On Gentiles and Messianic Jews

Posted on February 17, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I want to learn more about Judaism, but I don’t want to become Jewish. Well, in the way that Jesus meant, yes, I do want to be Jewish. In the way that Judaism is now, no, I don’t. I can’t give up Jesus.

It isn’t out of fear that I say that. Years ago it would have been easy to walk away from Christianity, and with it, Jesus. Years ago I thought I was Christian because I believed that Jesus was the son of God, was God in human form. I still believe that but there is so much more to it now. Now it seems like every month I get closer to understanding who Jesus is, not who he was.’

Because I see Jesus as alive and present in my life, I can’t cut him out of it. This wasn’t so ten years ago.

Part of how I’m coming to know Jesus is through his culture. If I made a friend from say, Uzbekistan, I’d try to learn more about her by learning more about where she came from. What are the foods, the dances, the songs that she grew up with? What are the values she was raised with? This will help me to understand her better. Her idioms will make more sense. Her habits won’t seem out of place to me. Sometimes, to understand “where someone is coming from” you actually have to understand where they are coming from.

Now, Jesus is Jewish. There is no way around that. He was born and lived as a Jew. So I want to learn more about Jewish culture.

I’ve been reading about Judaism but I want to experience it. It is the difference between reading a recipe versus actually cooking it. So I need to interact with people who are Jewish and participate in their customs, rituals, and holidays.

But the last thing I want to do is make them feel uncomfortable. It is super important that they understood that I’m not there to convert them, nor am I there to convert to becoming Jewish.

So I thought, how about a Messianic Jewish congregation? This seems ideal. Since I live in a major city there has to be one. I’ve found one listed online and it seems exactly what I want. These are Jews who see Jesus as the Messiah, yet retain the Jewish customs that are in harmony with Jesus’ teachings.

Now I have to admit that I’m a little amused by the term “Messianic Jew”. If you are from any background and you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, then you are Christian, by default, right? There are some people these days who are Christian and add extra adjectives to that term to separate themselves from mainstream Christians, but they are still Christian first. But I digress.

So this congregation looks ideal. And then I read the fine print. They say essentially they believe that Jews and Gentiles are equal, but Jews are more equal. Gentiles are welcome to worship with them, and have a role to play, but the role is to help convert more Jews to their side. But still, the Jews, by virtue of being Jews, are better.

I cannot handle that attitude. It isn’t in line with the teachings of Jesus at all.

Jesus erased all distinctions. In Jesus women and men are equal. All races are equal. There are no leaders or subordinates.

If they truly believe that there is a distinction between Jews who believe in Jesus and Gentiles who believe in Jesus, then they have missed the whole message of Jesus. It isn’t about blood, or genetics. It isn’t about history or ancestry. It isn’t about the past. It is all about the present. It is about who you are, right now, and how you have chosen to live your life. If you have accepted Jesus as the Messiah, then you are equal with every other person who has done the same.

On separation and inclusion.

Posted on February 17, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

The Jewish rules of kashrut, the kosher rules, were to ensure purity and separation. They were to keep the Jews safe from being diluted or dirty. The rules reminded them they were separate and special. There were other, similar rules that ensured that they kept apart from people who were not Jewish. These rules created lines of “us and them” and demarcated what was “other”.

Jesus came to erase those lines. He says that there are no distinctions between secular and sacred, between earthly and heavenly. He says in the lingo of today that “It’s all good”.

And it is all good. God looked at the world after he made it and said it was good. God made and continues to make the world. If we believe in a good and loving God, we have to believe that God will only make good things, and that includes people.

They may not seem good to us at the time. They may in fact seem very bad and broken. But if we have accepted Jesus into our hearts and lives, we have to believe that they are in fact good at the core, because Jesus believes that.

Jesus came to say that nothing is broken and nothing is dirty. Jesus came to say that everything is safe. Jesus showed us by getting right in the middle of the world that it is safe.

Jesus touched lepers and didn’t get leprosy. By touching them, he not only healed their condition, he healed their relationship with the community. They were no longer excluded.

Jesus says that when we separate ourselves, when we play it safe, we aren’t being love made visible. He says we aren’t showing trust in God as a loving God when we exclude others.

Jesus came to join together heaven and earth, God and humans. Jesus came to heal all divisions. When we divide, when we exclude, when we limit, we are not being like Jesus. We are operating out of fear instead of love. We are saying that our decisions keep us safe. We are saying that rules keep us safe.

