Fishers of Men

by Gerald N. Lund

  Simeon turned away, not waiting to hear the rest. He moved up the hill quickly, swinging his head back and forth as he sought for any sign of Jesus or Peter. He no longer wondered why the crowd was so huge. Jesus was emptying villages from twenty and thirty miles away.

  To Simeon’s surprise, Jesus was not teaching when Simeon finally found him. Or rather, he was not teaching the multitudes. A small group of men and women had gathered in around him, and he was talking earnestly with them. To Simeon’s relief, Peter and Andrew were off to one side, seated on a low outcropping of rock. They looked weary and just a little frustrated.

  The moment Peter saw Simeon, he jumped to his feet and went over, beaming happily. “Simeon! What a welcome surprise. I thought you were up in the highlands.”

  “I was.”

  “Are you looking for your folks? I don’t think they’re here today. Your father had some loads of wheat coming in.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to find you, Peter.”

  “Really? Is something wrong?”

  Simeon gave a quick shake of his head. “No, I just had some questions.”

  The fisherman broke into a broad grin. “You sure it’s me you’re after?”

  Simeon laughed. “I don’t want to trouble Jesus. There are so many others. But you know what he believes, what he teaches.”

  “You flatter me, Friend, but I will do my best.”

  “Can we walk?”

  “Of course.” He turned and called back to Andrew. “Simeon and I are going to walk for a few minutes. We’ll be back.”

  Andrew waved, and they moved away.

  For almost a minute, Simeon said nothing. He moved toward the outskirts of the crowd, wanting to be able to talk freely without people turning to watch them. As he looked around, he said to Peter, “There are so many.”

  Peter shook his head. “We’ve never seen it quite like this. The crowds grow larger every day.”

  “This would be enough to start a major rebellion,” Simeon said, watching Peter out of the corner of his eye.

  He laughed shortly. “It wouldn’t be much of an army. First sign of rain and I think they would all run for shelter.”

  Simeon laughed at the jibe, then quickly sobered. “If they had the right leader they could be trained,” he said, keeping his voice light.

  Peter stopped, peering at Simeon. “Was that a question?” he said.

  Again Simeon had to laugh. Peter always said he was nothing more than a simpleminded fisherman, but anyone who knew him knew better. His mind was quick, his insights shrewd, his understanding of human nature keen.

  “Just ask me straight out, Simeon,” Peter said. “I saw that you were troubled the other day at the baptism.”

  “All right.” He took a quick breath, relieved not to have to skirt around the issues, hinting at what he wanted to know. “You believe Jesus is the Promised Messiah, yes?”

  “Yes. Without question. Do you?”

  “I do now.”

  “You mean after yesterday?”

  “That, and after all my family told me has been happening.”

  “Good, but it’s not enough to be convinced because of the miracles, Simeon. I cautioned your family about trying to use those as a way of convincing you to believe.”

  “They didn’t.” Or did they? Leah had been pretty excited about what she had seen. Then he brushed that thought away. He didn’t want to be deflected. “So what does that mean to you, Peter?”

  “What does what mean to me?”

  “The fact that Jesus is the Messiah. Do you think he has come to deliver us from Rome?”

  Peter reached up and began to stroke his beard. “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure?” The disappointment hit him hard.

  “No. Sometimes he speaks about overthrowing the world, about overcoming the powers of darkness and evil and I think, ‘Yes, he is the Great Deliverer for whom we have been looking.’ Other times . . . ” He lapsed into his own thoughts, not looking at Simeon any longer but gazing out across the waters of the lake, now barely discernible in the afternoon haze.

  “Other times he talks of love and forgiveness?” Simeon supplied.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “I heard him say that we were to love our enemies and forgive those who treat us spitefully. But that doesn’t seem to be the main message he has for people.”

  That won him a sharp look. “You haven’t heard him that much, Simeon.”

  He quickly corrected himself. “Does that seem to be his main message?”

  “I don’t know if I would say that is his main message, but—” Peter stopped, his brow furrowing. “For example, the other day I asked him about forgiveness. I, too, was a little troubled by what he had said. When he gave us the model of how we should pray, he said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’”

  “Yes, I remember that.”

  “Well, I had been thinking about it. Knowing that he expects us to do more than the normal, I asked if we forgave someone seven times if that would be enough.”

  “Seven? The law requires only three times, and that’s if they come asking for forgiveness.”

  He pulled a face. “I know. I thought I was being vastly generous. Do you know what he said?”

  Simeon shook his head.

  “He looked directly at me and said, ‘I say not unto you, until seven times, but until seventy times seven!’”

  A stunned gasp exploded from Simeon’s mouth. Seventy times seven? His mind automatically did the calculations. “Four hundred ninety times?”

  Peter shrugged. “That’s what he said. I think what he really meant was, ‘Why are you counting?’”

  This did not fit Simeon’s theory of what Jesus was about, which showed on his face. Peter pointed to another rocky place. “Sit down, Simeon. You need to hear what followed next.”

  “He said more?” The dismay in his voice could not be hid.

