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Jesus and Ethics
By Pheme Perkins

IS JEWS FADING FROM VIEW?

Even though the New York Times on Christmas day carried a front page story on historical Jesus research, Jesus books were notably absent from the public consciousness this year. Their absence is not due to lack of new entries,¹ but a random sample of local bookstores and assorted living rooms showed that gift giving had focused on other religious themes, Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul II, various books on angels, and a number of New Age titles, especially The Celestine Prophecy and A Course in Miracles. The manager of an independent, local bookstore observed that people purchasing these books were almost equally divided between those who are religious and those who are non-religious. Most of those who bought Bibles, on the other hand, were affiliated with churches. Besides obvious marketing efforts, what motivates the first group? People are looking for personal peace, a moral compass, a guiding, protective power, or a future less painful, chaotic, and uncertain than the present.

Asked why they needed "new revelations" when we have the Bible, many people replied that Jesus lived too long ago, was just a peasant, or didn't know about today's world. Ironically, the sense that Jesus was a

Pheme Perkins is Professor of New Testament at Boston College. She is currently completing a commentary on the Gospel of Mark for the New Interpreter's Bible. Among her other books are Jesus as Teacher (1990), Gnosticism and the New Testament (1993), and Peter: Apostle for the Whole Church (1994).
¹ See Charles W. Hedrick, Parables as Poetic Fictions: The Creative Voice of Jesus (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994); John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume Two: Mentor, Message and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994); E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 1993); Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology (New York: Continuum, 1994); Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).

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human, historical figure has been so well-established that he has no more relevance to contemporary Americans than any other historical personage. These reactions expose an underlying pastoral concern: Can there be a Christian moral compass that is isolated from Jesus? Some scholars clearly answer, "Yes. It cannot be otherwise," as evidenced by two recent analyses of early Christian ethics: Wayne Meeks' The Origins of Christian Morality and Willi Marxsen's New Testament Foundations for Christian Ethics.²

Marxsen's position follows from the epistemological difficulty of claiming to know anything at all about the historical Jesus. The Jesus traditions have been shaped by those affected by Jesus in particular ways that they associate with God's activity in their lives.³ Meeks, on the other hand, begins with an understanding of morality informed by the social sciences. Morality reflects pervasive, value-laden habits of action and evaluation that members of a community take for granted. Modernity has imbibed a false understanding of moral agents as isolated individuals, but morality requires communal consensus. Thus, one cannot speak of Christian morality prior to the emergence of a sociologically identifiable Christian community.⁴

Particular images of Jesus serve to draw the Christian community together or to galvanize its moral energies, but one cannot speak of Jesus as the source of a unique ethical system as one can in the case of Aristotle or Kant. Meeks admits that it is difficult to say precisely what is new in the Christian moral vision, since Christians adapted diverse ethical precepts, values, and arguments from their environment and there was as much diversity within early Christian communities as there was between Christians and their non-Christian neighbors. Contrary to what many people assume , it is difficult to isolate any specifically "Christian" sentiments or behavior in regard to the "hot issues" of the first centuries.⁵ Indeed, the Pauline epistles provide a primary example of a Christian ethic that is not grounded in Jesus, since, as Jürgen Becker notes, the virtues of the earthly Jesus are never recommended for imitation. The cross or the humility of Christ's earthly existence appear in ethical exhortation because his self-giving "for us" made the death and resurrection of Jesus the occasion of salvation. Without the events of salvation, there would be no occasion to recommend moral behavior to those addressed in the epistles.⁶

Marxsen finds the roots of New Testament ethics in the experience of those who speak of "new life," the possibility of living in the present age

² Wayne A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality (New Haven: Yale, 1994); Willi Marxsen, New Testament Foundations for Christian Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); see also the analysis of Bible and ethics in contemporary theology in J. 1. H. McDonald, Biblical Interpretation and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993).
³ Marxsen, Foundations, pp. 28, 37, 48-50.
⁴ Meeks, Origins, pp. 4-6.
⁵ Meeks, Origins, p. 2.
⁶ Jürgen Becker, Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 318-319.

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as though the kingdom were a reality. This "new life" is not a negative experience of frustrated hopes, but, rather, a real experience of "life in the Spirit," making the transitory character of the old aeon clear.⁷ The various images of Jesus in the New Testament focus the possibility of living this "eschatological existence" in particular situations. The context of the earliest Christians was shaped by Jewish apocalyptic. Today Christians pursue their lives in an ethos broadly described as secularism. Whether Jewish apocalyptic or secularism, these contexts are treated by Christians in polemical fashion by shaping their own ethos in contrast to the "other," which is not chosen.⁸ style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  The dynamics of communal self-definition have been translated into claims about the uniqueness of Jesus' moral vision, often associated with radicalization of the Law (for example, Matt. 5:21-48; Mark 2:23-28; 7:1-23) or love of enemy (Matt. 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36; Luke 10:25-37). Historical research demonstrates that the content of such exhortations is not unparalleled. The Matthean antitheses, for example, reflect a christology that puts Jesus in the position occupied by the Mosaic Law.⁹

JESUS RENEWS MORAL IMAGINATION

It seems, then, that we have a new way to understand Jesus' ethical statements. Once it is granted that Matthew's antitheses do not depict Jesus as one whose interpretation of the Law guarantees membership in the community of God's elect, a legal approach to the "but I say . . ." clauses is excluded. Persons who exhibit anger, take oaths, divorce their spouses, refuse a loan, retaliate, and so on are not excluded from the circle of disciples or the Kingdom. Instead, the antitheses present images of what is possible for Christians, even though their lives often fall short of its vision. W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison conclude:

