Reading Wright, JVG, Chapter 7c
Stories of the Kingdom (2): Challenge
We continue in chapter 7 of Jesus and the Victory of God (pp. 244-319) on the stories of the kingdom, with a “controlling story” of invitation, welcome, challenge, and summons (p. 245). This post focuses on challenge (pp. 274-97).
In the post on welcome, Jesus is bringing all the wrong people into the kingdom that he is instantiating. And worst of all, he is doing it on his own authority. Outside of the existing Jewish leadership, without the temple and Torah, and even sometimes on the wrong day (Sabbath). Jesus is challenging them to a new praxis, as new covenant people, “focused on Jesus himself as the kingdom-bringer.” (p. 274, 278)
What is one to do with the ethical teachings of Jesus? Some have tried to make Jesus only a great ethical teacher. But the ethics cannot and must not be divorced from the kingdom. If we think of this through a kingdom mindset, when Messiah comes and announces the kingdom, “what sort of instructions would Jesus’ contemporaries have expected to receive?” (p. 281) Wright suggests reasonable answers would have been a call to arms, more careful observance of Torah, non-compromise with the Romans and Gentiles. This is what even the disciples expect, even up to the point when Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem to die (Lk. 19:11). A first-century Jew would expect a kingdom announcement by the king to be kingdom-like!
Wright discusses the promise of a renewed heart as part of the new covenant (pp. 282-87), and thus it should not surprise us that there is substantial ethical teaching coming from Jesus, the kingdom announcer. I think Wright’s analysis on the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:3-13) are insightful, when read through the new story of Israel that Jesus is telling. The beatitudes are hardly the behaviors of a traditional kingdom. To quote Wright at length:
Israel longs for YHWH’s kingdom to come (5.3). She is ready to work and struggle and fight to bring it in. But the people to whom it belongs are poor in spirit. Israel longs for consolation.. But YHWH has in mind to give her, not the consolation of a national revival, in which her old wounds will be healed by inflicting wounds on others, but the consolation awaiting those who are in genuine grief. Israel desires to inherit the earth (5.5); she must do it in Jesus’ way, by meekness. Israel thirsts for justice (5.6); but the justice she is offered does not come by way of battles against physical enemies. It is not the way of anger, of a ‘justice’ which really means ‘vengeance’. It is the way of humility and gentleness. Israel longs for mercy, not least the eschatological mercy of final rescue from her enemies (5.7). But mercy is reserved for the merciful, not the vengeful… (p. 288)
This is a lovely retelling of the story of Israel through the lens of the kingdom that Jesus is bringing. Wright continues through the Sermon with additional comments (pp. 289-94) that I won’t repeat here—I still have questions about where the Sermon fits within the ministry of Jesus. My favorite professor holds a different view from Wright, and makes a very good case, so I am caught between two giants! However, I think the lens above with the beatitudes is an appropriate read.
Ultimately, Jesus’ challenge and kingdom announcement was a revolutionary kind of revolution; one without “armed resistance.” (p. 296) It is a challenge because it is the inverse of what is expected. It remains a challenge for us today.
Chapter 1: Jesus Then and Now
Chapter 2: Heavy Traffic on Wredebahn: The ‘New Quest’ Renewed
Chapter 3: Back to the Future: The ‘Third Quest’
Chapter 4: Prodigals and Paradigms
Chapter 5: The Praxis of a Prophet
Chapter 6: Stories of the Kingdom (1): Announcement
Chapter 7: Stories of the Kingdom (2)
Chapter 8: Stories of the Kingdom (3): Judgment and Vindication
Chapter 9: Symbol and Controversy
Chapter 10: The Questions of the Kingdom
Chapter 11: Jesus and Israel: The Meaning of Messiahship
Chapter 12: The Reasons for Jesus’ Crucifixion
Chapter 13: The Return of the King
Chapter 14: Results