. Why then does Jesus appear to have a negative view of the goats in Matt 25? This restraint is important to the understated humor of the dialogue between Muni and the American; Narayan trusts the reader to interpret the absurd conversation without his having to say through his narrator, “Notice that this response has nothing to do with the question asked,” or “See the irony in this remark.” When the two men leave the place where they met, each taking away something of value, neither has been accused by the narrator—nor by the reader—of foolishness or evil. Is God a ruthless exploiter of our talents in Matthew 25? I think this passage is one of those that is claimed by both parties as it is seen as a key passage in how we interpret the wider implications of the gospel, whether the social engagement is core to our faith or an ethical addition (how I think some put it). Narayan was raised by his grandmother, who taught him the legends and stories from the traditional literature. Once, when he considered himself prosperous, he had a flock of forty sheep and goats which he would lead out to graze every day. Saros Cowasjee has edited two collections of Indian short fiction, Many critics have compared Narayan’s fictional town of Malgudi to, Published in 1924, before Indian independence from Great Britain, E. M. Forster’s, Considered the longest poem ever written, the. This passage has almost universally been read in the light of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matt 13:24–30, so that the emphasis of the contrast is between the good ones and the bad ones. The postman “does not speak to anyone at all nowadays. My concern is a big one. Muni also played the part of Sita, another incarnation of Lakshmi and the wife of Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Find the meanings for these terms from the story: Of his fourteen novels, Narayan has said that his own favorite is. She seems to be a good sport, to support her husband’s whims: “Next day she called the travel agent first thing and told him to fix it, and so here lam.”, Having a loyal, grounded wife gives each of the husbands the freedom to move out into the world. In the context of Ch 10 in which this is said, it could be argued those words primarily apply to the treatment of the original disciples whom Jesus sent out on a specific mission. Like South Africa, Indians found themselves governed by a white minority from another country and culture, whose governance was guided by racism and religious intolerance. First published in the Madras, India, newspaper The Hindu in 1960, “A Horse and Two Goats” did not achieve a wide international audience until 1970 when it became the title story of R. K. Narayan’s seventh collection of short stories, A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories. No sources cited, though. for independence from Great Britain, women were active leaders and participants in the long years of civil disobedience. R. K. Narayan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993. Goats are actually really hardy animals and if given the right diet and environment, can live a long, healthy life. He remembers that “he had thrashed her only a few times in their career.” The tone here is casual, without regret; thrashing is what husbands do when wives get out of line. Cultural Atlas of India, New York: Facts on File, 1996. 3 From 1871 Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, “Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible” prefaced by Herbert Lockyer this from Bible Study tools site: “The surprise expressed is not at their being told that they acted from love to Christ, but that Christ Himself was the Personal Object of all their deeds: that they found Him hungry, and supplied Him with food: that they brought water to Him, and slaked His thirst; that seeing Him naked and shivering, they put warm clothing upon Him, paid Him visits when lying in prison for the truth, and sat by His bedside when laid down with sickness. But even if it should be applied to all followers, including today, it is in the context of evangelism, thus implying those accepting and treating Jesus’ followers well because they are Jesus’ followers do so because they are accepting of the message they have brought, and shows at least the beginnings of faith. The story is seen as a fine example of Narayan’s dexterity in creating engaging characters and humorous dialogue, but it is not considered one of his greatest works. Adjunct Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod. Born: New York City, 20 December 1911. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction Muni’s wife has spent some sixty years with him (neither of them is sure about their ages), through prosperity and poverty. Muni responds with the only English he knows: “Yes, no.”. I do not think we should be troubled by the injustices and sufferings in the world. Rajam lived only five years as his wife, dying of typhoid in 1939. What he wanted to be was a writer. And on that day He would then separate the nations ” version unknown (You should try memorising and performing this reading—it makes it highly engaging for your audience, especially any sitting on your post-pandemic left!). The American’s wife’s name is Ruth, the name of an Old Testament figure who stands in Judeo-Christian tradition as a model for wifely loyalty. The gospel reading in the lectionary for the last Sunday before Advent (now known as ‘Christ the King’) is Matthew 25.31–46, the so-called ‘parable of the sheep and the goats’. First, he is the ‘Son of Man’, Jesus’ favourite self-description in the gospels, and a term primarily taken from Dan 7.13, where it refers to the vulnerable corporate figure of Israel, exalted to God in the face of the trampling beasts of the earlier part of the vision. I must have not activated the notifications when people reply to my comments (or I just missed it). Most critics find Muni’s wife cold and unsympathetic. I think he is equating nation states with sheep and goats. India was divided into two separate nations: India, a secular state populated mainly by Hindus, and Pakistan, a Muslim state. York and commutes from Connecticut, he is dressed in the khaki clothing worn by American tourists in the tropics. Jesus is making some truly astonishing claims here. That’s why today I’m going to give ya’ll a lesson on goat diseases, signs & symptoms, how to test from home, and hopefully, how to avoid them all together. But of course this is not enough to bridge the gap between this passage and the conservative understanding of salvation, as this would imply that people are saved based on their acts of kindness towards poor / suffering disciples. Muni reminisces about his difficult and impoverished childhood working in the fields, and the American laughs heartily. What do you think Jesus means when he says ‘If anyone gives you a cup of cold water because you are my disciples, he shall not lose his reward’? Mac user; chocoholic. I have suggested a structure for the gospel and all of us are understanding the “texts” in light of the structure we have got, whatever the structure; these short texts are not just stand alone snippets. “The absolute authority afforded Jesus here fits most precisely the standard Jewish picture of God judging the nations in the day of judgement. The story takes place in Kritam, “probably the tiniest” of India’s 700,000 villages. He understood the conflicts between Indian culture and Western culture as few people did, because he had created a life for himself that forced him to move through both worlds. However your approach has also definitely picked who to help and potentially salved the conscience from having to respond to the needs in so many parts of the world. In each of the four repetitions in the dialogue, this list of six things gets slightly compressed at the end. Muni and his wife have not always been so poor. Hi Paul, Although, when all nations and peoples are gathered, so are all persons. The American, a businessman from New York City, lights a cigarette and offers one to Muni, who knows about cigarettes but has never had one before. _____. And all through Matthew’s Gospel we have seen the gospel bursting out beyond the in-group. Tyndale NT study group 2021: the later Pauline epistles, But as a complement to that, we need to note that the judgement doesn’t just take place on the grounds of whether people like us and help us, or not. Kain, Geoffrey, editor. The Biblical Ruth is loyal to her dead husband’s family; the Ruth in “A Horse and Two Goats” is loyal to her husband and stands by to prop him up when he is about to do something off-balance. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. But sheer common sense says we’ve drifted a long way from the plain sense of the passage, if we say it ‘really’ means faith / acceptance of truths about Jesus when it’s so clearly talking about acts of kindness towards a needy group (however we understand that group). things about village life in India from this story, it isn’t about Indian problems or about Indian sensibilities as such. Matthew could have made this much clearer. On what grounds do you think Jesus is suddenly changing the meaning ‘of these my brothers’? William Walsh has suggested it is a story about misunderstanding, a story about the gap between supposed and real understanding, a story about the element of incomprehension in human relationships. Yes, there is a constant danger from all sides of forcing scripture out of shape! 1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT I am not – I think – doubting the central character – Christ the King and Judge – though I think the focus is more on the judgement and those judged and so urging us to be in the right group when judgement comes as it were. At the end he seems to have temporarily escaped his money troubles, but his bad luck continues when his wife suspects him of thievery and threatens to leave. It’s also possible the ‘reward’is temporal rather than of an eternal nature? What does this text mean is asked in light of what does this text mean in its context in the larger piece. But this interpretation has only been around since around 1850 (which raises issues about how we should respond to ‘novel’ interpretations…) [note: I remembered this from some teaching on this I heard years ago, but a friend has pointed out that Aquinas’ Catena Aurea which compiles patristic comments on the biblical texts suggests that this might claim be wrong!] How do you do?” the American says in greeting, using his only Indian word. Matt 25.37 parallels this thought and its very language. As Craig Keener notes (Commentary p 602), in rabbinical parables, the figure of the king is nearly always God, and it is God’s role to exercise judgement over the nations. She works as hard as he does, or harder, getting up at dawn to fix his morning meal, and taking odd jobs at the Big House when their stores are low. through simple debt? Goats have a higher milk yield than sheep, and so the idea of the promised land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’ is actually most likely a reference to the benefits of a land where goats graze. We cannot give all the world the lifestyles we enjoy. Reading the text carefully in its cultural context actually drives us back to read the text itself more carefully. If we were to distribute the world’s wealth equally, what we would do is just add the middle-class westerners back to the land of suffering. The narrator describes Kritam’s erosion and Muni’s decline dispassionately, without regret; conversations between Muni and his wife, or Muni and the shopman, are told from Muni’s perspective, but with his calm acceptance of whatever fate brings him. Sorry if I’ve not got it clear. Sheep and goats are able to breed but often produce still-borne young. Moreover, Jesus is clear that to follow him means to be homeless; in reply to a teacher of the law who would follow him, Jesus replies: Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head (Matt 8.20 = Luke 9.58). This collection has received no formal criticism, but was reviewed in major American newspapers and magazines. Voices in the City (1965) Yet one or two works do stand out—like the novel The Guide (1958) and the short story “A Horse and Two Goats.” To many, Narayan is best known as the creator of Malgudi, one of literature’s most enduring and endearing fictional worlds, so it is somewhat ironic that “A Horse and Two Goats” is one of only a handful of Narayan’s stories not to be set in the brilliantly-realised world of Malgudi. Johnson, Gordon. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination process across the United States has been, to put it lightly, a hot mess. Those that were pro-Israel enter the earthly kingdom. 2. However, while I agree that following Jesus may often have meant (risking) the kinds of deprivation described (except in the rich West, as you say), the passage doesn’t speak of risking it, but experiencing it. . I think I would modify my comment on further reflection. Like my page on Facebook. In the Medieval Period, the narrow interpretation is found in Anselm of Laon, who says that “the least” are not the poor in general, “but only those who are poor in spirit who, having put aside their own will, do the will of the heavenly Father” (p. 168). Goats reproduce faster than sheep, and if a herdsman is going to keep his flock properly balanced, then as a matter of course he will need to cull the male kids (baby goats), since otherwise they will outnumber the sheep, and with too many males he will not have a supply of milk (a small herd would typically only need a couple of males). Muni launches into a long explanation of his innocence of whatever crime the man is investigating, and the American asks questions about the horse statue, which he would like to buy. "A Horse and Two Goats That seems to contradict Jesus’ words elsewhere, not to mention Paul. It reached an even wider audience in 1985 when it was included in Under the Banyan Tree, Narayan’s tenth and best-selling collection. Although no longer up to date, this is the most readable overview of Narayan’s life and work. It is a possible reading of the passage. . The attendance of ‘his angels with him’ is an allusion to Zech 14.5, there the ‘holy ones’ accompany Yahweh, ‘my God’. But is she? While this conflict may be painful at times, here he finds it merely amusing. I wonder if 25. the two, not only in the way neither understands the other’s language, but also in the absolute contrast of their cultural and economic backgrounds, emphasised by the way each values the clay horse. I can only get Nation/Them or Nations/Peoples from the text. Once he was prosperous, with a large flock of sheep, but a series of misfortunes have left him with only two scrawny goats. Muni remembers that in his youth he was often chosen for the women’s roles in the plays the community performed. The great Indian epics, composed approximately two thousand years ago, contain stories of several important female characters, including two that Muni mentions: the goddess Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, and Sita, wife of Rama. SOURCES Narayan takes great pains in the opening of the story to show how desperately poor Muni is, and to emphasize that even in his time of “prosperity” his standard of living was still greatly below that of most Americans. …I havn’t thought it through. Of course, the language barrier prevents him from receiving Muni’s interpretation, but it never even crosses his mind to ask. I can only assume that he was not alone in this among his contemporaries. In this speech, Muni comes as close as he ever will to stating the truth about wives: it may be annoying when they stay, but it is devastating when they leave. The uneducated Muni tries to tell him the significance of the horse statue, but the American sees it only as a living room decoration. “It’ll do you good.” Muni takes the goats to their usual spot a few miles away: a grassy area near the highway, where he can sit in the shade of a life-sized statue of a horse and a warrior and watch trucks and buses go by. On the other hand: do you think that the only ways someone could end up in prison was if they were either bona fide criminals or persecuted Christian missionaries? To welcome and help Jesus’ disciples was to welcome the message they brought. In other words, the focus is not on the different types of animals, but on the process of separation. He and his wife have no children to help them in their old age, so their only income is from the odd jobs his wife occasionally takes on at the Big House. All I am pointing out is that, whilst Jesus says a lot about that elsewhere, he is not talking about that here. What Does A Blinking Roku Light Mean,
