Chapter Eighteen
A Prophet
They left late the next morning, and set out northeast, gazing toward the limestone Temple complex on Mount Gerizim, and planning to arrive in Nain, the first of the villages of Galilee, toward the next day. James had visions of them walking as fast as possible through Samaria, but it was Jesus who pointed out, “The trees are the same here as in the south or Galilee, as is the grass, the rocks, the hills and the people. Besides, we will travel to other places than this. If Samaria is too much for you, cousin, what of the ends of the earth?”
They traveled till past the time when the sun was high, and so they came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus said, “Let us rest a while from the heat of the day,” he said, pulling the white hood of hia mantle over his head and sitting in the shadow of the well cover.
They did the same around him for some time and, at last, John said, “I would go into the town and see if they have some food we can eat. Some water and wine.”
“Shall we camp out under the stars tonight?” Peter asked.
“The night is not upon us for some time,” Thomas reminded them.
“Well then let us see what that night brings,” said Jesus.
“The day will bring us going into town looking for food,” Thomas decided, and he clapped Judas on the shoulder and some, “Come, brother.”
They all left, and only Thaddeus and Alphaeus wanted to stay, but Matthew had a feeling that Jesus was in, “one of his things.”
‘Things?” his brothers whispered.
Matthew nodded.
“Where the Master needs to be alone.”
And Peter nodded in agreement, and so they left him in the copse under the spreading sycamores, sitting at the lip of the well.
While they were gone, Jesus, drowsy and sunstruck, dreamed as he had before, that he was stretched out, neither up nor down, neither one place or another, east or west, stretched on a great crossroads, and the crossroads lifted up so he was suspended on it, stretched to the point of breaking, and he thought, “I have become all things, I am all things for all people.”
And there was a great ripping in his side, and out of him poured water, like the water from the side of the Temple in the vision of Ezekiel, and out of his hands poured more water, and from his feet, and even, as he beheld it, the water was wine and the wine was blood, and then he woke up, shaking his head, dazed, in need of a drink, but lacking a bucket.
And this is when he saw a woman coming to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
And she, noting his tassels, and his speech, said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
But Jesus was full of the strength of his dream, and the revelation of last night, and he declared, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, paying more attention to her bucket and the well, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
She had already hitched her bucket and was drawing up the water, and now she was pouring some for him and he drank thirstily before, putting the bucket down, he said:
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Thirst quenched, he was high on the his dream, high on the vision that sometimes overcame him and made him more than human, and more than a prophet. At times like this he saw all things and wondered how he could ever be a tired Jesus, an overwhelmed Jesus, a footsore Jesus. Now he saw himself, or knew himself, flowing with blood that was wine that was water and, somehow, the woman was caught up in it too.
“Sir,” she began attempting sarcasm, but surprised by her longing, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He loved women. They endured much and lived in irony. This woman before him reminded him of Magdalene, or maybe of his mother. He thought, what would they to her say if they knew her? Or did women make these same differences amongst themselves that men did?
“And sir,” she added, “I would love to stay and talk with you, but I was not intending to be gone so long.”
“Go, then,” he said. “Call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.”
“Of course, I am right—”
“The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Because she would not allow her mouth to fall open, her eyes did. What manner of trickery was this? But… But no trick, and she knew it, and she said:
“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus said, as he had said to his mother that day in Cana,” believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. A time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for these are the worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
“I know the Christ is coming,” the woman said.
“When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
“What faith!” Jesus murmured.
“Faith?”
“In all of Israel, many do not believe in the Christ,” Jesus said. “Or they wish to make him in their own image.
“Well… I do believe in him. And... And I will be made in his image. When he comes.”
Then Jesus declared as he had never done before, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
“You are Jesus!” she said. “The Nazarene! Even here we have heard of you, all in Galilee, and then in Jerusalem, Working wonders, putting your finger in the eyes of the powerful ones. Have a care, O, Lord! And I thought, if he really is the Christ he will not forget us. He will at last visit us here, at the old holy mountain. And you have come. You have finally come.”
Just then, the disciples were returning, John, head cocked in curiosity, leading them all, Peter beside them. Simon Zelotes and James were frankly surprised to find Jesus talking to any woman unaccompanied. But Judas only laughed. Jesus had always been a law unto himself. No one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
The woman’s name was Photine, luminous, and she was indeed shining. If the disciples were startled by her, she did not notice them at all. Leaving her water jar, Photine, went back to the town, and they all looked after her as she disappeared through the town gate.
Meanwhile, Zelotes urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But Jesus, now himself luminous, said, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Peter and Andrew murmured to each other, “Could she have brought him food?” and Philip shrugged.
