SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20 2024 - THE GOOD NEWS OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
October 20, 2024
Deborah Laforet
The Good News of the Hebrew Scriptures
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by
your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
I watched a 13 minute video this week on the history of European antisemitism. It’s not
an easy watch, especially knowing that its origins lie in Christianity. I’m going to read an
excerpt from the transcript of this video on the very beginnings of the oppression of Jews.
Jesus was put to death at the hands of Roman authorities under Pontius Pilate in Judea,
but the gospel accounts were interpreted as blaming all Jews for the crucifixion...Soon after the
crucifixion, Roman armies destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews were exiled and scattered—
to live as a dispersed minority. By the 5th century, Christianity had become the dominant religion
in the Roman Empire.
The early Christian church portrayed Jews as unwilling to accept the word of God;
illuminations showed Satan binding the eyes of the Jews. Some church leaders intensified the
charge—condemning Jews as agents of the devil and murderers of God. The accusation was not
renounced until the 1960s when the Second Vatican Council officially repudiated the ancient
charge that Jews had murdered Christ.1
As Christians, we need to be aware of our history and of how antisemitism still lives
amongst and within us. In the United Church, I don’t experience obvious forms of antisemitism,
but they do often show up in subtle ways. As the dispute grows between Israel and Palestine, the
line between disagreeing with Israel and its policies and hate towards Jews has become more
blurred and antisemitic acts have become for common. We, as a Christian church, need to be
aware of how anti-semitism might lie within us, unbeknownst to us.
This is why, for the next month and half, we are going to take a deeper look at the first
Testament in our Bible, the stories and writings of the Jewish people, and we will be talking
about some of the myths and misconceptions that Christians have of, what Christians call, the
Old Testament.
1 Why the Jews? History of European Antisemitism
Let’s start from the beginning. Our bible contains two testaments. Traditionally, we call
them the Old Testament and the New Testament. The New Testament contains the four gospels -
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four different versions of the story of Jesus. It also contains the
Acts of the Apostles, which tells the stories of Jesus’ followers after his death, letters from the
Apostle Paul and others, and finally the book of Revelation. These stories and letters take up
only a quarter of our bible. The other three quarters are the stories of the Hebrew or Jewish
people before Jesus.
Jews call this the Tanakh. What the Jews have is very different from we have in the
Christian bible. The books are in a very different order, but basically it contains the Law or the
Torah, which is the first five books of the bible, the books of the prophets, and the writings,
which consists of religious poetry and wisdom literature, like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and others.
Christians typically call this part of our bible the Old Testament, which can actually be
offensive to Jews. Calling something old can mean that it’s wise, antique, and valuable, but most
Christians don’t see the Old Testament in this way. Usually, Christians see the Old Testament as
outdated and obsolete, which would understandably be offensive to Jews for whom the Hebrew
bible is central and sacred.
As they were for Jesus and the writers of our New Testament. Many will mistakenly say
that Jesus came to abolish or replace the teachings of the Old Testament, but in fact, he said that
he came to fulfill those scriptures. We’ll dig into that at a later time.
Then we have Paul. Paul is instrumental in spreading the news about Jesus. He was one
of Jesus’ greatest followers even though he never met Jesus. He talked about the scriptures and
the Law, and he wasn’t talking about the gospels, because they hadn’t even been written yet.
You see, our New Testament is not put together in the order the books were written. I
recommend a book by Marcus Borg called, “Evolution of the Word,” in which he offers some
commentary on each of the New Testament books but mostly it’s a book in which he places them
in the order most think they were written. The gospels do not come first and Revelation does not
come last.
Paul, in writing his letters, preached the good news, and for Christians that can mean a
variety of things, but usually the good news is that Christ is Risen, it’s about salvation in Christ,
it’s about freedom from our sins through his death. For Paul though, it was more than that. In
this short passage that Lyndsey read for us today from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he tells them
that God gave good news to Abraham that all nations would be blessed in him. He tells the
Galatians, who were probably not Jewish, that the Good news given to Abraham, way back in the
first book of our bible, was for them too and for all.