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. Why then does Jesus appear to have a negative view of the goats in Matt 25? This restraint is important to the understated humor of the dialogue between Muni and the American; Narayan trusts the reader to interpret the absurd conversation without his having to say through his narrator, “Notice that this response has nothing to do with the question asked,” or “See the irony in this remark.” When the two men leave the place where they met, each taking away something of value, neither has been accused by the narrator—nor by the reader—of foolishness or evil. Is God a ruthless exploiter of our talents in Matthew 25? I think this passage is one of those that is claimed by both parties as it is seen as a key passage in how we interpret the wider implications of the gospel, whether the social engagement is core to our faith or an ethical addition (how I think some put it). Narayan was raised by his grandmother, who taught him the legends and stories from the traditional literature. Once, when he considered himself prosperous, he had a flock of forty sheep and goats which he would lead out to graze every day. Saros Cowasjee has edited two collections of Indian short fiction, Many critics have compared Narayan’s fictional town of Malgudi to, Published in 1924, before Indian independence from Great Britain, E. M. Forster’s, Considered the longest poem ever written, the. This passage has almost universally been read in the light of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matt 13:24–30, so that the emphasis of the contrast is between the good ones and the bad ones. The postman “does not speak to anyone at all nowadays. My concern is a big one. Muni also played the part of Sita, another incarnation of Lakshmi and the wife of Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Find the meanings for these terms from the story: Of his fourteen novels, Narayan has said that his own favorite is. She seems to be a good sport, to support her husband’s whims: “Next day she called the travel agent first thing and told him to fix it, and so here lam.”, Having a loyal, grounded wife gives each of the husbands the freedom to move out into the world. In the context of Ch 10 in which this is said, it could be argued those words primarily apply to the treatment of the original disciples whom Jesus sent out on a specific mission. Like South Africa, Indians found themselves governed by a white minority from another country and culture, whose governance was guided by racism and religious intolerance. First published in the Madras, India, newspaper The Hindu in 1960, “A Horse and Two Goats” did not achieve a wide international audience until 1970 when it became the title story of R. K. Narayan’s seventh collection of short stories, A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories. No sources cited, though. for independence from Great Britain, women were active leaders and participants in the long years of civil disobedience. R. K. Narayan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993. Goats are actually really hardy animals and if given the right diet and environment, can live a long, healthy life. He remembers that “he had thrashed her only a few times in their career.” The tone here is casual, without regret; thrashing is what husbands do when wives get out of line. Cultural Atlas of India, New York: Facts on File, 1996. 3 From 1871 Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, “Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible” prefaced by Herbert Lockyer this from Bible Study tools site: “The surprise expressed is not at their being told that they acted from love to Christ, but that Christ Himself was the Personal Object of all their deeds: that they found Him hungry, and supplied Him with food: that they brought water to Him, and slaked His thirst; that seeing Him naked and shivering, they put warm clothing upon Him, paid Him visits when lying in prison for the truth, and sat by His bedside when laid down with sickness. But even if it should be applied to all followers, including today, it is in the context of evangelism, thus implying those accepting and treating Jesus’ followers well because they are Jesus’ followers do so because they are accepting of the message they have brought, and shows at least the beginnings of faith. The story is seen as a fine example of Narayan’s dexterity in creating engaging characters and humorous dialogue, but it is not considered one of his greatest works. Adjunct Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod. Born: New York City, 20 December 1911. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction Muni’s wife has spent some sixty years with him (neither of them is sure about their ages), through prosperity and poverty. Muni responds with the only English he knows: “Yes, no.”. I do not think we should be troubled by the injustices and sufferings in the world. Rajam lived only five years as his wife, dying of typhoid in 1939. What he wanted to be was a writer. And on that day He would then separate the nations ” version unknown (You should try memorising and performing this reading—it makes it highly engaging for your audience, especially any sitting on your post-pandemic left!). The American’s wife’s name is Ruth, the name of an Old Testament figure who stands in Judeo-Christian tradition as a model for wifely loyalty. The gospel reading in the lectionary for the last Sunday before Advent (now known as ‘Christ the King’) is Matthew 25.31–46, the so-called ‘parable of the sheep and the goats’. First, he is the ‘Son of Man’, Jesus’ favourite self-description in the gospels, and a term primarily taken from Dan 7.13, where it refers to the vulnerable corporate figure of Israel, exalted to God in the face of the trampling beasts of the earlier part of the vision. I must have not activated the notifications when people reply to my comments (or I just missed it). Most critics find Muni’s wife cold and unsympathetic. I think he is equating nation states with sheep and goats. India was divided into two separate nations: India, a secular state populated mainly by Hindus, and Pakistan, a Muslim state. York and commutes from Connecticut, he is dressed in the khaki clothing worn by American tourists in the tropics. Jesus is making some truly astonishing claims here. That’s why today I’m going to give ya’ll a lesson on goat diseases, signs & symptoms, how to test from home, and hopefully, how to avoid them all together. But of course this is not enough to bridge the gap between this passage and the conservative understanding of salvation, as this would imply that people are saved based on their acts of kindness towards poor / suffering disciples. Muni reminisces about his difficult and impoverished childhood working in the fields, and the American laughs heartily. What do you think Jesus means when he says ‘If anyone gives you a cup of cold water because you are my disciples, he shall not lose his reward’? Mac user; chocoholic. I have suggested a structure for the gospel and all of us are understanding the “texts” in light of the structure we have got, whatever the structure; these short texts are not just stand alone snippets. “The absolute authority afforded Jesus here fits most precisely the standard Jewish picture of God judging the nations in the day of judgement. The