Andrew the Friend – part 4

Thursday
On 15th Nissan, Mary and Martha came with Lazarus to celebrate Passover with us. Martha got busy organising the buying of a lamb, big enough to feed all of us, and small enough to make sure it would all be eaten before dawn. Lazarus and Judas took the beast to the Temple and waited in line to see it slaughtered by the Priests. We live in a very special time. For generations we have not had a Temple where we have been able to perform our rituals, and now we do. Truly we are a blessed people.

Mary, Martha and the servant working for the follower who had offered his house for our use, had the job of making enough unleavened bread for our Passover meal. The making of the unleavened bread is a skilled job, at least that is what mother always used to say. You have to mix flour and water together and cook it as soon as it is properly mixed. You can’t let it rise at all. If bubbles start to appear as it is cooking, then you have to quickly prick it all over with the tip of a knife. In the story of the Exodus from Egypt we had to eat unleavened bread as we knew we were going to be leaving in a hurry and didn’t have time for the bread to rise. So we eat it now in remembrance of that night. It also has the advantage of being a very light bread, and as it is flat, easy to pack in your bag. We have often eaten it as we have travelled around. It lasts for days, but it does lack taste. In Jerusalem where there is little fuel, men and women from the local villages spend weeks before the festival making matzos for those who come without their own supplies. Still, at the end of the cooking marathon, Martha bought in more to supplement what had already been made, which she didn’t think would be enough for all of us, for the whole seven days of the festival.

The Seder meal took place in the large room of the house where we were all staying. When we began to gather from our errands around the city, Jesus was already there waiting for us. He had a cloth over his arm, and a bowl of water ready. He motioned to Peter to sit, so that he could wash his feet. Peter refused outright, saying that it was the job of a servant to wash our feet as a welcome, as we entered the house. Jesus told him that he was making the point, yet again, that the Kingdom of Yahweh was not like earthly kingdoms. In Yahweh’s kingdom it is those who are the least, that are the most respected, and we could not expect to take our places in the kingdom if we did not learn that lesson. At that Peter, as usual, went over the top and told Jesus that he should wash not only his feet, but his face and hands as well. Jesus laughed and clapped him on the back, and told him that washing just his feet would be fine. It was odd having my feet washed by Jesus. He took them into his hands so carefully and gently. He washed them making sure that all the dirt and dust of the road was removed and that they were completely clean. His touch and his care moved me beyond anything else he has done or said. It is good to be a servant in the Kingdom of Yahweh.

I think the Seder meal itself is like a dance, we take story and food, prayer and wine and we weave them together. We share and we join, we laugh and we cry, and sometimes we dance as well. We enter into the meal wholeheartedly, completely, fully. The Seder meal is something we have shared all our lives, so no matter who we are we all know the parts we have to play. After the first blessing and the first cup of wine, John as the youngest that night asked the four questions a child present would ask. ‘Why is tonight different from all other nights? Why do we…’ And Jesus wove the narrative of the Haggadah to tell the story of our escape from Egypt. I looked properly for the first time at the Matza, the unleavened bread as one was broken and the small piece put back on the pile, and the large piece put safely away to be eaten later. We heard again of the urgency of the situation; that we had no time. John then asked why we ate no vegetables, only the bitter herbs, such as romaine lettuce or endive. It is eaten dipped in a sauce which is supposed to represent the mortar with which the Israelites bound the bricks together as they built for the Egyptians. It certainly looks like mortar, and some samples I have seen could be used to build houses. It tastes no better either. We also dipped parsley in the salt water and ate it, and were reminded of the tears of the slaves kept in captivity in a strange land. Not one dipping, but two, something we would never usually do, and so the child has to ask why? Then the final part of the story. Why is the meat exclusively roasted? The story here dips into the strange way in which we left Egypt; that Yahweh sent a great sickness over the land, and all of the firstborn were killed, from the son of Pharaoh, to the last sheep in the field. Only those who had smeared the blood of their sacrificial lambs on the posts of their doors, were saved. The passover lamb had to be roasted and eaten, and nothing was to be left over. The people had to eat with their cloaks and staffs at the ready, with all their belongings packed and ready to leave when the call came. With dawn and the discovery of death, with the confusion of the Egyptians, the Israelites slipped away to begin their long adventurous journey home.

