The trouble with the ‘inclusive’ Jesus – by Ian Paul

This is a longer guest article re-produced with permission from Ian Paul’s blog Psephizo. I wanted to share with G+T readers as it grapples with the inescapable tension in the gospels between the inclusivity of Jesus and the startlingly exclusive claims he makes. As we approach Holy Week this biblical tension is worth reflecting on. Jon Kuhrt

by Ian Paul

In reading Andrew Atherstone’s biography of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, I was taken by surprise at how consistently Sarah used the term ‘inclusive’ as summarising her understanding of the gospel.

But is the Jesus we meet in the gospels ‘inclusive’ in the way the term is used?

At one level, the obvious answer is ‘yes’, in that the teaching and actions of Jesus appear to cause scandal throughout the gospel narratives because he engages with, speaks to, and heals those whom others regard as beyond the pale. In fact, our phrase ‘beyond the pale’ is a reference to a stake, fence, or boundary marker, and this was highly significant for Jews in the first century.

For many, the major lesson of the biblical narrative was that God had set clear boundaries, to behaviour, worship, ethics, and identity for his people, and it was transgressing those boundaries that had led them into exile—and left them under the oppressive rule of their Roman overlords. Their hope of liberation lay in the restoration of pious observance (something that Luke’s gospel comments on positively at every point), but the problem was that different groups disagreed on where those boundaries should lie. Jesus’ disputes about such boundaries were not about ‘loving Jesus’ against ‘nasty Jews’ but Jesus in an intra-Jewish debate and dispute.

For much of the time, Jesus appears to side with the Jewish ‘liberals’ against Jewish ‘conservatives’, particularly in relation to social boundaries. We can see this happen in a number of directions.

Firstly, Jesus challenges social boundaries in his table fellowship with ‘tax collectors and sinners’ in Mark 2:15–17 (par. Matt 9:10–13; Luke 5:29–32). We need to note that, in contrast to Western practice and values (but in line with assumptions still in many parts of the world today), table fellowship in Second Temple Judaism signalled acceptance and approval. You only ate with those whom you approved of, or who were part of your own in-group. Jesus’ statement “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” frames his mission as directed toward those who were normally excluded.

But Jesus goes further than that. In Luke 7:36–50 Jesus is extravagantly anointed by the “sinful woman”. Note that this episode should not be conflated with the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by Mary in Matt 26 and Mark 14 and John 12; alongside his distinctive emphasis on the importance of Jewish piety, Luke also has a distinctive account of Jesus’ radical ‘inclusion’ in this sense. In response to her actions, Jesus publicly affirms her (“Her sins…are forgiven”) and contrasts her love with the Pharisee’s lack of hospitality. This is not just inclusion, but public vindication.

Again in Luke, Jesus appears to transgress accepted boundaries by picking out Zacchaeus and inviting himself to table fellowship in his home (note that Jesus accepts or creates invitations for others to host him; the only meal at which he is host is the Last Supper). And, shockingly, Jesus’ declaration that “Today salvation has come to this house” affirms Zacchaeus’ belonging before his moral reform is complete (though the reform follows).

These are primarily examples of Jesus transgressing social boundaries. There were very good social and practical reasons for people to dislike and marginalise Zacchaeus, since he was siding with ‘the enemy’ and imposing exploitative taxation. Yet Jesus’ transgression of boundaries extended to questions of ritual purity too.

In John 4:1–42, Jesus engages in conversation with a Samaritan woman. In this encounter, Jesus engages a Samaritan (so an ethnic outsider), a woman (thus crossing a gender boundary), and someone with a morally complex past (though note the debates about this). He reveals his identity (“I who speak to you am he”) in what might be called a striking act of dignifying inclusion. And, within the narrative of the Fourth Gospel, she becomes a model of insight and understanding of who Jesus is—and even takes up an ‘apostolic’ role in going and telling her friends and neighbours (who had shunned her?) all about him, in rather stark contrast to pious, Jewish, Nicodemus of the previous chapter.

In Luke 13:10–17, Jesus encounters the woman bent over for 18 years. He heals her on the Sabbath and calls her “a daughter of Abraham”, the only time this term is used in the New Testament, thus creating an explicit restoration of covenant status to someone marginalised. What is striking about this episode is the centrality of Jesus’ initiatives and actions; this is deliberate and intentional, and not merely responsive.