story takes place in Kritam, “probably the tiniest” of India’s 700,000 villages. He understood the conflicts between Indian culture and Western culture as few people did, because he had created a life for himself that forced him to move through both worlds. However your approach has also definitely picked who to help and potentially salved the conscience from having to respond to the needs in so many parts of the world. In each of the four repetitions in the dialogue, this list of six things gets slightly compressed at the end. Muni and his wife have not always been so poor. Hi Paul, Although, when all nations and peoples are gathered, so are all persons. The American, a businessman from New York City, lights a cigarette and offers one to Muni, who knows about cigarettes but has never had one before. _____. And all through Matthew’s Gospel we have seen the gospel bursting out beyond the in-group. Tyndale NT study group 2021: the later Pauline epistles, But as a complement to that, we need to note that the judgement doesn’t just take place on the grounds of whether people like us and help us, or not. Kain, Geoffrey, editor. The Biblical Ruth is loyal to her dead husband’s family; the Ruth in “A Horse and Two Goats” is loyal to her husband and stands by to prop him up when he is about to do something off-balance. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. But sheer common sense says we’ve drifted a long way from the plain sense of the passage, if we say it ‘really’ means faith / acceptance of truths about Jesus when it’s so clearly talking about acts of kindness towards a needy group (however we understand that group). things about village life in India from this story, it isn’t about Indian problems or about Indian sensibilities as such. Matthew could have made this much clearer. On what grounds do you think Jesus is suddenly changing the meaning ‘of these my brothers’? William Walsh has suggested it is a story about misunderstanding, a story about the gap between supposed and real understanding, a story about the element of incomprehension in human relationships. Yes, there is a constant danger from all sides of forcing scripture out of shape! 1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT I am not – I think – doubting the central character – Christ the King and Judge – though I think the focus is more on the judgement and those judged and so urging us to be in the right group when judgement comes as it were. At the end he seems to have temporarily escaped his money troubles, but his bad luck continues when his wife suspects him of thievery and threatens to leave. It’s also possible the ‘reward’is temporal rather than of an eternal nature? What does this text mean is asked in light of what does this text mean in its context in the larger piece. But this interpretation has only been around since around 1850 (which raises issues about how we should respond to ‘novel’ interpretations…) [note: I remembered this from some teaching on this I heard years ago, but a friend has pointed out that Aquinas’ Catena Aurea which compiles patristic comments on the biblical texts suggests that this might claim be wrong!] How do you do?” the American says in greeting, using his only Indian word. Matt 25.37 parallels this thought and its very language. As Craig Keener notes (Commentary p 602), in rabbinical parables, the figure of the king is nearly always God, and it is God’s role to exercise judgement over the nations. She works as hard as he does, or harder, getting up at dawn to fix his morning meal, and taking odd jobs at the Big House when their stores are low. through simple debt? Goats have a higher milk yield than sheep, and so the idea of the promised land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’ is actually most likely a reference to the benefits of a land where goats graze. We cannot give all the world the lifestyles we enjoy. Reading the text carefully in its cultural context actually drives us back to read the text itself more carefully. If we were to distribute the world’s wealth equally, what we would do is just add the middle-class westerners back to the land of suffering. The narrator describes Kritam’s erosion and Muni’s decline dispassionately, without regret; conversations between Muni and his wife, or Muni and the shopman, are told from Muni’s perspective, but with his calm acceptance of whatever fate brings him. Sorry if I’ve not got it clear. Sheep and goats are able to breed but often produce still-borne young. Moreover, Jesus is clear that to follow him means to be homeless; in reply to a teacher of the law who would follow him, Jesus replies: Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head (Matt 8.20 = Luke 9.58). This collection has received no formal criticism, but was reviewed in major American newspapers and magazines. Voices in the City (1965) Yet one or two works do stand out—like the novel The Guide (1958) and the short story “A Horse and Two Goats.” To many, Narayan is best known as the creator of Malgudi, one of literature’s most enduring and endearing fictional worlds, so it is somewhat ironic that “A Horse and Two Goats” is one of only a handful of Narayan’s stories not to be set in the brilliantly-realised world of Malgudi. Johnson, Gordon. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination process across the United States has been, to put it lightly, a hot mess. Those that were pro-Israel enter the earthly kingdom. 2. However, while I agree that following Jesus may often have meant (risking) the kinds of deprivation described (except in the rich West, as you say), the passage doesn’t speak of risking it, but experiencing it. . I think I would modify my comment on further reflection. Like my page on Facebook. In the Medieval Period, the narrow interpretation is found in Anselm of Laon, who says that “the least” are not the poor in general, “but only those who are poor in spirit who, having put aside their own will, do the will of the heavenly Father” (p. 168). Goats reproduce faster than sheep, and if a herdsman is going to keep his flock properly balanced, then as a matter of course he will need to cull the male kids (baby goats), since otherwise they will outnumber the sheep, and with too many males he will not have a supply of milk (a small herd would typically only need a couple of males). Muni launches into a long explanation of his innocence of whatever crime the man is investigating, and the American asks questions about the horse statue, which he would like to buy. "A Horse and Two Goats That seems to contradict Jesus’ words elsewhere, not to mention Paul. It reached an even wider audience in 1985 when it was included in Under the Banyan Tree, Narayan’s tenth and best-selling collection. Although no longer up to date, this is the most readable overview of Narayan’s life and work. It is a possible reading of the passage. . The attendance of ‘his angels with him’ is an allusion to Zech 14.5, there the ‘holy ones’ accompany Yahweh, ‘my God’. But is she? While this conflict may be painful at times, here he finds it merely amusing. I wonder if 25. the two, not only in the way neither understands the other’s language, but also in the absolute contrast of their cultural and economic backgrounds, emphasised by the way each values the clay horse. I can only get Nation/Them or Nations/Peoples from the text. Once he was prosperous, with a large flock of sheep, but a series of misfortunes have left him with only two scrawny goats. Muni remembers that in his youth he was often chosen for the women’s roles in the plays the community performed. The great Indian epics, composed approximately two thousand years ago, contain stories of several important female characters, including two that Muni mentions: the goddess Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, and Sita, wife of Rama. SOURCES Narayan takes great pains in the opening of the story to show how desperately poor Muni is, and to emphasize that even in his time of “prosperity” his standard of living was still greatly below that