Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §12.5
and argued instead that the parables look back from the end of the process of
growth, from the time of harvest. 382 In view of Matt. 9.37-38/Luke W.llGTh 73
the point cannot be ignored: 383 Jesus was recalled describing the harvest as here
already, ready to be reaped; God's rule had already come to its expected fruition.
On the other hand, both Matthew and Luke, in the mission instructions which
follow, include the commission to preach, 'The kingdom of heaven/God has
drawn near' (Matt. 10.7/Luke 10.9). So the point should not be pressed. 384 We
should rather hesitate before setting these parables firmly into one or other of the
alternative time-frames reviewed above. 385 They belong to the scatter of images
on which Jesus probably drew in his preaching of God's kingdom, and he may
have been a good deal less concerned about questions of timing than are modern
questers. The parables of growth are worth noting at this point precisely because
they express the tension and diversity within the Jesus tradition's talk of the kingdom's
coming. 386
In sum, it should now be clear that the Jesus tradition contains a second
strong strand in the kingdom motif which emphasizes that in some sense the
kingdom has come, is already present. As with the other (future) strand, the term
'kingdom' itself does not always feature. And again there are plenty of indications
of the tradition being retold in a variety of performance variants. But the
strand is held together by a common sense of fulfilment, of a new thing happening
of supreme importance, of the blessings expected for the age to come already
being experienced, of a complete change of tone from the Baptist's message, of
arrival of the harvest which nothing can influence, that is the point of the parable [Mark 4.26-
29]' {Promise 128). The harvest would come 'only through the miracle worked by God:
automate he ge karpophorei' (Hengel, Charismatic Leader 60), 'independent of every human
act' (Bultmann, Theology 1.8), 'unfathomably, miraculously, without visible cause' (Schräge,
Ethics 21).
382. Dodd, Parables 176-80, 185-86, 191, 193; Taylor, Mark 266, 268-69 (but recognizing
that the idea of growth is integral to the parables in view).
383. Matt. 9.37-38/Luke 10.2 was the decisive factor for Dodd (Parables 178-79, 183,
187, 191).
384. Cf. R. Schnackenburg, God's Rule and Kingdom (Freiburg: Herder, 1963) 159.
Hultgren represents the majority view in seeing the presentness of the kingdom mirrored more
in the implication of patient waiting, of little beginnings, of a hidden but irresistible force (Parables
389, 398, 407).
385. As Perrin observes, 'The emphasis is upon God, upon what he is doing and what he
will do, and the parable, like all the parables of this group, is an expression of the supreme confidence
of Jesus in God and God's future. . . . Out of the experience of God in the present learn
to have confidence in God's future' (Rediscovering 158-59). Oakman (Jesus 123-28) and
Crossan (Historical Jesus 276-81) focus more on the ironic (or shocking) humour of using
weeds (and leaven) to image the kingdom.
386. Cf. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom 124-25, 126-27.
464