Beloved,
As we approach the period of planning for the services of Holy Week, I write to you concerning some issues to keep in mind regarding these liturgies. The Episcopal Church, as with many other churches, has over the decades become increasingly sensitive to the issue of anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic sentiment in Christian life and worship. Since the 1960s, the Episcopal Church has issued a number of General Convention resolutions and teaching documents encouraging greater sensitivity to this issue. As a church, we are all too well aware that Holy Week is an especially sensitive time regarding how we speak and relate to our Jewish siblings. In this letter, I offer guidance on several of our Holy Week liturgies.
Palm Sunday
On Palm Sunday, great care must be taken during the reading or dramatization of the Passion narrative to ensure that the Jewish people at that time or today are not portrayed as solely or uniquely responsible for the death of Jesus. Rather, his death speaks to universal patterns of sin and death, the great reversal of which we celebrate in the resurrection of Christ. This year, I have approved an alternate rite for Palm Sunday which focuses primarily on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. For this version of the liturgy, a congregation has the option to forgo either the reading of the Passion gospel or to place it at the end of the service. This alternate rite is available on the diocesan website here.
If a congregation does choose to read the Passion gospel using either the approved Book of Common Prayer rite or the alternate rite, I encourage you to consider including a pastoral note to the congregation regarding anti-Jewish interpretations of this reading. Language for this is included in the “Additional Directions” at the end of the alternate rite materials.
Maundy Thursday
The celebration of Maundy Thursday and institution of the Eucharist in the liturgy can sometimes lead to appropriating Jewish practices. This can cause offense to our Jewish neighbors. Because the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples is linked to the Jewish feast of the Passover, there is sometimes a conflation of Maundy Thursday with the Jewish Passover Seder. This has led some congregations to offer a version of a Passover Seder, often interpreted through the figure of Jesus, in a well-meaning way to connect Christianity with its Jewish roots. This is unadvisable for several reasons.
First, the observance of the Passover in the time of Jesus, which focused on the sacrifice of lambs at the Jerusalem temple, ended after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. The Passover Seder that most Christians are familiar with is a later version that took its final form many centuries later. Most forms of contemporary Christian celebrations of a Seder would not have looked like the last meal Jesus had. In addition, depending on the gospel, the meal Jesus shared with his disciples might have occurred on the night before Passover and was not a Seder. Finally, as noted before, the long history of Christian supersessionism towards the Jews makes it ungracious to appropriate a Jewish ritual dear to them.
In light of all these reasons, on Maundy Thursday, I ask you not to offer a Passover Seder in any way and instead worship according to the form found in the Book of Common Prayer. If you wish to have a fuller communal meal that echoes the type of table fellowship that Jesus had with his disciples, this may be done using the form for an agape meal as found on page 109 of the Book of Occasional Services (2022). If you and your community have the laudable desire to learn more deeply about the Jewish observance of Passover and to have fellowship with local Jewish communities, I encourage you to reach out to your local rabbi colleagues or investigate if local synagogues offer Seders for the wider community. These are excellent opportunities to build greater interreligious connections on the local level.
Good Friday
The alternate rite for Good Friday that was previously approved for use in the diocese has now been approved as an alternate rite by General Convention. I encourage its continued use in the diocese. In addition, the pastoral note provided for the reading of the Passion gospel on Palm Sunday noted above can also be adapted to speak to similar issue of anti-Jewish sentiment as found in the reading from the Gospel of John. The Good Friday alternate rite can be found on the diocesan website here.
Holy Week is a time of heightened emotions and awareness of the frailties of the human condition. It is good to attend to how this week has been a historically fraught time for Christian-Jewish relations. Our collective choices about our liturgies can and should reflect sensitivity to this history as part of the long work of reconciliation and repair between our two communities. In incorporating the contents of this letter, I encourage you to take time with your worship leaders and wider congregations for teaching and reflection on the anti-Semitism reflected in our historic liturgies and our current efforts to address them.
As is tradition, on Good Friday, our Presiding Bishop encourages us to reflect on the needs and concerns of those living in the Holy Land, especially those to whom the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem ministers in Israel, Palestine, and other neighboring countries. So I remind you to please contribute to the Presiding Bishop’s Good Friday Offering, which supports this work, as a part of your Holy Week planning.
I am grateful to our diocesan Ecumenical and Interreligious Officer, the Rev’d Dr. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski for his thoughtful leadership in not only crafting these alternate rites, but also in shaping this communication. I would also like to thank the Rev’d Kate Ekrem, the Rev’d Dr. Elise Feyerherm, the Rev’d Dorie Goehring, and the Rev’d Sarah Neumann for their meaningful contributions to this work and liturgical leadership within our diocese.
Faithfully,
+Julia