“Truly I say to you, many will come from east and west and will sit and feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God! But you, you will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!”
The centurion could go back to his house. The faith he had shown in coming to me was justified – his pais was already healed.
A form of public declaration, these events were soon being discussed all over the town, and word spread throughout Galilee that the rabbi had said that the Jews would not enter the Kingdom of God! Yet I had only spoken to a handful of Pharisees, some of whom had known me since the day I was born and dismissed every word of my teaching. They accused me of craving recognition, although I had never said (or even implied) that I saw myself as the host who was giving this banquet, nor even that I would eventually have a place of honour among the guests. What was more, despite the fact that they believed in the resurrection of the dead and included this in their teaching, they weren’t prepared to accept that I should bewitch the ordinary people with colourful descriptions of what happened afterwards, something of which no one had – nor should have – any knowledge.
What made my crime worse was that I had publicly claimed as fact something I had learnt from the Samaritan woman at the well in the noonday heat. The Law of Moses was no longer my sole guiding principle; I no longer felt bound by the commandments but by Jacob and the Patriarchs, by the Judaism that existed before the revelation on Mount Sinai. Not only was this Kingdom of mine open to every race and creed, Jew and Gentile alike, it belonged to all time.
No longer was I simply a rabbi carving out his individual path in a country that was simply the way it was, the focus of other nations’ hostility, protecting himself from them behind the wall of a Law that was interpreted literally. I wasn’t even a prophet of doom of the John the Baptist variety – I was dismantling the Jewish identity; a heretic whose cause would soon be joined by every lunatic, hothead and revolutionary in the land.
From that moment on, my critics among the local Pharisees became my sworn enemies. It wouldn’t be long before they told their influential colleagues in Jerusalem about me.
35
If they were going to tolerate the existence of someone whose prestige overshadowed their own, then these local potentates expected me to produce a sign from above, one of those dramatic theophanies that shine out like gold among the annals of the prophets. I treated their demand with the contempt it deserved. But what of my disciples? I could tell that they would also have liked to see proof that substantiated the claims I made.
Proof? It was right there before their eyes. Hadn’t they seen all the sick people being healed? I said to them: “If it is by the finger of God that I heal, then this is proof that the Kingdom of God has come to you!”
But they had never really left John the Baptist and the banks of the Jordan behind, and expected the apocalypse to come in a pillar of fire at any moment. For them, the advent of the Kingdom of God would surely be the awe-inspiring event that is part of the Jewish mindset – a chariot of fire descending from heaven, radiant angels standing round the throne of God, a brand-new temple covered in glittering diamonds… But a mental case foaming at the mouth in a synagogue, a little boy having an epileptic fit, a foul-smelling leper, a paralysed man! All they could see were a few miracles that eased some of the world’s suffering.
So I told them again: “The Kingdom of God is with you, it is among you now!” A world was about to end, and end at this very moment for those who purified their hearts. But as long as there were still men in the grip of Evil, this world and its sorrows would live on. Running out of arguments, I eventually said:
“Joyful are your eyes, for they see! Truly I say to you, many prophets and kings longed to see what you see, but did not see it.”
But joyful they were not. It pained me to see how they were torn between their illusions and a reality that they were unable to grasp. After all, they had left their families and livelihoods to follow me, and had stayed with me throughout my vicissitudes. Other people wouldn’t have done the same, and I was acutely aware of my responsibility to them. So one day, when I had gone off to be alone for a while as was my wont, I was surprised when they came and asked me, rather self-consciously:
“Teach us to pray, as John the Baptist taught his disciples!”
A great tide of love swept over me. They were admitting that they were incapable of drawing near to the mystery, and seemed to grasp where the source of my teaching and powers of healing lay! I tried to tell them about how I had found the God of loving kindness, how we had to become a little child in his eyes, but I was confronted with the conventions of an entire nation, for whom praying means reciting the fixed prayers. The Baptist must have produced such a prayer for his disciples to use, and they were asking me to do the same for them… ever since they were children they had been used to repeating the eighteen Ritual Blessings every day.
Anxious to fit in with daily life, the Pharisees have suggested that when people are travelling they should use an abbreviated version of the prayer, just seven blessings. Hadn’t we been on the road permanently since we left the Jordan? So I would give them a short prayer, which wouldn’t begin with the hallowed invocation, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe”… Instead they would address God as Abba, which is rather like saying “Daddy”:
“When you pray, say ‘Abba’, so everyone will know who you are…”
They looked shocked: God was never referred to by this baby name in any of the liturgical prayers. He was called “Father”, with the note of respectful distance that befitted the Divine Majesty. To speak to God as a child does to his human father was an act of familiarity quite unimaginable for any Jew!