  “Yes, he then gave a parable. A really astonishing parable, the more I’ve thought about it. He said that the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who decided to take an accounting of his servants. When he had begun to reckon with them, he met with one who owed him ten thousand talents.”

  Simeon had been staring at a line of ants carrying tiny seeds in a sinuous line around the bottom of the rock. His head came up sharply. “Ten thousand talents!” For a working man, one talent was a major fortune. A hundred talents would be beyond his wildest dreams.

  “It’s a staggering sum, isn’t it. Well, Jesus went on to say that when the servant did not have sufficient means to repay the debt—obviously!—the king commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.”

  “Oh, that would help! What’s the price of a slave now? Thirty pieces of silver. Even if the man had a large family, that would barely be a tiny dimple of what he owed.”

  “That makes what followed all the more astonishing. The servant fell down at the king’s feet and pleaded with him saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.’”

  A mischievous grin stole over the apostle’s face. “Do you have any idea how much patience the man is asking for?” He didn’t wait for Simeon to answer. “Even if he paid him back at the rate of one talent per week—an incredible sum!—it would still take nearly two hundred years!”

  “This can’t be a true story,” Simeon said. “It’s more like a fable.”

  “He never said it was true. He just said that the kingdom of heaven was like this story.”

  “So did the king agree to this fantastic proposal and give the man some time?”

  Peter shook his head.

  Simeon pounced on that. “I knew it.”

  “No,” Peter said, his voice soft with awe. “He forgave the man the debt. Took it off the books. Totally forgot the whole amount.”

  Simeon started. “Jesus said that?”

  Peter seemed pleased to see that Simeon was a little dazed by thi
s too. He had been. The story had left him spinning. “But that’s not the end of the story.”

  “Say on,” Simeon said, no longer trying to predict what was coming next.

  “But that same servant had one of his fellow servants who owed him a debt as well. He owed him a hundred denarii.”

  “After ten thousand talents, a mere pittance.”

  Peter went on without responding to that. “Well, this servant laid hands on his fellow servant. He took him by the throat and demanded that he repay the debt. And this fellow servant fell at the first servant’s feet and besought him, saying . . . ” he paused for effect, “‘ . . . Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.’”

  Simeon was transfixed. “The same words he had used with the king.”

  “Exactly. But the first servant would not listen. He had no mercy on him. He called for the officers and had his fellow servant sent to prison until he paid the hundred denarii back.”

  “After the king forgave him of ten thousand talents?” Simeon blurted.

  “I was so angry by that point,” Peter said with a rueful smile, “I had forgotten that this was only a story. But Jesus went right on. The king called the first servant back before him. ‘O thou wicked servant,’ he said.” Peter stopped again. “Isn’t it interesting? He didn’t call him a wicked servant when he owed him ten thousand talents. Only now does he use that term. ‘I forgave thee all that debt,’ the king said, ‘because you desired it of me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?’”

  “I would say so,” Simeon said, not realizing that he, like Peter, had become so caught up in the story that he was responding as though it were real.

  “And then came the lesson,” Peter concluded. “Jesus looked right at me then. ‘So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto his children,’ he said, ‘if they from their hearts forgive not every one his brother his trespasses.’”

  Suddenly Simeon felt his face burning. Peter surely knew about Simeon and what had happened when Jesus healed the servant of Sextus Rubrius. He was close enough to their family that he surely knew of the fire that burned in Simeon’s heart every time he thought of Marcus Quadratus Didius. Was this the whole point of Peter telling him this?

  But Peter seemed lost in his own thoughts. “I’ve thought a lot about that, wondering what he meant. Do you know that the one debt is six hundred thousand times larger than the other?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Do you realize that though a man could carry a hundred denarii in a pouch in one hand, a talent would be like half a large sack of grain? And it would take a column of men almost ten miles long to carry ten thousand talents!”

  “Then why?” Simeon blurted. “Why is Jesus so fixed on forgiveness? What is he trying to teach us?”

  Peter was staring at the ants now too. He reached down and formed a little ridge in the dust with his fingertips. The nearest ant faltered for a moment, then went right up and over the top. Finally he looked at Simeon. “How many times do you suppose a person sins in his life? I mean, if you count every thought, every act, every word that makes us less like God—which is a pretty good definition of sin, I suppose—how many times do you think we trespass against God?”

  Simeon was so dumbstruck by the question he didn’t answer. He just stared at Peter.

  “A thousand times, maybe?” Peter’s eyes narrowed. “Ten thousand times?”

  “Maybe more, in some cases,” Simeon whispered.

  “If God is willing to take such debt upon him, forgive it without requiring full payment, then how can we go before him in the judgment and say, ‘But Lord, Micah hurt my feelings. Ezra wronged me when he stole my cattle. Baruch took my wife away’?”

  Simeon shot to his feet. “All right,” he burst out, “I understand what you’re saying. But isn’t God a god of justice too? Someone has to make things right. What I need to know is, will Jesus be the one to do that when he brings in his kingdom? Will he take the Sextuses of the world, and the Roman slime who sell women and children into debauchery and slavery—will he take them and throw them into prison until the uttermost mite is paid? Tell me that, Simon Peter. Is that the Messiah I believe in?”

