For Jesus’ audience it was clear that he was speaking of God’s eschatological banquet. That is the indispensable presupposition behind the parable. It was also clear to them that this eternal banquet was laid for Israel. The parable presumes all that and it is from these presuppositions that it derives its shocking force: those invited and chosen by God will not come. Their places remain empty. But God can invite others. The banquet will take place in any event. But it becomes a judgment on Israeclass="underline" none of those originally invited will taste of the meal.7
No one should ever have doubted that Jesus already (and not the evangelists later) had the Gentiles in view in this parable. Those first invited are not a particular group in Israel, but the whole people of God. That in the first place only the leaders of Israel or the righteous or wealthy within the people should be invited to the meal in the reign of God, and only after their refusal the poor and sinners, would contradict Jesus’ message and practice in every way. Therefore, those first invited can only be all Israel. But in that case those invited later are the Gentiles. That this is the case is evident from Jesus’ saying in Matthew 8:11-12 // Luke 13:28-29, which we have already discussed (chap. 4). It can be reconstructed as follows from the Sayings Source: “Many will come from the rising and the setting and recline at table in the reign of God—together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But you will be cast out into the outermost darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Those who come from East and West, that is, from a great distance, can only be Gentiles. But those first invited, who are meant to recline at table with the ancestors of Israel, are cast out. Here the language is much more direct than in the parable. Therefore the provocation is likewise much greater. But the goal is the same: this is about the repentance, the turning back, of Israel.
Witnesses against Israel
There are also judgment sayings from Jesus’ lips in which witnesses appear against Israel. These include first of all a saying directed to the Twelve whom Jesus had appointed. They are to be not only a sign of the gathering of the eschatological Israel. In addition, they will function as witnesses at the final judgment: “You… will… sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt 19:28; cf. Luke 22:30). The twelve are here probably to be regarded as observers at the judgment. The background is Daniel 7:9. That vision in Daniel 7 played a major role for Jesus, and it is the only passage in which thrones for a committee of judges are set up at the last judgment.8 But that is not so important. More significant is the question: how will the Twelve judge their own people? They will do so simply by following Jesus and remaining with him (Matt 19:27; cf. Luke 22:28). Their discipleship and fidelity become a counter-witness to all the lack of faith and all the infidelity in the people of God. In other words, there is no further need for a solemn final sentence from a judge: the discipleship of some becomes the judgment of others.
The same is true of the double saying about the queen of the South and the Ninevites, which can easily be reconstructed from the Sayings Source:
The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment together with this generation and condemn it. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear Solomon’s wisdom—and behold, here is something greater than Solomon.
The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment together with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah—and behold, here is something greater than Jonah. (cf. Luke 11:31-32 // Matt 12:41-42)
The two parts of the double saying are precisely matched and so strictly planned that later tradents were able to remember it easily. Here again Jesus took his illustrative material from Sacred Scripture: the first book of Kings (1 Kgs 5:14 [English, 4:34]; 10:1-13) tells of the Queen of Sheba, and the book of Jonah (chap. 3) has the story of the Ninevites. Despite the almost complete agreement of the two parts of the saying, there is an escalation present as welclass="underline" the queen of the South only listens to Solomon, but the Ninevites repent.
But the issue in our context is something different. We have here a clear scene of judgment. The judgment of the world has begun. The accused stand before the judge. Those accused are “this generation,” that is, the generation that has heard Jesus’ preaching and seen his miracles. During the judicial process witnesses arise from their places. The queen of Sheba stands up and testifies against Israel with her longing for Solomon’s wisdom; then the Ninevites get up and witness against Israel with their repentance.
There is a shocking provocation in this double saying as well. It consists in the fact that the witnesses against Israel in both cases are Gentiles. Here we have come upon something that is characteristic of Jesus: he is amazed at the faith of the Gentile centurion (Matt 8:10). He heals the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:29). He makes a man of Samaria the positive protagonist of a parable (Luke 10:25-37). He says that it will be better for the Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for the Jewish villages of Chorazin and Bethsaida (Matt 11:22), and adds that if the mighty deeds done in Capernaum had occurred in Sodom, that city would still be standing (Matt 11:23).
This is precisely the place for the observation that Jesus’ proclamations of judgment are all directed against Israel. There are no words of judgment against the Gentiles. That is crucial, for in the Old Testament nearly all the prophetic books contain speeches about God’s judgment on the nations. Simply read in Ezekiel 25-32 the threatening discourses against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Egypt, the Philistines, and especially Tyre and Sidon. There is nothing like these in Jesus’ words. How should we evaluate this phenomenon?
In my opinion it is inadequate to answer that Jesus had a special openness to and lack of prejudice about Gentiles. He may well have had such an astonishing openness. But the fact that his judgment discourses are all directed to Israel can be explained only by the fact that Jesus concentrated his whole proclamation and work on Israel. Obviously, he was familiar with the promises of the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion. But those very promises presuppose that Israel will open itself to God’s eschatological action and return to God. Therefore the path of the nations ultimately depends on the faith of Israel. And that faith is what is crucial for Jesus now, in this hour of decision.
The Presence of Judgment
Jesus’ appearance in Israel marks the decisive crisis in its history. Nothing is yet final. There is still, for Jesus, a last hope that his audience will grasp the “signs of the times” and understand their own situation (Luke 12:54-57). That is why his judgment sayings have such power. That is why he speaks so sharply. Even if Jesus in the end formulated the judgment on Israel as a settled fact, his discourse was still “conditioned,” still a warning, still the unremitting attempt to achieve repentance.
The history of the subsequent few decades validated Jesus’ warnings. Whole sections of the people did not take his call to repentance and nonviolence seriously. The Zealots were able to set loose a war against Rome that took an immense number of victims and at the end of which the city of Jerusalem and the temple were a field of ruins. Previously the different Jewish groups had fought among themselves within the city itself and killed one another off.
We simply have to read these horrible eruptions of violence, which Josephus tells about in his Jewish War, in light of Jesus’ judgment sayings. His warnings were not something we can simply erase from his preaching. Jesus was realistic to the utmost, and he wanted to preserve Israel from the catastrophe into which it was maneuvering itself. When he speaks of the threatening judgment he is not merely referring to the judgment of the world at the end of time. He always means also the judgment that is already taking place in history and is caused by unbelief itself. The coming judgment about which Jesus speaks extends just as much into the present as the coming reign of God. Here too the axiom of “already and not yet” applies. Jesus’ judgment sayings are absolutely intended to provoke and shock. That is how they hope to bring people to repentance and change the course of history.