Aliens and Natives

The whole community of Israel must celebrate it. "An alien living among you who wants to celebrate Hashem's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it. The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you." -Exodus 12:47-49

One teaching and one judgment shall be for you and for the alien who dwells among you. -Numbers 15:16

It's verses such as those I just quoted that are used as the basis for what some folks call the "One Law" movement. According to Tim Hegg, the term "One Law" was coined by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC):

...UMJC was formulating its “Definition of Messianic Judaism,” they began to label our teaching as “One Law.” The label was apparently taken from the Torah itself, where God states that there is to be “one law for the native born and for the foreigner” (e.g., Num 15:16, 29). Their position was that some of God’s laws were for everyone, but others were not. They felt that some of God’s laws were given specifically to Jewish people and not to Gentiles because these laws helped maintain a distinct Jewish identity. The conclusion was that Gentiles should not take these laws upon themselves lest they blur the Jewish/Gentile distinction. When the “One Law” label was first used to identify our position...

Here, I use the term "One Law" to describe those congregations that follow what you would call a "Messianic Jewish" perspective, but tend to be comprised of more Gentiles than Jews and who see both Gentiles and Jews as equal members and sharers of all (or at least most) of the covenant promises of God. This is a distinction from how organizations like the UMJC define "Messianic Judaism", which they see as a fully functioning Judaism on the same plane as Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism, with their only difference being the belief that Yeshua was and is the Jewish Messiah. As in other Judaisms, participation by Gentiles is generally minimal to non-existent, hence the Messianic Judaism/One Law distinction.

I used to regularly attend the local Reform synagogue with my wife and children (who are Jewish) and was generally accepted, but I never felt I really belonged. Part of that "non-belonging" was because I believe in Yeshua as the Messiah and Savior and the fine people at the Reform shul, who I have witnessed do love God sincerely, do not share that belief. Being a Reform synagogue, I was not the only Gentile in attendence and in fact, there were (and I believe still are) even Gentiles on the board of directors there (I should mention for accuracy, that they're a combined Reform/Conservative synagogue...the joining of two smaller synagogues in Southwestern Idaho). Eventually, I returned to my local "One Law" congregation where I tend to fit in more.

I can see why Messianic organizations such as the UMJC would believe I should take a similar stance towards attendence of what they would consider a Messianic Jewish synagogue...attending only if I am married to a Jewish woman and raising Jewish children, all of whom are Messianic. From their point of view, as an individual Gentile, even one who shares their belief structure, I would have no place among them.

In my own congregation, I encounter a wide variety of people. Apart from the regular attenders, we get visitors who can have some, what I would consider, unusual practices and beliefs. One of the behaviors of some of these Gentiles is the overwhelming desire to visit and attend the local Reform and Chabad synagogues. I'm not sure what they think they're going to accomplish except putting off a lot of Jewish people. Some of these Gentiles habitually wear a kippah and talit katan which only makes them appear more odd when visiting a mainly or totally Jewish worship service. It's extremely unlikely that the Rabbis of either synagogue will easily accept the presence of such people, when their main duty is to minister to the Jewish population of our area.

When I can, I try to discourage such visits or excursions by "One Law Gentiles" to these synagogues. While they are tolerated in those venues, such visits do nothing to endear "Messianic Judaism" (in traditional rabbinic Judaism, in my experience, they don't make any distinction between Messianic Judaism and One Law, seeing us all as Christians wearing Jewish attire) to the Jews at these synagogues. Such visits will not make it more likely that the Jews attending those synagogues will accept Yeshua as Messiah and will not promote a greater unity between Jews and Gentiles. It's tough to promote unity when you are doing everything in your power (though perhaps unknowingly) to annoy and aggrevate every Jew around you. If our purpose is to sanctify the Name of God, how can we live out that mission by deliberately creating a distance between us and the Jewish synagogues around us?

Anyone supporting the UMJC viewpoint of Messianic Judaism will probably now say to me, "Then please stick to your churches and we'll stick to our synagogues. After all," they might say, "Jews are apples and Gentiles are oranges and we don't belong in the same fruit bin." But is that true? More precisely, is that what God, Yeshua, and Yeshua's emissaries to the Gentiles such as Paul and Peter really intended at the start?

Yes, of course there was a schism between the Messianic Jews and the Gentiles who were called to follow the Jewish Messiah resulting in a total separation of worship styles, beliefs, and theologies by the 3rd Century of the Common Era. That schism is the basis on which modern Messianic Jews, at least those who subscribe to the theology of Bilateral Ecclesiology (I won't address Bilateral Ecclesiology or "BE" at this point, but will attempt to take it up in a later blog) develop the understanding that Messianic Jews and believing Gentiles must worship in two completely separate and disconnected contexts.

