Men Called Him Master Part 6

Dawn was turning the gray sky to blue when Simon was aroused from sleep by the noise of a crowd outside his house. He dressed hastily.

"Where is the Healer?" shouted the people. Simon waved his hand for silence.

"He is not here." His words were instantly drowned by a hundred voices.

"Where is he?" everyone demanded at once.

"I don't know where he is," answered Simon.

"Will he be back? Where did he go?"

Simon knew he would never succeed in sending them away. Andrew came out of the house.

"Do you think we could find him?" asked Simon.

"We can try," answered Andrew, smiling wryly. Without explaining their plan to the people, they set out toward the hills. Some of the people tried to follow, but Simon gruffly sent them back.

The two men followed a faint path toward the top of the hill. For about a mile they walked, searching the slopes on both sides of them. "We may not find him at all," remarked Simon. At that moment Andrew caught sight of a patch of white ahead of them.

"Is he up there?"

Simon began to run. Jesus was kneeling in prayer. Andrew had seen a corner of his woolen robe against the dark bushes.

"Rabbi!" panted Simon. "Everyone is looking for you!"

He had interrupted Jesus' prayer, but Jesus was not offended. "I am not going back to Capernaum."

"But, Rabbi," protested Simon, "hundreds of people need you. They are in pain. What will they do without you?"

"I must go to the other villages of Galilee and preach the news of the Kingdom there too," replied Jesus.

"But, Master, your word is the only help these people have ever had." He realized that Jesus had fully made up his mind to go. "Think of the blind and the crippled!" he cried desperately. "What will become of them?"

Jesus answered with firm conviction. "Simon, they have heard the news that G.o.d has come to them. I have a greater work than healing the sick bodies--my work is to proclaim to everyone the message which gives them a whole new life! This is why G.o.d has sent me! I must go on to the cities of Galilee!"

Simon and Andrew knew they could not change their Rabbi's mind, so at his command they returned to Capernaum and prepared for a trip through Galilee. At noon the disciples left Capernaum, carrying only a small amount of food, and met Jesus outside the city. Jesus knew it was hard for Simon to leave his wife and children.

By late afternoon they had reached Tarichaea, a town smaller than Capernaum, about six miles south on the sh.o.r.e of the Lake of Galilee.

Here lived many rich men who owned the fertile farms on which all Galilee depended for wheat. There was also a large fish business, because in Tarichaea fish were salted and sold to men who came to buy food for the Roman army.

The market place was busy when Jesus arrived with the disciples, and a group of people quickly gathered to hear him teach. A young man in fine clothing joined the circle around Jesus. The disciples immediately recognized that he was a member of the party of the Pharisees because he wore large ta.s.sels on his robe. During a pause in the discussion he asked a question which Simon thought must have been troubling him for some time.

"Good Teacher," he asked, "you have told these others how to enter the Kingdom of G.o.d. Now what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus looked at the young man keenly. "Why do you call me 'good'?" he asked. "Only G.o.d is good." Then his tone softened. "You know the commandments--do not commit adultery; do not kill; do not steal; do not speak lies--if you obey the law of G.o.d you possess eternal life."

The disciples looked at the young man with the greatest respect. Here was a really religious man! A Pharisee who kept all the Law--what more could G.o.d require? And he was rich. Did that not prove he had pleased G.o.d?

"But, Teacher," replied the young man, "I have obeyed every one of these laws perfectly since I was a child. But somehow ... it is not enough. I am not satisfied."

John was puzzled. _This man should be happy_, he thought. _I was just a poor fisherman, but this man seems to have everything._ The other disciples also wondered what Jesus could say to the young man.

"You lack just one thing," said Jesus. "You must get rid of all your possessions. Sell your property. Go and give your money to the poor.

Come and be my disciple."

Shock and disappointment came over the young man's face. "I can't do a thing like that!" he exclaimed. "Why should I give my money away?"

"You must sell all that you have and give to the poor," insisted Jesus.

