Jesus

by James Martin

How was he able to do this? First, his courage flowed from the grace that came from his Father in heaven. But second, it may have come from Jesus’s freedom from any desire for approval from the people in Nazareth. Jesus did not need their approval; he needed only to be true to himself. This is not to say that he did not love his family and friends in Nazareth or that he somehow held the people in the synagogue in contempt—Jesus was compassion personified. Rather, he didn’t need them to agree with him, approve of him, or even understand him. Nazareth was neither the locus of nor the reason for his ministry.

  Jesus was also wise enough to know that he could not change them. If they didn’t listen to him, perhaps people elsewhere would. This may be why Jesus spent most of his time in Capernaum, not Nazareth.

  Jesus did not feel the need for approval from the synagogue, the town, or his family. In short, he didn’t need to be liked.

  FOR MANY YEARS I struggled with the desire to be liked. And a few years ago I came to my annual retreat with two related problems on my mind. The first was that a person in my Jesuit community had taken an active dislike to me. Of course I knew that not everyone would love me or even like me, but that another Jesuit would despise me (believe me, he did) was disconcerting. He treated me with great contempt, at times refusing to speak to me. (Yes, religious communities are not perfect.) The second issue was the feeling that I must speak out about a controversial issue in the church, which would probably earn me enmity. (It doesn’t matter what issue; the controversy is long gone.)

  Both challenges turned on my need to be liked. So my spiritual director recommended the Rejection at Nazareth for my prayer. It was easy to imagine the crowd shouting Jesus down, at the tops of their voices, and to see the looks of hatred on their faces.

  Meditating on that passage helped me realize how frightened I was of rejection. And thinking of Jesus’s courage in Nazareth helped free me of something that had long kept me bound. Whenever I thought of saying or doing something that might have seemed controversial or unpopular I often wondered, What will people think? It’s a dangerous snare—you can easily end up paralyzed with inactivity, bound by the chains of approval.

  Jesus was the opposite: entirely free. Perhaps this came from his intimate relationship with the Father, with whom he was united in prayer. Perhaps this came from his relationships with Mary and Joseph and the rest of his extended family, who offered him the parental love that characterizes many self-confident people—to the point where he felt comfortable disagreeing with or even angering them. Or perhaps it came from his understanding that his mission was of supreme importance, that proclaiming the coming reign of God was more important than whether a few people from his hometown disagreed with, disliked, or rejected him.

  Jesus’s freedom sprang from an unwillingness to let other people’s opinions determine his actions. If he had succumbed to what other people thought, he never would have spoken in the synagogue, he never would have healed anyone, he never would have stilled a storm. He never would have raised anyone from the dead, for fear of offending those in authority. He never would have opened his mouth to proclaim the Good News.

  Relying on family, friends, and the larger community can be salutary. It helps us in problem-solving, consoles us in times of sorrow, and magnifies our rejoicing. The support of our family, the advice of our friends, and the wisdom of the community also keep us humble, because we are reminded that we don’t know everything.

  But an overreliance on other people’s opinions can paralyze us. For many years, I tailored some of my actions not only to fit what was generally accepted, but to gain for myself others’ approval. Don’t say that; it’s too controversial. Don’t do this; people won’t like you. Don’t wear that; people won’t think you’re cool. Many of us know that temptation. In some social gatherings I used to wonder, What can I say to get people to like me?

  How paralyzing that was! Because any action will win approval from one person and earn contempt from another. Gradually, this overweening desire to be liked put severe limits on my freedom. But the Rejection at Nazareth freed me from that self-made prison. It felt as if God were asking me on that retreat: “Must everyone like you? Mustn’t the desire to be liked by everyone die? Doesn’t it need to die if you are to have any sort of freedom?”

  Once I realized this, I felt a palpable liberation from worrying about the fellow who disliked me in my community, and from my fears over whether anyone would disapprove of what I wrote. Of course, I still need correcting at times. Like anyone, what I say and do requires careful discernment. People may dislike or disapprove of our actions for good reasons. As my novice director told me, “Just because you’re being persecuted doesn’t mean that you’re a prophet. It may mean you’re wrong!”

  But the story of the Rejection at Nazareth enabled me to reject the need for approval. Now I worry far less about being loved or even liked. Jesus in Nazareth freed me from that particular prison. The tektōn’s freedom gave me the freedom to be free. As he said on that day, he had come to “proclaim release to the captives.”

  Including, in a way, this one.

  * * *

  THE REJECTION AT NAZARETH

  Luke 4:16–30

  (See also Matthew 13:54–58; Mark 6:1–6)

  * * *

  When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

  because he has anointed me

  to bring good news to the poor.

