Bob after shooting in DC...some personal reflections

How to read "Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace...where there is hatred, let me sow love." In light of murder in cold blood. How can we do that? What are our choices in responding? I invite your thoughts here.

Mourning the loss: A JFJ Press Release

Jews for Jesus mourns the devastating death of Yaron Lischinsky, a young Israeli diplomat and believer in Jesus, who was tragically killed alongside his soon-to-be fiancée, Sarah Milgrim, in Washington, DC. We grieve with their families, their friends, and the broader Messianic Jewish community in Israel and abroad.

Yaron’s life was marked by a sincere love for God, a deep commitment to the Jewish people, and a passion for peace. As a Messianic Jew, Yaron represented a growing, diverse, and vibrant community in Israel today: Jewish followers of Jesus who serve in the army, study in universities, and participate fully in Israeli society.

Many of our Jews for Jesus staff knew Yaron personally. He was a member of Melech Hamlachim, where several of our Israeli staff serve in leadership and attend.

“We are grieving the loss of Yaron, a member of the Messianic community in Israel and around the world,” said Aaron Abramson, CEO of Jews for Jesus. “What happened to Yaron and Sarah is not only a tragedy, but a sobering reminder that antisemitism is not bound by religious affiliation or political identity. It targets people simply for being Jewish. And hatred like this does not only threaten one group, it wounds all of us.”

As we remember Yaron and Sarah, we call on all people—Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and secular—to stand together against antisemitism and all forms of hate.

And we especially call on our fellow Christians to stand with the Jewish people during this time. We’re so grateful for the millions of believers in Jesus around the world who have been standing with us and our people since the tragedies of October 7, 2023.

We’ve all seen how hateful words and ideas become weaponized for evil. Now is the time to speak out, to show up, and to reaffirm that hatred toward any people is an offense to the heart of God.

May their memories be a blessing.

Jews for Jesus is an international, nonprofit organization made up of Jewish people who believe in Jesus and are committed to serving the Jewish community worldwide. Learn more ›

Eric Goldman's Jewish Cinémathèque: Ilana Trachtman: Ain't No Back To A ...

I happened on this television show in a random search while waking early in New Jersey today. After a springtime visit to Memphis' Civil Rights museum, intentional visit to Selma's famous Edmund Pettus bridge and the Birmingham jail, as well as the museum along the route of Selma to Montgomery marches (1965)... it has been a spring of learning. And grieving. And being impacted. 

This interview is stunning in its sometimes accidental serendipity findings and its import for today.

Confronting antisemitism by Michael Gawenda

 Michael Gawenda Confronting anti-Semitism

The Saturday PaperThe MonthlyAustralian Foreign Affairs

From the Saturday Paper last weekend

A few weeks ago, a young singer-songwriter booked flights to Melbourne. She did so on the basis that the venue for her gig had confirmed things were all set to go. Then last week, in the final days of the election campaign, she was informed by the venue that the gig had been cancelled following objections.

She contacted the venue and asked for a more forthright explanation. Here, in part, is what she wrote:

Look, I get that venues have their policies, but cancelling over political stuff feels pretty harsh, especially for an indie artist just trying to make music and pay the bills…

Here’s the thing – when you confirmed the show, I immediately jumped into action. I spent money and time designing a poster, and I booked flights interstate that I cannot get refunded. I’m not asking for the full amount, but half of what we agreed on would really help cover some of these costs … It would mean a lot honestly.

She received this response from the person who had booked her show:

I understand your frustration and the last thing I want to do is tell artists they’re not allowed to play, believe me. However, having identified yourself proudly and publicly as a Zionist and putting that out in the world via social media puts a small business like ours in a precarious position and immediately up for public scrutiny/backlash once the broader community connected to our business takes a hold of it…

He went on to say he was under no obligation to help with the cost of her flights.

This was not an isolated incident for the singer-songwriter. She has been unable to get gigs in Australia ever since, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, she posted on social media that she stood with Israel and its people and condemned Hamas and those who questioned what had happened that day.

It is hard to say how many Australian musicians, and artists and writers, on the basis that they have been identified as Zionists, have been attacked and threatened on social media and have had gigs and art exhibitions and book events cancelled. It would be more than a few.