Perhaps the most striking example is of Jesus healing the woman with a haemorrhage in Mark 5:25–34. Because of her bleeding, she is ritually unclean in normal Jewish terms, yet Jesus not only heals her but addresses her as “Daughter.” The “inclusion” here is both physical and relational, and this is emphasised by Mark’s careful storytelling by which he inserts this episode in the narrative of Jesus’ response to the very public request of a known, respected, named leader in the person of Jairus.

In relation to this, we ought to note how important touch is for Jesus and those he meets. Again, he crosses purity boundaries by touching the man with a skin disease in Mark 1.14–45, and for no obvious reason spits on the ground, makes some mud, and puts it on the eyes of the man born blind in John 9:6. For Jesus, touch matters.

Alongside challenging boundaries of purity, Jesus challenges the sense of Jewish ethnic superiority by engaging with non-Jewish ethnic groups. Galilee is of course labelled ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, which already puts Jesus on the ethnic margins of Jewish identity. Mark records Jesus and the disciples ‘crossing’ the Sea of Galilee, which means frequently landing in the non-Jewish territory of the north-east coast. The Gerasene demoniac is in such a place, hence the presence of pigs.

Alongside such implicit boundary-crossing, there is the explicit. In Matthew 8:5–13//Luke 7:1–10, Jesus responds to the likely non-Jewish centurion (though note that this term was used for a senior officer in general, not necessarily of the Roman army). This gentile is commended by Jesus in the most extravagant terms: “I have not found such faith in Israel.” And it leads to an explicit saying about non-Jews “coming from the east and the west” to the Jewish eschatological feast, signalling very clearly an ethnic widening of God’s people.

In Mark 7:24–30//Matt 15:21–28 Jesus encounters the Syrophoenician or Canaanite woman. The conversation appears to be initially framed in exclusivist terms, but ends with Jesus granting her request and praising her faith. (Note that we need to read this account carefully; all too often it is framed as nasty narrow Jewish Jesus having to be taught a lesson in inclusivity by a pagan woman!)

And supremely, in Luke 10:25–37 (parable of the Good Samaritan), in response to a question about the meaning of Torah, Jesus’ parable holds up as the moral exemplar a Samaritan—reversing ethnic expectations.

And all of this fits with Jesus’ own programmatic teaching. In Luke 4:18–19, Jesus sets out what is sometimes called the Nazareth manifesto, citing Book of Isaiah 61—and apparently passing over the references from his source text to judgement. Jesus mission is to offer good news to the poor, freedom for captives, and sight for the blind—what appear to be a mission statement of inclusion and restoration.

So, job done, and case proved. Jesus and the gospel is all about inclusion. Except…

Except that—that is only half the story, and a half that cannot be taken in isolation from its counterpoint.

It turns out that, if we actually read the whole gospel, rather than selecting those bits which fit our agenda and turning them into sound bites, Jesus is rather exclusive.

He makes offensively exclusive claims about his own identity and his unique relationship with God, which is tracked through the conflicts with ‘the Jews’ (meaning either the Jewish leadership, in particular in the south, or Jews who had believed in him and now challenge him) in John 8. It reaches its high point in the Last Supper discourse in John 14:6, where Jesus declares to his disciples: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” surely the clearest and most exclusive claim in all the gospels.

But it is of a piece with what he has said previously and publicly; “I am the resurrection and the life” he tells Martha in John 11.25—claiming not only to be the answer to the human question of mortality, but the one to fulfil Israel’s hope of renewal and restoration (Ezek 37). Or in the preceding chapter, where he states, in his conflict with the Pharisees following the healing of the man born blind: “I am the gate… whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:7–9). All others are thieves! Salvation is defined in relation to him, and him alone.

Within the Synoptics, we find similar language in the so-called ‘Johannine bolt in the Synoptic blue’ in Matthew 11:27//Luke 10:22. Only the Son reveals the Father; knowledge of God is mediated uniquely through Jesus.

These exclusive claims about himself cannot be disconnected from the exclusive and demanding claims Jesus makes for his followers.

Jesus’ rejection by many is indicative of the difficulty of the path to salvation. In his first major block of teaching (the first of five, Moses-like) in Matthew, the climax of his teaching is about how difficult and narrow the path of salvation, and how wide and easy is the path to ‘destruction’:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matt 7.13–14)

Not very inclusive! Even those who look as though they might be disciples, doing what Jesus commanded, are in danger of being told: ‘Away with you!’ And that might include those who say ‘Lord, I am being inclusive just like you were!’

