Twelve

'He knows that he has not much time left here," said Mary in a hushed voice so as not to disturb Joseph inside, as she and Matthew paused outside the house in the sunset.

"But judging by what he told me," Matthew answered, "he does not seem to be in distress about it."

"About dying, no," she answered. "Why should he be? He is going home, and he knows it, to meet his parents and relatives; and he knows that Jesus and I will be there before too long. But of course, he would dearly love to see Jesus anointed as King, and our people no longer the footstool of the Romans. We have spoken of it often and often. He believes that Jesus will manage this somehow without bloodshed; but I have my doubts. I was told, you know, by Simeon, that prophet in the Temple when we took Jesus there, that he would be a sign that was opposed, and that a sword would pierce my own soul. I suppose that means that a sword might some day pierce his body."

"God forbid!"

"Do you honestly think that he will be able to convince people that he is actually God Almighty? They are sure to accuse him of blasphemy."

"They already have; I heard them myself, when he forgave a boy's sins. But then he told the boy--he was paralyzed--to stand up and walk, and he did. No one knew what to make of it. But I know that at least some, myself included, drew the proper conclusion, even though it seemed fantastic."

"Well, I hope and pray that you are right," she said. "As Joseph said, if it is--I was about to say humanly possible, but if it is possible at all, he will be able to find a way. It seems that the future of the world is going to turn on whether he is accepted or not, just as the state the world now is in turned on whether Adam obeyed or not. And perhaps mankind will fail again. I am afraid it looks likely."

"We must trust, as I think someone said," remarked Matthew, hoping that she would not be insulted by the irony.

She smiled. "Very true. Trust, but be realistic also. I know this: even if we humans fail, he will manage to bring something good out of it. The angel told me that he will save his people from their sins; he did not say how. I imagine he knows a way to do so even if we fail in our part of it. I cannot believe he emptied himself into being merely human in vain, even though I find it all too easy to think that whatever depends on us depends on a fragile reed."

"You do trust," said Matthew. "I misjudged you. You are far wiser than you appear, my lady--if I may so call you."

"I? I am no one."

"No? Only 'God's Favorite.'"

"Ah, but that is God's doing; it is nothing I deserve!"

"I am inclined to disagree. But even if you are correct, then you still merit my respect--my profound awe--because of what he has done in you. Truly."

She laughed. "You should be a diplomat, not a tax-collector, you are so gallant. But I accept it, since you put it so graciously, and the credit goes where it belongs."

"Perhaps the more accurate word is 'sincere.'"

"Come now, let us have no more of this."

"Well, but I must be hastening home in any case." He looked thoughtfully up at the darkening sky. "Home? What is that now? I begin to think I have no home except the one Joseph is looking forward to; your son has turned me completely inside out. But Gideon will be waiting for me, and if the last two days are any indication, he will be fussing and worrying, even if he is a slave and I am his master."

"Let me not keep you, then. I have greatly enjoyed your visit, and I am sure that Joseph would say the same."

"Believe me, the pleasure--and the honor and the privilege--have been all mine. I have material that I will have to ponder for months and months!"

"That I do not doubt. I have been doing so for years."

"We will certainly meet again, my lady. I wish you and your husband the best in the meantime."

"And may the Master go with you, Matthew, and may you fulfill whatever he has in store for you--which may be great indeed; one never knows."

"You must pray, then, for me. I feel myself totally inadequate for anything at all."

"We are all inadequate, believe me. But do not let me keep you further. Peace."

"Peace."

And Matthew turned aside into the deepening twilight in the west, and made his way back to his house, arriving considerably after dark. The dogs, which were trained to guard without waking their master inside, ran to the fence, snarling menacingly but not loudly, their quiet eagerness to tear intruders to shreds making them more fearsome than barking would have been--until Matthew spoke to them and they slunk to the back of the house as he opened the gate.

When he reached the door, Gideon, who was obviously waiting for him, had already opened it. "I did not know whether you were to return today, Master, or whether you would stay with that new person, so I prepared a cold dinner that I could make ready at a moment's notice, or keep until another day if necessary."

"Very good. You have become quite a chatterbox, Gideon."

"I can be silent, if you wish."

"No, no. At least, if it becomes too much for me, I will be sure to inform you. I was merely remarking. We all seem to have changed lately."