How are we to understand this? What does it mean? What are we to make of the fact that none of the publicly funded organisations – Music Australia for instance – have come to her aid or condemned her treatment?

In the same week as the singer-songwriter’s show was cancelled, flyers were distributed by a neo-Nazi group in Melbourne electorates with significant numbers of Jews, including in Macnamara – the most “Jewish” electorate in Victoria, held by the Jewish MP Josh Burns. Posters of Burns were defaced with red stars painted across his face. These flyers and the defaced posters were widely – and unanimously – condemned. It is not a hard thing to do when the pamphlets are full of Nazi stereotypes of Jews, with tentacles into every area of Australian life.

“The Jew as the devil’s worker, if not the devil himself, has figured in Jew hatred for hundreds of years. The consequences for Jews have been dire … For significant parts of the left, the anti-Zionist left in particular, left-wing anti-Semitism is considered a minor issue.”

For months, Burns has been the focus of a virulent hate campaign on social media, a campaign that has portrayed him as a genocidal Zionist. In June last year, his electoral office was vandalised, smashed up. Inside the shattered plate glass window, devil’s horns were painted on a large photograph of Burns.

The Jew as the devil’s worker, if not the devil himself, has figured in Jew hatred for hundreds of years. The consequences for Jews have been dire. The attack on Burns’s office was widely reported in the media, but the image of the Jew as a devil was not discussed.

Perhaps that was because the vandals had painted the words “Zionism is fascism” across the photograph. For many journalists, this complicated the motives of the vandals. They were, most probably, anti-Zionists who harboured no ill-feeling towards Jews as such, despite their use of an ancient and deadly anti-Semitic trope.

For significant parts of the left, the anti-Zionist left in particular, left-wing anti-Semitism is considered a minor issue. If it does exist, then it is thought of as an understandable response to what has happened in Gaza and, for that matter, what Israel – the Jews – have wrought in Palestine since 1948. Zionist Jews deserve the hostility they have been subjected to; they are not victims of racism but, rather, the victimisers.

Burns was re-elected on Saturday, part of Labor’s historic landslide. He increased his primary vote by just over 5 per cent. In the 2022 election, the Greens candidate had come within 2000 votes of winning the seat. This time, the Greens vote went backwards by more than 2 per cent.

Despite the fact the war in Gaza had been covered with such extraordinary and sustained intensity by the media over the past 18 months, despite the fact it sometimes dominated political debate, it did not have a significant effect on the election result. Not even in those seats with significant numbers of Muslim or Jewish voters.

What does all this mean for the young singer-songwriter and the writers and artists who, since October 7, 2023, have been shunned? What does it mean for the people who have had the places where they work or the small businesses they run targeted with graffiti and demonstrations and hate on social media, who have been unable to perform, unable to mount exhibitions of their work, unable to get published?

The election outcome does not diminish the way their lives have been ruined, basically because they are Jews of a particular kind, bad Jews, Zionists, which has come to be a term of abuse – Zionists as the new Nazis.

Their experience is real. The persecution is real, not a malign invention designed to cover up their support for genocide and colonialism, their support for a state that was founded on an evil ideology and is therefore unredeemable. The casting out of Jews, Zionist Jews, from the culture in which Jews have thrived and which philanthropic Jews have supported with such great enthusiasm, has had profound effects and the lives of some of these Jews will never be the same again.

It is the lack of support from those organisations that are meant to promote the work of Australian artists and writers that is disturbing. It is significant, too, that there have been virtually no artists or writers who have come out in support of these Jewish Australian artists and writers banished from participation in Australian cultural life.

In February, Creative Australia revoked the appointment of the Lebanese–Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale. Sabsabi’s past work included controversial depictions of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York, something Creative Australia apparently did not know when the appointment was made.

It was a bad decision to revoke the appointment. Sabsabi is a major and widely praised Australian artist. It was on that basis that he was appointed. It should not have been revoked – although, to complicate the matter, Sabsabi himself had signed a petition to exclude Israel from the 2024 Biennale and had signed a letter in 2022 supporting a boycott of the Sydney Festival because of the Israeli embassy’s financial support of a Sydney Dance Company performance by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.