of most Americans. …I havn’t thought it through. Of course, the language barrier prevents him from receiving Muni’s interpretation, but it never even crosses his mind to ask. I can only assume that he was not alone in this among his contemporaries. In this speech, Muni comes as close as he ever will to stating the truth about wives: it may be annoying when they stay, but it is devastating when they leave. The uneducated Muni tries to tell him the significance of the horse statue, but the American sees it only as a living room decoration. “It’ll do you good.” Muni takes the goats to their usual spot a few miles away: a grassy area near the highway, where he can sit in the shade of a life-sized statue of a horse and a warrior and watch trucks and buses go by. On the other hand: do you think that the only ways someone could end up in prison was if they were either bona fide criminals or persecuted Christian missionaries? To welcome and help Jesus’ disciples was to welcome the message they brought. In other words, the focus is not on the different types of animals, but on the process of separation. He and his wife have no children to help them in their old age, so their only income is from the odd jobs his wife occasionally takes on at the Big House. All I am pointing out is that, whilst Jesus says a lot about that elsewhere, he is not talking about that here. What Does A Blinking Roku Light Mean,
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. Why then does Jesus appear to have a negative view of the goats in Matt 25? This restraint is important to the understated humor of the dialogue between Muni and the American; Narayan trusts the reader to interpret the absurd conversation without his having to say through his narrator, “Notice that this response has nothing to do with the question asked,” or “See the irony in this remark.” When the two men leave the place where they met, each taking away something of value, neither has been accused by the narrator—nor by the reader—of foolishness or evil. Is God a ruthless exploiter of our talents in Matthew 25? I think this passage is one of those that is claimed by both parties as it is seen as a key passage in how we interpret the wider implications of the gospel, whether the social engagement is core to our faith or an ethical addition (how I think some put it). Narayan was raised by his grandmother, who taught him the legends and stories from the traditional literature. Once, when he considered himself prosperous, he had a flock of forty sheep and goats which he would lead out to graze every day. Saros Cowasjee has edited two collections of Indian short fiction, Many critics have compared Narayan’s fictional town of Malgudi to, Published in 1924, before Indian independence from Great Britain, E. M. Forster’s, Considered the longest poem ever written, the. This passage has almost universally been read in the light of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matt 13:24–30, so that the emphasis of the contrast is between the good ones and the bad ones. The postman “does not speak to anyone at all nowadays. My concern is a big one. Muni also played the part of Sita, another incarnation of Lakshmi and the wife of Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Find the meanings for these terms from the story: Of his fourteen novels, Narayan has said that his own favorite is. She seems to be a good sport, to support her husband’s whims: “Next day she called the travel agent first thing and told him to fix it, and so here lam.”, Having a loyal, grounded wife gives each of the husbands the freedom to move out into the world. In the context of Ch 10 in which this is said, it could be argued those words primarily apply to the treatment of the original disciples whom Jesus sent out on a specific mission. Like South Africa, Indians found themselves governed by a white minority from another country and culture, whose governance was guided by racism and religious intolerance. First published in the Madras, India, newspaper The Hindu in 1960, “A Horse and Two Goats” did not achieve a wide international audience until 1970 when it became the title story of R. K. Narayan’s seventh collection of short stories, A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories. No sources cited, though. for independence from Great Britain, women were active leaders and participants in the long years of civil disobedience. R. K. Narayan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993. Goats are actually really hardy animals and if given the right diet and environment, can live a long, healthy life. He remembers that “he had thrashed her only a few times in their career.” The tone here is casual, without regret; thrashing is what husbands do when wives get out of line. Cultural Atlas of India, New York: Facts on File, 1996. 3 From 1871 Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, “Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible” prefaced by Herbert Lockyer this from Bible Study tools site: “The surprise expressed is not at their being told that they acted from love to Christ, but that Christ Himself was the Personal Object of all their deeds: that they found Him hungry, and supplied Him with food: that they brought water to Him, and slaked His thirst; that seeing Him naked and shivering, they put warm clothing upon Him, paid Him visits when lying in prison for the truth, and sat by His bedside when laid down with sickness. But even if it should be applied to all followers, including today, it is in the context of evangelism, thus implying those accepting and treating Jesus’ followers well because they are Jesus’ followers do so because they are accepting of the message they have brought, and shows at least the beginnings of faith. The story is seen as a fine example of Narayan’s dexterity in creating engaging characters and humorous dialogue, but it is not considered one of his greatest works. Adjunct Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod. Born: New York City, 20 December 1911. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction Muni’s wife has spent some sixty years with him (neither of them is sure about their ages), through prosperity and poverty. Muni responds with the only English he knows: “Yes, no.”. I do not think we should be troubled by the injustices and sufferings in the world. Rajam lived only five years as his wife, dying of typhoid in 1939. What he wanted to be was a writer. And on that day He would then separate the nations ” version unknown (You should try memorising and performing this reading—it makes it highly engaging for your audience, especially any sitting on your post-pandemic left!). The American’s wife’s name is Ruth, the name of an Old Testament figure who stands in Judeo-Christian tradition as a model for wifely loyalty. The gospel reading in the lectionary for the last Sunday before Advent (now known as ‘Christ the King’) is Matthew 25.31–46, the so-called ‘parable of the sheep and the goats’. First, he is the ‘Son of Man’, Jesus’ favourite self-description in the gospels, and a term primarily taken from Dan 7.13, where it refers to the vulnerable corporate figure of Israel, exalted to God in the face of the trampling beasts of the earlier part of the vision. I must have not activated the notifications when people reply to my comments (or I just missed it). Most critics find Muni’s wife cold and unsympathetic. I think he is equating nation states with sheep and goats. India was divided into two separate nations: India, a secular state populated mainly by Hindus, and Pakistan, a Muslim state. York and commutes from Connecticut, he is dressed in the khaki clothing worn by American tourists in the tropics. Jesus is making some truly astonishing claims here. That’s why today I’m going to give ya’ll a lesson on goat diseases, signs & symptoms, how to test from home, and hopefully, how to avoid them all together. But of course this is not enough to bridge the gap between this passage and the conservative understanding of salvation, as this would