Mennonite Weekly Review

SAN FRANCISCO — My wife and I walk down Dolores Street to the address listed

Villegas

for First Mennonite Church. We find ourselves outside a Jewish synagogue: Congregation Sha’ar Zahav. Near the door a sidewalk sign lets us know that the Mennonite service begins at 9:30 a.m.

We walk up the stairs into the synagogue and wait for the church service to begin. The song leader asks us to open the Mennonite songbook Sing the Story to a traditional Passover song, “Dayeinu.” “Had God brought us out of Egypt and not fed us in the desert, then it would have satisfied us.”

For over a millennium, Jews have been singing these words during Passover as a way of celebrating God’s gracious gifts and powerful acts of redemption. “Had God given us the Torah and not led us into Israel, then it would have satisfied us.”

For those who worship at First Mennonite, God has indeed “led us into Israel.” The church rents space inside a Jewish community in exile among the gentiles of California. The people of Sha’ar Zahav have made room within their synagogue for a Mennonite worship service.

This Jewish community incarnates God’s invitation that we read in the Psalms later in the service: “Through the abundance of your steadfast love, I will encounter your house” (Psalm 5:7).

In San Francisco the Mennonites assemble as Christ’s body within the house of Israel. Gentiles have become children of God, wrote theologian Karl Barth in 1949, “only as those chosen with [the Jews]; as guests in their house.” For First Mennonite of San Francisco, Barth’s theology becomes flesh: The church is learning how to be a physical guest within a material house of Israel in diaspora.

After six years of worshipping in the same building, several Jews now return on Sunday morning for worship with the Mennonites. Bart Shulman describes how he belongs with both communities: “I feel a sense of home at the synagogue, and at First Mennonite I feel at home in a different way: I’m family, even though I’m a little different.”

Shulman’s identity as a Jew among a mostly gentile church has not prevented him from participating in the life of the Mennonite community. He serves on church committees and teaches Sunday school.

“Worshiping in a synagogue has made possible close relationships with our Jewish brothers and sisters,” says Pastor Sheri Hostetler. “It’s impossible for our church to forget that Jesus was a Jew, which seems to be easy for some Christians to do.”