Going our separate ways.

Recently, I traveled down to Washington, DC to testify in front of the PCUSA’s Study Team on the denomination’s historic stance on the Two State Solution of the Israel/Palestine conflict. This study team was created by the action of the General Assembly of PCUSA in 2014 at the GA in Detroit. I went to testify to continue the stance of supporting Two States for Two People, which I can offer more at another time. However, I wanted to take some time to speak to my own journey, not just on this issue, but in my view of the church’s relationship with the Jewish traditions.

I have recently been doing a lot of studying in the period in which the early followers of Jesus began to “officially” split from the Jewish tradition. Some of the books I have read this summer are Constantine’s Sword by James Carroll, The Parting of the Ways by James E.G. Dunn and Paul and Palestinian Judaism by EP Sanders. While many of us think, and most are taught, that the church and Judaism split by the end of the 2nd Century, it is pretty clear that while some divisions had shown up by then, the split actually is later than the 2nd Century and clearly a couple of generations even after the Gospels and Paul’s Letters had been written.

Perhaps the most telling split occurred with the Bar Kochkba Rebellion from 132-135 CE which the Romans put down brutally, including the mass death of Jews who resided in Jerusalem and the surrounding Judea. At this point, the early believers fled Jerusalem and began to pursue the spread of its message outside of historic Israel. Still, though, many of the prayers and traditions of the early church remained consistent with Jewish traditions. The separation we know of today is not of that of the early church.

As I have studied this time period, I wonder, what has the church lost as we have moved from the Judaic understandings of the East to the Greco-Roman understandings of the West, and is there a way to perhaps recapture some of what has been lost?

This Fall, the Revised Common Lectionary has two Letters that speak to this commonality yet are frequently seen as “Christian” documents, the Letter of James and the Letter to the Hebrews. The Letter of James draws on the tradition of Jewish Wisdom Literature and speaks to the need to live according the Wisdom of God. Whereas the Letter to the Hebrews is written in such a way to seem to relate to Jews living in the Diaspora at the time of Jesus and equate Jesus to the High Priest. As such Jesus becomes the new mediator, in place of the Temple, between Israel and God, particularly as the Temple has been destroyed. Much of the thought in Hebrews is similar to the Hellenistic Jews in places like Alexandria, Egypt with some congruity to authors like Philo.

As we study these two texts, maybe we can further explore the message of Jesus, who as a Jew, came to Israel to renew the faith of Israel. Perhaps we can find that Jesus did not mean to give birth to a new faith and tradition but instead offers us an opportunity to live out the faith that began with Abraham and continues. As such, by studying and understanding Judaism, we can actually understand more of Jesus’ message to us.

It seems like a circle, maybe our separate ways can lead us back to one place, the Presence of God.