Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.9
people as individuals, but not as isolated individuals, and not as individuals without
responsibilities to others in society, the poor as well as the neighbour, the socially
and religiously marginalized as well as the individual sinner. Nor, finally,
should we try to distinguish a 'disciple ethos' from a 'general ethos'. 302 As it
proved impractical to distinguish 'disciples' from 'followers' (§§13.2-3) and to
draw clear boundaries between different circles of discipleship (§13.8), so there
are no grounds for arguing that Jesus looked for different levels of actualization
of their discipleship. Not all might have to leave family and abandon possessions,
but principled living, love of neighbour, and forgiving the fellow-disciple
knew no such distinctions.
e. Did Jesus seek to establish a church? The question has such an anachronistic
ring as to be almost not worth asking. But if by 'church' we mean the 'assembly'
gathered before the Lord God, then it could be said that Jesus envisaged
his disciples so functioning. Should we rather speak of a new family, that is of
discipleship as a fictive family with God as Father and Jesus as eldest brother?
Not if by that we mean a new social grouping by definition set over against and
in antithesis with birth-families and other common social groupings. But if we
mean by that a community bonded by 'brotherly love', distinguished by its openness
to the marginalized, characterized by members putting themselves out for
one another as one would for a beloved sister or brother and not by hierarchy,
priestly craft, or power-play, then the concept would not be so far adrift from
what Jesus seems to have hinted at.
In short, we could sum up Jesus' vision for the present as 'living in the light
of the coming kingdom'. Not as an 'interim ethic', in Schweitzer's terms, 303 that
is, as a radically idealistic ethic for the extraordinary conditions of the inbetween
time before the kingdom comes, nor as a means of bringing in the kingdom.
304 Nor as though the kingdom was already consummated and there was
nothing more to look forward to: Jesus' disciples still have to pray, 'May your
kingdom come'; the resurrection as envisaged in Mark 12.18-27 pars, has still to
take place! But rather as the character of kingdom life, lived already here and
now in anticipation of God's ordering of society when his will is done on earth as
it is in heaven. 305 Not as living in a spiritual world, whether 'beyond time and
space' or beyond the 'world's' reach; but as living in a sacramental universe,
where the signs of God's providential care are everywhere to be recognized,
learned from, and received with thankfulness. Not as a closed society, deter-
302. Merklein, Jesu Botschaft 128-31.
303. Schweitzer, Mystery 97; Quest' 352; Quest 2 323, 454-56.
304. Schräge, Ethics 26-30.
305. Cf. A. E. Harvey, Strenuous Commands: The Ethic of Jesus (London: SCM, 1990)
ch. 9, 'Living "As If'' (the kingdom were already a reality).
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