Jesus of Nazareth Read online

  For Neusner, the key word rest, understood as an integral element of the Sabbath, is the connecting link to Jesus' exclamation immediately prior to the story of the disciples plucking the ears of wheat in Matthew's Gospel. It is the so-called Messianic Jubelruf (joyful shout), which begins as follows: "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes" (Mt 11:25-30). We are accustomed to considering these as two totally distinct texts. The first one speaks of Jesus' divinity, the other of the dispute surrounding the Sabbath. When we read Neusner, we realize that the two texts are closely related, for in both cases the issue is the mystery of Jesus--the "Son of Man," the "Son" par excellence.

  The verses immediately preceding the Sabbath narrative read as follows: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Mt 11:28-30). This is usually interpreted in terms of the idea of the liberal Jesus, that is, moralistically. Jesus' liberal understanding of the Law makes for a less burdensome life than "Jewish legalism." This interpretation is not very convincing in practice, though, for following Christ is not comfortable--and Jesus never said it would be, either. What follows from this? Neusner shows us that we are dealing not with some kind of moralism, but with a highly theological text, or, to put it more precisely, a Christological one. Because it features the motif of rest, and the connected motifs of labor and burden, it belongs thematically with the question of the Sabbath. The rest that is intended here has to do with Jesus. Jesus' teaching about the Sabbath now appears fully in harmony with his Jubelruf and his words about the Son of Man being Lord of the Sabbath. Neusner sums up the overall content as follows: "My yoke is easy, I give you rest, the son of man is lord of the Sabbath indeed, because the son of man is now Israel's Sabbath: how we act like God" (p. 86).

  Neusner can now say even more clearly than before: "No wonder, then, that the son of man is lord of the Sabbath! The reason is not that he interprets the Sabbath restrictions in a liberal manner.... Jesus was not just another reforming rabbi, out to make life 'easier' for people.... No, the issue is not that the burden is light.... Jesus' claim to authority is at issue"(p. 85). "Christ now stands on the mountain, he now takes the place of the Torah" (p. 87). The conversation between the practicing Jew and Jesus comes to the decisive point here. His noble reserve leads him to put the question to Jesus' disciple, rather than to Jesus himself: "Is it really so that your master, the son of man, is lord of the Sabbath?...I ask again--is your master God?" (p. 88).

  The issue that is really at the heart of the debate is thus finally laid bare. Jesus understands himself as the Torah--as the word of God in person. The tremendous prologue of John's Gospel--"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1)--says nothing different from what the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels says. The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of the Synoptics is one and the same: the true "historical" Jesus.

  The heart of the Sabbath disputes is the question about the Son of Man--the question about Jesus Christ himself. Yet again we see how far Harnack and the liberal exegesis that followed him went wrong in thinking that the Son, Christ, is not really part of the Gospel about Jesus. The truth is that he is always at the center of it.

  Now, though, we need to consider a further aspect of the question that arises more sharply in connection with the fourth commandment. What disturbs Rabbi Neusner about Jesus' message concerning the Sabbath is not just the centrality of Jesus himself. He throws this centrality into clear relief, but it is not the ultimate bone of contention for him. Rather, he is concerned with the consequence of Jesus' centrality for Israel's daily life: The Sabbath loses its great social function. The Sabbath is one of the essential elements that hold Israel together. Centering upon Jesus breaks open this sacred structure and imperils an essential element that cements the unity of the People of God.

  Jesus' claim entails that the community of his disciples is the new Israel. How can this not unsettle someone who has the "eternal Israel" at heart? The issue of Jesus' claim to be Temple and Torah in person also has implications for the question of Israel--the issue of the living community of the people in whom God's word is actualized. Neusner devotes a fairly large portion of his book to underscoring just this second aspect, as we shall see in what follows.

  At this point, the question arises for the Christian: Was it a good idea to jeopardize the great social function of the Sabbath, to break up Israel's sacred order for the sake of a community of disciples that is defined, as it were, solely in terms of the figure of Jesus? This question could and can be clarified only within the emerging community of disciples--the Church. We cannot enter into this discussion here. The Resurrection of Jesus "on the first day of the week" meant that for Christians this "first day"--the beginning of the creation--became the "Lord's day." The essential elements of the Old Testament Sabbath then naturally passed over to the Lord's day in the context of table fellowship with Jesus.

  The Church thus recuperated the social function of the Sabbath as well, always in relation to the "Son of Man." An unmistakable signal of this was the fact that Constantine's Christian-inspired reform of the legal system granted slaves certain freedoms on Sundays; the Lord's day was thus introduced as a day of freedom and rest into a legal system now shaped on Christian principles. I find it extremely worrying that modern liturgists want to dismiss this social function of Sunday as a Constantinian aberration, despite the fact that it stands in continuity with the Torah of Israel. Of course, this brings up the whole question of the relationship between faith and social order, between faith and politics. We will need to focus on this point in the next section.

