His name is Simon. He is a Zealot and has had a falling out with Jesus the preacher. "He wouldn't let me go along with him," he said. "I pleaded with him, I begged him, I never met anyone like him."
He was talking on the shores of Lake Galilee at a spot where Jesus had been preaching to large crowds just hours beforehand. Simon was torn. "When he puts his hand on your shoulder it's as if he sees no one else in the whole wide world; that he'd do anything for you. You just know you could trust him with your life. And you want to."
Simon wanted to. He wanted to even as he spoke. But he is a Zealot. Jesus had said repeatedly to him: "Put away your sword, put away your sword, and then you can be with me and my friends." Simon paused before saying, "but I can't put away my sword." He is a young man about the same age as Jesus. He had been involved with the Zealot guerrillas in a long campaign against the Romans which ended inconclusively just over five years ago. There has been peace in Palestine since. "Putting away the sword for me is the same as saying I accept the right of the Roman army of occupation to be in our country. I've sacrificed too much, trying to get them out, for that. I've seen too many great friends killed, to be able to turn around now and say it was all for nothing. So . . . we might have won a few concessions for our people, but how can we guarantee these will last?" he said.
He was surprised that Jesus was being "so unreasonable. I mean he's a Jew too. Surely he can't be happy with this situation either," he said. He had put it to Jesus, who said the Romans and those like them were children of this world and valued only what was here. He and those who wanted to be with him belonged to God and the things of His world.
" `Empires come and go. God is forever', he said, or something like that," Simon recalled. "Put away your sword, Simon, and you are welcome to come with me, he said." Simon pleaded that he had no intention of using the sword. He hadn't used it in five years. He needed it just in case he or his people were attacked again. But Jesus was having none of it. He told him to put his trust in him and God instead, rather than the weapons of this world. Simon asked for time to think about it. He is thinking about it. He is in difficulty.
Further ahead along the lake shore larger and larger crowds followed Jesus as he walked northwards in the direction of the town of Capernaum. The people had heard so many stories of miraculous cures attributed to him that everywhere, as now, they crowded in on him, out of hope and curiosity.
He noticed two boats on the lake shore. He asked a fisherman if he'd mind taking him a few yards out into the water in one of them so he could preach without being jostled. The fisherman said it was no trouble at all. His name was Simon also. Like James and John, Simon is a common name among Jewish men in the province of Galilee. Which is why local people use nicknames so much.
When Jesus had finished preaching he asked Simon to row out into deeper water and let down his nets. Simon was reluctant. "We've been on the lake all night and didn't catch a thing. There's nothing out there," he said, "but, if it'll make you happy . . . " So, along with his brother Andrew, he rowed deep into the lake and let the nets down.
As they hauled the nets back Simon realised they were so full of fish they would need help. He shouted across the water to their fishing partners John and James, sons of Zebedee. They were standing on the shore beside the other boat. They came out on to the lake and soon both boats were so full of fish they began to sink.
Simon was overwhelmed by it all. He fell to his knees in front of Jesus and said: "I don't deserve this. You are far too good to the likes of me." And Jesus said to him "It's all right, Simon. From now on it's people you will catch."
And when they eventually got to the shore, all four men left everything just there and went with Jesus to Capernaum, which is also their home town. As they were walking along Simon said they called John "The Word". "He's always scribbling something or other," he explained.
