It's typical. you wait around for ages for a camel and then two come along at once. It's enough to give you the hump...
It's OK I'll stop now...
Today's ramble is prompted by tomorrow's lectionary reading from the gospel and the tendency by many a preacher and commentator to "explain away" Jesus' proverbial camel/eye of the needle conjunction in not entirely convincing ways, including the idea the "eye of the needle" was a small gate in the wall of Jerusalem (which has no historic or archaeological substance I am told) or that the word Greek word for "camel" is a misreading of the Greek for "cable", which makes literary sense, and makes the image more understandable if less memorable... But then some of the more memorable things I have said and done are "mistakes..."
Camels, cables…
Always on the lookout
For a loophole
Through which we can thread
An entire caravan
Of distractions
To Christ’s call
To discipleship.
We’ve rightly erased
Camels from
The nativity narrative
But in our haste
To remove this
Ungainly beast
And unusual metaphor
From Jesus’ turn of phrase
Might we, as usual
Be missing the point?
Lets not explain away
The extraordinary image
Of bulky beasts
And miniature apertures
In order to evade
The equally extraordinary invitation
That this cross-carrying Christ
Extends to us to follow him
Into the impossible.
Selah
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