In our estimation 5.21-48 contains (with the exception of 5.32) not a foolproof scheme of rules but general directions, not laws for society but an ethic for those within the Christian community.... This is why 5.21-48 is so poetical, dramatic and pictorial, and why a literal (mis) understanding creates absurdities. The text functions more like a story than a legal code. Its primary character is to instil principles and qualities through a vivid inspiration of the moral imagination.¹⁰

But there is a problem with this approach. Though a conclusion like that of Davies and Allison frequently appears in discussions of the sayings about anger (Matt. 5:21-22), lust (Matt. 5:27-30; Mark 9:43-Matt. 5:30), oaths (Matt. 5:33-37), retaliation (Matt. 5:38-42; Luke 6:29-30 = Matt. 5:39b-40, 42), and love of enemies (Matt. 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-28, 32-33,

⁷ Marxsen, New Testament Foundations, pp. 71-75.
⁸ Ibid., pp. 88-91.
⁹ Ibid., pp. 110-13; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison (The Gospel According to Saint Matthew I-VIII [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988], pp. 505-566) argue that the purpose is not interpretation or extension of the Law, which retains its validity for Matthew. The antitheses describe discipleship as lived out within the Christian community.
¹⁰ Davies and Allison, Matthew I-VII, p. 566.

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36), its applicability to the question of divorce (Matt. 5:31-32; Luke 16:18 = Matt. 5:32) is challenged within the New Testament itself. 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, for example, refers, to a saying of the Lord in defense of the apostle's conclusion that a Christian woman should not be separated from her husband. Mark 10:2-12 (compare Matt. 19:3-9) preserves a variant of the divorce saying in a controversy story that pits Jesus against the Pharisees. Here are places, in other words, where Jesus' statement on divorce is being treated as a law.

What accounts for this difference in evaluation? Merely the evidence from other examples of the saying on divorce that it was understood to proscribe divorce in various New Testament communities? Or should our understanding of this logion cause a reevaluation of those injunctions preserved in the rest of the antitheses? Matthew has drawn on traditional sayings material from Q, Mark, and his own sources. Its antithetical

"So, what is the ethic of Jesus-counter cultural vision or community rule?"

formulation provides that communal self-identification in which its moral position is contrasted with the "other," which forms an important element in early Christian morality.¹¹ The development of the tradition concerning divorce in Matthew 5:32 raises the possibility that Matthew understands Jesus' saying to represent Christian halakhah. Matthew 19:9 follows the tradition of Mark 10:11; the husband who remarries commits adultery (also Luke 16:18a). Matthew 5:32 presumes that the divorced woman must remarry so that her husband's action has forced her to commit adultery. Both of Matthew's sayings contain exceptions to the saying against divorce linked to porneia ("unchastity," NRSV). Whether the exceptive clause refers to marriages that Jews would consider "incest" or to sexual misconduct on the wife's part,¹² does not change the dilemma created by its inclusion.

The addition of an exception to the saying on divorce suggests that Jesus' word is being treated as a rule governing Christian life. Collins, however, who treats the divorce saying as a prophetic word rather than a legal ruling, argues that the "exceptive clause" is not really an exception. The dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees in Matthew 19:3-9 shows that Matthew does not think of Jesus as an interpreter of the Law. But Matthew knows that Deuteronomy 24:1 refers to a man divorcing a woman because of "something objectionable," and he preserves the

¹¹ See Raymond F. Collins, Divorce in the New Testament (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), pp. 152-156.
¹² See Davies and Allison, Matthew I-VII, pp. 529-32; Collins, Divorce, pp. 188-207.

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integrity of God's original word by explaining that reference.¹³ Moreover, when Matthew attaches the saying about "eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom" to the divorce controversy (Matt. 19:10-12), this indicates that the divorce saying is perceived by early Christians as a hard saying that is radically countercultural.¹⁴ Davies and Allison agree that the purpose of Jesus' original saying was not legal and that Jesus' intention was to challenge the cultural complacency surrounding divorce. They acknowledge, however, that the same vision cannot be carried over to the Matthean redaction:

Jesus was not, to judge by the synoptic evidence, a legislator. His concern was not with legal definitions but with moral exhortation (cf. 5.27-30). If, however, all this be so, then Matthew must be found guilty of misunderstanding Jesus; for the "exception clause" betrays a halakhic interpretation: it turns the Lord's logion into a community regulation.¹⁵

So, what is the ethic of Jesus-countercultural vision or community rule? The disagreement over Matthew's understanding of Jesus' saying highlights three difficulties in appropriating the teaching of Jesus. First, there is the problem of its sharp communal orientation. Both positions agree that Jesus' words presuppose a community of disciples that markedly distinguishes itself from the surrounding social and cultural milieu. Controversy stories, caricatures of "the Pharisees and scribes," and the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount serve to sharpen the boundaries between believers and "the others." The power of Jesus' words-whether they express visions or rules-operates specifically within the believing community, and Jesus' sayings are not exhortation or moral argument aimed at universal persuasion. Many Christians today, though, are uncomfortable with this sort of moral vision, one that depends upon sharp boundaries between a particular religious group and outsiders. They are unwilling to accept the implicit picture of "the other" as morally inferior or hypocritical. The history of violence spawned by such religious differences makes them leery of such formulations, and they point to the conflict between such boundary sharpening and other images of Jesus as the one who rejects such divisions. For example, tax collectors and sinners are invited to become disciples (Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32; Matt. 9:9-13), a foreign woman wins healing for her daughter (Mark 7:24-30; Matt. 15:21-28), and Jesus welcomes the children, whom his disciples push away (Mark 10: 13-16; Luke 18: 15-17; Matt. 19:13-15).

