Must a Christian interpretation of any Older Testament passage be read through the lens of the resurrection?
Gospel Reading: Matthew 5:13-20
For Sunday, Feb 6. , 2011: Year A - Epiphany 5
I’m sorry, I hope it doesn’t seem like we (Christians) have co-opted your Holy Book. I don’t think it started out that way. It looked a lot different when the founders of our upstart religion were all Children of Israel; quoting the only scriptures they knew (i.e., the Laws and the Prophets).
Our Prequel
But now it doesn’t look so good, when most of us have really no connection at all to the practice of the faith of Abraham, no ancestral connection, not even a clear understanding of what Jewish ritual, faith, religion even consists of. And your Holy book? We kind of think of it as ours too. It is still yours as well; we can both use it, right? We think of it as our prequel, and our background story. Is it presumptuous of us to bind it together with our newer part and call it one book?
‘er Testament?
When I was in seminary, they taught us to say Hebrew Bible, never Old Testament. "Old" denoted stale or bad somehow. Which, if you are going to be perfectly, politically correct, is kind of ageist. Some would allow, Older Testament, thinking of it as a non-judgmental chronological statement, although I have never heard anyone referring to the Newer Testament.
These were attempts at sensitivity, born of the best intentions. You see we did not want it to look like we think our religion is better than yours. That Christianity, somehow, is an improvement on your faith. Or the really ugly thing that you somehow missed the main point of your own faith, a point we get.
Reassuring or Provocative?
This all looked different when we were on the margins of an already marginalized people, but now we are a big clumsy oaf knocking into things and trampling flower beds without even noticing. We don’t mean to be supersessionist. But there really is no way to avoid the fact that our religion’s namesake claimed to be the fulfillment of your Holy Book.
In verse 17 of this week’s reading Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophet -- instead he came to fulfill them. I don’t know if that is less alarming or offensive. To say, don’t worry, I will up hold the Law and the Prophets, is to be reassuring, to go further and say, as a matter of fact the Law and the Prophets are all about me and I am here to complete them—well that is provocative.
The Hardest Question
Must a Christian interpretation of any Older Testament passage be read through the lens of the resurrection?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
