Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God (Michael Glazier Books) by Lohfink Gerhard

Author:Lohfink, Gerhard [Lohfink, Gerhard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2014-12-15T16:00:00+00:00

6. Table Manners in the Reign of God

When we are familiar with certain things and people we no longer take much notice of their individuality. Most Christians see nothing special about the appointment of the Twelve, and they take the gathering of a circle of disciples around Jesus as something perfectly normal. But we ought to be clear about the enormity of this series of events: a carpenter, an ordinary workingman, presents twelve men to the crowd and says: this is the beginning of the eschatological Israel! A theological layman surrenders himself totally to the “today” of God’s action, gathers a group of disciples, and includes in it not a single priest or religious professional, but fishermen instead.

Certainly such a proceeding was not entirely unprecedented in Israel. John the Baptizer had also gathered a group of disciples. Some of Jesus’ own disciples had, in fact, been John’s disciples beforehand. The difference was that John pointed to the future, to one more powerful than himself who was yet to come. That one would cut down all the trees in Israel’s plantation that brought no fruit (Luke 3:9) and effect the final separation of the wheat from the chaff on Israel’s threshing-floor (Luke 3:16-17). Jesus, in contrast, called his disciples’ attention to what was already happening: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” (Luke 10:23). At the center of his message was not a wrathful judgment but a wedding: “The sons of the wedding chamber (= wedding guests) cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they?” (Mark 2:19). The disciples are guests at the wedding feast because with Jesus the messianic time of salvation, the wedding of God and God’s people, has already begun. 93 Hence Jesus’ gathering movement stands under a different sign. It is already making the eschatological Israel visible. Only because of this can we understand why Jesus did not gather his disciples, as the Baptizer did, in the wilderness by the Jordan, but also not in the synagogues or the Temple. Israel is being given a new center, and that center is Jesus himself—and in Jesus, God, who has now become entirely present. This relativizes all “holy” places and sanctifies all profane places. It is no longer important where people gather. Everywhere in Israel, wherever Jesus’ message is accepted, is holy ground.

Certainly the common meal, and therefore the common table, played a crucial role simply because a wedding is being celebrated. We can even say that the profane table at which Jesus eats with his disciples becomes the new place of salvation. Jesus dares to effect the eschatological renewal of the people of God with the simplicity and intimacy of a table around which his disciples gather as a family.

These disciples were by no means “like-minded people.” There is a good deal of evidence that Jesus chose the Twelve from the most diverse groups in the Judaism of his time in order to make it obvious that he was gathering all Israelites. The Twelve

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