Second, communal rules require reformulation. Matthew's modification of the divorce saying (as well as Paul's expansion in 1 Cor. 7:25-31)

¹³ Collins, Divorce, p. 211. Both Jewish and Roman law expect a man to divorce a wife guilty of sexual immorality. This formulation of the tradition shows that Jesus does not put his followers in the position of violating those expectations. Davies and Allison (Matthew I-VII, p. 531) point to the figure of Joseph, the righteous, in Matt. 1:28-25. Without the exceptive clause, his decision to divorce his apparently unfaithful fiancée would contradict that description.
¹⁴ Ibid.
¹⁵ Davies and Allison, Matthew I-VII, p. 532.

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demonstrates the persistent need to specify what a rule or saying leaves unexpressed. As I. Howard Marshall points out, development does not undermine the authority of the biblical text.¹⁶ Rather, reapplication is essential to the life-giving function of Scripture. Otherwise, the New Testament passages that refer to specific problems in the first century are merely witnesses to what once was. Indeed, Marshall suggests several principles appropriate to the reapplication of biblical texts, such as a recognition that development, as in the case of slavery or questions of human dignity, involves expansion of our understanding. A text might be taken beyond its original subject matter because we recognize that the question is not that status of a slave as our "beloved brother or sister in Christ" but the larger issue of dignity of all persons. Marshall also suggests that principles and insights found elsewhere in Scripture play an important role in expanding the range of a particular passage,¹⁷ a principle that Davies and Allison have seen at work in Matthew's treatment of the divorce logion.

Third, ideals or visionary statements generate further images. If the primary function of Jesus' sayings and parables was to create a new vision of the world, that picture cannot be frozen. This vitality of Jesus' new vision makes it possible for the evangelists to vary, combine, and expand the sayings and parables of Jesus found in the tradition. Collins' suggestion that the saying about eunuchs for the kingdom keeps alive the visionary point of Jesus' divorce logion illustrates this point. Imagination must complement information if the sayings of Jesus are to describe a reality that is both "ideal" and, yet, a possibility realized in the lives of believers. This tension between poetic description of the way in which the creator and redeemer God intends humanity to live and new relationships actually emerging in the ministry of Jesus and the lives of his followers appears in Jesus' sayings about the kingdom of God. God's kingdom is both a present reality, which can be "entered" (Luke 11:20; Matt. 12:28), and the future hope of God's saving presence (Mark 14:25).¹⁸ Without the ability to live in that tension, Christian ethics loses its eschatological edge. Its countercultural challenge depends upon the saving presence of God and the future hope that challenges the permanence of the present age.

THE LOVE COMMAND

Love commands, whether as injunctions to fulfil the Law by loving God and neighbor (Mark 12:28-34; Matt. 22:35-40; Luke 10:25-28) or to fulfil

¹⁶ I. Howard Marshall, "New Occasions Teach New Duties: The Use of the New Testament in Christian Ethics," Expository Times, 105 (1994), p. 135.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Against the metaphoric blindness that leads some to reject the idea that Jesus spoke of the kingdom or limits his vision to the future coming of God's rule, see Bruce Chilton, ("The Kingdom of God in Recent Discussion," Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, edited by Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), pp. 255-280); E. P. Sanders (Historical Figure, pp. 176-194) and John Meier (A Marginal Jew II, pp. 237-506).

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the Law by loving enemies (Matt. 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36), commonly appear in statements concerning the moral center of Jesus' teaching. New Testament evidence shows that this practice of giving centrality to the ethic of love was typical of the earliest communities (see Rom. 12:9-31; 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 13:1-13; Gal. 5:14; 1 Thess. 3:12; John 13:34-35; 1 Pet. 3:9-12; 1 John 2:9-11; 3:16, 23; 4:7-12).¹⁹ Love commands can be attached to the example of Jesus' self-sacrifice or of God's mercy.²⁰ Taken by themselves, such exhortations may seem sentimental or vague, but their contexts in the New Testament show that "love God, neighbor, and the enemy" required concrete, particular actions toward others,²¹ and the associated sayings and parables provide specific examples of what might be required. The New Testament authors recognize that the specifics are peculiar to the situation of each community, but they cannot be replaced by vague sentiments (see Jas. 2:8-17). As Schrage observes:

Jesus' concern is not a vague love for the whole world, which can so easily become sentimental illusion. He realistically demands concrete involvement and personal action such as Matt. 25:31ff. illustrates in elementary terms. This does not reduce love to material assistance. In Matt. 5:44, for example, prayer for persecutors underlines and interprets the requirement of love. Love implies that we bring others with us before God.²²

Luke 10:29-37 attaches the Parable of the Good Samaritan to the double love command (vv. 25-28). Luke's conclusion (vv. 36-37) gives the story an exemplary character. Hearers are to show themselves "neighbors" by treating others with mercy. This application parallels the conclusion to the sayings on "love of enemy" earlier in Luke (see Luke 6:36).²³ Interpretations of this parable highlight the three issues identified in the earlier discussion: rule, vision, and community. The opening question, "Who is neighbor?" (v. 29), appears to set up the usual rulish, legal debates over the extent of "neighbor" in Leviticus 19:16. A typical reply

