”

No, it’s not the beginning of one of those ‘walked into a bar’ jokes. And if you think one of them believes the other is going to hell, the joke’s on you.

Story by Keri Mitchell

You know the famous quote from George Bernard Shaw about England and America being two countries separated by a common language?

It’s that way with Jews and Christians, who are divided by a common person: Jesus, says the Rev. George Mason, senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church on Abrams near Mockingbird.

“He is a Jew, and he was a Jew, and we both claim him in one sense, but we claim him in different senses,” Mason says. “Everything about our differences probably comes about from our understanding of who Jesus is.”

In a nutshell, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and Jews generally do not. The resulting disagreements between mother and daughter religion are “the topic of at least a semester course,” says Rabbi David Stern, senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El on Hillcrest near Northwest Highway, who points out differing views on everything from earthly life versus afterlife to sin and salvation to monotheism and divine embodiment.

In addition to being plentiful, the differences often can be hurtful, such as some Christians’ belief that Jews will spend eternity in hell.

So how did Stern and Mason — a Jewish rabbi and a Baptist preacher — come to be such good friends?

Well, for one thing, they don’t try to proselytize each other.

“It is not at all Rev. Mason’s goal or my own to convert the other, but rather to add to the understanding of the other,” Stern says.

To say that it would be God’s will for Mason to come to believe as Stern does, or vice versa, “would be an arrogant position to take,” Mason says. “All faith is provisional. It’s always open to learning more and understanding more, so we should always hold our faith with great conviction but with open minds and hearts, too.

“The ultimate goal is that God converts each of us in whatever way necessary,” Mason says, adding that he expects there would be “far more people who will think I’m wrong for not trying to convert him to my position” than people who fault Stern for the reverse.

As for eternal destinies, “neither one of us wants to make the claim for God about the eternal destination of someone else,” Mason says. “We simply make our own confession, and call people to live in light of that confession.

“God does the sorting out in the end.”

A Jewish sermon on a gospel text

Thesubjectofsortinghappened to be the topic of Stern’s sermononanautumneveningwhenhetookthepulpit at Wilshire Baptist — a strange scenario for a Jewish rabbi, but stranger still was his chosen text for the evening’s service: the New Testament gospel of Matthew.

Theparticularstory,fromMatthew 25:31-46,isaboutsheepandgoats, the former being the “good guys” in this parable. That’s because of the way the sheep treated the “least of these” — the hungry,thestranger,thenaked,the sick and the imprisoned.

Jesus, who is telling this story, informs both the sheep and goats that “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” The reward for the sheep’s compassionate acts is eternal life; for the goats, the consequence of apathy is eternal punishment.

Stern began his sermon by addressing the uncharacteristic audience before him members of his own Temple Emanu-El congregationmingledwithmembersof Wilshire Baptist Church, who were hosting this gathering. On its face, it was a peculiar combination, Jews and Baptists gathered under one steepled roof. But as Stern reminded them in his introduction, this was not their first time to meet.

In fact, the two groups had grown somewhat accustomed to each other.

“It’s a little subversive. How? Because it’s ordinary,” Stern said. “Too often, we apply the label ‘interfaith’ to high-profile ecumenical one-shot deals. Too often, we settle for the superfluous and symbolic when it comes to interfacing with each other.”

In contrast, he said, Wilshire Baptist and Temple Emanu-El “return again and again to the circles of sharing.”

However,noteverythingaboutthe gathering was commonplace.

“What isn’t ordinary at all is for a rabbi topreachonthebookofMatthew,” Stern said with a smile. “I approach my task tonight with some degree of trepidation. I’m grateful for the Q&A period when you all and my good friend George can set me straight.”

Mason’sflockhadarrangedforthe gatheringtoculminatein a potluck, theProtestanttraditionof a covered dish smorgasbord. The church’s community hall overflowed with Jews and Baptists sipping unsweetened tea and eating forkfuls of potato casserole and chocolate layered dessert, while the two religious leaders positioned themselves in the middle of the crowd, ready for questions from the audience.

One of the first that needed answering was how Stern wound up speaking on Jesus’ story in Matthew 25.

“The reason for the selection of the passageisthatyourpastorhasan alarmingly and annoyingly good memory,” Stern ribbed Mason.

During one of their many prior conversations, Stern says he had let slip his admiration for that particular text. “You know,” he had told Mason, “if there’s one passage in the New Testament that speaks to me, it’s the ‘least of these’.”

PreachingfromtheNewTestament, however, wasn’t the most challenging part of the service for Stern. The biggest obstacle, as it turned out, was a New Testament verse engraved on Wilshire’s wooden pulpit, which begins: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ …”

Sternconfidedtohisfriendbefore the Q&A session that he had spent the evening trying to push his notes over the engraving. When this was shared with the entire room, it exploded into laughter.

“So there you have it,” Mason says, “this is what happens in real interfaith dialogue.”

Advocate