Our Seder that night was like all other Seders across the land, in any places where Israelites meet together, until Jesus took again the afikoman, the large part of the broken Matza that he had put to one side. This night he blessed it and broke it into the olive size pieces required. His blessing was personal;
‘This is my body broken for you. Whenever you meet together break bread and remember me.’
The room fell silent as we all took in the words which Jesus had just said. Peter opened his mouth to say something, but Jesus silenced him with a look, put his piece of the afikoman into his hands and moved around the table giving us all our piece.
‘Now eat’, he said. And we all did.
He picked up the third cup of wine of the meal and blessed it and gave it to each of us in turn
‘This is my blood of the new covenant between me and you, between Yahweh and his people. When you meet together take wine and bless it and share it as you remember me.’
Then he picked up the fourth and final cup and began the words of the Hallel beginning with psalm 113

“Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you his servants; praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and for evermore. From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people. He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord.”
Then we moved on the Psalm 114. When we reached to traditional end of Psalm 118 Jesus stood and stretched.
‘I would like to go and pray now. Who will come with me? There was a lot of groaning around the room as it was late. We had been busy all day, and eaten and drunk well, but we reluctantly gathered our cloaks and headed towards the door. As we were letting ourselves out of the door someone suddenly asked ‘Where is Judas, he was here not so long ago?’ Everyone turned to look at Jesus. ‘He has gone to do what he must do. Let us go.’
And at that moment he looked unbearably tired and sad.

Andrew the Friend – part 3

Wednesday
Preparations for Passover begin on the 14th day of Nissan. No matter where you are, it is a special time of year, but we were in Jerusalem that year. Everyone who can, comes to the city at the centre of the world, and the world is there to greet them. Passover is one of our three pilgrimage festivals together with Shavuot and Sukkot, and we are expected to travel, leaving behind only those needed to watch and guard or who are too infirm to make the journey. In Jerusalem Israelites gather from the four corners of the earth, drawn by the Temple and its Holy of Holies built for us by Herod.

But it is not just the ceremonies that draw us in. The markets flourish when there are so many people to buy. Merchants come from all over the place to hawk their wares, from Arabia to China and by ship from all around the Great Sea. You can buy everything from the vegetables, matzos and bitter herbs for the feast, through to cloth and metal work, pots and pans, wooden items of all kinds, in fact anything saleable can be found somewhere in the city. The colours; red and yellow woven into carpets and exotic fabrics, stacks of oranges, lemons and pomegranates raise the spirits and are such a change from the white of the rocks, the dull green of the olive trees and the blue of the sky. The smells are particular to a city. So many bodies living close to each other in the hot temperatures. The excrement, human and animal. Offal from the slaughter of the animals required to feed so many people. Rotting vegetables left over from the markets. The stray animals eating what they can scrounge from the streets. The smells of exotic herbs and spices layered over the other less pleasant smells, and around every corner food for sale, being prepared in doorways and on street corners, fresh fruit and olives, bread and fish, wine and fresh clean water from the city well.

Added to the other smells on this day in particular is the smell of burning. Moses was commanded by Yahweh that we should eat lamb and unleavened bread before the escape from Egypt, so to make sure the ritual cannot be contaminated, all leaven is burnt. Every uneaten bit of bread or anything made from flour that can possibly have risen, even just a little bit, is burnt. We keep bits of bread specially to make sure we have burnt all leaven. This day is also the Fast of the Firstborn. Jesus as a first born, and a son always observed this as a Fast day. I am not, so I didn’t need to, but somehow we all usually ended up fasting until sunset, no matter where we were at the time. It would have been difficult moving around the food markets, but Jesus was insistent that we join him in the portico of the Temple. He seemed possessed by an energy that we had never seen before. It felt as if he was somehow running out of time, to teach us, to teach the people. And he was, though we still did not see it, we still could not read the situation around us.

Andrew the Friend – part 2

We don’t know what Jesus did between arriving in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and the beginning of Passover on Thursday, so today’s story is a suggestion as to what he might have been doing…..

The few days following Jesus entry into Jerusalem were as we would have expected. We went daily to the Temple to pray, and Jesus would sit in the portico to teach and to listen to the Elders debating points of theology. We saw the Temple Guards keeping a close watch on what we were doing, which I suppose was not at all surprising as on two previous occasions Jesus has taken exception to some of the dishonest trading going on in the Temple precincts, and had overturned the tables of the money changers and let the sacrificial animals go.