When we do this, we are taking our lives into our own hands instead of putting them in God’s hands.

Sign of the times.

Posted on February 16, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I was driving along a back road and saw one of those changeable signs for a church. You know, the ones with clever sayings on them. Little quips to make you smile, or to make you think, or both.

I saw one that I’ve seen before, but this time it struck me differently. It said –

“Sign broken. Message inside.”

It seemed clever when I first saw this many years ago. You can’t get the whole story from reading the headline. They want to tell you the whole story, not just a bit of it.

Now I think it is terrible.

What they are saying is that you have to come inside. What they are saying is that the only way they will share the message with you is for you to stop going where you are going, park, get out, and come in.

But wait. It isn’t just any time they will tell you. It is only certain times. When it is convenient for them. Most likely Sunday morning. Maybe Sunday evening and Wednesday evening too. Maybe. And you won’t get it all in one meeting. You’ll have to come back. A lot.

This sign is saying they will only share the message with you on their turf and on their terms.

To give up a chance to let them know that they are loved by God by insisting that they do things your way is to miss the point of the message.

There are plenty of people who will never go inside a church. There are plenty of people who used to go and will never go again. Both don’t go because of this very attitude.

Jesus came where people were. He didn’t ask them to come to him. Our calling as Christians in this world is to meet people where, and how, they are, not where we want them to be, or how we want them to be.

The message is simple, and it can be said on a sign. It doesn’t require a lot of time. It doesn’t require that someone stop and get out of their car. It doesn’t require that they come in. It doesn’t require that be a member of the church.

It can be something like this –
You are loved.
Be love in the world.

The message is more important than membership. It is essential that Christians understand that it is their responsibility to spread the message of love by being loving. To be loving is to show kindness to people where and as they are, and not to insist that they do things where and as you are.

If we as Christians are not loving in how we share the message of love, then how is anyone going to listen to it?

Rules versus love.

Posted on February 14, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Sometimes rules help. Sometimes they hinder.

There have been times where I have created a rule to help me on a project. This is useful when I have either no idea what I’m going to do next or worse, I have no idea how to start. If I’ve fun out of ideas for what to make in my beaded creations I’ll grab two bins and make up a rule that I can only make jewelry from those bins. If I want to write a poem I’ll pick a poem form like a sestina and use it.

Sometimes having a structure or a framework at the beginning is just the start I need to get things rolling right along.

But then sometimes a rule gets in the way. Sometimes the rule worked at the beginning but then no longer serves its intended purpose.

The goal is more important than the rule. If the rule no longer moves you towards your goal then drop the rule and either use another one or figure it out as you go. It is just like driving and then encountering a traffic jam. You need to get to your destination. Do you stay on the freeway, stuck in the traffic jam, or do you get off at the nearest exit and take the side road? If the situation is dire enough, you may even have to abandon your car and walk.

This is exactly what Jesus did when he threw away a lot of the Jewish rules of purity and separation. The goal is live in love. The goal is to show that love to God and then likewise to everyone else. He realized that a lot of the rules were no longer working. They were being done out of habit or even out of fear. But they weren’t getting people towards the goal. In some ways they were drawing people away from the goal because performing the actions had become the goal.

Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath. That was “work.” So he was breaking a rule.

Luke 13:10-14
10 One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight.12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!”13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! 14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”

Then Jesus immediately points out that there is another rule that allows for it.

Luke 13:15-17
15 But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? 16 This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” 17 This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did.

When Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, he broke a rule.

Mark 3:1-6
Now He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a paralyzed hand. 2 In order to accuse Him, they were watching Him closely to see whether He would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 He told the man with the paralyzed hand, “Stand before us.” 4 Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do what is good or to do what is evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.5 After looking around at them with anger and sorrow at the hardness of their hearts, He told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.

It was after this that the leaders started actively plotting to kill him. He hasn’t “worked.” He’s healed. They are missing the point of the rule. The rule of Sabbath is to heal us. This man was being healed on the Sabbath.

So the punishment for healing on the Sabbath is death? Seems a bit excessive.

The purpose of the Sabbath rules of refraining from work is to ensure that everyone rests. We all work too much. We all spend way too much time being human doings rather than human beings. If we don’t take a day off to rest we will wear ourselves out. The week is just like the day. If we don’t take time at the end of the day to sleep we get frazzled and frayed. If we don’t take time at the end of the week to rest we get unraveled entirely.