"Not for the worse, I hope."

"In my case--it is too early to tell, I think. I may have involved myself in something that will prove too much for me; I know not. As to you, I have nothing to complain of."

"I am grateful, Master."

"But let me eat. I would speak to you while I do."

"Very well." And he bustled into the cooking and dining area, bringing food to the huge, low U-shaped table that Matthew had introduced into the house when it was built. Matthew lay on propped on his left elbow on the dining-couch at the table's center, while Gideon went in and out the inside of the open end, laying food on dishes before him, which Matthew then selected with three fingers of his right hand, occasionally dipping a piece of meat or a vegetable into a small bowl of sauce.

"That is enough for now," said Matthew as he was eating. "Remain here for a while. You see this huge table?"

"Yes, Master."

"I little thought when I put it here that anyone but I would ever use it. I did it simply because in the house where I had been a slave--Yes, I had once been a slave, Gideon, for several years, in fact--there was a table such as this, and this whole house was modeled on that one; I wanted to have no less luxury than the Romans I had been serving, you see."

"Interesting," said Gideon. "I did wonder at some things that were here and never used."

"It reminded me that I was not poor; and it was important to me--at the time--not to be poor." The fear of poverty gripped him again at this moment, because he thought that he might have to give up all of this, and he was not sure he could bear it.

Gideon said nothing, merely standing puzzled at what Matthew wanted.

"But now, it seems, I am going to put it to use, at least once. I mentioned to you last night that I thought I might be giving a feast."

"Yes, Master."

Matthew rinsed his fingers in a bowl of water put there for that purpose, and dried them on a napkin before trying some different food. "I have decided to do so. I have been considering whom to invite, and can think of few who would even consider coming. Tomorrow, I wish you to go to Naphtali, Jahath and Micah, and Zacchaeus--no, not Zacchaeus, he is in Judea now--I will tell you later how to find these people--and--" he pondered for a moment--"Zadok, of course, and Uzzah and Kish. That is about all, and tell them I will be having a dinner at twilight on the day after, and would appreciate their presence."

Gideon's eyes widened. "Yes, Master."

"But that will not be all the diners; there is Jesus and his entourage, if he will condescend to join me, and that will perhaps be a dozen more people. Jesus is the one you saw me leave with this morning."

"Yes, Master. And this will be everyone?"

"I think so. So prepare something for about twenty people--you had better make it twenty-four, in case I have miscalculated. You can get a feast ready in one day, or should I postpone it?"

"Well, I am a bit out of practice," which was a masterpiece of understatement, since Matthew had eaten alone for seven years, "but in the place you bought me from, I had arranged feasts for as many as fifty, and once a hundred people. So a mere twenty-four should be no problem. It is as well it is no more than twenty-four; they will all fit comfortably in this room, and could circulate through the rest of the house before and after the meal without bumping into each other--I will move a few pieces of furniture, and I think take a few of the delicate and precious things out of reach--"

"Do not strip the house, now," said Matthew. "I would not have people think that I know not what luxury is." Even if I am to give it up, he added to himself.

"Oh, no, I would not even for my own reputation have anyone think we lived in reduced circumstances. But with so many here at once, people are apt to make small valuables disappear, you know, and it would be well not to put temptation in their way."

He thought for a few moments. "Yes, I think I could do it in a day, and have it ready by twilight on the day after tomorrow. But I will need at least one person and probably two to help in the cooking and serving--one person could both cook and serve, and the other could serve and do other tasks. I know some trustworthy people I think I could hire for the purpose. You realize that it will be expensive. I will need to buy enough wine, and lamb and fish and various vegetables. I will have to think of the menu, but I already have an idea or two."

The word "expensive" made Matthew cringe. "Do not be profligate, but spare no legitimate expense. I want no cheap wines, for instance, only the best, and tender cuts of meat--do not let the butchers cheat you."

"They would not dare. You have never eaten tough meat from me, I trust."

"No, I am sure you know what you are doing. Well, I will leave everything in your hands--which seem, from the way you are going on, to be capable ones.

"But I might as well prepare you now for the possible future. You see, Gideon, I think I--well, I know I have given up life as a tax-collector, and have decided to become a student of Jesus of Nazareth--"

Of Nazareth! That Jesus! You mean the prophet everyone is talking about? Was he the one who came here this morning?"

