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HRE2O Chapter 6

The Dream of Jesus. A Dream, an individual's or a group's, is a guiding force for one's life, an idealized vision of the future grounded in one's present hopes. Jesus' Dream was the Kingdom of God. The basic notion of the Kingdom of God was part of the Jewish world view with which Jesus was raised. However, Jesus' understanding of the Kingdom went beyond the narrow political and military understanding that had become popular among his people.

Question. Briefly explain the Jewish notion of God as a king.

Answer. Jews recognized God's kingship first in the wonders of creation. Some rabbis taught that the Kingdom of God was present in the Law, in the Torah. It was also clear to the Jews that the Kingdom of God had not yet been fully established because so much evil obviously still existed in the world.

Question. Why did the ancient Jews believe the Messiah would be a great warrior who would establish the Kingdom through military conquest?

Answer. In the centuries following King David's military conquests, the people's expectation of a saviour became bound up with the notion of a new national, political kingship. And by the time of Jesus' ministry, after nearly a hundred years of Roman domination, many Jews expected the Kingdom to begin with a military takeover of the country and the expulsion of the Romans.

Question. What ideas about the Kingdom of God did Jesus clearly reject?

Answer. He rejected the notion of people trying to make him a king or political ruler. Jesus' opposition to violence eliminated the possibility of any sort of military takeover. Jesus' Kingdom has no boundaries and is not a geographical area. Jesus' concept of the Kingdom was not simply a new philosophy or a new plan for social reform.

Jesus' Understanding of God. Jesus' Dream of the Kingdom of God was closely tied to his unique understanding of the nature of God, an understanding reflected in his use of the name Abba for God. This intimate understanding of God shocked many Jews. Jesus saw God as a passionately caring parent whose love for all is unconditional.

Question. With what Aramaic word did Jesus address God? Why did this shock the people of Jesus' time?

Answer. Jesus addressed God with the word Abba, which means "Dad" or "Daddy." Many Jews were shocked by this kind of intimacy because they would not even have considered using God's name in prayer.

Jesus' Understanding of the Command to Love. Jesus saw the Kingdom of God as the rule of God's love over the hearts of people and, consequently, as a new social order based on people's unconditional love for one another. The Jews had always had a deep sense of communal love, based on the Law. But over time, nationalism and legalism had developed among the people and conflicted with their following the command to love.

Question. According to Jesus, what is the meaning of the word conversion?

Answer. A change of heart, a turning from selfishness to openness to God and the call to love.

Question. What does it mean to say that Jesus understood the Kingdom of God as being communal in nature?

Answer. The Reign of God proclaimed by Jesus was not simply a "me and God" situation, a one-to-one relationship between God and an individual person. Rather, Jesus clearly understood the Kingdom of God as implying a relationship not only between God and individuals but among individuals.

Question. Name and briefly describe the two problems that developed among the Jews and conflicted with their following the command to love one another.

• Nationalism. An excessive sense of separation from all other cultures led some Jews to believe that "love your neighbour" referred to Jewish neighbours only.

• Legalism. The Jews' extensive system of religious laws dominated virtually every aspect of life and actually oppressed the people rather than just guiding them.

Question. When does Jesus' Dream of the Kingdom of God become realized?

Answer. When people conform their lives to God's will.

Question. Define sin, both personal and communal.

Answer. Sin is commonly thought of as personal, freely chosen actions that have negative effects on sinners as individuals and on their relationships with others. But sin can also be understood as a social evil that affects all people simply because we live in community with one another. That is, we can say that the effects of the sinful actions of individual people accumulate over time into communal sin, which affects all who are born into it.

Question. In what sense are sin and evil different realities? What kind of evil is not caused by sin?

Answer. Sin refers to freely chosen actions that harm the sinner and others, and the kind of evil associated with and brought about by sin is called moral evil. Another kind of evil, not caused by sin, is expressed in the suffering, pain, and often untimely deaths brought about by natural destruction (such as hurricanes and earthquakes) and also by sickness and disease.

Question. What unique role did Jesus claim for himself in the Kingdom of God?

Answer. He claimed a unique role in God's plan to save humanity from sin.

Question. Cite examples of how Jesus exercised his claim to divine authority.

Answer.

• Jesus' ability to call God "my Father" and to refer to himself as God's Son was wholly unique and allowed him to proclaim the intimacy between God and all people.

• Jesus claimed an authority greater than that of the Law and, in turn, was able to call people to an interpretation of the Law in the light of unlimited love.

• Jesus said he had the authority to forgive sins on God's behalf.

• Jesus' special authority enabled him to enter the Temple and rid it of the dishonest money changers.

Question. What does it mean to say that the Kingdom of God is "right now, but not yet"?

Answer. The Kingdom of God is "right now" in that the power of God was fully present in Jesus and then released to all humanity through Jesus' death, his Resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit. All the power we need to overcome sin is available to us. The Kingdom is "not yet" because God has given people freedom, and people have not completely fulfilled their responsibility of revealing the Kingdom to the world by living compassionate and forgiving lives.