The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  And when James and John were also with us, he said, “Tell no one this vision until the Son of man is raised from the dead.”

  V

  SOME TIME AFTER we had returned to Capernaum, the collectors of the Temple tax set up their tables in the marketplace. Every male among us has to support the worship of the Temple by annual dues of a half-shekel.

  So when Judas and I were buying cucumbers at a booth nearby, one of these petty officials hollered to me: “Simon, doesn’t your teacher pay the tax?”

  I said, “Of course he does.”

  “Well, show me his money,” he said.

  Judas was with me. He had the purse. We had the payment. But the toad provoked me by rapping the table grandly with his knuckle. “Put it here,” he said. “Put it here and all is clear!”

  Faster than thought I whacked his board with the flat of my hand so hard his eyeballs spun. “Keep what you see!” I said.

  Judas let out a cackle of laughter, and we left.

  Back at my mother-in-law’s house we told Jesus about the tax-collecting lizard.

  Jesus said, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tribute, from their own children or from others?”

  “From others,” I said.

  “Then the children are free,” said Jesus. “And the children of the king shall forever be free—

  “However,” he said, draping his arms over our shoulders, mine and Judas’, “so that we do not offend the officials of this world, go down to the sea, cast out a good hook, and look in the mouth of the first fish you catch.”

  We did. That same afternoon I pulled in a good-sized carp. When I pinched its mouth open I found a clean piece of money. A shekel.

  One shekel, of course, is two half-shekels. That’s two payments of the Temple tax.

  With the fish-coin, then, we went to the collector’s booth and paid the snake two taxes. I gave him the carp as interest. I told him that his eye and its eye had much in common.

  Judas liked my joke. He hated the authorities worse than I did. As we walked back to the house, he giggled and giggled about fish-eyed officials—until it occurred to him that I had paid dues for Jesus and for myself, but not for him.

  Immediately his mood changed.

  “Go back!” he said. He planted his feet in the middle of the street and said, “Tell the man to write my name down instead of yours.”

  Judas has always been a moody little fellow. But lately he seems ready to pick fights all the time.

  “No,” I said. “It’s done. The deal is done.”

  Judas pushed it: “Tell him the tax is for me.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Because my tax isn’t paid yet.”

  “So pay it yourself.”

  “You won’t miss two drachmas,” he said. “Besides, you didn’t earn the half-shekel. You found it.”

  “I worked for it. I fished it!”

  “Jesus told us both how to get that coin.”

  “Judas, just pay the tax,” I said. “You have the money. I’ve seen you divide yours from the rest of the treasury.”

  He glared at me. He’s got these huge bushes of eyebrow and a tiny head. Judas stood in the center of the street, glaring at me.

  I shrugged and turned to go.

  He screamed, “Simon son of Jonah, you owe it to me.”

  “I don’t owe you anything,” I said, still walking away.

  “Oh, yes, you do! You owe everyone! Peter, favored by the Master. High and mighty, proud of his brand-new name!”

  Now Judas was racing after me: “Everything comes your way, doesn’t it?” he yelled. “And you think you deserve it, don’t you? Do you know how you strut and swagger? You look down on us! You puff up that hollow chest of yours and clap us on our backs because you think everyone is tickled just to be near you. You think you’re the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, don’t you?”

  “All right, let’s talk about that,” I said. I was at my mother-in-law’s courtyard. I turned around and blocked the door and put my finger in Judas’ face.

  “Who really thinks he’s greatest?” I shouted. “I’ll tell you who. It’s the fellow who gets to walk with the Lord, who already has more than anyone needs, and who still isn’t satisfied! That fellow thinks he deserves more. Pride, Judas! That’s real pride. And when you add self-pity, it’s plain ugly!

  “Judas! You snivel about a half-shekel when you yourself have been chosen by Jesus!”

  I turned into the courtyard, and there stood both James and John.

  James said, “Judas has a point, you know.”

  What? A point? “So is this a gang against me now?” I said.

  James said, “You do act as if we’re not equals anymore. You spend most of your time with Jesus.”

  “I didn’t choose me!” I shouted. “Jesus chose me. I didn’t name me! Jesus named me. So who are you going to blame?”

  Give it to John: he never shouts. Always soft-spoken, always pretending to be the one reasonable voice in any argument. Self-control. The snot! The superior, sanctimonious snot!

  “It never was the gift,” he mused, “nor the giver we questioned, but the attitude of the receiver. Humility!” he said with a crinkle-eyed smile. “Learn humility, Simon Peter.”

  James, a great wit, began to talk about polishing rock, cutting boulders to pebbles. Judas began to giggle and flap his oversized eyebrows. That drove James to childish absurdities. He started listing the basic properties of stones: millstones, whetstones, tombstones—

  I was shaking, ready to slap the joke down his throat.

  But John said, “Come, come, Simon has a point, too. If we mock his name we mock Jesus’ own decision.”

  “But he lords it over us!” Judas said.

