What's in a Name?

Yeah, not like that title hasn't been used a billion times before...but it fits, probably like it fit all of those other stories. To go back to the original source, Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet", the full quote What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, is Juliet's commentary on Romeo's name. They have entered into a love affair doomed to destruction since both of their families are bitter enemies. Juliet is trying to tell Romeo that she loves the individual named "Montague", not the "Montague" name.

Unless you completely skipped the classics, you know that Romeo and Juliet die tragically and that the only good that may have come from their ill-fated union is the possibility that their blockheaded parents might finally see that arguing and fighting with each other just isn't worth the cost. But what does that say about us?

By "us" I mean all of the different factions of the believing community who are struggling over the perceived rightness or wrongness of our theologies and our perspectives. At some point in this whole discussion, Derek Leman has said more than once that the One Law movement needs to pick a name for itself that completely divorces it from "Messianic Judaism" so that no one will mistake one for the other. I sort of feel like the black sheep of the family that nobody wants to invite to reunions and needs to change how I spell my name to avoid embarrassing my uptown relations.

When Yeshua said that we other, Gentile sheep, needed to be made part of one flock and one shepherd, did he know about "black sheep"?

Recently, Gene Shomovich had this to say about One Law congregations:

Would you rather me sing "Kumbaya," be PC and embrace teachings and ideologies that I find aberrant, harmful to the Body and full of rotten fruit? Would you do that if you were me? I find that many One-Law-yers have no qualms with villainizing Christianity and berating what they imagine as "apartheid" in Jewish Messianic Judaism, but they have a hard time accepting criticism.

If congregations like mine are considered One Law congregations by Gene, then we are being classified as aberrant, harmful to the Body, and full of rotten fruit. Gene also says of himself that, My words are not "mean" nor am I out to hurt "One-Law" people - I do not call people names, make fun of them, hurl abuses and curses on them. He continues to say that he makes his comments out of love, but I must admit, the "love" aspect seems a little difficult to sort out among the labels.

That isn't to say that I or the congregation at which I worship should be "criticism proof", but it seems like what's really being said is that if you don't agree with the Messianic Judaism/Bilateral Ecclesiology viewpoint of Gentiles and Jews, you are aberrant, harmful to the Body, and full of rotten fruit.

Frankly, I don't accept the labels that Gene has (apparently) attached to me or the people I worship with. After all, Gene's never met me, never met any member of my congregation, and only has my blogs and presumably the congregation's website (if he's ever visited it) on which to base his opinion. That speaks rather poorly of my blogs if they are the only basis for Gene's comments and I have asked him for some clarification (and am awaiting his reply...see the end of this article for more details).

Even if I completely changed the name and label of our congregation (with the board's approval, of course) to remove any mention of the word "Messianic", it would still mean in the minds and hearts of the MJ/BE congregations, that we remain aberrant, harmful to the Body, and full of bad fruit. So what other motivation do I have to taking the name change option?

But wait a minute. I can revisit the mood that I experienced on Erev Shabbat and let such opinions continue to torpedo me and the people I worship with or I can remember what I read Friday evening:

Thus said Hashem: Accursed is the man who trusts in people and makes flesh [and blood] his strength and turns his heart away from Hashem, He will be like a lone tree in the desert, and will not see when goodness comes; it dwells in parched lands in the wilderness, in a salty, uninhabited land. -Jeremiah 17:5-6

If I let other people's opinions be the only guide by which to measure my fruit (bad or otherwise), I'll end up having to wall myself off from all believers everywhere (and don't think I haven't considered it) lest I somehow stub my toe and risk garnering their ire. But this isn't just about people. It's about God.

Who are we supposed to turn to in our trials? The day before Yeshua's execution, he took his most trusted disciples with him to pray as he turned to God for comfort. While his disciples loved him with all their hearts, being human, they couldn't overcome their exhaustion and grief and fell asleep, leaving the Master alone in his anguish...alone that is, except for the Father. While the people Yeshua loved most weren't there to "watch his back" at that critical time, God is always there and always reliable and faithful. I might have to worry about human motivations but I never have to worry about God's.

If God really doesn't want me to do this anymore, He'll make it plain. I've never known God to "play hide the ball with the universe", so to speak. He doesn't leave me swinging in the breeze, trying to guess his will and intent. He does however, allow me the room to explore my own intent and understanding. That's what is at the core of this blog and these discussions.

Peeling away the layers of the onion, what do I want out of a congregation? What is the purpose of my worship context? I've already listed several times why, for me at least, going back to the Sunday-keeping church isn't a viable option. So what am I looking for?

Despite what Gene and others may say, I'm not looking to be aberrant, harmful to the Body, and to produce bad fruit. If that were my goal, it would mean I was a pretty evil-minded, evil-spirited human being. While I don't consider myself "all that and a bag of chips", I do see myself attempting to do the will of my Master. I'm not always good at it and sometimes I'm really bad at obeying his will, but it's not out of a raw, naked desire to be mean and hurt people. I'm glad God knows who I am and doesn't take it personally.

What I'm looking for is a way to worship God and the Jewish Messiah is a manner that is consistent with the Word and courageous about continually examining our theology and our purpose. That, in and of itself, shouldn't be a threat to MJ/BE, but to the degree that a Hebraic perspective of the Jewish Messiah is part and parcel of that purpose, it certainly could be seen that way. The reason why I attend a worship context outside the usual parameters of the Christian church isn't because I hate the church, but because I can't find the perspective I seek within the confines of Church theology.

