Jesus’ Judaism

Suprisinginly, Jesus was Jewish and he liked to eat. He was not bougee either, he could throw down a feast with a few loaves of bread and some fish. Jesus engages in 10 dinner parties over the course of the Gospel of Luke. Along the way, he teaches us not only how to eat, but also how to embrace the spiritual practices of enthusiasm Connections, Joy and Hospitality.  

This week, I want to look at how Jesus embraced the spiritual practices of Enthusiasm, Connections, Joy, and Hospitality through his eating patterns and in particular, through his unique Jewish perspective. This is a reminder that the New Testament stories were not written for us, but for a specific Jewish/Christianish community several decades after Jesus’ death. This is a point that we as Christians often grossly overlook. We can gain a great amount of knowledge from our Jewish cousins.   

A Word about Parable 

There is a persistent problem in Christianity today and since forever. Many read the bible as if it were written for them. This could not be further from the truth. The stories, poems, political treatises, and others were written for a certain people at a certain time. In the Gospels, Jesus is attributed to using a literary device known as a parable.  

A parable is a genre designation for a type of short story and that it comes from the biblical Hebrew word mashal (plural form: meshalim). The Jewish teacher and scholar, Amy – Jill Levine challenges that the parables are not Christian at all.  

Jesus’ Spiritual Practices 

Jesus is often seen engaging in the spiritual practices of enthusiasm, connections, joy, and hospitality.  

Enthusiasm 

As a practice, enthusiasm encourages one to come into life with a warmth and feelings to their relationships. Their activities have a vigor and freshness to them. Enthusiasm has its roots in the words en and theos or within God or God within. In all of Luke’s stories, we see Jesus approaching even societies lowliest with this embrace of God within. Jesus always had a warmth to those he met.  

Joy 

Jesus laughing is an experience that is often overlooked in the Christian church. Joy is a spiritual practice and to think of Jesus as someone who did not laugh is hard to put my head around. Aside from the Jewish religion, Jesus would have been exposed to many other thoughts. One that may have drifted his way is the philosophy of Stoicism. Seneca the Younger would have been a teacher during Jesus’ time and a possible contemporary of Paul. 

Joy is a Jewish practice that Jesus would have engaged in. The celebration of Sukot is said to be a “model for worldly enjoyment.” This is embodied so much that it is called a time of rejoicing. Sukkot comes after a period of fasting and reverent observation, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. During this time, Jews reenact their own death, only to be restored to life in the resolution of the day. “Only those who know the fragility of life can truly appreciate the full preciousness of every moment.” Sukkot is the release from Yom Kippur and Jews once again can eat, dance, and celebrate life to its fullest.  

Connections 

The sound of the shofar calls on Jews to unite, reflect on their actions, and strengthen their connections with one another and with our faith. Judaism as a religion of connection: connection with family, with friends, with history and with the Divine. For Jews of Jesus’ time and currently, community is everything in Judaism. Sinfulness is not an afront to God specifically, instead, in the case of Zaccheaus, it is alienating oneself from their community by words or deeds. In Zaccheaus’s case, collecting taxes from his Jewish community.  

Communal life was important to Jesus; it was ingrained in his part of ancient and now modern Judaism. Anxiety is one of the biggest mental health concerns I come across daily. Driving this anxiety is often loneliness, a disconnect from family (which is often toxic) and from community (often also toxic) which does not exist anymore.  

Everything is interrelated. Spirituality is the art of making connections. Making connections is a spiritual practice. Jesus is seen continually reaching out and talking to anyone. This theme is later picked up in Galatians 3:28. We need to have the attitude of Jesus and learn to bow in compassion to presence of Christ in others.  

Hospitality 

As a practice, hospitality enhances our tolerances of others, it counter criticisms and hostility. It too, encourages us to see all people as potential seats of Christ. In feeding the 5,000, all are welcomed to eat. The woman at the well is also approach by Jesus and is made to feel seen.  

In ancient Israel, hospitality “was not merely a question of good manners, but a moral institution which grew out of the harsh desert and nomadic existence led by the people of Israel. The biblical customs of welcoming the weary traveler and of receiving the stranger in one’s midst was the matrix out of which hospitality and all its tributary aspects developed into a highly esteemed virtue in Jewish tradition. Biblical law specifically sanctified hospitality toward the ger (“stranger”) who was to be made particularly welcome “for you were strangers in a strange land” (Lev. 19:34 and see Ex. 12:49). Foreign travelers, although not protected by law (Deut. 15:3; 23:21), could count on the custom of hospitality.” 

A Dinner Party with Jesus 

Luke portrays nine “parties” that Jesus has in the Gospel. I am not going to exegete them for the sake I do not want my Christian influence to overshadow the Jewish importance that Jesus and the writer of Luke would have experienced around these celebratory events. Instead, look these events up in your bible, and see if you can see not only Jesus’ spirituality as noted above in these events, but also the Jewish significance of these moments. It is my belief that we need to go back and reclaim some of the spirituality and worship that the historical Jesus engaged in and get away from our whitewashed traditions that alienate others.  

Mary and Martha 

The Prodigal Son 

The Woman and the Coin 

The Shepherd and the Lost Sheep 

The Great Banquet 

The Big Picnic 

Dinner with a Tax Collector 

Eating is an important element in the Jewish way of life. Judaism uses food to reinforce identity and a sense of heritage both within the home and in the congregation as a whole. After the Jewish temple was destroyed 2000 years ago, the Jewish family table and meal became the successor to the Temple, the rabbis also made Judaism portable. The family table is said to travel with the Jewish people from Gibraltar to the Indian Ocean, from Afghanistan to Peoria and from Ottawa to Damascus. In Jesus’ time, eating according to Rabbi Yehiel E. Poupko “human beings transform their animal feeding into human eating. Eating is a social task, which transforms the biological need into a community of intimacy and shared experience.” 

Today, we take our food for granted and there is very little ceremony around food. Sure, we have those special birthdays, holidays, and summer picnics, but in Jesus’ day, eating was a celebration of bringing family and community together. It was a celebration of the work that went into preparing the food at all the levels of preparation.  

In closing, Celebration is an act of love, as often seen in the examples from Luke’s Gospel. Some part of life, or a person was lost, alienated, or going without and food was brought to bring the brokenness whole. Here, perhaps, we can take away this: God so loves us and wants a relationship with us, that when God finds us, God celebrates.