Jesus: a new vision

by Marcus J. Borg

  THE POLITICS OF COMPASSION

  Just as the ethos of holiness had led to a politics of holiness, so also the ethos of compassion was to lead to a politics of compassion. The ethos of compassion profoundly affected the shape of the Jesus movement, both internally and in its relationship to the world. The “shape” of the alternative community or “counterculture” was visible in the constituency of its membership which stood in sharp contrast to the relatively rigid social boundaries of the Jewish social world: boundaries between righteous and outcast, men and women, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile. These boundaries, established by the politics of holiness and embodied in the culture as a whole and in varying forms in other renewal movements, were negated by the Jesus movement. The negation pointed to a much more inclusive understanding of the community of Israel.

  Banqueting with Outcasts

  At the center of the church’s worship life throughout the centuries stands a meal, variously known as the Lord’s Supper, the mass, the eucharist, or communion.24 As a sacrament of bread and wine presupposing the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is manifestly a post-Easter development. Yet it has its roots in the ministry of Jesus.

  Eating together or “table fellowship”—not yet a ritual meal, but the festive act of sharing food and drink at a table—was one of the central characteristics of his movement.25 Many texts refer to meals, or are set in the context of one; and the meals provoked strong criticism from his opponents. Several times the gospels report the criticism, consistently the same: “So—he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners”; “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner”; “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”; “Look at him! A glutton and a drinker, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!”26

  The charge is very simple: he eats with “sinners.” To modern ears, familiar with the Christian affirmation that all people are sinners, the accusation that Jesus ate with “sinners” tends to brand the accusers as self-righteous people who did not realize that they, too, were sinners. But the term “sinners” had not yet been universalized and theologized; instead, it referred to a specific social group, namely the “outcasts.” It identified the chronically nonobservant, and included many of the poor.27

  Beyond the fact that these meals provoked criticism, we do not know much about them. As already noted, they were festive meals or “banquets” rather than simply routine consumption of nourishment. Sometimes Jesus was the guest of a local person, but sometimes he seems to have been the host. Perhaps his movement, with him at the center, held festive meals in the villages they passed through, either in the open air or in the house of a sympathizer. A large number of his parables defended his practice of eating with outcasts.28 Indeed, one may speculate that many of his parables may even have been spoken in the context of these festive meals as the “table talk” of Jesus.29

  Though we do not know many details about these meals, much can be said about their significance. We have already indicated what Jesus’ table fellowship would have meant to outcasts. Eating with them would have shattered the social world which pronounced them unacceptable, and would have enabled them to see themselves as accepted by God.30 But it also radically threatened the social world of his opponents, and was thus a cultural as well as religious challenge. For a charismatic person to say, with both his teaching and behavior, that the outcasts were accepted by God was to challenge and threaten the central ordering principle of the Jewish social world: the division between purity and impurity, holy and not-holy, righteous and wicked. The table fellowship of Jesus called into question the politics of holiness as the cultural dynamic of the society.

  What was at stake, from the standpoint of Jesus’ opponents, was the survival of the people of God. “Sinners” were those whose nonobservance threatened the survival of the group; tax collectors were even worse, for they were collaborators with the Gentile oppressors. It is no wonder that his table fellowship aroused criticism. Indeed, some scholars have argued that Jesus’ acceptance of outcasts was the primary source of the hostility which his ministry generated.31 It was an extraordinary action for a religious figure in the Jewish tradition.32

  Thus the simple act of sharing a meal had exceptional religious and social significance in the social world of Jesus. It became a vehicle of cultural protest, challenging the ethos and politics of holiness, even as it also painted a different picture of what Israel was to be, an inclusive community reflecting the compassion of God.

  Association with Women

  One of the most remarkable features of Jesus’ ministry was his relationship to women. Challenging the conventional wisdom of his time, it continues to challenge the conventional wisdom of much of the church.

  Rigid boundaries between men and women marked the world in which he lived. Although perhaps intensified by the politics of holiness,33 these boundaries were not its direct result but a perennial characteristic of conventional wisdom in most cultures: patriarchy. Conventional wisdom is typically male-dominated. Produced and written by men, it is taught by men to men and reflects a male point of view.34 So it was in the cultures surrounding the Jewish social world and within Judaism itself.35

  Though there are positive statements about women in both the Old Testament and postbiblical Judaism, the dominant attitude reflected in the teaching of the sages was negative.36 A good wife was much appreciated, but women as a group were not thought well of. The synagogue prayer recited at each service included the words, “Blessed art thou, O Lord, who hast not made me a woman.” In synagogues women typically were required to sit in a separate section and were not counted in the quorum of ten people needed to hold a prayer meeting. They did not teach the Torah,37 and as a general rule were not even to be taught the Torah.38