There was widespread criticism of Creative Australia for its decision to revoke Sabsabi’s appointment. Many hundreds of artists and writers signed petitions demanding he be reinstated. The media covered the decision extensively and, in the main, with sympathy for Sabsabi.

A few weeks ago, the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism – a network of academics from 30 Australian universities – released a report that examined the experience of Jewish students and Jewish staff at Australian universities in the period from April to July last year.

The survey was done by two of Australia’s most respected researchers. It was not a survey about attitudes but about incidents of anti-Semitism – verbal attacks; physical attacks; lectures disrupted by pro-Palestinian students searching for “Zionists”; students being forced out of groups on the basis of their support for what is described as racism and colonialism and genocide.

A large majority of students and staff surveyed – 67 per cent – reported experiences of anti-Semitism that had a significant impact on their lives. Only a third of the students and academic staff felt physically safe on campus. Incidents of bullying and threats are detailed in the report. A majority of students and academic staff say that university administrators did not do enough to counter the hostility towards, and bullying of, Jews at Australia’s universities.

These results mirrored the recently released results of the investigation into anti-Semitism at Harvard. Jewish students have been verbally and physically attacked, made to feel unsafe on campus and subjected to ridicule and scorn by some of their lecturers.

The Harvard report had significant media coverage in the United States. The Australian report received hardly any coverage – if it received any at all – on the ABC or in the Nine newspapers.

Nor has there been significant coverage of research and surveys – conducted by major Jewish communal organisations – that has shown attacks on Jews and Jewish property have grown exponentially these past 18 months.

Individual acts of violence – a synagogue set on fire, a preschool centre vandalised – get coverage. The fact these events are part of a trend that has left Jews feeling traumatised and unheard is hardly dealt with. What this represents is a denial of the experience of Jews in Australia, the vast majority of Australian Jews.

The idea that anti-Semitism on the left does not exist, cannot exist, because Jews are the quintessential example of white privilege, because they are wealthy, successful, powerful beyond their numbers and therefore must be part of the oppressor class rather than the oppressed, is widespread among the elites at universities and in journalism and even at the Human Rights Commission.

The result has been an under-reporting at the ABC and in the Nine papers of the increased hostility towards Jews in Australia. This under-reporting exists because many journalists believe Jews have weaponised the accusation of anti-Semitism in order to deflect from the genocide by Israel of the Palestinians, a genocide they believe began in 1948 with the declaration of Israel’s independence.

At the same time, there is a view that any increased hostility to Jews must be a reasonable response to the deaths of Palestinians in the current conflict in Gaza. The suffering of Jews is trivial compared with the suffering of the Palestinians, for which Australian Jews, Zionists, must be held in some way responsible.

Journalists, like the universities, have been incapable of dealing with what is incontrovertible: there has been increased hostility to Jews in Australia since the October 7, 2023, attacks. They have been unable to accept the fact that Jews feel threatened and unheard. They have ignored the real instances of attacks against Jews, physical and verbal, and the tidal waves of hatred against them in social media, only thinly disguised as anti-Zionism.

Australia’s cultural institutions and universities – not all of them, but the sandstone universities in particular – have failed Australian Jews. The young singer-songwriter, banished from the Australian music scene because she is a “proud Zionist”, has had her life blighted by anti-Jewish hostility. What has happened to her has reverberated and affected fellow Jews in the arts, young Jews in particular.

What makes it particularly and uniquely painful is that the hostility towards her is either denied – she is making it up – or justified – that Jews who are labelled Zionists deserve what they get. 

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 10, 2025 as "Confronting anti-Semitism".

If I could speak with.... Rita Rudner

I first saw Rita Rudner in the early 1980s in NYC on the David Letterman Show. She was very funny, and about my age, so I took a liking to her. My wife and I laughed at times out loud! My favourite line from her then was, "I don't have any children... that I know of." She was dry, subtle, clever, clean, and in a time when filth was growing in popularity, hers was refreshing on many levels.

Where did she go? She made it as a successful author, Las Vegas entertainer, and didn't have to continue in the work she had studied and aimed for a career: song and dance on Broadway. Like my daughter, she had studied ballet from the time she was four. And her career worked to land on the stage in NYC. But she evaluated her life as 'less', and she wanted something that would sustain her, and she had always made people laugh, and found that pleasurable. So she gave it a go, and voila, it worked.

