Messianic Jewish Life Together: Covenant, Commission, and Cultural Brokerage

Orthodox Jewish feminist Blu Greenberg writes with regard to the tensions between her various theological and ideological commitments: “So I live with the conflict. I live with it every day, in a thousand ways that pull me in one direction or another. I have come to realize that the conflict is a sign of my health, not of my confusion; the tension is a measure of the richness of my life, not of its disorderliness.”1 Our thoughts about feminism aside, Greenberg’s quote is equally applicable to our life as Messianic Jews and the inherent (and often painful) tensions involved in our identity. We do not easily fit into preset and historically entrenched categories. At the core of who we are, we are related to both the Jewish people—our people—and the Christian church. Both of these distinct communities constitute the unique texture of our identity. It goes without saying that our relationship to these two communities is difficult to navigate; all too often, one community does not want us, and the other wants to absorb us.

It is for this reason that a substantive discussion about Messianic Jewish community is so vital. In what follows, I would like to address some of the key elements that constitute our relationships with one another as Messianic Jews, as well as explore Messianic Judaism’s posture vis-à-vis the two wider communities from which we have come and to which we still in a deep sense belong. While these wider communities have nurtured our movement in significant ways, our connection to them is complex, and their misunderstanding of us has—for better or worse—been a driving force in our own self-definition.