It's Not Easy Being Green

When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. -Acts 21:17-21

While Kermit the Frog sings It's Not Easy Being Green, as we can see, it's not easy being a Jew who believes Jesus is the Messiah, either. I don't say this out of personal experience, since I'm a Gentile worshiper and disciple of the Jewish Messiah, but it is possible for me to read the Word of God and to see for myself the trials of Messianic Jewish men such as Paul the Emissary to the nations. And while Paul was only acting out of faith in God and in response to special revelations of the Messiah himself, nevertheless, many of the Jewish people, particularly in Jerusalem, didn't trust someone who had spent so much time talking to Gentiles and Jews together about the Good News of the Messiah, such as in the following example of his actions in Ephesus:

Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. -Acts 19:8-10

If it was difficult for a Jewish man to spread the word of the Messiah in the diaspora in the decades following Yeshua's ascension, consider how difficult it is for Jewish men and women today who profess faith in Yeshua as the Messiah. How are they treated by their family and Jewish friends who are not Messianic and who consider a Jew who worships Jesus to have "converted" to Christianity? Further, how is a Messianic Jew who professes his or her faith to the larger Jewish community viewed? Throughout the history of the church, Jews have had to be wary of Christian attempts to dissolve the existence of the Jewish people as a whole, not by the sword, but by conversion and assimilation. This threat, or at least the perception of a threat, ripples back across the sea of history to Paul. When falsely accused of speaking against the Torah of Moses to the Jews, how was he to convince his Jewish detractors otherwise?

What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. -Acts 21:22-24

The apparent solution for a Jew who had been accused of speaking against the Torah was to live out the Torah and in this specific case, to complete a Nazirite vow. Now compare this to the more strict sects of Messianic Judaism in modern times. What do we see them doing but the same thing; living out the Torah and more specifically, modeling their worship and their day-to-day lived experience on modern Orthodox Judaism, adhering to the written and oral Torah and the wisdom of the sages. But will this convince the larger Jewish community that the Messianic Jews are indeed just as Jewish as the rest of the Hebraic world?

The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them. When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, "Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place." (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple area.) -Acts 21:26-29

In Paul's case, the majority of the Jewish community weren't convinced and their reaction was particularly violent. However, Paul's actions weren't a mere ploy to convince the Jews in Jerusalem of his sincerity but rather an expression of his faith and a continuation of his Jewish existence as a disciple of the Messiah, as he explains here:

"When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. 'Quick!' he said to me. 'Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.' " 'Lord,' I replied, 'these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.' "Then the Lord said to me, 'Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.' " -Acts 22:17-21

Up to this point, Paul's Jewish audience listened and supposedly didn't have an issue with anything he said, right up to the words Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Then the "wheels fell off the cart", so to speak:

The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, "Rid the earth of him! He's not fit to live!" -Acts 22:22

Even after Paul's trials among the Jews and as a prisoner of the Romans, his faith in the Jewish Messiah, as a Jew, never waivered:

However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man. -Acts 24:14-16

We learn at the end of the book of Acts that Paul brought no charges or accusations against his Jewish brothers and continued to speak the Good News of the Messiah, presumably, until his dying day.

While I can't speak to the experiences of Messianic Jews in the 21st century among larger Judaism, I can see the struggle of such Jews among the Gentiles. Certainly Paul being so closely associated with Gentiles for so long tarnished his reputation among the Jews but, as far as we can tell, it didn't damage his existence as a Jewish person when among Gentiles. Today, we see a different sort of struggle playing out, at least as perceived by some Jews in the Messianic community.

Often I hear complaints of how some Gentiles in "the movement" seem to be taking on, at least superficially, the "identity" of Jews, by their dress and professing themselves "spiritual Jews" or even declaring themselves "sons of Jacob". Occasionally, such individuals come to the congregation where I worship. We don't really react to them all that much except to teach as we've always taught and to let them decide if they want to stay among us or not. Generally, they move on to fellowships or communities that believe more in line with who they think they are, which is actually a pity.

If they would stay and learn, perhaps we could reduce the friction between Jews and Gentiles in the Messianic world by teaching such people to open their hearts rather than to lay claim to "territory". The flip side of the coin, so to speak, is if Messianic Judaism would view such people with compassion and endeavour to teach rather than to immediately condemn, they might more effectively fulfill their mandate to be a light to the nations. If Paul had been so critical of Gentiles who were struggling to enter into and to understand the Messianic faith, there probably would be no non-Jewish believers in Jesus. Forgive me, but the message of unity is particularly strong within me just now and we must never forget that the door swings both ways.

I don't say that I or my particular congregation are remarkable in that we have a unique message not found among Gentiles in the Messianic world, but we do try to approach the Bible honestly and periodically launch ourselves at our own assumptions in order to keep being honest. We don't always agree with each other, at least on the peripheral matters, but we stand firm on the foundation of God and faith in the Jewish Messiah that all who profess his name will be saved.

Of course, I don't have a lived Jewish experience as a Messianic or as a non-Messianic, so I can't speak from that perspective. Judaism, like being a singing frog, is a life that escapes me. I may grasp the struggle intellectually, but I will never experience it viscerally. Yet I am reminded as we rapidly approach Rosh Hashanah, that we must continue to make a strong effort to connect to our fellow, particularly those people who are not like ourselves, and to build a bridge on the rock of our salvation, which is a foundation we all share. I may not know what it's like to be green (metaphorically speaking) and thus cannot share a deep connection with the struggles of Kermit, but I can understand what it's like to live a lifestyle different from my neighbors and to reach out to the world's most humble and famous frog on that basis.

It's not easy to be green...but if we join together with our faith in the Messiah as the link between us, it's not overwhelmingly difficult, either.

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." -Deuteronomy 31:8