In a giddy sort of mood today what with it being Friday and all so here is a bit of a random thread.
The story of Doubting Thomas was one story I never got…
This was the guy who refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead despite being told that he did by his fellow disciples. Apparently he was out of the room when Jesus appeared to the rest of them. He said ‘until I can put my fingers in his side then I will not believe’. Then Jesus appeared again and he put his fingers in his side and he believed.
Now poor old Thomas got a hard time for this all through the years and even became known as Doubting Thomas forever more.
Can you imagine the conversation Thomas had with the disciples after he came back into the room?
Disciples: You never guess what?
Thomas: What?
Disciples: Jesus was here - he rose from the dead.
Thomas: What? Yeah right - good one lads.
Disciples: We’re serious. He stood right there.
Thomas: I’m not falling for that one
Disciples: Seriously!
Thomas: Listen lads - I know you think I am a bit of a soft touch but there’s no way I am falling for that.
Disciples: Fine - believe what you want to believe. But it’s true.
Thomas: Well if he rose from the dead then presumably I will see him again.
Disciples: That’s right.
Thomas: Knowing you lads ye will probably bring in yer man that looks like Jesus just for the craic. Until I can stick my fingers in the holes in his side then I will not believe.
Disciples: Fair enough Tommy. We’re not messing - you’ll see for yourself.
Thomas: Grand then.
Hardly worth hanging poor old Tommy for I would have said…
what about the one where the lads were on the lash for 3 days at a wedding in Cana in galilee…then the good lord shows up when the lads have ran out of gargle…what does he do but uses his box of tricks to turn a load of water into more gargle to keep the session going…i’d say the man upstairs must be disgusted with the new irish licencing laws rcently brought in…prohibits any chance of a good long session breaking out…
FATHER DOUGAL (on the magic road):
That’s almost as mad as that thing you told me about the loaves and the fishes.
FATHER TED:
No, Dougal, that’s not mad. That’s when our Lord got just one or two bits of food and turned it into a whole pile of food and everyone had it for dinner.
[b] FATHER DOUGAL:
God, He was fantastic, wasn’t He?
Those Bible names over on yon other thread got me thinking about Zacchaeus and specifically the role of the tax collector in the Bible.
Tax collectors were treated as some sort of vermin. For instance, Jesus spoke to sinners and tax collectors. Or Jesus forgave prostitutes and tax collectors. Zacchaeus was a tax collector but Jesus still befriended him.
I mean give them a break. They were only doing their job!
You’re missing the main point Farmer - who were they working for? The Romans, lads who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. If they were collecting tax for local use rather than to go to a foreign oppessor they mighn’t have got such bad press.
Probably cos the average sinner’s sins didn’t impact on them as much. Say some sinner goes out and hits his wife, it affects him and his wife but tax brought everyone down.
I never warmed to that Prodigal Son story because I think it’s far too harsh on the guy who has stayed at home. You can only ever measure yourself against your peers and if you don’t get your reward for hard work and your brother gets rewarded for his wanderlust then it seems pretty harsh to just be told to get over it.
But on a similar, apparent contradiction type one, I had occasion to listen to the gospel there last Sunday week at Mass and it was the “first shall be last” one. And it didn’t sit right with me:
you had these guys who got a job in the vineyard and they went in and worked and were told they’d be looked after.
then these other guys who were just idle nearby were asked to go in at lunchtime and they’d get looked after too.
and he went on hiring lads throughout the day and he said the same thing to them all.
What really bothered me was how he went about paying them. He paid the recent recruits first. So guys who only worked an hour went up first and got a quid. And then the guys who worked the whole day were reckoning they’d get a tenner or something but as he went through the list he just paid everyone a quid.
And the lads at the back of the queue who worked all day were rightly aggrieved. The owner reckoned that a quid was a fair rate for the day (which it might have been) so these guys had no right to dispute what anyone else got. Well that seems ridiculous to me. Had they no unions back then, you’d think they’d be all over it like a shot (not that SIPTU give a shite anymore). And the crap little explanation was:
“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last.”