imply that people are saved based on their acts of kindness towards poor / suffering disciples. Muni reminisces about his difficult and impoverished childhood working in the fields, and the American laughs heartily. What do you think Jesus means when he says ‘If anyone gives you a cup of cold water because you are my disciples, he shall not lose his reward’? Mac user; chocoholic. I have suggested a structure for the gospel and all of us are understanding the “texts” in light of the structure we have got, whatever the structure; these short texts are not just stand alone snippets. “The absolute authority afforded Jesus here fits most precisely the standard Jewish picture of God judging the nations in the day of judgement. The story takes place in Kritam, “probably the tiniest” of India’s 700,000 villages. He understood the conflicts between Indian culture and Western culture as few people did, because he had created a life for himself that forced him to move through both worlds. However your approach has also definitely picked who to help and potentially salved the conscience from having to respond to the needs in so many parts of the world. In each of the four repetitions in the dialogue, this list of six things gets slightly compressed at the end. Muni and his wife have not always been so poor. Hi Paul, Although, when all nations and peoples are gathered, so are all persons. The American, a businessman from New York City, lights a cigarette and offers one to Muni, who knows about cigarettes but has never had one before. _____. And all through Matthew’s Gospel we have seen the gospel bursting out beyond the in-group. Tyndale NT study group 2021: the later Pauline epistles, But as a complement to that, we need to note that the judgement doesn’t just take place on the grounds of whether people like us and help us, or not. Kain, Geoffrey, editor. The Biblical Ruth is loyal to her dead husband’s family; the Ruth in “A Horse and Two Goats” is loyal to her husband and stands by to prop him up when he is about to do something off-balance. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. But sheer common sense says we’ve drifted a long way from the plain sense of the passage, if we say it ‘really’ means faith / acceptance of truths about Jesus when it’s so clearly talking about acts of kindness towards a needy group (however we understand that group). things about village life in India from this story, it isn’t about Indian problems or about Indian sensibilities as such. Matthew could have made this much clearer. On what grounds do you think Jesus is suddenly changing the meaning ‘of these my brothers’? William Walsh has suggested it is a story about misunderstanding, a story about the gap between supposed and real understanding, a story about the element of incomprehension in human relationships. Yes, there is a constant danger from all sides of forcing scripture out of shape! 1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT I am not – I think – doubting the central character – Christ the King and Judge – though I think the focus is more on the judgement and those judged and so urging us to be in the right group when judgement comes as it were. At the end he seems to have temporarily escaped his money troubles, but his bad luck continues when his wife suspects him of thievery and threatens to leave. It’s also possible the ‘reward’is temporal rather than of an eternal nature? What does this text mean is asked in light of what does this text mean in its context in the larger piece. But this interpretation has only been around since around 1850 (which raises issues about how we should respond to ‘novel’ interpretations…) [note: I remembered this from some teaching on this I heard years ago, but a friend has pointed out that Aquinas’ Catena Aurea which compiles patristic comments on the biblical texts suggests that this might claim be wrong!] How do you do?” the American says in greeting, using his only Indian word. Matt 25.37 parallels this thought and its very language. As Craig Keener notes (Commentary p 602), in rabbinical parables, the figure of the king is nearly always God, and it is God’s role to exercise judgement over the nations. She works as hard as he does, or harder, getting up at dawn to fix his morning meal, and taking odd jobs at the Big House when their stores are low. through simple debt? Goats have a higher milk yield than sheep, and so the idea of the promised land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’ is actually most likely a reference to the benefits of a land where goats graze. We cannot give all the world the lifestyles we enjoy. Reading the text carefully in its cultural context actually drives us back to read the text itself more carefully. If we were to distribute the world’s wealth equally, what we would do is just add the middle-class westerners back to the land of suffering. The narrator describes Kritam’s erosion and Muni’s decline dispassionately, without regret; conversations between Muni and his wife, or Muni and the shopman, are told from Muni’s perspective, but with his calm acceptance of whatever fate brings him. Sorry if I’ve not got it clear. Sheep and goats are able to breed but often produce still-borne young. Moreover, Jesus is clear that to follow him means to be homeless; in reply to a teacher of the law who would follow him, Jesus replies: Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head (Matt 8.20 = Luke 9.58). This collection has received no formal criticism, but was reviewed in major American newspapers and magazines. Voices in the City (1965) Yet one or two works do stand out—like the novel The Guide (1958) and the short story “A Horse and Two Goats.” To many, Narayan is best known as the creator of Malgudi, one of literature’s most enduring and endearing fictional worlds, so it is somewhat ironic that “A Horse and Two Goats” is one of only a handful of Narayan’s stories not to be set in the brilliantly-realised world of Malgudi. Johnson, Gordon. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination process across the United States has been, to put it lightly, a hot mess. Those that were pro-Israel enter the earthly kingdom. 2. However, while I agree that following Jesus may often have meant (risking) the kinds of deprivation described (except in the rich West, as you say), the passage doesn’t speak of risking it, but experiencing it. . I think I would modify my comment on further reflection. Like my page on Facebook. In the Medieval Period, the narrow interpretation is found in Anselm of Laon, who says that “the least” are not the poor in general, “but only those who are poor in spirit who, having put aside their own will, do the will of the heavenly Father” (p. 168). Goats reproduce faster than sheep, and if a herdsman is going to keep his flock properly balanced, then as a matter of course he will need to cull the male kids (baby goats), since otherwise they will outnumber the sheep, and with too many males he will not have a supply of milk (a small herd would typically only need a couple of males). Muni launches into a long explanation of his innocence of whatever crime the man is investigating, and the American asks questions about the horse statue, which he would like to buy. "A Horse and Two Goats That seems to contradict Jesus’ words elsewhere, not to mention Paul. It reached an even wider audience in 1985 when it was included in Under the Banyan Tree, Narayan’s tenth and best-selling collection. Although no longer up to date, this is the most readable overview of Narayan’s life and work. It is a possible reading of the passage. . The attendance of ‘his angels with him’ is an allusion to Zech 14.5, there the ‘holy ones’ accompany Yahweh, ‘my God’. But is she? While this conflict may be painful at times, here he finds it merely amusing. I wonder if 25. the two, not only in the way neither understands the other’s language, but also in the absolute contrast of their cultural and economic backgrounds, emphasised by the way each values the clay horse. I can only get