Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities
No, I'm not anticipating an unfortunate appointment with the guillotine and I'm hardly feeling fatalistic about matters (though I must admit to some "moodiness" lately), but this very famous and oft quoted phrase from one of the most popular novels written by Dickens seemed appropriate this morning.
If you've been reading my latest blogs and conversations including The Beautiful Girl and Her Very Long List and especially Overlap, Part 3: Speed Bumps, you'll understand my struggles in the "Messianic movement" and my personal resolution to those struggles. While I've been anticipating such a move for the past six months or more, I woke up this morning with a feeling that a weight had been lifted.
Don't worry. I'm not automatically assuming that my emotional state is a "sign from the Holy Spirit" that God approves of my decision. Too often I've found that people rely on their feelings to tell them what God does and doesn't approve of. In my experience though, we tend to feel "better" when we do what we want to do (which may or may not be within the will of God) and worse when we are doing the will of God, at least when it takes us outside our comfort zones.
So my "feeling better" isn't necessarily any sort of communication from God that He wants me to stop serving at my congregation. That matter remains firmly rooted in prayer, and I trust that God will make His intentions clear without having to tinker with the part of my brain chemistry that generates emotional states.
Something interesting happened this morning, though. My wife and I were talking before I left for work, and she asked me if I was going to resume teaching a weekday evening class at my congregation. I mentioned briefly that I'd be teaching a 16-week course, mapping the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus) in the Book of Matthew back to the collection of Torah commandments Jews can obey today listed in The Concise Book of Mitzvoth as compiled by The Chafetz Chayim (and when the book arrived in the mail late last week, my wife's little eyes got all big and round with interest...I think she wants to borrow my book).
I also took the opportunity to say that after the 16 weeks were done, I'd be resigning from leadership in my congregation and leaving "the movement". Her response took me off guard.
She asked me, "How will you be fed?"
That struck me as more of a Christian sort of question than Jewish, at least in her wording. Of course, she doesn't want me to quit just because of her or because I think she wants me to. I explained that it's a little more complicated than that (without going into my whole blogging experience) but naturally, she does play a role in my decision...just not the only role.
She seems concerned about what I'll be doing after I leave the congregation with no "feeding" coming my way. We agreed that, for the past several years, I've been doing most of the feeding at the congregation, but I really don't have a resource besides self-study, to expand and challenge my own faith and education. I still don't know how that's going to work post-congregation, although both Dan and Gene have made pretty much the same suggestion about a solution.
My wife didn't spontaneously offer up the option of the Chabad, and I didn't really expect her to. It may be too threatening for her to imagine me, with my "tainted" past, showing up in a world where she so strongly experiences her Judaism.
I don't have much more to say about my decision to leave the "Messianic movement" except that right now, it "feels" like the right thing to do.
But feelings are enormously deceptive, so I'm prepared to wait and see how things develop.
This isn't to say that I regret the relationships I've developed with various people through the course of these blogosphere discussions. I hope to maintain a number of contacts with people "post-congregation" as I value their insights and their kindness. However, the overall dynamics of "the movement" and probably the world of faith in general, contains more than its fair share of "knock-down-drag-outs".
As of this morning, my decision to distance myself from these issues does seem to be "a far, far better thing." Maybe on the other side of my decision, when summer is here again, I can find a sort of "neutral zone" where Christians and (Messianic) Jews (and non-Messianic Jews) can sit down together over a cup of coffee or a beer and share our insights and differences without having to feel threatened. Maybe it'll be like this, at least someday:
Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken. -Micah 4:4Addendum: I found the following quote and it seemed appropriate:
I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. -Matthew 8:11
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see. -Thoreau
