​I cannot take part in the Holy Week Services which begin this evening without thinking about the Jewish community and how in the past the readings and prayers had a decidedly anti-Jewish tone which no doubt led to an antisemitic attitude amongst Christianity at large and Christians in particular. The story of the passion and death of Jesus as set out in John’s gospel will be read in churches on Good Friday. Often there are different voices for the various characters in the story with the congregation taking the part of the Jews whose lines are ‘Crucify him, crucify him’. Is it any wonder that the belief grew up that the Jews had crucified Jesus and were culpable of deicide. This was so strongly held that at times in the past it was not safe for Jews to show their face during these solemn and so-called holy days for fear of being attacked. This has now changed. Scripture scholars admit that while religious authorities were involved in bringing Jesus before Pontius Pilate and sought his death it was the political authority that sentenced him to death. And it certainly wasn’t the Jewish population of the time, many of whom were his followers. The Vatican II document Nostra Aetate which set out the Church’s relationship with other religions spoke out against any charge of deicide being brought against members of the Jewish community and recognised the Jewish roots of Christianity. But the scripture with this in it is still read on Good Friday and hopefully whoever is preaching will deal with this sensitively. For some Jews the very phrase ‘the Jews’ brings back memories of antisemitism and the kind of atrocities that resulted in the Holocaust.

It is so easy to blame a whole people for the faults and failings of their government and while we Christians may have changed out attitude to the Jews of Jesus’ time, Jewish people are often asked to account for the actions of the Israeli government, even though they are not Israeli. I have heard it myself and if I can feel uncomfortable at this supposition how much more must our Jewish brothers and sisters feel. The land of Israel is central to Judaism and many Jews are broken hearted at what is happening in the Middle East now. They have a great loyalty to the State of Israel as a place where Jews can live out their way of life in peace and security but the attack by Hamas on October 7th 2023 sent shock waves through the community as it seemed they were no longer safe in their own land. While the response of the Israeli government can be criticised I think it is difficult for Jews to be openly critical of it because they feel the rise in antisemitism, the overwhelming support in the media for Palestine and what seems a lack of sympathy for Jewish fears and need for security.

During this war which is horrific for the Palestinians I have tried not to take sides. That is not to sit on the fence but rather to try to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, recognising the legitimate history of the pain and suffering of both people, both of whom I think have been let down by their governments. How to hold both stories at the same time is difficult and while I no longer engage in conversation with people whose support for one side suggests a rejection of the other I do find myself expressing the pain of the Palestinians when I am with Jews and the pain of Israel when I am with those who support the Palestinians. Those of us who are engaged in interfaith relations, especially the Council of Christians and Jews have reflected often on the situation and concluded that the only response is that of being broken hearted. For me I have felt a great sadness and real pain when I think of how the Israeli government is responding, more out of fear for its own existence than any desire for peace. When I read the prophets or Jonathan Sacks and hear of the beauty of Judaism and what it has to offer the world I hate what is happening and even fear for Israel’s survival. How wonderful it would have been if it could have lived by the high ideals of Judaism and shown the world how to negotiate and work for a peaceful solution for two people having a claim to and sharing the same land. But why should I expect that of Israel when there are so many examples of so called Christian and Islamic nations not living up to the ideals of their religion?

There are of course many Jewish people and groups who have demonstrated and spoken out against the war. This week there has been a statement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest communal organisation in the UK decrying Netanyahu and his concern for his own survival. I was heartened by this and found it reflective of my own views. Under the heading “As British Jews we can no longer stay silent on the war in Gaza” they express their love for Israel and deep concern for its future as well as their pain and shock at what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank. They see “hopes dwindling for a peaceful reconciliation and the return of the hostages. Israel's soul is being ripped out” they say “and we, members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, fear for the future of the Israel we love and have such close ties to.  Silence is seen as support for policies and actions that run contrary to our Jewish values…. We stand against the war. We acknowledge and mourn the loss of Palestinian life. We yearn for the "day after" this conflict when reconciliation can start”.  

To have such a respected body speak out so clearly is for me hopeful and I will carry their pain as well as their hopes and desires for peace with me as I enter into these solemn days of remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

 Amy- Jill Levine is Professor Emerita at Vanderbilt University. She is a New Testament scholar and professes to love the NT and Jesus, yet she is Jewish. This gives her a unique insight into the stories and events in the gospels, so it was natural for me to consult her when I was asked last Sunday to give a reflection on the scripture readings for the day. The text was from Lk 15 and the story was that of the Prodigal Son.  We all know it well – the son who leaves home having asked for his share of his inheritance and only returns when he has squandered it and is in fact starving to be welcomed and embraced by his father.

