The Great Divide

Breaking The Wall Photograph

Angel Jesus De la Fuente

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two [Jew and Gentile] one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.”  Ephesians 2:14

As we can see from Paul’s words, there has always been a “wall of hostility” between Jews and Gentiles. Even though Paul says this wall is destroyed by the peace of Yeshua, the hostility continues to interfere with our relationships to this day. 

The only way to break down this wall is though the peace of Yeshua.  We need to knock it down, brick by brick, with communication and understanding.  We need to learn to walk a mile in our brother’s shoes.  I am attempting to accurately portray the bricks that make up this wall from both sides, Jew and Gentile.  If we are going to work together to break down this wall, it is going to take some tough sacrifices on both sides.  Unfortunately, one of the biggest obstacles to breaking down this wall is first getting people to recognize it really does exist.

Although I had wanted to write a book about Messianics for a long time, two events spurred me to finally get started and began to give me an understanding of what it was that I needed to say.

The first came from reading a post on Facebook.  I had “liked” a number of pro-Israel pages on Facebook, some of which were Christian or Messianic, and some of which were Jewish (created by non-Christian, religious Jews in the States or in Israel).  Upon the death of a Rabbi in Israel who was known to be Anti-Missionary (there are a number of anti-Christian groups in Israel that harass believers in Yeshua), one of the Jewish pages on Facebook posted an article mourning his death.  From the comments that were written in response to this post it was obvious that I was not the only believer who had “liked” this Jewish, pro-Israel page.  Unfortunately, many of the comments were unintentionally offensive to Jews, even from those Christians who claim to love Israel.  There were those who did not seem to understand that this Rabbi was anti-missionary or that he would have harassed them if they wanted to live in Israel, while there were others that didn’t seem to understand that they were posting on a “Jewish” page and wrote things that were very offensive to religious Jews.  Perhaps they were trying to “witness” to these non-believing Jews, but comments seemed to reflect anti-Semitism more than they reflected the love of Yeshua.

I wanted to write a response that would enlighten these people, without being offensive to the Jewish owners of the page.  I began writing, but after a couple of sentences I decided to write offline so I could see everything I was writing more clearly instead of trying to scroll up and down in one of those tiny text-boxes for comments.  As I wrote several paragraphs, I realized I still hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface.  That is when I decided I should turn those paragraphs in to the start of the book I wanted to write.

Many years ago, when I first got the idea to write a book, I spoke with my congregational leader in Philadelphia about my ideas.  At that time he suggested I start by reading some of the books that are already out there.  Here in Israel I have more than a few books about Messianic Judaism sitting on my bookshelf so I decided I should read the books I hadn’t gotten to yet before I started writing my own.  That’s when I was reminded why many Christians today are turned off by Messianic Judaism.

I had read about 25 pages from a book when I had to put it down.  I couldn’t read it anymore.  As a non-Jew, this book was offensive.  I felt like the book was saying, “Messianic Judaism is for Jews only.”  It did not actually say that, but if you looked closely enough, I’m sure it was there somewhere written between the lines. 

So, where does that leave me?  I am not Jewish.  But I am married to a Jew.  My children are Jewish.  I celebrate the Jewish holidays.  I don’t eat pork or shellfish.  Heck, I live in Israel.  Not that any of these things make me more "Jewish."  I am content to be the American Goy that God created me to be.  I felt if I were to say these things to the author, he would say, “that’s nice for you, but it’s not important.  You aren’t Jewish.”    

But it is important to me, and many other like-minded non-Jewish believers.  People who want to know the Jewish roots of their faith.  People who want to bless Israel because they love Israel and the God of Israel.  I decided I had to write the book for these people.  These people who want to celebrate the Jewish holidays, or just learn about them but don’t know where to go to find reliable information.  Some of whom want to bless Israel but end up unintentionally offending Jewish people and don’t understand why.  After all, God blessed me with a Jewish wife and a Jewish congregational leader, both of whom freely shared their knowledge with me.

Next week I will discuss anti-Semitism in the Church and why Jewish people are reluctant to “convert” to Christianity, but I want to start out by addressing Messianic Jews and believers, and explain how we sometimes offend Gentiles.  I feel I need to start this way because most Messianic Jews recognized there is a wall of hostility, even if they fail to recognize that it is not one-sided.  Hopefully, it will also help Gentiles to understand where Messianic Jews are coming from. 

Most Jews, whether they grew up Messianic or otherwise, at some point in their life face anti-Semitism.  Every year Jews celebrate Passover and they are taught to do so in order to remember how God redeemed them from being slaves in Egypt.  Every time a Jewish boy is born, there is a ceremony on the eighth day so he can be circumcised as a sign of the everlasting covenant between God and Abraham.  Every year, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, they are told to never forget the Holocaust and remember who they are.  It’s the way Jews survived as a people group for 4,000 years.  Perhaps Gentiles want to argue, “but Galatians 3:28-29 (NIV) says ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’”  This verse not only says “there is neither Jew nor Gentile,” but also says “nor is there male or female.”  We know there is male and female, and there is Jew and Gentile, but the point of this verse is it doesn’t matter to our faith in Messiah.  Salvation is available to everyone who has faith in Yeshua.
 
