Matthew under the arm 83
Late last night, despite the fact that I wasn't hungry (Alright, I was sulking!), Columba came to my bunk and kicked the edge. 'Come get up...lazy thing!' 'Why?' 'Come and listen.' So I grudgingly went down the stairs of the hostel, yawning as I went and 'growling'. All Columba did was laugh. No sympathy for poor me! 'Listen to this man', he urged. There by the fireside was an old man who had managed to walk on the pilgrimage on crutches! Columba looked into the man's eyes and said that he and I would carry him tomorrow. I dragged Columba to one side and, through my teeth, asked him why the man couldn't just wait and rest. After all he had got this far! 'Because', glared Columba, 'He has lived and prayed all his life with Matthew Gospel. I have a great deal to learn from him...and so do you!' I snarled, 'So we are carrying him for your learning, not his needs!' Columba smiled! 'Of course!'
Matthew 17:24-27….
There is no clear explanation of the story at the end of this passage. We are invited to enter the exchange and see the story as a kind of colouring of it, in all its mythic detail living now in us. There are themes: Insult… Jesus and his disciples being regarded as foreigners, unwanted aliens, perhaps the real disturbing nature of the ones that follow Christ… Sensitivity to the others... the collectors’ jobs being more significant that the new freedom of the disciples …. The legend of a fish is probably an extrapolation from early Christian times when the symbol of the fish for a follower became common currency. Perhaps the fact that it was a whole shekel rather than the demand for a half one, might be another symbol of the extravagant if not rash generosity of Christianity.
In all you responsibilities towards others let My wisdom be within you
Responsibility and freedom are dependent on one another. Let one test the other. A responsibility that is trapping cannot be addressed creatively. Likewise what you may regard as freedom may be at another’s expense. After you have been with the sentence in your prayer, play with the legend about the fish in your imagination. Expand it and make it your own. If you were in a dream about the fish, what would find in its mouth and to whom would you give it? It’s the kind of story Francis of Assisi would have loved and probably did!
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Matthew 17:24-27….
There is no clear explanation of the story at the end of this passage. We are invited to enter the exchange and see the story as a kind of colouring of it, in all its mythic detail living now in us. There are themes: Insult… Jesus and his disciples being regarded as foreigners, unwanted aliens, perhaps the real disturbing nature of the ones that follow Christ… Sensitivity to the others... the collectors’ jobs being more significant that the new freedom of the disciples …. The legend of a fish is probably an extrapolation from early Christian times when the symbol of the fish for a follower became common currency. Perhaps the fact that it was a whole shekel rather than the demand for a half one, might be another symbol of the extravagant if not rash generosity of Christianity.
In all you responsibilities towards others let My wisdom be within you
Responsibility and freedom are dependent on one another. Let one test the other. A responsibility that is trapping cannot be addressed creatively. Likewise what you may regard as freedom may be at another’s expense. After you have been with the sentence in your prayer, play with the legend about the fish in your imagination. Expand it and make it your own. If you were in a dream about the fish, what would find in its mouth and to whom would you give it? It’s the kind of story Francis of Assisi would have loved and probably did!
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Labels: Generosity
posted by Martin at 5:03 pm
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