03 The Father, the Son & the Slave
You know the Passion narrative. This is not that tale. This is the story behind the gospel and governed by the history and politics of the time. It is the story of a father, his estranged son and the slave caught between them. This is Chapter Three.
T H R E E
“You are the Nazarene.” Josef’s tone made it an accusation.
Iesu answered his father calmly, refusing the bait, his attention on the shallow clay bowl of dates and almonds in his hand. “Yes, Father.”
The Roman road from Sepphora that skirted the base of Nazareth’s ridge was paved and well-maintained, wide enough that the two men walked alongside the wagon, moving into file only for the occasional farmer’s cart or merchant’s wagon traveling in the opposite direction. Among the last to join the caravan, the family found themselves placed at the rear of the long line of vehicles, just ahead of those travellers pulling handcarts, the pilgrims on foot and the flocks that followed them.
“I knew it,” Metlip laughed. “I said it had to be him, Master.”
Their end of the column had yet to round the base of the ridge, but Metlip saw they were getting closer. The sun had cleared the horizon, but remnants of the night clung to the rocky slope towering above them.
The slave sat between the women, the reins slack in his hands. Maryam sat on his left, closest to Iesu, while on his right, Mother leaned forward, straining to hear.
“Where are your followers?” Josef asked.
“Gathering my flock. I hope.” Iesu offered the dish to Maryam, but she waved it away.
“Your flock are not your followers?”
“My followers,” Iesu explained, “my disciples — are those who share my ministry, like pupils or apprentices. My flock are those who have embraced my new vision of our relationship with the Father Above.”
Josef plucked a date from the bowl and looked at his son. “You dare to call yourself Messiah?”
Meeting his father’s gaze, contrition in his voice, Iesu responded, “No, Father. Not since that day. But others name me so, to sow doubt among those I teach, in particular the priests who come whenever I speak to hurl insults and ask sly questions.” He jabbed his father lightly with his elbow. “But thanks to you, I know the law as well as they, and often better. And they lack imagination. While the priests themselves differ from place to place, their questions rarely change. Indeed, sometimes I answer before they finish asking, but then they name me wizard.”
“Why do they hate you so?” his father asked. “The caravanserai echoes with tales of your miracles, yet the synagogue priest names you an enemy more dangerous than the Romans.”
Iesu shrugged. “The people see hope in my message, while priests fear for their power.” Iesu nodded to himself, organizing his argument in his head, then continued. “Yet they are blind to the simple fact that it is their corruption which necessitates change.” He gave another shrug. “They fear my teaching will rouse the poor and starving against them, and risk their wealth and status.”
Just then the wagon crossed the meridian from shadow into sunlight, and with it came a panoramic view of the Valley of Jezreel spread before them. Separating Galilee from Samaria, this broad, sloping vale ran east to west from the Great Sea to the Jordan Valley. Metlip had seen the valley many times during his walks in the hills above Nazareth with Iesu, but he had never been in it. It’s true depth surprised him. Viewed from the hills, the valley seemed less dramatic. The discovery excited him, adding yet another novelty to this unexpected journey. And at the end, he would experience the wonder that was Jerusalem.
So clear was the air that the Via Maris, the primary highway linking Aegypt to Rome, looked like a sleek black snake emerging from a mountain pass to slither down the Jezreel’s southern slope, where it forked on the valley’s floor. One branch continued north following the coastline of the Great Sea.
The eastern arm ran the length of the Jezreel to the Jordan River, where it, too, turned north, skirting the western shore of the Sea of Galilee on its northern journey to the great markets of Damascus, crossroads of the world, for there the trade goods of Rome and Aegypt were bargained for items and produce of Parthia and the Silk Road.
Sloping gently from west to east, Metlip could see the true length of the caravan. While the lead wagons had reached the great highway and were turning east, a glance behind him revealed only a portion of the ragged train of those walking — it would be some time still before all of them would see the sun. He began to count the wagons as they turned, but was distracted by Josef’s rising voice.
“Should they not fear losing all they have earned?” Josef demanded.
“Of course they should, Father,” Iesu answered. “That is not my goal. I have no wish to take what is theirs, but persuade them to better share their surplus with those near starving. When one has enough wealth to ensure a sound roof, a full belly and a fine cloak, what good is more, except to pretend superiority and stretch the lengths of pride? The priests press the peasants like grapes, draining the juice and leaving only pulp. The greater one’s wealth, the further removed are they from the Father’s Grace.”
