Jude: Person, Letter, Passage

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is Hey, Jude: Person, Letter, Passage. My focus is our second reading. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

When people hear the name Jude, they may think of Jude Law, the actor who portrays Watson in Robert Downey’s Sherlock Holmes movies. Others think of the Memphis hospital founded by Danny Thomas. Most hear a Beatles’ song in their heads and start humming the melody.

“Hey Jude” is a song written by Paul McCartney of the Beatles. It was released in August 1968, and was more than seven minutes long. At the time it was the longest single to top the British charts, and spent nine weeks at number one in the United States, the longest for any Beatles single and the longest run at the top of the US charts. The single sold eight million copies. But did you know that the title prompted some to consider McCartney an anti-Semite? That John Lennon thought it was an affirmation of his relationship with Yoko Ono? Or that the ballad evolved from “Hey Jules”, a song McCartney wrote to comfort John Lennon's son, Julian, during his parents' divorce?

I am not here to preach about Beatles’ songs, but rather to address The Letter of Jude in three parts – the person, the letter and the passage. First, the person.

There is some confusion regarding the true identity of Jude. He is not an outstanding figure like Peter, Paul, Timothy or Titus. Rather, he is an obscure apostle. Jude is not Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus. Yet, both Jude and Judas are Greek variants of Judah, a name common among Jews at the time. Aside from Judas Iscariot, the New Testament mentions Jude or Judas six times in four different contexts: Jude, the son of James, one of the Twelve Apostles[1]; Judas, not Judas Iscariot, but apparently an apostle mentioned in John’s Gospel[2]; the brother of Jesus identified by those who questioned the Lord’s authority[3]; and, finally, the writer of the Epistle of Jude, who identifies himself as “the brother of James.”[4]

Scholars are divided on whether Jude the apostle was also Jude the brother of Jesus, the traditional author of the Epistle. Generally, Catholics believe the two Jude’s are the same person, while Protestants generally do not. Of course, there is more regarding Jude’s lore and legend, but suffice it to say that Jude was a real person, and the Epistle – the Word of God – is attributed to him. And so, we move from Person to Letter.

Unlike many of Paul’s letters, because this letter lacks hard evidence of the author’s identity, we can only surmise the author. Jude, calls himself the brother of James, who is one of the brothers of the Lord[5], and a leader in the early church. Although, as I already stated, there is an apostle of the same name[6], this Jude refers himself outside that group. One hypothesis is that after his brother, James, was executed in 62 A.D., Jude followed his example and warned Jewish Christians against new threats to their faith.

We know from the letter’s style that the author was a man trained as a scribe who wrote with considerable sophistication. As a Jewish Christian with blood ties to James and Jesus, he saw himself as an orthodox guardian of tradition. He also assumed that his readers were familiar with all his cited sources, canonical and noncanonical alike.

As the greeting of the letter indicates, his original readers were Jewish Christians who personally knew James. We find similarities in Paul’s greeting to the Romans and the Letter of James, where both identify themselves as servants of Christ.[7] Additionally, the greeting offers us a glimpse into Jewish Christianity, not Greek Christianity of Philippi, Corinth or Thessalonica.

Following the greeting, Jude reminded his readers that their salvation was at stake because ungodly outsiders crept into the Church and perverted the grace of God into sensuality, denying their only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.[8] In other words, syncretism – perverting Law and Gospel by blending it with other teachings – was occurring, and that was as much of a danger in the early Church as it was when Walther and Pieper were the first Synod Presidents, and as it is today.

Most likely, those who “crept in unnoticed” were travelling missionaries. Think of it this way: If someone came to this church and knew the routine, he could present himself for communion as a church member. From there, he could finagle his way into a teaching position, and then present distorted views of the Law and Gospel. As a former Roman Catholic priest, the reason it was so difficult for me to join the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod as an ordained pastor is that the men charged with admitting candidates to ministry purposely made it so. They want to ensure that they are admitting someone who will be faithful to the teachings. Otherwise, you see from Jude the mess that occurs when you do not create a system that admits and rejects. As one Scripture scholar wrote, those who crept in denied the Lord Jesus (v. 4) by refusing to live under his rule. Although the opponents did not see themselves as rejecting Christianity, Jude describes their way of life as denying the order established by the Lord.[9]

From this point in the letter, against these opponents of Christ, Jude presents the evidence of his case, and then prosecutes and condemns these false teachers, while warning Christians so that they do not follow them.

In verses 17-19, we read: “You must remember … the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.”

