For according to Jesus, God does not want Israel to be a people that fights, like all others, to assert itself as a nation. God wants a people in which the peace of God and God’s kind of rule become reality. That is the reason for the unbelievably sharp demand for nonviolence in the Sermon on the Mount: “But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile” (Matt 5:39-41). The Zealots demanded precisely the opposite. They said: don’t take it! Fight back! Don’t help the Roman soldiers (for example, by carrying their baggage for miles)! No, help us in the underground to arm against the occupation force!
When Jesus talks about nonviolence he is first of all placing a clear distance between himself and the fighters-for-God in his time. That the disciples, in accordance with the equipment rule described above, were to take no staff, no shoes, and no money with them was not only an indicative sign of the eschatological-solidary community in the people of God. It was intended, beyond that, to make visible the difference between them and the Zealot God’s-army types: someone who does not even have a staff cannot protect himself. He is defenseless. And someone who has no shoes on her feet cannot even flee, given the stony soil of Palestine, if she is attacked. This is a sign of pure nonviolence that positively shouts its character. All of it goes contrary to the Zealots and their ideology of a military theocratic state.
But also the fact that the disciples were to have no money in their belts was directed against the Zealots, because they collected and extorted money for their struggle against the Romans. None of that had anything to do with modesty of demands or asceticism. Jesus simply did not want his disciples to be confused with rebels against Roman rule.
Free Discipleship
Thus nonviolence signals the fundamental difference between Jesus and the Zealots. But that difference is also indicated by the idea of freedom. What does that mean?
The Zealot movement, as well as other enthusiastic movements like those of Theudas and “the Egyptian,” tried to draw as many people in Israel as possible to follow them. They wanted the people as such to rise up against the Romans, or in other words, all Israel was supposed to follow these new charismatics. The Zealots’ reckless use of violence, not hesitating even at murder, was directed not only at the Roman occupiers but also against all Jews who submitted to Roman rule for the sake of peace.8 Here again something entirely different was evident in Jesus’ movement: he did not regard Israel as a uniform collective but instead respected to a sometimes off-putting degree the freedom and specific calling of every individual.
Jesus calls individuals to discipleship, each of them chosen and approached by him in person. The next chapter will explore this phenomenon in more detail. Here we may say only that for Jesus the Good News of the coming of the reign of God was directed to everyone, and the same was true for the consequences of that message: the call to repentance. But the call to discipleship was not addressed to everyone; it was only for those Jesus chose for himself. He expects of them that they share his unstable itinerant life, that they abandon their property, that they leave their families and live with him together as a community of disciples.
This is a call to a new form of life, a call to a very insecure and hard life—and for that very reason a call that presupposes freedom of decision. No one may be forced to live this way. Here again we see the profound difference between Jesus and the fanaticism of the Zealots.
Elijah and Elisha
The real model for following Jesus is found—and what else would we expect?—in the Bible itself, in the prophet Elijah’s calling of Elisha. The story is told this way in 1 Kings 19:19-21:
So he [Elijah] set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.
Elisha is portrayed in this text as the son of a well-to-do farmer, for he plows with twelve pairs of oxen at a time. He himself works with the last, the twelfth span, and so he can see how the eleven servants ahead of him draw their furrows.
Elijah calls Elisha by throwing his mantle over him, so Elisha is conscripted for God’s business. He knows immediately what it means for him: leaving his family, breaking with his previous occupation, discipleship. The rest of the story only tells us how this wealthy heir leaves behind his family and his occupation.
First Elisha asks Elijah for permission to take leave of his parents. He knows, then, that he is no longer his own master but the servant of Elijah. Elijah permits him to take his leave; the somewhat difficult text at this point can scarcely be understood in any other way. By saying “what have I done to you?” he allows Elijah full freedom of action. The one who is called can only follow freely. But that very action makes Elisha aware of what has happened to him.
Probably the text means to say that he does not even return to his house, but improvises a farewell dinner for his farmhands in the field. He uses the yoke and equipment of a span of oxen as firewood as a sign that he is giving up his previous occupation and that God’s business cannot wait. Thus this story reveals itself in many ways as a prelude to the later discipleship of those who followed Jesus’ call. For example, it shows us the “immediacy” of discipleship. But it also shows that the new thing God has begun with Israel can only be handed on from person to person. There is no automatic transfer of faith to the next generation. Calling and charism must be handed on face to face. Elisha must, so to speak, feel Elijah’s mantle on his own body.
But the narrative shows us still more, namely, the importance of the nonprofessional. Elisha probably never would have considered, by himself, that he might become a prophet. He had quite different things in view: his parents’ farming operation, commerce, family. Probably he was called for that very reason. God does not just need ordained ministers; God also needs religious nonprofessionals experienced in their trades. God needs people who are able to plow with twelve span of oxen or to handle angle irons and levels and plumblines—and who then apply the level and the plumbline also to the condition of the people of God. That is the way it is supposed to be with many others as well, including Jesus and the fisherfolk he called to be his disciples, in the course of salvation history.
This text from the Elijah-Elisha narrative cycle in the books of Kings brings us closest to the content of Jesus’ call to discipleship. There is much in favor of the idea that here, as in other cases,9 Jesus made direct reference to his Bible. He must have had a very personal access to Torah and the prophets. That does not mean that there could not also have been other elements from the history of the tradition in play. But it is significant that the story of the calling of Elisha plays virtually no role in the rabbinic tradition.10