I assured them that this was how I spoke to God, it was indicative of my relationship with him. Didn’t they understand? If they followed my example they would. I told them to speak to Abba, to ask that his Kingdom should come, to them and to those around them, that his will should be done on earth as it was in heaven. I included a request that was suited to our nomadic life – that we shouldn’t go without our daily bread. And another one, which summed up the law of the heart, its never-ending and boundless mutual forgiveness. And then finally, echoing the torment I had suffered in the wilderness, that Abba should spare them this ordeal and deliver them from Evil.
They were astonished: was that it? The Gentiles gave great speeches to their gods, while the Pharisees and other devout Jews would stand praying in the synagogue at great length – but we only get a few sentences? I pointed out that these pious individuals would make sure that they happened to be standing on the street corner when the shofar sounded, so everyone could see them praying. But they should do the opposite; like me they should go to a deserted place and pray to Abba in secret. These few phrases were enough – because Abba knew what they needed long before they told him.
Just a few phrases which would open their hearts. And then, silence.
At sunset I went up the mountain, but they didn’t come with me. I had done everything that is expected of a prophet: I had summed up my life in a few words, offered it to them in a few brief sentences. What came afterwards was none of my concern. Sooner or later they would have to travel the same road as me.
Tonight they lie scattered under the olive trees, fast asleep, while I stand here alone under the stars, face to face with you, Abba.
36
I was exhausted. These endless disputes! Yet they were part of the life of a Pharisee, his driving force, the breath of life. Hillel and Shammai had spent their lives pitted against each other and sometimes the people who came to listen to them, but they had never been confronted with a wall of silence like this: people might have disagreed with their opinions, but never had they refused to talk to them, rejected them outright. Nor had they had to watch as their words sank for ever into the quicksand of their disciples’ minds.
With autumn came the Feast of Tabernacles, a fam
ily festival that commemorates the Exodus, and which Jews set great store by. After six months’ absence it was an opportunity to return to Jerusalem, to submerge myself in the jubilant crowds as well as to see my family again. We would be passing through Capernaum, and I was hoping to make the trip with my four brothers as we had done in the past.
But they had changed. Loyal members of the local synagogue, they were as hostile towards me as the Pharisees.
“Leave here and go to Judaea,” they said. “Let your disciples there also see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret! If that is what you want, show yourself to the world.”
It was only jealousy, lack of understanding – but I had learnt to hold my tongue. They would set off for the festival without me, taking the Twelve with them. I would stay behind in Galilee without family or disciples, as alone as I am here tonight.
Yet there was something in me that rebelled. None of the prophets had ever hidden when it came to proclaiming the coming of a new world of which he was the gatekeeper. This Kingdom wasn’t mine, it was bursting forth while I looked on, the lava of the wilderness would sweep through the old Israel, put it to the flame. After hesitating for a few days I changed my mind and decided to go alone and in secret, just one more nameless pilgrim in the crowd.
I would go to Jerusalem. Whatever the cost.
The courtyards and balconies of the city were decked with branches, symbolizing the tents in which the Israelites had lived in the wilderness during the first Exile. Excited children were building shelters in the street, which brought smiles to the faces of the old and made mothers dewy-eyed.
In the midst of the joyful throng I came across the Judaean. He was even more worried than on my last visit: there were members of the Sanhedrin who weren’t prepared to tolerate my antics any longer, and were wondering how to silence this bumptious little rabbi. Caiaphas, the High Priest, had listened to them but was playing for time. He reminded them that no Jew can be found guilty unless he has committed a crime; our respect for the Law is what sets us apart from the Gentiles. But if I appeared in public during the festival, they would have to put me to the test.
The Judaean wanted to know if I was going to stay out of sight at Lazarus’s house like last time?
I told him about recent events, my encounter with the Syrian woman and the centurion in Capernaum. How during the course of my constant journeying my teaching had gradually developed, giving my healings their true meaning; how I had left the pessimism of John the Baptist behind and created a time and a place by proclaiming a Kingdom that was to come, yet which had already arrived.
This was what I wanted now: I had to teach in the Temple, the sounding board of Israel.
He was silent for quite a while before replying, a habit I much valued. A fellow disciple of the Baptist, he was able to appreciate how far I had come, and would be with me every morning on the esplanade of Solomon, where the crowds come to listen to preachers of all persuasions. In the evening, however, he would leave me in the Garden of Gethsemane, where I would find the solitude that he knew was vital to me.
I accepted both proposals: he would accompany me during the day, and I would withdraw into seclusion at night. It was comforting to have an understanding friend in this time of twilight, whose end neither of us was yet able to see.
My appearance on the esplanade shortly after daybreak the next morning didn’t go unnoticed. The number of passers-by who thronged to listen to me was an indication of the extent to which my fame had spread beyond Galilee. There were Jews from Judaea and Transjordan, Hellenized Jews from Egypt or Syria… all peddling terrifying predictions about the end of the world that lent weight to the texts that were doing the rounds, apocalyptic visions attributed to Daniel or Baruch, manuscripts copied out by the Essenes. They were eager to hear what he had to say, this rabbi from Galilee who described the hereafter as a banquet and told people how to get themselves on the guest list.
