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David Orendorff       Mark 12:28-34      November 1, 2009

The two largest sects of Judaism in the first century were the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  The Sadducees believed the center of God’s presence was in the temple and faith was best expressed by keeping the rituals surrounding the temple.  So being faithful, to the Sadducees, meant going to temple in Jerusalem and doing the rituals there.  They are like Christians who think it is enough to go to church on Sunday.

The Pharisees believed that the center of God’s presence was in the Torah as revealed in the scriptures and that faith was best kept by observing Torah.  What is Torah?  We often translate Torah as God’s commandments given in scripture. But Torah is not so much about rules as it is about a way of life.  The faithful Jew attempted to live his or her life in a way that pleased God.  And what pleased God was well recorded primarily in the books of Moses, but also in the books of wisdom (such as the Psalms, Ruth and Job) and in the books of the prophets.  To be faithful to God was to know from scripture what pleased God and to order one’s life accordingly.

In the first century there was a minor sect of Judaism just forming.  It was the Christian sect. The Christians were in many ways like the Pharisees and regarded the word of God to be in scripture and like the Pharisees; they sought to live their lives from scripture as the revealed way of life.  But they also believed that the presence of God was fully in Jesus, and more importantly, in Jesus resurrected and living with his followers, the church.  Jesus, for Christians, was the Torah, God’s way of life, made flesh.

When the temple was demolished by the Roman army in 70 CE the Sadducees perished.  Without temple worship there was no Judaism for them.  Unless the Jerusalem temple is rebuilt the Sadducees will not return.

The Pharisees, however, thrived with the destruction of the temple and Judaism moved from performing temple rituals to reading scripture under the guidance of a Rabbi, a teacher.  The Torah became the center of Judaism the world over.  Kol Ami, our partner congregation in this building, comes from the Pharisees and is now known as Rabbinic (Teacher) Judaism.  The heart and soul of Kol Ami is the Torah, God’s way of life.

The Christian Jews also survived and thrived.  The core of Christianity is also the Torah, with the addition that Torah is best understood in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now we come to the Pharisee’s question.  If the Torah is the center of Pharisaic Judaism, what is the center of the center?  Asked another way, when the Torah, God’s way of life for his people, is spoken in its simplest terms, what is said.  It is an important question for both Kol Ami and for us.  Its answer defines the way of life God would have us choose.

Jesus answers the Pharisee by quoting the Torah. First he says, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Jesus has combined Deuteronomy 6:4-5 with I Kings 8:6 and Joshua 22:5.

Secondly, Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  There is a well known story from first century BCE Judaism which makes the same point.  A gentile once came to (Rabbi) Shammai, and wanted to convert to Judaism. But he insisted on learning the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Shammai rejected him, so he went to (Rabbi) Hillel, who taught him: “What you dislike, do not do to your friend. That is the basis of the Torah. The rest is commentary; go and learn!”[1]

In placing these scriptures next to each other Jesus has combined the spiritual love of God with the temporal love of neighbor and self.  This is the life God would have us lead.  And the Pharisee agrees saying, “You are right, Teacher (Rabbi), you have truly said that God is one, and there is no other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings (ritual).”

Still today Pharisaic/Rabbinic Jews and Christian Jews agree on this.  Though we strongly disagree about Jesus we agree about the way of life God desires and offers. In both expressions of the Jewish faith (for we are still Jews at heart) we are offered the love of God and the opportunity to love others as we love ourselves. For both Kol Ami and Bear Creek, those who trust God with their lives experience the miracle of divine transformation as they learn to love God, others and themselves ever more fully.

A very visible witness of the Great Commandment is our sharing of this building with Kol Ami.  I know there are some who think we share the building for the money.  The fact is we at best break even financially.  Because of state law we are limited in the rent we can charge and we are lucky if the rent pays the costs.

If it is not for the money, then why put up with the bumps and inconvenience of shared space?  I believe it is because this is a thing God has asked us to do that we might share in his loving healing of the world.  And I have evidence that it is working. Just this past Sunday a woman who is attending Rabbi Mark’s “Introduction to Judaism” class came up to me and told me that her grandfather was a United Methodist pastor.  When she saw our shared sign on the corner she heard her grandfather encouraging her to come here.  By our witness of love she is returning to faith.

Two weeks ago Edsel Goldson, the pastor of Renton First UMC, told me how our witness of sharing the building with Kol Ami had changed his vice chair of Trustees.   Renton UMC was asked to share its building with a Tongan United Methodist congregation that had outgrown its building in Rainier Beach.  Everyone expected this man to be stubborn and resist the sharing because that is who he generally is.  But he wasn’t stubborn and readily agreed.  Surprised, Edsel asked him why.  He answered that two years ago he brought a confirmation class here to experience a Friday Shabbat service at Kol Ami. From this experience he reasoned that if we can live in a loving relationship with Kol Ami his congregation can live in a loving relationship with other United Methodists.

My favorite evidence came two years ago when I was present at a Bar Mitzvah and the grandfather of the young man claiming adulthood sought me out and told me that he was a survivor of the holocaust; that as a child he had lost his parents, all but one sibling, and much of his extended family to the Nazi’s concentration camps.  He told me how former neighbors, good Christian folks, had betrayed his family and how most of the German Christians of the time actively practiced a hatred of Jews.  And then he told me how coming into our shared building offered healing for him.  Seeing that we shared a building, that our common symbols are etched into the sanctuary doors, that the two congregations shared families and compassion and that I, a Christian pastor, would be present to support and celebrate his grandson’s bar mitzvah was a moment of healing for an old soul.  Tears came then and still come now as I remember.

This is not our building, as we sometimes think, made by our gifts and hands, but it is God’s building.  When God sent members of Kol Ami to ask if we would share it was God was giving us a purpose in healing an old wound.  This building is where we live the heart and soul of the Torah, where we live lives in God’s way, where we live the Great Commandment; loving God, our neighbors and ourselves.  Here we live the love of God and it makes us one with God and each other.

Thanks be to God.  Shalom and Amen.