Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London, SCM Press, 1979), pp. 158-162. 

To his contemporaries it was a staggering phenomenon that he did not shrink from dining with the irreligious; indeed he did so at his own initiative, whether the meal was at home (Mark 2.15 parr.; Luke 15.1f.) or abroad (Luke 19.5). Numerous gospel texts reflect directly (Mark2.16f.¹⁰⁴ parr.; Matt. 11.19 par.; Luke 15.1f.; 19.8) or indirectly (Matt. 20.1-16; 21.28-32; Luke 7.41-43; 15.4-7, 8-10, 11-32) the powerful impression this made on contemporary Israel and the intense reactions to it: the shock and resentment of the religious (Mark2.16 parr.;¹⁰⁵ Matt. 11.19 par.; Luke 19.7; cf. Luke 15.25-32), the sheer delight of the irreligious (Luke 19.9; cf. Mark 2.19 parr.).

The intensity of the reactions becomes fully intelligible only in the light of the socio-religious situation of the time. Here we shall touch on the two main points: the significance of table fellowship and the division between ‘the righteous’ and ‘sinners’.

Dining in common established among its participants a special bond, table fellowship, violation of which was rank betrayal (Ps 41.10). Likewise, exclusion from dining together signified repudiation of social ties generally. Social lines and associations were accordingly sharper and firmer than in our world. Moreover, from age-old tradition table fellowship had had a role in sacral ceremony (Ex. 18.12; 24.11; I Kings 3.15) and even in everyday life maintained a sacral character, first of all through the blessing at the meal's outset and its responding 'amen'.¹⁰⁶

It was through table fellowship that the ritual distinction of clean and unclean (katharos/akathartos, Heb.: tahor/tame) and the moral distinction of the righteous and sinners (dikaioi/'amartoloi, Heb.: saddiqim/resaim) found concrete social expression. Since Gentiles were unclean (Deut. 14.21) and uncleanness was contagious, Jews were not to eat with them (Jub. 22.16). But the rule applied by Jews to Gentiles was also applied by the religious to the irreligious within Judaism. The possibilities of table fellowship contracted in accord with how one concretely defined the irreligious. Inasmuch as false teachers were irreligious, seduced and possessed by demons, and unclean,¹⁰⁷ they and their followers were excluded. For at least some associations of the religious elite this practically meant that only their own membership were possible table fellows.

What held on a ritual basis held also on a moral basis. In fact, the ritual and moral orders tended to interpenetrate. But it was specifically on a moral basis that table fellowship with publicans (telonai, Aram.: mokesin) was excluded. Publicans were not levitically unclean; they were simply despised as immoral,¹⁰⁸ 'Sinners', in the phrase 'publicans and sinners' (probably coined by Jesus' critics, cf. Mark 2.15f. par.; Matt. 11.19 Far.; cf. Luke 15.1) included public and/or professional sinners (like prostitutes, cf. Matt. 21.31f., 'publicans and prostitutes'). But the tendency of Torah piety was to regard the ordinary run of men ('oi loipoi ton anthropon), Luke 18.11) as greedy or dishonest or adulterers,¹⁰⁹

The distinctions of clean and unclean and of righteous and sinners shaped and permeated the self-understanding of Judaism. To subvert these distinctions was not a breach of religious etiquette but a challenge to the social order, Jesus, as we have seen, sharply relativized a central aspect of the first distinction ('Nothing that goes into a man from outside can defile him'); and by admitting the unconverted, public, professional sinner to his table fellowship (Luke 19.5) he shattered the social form of the second.

