A short parable for Sunday morning

Thebes found himself standing in the line that snaked upward toward the Pearly Gates. No surprise, really. He had been old. The cause was not what he expected but how you die isn't something people have a choice about.

He hadn't been a particularly pious man. He had been a man of duty and been busy. He couldn't read but even if he could there were no scrolls in the small village he lived in. Regardless, he dutifully listened to the occasional itinerant preachers who percolated through the small, rocky valleys that made up Thebes' world. He implemented what he could understand and marveled at what seemed inconceivable.

When it was his turn to be judged, a fisherman stood at the gate and the radiant ones were arrayed behind him. It was calming to know that he was to be weighed by another laborer.

The fisherman's gnarled hands swiftly counted the knots on the recording strings. His fingers shuffled the abacus. Then he paused and then repeated the counting and calculating.

Turning to the radiant figures behind him, he said "The one named Thebes is exactly equal. How do you want me to handle it?" The brilliance of the figures obscured the details. They reminded Thebes of the snow-covered sentinel pine on the ridge above the valley, first lit by the rising sun.

The voice from the brilliant figure on Thebes' left was as sweet and soothing as warmed honey. "Ask him what he wants."

Thebes was surprised, not by the fisherman's words but by what the figure had said. He was just a man. Not "holy". Not "bad". Just a man. He had not expected to be offered a choice.

"I am nothing but a common laborer. If it should please you, Lord, I should take that bucket of water, the stool and a towel and wash the feet those coming to see you" Thebes suggested. "I will set up at the edge of the light where I won't bother anybody."

The Lord asked "Will you only wash the feet of the just?"

Thebes replied "It is not within my power to know who was just or unjust. I shall wash the feet of everybody in the line."

The Lord said "So be it".

Thebes first picked up the bucket and then put it down. He could not carry all three. He solved the problem by tying the towel around his waist before picking up the other two items and trudging back down the line.

He set them down where the light of the Lord was but a kiss on the horizon and their voices were but faint murmurs. The line had grown since he had first joined it.

The worst seat in heaven is infinitely better than the best seat in hell. 

Thebes died many, many centuries ago. If you don't see him on your path to the Pearly Gates, then the position is probably open again. Something to keep in mind if the counting string with your name on it has a lot of knots on it.