"If you want eternal life, you must put G.o.d first. If you go on clinging to the things you own, no matter how little you may keep back, you will never find the Kingdom of G.o.d."

"But G.o.d gave me my money," protested the young Pharisee. "Is he not the one who gives all good things? Why should you ask me to get rid of things he himself has given me?" The disciples felt that his argument was logical. "I have kept every detail of the religious rules,"

continued the young man. "I even keep two fasts instead of one! I never break the Sabbath. Don't you think I have earned eternal life?"

Jesus answered simply; he did not argue. "Any man who wishes to enter the Kingdom must seek the will of G.o.d above every other goal. Where a man's treasure is, there is his heart also. You have not given yourself to Him. You trust in your possessions and in your good deeds."

_This is unreasonable!_ thought the young man. He turned and left. Yet the longing to be sure he had pleased G.o.d was strong still. "That is no solution!" he insisted, arguing within himself. "G.o.d cannot ask me to give up things he has given me. People turn from sins--not from their good deeds!" But he could not forget Jesus' demand: "Repent! You love your own riches more than you love G.o.d. Repent!"

Jesus looked sorrowfully after the young man. "How difficult it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom!" he exclaimed regretfully. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to give himself to G.o.d!"

The disciples listened astonished. Finally Simon blurted out: "But, Master, if he cannot be saved, who can? He is a good man!"

Jesus answered with the deepest feeling: "Simon, with man it is impossible. But with G.o.d--all things are possible!"

"Well," said Simon, "if giving up things is the answer, we ought to have eternal life. We have given up everything!" There was bitterness in his voice, and everyone knew he was thinking of his children in Capernaum.

Jesus felt great sympathy for Simon, and his answer was very gentle.

"Yes, Simon, you have given up much. But you need not fear--a man who gives up his home and his property for my sake will never be sorry. He will receive back a hundred times over the eternal gifts which G.o.d gives those who love him. Many who now are rich will be the last in G.o.d's Kingdom; but those who are poor for my sake will be the very first in his Kingdom!"

That night the disciples stayed in Tarichaea. They did not argue any more about what Jesus had told the rich Pharisee, but they were more troubled by these words than by anything else Jesus had said. His teachings seemed against everything they had ever learned!

The next day, as the band of men walked with Jesus toward Nazareth, Simon brought up the question. "Teacher," he said earnestly, "I don't understand why you talked to that young Pharisee as you did. He was very sincere. The Pharisees do more to obey G.o.d than any others and this young man looked to me as though he tried even harder than most. G.o.d had even given him riches as a reward for his goodness! And yet you said he had to get rid of all his wealth in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" Simon could hardly find words to express his strong feelings.

"I needed to repent, but why should he? He was already a good man!"

James summed up the thoughts of them all: "Rabbi, if a man as good as that can't enter the Kingdom, how can anyone?"

Jesus said: "Simon, I want to tell you a story. Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee--like the young man we talked with yesterday. The other was a tax collector, who had been dishonest.

"The Pharisee stood by himself, a distance away from the ordinary folk who went in and out of the Temple, and prayed this way: 'G.o.d, I thank thee that I am not like other men--thieves, rogues, and immoral--like that taxgatherer over there. You know I am a good man. I fast twice a week and pay t.i.thes of all my money.'

"But the taxgatherer," continued Jesus, "went off in a corner where he could hide from people. He wouldn't even lift up his eyes as he prayed.

Rather, he hung his head and beat his breast in the deepest shame and said, 'G.o.d, be merciful to me, a sinner!'"

The disciples did not seem to understand, so Jesus said: "The taxgatherer left the Temple accepted by G.o.d. But not the Pharisee! He trusted in his own goodness rather than in G.o.d. If he had been humble, like the taxgatherer, G.o.d could have forgiven him."

"But I don't see what that has to do with the young Pharisee," protested James. "He was not dishonest! Why should he be ashamed?"

"This young ruler was like the Pharisee in the Temple," replied Jesus.

"He was so confident of his own goodness that he could not see how far he was from what G.o.d wants him to be."