Philip Fogarty SJ in his commentary on Mark’s Gospel deals with the questions: What does following Jesus mean? Did he have women followers? Were they different from “the Twelve”? These questions left people guessing. And we who read the gospel today are left with these questions too.
Having left his former life in Nazareth, insisting that loyalty to family, village or tribe must not be allowed to take precedence over doing God’s will or interfere with preaching God’s kingdom, Jesus sets about summoning followers whom he will train to assist him in his mission.
Absolute demands
He has already called his first disciples, Simon and Andrew, James and his brother John (1:16ff) as well as Levi the tax collector (2:13ff). Other companions were to follow. There were three elements that made a follower of Jesus a disciple. Jesus took the initiative issuing a command to follow him, a command that brooked no opposition or delay.
When Jesus asked his disciples to ‘follow’ him, he meant it literally: physically accompanying him on his preaching tours and therefore leaving behind home, parents and livelihood – just as Jesus had done himself. Abandoning home and livelihood entailed hostility and suffering, even at the hands of one’s family, as Jesus knew from his own experience. So Jesus’ demands on his disciples were radical and absolute. Following him as a disciple was far different from following him as part of a crowd.
Even so, Jesus and his disciples did not cut themselves off from others. They regularly associated and ate with such social and religious ‘low-lifes’ as tax collectors and sinners. Jesus brought his good news to the poor while not excluding the affluent who were well disposed towards him. He lacked concern for what the powerful or influential might think of him and his disciples. He insisted that his disciples show love, compassion, and forgiveness towards all.
Women
One question arises: did Jesus call any women to be among his disciples? The Greek word for ‘disciple’ is open to an inclusive interpretation and so can refer to female as well as male disciples.
At the time of the crucifixion Mark tells us ‘there were some women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the wife of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.’
Luke’s Gospel tells that as Jesus went through towns and villages, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, ‘the Twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources’ (8:l ff).
Whether these women were disciples in the same sense as those called by Jesus by name is open to question; they are never explicitly named disciples as such. What is certain is that they travelled around the Galilean countryside, at least in some cases without their husbands, with an unmarried man who exorcised, healed, and taught them as he taught his male disciples, so they seem to be disciples in all but name. This must surely have raised pious eyebrows, provoked comment and heightened the suspicion and scandal that Jesus already had to face in a traditional peasant society.
Twelve men
Mark tells us that Jesus ‘went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons’. The other gospels (and the Acts of the Apostles) have slightly different lists of the Twelve. This may be due to the fact that recollection of the minor members was uncertain when the evangelists came to write their accounts! (3: 13ff)
Jesus binds these men closely to himself and to his mission, so they become the example of what being a disciple means. The Twelve, more than any other followers, are the regular audience for Jesus’ teaching and healing. However they also serve an important symbolic function.
The ‘kingdom of God’ was a central part of Jesus’ teaching. That God is king and as such rules, or wishes to rule his people, is evident throughout the Jewish scriptures, no matter how often the people seek other gods or fail to carry out God’s will.
Tribes of Israel
One sign of God’s total and definitive rule over his people would be the re-gathering together of all the people of Israel, the ancient twelve tribes, and the reversal of all unjust oppression and suffering. It is in this context that Jesus’ institution of the Twelve must be understood.
Jesus addresses himself to the whole people of Israel. He embraces all in his mission, men and women, rich and poor, the hardhearted Pharisees and the ordinary observant Jew. The fact that Jesus chose to select twelve Israelite men from among his disciples to form a special group would, in the eyes of all his followers, be seen as a sign that he was setting in motion the re-gathering of the twelve tribes, even before the twelve did anything!
When people listen to Jesus and take his words to heart, when he lifts people’s sufferings and gives them a sense of hope, then God comes in power to rule over his people. What Jesus does, the Twelve are now asked to do. Mark tells us that as Jesus goes about teaching in the villages, he sends the Twelve out two by two, giving them authority over unclean spirits’ (6:7ff).
Instructions
He also provides a checklist or a set of instructions for his itinerant missionaries. They are to take nothing for their journey except a staff: no bread, no bag, no money in their belts. They are to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. Material and physical concerns are to be subordinate to the task of preaching God’s kingdom in word and deed.
He says to the Twelve, ‘Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place’. Travelling missionaries depended on local hospitality. ‘If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’
The disciples are directed to take symbolic action only, not violent reprisal. The action of shaking the dust from their feet has the function of provoking thought among the local people. So the Twelve go out, calling people to repentance, to changing the ways they think and behave. They cast out demons, and anoint many with oil who are sick and cure them. In effect, the Twelve do what Jesus does.
A singular figure
Several things would have made Jesus appear unusual or strange to most of his fellow Jews. At a time when most spiritual leadership was in the hands of people like the Jerusalem priesthood or educated Pharisees, Jesus, a layman, put himself forward as a religious leader, and, unlike St. Paul, did so without any formal training. The celibate Jesus, accompanied by female adherents, as well as by men who had left their families, inevitably struck observant Jews as either strange or scandalous. Finally, Jesus gave his adherence to the odd Jewish prophet, John the Baptist. By accepting John’s baptism, Jesus agreed with him that God’s judgment of Israel was imminent, hence the urgency of his message. His constant companions had much to learn about this man.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (April 2007), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
