Going Beyond

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 42:1-9 and Acts 10:34-43.

I think I am safe in saying that, along with hospital food, no one raves about jail food. If inmates have money they can buy other foods from the commissary. But that is not sufficient for 3 types of people: those who for medical reasons need to be on a specific diet, those whose religion requires they follow a special diet, and those who just don't like jail food. As chaplain, I spend a lot of time trying to distinguish between the 3 types of diet requests. If your religion requires a specific diet, we are required to provide it, within reasonable bounds. Thus observant Jews and Muslims can ask for a Kosher diet, Hindus for a vegetarian diet and Buddhists for a vegan diet. And since religious diets are primarily about eliminating some or all animal protein, the food service does not serve anyone either pork or beef. But since Kosher meals require special ordering and handling, we do try to make sure people aren't just asking for it because they believe it tastes better. (It doesn't.) So when someone requests it, we look at what they declared as their religion when they were booked. A person who comes in as a Catholic but asks for a Kosher diet raises questions. As does someone who insists they are an observant member of a religion but cannot provide the name of their clergy or the synagogue, temple, mosque, ashram, etc, they attend or even its address or city. Or someone on a religious diet who buys foods from the commissary which violate it.

Religious diets can be seen as “badges of faith.” They distinguish a person from members of other religions. The most obvious differences are those of beliefs but they aren't as readily discernible as behaviors, like diet or dress. Those can more clearly signal that you belong to a particular religious group. Thus Sikhs wear turbans, untrimmed beards and carry ceremonial daggers. Orthodox Jewish men keep their heads covered at all times and Hasidic Jews have obvious earlocks or peiyot. Some Hindus sport a bindi or red dot in the middle of their forehead. Christians in general do not have any required religious diet or dress, though some sects do, like the Amish, as well as members of some religious orders. Nowhere in the Bible are followers of Jesus told they must wear crosses or put Jesus fish on their vehicles. Although it does seem to be an unwritten rule that the higher clergy go in the hierarchy of any religion, the odder the hat they are supposed to wear.

Some of these badges of the faith exist simply because religions tend to originate in specific cultures or ethnic groups and those traditions get carried over into the religion. There is no requirement in the Quran that Muslim women wear the burqa. That is a custom, derived from the pre-Islamic tradition of face veiling in the Byzantine Empire and Middle East. It is justified, however, by conservative interpretations of ambiguous words used in the Quran for women's wraps. And Muslim scholars have argued over these interpretations for centuries.

What's odd is that Christianity, coming out of Judaism, never seems to have developed any badges of faith in the form of manners of dress or required diets, or at least none which have stuck. My alb and stole are derived from garments worn in the Greco-Roman world but not all Christian clergy wear them. The same is true of my collar. And, aside from dressing modestly, there is no prescribed kind of clothing ordinary Christians should wear. Though again, some sects do try to impose standards from earlier periods of history, specifically when it comes to women on matters of cutting their hair or covering their heads.

One of the reasons that such things rarely stuck in Christianity was that it didn't stay a Jewish sect for long. Paul was converted somewhere around 35 AD, maybe 5 years after Jesus' resurrection. His first missionary journey took place around 46 AD. His unexpected success among the Gentiles led to the council at Jerusalem 4 or 5 years later, where it was decided that Gentile converts did not have to become Jews first. By the end of the first century, the church was mainly composed of Gentiles. That is, while a Christian could be a Jew, he could also be a Roman, a Greek, an Egyptian, a North African, a Persian, an Arab, or someone from Asia Minor. No one culture or tradition dictated how a Christian looked, sounded or acted. God's people came from everywhere.

That's the point of Epiphany. Jesus came as the Messiah the Jews hoped for, but his mission and message weren't exclusively for Jews. And even in the Hebrew Bible, like our passage from Isaiah, God says as much. God presents his servant and in the very first verse of Isaiah 42 says, “He will bring forth justice to the nations.” In Hebrew the word for nations is goyim. Translators of the Bible, like St. Jerome, rendered it “gentiles,” from the Latin word for “clans” or “tribes.” Ironically, it originally was used to designate someone as “not a Roman citizen” but somehow morphed into meaning “not a Jew.”

Again in Isaiah, God says, “I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations...” God's focus was not exclusively on his people. And his servant is to establish justice, not just in the land of Israel, but “in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his teachings.” The earth encompasses every nation and the coastlands of Palestine were the areas occupied by the Philistines at that time. They were hostile to the Jews and yet Isaiah sees a time when they will be waiting for the Messiah's teachings. And during his ministry Jesus goes to Tyre in Phoenicia and heals a Gentile woman's daughter. (Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30)

Remember that most deities back then were thought to be, if not limited to one locality, only interested in the wellbeing of one people. Parts of the Hebrew Bible can lead you to think that is true of Yahweh. But from the beginning God told Abraham, the ancestor of the Israelites, that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him. (Genesis 12:3) God did not choose the Israelites because they were a large and powerful nation (Deuteronomy 7:7).Throughout their existence they were dwarfed by a succession of empires to their north, east and west. Rather God chose for them to act as a model nation. In Deuteronomy Moses says, “See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'” (Deuteronomy 4:5-6) The Bible is pretty clear that Israel often failed to live up to its mission.

The other purpose of Israel was to be the people who gave the world the Messiah. As we've said before, they were expecting a Jewish Messiah setting up a kingdom of God for Jews. There was also an expectation that Gentiles would flock to Zion and convert to Judaism on the Last Day. And while there is some evidence of Jewish missionary activity to outsiders, there is also evidence of some Jews assimilating and even intermarrying into the Gentile world, which made others resist the incursion of Gentile culture. And indeed Jesus seems to focus his earthly ministry on Jews. When he sends out the Twelve on their first mission, he says, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5-6) Why?

