'Pastor, is God Jewish?'

That's a question you don't get every day. I'm in the middle of a series on the Lord's Prayer and have referenced Jesus' frequent allusions to the Law of Moses, the foundation of Judaism.

I've also told my class at the university that the Old Testament is not a good history of the ancient Near East.

It is, instead, concerned with God's relationship to the Hebrew/Israelite/Jewish people. Others -- Amalekites, Hittites, Philistines, et al -- get mentioned only when they come into contact with the Jewish people.

"Pastor, is God Jewish?" It was a question asked over a meal at the Puxico Nutrition Center, following worship, by a senior woman who reads her Bible faithfully and often takes notes during my sermons. It was a sincere question from a person who is serious about learning, not a casual query. I'm not quite ready to address my parishioner's question. First, a detour.

"The last time I checked, Jesus was a Christian." So said Michael Chang, the American tennis player who won the French Open in 1989 at age 17, an outspoken person of faith.

Well, with apologies to Mr. Chang, he's wrong. Jesus was a Jew from first to last; he was not the first Christian.

The Christian faith was founded on Jesus' words and deeds -- most notably, death on a cross and resurrection three days later.

But Jesus' Bible was the Old Testament, and his religious rituals followed the Jewish calendar -- including Passover.

His initial ministry was to the Jewish community in his native Galilee and later in Judea to the south.

Yes, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus did make reference to "the church" (Matthew 16:18), but the founder of that church would be one of Jesus' inner circle, St. Peter.

"Why are the Jews God's chosen people?"

This question also was asked at the table in Puxico. A sincere question from a person serious about learning.

If you ask a rabbi that question, he is likely to say the Jews were chosen not to be above other peoples (Gentiles), but to be a light to them, an inspiration. (A Gentile is any person, not a Jew.)

Why does any of this matter? It matters because it is easy to put God in a theological straitjacket, into a theoretical box of our own making -- believing God thinks and believes as we do. Is God Jewish? No, I don't think so -- but for reasons of God's own choosing, the faith Christians hold was founded upon the lives of Jews -- of whom Jesus of Nazareth was one.

Is God Muslim? Is God Buddhist? Is God Hindu or Sikh? My parishioner did not ask any of those follow-up questions. With all respect, God rises above all our labels. I am persuaded that when we meet God, when we pass through the unseen door of death into the next life, God's question to us will be, "Does my son know you?"

Rather than ask God's religious orientation, maybe we ought to turn the finger of inquiry inward and ask, "Does Jesus know who I am?" If the answer you give yourself is that you are not sure, time's a-wasting.