I found an interview of her wiih a Detroit newsperson from two months ago and watched with smiles and internal laughter at her continued self-effacing and personal unpacking of difficulties in navigating the world of today. I'm sure those lines were part of her shtick but they came off as off-the-cuff. Timing. It's a key to her comedy.

If I could speak to her, I would ask about the line, "I"m trying to learn new things in my life." Of course, that would include things like computer skills and cooking classes, perhaps, but I wonder if religion, and reading the Bible, not only Torah, but also the New Testament, also written by Jews, might be of interest to this Miami-born Jewish woman?" I'd like to discuss new things.

If I could speak to her, I'd ask about suffering. She was quoted in a San Francisco newspaper a decade ago about Jews and humour and said, "Humor comes from being oppressed — there’s nothing funny about everything going right; things have to go wrong to be funny, and Jews are no longer the only ones who have something to complain about." She was indicating why Jews aren't the mainstay in comedy any longer, but I'd ask her what sufferings she endured that helped frame her exceptional observational comedy and humour.

If I could speak to Rita, I'd ask about the Christmas tree/ Gentile in the house thing. Her non-Jewish stepmother brought in the tree, and when Rita was a teenager, she moved away from Florida to NYC and said, "You can keep the Christmas tree." And yet, Rita married a British man who is not Jewish. So, does she still disregard the combo holidays in December? Does she miss any spinning dreidels or fattening latkes? Maybe we would speak about the miracles of Christmas and the miracle of Hanukkah, and if she even believes in miracles. 

Those are some of my current thoughts and who knows, one day she'll be playing the Ryman in Nashville when I'm there, or a playhouse in Sydney or... you never know, but you can be sure, I will smile a lot if I would speak with her. She's that funny; she's worth going to see her. Before Nate Bargatze, whose observations on life are epic, there was Rita Rudner. 

Her image in 2025

One New Man: The Messianic Community

This is the sermon given in Memphis, Tennessee on 26 April 2025 at Brit Hadasha Messianic Synagogue. What is community and how do we represent it and the Lord who bought us?

https://youtu.be/NpOhjEDBWho?si=OhKPTHhzx44wRDvG

Thanks for watching. The text is (mostly) here:

Shabbat shalom! I’m very grateful to John, the elders, and all the volunteers here at B’rit Hadasha for the welcome today and the opportunity to preach this Shabbat.  

I’ve been a messianic Jew for 54 years, and what I see across the world in our congregations, and what I want to speak about today from our Bible reading is community. You even have that on your bulletin as a subtitle of who you are!

For you, when you hear that word, certain things might come to mind, like the neighbourhood where you live or the community of your particular sport you play. The Ephesian reading makes clear the mystery of community, that being that Gentiles, that is, people who are not Jewish, can be fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body of Christ.

 We have been living in a world under threat since October 7 last year, and yet, in the midst of all the pain and suffering, we can still have a positive perspective. How, you might wonder? Because this whole season is not a surprise to the Almighty; He knows the end from the beginning, and He knew what would happen the last few months across the world. 

He is not without compassion; He cares greatly, and He wants us to care, as individuals and as congregations as well. And that thought brings me to my topic today—living in community or more specifically-- What is the Messianic Community: (sometimes called) One New Man?

What makes up a community?

I believe there are certain characteristics which have to be noticed, embraced and maintained in the world for a gathering or any entity for that matter, to be labelled community. These three are commonality, communication, and unity. I’m sure there are many others which you might speak about after the meeting today, but today let me focus on those three. Especially since they are so clear in the Word.

