Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

by Marcus J. Borg

For repentance, though done by individuals, was not a turning from individual sins so much as a turning from a certain understanding of God and Israel to a transformed understanding.20 It called for a departure from the established structures that had shaped and nurtured the existence of those who heard Jesus to a new understanding of Israel as a community of inclusive compassion that would allow it to face a future that was largely unknown, with only the promise that ultimately God would vindicate them. Repentance so understood entailed risks. There was not only a risk to the individual who responded, but also a risk to the existence of Israel, for the function of Torah and Temple as institutions preservative of Israel’s cohesiveness would largely disappear if they were subordinated to the paradigm of compassion. Indeed, the perception of the importance of these institutions for Israel’s survival was a fundamental reason for the opposition offered to Jesus by his contemporaries. What seemed threatened by the transformation of these institutions was national identity and national survival itself. Yet what was called for was a course of reckless abandon in a time when the destiny of Israel was at stake. Thus, like the classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus sought to divert his people from a course that was leading to catastrophe. Apparently knowing that the likely outcome would be his death, he went to Jerusalem during the season of Passover, there to make one final ...

The risk of preaching and executing repentance...