WHAT JESUS LEARNED FROM JUDAISM

Matthew 22: 34-40

Life in a Jewish household in the first century would have instilled our Lord Jesus with many qualities, beliefs, and experiences. Given over to Joseph to raise as his own son, Mary and Joseph were still part of a Nazareth community. The story might have been told to him about his birth; sons were also taught by their fathers about their work. In Jesus’ case, his father was a “teckton” which means someone who works with stone or wood. He likely would have learned that trade. In so doing, the job sights might have taken him to the nearby Roman city of Sepphoris. He would have gotten to know the other tradesmen, and learned the ways of the Romans. He would have learned about hypocrisy from the productions put on in Roman theatres by the “hypocrites,” which means “actors” those who put on an actual or an emotional mask to become someone else. If Jesus’ Heavenly Father had picked Joseph to be his human father, then Joseph was also a man of faith. Jesus would have heard the stories, told yearly, about the demanding and ruthless Pharaoh who worked them hard, and how God sent plagues to Pharaoh to persuade him of God’s power, God’s persistence, and God’s care for those who honor him. Jesus would have known about, and likely participated in, Day of Atonement rituals; he would have know about the autumn Festival of Booths, and the spring Feast of Weeks, all established well before his ministry. Ideas like sacrifice, leaving food for the poor, and honoring God by not saying his name aloud would all have been learned by Jesus. The Galilee area would have had rabbis and Pharisees, but it would have been on his one or more of his visits to Jerusalem that he would have met Sadducees- the ones who ran the Temple in Jerusalem. Any human prejudice again Romans, who taxed heavily, or against the Temple moneychangers who made large profits off the transactions of traveling Jewish pilgrims, would have been learned as he grew up. Jesus was a Jew, a faithful Jew, yet none who knew him could accept that he was the fulfillment of prophecy. How could one who grew up with them be “Messiah?” And how could they trust John the Baptist, who said Jesus was the one sent from God, since John was his cousin? Jesus stepped into ministry with a region full of doubters and skeptics. Outside of his region he was welcomed more than in his own region, but isn’t that often the case today? Some say an “expert” in a field is someone with a briefcase from at least 50 miles out of town! Jesus’ own people were his toughest.

While parts of Jewish Law were written down, the most famous of the writings were on tablets of stone: a contract of sorts between God and humanity that became known as the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, or “the Law.” With a sweep of history we find that the wise words written on those tablets were written into the wisdom of other faiths and other areas besides Mt. Sinai and Israel. But most of the first five books of the Bible, if they were ever written down, have disappeared over time. We have some of them now, from in 1948, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls that are quite useful. Finding any holy books make a big splash. It was when the book of the Law of the Lord was found at the base of the first Temple that King Josiah of Israel instituted a revival of sorts, sending out a decree that loose living, unanchored immorality, and the influences of false gods would then be put away, and a love for and allegiance toward Yahweh (The Lord) would be re-established. 2 Chronicles 24 records that King Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord;” among the things he did was smash foreign idols and tear down the altars erected to other gods. Then Josiah began renovating God’s Temple properly. Then came that fateful day when a priest named Hilkiah found a book “of the Law of the Lord given through Moses.” Many scholars today believe that book was the book of Deuteronomy; and when Hilkiah found that book of the laws of God, guidelines otherwise entrusted to memory and oral tradition, he corrected the community of believers and got them back on track to God.

So it is clear why the Ten Commandments over the years have become virtually sacrosanct. In the first century, Jesus enters the scene. Up he grows in the sight of Jewish parents and a loving Heavenly Parent. Nevertheless, he is exposed to all of the human desires and prejudices that first century Galilee had. He was astute intellectually and God gifted him with a shrewdness and brilliance beyond even the most gifted chess player, software writer, or inventors of our day. Jesus was beyond measure with his mind, yet human in his body. Like any of you who would like to be ready when someone challenges your knowledge or beliefs, Jesus was always being tested. The day we encountered in Matthew 22 was no different. Surrounded by a crowd that included workers, rabbis, beggars, and religious leaders like Pharisees (who he was used to seeing) and Sadducees (who he only saw on visits to the Jerusalem Temple.) Sometimes Pharisees and Sadducees were even at odds with one another, but in this instance, the Bible says in Matthew 22:34, they came together, as happened in Psalm 2:2, when earthly rulers “gathered together against the Lord and his anointed one.” On this day, Pharisees wanted to test Jesus’ orthodoxy. “Does he have right beliefs?” they wondered. Such questioning happens even today, across coffee tables, courtrooms, and at presbytery meetings. I’ve seen it and perhaps you have too. Since every Pharisee believed all the Ten Commandments were of equal importance, the answer to “Which of them is the greatest” would have rendered the orthodox answer “No one commandment is above another; not one can be ignored or given more weight than the others.” But could it be that Jesus could tell how easily they were focusing on the trees instead of the forest, as we all do at different times? Do you know people who say they religiously stick to the letter of the law but you just don’t want to be around them? Some I’ve known seem to treat themselves as “better than others,” act “holier than thou,” and some are just plain unlikable. Here were people who were supposed to be the highest and best examples of Judaism, and their self-serving and loveless attitude was condemning them. Jesus didn’t invent the idea of loving God or neighbor either. He heard it growing up, and God’s love for us and our love for God and neighbor permeates the appropriate lifestyle of a Jew. Good Christians are not the only ones who are taught to show love, and not the only ones that sometimes throw love out the window by getting obsessed with right belief.

“Which is the great commandment in the law?” To paraphrase, the question: “Here are the Ten Commandments; tell us which one is the greatest!” And what did Jesus do? He could have gone into what Joseph taught him; what Mary taught him; what his boyhood rabbis taught him; or what his Heavenly Father taught him. Instead he went back to the words that mattered as much or more to Jews than perhaps any others. He went back to the “Shema” the words that said “Hear ye! Listen up!” Jesus, and virtually every Jew, and now many Christians, have it etched into their memory banks. The opening portion is from Deuteronomy 6. “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” When some of us will visit Israel next month, we will see faithful orthodox Jews with those words written on their hand, between their eyes, and on their doorposts. The Orthodox Jews take these words literally and carry them out visibly. Jesus, not a literalist, knew the words of God taught to him since he was young; with just a twist of language, he answered the questioner this way: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He could have stopped there. But instead he added words, perhaps remembered from his Sabbath School lessons. He went into Leviticus, where casual readers of the Old or First Testament often fear to tread, and there he pulled out this gem from chapter 19, verse 18: and the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It helps us to remember Jesus’ own testimonies in his short ministry: he came to interpret the Law and to fulfill it, not to change it.

How good it is to know your Bible! Some quote it inaccurately and some just own one. But to know God best starts by knowing his Word written, which is Scripture, and his Word living, who is Jesus! Perhaps our best combination for living is to know the fences for good living found in Scripture and to seek to live with the heart of Jesus himself. With the timeless words that Jesus taught along with his loving actions, we can change the world.

Jeffrey A. Sumner October 23, 2011