If we abandon or dismiss the first three quarters of our bible because we believe it
obsolete, we lose the grounding of the good news that Paul shared. We lose the fundamental
stories that made Jesus who he was, that shaped him and his ministry, and those of his followers,
including Paul. We often seem to forget that Jesus and his followers were Palestinian Jews,
whose ancestors for thousands of years walked that land, who shared stories of their ancestors,
both good and bad, who conquered and were conquered, and who, through these stories, through
the cry of the prophets, through experiences of trial, temptation, and sorrow, sought to know who
God was for them, how God was a part of their lives, and they struggled with the questions we
still ask today: Where is God in the midst of suffering? Why does God allow bad things to
happen? Has God abandoned us? How does God’s love get expressed in the world? Does God
love this world? Does God love me, even through brokenness and sinfulness? Throughout the
bible, we journey with people who have continually struggled with each other, with what justice
and compassion look like, and with the very idea of God, all with which we still struggle today.
Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were not perfect; they made mistakes. In fact, if you read
the stories of the people of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, you will see they all are far from
perfect, but God remains with them through it all - that’s the good news. To Abraham, God says,
“I will make you most fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and rulers will spring from you.
7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your
descendants after you for generations to come. I will be your God, and the God of your
descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you, this land in which
you are an alien, the land of Canaan; it will be yours and your descendants’, and I will be their
God as well.”
This is the good news that Paul shares with the Galatians. God is there for them as well.
And this is good news for us. God is with us too. As Christians, we carry the additional good
news through Jesus of life after death and that death does not have the last word, but there is so
much good news to share, good news for Christians, good news for Jews, good news for people
of there earth, and in the next few weeks, we are going to continue to share the good news as
found in the Hebrew Scriptures.
This is your invitation to join us on this deep dive into the Hebrew Scriptures. You are
encouraged to ask your questions along the way and together we will explore this very large
portion of our bible that is filled with sacred stories, holy poetry, stories of deep regret, injustice,
trauma, and despair, and stories of justice, compassion, joy, forgiveness, and love.
The Jewish people are our siblings in faith. They are our ancestors, they are part of the
family tree, a different branch, just as Islam is a different branch of this tree. We all have
different beliefs and different way of expressing those beliefs but we are grounded in these
ancient stories of creation, of covenant, of prophesying, of care for the vulnerable, and deep roots
of worship and praise of this one God - Yahweh, Almighty God, Redeemer and Creator, God of
love and justice, Holy Mystery. May we celebrate the similarities that bind us and the
differences that make us unique. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Genesis 17:1-8, 15-16 & Galatians 3:8-9
(Introduce yourself. - Do not move or tap microphone.)
Today I am reading two passages. The first is from the first book
in our bible, Genesis, where we hear promises from God to
Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. The second is from
Paul’s letter to Galatians, which comments on this story from
Genesis.
The first reading is from Genesis, chapter 17, verses one to eight
and 15 to 16. I am reading from the Inclusive Bible.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared and said, “I am God
Almighty; walk in my presence and be blameless. 2 I will make my covenant
between you and me and I will increase your numbers exceedingly.”
3 Abram fell on his face before God and God said to him, 4 “This is my covenant
with you: You will be the ancestor of many nations. 5 You are no longer to be
called Abram, “Respected Parent,” but Abraham, “Progenitor of a Multitude,” for
you are the progenitor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you most fruitful,
and I will make nations of you, and rulers will spring from you. 7 I will establish
my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants
after you for generations to come. I will be your God, and the God of your
descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you, this
land in which you are an alien, the land of Canaan; it will be yours and your
descendants’, and I will be their God as well.”
God continued, “As for Sarai, her name will now be Sarah, “Noblewoman." 16 I
will bless her and I will give you a child by her. I will bless her, and she will
become nations; rulers of peoples will come from her.”
Now, I’ll read two verses from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter three, verses
eight and nine.
8 Because scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles through
faith, it foretold this Good News to Abraham, “All nations will be blessed in you.”
9 So then all who believe are blessed along with Abraham, who believed first.
May the Spirit guide our understanding of this holy scripture.