Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.8
ing. 254 A particular criticism was that 'he ate with tax-collectors and sinners'. 255
It is also worth noting that of the several criticisms attributed to Pharisees, four
have to do with matters of table-fellowship or eating practices: eating with the religiously
unacceptable (n. 255), feasting rather than fasting (Mark 2.18 pars.),
plucking grain (Mark 2.23-24 pars.), and eating with defiled (= unwashed) hands
(Mark 7.5/Matt. 15.2). In contrast, Luke in particular makes a point of recalling
how often Jesus accepted invitations to 'dine out'. 256
Luke also implies that Jesus' action as host, in blessing the bread and
breaking it, had become a familiar act by which he could be recognized. 257 The
same feature may indeed be at the heart of the event recalled in the tradition as
the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6.32-44 pars.): Jesus 'took the five loaves
. . . blessed them, broke them, and gave them to his disciples . . .' (Mark 6.41
pars.). 258 However much the memory has been elaborated in the retelling, the
story as it has reached us was most probably based on the memory of a meal in a
barren area seen to have symbolic significance from the first. 259 It is significant
for the same reason that all Evangelists agree that Jesus' final time with his disciples
was spent in fellowship at the meal table — the last supper (Mark 14.22-25
pars.). That shared meals were a feature of the earliest Jerusalem community
from the first (according to Luke) presumably implies that this practice was a
carry-over from their time with Jesus. 260
Here we need simply to recall also how Jesus used the already familiar im-
stoned' (Parables 160). Fitzmyer points out that the Greek used here (phagos kai oinopotes)
scarcely reflects the LXX (symbolokopön oinophlygei) (Luke 681), though H. C. Kee, 'Jesus: A
Glutton and a Drunkard', NTS 42 (1996) 374-93, questions the importance of the observation
(390-91). The phrase more likely echoes Prov. 23.20-21 ('the drunkard [methusos] and the
glutton [pornokopos] will become poor'), where the same Hebrew is used as in Deut. 21.20
(zolel w e sobe'), 'the point being that Jesus is considered a fool' (BDAG, oinopotes).
254. Some teaching is specifically related to the context of the meal table (Mark 2.15-17
pars.; 6.30-44 pars.; 14.3-9 pars.; 14.17-25 pars.; Luke 7.36-50; 10.38-41; 11.37-52; 14.1-24;
24.36-49). But it is highly probable that much more teaching whose particular context of first
delivery has not been attached to the tradition was delivered in that context. Trocme believes
that 'most of the parables were part of the conversation at meals in the houses where Jesus had
been invited' (Jesus 91).
255. Mark 2.15-16 pars.; Matt. 11.19/Luke 7.34; Luke 15.1-2; 19.10. See again above,
§13.5.
256. Mark 2.15-16; 14.3; Luke 5.29; 7.36; 10.38; 11.37; 13.26; 14.1, 12; 19.5-7.
257. Luke 9.16; 24.30-31, 35. Was this a detail which Luke gleaned from his eyewitnesses
(Luke 1.2)?
258. The actions are, of course, typical at the beginning of a Jewish meal, but the Lukan
references alluded to in the preceding note suggest a cherished memory.
259. See further below, §15.7f.
260. Acts 1.4; 2.46; note also 20.7, 11; 1 Cor. 10.14-22; 11.17-34; Jude 12. Perrin argues
similarly (Rediscovering 104-105).
600