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Hanukkah, Mel Gibson and Anti-Semitism A Sermon by Rev. David Bryce |
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Good morning! Hanukkah begins this Friday evening at sundown. The narrow meaning of Hanukkah is the survival of the Jewish tradition. The broad meaning of Hanukkah, the Universal meaning, is the triumph of religious freedom for all. Since Hanukkah is a celebration of the survival of Judaism against those who would destroy it, it seems fitting to talk about anti-Judaism in today’s world. Before I do that, I want to speak to a related topic, which is the discussion going on in France about banning headscarves, yarmulkes and “large crosses” from public institutions, particularly schools. The intent of this move is to protect the secular state from inappropriate encroachments by religion, an admirable goal, in my view. I am a firm believer in separation of religion and state. I believe the state ought not impose and not even promote religion. Historically, the right to choose our own religion is really the first human right to be recognized by the state. It did not arise out of any Jewish Christian theology, as conservatives would have us believe; rather it arouse out of the physical and emotional exhaustion of the religious wars that swept back and forth across Europe some centuries ago. But I think the French go too far. It is one thing to protect individuals from the imposition of religion by others, it is quite another to ban individuals from the practice of their own religion. While the state ought not impose or promote religion, it ought to accommodate religion. And, underlying this recommendation, if one reads the press reports about the commission and their decision, is the desire for all the people of France to be one. It is about the desire to have a universal culture to which all individuals belong. The story of Hanukkah is the story of an emperor, Antiochus IV Epiphanies, who wanted an empire in which all of the disparate people of his empire were one. He wanted a universal culture to which all belonged. It so happened that it was HIS culture--his Hellenic culture--that he wanted to have as the universal one. To him that meant, “You may practice your own religion, whatever that is, but also worship Zeus.” And, it is claimed, he identified himself with Zeus. His efforts lost him control of Israel. Perhaps the French government could learn the lesson from history that people are more willing to join the universal culture if they can maintain some of their particularities. Let us turn to today’s topic. Mel Gibson has produced a new movie about the Passion of Christ, that is, about the crucifixion of Jesus. I have not seen the movie, so I only know what I have read about it. Since it is in Aramaic and Latin, I could not have understood most of it if I had seen it. Nevertheless, the movie is creating a stir of controversy because it is claimed by some that it is Anti-Semitic, more properly, Anti-Jewish. This is not a meaningless concern since the history of Europe is replete with pogroms and massacres which occurred after the presentation of Passion Plays, many, if not most, of which, portrayed the Jews as the killers of Christ. And it is not a meaningless concern since there is currently a world-wide rise in Anti-Jewish activities. Any film writer or producer or director has a certain amount of discretion and dramatic leeway when it comes to portraying an event, no matter how historical that event may be. And so it may well be, hypothetically, that Mr. Gibson—consciously or not--has emphasized or exaggerated the level of Jewish participation in the crucifixion. But I want to suggest today that it is not Mr. Gibson as writer, producer or director that is the problem. I suggest that the difficulty instead arises from the original script, if you will. It arises from Christian scripture. I suggest to you that any believing Christian who sets out to produce a dramatic presentation of the Gospel stories of the death of Jesus, one faithful to the texts, will produce a work that is Anti-Jewish even if that individual is not. The reason is that at the heart of the Christian tradition, at its core, is an element of Anti-Jewishness that Christianity has never come to terms with, and perhaps cannot. In the Book of Mark, generally believed to be the earliest of the four Gospels, Jesus has ongoing conflicts with the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Herodians. As for the crucifixion itself, the blame falls primarily upon the “chief priests, the elders, and the scribes” in council. When Pilate tries to free Jesus, it says in Mark 15:11, “But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead”. In the book of Mathew, it is the chief priests and elders who persuade the people, and in Luke it is the chief priests, the leaders and the people who together call for the death of Jesus. It is in the Book of Mathew, 27:25, where it says, “Then the people as a whole answered, ‘His blood be upon us and on our children!’”