Eye of the Needle
A crowd surrounded a terrified woman kneeling on the
ground. A Hebrew man stepped forward holding
a stone and addressed the gathering, “let him among you without sin cast the
first stone.” A tall man in the crowd took
the rock from the Hebrew, hurled it at the woman, striking her in the head and
killing her.
The tall man’s friend berated him, “Damn it Harry, he
said without sin.”
With a puzzled expression the tall man said, “That’s
not what I heard.”
The friend continued, “It’s not all your fault. This Hebrew has a real problem with just
coming right out and saying what’s on his mind.
I’ve told him countless times that the use of passive voice, analogies
and parables are not effective ways of communicating with illiterate nomads but
he never takes advice from anyone.”
Harry said, “He should speak plainly when a life
hangs in the balance.”
His friend answered, “Of course he should, but try
telling him that. It will fall on
deaf ears – he’s one of those annoying types that has an answer for everything.”
Harry asked, “Is he the same guy that does that stand
up routine about lilies of the field?”
His friend said, “The very same.”
Harry said, “I really get hung up on that part where
he says ‘they toil not’, what way to talk is that? He can’t be from around here.”
His friend said, “Worse than that was the bit he did
last month about a camel going through the eye of a needle. When you’re trying to make a point to a bunch
of desert people, something like that is like throwing down a gauntlet. God knows how we like to argue and it was
immediately taken up as a personal challenge.
He understands nothing about his audience. My village spent weeks debating how it could
be done and eventually came up with several different approaches – some literal,
others figurative. Granted, none of the
solutions were easy but it can be done.”