  James said, “And he thinks he’s the greatest in the kingdom of heaven—”

  The very words that Judas had said earlier! Yes, they had been discussing me behind my back.

  John said: “Well, isn’t that precisely the point, James? The kingdom of heaven? Let Simon enjoy his reward now. Truly, let him. We will receive ours when the kingdom finally comes.”

  James got a huge smile on his face.

  Judas, however, dropped his bristly bushes into a black frown.

  James said, “Yes, yes, yes, Simon. Oh, yes! We have asked Jesus to grant us a favor when he comes in his glory—”

  Ah, listen to the sons of thunder. A new voice! James whirled around and saw Jesus standing in the doorway.

  “Listen to the booming,” Jesus said.

  He called the brothers Boanerges, “sons of thunder.”

  Suddenly everyone’s behavior changed. We all grew quiet. I felt my old guilt burning in my cheeks. I hate that blush! I hate to show my feelings so clearly so often.

  Jesus came into the courtyard and sat down facing James and John.

  “What favor do you want me to do for you?” he said. “This is as good a time as any to ask it.”

  The brothers glanced at one another. They glanced at me and Judas, too, but nervously. James said, “Grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” He swallowed and grinned.

  Now I was truly struck dumb. Were we arguing about greatness? Had we been blaming pride? Well, this “favor” was the entire Tower of Babel!

  But Jesus nodded, as if thinking seriously about it. Then he said, “You don’t know what you’re asking.” In a solemn tone he asked: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”

  James and John said, “Yes!”

  Jesus frowned and asked again, “Are you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I will be baptized?”

  Like idiots the brothers grinned and babbled. “Yes, yes, we are able!”

  Jesus heaved an enormous sigh. I heard that sigh. I stared at the sons of thunder.

  Jesus said, “Well, the cup and the baptism shall be yours, too. You will drink, and you will suffer. Yes. But to sit beside me is not mine to grant. Simon Peter,” Je
sus said to me, “go get the rest of the disciples and bring them here.”

  I nodded solemnly. I bowed deeply in obedience. And I went.

  When we had all gathered in the courtyard, Jesus said, “You know that those who rule the Gentiles lord it over them. It shall not be so among you. Listen to me: whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first must be slave of all. For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve—and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

  Suddenly he raised his voice and called, “Bernice!”

  A tiny child peeped into the courtyard from the street.

  “Come here,” Jesus said to her, and she crept in. Jesus gathered his long hair back over his shoulders, then spread his arms—and with a burst of energy the little girl flew to him and landed in his lap.

  The face of the Lord lost its heaviness. I saw his white teeth. He smiled at the tiny rag of life in his lap—the girl now peering peacefully at us from the cave of her protection, the arms and the breast and the garments of Jesus—and his golden eyes glittered in kindness.

  Then he said, “With regard to greatness in the kingdom of heaven, I tell you that unless you turn and become like children you will never enter there. Those who humble themselves like this child, they are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

  “With regard to greatness on earth,” he said, “I tell you that those who receive one such child in my name receive me. But those who cause one of these small souls who believe in me to sin—it were better for them to have millstones tied around their necks and to be drowned in the depths of the sea! Do not despise even one of these little ones. For in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father.”

  Jesus bent his head down and whispered in the ear of tiny Bernice. She rolled her wide eyes round and round, listening. She covered her mouth and asked a question. Jesus pointed at Judas, sitting on the ground with his back to the wall. Bernice giggled. She slid from Jesus’ lap, tiptoed over to Judas, whose eyebrows started jumping all over his head, and then she kissed him on the tip of his nose. He turned crimson and frowned like a clap of thunder. Bernice skipped out to the street, laughing with glee.

  And Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens, you’ve gained your brother again.”

  I said, “Yes, but how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times?” There was a gang of disciples I had to deal with.

  Jesus shook his head. “Not seven times,” he said, “but seventy times seven.

  “Listen,” he said, “the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one was brought who owed him ten thousand talents. The servant couldn’t pay, of course; so his lord commanded that he should be sold, together with his wife and children, in order to cover the debt. The poor fellow fell on his knees and implored the king to have patience. ‘Give me time,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay you everything.’

  “The king took pity on that servant. He forgave him the debt and released him into freedom again.

  “But just as the man went out, he met another servant who owed him a hundred denarii. He seized his fellow servant by the throat and said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ The poor man fell on his knees and implored the first servant to have patience with him. He promised that he would with time pay everything he owed. But the first servant refused to listen. He had the poor man thrown into prison till he should pay the hundred denarii.

  “When the king heard what had taken place, he summoned the first servant to himself. ‘You wicked man!’ he said. ‘I forgave you your whole debt! Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?’

  “In wrath the king delivered him to the jailers till he should pay the ten thousand talents.

  “So also will my heavenly Father do,” said Jesus, his eyes cast down to the flagstones under his feet, “to those who do not forgive their brothers from their hearts.”

  And then, so softly I could hardly hear it, Jesus murmured, “Simon? Judas? James? John? How much do you suppose I have forgiven you?”