  Their religious disenfranchisement extended into the social sphere. Except among the poorer classes, men and women were rigidly separated in public life. Young women of the wealthier families were completely secluded until marriage; after marriage, they could go out in public only if veiled. They were not to talk to men outside of their families. Similarly, a respectable Jewish man (and especially a religious teacher) was not to talk much with women, apparently for two reasons. There was no benefit to be gained, for they were viewed as not very bright and as preoccupied with trivia. Moreover, women were considered to be seductive and sexually rapacious temptresses. Their voices, hair, and legs were felt to be especially enticing. Thus, in part because they were regarded as inferior and in part because of male perceptions (and fears) of their sexuality, women were systematically excluded from both the religious and public life of the social world.39

  Against this background, Jesus’ own behavior was extraordinary. The itinerant group of immediate followers included women, some of whom—Joanna and Susanna—supported the movement financially.40 The sight of a sexually mixed group traveling with a Jewish holy man must have been provocative. Similarly, the occasion on which a woman who was a “sinner” washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair as he reclined at a banquet given by a Pharisee was shocking.41

  Jesus was a guest in the home of two sisters named Mary and Martha. Martha played the traditional woman’s role of preparing a meal, while Mary related to him as disciple to teacher. When Martha complained that she was doing all the work, Jesus endorsed Mary’s behavior. In a first-century Jewish social context, it was a radical point. Jesus treated women and men as equally capable (and worthy) of dealing with sacred matters.42 In a time when a respectable sage was not even to converse with a woman outside of his family,43 and when women were viewed as both dangerous and inferior, the practice of Jesus was startling.

  The radically transformed attitude toward women continued in the early church for the first several decades, according to both Acts and the letters of Paul, where women in many of his churches were prominent enough to be greeted by name. Paul’s own position was consistent with the radicalism of the Jesus movement: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither
slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”44

  As already noted, patriarchy is not peculiar to ancient Judaism, but characterizes most cultures, Christian ones included.45 Indeed, the radical attitude of the Jesus movement toward women was already modified within the church before the New Testament was even completed. One of the later New Testament documents repeats the patriarchal view of the dominant culture: women are to be submissive and modest, are not to be teachers of men, and are even held responsible for bringing sin into the world.46 Cultural attitudes from the Jewish and broader Mediterranean world had begun to cloud the vision generated by the Spirit.

  Such attitudes have been part of the church and Western culture ever since. Yet when one sees the rejection of patriarchy by Jesus and his earliest followers and the clear historical evidence that patriarchy reentered the tradition at a later date, representing a “fall” from the radicalism of the early movement, it is almost incomprehensible that many within the church continue to teach the subordination of women. The Jesus movement as a counterculture stands in contrast to later Christian tradition even as it stood out in its own social world.

  “Good News to the Poor.”

  Yet another dimension of Jesus’ social world was addressed by the politics of compassion. According to Luke, the opening words of Jesus’ public ministry announced “good news to the poor.” In the passage which begins with the words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus continued, “He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”47

  In what sense was Jesus’ mission “good news to the poor”? Matthew understood the poor to be the “poor in spirit,” and the hungry as “those who hunger for righteousness.” But Luke has simply, “Blessed are you poor,” and “Blessed are you that hunger now,” and makes clear that he has the economically poor in mind by contrasting them explicitly to the materially wealthy: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”48

  At the very least, Jesus challenged the connection between righteousness and prosperity made by conventional wisdom, with its corollary that the poor had not lived right and thus were “unworthy” children of Abraham. Moreover, because the standards of culture are internalized even in those who fail to meet those standards, the poor would have seen themselves as “unworthy” children of Abraham. Indeed, most of the poor were among the nonobservant. By accepting “the poor,” Jesus as one in touch with the Spirit of God would have enabled the poor to see themselves differently. It is the same dynamic operative in his banqueting with outcasts.

  There may be another dimension of meaning as well. According to Luke, Jesus used language associated with the Jubilee year to announce his “good news to the poor.” His mission was “to proclaim release to the captives,” “to set at liberty those who are oppressed,” and “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,”49 all phrases tied to the Jubilee year, one of the most radical pieces of social legislation in the Old Testament. According to it, every fifty years the land was to be redistributed to the poor—that is, to those who had lost their land since the last Jubilee.50 The intention of the Jubilee was to prevent the growth of a landless class in Israel, though it was so radical that it was rarely observed.51 The Jubilee year was indeed good news for the poor, in effect the periodic elimination of the category “poor.”

  Did Jesus literally intend the redistribution of land? Since he did not seek political power, it is impossible to see it as part of a political “platform.” Did he seek through persuasion to lead the wealthy to redistribute their land to the people from whom they had acquired it? Was he simply announcing how things “ought to be,” without any practical plan or intention for actualizing it? Had the language of Jubilee become completely metaphorical so that it was language announcing the “time of salvation” rather than referring to the actual redistribution of land?

