Hold the Faith

Chapter Two-2

Benjamin nodded but stared dejectedly at the ground as they walked. “In certain situations staying silent is more effective than arguing.”

Benjamin drew his father to a halt and stared into his tired eyes. He had never thought of it before, but now he realised that working in the marketplace with Jews, and pagans who were followers of many gods, his father knew better than he about being misjudged... worse, facing the threat of being denounced as a Christian by a disgruntled customer. “Oh Abba I am sorry, I never thought, you must deal with it daily at the market.”

“Not all the time, but when it occurs it is a small type of persecution. We have all been warned that will happen,” Samuel reminded him before urging, “I want to get home as quickly as possible and I am later than usual as it is.”

Releasing his father’s arm, they walked on, turning off the marble road and up the slope of the lesser road leading to the family home.

After thinking for a while, Benjamin said, “I guess I always thought of persecution as being more about important tests of our faith. Like being stoned as Stephen, the first martyr was, or being beheaded like Paul, being crucified, or rounded up for the games and thrown to the lions...”

“Another psalm, ‘It is the little foxes that spoil the vine.'

Benjamin looked at him curiously, wondering what foxes had to do with what he had said.

Samuel saw the puzzled look and explained, “We can identify the big things and prepare ourselves to handle them. It is the little ones sneak in, and we don’t even know they are there until we notice the damage.”

Smiling inwardly, Benjamin realised he had not credited his father with such wisdom. He had always taken his questions to his great-grandfather, John.

Exchanging an amused look, they neared the private door the family used, leading into the peristyle, the much-used family courtyard where Naomi had her outdoor hearth and preferred to cook. Hurrying a few steps ahead, Benjamin opened it for his father.

“Naomi,” Samuel called as he entered and hurried up the pathway toward the home while looking around trying to work out which of the rooms leading from it his wife was in.

Turning to his son, he said quietly, “You go and wash for your meal Benjamin, I’ll tell your mother about Alexander.” Passing Benjamin his outdoor robe he asked, “Would you hang it up with yours please?” then called his wife’s name again.

“I am in the kitchen storeroom,’ Naomi called back, peeping out the door, then disappearing again.

“Alexander’s mother...” they both started to say, as Samuel entered the kitchen storeroom at the far end of the peristyle, outside the back door of the house.

“A neighbour’s son came to the booth to fetch Alexander.”

“He sent the boy here to fetch me after he arrived at his mother’s home,” Naomi said, continuing to fill a basket with selected foodstuffs and two tiny pottery jars of the herbs she kept for medicines.

“Naomi it’s twilight, surely you weren’t going alone!” Samuel reproved, knowing that his wife, like his son, could be impulsive when she believed there was something that needed action.

“No Samuel, I was going with her,” answered John quietly entering the small room.

“Greetings Saba,” Samuel responded. Privately he was thinking that although the old man had been an apostle of Christ and was still full of life, he would not give that appearance to any robbers they might meet. He looked frail because he was lean, and his silver-white hair and beard added to the image of vulnerability.

Benjamin bounded up and positioned himself just inside the doorway, “What is happening?”

“Out... out, all of you! Let me finish this in peace,” ordered Naomi, shooing them out.

The men did as they were bid and went back out to wait in the peristyle. As they sat in the seating area around Saba’s bench under the shade tree, Samuel looked at John and stated, “I will go with her.”

“But you have just come in from working all day,” interrupted Benjamin. “Let me go instead.”

“No, I will find something to eat now,” Samuel said, then walking up the mosaic path he slipped off his outdoor sandals before entering the marble hallway and went in search of Lois. As he guessed, she was in the family triclinium, setting out bread, vegetables, and fruit on the table for their meal.

“Greetings Lois, I am going with Naomi may I take some of these?” he asked. At her nod, he picked up some of the bread and fruit, and tucked them into a fold in his robe.

Lois shyly asked, “Shall I come with you? You may need the help of another woman.”

Naomi appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a warm cloak and carrying the basket she had prepared. “No Lois, thank you. The neighbour sounds sensible. Please stay here and see to the others,” she replied, thinking too many strangers might overwhelm the sick woman.

“I am coming with you, Naomi,” Samuel announced, following her out and accepting the robe she took from a peg nearby.

“Thank you, Samuel, I thought you would say that.” She smiled at him and pulled the hooded part of her outdoor robe over her neatly plaited, long grey hair.

“Did Alexander send for Saba to anoint her? Is that why he was accompanying you?”

“No, he was only going to escort me. Because neither of Alexander’s parents believes in any god, not even pagan ones, there would not be much point in anointing her if she doesn’t believe.”

“Unless she has asked for it,” he corrected gently.

She accepted his statement with a smile. “Sadly, she didn’t ask. Alexander would have said in his message.”

“Before we go... have you eaten Naomi?”

“Yes, as I was packing the basket. It’s enough.”

Retrieving the bread and fruit from the fold of his robe, Samuel added it to the top of the basket. Going back into the triclinium he took some more from the table, “There, we can both eat as we walk,” he said with a smile.

