He Called My Brother
We hear the crowd long before we see them. I hum in confusion. Why are so many people coming down to the lake at this hour of the morning? Surely they must have known, when we didn't give our usual horn call, that we had nothing to sell this morning?
Simon glances up at me from where he is washing our hopelessly empty nets. "Naomi."
It is all he needs to say. Although he will not stop me from being present, by tradition, I am expected to withdraw and allow Simon to handle this unfamiliar situation alone. I nod and move several paces away, sitting on the shoreline with my legs tucked decorously under me.
The crowd drew closer and closer, cramming six deep around a man with curly dark hair and wearing a faded blue tunic, sandals thick with dust on his feet.
"Rabbi!" they call him, "Rabbi!"
I am astounded at their words, for this tired, jaded man does not look like my mental image of a Rabbi at all. Rabbis are meant to live either in seclusion with only choice pupils attending them or else teach multitudes in the temple, clothed in lavish gleaming robes of white and gold. They're not meant to wander the shores of the Sea of Galilee, thronged about by pleading strangers.
I feel a surge of pity for the man. Which is why I don't try to protest when he climbs into my brother's boat and asks if he can row him away from shore, just far enough so that the crowd can't follow him, even though they can still hear him.
He teaches well. He speaks on the old story of David and Goliath, but he does so in ways that none of the rabbis I've ever heard have done, and he makes us consider the story in a new light, a light that makes me ask searching questions of myself; am I truly willing to be as David was for the sake of Israel, the way we all should be? Obviously my role would not be one of battle, but I should have his courage all the same. And do I really? I've always thought of myself as a faithful daughter of Israel, but this man is beginning to make me wonder.
When he finishes teaching and says to Simon, "Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch", however, I cannot help but scoff. Any fisherman's child could tell you that trying to catch anything now, with the sun already high in the sky, is fruitless. The fish have sunk too deep and too close into the shore for anyone to be able to catch anything. I am astounded when my brother, instead of throwing his head back laughing, no matter how disrespectful it might be to this stranger, actually does as the man suggests.
I am even more astounded when Simon heaves the nets back up straining at the seams with wriggling, glistening fish. Despite myself, I leap to my feet, hurrying back along the shore to where my brother and his partners, James and John, coming back to land. My heart is in my mouth.
"That's impossible!" I breathe.
It's impossible and yet it has happened. The proof is right there in front of me, gasping and floundering in front of my very eyes.
Scrambling over the gunwale, Simon does something no one is expecting him to do. He falls to his knees before this stranger, who is still standing in the boat, up to his shinbones in wriggling fish.
"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner," he says, his voice fervently desperate.
Horror swells up in me. How can my brother think of himself as a sinner? He's not a sinner; he's a respected man in our community! He prays every day, goes to temple on the Sabbath, feeds the beggars with his unsold fish. How can he call himself a sinner, and in front of a man he has never met, no less?! And how can he call that same man a Lord? Can he not see that the faded tunic the stranger wears proclaims him as poor as us, if not poorer? At least we own our boats. I'd be doubtful if this man claimed to own more than the clothes on his back.
Fortunately oblivious to my inward scorn, the man chuckles softly and reaches out a hand, first to my brother, then to James and John as well "Peace," he murmurs, "Do not be afraid. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."
With that, he too climbs out of the boat and begins to walk away.
Simon springs up and follows him. James and John are right on his heels. I watch them go, flabbergasted. How can they simply walk away like that? They have families; responsibilities! They have a worthwhile position in our society. How can they simply walk away, with the fish still gasping in the bottom of the boat? Do they not realise what a precarious position they're putting us all in by abandoning everything like that?
At last, just as they are about to walk out of earshot, I find my voice.
"Simon!" I call, pleadingly. He hesitates, but it is his new master – the Rabbi – who turns round.
"Naomi."
My name. That's all he says, but in that instant, when his eyes meet mine, I understand. I understand how Simon and James and John could simply walk away to follow him. I would do the same, if he called me. His piercing gaze rakes me over; burns into my very soul, cleansing it of all impurities, as the heat of the furnaces cleanses precious metals.
Soon, I can bear the ferocious touch of his eyes no longer. I too, drop to my knees before him, calling him by the same title that just seconds earlier, I silently scorned Simon for according him, "My Lord."
For he is my Lord. In those few moments when our eyes met, I knew for certain that, behind the dusty facade lies a man far greater. Lies a Lord, perhaps the greatest Lord of All.
He is my Lord and he has called my brother to serve him. How can Simon, how could anyone, ever refuse his invitation?