  Peter just stared back at him, caught completely aback by the ferocity of Simeon’s sudden anger.

  “You want to know what my question is, Peter? Well, I’ll tell you. I want to know if Jesus will step forth and lead the armies of Israel if the right moment comes. I want to know if he will be that Messiah, for that is the Messiah for whom I am looking.”

  Peter got slowly to his feet. “I do not know, Simeon. I am still like a child at his feet. Every day he teaches us new things, reveals more of his mind to us.” Then he slowly began to shake his head. “But I do not think so.”

  “Why?” It was an anguished cry.

  “About a week ago, while we were up north near the base of Mount Hermon, he spoke of coming in glory to his Father’s kingdom. I can remember thinking that he was going to tell us that he was the very thing you just described.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “No. Suddenly he started talking about going to Jerusalem. He said he had to suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes.” There was a long pause, and Peter’s eyes grew hooded and dark. “He told us he was going there to be killed and then to rise again the third day.”

  Simeon rocked back. “Killed?”

  “I know,” Peter said. “That was exactly our reaction too.”

  “If he is the Messiah, how can he talk about being killed?”

  It was as if Peter hadn’t heard him. “I don’t know what he meant. And I haven’t dared ask him.” He reached out and grasped Simeon’s arm. “Why don’t you ask him. I would like to know how he will answer you.”

  Simeon just shook his head. Suddenly he was too tired to care anymore. Killed in Jerusalem. What kind of madman’s talk was that?

  “Come, my friend,” Peter said, pointing up the hill. “It looks as though Jesus is ready to teach again. Perhaps we shall both learn something from what he says today.”

  III

  Simeon didn’t hear much of what Jesus said. He listened for a time and realized that Jesus was not saying much that was new or startling. Some of it he had heard before. So he gave free rein to his mind to try to sift through what he had heard, like the women winnowing out the grain from the chaff. Surely the Messiah had not come to die. That was how Simeon had started his thoughts, but immediately he began to question that premise. Was he to live forever? The prophecies didn’t say that. So he would die at some point. But violently? Against his will?

  Then he visibly started. That’s what they had said about Judah of Gamla, his mother’s uncle. When he led the uprising of the Zealots some thirty years before, which for a time looked as if it would successfully drive the Romans from Israel, everyone had said God would protect him. His work was so important, how could God let him die? But he had. And violently.

  And yet, from his death had been sown the passion that still breathed life into the Zealot cause. Could that be it? What if the uprising began and then Jesus united all the factions of divided Israel behind him? That would make him the prime target of the Romans. They would do anything to eliminate him. Cut off the head and the body dies. That was as true of revolutions as it was of serpents.

  Simeon’s thoughts were pushed aside as he realized that Jesus had finished speaking. He stood and stretched, and people all around him were starting to stand up and shake out the kinks as well. Glancing up at the sun, Simeon realized it was late in the afternoon. He had spent the whole day trying to find Jesus and was no closer to finding answers than when he had started.

  Peter stood and moved over to stand beside Jesus. “It has been a long day, Master. The hour is late. We should send the people away so they can return to their homes before it is dark.”

  Jesus looked around on the vast throng before him. “I have compassion on the multitude,” he said. “Many h
ave had nothing to eat today. They need bread.”

  Peter looked at Andrew and the others in quick dismay. “But Master,” John spoke up, “we are here in the wilderness, away from any of the villages. Where would we get sufficient bread to feed a multitude such as this?”

  “Yes, Lord,” James said. He was a little older than John but not quite so free to speak his mind. “It is late in the day. Let us send them back to the nearest villages to buy bread for themselves.”

  Jesus shook his head slowly. “I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint along the way. Let us give them food to eat.” He turned to the disciple called Philip. “Go and buy bread for the people.”

  Philip fell back a little. “But, Master, even if we were to buy two hundred denarii worth of bread it would not be sufficient for this multitude, even if everyone took only a very little.”

  Simeon was listening carefully to this interchange, touched by Jesus’ concern for the people and yet struck with the irrationality of thinking they could somehow solve that problem out here. He was suddenly aware of his own hunger. He had eaten nothing since early morning, when he had had a handful of almonds and a few dates.

  Jesus looked around at those whom he had called to be his followers. Simeon could not tell if there was disappointment in his eyes, or just thoughtfulness. “How many loaves do you have?”

  Peter held out his hands, palms up. They had eaten the last of their bread some hours before. Andrew turned and pointed. “There is a young boy with five barley loaves and two fish. But what is that for a multitude such as this? The people, including ourselves, have emptied their baskets already.”

  “Bring it forth,” Jesus commanded. Then to Peter and the others he said, “Have the multitude sit down. Have them sit in companies, fifty men in each, along with their wives and children.”

  As the other disciples rose quickly and began calling out to the multitude, Simeon watched in astonishment. There were no more protests from the Twelve. Did none of them dare point out to Jesus that five loaves and two fish wouldn’t begin to feed even one group of fifty? Obviously not. Andrew walked swiftly over and spoke to a lad of about Joseph’s age. The boy listened, nodded cheerfully, and retrieved a basket. In a moment Andrew returned and handed the basket to Jesus.