Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§19.3 Jesus Remembered
ing and concerned living. Not as a blueprint for such a life, nor as an instruction
manual for a complete social ethic or politically mature society. But as indicating
the character of the deep personal relations and priorities, values, and motivations
without which any social structure or political manifesto will fail to realise
its best ambitions. The Jesus tradition heard responsively could and can still
function as a test of the caring community, as a rebuke and challenge to any selfindulgent
society arrogant in maintaining its own prerogatives and careless of the
needs of others. But the same tradition shows that to hear Jesus speaking only in
these terms is to diminish what Jesus himself stood for and to lose the key to the
realisation of his vision of the kingdom. For, once again, we need to stress that
Jesus is recalled as characteristically linking love of neighbour to love of God,
the former presumably to large extent dependent on the latter. We need to stress
that Jesus himself seems to have seen his expected death and hoped-for resurrection
as of a piece with his kingdom preaching and living. And, again, we need to
stress the retention of the Jesus tradition only within the Gospel format, and the
wisdom of so retaining it. The lasting impact of Jesus in the Jesus tradition
should not be fragmented but perceived afresh in its wholeness.
In short, through the Jesus tradition the would-be disciple still hears and
encounters Jesus as he talked and debated, shared table-fellowship and healed. In
hearing the Jesus tradition read from pulpit or stage, in sacred space or neighbour's
sitting room, we sit with the earliest disciple and church groups as they
shared memories of Jesus, nurtured their identity as his disciples, equipped themselves
for witness and controversy, celebrated and learnt fresh lessons for life
and worship from and in that celebration. Through that tradition it is still possible
for anyone to encounter the Jesus from whom Christianity stems, the remembered
Jesus.
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