¹⁹ See The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament, edited by Willard M. Swartley (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992); Wolfgang Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 65-87. Gordon Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], p. 366, n. 38) observes that while agape as the basis for ethical behavior goes back to Jesus, its articulation as the identifying mark of Christian community appears in the Pauline and Johannine traditions.
²⁰ As in Luke 6:35-36. Gerhard Schneider ("Imitatio Dei als Motiv der Ethik Jesu,"Neues Testament und Ethik: Für Rudolf Schnackenburg [edited by Helmut Merklein; Freiburg: Herder, 1989], pp. 81-82) points to the wisdom tradition (Sir. 4:1-10) as the context for declaring that those who show mercy or generosity to the poor are beloved children of God.
²¹ See Schrage's rejection of the "situation ethics" approach to the love commands (Ethics of the NT, pp. 79-82).
²² Schrage, Ethics of the NT, p. 79.
²³ But the terms used to describe the attitude required differ: Luke 6:36 uses oiktirmōn (adj., "merciful") while Luke 10:37 has the expression poiein to eleos ("to do mercy"). Hedrick (Parables, pp. 94-95) argues that Luke creates the framework to the question about the Torah (10:25) and the parable (vv. 36-37) in order to show that mercy is the meaning of the command to "love one's neighbor" (Lev. 19:18, 33-34). His analysis of the verbal poetics of the text of the parable itself (vv. 30b-35) concludes that the "compassion " invoked as the motive for the Samaritan's action (v. 33) belonged to Luke's source (pp. 100-102, 108).

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among Jesus' contemporaries would have been "fellow Israelite."²⁴ However, within the context of Jewish or Jewish-Christian sectarian polemics, "neighbor" or "brother" can have the more restricted implication, "fellow member of a particular sect. "²⁵ Given the sharp divisions and hostility between Jews and Samaritans in the first century, the parable challenges any attempt to fix communal boundaries.²⁶

Consequently, the social dynamics implicit in holding up "the enemy" as evidence for the meaning of compassion undermine even the moral superiority of those who might consider themselves instructed in the Law.²⁷ style='mso-spacerun:yes'> The episode of hostility from Samaritan villagers (Luke 9:52-54) has prepared Luke's reader to expect nothing from the Samaritan schismatic. His unexpected and unlimited generosity toward the unidentified human victim generates, by contrast, a negative picture of the behavior of the priest and Levite, even if they were avoiding ritual contamination by contact with a corpse.²⁸ style='mso-spacerun:yes'> By connecting this story to the question about the eternal life (Luke 10:25), the evangelist instructs his readers that the Samaritan, moved by compassion for the anonymous victim, has discovered what the legal expert has not-the way to eternal life.²⁹ By elaborating on the Samaritan's action, the parable subverts any minimalist understanding of the man's compassion toward the victim. The Samaritan, who would clearly be a target for robbers himself,³⁰ stops, cares for the victim, and assumes the financial obligations necessary for his recovery. The story itself never indicates what the ethnic origins of the victim are. Most interpreters assume that he was Jewish. If so, divisions between

²⁴See John Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34 (Dallas: Word, 1993), p. 584; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (New York: Doubleday, 1985), p. 878.
²⁵ As in the Qumran documents, which refer to loving the "sons of light" (e.g., 1 QS 1:9-10), or in the inner Christian polemics of I John (see Pheme Perkins, "Apocalyptic Sectarianism and Love Commands: The Johannine Epistles and Revelation," in Love of Enemies, edited by Willard M. Swartley, pp. 287-96). David Rensberger ("Love for One Another and Love for Enemies in the Gospel of John" in Love of Enemy, pp. 297-313) suggests that the "sectarian" cast of the love commands in the Fourth Gospel not be read merely as rejection of the Jews who expelled Christians from the synagogue, since the community also incorporated its former enemies, Samaritans (so John 4:4-42). Even in its sectarian form, the love command motivated inclusion of those considered to be outsiders.
²⁶ Cf. Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, pp. 594-595; Hedrick, Parables, pp. 107-109; John R. Donahue, "Who Is My Enemy? The Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Love of Enemies," in Love of Enemies, pp. 138-145.
²⁷ Lohse's statement (Theological Ethics, p. 56) that the Good Samaritan establishes the universal validity of the love command, i.e. no one can be excluded, misses the inversion created by using the Samaritan as "hero." Aid to a Samaritan victim would establish that point. Donahue ("Who Is My Enemy?," p. 144) emphasizes the fact that the Samaritan is not "converted." The parable subverts any tendencies to apocalyptic or sectarian triumphalism and its certainty about who is "inside" God's covenant.
²⁸ So Fitzmyer (Luke X-XXIV pp. 883-884) citing Qumran evidence; Hedrick (Parables, P. 106)argues that the Law would require them to bury the victim (vs. that view, see Fitzmyer, p.887). However, both readings agree that the audience is intended initially to treat the actions of the priest and Levite as matter of course.
²⁹ So Fitzmyer, Luke X-XXIV pp. 884-885.
³⁰ So Hedrick, Parables, 112-113. Most interpreters have missed this nuance in the story. When they describe the Samaritan as compassionate, they ignore the obvious risk assumed by stopping to tend to the victim.