Now that’s a load of shite. There’s two questions there and the answer to the first one has to be a firm “No.” Having unlimited funds doesn’t confer on you the right to break labour laws or buy slaves or anything like that. There are laws of the land dictated by universal morals that argue the very opposite of that.
Second question is a bit tougher - can you begrudge generosity. Too fucking right you can. It’s like people who bought gaffs who are in negative equity. Why should they give a shit if they don’t want to sell - they give a shit because others are getting the same assets for a lot less outlay. And if you think anyone’s going to tolerate that then you’re naive.
agree on both stories rocko, hate the prodigal son one. The wandering focker pisses off and spends all his money, and then when he returns with he tail between his legs he is thrown a party and given more crap. sure that would just encourage everyone to fock off and it’ll all be ok once you return. Fair enough, welcome your son back and be happy he has returned, but dont reward him for being a cunt.
Fair enough but a modest meal of a loaf of bread and a piece of fish or something would suffice. But a fucking fattened calf! The message is go for the sins because in forgiveness comes plenty like you’ve never seen before. He might as well have gone out killed a calf, eaten it, come back and apologised and asked for his da to kill him another calf to praise him for his repentance.
The day of the Armagh Wexford game this year Pikeman and I were walking down Grafton street. I’d been accosted by some Kerry lad handing out a list of all the All Ireland winners since 1940 and he wanted me to get it laminated and stick it up in the local pub at home. He then started asking me how many All Irelands Mickey Sheedy won and general GAA knowledge - I think he was a few apples short of a full fruit basket.
Anyway, after we’d got rid of the Kerry fella another lad stands out in front of us handing out these leaflets about Jesus and the bible and that lark and starts shouting about our lord and all that jazz. The 2 of us sort of looked at him and put our hands in our pockets and said we didnt want anything off him and turned and walked off. He turns after us and shouts out “the lord will see to it that Wexford won’t win today” - we sure showed that fucker!
Hate them lads preaching on the street. Let them talk away and shout away but just dont get in my way or shove your beliefs down my throat. I’ve enough to be doing that standing there listening to you spout crap. There’ll usually be one lad at the junction of O’Connell Street and Talbot / North Earl St shouting out through a megaphone and forcing leaflets into his hand. A belt of a 34 inch Albert Randall would sort him out.
The way I see it regarding the Prodigal Son is the message is in the father’s behaviour not the son’s. It’s the father’s behaviour we should be aiming to imitate i.e. forgive and love people regardless of their past sins, rather than the son’s.
With regard to the workers in the vinyard, as that was what they agreed to. The priest at my mass put it like this (another smashing mass, had a baptism and everything) - If the later workers hadn’t come was there anything wrong? No - they agreed a wage at the start of the day and at the end of the day the agreed wage was paid. Seems pretty straightforward to me. If the boss made a separate arrangement with other people it’s nothing to do with them.
If you buy a bar for 1 have Tesco the right to feel aggrieved cos they’re offering 2 bars for a 1? No - it’s your money to do as you please with.
yeah I’m all for forgiving the son, sure it’d be great to have back the son you thought you’d lost. but why reward him so lavishly. just say, lad, great to have you hoe, sure we’ll head down to the boozer for a pint and we can catch up. not throw a fooking party and get the whole town to come and waste even more money that has been squandered.
and its hard not to feel agrieved in the scond one too in fairness. just say you go through college, 4 hard years of slogging and you come out and are offered a job with good pay. you think nice one, good job on €25K. then the following day, your company hires someone straight out of the leaving cert that did fook all and starts on the same money as you. Yup, nothing to do with you, it aint your money and you already agreed your wage, but dont tell me you wouldnt be sickened to see some waster do put in half your effort but get the same reward
It’s not a party to reward the son - it’s a party to celebrate his return. The amount squandered in the past is irrelevant as that’s been forgiven. The party isn’t a present to the son; it’s for everybody to celebrate together the return of someone who was thought to be gone forever.
I might feel aggrieved but the point is that I shouldn’t or I should try not to anyway. That’s why He told the parable - it was a problem most people were likely to experience so they needed teaching.