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Connections&
April 21, 2002--Fourth Sunday of Easter
"The sheep hear the shepherd's voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out."
"I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved,
and will come in and go out and find pasture."
John 10:1-10
No free lunch...
A great and wise king ruled a populous and prosperous land. But a plague of dire poverty struck the country. No one knew the cause.
The king summoned the wisest of the land and ordered them to prepare a simple text on economics, "so that I may find the light and my people may be saved." A year and a day later, the council reported to the king, "Sire, we have here our work on economics, prepared at your behest. We have been able to reduce the principles of economics to these 67 volumes, completely illustrated with graphs and charts."
The king angrily flungs the books aside and banished the economists from his kingdom.
One day, as the monarch sat brooding, there appeared a venerable old man. The old man asked the king the reason for his sadness; the king explained the economic crisis facing his country and his inability to do anything about it.
"Sire, in my many years of roaming the earth I have discovered that the mystery of economics can be reduced to a single sentence."
The king eagerly begged the stranger, "Please, please, wise old man, tell me the words, tell me the words!"
"Well, simply put, your majesty," the old man replied, "it all comes down to this: There's no such thing as a free lunch."
[Walter Morrow]
CONNECTION: It seems we are always looking for the most painless, the quickest, the easiest, the most efficient way through life--the "free lunch." But the reality is that there is no painless, safe and comfortable substitute for the hard demands of the Gospel; that we do not live entirely on our own, in isolation from others; that our lives affect others and their lives affect ours. On our journey to the kingdom of God, we must pass through Jesus the "gate" - the gate of humble justice, selfless compassion and ready forgiveness. Jesus the gate challenges us to disabuse ourselves of the search for the "free lunch" and readily walk the hard, demanding road through the Gospel gate of Christ's humility and servanthood . u
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