Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.8 The Character of Discipleship
cipleship to which Jesus called from the other patterns of Israel's restoration
theology. Pharisees and Essenes both pursued, with differing degrees of strictness,
an ideal which required that those concerned for Israel's holiness and restoration
should not only maintain a high level of purity themselves but should
also, as a necessary corollary, hold themselves apart from others whom they regarded
as impure. The rigour with which they practised this ideal is admirable
in its devotion and self-discipline. Jesus, however, is consistently remembered
as seeing things differently. The ideal of the kingdom which he promoted was
one more motivated by concern for others in their various disabilities, a community
marked more by such mutual concern than by the law strictly interpreted
and rigorously enforced. What for many Pharisees and Essenes was a sinful disregard
for covenant ideals was for Jesus an expression of the good news of the
kingdom.
b. Absence of Boundaries
The point emerging above highlights a remarkable feature of the discipleship
to which Jesus called. As with his initial call to 'the poor' (§13.4) and to 'sinners'
(§13.5), so with the character of discipleship for which his own practice
provided the template. Whereas others sought to protect Israel's special status
before Yahweh by drawing tighter boundaries round the people of promise, Jesus
sought to break down these boundaries and to create a fellowship which
was essentially open rather than closed. His open table-fellowship, so much
both constituting and characterizing the community which practised it, made
the point more clearly than any other aspect of his mission. How far the point
can be pressed is less clear. Presumably Jesus had meals alone with his disciples
which were of a private nature and not obviously open, 286 and presumably
also the last supper (Mark 14.22-25 pars.) was not an isolated occasion. 287 But
otherwise the fact that the Synoptic Evangelists have made so little attempt to
depict Jesus using shared meals as opportunities to give his disciples private
instruction 288 both indicates that the predominant memory in the Jesus tradition
was of the openness of Jesus' table-fellowship and implies that even by the
time of the Synoptic Evangelists there was no great wish to contradict that im-
286. Are such meals hinted at in Mark's references to Jesus and his disciples having no
time to eat (3.20; 6.31)?
287. Note again, however, that the 'houses' into which Jesus was able to slip every so often
were for private teaching (n. 234 above); no mention is made of eating together in such houses.
288. The tradition of Mark 14.3-9 is confused at just this point. Other than the occasions
listed above (n. 254) only the last supper (much elaborated in the Fourth Gospel) and Luke
24.36-49 could be so classified.
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