This quote is from the Book of Enoch, which is outside the canon, and although all Jude’s readers may not have been familiar with it, they were familiar with the apostles. Jude was making the point that scoffers ignore all the the law. Proverbs 9:7-8 reads, “Correct a scoffer and you attract contempt, rebuke a wicked man and you attract dishonor. Do not rebuke the scoffer, he will hate you. Rebuke the wise man and he will love you.” Scoffers create divisions, and these particular scoffers were not Christians, as they claimed, but rather greedy, worldly, spirit-less, divisive persons. They were not interested in building the body of Christ, the Kingdom of God. They were not interested in discipleship, servant leadership, unanimity, cooperation or reaching across the proverbial aisle. They were interested in their own muddled version of Law and Gospel, and not a clear distilled Biblical teaching. They were divisive scoffers.

In essence, Jude said, “They are divisive scoffers, and you are true believers.” And that brings me to our third point, Passage. Take a moment to find verses 20-25 in your program or pew Bible.

Note how Jude contrasted the behavior of the scoffers to that of true believers. By encouraging Christians to build up the community, he offered the model for community life – the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. By promoting holiness, Jude sought to combat the scoffers’ false teaching. And finally, he encouraged Christians to practice mercy rather than hate. He closed his letter by reminding them that only God’s grace can keep us from stumbling. For that alone, he offered all glory, majesty and praise to our Lord, Savior, Master and Redeemer, Jesus Christ the Son of God. In short, each individual member of the community is to be Christ for one another.

So, there you have it – Jude the Person, the Letter and the Passage. For some, this thumbnail sketch could suffice, but my curious mind does not allow me to rest here. There is more to cover, but time does not allow me to discuss in detail Jude’s personality or educational background – how he wrote with such sophistication and employed words and phrases found nowhere else in the Bible. I cannot delve into the sociological milieu of his time – the understanding of a community 2000 years ago in a world thousands of miles from here where Greeks and Jews intersected. I cannot distinguish Jewish and Greek Christians quite so easily as sugar and salt. There is, however, something that I cannot overlook and that is a question: How is Jude applicable to life today?

The late Bible scholar, Raymond Brown wrote, “Today most would not appreciate or find germane [Jude’s] argumentation from Israelite tradition about the angels who sinned with women, [or] Michael’s battle over the body of Moses … We owe Jude reverence as a book of Sacred Scripture, but its applicability to ordinary life remains a formidable difficulty.”[10] So, how is Jude applicable to life today?

I asked a number of people, “What are the most urgent issues facing congregations today?” I received a number of responses including lack of time for prayer, worship and Bible study, materialism, divisiveness, human sexuality, devaluing God’s word, rejecting Biblical truths, conforming to the current culture, liberal colleges that turn high school graduates into atheists, and parents who place more importance on their children’s weekend sports activities than God’s Church. One gentleman wrote, “Realizing that eternal life can only be obtained by believing in Jesus Christ.” A friend offered his gut response: people looking for ways to live the Gospel and stay faithful to Jesus each and every day.

When I stopped looking for responses, I heard this exchange between a radio host and an author who wrote about living the Beatitudes daily. The author spoke of how he met a young man who had converted to the faith. The author asked this young man what he had converted from. Without skipping a beat and with a huge smile on his face, he responded, “Unhappiness. …. I left a lot of unhappiness and found something greater.” Surprised because he thought the young man was going to name a particular denomination or belief, he instead went to the heart of the matter. Knowing the young man, the author said that his sufferings and heartaches could have led him to choose anger, resentment and self-pity. But in spite of all these darker possibilities, which so many people choose in our world today, this person chose to convert to happiness. He saw the choice between light and dark, life and death, happiness and misery, and he chose – without question – to be happy. In our lives, we have to make our own choice. Will it be an unending and frustrating search for the pleasures and highs of life? Or will we break free from the malaise of incomplete joys and passing pleasures?[11]

If Jude has anything to offer congregations today, it reminds us that remaining steadfast to our faith is the key to happiness. Presented with the Law that convicts me of my sin and keeps me from sinning more grievously, and the Gospel, which frees me from my sin because of the Person of Jesus Christ – who suffered, died on the Cross and rose from the dead – and His teaching of repentance, forgiveness, loving-kindness, mercy, charity, generosity, thanksgiving and prayer, I am a blessed, happy person. Law and Gospel, Word and Sacrament, love of God and service to neighbor is all I really need to be happy or to convert from unhappiness, anger, resentment, self-pity and the unending, frustrating search for life’s pleasures – and God has provided all of that for me.

Friends, as you go about your life today, present someone with the choice to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Present someone with the choice to be happy, for when you do, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13.

[2] John 14:22.

[3] Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3.

[4] Jude 1:1.

[5] Matthew 13:55.

[6] Lk 6:16; Acts 1:13; Jn 14:22.

[7] See Romans 1:1 and James 1:1.

[8] Jude 3-4.

[9] Pheme Perkins, First and Second Peter, James, Jude, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1995. p. 148.

[10] Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, New York: Doubleday, 1997. pp. 759-760.

[11] Jeffrey Kirby, Kingdom of Happiness: Living the Beatitudes in Everyday Life, Charlotte, NC: St. Benedict Press, 2017.