Comment: I have always wondered how Jesus gathered his Disciples. The way the biblical stories go, it seems like he knew most of them one way or another. So I hypothesized that they may have known each other as children. How, since they were from a number of different towns not that close together, could they have had contact? Having taught a few lab schools, I decided that maybe something like that might have occurred! Since the Sunday for which I was preparing was Rally Day, I wondered what a teacher giving a report on such a lab school would say. What do you think s/he would say?

I thank you for this chance to describe the lab school we attended at Chorazin last month. A lab school is a training session for synagogue teachers. Not all teachers at synagogue are rabbis. So the Council of Rabbis set up this workshop to train the lay teachers. Children came from as far away as Nazareth to the southwest, Caesarea Philippi to the north, and as far south as Kerioth. The children who attended were fairly wealthy, with a few exceptions, and bright. The richest one came from way down in Kerioth, south of Jerusalem. His name was Judas. The synagogues in the area, ana, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Magdala, all sent kids, too. There were three boys from Nazareth who were not so well off. They were teased because no one expects anything good to come out of Nazareth. Their mother came along. She was very nice. Her name was Mary. We got to be good friends. She and I watched the eight- to twelve-year-old class that a Rabbi Gamaliel taught in the mornings. It was interesting how the children grouped up. There were three who were shy. Mary's two younger boys, James and Jude, were joined by the little boy from Kerioth. He rode down with Rabbi but was about the quietest one there. Then there were the bright ones who were really ready to speak up: Levi, Bartholomew, Mary, and Jesus, my friend's oldest boy. Then there were the jocks: Peter, Thomas, S mon, Andrew, and Philip. At least they enjoyed the long-muscle activities more than the others. And we had our share of goof-offs, James and John. Mary took responsibility for trying to keep them in line. Their father had paid for her and her boys to come to the lab school, so she felt obligated to keep those two in tow.

The first day, the Rabbi worked to get them all acquainted with each other. They all gave their names, where they were from, and how old they were. They were asked to tell their favorite story from Genesis. James and John disappeared right in the middle of Levi's telling the creation story. Mary found them in the Moses chair next to the Scroll cabinet.

The little girl from Magdala, Mary is also her name, was right there with her favorite story, about the snake in the garden of Eden. Some of the others were a lot less confident, but pretty soon, everybody had told a story and it looked like the Rabbi was going to do all right. In the afternoon, we went down to the Sea of Galilee to swim and relax. The two of us women would not have been able to keep track of them if it had not been for Philip and Andrew. They volunteered to be "life guards." Being twelve and about to do their bar mitzvahs, they were ready to act grown up. They organized a race. Only Bartholomew stayed in the shallows. He couldn't swim. Judas could and so could the little girl. Andrew started them off and Philip stood at the finish line.

It was a good race. But the winner was a surprise. It wasn't Peter or Simon, the two biggest boys. It was Mary. She is not big, but she went through the water like a fish and won easily. If you wonder why I tell this story, which is not about the lab school session, it is because of what happened the next morning in class. Rabbi Gamaliel asked them about what happened at the lake. Simon got up and said girls shouldn't be allowed at lab school. Rabbi turned to the class and asked them what they thought. At first, no one said anything. Simon is a strong kid so those who disagreed with him could be in trouble. But it looked like everyone agreed with him. My friend and I looked at each other, feeling very bad. Then Jesus raised his hand. "May I ask Simon some questions?" he offered. The Rabbi nodded. "Simon, who made you?" Simon looked at Jesus as though he were asking a dumb question. "God did," he said curtly. Jesus asked his second question. "Who made Mary?" Simon knew he was loser again when he said, "God did." Rabbi added, "Enough said!" From that point on, that group was welded together. Oh, they goofed off and they fussed over things, but they did everything together. It became quite a close bunch. On the last day, they were finishing their work on the Ten Commandments. Rabbi went around the circle. "Is there anyone here who can be obedient to God?" All the children jumped up saying they could be obedient. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes!" they all said. "How?"

"By obeying God's laws," they said as if they were one voice.

"Such as?"

"Honor your parents," one said. "Thou shalt not steal," another said. "Thou shalt not kill," said a third.

"How can you honor your parents?" Rabbi asked.

As the others answered the questions, Rabbi calmly walked over to the Moses chair and plucked James and John out of it. Mary hadn't seen them slip off.

"But what if your parents are wrong?" asked Thomas.

"They're still your parents," answered Bartholomew.

"But what if they ask you to do something wrong?" Philip asked.

"Yes, what if your parents asked you to go and beg?" Rabbi brought in. The kids all laughed. "No, we work hard. When you work hard, there is no need to beg," Levi said. Not even Thomas challenged that. Peter and Simon were talking about going swimming. James and John were looking for a way to sneak out again. Mary was looking at Jesus. Everyone else was quiet. They couldn't imagine being poor enough to have your parents ask such a crazy thing.

Jesus wasn't still, however. He pulled an upholstering needle out of his shirt. He took a piece of string out of his pocket and tied some "camels" (knots) in it. He tried to put the knotted string through the needle's eye, and, of course it wouldn't go.

Rabbi picked up on it right away. He said, "It is harder for the rich to be obedient to God than for a knot to go through the eye of a needle." He smiled at Jesus. The other kids didn't seem to know what was going on. Mary and I were proud of Jesus' insight.

"You children are well off and don't realize what poorer children face. Maybe someday you will understand." The little bell rang that ended class. All the children started to rise to leave. We herded them up to say "thank you" to Rabbi Gamaliel. The older children wanted to go swimming once more. Simon and Peter had not been able to beat Mary all week!

I was surprised to see tears in the eyes of some of the children. Little Mary, as you might expect, but even James and John, who had been trouble all week, hated to leave. Mary turned to me to say good-bye. I only knew her for a week, but I was going to miss her, and the children. We hugged. Then she said, "Maybe someday, we can get this bunch together again." That's my report. Thanks for listening.