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the two communities would make it difficult for the victim to repay his benefactor as would be expected by social conventions of the day.³¹

The dynamics of the story enlist the hearer's sympathies on the side of the victim by unexpectedly reversing the apparent tragedy of his situation. The robbers had achieved their objective before beating the man and leaving him for dead.³² The Samaritan's excessive care for the victim counters the excess of violence with an "excess of compassion."³³ The story suggests possibilities that belong to human beings as such, not as members of particular communities. However, some recent interpreters have raised questions about the scale of Jesus' ethical vision. Is it linked to the "small scale" personal, face-to-face, interactions of villages and small towns? Or could "enemy" embrace the realities of life under an occupying power like that of Rome? Does it make any sense to apply this ethical vision to complex modern societies and nation states? The Galilee of Jesus' day was not directly occupied by Roman troops. Even the presence of Gentiles was largely confined to cities that form a ring around Galilee. Scholars who take the city of Sepphoris or the later turmoil over Roman rule that originates in Judea as evidence for Galilee of Jesus' time are forcing the evidence.³⁴

"Imagination must complement information if the sayings of Jesus are to describe a reality that is both 'ideal' and, yet, a possibility realized in the lives of believers. "

Consequently, Richard Horsley depicts Jesus as the agent of local renewal in socio-economic and personal relationships. Examples of not resisting evil and doing good to the oppressor all describe interactions characteristic of peasant villagers.³⁵ This reading of Jesus' intentions has been challenged by Walter Wink,³⁶ who emphasizes the inequality that characterizes the social relationships depicted in the sayings about not

³¹ Such challenges to the social obligations of benefactor-client relationships are also characteristic of the ethical vision attributed to Jesus in Luke (e.g., Luke 14:7-14). See Halvor Moxnes (The Economy of the Kingdom: Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke's Gospel [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], pp. 36-47, 119-23, 127-38).
³² Hedrick, Parables, p. 104.
³³ Hedrick (Parables, pp. 114-116) thinks that Jewish readers would hear the story over against the conventional portraits of the generosity of the righteous person. It included care for the poor, naked, etc. but also discernment about the object of one's charity (e.g., Sir. 12:1-7; 29:14-20). He comments: "The third man, on the other hand, goes beyond the expected ideal and acts in a remarkably radical, "irresponsible" way, i.e., even to the extent of placing his own life and possessions at risk" (p. 115).
³⁴ See Sanders, Historical Figure, pp. 12-28; Sean Freyne, "The Geography, Politics and Economics of Galilee and the Quest for the Historical Jesus," Historical Jesus, edited by Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, pp. 111-121.
³⁵ Richard Horsley, "Ethics and Exegesis: Love Your Enemies and the Doctrine of Nonviolence," in Love of Enemies, pp. 76-93.
³⁶ Walter Wink, "Neither Passivity nor Violence: Jesus' Third Way (Matt. 5:38-42, par.)," in Love of Enemies, pp. 105-117.

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retaliating against evil (for example, Matt. 5:38-42). Resisting evil in situations that set the poor over against those with power to strike insultingly, to conscript labor, or to use legal manipulations to gain property would be suicidal. Jesus envisages actions that would highlight the evil done by the wicked, who might otherwise be thought to act " according to the system." Walking away from the judge naked demonstrates the intent of those who seek the cloak of the poor. Those who take a load more than the required mile show that they do not fear the power of those who require such service. Therefore, Wink argues that Jesus does speak to those who are powerless relative to the systems that govern their lives. Other forms of assistance that do not involve the peasant in the system of indebtedness and obligations are necessary to restore the integrity of the community.³⁷ The key to Jesus' agenda is to find ways of naming and rejecting evil without becoming involved in doing evil.³⁸ To reject seeing others as "friends" and "enemies" is essential to breaking up the social and political structures which sustain oppression.

JESUS: PEASANT SAGE OR PROPHET?

The exchange between Horsley and Wink turns on two questions: (1) the social context of Jesus' ministry and message and (2) the applicability of Jesus' message today. Horsley argues that social ethics draws simplistic, universalizing conclusions about the message of Jesus that are divorced from the need to act in particular contexts. The theory invoked to legitimate application of the biblical teaching general depends upon three types of argument: (1) analogy, (2) community and the biblical story, or (3) shaping individual character. Arguments by analogy claim to find a link between the first century context and the modern situation. Arguments based on a community and its vision of the world assume that Christian ethics does not begin with commandments but with a particular way of understanding the world, which is learned from the biblical story. Arguments about character presume that the Bible has shaped the character of moral agents.³⁹ Historical exegesis will demonstrate that the assumptions about the teaching of Jesus imported into any of these discussions are not grounded in first century realities. Therefore, Horsley concludes that, if we want to act as Jesus did, we have to diverge as much from the Jesus tradition as he did from the common views of the law of Moses. He doubts that we can apply any of Jesus' sayings to our own situation .⁴⁰

Horsley makes it clear that his skepticism about the applicability of Jesus' teaching to contemporary social ethics is associated with a particular understanding of the historical Jesus. For Jesus, the presence of the kingdom of God referred to cooperation and a renewal of covenant-based

³⁷ Wink, "Neither Passivity," pp. 106-112.
³⁸ Ibid., p. 117.
³⁹ Horsley, "Ethics and Exegesis," pp. 73-74.
⁴⁰ Horsley, "Response to Walter Wink," Love of Enemies, p. 129.

