The two kingdoms to which I referred in the previous posts—the kingdoms of this world and of heaven described by Jesus—are ethical entities. In practice, they are the playings-out of value choices, with the option in the first instance—the kingdom of this world—being devotion to the causes with which we define our belonging, such causes being particular and parochial. In the second instance the focus is devotion to a greater singular cause attributed to the mediation of Jesus—to whom we belong and through whom we belong to all.
The contrast between these two kingdoms cannot be understood by us until we address the meaning of “kingdom” used in the mundane sense versus its application in terms of ethics. The resolution of this preliminary matter is not complicated, though it is strongly counter-intuitive. In its most rarified application, the term “ethics” is incompatible with “kingdom.” If we practiced ethics properly, we would have no need for the disciplinary function of a kingdom, and ostensibly debatable notions of proper social and public policy could be achieved by cordial conversation, not through the exercise of sovereignty.
None of that is going to happen, of course, because we lack the ability to behave ethically. What is most important for us to realize, however, is the fact that in the ethical system demanded by Jesus, no working-out of any defensible earthly kingdom is going to happen either. The notion of a kingdom short of that of God is ridiculous in Jesus’ ethical framework, and he treats it as something ridiculous. There is no answer to how King David, if he is going to be thought the “father” of Jesus, might possibly have called Jesus “my lord” in the psalms. Jesus would have called David “my lord.” (Or David, without genealogic relation to Jesus, would have called him “my lord.” Whichever.)
It is of little matter that attribution of psalms to David might be nothing but a fancy, and it is of little matter that various sophistries might ostensibly “solve” the David and My Lord riddle. What matters is that Jesus treats the matter as ridiculous and—though we must rely on the authority of extant, selected texts—the Gospels leave the riddle in its raw, unsolved condition.
That is by far not the least of the riddles that confront us once we try to apply Jesus’ ethic to the world of the devil. Take the earthly kingdom of Israel, so important to the Jews with whom Jesus interacted, and so ingrained in the worldview that inundated the setting of Jesus’ ministry. Nothing in the teachings of Jesus can be understand outside of the framework of Judaism—and nothing in the teachings of Jesus can be understood within the framework of Judaism. We have another unsolvable riddle.
The family of Jacob—the family-nation of Israel—went down to Egypt in peace and lived there in peace for many years. Then came the oppression, and the flight from Egypt, and the Conquest of Canaan, and the establishment of Israel the earthly nation. In the orthodox interpretation, the sequence as understood here is peace, followed by oppression, followed by heroism, followed by peace. (OK, there is a liberal portion of faithlessness and apostasy and cowardice, but such things simply figure into the moral adventure of the nation.)
Non-orthodox interpretations talk about uncomfortable things like genocide and rape. What is most important to our analysis here, however, is the extent to which any of the history of the Establishment of the Biblical Nation of Israel can be thought to comport with the demands of Jesus.
This is the Jesus who tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed would allow us to (successfully) order a tree or even a mountain to plant itself in the sea. We do not possess such faith, though of course without faith we cannot hope to enter Jesus’ kingdom. Well, actually, we can hope (and try) but first and foremost we must come to grips with what Jesus demands of us—after we have come to grips with whether or not we believe he can legitimately make such a demand.
The Israelites were faced with a similar challenge with the Conquest of Canaan, an extended episode of openly recorded killing, destruction, and (in effect) rape that has earned in many quarters the name “genocide.” One crucial element is usually left out of the equation, however. The Israelites (in a vein that brings to mind the mustard seed) were ordered in the narrative to behave in such a noble and courageous fashion that the peoples of Canaan would simply flee, not resist. (Whether they might have fared passably well in their resettlement is of course hypothetical—but after all this is a religious question, and God is omnipotent.)
God promised to drive the Canaanites out if the Israelites behaved appropriately. The Israelites (as any people would) behaved to an extent inappropriately. Hence the “genocide,” or at least the bloodshed and destruction that was so often described as if it were to the credit of the Jews’ ancestors. Periodically, the conquering Israelites were even castigated for not engaging with sufficient vigor in bloodshed and destruction. The Conquest happened, but it was not what it was supposed to be.
But what of the “peace” that the nation of Jacob enjoyed when first in Egypt, and then later (episodically, at least) when entrenched in the Promised Land? Did they behave in such manner as to deserve such peace? If we view the matter through the lens of Jesus’ ethical demands, the answer must be “No.” (Of course, for all of us at all times, the answer is “No.”)
Even the idea of the nation (later, “kingdom”) itself would have to fall into question. Jesus tells his followers that concerning themselves only about the welfare of those in this or that “in group” was to be no better than “the heathen,” though to be separate from “the heathen” was an ethical demand that weighed heavily on the Jews.
It would be unfair to the Jews to say that they cared only for their own (though Jesus felt it imperative at times to declare that there were those among the heathen who could rival any Jew in unfettered humanitarianism.) It would also be unfair to pretend that the separation from the surrounding peoples demanded by the Jewish scriptures did not tend ironically to make the Jews act all the more like the heathen.
Yet the aspiration of much of Jewish thought was (and is) to behave so as to capture the admiration, and provide an attraction to, all the peoples of the earth. This sort of millennial vision, however, would rely either on simple divine intervention, or on ethical refinement (and incredible courage) such that the Jewish people in any age might simply awe the peoples (and enlist the divine) in such a way as to make the world clamor to serve Jerusalem and support the Jews. Such visions exist in the Jewish scriptures—they are as open-hearted as any sentiment in any religion, but surely we are in “mustard seed” territory here.
What I am getting at is not meant to alter or challenge our conceptions as mere mortals of Judaism or of Jewish history. Rather, what I am getting at is attempting to show how Jesus’ ethical system is not merely a challenge to aspects of the religion of his birth, but is also a refutation of any theory of Jesus’ ministry as being “religious” in terms of that heritage. In Jesus’ ethical system, the “peace” of Israel as a family or—later—as a nation was non-existent. Let Israel (or, in the instance, Judea) be a wonderful nation with many wonderful people. Let the gentile nations be wonderful nations with many wonderful people. Let Israel call the surrounding gentile nations “wonderful”—even if that were to stretch the truth a bit charitably. None of that would matter in light of Jesus’ ethical demands.
And let historians then or now argue about the gritty aspects of the Conquest. That matter, as well, is irrelevant to Jesus’ ethical teachings. Here we can begin to feel the rub. In the workings-out of Jesus’ teachings, the history of the nation never happened. Who cares who was high priest when the power-rapist-adulterer-murderer “man after God’s heart” David ate the bread he wasn’t supposed to? Who cares which son of the concubine-ravager wife-pimp Abraham was to be the son of the Promise, when any old rock would do?
What matters in any event is what we are called to, and how we respond to what we are called to. What Jesus calls us to do is fulfill the highest aspirations of religion, and in this regard Jesus obviously finds the highest aspirations of the religion of his birth to point in that direction. The necessary dynamic, however, is for us to view all such things through the lens of his demands, not to view his demands through the lens of any belief system.
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