Rock Writers’ Guild

This is my assignment.  I have no intention of trying to publish it.

     I recently attended a prayer meeting led by a Messianic Jewish pastor. He salted his prayer points with a great deal of teaching on why anti-Semitism is unbiblical and an offense before God. Some of it I agreed with, but some of it I found deeply disturbing. 
     From what I understand, the Messianic Jewish movement is a return to Old Testament ways of honoring God, observing holidays, and basically living as a modern day Jew who believes in Jesus. I have heard messianic Jews teach that when we’re in heaven we’ll all live like Jews and honor Jewish holidays. I have also heard them criticize the Christian church’s Sunday Sabbath and holidays like Christmas and Easter as being pagan-derived and anti-Semitic. The ones I know follow kosher dietary rules and a number of other Old Testament devotions.
      When I heard this man speak he was quite aggressive about it, talking about how in the end times ten Christians were going to carry one Jew on their shoulders to the promised land to re-establish God’s kingdom in Israel. The verse that kept floating through my mind was, “there is now no male nor female, Jew nor gentile, slave nor free…” I don’t think this man would have agreed with that verse. I also got the feeling that he would have been upset with Paul over that bit in Romans where he talks about people who have to observe special days or only eat certain foods, saying “don’t eat, don’t touch…” as having lesser faith.
     The feeling the man left me with was one of smugness. He was smug that he was a Jew. He was enjoying the feeling of preaching chastisement against those who harbored anti-Semitism in their hearts. I’ve heard that kind of smugness before in other places, and it always worries me. Why do people enjoy lecturing and fussing at other people so much? I catch myself doing it with my kids, and sometimes when I write. There is a pleasant feeling that steals in when I feel that I know the right way to do something and others don’t. It’s a sort of self-satisfied, self-righteous kind of…well… smugness.
     As I was listening to his lecture with gritted teeth (something about being lectured just makes me mulish and stubborn- I can’t help it) I started thinking about how I could present his point differently. Is there a way to point out someone’s error gently? Is there a way to teach that doesn’t involve pointing fingers and saying, in a ringing voice, “Some of you people need to hear this!” One of the things I have greatly appreciated about God is that when he shows me my flaws he does it so lovingly it makes me feel better instead of worse.
     I have been trying to probe the hearts of my children as I discipline them. Instead of lecturing and screaming, I have been trying to ask questions. “What did you do? How were you feeling? How did that make the other people feel? Do you think that’s a good thing to do?” I have been trying to relinquish judgement and lovingly teach them a better way to reach their goals. It works pretty well one on one, but it would be difficult with an audience.
     I think if I was given a pulpit and a microphone, I might try to do it differently. I would try to say simply, God has commanded us to love. He said to love everyone… neighbor, friend, family, and enemy. He didn’t just say to love Jews, he also said to love Palestinians. Even terrorists. It’s difficult for me to think of loving a terrorist, but God commanded me to do so.
     I might talk a little about the rich heritage of the Jews and the verses in the bible that talk about the destiny of Israel. And then I would talk about how we are all the great family of God, drawn together by his love, and how it grieves him when his children dislike and hate and oppose each other. Most of all, I would try to teach about love by demonstrating it, by loving my audience and dealing with them gently and respectfully. God doesn’t give us a pulpit or authority over our children, to show off how righteous and knowledgeable we are. The purpose is to help people understand their hearts and let them see clearly how God sees them. It’s to help them extrapolate the end result of their actions and visualize what consequences they may be choosing by what they do.
     I think the reason the Pharisees stayed in such hot water with Jesus was because they enjoyed the contrast between the dirty public and their clean white laundry. It made them feel smug. (Sort of like my son feels when it’s his sister’s turn to get in trouble instead of his. He likes to hang around and give me advice on her punishment- it’s a spectator sport for him.) Jesus, on the other hand, was the whitest of the white, and he never felt smug. He looked upon mankind and was moved by a great pity and grief of the soul. He longed to reach them and heal them and love them. Yes, Jesus was a Jew. But more than a Jew, he was a man, and he came for all mankind. He belongs in North Carolina as well as Israel, and as much as he loves me, he loves you. Jew and gentile, male and female, white, black, and middling, slave or free.
     Some of you people needed to hear that again, you see.