  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

  and recovery of sight to the blind,

  to let the oppressed go free,

  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

  And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 7

  Galilee

  “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

  ON THE FIRST MORNING of our stay in Galilee, we visited one of the sites I most hoped to see during our pilgrimage. I had stumbled upon the place in a guidebook just a few weeks before our departure. It was called the Seven Springs. There, on a northern corner of the shore, seven freshwater streams pour into the Sea of Galilee. And while the water level is lower than it was during Jesus’s day, the terrain probably looks much the same as it did in the first century. Waves lap over dark rocks, tufts of grasses dot the beach, and the lack of tall trees affords an unobstructed view of the blue-green water. You can see all the way across to the hills on the other side.

  In the Gospels, by the way, the Sea of Galilee is also called the Sea of Tiberias (after a large city on its banks), Lake Gennesaret (from the Hebrew word for “harp,” describing the lake’s shape), or
sometimes just “the lake.” You can imagine my embarrassment when I discovered that what I thought were three separate lakes were one. Until a few weeks before our trip, I kept checking maps to figure out how the three biblical bodies of water were connected, before my friend Drew politely set me straight. It is one lake, about thirteen miles long and eight miles wide at its widest point.

  On the day of our visit, dozens of people splashed about in the Sea of Galilee, and a large Orthodox Jewish family was enjoying a sort of holiday at the Seven Springs. The scene was the opposite of what I had expected—an ornate shrine, a little church, or even a grand basilica. But there was nothing but the sea. The boisterous crowds made for a pleasant atmosphere. Dipping my fingers into the water, I made the Sign of the Cross.

  The Seven Springs is the traditional site of the Call of the First Disciples, where Jesus, just beginning his ministry, invites four Galilean fishermen to accompany him. Many pilgrims believe that the Seven Springs is the story’s locus, for as Luke tells the tale, Jesus meets up with the fishermen just as they are “washing” their nets. The freshets that flow into the Sea at this precise spot make it a logical place for those fishermen’s task.

  The rushing streams and the breaking waves make the Seven Springs a surprisingly noisy place. With the washing of the nets, the commotion of fishing boats being hauled onto shore, the men unloading their catch, the rolling surf, and the burbling springs, Jesus’s appearance might have surprised the otherwise preoccupied Galileans.

  Speaking of surprises, here’s a problem with the Gospels: We’ve heard the stories so many times that it’s easy to overlook their overriding strangeness. We’ve lost the ability to be surprised by them. As one writer said, they become like old coins, their edges smoothed away.1 The Call of the First Disciples is one such story. But if you read it with fresh eyes, it reveals itself as an unsettling tale. How could four men walk away from everything—their jobs, their families, their entire way of life—to follow a carpenter who says only a few words to them?

  MARK TELLS THE STORY in sure, swift strokes. He begins with Peter (who’s still called Simon) and his brother Andrew. Both are hard at work, plying their trade along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. According to several ancient writers, the Sea of Galilee was home to a thriving fishing industry, its shores heavily populated. The area was also something of a crossroads in between the Hellenized (that is, Greek-influenced) cities to the east and the Jewish towns and settlements to the west. Perhaps this is one reason that Jesus was attracted to the locale: he could be assured of meeting people from all over the region. Mark’s Gospel will portray Jesus going back and forth across the lake, perhaps symbolizing his mission to both Jews and Gentiles.2

  So the romantic idea of Jesus passing a group of men silently mending their nets on a quiet seashore may be inaccurate. Perhaps Jesus came upon them in the midst of crowds of fishermen, busy on the bustling shoreline.

  Indeed, Mark paints an active scene. Peter and Andrew are casting their nets into the sea. (John’s Gospel tells us that Peter and Andrew are from Bethsaida, only a few miles away, and that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist.3) The pair’s activities are common even now. A few minutes after George and I visited the Seven Springs and piled back into our car, we spied two small figures on the shoreline, facing the sea, making motions with their arms, apparently throwing something into the water.

  “What are they doing?” said George. “Can you tell?”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I said, “but they’re . . . casting their nets.”

  Mark adds, somewhat superfluously, “for they were fishermen.” The cynical reader might say, “No kidding.” But Mark and the other Gospel writers often use what Scripture scholars call “Semitic repetition” to underline a point, sometimes telling the same story two different ways. Besides, their profession, as we will see, is not of passing interest. It bears repeating.

  In Mark’s account Jesus has just finished his sojourn in the desert. Without fanfare the carpenter from Nazareth strides up to Peter and Andrew, probably greets them, and says words that will change everyone’s lives. Most Christians know the famous quote in the following translation: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

  The Greek is Deute opisō mou, ka poiēsō humas genesthai ha haleeis anthrōpōn. The first part of Jesus’s invitation might be better translated as “Come after me,” which may have reminded Mark’s original audience of the Jewish practice of the student walking behind the teacher. Many scholars say that already Jesus is making a break with tradition. Normally it was the student who sought out the teacher. Here, the master chooses.