I don't believe Jesus turned Saturday into Sunday, so I won't find the Shabbat in the Sunday church. I don't believe Jesus made all meats clean, so I won't find what I'm looking for at an egg and (pork) sausage prayer breakfast meeting hosted by one of my local churches. I don't believe that Jesus was born in December 25th, so I won't find the birth of the Messiah at a church Christmas play or under a Christmas tree.

Oh, and I'm not looking to be a Gentile in Jewish clothing. I'm not trying to disguise myself. This isn't self-hatred because I'm a Gentile, and I don't think that I'd be a better believer if only I could be Jewish. God created me to be who I am. If who I am outside the confines of the Sunday church and outside the expectations of MJ/BE doesn't meet with the approval of everyone who sees me, that quite frankly, is between me and God. If you don't like what I do and I am doing my best to obey the will of God, it's God's job to straighten me out if I've messed up somewhere.

So what is this thing I'm looking for. Hold onto your hats. It's the "first century church". OK, the word "church" didn't exist back then, at least not the way we use it today. But it was a collection of worship venues established by Paul, Peter, and other Jewish emissaries to the Gentiles, allowing them to be grafted into the civilized olive tree and to have some sort of connection with the Jewish Messiah. In order to do that, the Gentiles had to talk to and learn from their Jewish mentors. Unless the Jewish mentors developed a separate history and background for God and the Messiah tailored for Gentiles and separate from Jewish understanding, then the Gentiles learned about the same God and the same Messiah that the Jews have known all along (and the Acts 15 letter wasn't a reinvention of terms, changing "Yeshua" to "Jesus")

I'm trying to say that it doesn't make sense for Gentiles to have holidays and worship practices that are completely disconnected from their origins. Paul wouldn't have done that. That wasn't done until Paul was long dead. I'm looking for the original template. I'm sure it wasn't perfect (no worship venue within the history of the human race didn't and doesn't have its deviations from source), but it was a lot closer to the original intent of the people who established it than just about anything we have today.

What do you call something like that...a place where Gentiles worship the Jewish Messiah? In the truest sense, the church doesn't really worship the Jewish Messiah, they worship the Christian Jesus. I'm not being mean when I say that, but church history has changed and shifted the original template quite a bit over the past 2000 years or so. I'm just trying to get back to basics.

For Derek Leman, the term "Messianic" is something coined within the past few decades to mean a form of worship established by Jews who want to worship Messiah Yeshua in a completely Jewish worship venue. Anyone other than a Jew using the word "Messianic" is out of line, from his perspective. So what am I supposed to call the Jewish Messiah, Christ? Am I to avoid using the words "Messiah" and "Messianic" (which do a very good job at defining the nature and purpose of Yeshua) so don't step on someone's copyright or trademark? Did Paul forbid the Gentiles from ever calling Yeshua the Messiah and insist they only say "Jesus Christ" so people wouldn't accidently mistake the Gentile believers for Jewish believers?

If I could find a word...a "label" that would correctly define what I'm seeking and avoid offending anyone (because offending someone is the absolute worse thing you can do to them), I would. I don't know that I can, but I'm certainly willing to pursue such a thought.

I don't know if any of the currently existing labels really describe what I'm looking for. "Church" doesn't do it because a number of the practices of the church are inconsistent with my goals and intent. "Messianic Judaism" doesn't do that because my congregation isn't particularly Jewish (yes, we have some Jews who attend, but just as many or more Gentiles are there, too). "One Law" may not be right either, if for no other reason than I don't see us as aberrant, harmful to the Body and full of rotten fruit.

I think I'm looking for "The Way". It's a nice, clean, label that seems perfectly harmless. OK, I'm not looking for a label but a way to worship God and to learn about God, and to share my faith that's focused on God and not on labels and and all the external "stuff" that people seem to get so hung up about. Nevertheless, we have to call ourselves something and I'd prefer that the label be a fair and honest description of what we do, relatively free from other people's biases.

The counter-argument (I can hear it coming on the wind) says that, if I believe that all of Torah applies equally to Gentiles and Jews, by definition, I'm One Law and thus I'm aberrant, harmful to the Body and full of rotten fruit. I must admit, doubt has entered my mind. Does it mean I'm going to automatically drink Mark Kinzer's Kool-Aid? Probably not.

It does mean that I have more work to do. Supposedly Kinzer's book is on it's way to me and in the care of the USPS as it makes its way to my home. I'm not pinning all my hopes on a single book. That would be foolish. But at least I'll have a concrete document explaining the perspective of people who don't seem to think much of me. After that, I have a few more people to talk with, then I'll put all my ducks in a row, metaphorically speaking, and see what I've got.

Before all that though, I've already decided that it's not what people call me or what people think of me that makes the real difference, but it's what God thinks of me that really matters. As always, you are all welcome, within the bounds of at least some measure of courtesy, to register your comments here and render your opinions and beliefs. However, just because a person has an opinion or a belief they want to pin around my neck doesn't mean I'm obligated to wear it.

Here's to coming up roses.

Afterword: Gene did clarify his comment: James, please note that in my last comments I specifically spoke of theologies/ideologies/movements that have been expressed to me by One-Law proponents or those found in various OL materials written by OL leaders and bloggers. I did not see a need to point out specific individuals or their individual beliefs and practices (which may vary and may not necessarily tow any "official" line or lines). I therefore didn't point a finger at you or anyone else in particular.