Recently I came across Peter Rollins* telling a yarn he calls, ‘The Parable of the 2 Camels’. It goes like this…
‘Once there was a merchant who was leading his two camels along a road. One camel was walking slowly because it was weighed down with packs of salt. The other camel moved along much quicker because it was loaded up with bales of cotton’.
‘Now along the way, the merchant came to a place where the road was flooded by a swollen river. As the merchant moved further along the road both he & his camels began being immersed deeper & deeper into the water’.
‘After a few minutes the merchant was swimming & the camels were almost completely submerged. But the merchant persisted. His livelihood depended on it. Finally the merchant and his camels were back on dry road’.
‘As the merchant made the final trek to the bazaar, he noticed something had changed in the way the camels were carrying their cargo. The camel with the salt on it’s back seemed to have gained new strength & vigor. The merchant puzzled over this for a bit and then realised the water must have mostly dissolved the salt in the packs. However, the camel carrying the cotton was now struggling and groaning under the weight of its load. This was because the cotton had absorbed so much water’.
I like the parable of the two camels. I like it because it makes really clear a holy paradox that exists for people who embrace the Gospel.
I keep finding that whenever I encounter a paradox in Scripture, I need to pay attention because I have arrived at a place of significant spiritual truth. The way forward is not to decide between one possibility or the other but to try to a find way to hold the two in tension. These are places of tremendous spiritual dynamism.
The paradox of embracing the Gospel begins, when like the camel weighed down with the salt, we experience the river of God’s Grace. The mercy of God surrounds us & overwhelms us. We leave the weight and guilt of all our past selfish actions at the foot of the Cross. Our sins are washed away & we emerge on the other side with an incredible lightness of being that floods our very souls. It’s like the old hymn says, ‘My chains fell off, my heart was freed, I rose went forth and I followed Thee’.
This is the grace of the kingdom. This is forgiveness that makes us whiter than snow. This is love expressed as mercy… like being given a 2nd, a 3rd and a 4th chance all at once.
Now the journey of discipleship is one where we keep following in the way of Jesus. So with that incredible lightness of being we enter back into the river – we continue embracing the Gospel with arms wide open. It is at this point that we experience the paradox. We begin to indentify with the experience of the camel who enters into the river with the cotton.
The more that we enter into and embrace the heart of the Gospel, the more we become weighed down with feeling the burden of a hurting world.
I was talking to someone recently, asking them what their response has been to me talking for nearly 12 months now about mission. This person whose opinion I value said, “I feel exhausted !”
At first I found these words rather confronting. I started feeling a little bit anxious. Then this week as I have been reflecting on ‘The Parable of the 2 Camels’, I have been thinking maybe what my friend has been feeling, is a renewed sense of the weight of the Gospel.
You see, when we feel the weight of the Gospel, at first it can be overwhelming, even exhausting. Yet that burden we feel for a hurting world, that feeling of agitation, in the sense that I must… do… something… that’s not something I can claim credit for. That’s the Holy Spirit working.
This burden that we have for a hurting world, it changes our perception of the world we live in. It makes us see things that before were invisible. It makes us sensitive and aware of the needs of others… It opens us up to life lived beyond ourselves.
It moves us from being passive & selfish into merciful and inclusive action on behalf of others.
So how do you know a person is experiencing the paradox of embracing the Gospel with their arms wide open ?
Jesus says, “You will know them by their fruit”. He says, “Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles ? In the same way good trees bear good fruit… they cannot bear bad fruit”.
*from Peter Rollins’ book… ‘How (Not) To Speak of God’