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relationships in local peasant communities. The same picture of Jesus' vision of the kingdom of God emerges in John Dominic Crossan's discussion of the historical Jesus.⁴¹ Unlike apocalyptic visions of God's sovereignty that image a cosmic future intervention of God to create justice and peace on earth, Crossan's Jesus had a vision grounded in the wisdom tradition. The Kingdom of God is present to those who participate in the new forms of "shared egalitarianism of spiritual and material resources"⁴² that Jesus initiated, and the particulars of Jesus' ministry cannot be translated outside the context of the peasant society in which he operated. They required a radical itinerant lifestyle to dismantle the structures of hierarchy, honor and shame, patron and client that governed that society. Jesus refused to permit any place, whether it was Peter's house in Capernaum or the Temple in Jerusalem, to become the location from which the benefits of healing or communion with God were dispensed.⁴³

Other analyses of the sayings tradition depict Jesus as a wandering sage closer to the cynic philosophers of antiquity than to prophetic figures who engaged the communal concerns of Israel and its destiny. The sayings of Jesus advocate an individual life style that throws aside the anxieties and social conventions of his society.⁴⁴ Through Jesus' healing ministry and the Jewish content of some of his sayings and controversies, Downing argues that the style of his ministry fits the radical cynic model better than other cultural exemplars .⁴⁵ Forms of this hypothesis that isolate Jesus from the religious and social context of first century Judaism must omit much of the Jesus tradition in order to make their case.⁴⁶ However, tensions between Jesus' disciples and the socioeconomic structures of the Galilean villages, which forms a major piece of evidence in the "cynic Jesus" hypothesis, do appear well-grounded in the tradition. Freyne's study of the economic conditions of Galilee suggests that the picture of Jesus' first disciples leaving all to follow him demonstrates this view. "In leaving their nets and families," he claims, "the first followers of Jesus were actually rejecting the values of the market economy as these operated in Galilee and were commended for doing So."⁴⁷

The issue that separates the view of Jesus as a cynic from a biblical interpretation of the itinerant radicalism of Jesus is the motivation for such actions. Why is Jesus concerned with acts of devotion to acquisition,

⁴¹ John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 228-355.
⁴² Ibid., p. 341.
⁴³ Ibid. pp. 344-355.
⁴⁴ See F. Gerald Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992), pp.115-168.
⁴⁵ Ibid., pp. 156-158.
⁴⁶ See the analysis by Hans Dieter Betz, "Jesus and the Cynics: Survey and Analysis of a Hypothesis," Journal of Religion 74 (1994), pp. 453-475. Betz points out that a variant of this image of Jesus as the one who rejected the cultural pieties is found in Nietzsche, though Nietzsche knew the cynic literature well enough not to call Jesus a cynic (pp. 462-470).
⁴⁷ S. Freyne, "The Geography, Politics. . .," p. 111.

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such as greed or the need to flatter powerful benefactors? Is he concerned only with the effects of these acts on individuals or, as Freyne suggests, does Jesus' critique stem from the social values of the older covenant ideal? The new market economies of Galilee destroy the solidarity of families and villagers, and, on that basis, Jesus is not encouraging a cynical withdrawal from the society in which he lived.⁴⁸

E.P. Sanders finds little evidence for the common image of Jesus as a figure who sought to galvanize the nation as a whole. Unlike John the Baptist, Jesus does not preach repentance to a nation faced with God's judgment. His sayings speak to individuals or to small groups about devotion to the will of God and love of neighbor .⁴⁹ The future elements in Jesus' preaching about the kingdom are not to be ignored as in some of the other accounts of Jesus as a sage. Sanders suggests that Jesus did not assume that his ministry would inaugurate the kingdom or even gather all of those who will be part of God's rule. Jesus shared the hopes of other Jews for God's coming, which would recreate Israel (Mark 14:25; see Isa. 25:6-8)⁵⁰ but Jesus' own actions focus on relationships between human beings and God in the present. He challenged cultural presumptions about relationships, wages owed, and obligation (for example, Matt. 20-1-6; Matt. 22: 1-10; Luke 15:11-32), and he proposed a perfectionist morality in the antitheses and divorce sayings. This ethic should not be misunderstood as stern rigorism. It forms the foundation for radical compassion.⁵¹

"The issue that separates the view of Jesus as a cynic from a biblical interpretation of the itinerant radicalism of Jesus is motivation. "

Sanders admits that such descriptions of Jesus' ministry make it difficult to explain what led to the hostility against him. Jesus' comments about the Law are not objectionable given the debates over its application that were typical of the period.⁵² Sanders concludes that the charges of association with "tax collectors and sinners" (Matt. 11:19) are the clue, not a social project. Jesus did not demand the conversion of such persons-had he done so, no one would have objected-but announced that those who were among the wicked, who rejected God's Law, would be included in the kingdom.⁵³ Other scholars have challenged this interpretation of "sinners and tax-collectors." James D. G. Dunn insists on

⁴⁸ Freyne, "The Geography, Politics.. .," pp. 117-120.
⁴⁹ E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 206-208; 222-24.
⁵⁰ Sanders, Historical Figure, p. 185.
⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 193-204.
⁵² Ibid., pp. 210-213. The stories as we have them in the Gospels have been reformulated to sharpen the division between Jesus and the teachers of the Law (pp. 213-220).
⁵³ Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, p. 179; Historical Figure, pp. 226-236.

