Jesus' Attitude towards People of Other Faiths
 Dhyanchand Carr

Introduction

Asia is home to all the major religions of the world. Most Christians who are a minority in the whole of Asia believe it is their task to make the whole of Asia Christian. This popular belief is kept alive by many fundamentalist evangelistic associations. The dawn of the third millennium rekindled the hope that at the very beginning it would usher in the much awaited "coming of Christ" coupled with the long cherished belief that only Christians would be saved. This is not just held at the popular level, but even by great theologians like Karl Barth. The turn of the last century saw a large number of evangelistic organizations mushrooming, almost all of them supported by funds from the West, especially the US.

The exclusivistic attitude of Christians has evoked Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist backlashes. Wherever these faiths are in the majority the backlash assumes political dimensions [e.g. in Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Buddhist); Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan (Muslim); and India (Hindu)].

The ecumenical movement and theological scholarship outside of the decidedly conservative perspective have for well over the latter half of the last century been advocating an inclusive understanding of God and the world of religions. Yet we seem to be making little progress in convincing the regular churchgoer or in persuading evangelistic missions to adopt a different way of proclaiming the gospel which is inclusive. The urge to preach the gospel derives not from a desire to share God's love but from the threat of damnation of unbelievers.

All this is well known among those who are part of the ecumenical movement and so are committed to the ecumenical agenda. "Then why should we spend time on this well worn theme, yet once again?" This indeed is a legitimate question. Proclaim we must, but how? This still remains a not-so-well answered question, especially for those who believe that their commitment derives from our Lord's own Great Commission and from the Bible at large. In re-opening the issue, I hope we could draw attention to a neglected area of the gospel story, i.e. the inclusive attitude of Jesus of Nazareth and his theological and eschatological views, which are relevant to the theme.

There has been a good deal of discussion on Christological reformulations that would provide a basis for an inclusive understanding. John Hick, Paul Knitter S.J. Samartha, Wesley Ariarajah, Israel Selvanayagam have been very articulate, to mention only a few contemporary scholars. The well known Asian missiologist, Raymund Funk, has been advocating dissociating proclamation of the gospel from the goal orientation to baptize and add members to the church, but simply to share the Good News of God's love made known in Jesus.

Rarely, anyone, however, has cared to elucidate Jesus' own views, barring discussion on whether Jesus believed himself to be God's only begotten Son. Of course Jesus' own God-centredness and his consistent effort of not wanting to be at the centre of attention has been recognized. The famous Bultmanian statement "the Proclaimer became the Proclaimed" has a lot of truth in it. The need for shifting the emphasis to God and God's purposes away from excessive preoccupation on the finality of the Christian understanding of Jesus, has also been discussed a great deal.

Dr. Israel Selvanayagam, in Biblical Insights on Inter Faith Dialogue, attempts to exegete the Great Commission, and the "I am" saying of the fourth gospel in an inclusive way, but in a piecemeal fashion and quite insufficiently. No attempt has been made, I dare say to articulate cogently a theology of Jesus for living the Gospel in a pluralist world. Our attempt at first, shall therefore be to try to elucidate Jesus' attitude towards the Samaritans and Gentiles of his day. Then, on the basis of his attitude towards people of other faiths, we shall try to locate his self-understanding of himself as the Human One and the meaning of the "I am" sayings of the fourth gospel. As the Human One, Jesus claimed to have authority to forgive sins and judge all humankind. As the 'I AM', he claimed to be the way to God. Finally we shall try to see the meaning of the Great Commission. If these three affirm an exclusivistic stance as it is usually held, then we have little option but to follow him. If on the other hand, as I shall contend, they point in a different direction, then again we would have little option but to follow him. This way we shall try to learn from his theological and eschatological moorings and from his self-understanding.

I hope that towards the end you will feel that this exercise makes at least a small compliment to all that has already been said and that it might help those who need to come to terms with Jesus afresh.

Jesus and People of Other Faiths

In Jesus, we have a person who is thoroughly critical of people of his own religious tradition and willing to see the positive points in other people's faith and practice. In his self-understanding as advocate for restoration of justice, he had a peculiar way of including Gentiles who had been driven out of their possessions by imperialistic David. In his understanding of God he seems to have been deeply impressed by God sending Elijah to the widow of Zarephath and enabling Naaman, the Syrian, to be healed by Elisha. All this does not simply point to the ethical perfection of Jesus. It stems from his understanding of God and God's purposes and his role in the fulfillment of those purposes.

