Fifty years after Nostra Aetate and seventy years after the Holocaust, we meet this evening to celebrate what our two communities have been able to accomplish and to assert what we still have to accomplish. It is helpful today to remember what we have been arguing about and how far we have come. In doing so, we ought not emphasize our disagreements at the risk of overshadowing those places where we can agree. I say again, we have accomplished much, we still have much more to accomplish.
Look how far we have come. For almost 2000 years Jews and Christians have been arguing over four main issues. The first and maybe the most difficult argument between Jews and Christians has to do with the credentials of Jesus to be the messiah. Religious Jews have for a long time expected that when the Messiah returns he will accomplish four tasks: the temple will be rebuilt, Jews will return to live in the land of Israel, there will be peace across the world and non-Jews will travel to Israel to study Torah with Jews. Christians have traditionally responded that God, in his freedom, has chosen to come to the world in Jesus Christ and to save the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus, Jewish expectations notwithstanding. So where has that left us today? While we can certainly agree to disagree on the matter of Jesus' credentials as messiah, we can agree that we are two communities committed to waiting for that time when God shall bring all things to their fit conclusion. We can and do unite around the expectation that God is not finished with God’s work and we wait together for that completion albeit with different accounts of what will occur at that time.
The second area of disagreement centers on the covenants. Religious Jews continue to hold on to the three covenants made with the Jewish people in the Bible, The Abrahamic, the Mosaic and the Davidic covenants. For many religious Jews these covenants continue to have import. For Christians, the New covenant established in and through Jesus has in some ways subsumed or fulfilled the Jewish covenants. But we can celebrate because we have, by the year 2015, come to again respectfully agree to disagree and to recognize the legitimacy of each other’s traditions and each other’s covenants.
A third area is in the matter of doing Torah vs. the primacy of faith in Jesus Christ. Religious Jews continue to believe that God so loved his people Israel that he gave them his only Torah (or teaching) that they might learn to serve God by living as people of character and courage. While religious Jews are a people of faith, for many Jews the secret resides in the doing. As the Talmud teaches us, “If I want to know the character of your faith, I will follow the feet rather than listen to the mouth.” You see, the secret to a relationship with God for Jews resides in the doing. Christians have continued to believe that faith in Christ is that which allows human beings to be related to God. While Christians certainly care about doing the right thing, the tradition or faith they have, for the most part, emphasizes the importance of believing. And yet, both Jews and Christians, and in particular Roman Catholics, have learned to respectfully acknowledge the importance of good works within each other’s traditions.
A fourth area where we have struggled is with the scriptures. For Jews the Torah and the Talmud remain the authoritative scriptures along with all sorts of rabbinic midrashim and commentaries. For Roman Catholics the scripture called the New Testament and the traditions of the Church hold the highest authority. Again we have not only come to respect each other’s scriptures, we have learned to study each other’s bibles and sometimes realized that perhaps our own traditions have much to learn from the other side.
All this we should and do applaud. We have come a long way since 1945. From Pope John the 23rd to Pope Francis today, we have seen increasing respect for the Jewish people, for Jewish tradition and for the State of Israel. And there have been a number of Jewish scholars who have rigorously studied the Christian and Roman Catholic tradition, including Paula Fredriksen, Amy Levine, Pamela Eisenbaum, Jon Levenson and Paul Nanos. There are also a number of Roman Catholic scholars studying Jewish traditional texts, working on the Holocaust and anti-semitism. We have all learned that the way other religions can help us deepen our relationship to and with our own religious tradition. Jews and Roman Catholics, scholars and laity have come together a number of times to study the horrific events leading up to and during the Holocaust. We have studied together the persecution of the Jews throughout the centuries and the Church has apologized for its own participation in those persecutions. Papal visits to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem across the decades have demonstrated the commitment of the Church to oppose anti-Semitism in all its forms and remain vigilant that never again will there be a Holocaust of the Jewish people. Rabbis and Priests teach at each other’s colleges and universities. I, myself, am a Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at a Lutheran affiliated university.
As I said we have accomplished much. But there is much more we must accomplish. A lot of our good will still needs to trickle down to the pews. Too many of our fellow believers do not know and have not studied each other’s scriptures and traditions. The more we engage each other’s traditions and learn from them, the more we will understand the virtues and limits of our own religion. While there have been some courses in Judaism and Christianity offered at our seminaries, more needs to be done to teach Priests and Rabbis how to educate their laity concerning the other’s traditions. Much more needs to be done on the Roman Catholic side with regard to the State of Israel. The complicated, difficult and tragic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians/Arabs will require a marked sensitivity to Israeli concerns for security as well as Palestinian desires for their own state. When violence occurs in Jerusalem, we must not be too quick to blame Israel. We must ask what has caused Israelis to be violent and what has caused Palestinians to use violence as a form of protest.
