Andrew the Student – part 1

I was sitting on a beach at the edge of the Sea of Galilee gutting a whole pile of fish we had just caught. We had been out since early light and it was a good catch. Being rather tired I had got into the rhythm; cut, remove, throw useless bits to gulls, pop good bits into a stone jar for a fish sauce, and stop the gulls from hopping up and taking one of the fish while I was not concentrating. Around me there were about a dozen boats pulled up onto the beach and a couple of dozen men were sitting around on the sand. Mostly they were gutting fish, like me, or mending nets or gently dozing in the early morning sun. It had been a good early morning fishing expedition.

The piles on either side of me were about even in size when a very welcome shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw Jesus, the Carpenter from Nazareth. I hadn’t seen him for some weeks since I had been witness to his miraculous Baptism. I had remained with John the Baptiser for a few days after Jesus had walked out into the desert, but had then returned home here to Capernaum to carry on with my life until I could work out what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I had followed John, because I believed him to be the prophet of our times sent by Yahweh to teach us how to come closer to him, as the prophets of old had done. We had had no Prophets in the land for many generations, so I had been really excited that Yahweh was going to make his presence real to us again through John the Baptiser. When I heard a voice coming from the clouds after Jesus had come up after the water, ‘This is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.’ I was no longer sure that John was the man to be with. But Jesus had disappeared off into the desert before he had given us any message. I had never expected Jesus to come here, and apparently be looking for me.

He came and sat down beside me, and taking a knife out of his own belt began to help me gut the fish, while we talked. We caught up on what had happened since he had visited us, and then began to talk a bit about Yahweh and his mission, which was what I had been longing to hear. When he finally got around to the purpose of his visit, I literally dropped my knife in shock. Jesus leant forward and pick it up, and gravely handed it back to me.

‘But why do you want me to come and learn from you and work with you as you proclaim Yahweh’s message to our people. I can’t speak to people, I am a simple fisherman. I don’t even manage to keep all the laws the Pharisees and Sadducees say you need to do to please Yahweh. I can’t, it is too hard when you live like this. And, I am too shy to speak to strange people When Simon is around he does all the speaking for the both of us. Why don’t you ask him?’
‘The Pharisees and Sadducees have set themselves up as the leaders of the people. They set laws and rule for the people to keep, which they say they need to do in order to please Yahweh. I say to you that Yahweh is displeased with them for putting obstacles in peoples way. All that Yahweh wants is for the people to love him. Those who truly love him, will be those who will, on the last day, enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You truly love Yahweh, so come with me and watch and see and learn. Anything you need to know, I will teach you. Any courage you need, any words you need, will be supplied by Yahweh. You are just the man Yahweh wants. Come with me. But first we had better finish these fish and get them to the market. I want to eat with you again tonight, and we had better take some food home to be prepared!’

So we finished our pile of fish, gathered them up into a couple of baskets and set off for the market. In the house that night Jesus ate with us, and there in front of his wife and Mother-in-law, asked Simon to join him as well. There was a stunned silence, and then Mother-in-law rounded on Jesus. Who was going to fish to feed his wife and children. Who was going to look after her if Simon went wandering off with a teacher, however good a teacher he was.

Jesus listened to her in silence, and then replied.
‘You will not starve for want of food while Simon and Andrew are with me. I will make sure that all your needs are supplied. But the needs of Yahweh are greater, and Simon has been called to his service. This latter comment caused a few moments of silence as the women present looked Simon up and down, then looked again at Jesus to make sure he was being serious. When they looked at each other and shrugged I could see that they were resigned to loosing Simon to Jesus. I could also see that there were going to be further conversations between Simon and his wife before he left.

A few days later we left, along with several other men from Bethsaida whom Jesus also knew and had persuaded to follow him. We left Capernaum to follow Jesus wherever he was to go.

