Jesus of Nazareth

by Gerhard Lohfink

  The whole people of God is meant to be a holy people. Thus holiness always encompasses also the community-social dimension with which the individual person is inseparably connected. Not only must the human heart be holy: so must life’s conditions and relationships, the social structures and the forms of the environment in which human beings live and into which they constantly project themselves. But that is precisely what the material-ritual prescriptions of the Torah regarding cleanness and uncleanness always intended.

  Belief in one God who is Lord of all must also shape the world around people. It is not enough to believe with lips and heart while despising one’s own body, allowing the living space in which one is at home to deteriorate, and destroying the environment. According to the words of the prophet Zechariah, in the Israel of the end time even the horses’ bells and the household utensils will be holy to the Lord: “On that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, ‘Holy to the LORD.’… and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the LORD of hosts” (Zech 14:20-21). This means that a day is coming when all Israel—not only its people, but also things and especially the conditions of life—will find themselves in the state willed by God for them and reflecting God’s rulership. To the extent that they correspond to the will of God and are formed by God’s nearness they will then find their identity and support life. This is precisely where the biblical concept of clean and unclean is pointing. The intent of the Torah of clean and unclean in the book of Leviticus is that faith should shape and transform the world, and as far as this real direction and goal of the Torah of clean and unclean is concerned, we are far from having fulfilled it. The laws of clean and unclean in the Old Testament deserve to be read anew, considered anew, and questioned about their original meaning.

  Obviously that is not possible unless we continually make distinctions. Does the commandment of those times still match the historical dynamic in which we are placed? How could it be translated to our situation? But making precise distinctions is the Torah’s purpose: it is meant to teach Israel to distinguish. To view all things in the world critically, that is, by the power of faith in the one God to differentiate among them, has indeed become a basic feature of Jewish existence. Because Israel, in light of the Torah, learned to distinguish continually—and that meant also, for example, not mixing objects and things that are different38—it was able to maintain its identity among the Gentiles. Assyria and Babylon, once states that stood victorious on the ruins of Israel, vanished and were absorbed into other nations, but Israel, defeated and continually persecuted, even scattered throughout the world, has remained one people.

  Israel’s power of distinction is part of the miracle of its identity. The church needs this constant distinguishing as urgently as does the synagogue. It must not fall into that sick condition of the spirit in which everything is the same, nothing matters more than anything else, indifference is the norm. Where no distinctions are made any longer, the old gods return.

  So we may say at the end of this chapter: the Torah is the endeavor set in motion by God himself, never out of date and based on the people of God, to view all things in the world with the eyes of God, to distinguish what is right from what is false, to change what is false, and so to place everything under the rule of the one God. Frank Crüsemann, a Christian theologian, has dared to say, “The identity of the biblical God is dependent upon the connection with his Torah.”39 He is right. Therefore the church can and may not ever give up the Torah, not even parts of it. True, it must read and live the Torah in the spirit of Jesus—that is, out of the strength of the new thing that came into the world with him, out of his freedom and rationality, his radicality and reverence for God.

  Chapter 13

  The Life of Jesus: Living Unconditionally

  In the previous twelve chapters we were concerned primarily with “what Jesus wanted.” “Who he was” was indirectly visible. From now on, the second part of this book’s subtitle will be more in the foreground. Who was Jesus?

  The Eye Torn Out

  We repeatedly find in Jesus’ words and actions a positively alarming absoluteness and lack of ambiguity. We might even have to speak of “ruthlessness.” For when someone who wants to follow him asks first to be allowed to take leave of his family, Jesus says to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). In his clarity and exclusivity, as shown in this statement, Jesus was ruthless. He was so toward himself and could be so toward others. Many of his sayings testify to it. Here is no soothing, no calming, no pacifying, no watering down; instead, the unadorned truth is spoken—truth about human beings and the situations in which they find themselves. It is always a situation in which far-reaching, indeed, final decisions are to be made. Therefore Jesus has to say:

  If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matt 5:29-30)

  This text works with a point of view of that time according to which the very limbs of the body entice to sin: eyes, ears, lips, hands. The Markan parallel speaks of the foot as well (Mark 9:45). But why here in particular the right eye and the right hand? Very simply because everything “right” was considered by people of that period as better and more important. This makes the argument even more pointed: better to lose a part of the body, even if it is an especially important and precious part, such as the right hand, than with one’s whole existence to go to hell.

  Plucking out one’s own eye, cutting off one’s own hand—the double saying speaks piercingly and with a fearful severity: better to be crippled and disfigured than to be in further danger of sinning! Matthew 5:29-30 is eons removed from the Greek ideal of the harmonic person, nobly formed in all respects.