This may sound redundant, but being Jewish is part of a Jew’s identity.  Sometimes, when Jews come to faith in Messiah, they feel like they are being forced to change a part of their identity that needn’t be changed.  During the Passover season while their family is having a Passover Seder, they remember their ancestors were slaves in Egypt.  Why shouldn’t they continue to take part in that?  When a boy is born to a relative, and they circumcise him on the eighth day, they remember God promised the Land of Israel to the descendents of Abraham.  Why shouldn’t they continue this tradition?   On Holocaust Remembrance Day, they remember how the Nazi’s tried to wipe their people off the face of the earth.  They remember their brothers and sisters, friends, parents, cousins, aunts and uncles who died needlessly.  None of that changes because they came to understand who their Messiah is. 

Because they were raised to always remember, and never forget, Jews want to hold on to their traditions after coming to faith.  We don’t ask Chinese to stop being Chinese when they come to faith.  And when Jews begin rereading the scriptures as believers in Messiah they notice a few things.  They notice Yeshua is Jewish.  His disciples are Jewish.  Together Yeshua and his disciples celebrated Passover, Chanukah and Shavuot.  Messianic Jews study the scriptures and realize that if you read them from a Jewish perspective, since for the most part even the New Covenant was written by Jews, that some verses can be interpreted differently than the way the Church has traditionally interpreted them. 

Messianic Jews keep their ethnic Jewish roots, as well as their spiritual Jewish roots.  Christians are not used to this.  They are used to bringing the Gospel to the tribal people of Africa and South America, where their religion is not based on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  They are used to people having to give up their old religion to become Christian.  But what do you do when their “former religion” is the foundation for Christianity?  Why not build on that foundation, just as Yeshua did?  Instead, Christians started telling them they couldn’t be Jews anymore.  Now they have to be Christian.  But when did any of the New Covenant believers stop being Jewish? 

People started calling Messianic Jews “Judaizers,” to which David Stern replies in his book Messianic Jewish Manifesto, “encouraging Jews to live as Jews is not Judaizing – how could it be?”   I love this reply, but it kind of leaves us non-Jews hanging.  In truth, this is the second part of his explanation as to why Messianic Judaism is not Judaizing.  The first part simply points out what Judaizing is:  “Judaizing means requiring Gentiles to live or behave like Jews (see Galatians 2:11-15); the heresy is insisting they are not saved unless they do so.”  Messianic Judaism does not teach that Christians are not saved or that they need to be more Jewish in their practices in order to be saved.  For the most part Messianic Jews just want to be allowed to keep the traditions that are a part of who they are.  But as I said in my last post, sometimes when people try to hold on to their own traditions, others believe they are rejecting their traditions and feel they are telling them that we are doing something wrong.  And sometimes, when people do things differently, they feel they need to justify why they do things a certain way, prove that their way is right and any other way is wrong. 

Messianic Jews are stuck in this awkward position where they want to hold on to their traditions.  In doing so, others sometimes feel as if Messianic Jews are saying their way is the “right way” or a “better way.”  Some Messianic Jews try to get around this by saying, that the disciples kept Torah as Jews, so Jews should still keep Torah, but Gentiles are not required to, creating a double standard which then seems to indicate Messianic Jews think they are somehow “better” than other Christians.  They don’t fellowship with other Christians.  They don’t eat the same food or worship on the same day or even in the same way as other Christians.  In fact, many of them don’t even like to be called “Christians” at all.  We Christians feel we are being rejected and it is insulting to our delicate egos. 

And there becomes a wall of hostility.  But let’s be honest, this wall of hostility doesn’t exist just between Jews and Gentiles, Satan uses it all over the place.  Try telling the Irish there is no wall of hostility between Protestants and Catholics.  Many of the Protestants I know don’t even believe Catholics can be saved.  Many Catholics have a mutual belief, since they are the one true Church.  That doesn’t even begin to take in account the Eastern Orthodox denominations.  And what about those Pentecostal Christians who think they are speaking in tongues, or those non-Pentecostal Christians who don’t believe the spiritual gifts are for today (please note the entire preceding sentence was sarcastic).  Someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong!  Probably, but the Bible is the Word of God, so I think if these things were important for our salvation God would have made it a little-more clear, just so it couldn’t get misinterpreted by reasonable people.  Okay, I better abandon this line of thinking as I see it taking me down a dangerous path.  There are reasonable people in this world who believe the Bible says some very unreasonable things and I’ll leave it at that. 

These differences cause us to feel our beliefs are being rejected and therefore we are being rejected.  We need to learn to forgive our brothers and sisters for having a different opinion than our own.  We need to ask forgiveness and to forgive one another for our self-righteousness.  Admit we are not perfect.  Admit we make mistakes.  Messianic Jews need to forgive the Church and those who have acted hateful to them for being Jews.  We need to fellowship with our brothers.  Help them to understand our point of view without forcing our point of view on them.   And try to remember, Gentiles don’t always think it’s culturally acceptable to debate so passionately among friends. 

As I continue writing this blog each week, I will explain why I choose to believe what I believe and why I live a certain way.  That doesn’t mean I am insisting that my interpretation is 100% correct, and the only way the Bible can be interpreted.  I’m just sharing my point of view.  Hopefully, what I have to say will make sense and you will at least gain an appreciation for my point of view, even if you disagree with it.