A love story
An excerpt from: The Gathering
HER CHEEKS WERE FLUSHED with emotion and the haste of her journey through the dark backstreets of the city. She was running late and felt somewhat ashamed. Even more so, she felt ashamed because she was coming empty handed—again. It had only been a few weeks and she still felt so strange in their company. It was like her whole world was turned upside down in that room. It was like being free, while still being a slave; like being rich, while still being poor.
Fearful of the authorities, she gathered up her robe that bore the marks of poverty and indentured servanthood and with courage pressed on down the last laneway, until she reached the door. Then, taking two or three deep breaths to calm herself, she knocked—just a little timidly, in case the last few weeks were just a dream and everything had changed.
Although silhouetted in the light that spilled out into the street, she could just tell that Ruth was smiling as she opened the door to her. A hug, filled with the warmth that she had not known even as a child and then a gentle urging down the corridor and into the living room.
‘We knew you would come. . .’ It was Simon and he spoke as if greeting the dearest friend he had in the world—‘and so we waited.’ She looked at the table, so full of food, the likes of which she had not eaten, ever, before coming into the group for the first time just those few weeks back.
Immediately her eyes moistened. She knew that some of them had been there an hour, perhaps even more. They were freemen and their wives. They travelled the city as they wished, with no master to determine the times of their day. And yet they waited—for her.
‘We were just saying how much we hoped that your master would let you come. And we asked Jesus to turn your master’s heart towards you and to allow you some hours of freedom.’
One by one they hugged her, until an arm around her moved her to a place at the table just next to Simon. She felt shame and yet privilege, embarrassment and yet exhilaration. She had never sat at a table with freemen in all her life. Usually, she ate the scraps.
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to bring…’
‘Hush, child,’ Ruth cut across her. ‘You came. What more could we wish? We were just saying how grateful we are to Jesus that he has given us a new little sister. We want to hear what things he has been doing in your life—but first, let’s eat.’
Simon took the bread from the centre of the table and broke it into small portions, one for each of them. There was a husband and wife who were wealthy business people—she guessed that they had provided a lot of the food. And there was Michael, a carpenter. There was Anna, and Jael, and Joshua… well, they were all there and it was like being home. That was it—home.
As Simon passed the bread around, he looked across the table, and said with quite some seriousness, ‘Jael, I want to say something to you publicly.’ As she sat beside Simon, she was tense, wondering what on earth he was going to say to Jael. ‘When you first came here, it brought back all sorts of strange feelings from my youth. I hated your people; I had been brought up to it. I was told that you Samaritans were like dogs. I am ashamed to say it, but it is true—and those memories began to stir in me, when you arrived a month or so back.’
Others seemed to sense the regret in Simon’s voice and she knew that each of those present who were Jews must have identified with his words.
‘Jael, I cannot express how deeply grateful I am to Jesus for bringing you among us. That you have expressed your love for Ruth and me has cut me to the heart. I know that what has grown between you, Ruth and me, is the most certain proof that Jesus has made us new. Forgive me; forgive my ancestors. We regard you as one of the most precious gifts we have been given. Your wisdom has impressed us deeply and we long to learn from you.’
He turned to the group, looking each one in the eye in turn as he spoke. ‘To each of you, let me say that this proud old Jew has had to acknowledge the hatred of centuries. I want to say to you all that we are here at this one table together only because Jesus died for us. He brought us into one family. We love you in him and need your fellowship in our lives more than we could ever express.
‘Please, let’s eat the bread and this together. This one loaf will become part of each of us, just like one life has been imparted to each of us through his death, his broken body.’
He could not continue. He was barely controlling his emotions. And so they ate the bread, and the meal began.
From time to time throughout the meal, Simon turned and looked at her, a young slave girl, as she sat beside him. He was wealthy, unbelievably wealthy. She was a slave—probably the daughter of a prostitute brought in from north—but the way he looked at her was like a father, a brother, a friend.
Then he picked up a plate of meat and offered it to her. Never, in any part of any day of any week, did anyone ever serve her. Except here—in this house, among these people.
They ate and drank and talked of all the wonderful things that Jesus had done for them. Someone mentioned the copy of a letter they had read, in which Paul had said that they should act as servants of Christ and of one another. Michael, himself an emerging businessman in the city, shook his head as he listened. Servants were the lowest of the low in their society and the discussion of Paul’s words was challenging all of Michael’s inherited perceptions. When there was a break in the conversation, Michael turned to her as she sat beside Simon.