The exclusion of the morally evil from the social life of the morally good was not at all akin to Victorian respectability. It was a principle deeply rooted in the imposing religious and moral tradition of the nation. The legacy of Torah and prophets had burned into the consciousness of post-exilic Israel the absolute incompatibility of good and evil. The God of Israel had never been tolerant: 'For I, Yahweh, thy God, am a jealous God ...' (Ex. 20.5). This motif of exclusive claim went hand in hand with Yahweh's moral will: 'I will not acquit (‘asdiq: justify, pronounce innocent) the wicked' (Ex. 23.7c). 'Yahweh', declared Nahum, 'is a jealous God and avenging' (Nahum 1.2): 'Yahweh is slow to anger and of great might and Yahweh will by no means clear the guilty' (wenaqqe lo'yenaqqeh YHWH, Nahum 1.3). For Judaism the bottom of the barrel morally was that warped judgment which contrary to the word of God (e.g. Ex. 23.7c; Nahum 1.3) acquitted the wicked and cleared the guilty, a nadir of perversity figuring in the accusation the Code of Damascus leveled against Israel:

They pronounce the guilty innocent (wayyasdiqu rasa` = justify, acquit the wicked man) and pronounce the innocent guilty (wayyarsi`u .saddiq = condemn the righteous man, CD 1.19).

This simply echoed a theme of traditional wisdom:

He who justifies the wicked (masdiq rasa`) and he who condemns the righteous ( umarsia' saddiq ) are both alike an abomination to Yahweh (Prov. 17.15).

Now, if this religious and moral economy is radically upset in the Pauline account of God as one 'who justifies (dikaiounta = acquits, makes righteous) the ungodly' (Rom. 4.5),¹¹⁰ this has its concrete presupposition in Jesus' revolutionary contact and communion with sinners.

We should recall the historical (religionsgeschichtlich) setting. Repentance and conversion were important traditional themes in Judaism, regularly brought to mind by the synagogue and finding regular cultic expression in the temple. The new element in the preaching of the Baptist was his presupposition that at the threshold of judgment the ordinary economy of Mosaic religion did not suffice. God called all Israel to repent, to confess its sins, to seal its confession by a rite of washing. But the Baptist maintained the classic biblical structure of repentance: conversion first, communion second (Matt. 3.7-10 par.; Luke 3.10-14; cf. Antiquitates 18.117).

The novum in the act of Jesus was to reverse this structure: communion first, conversion second. His table fellowship with sinners implied no acquiescence in their sins, for the gratuity of the reign of God cancelled none of its demands. But in a world in which sinners stood ineluctably condemned, Jesus’ openness to them was irresistible. Contact triggered repentance; conversion flowered from communion. In the tense little world of ancient Palestine, where religious meanings were the warp and woof of the social order, this was a potent phenomenon, comparable in our world, perhaps, to the first public responses to a charismatic political leader.

Is it possible at this point to feel our way into the horizons and intentions of the historical Jesus?

First, the act of initiating table fellowship with sinners was not an erratic development calling for a special effort to relate it in some intelligible way to Jesus’ proclamation. On the contrary, it was the perfect translation of proclamation into action, the perfect counterpart in action to Jesus’ eschatological macarisms (Matt 5.3ff. par.). Word and act illuminate one another; and Jesus' table fellowship with sinners confirms the characteristic motifs we have associated with the reign of God. It was free and now and related to the restoration of Israel. Nothing, in fact, could have dramatized the gratuity and the present realization of God’s saving act more effectively that this unheard of initiative toward sinners. Nor could anything have been more fundamental to the eschatological restoration of Israel.

For, what exactly was at stake in this initiative toward sinners and fellowship with them? The answer is twofold. First, the forgiveness and conversion of sinners was at stake. That this is how Jesus conceived the issue emerges with force and clarity from historical analysis of the parables by which he defended his actions (e.g. Matt. 20.1-16; 21.28-32; Luke 7.41-43: 15.4-7, 8-10, 11-32).111 But there was a second factor. The sinner won back to God was also restored to his rightful family, Israel. Salvation belonged to Zacchaeus, saud Jesus, ‘for he, too, is a son of Abraham!' It would seem that in entering into table fellowship with sinners Jesus was intent on a mission of reconciliation, not only between God and man, the good (dikaioi/saddiqim) and the wicked (`amartoloi/resa`im) in Israel. Nothing could have been more fundamental to the eschatological restoration of Israel that the seemingly impossible feat of healing the division between the good and the wicked without forfeiting the claims of the moral order.