I sat at the base of a pillar, sheltered from the September sunlight that was already warming the venerable marble paving. The small crowd who pressed around me restricted my view of the vast esplanade, from where we could just hear a vague murmur.
All of a sudden, drifting over people’s heads came other, barely audible sounds, followed by shouts of “Death! Death!” A ripple ran through the crowd; I asked the Judaean what was happening. He said the Sanhedrin had recently heard the case of a woman who had been caught with a man who wasn’t her husband. According to the Law, by committing adultery she rendered herself gravely impure, something that could only be absolved by her public execution within the Temple precinct.
The Roman occupier reserves the right to hear cases of a political nature and impose a sentence of death by crucifixion. But in this vast Empire made up of a patchwork of different nationalities and creeds, Rome delegates responsibility for judging religious matters to the relevant local authorities. Under Jewish Law, adultery is punished by public stoning: so this woman would die under a hail of stones while her lover, protected by his status as a man, was spared.
I stayed where I was. Jostling through the crowd, a group of Pharisees came towards me, followed by a group of men in a state of great agitation, all carrying stones. With them they were dragging a woman, whom they threw at my feet, at the same time pulling off her veil, and then stood looking me up and down with mocking expressions. The eldest of the Pharisees spoke up, as much for the benefit of the crowd as for mine:
“Rabbi, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. In the Law Moses commands us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
Everyone went quiet. This controversial rabbi was going to have to take sides, we weren’t by the lake now, this was the nerve centre of God’s Chosen People. Among them I recognized one or two of the Pharisees who had come to investigate me in Galilee. This was too good an opportunity to miss, they were going to seize it with both hands, push me into a corner.
So what was it to be – the unflinching enforcement of the Law of Moses, yes or no? Put the woman to death in front of me with my approval… or would I rebel against the natural order of things as decreed by Moses himself?
I looked down and closed my eyes. What crime had this woman committed, except that of loving? Once again I saw the prostitute at Simon the Pharisee’s house, felt her tears falling on my feet. Knowing she was forgiven had restored her to herself, she had been reborn before my very eyes. Even when it is blameworthy, can love really be a crime? And who are we to impose conditions on it?
Not visible to my lowered gaze, the Pharisees were telling me in loud voices that they wouldn’t allow me to shy away from my obligations yet again. I glanced up at the woman, then bent down and wrote in the dust on the paving stones with my finger. The first stone wouldn’t strike her square on the forehead, it would take several blows before she staggered and fell. Then someone would go over with a large cobblestone and splatter her brains across the marble paving of the Temple. And the men would feel satisfied.
I sat up, gestured to the woman to stand up in the midst of them, then looked these pillars of society in the eye.
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
And I bent down and started writing in the dust again, so as not to have to reply. I wasn’t going to argue with them or plead for mercy. It is true that our Law is quite clear on this point, the woman’s actions warranted the death penalty, but we had to go back to the beginning, before Moses was given the Law on Mount Sinai, to the moment when the world was created.
While God rested from his labours on the seventh day, wasn’t the Evil One still hard at work inside each of us? Couldn’t I myself feel his teeth in me every minute of the day? Could he be killed by throwing stones at him? When the king invites guests to a marriage feast, does he stone them to death? He doesn’t drive anyone away, he opens his doors to everyone, even passers-by. The Kingdom isn’t a courtroom, the banquet takes precedence o
ver the Law. This woman shouldn’t be buried under a pile of stones, but reborn. From this moment on she was one of the guests.
Not hearing a sound, I looked up. One by one and silently the Pharisees walked away, led by the Elder of the Sanhedrin. Arms hanging limply by their sides, trying not to be noticed, most of the men placed the stones back on the ground. The crowd was struck dumb, like an amphitheatre full of people turned to stone around a statue in their midst.
“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
For the first time her face came alive.
“No one, Rabbi.”
I leant against the pillar, feeling a sudden pain in my back.
“Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
Once more a ripple ran through the crowd. And I saw men picking up stones to throw at me.
37
The Judaean led me through the streets and alleyways, forcing his way through the crowds. When the first stones began flying in my direction, he dragged me behind the pillar, then out of the large double doors that leads from the Temple precinct into the Old Town, which he knew inside out. As we went, at something between a walk and a run, we discussed what had happened. I had taken the woman’s side, yes, but defending someone accused of a crime doesn’t mean that you should share their fate. So why did the men of Israel want to stone me? He replied that firstly it was because I had publicly reminded the notables from the Sanhedrin that they were sinners like everyone else, and that God alone has the power of life and death. But most of all, by telling the woman that I didn’t condemn her I had counted myself among sinners like themselves; at that point I had forfeited my status as God’s messenger, and ceased to be the heaven-sent hero that the crowds were expecting. Being familiar with the way their minds worked, my friend thought they were throwing stones at an icon that had brought destruction upon itself.
The Silence of Gethsemane Page 13