Jesus belonged to the school of the Pharisees. He shared their beliefs such as the three-fold canon of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. Jesus believed in the resurrection as did only the Pharisees differing stoutly from the Sadducees. He worshipped in the synagogues of the Pharisees and was accorded the status of a Rabbi in spite of a lack of formal schooling in the Rabbinic tradition. Yet it was this group which pulled him into many controversies and debates. During these debates, he was vehemently critical of their hermeneutics and praxis, which included also a strong condemnation of their prosyletising activities (Matthew 23:15).

Like all faithful Jews, he went to the temple and had a zeal for the house of God. This zeal led him to cleanse the temple in order to make room for people of other faiths to worship God. He quoted Isaiah 56:7 which affirmed that the temple was a house of prayer for all nations. A careful reading of Matthew's gospel would make us believe that as Son of David, Jesus saw his role not so much as to restore the Jewish kingdom but to undo the damage David had done to the Jebusites by driving them away from Zion, their sanctuary (II Samuel 5:6-8; see Matthew 21:14-16). The blind and the lame who were made to sit outside the temple and beg were to be a constant reminder of the driven-out Jebusites. In encouraging them to come into the temple and healing them, Jesus enacted a symbolic restoration of the temple to the Jebusites. This was recognized by the children who sang Hosanna but the Jewish leaders were enraged. The kingdom of God could not be neatly equated with the restoration of Davidic rule over other nations. It is clear that Jesus had a self-critical view of his own contemporary religion and of the history of David's imperialism, which had sown the seeds of exclusivism and triumphalism. In this way he was Lord of David and not Son of David (Matthew 22: 42-46).

On the one hand, he would spurn the title 'Son of David' when used by religious leaders to refer to the expected Messiah. For it implied a hope for a supreme Jewish state to be established. On the other hand, he allowed the use of the title by a Gentile woman (Matthew 15:21-26), the Galileans who had been ridiculed as having become Gentile, and, by the blind who were symbolic representatives of the chased away Jebusites. This was so because in their lips the title connoted a new inclusive reign of justice in which all nations would participate.

 Jesus' Positive Assessment of People of Other Faiths

Jesus held up the example of a Samaritan traveller as a model for a Jew to follow and obtain eternal life. Many people, including some ardent Bible teachers, assume that the parable of the Samaritan traveller was told by Jesus only to highlight the primacy of neighbourly love and to challenge us towards ethical excellence. They fail to see in it Jesus' inclusive understanding of salvation and a humanistic criterion to identify the one walking the path of salvation.

More often than not it is very conveniently overlooked that the Jewish lawyer (probably a member of the Sanhedrin) asked Jesus to show the way to inherit eternal life. He knew well that to love God and the neighbour was the way. He had been schooled in thinking that neighbourly obligations were limited to the boundaries of the Jewish community. Only a Hebrew slave needed to be released in the seventh year. Only from a fellow Jew was the demand of usury forbidden. People like Ammonites and Moabites could be spurned forever. Similarly, the Samaritans, a race emerging from a mixture of the lost ten tribes of Israel, and some Gentiles could be spurned and hated. They had perverted Israel's religion, "they worshipped that which they did not know" (John 4:22). They were given to permitting debaucherous women, living in the midst without being stoned to death. So the Jews had spurned all relationships with the Samaritan community. An orthodox Jew from Galilee which lay West of the Sea of Galilee would cross over to the eastern side of the Jordan and travel southwards in order to avoid passing through the territory of the Samaritans. Even the disciples of Jesus seem to have entertained such prejudices. Probably they could not tolerate Jesus passing through the Samaritan territory. When the Samaritans refused to permit Jesus and his companions to stay the night with them, the disciples wanted to bring fire from heaven and burn the village down. This, as we know, drew a sharp rebuke from Jesus (Luke 9:55).

In the parable of the Samaritan traveller, the Jewish lawyer was not clear about who the neighbour was. Jesus described first a priest and then a Levite who passed by and did not help a fellow Jew who had been hit by robbers and was left for dead. Though Jesus did not explicitly say so, from the way he narrated the story, it is implied that both the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side to keep a distance from the stricken man, lest they would be polluted by a corpse. They seemed to have feared that the very nearness might pollute them and make them unfit for temple service, if the stricken man had died (Numbers 19:11-22; Leviticus 21:1-6). So they hurried away, crossing over to the other side of the road in order to keep themselves from getting defiled. But it was a despised Samaritan whom the Jews had written off as adhering to a perverse religion who saved the stricken man.

