Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§12.4 The Kingdom of God
20.21) the request by/for James and John is that they should be granted the seats
on Jesus' right and left in his (obviously) future kingdom ('glory' — Mark
10.37); 168 it is the servant who is 'great'; 169 the Baptist is greatest among those
born of women, but the least in the kingdom is greater than he (Matt. 11.1 I/Luke
7.28). 170 Matthew also repeats 'the first will be last, and the last first' saying, 171
just as Luke repeats the Q(?) saying, 'Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and whoever humbles himself will be exalted'. 172
If the note of unexpected exaltation is prominent, so too is the note of unexpected
judgment on those who might have assumed that their future status was
secure. Notable is the prediction that many will come from east and west to recline
in the kingdom, while Jesus' hearers ('the sons of the kingdom' in Matthew)
will be thrown out (Matt. 8.11-12/Luke 13.28-29) — a striking variation
on Israel's hopes for the return of the exiles with the eschatological pilgrims
from the nations. 173 Other similar 'reversal parables' explicitly imaging the kingdom
are the great supper (Matt. 22.3; Luke 14.15), where the expected guests refuse
the invitation and the banquet is thrown open to all and sundry (Matt. 22.2-
10/Luke 14.16-24), 174 Luke's parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-
168. To attribute such a passage to factional rivalry within earliest Christianity (denigrating
James and John) presupposes a degree of antagonism towards Jesus' most intimate circle
of disciples and a cavalier handling of the Jesus tradition, which is almost entirely speculative
and tendentious, pace the larger theses of T. J. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); Kelber, Oral. Contrast Sanders: 'This cannot be a late invention.
Later everyone recognized that Peter was the leading disciple, and the possible primacy of
James and John would not have arisen' (Historical Figure 189).
169. Mark 10.41-45 pars.; Mark 9.35; Matt. 23.11; Luke 22.27.
170. See below, §12.5c.
171. Matt. 19.30; 20.16; Mark 10.31; Luke 13.30; GTh 4; on which see Crossan, Fragments
42-47.
172. Matt. 23.12; Luke 14.11; 18.14.
173. As Sanders observes, the hope of restoration generally included Gentiles (Jesus and
Judaism 117). See also Becker, Jesus of Nazareth 66-68. The warning of Israel's rejection is
hardly evidence of 'a secondary stage of the tradition' (Funk, Five Gospels 348) or of subsequent
'anti-Judaism' (Lüdemann, Jesus 156). Such warnings were hardly strange to Israel's prophetic
tradition; we need only recall the Baptist (§11.4b; see also nn. 80, 105 above and §12.4ebelow).
For detailed discussion see Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom 169-74; Meier, Marginal
Jew 2.309-17; 'this logion cannot come from primitive Christianity' (Theissen and Merz, Historical
Jesus 254); older discussion in terms of the criterion of dissimilarity in Perrin, Rediscovering
161-63. See also Matt. 11.21-24/Luke 10.13-15 (§12.4e below), andcf. also Matthew's
(redactional) conclusion to the parable of the wicked tenants: 'the kingdom of God will be taken
away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit' (Matt. 21.43). On the possibility that
the saying refers to the return of the scattered exiles rather than the incoming of Gentiles, see
n. 442 below. Kaylor draws out the socio-political implications (Jesus 131-37).
174. This is the obvious reversal theme of the parable, and fits with the sustained empha-
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