“You say acquiring wealth goes against God?” Metlip glanced around to see who else might have heard. He was sure the merchant ahead was now listening, so he looked behind him — and his breath caught to see that the numbers of people on foot were far greater than he had imagined, the herd of animals behind them even larger. Then he realized not only were they walking but forced to carry their possessions and supplies while monitoring their children.
Iesu appeared unaware of his father’s growing anger. “Acquiring wealth is no sin, but hoarding it when others around you starve, is.”
“Why should those who toil from dawn to dusk to prosper give away what they have earned?”
“Show me a wealthy man who toils from dawn to dusk. Such men sit and watch their labourers harvest grapes or dress stones and then take the profit, taking joy from paying their labourers as little as possible. Do you imagine the Father Above approves of such inequality?”
Metlip felt a gentle elbow in his side. “Do something,” Mother said. “I will not have these strangers witness one of their arguments.”
He turned his face towards her. “What should I do?”
“Speak of a new subject. Ask Iesu something about his travels.”
Josef pressed his case, thinking his victory assured before his son’s naive goals. “Inequality is life. There have always been those who have more than others, because they work harder and longer.”
It occurred to the slave that this argument was very one-sided. The old Iesu would have been just as roused as his father by now, but the new version of his brother kept his calm, refusing Josef’s challenge to make the argument personal.
“And so they choose to labour such long hours,” Iesu replied. “Where is it written that life is eternal labour? They could also choose to put aside their labour when they achieved their needs to sustain themselves and their families.”
Metlip felt another jab in his side, harder this time. What topic would avoid becoming fuel for a different side of their conflict? Did one even exist?
“Did you learn nothing of business while you apprenticed?” Josef countered. “An enterprise takes years to develop. It must become known, build a reputation. Only then does business become steady, and even greater effort is necessary to maintain it. If the shop only opened a few days each week, buyers would go elsewhere.”
“The business need not close. Others would take their turn to labour within, earning their way and advancing commerce.”
Metlip sighed with relief when it came to him. “The stories of your miracles,” he blurted. “Are they true?”
Iesu glanced up at him and smiled in gratitude. “I have done miracles. Just not all they have credited me with.” He leaned forward so he could see his mother’s face. “Mother, do you recall that wedding we attended, where the wine ran out?”
“Yes,” she replied. “You added water to the empty casks and made sport with the children rolling them around.”
“Indeed,” Iesu said. “The water took on the flavour that had soaked into the wood, enough that they accepted it as watered wine. Someone remembered that wedding and turned it into the miracle of how I changed water into wine.” Iesu raised his arms in triumph. “A miracle.”
All laughed, save Josef. “Did you tell the truth of the tale?” he asked his son.
Iesu studied his father for some moments before answering. “Many times, Father. I explained how a cask absorbs some of the wine’s flavour and that by adding water and rolling the barrels, it may draw some of that flavour from the wood.” He shrugged. “No one would believe me.”
The slave laughed, showing his even, white teeth, but he noticed his master’s frown and quieted.
“Did you truly walk on water?” he asked.
Iesu glanced at the Nubian. “Do you think I did? If so, I must disappoint you, Brother, though there are those who would swear otherwise. Successive storms had battered the Sea of Galilee in the days before I spoke, and the water level in the lake had risen to cover the pier. Though it was plain to me as I climbed from our boat, to those waiting onshore it seemed as if I walked across the lake’s surface. By the time I made land, my disciples were already proclaiming it as a miracle to the crowd.”
Metlip threw his head back and laughed even harder than before, and Iesu joined him.
Josef only frowned. “And the stories of your healings?”
“I have healed many, Father, it is true. It is my gift from the Father Above, but I learned much of healing from an isolated community and more yet from a Parthian physician.”
Still chuckling, Metlip asked, “How did you feed thousands?”
Shaking his head, Iesu smiled at his brother. “A few hundred.”
“Still. From nothing you created bread and fish.”
“I did.”
Iesu’s answer puzzled Metlip. “Was that not a miracle?”
“No. It was luck. A noble woman, a Roman, gifted me a golden buckle when I baptised her. I kept it, to use when the time was right. The crowd that day were contentious, goaded by priests to demand a miracle, so I used the buckle to buy bread and fish enough for all.”
Metlip laughed. “A neat trick.”
“Which ever returns to bite me,” Iesu replied. “It is the tale that precedes me, the plenty-from-nothing miracle everyone clamours to see.”
