Sermon: The Trial Before Pilate

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The Trial Before Pilate – Is Christianity Anti-Semitic?^[i]

By Charles Rush

April 13, 2008

[ Audio (mp3, 7.5Mb) ]

en I was in graduate school, I had to watch the documentary ‘Shoah' for some material on the Holocaust. It is very long and rather grim. At one point the interviewer goes to the town of Treblinka, Poland. As you probably know, the Nazis established a great many of their extermination camps in Poland because the virulent anti-Semitism there made it easier.

The interviewer was a very clever Frenchman. In this section, Mass has just finished at the local Catholic Church. From the front steps of the church, you look out maybe 70 yards across a field where the train tracks run into the chain link fence around the small extermination camp. It could easily be seen as you left worship on Sunday morning.

At Treblinka, as you probably know, trains full of Jews arrived, where they were rushed into a processing room to shower for lice. They were gassed and then buried or later burned. I can't remember which.

The interviewer is chatting with all the old men and the babushka's as the mill around after church, talking about the War with them, swapping memories.

He says ‘what is that across the way there? What is behind that fence?'

‘That is the concentration camp' they respond readily. ‘Of course, we didn't know that at the time.'

‘Really? Did you ever wander over just to have a look? Did you ever just, you know, wonder what goes on behind the wire?'

‘No, it was a German thing and we just kept to our own business.'

‘I see there is a railroad track over there. What was it for?'

‘It brought the Jews.'

‘The trains, they came full and they left empty.'

‘Yes, they came full and they left empty.'

‘Did you ever wonder where the Jews went? There is not anywhere for them to go really.'

‘No, we just kept to our own business.'

‘Did you ever notice any odd smells coming over from that place?'

‘No, not really, not really anything that we remember. We didn't know what was going on over there.'

‘Tell me something, why did all of those Jews die?'

One old lady was quick on the draw. She said ‘At the trial of Jesus the Jews said ‘His blood be upon us and on our children', Matthew 27:25. They killed the Christ.'

Just at that moment, I jumped awake. ‘What in the world?'

At first I thought, that's not in the Bible. I stopped the tape, looked up the passage, sure enough it is right there. And then I thought ‘why in the world would you have that text memorized?'

We memorize things that are really important to us. As a child I suppose every Baptist kid in the South knew John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.' We memorized it because that was the summation of what we were taught to believe. I have our kids in Confirmation memorize Psalm 23 because it will be important for them in the future when they have to face a difficult situation.

And this woman had memorized a passage from the bible that was so obscure that I didn't even recognize it immediately and I've been to seminary. Never mind what that says about theological education these days. This is not a memory bank hymn.

But why would you have something like that memorized? You got a question, boom, here's the answer. Wow… stunning. You hear something like that and you realize how long and deep the concept is in the culture that the Jews are Christ killers.

It is naïve to suggest that these texts in the bible or even the theology of the Church is responsible for the anti-Semitism that developed over many centuries in Europe. It never happens like that. Rather hatred and prejudice find their justification in religious dogma as well. Hatred and prejudice grow organically in the community and yes, they also can find support in religion. Usually they get miles more distance out of dogma or text than the dogma or the text ever warranted.

There is no question that the Church developed quite a few explicit anti-Semitic measures, particularly during the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages. But Christians didn't invent anti-Semitism. Existing cultural sentiments found convenient justification for their spread in some of the most important texts that Christians read together.

I want to explain what scholars are thinking today about this because these texts sound even more problematic in a world where we are desperately trying to develop mutual inter-faith respect for one another.

I remind you that the gospel of Matthew was written about 60 years after Jesus died. It was addressed to a Gentile community fairly different from the Jews that Jesus actually lived among. Although the gospel comes to us in the form of historical narrative, it is not a historical document in the way that we think of historical documents.

In the story that we have the Jewish leaders appear to have secretly dispatched Jesus. The met in secret. They called false witnesses. They mocked Jesus. They had Jesus brought before Pilate, the Roman Governor. Pilate could find nothing wrong with Jesus and wanted to let him go. Whereupon the Jewish leaders presumably whipped up the crowd to have Jesus summarily executed. On the face of it the Jewish leaders appear to be part of a cabal to do Jesus in and the Romans merely the political machinery that get manipulated to do their bidding.

