Sarx

AUL May be the first one to wrestle publicly with the question of difference between Jews (and Gentiles) who accept Jesus as Messiah and specifically Jews who reject Jesus as Messiah. He is doing so in to-day’s RCL readings (for Proper 15, Year A, RCL):

Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.

The Jews and, for the most part, the Gentiles in this early congregation (who were probably interested in the Ethical Monotheism of the Synagogue before the Christian message was preached) had all come to an important decision in their lives at some point: that the Holy One (Blessed be He) was doing something different in and through Israel than he was doing anywhere else (if, indeed, he was acting elsewhere at all). This beginning continued through the acceptance of Jesus as Messiah and, when the vast majority of Jews rejected this Jesus, the question then became, “Wait. If God’s doing something through Israel, and Israel rejects what God is doing, what becomes of Israel?”

Paul, to, is struggling with this and we get, in the lections, an attempt at an answer.

See if you can follow the logic:

Gentiles are bad (that’s a given) but the Jews rejected Jesus so now Gentiles are blessed.

In like manner

Jews are now bad but because Gentiles are Blessed - Jews will be blessed.

There is no logic at all. Paul is stumbling in the dark. It’s ok: we’re still there!

I wrestle with this constantly because Paul is asking who can be saved at all if they are not in the Church? Can Jews? And by extension, can Gentiles? How do we come to the answer? If we take the meaning of “saved” in the way that many moderns do - getting out of hell free - well then, naturally, not everyone will be saved. In fact, we’d rather like it if our enemies, at least, were not. Yes?

When I was completing my college degree in San Francisco (way back in 2002), we did a group-building exercise one day, called “The Milling“.

At one point in the exercise, I was face to face with a Hindu woman, a fellow student. In the course of the exercise, I was invited to honour her respect for the earth, her living on this planet, her healing work (she was invited to honour mine as well). And then I was asked to wordlessly end this rite in a way of my own choosing. Having seen all of these things in her eyes and soul, I prostrated myself before her.

And she swept in weeping to pull me up. Breaking the silence , she gasped, “We only do that for very special people!!!!” And we hugged. Ever ever that moment we were close in class and through graduation…

The other person: who is this other person, next to me on the subway, on the bus, at work? At St Gregory of Nyssa parish, we began every Sunday with this prayer as the worship team gathered around the altar to plan the Morning Service:

Blessed by God the Word, who came to his own and his own received him not, for in this way God glorified the stranger. O God, show us your image in all whom we meet today, that we may welcome them, and you.

I believe that everyone who comes to me is Christ. This is a common theme in the writings of the saints (from Paul’s letters, to Benedict’s rule to Francis to Dorothy Day). It is a basic understanding of Jesus teaching on not-judging. It is the basic teaching of the Christian tradition on human beings: that person, just there, is Christ. The Eastern Churches teach that honour and worship paid to the icon, the image, passes to the divine one depicted. If each of us are the image of God (image is the meaning of “icon”) then any honour I pay to you passes to God. Equally, and disrespect I pay to you passes to God.

What would it be like for me to go through life prostrating at the feet of everyone who came to me? Is there a way I can do it in my heart - even though not in person? How is it possible to walk that way in all the world, prostrating before the icon of God present in everyone?

At my former job, in an rehab centre, it became increasingly important - for my own salvation - to remember that this, strung-out, bitter, angry, toothless teenager in front of me was Jesus. At the employment agency where I work now, it is equally important. This is practice though: I’m stuck believing something I can not yet act on. It’s far easier for me to judge someone than to acknowledge them as a channel of the Godhead in my world, in my life, to my being. Each person who comes to me is Jesus saying “This is my body.”

I’ve been adding that same short prayer to my morning devotions lately. It is a centring call to remember what I believe: that everyone is Christ coming to me.

If they are Christ, are they not saved? They may choose - freely - to reject this: but I’m in no position to prejudge them for it. “Christ coming to me” must surely include his own people?

I don’t have an answer for how, nor do I think we need one. I’m happy saying God was doing something so profound in Jesus that I don’t pretend to understand it or to be able to explain it save in the first person!

Tags: jews, patristics, paul, RCL, salvation, universalism