"I will stamp on you" said the lion. "Please, if you let me live, I
will help you" said the mouse. "How can a weak little animal like you
ever help the king of the jungle?" said the lion, but he spared the
little mouse. A month later the lion was caught in a net. The more he
tried to move the tighter the ropes trapped him. The little mouse
arrived and said "I will free you." He then began chewing away at the
ropes. An hour later the lion jumped out. He took the mouse on his
back for a walk through the jungle to show the other animals who was
the greatest among them.
The moral of this parable is that we should never despise the weak
among our friends. But it also points to Paul's description of the
impact of the church in Corinth. "God chose what is weak in the world
to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no
one might boast in the presence of God" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). Later
speaking of his own weaknesses he said "Whenever I am weak, then I am
strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Which illustrates why Jesus began the
Sermon on the Mount with "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3. Here poor in spirit does not
mean lacking in the power of the Spirit, but a sense of one's own
weakness, like the mouse, combined with faith that God can use us to
accomplish great things).
Robert Brow
e-mail : browr@brow.on.ca
web site : www.brow.on.ca