Jesus' narration of the story and the question 'who was a real neighbour?' evokes a frank response. The lawyer admits that it was not the priest and the Levite, keen to serve God by being ritually "pure", who could be the neighbour. Rather, a Samaritan who usually got written off as one whose religion was supposedly false and whose moral standards were deemed questionable had proved to be the real neighbour. It was the so-called bad guy, whose religion and morals were judged to be no good, who had overcome his culturally inherited hatred, showed mercy (a divine attribute), and became a true neighbour to the one who was schooled and trained to despise him.

After narrating the story and eliciting an acceptance from the seeker as to who was indeed a real neighbour, Jesus simply said, "Go and do likewise". It was in answer to the question about the way to inherit eternal life. He told the lawyer who believed that his religion was truer than that of the Samaritan's to follow the Samaritan if he was really keen to find his way to God.

The inference Jesus drew from the parable is very remarkable. "Go and do likewise", his final advice, was not simply limited to ethics. It was, in fact, an answer to the original question. Jesus upheld a man belonging to a despised religion as showing the way to eternal life to a man who was leader of his own religion, Judaism. Many are worried that Jesus seems to advocate a way to salvation by works. This is an unwarranted understanding.

We could interpret it in another way. Jesus saw and recognized in the Samaritan one who was included within the inclusive grace of God. And when he told the lawyer to emulate his example, it was a challenge to him to understand God aright. God desires mercy, not sacrifice. But religion seeks to channel God's grace ritualistically and doctrinally and seeks to hem in God's love. We should also remember that a sure way to recognize the work of God's grace is only through the fruits. By the fruit shall a tree be known, not in any other way.

When racial and religious barriers are overcome and selfishness gives way to real and costly generosity, we can say that it happens only through God's grace. And God seems to be able to empower any one in spite of one's religious upbringing provided there was sufficient humility to see all as equal objects of God's love. God alone empowers all humanly erected middle walls of partition to be broken down.

The classic conservative objection is that parables are not the bricks for making doctrinal edifices. They are merely challenges to certain neglects and oversights. But Jesus cannot be accused of using theologically untenable stories for his teaching. We shall show in the following sections how his theology, eschatology and self-understanding cohere with this teaching.

Theological and Eschatological Moorings of Jesus

Jesus was self-critical about his own faith traditions, even when he was very regular at worship in synagogues and had a consuming zeal for the house of God. His understanding of the dawn of God's righteous rule through the messianic reign transcended narrow Jewish particularism. He maintained that restoration of justice should become a reality to all, whether one was a Jew or a Gentile.

Jesus also had a perceptive eye to recognize how even people of other faiths could be open to God's grace and be empowered to transcend culturally inherited prejudices. Simultaneously he was painfully aware of how people of his own religion should know better. The prophets had repeatedly challenged that God cared not for sacrifice but for mercy because people were adamantly sticking to ritual, legitimizing tradition, and did not worry about the dehumanizing segregatory effects of such values. In order to overcome this irony, Jesus chose to emphasize the secular humanistic path, even at the risk of God getting marginalized for it was far better not to talk about God than to blaspheme and defame God.

Matthew, Luke, and John lay a good deal of emphasis on this value orientation of Jesus. For example, Matthew drops the "Love God" command in his summary of the Law in 7:12 and envisages final judgement purely on a humanitarian criterion. Luke looks forward to repentance and reconciliation and it is he who narrates the classic parables of the Samaritan traveller and of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16). Lazarus is taken to the bosom of Abraham purely because his lot was one of suffering want, pain and indignity. John, as we know, did away with the command to baptize and does not mention the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist and interprets authority in terms of Christ's servanthood (John 13:5).

There seems to be a near unanimous witness about Jesus' emphasis on being human at the expense of religion. He insisted that the leaders of the synagogue should learn the meaning of the prophetic challenge, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice". All this while Jesus was ardently pious and talking about God's goodness and the coming reign of God. He seems to be advocating, strange as it may sound, a secular way of relating to God, i.e. knowing and serving God without the weight of religious traditions and particularities. Jesus was advocating, shall we say, a theocentric secular humanism.

 My contention is that this theocentric humanism is not a mere ethical stance. It has a theological understanding and an eschatological goal orientation with a universalistic sweep. God who is Love and passionate for justice has planned to establish a righteous realm governed by the principles of justice and peace.

