Short Story: An Appointment with the King

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

An Appointment with the King

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?  Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

James 2:14-17 (NRSV)

God, I hear You calling out to me

In the voices of the least of these

Calling me to reach beyond my world

To the beautiful stranger

From "Beautiful Stranger" by Rebecca St. James

One day, three men were summoned to the king's palace.  Two of them served at the city's holy shrine.  One was a priest who presided over worship, and the other was a teacher who taught the ways of God to the people.  The third man was from a tribe of outcasts who, for the past three centuries, had been denied citizenship in the kingdom and had been forbidden entry to the shrine.  The priest and the teacher kept their distance from him as they walked to the palace.

Upon entering the palace, the three men were escorted to the throne room, where they knelt before the king.  The king instructed the priest and the teacher to stand to his left, and he instructed the third man to stand to his right, by himself.

The king turned to the outcast at his right and said, "I would like to extend an invitation to you to serve on my royal court.  You and your family will live among the nobility, and you will serve as my advisor as I work to reconcile my people and yours."

"I am honored by your invitation, my liege," the man said, "but I do not understand why you have asked me, of all people, to serve on your court."

"I have chosen you, because one day, when I was bleeding to death by the side of a dangerous road, you saved my life," the king replied.

"When did I ever see you bleeding to death?" the man asked.

The king replied, "Not long ago, I set out in disguise to visit a neighboring kingdom.  Just outside the city, a robber attacked me, beat me savagely, and left me there to die.  The man you found at the side of the road that day was I, the king.  It mattered not to you how my people had treated your people.  When you saw me, you stopped; you treated my wounds; and you put me up at a safe place where I could heal.  Because of your acts of kindness, I know that you have the courage and the character to serve as my advisor."

"You two, on the other hand," the king said, turning to the already perplexed men at his left, "have neither courage nor character.  You two, left me there to die."

"Sire," the priest spoke up, "when did we ever see you dying?"

"Do you take me for a fool, priest?" the king asked.  "You were traveling on the same road that day, and, when you saw me, you immediately moved to the other side, pretending that you never noticed me.  You, teacher, did the same when you passed by moments later.  What you did not know was that the man you left dying was I, the king."

The two men fell to the floor and prostrated themselves before the king.  The priest said, "My lord, surely you know the rules of the holy shrine.  If we had come into contact with blood, we would not have been able to return to our duties.  If only we had known that you were the one at the side of the road, we would have sent someone -"

"Silence!" the king interrupted.  "It should not have mattered to you who was at the side of the road.  You, priest, represent our people to God, and you represent God to our people.  And you, teacher, impart the ways of God to our people.  You two should know better than anybody that God regards all people equally, be they peasants or kings, and that God values mercy and kindness over ritual or purity.  The man at my right has shown that he is a better teacher in these matters than either of you.  Had I died, you two would be no less responsible for my death than my attacker.  You will not return to your duties at the shrine this day, for a prison cell awaits you."

"Guards!" the king shouted.  "Escort these two to their new home, and shackle them beside the man who attacked me."

---

As you read the preceding story, something about it probably seemed familiar to you.  It actually contains elements from the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats¹ and the Parable of the Good Samaritan,² with the second chapter of the Epistle of James sprinkled in for good measure.  I recently read the two parables within a few days of each other, and, having heard a very interesting sermon on the latter,³ I considered connections between them.  What if, in the former parable, the Son of Man meant it literally when He said, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me"?  What if He was the very same person who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead in the latter parable?

In a 1988 interview with Time magazine, Mother Teresa said, "The dying, the cripple, the mental[ly ill], the unwanted, the unloved - they are Jesus in disguise."⁴  What if we thought of every person as "Jesus in disguise"?  What if we treated even the "least of these" as the greatest of these?


Notes:

1. Matthew 25:31-46
2. Luke 10:25-37
3. Rimes McElveen.  "Lord, Have Mercy."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 07/15/2019.
4. Edward Desmond.  "Candid 1988 Mother Teresa Interview Reveals Her Thoughts on Reason for Her Success."  National Catholic Register, 09/06/2016.

The illustration of the castle is believed to be public domain.