We've seen the rather horrible results of this schism and how disasterous it was for the Jewish people, once "Christianity" assumed that they were superior and thus justified in persecuting, torturing, and even murdering vast numbers of Jews "in the name of Christ". Despite how some MJ/BE proponents may feel about me (or at least how they feel about "One Law Gentiles"), I really don't want to be a part of any of that, but as part of my journey through the Bible to attempt to discover my own relationship with God and possibly with the Jewish Messiah, I have to take a look at the scriptures with open eyes, rather than assuming that this theology or that is correct or incorrect, just because someone says so.

Of course, no human being exists without bias and although I've turned my personal assumptions down to a low burn, I doubt they are actually turned off. Still, I need to see what the Bible says about all this and then work my way back out to see if any of the beliefs and behaviors around me (Christian or One Law or Messianic Judaism in all their variations and flavors) match up with God's Word.

I have to inject at this point that everyone believes their theologies and faith systems line up perfectly with the will and Word of God. That's our problem as human beings; the tendency to bend God's Word to our will in order to support our needs, issues, and interests. All people of faith tend to do this (sorry, in this, no one reading this blog is an exception, though you may believe otherwise). If this weren't true, there wouldn't be so many divisions within Judaism (Messianic or otherwise) and Christianity (and I'll include "One Law" under this heading for the purpose of this paragraph).

That said, I have to do something. I can't just sit here endlessly paralyzed by indicision since no one theology stands out beyond the rest of the herd. Nor can I assume that the Sunday keeping Christian church is only and proper place for me to worship as a Gentile just because both the Christian Church and the MJ/BE movement says it is.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me going back to the Bible. What does it say about me and those like me who, following God's plan (see my previous post Light and Dust) and being attracted to the light, have come to faith, as Gentiles, in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua? Now that we have, what do we do according to God's Word?

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again”. -John 10:14-17

This is generally accepted as Yeshua's commentary about Jews and Gentiles who have faith in the One God and in the Messiah. While the Gentiles are not of this sheep pen, that is, not Jewish, he states we Gentiles ..will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd... Wow! One flock and one shepherd. However, are we in two seperate and, as the MJ/BE proponents believe, physical "pens" or worship structures or does being "one flock" with "one shepherd" make us all sheep together?

Paul does say the following, drawing a continual distinction between Jew and Gentile:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. -Romans 1:16

This affirms that the message of salvation through the Messiah must first and foremost be delivered to the Jews as God's chosen ones, and then to the rest of the nations, but it doesn't seem to address the lived relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers in the Messiah. How is that to be acted out (as opposed to how it was acted out after the original schism and in terms of the current schism between Jewish and Gentile worshippers)?

I read recently on Derek Leman's blog that Jews and Gentiles only worshipped together in the same place very briefly, before splitting off, with the Jews worshipping exclusively in the synagogues and the Gentile believers worshipping elsewhere. I couldn't find any information about how long "briefly" was supposed to be or where in the Bible I could find exactly where it says that Jews and Gentiles of the First Century did and were supposed to worship apart from each other, but it's a compellng question and the details need to be revealed.

I know I'm drawing dangerously near to the area where I could be called a replacement theologist, anti-semetic, or other names because I have drawn into question the conclusions of others, but I don't know that the record in the Apostolic Scriptures is specifically clear regarding how or if Gentiles and Jews worshipped together or apart. I do believe that it does not erase the distinction between Jews and Gentiles for them to worship or pray together, at least on occasion. If it did, then each time I worshipped God in my local Reform synagogue, either my identity or the identity of the Jews around me would somehow have been diluted or whitewashed, which wasn't the case.

Now that I've set the stage, so to speak, I need to try and understand the details of the first century worship practices. I want to be very clear, I'm not talking about how things ended up in terms of a separation but rather, I'm talking about the original intent and the eternal intent of God. After all, God's original intent for the Jewish people was given at Mount Sinai in Exodus 20 and beyond, but that intent wasn't always perfectly lived out by the Jewish people, such as the incident of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32. No, I am not being anti-semetic in that statement. I am only making mention of this to illustrate that God has an intention for people, and people don't always perfectly obey that intention (and if Adam and Eve had perfectly obeyed God's intention, we probably wouldn't all be in this mess of trying to figure out who has what relationship to God right now). If that was true of the Jewish people relative to the Golden Calf, it can be true of both Jews and Gentiles relative to God's and the Messiah's desire for how we are to worship as one flock with one shepherd.

I've already attempted to examine this issue on my congregation's blog in the article Friday Night in the First Century Church but it requires further examination. I'll delve more into those scriptures in my next article.