Many years ago, a few families formed a village in the countryside near rugged hills where wild goats lived. They domesticated the goats and began caring for the herd and growing a simple, local economy. The village grew up along a creek that spilled down out of the rocky, forested highlands. Even more than the goat herds, that creek was the lifeblood of the community.
I’m not a movie or TV fanatic. I’m even less a fan of the trend in those media of the dark and “gritty.” So to be honest, it was with some discomfort that I wrote the Parable of the Prisoner and the Benefactor.
The day began normally for Gabriela and her friends in their little town up in the highlands of the desert. They went to school, they went home and helped with chores, and then they ran and played on the slopes just beyond the edges of town until it was dinnertime.
Only today, before it was time to go home, a siren wailed through the air. Gabriela and her friends stopped and stared at each other, one word racing through their minds.
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My name is Adam, and I want to tell you about my mother. I don’t think I would have made it through my growing-up years without having her ear. At night, when I got into bed, she would sit down on the floor by my bedside, take one of my hands in hers, and ask, “Is there anything that happened today that you want to talk about, honey?” (As I got older and resistant to being called too-sweet or too-embarrassing things like that, she humored me by using my name.)
I found myself thinking this week about the Samaritan woman who told Jesus, “the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (Matthew 15:27). That took me to a thought of Ruth, who collected the leavings of the harvest of Boaz’s fields (Ruth 2), which made a new connection for me.
The Weekly Parable 