. She addresses classic questions from her own angle, an angle I’d call universalist and probably religiously pluralist. She doesn’t feel at home in either the Jewish community (because of Jesus) or the church (because she’s a Jew). Her husband is Catholic, she’s a Methodist. She is spiritual and religious.

A big difference for her revolves around the religion of Jesus vs. the religion about Jesus. (Nice try, I say to myself, but Jesus made too many self-claims for such a simplistic either/or.)

After telling her story, including the common pattern of wondering about her own experience while exploring what Christians believe by attending a seminary (Illiff), she explores a common question: Was Jesus a Christian? Well, Yes and No but her big theme is that Jesus was and remained thoroughly Jewish — he was Torah-observant Jew with Jewish parents and relations. His central teachings — like what I call the Jesus Creed — were Jewish. So, Jesus was a Jew. Never broke from Judaism even if he challenged it deeply.

Now comes a question with gravitas: Did the Jews reject Jesus? The style of many sermons, she rightly observes, is an “inclusive, loving, good (Christian) Jesus” vs. an “exclusive, narrow-minded, legalistic (Jewish) people” (38). Yes, she’s right, but one must let the rhetoric of Jesus (and Paul) carry some weight in their criticisms, not letting it become anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism. I included a sermon on the blog Sunday (3 November) where Jesus assails a Pharisee vs. a tax collector, stereotyping his way through the whole parable. That kind of rhetoric is typical in the Gospels. So I think she’s right in seeing Jesus’ rhetoric as family talk and not demonizing, and Yes the church has demonized Pharisees.

Some of Jesus’ followers were Pharisees; Jesus followed them in some ways (Matthew 23:1-3); some were Zealots; some were women; Pentecost expanded those followers but they were still very much expanding “Judaism” at some level — thousands opted for Jesus. Jews, she argues, were the makers of Christianity! Saul was as Jewish as one can get. Paul/Saul was, and apparently remained, a Pharisee (Acts 23:6). She thinks he was Torah observant. The issue then was whether or not Gentiles had to become Jews to be followers of Jesus/church people. Acts 15 shows they don’t have to become Jews; Gentiles are to be observant of the Torah at a Gentile level. Same today. Jesus was a hard man to follow; not all Jews — few in fact — followed him. For a variety of reasons. It was, however, a family feud and not a religious change. A major conclusion, though I can’t see that she says it quite this way, Jews as a whole did not reject Jesus; some did. One can’t blame Jews for rejecting Jesus. (That’s my reading of this chp.)

Deeper gravitas: Did the Jews kill Jesus? This theme is sometimes called the “longest hatred.” The badness of the rhetoric begins with Melito of Sardis (Jews were God-murderers) but it becomes stubbornly resistant to any change — for centuries Christians have painted Jews as those who killed Jesus. Chrysostom, Constantine, medieval (barbaric) laws, crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Martin Luther’s rantings and all the way to the Holocaust and Hitler.

Now the death of Jesus: she sees four themes — Jesus gave himself; God’s will; Rome killed him; Jewish leaders wanted him gone — all in an escalating condition of tension within Judaism and with Rome. Blaming the Jews is historically irresponsible; they are implicated in a complicated scene. Saying Jews killed Jesus is like saying white people killed ML King Jr (64). Furthermore, after probing the critical issues through some critical scholarship she concludes the Gospel evidence overstates Jewish involvement.

Rebekah, of course, denies any supersessionism in the Christian faith. She struggles with the apostle Paul, but finds some hope in Pam Eisenbaum and Mark Nanos. She observes many Christians read Paul through the dynamics of Martin Luther. Paul is not writing to Jewish believers but to Gentile believers. Gentiles and Jews make up the people of God, not in a zero-sum game but in an expansion of Israel.

One of her ways of framing a kind of universalism is this: “You can’t claim victory in Jesus while standing on the neck of your elder brother” (89).

She argues we need to embrace Jesus as fully Jewish, refocus on the kingdom of God (where and when God’s will is done), and here she suggests by focusing less on Jesus and more on social justice concerns, and by seeking a new heaven and a new earth (she has written about ecological concerns) — and here she moves into universalism of some sort. Jews, too, need to embrace Jewish followers of Jesus.

The book lacks sufficient attention to atonement, to the inaugurated/realized dimensions of eschatology in the christological claims of Jesus — as expounded well by DA Hagner, The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus, to the historic interpretations of the church (like the creed) … in short, the book falls short of an adequate study of the relations of Judaism and Christianity because it is designed by and for a more pluralist orientation, an orientation not held by the orthodox among Jews or Christians. I’m 100% in favor of reconciliation and mutual respect and civil dialogue, which this book exhibits, but the really difficult issues, the beliefs and practices and symbols and worldview that genuinely separate Judaism from Christianity, are by and large ignored in this book.