Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
June 29, 2003

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Because I thought I might not be able to be with you today because of my mother’s health problems down in Oregon, I arranged, through the miracle of time travel, for a guest speaker for this morning. Now that I’m here, it is my honor to introduce to you Mr. ben Judas. Mr. ben Judas is a Pharisee from the first century CE, a leader of the Jews, a teacher, a scholar, and an expert in Torah law. I have invited him here this morning to share a different point of view from that which we usually hear in this Christian church. You may find much of what he says challenging, but I think it is important for us to hear other voices, to consider other opinions and interpretations of religious matters. And now, without further ado, Mr. ben Judas:

Good morning. Before I begin I want to make one thing clear. I represent the voice of first century Phariseeism. I do not represent, and I do not intend my remarks in any way to reflect on, contemporary rabbinic Judaism in any of its forms today. Judaism today speaks for itself, and it would be presumptuous of me, as a voice of another time and place, to claim to speak for it.

It is a pleasure for me, a Pharisee from the first century, to appear before you, a group of Christians, this morning so that I can explain to you the error of your ways and call you to return to the true path, the way of the Law, the holy Torah, given to us by God Himself-blessed be his name forever-so long ago, through the prophet Moses and followed by God’s people ever since. We Pharisees cherish the Law as the ultimate revelation of God’s will for us Hebrews and for all people. We guard this Law as our dearest treasure. We call all people to observe the Law faithfully, rigorously, for only in observing the law in every detail can we do the will of Ha Shem-the divine name-blessed be His name forever. You Christians have forgotten that holy truth and have rejected God’s Law, following instead the ravings of that madman Joshua ben Joseph, the Nazorean, whom you call Jesus. If you would be true to the Lord your God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses and of the prophets, you must repent of this madness and return to the Law, which is the only way of truth and righteousness.

The foundation of the Law is this command from the Third Book of Moses, which we also know as Leviticus: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." Leviticus 19:2. Holiness is the Way, the way to God, the way to faithfulness and righteousness. This is the teaching of the Law and the prophets, of the holy Torah, the Word and the will of God. "Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."

And what is it to be holy? How can a mere man be holy as God is holy? It is impossible except by following the Law. The Law reveals to us what it is to be holy. Only by strict, scrupulous observance of the Law can we hope to be holy, only thus can we hope to do the will of God.

Yet you claim to follow this fellow Jesus ben Joseph as your teacher and guide. And I tell you, he is deluded! He is mad! He rejects the Law of holiness. He claims to know God’s will better than we, the leaders of Israel, and even better than the holy Torah itself! He is arrogant! He is blasphemous! He is seditious! He is leading you astray not only by what he says but even more by what he does.

Just look at what happened when the woman with the twelve year flow of blood touched his cloak. The Law teaches us that we men must avoid all contact with women, at least with women who are not our wives. We avoid women and all contact with them, for the holy Torah teaches that contact with them renders us unclean, impure. If they touch us, we must rebuke them severely, then go at once to the Temple and offer the prescribed sacrifices to Ha Shem for the restoration of our purity, our holiness.

Even more: The holy Torah teaches that a woman who is experiencing her monthly flow of blood is herself impure, unclean. She must remove herself from society during that time, then, when the flow stops, she must perform the rites of purification before she may be restored to the community. And that’s a woman who is merely experiencing the natural rhythms and processes of life! Imagine a woman whose flow of blood has not stopped for twelve years! She cannot even perform the rite of purification because those rites are performed when the flow stops, and her flow has never stopped! She is as impure as it is possible for a person to be. The Law teaches that all people, and especially we men, must avoid contact with her at all cost. She is accursed, rejected by God. She must be shunned. For touching another, especially a man, in public she must be punished, not rewarded. The Law demands it.

But what does your Jesus do? Does he rebuke her? Does he report her to the Temple authorities for punishment? Does he go to the Temple and offer sacrifices for his purification? No! He heals her! And even worse. He says to her: "Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace, and be healed of your disease." Blasphemy! Sedition! Who does he think he is, God? "Daughter?" She’s not his daughter! She’s not even God’s daughter while she remains impure. Faith? What faith? Faith in him? That’s blasphemy pure and simple! She has no faith, no faith in Ha Shem-blessed be His name forever-,no faith in the holy Torah, the only way to holiness. His response to her proves that he has no faith either. She deserves to be stoned, not healed and praised for her faith. That’s the way of the Law, the way of holiness, the way of God! And this Jesus of yours rejects if all!

Please understand. The Law is the basis of our whole way of life. We structure our entire lives according to its teachings. All of our society is based upon it. It gives us structure, order, and security. It assigns everyone his place. In the Law we know who we are and how we are to treat each person. Without it there is disorder, uncertainty, even chaos and anarchy. We cannot live without it! God has ordained it for our good, for our peace, for our salvation. And this Jesus of yours is overthrowing it all.

He apparently thought that healing this woman was more important than obeying the Law. Worse than that: He apparently thought that she, impure as she was, had some kind of right to be healed, some kind of right to violate everything that we hold sacred just to take care of her own little personal problem, that she was more important than the Law. Look what accepting that would mean! It would mean that any person is more important than the Law, more important than purity itself. It would mean that other people’s needs come before our own righteousness. It would destroy all our society’s, all our religion’s distinctions between people. It would make everyone equal before God. It would mean that everyone has the right to bypass our established rules, our established ways of doing things, and to appeal directly to God for what he needs. We can’t have that! It would destroy all order. We’d have anarchy! Not only would accepting what she did, and accepting his response to her, undermine God’s Law, it would undermine our entire society. Your Jesus is not only blasphemous and sacrilegious, he is downright revolutionary! He is a threat to the way we’ve always done things, to the way God has ordained that we do things here on earth, that is, to the Law itself. He is a threat to the established order, and not just our established order in first century Judea but to any established order. All order depends on law. It depends on people having and knowing their place. It depends on some people being superior to others-men superior to women, people born in the society superior to immigrants and foreigners, those of the dominant faith superior to those of other faiths or of no faith, and so on. This Jesus of yours denies all of that and acts as though all people were equal before God, as though all people had equal rights and equal dignity.

You Christians don’t know how dangerous he is. You don’t know what a threat he is to society’s traditional way of doing things. Wake up! See the threat! Turn around before it’s too late!

Thank you, Mr. ben Judas. Friends, he’s right. We don’t know, we forget, how revolutionary Jesus is. Maybe it’s time we remembered.