  The Fourth Commandment: The Family, the People, and the Community of Jesus' Disciples

  "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you" (Ex 20:12)--this is the version of the fourth commandment that is given in the Book of Exodus. The commandment is addressed to sons and it speaks of parents. It thus strengthens the relationship between generations and the community of the family as an order both willed and protected by God. It speaks of the land and of the stable continuance of life in the land. In other words, it connects the land, as the place for the people to live, with the basic order of the family. It binds the continued existence of people and land to the coexistence of the generations that is built up within the family structure.

  Now, Rabbi Neusner rightly sees this commandment as anchoring the heart of the social order, the cohesion of the "eternal Israel"--this real, living, ever-present family of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel (pp. 58, 70). According to Neusner, it is this family of Israel that is threatened by Jesus' message, and the foundations of Israel's social order are thrust aside by the primacy of his person. "We pray to the God we know, to begin with, through the testimony of our family, to the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel. So to explain who we are, eternal Israel, sages appeal to the metaphor of genealogy.... to the fleshly connection, the family, as the rationale for Israel's social existence" (p. 58).

  But this is exactly the connection that Jesus calls into question. He is told that his mother and brothers are outside waiting to speak to him. His answer: "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" And he stretches out his hand over his disciples and says: "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mt 12:46-50).

  Faced with this text, Neusner asks: "Does Jesus not teach me to violate one of the two great commandments.... that concern the social order?" (p. 59). The accusation here is a twofold one. The first problem is the seeming individualism of Jesus' message. While the Torah presents a very definite social order, givi
ng the people a juridical and social framework for war and peace, for just politics and for daily life, there is nothing like that to be found in Jesus' teaching. Discipleship of Jesus offers no politically concrete program for structuring society. The Sermon on the Mount cannot serve as a foundation for a state and a social order, as is frequently and correctly observed. Its message seems to be located on another level. Israel's ordinances have guaranteed its continued existence through the millennia and through all the vicissitudes of history, yet here they are set aside. Jesus' new interpretation of the fourth commandment affects not only the parent-child relation, but the entire scope of the social structure of the people of Israel.

  This restructuring of the social order finds its basis and its justification in Jesus' claim that he, with his community of disciples, forms the origin and center of a new Israel. Once again we stand before the "I" of Jesus, who speaks on the same level as the Torah itself, on the same level as God. The two spheres--on one hand the modification of the social structure, the opening up of the "eternal Israel" into a new community, and on the other hand Jesus' divine claim--are directly connected.

  It should be pointed out that Neusner does not try to score any easy victories by critiquing a straw man. He reminds his reader that students of the Torah were also called by their teachers to leave home and family and had to turn their backs on wife and children for long periods in order to devote themselves totally to the study of the Torah (p. 60). "The Torah then takes the place of genealogy, and the master of Torah gains a new lineage" (p. 63). In this sense, it seems that Jesus' claim to be founding a new family does remain after all in the framework of what the school of the Torah--the "eternal Israel"--allows.

  And yet there is a fundamental difference. In Jesus' case it is not the universally binding adherence to the Torah that forms the new family. Rather, it is adherence to Jesus himself, to his Torah. For the rabbis, everyone is tied by the same relationships to a permanent social order; everyone is subject to the Torah and so everyone is equal within the larger body of all Israel. Neusner thus concludes: "I now realize, only God can demand of me what Jesus is asking" (p. 68).

  We come to the same conclusion as in our earlier analysis of the commandment to keep the Sabbath. The Christological (theological) argument and the social argument are inextricably entwined. If Jesus is God, then he is entitled and able to handle the Torah as he does. On that condition alone does he have the right to interpret the Mosaic order of divine commands in such a radically new way as only the Lawgiver--God himself--can claim to do.

  But here the question arises: Was it right and proper to create a new community of disciples founded entirely on him? Was it good to set aside the social order of the "eternal Israel," founded on and subsisting through Abraham and Jacob according to the flesh? To declare it to be an "Israel according to the flesh," as Paul will put it? Is there any point that we can discover to all of this?

  Now, when we read the Torah together with the entire Old Testament canon, the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Wisdom Literature, we realize very clearly a point that is already substantially present in the Torah itself. That is, Israel does not exist simply for itself, in order to live according to the "eternal" dispositions of the Law--it exists to be a light to the nations. In the Psalms and the prophetic books we hear more and more clearly the promise that God's salvation will come to all the nations. We hear more and more clearly that the God of Israel--being, as he is, the only God, the true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the God of all peoples and all men, who holds their fate in his hands--does not wish to abandon the nations to themselves. We hear that all will come to know him, that Egypt and Babylon--the two secular powers opposed to Israel--will give Israel their hand and join together in worshiping the one God. We hear that the boundaries will fall and that the God of Israel will be acknowledged and revered by all the nations as their God, as the one God.