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situating Jesus' ministry within the sectarian factionalism that divided first century Judaism.⁵⁴ In that context, "sinners" can refer to those who do not share the standards of legal interpretation and conduct advocated by a particular sect. Pharisaic concerns with Sabbath observance, purification rites, tithes, and other marks of piety reflected in the controversy stories of Mark 2:1-3:6 and 7:1-23 indicate that Jesus was part of a religious debate over holiness.⁵⁵ style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Modern readers tend to caricature the Law as "difficult" and fail to recognize that such practical expressions of piety were felt to be integral to the covenant with God.⁵⁶

The wandering, cynic sage is not the Jesus who speaks to the religious issues of his time,⁵⁷ issues such as the requirements for the covenant people to experience God's blessing. The core beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount also speak to the hopes and expectations for divine action that have been built up in the tradition of Israel. As Meier observes:

In the background of these beatitudes stands the whole OT picture of God as the truly just king of the covenant community of Israel, the king who does what Israel's human kings often failed to do: defend widows and orphans, secure the rights of the oppressed, and in general see justice done (so, e.g., Ps. 146:5-10).⁵⁸

What distinguishes Jesus from the great prophetic voices of Israel's past is his conviction that God's judgment will end the present world. He does not address a message of sociopolitical reform to the wealthy and powerful,⁵⁹ but sayings and stories in which the wealthy are portrayed suggest that Jesus' preaching did take a position on the issue. In general, wealth either blinds persons to God's call (Matt. 6:19-21, 24)⁶⁰ or makes it impossible for its possessors to leave everything in order to follow Jesus (Mark 10:17-31).⁶¹

Jesus' challenge to the wealthy has sometimes been treated as evidence of a disregard of a cynic for what people commonly value. However, the

⁵⁴ James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law (Louisville: Westminster, 1990), pp. 66-76.
⁵⁵ Ibid., pp. 69-79. Rainer Dillmann's discussion of the uniqueness of Jesus' ethical teaching also focuses on the discussion of clean and unclean in Mark 7:1-23 (See Rainer Dillmann, Das Eigentliche der Ethik Jesu: Ein exegetischer Beitrag zur moral theologishen Diskussion um das Proprium einer christlichen Ethik [Tübinger Theologische Studien 23; Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1984], pp. 83-113).
⁵⁶ Therefore, a saying like Mark 7:15 might be felt to be a challenge to the Law and the holiness of the people even if Jesus were speaking a prophetic word against a preoccupation with purification rites that neglected real obedience to the will of God (as scholars have generally argued; see Dillmann, Ethik Jesu, pp. 93-95).
⁵⁷ See the extended refutation of the parallels between Jesus and cynic philosophers in Witherington (Jesus, the Sage, pp. 117-141). in order to create such visions of Jesus, scholars have to neglect key elements in his preaching: (a) either deny that he spoke of the kingdom of God, or insist that it never referred to God's future action; (b) ignore the disputes over the meaning of the Old Testament and other Jewish issues; (c) deny any relevance of discussions about Jewish messianic expectations or christological claims about the relationship between Jesus and God (p. 139).
⁵⁸ Meier, Marginal Jew II, p. 33 1.
⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 311.
⁶⁰ Schrage, NT Ethics, pp. 101-103.
⁶¹ Dillmann, Ethik Jesu, pp. 47-83.

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motivation of much of Jesus' critique remains grounded in the tradition of Israel. The problem does not lie in wealth as such but in the conspicuous personal consumption and greed that attended it. The foolish farmer only thinks of using his bumper crop to guarantee a secure future for himself (Luke 12:15-21). He should recognize the claims of the community on his prosperity:

He did not acquire his wealth by evil means, but it is God's miracle, like the surplus of Joseph's time in Egypt or that of the land's before a sabbath. An audience soon expects this wealth to be stored up for the community's benefit. The man, however, intends to store up wealth not for community charity but for his own comfort and pleasure.... The story concludes with God's question, the implication of which is that the wealth will now be used for those for whom it was originally intended.⁶²

The Samaritan, who spends his resources generously to aid an anonymous victim, demonstrates that persons of means can use what they have appropriately.⁶³ Neither story illustrates a principle of the Law as rabbinic parables often did. The humorous elements in the description of the Rich Farmer cohere with a consistent "vision from below" in many of Jesus' sayings and parables. The saying about a camel passing through the needle’s eye (Mark10:25) takes the same stance:

The image in the aphorism is deliberately absurd, for the camel was the largest animal normally found in Israel in Jesus' day.... Thus one is talking about a real impossibility, unless the rich person does something about his wealth in advance of the time he might enter the dominion. This teaching comports with what the Jesus tradition elsewhere suggests about the enslaving and or encumbering power of wealth (cf. Matt. 6:24; Luke 12:13-21).⁶⁴

Humor and hyperbole in the sayings and parables of Jesus warn against taking things as they are. The issue of whether or not these sayings have an eschatological edge demonstrates the importance of how the ministry of Jesus is contextualized. The satire of an iconoclastic, cynic sage may persuade contemporaries-or even modern readers-to reject the pieties of their society. But such speech does not carry the authority of God's word to a covenant people.

The sage highlights human folly and blindness. Those who find that vision persuasive may repeat his words and imitate his life, but they would hardly see the covenant with God at stake in such choices. "By whose authority?" is not an idle question. If Jesus claims God's authority, then his disputes with the Pharisees over a particular form of holiness and boundary building establishes the direction God intended for those who

⁶² So Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), p. 138. Hedrick (Parables, pp. 157-159) rejects this interpretation of the audience reaction. He treats the story as a parody of a rich farmer who failed to foresee the need for extra storage space and then reacts inappropriately by tearing down the storage he has in order to build surplus capacity while he has grain ready to be harvested.
⁶³ Schrage, New Testament Ethics, p. 105. "The crucial point is the use of earthly possession in the service of love. For Jesus, therefore, the problem of prosperity is primarily a problem of social rather than individual ethics, as in the Stoa" (p. 106).
⁶⁴ Witherington, Jesus, the Sage, p. 166.

