Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Certainly Jesus did not reject the state as an institution, but he did not believe that one could serve the Gospel through the state and with the state’s aid, or by imitating political forms of rule. When he was asked the tricky and at the time highly dangerous question whether a Jew was permitted to pay taxes to the emperor, he answered, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). The emperor’s right as a guarantor of order is acknowledged, but in this antithetical parallelism he by no means has rights equal to God’s. What most translations give as “and” is in Greek an adversative kai; the correct translation would be: “Give [indeed] to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, but give to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17).

Jesus knows that the state, with its own structures of rule, is necessary. But the people of God is not a state. Therefore Jesus had no regard for the Zealots, who counted on violence and terror to make of Israel a state in the sense of the Psalms of Solomon. Of course, he probably did not think much of the Roman emperor and his ilk either. He was rather skeptical in their regard. According to Mark 10:42-45, Jesus said:

You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

These words show that Jesus regarded contemporary “world politics” realistically and soberly. He saw through the arrogance of the powerful and the manipulative mechanisms of their political propaganda (cf. Luke 22:25). They derived their self-satisfaction from the exploitation of those under them. “You know that this is so,” he says. But at the same time, Mark 10:42-45 shows how Jesus imagined the transformation: it has to come as a silent revolution from below, from a completely different perspective, from an attitude that does not seek its own benefit but that of others. This is the attitude Christian tradition calls “humility.”

What is unique in the small discourse composition in Mark 10:42-45 is that in it the disciples are set in direct contrast to the nations and their rulers. But let me say again that the purpose of this is not to condemn all human forms of government. Power is not denounced here as something evil in itself. Jesus by no means questions the necessity of the state, but his interest is not in improving confidence in the government. It is only in God’s new society, which is beginning something unheard of, something altogether new, in the midst of the old world.

This new thing extends to the utmost depths out of which society constantly recreates itself. Mark 10:42-45 summarizes it in the simple call no longer to seek to rule but instead to serve. “Serve” here should not be read in a bland and colorless sense. In its original meaning the word signified nothing other than waiting on tables. It was based on daily table service, which in the ancient world was the burden of slaves, servants, or free women. It was above all at table that the contrast between those more highly placed, who reclined comfortably, and the slaves or women who had to serve was most keenly felt. In Greek and Roman culture serving in the house was regarded as menial. It was by no means seldom at ancient banquets that the guests would wipe their greasy fingers on the hair of the slaves serving them.¹⁴ “How could a human being be happy while having to serve anyone at all?” asked the Sophist Callicles in the Platonic dialogue Gorgias (491c). So it is no accident that Jesus shapes the new society he is beginning with his disciples at table. This is the starting point for the true revolution; here begins the genuinely classless society.

So Jesus does not fight for the correct politics or the right form of the state but instead for fraternity and sorority in the people of God. He struggles not for power and for freedom from Rome but for the overturning and remaking of what power is. And that is certainly a political agenda. He knows that peace and justice, feeding on true fear of God, must grow from below.

Jesus certainly desires the revolution—he wants “new wine in new wineskins” (Mark 2:22)—but a completely different kind of revolution. The usual sort of revolution requires masses of people and must happen quickly. Jesus counts on the leaven that, almost unnoticeably, raises the whole mass of dough (Matt 13:33), and he compares the coming of the reign of God to a mustard seed, which is very tiny and yet grows into a great shrub (Mark 4:30-32), in the version in the Sayings Source even into a World Tree (Matt 13:31-32 // Luke 13:18-19).