Called to Controversy (15 page)

That was it. Whether or not the Hebrew Scriptures seemed to point to Jesus as the Messiah was completely beside the point. Ben was committed to the Jewish community's position, which meant that believing in Jesus as Messiah was not an option. To veer from that position was considered the worst kind of disloyalty. His father's reaction came as a shock; it was painful and hard to believe it had actually happened.

Moishe later reflected,

Some people might think that what he said was unreasonable. But I knew he was doing what he thought was right, though it was difficult for him. All I could say was, “Well, Dad, I want you to know that I love you more than ever, and I really do respect you.” To me, those were the key issues. And my father answered, “Well, if you respect me; if you see me walking down the street cross over to the other side so that I don't have to.”

In recounting this story Moishe emphasized that his parents never treated him or Ceil as though they were villains. They never acted as though either of them had deliberately wronged the family. As for his brother, Moishe had the impression that he simply wanted to keep the family together.

Moishe's uncle Dave, however, was infuriated when he heard the news.
*
Moishe recalled, “With the colorful life he'd lived, Uncle Dave wasn't at a loss for a swearing vocabulary. I'll never forget how he turned red in the face as he shook his finger at me and finally said, ‘You . . . you . . . you . . .
Christ lover
, you!' It was astonishing to realize that the most shameful thing he could think to call me was actually a compliment. After what Jesus had done for me, I wanted to be a ‘Christ lover.'”

The sad truth was, being a Christ lover meant something very different to Moishe's family than it did to him. For centuries, Jews had been persecuted in the name of Jesus. Belief in him was anathema to Jewish people, and Jews who embraced him were seen as traitors who had crossed a line. They were no longer considered part of the community. What Christ did has never been so much of an issue to most Jewish people as what has been done in his name.

Moishe continued to tell everybody and anybody he could about Jesus, including people at the sporting goods store. Nate Gart slowed him down by reminding him, “It's your job to sell sporting goods, not Jesus.” He then showed Moishe that he more than understood the gospel, describing to his young protégé Christian beliefs at least as well as Moishe could have described them. Nate calmly explained that he would not forbid Moishe from talking about Jesus at the store, but that if he wanted to keep his job, he would have to keep his sales up. He commented that he wasn't surprised that Moishe had become “a Christer” as he put it—that it was usually people like him who became fanatically involved.

By then, Moishe was the buyer in the camera department and assistant to the corporate manager. It was a lot of responsibility for someone his age, but Nate Gart had invested a lot in him and appreciated his work. In fact, he withstood significant pressure from Ben Rosen, who wanted him to fire Moishe.

Ben really wanted his son back and somehow believed that if things weren't going so well for him, he'd be forced to give up this Jesus
mishegas
.
*
Moishe was a young man with a wife and baby to provide for, and his job was clearly a vulnerable spot.

What did Moishe think about his father trying to get him fired? “My father was not the type of person who would fire anyone because of his religion,” Moishe said. “I am sure if someone asked him to do what he wanted Nate Gart to do, he would have seen immediately that it was unfair. Plus he was not in the habit of threatening people. He must have found it distasteful, but I guess he hoped it might pressure me into doing what he thought was right.”

Moishe had heard stories about other Jewish people who struggled over whether to accept the gospel, knowing that they would be rejected by parents or friends. His experience was very different. Unlike Ceil, he hadn't been seeking the truth when he found it or, as the case may be, when
it
found
him
. He had never wanted to know if the gospel was true, was not open-minded about it, and never pretended to be. But once he saw the gospel as true, he never considered acceptance as a choice. He said,

To me, it was simple: if something was true, it was true. If people disliked you for believing it, there was not much you could do about it. Things were not true or false because you wanted them to be. . . . I don't know if I missed a great implication, or if God somehow just salved my heart and mind with some kind of anesthetic to help with the potential pain. I like to think that I simply knew God would take care of us.

When my family disowned me, I felt a terrible loss and I missed them—but I couldn't ignore the truth or apologize for what I believed. I had enough sense that I would not try to argue that I was right and they were wrong. I knew the rift was very painful for them—as much as for me. I never doubted their affection for me; they were simply doing what [they thought] was required of them.

Sadly, Ceil could not say the same thing for the Starrs. She and Moishe had acquiesced when the Starrs asked them to see a rabbi—it was to be one visit out of respect for Ceil's parents. When she had first pointed out the messianic prophecy in Isaiah 53 to her adoptive parents, it had shaken her father, who had never seen the passage. He was eager for the rabbi to prove that Jesus was not the suffering servant described in the Hebrew Scriptures. Upon meeting the rabbi, Mr. Starr became impatient and asked the rabbi in Yiddish, “What about Isaiah 53? What about Isaiah 53?”

After much hemming and hawing, Rabbi Bennett explained that having just moved, he did not have his commentaries unpacked. He would be glad to speak with them about the passage when he could refer them to those writings.

The interview had not gone as the older couple wished, and they had wrongly assumed that the young couple would be willing to return. Mamie Starr threatened that unless her daughter and son-in-law were willing to continue sessions with the rabbi, she and her husband would have nothing more to do with them. When this threat did not produce the desired effect, a furious Mamie ended the relationship. Ceil was grieved, particularly at having lost her adoptive father.

Moishe reflected, “The Bible says that when your father and mother forsake you, then I [the Lord] will take you up (Ps. 27:10). We found that to be true. We had a new family in the church. Not a substitute family because no one can replace your family—but a different kind of family.”

