Fourteen

Jesus, among them again, said, as if he were renewing a conversation that had been briefly interrupted, "I expect it would be well to go down to Capernaum for the night; I have an errand to do in that vicinity tomorrow evening, and we can find places there to stay with no trouble. It seems I am not welcome here."

They looked at him with astonishment. Added to his ability to cure with a touch and to turn water into wine, apparently he also could appear and disappear at will.

He gathered his group of followers and led them to the place they had been earlier, by the lake. The students talked indignantly of the reception he had received, but it did not seem to bother Jesus; it had apparently confirmed what he had expected. "It goes to show," remarked Nathanael, "that it is not going to be all that easy to inaugurate the Reign of God in Galilee either. Cures are fine, and perhaps signs of the new state of affairs; but even those impressed by them care about them as cures, not signs."

That day and the next passed in discussions that went nowhere, and in Jesus's touching and curing a rather vast number of people who came to him for relief. One of them was even a leper. People gasped in horror when they saw him touch the man, and gasped again in amazement when his skin was suddenly as pure as a baby. Everyone sang Hallelujahs, and even the students, for whom cures were becoming routine, marveled.

Nathanael could not understand why, if these spectacular cures were signs, Jesus kept telling the people cured to be quiet about what had happened. One would think he would like to have them known. Perhaps for some reason he thought "his time had not yet come" as he said to his mother in Cana.

But if his intention was to effect the cures but not have anyone know what he was doing, he was failing spectacularly. Those he made healthy were understandably ebullient about what happened, and bruited it about, with the result that more and more people every day flocked around him, hoping for just a touch of a finger.

On the other hand, possibly, this was what he wanted. He doubtless knew that the recipients of his favors would not keep a secret of what he had done, and that his fame might spread even more rapidly than if he asked to have it so. And at the same time, he might be calling attention to the fact that curing diseases was not really what he was all about--though at this point, nobody had the faintest idea what he was about, except that it involved a change of thinking in some unspecified direction, and the fact that an unspecified Reign of God was in the near offing.

Toward evening, Jesus went with his students up to a river ford, at which there was a tax-collector's booth, where a man with a face of despair was assessing the tax on the loads the farmers wished to transport, and his assistants were looking on with a mixture of horror and disbelief.

Nathanael seemed to recall seeing him a couple of mornings ago--or someone very like him, but who was haggard and filthy, while this man was merely haggard--at the back of the synagogue in Nazareth. In fact, he remembered, he noticed him because Jesus seemed to look directly at him when he said "set broken people free." He certainly fit the description of a "broken person" at the time--as he did now. And he was a tax-collector! But an extremely reluctant one, if the expression on his face meant anything.

And apparently Jesus was about to set this broken person free, because he walked up and said, "Come. Follow me," and the man, who was evidently fighting within himself, after a few moments put something he had been holding onto a shelf in his booth, and emerged, with a look that Nathanael could sympathize with. He was as much as saying, "What I have been enduring was past bearing, but what am I now involving myself with?"

There was a soldier standing by, who strode up to Jesus, about to confront him. Jesus merely said, "This man has decided to become a student of mine, and will no longer be working here. You will let him go, and you may tell his--friend--that he will soon be glad to have eyes and ears in the company of Jesus of Nazareth. The name is not unknown in Judea, even now." His friend? Someone in authority over the soldier? Someone in Judea?

"I will be required to confirm that." said the soldier.

"I and my followers will not be difficult to find. If you need to locate Levi, you will have no trouble." So his name was Levi.

"You are leaving us, Master?" said one of the assistants, and the man, who had almost started to go back to the booth, turned instead to him and said, "No. Yes. . . .Yes. I have decided to follow this man and learn from him." Then, apparently now that the decision had been made, he continued with less confusion in his voice, "You know how to carry on what we have been doing. Use today's numbers as a guide to what Rome exacts, and add enough to earn your own keep. You will have no trouble. But be not too exacting."

Both men's mouths dropped open in disbelief, apparently at the last phrase more than anything else. "But you cannot simply leave us!" said the one who had spoken.

The man turned without another word to follow after Jesus, who had confidently walked away, as if everything had been settled satisfactorily. The others kept expostulating, but it was as if Levi could not hear. The soldier followed for a step or two, as if he would object, and then shrugged his shoulders, and began speaking to the two assistants.

Well, now. Now the entourage of the new King of the World was made up not only of fishermen, a sluggard and--it must be said, a Philip--but a drunk and a tax-collector! What next? A woman? Why not go all the way and make her a prostitute? If one were going to convince the Judean authorities that one was the Prince, this was the worst way to go about it, at least if Judas was any guide; it was of a piece with starting out by driving the vendors from the Temple and claiming that if they destroyed it, he would rebuild it in three days. Judas would either be reevaluating his theory, or would be devising ways to get Jesus back on the proper trail.

Nathanael almost laughed at the thought. Whatever "trail" Jesus was following, it was of his own blazing and had nothing "proper" about it. Everyone said he knew what he was doing. Well, if he did, no one else did.

Nathanael remembered that he had initially thought that Jesus might turn the world into something that made sense. Yet now, even his choice of followers did not make sense, if he were going to take over the world government--especially if Simon the Revolutionary's idea of taking it over had any scintilla of truth. Well, if nothing made sense, then nothing made sense.

Still, perhaps it was not so irrational after all. If Jesus's intention was to show them that he was full of the Infinite Power, what better way to do it than by picking as his courtiers the least courtier-like possible, and making them--somehow--be up to the task? Water into wine would be child's play compared with doing that!

But given the transformation of the water into wine, perhaps things could be made sense of after all; and if he were going to make sense of the world that he confronted, he would certainly have to start with the chaos that it was, and like the Spirit hovering over the waters, divide it into light and darkness and all the rest. Even the water into wine--that also was a "sign," was it not? The first sign, to his own students, that he had incredible powers that he could call upon when he wished--or when "the Father" wished, whoever or whatever the Father was.

Well, he would see. One thing was certain: he was in the right place. However little sense this--apparently--made, it was certain that anything else was both nonsense and a horror. And he then had no hope. He would avoid doing whatever was daunting, while if he "trusted in Jesus" he might just be able to manage something, possibly even something significant.

Philip, he noticed, came up to Thomas, and whispered something, looking at this Levi. Thomas acted as if he did not know; and then Ezra the Observer came up and said something. Nathanael seemed not to be the only one who had seen Levi in the synagogue.

Jesus was saying to Levi, "You must sleep first. And perhaps think a bit on the morrow. We will take you home and then return for you, if you keep to your intention. I should tell you that the soldier will also return. He finds it difficult to believe that you will abandon your life."

"I cannot go back. I cannot."

"But you must assure yourself that this is not simply fatigue speaking. When you are fresh, it is possible you will see things in a different light."

"You should know I will not." What was this? Had Jesus spoken to him earlier? Of course, he must have, for Levi simply to leave his booth and follow him. Based on what happened at the booth, he could not possibly have known that he was anyone to be followed. Conceivably, when Jesus disappeared in Nazareth, he showed up beside this person and went home with him in whatever fog he put around him so that no one could see them.

"-- you who should be assured of it above all."

"Whatever you say. I know not even who I am now--or what. I know nothing."

None of them made any attempt to speak to the tax-collector, and were murmuring softly among themselves. A tax-collector as one of them! An agent of Rome! A couple of them were even speculating about the "friend." It could not be one as high as Governor Pilate himself, could it? That would be interesting, to have a friend of Pontius Pilate in the entourage of Jesus. Was Jesus trying to unite himself somehow with Rome?

Jesus kept Levi by his side, gently supporting him as he stumbled along the seemingly interminable distance to his house, a sumptuous Roman-style villa (which caused even more remarks) with a fence around it and vicious dogs patrolling inside. No one dared to say anything openly, but it was clear what everyone was thinking. A drunk--at least, a former drunk--was one thing, but a traitor to the Judean people quite another, not to mention someone who bled the last drop from the people for his own gain in addition to Rome's! Tax-collectors were worse than prostitutes, the vilest of the vile! And this one had a "friend" among the Roman authorities, and who knew how high up?

The man made some request of Jesus which no one heard; but Jesus stroked his beard and gave what seemed to be an affirmative answer.

After they left him, discussions kept going on in low tones among the students, while Jesus acted as if nothing unusual had happened. In fact, as they began to go to their rest (which increasingly was in the fields or woods; there were more and more of them day by day), he even said, "I believe that we now will have the nucleus I was waiting for. We will see."

So Nathanael was right. He was not only to be one of the followers, but was part of the "nucleus." Nathanael wondered if he himself was one. But it seemed so. How else could he see angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man?

--The "Son of Man"? He had not adverted to this before. He called God "my Father," did he not, which implied that he considered himself the Son of God. But he had clearly called himself the Son of Man also. What could that mean? It sounded as if he thought that he was God, and was fascinated, as it were, to find himself clothed in flesh. But according to Judas, he was a man who had some kind of contact with God, who worked through him. After all, Moses "spoke to God as one person speaks to another," but nothing in Scripture gave any hint that Moses, for all his glowing face, thought he was God. He could not even see God's face, but only his back as he went by. Jesus was far beyond Moses, clearly. Nathanael could not imagine Moses calling God "my Father."

So something was wrong with Judas's theory. Perhaps this "contact" was more than just contact--or perhaps the Spirit that "was upon him" (in Isaiah's words that he quoted back in Nazareth) began taking over his mind. Or--

Nathanael laughed. He had just been thinking that Jesus was going to make sense out of everything; and now it was not simply Jesus's entourage, but Jesus himself that made no sense! Was he a man whom God was taking control of, or God deciding to empty himself somehow into human flesh and be born from Mary?

Either way, it was preposterous!

And then he thought, "Well, I suppose I must trust. What else can I do?" But who was he?

The next day, when they went in the morning to see this Levi, his slave came out and told them that he was still asleep, that he had been exhausted from the previous two days when he had had no sleep, and that he did not feel it right to wake him. Jesus seemed to be expecting it, and agreed to return on the morrow.

As they left, they noticed that the soldier also appeared, and, receiving the same message, reported something to the slave. Had he got word to the "friend" in Judea somehow? If so, the Romans must have some kind of relay service; it would take a week or more actually to go there and return. Or perhaps, someone here in Galilee had orders from Judea about what to do if Levi defected.

Simon the Revolutionary reacted to this by snorting that Jesus was "putting the whole enterprise in danger."

"If," answered John, "the 'whole enterprise' means rising up against Rome."

"Well, what else could it be? The 'reign of God,' after all."

"A thousand things. But what would you, Simon? Would you prefer that there be a spy in our midst who (a) is known to be a spy, and (b) looks very much as if he is going to be loyal to us, or would you have one whom no one is aware of?"

"I would prefer to have none at all!"

"Of a certainty. But the question is whether Pontius Pilate would prefer that, as long as you have brought him up." So Simon had also interpreted the "Judean friend" as Pilate. Of course, he would.

"His preferences are not worth a copper to me."

"Perhaps not, but he has been known to act upon his 'preferences.' And the type of spy he would select, if he were selecting one, would in my opinion likely be someone like yourself, who gave every appearance of being against him to disarm us."

"Are you accusing me of being a spy for Rome?"

John was about to make a hot reply, but at this point, Nathanael tried to defuse the situation, "Not at all, Simon. But John has a point. If Rome is interested in finding out what is going on among us (and I suspect they have more than a passing interest with the talk of the Reign of God), then we can live much more comfortably knowing who their liaison is than not." Always supposing that this Levi was harmless, and of course, that Jesus knew what he was doing.

The next day they returned, and Levi hobbled out, obviously still the worse for wear, and spoke sharply to the dogs, which only reluctantly gave up their desire to feast on the students, and returned growling to the back of the house while he approached the gate.

"You have returned to life on the third day, I see," said Jesus.

"If one can call it 'life,'" returned Levi. "I am as dead as I am alive."

"Ah, well, your new life is barely born, and you are still feeling the pains of the birth canal."

"I am feeling pains, truly," he returned. Did everyone, thought Nathanael, have to be born a second time to follow this man?

"Do you still wish to follow me and learn from me?"

"I cannot see that I have any alternative. I am totally at a loss. I know not what you are; you are certainly not the one I once thought you to be. But you seemed to be saying that you could put back the pieces of me that have been scattered all over the ground." So Levi had known Jesus "once." As a carpenter? Fascinating.

"--haps not put them back," Jesus was answering. "The self that you were is not something you are proud of and would have restored, is it not?"

"There is wisdom in that."

"That is why I said a new life has been born, if you would choose to live it. It is your choice, however."

"As I say, what choice do I have? I cannot go back, and I see no way forward. What would a tax-collector who renounced tax-collecting do? How would I live?"

"Well, you can try what I have to offer, and we will see."

"What I cannot understand is what possible use you could have for me, given what I am, in whatever it is you are doing."

"Ah, well if it comes to that, there are many things you could be useful for. You can read and write well, in several languages, and we know your skill with money. But that is beside the point, really. The point really is what can be done for a sheep that wandered off as a lamb and has fallen among wolves. The others, here, of course, are not quite convinced as yet that you are not really a wolf. They will learn."

"They will find me not a very good companion in any case. I have been alone most of my life, and have forgotten how to act with others. Even my slave and I barely speak. I hope they will be able to make allowances, not only for what I was, but for what I am."

"It will be good for them, fear not." And he took him over to the group, which had gathered a little apart, murmuring to each other, and introduced him.