Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

What a bold move, to make a statement about the reign of God in terms of immoral material, a story from the world of speculators and players! And what a demand lies behind this parable! For what it means to say should be clear in the context of the other parables we have already discussed. Jesus is talking about the plan God has for the world. He speaks of the new thing God wants to create in the midst of the old society. This, God’s cause, Jesus says, will not succeed with cowards, with people who are immovable, who are constantly trying to make themselves secure, who would rather delay than act. God’s new society only succeeds with people who are ready to risk, who put everything on the table, who go for broke and become “perpetrators” with ultimate decisiveness.

A Paradox

Thus in his parables Jesus can say that the reign of God comes as a pure miracle “of itself” (recall the parable of the seed growing secretly), but he can also say that it must be seized with ultimate decision if it is to come. Is that a contradiction? Not necessarily, but it is a paradox. Apparently both things need to be said if one wants to speak accurately about the reign of God. The paradox must not be resolved, any more than the tension between the present and future natures of the reign of God may be relaxed.

Jesus was a master of brief, striking sayings and skilled at telling stories in images and parables. Obviously, he did not invent the parable form, which had long existed both in the ancient world and in Israel. But Jesus took old, existing forms to a new level. The number of parables we have from him is also outside the norm. If we exclude the similitudes and images in the Gospel of John, which have an entirely different character, we come to a total of about forty parables in the Synoptic Gospels. That is unique in antiquity.

But it is not simply a matter of quantity. Jesus’ parables and images have never been equaled in quality either. With them he leads his listeners into a world with which they are already familiar or at least one they have heard about, a world he describes with accurate realism. But at the same time he makes that world alien and thus blows up the well-worn paths of customary pious thinking. Jesus wants to show that the reign of God has its own logic. It does not fit in the usual molds of religious talk about God. Jesus’ saying also applies to his own language: “no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins” (Mark 2:22).

Chapter 8

Jesus and the World of Signs

Jesus didn’t just talk. He didn’t just announce the reign of God. He acted not only through words but just as intensively through gestures, symbols, and signs. Obviously, language itself is a system of signs, but this chapter is about Jesus’ physical conduct, which surprisingly often was concentrated in formal “symbolic acts.”

The Bodily Sphere

Jesus embraced children when they were brought to him, laid his hands on them and blessed them (Mark 10:16). He embraced¹ the rich man who asked him about eternal life (Mark 10:21). He sat at table with toll collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15). He washed his disciples’ feet and dried them (John 13:3-5). He healed sick people, not through mere words, but usually by touching them as well. He laid his hands on them (Mark 6:5). He took Peter’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifted her up (Mark 1:31), just as he did the daughter of Jairus, the head of the synagogue (Mark 5:41). He touched a leper to heal him (Mark 1:41). He put his fingers into the ears of a deaf man with a speech impediment and touched his tongue with his saliva (Mark 7:33). He spat² in a blind man’s eyes and laid hands on him (Mark 8:23). For another blind person he made a paste of dirt and saliva, spread it on his eyes, and ordered him to wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:6-7).

Of course many of these physical actions were simply part of ancient culture: before a formal meal one had to wash one’s feet; people embraced each other in greeting; laying on of hands was part of healing, and saliva was used therapeutically on the eyes. All that may be quite usual and a matter of course.

And yet there is more here, as is clear in the healing of the leper as told in Mark 1:40-45. Jesus touches the leper, and that was not common. It was, in fact, forbidden and shunned. According to Leviticus 13:45-46 lepers had to wear torn clothing and leave their hair unkempt, men had to cover their beards, and they must call attention to themselves by shouting “unclean! unclean!” No one was to come near them. Jesus’ touching of the leper was a gesture that overcame a deep social rift in antiquity. It is a helping, healing, community-creating deed.