Utopia almost always demands a total or at least a closed system. Therefore the old world must first be demolished. But with Jesus the tensions within reality are maintained: the fruitful tension between the state, which Jesus did not fundamentally question (Mark 12:17), and the people of God; the tension between the individual and the community; between the already of the reign of God and its not yet; and finally the tension between grace and freedom, that is, between the reign of God as pure gift and the fact that human beings can work in freedom and yet with ultimate passion for the reign of God. He did not destroy any of these tensive arcs; he maintained them. Jesus was very well aware of the “impossibility” of God’s cause in the world, but he knew that God’s possibilities are infinitely greater than all human possibilities (Mark 10:27).
Was the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed a utopia? Most certainly it was not. We can see this also from the fact that his proclamation, sealed with his death and resurrection, immediately after his execution brought forth communities on Israel’s soil everywhere around the Mediterranean, communities that lived his message. What began in those communities is still alive and world-altering in the church even today, despite all the weakness and deficits of the church, despite its constant failure. That must be connected with the fact that the Risen One is present in the church—always, to the end of the age of the world (Matt 28:20). And it must be connected with the truth that Jesus’ proclamation and practice of the reign of God is more radical than any utopia. It is more realistic, it is more critical, it knows more about human beings. It is the only hope for the wounds and sicknesses of our planet.
Notes
Chapter 1
1. The text that follows uses material from Gerhard Lohfink, Der letzte Tag Jesu. Was bei der Passion wirklich geschah (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 71–98. The material was reworked and updated for this book. For an English translation of that book see Gerhard Lohfink, The Last Day of Jesus: An Enriching Portrayal of the Passion (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1984).
2. Story in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 289 (11 December 2010): 33.
3. Translator’s note: Scripture quotations are based on the NRSV but adapted to match the author’s German translation. Cf. v. 24 above, where NRSV reads: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
4. This is the fifth Sunday in the cycle for Year B. Unfortunately, the liturgists broke up Mark’s composition and spread it over the fourth and fifth Sundays.
5. Stauffenberg won the prize for best German television film of 2004. Its international English title is Operation Valkyrie.
6. Frank Schirrmacher, “Was fehlt. Die entdramatisierte Geschichte. Jo Baiers ‘Stauffenberg’-Film und wie es gewesen ist,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 47 (25 February 2004): 33.
7. Cf. Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität infrähen Hochkulturen (Munich: Beck, 1997; 6th ed., 2007). Cf. idem, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006).
8. Thomas Meurer, “Wer zu spät kommt…” Christ in der Gegenwart 54 (2002): 369–70.
9. Romano Guardini, “Das Gleichnis vom Säemann,” [3–13], 159–69, in idem, Wahrheit und Ordnung. Universitätspredigten 7 (Wärzburg: Werkbund Verlag, 1956).
10. “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” quotations and comments from Oscar Cullmann, “Infancy Gospels,” in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R. McLean Wilson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1963–65), 1:439–52, at 444.
11. This has been demonstrated especially well by David Trobisch. See his The First Edition of the New Testament (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
12. Joseph Ratzinger, “Israel, die Kirche und die Welt,” 152–67, in Heute. Pro ecclesia viva. Das Heft der Integrierten Gemeinde 1: Vom Wieder-Einwurzeln im Jüdischen als einer Bedingung für das Einholen des Katholischen (Bad Tölz: Urfeld Verlag, 1994), at 156. Cf. also Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007), xxii.
Chapter 2
1. For an extensive presentation see Norbert Lohfink, “Der Begriff des Gottesreichs vom Alten Testament her gesehen,” 152–205, in idem, Studien zur biblischen Theologie, SBAB 16 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1993).
2. On this cf. especially Helmut Merklein, Jesu Botschaft von der Gottesherrschaft. Eine Skizze, 2nd ed., SBS 111 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984), 28–33.
3. Cf. Exod 15:17; 2 Sam 7:10; Isa 60:21; 61:3; Jer 32:41; 42:10; Matt 15:13; Jub. 36:6; PsSol 14:3-5.
4. According to the Sayings Source used by Matthew and Luke the coming judge baptizes “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt 3:11 // Luke 3:16). This is probably an updating to conform to Christian experience of the Spirit. The Greek pneuma can mean not only “spirit” but also “wind” and even “storm.” The Baptizer must have spoken of a baptism of judgment “by storm and fire.”
5. The next seven sections in this chapter refer to Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? Toward a Theology of the People of God, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 134–39; and Gerhard Lohfink, “Die Not der Exegese mit der Reich-Gottes-Verkündigung Jesu,” 383–402, in idem, Studien zum Neuen Testament, SBAB 5 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989).
6. On this see Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology, vol. 1: The Proclamation of Jesus, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1974), 43–46.
7. For this paraphrase of “a new teaching—with authority!” cf. Marius Reiser, “Die Charakteristik Jesu im Markusevangelium,” TTZ 119 (2010): 43–57, at 44.
8. I draw the concept of a “humbled shape” from the article by Heinz Schürmann, “Jesu ureigenes Basileia-Verständnis,” 191–237, in Hans Waldenfels, ed., Theologie—Grund und Grenzen. FS Heimo Dolch (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1982), at 219.