Nation/Them or Nations/Peoples from the text. Once he was prosperous, with a large flock of sheep, but a series of misfortunes have left him with only two scrawny goats. Muni remembers that in his youth he was often chosen for the women’s roles in the plays the community performed. The great Indian epics, composed approximately two thousand years ago, contain stories of several important female characters, including two that Muni mentions: the goddess Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, and Sita, wife of Rama. SOURCES Narayan takes great pains in the opening of the story to show how desperately poor Muni is, and to emphasize that even in his time of “prosperity” his standard of living was still greatly below that of most Americans. …I havn’t thought it through. Of course, the language barrier prevents him from receiving Muni’s interpretation, but it never even crosses his mind to ask. I can only assume that he was not alone in this among his contemporaries. In this speech, Muni comes as close as he ever will to stating the truth about wives: it may be annoying when they stay, but it is devastating when they leave. The uneducated Muni tries to tell him the significance of the horse statue, but the American sees it only as a living room decoration. “It’ll do you good.” Muni takes the goats to their usual spot a few miles away: a grassy area near the highway, where he can sit in the shade of a life-sized statue of a horse and a warrior and watch trucks and buses go by. On the other hand: do you think that the only ways someone could end up in prison was if they were either bona fide criminals or persecuted Christian missionaries? To welcome and help Jesus’ disciples was to welcome the message they brought. In other words, the focus is not on the different types of animals, but on the process of separation. He and his wife have no children to help them in their old age, so their only income is from the odd jobs his wife occasionally takes on at the Big House. All I am pointing out is that, whilst Jesus says a lot about that elsewhere, he is not talking about that here. What Does A Blinking Roku Light Mean,
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why are my goats dying
Posted By: February 11, 2021
If so, then at least in this case, the poor were broader than just needy Christians, and the sheep are those who are accepted by Jesus for their Godward heart and care for the poor, and who receive the gospel message that God sends to them, though not necessarily through the poor they are caring for. So what is going on? In practical terms, however, the life of a woman in India as recently as one hundred or two hundred years ago was almost unimaginable today, even in comparison to the restrictions placed upon American women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? As an Indian who writes only in English, Narayan himself has experienced the ways in which Indian and Western cultures conflict. “I get a kick out of every word you utter,” the American replies. In reply to “Matthew” who says “My main problem is the idea that Jesus appears to be talking about acts of kindness (to whatever group) but is ‘really’ talking indirectly about accepting the gospel message.” Fair comment. Notice that the key qualifier in Matthew 10.42 is “monon eis onoma mathetou”. The most common interpretation of the narrative allocates the people groups in the following way. He does, however, have an impressive amount of knowledge of the two major texts of his literary heritage, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which he has learned by acting in plays and by listening to speakers at the temple. His primary duty today is to “be careful not to argue and irritate” his wife, whom he seems to find unreasonable and difficult. He is not trying to show off; he simply accepts his wealth as his right. Thus Jesus shows he identifies so closely with his disciples that what people do to them, they do to him. And therefore how we might understand Jesus teaching in the passage in question? Yes, I am beginning to see that. Retrieved January 12, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/horse-and-two-goats. Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. These people receive the disciples of Jesus *as they are going about their business of proclaiming the kingdom in word and deed*. FURTHE…, American Horse A review of Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories, in Book World—The Washington Post, July 28, 1985, pp. “18 But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”. Why Are My Plant Leaves Turning Yellow? The story itself is very memorable; many years ago I learnt it by heart and performed it as the Bible reading in an all age service, and I noticed the four-fold structure of dialogue (the king to those on his right, their response, the king to those on his left, and their response), and the six experiences of the ‘least’ which are grouped into three pairs (hungry/thirsty; stranger/naked; sick/in prison). Women cook in clay pots over clay stoves, and the huts have no running water or electricity. “A Horse and Two Goats,” by R. K. Narayan appeared, in a somewhat different form, in The New Yorker in 1965. . For example when Saul (Paul) persecutes Christians. The beneficial actions of “the sheep” toward the oppressed brethren indicates receptivity to their Gospel message. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It is believed that the ancient Tamil societies may have been matriarchal, that is, ruled and guided by woman. DIED: 1916, Beaumont-Hamel, France At the end of Kali Yuga, this world and all other worlds will be destroyed, and the Redeemer will come in the shape of a horse.” The American replies, “I assure you this will have the best home in the U.S.A. I’ll push away the bookcase. What we don’t want is a sickly goat. ." The volume includes John Lowe’s interview with Narayan, in which the writer reveals himself to be strangely and fascinatingly uninterested in his own writing processes. Indian culture is more than five thousand years old. The shopman is a moody man who has given Muni food on credit in the past, but who has been pushed past his limit. 12 Jan. 2021 . Why then does Jesus appear to have a negative view of the goats in Matt 25? This restraint is important to the understated humor of the dialogue between Muni and the American; Narayan trusts the reader to interpret the absurd conversation without his having to say through his narrator, “Notice that this response has nothing to do with the question asked,” or “See the irony in this remark.” When the two men leave the place where they met, each taking away something of value, neither has been accused by the narrator—nor by the reader—of foolishness or evil. Is God a ruthless exploiter of our talents in Matthew 25? I think this passage is one of those that is claimed by both parties as it is seen as a key passage in how we interpret the wider implications of the gospel, whether the social engagement is core to our faith or an ethical addition (how I think some put it). Narayan was raised by his grandmother, who taught him the legends and stories from the traditional literature. Once, when he considered himself prosperous, he had a flock of forty sheep and goats which he would lead out to graze every day. Saros Cowasjee has edited two collections of Indian short fiction, Many critics have compared Narayan’s fictional town of Malgudi to, Published in 1924, before Indian independence from Great Britain, E. M. Forster’s, Considered the longest poem ever written, the. This passage has almost universally been read in the light of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matt 13:24–30, so that the emphasis of the contrast is between the good ones and the bad ones. The postman “does not speak to anyone at all nowadays. My concern is a big one. Muni also played the part of Sita, another incarnation of Lakshmi and the wife of Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Find the meanings for these terms from the story: Of his fourteen