The Church As Sarah's Laughter?

2 Pentecost, A p 6, June 18, 2017
Ex. 19:2-8a     Ps.100    
Rom.5:6-11      Matt. 9:35-10:15
Lectionary Link

Let us consider today the early Christian church in formation.  Have you heard the phrase "cut off your nose to spite one's face?"

Let us ponder an early Christian dilemma:  St. Paul and others dispensed with  the ritual requirements of Judaism in order to make the message of Jesus Christ accessible to Gentile people.  Why?  because the message was a life changing social practice.  The message of Jesus Christ built community among people of diverse back ground.  Should we go with success with the Gentile people or should we require that all Gentile followers of Christ submit to all of the ritual purity customs of Judaism?

Those who were observant Jews began to reject the Christian Movement because the ritual requirements of Judaism were not enforced upon the Gentile membership.  The Jesus Movement could no long be supported by those who were committed to synagogue ritual tradition.  The Jesus Movement threatened to change Judaism too much for Jews who wanted to maintain the traditions.  The Jesus Movement was a dilemma for the people of the synagogue.

Conversely, the Jews of the synagogue became a dilemma for the early Christians.  Christians were criticized by the synagogue for compromising Judaism beyond recognition in Gentile Christianity.  But Christianity was born out of the Judaism and the traditions found in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The Hebrew Scriptures were the official texts of the synagogue.

What do Jews who have become followers of Jesus do when they found this division arise between the synagogue and the followers of Jesus?

This is a possible context for the preaching mission to the Jews found in our Gospel reading today.  Christians have wanted to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to their Jewish heritage.  We have wanted to say the Hebrew Scriptures are our Scriptures too, even though we have radically reinterpreted the meaning the Hebrew Scriptures to describe the reality of Christian Church.

Imagine a child who gets converted away from the faith practices of her parents.  She is so blessed by her new found faith expression that she in turns want to share her faith to try to convert her own parents.  She wants to maintain a continuity with her parents but the only way that fellowship can prevail is if one side converts to the practice of the other.

This was dilemma expressed in the mission of the message of Christ to the Jews.  While Matthew's Gospel seems to be contemporary with Jesus, it is more feasible to see it as contemporary with the oracle of the Risen Christ in the Jesus community that has become concerned about the "conversion" of the Jews to the message of Jesus.

St. Paul and others presented the message of Christ as being something like Sarah's laughter.  You know about Sarah's laughter.  Sarah was doing work in a tent when she overheard God's three messengers tell Abraham that his wife Sarah in her senior years and barren state would have a baby boy.  And Sarah giggled.  And God has a good sense of humor because Sarah's baby boy was named, "Giggling."  Isaac means "laughter."

"This old barren body is going to get pregnant and bear a child through whom I will become the Matriarch of many nations.  Yeah right!  Tell me another joke."

St. Paul writes the church as a kind of evidence of Sarah's laughter.  How so?  This old religion Judaism which has heretofore been limited only to people who will comply with the specific ritual laws, is going to be a vibrant and accessible faith expression to all of the peoples in the Roman World.  Yeah right.  No because, it would be more likely that the Jews would remain cloistered within their religious and ethnocentric world with specific rules to keep most people out of their community.

We might find some romantic charm in the lifestyles of the Shakers and the Amish.  And the Amish may allow anyone to join them in their community, as long as one follows Amish rules.  But logically, how likely is it that the Amish are going to convert many people to their way of life?

For the Gentiles of the Roman Empire, becoming an observant Jew was something akin for us becoming observant Amish.  Becoming Amish is too far from our normal experience to be accessible to us. 

St. Paul believed that Judaism in its practice had lost its accessibility to the peoples of the Roman Empire.  Conversely, he and Peter were surprised to see how the message of the Gospel was so successful among the Gentiles.  So, to build Christian communities in the Roman world, the ritual requirements of Judaism were dispensed with even while Christians borrowed and reinterpreted wholescale the Hebrew Scriptures which derived from the Jewish people.

St. Paul believed that the promise made to Abraham and Sarah about being parents of many nations happened because of Jesus Christ.  Christianity has made the Hebrew Scriptures more popular and widespread than it would have been if the Jesus Movement had been a short-lived and failing movement.

St. Paul believed that even though circumcision began as a practice with Abraham as an external marker of covenant with God;  St. Paul believe that faith was the interior marker of covenant with God.  Abraham and Sarah were the parents of the faith tradition; Jesus Christ and the church became the historical and social way in which the faith tradition of Abraham was brought to a greater number of people in the world.

So Judaism as a sort of vintage Sarah, could laugh that a child would be born out of it which would expand the genealogy of salvation history to the entire world.

The success of the Christian Movement is seen by the fact such success separated it from its parent, Judaism, and the offspring movement returns to try to convert the parent to the innovations of the Jesus Movement.

Today, we still live in the era of conversions.  People convert all the time.  Conversion is based upon the confidence that one has in one's beliefs, beliefs that can be recommendable to everyone.   People of all faith persuasions believe that their faith is recommendable to all.  Evangelism can be inspired by wanting to share our best with other people.  At the same time, we have to realize that there was a time and a place in our own lives which brought us to places of discovery about our faith.  And if the faith was not forced or coerced upon us, we should appreciate that evangelism starts with respecting the experiences of others.

We can appreciate the situation for the mission to the Jews.  Early Jewish followers of Jesus were troubled about the rejection of the priority of Jesus by the people of the synagogue.  At the same time, the early Christians believed that the Jesus Movement derived from Judaism as an authentic development from Judaism.  The motive to convince the Jews about Jesus can be understood as a dilemma for Jewish followers of Jesus.  Christianity derived from Judaism.  The Hebrew Scripture was the earliest Christian Bible and yet the official representatives of Judaism removed Christians from the synagogue.  The mission to convert the Jews to Christ needs to be understood as motivated by the fear of being disconnected from Judaism because the Jews rejected the Christian interpretations of Judaism.

Let us rejoice today in the power of the Gospel to convert us.  Let us not place wrong limitations upon the meaning of the Gospel.  For Jesus, the Gospel was the ancient message of the prophet Isaiah to bring good news to the poor and the captives.  And if we embrace the Gospel of Jesus, we will preach and live and convert others, not to agree with our religious party beliefs, we will convert others to the good news that can come to them when they have enough to eat, when they have health care, when they vocation and calling and purpose and hope and love and justice.

As we understand the meaning of Gospel, we should appreciate that the Gospel of the Isaian Scripture and the Gospel of Jesus are the same: God is active love and kindness; and that is how we should live and teach and convert others as well.  Amen