Lois followed him out and handed each of them a small pottery cup of watered wine. “You’d better drink before you go.”

Drinking it hurriedly, Naomi changed into her outdoor sandals.

“Time is passing, come on Naomi, we’d better go,” Samuel urged as he put on his sandals and took hold of the stout walking pole by the door.

“I am ready,” she smiled and walked with him up the path to the courtyard door.

*******

“So Lois,” John said, addressing the shy twenty-eight-year-old servant, “we will eat whenever you are ready.”

“Everything is ready now,” she told them and waited until they settled in their usual positions on the couches, standing ready to serve them.

“Lois, you are part of the family even when my granddaughter isn’t here. Come, young lady, you are a sister in the Lord, so join us as you usually do when Naomi is here.”

As she settled on a couch at the other side of the table, Lois smiled demurely at being addressed as ‘young lady.'

John gave thanks for the meal, for the loving hands that had prepared the food, and asked God to watch over the others, as well as for His intervention on behalf of Alexander’s mother.

During the meal, John asked his great-grandson about the happenings of his day.

Benjamin told him about what happened at the farm, stopping before the trouble with Thomas and Asaph. His brow was furrowed and his voice uneasy.

“Something went wrong?”

Benjamin related what happened with his two old adversaries. He told his great-grandfather of being wrongly accused, and that even when the truth was told he was still advised to leave.

“Why was that?”

“Because their fathers are important men in the Jewish community,” he said, looking away. In the silence that followed, Lois alert brown eyes watched the pair.

Breaking the silence John asked, “Did you tell your father all this?”

“Yes, Saba.”

“Was he disappointed with your behaviour?”

“I don’t think so Saba.”

“Then you must let it go.”

“But Saba they accused me of harassing two young girls when they were the ones doing the bullying. Then they lied and said I had hit them.”

John shrugged. “Son, these things are part of our walk, you need to accept them. False accusations will come. You only need to look at the life of our Saviour.” He smiled at his usually exuberant great-grandson and reaching out to pat his shoulder said with a smile, “Ask God for the strength and wisdom you need... each day.”

Benjamin sighed deeply. “Saba you have been through so much, you know so much, and I complain over such a little matter. It shames me.”

“Don’t let the evil one rob you of your confidence. If you think you have done wrong, repent, change your ways, then forget the wrong... but learn any lesson from it that our Father wants you to learn.”

“Saba, how can you be so calm, so forgiving? It amazes me what you have endured during your lifetime...”

“Someone once said to me ‘you were given this life because you were strong enough to live it.’”

“That’s a wise saying.”

“Partly Benjamin, only partly,” John counselled, “It leaves God out of the picture. My strength is in Him.”

Staring at his hands, Benjamin wondered if he would ever reach a fraction of the level of faith and maturity his great-grandfather exuded.

Lois noticed Benjamin’s downcast look and managing to catch John’s gaze, silently drew his attention to his great-grandson.

“Don’t be disheartened, Benjamin. I have had many years of practice, as well as instruction from our Lord Himself. Even now I have to spend time each day repenting for wrong attitudes.”

Benjamin turned to look at him in amazement.

John laughed, “None of us are immune to making mistakes, thinking angry thoughts, trying to go off on our own way. Jesus once said to a rich man, ‘Why call Me good? There is none good but God.’ Well, in the same way, only He has lived a sinless human life. The rest of us need the humility to admit our mistakes and repent, then try to overcome the fault. It is difficult to love a neighbour when that neighbour is preaching error, or, as happened with you, telling lies about you.”

“But...”

“Do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you,” quoted John.

Nodding her agreement Lois unobtrusively rose and started clearing the used plates. Badly mistreated as a child, she had been rescued by one of the followers of the Way. Eventually she was brought here to Ephesus, far away from her mother and abusive stepfather. When she had been found, Lois had a black eye, multiple bruises on her body, her tangled brown hair was so knotted, dirty, and full of lice the people who rescued her, shaved her head. When her hair grew back, it was a light brown colour. Her bruises had healed; her emotions took longer. Naomi had taken her into the household and her heart, and helped her over time, to forgive her family for the hurts they had inflicted on her. She knew it was not easy to do, and she felt sorry for Benjamin. He seemed so young and vulnerable at times. In experience, she felt much older than her twenty-eight years, barely four years older than him. But then women, or girls, were expected to grow up quickly, men were gradually introduced to responsibility.

The two men helped her clear the remnants of the meal away; something she knew did not happen in other homes, certainly not in her childhood home.

It had been a filthy room shared with her mother and stepfather in a run-down insula in a poor part of Rome. There was no privacy. Although many homes had cooking hearths indoors, there was none in the insula. ‘Fire risk,’ the owner stated. Therefore, cooking hearths were located in the common courtyard and shared by the other families renting similar accommodation in the building. It was her task to cook on these and she was often pushed aside by others because she was so young, small, and easy to bully.