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Remember the saying, ‘Four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
The others were silent, but John said, “That’s fine and well, but take some wine and some cheese. You sound sunstruck.”
“Jonni!” Jesus began, but John said, “Eat.”
And so Jesus ate.
He and John were a quarter through the little cheese wheel and some bread when a crowd came out with Photine at the head, and Jesus handed the bread and then the cheese to John who nodded and took it.
Photine had said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
“If it is true,” a burly man beside Photine, whom Jesus assumed was her not husband, said, “then be made welcome in our home.”
“Even if it is not true,” said another woman, “be welcome in our houses. In a world like this, welcome is all that matters.”
Jesus bowed to them, pressing his hand to his heart.
“Blessings be upon all of you,” he said.
And Thomas whispered to Judas, “Well, that settles it. Tonight we will most certainly not be sleeping under the stars.”
Three days saw them dusty and footsore, but joyful, approaching the town of Nain. To Nathanael it was home, and to the rest of them it was the sign that they had, at last, returned to Galilee. The journey through Samaria, which they had dreaded, had not been terrible, and for two days they had stayed in the village of Sychar under the shadow of Mount Gerizim and the strange temple they had been taught was a blasphemy. Many of the people in Sychar believed in Jesus because of Photine’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”
In Sychar, Jesus opened up like a damned fountain himself, and the words that came from him held a power such that many more came to adore him. They said to Photine, “We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
What was more, the twelve were not returning to Galilee alone, but in those last days, other disciples had found them, and other disciples had been made. The group of thirteen was much bigger. And now they were at the gate of the town called Nain, where they would remain for the night, where Nathanael and Philip had caroused for an evening and Nathanael had lain with the innkeeper’s daughter, she called the Fig Tree. Only, now, as they approached the gate to seek food, rest and an inn for the evening, they saw another crowd coming toward them.
John, drunk on the excitement of the ast few days, thought, “Ah, new friends. They have come to see the Savior of the world too. But Jude, being the musician he was, heard the wailing shawns, the minor key of the music, and the others soon bowed their heads seeing that this was a funeral. Naturally they moved off of the main road that they might do honor to the dead being carried out of the town. At the head of the funeral, all in black, looking like his mother on the day of his father’s death, Jesu saw a widow, and knew she was a widow, and her hands were flung up in grief as she wailed, and women who may have been her sisters wept at her side. Her grief was awful to behold and, for a moment, Jesus saw his own mother, saw Mary, keening and weeping over him, and his own dead body, and he saw his own flesh, gone grey, where he wasn’t wounded and done savagely, his mouth open, heavy limbs beyond comforting his grief maddened mother. Jesus saw women shrieking on a hill, torn apart by immeasurable grief he could do nothing about, and suddenly Jesus, out of himself, ran and embraced the weeping woman in the midst of weeping women and told her, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry, Do not cry.”
Jesus had never been one of those who told people not to weep, and then had nothing to offer, and when he said this, the music died down and the woman, rocking in his his arms clung to him more. John stood at attention, and his eyes went to Peter.
Photine was with them, and her not husband, and they watched as Jesus approached the bier where was the dead body, and he reached out his long hand, and removed the linen shroud to uncover the most beautiful young man he or they had ever seen. He was like a sleeping prince from a story, except, irretrievably dead, grey green, hollow cheeked, and hollow eyes, and the scent of myrrh came from his dead flesh and suddenly Jesus laid his hand on his cheek, bent down and kissed him, while his mother shuddered and wept, perhaps because of such strange compassion, and then Jesus said, “Talitha cumi,”
“Young man, I say to you, get up!”
Photine heard a scream, and there was a start and the bearers nearly dropped the body, as the young man said, “I will,” and sat right up.
Jesus helped him as the bearers moved away in horror, and the grey and green coloring blossomed into an olive complexion and the hollowed cheeks grey rosey as the shadows around his eyes faded, death fleeing the boy as the sun fell on him.
“What is all this?” he said. “What in the world is going on? Mother, why are you crying? Why is everyone weeping? I feel so good!” he nearly shouted, stretching his limbs and surprised as the winding sheet falling from his naked body.
He laughed.
“I feel better than I’ve felt in days.”
Photine looked to Jacob, her not husband, and they fell on their knees, faces touching the earth. People were gabbling psalms and kneeling on the ground, standing with their mouths open as Jesus gave the young man back to his mother.
. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” one shouted.
“A prophet! A prophet!”
“The Prophet himself.”
Many were shouting, running back into the city, and some were running out of the village and down the roads, back to Samaria, or across the fields to wherever else.
“God has come to help his people!” they shouted.