  The same kind of severity and pointed meaning is found in the so-called violence saying. In this case, by way of exception, I am quoting from the easily reconstructed wording of the Sayings Source:1 “The law and the prophets [were] until John. From then [on] the kingdom of God breaks its way violently, and the violent seize it” (cf. Matt 11:13, 12 // Luke 16:16). There are very few sayings of Jesus whose meaning has been so long disputed among exegetes. This one has often been translated and interpreted in a negative sense: “From then on the reign of God is violated, and the violent plunder it.”2 This would mean that the reign of God, as Jesus proclaims it, is being rejected and made an enemy by its opponents. They take it away from the people who listen to Jesus and who want to follow him.

  From a purely grammatical point of view this negative translation is possible. But that does not say much. We need to examine the context: “the law and the prophets,” which extend to the time of John the Baptizer, are, after all, something positive. What comes after them, namely, the reign of God, is still more positive. Therefore there can be no question here of a violation of the reign of God, especially since there are no parallels in Jesus’ sayings for such a statement.

  Moreover, if we note the provocative way Jesus constantly spoke, and if we pay special attention to the language of his parables, where any number of “immoral heroes” represent the kind of discipleship Jesus is demanding, it seems still more likely that we should interpret the “violence saying” in a positive sense, as the wording certainly allows: the reign of God is not violated; rather, it is breaking its way with power. No one can stop it, because it is God’s work. But only those who dare everything and put everything in play will have a part in it. They are like violent people who do violence to themselves and their own bodies. They are ruthless with themselves.

  Another Jesus saying we have received in a number of variants speaks of the same kind of unconditional attitude: “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24).3 Th
e background of this saying could be a fixed form of discourse that is multiply attested in antiquity. That is how generals addressed their soldiers immediately before battle: whoever fights at complete risk of his own life and so supports those fighting at his side will be rescued. But any coward who flees will lose his life, because no one will help him.4 If the motif of that kind of “general’s pep talk” has made its way into Jesus’ saying we would again have evidence that Jesus was more educated and knew more of the world than many want to allow. But quite independently of that, Luke 9:24 also reveals Jesus’ radicality. Those who want to follow him have to be ready to lose their lives. That is precisely how they will save them. Obviously this saying, which Jesus addressed to others, also reflects his own attitude: he was ready to give up his life.

  Luke 9:24 and its parallels are not, however, exclusively interested in the surrender of life in death. After all, human beings are also desperately engaged in “saving” their own desires and dreams, their own guiding images and plans for their lives. But these very rescue actions cause them to lose their lives—namely, the true lives that existence under the rule of God would give them. “To lose one’s life” therefore refers not only to martyrdom but in given circumstances to the surrender of one’s secure bourgeois existence for the sake of the reign of God.

  Such radicality for the sake of God’s project is not everyone’s thing. Normally we want not “either-or” but “both-and.” In particular, people familiar with the Gospel and desiring to serve God can be deeply conflicted here. They want to be there for God, but they also want space for themselves. They want to make a place for God in their lives, but they also want to have free segments in which they decide for themselves about their lives. They want to do the will of God, but at the same time they want to live their own dreams and longings. Jesus had in mind, with the greatest clarity of understanding possible, this internal conflict that can almost tear apart especially those who are his followers. That is the reason for the next saying, which, like so many other sayings of Jesus, uses everyday experience in its argument: “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt 6:24). That is: when it is a question of God and the reign of God, there can be nothing but undivided self-surrender. This “wholeness” and “undividedness” appears again and again in Jesus’ instructions. It is connected at its root with the unconditional way of being that he demands in relationship to God. There is probably no text in the gospel tradition that shows this more vividly than Mark 12:41-44. It is worth our while to consider it more closely.

  The Widow’s Sacrifice

  A word in advance: the extensive temple complex in Herodian Jerusalem included the “court of the women.” There, behind the colonnades, lay a hall in which visitors to the temple could leave offerings of money for the maintenance of the sanctuary and its daily sacrifices. This hall was called the “treasury.” There one gave one’s money to priests who served in the treasury and one named the amount and the purpose of the gift. That way everyone nearby could hear what those entering the treasury were giving for the temple and its maintenance.5 That is the background to the logic of this text:

  He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44)

  It makes all kinds of sense to fill in the details: Jesus is very close to the treasury and hears the sums being named and their purposes. There is a constant coming and going: Jews from the homeland and the Diaspora, old and young, men and women, poor and rich. Their classes and origins can be read in their dress and often in the way they speak as well.