Scholars have pointed out that the early church would have a vested interest in making such a case. Why? During the period when Matthew's gospel was composed, Christians were being actively persecuted and killed for their religion by the government of Rome. It wouldn't make good political sense to incite the anger of the Roman's by reminding them constantly that they killed Jesus. Better to make the Roman's look like pawns caught up in a drama that they do not fully understand. In Matthew and Mark, the Roman's look about as favorable as they could given the circumstances. In both gospels, after Jesus dies, there is a Roman centurion standing nearby, who remarks ‘Surely this was the Son of God.' The Jewish leaders don't get it, but a lowly foot soldier does. It is a pretty sharp contrast.

But there are substantial problems surrounding the trial of Jesus that give critical scholars pause. Many of them begin with the passage I read last week when Jesus is tried in a religious court before the Jews in the home of the High Priest Caiaphas. We are told that he was tried at night in the home of the high priest, that the Sanhedrin met there under cover of darkness for fear of a riot by the followers of Jesus. They met on the first night of Passover, trumped up false witnesses. Finally, they asked Jesus directly if he was the Son of God. He doesn't directly reply. Asked again, Jesus merely says ‘you have said so', whereupon the High Priest tears his cloak and pronounces that he has heard blasphemy. He turns Jesus over to Pilate at this point.

Most scholars would say that this surely did not happen as reported. It strains the imagination on a number of substantial fronts. In the first place, the question of whether Jesus was the Son of God is a Greek way of thinking. Greeks had a number of gods with one divine parent and one human parent. Jews had no concept like that whatsoever. They weren't expecting the Messiah to be divine in any way. So it is hard to imagine that the High Priest would have asked a question like this because it was framed in a way quite different from the way that Jewish scholars of the time thought.

But let's imagine that Jesus was simply claiming to be the Messiah. As a number of scholars have pointed out it is “not a religious offense at all in Jewish law to claim to be the Messiah.”[ii] Most certainly, it is not blasphemous to claim to be the Messiah. Foolish perhaps, but not blasphemous. That means that he could not have been charged or convicted by the Sanhedrin for this charge.

Secondly, Geza Vermes has pointed out, should this stealth trial by the High Priest and the Sandhedrin have taken place as reported they would have achieved the ‘considerable feat of breaking just about every rule in the book on a single occasion. For instance, holding a capital trial at night was prohibited. Then you have the story in Matthew, only in Matthew I might add, that the trial was held in the home of the High Priest. It is possible, though unlikely that Sandhedrin could actually fit into the home of the High Priest, with witnesses, guards, et al.

Thirdly, this trial was held on what was probably the most sacred night of the year, the First night of Passover. Although not impossible, it is very hard to believe. It would be like a bunch of Christian ministers holding an ecclesiastical trial on Christmas Eve, interrupting our normal festivities and celebrations, to falsely charge someone on a charge of heresy. There is simply little that cannot wait for another day.

Finally, of lesser importance, but the Jews did not have the authority under Roman occupation to carry out an execution anyway. The Romans alone reserved for themselves that power.

Taken together, it would appear that fifty years after the event, the gospel writers were remembering the story in such a way as to make the Romans look the least worst by making the Jewish community the real culprit. It might have saved a few Christian lives but they could not have calculated how many Jewish lives this one story would cost as a result. In the long history of pogroms in Europe and Russia, surely this story was used time and again like the peasant woman in Treblinka, to rationalize violence against their unwanted neighbors, the Jews.

So why is it that Jesus was actually tried, convicted, and died? We can't know for sure. I suspect that William Nicholls is pointing in the right direction when he says that Jesus ‘died… because of the enthusiasm of his own followers and of the crowd, who insisted on treating him as the Messiah in spite of his own precautions… If the Romans got wind of the messianic agitation around Jesus, they would have correctly regarded it as subversive.'[iii]

In the gospel of John, it was said that Jesus was given up to die because it was more expedient that one man should die for the people (Jn. 18:14). Something like that may well have been the point.

It would fit with the general theme that we have been developing up to this point that everyone deserted Jesus, all of us, in one fashion or another. We did what was expedient and we betrayed Jesus.

It is an important point. We betrayed Jesus. In the passion liturgy about Jesus in the Episcopal prayer book, this whole narrative of the trial, torture, and death of Jesus is read during Holy Week. And when they get to the part where Pilate stands before the people and says ‘should I release Barabas?' It is all of the congregation that says ‘No'. And when Pilate asks ‘what should I do with Jesus?' All the congregation says ‘Crucify him, crucify him.'

It is quite similar to the Passover story that is told around the Seder. When they read about their ancestors in bondage in Egypt, they reach the part of the Exodus, and everyone says together ‘When I came out of Egypt'. When God brought me out of Egypt.

