From "The Great Commandment" by Robert Ellsberg
The fact that Jesus's preaching and practice provoked opposition is one of the consistent motifs of the Gospels. Some of this undoubtedly came from Jesus's challenge to the status quo. Prophets have a habit of making enemies, especially among the powerful. But a good deal of his opposition evidently came from sincere fellow Jews who took their faith seriously. They accused Jesus of being casual or lax in observing religious laws; of violating purity codes; of consorting with sinners, outsiders, or unclean persons.
Jesus himself seems to have deliberately triggered such reactions—conspicuously reaching out to people of suspect reputation, invoking the examples of Samaritans and other “outsiders” as examples of true devotion, constantly emphasizing the practice of mercy as the highest meaning of the law. While this undoubtedly offended certain Good Religious People, it was hardly a rejection of Jewish faith. Jesus stood squarely in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets who excoriated the notion that mere obedience to the law or correct liturgical practices were a substitute for justice or the practice of mercy.
When Jesus describes the “great commandment” as loving God and loving one's neighbor (on these “depend all the law and the prophets”), he is standing squarely in the Pharisaic school of Hillel.
Even “the scribe” who had put the question to him responds approvingly: “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; and to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:32–33).
Nevertheless, if Jesus's differences were not with “the Jews” or Pharisees, as such, there is no doubt that he publicly challenged certain attitudes: legalism, hypocrisy, exclusivism, chauvinism, self-righteousness.
These are not singularly “Jewish” or “Pharisaic” attitudes. They were—and are—among the particular temptations or occupational hazards of those who take their religion most seriously. In his parable of the “Good Samaritan,” it is not by accident that Jesus highlights a despised “outsider” in the role of hero, while observing that it is a “priest and a Levite” who pass the injured man on the side of the road. It is, however, to miss the whole meaning of the story when Christians somehow appropriate to themselves the role of the hero, in contrast with the “hypocritical Jews.” In telling such stories, Jesus was, of course, addressing an audience entirely comprised of fellow Jews. In a Christian retelling of the story, the terms would have to be transposed: thus, it would be a bishop, a doctor of divinity, or a canon lawyer who pass the man on the side of the road. And as for the “Samaritan”—a name that no longer evokes a shudder of distaste—we would have to select a different candidate from among our own categories of despised outsider.
