This sermon was delivered by Dr Stewart Gillan on 27th December 2009. It is included here because it contains an interesting reference to the situation in Israel at the moment particularly with reference to our twin congregation at Holy Family Episcopal Church in Raineh.

St Michael’s, Christmas +1, 27 Dec 2009

Luke 2: 21-35, Jesus is dedicated to the Lord in the Temple

Two days ago, Christmas Day, our theme was joy, and the key note of our service was joy. Today, the last Sunday in the year, our theme is a more challenging one as we look at important events in Jesus’ life immediately following his birth.

I wish to begin with a recent piece of news:

As you will likely have heard, in the early hours of Friday morning, last week, thieves stole the sign that hung over the entrance to the Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland. The wording on the sign, made of wrought iron, is infamous: Arbeit Macht Frei / Work Sets You Free. Infamous, because where the sign cynically offered hope, in reality it promised death. As one of the SS guards is recorded to have said, the only way out was through the chimney. That was murder, not freedom.

More than a million people – some 90% of them Jews – were murdered by Nazis at Auschwitz during WWII, as you will know. The theft of the sign caused outrage in Poland, Israel, and all over the world. Polish Police vowed to catch the thieves and recover the sign as a matter of national integrity. And so they did, only days later. Five men, in their 20s and 30s, were arrested and face up to 10 years in prison. The sign had been cut into three pieces. The local police chief in Krakow stated that the men were not neo-nazis, and that the theft had been financially motivated, though it was not clear whether the theft had been carried out to order, and if so, who had ordered it. 

Arbeit Macht Frei. A sick, dark joke. Being worked to death, or summarily gassed and turned into ash is never freedom.

It has often been observed that if Jesus had been alive in Europe during the war years he would have been gassed and cremated by the Nazis. That the symbol of Christianity would be not the cross but the gas oven, or the chimney stack, or a canister of Zyklon B gas pellets.

For he was, as the gospels make clear, a very Jewish boy.

In Luke’s gospel the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is followed immediately by events of great significance in the first days of his life.  A Jewish lad, he is circumcised after eight days and given the name Jesus, meaning: ‘He will save,’ or, more simply, ‘Saviour.’

Also in accordance with the Law of Moses, when the time of his mother Mary’s purification had passed (33 days after her son was circumcised), Jesus, as her firstborn, is dedicated as holy to the Lord in the Temple. The sacrifice Mary and Joseph offer at his dedication – a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons – is that stipulated in the Law for poorer folk.

All these things tells us Jesus has been born into a Jewish family, and that his parents have observed the Law of Moses regarding the birth of a firstborn son to the letter. 

The second half of the reading in Luke moves the story along, and moves it along a specific track. This boy, called Jesus and so newly dedicated to the Lord, is none other than the Christ. Old Simeon had been waiting all his life for the ‘consolation of Israel’ – and he recognises in Jesus the Lord’s Messiah. His praise song to the Lord tells of a salvation that is intensely personal, and also national and global – the famous Nunc Dimittis: 

“Lord, now dismiss your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

God’s salvation in Christ is for Israel and the nations. This is one of the major themes in Luke’s gospel, whose primary audience is thought to be Gentile, even as the primarily audience of Matthew’s gospel is thought to have been Jewish. 

Yet, there is a difficult road ahead: ‘This child is set for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that is opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.’

‘And Mary; a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ 

The Messiah has come, yet he will be a difficult presence for many, disturbing and overturning those who abuse their power and authority in Israel. And he will have no time for hypocrites. He will be very like the prophets of Israel of old, except, where they proclaimed the word of the Lord that came to them, Jesus is the Word of the Lord made flesh – Messiah come for the salvation of Israel and of the nations.

It is one of the great strengths of Judaism, the prophetic tradition. The prophets called the nation and its kings to restore a right relationship with God. To return to a proper observance of the Law of Moses, the Torah. In the face of false religion, they called Israel to true worship of the Lord; in the face of the injustices they perpetrated against the poor, they called Israel to do the Lord’s own justice, lest the Lord turn on them; in the face of spiritual arrogance, they called Israel to humility. As the prophet Micah summarised it:

‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’  (6:8)

Those of us who look at Israel today, being non-Jewish – and in our case Christians – do well to learn from Israel this great prophetic strength. This tradition of self-criticism, personally and as a nation. There is much in our personal and national life that needs to be exposed as false and unjust, harmful of ourselves and others. Not least our track record with Jews through the centuries!

At the same time, this should not mean that we remain blind to the injustices perpetrated by the state of Israel. Or dumb in the face of them, saying nothing, for fear of being labelled Anti-Semitic. I think here of course of the treatment of Palestinians, both within Israel and in the occupied territories.

That said, I am persuaded that one of the most authentic and telling criticisms of the use of power by the State of Israel with regard to Palestinians is coming from Jewish Israelis themselves. From contemporary Jewish prophets.

One important example is: Rabbis for Human Rights. Like Jesus, thoroughly Jewish. Like Jesus, rabbis. Like Jesus, longing for a nation at peace with God, itself and its neighbours; knowing that there can be no peace without compassion and justice.

Rabbis for Human Rights seeks to ‘introduce into Israel’s public discourse an authentic and humanist understanding of the Jewish tradition and sources. We give voice to the Jewish tradition’s concern for the stranger and others vulnerable within society, and are bound by a Jewish responsibility to defy silent complicity. 

Rabbis for Human Rights has no affiliation with any political party or ideology. It is the only Israeli rabbinical organisation comprised of Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Renewal rabbis and students. Its members are Israeli citizens who are rabbis in national leadership positions, as well as educators and congregational rabbis capable of influencing change from the grass roots.

Its Director is Rabbi Arik Ascherman. I was privileged to meet him in April this year when he joined the Middle East Committee of our Church for dinner at the St Andrew’s Guest House in Jerusalem. I never heard someone’s mobile phone go off so often, during the course of an evening! He had said at the beginning he needed to leave his phone on but we had no idea! Lawyers, Palestinians, rabbis, human rights colleagues.

These days Arik spends much of his time with Palestinian families in East Jerusalem who are facing the demolition of their homes, or the occupation of their homes by Jewish settlers.

In the days just before Christmas he sent out an e-mail calling for support for one family that had been occupied because they had built an extension onto their home in east Jerusalem. It was deemed to be illegal, and, instead of the court fining the Palestinian family, or ordering the extension to be demolished, the court allowed for settlers to move in. And so they did. With a steady stream of scores of their settler friends coming to visit. There were very angry scenes in the street outside as you might imagine.

And there was Arik in the middle of it. Liaising with the police, and the courts, on behalf of the Palestinian family. Misunderstood and opposed by his Jewish people. He also had to speak very clear words to some of the Palestinian protesters who, out of order, were shouting, ‘Hitler should have finished the job!’

So there he was, Arik, working for justice and peace, in the name of the Lord, getting it in the neck from any number of sides, having to address all concerned. The very position and role of a prophet.   

Looking at our own position and role, we do well, I think, to support prophetic Jewish organisations and individuals in Israel, who seek to call their nation and its government to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with their God.

And we do well to call ourselves and our own nation to do the same.