Twenty-Nine

John was all but dancing around her, giving a good imitation of a young goat--or perhaps better, a frisky bear cub. He was bragging half about Jesus and half about himself, interrupting everyone else and finishing their anecdotes for them, to their great annoyance. The mother listened and laughed at the proper places, trying without much success to restrain him.

Presently, Jesus formally introduced her to Mary and to some of the other students who had joined the group since last she was with them. When Mary's turn came, he remarked to his mother, "She will be leaving us soon--I think, for some while. But I wanted you to know her. You will both have need of each other one day."

"Leaving?" though Matthew. "Leaving? Was that what all the bustle was about?" Half of his life had left at those words. Then he thought, "Why should she not leave? What is it to me? But she might be in danger! But if the Master knows and approves, what have I to worry about?" So he worried.

He could see that what Jesus had said also left both Mary and his mother at a loss. They filled up the gap presently with those meaningless phrases one uses to avoid silence.

Since evening was approaching, several of the students were pressing the mother to stay with them at least that night, and she kept saying that she had to be getting back to Nazareth: there was food to be bought, and other womanly concerns; but then she glanced over at Jesus, and, without there being any kind of signal between them that was visible, she agreed that it might not hurt to stay one night. John immediately volunteered his house. "You are almost one of our family by this time," he said.

"True. A little too much, if this continues," she retorted.

"Mother cares not; she dotes on you, you know that."

"Dote or not, she will not love me if I come unannounced; you had best see to it." John ran off.

They had reached the town square, where the well was, and sat down by it to relax and talk before it was time to eat the evening meal.

After a short while, John returned and sat at the mother's feet. Matthew was fascinated at the relationship between him and Jesus's mother; he had never seen them together before. It was not as if he were another son, exactly, though clearly there was tremendous affection between them--as, for that matter, there was between him and Jesus, in spite of the difference in their age. But they were not friends in the sense of equals either; John clearly held her in great respect, but at the same time treated her almost with the familiarity of an equal. It was, given who the mother was, quite easy to do so. For all the dignity of the woman, she never asserted it.

At the moment, John was railing about the fact that that very day, Jesus had cured ten lepers simply by telling them to go and show themselves to the priest; and the only one to return to thank him was a Samaritan. "A Samaritan! Imagine it! And nine good sons of Abraham freed from their curse, and do they come back to thank the Master? Not they! I would have rained brimstone from the clouds upon them!"

"Now John," laughed the mother. "I have seen many a mother in Nazareth tell a brother to announce to another that the mother has prepared a special sweetmeat for him--and the brother runs in thinking only of what he is to receive. And when he receives it, he thanks the mother, forgetting the brother who told him. God did the curing; and I am sure that all ten of them thanked Him. The Samaritan did not know who really performed the cure, and so he thanked the one he thought responsible."

"Well, even instruments deserve to be polished now and again," said John a bit sulkily. She laughed.

Somewhere in the course of the conversation, she surprised Mary by quoting a remark by an Egyptian, and Mary asked her about whether she had ever been there. "Yes, many years ago," she answered. "In fact, Jesus was not more than two at the time. We were there for three years--did you meet James? He was here earlier."

Mary said that she had seen him, and the mother continued, "We were staying at his parents' house; my brother had left for Egypt ten years previously, and they were very kind and hospitable to us. James himself goes back and forth rather frequently; he is a merchant--of wool, mostly--and Nazareth, you know, is a rather convenient place to stop between Alexandria and Damascus--at least, he says so. He keeps telling me that I should go there to live; but, though it is very impressive and exciting, I prefer the quiet life in Nazareth. I was quite happy to return, and have not left since."

She remained with them the night, as she had said, and the Rock and John prevailed upon her to stay for most of the next day also. It passed with little fanfare, like a day in the middle of Spring, which one does not notice while it is passing, because it is a kind of paradigm of what a day should be, and only afterwards reflects on its peace and contentment, wishing it could have continued forever.

Everyone had already been gone for two days to the celebration in Jerusalem before Jesus said that he had decided to go after all, and the group left, going along the Jordan once again.

One rather amusing thing happened on the way. They had reached Jericho, when Jesus looked up into a sycamore tree and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry down from there! I plan to stay in your house today!"

And the little man, his brown face terra-cotta with embarrassment, clambered down, and with as much grace as he could muster, invited Jesus into his house beside the road. He told his slave to have a dinner ready, and while the slave was rushing about seeing to the meal (he obviously had more dinner-parties than Matthew was accustomed to, and was more or less prepared for emergencies), he spoke to Jesus about how happy he was to meet him.

"I have heard much about you! And I understood that you accepted Matthew--there he is, indeed! I am happy to see you, Matthew! Your new life seems to agree with you.--and I have wished to make my own life straight and proper. I have decided to give half of everything I own to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will give him back four times as much."

Matthew's chest swelled a bit as he heard this, since he had given up everything--technically, at least--and Zacchaeus was only giving half. And evidently, he intended to stay on as a tax collector. An honest one, apparently, if such a thing was possible. Matthew rather ironically wished him luck.

"Today, this family has been rescued," said Jesus. He gave an enigmatic glance at Matthew. "Because this man is Abraham's son also, and the Son of Man has come to find and rescue those who were lost."

Matthew wondered what that look had meant. It did not seem to be a reproach, exactly, but . . .

The next morning, they entered the city quietly by the sheep-gate, to listen, Matthew repeated to Mary, to what the people were saying, and to decide whether it would be prudent for Jesus to show himself publicly. The last time he had been here, Matthew added, "It was in this very spot, in fact, by the Bethesda pool over there, he cured a crippled man and told him to pick up his mat and walk--on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were quite indignant about it, and absolutely horrified when he answered that his Father had been working up to then, and so he was working also. You can imagine how they took that. They called it blasphemy." And with reason, thought Matthew.

He went on talking for a while, mentioning how it would be interesting to see if the people remembered what had happened, and whether they still held it against Jesus, when he looked over at Mary, and saw that she was completely lost in thought, and had not heard a word he had said. He stopped speaking and turned his attention to what others were saying. They were in fact talking about Jesus and asking each other if he was coming to the feast. "I thought I saw someone who looked like one of his students," said one. "I expect he will be here."

"I hope he does come," said another. "He is fascinating to listen to."

"The man is a rebel!"

"Why? Because he cured a man on the Sabbath?"

"There are six days for working," said another.

"What 'working'? From what I heard, he simply said, 'Stand up and walk.' There are not six days for talking, I presume; if so, I am looking at one of the greatest of the Sabbath violators."

"He told him to pick up his mat and carry it. It was not what he did, it was what he told the sick man to do."

"Oh, please! What was the man to do? Leave his mat there to be stolen before he could return for it after the Sabbath?"

"There are six days for working."

At this point, Jesus appeared beside them, and said to Matthew, "I wanted you to hear this, so that you would know why I must do what I am going to be doing from now on."

At this, he entered the Temple courtyard reserved for the Hebrew people, with Mary and Matthew following. A few recognized him, and the rumor began spreading that he had after all come up to the festival. He sat down on the top of some steps leading up to a porch and waited, chatting with the Twelve, until what he evidently considered a sufficient crowd gathered about him.

"I would have you consider a story," he said, in a voice that carried throughout the space. "There was an owner of an estate who planted a vineyard, put up a hedge round it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and then rented it to farmers and went to live somewhere else." He paused.

People began saying, "Where have I heard that?" "He is quoting, is he not? Who is it? Isaiah?"

Jesus continued, "When harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the farmers to collect his produce; but the farmers took his slaves captive and beat one up, killed another, and stoned the third."

There were murmurs of "Outrageous!" "But what does he mean by it?"

"The next time, he sent more slaves than the first group, but they did the same thing to them." There were further murmurs from the crowd. "Finally, he sent his son, saying that they would respect his son, but when the farmers saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir; let us kill him here and then we will have the inheritance!'" And over the increasing comments of the crowd, Jesus said, "So they caught him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and killed him."

Jesus now waited until the cries of indignation died down. There were a number in his audience, however, who held their peace, and looked at him quizzically.

When reasonable silence was restored, Jesus asked, "Now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?"

One or two began to blurt something, and some of those who had been listening silently took an arm and said, "Be careful, now," but finally the answer came, "He will slaughter those devils and rent the vineyard to farmers who will give him the crop when the harvest comes!" There was a roar of assent.

A man standing near Mary said, "God forbid!" in a low tone.

After a dramatic pause, Jesus concluded, "Have you never read in Scripture, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this has been done by the Master, and is a marvel to our eyes.'?"

"What is he saying?" said one to the man beside Mary. "Do you not see?" he replied. "Isaiah was referring to the people of Israel as the vineyard. Clearly, the farmers are the priests and the Pharisees, who have been trying to kill him, have they not? So he is saying that the Kingdom will--"

"And that is why I am telling you that God's Kingdom will be taken away from you and given to Gentiles, who will produce a crop from it! Anyone who falls on this stone will break into pieces, and anyone it falls upon it will grind to powder!"

"You see?" said the man. "But that is outrageous!" was the reply. He shouted, "What makes you think you know the Scriptures? You have never been taught!"

"My learning is not mine," answered Jesus. "It comes from the one who sent me. And if anyone chooses to do his will, he will know whether what I say comes from God, or whether I am speaking on my own. A person who is speaking on his own cares what people think of him; one who cares for what the one who sent him thinks is trustworthy, and has no dishonesty about him."

"Trustworthy!" they shouted. "Who do you think you are? Moses?" "How dare you speak thus!"

"Moses gave you the Law, did he not?" said Jesus. There were cries of "Of course!" "What then?" "But none of you are doing what the Law says. Why are you trying to have me killed?"

There was another uproar, among which was heard, "You are out of your mind! Who is trying to kill you?" At this, the man beside Mary and Matthew shook his head.

"I performed one deed here," said Jesus, "which shocked all of you. And yet because Moses gave you circumcision--" some tried to object at this, but Jesus went on, "--not that it came from Moses, but the Patriarchs--you will circumcise a man on the Sabbath. Now if a man can accept circumcision on the Sabbath and not break the Law of Moses, should you be indignant with me for making a whole man healthy on the Sabbath? Do not judge by appearances; base your judgments on the facts!"

"I thought he would say something like this," said the man beside Mary. The other said, "But do you not realize that he as much as said in the story that he was God's Son?"

"No, no," returned the man, "he means the Prince, that is all. But he is the one they have been wanting to kill; my uncle said he heard a Pharisee say that it would be a blessing if someone took a knife to him. Yet behold him here, speaking openly now, and no one is saying anything to him."

The other turned to him. "Can it be that the authorities have found out that he really is the Prince?"

"No, no! First of all, he is from Galilee--and we know where, from Nazareth. When the Prince comes, no one will know where he is from."

As if he had heard, Jesus rose to his feet, held out his arms, and shouted, "You know me! You know where I am from! But I did not come by myself! Someone who does not deceive anyone sent me--someone you do not recognize. But I know him, because I came from him, and he sent me!"

"I told you!" said the second man. "Can you not see what he is claiming? And in the very Temple of God! Down with him!" And he rushed forward, along with a number of others, but Jesus could not be found.

"What happened to him?" "How did he escape?" they asked each other, milling about.

"Blasphemy, that is what it was, on the very steps of the Temple!" said the man, still indignantly looking for Jesus.

"But perhaps he is the Prince," said someone.

"He is certainly a holy man," said another.

"The priests think--"

"The question is," said the man who had been beside Mary thoughtfully, "when the Prince does come, will he do more marvelous things to prove his claim than this man has?"

It took a while before the crowd satisfied themselves that Jesus was no longer there, and after some discussion, they dispersed. Mary and Matthew, saddened and bewildered, walked out of the Temple together, musing on what Jesus had said, and on what he meant when he told them he wanted them to hear the crowd so that they would know why he had to do what he had just done.

"There is a garden we used to stay in on the Mount of Olives over there," said Matthew. "I suppose that that is where we will find him--when he wishes to be found."

Mary heard the pained tone in his voice, and said, "Matthew, we have been able to speak frankly to one another. Tell me, what do you think? Really?" She almost could not speak from despair.

He looked back at her, and then, staring straight ahead, said, "You mean about what Judas said that day? Judas is a priest, and a very brilliant person, and I am really not that learned in the Law." He paused. "But I think he is a bit too clever; he analyzes too much. That seems to be a fault of the priests and the scribes and the Pharisees. They spend so much time on every word and phrase of the Law that they forget the obvious meaning of the whole." He paused again, longer this time.

"I have given this much and much thought," he said finally. "Much. If Judas's idea that God is an impersonal sort of power or force is true, then it seems to me that our religion is nonsense. If the religion that comes from Abraham and Moses means anything, it means that God is not simply Nature or Entelechy or whatever the Greeks call him--and it means that the stories we have about Moses are not like their myths that dress Nature in human shape to satisfy naive imaginations.

"No. If there is anything true at all about the Hebrew religion, it is that there is one God, a person who is infinitely above nature and its forces, who made nature--and who takes an interest in it, and is directing it and us somehow, for a rational purpose, which perhaps we cannot fathom, but will understand when it is accomplished. And this God is one who has preferences, and chooses one and leaves another, who is just as worthy, unchosen; he is a God who knows what is happening in this world, and who makes things--even unusual, marvelous things--happen, for reasons of his own.

Mary said, "I suppose that is what he meant when he told me to ask myself whether what was inside me were simply forces or persons. They spoke to one another, and enjoyed my anguish; and he talked to them and they had to answer. Clearly, they were not something impersonal. And I suppose he meant that whatever is inside him is also not some impersonal force. But in that case . . ." She lapsed into bewildered, wondering silence.

"Take that personal dimension away, and there is nothing left to what we believe except that there are not many deities. And the Greeks knew that long ago."

He too fell silent again for a while. They walked along, hardly noticing the people brushing against them on the streets, hearing nothing of their conversations. Finally, he resumed, "So I think he is totally wrong on what he said about God's being simply some kind of infinite impersonal Power. But this means that if the Master--what he calls the Father--is really a person--as I believe He must be--and if our Master were a blasphemer, then the Master would never allow him to perform deeds that for practical purposes can be done by no one else but that Father."

He paused again, musing. "Now I will grant," he said, "that much of what he says sounds dangerously like blasphemy--and I understand the concern the Pharisees have with it. But they have not seen what I have seen, or as I have seen it. If I were they, I might think as they do, since I would have nothing but reports to go on, and they could be exaggerated or false; and the marvels could be fabricated as tricks. But I know that they are not tricks. That curing of the cripple here, for instance; I would be willing to swear that he had never seen him before--or David, when he was dead back there in Galilee. My hair stood up as he rose from the stretcher.

"So if I were to believe that what he claims is simply false, and there is no interpretation of it that God could not set his stamp of approval on, then I must cease to believe in God himself--everything I believe and have believed is nonsense. I either believe that what he says is true--perhaps in a way I cannot understand--or there is no God. But then how can he do what he does?"

"Then you do not think he is mad."

"Do you?"

"I know not! I know not!"

"There is yet something else. Judas says that he noticed Jesus's claims the first time when he called Simon the Rock. He has not been paying attention. They were being made from the first moment I met him; and the others who have been with him even longer have confirmed this. I have been keeping notes, as you know, and I can prove it. He may be making the claim clearer and clearer as time goes on--and, as I think, he has more and more amazing things to use as evidence--here, by the way, is where I fault the Pharisees; they make no effort to see for themselves if the amazing things are true or not. They simply assume fraud.

"But whatever this claim of his finally turns out to be, to say that he did not realize it or conceive of it from the very beginning is simply blind--or those who have told me what happened at the beginning are liars. Even John--the one who bathed the people--gave indications of something like what Jesus is now saying."

"So Judas is wrong," she said, "when he says that the power that possesses him is destroying his mind."

"If his mind is destroyed, it always was. And does he sound like someone whose mind is destroyed? The only reason for calling him mad is because he sounds as if he is calling himself God. But if he is God, somehow--I know not how--then he is simply uttering the truth. And if he is not, then why is God backing up his claim? No. Of one thing I am certain: whatever the meaning of what he claims to be, it is not blasphemy."

Mary looked at him. "I would I had your faith," she said.

"Well," he answered, "I would not be overly concerned about it."

"And that," said a voice from someone who had been walking beside them for some time unnoticed, "is by far the best advice I have heard all day."

"Master!" exclaimed Mary, her face flaming at being caught expressing her doubts. Jesus laughed. Matthew stared at him.

"I think we turn left at the next corner," said Jesus. "I have an errand I would complete, if you would assist me."

They turned down a side street, which Mary seemed familiar with, and went down four or five steps, and then made another turn, and she gasped in amazement, staring at Lazarus, who was seated behind the board at the front of a building before them.

"I have a friend here," Jesus was saying to Lazarus, who had not yet looked up from what he was doing, "who tells me she has some gold--"

"Master! I did not recognize your . . ." and he broke off, jaw slack, staring at Mary in astonishment.

"Lazarus!" she exclaimed.

"Mary! I cannot believe it! Mary! Wait until Martha--Mary! After all these years! I cannot believe it! Wait! Stay there! Do not go away till I come out! I cannot believe it!" And he disappeared inside and rushed out the door on the side, his arms wide, and clasped Mary to his bosom, laughing and crying and babbling nonsense all at once. Mary almost fainted for joy; and the tears that gushed from her flowed like a river down her throat, choking her as she gasped for breath, throwing her into a convulsion of coughs.

"Are you all right? Are you all right?" wailed Lazarus, holding her shaking shoulders, completely at a loss. He had such an Oh-God-what-do-I-do-now look on his face that Mary, who had almost recovered from the choking, now fell into a paroxysm of laughter that verged perilously close to hysteria--which worried him even more.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she calmed down enough to say, "I am sorry. I was fully as surprised as you; he did not tell me where he was taking me. And you looked exactly like Father, sitting there."

His face now took on a solemn expression. "He is dead now, poor man. He has been so for seven years. Mother also; she lasted only six months after him."

"Come," said Jesus quietly to Matthew. "They will want to be together. Mary will be staying with him from now on."

As they walked away, Matthew said, "So she is the long-lost sister! Does Lazarus--? No, clearly, he knows nothing of what she was! What will it be like when he finds out!"

"Matthew, you are too preoccupied. Did I bring David back to life?"

"Yes, but what has that to do with this?"

"Be patient. Trust. One day you will remember this conversation."