When it happened it was always a shock to us. We knew that he was a man of great passion. We knew that those who sought to separate people like us from Yahweh, by means of rules we could not keep, as we had neither the money nor the time to keep them, were always an annoyance to him, but an annoyance more than anything else. He would sit patiently while the Pharisees and Sadducees asked their detailed theological questions trying to trip him up so that they could report him to the High Priest or to the Roman authorities, but time and time again he would come back at them, not with a quick riposte, but always a carefully thought out answer. When we asked him how he always managed to best the scholars in an argument, he would say that he just took a deep breath, asked Yahweh for the answer, opened his mouth, and the answer would be there. Sometimes when we were sent out to preach we tried that that technique. Don’t get angry, no matter what they say, take a deep breath and wait for Yahweh. And the answers came even to us.

It was only really in the Temple, that place where the people should be able to come closest to Yahweh that his patience occasionally ran out. It took just a seller of doves charging more than was reasonable, lining his own pockets at the expense of those, like the poor widows we would often see there, who had scraped together enough to buy a dove to have sacrificed only to see the price go up, so that they could not afford to make that sacrifice after all. Once it was the sight of a money changer trying to convince a man from Galilee that the rate of exchange was such that he needed to hand over all of his Roman coins in order to buy a few paltry coins that he could use to buy the cheapest of sacrificial beasts. Jesus just leapt at the money changer’s table and overturned it. He picked up a handful of Temple coins and gave them to the startled visitor and shooed him off to the sellers of beasts. Then he turned his wrath on the money changer and made it very clear what he thought of him and his practices. He told him in no uncertain term that the Temple was the House of Yahweh and a place of prayer, and he had turned it into a den of thieves!

The merchant was cowed by Jesus words, but as soon as Jesus had calmed down and moved on, I saw the merchant scuttle off to where one of the Temple Guards was standing impassively. I could see lots of gesturing of hands and pointing, and the man being pointed in the direction of the High Priest’s house. It did occur me to wonder why the guard had not interfered to stop Jesus. I did not wonder why he was being sent to the High Priest’s house. Maybe if I had stopped to wonder that, I might have known what was going to happen.

Andrew the Friend – part 1

For the first time I have no congregation to try out my stories on, so here goes:

Palm Sunday
He kept on telling us that all would be clear on the third day. We had no idea at all what he meant. We should have done he told us in different ways at different times repeatedly, but still we did not understand. How could we, what was to happen was so far beyond our experience of life that we could not make sense of it. Even in the middle of what was going on, nothing made sense.

The last day anything made sense was the day we spent with Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. We ate and drank slept and talked just as we had always done, and if Jesus was a little distracted, we did not notice. I did not notice. When we got up that morning Jesus sent James and I to a field just outside the village. He told us that we would find a donkey and a colt there. We were to bring them back to the house. James asked the sensible question,
‘Does the owner know we are coming for his donkey or are we stealing it?’
Jesus turned a stern eye on him,
‘I have taught you that you should love your neighbour. If you love your neighbour you do not steal his donkey. If he says anything to you, just say
“The Master has need of it”, he will understand and let you take the animal.’

And he was right. The owner came storming out of his house when he saw us inexpertly trying to put a rope around the neck of the donkey – why did Jesus send two fishermen to do a farmer’s work! – but as we yelled the words Jesus had told us, the man lowered the club he was waving at us, said “Alright” and went back into his house. When we finally got the rope around its neck, the donkey came willingly, and its colt trotted by its side without us needing to put a rope on it as well.

When we got back to Lazarus’ house, the others had had a good laugh at our difficulties with the donkey. We stood around looking at the animal and began to realise that if Jesus were going to want to ride in this beast we should have borrowed a blanket to put on the animal’s back to make the ride more comfortable. Peter, as usual was the first to offer a solution. He stripped off his cloak, folded it and put it over the animal’s back, then turned and looked challengingly at the rest of us. I took my cloak of as well, and so did Matthew, and by that time the animal was well padded. But we were rather bothered. Why did Jesus want to ride into Jerusalem? Jesus walked everywhere. There was the long impatient stride when something needed doing or saying quickly or an amble as he talked and taught, but he always walked. He was occasionally offered a beast to ride by a supporter, but always turned the offer down. Why now on this short walk did he want to arrive in Jerusalem on a donkey?