. That quote has been used by anti-Jewish zealots for centuries. Still, it must be said of these three texts—Mark, Mathew and Luke--that the authors were all writing from a Christian perspective that was still within the Jewish tradition. They were Jews themselves; they undoubtedly attended synagogue; their writings speak of “the people”, that is, the Jewish people of whom they feel a part; and their writings reflect the view that it was the leaders of the people who were really responsible for the death of Jesus. The fourth Gospel, the Book of John, has a distinctly different point of view. By the time the Gospel of John was written, Christians had been expelled from the synagogues. The split was deep enough that John has to translate certain Hebrew words for his readers. So, in John 1:38, he writes “’Rabbi’, (which translated means Teacher)”; and in John 1:41 he writes, “’We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed)”. Those are both in Chapter 1 and there are other examples throughout the Gospel. More telling is the fact that the author of John refers continually not to “the people”, but to “the Jews”. Where the other three Gospels refer to Passover, John refers to “the Passover of the Jews”. Clearly the break between the two movements is now complete. So, when one reads the Passion narrative in the Gospel of John, one reads that Pilate tried to release Jesus, but “the Jews answered him” (19:7); “The Jews cried out” (19:12), etc. And so, not only were the Christians expelled from the synagogues, a circumstance quite likely to cause pain, anger and resentment, but many of the readers of John—perhaps most--are gentiles, hence word translations and references to “the Jews”, who are now separate. That means that in the Gospel of John, it clearly states that “the Jews” killed Jesus. John 19:12 “From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be king sets himself against the emperor.’” Later in John 19, Pilate “said to the Jews, ‘Here is your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’” People who do as I have done, who point out this problem at the innermost soul of Christianity, are often accused of Christian-bashing. But it isn’t so. The problem is there, in the text, whether one wishes to acknowledge it or not. Many Christians refuse to see it even when it is pointed out to them; it is Jews who throughout centuries have paid the penalty for the Christian refusal to acknowledge the problem. I do need to say here that there are difficulties in the sacred texts of every one of the religions in the Abrahamic faith tradition. The Torah, from Exodus to Deuteronomy, is about the preparations by the Children of Israel to enter into the land of Canaan and to displace or kill the inhabitants thereof in order to steal their land. That story helps to blind many people today to the real and genuine suffering of the Palestinian people. Some people read the Torah and say, “God wants us to do to the Palestinians what he had us do to the Canaanites”. I read the Torah and say, “There is a terrible fault in the Jewish sacred texts as well”. Also, in the Torah there is a clear attitude of hatred for pagan religious traditions; killing those who practice them is quite acceptable, even required. In the Islamic tradition, the Quran has contradictory statements about tolerating Christianity and Judaism, it requires a special tax by adherents of these religions, and full tolerance is not practiced in most of the Muslim world today. The Quran also is quite clear about the duty to fight and kill adherents of Pagan religions. Even in the Bahai faith, reputed to be one of the most tolerant religions in the world, the writings of Abdul Baha, one of Bahai’s past leaders, has despicable comments about Jews. So this is not just about Christianity. If we, the people of the world, are to learn the lesson of Hanukkah, if the triumph of Hanukkah in its fullest meaning and application is to succeed, then we must arrive at a time when we tolerate difference and celebrate diversity. We can only do that if we acknowledge the dangerous failings within our own religious traditions, if we reject literal interpretations of sacred texts, and if we refuse to allow religious texts and religious doctrines to deprive us of our human compassion and human decency. But there is a deeper issue. The Sacred texts of any tradition are a reflection of those who wrote them and those who treasure them. It may well be that at the heart of each of us, at our core, at our innermost soul, there lies a terrible fault. It may well be that there is that in us, in we human beings, that allows us, causes us, drives us, to be intolerant. It may well be that before we can fully cleanse our religions we need to cleanse ourselves. I say that not as a definitive statement, but rather as a raised question. But I say THIS as a definitive statement: I believe in the on-going growth of the human soul, both individually and corporately. I believe that, despite periodic backsliding, we are getting better; that we as a race, as a species, as a people, the people of this planet, we are developing morally and ethically. We are becoming more aware of our responsibilities to ourselves, to one another, and to all life on this planet. I believe we have the strength to face our faults, whether personal, religious, national or cultural, and having faced them, to change them. And I believe we have the overwhelming powers of honesty, humility and forgiveness, which are the path to the future. Honesty, so that we may face the truth about ourselves and our religions; humility, so that we can refuse to believe that either we or our religious traditions have “The Truth” and so that we will not read our sacred texts literally; and forgiveness so that we can forgive past errors by others and by ourselves. As those of us who do so light our menorahs this coming Friday evening, let us celebrate religious freedom, religious tolerance, and religious diversity. But more, let us celebrate that good spirit that exists in all human beings that can bring tolerance and diversity into being. |
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