Sixteen

The group was at that time going around the different towns and villages in Galilee, collecting followers who joined them and left more or less at random, into a synagogue if there was one, where Jesus announced that the reign of God was about to begin, and that the people would have to acquire a new way of thinking.

In one of their pauses in this mission, John asked of Andrew, "Could he mean that what Isaiah prophesied was really going to come to pass?"

"You mean where everything would be at peace with everything else, lions and lambs and so on?"

"Exactly."

"That has to be a metaphor, John. Lions eating hay like oxen? Really, now."

"Well why not?" replied John, becoming a bit red-faced at being flatly contradicted. "Has he not cured all sorts of diseases with nothing more than a touch, and driven out demons? Why could this not be a sign that the whole world would be transformed?"

"No, no, you understand nothing, both of you," broke in Simon the Revolutionary, with his usual refrain. "The 'new way of thinking' means that we have to get out of our minds that we will be under the Romans forever, and that they cannot be defeated. If we do not get rid of that attitude, no new kingdom is possible."

"You always see everything in terms of a revolution, Simon," answered John."But there must be more to it than that--if that is even in it."

"What do you mean, 'even in it'?" retorted Simon. "If God is going to become King, then Caesar will have to be dethroned, will he not?"

"Not necessarily. Remember, the first Herod was king some years ago, and we were under Rome then. There is kingship and kingship."

"There is such a thing as a spiritual kingdom," put in Andrew, where we look at things in a different way, rather than actually having a different government. Especially if God is the one who is King. How else would he govern? Is he going to set up a throne in the clouds or something?" He was very much under the influence of what Jesus had told him.

"Nonsense!" said Simon, and John added, "In that case, the whole thing is a waste of time, it seems to me. If everything is going to be the same, and we are simply going to pretend that it is all new and wonderful, what has happened except that we have been deluded?"

"Exactly!" said Simon. "As long as Rome has us under its thumb and is bleeding us to death with its taxes, we will be in misery, and what is the point of denying it?"

"And then what is the point of all the miraculous things Jesus is doing?" added John.

"Need there be a point, except that these people are in distress?" asked Andrew. He had to be "arranging" things so that good would be brought out of evil. "Jesus sees them and cares about them, and somehow has the power to cure them, and so he does."

"You are not paying attention, Andrew." replied John. "He does not cure everyone; only those who he says 'believe.'"

"Well, that is easily explained by saying that what they believe is that they will be cured. It is quite possible that the power Jesus has will only be effective if someone is convinced that he can do whatever it is."

"No, no, they are signs. Signs of what it will be like under the reign of God. He says so, in plain language."

"To me," answered Andrew, "it is anything but plain. There are all kinds of things that this new Kingdom, if there even is a physical kingdom, could be like."

"As to that," said John, "he told me, now that he has acquired the number he was looking for, that he will soon lay out the principles of this new realm of God." He looked over at Matthew, and so did Andrew, with a not-very-welcoming glance.

"You will see," said Simon the Revolutionary. "He will begin appointing generals soon."

"From us?" laughed John. "I can see Andrew here, and perhaps yourself, leading an army. But the rest of us? Now that would be a miraculous transformation."

"All I can say is, remember Judas Maccabeus. Who would have thought beforehand that he could do what he did?"

The conversation then became general, and Andrew, who was about to join Thomas, noticed him approach Matthew, and went off by himself for a while to muse on what he had been told.

At this point, John who had also wandered off, saw Andrew and came up to him. He still seemed to admire him, which warmed Andrew toward him. "And so what think you, Andrew," he said, "about our new acquisition?"

"You mean Levi? Or I mean, Matthew? Well, if the Master chose him, I suppose he sees some value in him as a follower, though I doubt he will be one of the inner circle."

"You do? I got the impression that he was precisely waiting for Matthew--or perhaps was waiting, and then Matthew seemed to be the one he was waiting for."

"What do you mean?"

"I have noticed that Jesus knows things beforehand only in a sense. Have you seen him stroke his beard?"

"Stroke his beard?"

"At the wedding, when his mother asked him about the lack of wine, he stroked his beard in thought, and then at the Passover, he stroked his beard before he took off his cincture and asked me for mine."

"He did, now that you mention it."

"He seemed to recognize in both cases, 'This is the moment,' as if he had been anticipating it, but was not certain beforehand what shape it would take. And I think I remember when he came back from seeing that Nicodemus or whoever it was, he said to Simon something like, 'It is not what I would have planned, but it will do.'"

