They were on their way to Capernaum when the toll takers said to Peter, Hey, your teacher didn’t pay the toll.
Peter replied, That’s right, he didn’t.
He rushed to catch him up, but Yeshua had arrived at the house ahead of him.
What do you think, Simon? On whom do leaders impose taxes and tolls, on their children or on the children of others?
Peter responded, The children of others.
And Yeshua said, While their own children go free. Not to make trouble here, go down to the water, throw in a hook and line. Take the first fish that comes up, and you’ll find a coin in its mouth. Take the coin to the toll collector, to pay for us.
Then the students came. They asked him, Who is the greatest in the realm of the holy one?
He called out to a child, placed the child in front of them and said, If you don’t turn your thinking around and become find the realm of the holy one in the manner of the generously playful child, you’ll never enter in. Whoever meets a child without pretence—open, humble and with compassion—meets me also.
Whoever returns to the unguarded perceptiveness of a child, that’s who is the greatest in the realm.
In short, don’t be contemptuous of these little ones—learn from them, receive them, do not turn them away—vulnerable as they are, they always before the face of the holy one.
Whoever trips up a child would be better off sunk in the sea with a millstone.
Woe to the stumbling blocks of this world.
Woe to any who lays a stumbling block with intent to marginalize another.
© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com
A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:
Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015
Erdman, Bart, various titles
Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991
Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991
Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019
Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html
Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011
Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011
Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings
