Jesus of Nazareth Page 7

  Since that time, a secularist reinterpretation of the idea of the Kingdom has gained considerable ground, particularly, though not exclusively, in Catholic theology. This reinterpretation propounds a new view of Christianity, religions, and history in general, and it claims that such radical refashioning will enable people to reappropriate Jesus' supposed message. It is claimed that in the pre-Vatican II period "ecclesiocentrism" was the dominant position: The Church was represented as the center of Christianity. Then there was a shift to Christocentrism, to the doctrine that Christ is the center of everything. But it is not only the Church that is divisive--so the argument continues--since Christ belongs exclusively to Christians. Hence the further step from Christocentrism to theocentrism. This has allegedly brought us closer to the community of religions, but our final goal continues to elude us, since even God can be a cause of division between religions and between people.

  Therefore, it is claimed, we must now move toward "regnocentrism," that is, toward the centrality of the Kingdom. This at last, we are told, is the heart of Jesus' message, and it is also the right formula for finally harnessing mankind's positive energies and directing them toward the world's future. "Kingdom," on this interpretation, is simply the name for a world governed by peace, justice, and the conservation of creation. It means no more than this. This "Kingdom" is said to be the goal of history that has to be attained. This is supposedly the real task of religions: to work together for the coming of the "Kingdom." They are of course perfectly free to preserve their traditions and live according to their respective identities as well but they must bring their different identities to bear on the common task of building the "Kingdom," a world, in other words, where peace, justice, and respect for creation are the dominant values.

  This sounds good; it seems like a way of finally enabling the whole world to appropriate Jesus' message, but without requiring missionary evangelization of other religions. It looks as if now, at long last, Jesus' words have gained some practical content, because the establishment of the "Kingdom" has become a common task and is drawing nigh. On closer examination, though, it seems suspicious. Who is to say what justice is? What serves justice in particular situations? How do we create peace? On closer inspection, this whole project proves to be utopian dreaming without any real content, except insofar as its exponents tacitly presuppose some partisan doctrine as the content that all are required to accept.

  But the main thing that leaps out is that God has disappeared; man is the only actor left on the stage. The respect for religious "traditions" claimed by this way of thinking is only apparent. The truth is that they are regarded as so many sets of customs, which people should be allowed to keep, even though they ultimately count for nothing. Faith and religions are now directed toward political goals. Only the organization of the world counts. Religion matters only insofar as it can serve that objective. This post-Christian vision of faith and religion is disturbingly close to Jesus' third temptation.

  Let us return, then, to the Gospel, to the real Jesus. Our main criticism of the secular-utopian idea of the Kingdom has been that it pushes God off the stage. He is no longer needed, or else he is a downright nuisance. But Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, not just any kind of kingdom. It is true that Matthew speaks of the "Kingdom of the heavens," but the word heavens is an alternative expression for the word God, which the Jews, with an eye to the second commandment, largely avoided out of reverence for the mystery of God. Accordingly, the phrase "Kingdom of heaven" is not a one-sided declaration of something "beyond": it speaks of God, who is as much in this world as he is beyond it--who infinitely transcends our world, but is also totally interior to it.

  There is another important linguistic observation: The underlying Hebrew word malkut "is a nomen actionis [an action word] and means--as does the Greek word basileia [kingdom]--the regal function, the active lordship of the king" (Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie, I, p. 67). What is meant is not an imminent or yet to be established "kingdom," but God's actual sovereignty over the world, which is becoming an event in history in a new way.

  We can put it even more simply: When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, he is quite simply proclaiming God, and proclaiming him to be the living God, who is able to act concretely in the world and in history and is even now so acting. He is telling us: "God exists" and "God is really God," which means that he holds in his hands the threads of the world. In this sense, Jesus' message is very simple and thoroughly God-centered. The new and totally specific thing about his message is that he is telling us: God is acting now--this is the hour when God is showing himself in history as its Lord, as the living God, in a way that goes beyond anything seen before. "Kingdom of God" is therefore an inadequate translation. It would be better to speak of God's being-Lord, of his lordship.

  We must try now, though, to delineate the content of Jesus' "message of the Kingdom" somewhat more precisely in light of its historical context. The announcement of God's lordship is, like Jesus' entire message, founded on the Old Testament. Jesus reads the Old Testament, in its progressive movement from the beginnings with Abraham right down to his own time, as a single whole; precisely when we grasp this movement as a whole, we see that it leads directly to Jesus himself.

  In the first place, the so-called throne-accession Psalms proclaim the kingship of God (YHWH)--a kingship that is understood as extending over the whole of the cosmos and that Israel acknowledges through adoration (cf. Ps 47, 93, 96-99). Since the catastrophes that visited the history of Israel in the sixth century B.C., the kingship of God had become an expression of hope for the future. The Book of Daniel--written in the second century before Christ--does speak of God's lordship in the present, but it mainly proclaims to us a hope for the future, for which the figure of the "son of man" now becomes important, as it is he who is charged with ushering in God's lordship. In the Judaism of Jesus' own time, we meet the concept of divine lordship in the context of the Temple ritual at Jerusalem and in the synagogue liturgy. We meet the same concept in rabbinic literature and in the Qumran writings. The pious Jew prays every day the Shema Israel: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deut 6:4-5, 11:13; cf. Num 15:37-41). The recitation of this prayer was understood as the act of taking on one's shoulders the yoke of God's sovereign lordship. This prayer is not just a matter of words: the one who prays it accepts God's lordship, which consequently, through the act of praying, enters into the world. The one who is praying helps to bear it on his shoulders, and through his prayer, God's lordship shapes his way of life, his day-to-day existence, making it a locus of God's presence in the world.

  We see, then, that the divine lordship, God's dominion over the world and over history, transcends the moment, indeed transcends and reaches beyond the whole of history. Its inner dynamism carries history beyond itself. And yet it is at the same time something belonging absolutely to the present. It is present in the liturgy, in Temple and synagogue, as an anticipation of the next world; it is present as a life-shaping power through the believer's prayer and being: by bearing God's yoke, the believer already receives a share in the world to come.

  From this vantage point, we can see clearly both that Jesus was a "true Israelite" (cf. Jn 1:47) and also that--in terms of the inner dynamic of the promises made to Israel--he transcended Judaism. Nothing of what we have just discovered is lost. And yet something new is here, something that finds expression above all in such statements as "the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk 1:15), it "has already come upon you" (Mt 12:28), it is "in the midst of you" (Lk 17:21). What these words express is a process of coming that has already begun and extends over the whole of history. It was these words that gave rise to the thesis of "imminent expectation" and made this appear as Jesus' specific characteristic. This interpretation, though, is by no means conclusive; in fact, if we consider the entire corpus of Jesus' sayings, it can actually be decisively rule
d out. This is evident from the fact that the exponents of the apocalyptic interpretation of Jesus' Kingdom proclamation (i.e., imminent expectation) are simply forced, on the basis of their hypothesis, to ignore a large number of Jesus' sayings on this matter, and to bend others violently in order to make them fit.

  We have already seen that Jesus' message of the Kingdom includes statements expressing its meager dimensions within history. It is like a grain of mustard, the tiniest of all seeds. It is like a leaven, a small quantity in comparison to the whole mass of the dough, yet decisively important for what becomes of the dough. It is compared again and again to the seed that is planted in the field of the world, where it meets various fates--it is pecked up by the birds, or it is suffocated among the thorns, or else it ripens into abundant fruit. Another parable tells of how the seed of the Kingdom grows, but an enemy comes and sows weeds in its midst, which for the present grow up with the seed, with the division coming only at the end (cf. Mt 13:24-30).

  Yet another aspect of this mysterious reality of "God's lordship" comes to light when Jesus compares it with a treasure that was buried in a field. The finder of the treasure buries it again and sells everything in order to buy the field, so to gain possession of the treasure that can fulfill every desire. There is a parallel to this in the parable of the pearl of great price, whose finder likewise gives away everything in order to attain this good of surpassing value (cf. Mt 13:44ff.). Yet another side of the "lordship of God" (Kingdom) comes to light when Jesus makes the enigmatic statement that "the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force" (Mt 11:12). It is methodologically illegitimate to admit only one aspect of the whole as attributable to Jesus and then, on the basis of such an arbitrary claim, to bend everything else until it fits. Instead we should say: The reality that Jesus names the "Kingdom of God, lordship of God" is extremely complex, and only by accepting it in its entirety can we gain access to, and let ourselves be guided by, his message.

  Let us examine more closely at least one text that typifies how difficult it is to decipher Jesus' mysteriously coded message. Luke 17:20-21 tells us that, "being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, 'The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed [by neutral observers], nor will they say, "Lo, here it is!" or "There!" for behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.'" As the interpreters go to work on this text, they reflect here, too, their different approaches to understanding the "Kingdom of God" in general--according to the prior decisions and the basic worldview that each interpreter brings with him.

  There is the "idealistic" interpretation, which tells us that the Kingdom of God is not an exterior structure, but is located in the interiority of man--recall what we heard earlier from Origen. There is truth in this interpretation, but it is not sufficient, even from the linguistic point of view. Then there is the interpretation in the sense of imminent expectation. It explains that the Kingdom of God does not come gradually, so as to be open to observation, but it is suddenly there. This interpretation, however, has no basis in the actual formulation of the text. For this reason, there is a growing tendency to hold that Christ uses these words to refer to himself: He, who is in our midst, is the "Kingdom of God," only we do not know him (cf. Jn 1:30). Another saying of Jesus points in the same direction, although with a somewhat different nuance: "But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you" (Lk 11:20). Here (as in the preceding text, for that matter) it is not simply in Jesus' physical presence that the "Kingdom" is located; rather, it is in his action, accomplished in the Holy Spirit. In this sense, it is in and through him that the Kingdom of God becomes present here and now, that it "is drawing near."

  Thus the following solution presents itself, albeit in a preliminary way that has to be explored further in the entire course of our attentive listening to Scripture. The new proximity of the Kingdom of which Jesus speaks--the distinguishing feature of his message--is to be found in Jesus himself. Through Jesus' presence and action, God has here and now entered actively into history in a wholly new way. The reason why now is the fullness of time (Mk 1:15), why now is in a unique sense the time of conversion and penance, as well as the time of joy, is that in Jesus it is God who draws near to us. In Jesus, God is now the one who acts and who rules as Lord--rules in a divine way, without worldly power, rules through the love that reaches "to the end" (Jn 13:1), to the Cross. It is from this center that the different, seemingly contradictory aspects can be joined together. In this context we understand Jesus' statements about the lowliness and hiddenness of the Kingdom; in this context we understand the fundamental image of the seed, which we will be considering again in various ways; in this context we also understand his invitation to follow him courageously, leaving everything else behind. He himself is the treasure; communion with him is the pearl of great price.

  This interpretation now also sheds light on the tension between ethics and grace, between the strictest personalism and the call to enter a new family. When we consider the Messiah's Torah in the Sermon on the Mount, we will see several strands coming together: freedom from the Law; the gift of grace; and the "greater righteousness," that is, the "surplus" of righteousness that Jesus demands of his disciples beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes (cf. Mt 5:20). In the meantime, let us consider just one example: the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, both of whom pray in the Temple in their very different ways (cf. Lk 18:9-14).

  The Pharisee can boast considerable virtues; he tells God only about himself, and he thinks he is praising God in praising himself. The tax collector knows he has sinned, he knows he cannot boast before God, and he prays in full awareness of his debt to grace. Does this mean, then, that the Pharisee represents ethics and the tax collector represents grace without ethics or even in opposition to ethics? The real point is not the question "ethics--yes or no?" but that there are two ways of relating to God and to oneself. The Pharisee does not really look at God at all, but only at himself; he does not really need God, because he does everything right by himself. He has no real relation to God, who is ultimately superfluous--what he does himself is enough. Man makes himself righteous. The tax collector, by contrast, sees himself in the light of God. He has looked toward God, and in the process his eyes have been opened to see himself. So he knows that he needs God and that he lives by God's goodness, which he cannot force God to give him and which he cannot procure for himself. He knows that he needs mercy and so he will learn from God's mercy to become merciful himself, and thereby to become like God. He draws life from being-in-relation, from receiving all as gift; he will always need the gift of goodness, of forgiveness, but in receiving it he will always learn to pass the gift on to others. The grace for which he prays does not dispense him from ethics. It is what makes him truly capable of doing good in the first place. He needs God, and because he recognizes that, he begins through God's goodness to become good himself. Ethics is not denied; it is freed from the constraints of moralism and set in the context of a relationship of love--of relationship to God. And that is how it comes truly into its own.

  The "Kingdom of God" is a theme that runs through the whole of Jesus' preaching. We can therefore understand it only in light of that preaching as a whole. In turning our attention now to one of the core elements of Jesus' preaching--the Sermon on the Mount--we will find there a deeper development of the themes that we have barely touched upon here. Above all, what we will see in the next chapter is that Jesus always speaks as the Son, that the relation between Father and Son is always present as the background of his message. In this sense, God is always at the center of the discussion, yet precisely because Jesus himself is God--the Son--his entire preaching is a message about the mystery of his person, it is Christology, that is, discourse concerning God's presence in his own action and being. And we will see that this is the point that demands a decision from us, and consequently this is the point that lea
ds to the Cross and the Resurrection.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Sermon on the Mount

  Matthew immediately follows the story of Jesus' temptation with a short account of the beginning of his ministry. In this context, he explicitly presents Galilee as "Galilee of the Gentiles"--as the place where the Prophets (Is 8:23; 9:1) had foretold that the "great light" (cf. Mt 4:15f.) would dawn. In this way Matthew responds to the surprise that the Savior does not come from Jerusalem and Judea, but from a district that was actually regarded as half pagan. The very thing that in the eyes of many tells against Jesus' messianic mission--the fact that he comes from Nazareth, from Galilee--is in reality the proof of his divine mission. From the start of his Gospel, Matthew claims the Old Testament for Jesus, even when it comes to apparent minutiae. What Luke states as a fundamental principle, without going into detail, in his account of the journey to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:25ff.)--namely, that all the Scriptures refer to Jesus--Matthew, for his part, tries to demonstrate with respect to all the details of Jesus' path.