  However one understands Jesus’ relationship to the Jubilee, it is apparent that he was concerned about the economically poor and that he had harsh words for the rich. He urged his followers to give to beggars, to lend without expecting repayment, and to give alms without expecting reward.52 He spoke of the impossibility of serving both God and mammon, and warned against laying up treasures on earth.53 Whether Jesus objected to wealth and private ownership in principle is not clear. The “Jerusalem church,” composed of Jesus’ immediate followers and early converts, apparently practiced a form of common ownership, but we do not know if this was widespread among Christians in Palestine as a whole.54

  Although much must remain uncertain about Jesus’ teaching regarding rich and poor, it is clear that in a community organized around compassion, there would not be gross inequity between rich and poor. Indeed, one would imagine that there would no longer be any abject poor.

  The Peace Party

  The application of Jesus’ teaching to his social world is also seen in the fact that his movement was the peace party within Palestine. In the same context where Jesus spoke of the imitatio dei as compassion, he also spoke of loving one’s enemies: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor,’ but I say to you, Love your enemies.”55 The quoted words, “Love your neighbor,” come from the holiness code and were understood within contemporary Judaism to mean, “Love your fellow member of the covenant,” that is, your fellow Israelite or compatriot.56 In this context, the opposite of neighbor is clearly “non-Israelite,” and so loving one’s enemy must mean, “Love the non-Israelite enemy,” including the Gentile occupiers.

  Other traditions in the gospels also indicate that the Jesus movement was the peace party. In the same immediate context as the saying about loving one’s enemies, Jesus said, “If anyone strikes you, turn the other cheek” and added “If any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles,”57 which referred to the right of a Roman soldier to require a civilian to carry his gear for one mile. In these sayings, the spirit of resistance was countered. Elsewhere he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God,”58 and “All who live by the sword will perish by the sword,”59 Moreover, as we shall see later, Jesus entered Jerusalem in a manner which proclaimed that his alternative was the way of peace, not the way of war.60

  The famous passage, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” points in the same direction.61 The setting is both fascinating and instructive. Some Pharisees asked Jesus a “trap” question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” If Jesus had responded, “Yes,” he would have discredited himself with many who resented the tax; if he had said, “No,” he could have been arrested on the charge of urging nonpayment of the Roman tax.62 Jesus responded with a “counter-trap.” Requesting and receiving a coin from his interrogators, he then asked them, “Whose likeness and inscription are on the coin?” They responded, “Caesar’s,” thereby discrediting themselves with those in the crowd who believed that it was wrong even to carry an image of Caesar.

  Their response also permitted Jesus’ final reply, which basically meant, “It’s Caesar’s coin—go ahead and give it back to him.” As an implicit approval of paying the tax, his reply constituted a rejection of one of the central convictions of the armed resistance movement. But the response did not address the larger question of what was Caesar’s and what was God’s. Ironically, a passage which initially undercut the path of military violence has often been used in subsequent centuries to justify military service and war. In much of the church’s history, the whole realm of politics was given to Caesar, to secular authority. But the passage has no such comprehensive meaning in its context. Rather, it was an answer which the liberation movement could not have accepted, and which indicated that the real issue was not which earthly kingdom ruled the land.

  As the peace party in Palestine, the Jesus movement thus rejected the path of violent resistance to Rome.63 The people of God were not to secure their existence through force of arms or violence; faithfulness pointed to another wa
y. With its emphasis upon compassion, the Jesus movement also undercut the connection between holiness and resistance that existed within the other renewal movements and the culture as a whole.

  It is odd that many in the church throughout the centuries (including many biblical scholars and theologians in the modern period) have denied that Jesus’ teaching about love of enemies had any kind of political application. Often it is claimed that his teaching applied only to personal enemies and not national enemies, or that “turning the other cheek” was meant as an impossible ideal whose purpose was to make people aware of their sinfulness.

  Yet these sayings would have had an unmistakable meaning in the politically violent situation of first-century Palestine, just as they would in the Middle East or Central America or other places of armed conflict today. For a public figure to speak of loving one’s enemies in such a setting would unambiguously mean to disavow the path of violence and war. Moreover, those closest to Jesus in time clearly understood his teaching to mean nonviolence. The early church for the first three hundred years of its existence was pacifist.64 Though it is odd that the church has largely denied the political thrust of these traditions, it is also understandable. Through time the church became enculturated, and it is very difficult for enculturated religion to stand in tension with culture. For the church to have said that following Jesus meant nonviolence would have made the church into a counterculture. Only occasionally has it been willing to be so since the time of Jesus and his earliest followers.

  Thus the Jesus movement visibly and radically shattered the norms of the Jewish social world. Strikingly, the imitatio dei as compassion transcended the cultural distinction between Jew and Roman, righteous and outcast, men and women, rich and poor.65 The source of this radical relativizing of cultural distinctions is found in the charismatic grounding of the movement.66 Because Jesus saw God as gracious and embracing, the “children of God” could and did embrace those whom the politics of holiness excluded. The relationship to God was primary, not whether one was outcast, female, poor, or enemy. The experience of the Spirit disclosed the relativity—in a sense, the artificiality and arbitrariness—of cultural distinctions. The intense experience of the Spirit generated a new way of seeing and being that stood in sharp contrast to the boundaries and rivalries created by culture.