But the rules had gone too far. The rules were meant to keep the Jewish people mindful of their special covenant with God, and to make them mindful of their duty to God. Many times throughout their history they had collectively forgotten this goal and had suffered greatly for it. Throughout their wanderings in the desert large swaths of the Jewish people were destroyed by God for getting off track and out of line. Many of the Jewish rules for how to conduct your life were created to keep God’s wrath at a low simmer rather than from boiling over.

But Jesus came to point out that the rules were not only getting them towards the goal of loving God, but they were simply being used as a stopgap to keep God loving them. They didn’t get that if they showed love to God, then God would show love to them. They were acting out of fear rather than love.

Book – what to include?

Posted on February 14, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Dear Readers –

I am going to put some of this blog into a book. Do you have any particular posts that come to mind that you think I should include? What has spoken to you? What resonates? What fires you up and gets you going? What consoles you? Please let me know the title.

And, what do you think is a fair price that you would be willing to pay for a such a collection?

Thanks!

-Betsy

Unboxing Jesus

Posted on February 13, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I went to a church once to visit with a friend and a lady there invited me to join them. I told her I had a church that I went to. This wasn’t enough for her.

I had a coworker once who insisted that I come to her church. She knew that I went every Sunday to my church. That wasn’t good enough for her, either. She told me that she didn’t think God was in my church.

I told her that God isn’t in a box. God isn’t just in one place. God is everywhere.

Look at Jesus, after the resurrection. He is the disappearing rabbit in the hat. He suddenly appears in a locked room. He disappears again. He is wherever he wants to be, and nothing can stop him.

He isn’t in one denomination, or one particular building. He doesn’t speak through one particular minister.

You can find God everywhere. You can find God’s message in a magazine or in a book on deep sea diving. I have a friend who says he finds God in recipe books. You can find God’s message in a Goodwill store. God hides in plain sight.

Jesus has left the building. We have to think outside of the box. We have to think outside of the church building.

It isn’t about worshipping God. It is about serving God. We’d all be better off if we spent that hour at a soup kitchen instead of singing hymns.

Kindergarten 2-12-14. Boundaries

Posted on February 13, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Today I had a lot of students! M and D, (new students from last week), along with J, S, and V. S once again did not want to work with me. He said that he doesn’t like to read, and since there is almost always reading going on when I tutor, he doesn’t want to. His loss, but other student’s gain. It means more time with the ones who want to work.

We were working with reading easy books, sight words, and numbers today. Each student has a box with books and sight word cards that are at their level. I started with M, in part because he was first on my list but also in part because he was sitting at the edge of the classroom by the door. It seems that he had gotten a little rambunctious during class earlier so he was sent to sit in the doorway to cool down. This is not the first time that I’ve seen him there.

He read two books to me, but then admitted that he had them memorized. He was using the pictures as a clue to what was on the page. This isn’t reading. This is an adaptive technique. This is what you do if you can’t read and you want to make it look like you can. I totally get that. He’s faking it, and doesn’t know he shouldn’t be faking it. The more he relies on being able to memorize, the less he is going to be able to learn new things. When he memorizes he can only do things he has done before.

I got to work with D, the girl from last week who was out. She is a very shy Hispanic girl. She is quite far behind on reading at this point. I suspect I will work with her again.

I worked with J and this time I decided to be firm about actually working. In the past he has occasionally thrown the things we were working with on the floor and shoved them around the table. He is rather wild. I just don’t have time for wild and it isn’t a great behavior to encourage. So the first time he dropped a book on the floor I asked him not to do that. The second time he did was soon afterwards and I said “OK, we’re done” and started scooping up the materials. He got it. He understood I was serious. And he worked and didn’t goof off the rest of our time together.

I’ve not gotten any training on this. I have tutored college students with learning disabilities. Kindergarteners should be easy right? But I don’t have children, and I’ve never spent that much time around them. This experience is certainly on the job training.

Part of what I’m learning is how to tell when the child is legitimately bored or uninterested, and when they are just messing around. Sometimes they just want to play. Sometimes they want to distract me from working with them, which then means they want to play.

I get that. I like to play too. But this is kindergarten, not daycare. It is hard to tell sometimes. There is a bit of dovetailing between the two. The teacher makes work look like play a lot. But I still have to get them to work on the assignment or we are both wasting our time.

It reminds me of when I first started working at the library. I had to set boundaries and limits, otherwise it would all become a big mess right in front of me. When I am at the desk, I do one thing at a time.