Part of it is that, as it says in the article on Gentiles in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, “For Jesus the present is the time of the Jews; the future is the time of the Gentiles.” God has been preparing his people for the Messiah and his message for some time. He needs to get the foundation solidly set before building anything more elaborate on it. Only after Jesus made atonement for the whole world on the cross and rose again to vindicate who he was would it be time to take the message to the whole world.

I also think that, due to the fact that Jesus heals the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Roman centurion's servant (Matthew 8:5-13), and the man living among the tombs in Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20), as well as the fact that he took the initiative in speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42), it was not that Jesus wouldn't minister to Gentiles. I think that Jesus did not feel the disciples were ready yet to effectively talk to and deal with people who were so outside their experience. Even after his resurrection and his giving of the Great Commission to go into all the world, the disciples are reluctant to reach out to Gentiles. Our passage in Acts is preceded by a triple vision given to Peter by God to persuade him to meet with Cornelius and his family. God had to give him a big push.

One other thing noted in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels is that in his preaching Jesus did not emphasize the then common theme of God's judgment and vengeance upon the Gentiles. Jesus called all to repent, both Jew and Gentile. And he also foresaw them responding to the gospel. When a Roman centurion says he knows that Jesus can heal his servant without going to his house, Jesus is impressed by this Gentile's faith and he says, “But I say to you that many will come from the east and west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 8:11) And in the earliest gospel, Mark, the only person to recognize and say that Jesus is God's son is the centurion at the cross, a Gentile! (Mark 15:39)

The mission to spread the gospel broadens in scope when the risen Jesus sends the apostles into every nation to make disciples. And so we see Philip baptize the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-38) and Peter bring the gospel to Cornelius and his family. The Lord calls Paul specifically to carry Jesus' name to the Gentiles. (Acts 9:15) Mind you, Paul would go to the synagogue of whatever town he entered and preach there. And while some Jews came to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, his message also created a lot of controversy among his people. Some became adamant opponents of his efforts. And Paul saw that he was making more headway with the Godfearers, Gentiles who attended synagogue but didn't go as far as to convert to Judaism. Eventually Paul realized that his calling was primarily to take the gospel to non-Jews. In Romans 11:13 he actually called himself “the apostle to the Gentiles,” though still hoping that his people will come to God through Jesus. And he spent a lot of his time in his letters to the churches promoting peace and unity between Gentile and Jewish Christians.

Remember: like Jesus, all of the original disciples were Jews. And yet they come to realize that God is not interested in his people being a small exclusive club. In Revelation John has a vision of “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue” gathered before God's throne in worship. (Revelation 7:9) John 3:16 says that God sent his unique son because he “so loved the world”--not just one people, or one race, or one nation, or one hemisphere. He loves the whole world. He made it; he pronounced it good; and he will make it good once more. As it says in Job, God despises no one. (Job 36:5) This tends to get lost when one reads the Bible selectively.

God is not interested in externals like badges of faith that make you appear different. He is interested in people who are different inside. He is not concerned with what you look like but what you actually are. He is not that focused on rituals you add to ordinary life but rather in how you live everyday. He cares about whether you care about and care for others—all others. In his parable about loving your neighbor, Jesus deliberately chose to make his hero a Samaritan, a heretic half-breed in the eyes of his audience. Because what was important was not his religion, his race, or any accidental difference; what was important was what he did when faced with human suffering. The man used what he had—his donkey, his wine, his oil, his time and his money—to help someone he didn't know. Jesus wants us to be people who act with compassion, even at our own expense, to help those in need.

If that doesn't come naturally, don't worry. God has provided a way. For instance, after the surgeons did what they could to save my life and fix my broken body, my care was put in the hands of physical and occupational therapists. Working with them, I got stronger and more flexible. At the proper time, they got me on my feet. Walking beside me, with a belt around my waist to help me stay upright and catch me as I fall, they helped me go from baby steps to climbing stairs. In the same way, after Jesus gave his life to save ours and put us right with God, the Spirit helps us get back on our feet spiritually. He helps us get stronger and more flexible. He helps us get better at walking with God and is there to help should we stumble.

A warning, however: just like a physical therapist, the Spirit will push us beyond our comfort zone. Left to ourselves we will not try to expend much effort trying to love and serve those outside our social circle. And so we get spiritually weak and flabby and out of shape. God is love and we are made in the image of God. God's love is not limited and neither should ours be. As the first Christians got over their prejudices and biases and reached out to those not thought of as God's people, so must we. Jesus went to the outcasts of his society and so should we. He touched those considered untouchable, forgave those considered unforgivable, and offered grace to those who were seen as graceless. So should we.

As someone once said, a person wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. The same can be said for a group wrapped up in itself. To become larger you have to grow. To become a larger soul, you have to grow spiritually. When animals with exoskeletons, like crabs, grow, they must molt and shed their tough outer shell. It leaves them soft and vulnerable for a bit but if they don't, they will die. Another advantage is they leave behind parasites and barnacles that have attached themselves to their old shell.

We are to grow God's kingdom. We can't do that if we cling to things that unnecessarily constrict us. We must leave behind our old form. To switch the metaphor, badges of faith can be walls which can keep people out and keep us from venturing out in the larger world, the world which God made and which Jesus died to save. As Paul said, “How are they to call on the one they have not believed in? And how are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'” (Romans 10:14-15) Time to leave those badges of faith behind and put on your hiking boots. We've got good news to share.