Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

CHAPTER 14
The Character of Discipleship
At the beginning of chapter 13a number of questions were posed with a view to
gaining further clarification on the significance of Jesus' teaching on the kingdom
of God. So far the Jesus tradition has provided quite an extensive answer to
the first: For whom did Jesus intend his message of the kingdom? Uncertainty remains,
however, as to whether Jesus realistically hoped for a national revival. Or
did he simply seek out those who would respond, without necessarily having any
clear idea on how the few who responded should be related to any wider hope for
national restoration? Jesus would be neither the first and certainly not the last
whose vision of what his vocation should expect to achieve was less than clear.
Of course, the uncertainty may be simply that of the historian looking back,
rather than of Jesus himself. But so far as the question initially posed is concerned,
uncertainty remains regarding key elements of the answers as indicated
by the Jesus tradition.
Further clarification is likely to be forthcoming from our second question,
when we focus attention more closely on those who did respond to Jesus' preaching,
rather than the unavoidably vaguer hopes for Israel as a whole. So we ask
again: What did Jesus envisage his talk of the kingdom would mean for those
who responded? How did he expect the kingdom to impact upon their lives?
What did it involve to 'follow' Jesus? There is bound to be some overlap with
material reviewed in chapter 13: not surprisingly, the first three characteristics
correspond to the first three features of Jesus' call (§13.2); and we will be confronted
with the same uncertainty in due course. But an overview of the character
of the discipleship to which Jesus called is important in itself, and not least for
those who in subsequent centuries have seen in that discipleship the precedent
and in at least some measure the pattern for their own.
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