Twenty-Two

Nathanael could not sleep for a long time that night. He was actually shivering uncontrollably, as if with chills, at the beginning; and when he became too tired for his eyes to stay open, he would hear that hideous voice and see the woman writhing on the ground again, and wake in dread that the demons would go from her to him.

"Only noise," Philip had said. If only they were but noise! But what they had done to that poor woman! And that madman! He kept telling himself, "But they cannot enter unless one lets them," and wondering, "But would I be able not to let them?"

Before they went to rest, the others had sat around the fire, discussing the situation. Nathanael had had no desire to join in, had no desire to think at all about it, and merely heard snippets of the conversation, which at one point got into philosophical conundrums about how Jesus could know what would happen if it depended on free choices. Nathanael had more pressing issues to concern himself with. If only he could think of something--anything but what he had seen!

He did remember as he passed by that Matthew said, "One can see how she could seduce people," at which Nathanael had raised an eyebrow. "Everything about her makes one want to fold her in one's arms and protect her."

"Fold her?" exclaimed Andrew. "As well fold a cobra!" That was definitely Nathanael's opinion. A cobra coiled to strike!

"I imagine," replied Thomas, "that is what many discovered, once they had done a bit of folding." So Thomas had caught the nuance, but his warning--if warning it was--was completely lost on Matthew. He said, "Well, it will be fascinating to see what happens tomorrow," and they dispersed to sleep, and Nathanael to tremble and keep waking from nightmares. What a week! First the demon he could not exorcise, then the boat trip in the storm, immediately followed by the madman, a legion of demons, and now this possessed woman! The legion were kittens compared with these seven devils! ! And she, with that ingenuous, trusting face, the most notorious prostitute of all!

--It suddenly occurred to Nathanael that when Matthew had joined them, he had ironically said to himself, "What next? A woman? Why not go all the way and say a prostitute!" And here they were almost certain to be joined by not only a woman but a prostitute! And not only a prostitute, but an ex-demoniac woman prostitute! Of course, if she joined them, presumably an ex-prostitute. But who knew?

But then, did they not have a coward who was anything but an ex-coward--and everyone knows that a coward--at least a male coward--is the worst of the worst. If he were not too much of a coward to leave, he would leave in spite of Jesus's appearing beside him telling him not to be silly. Nathanael loathed himself.

He finally slept--more or less.

The next day, toward evening, the group gathered in front of Simon the Pharisee's house, along with the usual small motley crowd of the interested and merely curious, while the Rock and Jesus went inside. Nathanael had with supreme reluctance joined them. Everyone was nervously waiting to see if the woman would come back, and what she would do. "But how will she know where he is?" said James son of Alpheus.

Suddenly, someone saw her running breathless down the hill. "See there! She comes!" he cried.

She scrambled, gasping for breath, up to the first man she saw, not one of the Twelve, and clutched at his robe; he shrank away in disgust as he turned and saw her, but she cared nothing. "This prophet--" she panted, "what is his name? Has he arrived yet?"

The man flung her hand from off his garment and turned away, but someone else answered, "He is inside at supper."

"Is she not--?" said another. And another, "She is! That is the one who--"

"Let me by!" she cried. "I must see him!" She struggled against a man who was trying to hold her back. His grip was strong, but her fear and her need were superhuman. She broke free.

"She has a demon still!" he exclaimed, holding his hand. There was shouting and a general running to and fro, some trying to get at her to stop her, others to distance themselves as far as possible. Andrew raised his voice above the tumult, "Let her by! If the Master wishes to see her, you will not be able to stop her! Let her by!"

There were protests, and a few still reached out at her, but, clutching a jar which looked like some kind of perfume or ointment, she pushed them aside as a boat pushes flotsam from its way in the water. She pounded on the door with the jar, and then stopped, evidently afraid she would break it and spill the perfume.

The door suddenly opened, and she disappeared inside.

There was a dead silence for a short time, and then murmurs arose, louder and louder. "What has the Prophet to do with such creatures?" "Do you not remember?" "Remember what?" "Yesterday, he said that if she came to him today, he would forgive her sins." "When? Why?" "He drove seven devils out of her yesterday; they said they were seven. It was horrible!"

"Why am I here?" thought Nathanael, who was certain that Mary would join them. He had no absolutely desire to see what happened when she finally came out, and finally decided to take his walk in the dark at this point, because the rest of the Emissaries were already discussing the implications of her possibly joining the group; some, notably Matthew, seemed in favor, while others, such as Simon the Revolutionary, were adamantly against it. Nathanael did not relish the idea, but had no stomach to fight against it--none at all, if the Master were in favor.

He went into the woods, and with a palpitating heart, enhanced by the experience of the previous night and the thought that the demons had probably pursued her and were lurking about, he gritted his teeth and saying, "They cannot enter me unless I permit it," marched as resolutely as he could through the gloom of the dappled moonlight toward the encampment they still had.

Nothing happened, of course, and he wiped the sweat from his face as he saw the blessed campfire again, with the women bustling about it preparing their evening meal. They were expecting the men to return and eat long before Jesus left the banquet, since there usually were lively discussions during these invitations, and they often went far into the night.

Nathanael wagered to himself that the discussions would be explosive this night. Well, "Jesus knew what he was doing."

But if his purpose was anything beyond rescuing those who were particularly difficult to rescue and in danger of greatest damnation, it was next to impossible to make a rational plan out of what he was doing.

But perhaps that was the key. Perhaps saving those most in need of saving was enough to make sense out of what was going on--which of course, probably put him in the category of being most in need of saving.

He pondered. "What would I have become had I not met Jesus? What else would I have done?" he said aloud to himself as he sat alone where the men were going to sit. It was not what he would have done, of course, but what he would not do. He had been dooming himself to a life of sitting under that fig-tree, watching the clouds and the real people go by--and seeing his family disintegrate because he could not face his father and tell him to be gentle to his mother, with the result that, to forget, she was going to drink herself into a state equal to Thomas's.

And he still did not feel able to have a showdown with his father. "He will not listen in any case," he muttered to himself. He had not been fully rescued as yet--or, if rescued, he had not traveled far on the path of freedom from fear. He thought of the small walk from the Pharisee's house. Well, I am trying; I must trust, I suppose. He seems to think it is not hopeless.

And that led him to Thomas, who clearly had been rescued, and--so far, at least--remained completely sober. But even there, there was the wineskin under his tunic, which he could not yet rid himself of. So Nathanael was not alone on the trail toward virtue.

--Could his mother be rescued thus? But only if she recognized what she was doing and how helpless she was. How could that be effected?

And then there was Matthew, who looked as if he were in total despair when Jesus called him. Nathanael wondered what he had in his hand and put away before he joined them. A dagger, perhaps, that he was thinking of driving into himself? "I am growing over-dramatic," he told himself. But Jesus rescued him, painful as the rescue seemed to be when he got rid of his possessions. Nathanael wondered whether he too had kept something-or-other that he simply could not rid himself of, just in case Jesus did die.

He must not die! What would all of us do?

And now this woman. She certainly had been rescued from a fate that seemed worse than death. Her demeanor as she frantically sought entrance to Jesus showed that she recognized it.

Then was what he--and they as his emissaries--were doing simply a rescue mission? With the whole point salvation from the mess people had made of their lives?

It was interesting. People thought of sin as something desirable--more desirable than virtue, because it was forbidden, even when, because it was forbidden, they did not dare to do it--and Jesus seemed to see through to the fact that those who engaged in sin made their lives miserable, but were trapped into it, partly because of the attitude that it was supposed to be desirable, and so needed rescue. If Nathanael was any indication of things, it was only after the rescue that it dawned on them that it was what was making them wretched.

--In that case, it was possible that the Reign of God was not to involve some political organization with the Twelve having their own posts, carrying out ministries as every other government official did. Certainly, if Jesus was God (and Nathanael noted that he had thought "if" and not "since") he had no need of any assistance. Any human being would need others, because he could neither know enough nor do enough of himself; but of course, it meant that Jesus created the whole universe and was directing it now--as doubtless, he had arranged to have that woman confront him at just that moment. He took the really hard cases; the Emissaries the easy ones. Easy ones! He remembered his "easy" demon.

It boggled the mind.

The students came back at this point, and from the discussions Nathanael overheard, they were not at all happy that Mary had indeed joined them. It seems that Matthew had taken her under his wing--or she had caught him in her web--and was in the woods somewhere with her. This caused amused snickers on the part of one or two--though it was clear that everyone who saw it thought it was in fact perfectly innocent. And, Nathanael thought, if it were not, Jesus would not have permitted it--if Jesus was in fact God the Son.

Mary and Matthew soon stepped into the edge of the clearing in the woods, when suddenly Mary stopped, as if remembering something, and then after a time shook her head.

"I bring a new student," Matthew said as they approached the fire. "Her--" he turned to her, and said in an undertone, "You have not told me your name."

"Mary," she said in a small voice, overcome by shyness. Mary of Magdala shy! But it was extremely attractive. Nathanael almost wished that he was Matthew, and then realized what he was wishing.

Several asked what she had said, and Matthew repeated her name. "Is this not--?"

"It is," broke in Andrew, before Matthew could speak. "I suspected that the Master wished her here, and if so, then we welcome her. He will doubtless speak to us on the subject when he returns. Until then, madame, you must be wanting something to eat."

Matthew escorted her over to the edge of where David was, the place where the men and women began to separate, and sat her down on the grass, while he and David went over to the fire and returned with some bread, wine, and fish, resting on grape leaves. She took it gratefully and began to eat while David went back to supply himself, and then came back and sat down, silently eating, with a not totally friendly sidelong glance at Mary every now and then.

A rather rotund woman came over, Chuza's Joanna, whom Matthew introduced, and she immediately began, "I am the wife of Chuza, who is in town with the Master, but we stayed behind because we did not want there to be too much of a mob when he was going to a respectable place to dine--"

and rattled on and on, with no punctuation but commas, and connecting, as she always did, the most disparate thoughts (if one could call them "thoughts") into a single sentence. She was a single sentence from morning to night, and Nathanael suspected that she even talked in her sleep.

He could not stand her, and to free himself from even hearing her chatter--one could not really "listen" to her--he went off to the sleeping area and, for once, lost consciousness immediately.

The next morning, Jesus called the group together because he had something to tell them in a short time, and then disappeared into the woods. Everyone assumed it had something to do with Mary, and there was hope that she would be sent off--charitably, of course--and would not plague them with her presence.

Presently, loud female voices came out of the thicket where the women slept, followed by Jesus' deep tones. Joanna emerged in consternation, and went to the rest of the women, not even glancing at Matthew, who was waiting in the clearing.

Jesus, followed by Mary, came to the group. He motioned to her, and she went toward them, somewhat irresolute; Matthew beckoned to her, and shyly and gratefully, she took a seat beside him. The romance seemed to be advancing apace. Though it did seem as if neither of them realized it.

"I told you that there was something I wished to say," he began. "There was a man who had two sons; and one day, the younger asked the father to give him his part of the inheritance; and so his father divided the estate between the two.

"A few days later, the younger son took his whole share and moved to a land far away, where he spent his wealth in wild living. And when he had got through the whole of it, there came a severe famine on that land, and he began to suffer from it; so he went to one of the citizens of that country, who hired him to go into the field and tend to his hogs. And he would gladly have eaten the carob-pods the hogs were feeding on, but no one gave him any.

"Finally, he came to his senses, and said, 'Look at all the hired hands my father has, who have more than enough to eat, and I am dying of starvation! I will leave here and go back to my father, and say, "Father, I have disobeyed heaven and you; I have no right to be called your son any longer. Simply take me on as an employee."'"

There was a murmuring in the group, and eyes turned toward Mary. Jesus waited until they had quieted down again, and then resumed, "So he left and started back to his father; and while he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and his heart went out to him. He ran to meet him, hugged him round the neck, and kissed him.

"Then the son began, 'Father, I have disobeyed heaven and you; I have no right to be called your son any longer--'

"'Hurry!' said the father to his slaves, 'bring my best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Bring in the calf we have been fattening and kill it and we will celebrate! My son was dead and has come to life! He was lost and is found!' So they began to celebrate."

As the group broke out in conversation, Nathanael thought that it sounded very much as if his view that Jesus's mission was a rescue mission was correct. He was wandering the countryside looking, not so much for sick people to cure, but even more for sinners to redeem.

Nathanael heard Ezra whisper to Thomas, "So the meeting by the cliff last night was arranged, if not by the Father, apparently by the Son. Think you not?" Mary caught Jesus's obvious reference to her, because her face had turned scarlet. She looked around, as if searching for someone. Ezra whispered, "Seeking Judas?" "Really, Ezra!" Thomas whispered back.

But it seemed there was more. "The older son, however," said Jesus, looking now, it seemed, at each of them in turn, "was still out in the field; but then, as he was coming home, he heard music and the sound of dancing. He called to one of the house slaves and asked what was going on, and was told, 'Your brother came, and your father had the calf we had been fattening killed because he got him back safe and sound.'

"The brother then became enraged, and would not go in."

He looked around at his students again. Nathanael thought, "Was I acting like the older brother?" He recalled his distaste at seeing her come out of the Pharisee's house, and detected a certain self-righteousness in it. Who am I to look down on someone who just happens to have a different type of sin to be rescued from than mine?

Jesus went on, "His father came out to ask him in, and he answered, 'Listen! I have slaved for you all these years and never refused to do one thing you asked me, and you never gave me so much as a goat to have a party with my friends! But when that son of yours eats up all your money with whores and then comes home, you let him have the calf we have been fattening!'

"'Son,' said his father, 'you are with me all the time, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and have a party, because that brother of yours was dead and came back to life; he was lost and has been found.'"

Nathanael noticed with some amusement in the midst of his chagrin that quite a few in the group had no idea what they were being rebuked for--and then Nathanael rebuked himself for feeling superior to them. Life was complicated.

Mary was also looking at the group, and finally found Judas in the crowd, his eyes closed in pain. She forced her eyes away, and Ezra remarked to Thomas, "You see? It was Judas. But he--apparently--pays no heed at all. No heed at all."

Ezra was altogether too perceptive for Nathanael's taste. He moved away before Ezra noticed him and started in on an analysis.

Jesus beckoned Mary to him once again, and said, "We will be leaving here soon; it would be good if you would wash quickly. But remember, I would speak privately with you for a few moments afterwards, if you could arrange it."

As they headed down the road which would pass Magdala, continuing by the huge lake to Capernaum on the northeast shore, Jesus told them to walk on ahead, and he would come up with them later.