‘We see that you teach those of mixed blood; that you eat and drink with publicans and sinners and lowly people. Why do you break the laws of Moses?’
Jesus took this in with a silent, calm serenity, and closed his eyes.
The pause lasted long. The people began to wonder if he would ever speak.
Judas had seen this strangeness before.
He had seen him keep a hundred people waiting while he bent to observe the details of some flower he found fascinating. When he caressed the trunks of trees or the long grass, or pressed soil between his fingers, it seemed to Judas that these were like gold or precious jewels to him, and yet, when he handled the parchments of the law at Nazareth, he treated those ancient and friable items as if they were so many poisonous weeds.
Judas could not understand why Jesus overlooked the rich and powerful to serve children and paupers as if they were kings. Or why when the rabbis and men of learning came to fathom the depths of his knowledge he spoke of simple things and sent them away thinking him addled. He spoke in parables concerning the most mundane things, and at other times, he spoke in a language that was clear as day, of the most complicated mysteries. When he met with zealous patriots, he said he had not come to rule. When the peaceful came to him for guidance, he said that his coming would not bring peace, but war. When the melancholic asked him for salvation from suffering, he told them there was joy in pain. When the proud and self-righteous spoke of the sins of the world, he told them that the persecuted would inherit the kingdom of heaven. When he observed the maltreatment of others, he spoke with a fiery zeal that made all men think the world would soon end. And yet, when he was abused, accused, or insulted, he stood silent, motionless, as if he had all eternity at his disposal, and did not need to answer to anyone.
This day was no different, faced with the protestations of the Pharisees, he remained with his eyes closed and his face upturned to the sun for a long time, long enough for the question to come at him again.
‘Why do you teach those of mixed blood? Why do you eat and drink with publicans, and sinners and lowly people?
When he opened his eyes, he did not regard the Pharisees, but instead, turned his gaze to the simple people who had followed him, those of whom the priests spoke. He breathed in their fragrance, as if he were standing not before a group of defiled men, but before a landscape full of wild flowers. ‘Tell me, my friends, do the righteous need repentance? Do those who are well need a physician?’
The crowds were pleased with this answer.
He considered the Pharisees now. ‘My message needs new ears. For what I bring has to enter into souls not blemished by the old ways. To give what is new to souls infected with your old ways would be like sewing a new cloth onto an old garment, and that is why I choose those who do not belong to you, for my words would soon tear them apart!’
From the Pharisees came a rumble of voices, but only one was raised higher than the others.
‘We have heard that you do not observe the fasts, and that you allow your men to eat and drink as they wish, is this true?’
Jesus nodded. ‘Why not? Why should they fast? Is it not true that in your tradition the guests at a wedding feast never fast while the bridegroom is among them? I am the bridegroom and while I am here it is a wedding celebration. My guests will eat and drink, for they are the children of the bridal chamber. But the day will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them by you and your old laws, and in those days, my followers will fast, since there will be a great sadness. While I am here, your old laws will not serve them.’
‘What do you say then, of John the Baptist!’ one Pharisee shouted. ‘What do you consider him? Old or new?’
He looked at this with a placid regard. ‘Among those men who are born from a woman,’ he said, ‘none is greater than John, that is true, he is the best of what is old among you, and yet those whose hearts are made new by my teachings, they shall be greater even than John, that is also true.’
‘Do you call yourself an initiate? Show us a sign, the sign of Jonah or the sign of Solomon, so that we may see and be contented!’
Jesus halted. Something in this had raised his ire. He looked at the Pharisees now with the fullness of his condescension. ‘You old serpents! You ask for signs and wonders because you only see with the eyes of your body! But I shall not give you signs to make your eyes contented! I am not an initiate! I am greater than the man Jonah! I am greater than Solomon, for I am not a seer! I am the subject of seeing, the subject of initiation itself, and those who have spirit eyes and ears will see and will hear me and they will be contented!’