by John Smelcer
Praise for The Gospel of Simon
“This book reminds us that we are called to be bearers of love, for there can be no faith without love.”
—Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop of New York
“Smelcer gives us a Jesus who condemns those who abuse the name of God to gain wealth or power, as well as anyone who fosters injustice and inequality, oppresses or enslaves others, and incites hatred, intolerance, bigotry, and violence.”
—Coretta Scott King
“A book that reminds us again and again of Jesus’s gospel of love.”
—Saul Bellow, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
“John Smelcer frees his imagination to create a moving narrative around one character who is almost a footnote in the Biblical story: Simon, who was compelled to carry Jesus’ cross to the hill called Calvary. In the process he reveals new dimensions in the Christian story.”
—John Shelby Spong, author of Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy
“A masterpiece capable of changing the world.”
—W. P. Kinsella, author of Field of Dreams
“An ambitious reimagining of the most familiar story in history.”
—Chayym Zeldis, Tel Aviv University
“Until now we only thought we knew this story.”
—Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest, social activist and author of No Gods But One and The Kings and Their Gods
“A book that reminds us of Jesus’s unequivocal command to love one another. A gift for anyone interested in deepening their soulful life.”
—Fr. Paul Keenan, Catholic radio host
“Enlightened, compelling, and blessed by grace. The timeless message will resonate with modern readers.”
—Marcus Borg, author of The Heart of Christianity
“In a world where the media relentlessly inflames fear and hatred, here is a quiet voice espousing the triumph of love and peace.”
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
“As this book shows, there are many similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, such as the practices of compassion, love, contemplation, and tolerance.”
—The Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and author of The Good Heart
“May this book bring a lot of benefit to people who read it.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Love in Action
“My friend, Thomas Merton, would have loved this elegantly simple, poetic, yet profound book that kindles the heart with what St. John of the Cross called “the flame of love” and brings Jesus’s words to life for modern readers.”
—(formerly Sister) Helen Marie Grimes
“This may be exactly the way it happened.”
—Tom O’Horgan, director of Jesus Christ Superstar
“Smelcer gives us a Jesus who condemns social injustice, prejudice, oppression, violence, and racism.”
—Julian Bond, former chairman of the N.A.A.C.P.
“I’ve always wondered about Simon of Cyrene. It’s nice to have this writer’s imagination of his story.”
—Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Episcopal priest and author
“The Gospel of Simon presents the Jewish rabbi Jesus of Nazareth as the prophetic figure he undoubtedly was, at once embodying the wisdom of Judaism and emphasizing its message of loving kindness and compassion. If only its universal message of peace and nonviolence could prevail in every culture and reshape every political and economic system toward a world of generosity, caring for each other, and joyous celebration of our endangered planet.”
—Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun magazine and author of The Left Hand of God
“Like the original gospel writers, Smelcer uses the tale of Jesus to inspire. His challenge was to find a way into a story whose familiarity has made Christianity stale, judgmental and dogmatic. He does so with brilliance and imagination, breathing new life into a faith that has forgotten simply to love.”
—Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ
The Gospel of Simon
Books by John Smelcer
Fiction
Stealing Indians
Savage Mountain
Edge of Nowhere
Lone Wolves
The Trap
The Great Death
Alaskan: Stories from the Great Land
Native Studies
The Raven and the Totem
A Cycle of Myths
Trickster
The Day That Cries Forever
Durable Breath
Native American Classics
We Are the Land, We Are the Sea
Poetry
Indian Giver
The Indian Prophet
Songs from an Outcast
Riversong
Without Reservation
Beautiful Words
Tracks
Raven Speaks
Changing Seasons
The
Gospel
of Simon
John Smelcer
A Novel
Leapfrog Press
Fredonia, New York
The Gospel of Simon © 2016 by John Smelcer
All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a data base or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Published in 2016 in the United States by
Leapfrog Press LLC
PO Box 505
Fredonia, NY 14063
www.leapfrogpress.com
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed in the United States by
Consortium Book Sales and Distribution
St. Paul, Minnesota 55114
www.cbsd.com
Photograph © 2016 by Jim Caffrey
First Edition
eBook ISBN: 978-1-935248-85-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Smelcer, John E., 1963- author.
Title: The gospel of Simon / John Smelcer.