The cynicism Moishe once felt about God was gone. He was delighted in being able to believe in miracles, being able to believe in prayer. Mrs. Wago had stressed the importance of prayer and reading the Bible, and Moishe used his break times at work to read the Bible and pray. He noticed that the Pillar of Fire Church, about seven blocks from the store, had a sign out front that said, “Open all day for prayer.” At that church Moishe found a place of quiet solitude to read and pray.

One day during his break, Moishe was reading chapter 20 in the book of Acts. He came to verse 21, which described the apostle Paul as he was “testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Moishe thought how great it would be if someone like Paul would bring the gospel to Jews in modern times, and he prayed that God would send someone.

What happened in that moment was difficult to describe. As he reflected on the verse, Moishe knew that he was reading about someone else. He knew that these events were from a different time and had nothing to do with him. Yet the verse seemed to be illuminated in his heart and mind so that he knew that God was speaking to him through it. He didn't hear a voice or see a vision, but the message was clear:
Why not
you
? Why not spend
your
life telling people about Jesus?

Moishe did not know what form this would take. He only knew that something very significant had happened; God had communicated to him through that verse in a way that went beyond his usual understanding of the Bible.

Herein lies a pretty piece of symmetry. As it turned out, the very street preacher that Moishe and Ceil used to pass every Sunday on their way to the movies—the one that prompted Moishe to wish out loud that he could believe something with so much devotion that he'd be willing to face ridicule as that man was doing—was one of the clergy from the Pillar of Fire Church. That was where God called Moishe to preach the gospel.

*
Decades later Moishe and Ceil wrote an in-depth book on the subject titled
Christ in the Passover
published by Moody Press (now Moody Publishing).

*
The “Communion story” became a standby in later years when Moishe spoke to students at Bible colleges and seminaries. He'd greatly embellish it with perfect timing, exaggerated gestures, and facial expressions that delighted students. At the same time the story helped hearers understand the serious reality of how cultural rituals that they took for granted could be very confusing to others. Because the story became such a fixture in his testimony, this third person narrative does include some of the embellishments Moishe added through the years. For example, while most Jewish people find ourselves objects of racial stereotyping at some point, the reader is not to suppose that anyone at Trinity Baptist Church joked about Jews being stingy.

*
Trinity Baptist Church occupied a building that had no facility for baptizing by immersion (which is more in keeping with the Jewish cleansing ritual known as the
mikvah
, where the entire body must be submerged). Pastor MacDonald conducted baptisms on occasional Sunday evenings at the First Baptist Church of Lakewood, Colorado. Moishe and Ceil were baptized there on July 28, 1953.

*
Despite Uncle Dave's explosive reaction, Moishe said, “He was also the first one in the family who showed me any respect. After I finished Bible college and I came to Denver to be ordained, he said, ‘I don't want to encourage you to follow this religion, but I'm glad that you followed my advice and got an education.'”

*
Yiddish word for nonsense or craziness.

TWELVE

It's not so bad to be out on a limb if Christ is the branch.

—MOISHE ROSEN

C
eil had taken the streetcardowntown to meet Moishe at the sporting goods store. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her near the door. He rang up a sale, counted back the customer's change, and started toward her. As he reached the door, one of the Gart brothers shouted after him, “Hey, Rosen, where you going?”

“It's my lunch hour,” Moishe explained, still on his way out.

“No, it's not, We're too busy; we need you to cover.” He punctuated his demand with some rather colorful language. Moishe liked and respected three of the four Gart brothers; unfortunately, this happened to be the fourth.

Moishe felt caught between his duty to the store and to his wife. Normally, he would not have hesitated to get back to work. But Ceil arranged her day so they could have lunch together.

Moishe swallowed hard, forcing himself to remain calm. He said, “But my wife made a special trip. She wouldn't be here if you'd told me earlier you wanted me to work through lunch today.”

The man shrugged.“Well, that's too bad,” he said, adorning the terse phrase with a colorful adjective.

None of the other brothers used language like that in the store, much less in front of a lady. Finding this lack of respect for Ceil intolerable, Moishe announced once again that he was going to lunch.

“If you do,” the man growled, “don't bother coming back. You're fired.”

Moishe put a protective arm around Ceil and left without another word. They walked to their favorite lunch stop: Joe “Awful” Coffee's—where the coffee wasn't awful. (The owner's last name was Coffee, and the restaurant was named for a locally famous boxer, Joe “Awful.”) Moishe, acutely conscious of being newly unemployed, considered getting hot dogs at the dime store instead, but didn't want to spoil the day.

“You don't have to worry, you know,” he told Ceil reassuringly. “I'll start looking for another job right away.”

“I'm not worried.” She tried to match his optimistic tone.

“I think it could be a pretty good adventure, looking for a different kind of work,” he said while they ate. “I've been doing the same thing for six years now. Probably it's time for a change.”

Ceil nodded. “I'm sure we'll be fine.”

Moishe already had an idea of the kind of work he wanted to do. As a teenager, he'd been influenced by a writer/philosopher named Eric Hoffer (later known as the longshoreman philosopher) and his book titled
The True Believer
. Moishe had heard a radio interview with Hoffer, in which the man explained that most philosophers were too “heady” to understand everyday life or care about working-class people. He insisted that until a person had worked with his hands, he was not worthy to be considered a philosopher.

Moishe had a philosophical bent and found Hoffer's ideas challenging. He'd even wondered occasionally if his skill as a salesman was taking the easy way when he ought to be shoulder to shoulder with those who lived by the sweat of their brow. True, he'd sweated plenty while swinging a sledgehammer in the family business, but then he'd had no choice.