Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §19.2
no further rule of thumb necessary where these two are lived out — even to the
extent of recognizing that the neighbour in a particular instance may include the
enemy. Life lived out of forgiveness — of error and failure humbly conceded, of
forgiveness and acceptance readily offered and gladly received, a society bonded
by acknowledgment of mutual need for forgiveness and experience of being forgiven,
a society energised and empowered by the grace of forgiveness and gratitude
for being forgiven. Such a community Jesus evidently saw as able to serve
also as a new family, particularly for those disowned by their natural families.
But the more dominant image Jesus used was that of the open table, not least as
typifying the breaking down of boundaries between the religious and the nonreligious
and as both imaging and to some extent already realising the hope of the
great banquet of the coming kingdom.
Living out such a life-style marked out Jesus' circle of disciples from other
groups of the time, differences which were bound to cause adverse comment. The
contrast was greatest with the Qumran Essenes; but there are only a few hints that
Jesus criticized Qumran's closed-in, purity-conscious community. The closer parallel,
but also the greatest antipathy, is remembered in regard to Pharisees' criticism
of Jesus' pattern of discipleship — particularly in regard to Jesus' failure to
maintain separation from sinners and to observe the current halakhoth on Sabbath
and purity. The antipathy may have spilled over into outright hostility on some occasions,
but Luke also recalls friendly Pharisees, and Pharisaic involvement in Jesus'
arrest and handing over to the secular power is not clearly attested.
However, someone who spoke frequently about the kingdom of God in
ways critical of present social practices was bound to excite suspicion on the part
of those who controlled and benefited from the status quo. We noted some hints
that Jesus was alert to possible preemptive strikes by Herod Antipas during his
Galilean mission. But those made most uneasy by Jesus' kingdom preaching and
life-style seem to have been the high priestly party in their power base in Jerusalem.
This becomes apparent only in the account of Jesus' last week in the Judean
capital, but it is not hard to imagine that Jesus' casualness in regard to the prerogatives
of the cult and the purity system focused on the Temple would have
marked out Jesus as a troublemaker. Whether Jesus avoided Jerusalem prior to
his final visit or visited it more frequently (as the Fourth Gospel indicates), the
opposition to Jesus did not become deadly until that final week. In that final denouement
it was evidently the perception that Jesus posed some sort of threat to
the Temple, the cult, and/or those whose power base it was which proved the decisive
reason or excuse for arresting Jesus and handing him over to Pilate for
summary execution.
How did Jesus see his own role in all this? He was often hailed as teacher
and responded positively to and in that role. His parables and aphorisms contained
a critique of the current system of religious and social values and obvi-
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