In her reflections on the story Professor Levine points out that it is the third in a series of stories at the beginning of chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son which is her way of naming the parable.  She also points out the introductory verse which says, “One day when many tax collectors and other outcasts came to listen to Jesus, 2the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law started grumbling, “This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!” 3So Jesus told them this parable” Even when the reading focussed only on the third story of the lost son whoever drew up the cycle of Sunday readings included those verses, meaning to put the story of the lost son into a context which suggested a  group that supported Jesus and were ready to learn from him and another group which grumbled and complained about him. This Dr Levine suggests is Luke interpreting the parable and influencing how we might interpret it.  Unfortunately, there has been and perhaps still is a tendency in Christianity to identify the scribes and pharisees with the older brother and the Jewish people who have remained faithful to the Law but rejected Christ and identify the outcasts and tax collectors with younger brother and Christians who have now been welcomed into the embrace of the father.

This interpretation betrays a supercessionist approach that sees Christianity as having replaced the Jewish people and assumed their role as God's chosen people. Over the centuries this approach has led to an anti-Judaism and antisemitism that has had such terrible consequences for the Jewish people and the world at large.  Although supercessionism and any sense of Christians replacing Jews would now be considered wrong in the Catholic Church and many other churches we must beware of and be on the look out for suggestions of an antagonism that does not reflect Jesus position but that of the tension between the early Christian community and the synagogue.

 While many commentators reflect on the patient and unconditional love of the father in the story Professor Levine sees it as a story about family dynamics. It begins “There was a man who had 2 sons… For a Jewish audience this would immediately call to mind stories in the Torah of other 2 sons – Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. In these stories it is the younger brother who unexpectedly receives the blessing of his father. So, she suggests that if Jesus audience were biblically literate and why would they not be they would know to identify with the younger son who in this case turns out not to be righteous or faithful but irresponsible, self-indulgent and possible an indulged and spoiled child.  Professor Levine imagines the situation when the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance:  what happens in the time before the son leaves, - is the father busy dividing his property, is he heartbroken, does he try to remonstrate with his son? Where is the mother in the story?  Did the older son try to mediate and change the mind of his brother – was he angry because according to Deuteronomy he should have got two thirds of his father’s estate?

The father lets his son go. Unlike the good shepherd and the woman with the lost coin the father does not search for his son though we get the impression that he was constantly on the lookout for him, no doubt pained by his younger child’s action. It was because of this patient waiting that he was able to spot him from afar and run to welcome him
And what about the older son? Do we not feel some kind of sympathy with him?  No-one ran out to invite him to the feast, he only discovered it by chance – perhaps on his way home. His anger and upset are not unprovoked,
Now Professor Levine tells us the father has a problem.  The father has his younger son back but now the elder son is lost – and perhaps always had been in a way that the father didn’t notice until now.
 The father now needs to return this lost elder son to the family if he is to make his family complete. Will the father be reconciled with his elder son? Will the brothers be reconciled?

Is this the challenge that Jesus poses in telling this story?  This story of the need for reconciliation would have been a challenge to Jesus’ listeners and is surely a challenge to us today. How do we respond? Can we be agents of reconciliation in our own homes but also in the world we inhabit, in our relations with people of other faiths, people who are different from us and so contribute to reconciliation in a world that so easily polarises and divides? 

 

We are now quarter of a century into what I still think of as the new millennium. The holiday season is coming to an end, and people are returning to work – to auld claes and porridge as we say in Scotland. Some people will have done so full of new year resolutions and good intentions to better their life in some way. Christmas greetings have been exchanged with aspirations of peace and good will towards all. But will anything change? Sociologists say that the world is less violent now than it was in the past but the destruction that we see nightly on our television sets and the sophistication of the weapons that are used today leave me with a sense of foreboding, so much so that many of our Christmas carols, focussing as they do on Bethlehem, seemed very empty this year. However, I have found some hope in last week’s  daily meditations that come from the Centre for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico set up by Richard Rohr.

This week these mediations have focussed on the theme of salt and light, reflecting on two verses from the Gospel of Matthew, “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”
Mth 5:13-15 

Debie Thomas, one of the authors who commented on this theme, pointed out that salt and light are about identity. They express what Christians are, not just what they are to become. You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world… though there is a warning that it’s possible for salt to lose its flavour and light to be hidden under a bushel. So, what does salt do? In a meal it’s invisible but brings out the taste of the food and makes it palatable. Too much of it can embitter rather than enhance, ruin rather than preserve, irritate rather than soothe. For better or worse, Debie Thomas suggests that as Christians “we are the salt of the earth, and what we do with our saltiness matters. It matters a lot. Whether we want to or not, whether we notice or not, whether we’re intentional about it or not, we impact the world we live in.”  This sense of impacting the word I live in, trying to be intentional about it gives me some hope in situations where I feel powerless to change anything. And I can do it in small ways by trying to enhance a situation, sustaining life and meaning, and looking to the well-being of all. It reminds me of the Jewish belief in tikkun olam which I find very helpful where we are called to repair our broken world bit by bit, small steps at a time. Or the Tibetan Buddhist prophecy of Shambhala warriors who will bring about the Kingdom of Shambhala through the weapons for compassion and wisdom - both similar to the Christian belief in the Kingdom of God.
  
