Sabbatical Book Club: The Shadow of the Galilean

John 1 :1-5, 10-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The focus for this morning’s sabbatical book club is The Shadow of the Galilean by Gerd Thiessen. It is a fictionalised retelling of the life of Jesus, written from the perspective of an imagined character who is reporting on him to the Roman authorities. This man never meets Jesus, but gathers stories and rumours about him, and so in that sense is living in his shadow, hence the title which also refers to the fact that Jesus was a Galilean by upbringing.

The book also has an unusual framing device, as the chapters are interspersed with letters between the author and a fellow academic, discussing some of the narrative choices he has made, although even these letters are revealed to be a narrative choice, as the academic does not really exist. It seems that Thiessen just wanted an excuse to be able to explain some of his thinking.

You may be wondering what is the point in a book like this when we already have scripture, but reading the life of Jesus as a novel opens up the gospels in a few different ways. First of all, it is a reminder that the gospels are fundamentally stories. We often experience them in brief snatches, but they are not a series of vaguely connected teaching points, they are narratives that unfolded in time and place. And that reminds us of the greater truth that God chose to come and live a story with us. In fact I believe it to be the greatest truth of all, and it is why I chose for us to hear the prologue to John's gospel as our reading this morning.

As I was mulling over this reflection earlier in the week, I listened to the Sacred podcast, in which Elizabeth Oldfield interviews people about what is most sacred to them, and there was a mini episode in which Elizabeth talked about her decision to return to interviewing people in person rather than via video call. She talked about the importance of being in our bodies together, and she said something like “I find it hard to keep my guard up when someone has seen inside my messy house and I know which mug they like”. I thought it offered a brilliant insight into why it was so important that God lived a story with us. God and humanity relate to one another differently because we have been in our bodies together. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

Back to The Shadow of the Galilean, retelling the life of Jesus as a novel also fills in some background that the gospels take for granted. You certainly get a sense of the very fractured and fevered political environment which was the backdrop for Jesus’ ministry. Of course there will be details that we cannot be sure of, but we have talked before about how bringing our sanctified imagination to a text can bring it alive and help us to engage with it in new ways.

Thiessen does have a tendency to demythologise, which I am not entirely comfortable with. For example, while the gospels say that the sky went dark and the earth shook when Jesus died, The Shadow of the Galilean only has a character saying that’s what they thought should happen. Those of you who have been listening to me preach for some time will know that I do not read every verse literally, but I do believe in signs and wonders and improbable things, and so I find myself resisting what feels like an embarrassment about keeping them as part of our theology. 

There are also some interesting moments that question the reliability of the gospels in recording the teaching of Jesus. In one scene, a child who is pleading for hospitality recounts the parable of the feast, which sees a man fling the doors of his banqueting hall wide open. A tax collector who is not inclined to be generous chips in, saying that there is more to the parable for the guest who was not dressed appropriately was thrown out. The child retorts that Jesus did not tell that ending, and the tax collector replies that it is the real ending and chases the child away. The narrator muses that the ending the tax collector told doesn’t fit, and we are left to wonder if some of Jesus’ parables may have been twisted in the telling. It is an intriguing thought, and it should encourage us to really interrogate those things that seem to jar or rankle, seeking to read them in a spirit of discernment.

Even as it questions some of the teaching we have received, the book is a compelling argument for the way of Christ and the kingdom of God. There is a real sense that the way of life Jesus modelled and preached can change things, can bring reconciliation and liberation. There is a hope and an excitement in many of the characters that follow him, a feeling of holy trouble brewing, which resonates with my own rebel spirit.

The central tension faced by the book’s narrator is whether or not to obscure Jesus’ message to avoid trouble. He writes: “My commission was to discover whether Jesus was a security risk. There was no doubt there, He was a risk. Anyone who follows his conscience rather than regulations and laws, anyone who does not regard the existing distribution of power and possessions as final, anyone who makes little people think that they are princes, is a security risk.” He has come to believe in the message of Jesus, but he also wants to protect him, and so when writing his reports to the Roman authorities, he speaks of him not as a prophet but as a philosopher and poet.

In trying to make Jesus seem safe, he distorts and dilutes him, and I think there is an implicit challenge for us to ask ourselves if we have done the same. Perhaps our motives are good. We want people to hear about Jesus, so we give them the version we think they will accept, but that may do everyone involved a disservice. Jesus himself seemed to recognise that he was an acquired taste, so perhaps he does not need or want us to make him palatable. It is our tastes that need to change, not the flavour of the kingdom.

The book ends with a dream of monsters and then the appearance of Christ, who declares “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me”. 

It is a clear nod to the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation, which we explored together last year, but it is also a call back to earlier in the novel, when the protagonist reflected that Jesus gave warnings as the prophets before him did, but his warnings were different because there was a clear way out of danger. All the people needed to do was feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty and welcome the stranger and clothe the naked and visit the sick and imprisoned.

The narrator awakes and reflects on his dream with these thoughts: “My anguish at the harshness of life was over...He had given me back the earth. It had not got better since the previous day. Today, as yesterday, the struggle for a chance to live would continue. But that wasn’t everything. This battle need not dominate all my action and thought. I made a new covenant with life...The rule of the beasts could not last forever.” The rule of the beasts cannot last forever. All we must do is feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty and welcome the stranger and clothe the naked and visit the sick and imprisoned. That is how we live in the shadow of the Galilean.