All this comes after the demanding teach of the previous chapters where, far from being more ‘liberal’, Jesus is emphatically more demanding. Not only must we obey every jot and tittle of the law, outward obedience is not enough. We must be obedient in our hearts, not merely in our hands, so the demands of the law are elevated, not reduced.

Here Jesus is very much siding with Jewish ‘conservatives’ against Jewish ‘liberals’. This is most evident in his teaching about divorce in Mark 10 and Matt 19, where he sides with the stricter school of Shammai over against the more liberal school of Hillel.

The reason for this is that the free and gracious invitation of Jesus makes demands on us. That is why I think John Barclay’s formulation of grace in Paul is so vital: grace is unconditioned, in that it is surprisingly offered to all, but it is not unconditional. It makes demands of us, and when we do not respond to those demands, we are in danger of missing out on the offer of life.

This observation is actually nothing new: the popular idea of ‘unconditional love of God’ which makes no demands on us is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace’.

So, as Jesus bursts onto the scene in Galilee, Mark sums up his message as:

“The time has come, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1.15)

This is good news, since it is God’s just and holy rule in his kingdom which is the only answer to all our hopes and prayers and longings. But it is demanding news, because it calls us to a radical change of life.

And we find these stark warnings all through the teaching of Jesus. In Luke 13:1–5, when Jesus is told about the appalling and abusive slaughter of Galileans by Pilate, far from expressing shock or compassion, Jesus turns it into a startling warning: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish!” Gentle Jesus, meek and mild—as if!

When he heals the man by the pool of Bethesda, he sends him away with a similarly stark warning: “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). Have you tried using that as part of your own prayer ministry counselling?

To the woman caught in adultery, the apparently ‘inclusive’ comment “Is there no-one here to condemn you?…Neither do I” is followed by the demand: “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8.11). The manuscript evidence for this narrative being part of John’s gospel is weak, and many think the language is Lukan. But it is included here because it is so characteristic of Jesus—at once boundary breaking and ‘inclusive’, whilst at the same time demanding repentance and moral purity.

For Jesus, acceptance is not moral indifference.

The clearest challenge to the idea of the ‘inclusive’ Jesus actually comes in one of the texts most often cited in its defence.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5.30–32)

Many would say that we engage with the excluded, the outsiders, and the marginalised, because we want to affirm them, we want to value them, and confirm that we see the image of God in all of humanity. (Some would go further, and say that we see the face of Jesus in the poor and outsider, but they do so only by misreading of Matt 25 and the sheep and the goats. Jesus says he is present to others in his disciples, not in the poor in general.)

But Jesus says something startling different: I am spending time with these people on the margin because they are sick and need healing, and I am the spiritual doctor. They are sinners who must repent, and I am the only one who can enable that to happen, to bring them the forgiveness and power to change that they need. Have you ever tried saying that to those on the margins that you encounter? “Welcome to our lunch club. We have invited you because you are sick and are sinners!” I don’t suppose it would go down well!

And, again, all this is entirely consonant with Jesus’ teaching. In the parable about the eschatological wedding banquet in Matthew 22:1–14, there seems to be a broad and inclusive invitation—yet a guest without proper attire is cast out. Inclusion is offered widely—but not unconditionally. In Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43, the parable of the weeds and wheat), there is a final sorting between the righteous and the lawless—as there is in just about all Jesus’ teaching. Similarly, in Matthew 25:1–13, the parable of the ten virgins, fully half are told “I do not know you” and the door is closed shut. Readiness is required; those not ready are shut out.

So in Jesus we are presented with what appears to us to be a paradox. Throughout his ministry, he constantly offers a wide invitation—sinners, outsiders, and the marginalised are welcomed. But at the very same time, he set very narrow terms for acceptance. Entry into the longed-for kingdom requires repentance, allegiance, and transformation. There is real possibility of exclusion, even for the apparently religious and ‘inclusive’!

Jesus is not “exclusive” in the sense of restricting who may come—but he is exclusive about the basis on which people may enter and demanding about the response required. We cannot call on the example of Jesus to support one side or the other; in him the widest of invitations and highest of demands are held together at every point.

The main trouble with the ‘inclusive’ Jesus as mostly presented is that he is a fabrication—something created in our own imagination, often for ‘political’ reasons (in the broadest sense) and imposed on the text of Scripture. Without mention of the exclusion he warns of and the demand he makes, this Jesus bears no relation to the Jesus of the gospels or of Christian theology. And he is all too often used to close down debate, exclude others, and by-pass any theological thinking.

This article originally appeared on Ian Paul’s blog Psephizo