To achieve this, God was fully present in Jesus. This presence of God in Jesus has been variously understood. Incarnation was one model. This mode of understanding God's total involvement in the life of Jesus has evoked opposition from people of the major faiths of Asia. Two other ways of understanding Jesus, both apparently attested by the evangelical tradition, namely the Human One and the 'I am' sayings of the Fourth Gospel have unfortunately been made the Cinderellas of dialogue theologians. According to the witness of the gospels, both stem from Jesus himself. Dialogue theologians have failed to pay attention to the relevance of these two titles assuming they connoted an exclusivistic stance.

We shall try to see that both can lend themselves to understand God's universalistic purpose and God's purpose of executing the mega-exorcism of the ruler of the world and delivering all those held in his grip through Jesus and his company.

The Human One

All the four evangelists refer to Jesus' use of the Human One (Son of Man) as a self-designation. Scholars keep disputing which of those could be deemed authentic and which could be considered as embellishments, echoing Christological convictions. We cannot and need not go into this dispute. Based on the multiple attestation principle, we can take most of them to be genuine.

Of particular interest to us is the possibility that Jesus coined the self-designation out of his reading of Daniel 7:13-27. The one like a Son of Man figure is clearly a symbolic representation of the people of God undergoing severe persecution during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. The author of the Book of Daniel intended to console them that eventually they would be vindicated and triumph in their struggle. Dominion and honour would be restored to them. The one like a Son of Man was a symbol of the collective of the persecuted people of God. This figure at once implies the suffering of the Son of Man and his future glorification. If Jesus had understood that it was a symbol connoting the collectivity of the struggling people, then the connection in his thought between him and the suffering people should be conceded.

A collective consciousness is not a peculiar or an otherworldly phenomenon. The plight of all passengers of a bus is entrusted to the driver. Should he choose to drive irresponsibly, all passengers would suffer for no fault of theirs. If he performs his duty faithfully, all are benefited and transported safely for no particular merit of theirs. This is the nature of corporateness of life. It is obvious that Jesus was fighting many battles on behalf of the afflicted. He used the specific self-designation 'Son of Man' when he assumed authority over the Sabbath. Sabbath was instituted for all labouring people (Exodus 22:12). So, as their representative, he and his disciples were free to use the freedom granted by the law with impunity, no matter what the tradition said. The tradition of the elders could not abrogate God-given freedom to the labouring and heavy-laden people. He declared this freedom when he said that the 'Son of Man' is 'Lord of the Sabbath' (Mark 1:28). Similarly he could assume authority to forgive as 'Son of Man', not as Son of God (Mark 1:10). He could do so only as 'Son of Man' in his capacity as the one person who represented those who had probably been hurt by the paralyzed man's wrongdoing. It was this guilt complex which had perhaps led him to be struck down by the psychosomatic illness of paralysis. He had to experience forgiveness from the one who suffered the hurt. Jesus, the Human One who sums up all unjust suffering and who, as the Human One had shared in the hurt, assumes the right to offer forgiveness. Both claims to authority, i.e., to be Lord of the Sabbath and to forgive sins were possible only insofar as he was the chief executive as it were of the corporate of sufferers who were the shareholders in his company, to use a modern day metaphor.

It is by virtue of this responsibility that he was also vested with the authority to judge the world. The parable of the Last Judgement in Matthew and the Johannine discourse on being lifted up (i.e. crucified), both converge on this (Matthew 25:31-46 & John 12:31-36). The Son of Man, King of the World, judges the whole world not on their confessional faith but on their expression or lack of human compassion. The lifted up Son of Man of John draws people away from the Ruler of the World (the Devil). The world stands exposed and the Ruler having lost his clientele gets thrown out of business. The Son of Man is the Judge, though exactly how the judgement takes place is different. If we concede that both the Johannine and the Matthean ascriptions of the authority to judge depend on the understanding that Jesus is the "Chief Executive" of the Corporate of Sufferers, it is easy to see how he can also be the Judge on their behalf.

We must also add that this function as the corporate representative of the collective of the entire victim sector does not get either authenticated or negated by any faith affiliation or lack of it. Therefore the universalistic and non-confessionalist implications are far reaching. Wherever there is a drawing away of people from the side of injustice and an association with the victim in solidarity emerges there is genuine 'conversion', which results in judgement of the power of evil and diffuses it to naught.