‘My family have always been free people,’ Michael said, looking directly into her eyes. ‘I feel like some sort of theorist when it comes to serving or being a slave. Would you be embarrassed to tell us what you feel like when you hear those words of Paul? I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I feel that my shell is so hard. I just need to hear, from someone who is a slave, what it meant for Jesus to be a servant.’
Her diction was poor, her education almost non-existent, her teeth in such bad condition that she was usually ashamed to open her mouth—and yet now all of them looked towards her, actually hoping she would speak to them. She couldn’t catch her breath properly for nervousness but, as they continued to eat and drink together, she began to speak.
‘I remember when I first walked through the door of my master’s house. He looked at me as if I was a piece of furniture. I knew that I would never have any rights, or even be able to consider what I might like to do. It was as if…’ She drew strength from their interest as she related to them the life she lived day-to-day. She saw at one stage that Anna was crying.
As she finished, Simon took the lead again. ‘Brothers and sisters, I am lost for words. Paul said that Jesus became a servant, but it has never really touched me like it has tonight.’ He looked at her, and said two words that she never heard—not on any day, not at any time. ‘Thank you.’
More than anything else, those two words lifted her above her hardships; they gave her heart wings. Here, among these people, she was appreciated as a person. She was accepted—loved unconditionally by these newfound friends. Jesus had given her back her dignity, a dignity that all the masters in the world could not take away. Those words would carry her through the week.
Then as natural as if it had all been planned, another took up from where Jael and Simon left off. Matthias wanted to share something with them from the prophet Isaiah. She had never heard anything so moving as that night when Matthias talked about Jesus as the Servant of the Lord. No-one actually acted any differently around Matthias, but somehow they recognised him as their teacher. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he was quoting, ‘for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…’ The words kept coming like arrows to her heart.
‘Good news to the poor…’ That’s it! Her mind began to fill with wonder as phrase after phrase read from the ancient Hebrew prophet began to connect with her—here, right where she was in this room. That is exactly what all this is. I have nothing and yet here, among these people, I seem to have everything. They treat me as if I were rich; I eat at their table; they serve me. They listen to me.‘To bind up the broken hearted…’That’s how I feel. Like all the years of not knowing who I am and where I came from are melting away. I have longed for something like this—all my life.
Her attention was called back as she heard Simon saying that the hour was late and, for the sake of safety, those who lived some distance away must soon head for their homes.
He took his cup, refilled it and, after a moment of deep thought, said to everyone: ‘Brothers and sisters, I have loved eating this meal with you all. You change my life every time you come. And I want to say that I am confident that we will meet again—absolutely certain—because we have not just embraced a philosophy; we ourselves have been embraced in a covenant.
‘You know, as I do, that the covenant was made by the Father with Jesus, and it was sealed in his own blood. It is not our strength or goodness, but his righteousness and his strength that keep us. Before we go, let’s all drink of this one cup, like sharing in his blood, our common life in him.’
They drank and, when they had finished, Ruth said, ‘Maybe next week’. Simon and a number of the others nodded. ‘Yes, maybe next week Jesus himself will be at the table with us. He said he would come back, so maybe we will meet at his table. If not, then we’ll see you next week at our table.’
Ruth turned to her as they rose from the table. ‘Child.’ She loved the way Ruth said that, like the mother she had never had. ‘You have blessed us tonight. I don’t want to cause you embarrassment, but I have an old robe here, one that I think would fit you perfectly. Would you try it on before you go?’
She knew that it was not an old one of Ruth’s, but a new one, bought especially for her. A gift from a mother to a child, from a sister to a sister. But together they pretended that it was just something from Ruth’s wardrobe and, in the pretence, the gift seemed all the more precious. Just as she found receiving difficult, so too did Ruth find giving difficult. These were new experiences for them all. As she tried it on, others were also speaking in small groups, chatting about this and that.
Eventually, as a group they stood in the room just before opening the door: a handful of Jews, a Samaritan, three or four Greeks and an all-but-anonymous slave girl. They sang one song together, a Psalm of David about the great Shepherd, and each of them knew they were actually singing about Jesus.
The light from the door faded behind them as each one left and made their way home. But for her, the light she felt in her heart would never go out. After all of her years as a slave, a chattel in someone’s home, she herself had found a home, the family she had never known.
Her stomach was filled with good food, the one good meal of the week, but her heart was all the more full. She had been to church, the gathering of the people of Jesus.
The above account may be fictional, but it is based on a reconstruction of what God says to us in the New Testament—about the priorities, meetings and structures of those first local churches. We have certainly come a long way since those times. The question is: have we gone forwards or backwards?
Prologue
The Gathering by Ray Barnett
2010