"Interesting. Are you saying that at the Passover, he was expecting that something was going to happen that would give his--what would you call it? Ministry--a start, and the animals there told him, so to speak, 'this is it'?"

"Something along those lines. At the beginning, for instance, I suspect he knew that something significant would happen when he was bathed by John, and the dove and the thunder were something he recognized as 'This is what I was anticipating,' without necessarily having a picture of it beforehand in his mind. And when he saw us, he knew that we were to be two of his followers, though he had not probably thought of us that way when he was doing carpentry work for me years ago."

"I think what you are getting at is that the God-aspect of him, if I can call it that, knows things in a different way than the man-aspect, and the man-aspect recognizes it when it happens as the God-aspect anticipates it." God as limited, he thought, thinks differently from the same God who does not have the limitations.

"It looks as if that is as good a description as any."

He laughed. "But what monstrous nonsense we are talking!"

"On the other hand, Andrew, how else account for him? I cannot accept Judas's view that he is full of the force that built the universe, as if that force were a power and not a person."

"No, I think Judas is mistaken in that."

"Then if he has the power to forgive sins, and if only God can forgive sins, and if God is 'my Father,' what else could it be but that he is God limiting himself somehow."

"But there is some difference between him and the Father. Otherwise why give him another name? And why pray to him, as he clearly does? All night, sometimes. He does not sleep on those nights he goes off to pray. I followed him once."

"Still, he told me that 'the Father and I are one and the same thing.'"

"He did?" Andrew did not feel he had the right to reveal that Jesus had told him that he had said this.

"He did. And he said that he would tell everyone some day, when they were prepared to hear it."

"Perhaps, then," said Andrew, trying to find the proper terms to restate his idea, "the Father is God-as-infinite, and Jesus the man is God-as-limited, or something. And so the limited side of him prays to the infinite side of him."

"Or something." John now laughed in his turn.

"I am happy that no one is listening to us," said Andrew. We are all but talking rubbish."

"Still, who are we to think that we can comprehend the Infinite? Is it surprising that what we say sounds paradoxical? Jesus, whatever he is, is a paradox."

"I know. That is what I find suspicious about Judas. It looks as if he thinks he comprehends. And I think the reality is far, far, beyond what he imagines it to be."

"I'm inclined to agree. But I suspect that Judas will learn, as the facts become clearer."

"I wonder."

"Really, Andrew! You too?"

"I am sorry, John, but there is just something about Judas that does not--" He let the rest of the sentence hang, for lack of a way to finish.

"Well, we shall see. What is this now?

They were near the village of Nain at the moment. It seemed that a tiny funeral procession had crossed their path. There were quite a few--almost a hundred--people around Jesus, when he stopped and signaled to the bearers of the stretcher on which the body had been laid, wrapped in in a linen cloth, with the napkin tied over the head. The mother was frantically wailing in despair beside it. There did not seem to be a father present.

Jesus went up to her. "Do not cry," he said.

"Oh, sir!" she wailed. "First my husband, and now him! It is too much! Too much! I cannot bear it! What will I do, alone in the world? How will I live?"

Jesus made no attempt to utter consoling words. He went past the woman to the bier, touched the wrapped body, and said in a matter-of-fact, quiet voice, "Young man, I tell you, sit up."

And he sat up.

Jesus freed him from the napkin and began loosening the shroud from over his head. Someone cried, "Here! Find him something to wear! He is naked under that shroud!" and one of the men took off his cloak and handed it to Jesus, who put it over the boy's head as the linen fell off.

Everyone was struck dumb as they saw him blink in the failing sunlight. Then they suddenly began shouting, "A great prophet has risen among us!" "Another Elisha!" "God has smiled on his people!" "Who would have believed it?" "Did you see? Did you see?" "How bewildered he looks!" "He cannot have actually been dead; I have heard of such things in the past." "Then how did he know of it? Everyone else thought him dead!" "Behold the mother!" She screamed and ran up to him, smothering him in her arms and weeping hysterically.

The boy looked a trifle embarrassed at all the attention, and his eyes for a moment looked over her shoulder as if to say, "What is all the fuss?" and then caught sight of--it must have been Matthew, thought Andrew--and his expression changed in an instant to a gaze of horror and disbelief.