In the next few weeks and months we meandered around Galilee stopping off at villages listening to Rabbi Jesus teach. When the main crowds departed we asked him questions about the stories he had been telling during the day. He told the same stories over and over again to different groups of people, so we got to know them well. As time passed the crowds we attracted got bigger and bigger. People at the back often didn’t have the opportunity to ask Rabbi Jesus their questions, so, knowing that I travelled with Rabbi Jesus all the time people began to ask me what the stories meant. I was very hesitant at first, but Rabbi Jesus seemed to have confidence in me, and despite my worries I always had words to say.

Andrew the Fisherman – part 2

I found him as I had been told standing in the middle of the river Jordan looking as though he was drowning men and women and then raising them up alive out of the water again. I guessed these must be the people who had heeded his message and wanted to be saved. When he had finished everyone lined up on the shore, he climbed out of the river sat down on a large stone, and began to talk to the large crowd seated on the ground before him. I sat and listened, and was captured by his vision of the coming Messiah who was only just out of our sight. The Messiah would usher in Yahweh’s kingdom here on earth. We could all be part of that if only we were baptised and repented of our sins. I wanted so much to join John in his wait, but I knew that my family relied on me to help Simon earn enough money and get enough fish to eat, so I left and returned to Capernaum. But I sat there on the shore day after day thinking about what John had said, and I became more and more desperate to return to him, but the fishing was not good and I could not leave.

It was then that I bumped into a carpenter from Nazareth who had come to make some repairs to a building used by the Romans. I was pushing through the streets carrying a basket of fish, and he had a bag of tools slung over his shoulder. His tools met my fish and there was only one thing that was going to happen, the street looked more like a river as a stream of fish slithered all over the muddy track. The carpenter dropped his bag and began to help me re catch the slippery fish. When we had got them all back, now covered in mud, he apologised again and asked whether he could help clean them, as I was not going to be able to sell them all covered in mud. So we walked down to the lake side together and bonded over a pile of muddy fish. He was the kindest man I have ever met. He didn’t have to help me at all, but it seemed natural for him to want to do so. We talked as if we had always known each other, and he seemed to know all about the things which were bothering me.

When we finally finished, I offered him food and a bed for the night, as it was now too late to set off on his journey home. So that night he sat and ate with us and shared the sleeping platform in Simon’s house. When he left the next morning I thought that I would never see him again. That really bothered me, along with all the questions I had from my visit to the Baptiser. So when the fishing picked up again, Simon sent me to Jerusalem with some preserved fish, and instructions to sell it for as much as possible in the market, and then pay the taxes we owed to the Temple. I then took the opportunity to find the Baptiser again, and this time I committed myself to him and was baptised in the River Jordan.

So it was that I was there sitting at the feet of the Baptiser when he looked up and looked over our heads to the opposite bank. He hopped off the stone he was sitting on and plunged into the river, crossing it to meet with the man on the other side and greet him with a hug. I thought the man looked familiar, but he was too far away to see clearly. As we all watched, the Baptiser jumped back into the river and handed the man down. Then they waded together into the middle, and the Baptiser plunged the man under the water, as we had seen him do hundreds of times before. We were about the turn away, when as the man came up out of the water, the sky above him seemed to be rent in two and a voice came as clear as anything ‘This is my son, my beloved, in him I am well pleased’.

We were all struck dumb. Was this man the onet we had been thinking and praying about, what the Baptiser had been preaching about. Was it really true that the Messiah, Yahweh’s son was here, now. We had seen the signs in the sky. We had heard the voice, hadn’t we? We were witnesses. It just had to be true. The two of them waded out of the water towards us. Those nearest rushed to give them a hand to get out of the water. Everyone started talking and asking questions, wanting to know what had happened, and what we were going to do now. John hugged the man again, and I realised as he turned around to face me that this was the carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. I cried out his name, and he smiled and waved at me in greeting, but then he turned away and without answering any questions headed out into the desert.

The crowd turned to the Baptiser. Why is he leaving us, where is he going, Can we follow him? Who is he? Question after question poured over the Baptiser. Most he ignored. He just looked after Jesus and said ‘I am not worthy to unlatch his shoes, yet he would have me baptise him’ then ‘Leave him be. It is not yet the time for him to begin his work. He will return when Yahweh has purified him for the task ahead.’ And with that he refused to say anything more he just sat on the bank staring at the water. Someone in the crowd remembered I had called him by name, and he had acknowledged me. He turned and asked me what I knew. I became the centre of attention as I told them all I knew about Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth.

