Try this parable on for size...

So one of the first times we met for my rhetoric class last semester, my professor told us a non-canonical parable Jesus had told (non-canonical meaning not found in the New Testament). The parable is Rabbidic tradition and is almost impossible to find (or as he said, "you can't google this one"). From the moment he recited it to us, something inside me took a hold of it. It spoke so much truth to me as well as got me thinking, alot. Part of our final of sorts at the end of the year was to re-tell the parable. Since I'd already re-told it to pretty much everyone I knew, it wasn't too much of a stretch for me. What I love about it is that it's so profoundly what Jesus' parables were about, asking questions, "flipping the tables" if you will on how we view the world vs. what Jesus' was bringing to the world. See for yourself...

The Grain Merchant's Parable:
There once was a successful grain merchant who had an assistant. His assistant always did what he was told, never questioning his master's orders. The two worked side-by-side for years and the merchant fully entrusted his business to his assistant. His assistant had numerous opportunities to steal or scam both his master or their customers, but he never did. One day it came out that the merchant had been fixing the scales, and he himself had been cheating his customers out of money without his assistant's knowledge. The two were tried for their crimes. The judge gave the merchant his sentence, more like a slap on the wrist if you will, but for his assistant he said, "but for you, you will recieve the harshest penalty." The assistant was astonished, asking the judge "but how your honor? I have done nothing wrong, I was completely faithfull to my master and only did what was asked of me!" The judge replied, "exactly, but your morality hid an immorality."

Don't get it? That's ok, that's usually how Jesus liked it anyways :). To me, picking up your cross doesn't mean walking in a straight line up the mountain with your head to the ground. It means looking around you, seeing who's walking beside you, picking up their cross when they can't go any further, and maybe even saying, why walk to the Kingdom when we could run, even if the burden is hard to bear? It's ok to question things, Jesus demanded this from us! His parables were nuts! They made no sense to the audiences that heard them. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed? Now why would I want to be a part of something that destroys all my crops? Because it brings new life, it grows among the weeds and the roses, it is small, but it multiplies (and maybe it makes a good condiment, but personally mustard grosses me out:). As Shane Claiborne says, It is grace in a "scandalous" disguise...