A New Parable 7-12-2020

Jesus might have told this parable:
“A terrible sickness struck a village. The people were terrified of
getting sick and wanted to know what to do”.
The doctor asked the people to wear face masks to protect one
another. We will! They all said. Some did for a while, but they found
the masks uncomfortable, and made it difficult to breathe, so they soon
stopped wearing them.
The Rabbi asked the people to share their food with the poor and
sick. We will! They all promised. But many became more and more
concerned for their own needs and that of their families, so they kept
their barns and larders full – and locked.
The mayor asked the merchants to close their shops and innkeepers
to close their taverns so people would not gather and spread the sickness.
We will! They all agreed. They did so for a few days, but their profits
dropped, and they could not pay their help, so slowly, one by one, they
quietly re-opened. Soon, the sickness took the lives of many in the poor village.
But then there were the good folk who understood that wearing
face masks protected others from the sickness, who kept their distance
from one another so the sickness would not spread, (even though they
missed one another terribly), who readily shared what they had with
those who had little. Oh, it was very hard, and there were many days
when they wanted to give up. But they persevered.
Because of them, many people did not get sick and survived.
Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because
they hear”, Jesus would have said.
The parable of the sower challenges us to check the “thinness” of
the soil in our hearts that results in our faith withering in the noonday
heat; the “rockiness” of self-centeredness and avarice that prevents
God’s “seed” of generosity and peace from taking root in us; the
“thorns” of bigotry and self-righteousness that “choke” the possibility of
providing for the poor, healing the broken, lifting up the fallen. Our own response to the coronavirus is a good measure of the “richness” of our faith and its potential for the “seed” of God’s Word to take root and
realize in our lives the harvest of justice and compassion that is the
Kingdom of God.

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