Phylacteries: Link to Faith’s Tradition
(#3 in the series, “Try THIS on for Size!”)
Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart . . .
Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,
And write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(Deuteronomy 6:6, 8-9)
A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 6, 2007
You know the scene. It’s often on screen. Parents taking their children on an adventure to the attic of their grandparents’ old home, finding a trunk full of clothes, and pulling from that trunk, not just clothing, but memories. Every item becomes a trigger for a precious memory – a cub scout uniform, a Little League baseball cap, a Halloween costume, a high school jersey, a soldier’s uniform, a wedding gown, perhaps a necklace or a bracelet. The articles are lifted out of the chest with reverence. It’s as if they’ve discovered a treasure chest, because they have. One by one the camera takes us into the children’s imaginations as the scene flashes back, snatching them into the past, to the days when their parents and grandparents were younger. Thus the children are Trying Them on for Size. I don’t mean actually trying on the clothes (though they may do that, too). Rather I mean that they are learning something of their family, their history, and their heritage.
Each sermon of this series seeks to draw you into that scene, asking, “Won’t you join me in an attic adventure, a trek into our past, as we open together a biblical treasure chest? Won’t you relish with me the memories stirred by the texture and feel of that apparel – sometimes soft and silky, at other times coarse and rough – memories of good times and of bad, but all telling the story of our faith?” With each item, I’m asking, “Let’s Try THIS on for Size.”
The article we pull from the chest today, phylacteries, is not so much clothing as accessory. We in the Christian community will find these leather straps strange indeed. Leather yes, but this is no belt. These straps are attached, not to shiny buckles, but to black boxes. Within those boxes are parchments upon which are written four passages from the Torah, from Exodus and Deuteronomy, where God’s people were commanded, not only to hide God’s words in their heart, but actually to “wear” them! No, we’re not likely to try THIS on for size in any literal way (anymore than we would try on Fig Leaves or Sackcloth, the first two items we pulled from the chest). Yet, it is a part of our spiritual history, containing much instruction and inspiration.
The first two of the four passages in these boxes are from Exodus 13. After the tenth plague fell upon the Egyptians, as the Hebrews were setting out on their journey to the Promised Land, God said, “Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt . . . You shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. It shall serve as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the teaching of the Lord may be upon your lips, for with a strong hand Yahweh brought you out of Egypt.’”
The second parchment, also from Exodus 13, reads, “When in the future your child asks you, ‘what does this mean?’ you shall answer, by strength of hand Yahweh brought us up out of Egypt, from the house of slavery . . . It shall serve as a sign on your hand and as an emblem on your forehead that by strength of hand Yahweh brought us up out of Egypt.”
The third parchment is the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God is one Lord. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
And the fourth is from Deut 11. “You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children . . . so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.”
Clearly, rabbinical interpretation took these passages quite literally, commands to wear the story of redemption. The word phylactery is Greek, meaning, a safeguard. The phylactery safeguards the preservation of Israel’s redemptive history. Now, the Hebrews themselves don’t call them phylacteries, but rather tefillin, a word deriving from one of the Hebrew words meaning prayer. The two boxes are called the Shel Yad and the Shel Rosh. The Shel Yad (belonging to the hand) is strapped on the left arm and the straps are wound around the forearm and the hand, and the Shel Rosh (belonging to the head) is strapped to the top of the forehead. When the ritual is over, the phylacteries are removed in reverse order.
I use the word phylactery rather than tefillin because the one New Testament passage with which you may be familiar is Matthew 23, where the Pharisees’ wearing of phylacteries is denounced by Jesus. “Woe to you, Pharisees, scribes, hypocrites, for you make your phylacteries broad and your fringes long so that you might be seen of men” (Matthew 23:5). Jesus is condemning that external display of faith which lacks sincerity of the heart, putting on and taking off of God at will, based on who one wishes to impress. Jesus would have us internalize faith, stressing the first part of text, “You shall put these words in your heart and soul.” His words, it’s important to note, are not condemning wearing phylacteries. In fact, it’s likely that Jesus would have worn phylacteries himself. What Jesus is condemning is the hypocritical wearing of phylacteries in order to be seen and to impress others, consistent with his other condemnations in the same chapter.
There’s another common denominator in these four texts – the presence of children, which is why I began this sermon by painting a multi-generational scene of the attic treasure hunt. The wearing of the phylactery is to provide for children a link to the faith heritage of their ancestors. This custom prompts the children to ask, “What does this mean?”
On the back page I’ve included for you three pictures from our Seder meal during Holy Week, a special night here at FUMC attended by almost 200 (special thanks to photographer Jim Holsted). A key component of the Seder is when a young child, Bradley Ludwig, asks the four ha-layla ha-zeh (This night) questions. “Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we eat either leavened or unleaved bread. Why, on this night, do we eat only unleavened bread?” Bradley is at the head table holding the microphone, and in Bradley we see the child asking, “What does this mean?”
Another favorite part of the Seder is when the children of our church family, after our meal, are asked to find the hidden matzah. I’ve included two pictures for of the gathering of the children, as I instruct them what that hidden matzah might represent to us as Christians – the broken body of Christ hid away in the tomb, but found again in the resurrection.
“Ah,” you say, “but that’s the point -- we are Christians, so what does this have to do with us?” Indeed, we are Christians. Yet I hope that the phylactery will provide us with a visual image of the imperative not to allow our faith to slip from our children’s grasp. No, we don’t strap on the Shel Yad and the Shel Rosh in our Methodist tradition, but we do cherish the command to pass along the wonder of our faith to our children, to safeguard the integrity of the faith.
Do we have anything that prompts children to ask, “What does this mean?” I suppose it’s true that Christianity is always one generation away from extinction. If parents neglect taking the children to the biblical treasure chest, leading them to ask “What does this mean?” then children are at risk of losing a vital link to their spiritual ancestry. Faith’s power is diminished when our children don’t have opportunities to learn their heritage, to flash back to the stories that have inspired previous generations.
One looks at the state of Christianity in Europe today and fears that faith is slipping from grasp, as the percentage of those not involved with faith and church grows to frightening proportions. In our own denomination, while Methodism is growing in some parts of the world as children are incorporated into the faith stories, membership in the United Methodist Church in the United States, as well as all mainline denominations, has steadily declined for decades. There is Good News, that the decline is slower now than in the past and average Sunday worship attendance have actually had several years of modest growth over the past decade. The trend, however, is foreboding. Have the children quit asking, “What Does This Mean?” Have we been negligent in leading them to the symbols that will spark curiosity about our faith?
Do we have symbols of our faith which might prompt the question, “What does this mean?” Yes, on this table are the same elements that were on the Seder table when Jesus announced a New Covenant in his blood. The first passage in those boxes, Exodus 13, begins with the word, “Remember.” And at this table, did not Jesus say, “This do in remembrance of me?” For our children to remember, we must bring them to ask, and then be ready to share, from the treasure chest of our faith, the Good News of God’s love for us.