To put this in context, let me read this from the previous chapter in Ephesians:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands — remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Messiah Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2.8-22)

Seven Ephesian images

Before we go on, let me show you 7 images or pictures of the community here in the book of Ephesians, then let me zoom in on the OneNewMan features taken from this reading in chapter 2. The seven are:

1.              Eph. 1:22—Assembly: Greek Ekklesia (compare Acts 19:32, 39, 41) 

2.              Eph. 1:23—Body: The body of Christ 

3.              Eph. 2:10—Workmanship: Masterpiece (Poem)

4.              Eph. 2:19—Family: Household 

5.              Eph. 2:21—Temple: Building 

6.              Eph. 5:25–27—Bride: Wife – bride of Christ 

7.              Eph. 6:10–13—Army: Soldiers 

Yes, God loves each of us, individually, but don’t miss this, God loved the world so much that he sent his son. Each of these 7 is a picture not of a private person, but of a band, a conglomerate, a group. Yes, each head only has one body, but I am not the Body of Messiah; we are. Yes a building is singular, but the Temple of the Lord is many bricks and mortar, and together we are one. Our religion is personal, yes, but it’s not private. We are in this thing together.

Arthur Katz who died in 2007, was a Jewish believer in Jesus, and a long-time friend. He wrote in his classic “True Fellowship: Church as Community” the need for the Body of Messiah to be real and honest in this regard. He said, “church as community is radically and excruciatingly demanding, and yet, in this environment, there is the glorious possibility for this kind of existential fellowship with believers.” (page 9) He was a challenge to all things status quo, and thus a challenge to me in my ministry. He insisted that the church, as a Sunday club, was insignificant and irrelevant if that were all she was. He eventually moved from any major city and along with a select group, formed a community in Minnesota that radically lived out everything they were learning. So what he said in his books was written in the crucible of their life together, thus he gained a certificate of kashrut, and I welcomed that. 

You see, when I came to faith in Yeshua in 1971 there was one model which I saw and which made sense. I had been a hippie, striking so as to shut down the campus of Washington University in St Louis, an activist who was among those who burned down the ROTC building, and soon afterwards, left university to find my own way. In May of 1971 I found Messiah or rather was found by Him and immediately was part of what you saw in last year’s movie, “The Jesus Revolution”, that is the Jesus movement as it was labelled. Our meetings were Sunday nights in the basement of a Presbyterian church, where hundreds of us former hippies gathered to sing Bible verse choruses led by guitars with drums (that was new then), and regular meetings all week in homes and coffee shops. No one went to one meeting a week; we gathered seemingly everywhere. 

We made fun of denominations, since most of us got saved outside of those institutions. Jesus was all we wanted, oh, and the fellowship of the saints. We sang together; we prayed together; we believed God together for greater and greater things. And He didn’t disappoint us. Life was community. 

Bowling Alone

I know I am going against the modern grain but everything I know about the Kingdom of God is upside down. It’s not the societal norm to follow a Jewish carpenter who lived 2,000 years ago and ended his personal preaching career with a small handful of followers watching him die, who then ran away after his crucifixion and hid away for fear of the same ending happening to them. In Australia it’s not normal to be religious and maintain personal commitments to holy living in a city which touts its LGBTQ enthusiasm around Mardi Gras in the City. You know about homosexual fervour in San Francisco and Rio, even in Tel Aviv, well, we have a major showing in Sydney as well.  It’s not easy even to attend congregation on a regular basis in the 21^st Century what with children’s birthday parties and internet holiday deals to Pensacola along with any sporting event or the latest Nordstrum half-yearly sale starting earlier on weekends.

In his year 2000 book entitled “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam showcases the trends already evident then, with the beginnings of the internet and resultant loss of personal space and time, that people were less and less willing to join clubs. The title alone indicates the reality, that people would go to a bowling alley then, and bowl a few lines, but wouldn’t join a league. That trend Putnam saw 25 years ago has only increased dramatically in our day. Social media has made us increasingly alone. The antidote to this is community.

So, when I talk today about the community nature of the people of God, I’m hopeful that you will listen with your spirit, and that B’rit Hadasha will see significant growth in this area, and that the community of faith in Memphis and the messianic movement worldwide will move forward in this in 2025 and long beyond!

 

Commonality

First things first. The development of community requires commonality. That means we share common experiences, with common results, no matter from what background we come. The apostle Paul wanted the Ephesian believers to understand this. He said, 

“But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall”          Jewish people like me and Gentiles like the abundance of the Ephesians, and dare I say most of you here today, come from very different backgrounds, different views of God, different hopes and dreams, AND YET, we are One in Messiah. God has broken down the barriers and made us to share in the same life source. Because of Jesus, our commonality is fixed. Hallelujah!