Chapter 3
1. Andreas Lindemann, “IV. Neues Testament und spätantikes Judentum,” in “Herrschaft Gottes/Reich Gottes,” TRE 15:172–244, at 196–218.
2. Erich Zenger, “II. Altes Testament,” in “Herrschaft Gottes/Reich Gottes,” TRE 15:172–244, at 176–89.
3. For the interpretation of Daniel 7 I am making use of previously published material. Cf. Gerhard Lohfink and Ludwig Weimer, Maria—nicht ohne Israel. Eine neue Sicht der Lehre von der Unbefleckten Empfängnis (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 218–23. Here I was guided by Norbert Lohfink, “Der Begriff des Gottesreichs vom Alten Testament her gesehen,” 152–205, in idem, Studien zur biblischen Theologie, SBAB 16 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1993), at 196–99.
4. For what follows, see further development in Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? Toward a Theology of the People of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 26–39.
5. Quotations are from Adolf von Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums, GTB 227 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1977). The lecture texts were translated into English and published as What Is Christianity, trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders (London: Williams and Norgate; New York: Putnam, 1901). English quotations are from that publication.
6. What Is Christianity, 37.
7. Ibid., 60.
8. Ibid., 15.
9. Ibid., 60–61. With these statements Harnack placed himself within a broad current of the mentality of his time. Cf., for example, Wilhelm Bousset, Jesus, trans. Janet Penrose Trevelyan (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911), 149–50: “His [Jesus’] ethics are the ethics of lofty individualism. Beside these two entities of God and the individual everything else sinks into the background. No account is taken of the history of man as a whole or of the connected labour of the human race in the wider or narrower forms of its social life—marriage, the family, society, the state, the nation. Jesus makes his moral demands as if the individual stood free and naked before God, absolved from all these relationships and customary standards—except as regards the
direct relationship of man to man,—as in fact Jesus and his disciples in their wandering life lived free from all such forms and relationships.”
10. Ibid., 74.
11. Ibid., 154.
12. Ibid., 66.
13. Ibid., 125–26.
14. Ibid., 120.
15. Ibid., 17.
16. Ibid., 190.
17. Ibid., 192.
18. Cf. Colin H. Roberts, “The Kingdom of Heaven (Lk xvii.21),” HTR 41 (1948): 1–8; Hans Klein, Das Lukasevangelium, KEK 1.3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 570–71; and especially Alexander Rüstow, “Zur Deutung von Lukas 17, 20-21,” ZNW 51 (1960): 197–224.
19. Origen, De oratione 25.1. The translation is adapted from that by William Curtis in the Christian Classics Library, available online at www.ccel.org/ccel/origen/prayer.xvi.html. In his homilies on Luke’s gospel also, Origen finds the soul or the heart to be the place for the reign of God. Cf. Origen, Homilies on Luke; Fragments on Luke, trans. Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 151–52.
20. Cf., for example, Rudolf Schnackenburg, Gottes Herrschaft und Reich. Eine biblisch-theologische Studie (Freiburg: Herder, 1959), 62–65.
21. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, trans. Louise Pettibone Smith and Erminie Huntress Lantero (New York: Scribner, 1958), chap. 2: “The Teaching of Jesus: The Coming of the Kingdom of God,” 35–36.
22. Ibid., 37.
23. Ibid.
24. Gershom Scholem, Über einige Grundbegriffe des Judentums, Edition Suhrkamp 414 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970), 121.
25. Cf. Augustine, City of God, 20, 9.
26. Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971).
27. Cf. Lumen Gentium 1, 3, 5.
Chapter 4
1. For what follows, see more detail in Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? Toward a Theology of the People of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 51–66.
2. See chap. 2 above.
3. Thus Albert Schweizer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 340.
4. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 205.
5. Thus, correctly, Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 420.
6. The Fourth Gospel makes it impossible fully to exclude this possibility. The so-called calendar of feasts in John envisions at least three Passovers during the time of Jesus’ public activity: the so-called pre-Synoptic Passover (2:13), the Passover of the multiplication of the loaves (6:4), and finally the death Passover (11:55; 12:1; cf. also 5:1; 7:10).
7. Cf. Isaiah 13–23; Jeremiah 46–51; Ezekiel 25–32; Amos 1:3–2:3.
8. The translation follows W. A. M. Beuken, Jesaja 1–12, HTKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2003), 212, 226–28.
Chapter 5
1. This chapter owes much to Martin Hengel’s book, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers, trans. James C. G. Greig (New York: Crossroad, 1981; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005).
2. Translator’s note: English “disciple” comes from Latin discipulus, which also means “pupil” or “apprentice” or “learner.”
3. b. Berakhot 34b. Further citations in Hengel, Charismatic Leader, 51-53 and n. 54.
4. m. Abot. 1.6b.