Josef noticed a new vibration in the stone surface of the road, and then a rhythmic whisper that grew in volume to become the measured slap of hob-nailed sandals from a column of Romans approaching from the East.
Taking his son’s arm, Josef pulled Iesu into the space between their horses and the wagon ahead. When Mother saw this, she nudged Metlip once again and pointed. Metlip held the reins for Maryam to take, then leapt over Mother’s feet to the road.
Josef asked, “And when they do not see it?”
“I answer that if they need a miracle to convince them, then they are not ready to see it. When we are ready, I tell them, we will see miracles all around us, because everyone will produce them.”
Josef growled, “That answer cannot work forever.”
“No? That answer leads to the core of my message, that each of us must make their own covenant with the Father Above, a pledge to love all men as he loves himself, and act to honour God in exchange for His Grace.” Iesu smiled at the slave as he joined them, held out the bowl. Metlip took some almonds, which he ate one at a time.
Led by a pair of mounted officers, the legionnaires marching three abreast sounded like a pulsing waterfall and drowned out any conversation. Metlip watched the soldiers as they passed, though not a single pair of eyes met his. As quickly as they arrived, the Romans moved on.
“That is foolish and naïve,” Josef stated once the troops were well past. “Do you think generations of enmity may be erased so easily?”
“Yes,” came the reply. “Enmity thrives when shared among many. Reduce those who cling to it and it withers. Hold to your covenant with the Father Above, regardless of the actions of others. As more people accept my word, there will be fewer to ignore it.”
“And how will you guarantee that?”
“I am not ready to share my plan. In the meantime, I live my message. I heal the afflicted as I find them and I honour my covenant with the Father Above.”
“You tell them what they want to hear.”
“I tell them what they need to hear — that there is a better way, where cooperation succeeds competition — that the bounty of the Earth is not for the few to hold over the many.”
“You speak of the Sadducees,” Josef said. “They have always been the priests, and so have ruled us.”
“The Sadducees are not fit to be goat-herders, let alone priests,” Iesu replied. “Their corruption blackens the name of the Father Above when they should be an example for the people. Instead, they covet entitlements and exceptions, preference and power. They degrade the role rather than rise to it. The Pharisees are complicit, happy to grow fat and soft while they meet the minimum charities defined by law.”
“The law is all,” said Josef. “The law defines us, specifies our responsibilities to God.”
Iesu leaned forward to look at Josef on the other side of Metlip. “Does the law enable you or restrain you, Father?”
Josef opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind.
Into the silence, Iesu said, “The law lacks morality. What does the law know of compassion? Of empathy? Nothing. The law lacks the one thing necessary for any measure of morality — a soul.”
“Moses’ law has served us for a hundred generations.”
“It has,” Iesu agreed. “His laws are the glue that preserved us when it seemed God had turned away, and our unrelenting obedience to those laws proof of our fidelity. Yet Moses failed, because you may not define morality with laws.”
“Have you lost all respect for your people?” growled his father. “Will you reject your heritage? You deny the very covenant that defines us.”
“Perhaps it is that covenant which is flawed, Father,” Iesu replied. “Your pardon, but I must check on my betrothed.” He veered away before his father could answer.
“Always he manages the last barb. He never changes,” Josef stated.
“Of course he has changed, Master,” the Nubian said. “Where is his famous temper? His self-doubt? He is not the angry rebel who walked south so long ago. Though his laughter lacks the passion I remember and his eyes hold a secret that haunts him, I say he has weathered his time away.”
“Where is his common sense, Metlip? This woman he weds, the dereliction of his trade to walk the land begging for alms? How can I accept those choices and be silent?”
“Silent? No, Master, that would be a dereliction of your duty as his father. You must present your wisdom and explore his reasoning, but then, Master, you must accept those choices as his own.”
“See? It requires no special skill beyond attention to the task,” Maryam said as her future mother-in-law gripped the leather reins. “The horses know to follow the wagon ahead. Holding the reins too tight confuses them.”
“Josef always made it seem difficult,” Mother replied. “Beyond a woman’s ability.”
“Perhaps he considers it beneath you, Mother,” Iesu said, handing Maryam the near empty dish. She accepted it, frowning, but didn’t eat. Iesu missed her reaction as he stared ahead to Josef walking with Metlip.
“How alike they are, master and slave,” he said. “Aside from a dramatic difference in height, they share a host of manners. The careful, measured steps as if they were forever being observed and tested, the way they keep their arms close in to avoid accidental contact, their tunics precisely pleated under their belts. And their nervous habits, Metlip always tugging at his collar, father twisting his ring whenever he is thinking. They are as alike as father and son. There is none of the child left in Metlip, Mother. Why has he not had his freedom?”