  The master also makes. The second part of the Greek, “And I will make you to become fishers of people,” shows what Jesus has in mind for these fishermen. The verb poieō (“to make or do”) is the root of the words “poem” and “poetry,” and this passage beautifully conveys a sense of creation.4 After calling them into relationship with him, Jesus will “make” or fashion his disciples into something new and beautiful. John Meier in A Marginal Jew calls it a “command-plus-promise.”5

  Some Christians familiar with the term “fishers of men” are often surprised that the Greek used is a form of anthrōpos (that is, people: anthrōpoi), and not of anēr (men: which would be andres). Jesus’s ministry will not be limited to men. As his ministry unfolds, the disciples will see that Jesus’s net is large enough to include a fantastic variety of people, often the very fish that are the least expected by those doing the casting.

  Where did Jesus’s odd choice of words come from? Meier notes that while metaphors connected with fishing were common in the ancient Mediterranean world, the phrase “fishing for people” (or any other similar phrase) appears nowhere in the Old Testament. When the metaphor of fishing for human beings (or using a hook as bait) is used, it is used negatively—for example, God’s catching a wicked person or group of people.6 Nor does that particular phrase appear elsewhere in the New Testament—that is, Jesus does not employ the metaphor for any other person or group of people. In other words, it seems to be a phrase that Jesus originated—for this particular group of men. Thus, says Meier, “it was tied to specific persons in a specific situation.”7 It is an early example of how Jesus tailored his message and his words to his audience.

  The invitation is also open-ended. Jesus does not tell Peter and Andrew how they will “fish for people.” He does not say, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of people by doing the following things: I’ll preach, I’ll perform miracles, I’ll ask you to assist me in my ministry, and then I’ll suffer, be crucified, and be raised from the dead after three days, and finally, after my resurrection, you’ll be charged with spreading my message to the ends of the earth.”

  No. Jesus’s call is—like many calls—appealing but also confusing. As the angel asks of Mary at the Annunciation, Jesus asks the disciples to assent to something mysterious.

  It’s not just his choice of words that is unusual; it’s the very calling of disciples. As I mentioned, at the time rabbis didn’t call followers; followers and students sought out the teacher. Nor does Jesus say something like, “Come and learn the Torah with me,” the normal impetus for seeking a teacher. Nor were Peter and Andrew asked to “serve” their teacher, another Jewish custom. Finally, in another break with tradition, Jesus didn’t ask them to stay in a particular place to be his disciple. No, they would be on the road. “Follow me” was meant in a physical way as well. All of this would have been odd for Jews of the time.8

  Jesus’s unusual choice of words would have been instantly memorable to his listeners. Even for devout Jews it would not have been the expected metaphor—he turns a negative metaphor on its head. Jesus is also speaking their language—notice that the carpenter doesn’t choose an image from his own trade (“Follow me and we will build the kingdom” or “Follow me and we will sand down the rough edges of humanity”). Instead, he uses their own life to call them to a new one. Several New Tes
tament scholars told me that the phrase may also be an indication of Jesus’s playful humor—telling professional fishermen that they would be, absurdly, “fishing for people.” Overall, it is an original request, “strikingly different, not to say shocking,” says Meier.9 Strange.

  Stranger still is their response: Kai euthus aphentes ta diktua ēkolouthēsan autō. “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” The expression kai euthus—“and immediately”—will occur many times in Mark’s Gospel, giving everything a sense of urgency in his fast-paced tale of Jesus. Decisions need to be made immediately. The two leave their nets and follow—the Greek ēkolouthēsan connotes not simply following a person’s teaching (as today some might say they are followers of the teachings of Gandhi or Nietzsche) as much as following the individual. It implies a personal relationship with Jesus. Follow me—but also join me, live with me, eat what I eat, meet whom I meet. Share in my life.

  Farther down the shore, Jesus meets up with James and John, the sons of a man named Zebedee, working on their nets. Jesus calls them—once again euthus, immediately. But James and John are not washing their nets after a fishing voyage. The most common translation is that they are “mending” their nets, but “preparing” may be closer to the Greek, with James and John readying their nets for an upcoming fishing trip, suggestive of a new beginning. They too leave behind their father and the “hired men” in the boat. And while Jesus calls them together, he does not call them as an unindividuated mob: “Hey, all you anonymous fishermen working on the shore—come with me!” These are individual calls.

  WE MAY HAVE HEARD this story so many times the fishermen’s responses seem foreordained. Of course they follow him, we think. That’s what disciples do. But their decision was by no means an easy or obvious one. After all, they had commitments and responsibilities; they were settled. We know, for example, that Peter was married, because the Synoptics tell us about his mother-in-law.10 And for those who think that they were dirt-poor fishermen with nowhere to go (and so it would have been easy to leave their crummy business behind), we should remember that fishing in Galilee was often profitable; the lake’s fish were exported considerable distances. One commentary calls Capernaum an “important trade center.”11 James and John are leaving behind a boat with “hired men,” which indicates that Zebedee’s business was at least successful. Likewise, Peter and Andrew were working together—a family business.