The Convert or the Outsider, an Inter-faith Dialogue

I probably would have let it go, but I was reading Miroslav Volf's Exclusion and Embrace at the time, a book that bills itself as a "Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation," so my sonar was perhaps more finely-tuned than usual to such "theological pings."

And what a poignant "ping" it was.  Here's the back story:  a few weeks earlier I happened to make a friend of a friend who happened to be a practicing Orthodox Jew.  We had a very rich and illuminating conversation about the parallels and differences between my work as a Christian pastor and his work in the local synagogue.  It was, I think, an example of inter-faith dialogue in the best sense of the term, and as I was leaving he said, "If you ever want to get the Jewish perspective on something, feel free to give me a call."

Flash forward a few weeks later and I'm working away on this sermon on Deuteronomy 24:17-22, which is all about our mandate as the people of God to "leave something" for the voiceless and the vulnerable. In a particular, Deuteronomy 24:17 says: "Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge" (NIV) or " You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge" (NASB) or "Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge" (good ol' KJV).

My Jewish friend's invitation was still ringing a bit in my ear, and, curious about his take on the passage in question, I sent him an email to take him up on his offer.  He replied very kindly with a number of interpretations from the Talmud sharing various Rabbinical reflections and applications of the text, illuminating the passage in ways I'd not yet considered.

But all the typical Christian translations of this passage use some word or other that means "the outsider" (alien, foreigner, stranger, etc.) to describe that first of the three groups of vulnerable people that deserve special consideration (so the NIV: the foreigner, the fatherless, the widow; or NASB: the alien, the widow, the orphan).  The specific Hebrew word is ger.  It's connected to a verb that means something like "to sojourn." It's used, for instance, to describe Abram when he was a sojourner (a foreigner, a "resident alien") in the land God told him to journey to, and it's used to describe Israel when they were captives in Egypt.  Hence Christians translate it as foreigner, alien, or stranger in Deuteronomy 24:17.

And here's the ping. In his response to my email, my Jewish friend included the standard Jewish translation of the verse.  In his translation, ger is translated, not as "the alien" generally but as "the convert" specifically (i.e. the non-Jew who has converted to Yahwehism).

We exchanged a few more emails about why this might be different, and he suggested that if an "outsider" was meant specifically, the term goy would have been used; and out of curiosity, I looked up the ancient Greek translation of the same verse, and they used a word that means "convert" as well; and, to be sure, the only biblical example we have of this passage being put into practice is the Book of Ruth, and there, Ruth the Moabitess is very clearly a convert to Yahwehism, besides being simply a foreigner.  So I'm not saying "convert" is necessarily a mis-translation of ger.

But the reason I'm still reflecting on this months later is because it seems to me there are profound ethical and theological implications for what we do with the ger in Deuteronomy 24. The question, as I see it, boils down to this: does God call us to take care of "the other" because they are "other" and regardless of whether or not they have made a profession of commitment to our community of Faith, or is conversion a necessary requisite for inclusion (and the hospitable helping that inclusion entails)?

Without the elaborate exposition that a careful handling of all these issues would require, let me at least suggest here that a radical inclusion-- one that translates ger as generously as possible-- is one of the themes of Jesus' preaching, who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and to discover our sonship in the kingdom by living out its radical peace-making mission in tangible and concrete ways.  In this regard, radical inclusion of the other is one of the harmony notes to the melody of the Gospel.