5. For more detail see chaps. 11 and 12 below.
6. The time at which the concept of a “Zealot” became current (as early as Judas Galilaeus, who appeared in the year 6 CE, or only with the resistance movement in Jerusalem in the years 66–70) is disputed among scholars. Josephus, to whom we owe nearly all our information on this subject, restricts the term to a particular resistance group in the years 66–70. In what follows I am using the concept without entering into this special terminological question, joining some scholars in employing it in a general sense as an umbrella term for the theologically and socially motivated resistance movement against Roman rule that began with Judas Galilaeus.
7. Josephus, Bell. 2, 8.1 (§118).
8. Here I am indebted to Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), 88. Cf. idem, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 59–60.
9. See chap. 11 below, “Jesus and the Old Testament.”
10. Cf. Hengel, Charismatic Leader, 17.
11. Proclamation of the reign of God: Matt 10:7; Luke 9:2; 10:9; healing: Matt 10:8; Luke 10:9; expelling demons: Matt 10:8; Mark 6:7; Luke 9:1.
12. Cf., e.g., Joel 4:13; Matt 13:30, 39; Rev 14:15.
13. As in Prov 6:26; Jer 16:16; Ezek 13:18; Amos 4:2; Hab 1:14-15.
Chapter 6
1. Disciple = Christian: Acts 6:7; 9:1, 10, 26b; 16:1; 21:16b. Disciple = community member: Acts 6:1; 11:29; 19:30; 20:30; 21:16a. The disciples = community: Acts 6:2; 9:19, 26a, 38; 13:52; 14:22, 28; 18:23, 27; 20:1; 21:4.
2. In previous publications I have generally identified church and disciples. Cf., e.g., Gerhard Lohfink, Wem gilt die Bergpredigt? Beiträge zu einer christlichen Ethik (Freiburg: Herder, 1988), 32–35, 73. The present chapter corrects my previous approach.
3. Cf. Mark 1:17; 2:14; 10:21; Luke 9:59; John 1:43.
4. In this passage we could also associate the verb akolouthein with: “and the scribes of the Pharisees followed him.” But that is less likely. Mark reserves akolouthein for discipleship of Jesus, with a single exception in 14:13, and even there those “following behind” are the disciples and not opponents.
5. The manuscript tradition varies between seventy-two and seventy. The number seventy-two is more difficult and therefore the more probable reading. In the ancient world the number in a defined group was often given as seventy, hence the correction in many manuscripts. Possibly in choosing the number seventy-two Luke was simply thinking of a multiple of twelve (6 × 12). Cf. the number 120 (10 × 12) in Acts 1:15.
6. Luke read in Mark of the mission of the “Twelve” (Mark 6:7), while the Sayings Source speaks of the sending out of “disciples” (cf. Matt 9:37). Both refer to the same event, but Luke has created two missions out of them.
7. In Luke 19:8 Zacchaeus is not describing his good behavior in the past but making a promise for the future.
8. Josephus, Bell. 2, 12.3-7 (§§ 232–46); Ant. 20, 6.1-3 (§§ 118–36). The Antiquities, in contrast to the presentation in the Bellum Judaicum, speaks of many being murdered. The event took place in the fall of the year 51 CE.
9. The mission discourse occurs in the New Testament in a variety of forms and stages of tradition. Cf. Matt 10:5-42; Mark 6:8-11; Luke 9:3-5; 10:2-16.
10. Cf. Josef Blinzler, The Trial of Jesus: The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ Described and Assessed from the Oldest Accounts (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1959), 256–57 and n. 39. See also Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium II, HTKNT II/2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 513: “The characterization of Joseph, which seems slightly distant (as if the community that handed on the tradition knew this high-ranking man only from afar; cf. also Acts 13:29) makes it improbable that after Easter he was a member of the community of Jesus Messiah in Jerusalem.”
11. Cf. Matt 10:2; Mark 6:30; Luke 6:13; 9:10; 17:5; 22:14; 24:10. Of course, the oldest concept of “apostle” is a great deal broader.
12. Cf. Gottfried Wenzelmann, Nachfolge und Gemeinschaft. Eine theologische Grundlegung des kommunitären Lebens, CTM.PT 21 (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1994), 45.
13. The following section rests in part on Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 170–73.
14. For a fuller discussion of the biblical concept of “perfection,” see Lohfink, Wem gilt die Bergpredigt?, 69–75.
Chapter 7
1. See examples in Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 422.
2. Cf. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary,
trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 516 n. 59.
3. For more detail on the following exegesis, especially the phenomenon of “stocking,” see Gerhard Lohfink, “Das Gleichnis vom Sämann (Mk 4, 3-9),” BZ 30 (1986): 36–69.
4. Cf., e.g., 2 Esdr 4:26-27: “for the age is hurrying swiftly to its end. It will not be able to bring the things that have been promised to the righteous in their appointed times, because this age is full of sadness and infirmities.”
5. For the following section. see more detail in Gerhard Lohfink, “Die Metaphorik der Aussaat im Gleichnis vom Sämann (Mk 4, 3-9), 131–47, in idem, Studien zum Neuen Testament, SBAB 5 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989).
Chapter 8
1. “[He] loved him” in this passage does not correspond correctly to the Greek ēgapēsen, which here refers to a concrete action: he embraced, he caressed the rich man. Cf. BDAG, 5.
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