Sermon for the 8th of Octobr - Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

I joined a book club a number of years ago, and it’s been a great source of inspiration as well as challenge. We meet every other month, all men (my daughter is scandalised by this) and from different backgrounds and faith.

One friend is a devout reformed Jew. I have visited his synagogue and celebrated sabbath with him and family. And through this friendship I have felt a growing awareness of the need to think carefully about faith, and about how my faith relates to his. And to be careful about sloppy or careless thinking and language, particularly in relation to the Jewish people.

Firstly, the language we regularly use – the Old Testament. In other the words, the outdated testament which we can ignore. The one about dead ritual, lots of commandments, some of them listed in our first reading. It’s a faith that has been caricatured as one that slavishly tries to earn salvation by obeying the customs and the law. This is a gross distortion of the Hebrew faith, which see the law as bringing freedom, not slavery.

Alongside this is the assumption that the Jewish community are monolithic in their belief, which they are certainly not; and that the Jewish faith hasn’t evolved over the last 3000 years, which it most certainly has.

One of the biggest tensions is over Christian attempts to convert. This has a long history, including forced conversions.

In our book club, we read The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon. Sixteenth-century Lisbon was a dangerous place for Jews who are living a half-hidden life on the run from the Spanish Inquisition. In 1497, Portugal's King Manuel, instead of expelling the Jews, ordered them rounded up and forcibly converted them. They were called "New Christians" and given twenty years to eliminate their traditional customs and practices. Many of the Jews appeared to do so, while continuing secretly to practice their beliefs. But the King sometimes lost control over the forces of religion and many converts were burned at the stake, murdered or tortured.

In this country, we passed anti-Jewish laws in 1222 that led to the expulsion of Jews for 360 years.

In short, as Christians, we have not only been unwelcoming and inhospitable but downright hostile. Some Jews continue to fear that Christianity is itself, at root, irredeemably antisemitic.

So, it was significant that in May 2022, the Church of England apologised to the Jewish community. [“God’s Unfailing Word: Theological and Practical Perspectives on Christian–Jewish Relations,” The Archbishops’ Council, (2019).]

This is important to emphasise because today’s gospel could be seen as deeply anti-Semitic. If one historicises the parable, it might easily identify the wicked tenants as referring ‘the Jews’, and the new tenants as being us Christians. But that’s not what the parable is saying.

In a long line of Jewish prophets, Jesus tells this story to indite the religious leaders of his day for exploiting and mistreating God’s people — the people of Israel, God’s ‘vineyard’ we are told in Isaiah 5.  The parable is meant to expose the corruption of the religious elite and condemn their obsession with privilege and power.  Through the pointed story of the vineyard, Jesus implies that the chief priests and elders are like the wicked tenants. They abuse their authority, dishonour God’s house, and mistreat both God’s messengers (the prophets) and God’s son (Jesus).

The most interesting character in this parable is the owner of the vineyard. Like other stories in Hebrew Scriptures, it affirms God's unending patience with his people. And this is reaffirmed in our own journey of faith.

We come to God again and again in confession, and each time God forgives us and offers healing and restoration.

So, where does that leave our relationship with our Jewish brothers and sisters?

My own view is this [and it differs from the more conversionist view of many in the church]. Today, every nation in the world has encountered Christianity in some form. There will be those who cannot accept the Christian faith or who follow different spiritual paths, or who reject any form of religion.

 

And in a global context, with such warfare and strive, we need to accept a humbler role as a community of the Spirit of Christ. One that welcomes others to join our community of faith but one that recognises that God, the creator of all creation, is also legitimately experienced in different religious and spiritual paths. And so I would want to affirm a Christian faith that respects and positively loves those who follow a different path. More like Judaism than it has been, Christianity doesn’t have to see itself as the only vehicle of human flourishing.

The late Jonathan Sacks, in his book The Dignity of Difference, affirms something along these lines. He acknowledges that difference is good, a gift of God. And that differences invite us into new perspectives, new ideas and experiences that expand possibilities. And, it keeps us from the arrogance of believing our own way is the only right way to live. If we deny or persecute difference, we lose something we need to know.  

And Jesus, of course, crossed the boundaries of differences repeatedly in his ministry, using love as the guide.

God invites us to discover more about ourselves, our world and God through the gift of difference. May we have eyes to see, ears to hear and willing and open hearts to learn.

Lastly, Yom Kippur, which was celebrated a couple of weeks ago, is the Jewish time to reflect on their sins and ask for forgiveness from God and those they have wronged. And so, it’s a good reminder for us to acknowledge and confess the church’s collective sins of anti-Semitism, and to recognise that the stereotypes that it has created have been lodged deep in the theology of the Church. Lord, forgive us all.

 

Reference

Keith Ward, Christianity: A Guide for the Perplexed, p.91

Debie Thomas, A Lament for the Vineyard, 27 September 2020.