But following Jesus’ extraordinary impact on sinners (Mark 2.14f. parr.; Luke 7.37f.; 19.6,8) the great problem of this work of reconciliation became the winning over of the good, the innocent, the pious (dikaioi/saddiqim), so named not ironically or sarcastically, but in frank acknowledgment of their moral performance. The parables defending Jesus' initiative to sinners call for interpretation not only as theme (mercy) but as performance (defence). It should be emphasized that this was not the defence of an embattled man concerned with his own honour nor was it a polemical put-down of his critics. It was above all an appeal, one repeatedly renewed and recast, designed not to humiliate the opposition, but to win it over. Such was the intended thrust of the parables of the Sons, of the Two Debtors, of the Lost Sheep, of the Lost Drachma, and, above all, of the Prodigal Son, where the appeal to the dikaioi is particularly evident and poignant. The story ends on this note of appeal, with the words of the father to the elder son: 'But we had to celebrate and be glad, because your brother was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found' (Luke 15.32). How the elder son would respond to this is left open and undecided; it was up to the hearer, the dikaios/saddiq, to decide this matter for himself. Successful or not, Jesus’ appeal to the righteous was a persistent effort; and it was part and parcel of an eschatological task of reconciliation (Mal. 3.24) aimed at re-establishing the tribes of Jacob (Sir. 48.10; Isa. 49.6).

Notes

104. Mark 2.15 fits so awkwardly with what follows that it is more likely borrowed from tradition than devised by the redactor. J. Jeremias, Gleichnisse, 225 n. 1; ET, Parables, 227 n. 92, may be correct in conjecturing that it originally introduced an independent story and was set in its present place on the basis of a catchword (telones, v. 16). If so, the original sense of 2.15 indicates Jesus' reception of 'many publicans and sinners' in his own house.

105. The point of the question, as well as its tone, is definable on the basis of socio-religious context, i.e., the continuum which made the master and his disciples somehow responsible for one another. J. Jeremias, Gleichnisse, 132; ET, Parables, 132, comments: 'When the Pharisees and scribes asked why Jesus accepted such people as table companions, they were not expressing surprise but disapproval; they were implying that he was an irreligious man, and warning his followers not to associate with him'. In Verkundigung, 119f.; ET, NT Theology, 118, Jeremias draws up a 'scale of rejection' from synoptic data: 'incomprehension (Luke 15.29f.); dismay (Luke 15.2; 19.7; Matt. 20.11); abuse (Matt. 11.19 par. Luke 7.34); charge of blasphemy (Mark 2.7); invitation to the disciples to part company with this corruptor (Mark 2.16)? With the exception of the charge of blasphemy, every text adduced in this scale goes back to the issue of Jesus' scandalous dining with sinners!

106. J. Jeremias, Abendmahlsworte, 224; ET, Eucharistic Words, 232.

107. See O. B6cher, Diimonenfurcht und Diimonenabwehr. Ein Beltrag zur Vorgeschichte der christlichen, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1970, 144f.

108. J. Jeremias, Verkundigung, 113; ET, NT Theology, 111.

109. In attempting to recover the socio-religious situation in Palestine of the time of Jesus we should neither identify notorious sinners (the `amartoloi of Mark 2.15 parr., 16 parr., 17 parr., etc.) with the ordinary run of men nor disregard the continuity which the religious elite considered to exist between them (cf. ‘oi loipoi ton anthropon whom the Pharisee of Luke 18.11 depreciates and condemns; cf. John 7.49).

110. The precise contrast intended here is not between justification as acquittal (Ex. 23.7; Nahum 1.3) and as transformation (Rom. 4.5), but between the supposition that man's repentance is prior to God's acquittal (Ex. 23.7; Nahum 1.3) and the affirmation of the priority of God's (transformative) acquittal (Rom. 4.5).

111. SeeJ. Jeremias, Gleichnisse, 124-35; ET, Parables, 124-36.