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live out of the covenant promises. The theological principle of continuity in the story of salvation cannot be decided on historical grounds. But a historical contextualization of the ministry of Jesus that grounds such a theological understanding remains even more plausible than the individualist sage of the well-publicized "Jesus seminar." J. D. G. Dunn proposes a continuity between Jesus' challenge to the sectarian divisions of his day and the later struggles for inclusion of the Gentiles:

For behind the particular objections and charges leveled against Jesus was the central fact that Jesus was ignoring and abolishing boundaries which more sectarian attitudes had erected within Israel.... [I]t does help us see how a Christianity which broke through the boundaries of Israel's distinctiveness sprang from a Jesus who posed such a challenge to the boundary between the Pharisee and sinner. In other words, the recognition of the Jewishness of Jesus need not separate Jesus from the Christianity he founded, just as the recognition of the Christian significance of Jesus need not separate him from the faith of his own people.⁶⁵

If the evidence can be read to indicate the continuity between Jesus and Judaism, on the one hand, and Jesus and Christian faith, on the other, Christian scholars will prefer such a reading. Without that continuity, Christians can hardly claim that Jesus mediates the presence and salvation of God to a human history that is oriented toward communion with that God. The Christian claim about Jesus is not sustained by abstract, universal statements about God, human consciousness, and historicity. The Christian claim is grounded in the particular experience of Jesus' relationship to the traditions of God's dealing with the covenant people, Israel.⁶⁶

CONCLUSIONS

If the image of Jesus is badly out of focus in Christian ethics and popular consciousness today, exegetes, theologians, and pastors all share the blame. We have allowed academic pluralism and information to overwelm theological reflection and serious pastoral analysis. When theologians operate with a symbolic Christ with little relationship to the New Testament witness and pastors preach whatever inspires them at the moment, we can hardly be surprised when parishioners pick up and discard whatever is out there in the religion market as fast as they do various frozen desserts. Historical reconstructions of Jesus in first century Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts will always be diverse. We cannot reach univocal conclusions about recent historical events and persons, so we can hardly expect to do so for a period where we lack important pieces of evidence at every turn. As we have seen, the New Testament itself shows that Christians applied sayings of Jesus about divorce, love of neighbor, and wealth contextually. They did not assume that Jesus had

⁶⁵ Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law, pp. 80-81.
⁶⁶ See Roger Haight, "Appropriating Jesus Today," Irish Theological Quarterly, 59 (1993), pp. 246-247.

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formulated a universally binding rule that could be inserted into any context without modification.

Even when their ethical conclusions and practice did not differ radically from that of others, early Christians did not assume that the moral authority of "doing good" came from the cultural ethos or popular philosophy. For them, "doing good" is always the expression of their relationship to God, mediated by Jesus, and lived out in the Spirit. The question "why?" or "how?" regarding action must be answered in relationship to powerful images of God and human life. Such images may be found in sayings or parables handed down from Jesus or, as is characteristic of the Pauline letters, in relationship to the character of Jesus as a whole, particularly his self-offering on the cross and resurrection.⁶⁷ style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Christian ethics cannot be formulated as a system of rules abstracted from the powerful images through which the teaching of Jesus is mediated. Instead, we should recognize that the universality of both the person and teaching of Jesus share with other classics an ability to transcend the particularities of time and culture.⁶⁸ style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  This process does not require abstraction of principles. Rather, we seek to inculturate the inherited images by reading our own times in their light. Where are the victims and Samaritans, the rich fools, and so on? Who, are the victims in today's divorce proceedings? Jesus saw women "made adulteresses" as the silent victims. Today he might look at the children.

"The sage highlights human folly and blindness. Those who find that vision persuasive may repeat his words and imitate his life, but they would hardly see the covenant with God at stake in such choices. "

What is the difference between reading sociological and legal studies about the impact of divorce on children and asking whether Jesus' words to his disciples challenge Christian consciousness on that issue? The former studies may do much more to highlight the social evils and their cost. As we have seen, the teaching of Jesus, taken out of the context of a covenant community, seems to have little concern for social reform. However, the eschatological dimensions of the governing metaphor of the kingdom of God frame the sense of community fundamental to Jesus' vision. A Christian community tries to make the reign of God a reality in today's world. To do so, requires a vision of the new covenant, the order of justice, peace, and love that is to be established with God's return. Every time we talk to individuals or families in distress, we find much of

⁶⁷ See Leander E. Keck, " 'Jesus in Romans," Journal of Biblical Literature, 108 (1989), pp. 443-460.
⁶⁸ See the discussion in Haight, "Appropriating Jesus," pp. 242-244.

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their pain heightened by the realities of the legal or social welfare system. At almost every turn, one is forced to settle for arrangements that are not really what those involved need. Jesus refused to let his audience lock its moral vision into categories dictated by the way things are in an evil age.

The radical break with possessions and home in the lives of Jesus and the disciples enabled them to call forth community not indebted to the established order and its power structures. Churches today live in similar tensions with their culture. Our institutions have all of the particular legal and socio-economic baggage of our time. As communities gathered in the name of Jesus and inspired by his vision of the Kingdom of God, we can ask for a higher vision of the good, the good that even contributes to the well-being of those who are commonly thought to be enemies. After all, Jesus has set us a high standard, nothing less than the compassion of God.