Lecture 8 Outline

Galilean Journey:  The Gospel Matrix

1. Chapter 4: The Galilee Experience - Jesus the Galilean: A Borderland Reject
   Elizondo develops various points on the significance of Galilee: 
1. The geographic-symbolic meaning of Galilean identity
1. Matthew 4:15 “Galilee of the Gentiles” [“heathen Galilee”] – see also I Maccabees 5:15, 2
2. Mark 14:70 “You are a Galilean, are you not?” (bystanders statement to Peter
3. John 7:41, 52 no prophet or messiah could come from Galile
4. Acts 2:7 “They asked in utter amazement, ‘Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?’
2. Intimacy of Jesus the Galilean with God and all persons (especially the rejected) – Jesus’ invitation that all people have common intimacy with God the Father (expressed in a powerful way in his table fellowship with all
3. 3transition from Galilean ministry to Jerusalem ministry
1. Luke 9:51 “he firmly resolved to proceed toward Jerusalem” – “travel section” in Luke 9:51 – 19:27) where Jesus moves from the Galilean ministry to Jerusalem – see also Luke 23:5, 24:6, Acts 13:31, all of which relate Galilee as the starting point of the ministry that culminated in Jerusale
2. women who followed with Jesus from Galilee (Luke 8:1-3, 23:49, 55; Mark 15:41; Matthew 27:55)
4. Galilee as the place where the risen Christ is to be reunited and reconciled with his disciples – NOTE: this is true in Mark and Matthew but not in Luke and John – see MK 14:28, 16:7; MT 26:32, 28:7, 10, 16
2. Chapter 5: Fulfillment in Jerusalem - the reject who rejects rejection
1. “It is not sufficient to do good and avoid evil: the disciple must do good and struggle against evil” (p. 72). According to Elizondo, the challenge to the authorities of Jerusalem was a natural outgrowth of the Galilean ministry.
2. Thus Jesus confronts the Temple elite (pp.73-74): “My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples, but you have made it a robbers’ den (Mark 11:17 and parallels). This citation combines Isaiah 56:7, which announces universalism, and Jeremiah 7:9-11, which condemns the masking of exploitation for self gain and the attempt to “purify” injustice through being “pure” in ritual – in other words, Jesus condemns divisiveness and exclusivisms and demands that religion build bonds of universalism
3. Jesus is rejected and abandoned by all, but rejects no one – note that resurrection appearance accounts are all stories of reconciliation
4. triumph of nonviolence
5. his death “unveils” blindness of human division (and literally sunders the temple veil)
3. Chapter 6: Beyond All Borders - Pentecost and the new universalism
1. Encounter with the risen Lord changed people (strongest evidence we have for the resurrection is the changed lives of the disciples) – this encounter expressed in table fellowship (not a new law, but a new celebration)
2. today Christians are to experience this is the Eucharist – Mexican Americans often experience it in their fiestas
3. new Pentecost announced by Galilean rejects
4. Gentile controversy and early struggles of Christians enabled them to extend this fellowship to Jewish priests, Samaritans, Ethiopians, Romans, slaves, women, Gentiles, etc. – see Acts 6:1-6 as example of struggles to overcome cultural biases