Earlier, we pointed out that Jesus, a profoundly pious person, was all the time drawing attention to God, the Parent of all. Yet he refused to accept that mere acts of piety as expressions of human compassion were the real hallmarks of one's love for God. The Son of Man is the one who secures the legitimate freedom of the burdened workers; offers forgiveness and reconciles the sinner and the sinned against; and, executes judgement on behalf of the afflicted. As far as the lives of the suffering people are concerned, irrespective of the religious faith of these hapless victims, they are accepted as God's children (e.g. Lazarus of the parable).

For others too, all that is needed is a turning away from legitimizing culture, globally approved profiteering business methods, widely accepted exploitative ways of treating workers, spurning triumphalism, turning in repentance and solidarity towards victims of a world ruled by the Evil one. There need be no religious confession or affiliation. This secular dimension of the gospel stems from Jesus' own emphasis on secular humanism and on his self-understanding as the Human One. The difference between this teaching of Jesus and other humanistic ideologies is the strong belief that it is God who creates this in human hearts and helps people to overcome personal selfishness and culturally inherited prejudices.

A Reinterpretation of "I am the Way"

Was Jesus an inclusive person or was he an exclusivist? According to Matthew and Luke, he had insisted that only those who exclude others, i.e. the children of the kingdom (Matthew 8:11-13 & Luke 13-28f) will find themselves excluded from the eternal light of love and end up in the "outer darkness of hatred and anger". He had also, according to Matthew, declared that not all those who called him Lord but only those who lived according to the principle of 'Love your neighbour as yourself' (i.e. the will of God), will be saved (Matthew 7:12-22). According to Luke, Jesus had advised a Jewish lawyer to follow the humanitarian path traversed by a Samaritan if he was interested in inheriting eternal life. Could the same Jesus have also said that no one would reach God except through him? Yes, he could have if we could interpret this claim in the light of the well-known inclusive and humanistic emphasis in understanding God. Is that possible? I believe that it is possible without in any way twisting the arm of John to make him speak the same language as Matthew and Luke.

The secret lies in understanding the meaning of 'I am' in John. The 'I am' in John, though found in the lips of Jesus in fact refers back to the 'I am' of the burning bush of Midian (see John 8:56-58; 18:5). The 'I am' of Midian was the one who, through being implicated in the life of persecuted Israel, had kept the burning bush, symbolizing Israel under persecution as slaves, alive and thriving, in spite of the fire of persecution and all the genocidal efforts taken by Pharaoh. God did this by inspiring midwives like Shiphrah and Puah, by giving courage to Moses' mother Jochebed and sister Miriam, and by enabling a rebellion of many women of Egypt who, like Pharaoh's daughter, had probably adopted the exposed male babies of Israel. As soon as the daughter of Pharaoh saw the baby in the reed basket, she exclaimed, "This is one of the Hebrew babies".

Real revelation about God is that God is always present in and among the burning bushes of the world. Only those who understand God in this way reach God. No doubt, it was this God who had been working incognito so far, who had now come in Jesus. In this way Jesus can speak of 'I am' and also convey the meaning that he and the eternal "I am who IS Before Abraham WAS" (John 8:53-56) are one and the same. Therefore anyone who recognizes that in the burning bushes of the world God is present and calling out to people to work together for deliverance in fact will reach God.

The Human One draws people to God, but it was not a confession of Jesus as the Human one that was a must. Rather, recognizing the victim sector as continuing extension of the Human One was the important thing, which leads to true repentance and union with the Son of Man. Even if people had never heard about Jesus and his self-understanding as the Human One, if they realize that their participation in the world of culture, business, etc., had contributed to victimizing many and decide to change and be in solidarity with the suffering people, then they are in fact relating to God through the lifted up (crucified) Son of Man. In the same way too we need to understand the 'I am' sayings. This is further clinched in John when Jesus says that liberating truth consists in the understanding of the lifted up Son of Man as the 'I am' (John 8:28.).

(1)    Perhaps a few illustrations will help in understanding this better. First let me tell you a true story which is fairly typical.

A little Dalit girl, Dhanam, belonged to a village near Salem, a city in Tamil Nadu. Dalit children are not supposed to drink from the same water pot kept for use in the school for every pupil. Though it is a common pot, Dalit children should honour the village custom rather than the privilege granted by the secular state. This was the expectation of the teacher. Not fully aware of the undeclared restriction, Dhanam one day helped herself to a glass of water from the common pot. The teacher who happened to see this got enraged and with a stick he beat her so harshly and impulsively that the blow hit her right eye and damaged it beyond recovery. Seeing the bleeding eye, the teacher, together with the school authorities, called the father and told him not to complain and then spun yarns that she was hurt by a fall following a quarrel with a fellow pupil. Fortunately a social activist group who came to know the real occurrence emboldened the father to give a police complaint and also highlighted the story in the media.

