If one happened by church this morning one may have heard the passage from the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus walks upon the sea and saves his apostles in a storm-tossed boat.

Making an effort to think of a Dylan reference to this, what came to my head was not a song, but a scene from that funny and interesting little movie from 2003, “Masked and Anonymous.”

It’s a scene where Uncle Sweetheart (played by John Goodman) and Nina Veronica (played by Jessica Lange) are discussing the troubled upcoming benefit concert, and how unhappy the people running the TV network are that the only star they’ve procured to headline the show is Jack Fate (Bob Dylan’s character).

Uncle Sweetheart: Don’t they understand who Jack Fate is?

Nina Veronica: Nobody knows who Jack Fate is anymore! Nobody cares! He doesn’t make records, he doesn’t go on tour, he doesn’t do interviews — he doesn’t do anything!

Uncle Sweetheart: He doesn’t have to! He’s a legend. Does Jesus have to walk on water twice to make a point? Besides, he’s virtually free. Who else can you say that about?

Nina Veronica: Virtually free? No one is virtually free. You’re either free, or you’re not free. You know, if he’s going to play this concert, then he’s going to play exactly what we tell him.

It’s characteristic of the dialog in the film that things emerge on repeated hearings that at first seemed merely throwaway. Caught up in thinking about the self-referential-Dylanological elements in a scene like this, it’s easy to miss what’s under the surface. As in that line of Sweetheart’s: “Does Jesus have to walk on water twice to make a point?” It seems like an offhand rhetorical question, to which the answer is supposed to be, “No, of-course Jesus doesn’t have to walk on water twice — he made his point the first time.” But then you think about it a little more, and you get to thinking that the answer to this rhetorical question is arguably the exact opposite of what it appears as first. After all, for the world, Jesus’ walking on water once did not, in many ways, suffice. It — along with many other miracles — did not make all believe. It didn’t prevent his execution. It didn’t prevent his own apostles from fleeing and denying him. And for the world to this day, it does not suffice. You would think that your own walking on water would make a very big point indeed, but it seems that you’d be surprised at how quickly such an achievement fades into the past and into a perceived irrelevance.

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The soundtrack CD for “Masked and Anonymous” closes with a version of Dylan’s song City of Gold performed by the Dixie Hummingbirds. It can be heard at the moment on YouTube, accompanying someone’s slideshow tribute to mom.

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Dylan’s latest tour has started with two shows in Pennsylvania. Details and early reviews from fans are as ever at Bill Pagel’s tour guide page.

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