Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§13.2 For Whom Did Jesus Intend His Message?
striking contrast to Elisha (1 Kgs 19.20-21). 73 Bailey again provides illumination
from Middle Eastern culture: the request to 'take leave of assumed the normal
propriety of asking parental permission before responding to Jesus. In denying
the request, Jesus was in effect claiming higher authority than the father — a
shocking response. 74 An equivalent degree of commitment is called for in the
saying which urges hearers (to strive) to enter through the narrow gate (into the
kingdom/which leads to life) (Luke 13.24/Matt. 7.13-14). 75
Jeremias also draws attention to the mission instruction, to 'exchange no
greetings on the road' (Luke 10.4). 'This is a command which would be extremely
offensive. In the East, greetings have a deeper significance than they do
with us, because they have a religious meaning'. In Jesus' day it probably involved
some ceremonial and consumed some time. The message of the kingdom
cannot brook such delay (cf. 2 Kgs. 4.29). 76 A similar note is struck in another of
Luke's singly attested sayings: the threat of unexpected calamity makes the call
to repent all the more urgent (Luke 13.3, 5). 77 The weight which can be put on
the latter sayings is not strong, but they are consistent with the urgency implicit
in much of Jesus' kingdom teaching and in Matt. 8.21-22/Luke 9.59-60. And
here as elsewhere there is no reason to set early church missionary enthusiasm
against Jesus' imminent expectation as an either-or.
All four features, therefore, seem to have been characteristic of Jesus' mission
call: to repent, to believe, and to follow, and to do so as a matter of urgent
priority.
73. The reasons for the Jesus Seminar's rejection of Luke 9.62 as a word of Jesus are
typical: 'Looking back (v. 62) suggests a social context in which group formation has already
reached an advanced stage. ... In addition, the image corresponds to themes in the Hebrew Bible:
Lot's wife is destroyed when she looks back (Gen. 19.26). . . . (It) does not quite fit Jesus'
exaggerated way of putting things' (Funk, Five Gospels 317). The first reason reads more in
than out, the second makes the typically arbitrary assumption that Jesus' followers, but not Jesus,
could have been influenced by a biblical story like that of Lot's wife, and the conclusion
can only be described as odd (contrast Lüdemann, Jesus 326-27).
74. Through Peasant Eyes 27-31.
75. Cited above, §8.5d. That the saying goes back to Jesus in some form is agreed by
Perrin, Rediscovering 144-45, and Funk, Five Gospels 347.
76. Jeremias, Proclamation 133; Fitzmyer notes that the instruction 'has also been interpreted
not so much of haste as of dedication' {Luke 847), though evidently the effect would be
the same. Despite its sole attestation by Luke, Robinson/Hoffmann/Kloppenborg have no hesitation
in including Luke 10.4b in Q {Critical Edition of Q 164-65).
77. See above, chapter 12 n. 221. But urgency is not the same as rashness, as the Lukan
parables on building a tower and going to war clearly indicate (Luke 14.28-33); on which see
Hultgren, Parables 137-45.
505