"Yes, he was. I knew not that he had already acquired a reputation."

"Oh, yes, Master. They say that he has performed cures in Capernaum that were all but miraculous! One person even told me that he had driven a devil out of someone!"

"Well, I heard him by chance in the synagogue in Nazareth, and was very impressed. I think I might--will join him.

"But that means, of course, that I may not need this house in the future. I may not. Or some--much--of the wealth I have acquired. This is all very tentative, you realize, but it just might be that I will be commissioning you to take my money and distribute it to the poor, especially the farmers who have been taxed so heavily--" Matthew could not keep himself from blushing as he said this--"and then I would give you your freedom and the house and something to live on."

"Oh, thank you, Master! Thank you!"

"Do not be too quick to thank me, Gideon. This is all very much in the speculative stages. I might not last more than a day or two at this new life of mine. I know not. I have so far found it rather overwhelming, and might not be able to endure it. But we shall see. I simply wanted to let you know that things are apt to be quite different from now on, whether I do what I have suggested or something else completely."

"I suspected already--I knew--that things had changed from what has happened in the past two days."

"Yes, well. --Oh, by the way, from now on I will be using my original name of Matthew, not Levi."

"Indeed. Well I must say, that is fitting, in a sense; you do not at all seem to be the same person, if I may be allowed to say so."

Matthew laughed. "Since you have said it, I suppose my not allowing it would be futile. But no, I am not annoyed. But I must try to sleep. Jesus told me he would come for me in the morning, and God knows what sort of adventure tomorrow will bring!"

On the next day, when Matthew joined Jesus, he invited the group to a feast on the evening of the following day, and Jesus accepted. "I will bring but the ten or twelve close to me; otherwise, your servant might be overwhelmed." Matthew assured him that he could bring however many he wanted, but Jesus said that that was certainly sufficient.

The group then went 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. It occurred to Matthew, who probably knew now a good deal more than anyone else among Jesus' followers, just how radical this "new way of thinking" would have to be.

The others paid him scant attention, not yet able to conceive that a hated tax-collector was among their number, but Matthew heard them discussing Jesus among themselves.

"Could he mean that what Isaiah prophesied was really going to come to pass?" asked young John of the giant Andrew.

"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 a rather shortish man with a ragged and somewhat sparse beard. "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. Ah, yes, thought Matthew, this was the Simon they called "Simon the Revolutionary." John continued, "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?"

"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?" Matthew shrank back trying to avoid notice. It was as if Simon had cut him across the face with a whip. How could he actually join these people?

"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. "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. 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."

"You will see," said Simon. "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?"

And they went on, but Matthew had dropped back to confer with his own thoughts. He could not believe that Jesus would become another Judas Maccabeus--certainly not, if he had recruited Matthew himself, and as much as welcomed a Roman spy into his inner circle. Besides, if he were a man who had the Supreme Being as his father, John must be nearer the mark than the other two.

Matthew, of course, did not feel he could ever mention this in any discussion. He believed--well, he half believed--because both Mary and Joseph had been so convincing in relating what had happened to them--or what they thought had happened. But if Matthew were to blurt it out, everyone would think him insane. But Jesus for some reason wanted him to know before anyone else. This implied some special task for him, which Matthew quailed at the prospect of.

But it seemed to him that Jesus was performing these acts (he had cured several people this very morning) to soften people's minds, so to speak, so that they could begin to entertain the thought, first, that he was more than merely human and had the hand of the Master himself behind him, more or less like Elijah or Elisha, and then, by perhaps more and more miraculous "signs" (which was what he called them) coupled with clearer and clearer hints, lead them on beyond that to be able to accept that he and the one he called the "Father" were somehow akin, so that he was not merely a prophet, even one like Moses.

It was interesting that he never called the Master the Master, but always the "Father," and referred to himself as the "Son of Man," as if he found it something of a novelty to be human. Everyone else, of course, not having the information Matthew had, probably considered it simply as a way of being humble--the opposite of emperors and such who referred to themselves as gods.

In any case, the whole thing was to be an intricate dance, if Matthew was right about what was going on, and Jesus would have to be very, very skilled in leading his partner, the Judean people, through the steps.