  VI

  THEN WE LEFT.

  Jesus departed both the city of Capernaum and the province of Galilee for good. He set his face toward Jerusalem. We weren’t wandering anymore. We had somewhere to go. And I guess we had a certain time to be there.

  When we were about a day’s journey from Capernaum, a scribe rushed up to Jesus!

  “Teacher!” he cried. “Teacher, I want to follow you wherever you go!” I understand that desire perfectly. I remembered when I first felt it over two years ago in my rowboat.

  But Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests. The Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

  We kept walking. We: those who had become his most loyal followers, men and women, a small and separate group, though multitudes still poured from the villages we passed. Always the multitudes. Always.

  Then one of the disciples figured out that we were never going back to Galilee together. He went to Jesus and said, “Lord, let me first go home and bury my father.”

  Jesus said to him, “Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” You see? His manner was firm. His changing was done. His mind was made up.

  A woman from one of the villages watched us for several days from a distance. Then she came near and said, “Jesus, I will follow you. But I have to say good-bye to those who are at my house.”

  He said to her: “No one who puts her hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

  There was a heaviness to his sayings now. His motion seemed heavy, too. Actually, he had grown leaner in the last year, but he moved as if his bones were dense, as heavy as lead.

  Just after we entered the province of Samaria, Jesus sent James and John ahead to a village to prepare them for his coming.

  Within an hour the brothers came back. James was furious.

  “They are refusing to let you in,” he said. “They say it’s because you’re traveling to Jerusalem. You’re a risk and a danger to them, they say. Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and consume them, as Elijah did?”

  Here is an example of the heaviness in Jesus. He looked so long at James that the man grew nervous and couldn’t return the gaze.

  Finally he sighed and said, “The Son of man came not to destroy lives, but to save them. If one village does not receive us, another will. Come. Let’s find that other one.”

  One night while we were sleeping in the fields, I saw a white form gliding like a ghost to the place where Jesus lay. It settled upon him, and there it stayed. The roots of my hair tightened. I felt something like dread.

  So I rose up and crept closer to see what night spirit sat by my Master.

  But it was no spirit at all. It was Mary Magdalene. She was lying behind him, stroking his hair.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed. “Things are bad enough already. You want to give his enemies bigger sticks to beat him with?”

  She didn’t answer. She looked up at me from her white face, her dark eye sockets, and her chin began to tremble.

  Without moving so much as a finger, Jesus spoke.

  “Simon, see what you’ve done? You made her cry,” he said. “Is there a good reason for that? But no one else has come to comfort me. No one else has considered that I might be grateful for the comfort. Go away, Simon Peter. Go away. I am so tired now. Go.”

  So I went back to my own pallet and lay down and cried.

  I’m a simple man. I try to do what is right. That’s all. Simple rightness, with all my might. But sometimes the Lord was such a mystery to me that I seemed unable to do anything but wrong. I didn’t understand. I could not understand him. And when he withdrew into his absolute darkness, it always made me feel sad and lonely, as though the whole universe were lit by one lantern on the prow of a boat and above is the
night and below are the black seas, and the lantern gutters and goes out.

  Mary, I’m sorry. You know things I cannot know—stupid man that I am! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I made you cry.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Son of Father

  I

  IN THOSE DAYS the Jews taught that there were ten degrees of holiness on earth, ten concentric circles, those of lesser holiness surrounding those of greater, more concentrated holiness until all surrounded that perfect cube of darkness, the Holy of Holies in the Temple.

  Circles in circles like wheels in wheels: the land of Israel itself was the first circle and the first degree of holiness.

  The city of Jerusalem was the second.

  Into these two spheres anyone on earth might travel, whether by freedom or by force, whether Jew or Samaritan or Gentile; their presence did not diminish the holiness of the greater rounds, and if they came devoutly they could themselves participate in the holy.

  The third circle was the Temple mount, into which traffic entered daily, from which it daily departed. Buying and selling took place in here, particularly as it supported the rituals of sacrifice and the Temple.

  But the fourth degree was an absolute wall against those who were not Jews. Immediately within the porticoes around the Temple was the Court of the Gentiles, a great paved yard where proselytes were admitted, where a pilgrim might buy an animal to sacrifice, where even a Roman could wander without polluting the sacred places or bringing the wrath of God down upon himself.

  But within that vaster court was a balustrade, a terrace walled with a stone lattice, and one gate only through which Jews could pass and no one else. None but Jews. Visible to everyone along this wall were stone inscriptions in Latin and Greek prohibiting the entrance of Gentiles under the penalty of death. This wall, in Hebrew called hel, was the fourth degree of holiness.

  The fifth, inside the Court of the Gentiles through that single gate called Beautiful, was the Court of the Women.

  The sixth was the Court of the Israelites, where priests and the male Jew might enter, but not the female. Here laymen slaughtered their own sacrificial offerings and butchered the carcass. The priests caught the blood and carried the cut parts up to the Altar of Burnt Sacrifices, there to burn them before the Lord.