These stories happened then but in some sense, we still participate in them. They are not only history they are also archetype. They are paradigmatic of our relationship with God. God comes after us in faithfulness, wooing us into covenant. We betray God under the guise of expedience. We are not overtly evil people, we are expedient people. We understand that some people need to be dispatched unjustly, so that the firm as a whole can go on. We would try continually to be like Pilate, washing our hands of the dirty work that needs to be done. And we will continually find, like lady MacBeth ‘that the damn spot won't come out.

I'm reading a story this week in the New Yorker. A writer gets a call from his agent who announces to him that he is quitting. He is no longer an agent, he is now a manager. The story is right out of L.A.. Now his agent wants to be his manager, which means he will have to hire another agent. The writer is incredulous. ‘Why are you doing this?' he says.

The agents says ‘I think the people representing you… (his voice trailed off)… could have done a better job. They could have cared a little more.

The writer whispers back ‘But you've been representing me.'

The agent says ‘You're not looking at the big picture. Do you think they've really been taking care of you? Have they been in touch? On a weekly basis? Have they come up with any strategies? Have they ever bothered to ask you what you want?… This is your life. Serious stuff. Look, the agency has over five hundred clients. You're probably in the top 40.' He was outraged. ‘forget about calling you every week. Those people should've been kissing your behind.'

‘You mean that's what you should have been doing' the writer suggested…

‘Not anymore' the agent reminded him. ‘I've left. I'm a manager now.'

‘And you want to manage me?'

‘Absolutely,' he said. ‘You've been a very loyal client… You should have been with someone who really cares. And guess what? That someone is me.'[iv]

Like Pilate, we have this phenomenal ability to take credit and absolve ourselves of responsibility at the same time. I was reminded of that in a small way this week reading the Op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal before I had my morning coffee entitled ‘What We've Learned From the Market Mess'.

‘We have learned that the ‘risk management' emperor has no clothes' says the author. Amen to that brother! ‘The protective mechanisms such as Value at Risk, turned out to be duds'. Don't you know that is true! ‘The Financial Controls have proven inadequate.' Say it again. ‘Financial technology is so sophisticated… [that it actually obscured the true state of affairs so that even bankers found it difficult to ascertain their exposure]' Amen, Amen, Amen. “[And all of this happened around securities that were rated by our rating agencies as AAA.” So our author asks, with rising indignation, “What were they thinking?' And what were they thinking indeed!

Not yet awake, I turn to find the author of this brilliant piece, expecting to find a storied Econ professor from the University of Chicago. But no, it is Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO at Lazard, who was at the helm of 1st Boston twenty years ago when it ran aground because it couldn't cover its debts.

Clever argument… In effect, it is this. “You can't trust security of the hen house to those lazy farmers who are subsidized by the Department of Agriculture. You need to listen to someone who really knows the ins and outs of the Coop… like us foxes who have half a dozen ruined coops and pictures to prove it.

We are in the middle of fairly serious hand-wringing asking ‘why did this happen?' Invariably all the experts, many of them the very same Wall Street investors, are saying ‘it's a tragedy what happened there… Clearly, it points out the weakness that are inherent in short term trading strategies… yadda, yadda, yaddah…These people deserved someone who was looking out for them… someone who really cared… someone who was developing strategies for them… someone who bothered to ask them what they want? And guess what? That someone would be me.'

No, there is an incredible realism to our story. For the more sophisticated we are, the more power we wield, the greater the scope of our influence, the more we want to wash our hands of the accidents of history that happen on our watch.

We make the decisions, we exercise power… bowl please. If I remember correctly, it seemed like it was mainly the Jews. I think it was actually somebody else, anybody else. No…no. Truth be told, this whole thing was so complicated and there were so many players, no one will ever figure it all out. I'm sure of that.

The bad/good news is that their innocent blood is upon us and Christ's innocent blood is upon us too. And the amazing thing about this is that in the very midst of us shedding innocent blood, God does actually cover us. The truth is this. We are far more responsible than we know and the grace of God is far more extensive than we realize. “And likewise, he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin. Each time you do it, do it for the remembrance of me.' Amen.

[i] A version of this sermon was preached by Rev. Rush on March, 14, 1999.

[ii] Nicholls, William Christian anti-Semitism A History of Hate (London: Aranson Press, 1993) p. 106. See also Geza Vermes Jesus the Jew and Paul Winter's The Trial of Jesus.

[iii] Ibid. p. 109.

[iv] John Mankiewicz, ‘Fax from Los Angeles' The New Yorker, March 15, 1999, p. 34.