I have lived among Christians, in the upper Midwest, for the last thirty five years. I have found most people to be friendly and caring. My Christian friends and neighbors are amiable and tolerant. And yet many of them, week after week, attend Church services where texts which condemn the Jews are read out loud without explanation. These texts condemn “the Jews” for not believing and for betraying their Lord and savior Jesus Christ. I am not asserting nor do I believe that Christians are sitting in their pews week after week listening to the words of their scriptures and thinking to themselves: “I despise the Jews.” No, the words on Sunday morning are so familiar that most do not bother to analyze what they are hearing. The anti-Jewish words are embedded within the texts and liturgy of many Christian worship services. Despite Roman Catholic remorse over the Holocaust during the past 70 years, the potential toxicity of the texts has not been corrected, lessened or removed. The story remains the same. It is the same story that Nazis made sure to include in their invective against “the Jews.” Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, the Jewish Christ, came to his own people but as they rejected him, they are now rejected. To be sure, and fair, since the Holocaust there have been many Roman Catholic theologians and Church officials who have apologized, and explained again and again how hatred of Jews is not part of the New Testament. Many have declared that the Jewish people remain the people of God. They have theologized as to how Jews and Christians have much to learn from each other. But this theological get-alongism has not really affected the problem as much as it should. Week after week, the same texts keep being read out loud. Sunday morning after Sunday morning, mass after mass, the words are proclaimed out loud by pastors and priests without most pastors, priests or lay people in the pews even realizing that what they have just said or heard is anti-Jewish.
The problem has to do with the functional sense of scripture. It is not so much what the Bible says or is even interpreted to say, as to how it functions generation after generation at the point of the Christian pew. If the story keeps being told again and again and again the same way with no explanation week after week, the results have the inherent potential of once again functioning as a source for anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism.
I have a close friend, a New Testament scholar., who does not think that the anti-Jewish texts of the New Testament are central to the Christian message. He tells me that if there are Christians who read the New Testament and blame all Jews for the death of Jesus these people are misinterpreting the Biblical text. He teaches an introductory religion course. He structures his course on what he sees as a central common theme for Jews and Christians: hope after catastrophe. His working assumption is: in the Bible both Jews and Christians have had to figure out a way to keep on after catastrophe occurs. For Jews the catastrophes were the destruction of the first and second temple. For Christians it was the crucifixion of Christ. And for all of his students, it is the catastrophes that happen all the time to them, their parents, their country, everyday in their world. For my friend, the challenge is to figure out a way to have hope despite the present day disasters. God is not to be explained as much as to be addressed. The question is more important than the answer to the question because the question itself is a sign of hope. Hence, the question Jesus raises from the cross, “My God , My God, why have you abandoned me?” is a form of prayer and hope. For my friend this is the predicament of all people who have to live through craziness and still keep on keeping on. The incarnation of God, he tells me, assures us that God is aware and has experienced the suffering we experience. God becoming flesh allows and encourages us to protest to God about the danger of being flesh in this world.
While I appreciate the theological acumen of my close friend, I have a few problems with his formulation. First, I am not convinced that the New Testament does not contain a great deal of anti-Judaism. Indeed my friend tells me that every Gospel in the New Testament subverts or is trying to subvert Judaism. Throughout the New Testament if “the Jews” did not actually kill Jesus, they certainly are seen as accomplices to Jesus’ death. I have sat through enough Christian passion plays and seen enough Pharisees dressed in black plotting to kill Jesus dressed in white to conclude that the anti-Judaism of the New Testament remains alive and well despite my friend’s best intentions.
When I speak of “Christians”, I am aware that there are many different kinds of Christians and many different ways of being Christian. And there are many different attitudes and interpretations among Christians. All of that is irrelevant to my point. Regardless of how sincerely and well disposed Roman Catholics are toward Jews, after the Holocaust, the problem remains that there is an inherent anti-Judaism embedded within Christian tradition that has not been removed. Christianity is a religion which defines itself over and against Judaism. At the same time as it argues against Jewish tradition, it also proclaims that it is the fulfillment of that tradition. Christianity exists and has always existed in the historical tension between its own continuity and discontinuity with Jewish tradition. Jesus was Jewish. His disciples were Jewish; his mother was Jewish. For Christians to be Christian they must claim their radical origin from the Jewish tradition. But, for Christianity to be Christian, it must distance itself from the Jewish rabbinic tradition. Both must happen at the same time. Christianity is an apocalyptic gentile religion that trusts that God has come in the flesh and was betrayed by his own people, the Jews.