Andrew the Fisherman- part 1

I am a fisherman from a family of fishermen, born in Bethsaida in Galilee, on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. My father taught me the skills of working with net and boat to catch fish in the sea, as he taught my brother Simon also. My father was taught by his father, and his father was taught by his before. For time out of mind my family has lived here on the shores of the sea, catching fish to make a living.

We also have our small plot of land given to the family when we settled here after we returned from Egypt in the time of Moses and Aaron. There we grow barley for bread and have an olive tree for oil. Our women folk help us growing vegetables like leeks and cabbages alongside herbs to flavour our food like dill, cumin and mint. When the fish come we can eat like kings with fish, bread, olives, and figs. Although a meal is always better on a baking day. If not we eat whatever bread is left over, dipping it in the cooking juices of the fish to cover the taste of the mould growing on it. Kings don’t eat mouldy bread, but we can’t afford not to. We don’t grow enough barley to throw any away, and none of us has enough time to forage further and further away from the village for fuel for the communal oven to cook the bread daily. The oven is heated about every three days and the women living around our courtyard rush to get their their barley ground and the bread risen and in the oven while it is still hot. It is not an easy life for them. I would not want to have to pound the grindstone for hours at a time to turn grain into flour, only to have husband or sons complain when they get a bit of grit in their bread.

But I am getting away from fishing. Simon and I are skilled at using the shore net. We sit on the shore of the sea, and because of the way the ground slopes down into the sea, you can see a long way out, and you can see shoals of fish swimming around. Depending on how far they are from the shore line we can either cast out our own nets, one of us remaining on the shore, the other wading out with the other end of the net and walking around the shoal back into the shore so that we have them all rounded up. Or if the fish are too far out. One of us will run back to the village of Capaernaum where we live and rouse one of the boats from there, maybe James and John bar Zebedee. They come and we work a net between the boat and the shore to catch the fish. Sometimes we will go out in the boat into the deeper areas of the sea and help our friends fish with nets between boats, or just casting from one of the boats. Different fish live in different parts of the lake, tilapia, carp and catfish. You just have to know where they are and when. That is the skill of fishing. Any fool can throw a net into the water, it takes skill to know where to throw the net.

But even skilled fishermen can have long days when we go out and catch nothing, or days of stormy weather when it is too dangerous to take the boats out. Then we eat like paupers, as we have no money to buy from the market, and the little on our land has to feed the whole family. Simon is married and has his wife and children and mother in law to support. I will marry when I have enough money saved to pay for the materials to build a house where I can take a wife to live. In the meanwhile I also live with Simon since the death of our parents.

Fishing gives you a lo of time to think. Sitting on the shore or in a boat watching and waiting for the fish, there is plenty of time without interruption. I like to think about what the Rabbi has said in the synagogue and the passage from the Torah that was read. I like to think about the conversations with the people I meet when I take fish to sell in the market. Mostly I sell to other townspeople, but sometimes we have passing merchants looking for new markets or wanting to buy our fish. Sometimes Roman soldiers come for fish for themselves or their families. They are very interesting to talk to. They come from so far away, from places I have never heard of. They talk about lands that I can only imagine from the descriptions they give me. I sit and wonder who I am, and why I am here and not there, and I wonder what it is like not to be one of Yahweh’s chosen people. I know I am one of Yahweh’s chosen people, and we are waiting for our Messiah to come and save us. The Torah is full of references to his coming, but we have no idea of the time or the place, so we wait, and I fish and think.

One day a passing merchant told me about a strange man he had met down by the river Jordan. He was gathering people around him and preaching about making a straight way in the desert for Yahweh’s chosen one. This man lived in the desert eating locusts and wild honey and was dressed in the skin of wild goats. He was taking his followers to the Jordan and dunking them in the river and proclaiming them cleansed from their sins. I was really interested, and so with Simon’s permission I set off to find this John the Baptiser.