Like salt light too is necessary for life. The Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, another scholar working with Rohr, focused on Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples to be the “light of the world”.  Without light, she suggested, “we have no plants, no warmth, no beacons. Just as salt can become so diluted that it loses its intrinsic character as salt, so light can also be snuffed out. Thus light, too, is a precious commodity that must be preserved. And just as too much salt can kill, too much light can blind. Effective light does not call attention to itself; rather, it lights up the world…. “. And this is what Christians are called to – to be lights in the world. Amy-Jill Levine goes on “Once the disciples recognize that they are light, they also recognize that their role is to shine so that others can find their way. Jesus knows that, just as salt can lose its intrinsic identity, light can be hoarded and fail to fulfil its proper function. He states first the obvious: “A city built on a hill cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). His followers are to become like that city: a refuge, a home, a place where there is salt and light, love and compassion….”   And again, we can do it in little ways wherever we find ourselves.

I found these images helpful and refreshing, much as I have known the scripture passages all my life. Can I be salt and light, can I see the salt and light in people and events around me? It’s like kingdom spotting and once begun its everywhere. Can it change the trajectory the world seems to be on? If I believe as I do in the deep interconnectedness of all things and all sentient beings which includes energy and intention then I can believe that the salt and the light is working away for good even in invisible ways. It’s like a great movement of which I can be a member, and which has the potential to silently transform the world. This Christmas it has given me hope. 

Christmas is almost upon us. Today marks the fourth Sunday of Advent when Christians light the fourth candle on the Advent Wreath. The time of waiting is nearly over.  But what are we waiting for? Well, we wait for the feast of Christmas when we remember the birth of Jesus and the way in which Christians believe he fulfilled the longings of his people. We wait for new experiences of his coming into our life as we try to live a life of faith, and we wait for his final coming at the end of time when at some point in the unknown future God’s kingdom will triumph and be finally established on earth. Till then we wait in faith and hope, longing for the Kingdom of God and doing our little bit to extend its influence around us.

These statements are not straightforward. They are statements of faith with a great deal of theology behind and around them. I sometimes struggle to make sense of them? Karl Rahner said that there are two ways of studying the significance of Jesus – what he called Christology from above and Christology from below. Christology from above is captured in the carol ‘at the hour of silent midnight’ where it states
         At hour of silent midnight, O mystery of love                                                                                                         
         Earth’s longed and sighed for Sav­iour, Descended from above …….          
          Lo! earth is changed to Hea­ven, For earth is Je­sus’ home:…..
         They found the God of Heaven (in) an infant meek and mild.

According to this theology the God of heaven has come down to take human form in the person of Jesus. It stresses the divinity of Jesus and makes him unique among men. Christology from below is focussed much more on the human life of Jesus. It situates him in a particular place and at a particular time, it gives him a genealogy (found in the gospels) and therefore a DNA that goes far back in the history of the people of Israel, even as far back as Adam and then back to God but not in a way that is different from other human beings.  Christians and Jews believe that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, share in the life and energy of God and are animated by the Spirit of God. There is a God – presence which is the source and heart of life. Sometimes in scripture it is called Wisdom, sometimes it is called Logos or Word and sometimes it is called Christ.  It is a universal presence which has expressed itself from the beginning of time in nature which also includes humanity, but for Christians in a particularly open and perfect way in Jesus. Richard Rohr puts it like this “We daringly believe that God’s presence was poured into a single human being, so that humanity and divinity can be seen to be operating as one in him—and therefore in us! Instead of saying that God came into the world through Jesus, maybe it would be better to say that Jesus came out of an already Christ-soaked world. The second incarnation flowed out of the first, out of God’s loving union with physical creation”.

  And this incarnation that we celebrate in Jesus took place at a troubled time in a troubled part of the world. He was born a Jew in Bethlehem which was that part of Israel known as Judea. Bethlehem of course is now situated in Palestine and for me it has been impossible to sing some of our carols and listen to the readings of the prophets so loved during Advent without feeling a deep pain of what is happening in that part of the world. This is not to suggest that Jesus was a Palestinian (Palestine didn’t exist in his time) or to deny the tragedy of the Israeli hostages and the pain and fear of the Israeli people but it is to honour and face up to the reality of the suffering happening in the very places that become the focus of our attention at this time.  For Christians Jesus’ presence and participation in our common humanity leads them to see him in the poor and oppressed, in those suffering because of war and violence, in those who are abused, trafficked – the list can go on and on. Often iconography depicts this.

​ It was with some sadness therefore that I learned of the controversy over the figure of the baby Jesus lying on a keffiyeh which was seen by Israelis and some Jews as a political statement – a controversy that reached even Glasgow with someone asking me what could be done about it. Each year the Vatican nativity scene is designed by an artist from a different part of the world and this year the artist was from Bethlehem so to use a keffiyeh was normal to him and he denied any political intention.  Each year the nativity is presented to the Pope and then the baby removed to be returned on Christmas Eve – will the keffiyeh be there or not when this happens this week?  I will be very sorry if it is gone because that becomes a political statement if it removed because of Israeli or Jewish pressure. Surely Christians are free to show solidarity with the suffering of their brothers and sisters in the land of Jesus birth without it being seen as political.  In doing this Christians will not be taking sides but recognising the pain that exists on all sides and longing and earnestly praying for peace.