J e:us's Movemcni

with the Zealot movement, so a more mixed bag can hardly be imagined! These were the people Jesus spent most time with and to whom he tried hardest to get his message across. He realised how vulnerable one person was, but how powerful a movement could be. These companions were called disciples. They referred to Jesus respectfully as Master (Guru) or'sir', They saw in Jesus something so incredible that it wai worth giving up the security of a home or job for him. constantly they misunderstood what he was about, hoping for much of the time to become rich, importantfolk. when it came to the crunch, they let him down and fled during the trial and crucifixion. ln the meantime they tolerated the insisted that they have no personal possessions, demands he put upon them. Jesus but should be entirely dependent upon well-wishers. Leaving everything behind kept cropping up, because, as Jesus saw, it was all too easy for anxieties about property, parents, homes and belongings to get in the yay of the urgent task - to proclaim the good news. Only those with norhing, foolish people completely dependent on the mercy of fellow human beings, could tell others the good news of liberation. Jesus didn't see himself as Master and Lord, but as slave, and this also he stressed to his disciples. Hierarchy was one of the main paths to iniustice and corruption. lt must be tackled at the roots of the new movement, at the start of the coming Kingdom.

THE SINFUL COME FIRST From the very beginning Jesus was a healer and exorcist. He might have been a popular preacher with crowds coming to see him, he might have had an important message for kings and priests, but he never let the pressure of events push to the background the people he most wanted to serve. To be ill in Jewish thinking wasto be sinful. An infirmity was a punishment for a crime committed and often, because it wasn't possible to remain ritually clean, the sick person was doubly outcast. The only way open for the cripple to survive was to beg as often familyand friends deserted them. The existence of such misery, and the hard attitude of the religious people, was an affront to God in Jesus'eyes, and he always made the outcast the significant people in any event or story. Once, he was hemmed in by lawyers and doctors in a house, with a crowd outside. Some people, carrying a paralysed man on a stretcher, were unable to get through, so they dug a hole through the roof (easy enough for flat-roofed houies made of earth) and lowered the man down on ropes. Jesus, as always, respondingto the faith of others - in this case the conviction and bloody-mindednes-s of the friends who would stop at nothing - forgave the man's sins. ln reply Jesus, eminently practical rather than a debater, told the man to get up, take his bed and go home, as an equal citizen in the Kingdom of God. Everything that Jesus said and did was partof the Kingdom. Healingwas not iust an end in itself, but also evidence that the old prophecies were being fulfilled,that people were being freed. wicked systems were confronted and Satan wai being defeated.