Having said all this, I do not believe that the traditional way of telling the Christian story can or will be altered. Jewish betrayal is at the heart of Christian proclamation no matter how much it is denied. The Catholic Eucharistic liturgy declares, “On the night in which he was betrayed . . .” Betrayal is central to the tradition. Some Christians have argued that the words about betrayal mean to say that all people have and continue to betray or hand over Jesus. They mean to say that “we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is very nice and I suppose true to Christian anthropology but that is not what the New Testament texts say. Each gospel tells the story of how Jews and/or their representatives betrayed their own messiah. “He came to his own and his own knew him not.” (John 1:11.)
To be clear, I am not saying that all Christians are inherently anti-Jewish. I am saying that the Christian textual tradition tells an anti-Jewish story. And this story continues to be repeated again and again week in and week out. And it was this narrative tradition that Nazis used in their scheme to destroy every living Jew and to create a Christianity without Judaism or Jewish roots. The fact is that Christianity is infected with a disease I call anti-Judaism. Is there an antidote for this poison? Yes, but it will be very difficult.
It will involve Christians being self-critical of their tradition, taking time and energy to train their pastors, priests and people in the pews to recognize the damaging possibilities of the biblical texts. Recognizing the disease is only half the battle, though a very important part. Pastors, priests and lay people must be inoculated against the poison within the texts. This next step will require the courage, at each reading of the texts, to remind listeners not to assume that “the Jews” mentioned in the text are the same Jews we meet day to day. Week in and week out pastors and priests will have to continually and constantly warn their hearers to be aware of the potential to misunderstand the text. If this sounds idealistic and difficult, that's because it is. And, many pastors, priests and lay people will not think it necessary. They will not have the time, conviction or courage.
Yet some have begun the long process of extracting the poisonous venom lying within the texts. As we sit here, there are Catholic scholars, priests, nuns and a few lay people working to repair the anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism within their tradition.
On May 4, 2001, at the 17th meeting of the International Liaison Committee in New York, Church officials stated that they would change how Judaism is dealt with in Catholic seminaries and schools. In part, they stated:
"The curricula of Catholic seminaries and schools of theology should reflect the central importance of the Church's new understanding of its relationship to Jews....Courses on the Bible, developments by which both the Church and rabbinic Judaism emerged from early Judaism will establish a substantial foundation for ameliorating "the painful ignorance of the history and traditions of Judaism of which only negative aspects and often caricature seem to form part of the stock ideas of many Christians."
"Courses dealing with the biblical, historical and theological aspects of relations between Jews and Christians should be an integral part of the seminary and theological curriculum, and not merely electives. All who graduate from Catholic seminaries and theology schools should have studied the revolution in Catholic teaching on Jews and Judaism from Nostra aetate to the prayer of Pope John Paul II in Jerusalem at the Western Wall on March 26, 2000....For historic reasons, many Jews find it difficult to overcome generational memories of anti-Semitic oppression. Therefore: Lay and Religious Jewish leaders need to advocate and promote a program of education in our Jewish schools and seminaries – about the history of Catholic-Jewish relations and knowledge of Christianity and its relationship to Judaism....Encouragement of dialogue between the two faiths does involve recognition, understanding and respect for each other's beliefs, without having to accept them. It is particularly important that Jewish schools teach about the Second Vatican Council, and subsequent documents and attitudinal changes that opened new perspectives and possibilities for both faiths.
So, we are trying and we must continue to try."
As for me, I respect the Roman Catholic tradition for its insights into the nature of human nature. I respect a tradition that teaches its followers to trust in God and to stand with the neighbor in pain. I respect a tradition that knows that evil is real and insists that Christians must do what they can to do resist it. I respect a tradition that speaks eloquently about the Grace of God. And I respect a tradition that is trying to examine those places where its own teaching has in the past caused pain and persecution. As we grow in respect and engagement with each other’s traditions, let us each do what we can do to make sure the process of healing continues. We have accomplished much. And we have much to accomplish. Let us continue our good work
