Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

And it is precisely this crucial feature of the genre that is missing from Jesus’ proclamation. We find nothing of the sort with him. One must read the utopias of the modern age to understand clearly how little Jesus describes the reign of God. He does not picture how Israel will look under God’s rule: how people will live together, how families will look, how society itself will look, how things will be when God alone is sovereign. There is almost only a single image he uses for the reign of God: the common table, the shared meal (Matt 8:11; Luke 14:15-24). And even that does not remain merely an image, because Jesus already makes it a reality among his disciples and with toll collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15).

Jesus does not project any imaginative scenes of the future society. He acts. He gathers disciples around him, brings them together around a table, and practices with them the table customs of the reign of God: that one should not choose the best place but instead wait to see what place one is given (Luke 14:7-11); that the one who wants to be first must be the servant of all (Luke 22:24-27); that disciples should wash each other’s feet, just as he has done—that is, do the dirty work for others (John 13:14-15); that disciples must forgive each other seventy-seven times, that is, always and without ceasing (Matt 18:21-22); and that they should look out not for the splinter in a sister’s or brother’s eye but for the beam in their own (Matt 7:3-5).

Jesus does not portray a utopian “realm of freedom,” but he leads those who follow him into freedom. He does not describe the condition in which all alienation will be miraculously overcome, but he says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24). This is how Jesus projects society under the rule of God. He sets no preconditions: the reign of God is already beginning; its powers are already at work; it gives a new way of being together, even a new society, but not one that needs to be dreamed up. It takes place in the daily companionship of the one table, in common discipleship, in daily reconciliation. It happens out of joy in what God is doing. And it is by no means the case that this coming of the reign of God happens purely within. No, sick people are being healed, demonic forces are being overcome, the hungry are being filled, and enemies are being reconciled.

Jesus did not participate in preparations for a revolt against the Roman occupation (chap. 11). He and his disciples went about the country barefoot and unarmed and without any equipment so as to distance themselves from the Zealots’ preparations for war (Matt 10:10). This again makes it clear that life in the reign of God has political consequences and social dimensions; it inserts itself into real life. It is already concrete, and for that very reason it has no need of the concreteness of a utopia.

Utopian Faith in Progress

When Thomas More’s Utopia was printed in 1516, Christopher Columbus had already discovered America. Nicolaus Copernicus had probably written his Commentariolus in 1509; in it he proved that the planets revolve around the sun. The Age of Discovery had begun, and it opened up completely new perspectives. The English statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon published his own utopia, Nova Atlantis, in 1626. It too took place far away, on a lonely island, Bensalem.

In Nova Atlantis a society had been established that placed the highest value on scientific research. The island of Bensalem is practically a single institution for research. It includes “collections, laboratories, botanical gardens, places for the cultivation and manipulation of seeds, parks for animals and birds, high towers for meteorological and astronomical observations.”³ Science is to rely only on observation and planned research.

Thomas More had already anticipated technical advances, but it was Francis Bacon who first put science, technology, and the systematic investigation of nature at the center of his utopian society. He projected it as “a perfect scientific society.” The goal of the research and technical innovations was for him “a better life for all.”⁴

Since Bacon, no utopia can lack faith in reason and progress. It is true that beginning in the twentieth century there are also negative projections, “dystopias” that warn against the baser aspects of progress: consider only Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). The number of these dystopias is growing. But the majority of utopias, now as ever, assign great and even decisive significance for the advancement of humanity to science and technology. On the whole, the utopias project an image of a progressive society in which, through human reason, learning lessons from history, and the application of science and technology, a better and easier life for all will be made possible.