Isaiah had already prophesied that in Isaiah 49. God called Israel to be His servant, but then made clear a missional call, that Israel and Isaiah were not only to reach Jewish people. He said, “He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Paul wrote we are “fellow citizens” and share as “the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord.” Fit together. Even though my people, the Jewish people, were the first ones of the commonwealth, we are called to bring in others, and to be citizens together. Common experiences now due to our relationship to our UnCommon God and Saviour Yeshua the Messiah. 

Communication

Not only do we share common realities and the common relationship with our Messiah, we also have real communication. Again from Art Katz, 

“More often than not, there is an unspoken agreement between pastors and their flock: “You present a biblical message; we will pay the bill and have a Sunday service that will leave our lives free from any kind of demand.” He cites our school education systems which “are content with the mere verbalization of material.” (page 32)

When I say communication, I am talking about more than verbalization. Sharing our hearts with one another; sharing real hurts and real life, that’s how the Body of Messiah makes a difference in these days. 

Philip Yancey wrote in the magazine Christianity Today 25 years ago about sharing life together and took lessons from the 12 step folks who were meeting in the basement of the church he attended in Chicago. 

“As an alcoholic once told me, "I have to publicly declare 'I am an alcoholic' whenever I introduce myself at the group. It is a statement of failure, of helplessness, and surrender. Take a room of a dozen or so people, all of whom admit helplessness and failure, and it's pretty easy to see how God then presents himself in that group." The historian of Alcoholics Anonymous titled his work Not-God because, he said, that stands as the most important hurdle an addicted person must surmount: to acknowledge, deep in the soul, not being God. No mastery of manipulation and control, at which alcoholics excel, can overcome the root problem; rather, the alcoholic must recognize individual helplessness and fall back in the arms of the Higher Power. "First of all, we had to quit playing God," concluded the founders of AA; and then allow God himself to "play God" in the addict's life, which involves daily, even moment-by-moment, surrender. Bill Wilson, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, reached the unshakable conviction, now a canon of twelve-step groups, that an alcoholic must "hit bottom" in order to climb upward.”

The ram’s horn (the shofar) is blown on Rosh Hashanah and other times during the year, not only to make us Jewish people aware of the time of events, but often for us to gather. Some of you might remember when church bells would ring on Sunday morning at certain intervals, to call everyone to gather. These calls to worship are communication methods. And they invite us to communicate with God together and to listen to God together. And at least at morning teas, to communicate with one another. Communities are in communication with each other, and listening, they respond to be with one another. 

Unity

To be sure we all won’t agree on everything. Any of you in any relationship with a schoolteacher, with a spouse, with teenaged children or parents, knows that perfect agreement down the line is not the only way to be united. Real community is more like musical harmony rather than unison. One of the most recognizable and ancient sounds of the church is the Gregorian chant. 

Gregorian chant is monophonic, or unison, liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, and used to accompany the text of the mass and the canonical hours, or divine office. Gregorian chant is named after St. Gregory I, during whose papacy (590–604) it was collected and codified.

In the church, in the Reformation, church music widened and harmony replaced unison. Have you ever been in a significant, large gathering when the musical band stopped playing, but we kept singing? I was in the Superdome in New Orleans in 1987 and 30,000 people sang God’s praises at a major conference. At one point, the musicians stopped playing while the people kept singing. It was enormous and powerful. I imagined heaven. I experienced heaven that evening. Unity was demonstrated in four-part harmony. Powerful!

Paul wrote the Ephesians “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall”

You might remember the triad:

In Essentials Unity, 

In Non-Essentials Liberty, 

In All Things Charity

Unity is possible because of our Righteous Messiah. Look, you may know that anti-Semitism has been increasing in the world the last few years, even in Australia. Cemetery damaging, bus and train episodes of hostility, stabbings overseas in closed Jewish communities, fire bombings and shootings in synagogues are on the rise. A natural reaction by people experiencing this hostility is to withdraw, to pull back from interaction with the ‘other.’ So when you remember that Gentiles in Roman days were the bad guys to the Jewish people, then Paul’s OneNewMan mystery concept is radical. His appeal for unity is outrageous. And yet, it’s not only possible; it’s required for a godly community.

