DISCIPLES OR GOOD BREAD

Mary's Well, Nazareth, photograph ca. 1900

Reading the Gospels, I’ve often wondered about the ordinary people. After all, in the three years of Jesus’ travelling ministry, there were hundreds who were physically healed by him and thousands who were spiritually healed, touched or influenced. And there were only 12 disciples, and 72 apostles. What happened to the others?

One assumes they got on with their lives, but with a difference. A huge difference for some, a subtle difference for others. And the long term must have been varied also: remember the parable of the seed falling on various kinds of soil. Yet – to cite a different parable – the leaven was in the dough, and working quietly. I’m not referring to the early Christian communities, like those in the book of Acts. I’m just thinking of the Jews and Samaritans and Galileans in whose town he had stopped, in whose house he had had dinner, in whose synagogue he had explained the prophecies of Isaiah. Or the ones who had crowded on the shore of Lake Kinneret to hear his powerful voice speak from a fishing-boat offshore. Or the ones who had sat on the ground on the Mount of Olives, heard him talk, and had then been fed bread and fish in surprisingly adequate amounts.

What happened to them afterwards? They weren’t in Jerusalem that terrible Friday: even most of the disciples weren’t. They were getting on with their lives, in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in Caesarea, and on the banks of the Jordan. Here a carpenter, there a widow supported by her eldest son; a woman who was no longer hemorrhaging, leading a normal life with an imperishable memory; a man who could now see that the walking trees were in fact people with faces; a young student who had heard the prophets and the Psalms unforgettably explained; a couple of sisters who were forever persuaded that they had seen the Anointed One, the Meshiach, awaited by all Israel since forever.

But normal lives. Getting and spending they laid waste their powers, like all of us. They dealt with poverty, bereavement, love, unruly kids, difficult employers, and all the other vicissitudes of life. Yet behind, through and in everything there was a new dimension. The Kingdom, the Reign, was in one sense already here; the Law had been radically simplified and simply radicalized; instead of myriads of commandments there were now two huge ones; and they knew they were loved.

There is a relevance here that the rhetoric of the churches is missing. They constantly tell us that we are all called to be disciples. This of course cannot be true: the disciples gave up their fishery business and their tax office to follow Jesus wherever he went; the apostles travelled all over the Near East, preaching. Their successors are today’s priests and ministers. The rest of us have a part to play, but don’t call us disciples. We are the ordinary people touched by something unforgettable. Getting on with our lives, but with a difference. Not the leaven, but the leavened dough. In France they say of someone, Il est bon comme du bon pain: ‘he is good like good bread’. And yeast reproduces.