  A woman enters the treasury. Her clothes show that she is poor, and her apparel also shows that she is a widow. So she is living in a double kind of misery. She is not only poor; she no longer has the protection of a man. Jesus sees how she gives her gift to the priest, and he hears that she is offering two copper coins. Such a coin was the smallest unit of money there was. Jesus is touched by the event. Here is a harsh contrast: just now the rich, and here the poor! Just now silver, often amounting to large sums, and now two copper coins!

  Jesus also sees the background: the rich who are not in the least pained by offering a silver shekel, and the poor widow who gives everything she has. The two copper coins would have secured her food for the next day. They were literally a necessity of life. But of this utmost necessity she gives not only half—she could, after all, have handed the priest one coin—but everything.

  Jesus sees the full implications of the event. He calls his disciples together, points to the woman who is already going away, and tells them what he has seen. He not only tells the story but interprets it, and thus the little narrative reaches the point it was heading toward from the beginning. Jesus says: the widow there has given more than all the others, for the others have given only a small part of their property, but this woman has given everything, her whole living.

  Obviously, the reader of Mark’s gospel is meant to see the widow’s sacrifice against the background of the reign of God proclaimed by Jesus. The reign of God—that means that God turns to human beings totally and without any reservation in order to bring divine abundance to the world. This self-gift of God is a historical event: it is happening now, in Israel and in the new community life Jesus is creating. Therefore the reign of God attracts those who are able to experience God’s overflowing self-gift, so that they in turn give everything they have: their whole heart, their whole existence. The poor widow who gave her two copper coins becomes a sign, a symbol of this “totality.”

  Mark has deliberately located this scene with the widow before the eschatological discourse (Mark 13) and the beginning of the passion account (Mark 14:1). The widow’s gift already reflects for him the “wholeness” of Jesus’ gift of his life. But the widow’s deed also illustrates for him the scriptural saying Jesus had quoted shortly before: “you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The widow gave everything she had. She loved God with her entire “wealth.”

  Of course, objections immediately arise: what will the woman have to eat the next day if she has given everything away? Is this not a horrid God who demands such a “totality”?—a God who devours people totally?—a God who demands human sacrifice?—a God who even robs the poor of their last dollar and does not begrudge the lucky their good fortune?

  Precisely at this point it is evident that the story of the widow’s offering, like all the stories in the Bible, positively forces on us the question of the “place” of the reign of God. It is not a nebulous thing that lies in the future or is deeply hidden in the human soul. Rather, it demands a concrete “space,” and that space has social dimensions (see chap. 3 above). The reign of God develops its power where people live the new common life established by God and endow that common life with everything they have. Then the poor widow is no longer alone. Then there are many who offer her protection, who share their meals with her, who comfort her in her suffering. In this common life given by God, moreover, people are not totally devoured and deprived of their freedom but instead find their freedom, good fortune, and happiness precisely there.

  We might, for once, simply surrender ourselves to the little story of the widow and her offering. Apart from all historical questions, there appears in it something of what Jesus was. The “wholeness” he perceives with such admiration in the poor widow was something he himself lived. He lived it even unto death. To that extent it is no accident that Mark tells this episod
e shortly before Jesus’ passion. As Jesus’ complete clarity of focus runs through all his words, it also saturates everything he did. Jesus was a radical in his actions as in his words. That must have begun very early.

  The Father’s Will

  Luke 2:41-52 tells how the twelve-year-old Jesus went missing from his parents in the capital city. They were already on their way home from the festival, thinking he was in another one of the groups of travelers. When they discovered their mistake, they hurried back to Jerusalem and sought him there. After three days they found him in the temple. According to the story, the young Jesus must have been driven by a deep longing to remain in the place where God was praised, to be in the place where everything was about God. To his mother’s reproach that she and his father had sought him anxiously, he answers with surprise: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in [what belongs to my Father]?” (Luke 2:49). Let me say again that we must not approach narratives of this sort with the kind of blunt historical probing that accomplishes nothing but to raise all kinds of questions about whether it could have happened that way or not. Stories like Luke 2:41-52 are nourished by larger contexts and times. Behind them is the experience of concrete dealing with Jesus during his public life.

  Luke 2:41-52 distills what became fully obvious twenty years later when Jesus appeared in public: he had left his parents behind. He had left his family. The conflict depicted in Mark 3 between him and his family had already happened (cf. chap. 8 above). It was not a mild disagreement. Jesus separated himself from his own family and gathered a group of disciples around him, people who had left their families as he had.