Jesus Was a Jew

“Jesus Was a Jew” based on Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 and Romans 15: 4-13

This Advent I’ve been reading sermons of Christian resistance from the Third Reich, working from a book edited by Dean G. Stroud entitled “Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow.” I have to admit this week’s sermon “Jesus as a Jew” by Karl Barth was one I was inclined to skip. However, it was a sermon preached on the second Sunday of Advent in Lectionary Year A (which we are also in) and that seemed like a good reason to include it. That and it was courageous as all get out, which I have to respect.
The issue is that while Barth is considered by many to be “the greatest protestant theologian of the twentieth century”1, I read his seminal book in seminary and found it a combination of repetitive, boring, and offensive. Rather to my dismay, this week, I found that I still HAVE the book on my bookshelves in my office which indicates it is likely time for me to curate my library.

That said, the claim of “greatest protestant theologian of the twentieth century” would probably be a good enough reason to read one of his sermons, and having read this one I found I liked it a lot more than “Church Dogmatics.” Barth was born in 1886 in Switzerland, educated there and in Germany, and when Hitler took power he was a professor at the University of Bonn, a position he held until “He was forced to leave Germany in 1934 after refusing to swear the loyalty oath to Hitler that was required of all university professors as civil servants.”2

This sermon, from 11 months after Hitler consolidated his power and became chancellor, took on a major support leg of Nazi propaganada:

To fortify the indoctrination of racial propaganda, Nazis peppered the media and the schools with lies and caricatures about Jews. Schoolchildren learned that Jews were like poisonous mushrooms; they may look like other people, but they were deadly to Germans. Running through every speech by Hitler, Goebbels, and other Nazis was the two-pronged idea that Jews were the lowest animals in existence and yet due to their remarkable cunning they were the number one threat to German life and culture. Nazis passed law after law to isolate Jews from fellow Germans and to make their lives difficult and miserable 3

Furthermore:

Given the rising tide of anti-Semitic hatred in Germany, Christians who favored the Nazi worldview faced the awkward situation of worshiping a Jew, a man like those the Nazis were railing against. Jesus was a Jew. This basic truth of history made Jesus unacceptable to Nazis. Something had to be done to ease the tension between the Christian faith and the new politics. The solution was to transform Jesus from Jew to Aryan. Those wanting to change Jesus’ identity simply asserted that he never was a Jew in the first place. Thus it was that a pro-Nazi teacher of religion in a German school simply told students that Galilee had never been a Jewish region and that the Jews had captured the territory in 104 B.C. Galilee’s majority population had been Aryans living under Jewish domination. Jesus was an Aryan, the man told his pupils, whose way of thinking and acting was in sharp contrast to Jewish ways. The teacher then quoted John 8:44, where Jesus tells his opponents that their father is the devil, to prove that Jews were the sons and daughters of evil. Once they had turned Jesus into an Aryan hero, they could make him serve Nazi intentions.4

In this environment, where power was being consolidated by dehumanizing Jewish people, Barth wrote this sermon about “Jesus as a Jew,” preached it, made copies of it, and SENT ONE TO HITLER. In response to a critic in his own congregation, Barth responded, “anyone who believes in Christ, who was himself a Jew, and died for Gentiles and Jews, simply cannot be involved in the contempt for Jews and ill-treatment of them which is now the order of the day.”5

I may not have liked this guy’s seminal work but my goodness he was the real deal. His sermon emphasizes that Christians are LUCKY to have been brought into God’s fold which was originally intended for only the Jews. He really goes to great lengths to point out that our inclusion is a sign of God’s mercy, and not our worthiness, for example,

This then is the reason that the Gentiles also glorify God, because God has shown and confirmed his mercy also to them in Christ crucified in the midst of Israel.” And in the middle of the sermon he just says it, “Jesus was a Jew. But by his bearing and carrying away the sins of the whole world, including our own, in the sin of the Jews, this salvation that comes from the Jews has come also to us. We rejoice at this door opening so wide if we can also rejoices that there is a word of God and a church of Jesus Christ…

Now we are able to understand the other thing our text has to tell us about the church of Jesus Christ: “As Christ has received us to the glory of God, so receive one another.” This is a law without exceptions. This is an order, a strict and inflexible order.6

He goes on to say that Gentiles and Jews are to receive each other, as united by God’s covenant, as united in God’s work in the world, as united more than anything by God’s mercy. We are, he reminds us, both “children of the living God.”7 (Hosea 1:10)

Now, nothing Barth says about Jesus and his Jewishness is to my mind particularly radical. That said, others seem to disagree. When I was in seminary, while home on break I had a particularly confusing conversation with my grandmother. She had been raised Roman Catholic, in what turns out to be a very conservative diocese and had not spent time as an adult learning more about her faith. So, somehow I mentioned that Jesus was Jewish, and she replied, “don’t you say that about our Lord!” To which I replied, “no, really, Nana, he WAS Jewish” and she repeated “Don’t you say that about our Lord!” This went on for some time.

Anti-semitism was alive and well in her Roman Catholic upbringing in Wilkes Barre, PA, even as her brothers and classmates fought to defeat Nazi-ism in World War II.

So, just so we are all on the same page, the propaganda of the Nazi’s and my grandmother’s church were WRONG and Jesus WAS Jewish. And it shouldn’t be radical to state facts like that, unless of course those in power are changing facts for their own benefit. Somehow, it feels like the gutsiest of things to preach “Jesus was Jewish” and sent the sermon to Hitler even though basic truth telling isn’t supposed to require radical moral courage.

And yet, particular times call for particular realities. In Hitler’s time they called the changes they were making to Christianity “Positive Christianity” and that included things like the Aryan Jesus, and the worship of Hitler and Nazi-ism. In our day, it is “White Christian Nationalism” which funny enough seems to have a lot of imagery of a very white Jesus as well.

It turns out that religion is a very significant factor in meaning making in societies, in naming right and wrong, in shared stories and shared myths, in supporting or defeating those in power. Those who want to abuse power need to find ways to abuse the traditions of a God who calls us to “receive each other” without limits and draw limits in who counts as a beloved Child of God and who doesn’t.

So, while we’re on the most basic truths of all today, let me add: EVERYONE IS A BELOVED CHILD OF GOD, THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS. Or, as my new BFF Barth said it, As Christ has received us to the glory of God, so receive one another.” This is a law without exceptions. This is an order, a strict and inflexible order.8

Beloveds, when we all live by these simple truths, we will be living the kindom of God, where shalom is found and peace prevails. And until then, we can bring about the kindom by practicing the kindom values and treating everyone as a beloved child of God. Thanks be to God! Amen

1 Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 62.

2 Ibid, 63.

3 Ibid, 14.

4 Ibid, 17.

5 Ibid, 64.

6 Ibid, 71-72.

7 Ibid, 72.

8 Ibid, 72.

December 7, 2025

Rev. Sara E. Baron 
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 
Pronouns: she/her/hers 
http://fumcschenectady.org/ 
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady