The Gospel According to the Son (11 page)

I said: "If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will the man not go into the mountains to look for the lost one? If he brings back such a sheep, he can rejoice more than over the ninety and nine."

Peter said: "Lord, when I was a boy, I lived with my uncle, who was a shepherd. So was I also a shepherd. And it was not our practice to chase lost sheep. We worked to guard the good ones."

"No," I said. "The Son of Man has come to save what is lost." I heard God sigh. For a thousand years the children of Israel had been His. And in this time so many had been lost. I waited for Levi.

That evening on his return, Levi was distraught. A man who will drink through the day feels near to the anger of othersùit is why he drinks. That can be his shield. Was Levi keen to the wrath awaiting us in Jerusalem?

That night I preached for a long time, but it may have been to soothe my own unrest. In truth, I continued to speak even when I saw the light leave the eyes of my apostles. They had heard my words before. Still, there were new faces among us, and I chose to instruct by parable. I had come to learn that all of us, having been created by the Lord, possessed much of the Lord's pride. One learned best when free from the yoke of a preacher. It was better to feel full of His spirit by one's power to solve a riddle.

Therefore, I offered this parable: The Kingdom of Heaven, I told them, was like a man who planted good seed in his field; yet while he slept, his enemy came and sowed bad seed upon it, and these weeds appeared with the good wheat. One of my listeners spoke out: "Should the servants of the householder pull up such weeds?"

"No," I answered. "For you will uproot the wheat as well. Let weeds and good grain grow side by side until the harvest. Then, only then, should you bind the weeds and burn them. And bring the wheat into the house."

But I had another question for myself. How well could the Lord's angels separate good from evil? My journeys had shown me the cunning of men. And priests were more cunning still. What if there was a temple before the gate of heaven that was not unlike a customshouse? Through such gates could slip many an evil person.

Over and over, I had been learning that to my fellow men it mattered less whether they were tall or short, lean or wide, of noble features or ugly, even strong or weak. In one way all were the same: Greed was their guide.

So when Peter said to me, "We have forsaken all and followed you; what shall we have in return?" I replied with another parable, and it was for Peter.

A man hired his laborers for one denarius a day and sent them into his vineyard. As the hours passed, he hired more in the third hour and more again in the sixth and even in the ninth hour.

At the end of the day, he told his steward, "Call the laborers and pay them." Each man, whether from the first hour or the ninth, received one denarius. Since the first supposed that the last would receive less, they complained. But the householder told them, "Did you not agree to work for one denarius? Take what is yours and go. I will give as much to the last man as to you. Let the last be first and the first last."

I was uplifted by the force of my voice and spoke with such strength that the Lord whispered: "Enough! In your speech is the seed of discontent. When you are without Me, the Devil is your companion." And I felt as if the Lord held a thorn to my brow; I no longer knew to whose voice I listened. And I understood that to be the Son of God was not equal to being a Prince of Heaven but instead was my apprenticeship in learning how to speak simply and with wisdom, rather than by bewildering others with the brilliance of one's words; it was to knowùmost difficult of allùwhen the Lord was speaking through me and when He was not.

While we waited and worked to keep our spirits together, I had my times of doubt. I had labored in so many ways to reach the hearts of my fellow Jews, good men, even pillars of the community, but so many had wanted nothing to do with me.

It was then I had the longest conversation I would know with Judas. For, in an hour of doubt, I asked him: "Why do they not join me? How can they not wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?"

He was ready to tell me. "It is," Judas said, "because you do not understand them. You speak of the end of this world and our entrance into another realm. But a moneylender or a merchant does not want this world to end. He is comfortable with his little triumphs, and he wishes to be able to brood on the losses of his day. So he is at home with everything that proves a little cleaner or a little filthier than it was supposed to be. He lives for the play of chance. That is why he is so pious when he does not play. He suspects that the Lord would never approve of chance, yet here is he, enjoying life to the degree that it is a game and not a serious matter. Except for money. Gold is the center of philosophy for such a person, and salvation is there to contemplate in one's thoughts, but not in one's actions. He could even live with what you say about salvation, except that you ask for too much. You tell him to give everything of himself to it. So you offend him profoundly. You want the world to end in order that glory can come for all of us. Your merchant knows better. A little of this, a little of that, and the Highest One to be reveredùat a great distance, of course."

"You speak," I said, "as if you agree with them."

"In my thoughts I am often closer to them than I am to you."

"Then why are you with me?"

"Because many of your sayings are closer to me than any enjoyment I receive by witnessing their games. Having grown up among them, I know what is in their hearts, and I detest them. They continue to believe they are good. They see themselves as rich in charity, in piety, and in loyalty to their people. So I scorn them. They not only tolerate the great distance between the rich and the poor, they increase it."

"Then you are with me?"

"Yes."

"Is it because I know that we cannot reach the Kingdom of Heaven until there are no rich and no poor?"

"Yes."

"Still, you almost speak as if you do not care about entering the Kingdom of Heaven."

"God strike me, but I do not believe in it."

"But you say you are with me. Why, then, are you with me?"

"Can you bear the truth?"

"I am nothing without it."

"The truth, dear Yeshua, is that I do not believe you will ever bring us all to salvation. Yet in the course of saying all that you say, the poor will take courage to feel more equal to the rich. That gives me happiness."

"That alone?"

"I hate the rich. They poison all of us. They are vain, undeserving, and wasteful of the hopes of those who are beneath them. They spend their lives lying to the lowly."

I hardly knew what to reply. He had left me not unhappy. Indeed, I was all but merry. For I could see that he would work for me, and work hard. So, he would help to bring us all to salvation. What a smile of joyous disbelief would be on his face when we entered the gates together.

Only then would he see how all I said came truly from my Father.

I loved Judas. In this hour I loved him more even than I loved Peter. If all my disciples would dare to be as truthful with me as Judas had been, then I could be stronger and accomplish many things.

"If," I now asked, "I ceased to laborùby even a jot or a tittleùfor the needs of the poor, would you see less of value in me?"

"I would turn against you. A man who is ready to walk away from the poor by a little is soon ready to depart from them by a lot."

I had to admire this man. Judas had not seen the glory I knew. Yet his beliefs were as powerful to him as were mine to me. Yes, he was more admirable even than Peter, whose faith was as blind as a stone and so could be split by a larger stone.

So too did I know that trouble might arise between Judas and me. For he had none of the accommodation that my Father had given to my heart to make me ready for those trials that could come upon us unforeseen.

I can also say that this conversation with Judas was wondrous for clearing disarray. At last all seemed to be in order. We were ready. I could hardly believe we were ready to set out at last for Jerusalem, but it was a good morning. If none of us were without fear, we were touched by happiness as well. For we had not been enslaved by our fear. Our legs knew their own joy.

Then, and only then, did we truly step out. And in the vigor of our march, many began to believe that in two days when we were close enough to see Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God would appear. The Lord would be among us.

31

All the same, my conversation with Judas must have disturbed me more than I knew, for on the road to Jerusalem I became feverish. As I walked, my limbs ached. At night I had no rest that was without pain. And it was the same on the second morning.

By evening, still a full day's march from Jerusalem, we passed through Jericho and there a rich man named Zacchaeus wished to welcome me. Many were in the throng, however, and he was a small man; therefore he had climbed to the top of a sycamore so that we could see him.

I said: "Zacchaeus, come down. Tonight I will stay at your house."

He received me joyfully. Others said that it was not fitting that I should be the guest of the wealthiest publican in Jericho. But Zacchaeus said: "Lord, now that I know you, half of my goods I will give to the poor."

I was gladdened. For if a rich man could surrender half of his fortune because he believed in me, then there might be walls ready to fall in Jerusalem. I slept well that second night in the house of Zacchaeus.

Next morning as we set out, two sisters of my follower Lazarus came to meet us. I had dined with Lazarus in Capernaum, and he was a good man. Now his two sisters, Mary and Martha, had walked from his house in Bethany to find me, and they said, "Lord, Lazarus is sick, our Lazarus."

And by the way it was said, I knew that he had a sickness unto death.

They wept. As if I were brother to his illness, my fever came back; my night of rest was lost. I had to stay two nights more in Zacchaeus' house, and we were still a full day's march from Jerusalem. When I awoke on the fifth morning of our departure from Galilee, I was well in body but otherwise full of woe, and I said, "Lazarus is dead."

The apostle Thomas was simple, and often uttered what others thought. Now he said aloud, "Let us go to Jerusalem so we can die with him." There was much displeasure at Thomas' remark.

We walked all that day and into the evening before we came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived in a house an hour's walk from the walls of Jerusalem. And I could see many Jews on their way to his home. Indeed, his sister Martha came to meet me, and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

I was ready to agree. Nonetheless, I said, "Your brother shall rise again."

Then came Mary, the other sister, and she sat at my feet and was followed by others also weeping, and when they looked at me, I said, "Where have you laid him?"

"Lord, come and see."

How could I know whether God would grant me the power to return him to his sisters? Lazarus had been dead for two days.

Many Jews around me, friends of the dead man, seeing me in anguish, said, "Behold, how he loved Lazarus!"

They led me to a cave with a stone across the entrance. I said, "Take away the stone."

But Martha said: "Lord, who can speak now for his body?"

Yet at my sign they removed the rock from the entrance. I lifted my eyes and cried out, and my voice roared in my throat: "Father, let Lazarus come forth!"

Then I was silent. When the spirit left a man, all that was unclean in his spirit was loosed as well. So I waited for the odor to enter my nose. Indeed, I asked myself: "How can one raise a dead man from his tomb when all the evil of his past holds him down?"

The Lord must have heard me. I saw the face of Lazarus. I saw him stir.

Again I cried: "Lazarus, come forth." And I heard him answer.

"Oh, Yeshua," said Lazarus, "small creatures speak to me, and they say, 'You are not our master, Lazarus, but our wiping-cloth.' Thus speak the maggots."

I prayed for his misery to cease. And it was then that Lazarus rose in his tomb. I saw him come out of the mouth of the cave and take small steps toward me. These steps were small because he was bound in his winding sheet. His face was also covered. I said to his sisters, "Loosen him, but do not look at him."

Then, in the voice of a man who has dwelt in lands that others have not entered, Lazarus said, "The maggots have left me." His voice was like the small cry of a bird. Yet he was alive.

All who witnessed this fell back in wonder. I knew that the High Priest Caiaphas of the Great Temple, on hearing of this, would gather a council. For more than a few had seen Lazarus rise. So they knew that he stank of the grave. The Pharisees would call me a demon. Why not? I had the power to raise a man who had begun to rot.

I could hear the High Priest. He would declare: "If we leave this Jesus in peace, all Jews will go to him. The Romans will believe that we are in rebellion. Before it is over, the Romans will take all that we have."

I knew that the High Priest Caiaphas might even say, "Is it wrong for one man to die so that the rest will not perish? Is it wrong for this one man to die?"

That day I did not go to Jerusalem but slept in the house of Lazarus. In the morning when I said good-bye, he was weak and his spirit was low. I asked, "Do you believe?" and Lazarus said, "I am frightened of the things I saw when dead. Yet I try to believe." In his weakness, he still took my arm and said, "An angel came to me. All is not heavy."

I said to Lazarus: "Do not fear. You are well favored by the Lord." And to myself I prayed that I was telling the truth.

32

Since I wished my people to feel heartened by our entrance into Jerusalem, I sent forth two of my disciples and told them: "Go into this village before us and ask for a colt on whom no man has ever sat. When you find one, bring him to me. Tell them that the Lord is in need of such an animal."

And they went away and soon found a colt, young and spirited, and led him back. I sat upon this animal, which, until now, had been ignorant of a rider, and I held to its mane. For if I could not subdue such a young beast, how then could I calm the uproar in the hearts of men awaiting me at the Temple?