Sunday Service - 2/9/14 - Barbara Brown Taylor

30:01 Jesus was a Jew. I know you know that, but I wish it were in the creed somewhere. I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God who was born of a Jewish mother, lived his short life, a Jew, was crucified, and died a Jew. On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the Jewish scriptures. I wish we had to say it out loud every Sunday. I wish we sang it in some hymns so that we had a prayer of hearing him when he teaches us something from his religion instead of ours, the religion that grew up about him. Jesus was Jewish. He argued with other Jews about how Torah should be observed, which was very Jewish of him. All of his first disciples were Jewish. With all the religions in the world to choose from, God decided on a Jewish mother to bear a Jewish son. I know I'm sounding a little bit insistent, but that's because I'm teaching Introduction to the New Testament this semester.

31:00 Blessed with 15 students devoted to Jesus who have never read a gospel all the way through. Or at least most of them haven't. And even those who have are so used to thinking of Jesus as the founder of Christianity, the Savior who put the Christ in Christian, that it can come as a real shock to hear him talking like a Jew. I wish you could have been there last Tuesday when we were working our way through Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. Not Luke's short talk on the plain, but Matthew's unabridged version, all 2,384 words of it. I counted it twice. Matthew's sermon is three times as long as Luke's. It includes 37 verses that show up nowhere else in the New Testament. Not only you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world, but also beware of practicing your piety before others.

32:04 And when you give alms, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. But those weren't the verses that rose up off the page and smacked us last Tuesday. The ones that did that were the ones in which Jesus upholds the letter of the law, every last jot and tittle of it, reminding everyone within sound of his voice that whoever breaks even one of the least of the commandments that God gave to Moses, like the one about not gathering firewood on the Sabbath, maybe, or the one about not eating bacon. Whoever breaks even one of those and teaches others to do the same will be called squirt in the kingdom of God, he says. Squirt, gnat, junior, rookie, take your pick.

33:01 Those who think it's all right to break any of God's laws will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, while those who keep them and teach them will be called great. What? Heather said while Cat just banged her head on the desk. Oh no, she said, while Elijah just smiled because he's Seventh-day Adventist. He observes Sabbath and doesn't eat pork. I thought Christians didn't have to follow the law, someone else said. Yeah, the person next to her said, didn't Jesus break it all the time? But there it was right on the page. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

33:48 I guess you could read that as meaning that it wouldn't take much to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. But that would be a stretch. Pharisees get a bum rap in the New Testament, but they defined righteousness in those days. They took the word of God so seriously that they held themselves to the same standards as priests in the temple. They washed their hands before every meal as if they were making an offering at the altar. They were careful about not working on the Sabbath. They went above and beyond what was asked of them, knowing that it was not enough simply to believe in God, for God had not asked to be believed. God had asked to be obeyed. Yes, Jesus argued with the scribes and Pharisees about how best to obey the law, the same way the Pharisees argued with the Sadducees and the Sadducees argued with the Zealots.

34:46 A rabbi I know says that's a very Jewish thing to do. Once when he was in a cafe in Jerusalem, he said, he watched one man approach another at a table right next to him. So, are you Jewish? The standing man said. And the seated man said, I am. The first man said, good, you want to argue? Jesus was a Jew. While there are lively discussions to be had with present-day Jews about just how Jewish he was, Matthew's gospel is unambiguous. Jesus was a son of Israel, a descendant of the royal house of David, the Messiah come in fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures to uphold the divine law that set his people apart and gave them fullness of life. One of the students in my class was raised in a Messianic Jewish congregation, so this makes all kinds of sense to her. The Seventh-day Adventist, he has an oar in the water, too.

35:48 But for the rest of the Protestants and Catholics in the class, Jesus' teaching about the law in the Sermon on the Mount raises huge questions about the teaching they have received in their churches. Aren't Christians supposed to rely on God's grace instead of on their own good works? Isn't works righteousness something they're supposed to avoid? Most importantly, isn't the law a thing of the past for Christians? Didn't the coming of Jesus put an end to all that? Of course, the subtle, invasive danger of that teaching is the logical next step, even and especially when it's not made at a conscious level. If the law is a thing of the past for Christians, then isn't Judaism as well? If Jesus came to put an end to all that, then isn't the whole Jewish thing over?