Description: Fredonia, New York : Leapfrog Press, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016017804 | ISBN 9781935248842 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Simon, of Cyrene--Fiction. | Bible. New Testament--History of
Biblical events--Fiction. | Jesus Christ--Crucifixion--Fiction. | BISAC:
FICTION / Christian / Historical. | FICTION / Jewish. | FICTION /
Religious. | FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Bible
fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3569.M387 G67 2016 | DDC 813/.54--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017804
Acknowledgements
This book is an inspired work of fiction, a creation of art, a fabrication from the imagination and intuition of one imperfect man. However, the storyline and historicity has been judiciously researched and contemplated by the author in collaboration with theologians in the hopes of creating something that is earnest, meaningful, affecting, and thought-provoking, something that deepens faith and belief and is not merely novelty. If it is anything, th
is is a book about love. Indeed, the word love or loving appears over one hundred times in this book.
While many people helped me along the way, I’d especially like to acknowledge the Revs. Stephen and Elaine McDuff, James O’Donnell, Derek Daschke, Amber Johnson, John Jones, Helen Bar-Lev, Mary Shapiro, Charlotte LaGalle, Aaron Fine, José Carreno-Medina, Chayym Zeldis, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Tom O’Horgan, Julian Bond, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, Marcus Borg, Fr. Paul Keenan, Tom Wright, Daniel Berrigan, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, Rev. Billy Graham, Coretta Scott King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rabbi Rosenberg of Brooklyn, Fr. Leo Walsh, the late Fr. William “Bill” Kottenstette, Rev. Dale Stone, Sister Judian Breitenbach, Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Ronnaug and Danny Bull, Rod Clark, Helen Marie Grimes, Lisa Graziano, John C. Dorhauer, Joshua DeLeeuw, James Carroll, Bill Kinsella, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and my Harvard professors: Ali Asani, Christopher Queen, and Helmut Koester. This is not to imply that they endorse the contents, opinions, or statements expressed herein.
This book is dedicated to Pope Francis for his gospel of love, peace, mercy, charity, inclusion, and environmental stewardship, to Martin Luther King Jr. for his peaceful struggle against racism and social injustice, and to his friend Thomas Merton, who taught us to discard superficial gestures of religious zeal in favor of self-sacrificing love, “because our real journey in life is interior, of learning to surrender to the creative action of love and grace”—for there can be no love of God that is divorced from charity, compassion, or mercy. In his address to Congress on September 24, 2015, Pope Francis praised Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Merton as two of the greatest Americans, alongside Dorothy Day and Abraham Lincoln.
Prologue
Inasmuch as any writing is said to be inspired, the idea for this book began one wintry night in Alaska in 1996. I was standing outside my little cabin at thirty degrees below zero, gazing awestruck at the northern lights dancing across a sky full of stars, the flickering yellow light from an oil lamp on a table beside the window casting a square on the snow. It was at that moment the vision came to me. But I wasn’t yet a novelist. I didn’t know how to tell such a story. I might even have been fearful of the vision.
Who was I to write such a book?
So, I carried the insistent story inside me like an agonizing secret. For years, some friends discouraged me from writing this book, while others like Saul Bellow, Chayym Zeldis, and Norman Mailer encouraged me to write it. Mailer, who helped me develop the overall structure of the novel, joked that if I didn’t write it, he would. More than once, I discussed the project with Tom O’Horgan in his Manhattan loft. Tom had directed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway rock operas, Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair.
Over the years, the novel had many false starts as I wrestled with how to tell Simon’s story, who should tell it, and how we came to hold it in our hands. I must have written a dozen different beginnings. I sought advice from conservative and liberal Catholic and Protestant clergy and from the world’s greatest biblical scholars, as well as from leaders of other religions so that I might create a book of universal appeal.
I wrote to Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. After all, the book’s message of love, selflessness, compassion, peace, and tolerance are central tenets of Buddhism (and besides, the Dalai Lama has always been very respectful of the life and message of Jesus). Similarly, I wrote to the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, who, along with Thomas Merton, helped to inform Martin Luther King Jr.’s notions of peaceful resistance during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1967, King nominated Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the war in Vietnam.
I shared drafts of the manuscript with Billy Graham, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Dan Berrigan, Cardinal Edward Egan, N. T. Wright, and Marcus Borg. I had the honor of meeting Archbishop Kurtz in Louisville. I met Cardinal Egan and Daniel Berrigan when I lived in New York. I met Bishop Wright in Durham, England, and I met Marcus Borg in the fall of 2005 when he and John Dominic Crossan and their families visited Alaska. It was Marcus who suggested that I use the “Gospel of Mark” to frame the historicity of the novel.
