This week's Theme: Cords and Strands
Day 1: Involved in mankind
I’ve been thinking about Aesop lately, or more precisely, about the powerful moral in Aesop’s fable, The Lion and the Mouse. In the fable, a small mouse inadvertently incurs the wrath of a mighty lion:
A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.[i]
The poor little creature begs for her life, promising that one day she would repay the lion. That thought is highly amusing to the mighty beast, but in the end he lets her go.
The little mouse’s prediction proves true when a short time later, the lion is caught in a hunter’s net. The mouse, recognizing the angry roars of the captor who had once generously freed her, scampers to his aid, and gnaws through the strong ropes that bind him.
Aesop cleverly uses the “insignificant” little creature to deliver in summary the strong message from the fable, “Even a Mouse can help a Lion.” Proven words, to be sure, and wise.
But lately, I’ve been reflecting on the other side of this moral—of the proud, mighty lions through history who have at last been brought up against the limits of their power, and have struggled in vain to break ropes that only mice can gnaw. But the mice were long gone—undone by the scoffing and mocking, the toying and sporting, the roaring and threatening, and the final crushing under merciless paws of cruel, arrogant "invincibility." And thus these lions brought about their own undoing...
The poet John Donne, like Aesop, understood our deep connection— the cords and strands at all levels of humanity:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
This idea is rooted in Scripture. Its pages show us over and over again that our well being—our very survival rests on an intricate, God-designed system of interdependency and mutual reliance that excludes no one—from the greatest to the least, from the weakest to the strongest. We are all "involved in mankind."
An incident recorded in the Old Testament tells of four men who had leprosy and were shut out from the city of Samaria according to the rules of quarantine established in the law. The city at the time was under siege by enemy forces, and a famine was raging. But deliverance was to come from the actions of these four men (2 Kings 7).
In a June 6, 1886 sermon titled, Who Found it Out? Charles Haddon Spurgeon elaborates on this text as well as other texts to illustrate the place in God's plan and providence for those who might be considered "mice" among the "lions." Spurgeon explains:
The story of four leprous men inserted in the Book of the Kings of Israel: is it not singular? No; it is not singular for the Bible. If you were to take out of the Scriptures all the stories that have to do with poor, afflicted men and women, what a very small book the Bible would become...!
This Book, indeed, for the most part is made up of the annals of the poor and despised...
It is clear enough that the poor and the needy are not only observed by our great King; but the pen of the Holy Spirit has been much occupied in recording their affairs...
The New Testament runs in the same strain. Under the economy of grace our Lord Jesus Christ is seen living among fishermen and peasants, and calling the poor to be his disciples.
“God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28 -KJV).
God's ways are not our ways. What we see as the weak things of this world may be our strongest pillars of support. Well may we guard and defend the mighty and the conspicuous— our promontories, our own manors and those of our friends. But dare we overlook the smallest piece of clod, and let it be washed away by the sea, so too our continent crumbles. And the bell tolls for us all.
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