1 The Rev. Margaret Cunningham B Lent 2 March 18, 2018 The events of last August in Charlottesville, Virginia, proved, in case there was any doubt, that the twin evils of racism and anti-semitism are alive and well in twentyfirst century America. And not only alive they are vigorous, organized, and bold. Impossible! we cry. This is not who we are! The land of the free and the home of the brave is not, could not be hospitable to white nationalism! The proximate cause of the Charlottesville demonstration was the decision to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from its prominent place in the town; one might, therefore, have assumed that African-Americans were the sole target of the protests, motivated by nostalgia for the days of slavery, which Jeff Sessions (is he still the Attorney General?) considers the Golden Age of the American family. Yet neo-nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and white nationalists want to rid the country of all who do not conform to the Aryan ideal, and among the chants of that Friday night could be heard, Jews will not replace us. In the first century BCE, Jews were a protected minority in the Roman Empire. Romans honored ancient religions, and Jews were exempt from military service, free from the obligation of pagan cultic sacrifice, and permitted a certain autonomy. Rome even recognized a Jewish patriarchate in Palestine. 1 As Jews, the first followers of Jesus shared in these privileges. 1 James Carroll, Constantine s Sword: The Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001) 167,169.
2 Then, in the late first century, Jewish Christians were expelled from the synagogues. Perhaps it was retaliation for this expulsion and the resulting loss of protection and privilege, perhaps it was the influence of the increasing number of Gentiles in the Jesus movement, perhaps it was exasperation at the refusal of their fellow Jews to accept the divinity of Jesus. For whatever reason, the church to its everlasting shame, ignited and fueled the flame of religious anti-judaism that became ethnic anti-semitism, beginning with the appropriation of the Hebrew prophets. Among the most well-known, beloved, and misunderstood passages in the Hebrew Bible is today s reading from Jeremiah, known as the Oracle of Promise. The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, composed in the late first century, points explicitly to this passage as justification for the supersessionist claim that Christians have replaced the Jews as God s favored. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. With whom? With Israel! We have come to think of a covenant as a solemn and voluntary agreement between two more or less equal parties, but the original meaning of the Hebrew word for covenant, berith implies first and foremost the notion of imposition, liability, or obligation... 2 In the Greek version, the word used is, which means both covenant in the original sense and testament, the disposition, declaration of the divine will. 3 The terms here are essentially synonymous. The Mosaic covenant, the law, the Torah is the 2 Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament II, 274. 3 Theological Dictionary of the New Testament II, 127.
3 free gift of God,... the declaration of [God s] saving will,... the revelation of grace. 4... Law and covenant are bound together from the beginning... 5 But, thanks to Paul, law became a four-letter word, a concept that gives rise to sin and leads to bondage. In his view, Jesus has replaced the Torah. But Jeremiah s point is that the Torah will be internalized, not replaced. I think of the Torah as a manual for life, and Jesus as the instructional video. The prophet continues the divine proclamation, No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. Knowledge of God will be innate in everyone, regardless of status. There will be no need for catechisms, creeds, and dogmas; proselytizing and religious instruction will be superfluous. Theologians and preachers will be out of work. (Yes, I am aware of the irony of my words!) This is a glorious vision and it is a vision for Israel. It may come as a shock to some of you that, despite centuries of Christian propaganda, the great Hebrew prophets did not foretell the coming of Jesus. In contrast to the popular longing for a warrior king to save Israel, the prophets insist that the Messiah will be someone of humility not grandeur, gentleness not violence, spiritual not physical power, compassion not coldness of heart and will, therefore, be rejected by the people. Because Jesus fits this description, his followers are convinced that the prophets must have had him in mind centuries earlier. 4 Theological Dictionary of the New Testament II, 127. 5 Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament II, 274.