Jewish community

For Jewish people, the idea of the Jewish community starts with birth and circumcision when a little Jewish boy is welcomed into the community and it never ends even after his burial. We use a tallit at both services; we read prayers from a siddur, and everyone can know on what page we are reading. Everyone is included, at Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations, and at weddings and funerals. The identification of a Jewish person in life and death is labelled clearly, from a boy’s 8^th day through to the rocks and Hebrew writing on the gravestone. A quorum (the term in Hebrew is a minyan) is required to pray certain prayers, in Orthodox Jewish circles, that’s 10 men. A knocker is sent around neighbourhoods if only 8 or 9 men are gathering. We need 10. A person needs to be supported by the community; 4 or 7 people simply will not do. 

Of course, Yeshua, our Messiah had this comment about the minyan. “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18.20) He is not saying He won’t listen if you only have one of you; He’s answering the minyan difficulty, saying a community can be two or three; you don’t need 10 men. You can have 10 ladies. You can have 2 ladies; God will see community in what you are doing, in a gathering, in shared life together. 

Conclusion: So What?

I’m telling you all this and I’m telling me this. I’m a student of this sermon today as well. God is speaking to me about what matters in these last days. He is asking me to care and to speak with and to be common with those in my community. He is calling us to be humble and receive each other, to accept one another, to serve one another. What the world is looking for in these fire-stormed days is a community of hope and love which extends itself in service to those outside, and which welcomes former outsiders into their fold. Each one of you who like me was not born a messianic Jew, and who is now joined in fellowship here, each of you experienced some of this commonality and unity; you share in communication about these things with others. You were welcomed early on in your visiting here. And the real test of your loyalty is your involvement with the newbies, and helping them be folded into this selfsame community. 

If you are not yet a believer in Jesus, and listening today, either online or here in the congregation, then this issue of belonging to a community is available. Most sociologists today, like Putnam 25 years ago, almost shout of the need for people to belong. Keep coming back here; keep listening; keep opening yourself to the real Gospel story. Perhaps this morning you sense a desire to do more than log in; perhaps you want what we have, a personal living relationship with the Almighty. If so, pray right there in your pew, asking God to make you born again, and receiving Yeshua as your personal Saviour and Lord. Today can be your day of new beginnings. The people of God around you here will welcome you. They will receive you and help you walk this new life out in Memphis or wherever you live. 

Jews for Jesus

You know that I’m here also representing the missionary organization Jews for Jesus. And we are not only an agency, we are a community as well. And we long to bring others, especially Jewish people, into relationships with us and with the Lord Himself. Paul highlights the Lord as the One who performed this initially, in 2.4-8.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Messiah (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Messiah Jesus.”

Here we read that the Lord saved us, He made us alive together with Messiah. All because He loved us. Even when we were dead! Hallelujah. 

Let me show you this 2-minute video about partnerships specifically in Israel and this is working around the nation and around the world.

(Show video)

And we are seeing Jewish people come to that same conclusion in these days. Whether in Budapest or Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in New York City and Ukraine. Even in Sydney, and our community of faith is living and growing. Your prayers for us will help. Your financial support will help.  

 The need to meet up with more Jewish people who are really interested in the Gospel is now. So I ask the churches to support us, one by one, to facilitate that.  You can use this square to donate up the back, or to buy products, like the latest book by David Brickner. Let’s keep talking. Let’s share together our commonality, our communication, our unity in Messiah. 

My new friends in Memphis, thanks for the invitation and your love for the Lord. Friends, thanks for filling out that white card and giving it to me, and thus your letting me speak to you again via our Jews for Jesus newsletter. If you are listening online, write to me at 60 Haight Street, San Francisco. 94102.  (or email me bob@jewsforjesus.org.au )Shabbat shalom!

And from here, let us go and gather others, in the spirit of Isaiah’s words to go to others and bring them to the Lord, in the mystery of Jew and Gentile together in Messiah, 10^th-generation Colonialists and newcomers to country, people who don’t act like, smell like, eat food like us. Let us exalt his name together forever, o sing his praises, magnify the Lord.

Day 6 Good Friday 2025. What Kind of God calls Good Friday "good"?

Day 6 is nicknamed "Good Friday" and the events and the sayings of the day have MUCH to say to us in 2025. What do you think?

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