I wrote to Jewish friends in Israel and to rabbinical scholars around the world asking for their help so that I might not perpetuate stereotypes. After all, Jesus was first and foremost a Jew, and the story of the Passion Week is largely a Jewish narrative. I asked folks not to discuss what I was writing with anyone else. Keeping my cards close to the vest, I never told anyone about the ending of the book, though I had envisioned it since the beginning.
It was my secret.
Despite my insecurities and trepidations, I felt compelled to write this book. I believed in it. To that end, I researched the topic assiduously. Over several years, I enrolled in graduate courses in religion at Harvard University, including a class on the historical Jesus. My professor was the distinguished biblical scholar, Helmut Koester.
Yet, overcome at times with doubt, still I did not finish the book. I prayed that one day I would. I also prayed that I would write it without agenda, promising myself that I would abandon the project if I felt a single word was disingenuous. Sometimes, while writing the book, I felt a kind of exhilaration bordering on manic, as if I couldn’t write fast enough to produce it, the writing better than my abilities. Nightly, I awoke from dreams, excitedly scribbling down what I could remember. Of all my books to date, writing The Gospel of Simon was certainly the most intense and rewarding experience. Omnis via est ad finem.
The soldiers compelled a passerby, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was
Simon of Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus.
(Mark 15:20-22)
It had been a hateful day, full of spite and tension. From the arguments in the office and the lunatic on the street corner shouting how everyone was wicked and condemned to hell, to the news of yet another suicide bombing and massacre on the radio during the sweltering bumper-to-bumper ride home, where the jerk in the car behind him was blasting his horn the whole time, it seemed like a day when all kindness and tolerance in the world was put on hold.
Simon just wanted to be done with it. He wanted to go home, change out of his suit, and have something cold to drink before his date that evening. But just before he got there, his grandfather called, begging him to drop by.
“Please,” he had said. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Simon’s frustration showed when he finally walked through the door with his tie loosened, and as he paced his grandfather’s small living room while the old man went to fetch something from the bedroom.
Finally, his grandfather came out with a wooden box, only a little larger than a shoe box, which he gently placed on the small kitchen table. He pulled out a chair and gestured for him to sit down.
“I can’t stay long, Grandpa. I just dropped by for a few minutes because you asked me to. I need to go home and change. I’m meeting Rebekah at Café Hillel in an hour and then we’re going to the free concert at Jerusalem Theatre this evening.”
“Your generation is always busy, always in a hurry. It’s bad for your health. You need to learn to slow down. You should pray for patience.”
“You know I don’t go to church anymore, Grandpa. It always seemed so insincere and . . . pointless,” Simon said, thinking of the right word. “And I don’t pray, either. I see all the suffering and injustice and violence in the world, the genocide and mass shootings that are so commonplace we have become indifferent to them, and the never-ending wars, which almost always have religious hatred at the root. Why doesn’t God stop it?”
“It’s not that simple,” began the old man. “God gave us . . .”
But the grandson interrupted before he could finish.
“I’m sick and tired of the hypocrisy of peopl
e who use religion to oppress the rights of others and to inflict suffering, and of people screaming how we’re all condemned to hell if we believe differently. Religion’s all about hate. I don’t believe in any of it anymore.”
“But not everyone’s like that.”
“Yes they are! Every time I turn on the television there’s news of a brutal massacre in the name of religion or of some scandal or corruption. On the radio some bigoted political or religious fanatic is spouting fear and hatred. Violence and greed has become our religion. Nowadays, it’s every man for himself. Just take what you can and the hell with everyone else,” he said, thinking of the two-faced co-worker who was gunning for his job.
“What you say is true,” replied the old man. “There is a lot of that. But people have become lost. More than ever we need to . . .”
“Look!” interrupted the grandson again. “There is no God. There was no Jesus. No cross. There is no love . . . only hate. I got to go.”
The old man’s expression turned to sorrow for his grandson. He sighed before speaking.
“Sit down. Please. I’ve been waiting a long time to show you something.”
The younger man studied his grandfather’s face, saw the earnestness. He took a deep breath and bit his lower lip.
“All right,” he said reluctantly, reaching into his pocket for his cell phone. “I’ll tell Rebekah that I have to cancel our date. But it better be important.”
“It is,” replied the old man with a sudden hopeful smile.