Christians and Jews
I was thinking about the lectionary reading this past week, Acts 44-52. I always get a little nervous about having passages read in my church which can be used as fodder for anti-Semitism – not just that which manifests itself in horrible and demonic ways (like Nazism), but those forms which manifest in more serene ways. A classic example would be the ill feeling or confusion by many Christians about why Jews do not convert when “it is so obvious” that Jesus is the messiah.
The story Sunday takes place in tone of the many Antiochs of the Middle East. In the back story, Paul and Barnabas have preached in the local synagogue. They proclaimed that Jesus was the Son of God and the Messiah. They preached that he had been murdered but God raised him from the dead. They taught this was the sign. God backed up Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God, because surely God would not have raised a man from the dead who lied about such a thing. But in the end, the Jews in Antioch decided not to go with the whole Jesus thing. 
In response, Paul walked out onto the street, found the local market, picked a nice piece of real estate for himself, and preached to anyone who would listen to him there.
And while in Antioch, Paul did extremely well. He preached and preached, and more and more people began to show up. And on this particular Sabbath in the story Sunday, it says the “whole city showed up”. The “whole city”! Now, that is probably a slight exaggeration, but it is definitely a sign that there were a whole bunch of people showing up to see what this new teaching was all about.
There were some who were curious. There were some who were believers. There were people who were probably there to make fun. And, according to Acts, there were the same Jewish leaders who were uninterested in Paul’s message earlier. These leaders, we are told, begin to spread venom against Paul and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas are quick to react. They tell the leaders of the synagogue that the Jews were the first recipients of the Word of God. And now, according the word of God himself, the gospel about Jesus Christ is being preached to all the non-Jews, the Gentiles. And they quote Isaiah 49:6 to back themselves up.
And then two things happen, we are told. First, the non-Jews who where present love and cherish God more. They adore that God is for everyone and for all, even them. The other thing that happens is that the Jewish leaders present that day become more embittered, eventually get the authorities of the town to kick Paul and Barnabas out of town.
Passages in the New Testament which talk about the Jews rejecting Jesus have been fodder for a million anti-Semites in the history of the Church. It has been used to fuel medieval ghettoes, Russian gulags, the Nazi holocaust, modern hate crimes, and much more.
When it comes to such passages, it is worth reminding ourselves as Christians what is really going on. Two Jews, Paul and Barnabas, go to Antioch. They preach at a Jewish synagogue. They preach Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, raised from the dead by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the Jewish patriarchs). Some Jews encourage them to keep preaching and but other Jews tell them to get lost. They then preach in the street this message of a Jewish God and His Jewish messiah. Consequently, the Jews of that town tell them to get lost. Not all towns, just that town. And what is more, probably not the Jews in that town that had encouraged them to keep preaching.
This is not an anti-Semitic story. This is a story about a disagreement between a bunch of Jews, some who think Jesus was the Jewish messiah of the Jewish God, some who do not think so, and still others who do not know and want to hear more.
It would be wrong (and has been wrong) for Christians to walk away from such passages thinking we read a story in our churches about how all the Jews are evil and Christ-haters. We did not. We read a story about honest and pious believers with a genuine disagreement about what God is doing in the world.
And for what it is worth, we Christians and Jews have been in the same place for 2000 years now. We have a disagreement about the Jewish God and a Jewish rabbi, born to a Jewish mother, who kept Jewish torah (and practiced the Jewish mitzvot very much along the lines of the other Jewish rabbi Shammai), and who may or may not have been the Jewish messiah.
Turning Jews into two-cent Christ-murderers accomplishes nothing, furthers no dialogue, and dehumanizes those who share the same flesh as our Lord and Savior. We ought – as Christians – to be in a state of repentance every day for the sins of our brethren against our Jewish neighbors and fellow worshippers.
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