36:49 I don't know many people who would say that out loud. I don't even know many people who think they think it. But they still say a lot of things that come out that way. They talk about the burden of the law. They talk about the legalism of the Pharisees. They say Jewish law as if Jews wrote it. when the book of Exodus is quite clear that the law comes from God. I think that would pack a different punch if when we came to those stories where Jesus seems to be pushing the envelope of the law, we stopped saying Jesus challenged Jewish law and we said Jesus challenged God's law. Woo-hoo!

37:36 Most of us come by our latent anti-Judaism honestly. Later in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus calls one group of scribes and Pharisees children of hell. In John's Gospel, he tells some Jews that their father is the devil. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul, the former five-star Pharisee, speaks of the Jews who oppose God and displease everyone, noting with some satisfaction he writes that God's wrath has overtaken them at last. as A.J. Levine points out in her book The Misunderstood Jew it only takes a little bit of this kind of rhetoric for Christians to decide that Jesus wasn't really Jewish whatever Jesus stands for she writes Judaism isn't it whatever Jesus is against Judaism epitomizes the category no wonder she goes on that even today Jesus somehow looks different from the Jews. In the movies and artistic renderings he's blonde and they're swarthy. He's cute and buff and they need rhinoplasty and pilates.

38:48 But here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus won't let any of us forget just how Jewish he is. You are the light of the world, he says, to all those who come to hear him, mostly Jews, presumably mostly familiar with God's law in Torah. It's not only a lovely thing to say, it's a very traditional thing for him to say. According to the prophet Isaiah, God gave Israel as a light to the nations. In rabbinic literature, Torah is the prime mediator of divine light. In John's gospel, Jesus is the light of the world, but not here. Here, you are the light of the world. Jesus says that to those sitting right in front of him, though they've done absolutely nothing to deserve the accolade.

39:43 Even if he's speaking only to the disciples and not to the crowds over their heads, the disciples haven't done anything to distinguish themselves at this point. They left what they were doing to go with him. They attached themselves to him and followed him around, listening to what he said and watching what he did. all the while doing their best to believe that they were half as important as he seemed to think they were. You are the light of the world, he said to them, giving them the t-shirts before they had even run the race. Then he shows them where the line starts. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, he says.

40:41 Only how are they supposed to do that exactly? By walking around looking all sunny and saved? By telling other people how they can become shiny too? Maybe so, but that's not where Jesus puts the emphasis. Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. That's what he says. You have the t-shirt, which is yours no matter what. That's the grace part. And it's true, too. You are the light of the world. But the wattage is up to you. If you decide that 15 watts is all you can manage, well then the world around you just won't be very well lit. You'll still be the light of it. That part's non-negotiable. But don't expect it to be much brighter than a closet in there.

41:35 If, on the other hand, you decide to go all out, then happy are they who live near you. Happy are they who share the world with you. Because their visibility will be so much better when you're around. so much better that they may be able to see beyond your good works. They may be able to see all the way to God and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

42:04 I am so sorry to tell you this, but Jesus was just not a very good Protestant. He was a Jew for whom good works were not optional. He was the loving son of the light giver who gave the law, and he expected those who followed him to follow it too, right down to the last jot and tittle. Later, importantly, hugely, Paul would mount some good arguments about how the law was God's grace for Jews, while God had something different in mind for Gentiles. But however our Christian view of the law has changed through the years, our spiritual ancestors had the good sense to preserve this core teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

42:57 God expects us to step up. Righteousness is a good thing. Exceeding righteousness is even better. knowing God's word is no substitute for doing it good works count Meanwhile, you already have your t-shirts. That's the grace part. Like it or not, you are, we are the light of the world. We are the waves and particles that bring the lamp of the gospel to life. We are the solar panels. We are the lighthouse keepers. We are the searchlight crew. We are the citizens of the city on the hill. According to the shining sun of the light giver. God is happy to supply all the current we need, but producing the bulbs and plugging them in, that's the human part. That part's up to us.