From the Rector

Dear Friends,

The hype that has surrounded Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, has raised several issues, including the perceived anti-Semitism of the Gospels. In John's Gospel, for example, "the Jews" are portrayed as Jesus' enemies. They persecute him (5:16); they misinterpret him (8:22); they try to stone him (8:59); they take the initiative in arresting him and having him crucified (18:12 and 19:12). Since John's account of the passion is the one always read at the Good Friday liturgy and since John's use of the term "the Jews" is so much more pronounced than the other gospels (over 70 times in contrast to 5 or 6 times each in Matthew, Mark, and Luke), I want to say a word about how we are to understand John's use of this term.

Scholars assert that we should not consider the term "the Jews" to refer to the Jewish people in general. For example, the parents of the man born blind in chapter nine are afraid of "the Jews," but they themselves are clearly Jews (as, of course, are the Gospel writers, all the early Christians, and Jesus himself). The Rev. Raymond Brown points out that the expression is often used interchangeably with the Jewish religious authorities. He contends that, when we hear the words "the Jews" in John's gospel, we should understand "the Jewish religious leaders who did not believe in Jesus."

Robert Kysar, while accepting Brown's assertion, suggests an even broader meaning of the term. "The Jews," he writes, "are stylized types of those who reject Christ," not a specific ethnic group at all. He offers the analogy of mystery stories where the private investigator always appears brilliant in contrast to the dull, plodding police. The author does not present the police as distinct characters, but only as foils in contrast to the hero. In a similar way, Kysar declares, John is interested in "the Jews" only as "types of unbelief." They function only to allow John to communicate clearly about Jesus as the Christ. Just as we do not regard the author of the private detective story as anti-police or anti-establishment, so, Kysar concludes, we should not think of John as anti-Semitic.

We must keep in mind that all of the Gospels were written down 35 to 70 years after Jesus died and rose again. Earlier friendly relations between Christians and Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah had broken down to such an extent that the Christians were expelled from the synagogues. The local Christians thought of the local Jews as hostile, and that opposition was reflected in the Gospel accounts as they were written down. But that does not mean that when we read scripture two thousand years later, we are to understand that all Jews were responsible for Jesus' death or somehow deserve persecution. That is not what John and the other Gospel writers were trying to say. Rather we are to respect Jews as a people of faith and in their unique role as God's chosen people.

- Stephen