Lazarus? We need you to be part of our community, our communion, our ecclesia. You and Martha, and Mary of Magdala, too. She shouldn’t be hiding out here. None of you should. How can you keep yourselves separate, apart from his ecclesia when you were so close to him in life?”
I tensed, waiting for Lazarus’ answer, hoping it would give me a clue to my own answer, for it seemed the question was also directed to me. I wouldn’t be able to dodge it much longer.
“Forgive me, Mary, my mind is not as quick as yours. I still don’t understand why you want me to sell the land. Or why he wants me to, if you say he does.”
Sell the land! I was shocked. Lazarus lived for the land, and Jesus had always loved this place and found such comfort with Lazarus talking about crops and weather.
“In the Jerusalem community, we own all things in common, don’t you see? No one is rich; no one is poor. We are not bound by blood ties or by obligations of rank or function. We are one in the Spirit. Everyone equal. Men and women, master and slave. For we are all servants, and we are all priests. We are all one in his name.”
I could not see her face, but her voice was shining. The curse of being born a woman, a source of great bitterness to her, had been lifted from her by the grace of the Spirit. She was free to be who she was born to be. Her exultation was equaled only by her determination that nothing and no one should stand in the way of the new order.
“You want me to sell the land?” Lazarus repeated, still struggling to take it in. “And give the money to, to…”
“The community,” Mary prompted. “It’s not what I want that matters, it’s what he wants, what he’s asking of us all.”
It was back to that. Suddenly I’d had it.
“Mary!” I stepped out from behind a fig tree.
“Mary,” she whirled around. “What are you doing here?”
“Eavesdropping, obviously.”
“It saves me having to fill you in, then.” Mary B was practical. “You need to know what’s going on and stop sitting around like a fat, mindless sow.”
“I love you, too, Mary.”
“All I’m saying is you need to come to Jerusalem. You need to be part of the community. It was never my idea to whisk you off here, even though you did make a fool of yourself in the porticoes.”
“Whose idea was it then?”
“Guess.”
“Peter’s? Well, no doubt he spake unto Peter and said unto him: get the wife of my bosom the hell out of here before she ruins everything.”
Mary eyed me warily; she knew I was up to something, but she didn’t know what yet. She liked a good argument, but I didn’t always follow the rules of rabbinical debate. In fact, I hardly ever did.
“Why are you mimicking James?” she asked.
At that point, Lazarus, seeing his sister distracted, began to back quietly away, but Mary B reached out and grabbed his sleeve all without taking her eyes off me.
“Because,” I said, “of all the appearing unto and speaking unto that seems to be going on around here.”
“I have not the slightest idea what you’re talking about. I know it is difficult for you in your condition, but please try to be coherent,” she said as if the rabbis had clearly ruled that pregnancy produces mind rot.
“He spake unto James. Remember? And you just told your brother that he wants him to sell the land. So I assumed that he had appeared unto you and spoken unto you, too. He warned me that there’d be a lot of that going around, by the way.”
Mary B turned red as she finally got my drift.
“No, he did not appear to me,” she said through clenched teeth. “Or speak to me.”
For a moment, I felt sorry for baiting her. That she had no mystical visions had always been a sore point with this brilliant woman. At our very first encounter, she had dragged me to a vantage point overlooking the Beautiful Gates. We had watched the sun come up, and when the gates turned gold, she had demanded to know what I saw. As if at her command, I did have visions, dreadful ones. One had come to pass already; I hoped the other never would.
“I am following his teachings,” she added fiercely.
“His teachings?” I repeated.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s what we have to go by; that’s what he gave us. Some people may have visions, but we must scrutinize them in the light of his teachings. Don’t you agree?”
“Well, yes, I suppose.” I hadn’t given the matter a lot of thought, but Mary B was right about one thing, I’d better start paying attention to what was happening in my beloved’s name. “But I can’t recall him teaching anything about a man who is a good steward of the land selling it to go live a life he’s not at all suited for in the city.”
Mary pursed her lips and knit her brows in a way that reminded me of Jesus. If she had chewed her cheek the way he used to, she would look more like him than his own sister. In any case, I knew I was in for trouble.
“He called Peter and Andrew, James and John to put down their fishing nets,” she observed. “He called Matthew away from a secure job as a tax collector. He called you from the whorehouse.”
“That is not exactly how it happened, Mary. In point of fact, when I asked to go with him, he told me my place was at Temple Magdalen as a priestess of Isis.”
“Well, he obviously changed his mind, didn’t he?” Mary B attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite work. One corner of her mouth just wouldn’t budge and her brows still bristled.
“No, I don’t think he really did,” I paused to consider. “It was more like he threw up his hands and gave in.”
“You can’t really think that!” Mary B protested. “He married you.”
“Well, he would have married you long before, if you had let him.”
“Could we get back to the point?” Mary B sighed.
“Which is?”
“If you two Marys don’t mind, I’ll just get on with checking the vines,” Lazarus sounded desperate.
“Stay,” Mary ordered.
“Let him go,” I countered. “Let’s you and me duke it out, Mary. Fair fight.”
“Oh, all right.” Mary B loosed her brother’s sleeve, and Lazarus turned and fled. “You’re the biggest stumbling block. If I can move you the rest should be easy.”
“You said you had a point,” I reminded her.
“I do.” She took a deep breath. “The point is, he calls us all to new life. When he does, we leave the old one without a backward glance. Or we are not worthy of his kingdom. He said that over and over in the parables. Don’t you remember? People who made excuses were