Judas had long and often told us that he was waiting for Jesus to mount a big horse, wave a sword and gallop through the streets of the villages and towns raising an army to challenge the Romans. Most of the rest of us could not imagine that happening. Oh there is no doubt that Jesus could have raised an army. He was charismatic enough. He was well enough liked. People may well have laid down their lives for his cause, but his cause had never appeared to be rousting the Romans. His cause was the relationship between Yahweh and his people, and to the Romans he was supremely indifferent, it was people he was interested in, and if on occasions they were Romans or Samaritans, then that didn’t seem to matter. For all there was the possibility of a relationship with Yahweh, if they just turned to him

So we set off down the road to Jerusalem in silence, wondering what was going to happen, if anything. When we got to the bottom Jesus stopped the donkey and turned to us,
‘Go on ahead and let the people sitting at the gate know that I am coming.’
So we went on ahead, and told the people at the gate that the prophet Jesus of Nazareth was on his way. Much to our surprise the conversations stopped and the able bodied got up. Some went to tell their friends that Jesus was coming, some started to climb nearby trees, and break into gardens, and strip the palm trees of their branches, these they threw down onto the road. Children picked some of the branches up and began to wave them experimentally. Some of the less able stood and removed their cloaks and laid them down in the road, then as Jesus approached the gate the cry went up from one old man, quoting from the Psalms;
‘Hosannah to the Son of David, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’
The cry was picked up by people next to him, and the next, until in the narrow confines of the street, the echoes were bouncing off the walls, repeating ‘Hosannah’ again and again. People came out of their houses and stood, some just watched, others joined in. In one place the noise dropped for just one moment and a clear voice could be heard complaining at the noise. Jesus, who had been looking steadfastly forward and onward, turned his head and said softly, though all around heard,
‘Even if these people did not shout for me now, the very stones of these houses would shout out.’

We headed resolutely upwards through the streets until we reached the Temple Mount, there Jesus got off the donkey, and handing the reins to a nearby man, asked him to return it to its owner in Bethany. He then walked though into the Temple, sat down in the Portico, and began to teach, as if nothing different had happened.

At our meal that evening, in the house of one of our followers, the question was raised as to why Jesus had wanted to come into Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus himself said nothing for quite a while, letting us argue about the custom of throwing things in the path of an important visitor. Then someone said that Romans liked to wave palm branches when they had great triumphal processions welcoming their heroes home from battle. Jesus had not been in a battle, so that was dismissed quickly. When we had argued ourselves out, we all turned to him.
‘Who is right,?’ we asked.
‘None of you are.’ he replied ‘In the writings of the prophet Zechariah, he prophecies that Zion’s king will come victorious, riding on a donkey. Today I have fulfilled that prophecy.’
We were all silenced. We had fought no battle, won no victory, so how could he be victorious? Jesus looked at us each one by one, and seeing no spark of understanding in any of us, sighed, and turning, wrapped himself in his cloak and settled himself to sleep. We looked at each other in silence, knowing that yet again we had failed him, somehow.

Andrew the Student – part 2

Sometimes my quietness was an advantage. The young and the hesitant seemed to gravitate towards me to ask their questions. I remember one day when Rabbi Jesus had been teaching for hours, and it was now nearing the middle of the day. There was a vast crowd sat around him, we thought about 5,000 in number. We could all see that they were getting restless because they were getting hungry and thirsty. I was sitting on a stone near the edge of the crowd listening with one ear and looking around to see whether there were any villages nearby where I could find food to feed everyone. Then I felt a gentle tap on my arm. I looked down to see a young boy holding a basket containing five loaves of bread and three small fish.
‘My mother has sent me with some food for Rabbi Jesus.’ He said, ‘But there are so many people here, I can’t get to him. What can I do?’
I thought for a moment, then took him by the hand.
‘I know Rabbi Jesus. Come with me.’
I took his hand and we wove our way through the seated crowd. When we got to Jesus we stood and waited, until he stopped talking, then we went round and stood in front of him. I explained the situation, and the boy held up his basket.
‘I know that this will be enough for you Rabbi, but the people, they need food and drink as well. What can we do for them?’
Rabbi Jesus thought for a while then he looked around.
‘Have we got some more baskets? Divide this food between the baskets, then take it out and feed the people.’
‘But this food won’t feed all these people!’.
Rabbi Jesus just smiled, so we divided the food between the baskets putting a small handful in each. Before we left his side Rabbi Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and with the crowd watching closely he prayed and blessed the food. Then we set out certain that we would go no more than a few steps.