“And what would he do with it?”
“Decide his own path?”
“Would his freedom truly bless him with that choice? It would only force him from us, yes? He may not live as a free man here.”
“In truth?” asked Maryam.
“Indeed,” Iesu replied. “Nazareth is far from Capernaum, my Heart. What may be common there is forbidden here.” He looked back at his mother. “Are you certain it is not that father holds propriety as the highest virtue?”
“You question the depth of your father’s affection for Metlip, yes? Do not. It is not my husband’s nature to display his affections so openly, but his love pervades all his endeavours with Metlip, even more so since you left. And Josef is not getting any younger.”
The lower slopes and floor of the Valley of Jezreel were the most fertile lands in Roman Palestine, and so great estates lined the Via Maris, their boundaries marked by rows of piled rocks. Beginning mere paces from the road’s edge were fields of wheat and barley stretching into the distance. Smaller piles of stones identified the fields of tenant farmers, those without land of their own, who laboured in exchange for whatever yield remained after their landlord took his due.
Where the valley’s slopes grew too steep for grain, orchards and olive groves replaced them, and among these sat palatial homes. As often as one of these expansive homes sat among gardens, another huddled behind stout walls. Metlip noted a common rhythm among the labourers as they harvested the grain. The workers took a short pace and then twisted their upper body to maximize their reach as they swung heavy scything blades through the ripened crop. Behind them, women and children gathered the stalks into bundles, tying them and standing them upright.
As the morning wore on, the valley narrowed and the hills lining the slopes grew taller. Two mountains soon towered above the rest. The southern peak sat among lesser hills whose slopes hosted orchards. The northern mountain stood alone and was higher, its steep slopes becoming the northern boundary of the Jezreel.
Pointing towards the North, Metlip said, ”I know that is Mount Tabor. We could often see it from the hills, if the clouds permitted.” Shifting to point at the southern peak, he went on, “But what is that one called?”
“Mount Gilboa,” his master answered. “The northern limit of Samaria. Beyond these two lies the Jordan Valley.”
Though maintained by the Roman civil authorities, the paving stones tight and level and the border vegetation neatly trimmed, the Via Maris road was well-travelled and subject to a considerable litter of animal droppings. And since the harvest rains were over, the constant procession of wheels, hooves and feet flattened and spread the excrement to dry under the sun and rise as dust.
The further back in the column, the greater and more dense became the foul cloud. Mother’s eyes began to itch, and then to burn when she rubbed them. Her breath shortened in response to the choking dust, and soon she coughed.
Iesu heard a wet gurgle in her throat after a bout of coughing. “Are you distressed, Mother?”
“It will pass,” she replied, looking at him. “But my eyes are burning.”
Mother went into another coughing fit, which brought Josef rushing to her side. He climbed the wagon’s step, but she pushed him back.
Iesu said nothing, instead delving into his satchel. He withdrew and unrolled a cloth and doused it with water. “Place this over your eyes,” he instructed her. “Do not rub. Just hold it in place. I will tell you to reverse it and when you do that, then you may — gently — rub from the inside outwards.”
She took the wet cloth from him and obeyed. As she held the cloth to her face, Iesu took a second cloth from his bag, and then a slim clay jar, like an amphora without handles. This cloth he folded before pouring some liquid over it. He looked at his mother and said, “Now reverse the cloth, Mother, but remember to wipe away from your nose.”
Mother did as he told her. “Better?” Iesu asked.
She blinked several times, then smiled. “Yes.”
“Now,” her son continued, holding out the folded cloth. “Place this over your mouth and breathe through it. It will remind you of a grove after a heavy rain, yet slightly bitter. Still, it will clear your breaths and help expel the dust in your coughs.”
“What is that?” Josef demanded.
“Something to help clear her lungs.”
“How do you know this will work?”
Iesu spared a quick glance at his mother. “See for yourself, Father.”
His mother, holding the cloth over her nose and mouth, nodded at her husband.
Just then Maryam tugged on the left rein and the horses veered in that direction, following the wagons in front. A guard marched along the column’s right flank, motioning the procession to move off the road to the North. When the caravan finally halted, the Via Maris was a thin ribbon in the distance, and the sheer slope of Mount Tabor was so close the mountain seemed poised to crush them.
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