Matthew himself had turned to see if he had noticed anything behind him, and there might have been six or seven people that he could have seen. Obviously he knew nothing of the boy, who quickly recovered from his astonishment, and was asking his mother and everyone around him where he was, and what he was doing on this stretcher.

What was this all about? And look at the boy's neck, that red strip around it. He looked as if he had been hanged--which meant that he had hanged himself, did it not? Combine that with the look of loathing at Matthew; was Matthew somehow responsible for his committing suicide? But he was too young to be managing a farm, though his tan showed that he worked on one. And his mother said, "First my husband and now him!" Had his father killed himself and then the son, overwhelmed with the burdens of a head of household did the same? But then, what of Matthew? Perhaps the father killed himself in despair at what Matthew had driven him to, and the son knew this.

While he was firing questions at his mother about why he was there, he seemed to remember something, and his face lost whatever color it had recovered, and it looked for a moment that he was going to faint. He whispered something in his mother's ear, and she nodded tearfully, and then said "But you have come back! You are with me once again! Thank God! Oh, thank God! --And (to Jesus) thank you, Sir, so very, very much!"

"Your faith has brought him back to you."

"You are right! I could not believe I had lost him forever! I knew somehow he would come back to me! And you have done it!"

At any rate, thought Andrew, it proved that Jesus had power to bring the dead back to life, and was definitely another sign that he was the Infinite as self-limited somehow. And the boy must have remembered something either about what being dead was like or perhaps what had caused the death--which doubtless had something to do with the mark on his neck.

The boy whispered something else in her ear, and she said to Jesus, "You are Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet we have heard so much of?"

"I am."

"I was looking for you! I was praying I would meet you! I told myself that if I met you and you saved my son, I would join you. What else have I to live for?"

"Well, if you think you would like to come after me, feel free to join us. And you, child? What is your name, by the way?"

"David, son of Asa. Yes, I would join you also." He said this perhaps a bit reluctantly, but then cast a quick look in Matthew's direction, and seemed to come to a resolution as he turned back to Jesus. Aha! thought Andrew. It looks very much as if he would like to take vengeance on Matthew for whatever he thinks he had done. A case where he did not recognize that Matthew now was not the same as the Matthew who had done it. But of course, it was not that simple. The man is not now a boy, but the man and the boy are one and the same. So with Matthew. How unjust would it be for this David to make Matthew now suffer for what Matthew then had done to him? What Jesus said made sense, but this made sense also.

"You may leave, of course, whenever you please; I realize that you are not in a state for making permanent decisions at the moment. --Nor were you, yesterday, is it not?"

The boy blushed. "It would seem not, indeed." And so Jesus wanted him near, so that he could keep an eye on him.

"I trust, then, that there will be no more of that in the future."

"No, Master."

"You need have no fear. Your sins are forgiven."

The boy hung his head. "Thank you, Master." It looked as if he were not so eager to have his sins forgiven; it almost looked as if he were plotting to commit more sins.

The boy then said something to his mother and ran off, probably to get cleaned of the spices and dressed. Matthew had moved a bit apart to listen to Jesus speak of the fact that during the coming reign of God, they would have to change their way of thinking; but most of the people were too enthralled by what had happened to listen, and there was hubbub and confusion among them.

After a time, during which discussions that went nowhere continued, the boy ran back, clean and in new clothes, carrying the cloak that had been loaned to him, while Matthew was speaking to Jesus, saying something about giving a feast. The boy heard him, and said to Jesus, "A feast? Then surely he will need help, Master! Let me go with him; I can do much, and will do it gladly!"

Matthew answered that he would not trouble him, and he replied, "There is no trouble; and besides, I would prefer not to have people gawking at me and me and asking me what it felt like to be dead!"

Andrew was about to step forward and warn against it, when Matthew accepted his offer, and Jesus stroked his beard, looking at the two of them, and nodded permission. Jesus, it seemed, was aware of what the danger was--if he was God the Son, he had to know everything he needed as man to know--but he also somehow new, based on stroking his beard, that Matthew was not really going to get his head chopped off in his sleep.

Neither Matthew nor the boy appeared the next day, evidently busy with preparations for the feast on the morrow. The boy had apparently decided to sleep at Matthew's house. His mother had fretted a bit, as did Andrew privately, but Jesus assured her that he would be perfectly safe with Matthew and his slave. That was not really the question, thought Andrew; the question was whether Matthew was safe. But presumably, Jesus had this in mind also.

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