What we saw though, was that hands reached out to the baskets, some took food, but more put food in. Packets of food which the sensible and prepared had brought with them, were opened and shared. Water bottles were passed around. People sat and talked together in small groups discussing what Rabbi Jesus had been saying. What could have been a very difficult situation became a time of great sharing and generosity, thanks to the actions of one small boy who shamed the adults in to sharing what was they had brought with them. By the time we had moved right through the crowd, there were twelve baskets full of leftovers, which we took back to Rabbi Jesus. He smiled and gestured for us to sit and eat, while he carried on teaching. We indeed saw a miracle of generosity that day.

Although we would be away from Capernaum for weeks at a time, Rabbi Jesus would regularly circle us back to our homes so that we could see our families and make sure that they had enough food to manage. Sometimes he took advantage of our boats, and would sit out in the lake and preach to the crowds sat on the shore. More people could see him that way, and the water seemed to bounce his words better towards the people. It was strange though. I never heard him shout when he was teaching, but I never heard a complaint that someone couldn’t hear. Everyone from the smallest child to the deafest old man could be reached by the words of Rabbi Jesus

Then the time came that Rabbi Jesus started to send us out to preach and teach for him. He sent seventy two of us out in pairs to all of the villages in the area we were going to next, to begin to teach and proclaim his coming. He gave us some very specific instructions.
‘Do not take a purse or bag or sandals. Do not greet a friend if you should meet them on the road. You have a place to go and be, to which Yahweh has sent you. Go there with all haste. When you enter a house say “Peace be to this house.” If you are made welcome then your peace will rest on the people in that place, if not it will return to you. Eat and drink what is set before you without embarrassment. Now you are workers in the Kingdom of Yahweh. You are worthy of your wages. Do not move from house to house. When you reach a town, if you are made welcome, eat what is set before you, heal the sick and tell them “The kingdom of Yahweh is near you.” If you are not made welcome, leave the place. At the edges of the town make a great show of wiping off the dust from your feet and telling them that they are no better than Sodom. The Kingdom of Yahweh is for those that see and hear, and believe.’

We all went off with great apprehension. I was almost sick with anxiety, but even where we were not made welcome, I felt confident and had the right words to say. Mostly people welcomed us and fed us. When we laid hands on the sick, just as we had seen Rabbi Jesus do, at our commands, at my command, the lame were healed, the blind had their sight restored and demons were cast out.

It was a very energised and enthusiastic group who gradually gathered again around Rabbi Jesus. Each of us had great stories to tell. Rabbi Jesus was full of praise for us all, and was constantly praising Yahweh for all that had happened in his name. We were inclined to boast to each other about who had performed the greatest miracles or seen the most miraculous things. Rabbi Jesus had to bring us back to earth by reminding us that it was not us performing the miracles. We were only doing so because our names are written in heaven. Written in heaven? Well it felt really good. I felt as if I had been waiting my whole life just for this. Who would have thought it!

From then on Rabbi Jesus would send us out regularly. We became skilled at preaching and healing, but always we came back to Rabbi Jesus as children come back to their father. We thought that this would continue for ever, or rather, we didn’t think. For all that we were constantly moving, constantly preaching and teaching in different places, we were so taken up by what we could see happening in front of us, we didn’t look of to see the dark clouds gathering on the horizon. Oh yes, we occasionally saw Pharisees and Sadducees coming and taking a prod at Rabbi Jesus, but he would always have an answer for them, always be able to turn their learning on them, in a way none of the rest of us could. We didn’t see their anger and resentment. We didn’t really see their minds when they looked at the large gatherings they could never have held with their rules and laws and which were now being held by love. We didn’t see ourselves circling in a spiral towards Jerusalem for the Passover. Even if we had, we had no idea what was going to happen there. We should have known, Rabbi Jesus had told us plainly enough, but we had not believed him. All we could see was the love of the crowds for us. We missed the hate of the people in power, and we were shattered when it hit us full force like a storm in the night.