4 The new covenant is born of and based on divine forgiveness. Christians tend to caricature Israel s God as harsh, angry, and punitive, and to associate forgiveness only with Jesus. Yet the concept, is used frequently in the Hebrew scriptures only of God. 6 All the newness is possible, Walter Brueggemann writes, because Yahweh has forgiven. [...] This is an uncommon statement, utterly Jewish, utterly grace-filled [...] Jewish faith is deeply rooted in forgiveness....christian participation is utterly grounded in Jewish categories and claims, and can have participation on no other terms. 7 Time and again Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven. Get up and walk. He does not require prior repentance any more than God does in this sweeping pronouncement of pardon in Jeremiah. Forgiveness comes first. It is there, waiting for us. The thing is that we cannot absorb the magnitude of this gift until and unless we acknowledge the depth of our need for it. As Gil Bailie observes, most of the mischief in the world is done by unforgiven people, people who do not know that they have been forgiven, because they do not recognize anything for which they need forgiveness. Hebrew poetry employs a technique known as parallelism, in which a thought is expressed and then repeated in different words which elucidate or elaborate upon the original point. God says, I will forgive their iniquity/and remember their sins no 6 Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament X, 259. 7 Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998) 294-95.
5 more. These are not two separate divine acts: forgiving is not remembering, forgiving is forgetting. This sounds so easy. Forgive and forget, we say blithely. Then I think of all the times I have been positively brimming over with forgiveness for some perceived slight or injury, while the affront continues to reside somewhere in my memory. I have not forgotten. God has. That is one difference between us. Consideration of context came late to biblical studies. Until relatively recently, the popular belief was that the prophets utter timeless, context-free truths. It is now understood that they are addressing the issues of their particular time and place. The precise dating of Jeremiah is uncertain, but it hardly matters whether he spoke shortly before or shortly after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587. His world was one of terror, destruction, and chaos, and he uttered the Oracle of Promise precisely at a time of historical brokenness when there seem[ed] no ground for hope. 8. There have been many periods of historical brokenness, of which the Egyptian captivity is a prototype. The greater danger in such periods is not the foreign power or homegrown megalomaniac, but our acquiescence to empire s insistence that everything is as it should be. Brueggemann says,...real criticism begins in the capacity to grieve because that is the most visceral announcement that things are not right. In the 8 Walter Brueggemann, A Social Reading of the Old Testament: Prophetic Approaches to Israel s Communal Life (Minneapolis: Fortress,1994) 47.
6 Hebrews enslaved in Egypt Moses awakened an alternative consciousness of grieving, criticizing, and acting. 9 Yet the Moses movement is too radical for Israel, Brueggemann writes, and before long the old history of Pharaoh is continued in the monarchy of Israel. 10 And in every subsequent autocrat who rules through fiat, fear, and lies. If we submit our situation to the text, as Brueggemann suggests, we will conclude, as he does, It takes no great imagination to conclude that the present disruption of Western culture [...] is a fit place from which to engage the tradition of Jeremiah again. It is a daring notion that holiness is at work in our own barbaric setting, but no more daring than the parallel claim was in that ancient situation. 11 Have mercy on us, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out our offenses: The toxic patriotism that sees no evil and hears no evil, turning a blind eye to racism and anti-semitism. The American exceptionalism that says, Do as we say, not as we do. The Christian triumphalism that usurps God s promises, claiming that the church is the new Israel, and relegating our religious forebears to irrelevance and worse. The current chaos, corruption, intrigue, and incompetence in Washington was hitherto unimaginable. But chaos is the raw material of creation. And something new is happening! Paul Krugman speaks of a powerful upwelling of decency 12 spreading 9 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1978) 19. 10 Prophetic Imagination 109. 11 Commentary on Jeremiah xiv. 12 Paul Krugman, The Force of Decency Awakens, NYT, February 28, 2018.
7 from two unlikely sources: high school students in Florida and women in pink pussy hats. God has forgiven us. May we accept God s forgiveness with deep gratitude and humility. And, in the knowledge that we have received the one gift of which we are most in need and most undeserving, may we seek to honor the new covenant in every heart. Amen. Trinity Episcopal Church Santa Barbara, CA March 18, 2018