I believe that multitasking is just Newspeak for screwing three things up at once. So I had to set limits with the patrons. I had to decide what I would accept and allow and what I wouldn’t. Generally what I won’t allow is someone cutting line unless there is a legitimate emergency. Wanting to have their DVDs checked in right away so they can get more is not an emergency. Also, if I’m getting someone a library card, I have them stay in front of me while they fill it out and I type. This prevents other patrons from interrupting. I think it is best. Otherwise I’ll end up with three patrons who all want cards at once.

I’ve seen how much of a train wreck things become when it isn’t done like this. You can’t please everybody at once, and the only way to do things well is to focus on the person in front of you.

But I don’t really know the rules with five year olds. I’ve tutored for three years and I figure it out a little bit more every week. Perhaps if I tutored every day I’d know how to do it better. But then I realize that each child is different. Each child has her own unique and special way of understanding the world. And while I’m trying to teach her how to read by learning these arbitrary squiggles that we use for letters, she is showing me inside her world.

It is pretty amazing.

I’m grateful for the time I get to work with them, and I’m further reminded that I don’t think I would have the patience to be a teacher or a mom. I can borrow them for few minutes once a week and I’m overwhelmed.

Church refugee. On circle, and communion.

Posted on February 13, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’ve met so many refugees from church recently. We are starting to find each other. We are all people who went to church for many years because we love Jesus. We left church because we weren’t finding him there.

So many of us feel hurt by church. We were made fun of or silenced. We were mocked for our gifts and talents. It seems that all we were wanted for was our money. We were expected to sit down and shut up and listen to the minister and pay our tithes and then go home and be equally passive. If we read the Bible for ourselves and asked questions we were discouraged. We knew in our hearts that this wasn’t right. We knew that God wanted more of us.

We tried to make it work in church. We volunteered for more activities. We were on committees. We were in several different groups. We were active. We were the first at the church and the last to leave on Sunday morning.

But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for us, and it wasn’t enough for God. We were trying to make it work.

So we left. Some of us left the churches we’d put a lot of time and money into. Some of us left the churches that we were raised in, that our families still go to.

Several of us have found each other in a circle gathering. We share time together, and we are honest and open. Each person gets to talk, and every person listens. This is so different from church as we know it.

But for me, there is one thing missing. We don’t invite Jesus into it.

This isn’t an interfaith gathering. We are refugees from church, remember? We are people who left church because we couldn’t find Jesus there. While many of us think that Buddha and Rumi are enlightened beings and we like to share their quotes, we are still afraid in these gatherings to invite Jesus into it.

Why is this? Have we thrown out the baby with the bathwater? Are we afraid to bring Jesus into our circle because we associate Jesus with the people we left? If people are hateful, they don’t have Jesus. If there is love, then Jesus is there. If there was love at our last church, we would have stayed.

We left because we felt undervalued, underappreciated. We left because we were silenced. We left because we knew that the car that is church was going off the road and to stay in it would have meant we were going to go off the cliff with it. We left because we’d rather walk towards what is right than go quickly towards what isn’t.

So while we are reevaluating what church is, what community is, we aren’t taking the Guide along with us. We aren’t inviting Jesus into our circle, into our hearts.

I’m considering hosting my own circle, and I want to have communion. From all I’ve read of the words of Jesus and from my personal prayer time I’ve realized that you don’t have to be ordained to do this. That is yet another method of controlling people. Jesus didn’t create the institution of priests. Jesus did away with all of that and gave the power to everybody, with no distinctions. Jesus made us all equal.

I’m learning more and more about Judaism, and it is amazing how diluted the Christian communion service is. It is simply a Sabbath meal at the dinner table. It has been boiled down to the bread and the wine. There are two candlesticks as well. The chalice and the paten are the Kiddush cup and the saucer. It is like Christians are playing house. The congregation doesn’t know about the Jewish roots of this ritual.

I’m thinking about making it as inclusive as possible – having kosher grape juice and gluten-free matzo. While I’d love to serve actual wine, it isn’t fair to exclude those people who are in recovery. While I’d love to serve challah, the bread that is served at the Sabbath meal, it isn’t fair to those who are gluten intolerant. And while some churches will have a separate line for those people who are gluten intolerant, and tell those in recovery to let the cup pass them by – that isn’t fair. We all need to share the same bread and wine. When you exclude someone, you are saying they aren’t the same. When someone has to exclude themselves for health reasons, they are making themselves stick out. If the elements of the meal are safe for everybody, then everybody is welcome and everybody is equal.

And that is really important.