The story evoked two kinds of reactions. There were a good many people who were enraged and started pressuring the government to bring the teacher to books and denouncing the continuing practice of untouchability. Strangely, however, there were quite a number, especially some teachers' groups, who started saying that the story of an inadvertent hurt through a fall was the true story.

Now we see in this event what Jesus said in John 12: 31-36 coming alive once more. The story of Dhanam is lifted up. Many who had been quietly acquiescing in Dalit oppression now came out renouncing it, and showed solidarity with the victim. The evil custom got exposed and judged. The ruler of the world was at least temporarily cast out.

(2)    There are many stories from other parts of Asia.

Probably all of us know what happened to the Aboriginal children under the so-called white Australia policy. Many children forcibly plucked away from Aboriginal parents were handed over to orphanages for bringing up in western cultural modes. Most of them died. These children had been forcibly taken away and the parents had been kept in the dark as to where they were growing up. When they died they were buried in the orphanage itself and their parents were not informed. In 1993 this secret came out as one orphanage, unaware of the dead in their building, pulled it down for renovation. The finding of the bodies of the children could not be hushed up. Once again there was a lifting up. Many white people who had once thought it was a good thing to civilize the "savage Aboriginals" were profoundly shocked and expressed regret and asked the Aboriginal community to forgive. The government however refused to apologise and began talking about a pittance of compensation. Once again we see that when a lifting up happens there is a drawing away of those ready to repent and a hardening of the people of the ruler. But it now becomes possible to judge and expose them. Thus the mega exorcism takes place.

We could go on and adduce many such events but the principles remain the same. The repentance demanded by the gospel is horizontal and collective as well as personal. It has to be by the perpetrators and abettors of legitimated wickedness. In order for that to happen, the evil established and sustained by the Ruler of the World should be identified and exposed, and a challenge to repent should emerge. Thus, religious barriers could be overcome and God would become God of all. This truth, however, has come to us via God getting fully involved in the life of Jesus. A confession merely of God being in Christ alone would not lead to salvation unless Christ being in the victim is simultaneously recognized. This is the meaning of "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life".

How are we to obey the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20)? The Great Commission is the final mandate given to the whole church by the Risen Lord. No one has the right to opt out of it, no matter how embarrassing it may be for maintaining good neighbourly relationships with people of other faiths. What if the early church had doubts about its veracity and had fears of the vast majority of the non-Christian environment? Where would we be? Such a sentiment can never be wished away. Further, anyone who has come into a new relationship with God through Jesus cannot keep quiet about the gospel. However, we need to be clear as to what is the gospel and what is the task of making disciples for Jesus. Most certainly, simply seeking to enlarge the membership of the church cannot be equated neatly with maintaining a faithful and consistent witness to God's loving purpose declared in Jesus.

How did Jesus himself go about the task of making disciples? He did not seem to have accepted many voluntary offers to become a disciple (see Luke 9; Mark 5). When he did choose his disciples, one of his repeated emphases was to help them recognize those who were followers of God without making specific claims. All those who were compassionate, all the peacemakers and all those who suffered in the process of working for justice were blessed of God (Matthew 5:7-10). He also seemed to have implied that all the oppressed and the marginalized are in fact God's partners. These included the despirited ones of Matthew 5:3 and those yearning for justice of Matthew 5:6 (e.g. Lazarus of Luke's Parable of the rich man and the poor man at his gate), the last and the least of the brothers and sisters of the Son of Man. They are true expressions of the lamb slain from the foundations of the world (Revelation 5:8 & 13:8) and they are members of the Corporate of Sufferers of whom the CEO is the Human One.

So the task of discipling involved following Jesus, identifying those other incognito partners of God who are merciful, the peacemakers, the ones who stick their necks out for justice and, in general, all those who say a wholehearted 'Yes' to God's agenda of bringing about a human community of peace with justice and working together with and for the Son of Man's brothers and sisters, i.e., the suffering struggling victim collective.

The church's exclusivistic and triumphalistic history consists in twisting the Great Commission to serve church growth interests. It is high time we got back to following Jesus.