  It is our Jewish interlocutors who, quite rightly, ask again and again: So what has your "Messiah" Jesus actually brought? He has not brought world peace, and he has not conquered the world's misery. So he can hardly be the true Messiah, who, after all, is supposed to do just that. Yes, what has Jesus brought? We have already encountered this question and we know the answer. He has brought the God of Israel to the nations, so that all the nations now pray to him and recognize Israel's Scriptures as his word, the word of the living God. He has brought the gift of universality, which was the one great definitive promise to Israel and the world. This universality, this faith in the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--extended now in Jesus' new family to all nations over and above the bonds of descent according to the flesh--is the fruit of Jesus' work. It is what proves him to be the Messiah. It signals a new interpretation of the messianic promise that is based on Moses and the Prophets, but also opens them up in a completely new way.

  The vehicle of this universalization is the new family, whose only admission requirement is communion with Jesus, communion in God's will. For Jesus' "I" is by no means a self-willed ego revolving around itself alone. "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mk 3:34f.): Jesus' "I" incarnates the Son's communion of will with the Father. It is an "I" that hears and obeys. Communion with him is filial communion with the Father--it is a yes to the fourth commandment on a new level, the highest level. It is entry into the family of those who call God Father and who can do so because they belong to a "we"--formed of those who are united with Jesus and, by listening to him, united with the will of the Father, thereby attaining to the heart of the obedience intended by the Torah.

  This unity with the will of God the Father through communion with Jesus, whose "food" is to do the Father's will (cf. Jn 4:34), now gives us a new perspective on the individual regulations of the Torah as well. The Torah did indeed have the task of giving a concrete juridical and social order to this particular people, Israel. But while Israel is on one hand a definite nation, whose members are bound together by birth and the succession of generations, on the other hand it has been from the beginning and is by its very nature the bearer of a universal promise. In Jesus' new family, which will later be called "the Church," these individual juridical and social regulations no longer apply universally in their literal historical form. This was precisely the issue at the beginning of the "Church of the Gentiles," and it was the bone of contention between Paul and the so-called Judaizers. A literal application of Israel's social order to the people of all nations would have been tantamount to a denial of the universality of the growing community of God. Paul saw this with perfect clarity. The Torah of the Messiah could not be like that. Nor is it, as the Sermon on the Mount shows--and likewise the whole dialogue with Rabbi Neusner, a believing Jew and a truly attentive listener.

  That said, what is happening here is an extremely important process whose full scope was not grasped until modern times, even though the moderns at first understood it in a one-sided and false way. Concrete juridical and social forms and political arrangements are no longer treated as a sacred law that is fixed ad litteram for all times and so for all peoples. The decisive thing is the underlying communion of will with God given by Jesus. It frees men and nations to discover what aspects of political and social order accord with this communion of will and so to work out their own juridical arrangements. The absence of the whole social dimension in Jesus' preaching, which Neusner discerningly critiques from a Jewish perspective, includes, but also conceals, an epoch-making event in world history that has not occurred as such in any other culture: The concrete political and social order is released from the directly sacred realm, from theocratic legislation, and is transferred to the freedom of man, whom Jesus has established in God's will and taught thereby to see the right and the good.

  This brings us back to the Torah of the Messiah, to the Letter to the Galatians. "You were called to freedom" (Gal 5:13)--not to a blind and arbitrary freedom, to a freedom "understood according to the flesh," as Paul would say, but
to a "seeing" freedom, anchored in communion of will with Jesus and so with God himself. It is a freedom that, as a result of this new way of seeing, is able to build the very thing that is at the heart of the Torah--with Jesus, universalizing the essential content of the Torah and thus truly "fulfilling" it.

  In our day, of course, this freedom has been totally wrenched away from any godly perspective or from communion with Jesus. Freedom for universality and so for the legitimate secularity of the state has been transformed into an absolute secularism, for which forgetfulness of God and exclusive concern with success seem to have become guiding principles. For the believing Christian, the commandments of the Torah remain a decisive point of reference, that he constantly keeps in view; for him the search for God's will in communion with Jesus is above all a signpost for his reason, without which it is always in danger of being dazzled and blinded.

  There is another essential observation. This universalization of Israel's faith and hope, and the concomitant liberation from the letter of the Law for the new communion with Jesus, is tied to Jesus' authority and his claim to Sonship. It loses its historical weight and its whole foundation if Jesus is interpreted merely as a liberal reform rabbi. A liberal interpretation of the Torah would be nothing but the personal opinion of one teacher--it would have no power to shape history. It would also relativize both the Torah itself and its origin in God's will. For each statement there would be only human authority: the authority of one scholar. There can be no new faith community built upon that. The leap into universality, the new freedom that such a leap requires, is possible only on the basis of a greater obedience. Its power to shape history can come into play only if the authority of the new interpretation is no less than the authority of the original: It must be a divine authority. The new universal family is the purpose of Jesus' mission, but his divine authority--his Sonship in communion with the Father--is the prior condition that makes possible the irruption of a new and broader reality without betrayal or high-handedness.