2013.05.15 Field Trip Into Easter

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat who blogs as the Velveteen Rabbi (don’t you love that blog name?) wrote recently of a time some years ago when she took a friend to a Christian church on Easter Sunday because he needed to go. And because compassion trumps religious difference. (My words)

Rabbi Rachel felt uncomfortable, worrying that she might stand out as an outsider AND worrying that she might blend in. Was she being spiritually dishonest? She remembered once in college singing with an ensemble group that sang frequently in churches and hearing a sermon that identified the Holy Cross as meant to be “a stumbling block to the Jews.”  She ran out in tears. Ardent Christians in the a capella group followed and comforted her, “bless them.”

The “Velveteen Rabbi” however survived her Christian Easter field trip. She remembers acolytes with bright yellow streamers, Easter Sunday best outfits, and a sermon that quoted the poet Rumi. At the end of his sermon the rector said, “Will you rise?” Everyone was so moved they all sat there, thinking his question was rhetorical/spiritual.  But he meant it literally.

It’s a good question to consider spiritually as official 50 days of Easter draws to an end. Easter never ends. Will you rise? Will you get up from your habits, your lethargy, your imitations of piety, your fear, and whatever attitudes you might have about Christian superiority?

And will you rise up again, as we women did in the 60s-80s, to promote and encourage the use of inclusive language for Divinity? And will you rise with courage to say: “I would rather lose votes and lose my job than see more lives lost to gun violence”?  The Hartford CT. chapter of the UAW had the courage NOT to take a position on Obama’s gun control proposal, even though it would have been expected and congruent  for a Union that represented workers at a local gun manufacturing company to go strongly against gun control legislation.  That’s brave. 

And will you rise up and begin to preach about the history and context of the Second Amendment, constituted not out of concern for sacred individual rights and liberty but for the sake of permitting the establishment of local militias in cases where the need for defense was urgent? And will you politicians scrap fear and rise up against the intimidation of the NRA? 

Rabbi Rachel’s wariness about the passion of Christ and her worry about the history of Christians who labelled Jews as “Christ killers” are well founded.  The gospel of John references “the Jews” repeatedly in accusatory terms at Jesus’ trial and execution. Most sensitive Christian clergy recognize this rhetoric as part of the semi-hysterical polemic of early Christians who feared for their lives and that of their faith. So many Christians change “the Jews”  to “the Temple authorities” to be accurate historically and to make sure it is clear that not ALL Jews aligned with Rome to eliminate Jesus. After all, Jesus’ followers were all Jewish, like him.   

Rachel concludes: “Whatever was dormant in me years ago, was washed away this Easter when she took a field trip to an Easter service, 8 a.m. at a local Episcopal Church service. She wrote that wariness was replaced with a renewed awareness of how sweet it can be to be (in Reb Zalman’s terms) a “spiritual peeping Tom,” looking to see how other people “get it on with God.”

Thank you Velveteen Rabbi!

The Woman Who Named God by Charlotte Gordon

I recommend HIGHLY a book by Charlotte Gordon. The Woman Who Named God. It is biblical scholarship at its best and also story at its best—a rare combination.

Gordon blends exegesis ( biblical text analysis and interpretation,) narrative (just plain story and literary analysis,) and midrash ( a Jewish method of using creative imagination to plum a biblical story for its hidden meanings, its emotional nuances and its spiritual and theological significance, often buried in the words themselves.) The author weaves these three approaches together seamlessly with beauty and skill.

I love this book and plan to read it again. Of course the Bible is my thing. I love it for its wisdom and its story. The Old Testament is a particular favorite, not just because of my partial Jewish heritage, but because you’ll never find better more complex lusty stories than these. Probably every human experience ever visited on humanity is there and all of it is sacred.

The invitation to and definition of my professional pastoral counseling and spiritual direction practice is: “All Human Experience is Sacred.” The Bible tells me so. I give my heart to that truth and try as much as I’m able to live it as if I believed it.

Gordon’s vision and what she attempts to do, and I think does, is to make this book an instrument of peace. The book shows that there is no scriptural justification in the Hebrew texts for Jewish/Christian/Muslim animosity or warring. Quite a remarkable achievement I think.

Charlotte Gordon lives in Gloucester, MA. She grew up as an Episcopalian. Her dad was Jewish and converted. As an adult Charlotte became fascinated by the Jewish faith and converted. (See how we all are one!) Gordon learned Hebrew and Aramaic just to do this book. I'm impressed with her commitment, patience and zeal, to say nothing of her intelligence. She is also a lovely speaker, talking with wisdom and piercing clarity about her passion for the Bible and for religious peace.

The chapters and not long or ponderous and they are titled. Notes expand on certain texts for the nosey or diligent among us. The prose has an easy but not unsophisticated flow. There's even a chapter on Jesus coming for dinner in the desert! The book follows the ancient call and vocation of Abraham, no easy faith his. The woman who names God is Hagar. The Abrahamic family dynamic is the psychological lens through which scripture works out the nuances of overt animosity and comes to peace. God is a character in the story, an active player on the stage.

Gordon’s style is light, humorous, her prose not polemical or with "attitude." This book is clothed in compassion and has the potential to convert even the most stubbornly partisan to a more wholistic inclusive but spiritually grounded point of view.

Which reminds me of a quote I heard and know not from whence it comes. Something like, I know the voice of God in my head because it is the voice which is abundantly compassionate to everyone concerned. That is one way to describe this book.