Who are "the poor" and where do they fit into Jesus' basileia message?

• "poor" (penes) v. "destitute" (ptochos)
• reactions of the non-destitute to Jesus' message
• case studies:
• Beatitudes
• Laborers in the Vineyard
• Good Samaritan
• Persistent Widow
• Lord's Prayer (bread, debts)  

What are the Political Ramifications of Jesus' Enactment of the Basileia?

• parables (e.g., the persistent widow, the pharisee and the publican, the 10 maidens; see handouts)
• healings
• the Syro-Phoenician woman (recall from last week)
• effects of the religious ideology regarding the conjunction of sickness & sin in a society where there exists chronic malnutrition due to inequitable distribution of wealth and excessive taxation
• Jesus rejects this conjunction; faith heals
• exorcisms
• power of God or Satan?
• the cure of the Gadarene demoniac as the revolutionary's dream (Mk 5; recall from last week)
• Jesus' open table
• bread & fish (Mk 6:33-44, 8:1-10; Jn 6:1-15, 21:9, 12-13)
• what goes in (Gospel of Thomas 14:3; Mk 7:14-15; Mt 15:10-11; Acts 10:14b, 11:8b)
• basileia & children (Gospel of Thomas 22:1-2; Mk 10:13-16; Mt 18:3; Jn 3:1-5, 9-10)
• Temple & Jesus (Gospel of Thomas 71; Mk 14:55-59, 15:29-32a; Acts 6:11-14; Jn 2:18-22)
• drinking old wine (Gospel of Thomas 47:3; Lk 5:39)
• patches & wineskins (Gospel of Thomas 47:4; Mk 2:21-22)
• hating one's family (Gospel of Thomas 55:1-2a, 101; Lk 14:25-26
• Jesus' true family (Gospel of Thomas 99; Mk 3:19b-21, 31-35; 2 Clement 9:11; Gospel of the Ebionites 5)
• the feast (Gospel of Thomas 64:1-2; Lk 14:15-24)
• fasting and wedding (Gospel of Thomas104; Mk 2:18-20)
• eating with sinners (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224, 2 v ii, lines 1-7; Mk 2:13-17a; Gospel of the Ebionites 1c; Lk 15:1-2)
• charges against Jesus which validate the historicity of these three aspects of his praxis: sorcery, blasphemy, enticing Israel to apostasy, insurrection (e.g., Sanhedrin 43a; Josephus, Antiquities)
• the fact of the crucifixion by Rome (e.g., Tacitus, Annals 15.44)

Was Jesus' basileia an "Otherworldly" Kingdom?

• In what sense was Jesus' basileia one "not of this world" (cf. Jn 18:36)?
• Liturgical re-enactment of Jesus' "open commensality" -- does it convey the depth of Jesus' message & praxis? Does it alter the message and/or praxis?