Book Review #1

Lohfink, Gerhard, Jesus and Community, 1984, Fortress Press Publishers.

Gerhard Lohfink is a Professor of the New Testament at the University of Tubingen. He has spent a great deal of his life offering his services to the Catholic Integrated Community. In post-WWII Germany, Lohfink has contributed to the faith base of the citizenry in a country that has been crippled from leadership in the past. Lohfink’s specific passion of reviving his nation’s spirit concerning religion is closely related to the meaning behind the book of discussion. Jesus and Community is a book that is focused on understanding Jesus’ ideas, and commands, for the church to form a contrast society founded on sacrifice and brotherhood. This idea of sacrificing one’s own importance for another is a hard concept for post-Nazi Germany to accept. Lohfink does a good job of showing how Jesus wants the church to be and how there is so much need for growth in this area throughout the globe.

The thesis of the book in question is to examine the body of people who are, ultimately, considered the community of God, exegetical dissection how they are called to interact, and discuss how their actions are used to begin the great pilgrimage of all. The book starts chronologically with how Jesus interacted with the original Israel, that is, the Jewish bloodline. It goes on to discuss Jesus’ formation of the true Israel through discipleship. In the later sections, the author focuses more on the action taken by both the New Testament community surrounding Jesus and the early church in carrying out this community mentality.

Although Jesus does not exclude anyone from salvation, he seems to always focus his attention on Israel (p.17). This statement shows that Jesus believed Israel to be the community in which Godly men and women existed and were called to lead the world to the Father. The author first exhibits this by showing Jesus’ intent to heal this people (healing has a symbolic correlation to salvation-p.14). The reason that Jesus focuses his attention on a single people is so that said people will be “a sign of salvation” (p.28) to the rest of the nations. The statement made in the first line of this paragraph is not impeded by the fact that Israel (the Jews) rejected Jesus’ community. In the next section, the author shows how Jesus’ initial focus on the physical Israel changed focus to the true Israel, the disciples and believers in the teachings of Jesus.

When we see Jesus command his disciples, we begin to see (vicariously through his commands to them) the attributes which Jesus expects from the community of God. Jesus tells his disciples to leave their families and comforts behind in order to pursue a new family that will not leave them in want. This is the true symbol of the forming of the new community of Israel. In this community, there is no hierarchical structure. People are referred to as brother and sister and the word “father” is reserved for one. This is contrary to the Jewish society which refers to their teachers as “abba” or “rabbi” (ironically, this “father” statement is also expressed in the Catholic faith, Lohfink’s affiliation). In this community, people put the interests of their brothers and sisters over themselves and what develops is a contrast society of universal submission which, ultimately, leads to the rest of the world joining into the community.

Jesus further defines his feelings about the community of God in the third section of the book. Jesus’ ideal society was very loving, socialistic, and non-violent in nature. He preached against classes (i.e. there are no longer masters and servants) and he speaks against retaliatory domination (i.e. …turn the other cheek). The author extends these biblical examples to the factual actions of the early church which support its validity.

I enjoyed reading this work and I was enlightened by its exegetical insight. The author’s argument that the church should be so against violence that it should oppose (or at least not participate in) war at all levels really challenges my socially structured thinking. This seems so contradictory to the church of today and I definitely do agree with the author on this level. I had a slight conflict, however, with the author’s opinion that the statement “love your neighbor as yourself” is only referring to persons within the true Israel community. He logically analyzes the word “neighbor” as referring to a particular entity removed from the entirety of humanity. I believe that the word “neighbor” is referring to all of those who are around you. The author justifies his statement later by stating that such love is to be a model and a spark of love for the rest of the world; nonetheless, I do feel a little distant from him on this issue. Please offer some feedback on this topic if you have any biblical insight.