I was feeling a little creative after my last story, so here is a series of two more parables and then an explanation. Feel free to post your thoughts as each part is posted.
To what could I liken the knowledge of the Kingdom of God? Perhaps it could be like a prince who loved food. He loved food in all its forms and flavors. He was a true connoisseur. Food from every part of the world, in all of its various array. Time between meals, when he was neither preparing, cooking, or eating, was an agony to him. Nothing else held his passion as food did.
One day the prince was walking through his enormous pantry reflecting on his love for food when he had an idea. He would make it his goal to collect all the food in the land for himself! After all the only thing better than food was more food!
And so it came to pass that the prince ordered all of his servants to go out into the land and collect for him all of the food that was there. His servants went off and began to bring back enormous amounts of food. Cart after cart rolled through the doors. The prince quickly filled his pantry till there was hardly any room to walk. After it was full, he ordered his servants to fill the basement, and when that was full to fill the spare bedrooms.
Slowly the train of food coming in through his doors began to wane till his servant proudly marched through the door with the last loaf of bread he could find. The prince was beaming with excitement. He took the last loaf from his servant and held it over his head. "With this last loaf you have brought me," he proclaimed, "I will start my feast in celebration of my goal being realized!" And so, for the next seven days the prince began to feast on the food he had amassed. Day and night he ate till he fell asleep on the table. Upon waking up he would order more food brought to him and he would begin to feast anew. At the end of seven days, the prince was euphoric. He reclined in his chair, his belly and pantry still stuffed full of food. "What more noble an accomplishment," he thought to himself, "than to be the sole proprietor and protector of all the food in the land!"
As he lay there, his stomach groaned under the strain of all the food. "Perhaps a walk would aid in my digestion," he theorized, "I will walk to the town and tell the people of my accomplishment so they can rejoice with me!" Fat and happy, the prince put on his cloak and waddled out his door and down the road. As he walked down the road toward the town the prince looked up at the clear blue sky and filled his lungs with the cool air. The sun was especially bright to his eyes since he hadn't been outside in over a week. It'd been even longer since he'd been in town.
Breathing deep, the prince's nose caught wind of something that was anything but fresh. As he walked, his eyes finally came upon what his nose had already discovered. Laying there was a man face down in the center of the road. The flies had already found him. The prince ran wide and away from the man horrified at the sight. "What has happened," the prince's voice trembled, "surely someone should have come upon that man days ago and taken him away." His grief deepened further down the road when he came upon three more bodies that had obviously been dead even longer.
"The people of the town had better have some explanation for this," he said trembling with anger. Little more than a trot was possible as he hurried down the road toward the town. The sun was rising and with it the temperature. The prince took off his cloak and cleared the hill that brought him in sight of the town.
The smell again preceded the sight, but as the prince entered the town he was horrified by the sight of dead bodies everywhere. "Is anybody there," the prince cried out in anguish, "answer me!" Silence answered back, indicating that nobody was - the entire town appeared dead.
He stumbled down the street that went through the center of the town covering his mouth and nose with his cloak. "What evil has brought such disaster to this town," he said turning the corner into the town square. The street opened up into the same scene as before with bodies lying everywhere. The only motion was from the fountain in the center.
He walked past a tavern right in front of the fountain and came upon a small campfire. Looking to see what they had had as their final meal, his stomach turned as he realized that their last meal had been one of their own. Losing his own breakfast, he coughed and wondered out loud, "Why with such great food this land contains would they have chosen to eat each other?!"
Let s/he who has ears hear my story.
1 comment :
As usual, a comment by The JD.
At first, I thought this post was going to be awesome because the title is similar to names of martial arts styles. As a matter of fact, the style I used to study is called Poo Kang Tang Soo Do. Sure, make a joke of it, but it's Korean that means Open Hard Hand, or something equivalent. And then I read a story about a retarded prince who doesn't realize he's killed the entire town from his A) greed from wanting all the food, B) pride from finallly getting it all, and C) gluttony from eating it all.
Ah, well. I'll wait for more to say anything else.
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