Certainly Jesus says all that in an image that comes close to being offensive: children sit at table, and one must not take the bread from them to feed the household dogs. But this woman is quick-witted. She counters Jesus with his own weapons: even the dogs get a share of the little crumbs that fall under the table when children are eating. In this the woman reveals her faith, and still more: she puts herself in Jesus’ frame of reference.
That context must exist both for the wonder worker and for the recipient of the miracle. If it is present in both, will the miracle happen? No. Not always. It can happen, but it need not, for as with the gift of grace, so it is with every genuine miracle. Two freedoms encounter each other: human freedom and the freedom of God.
Chapter 10
Warning about Judgment
To this point in the book we have spoken almost exclusively about the holiness of the reign of God that transforms the world. In the words of Jesus, in his parables, and above all in his deeds of power, this new and self-transforming world is presented again and again to our eyes. Those who speak of Jesus must talk first and last of this side of his appearing. But to leave it at that would yield an incomplete and somewhat unfocused image, for besides his preaching of salvation—or better, in the midst of it—Jesus also addressed the theme of judgment.
Repressed and Downplayed
Certainly a great many interpreters excise this theme. There are even books about Jesus in which it is simply not there. Catechesis and religious instruction avoid it, and it is almost never preached. The reason, repeated almost to the point of exhaustion, is “Jesus preached the good news, not the grim news.”
Now, that is not altogether wrong. Jesus did not come to threaten. When he speaks of the reign of God he talks first of all about the treasure a day laborer stumbles upon, about the precious pearl a merchant finds, about the tiny mustard seed that grows into a mighty shrub, about the overabundant harvest produced by a field of wheat, about the days of the marriage feast during which no one can fast.
Nevertheless, the formula “good news, not grim news” is a trivialization, because it muffles the theme of judgment by downplaying it as “grim news.” It fits wonderfully, of course, into the image of a Jesus scrubbed clean of every offensive feature and adored by the current spirit of the times, but it has little to do with the realism of his preaching.
Another comforting saying is, “Jesus announced that God is our merciful Father who forgives everything. A preaching of judgment had no place at all in such proclamation.”1 But this reasoning is also hasty and trivial. It is unable to sustain tensions. It softens the evil in the world in the name of an oversweetened compassion. It does precisely what Franz Kafka ridicules in his story “Up in the Gallery”:
If some frail, consumptive equestrienne on a reeling horse in the ring, in front of a tireless audience, were uninterruptedly driven around in a circle for months on end by a ruthless, whip-cracking ringmaster, whirring on the horse, blowing kisses, swaying at the waist, and if this performance under the incessant roar of the orchestra and the ventilators were to continue into the ever-widening dreary future, accompanied by applause that kept waning and swelling up again, from hands that are actually steam hammers—then perhaps a young gallery visitor might hurry down the long stairway through all the tiers, plunge into the ring, and shout “Halt!” over the fanfares of the ever-adjusting orchestra.
But since it is not like that—since a beautiful lady, in white and red, comes soaring in through the curtains that the proud liveried footmen open before her; since the ringmaster, devotedly seeking her eyes, breathing toward her in an animal stance; since he lovingly hands her up on the dapple-gray horse as if she were his utterly beloved granddaughter taking off on a dangerous journey; since he cannot make up his mind to signal with the whip; but finally pulls himself together and cracks it smartly; runs alongside the horse, his mouth open; follows the rider’s leap with sharp eyes; scarcely believes her skill; tries to warn her by shouting in English; furiously admonishes the grooms, who clutch hoops, to be very attentive; since before the great breakneck leap he raises his hands, beseeching the orchestra to hush; since he finally lifts the girl down from the trembling horse, kisses her on both cheeks, and considers no tribute from the public satisfactory enough; while she herself, supported by him, high on the tips of her toes, in a whirl of dust, her arms outspread, her head thrown back, tries to share her bliss with the entire circus—since this is so, the gallery visitor puts his face on the railing and, sinking into the concluding march as into a heavy dream, he weeps without realizing it.
2
The first part of this text depicts the world as it is: its misery, its eternal circling, its brutality, its mercilessness. That is reality. But it does not appear that way and is not perceived that way: therefore the twofold “if” and the consistently maintained subjunctive mood. The second part of the text depicts exactly the same world but now staged as a no-longer-transparent world of appearances.
In summary: the audience have the truth concealed from them. They are helplessly handed over to a manipulated reality. Therefore they can no longer rebel. They can no longer rush down the long stairway and shout “stop!” Only their unconscious continues to resist: the young visitor in the gallery weeps without knowing it.
Jesus saw through the polished world of appearances that others raise up around us and the self-deceptions we constantly build up in ourselves. He did not let himself be euthanized. He sees injustice in its destructive power. He knows what manipulation, lies, and violence incessantly bring about in the world. Therefore he is in a position to cry “stop!” His words about the threatened judgment are a shout, a revolt against society’s self-deceptions and unreal pseudo-worlds. Had he spoken only of divine mercy he would have made himself complicit and helped to conceal the real situation in Israel.
Judgment Preached from the Outset
Judgment is a theme in every layer of gospel tradition. It appears in Mark, in the Sayings Source, in the special material of Matthew and Luke, and in the Johannine tradition. In his book on Jesus’ preaching of judgment Marius Reiser took the trouble to calculate the percentage of discourse material on the theme of “judgment” within the Synoptic Gospels.3 The result is astonishing: sayings and parables about judgment comprise seventy-six verses in the Sayings Source (= 35 percent of the discourse material), thirty-seven verses in Mark’s gospel (= 22 percent of the discourse material), sixty verses in Matthew’s special material (= 64 percent of the discourse material), and thirty-seven verses in Luke’s special material (= 28 percent of the discourse material).
Of course, such statistics have ragged edges. It is not always possible to decide clearly what ought to be counted and what should be omitted. Nevertheless, a clear contour emerges: even the apparent truth that Matthew favored the theme of judgment does not change the fact that at least a quarter of the discourse material transmitted as having come from Jesus concerns itself with the theme of “judgment.” The unavoidable conclusion is that Jesus must have spoken about it often.
Certainly the question remains: did he do that from the beginning, or did the theme appear in only a later phase of his preaching? We cannot overlook the fact that Jesus was not simply surrounded by sympathizers and disciples. He had increasing numbers of determined opponents, especially among the theologians. They deliberately sought to slander him. They called him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners, a eunuch and a demoniac, a possessed Samaritan, an apostate from the faith, an impostor, and a deceiver of the people.4 But Jesus did not encounter total acceptance among the ordinary people either. We can see that in the reaction of his hometown, Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6). Could it be that, after an initial period of success, a “Galilean spring,” Jesus encountered increasing opposition and that it was only from that point on that he began to speak of judgment as well?