novels, Narayan has said that his own favorite is. She seems to be a good sport, to support her husband’s whims: “Next day she called the travel agent first thing and told him to fix it, and so here lam.”, Having a loyal, grounded wife gives each of the husbands the freedom to move out into the world. In the context of Ch 10 in which this is said, it could be argued those words primarily apply to the treatment of the original disciples whom Jesus sent out on a specific mission. Like South Africa, Indians found themselves governed by a white minority from another country and culture, whose governance was guided by racism and religious intolerance. First published in the Madras, India, newspaper The Hindu in 1960, “A Horse and Two Goats” did not achieve a wide international audience until 1970 when it became the title story of R. K. Narayan’s seventh collection of short stories, A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories. No sources cited, though. for independence from Great Britain, women were active leaders and participants in the long years of civil disobedience. R. K. Narayan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993. Goats are actually really hardy animals and if given the right diet and environment, can live a long, healthy life. He remembers that “he had thrashed her only a few times in their career.” The tone here is casual, without regret; thrashing is what husbands do when wives get out of line. Cultural Atlas of India, New York: Facts on File, 1996. 3 From 1871 Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, “Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible” prefaced by Herbert Lockyer this from Bible Study tools site: “The surprise expressed is not at their being told that they acted from love to Christ, but that Christ Himself was the Personal Object of all their deeds: that they found Him hungry, and supplied Him with food: that they brought water to Him, and slaked His thirst; that seeing Him naked and shivering, they put warm clothing upon Him, paid Him visits when lying in prison for the truth, and sat by His bedside when laid down with sickness. But even if it should be applied to all followers, including today, it is in the context of evangelism, thus implying those accepting and treating Jesus’ followers well because they are Jesus’ followers do so because they are accepting of the message they have brought, and shows at least the beginnings of faith. The story is seen as a fine example of Narayan’s dexterity in creating engaging characters and humorous dialogue, but it is not considered one of his greatest works. Adjunct Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod. Born: New York City, 20 December 1911. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction Muni’s wife has spent some sixty years with him (neither of them is sure about their ages), through prosperity and poverty. Muni responds with the only English he knows: “Yes, no.”. I do not think we should be troubled by the injustices and sufferings in the world. Rajam lived only five years as his wife, dying of typhoid in 1939. What he wanted to be was a writer. And on that day He would then separate the nations ” version unknown (You should try memorising and performing this reading—it makes it highly engaging for your audience, especially any sitting on your post-pandemic left!). The American’s wife’s name is Ruth, the name of an Old Testament figure who stands in Judeo-Christian tradition as a model for wifely loyalty. The gospel reading in the lectionary for the last Sunday before Advent (now known as ‘Christ the King’) is Matthew 25.31–46, the so-called ‘parable of the sheep and the goats’. First, he is the ‘Son of Man’, Jesus’ favourite self-description in the gospels, and a term primarily taken from Dan 7.13, where it refers to the vulnerable corporate figure of Israel, exalted to God in the face of the trampling beasts of the earlier part of the vision. I must have not activated the notifications when people reply to my comments (or I just missed it). Most critics find Muni’s wife cold and unsympathetic. I think he is equating nation states with sheep and goats. India was divided into two separate nations: India, a secular state populated mainly by Hindus, and Pakistan, a Muslim state. York and commutes from Connecticut, he is dressed in the khaki clothing worn by American tourists in the tropics. Jesus is making some truly astonishing claims here. That’s why today I’m going to give ya’ll a lesson on goat diseases, signs & symptoms, how to test from home, and hopefully, how to avoid them all together. But of course this is not enough to bridge the gap between this passage and the conservative understanding of salvation, as this would imply that people are saved based on their acts of kindness towards poor / suffering disciples. Muni reminisces about his difficult and impoverished childhood working in the fields, and the American laughs heartily. What do you think Jesus means when he says ‘If anyone gives you a cup of cold water because you are my disciples, he shall not lose his reward’? Mac user; chocoholic. I have suggested a structure for the gospel and all of us are understanding the “texts” in light of the structure we have got, whatever the structure; these short texts are not just stand alone snippets. “The absolute authority afforded Jesus here fits most precisely the standard Jewish picture of God judging the nations in the day of judgement. The story takes place in Kritam, “probably the tiniest” of India’s 700,000 villages. He understood the conflicts between Indian culture and Western culture as few people did, because he had created a life for himself that forced him to move through both worlds. However your approach has also definitely picked who to help and potentially salved the conscience from having to respond to the needs in so many parts of the world. In each of the four repetitions in the dialogue, this list of six things gets slightly compressed at the end. Muni and his wife have not always been so poor. Hi Paul, Although, when all nations and peoples are gathered, so are all persons. The American, a businessman from New York City, lights a cigarette and offers one to Muni, who knows about cigarettes but has never had one before. _____. And all through Matthew’s Gospel we have seen the gospel bursting out beyond the in-group. Tyndale NT study group 2021: the later Pauline epistles, But as a complement to that, we need to note that the judgement doesn’t just take place on the grounds of whether people like us and help us, or not. Kain, Geoffrey, editor. The Biblical Ruth is loyal to her dead husband’s family; the Ruth in “A Horse and Two Goats” is loyal to her husband and stands by to prop him up when he is about to do something off-balance. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. But sheer common sense says we’ve drifted a long way from the plain sense of the passage, if we say it ‘really’ means faith / acceptance of truths about Jesus when it’s so clearly talking about acts of kindness towards a needy group (however we understand that group). things about village life in India from this story, it isn’t about Indian problems or about Indian sensibilities as such. Matthew could have made this much clearer. On what grounds do you think Jesus is suddenly changing the meaning ‘of these my brothers’? William Walsh has suggested it is a story about misunderstanding, a story about the gap between supposed and real understanding, a story about the element of incomprehension in human relationships. Yes, there is a constant danger from all sides of forcing scripture out of shape! 1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT I am not – I think – doubting the central character – Christ the King and Judge – though I think the focus is more on the judgement and those judged and so urging us to be in the right group when judgement comes as it were. At the end he seems to have temporarily escaped his money troubles, but his bad luck continues when his wife suspects him of thievery and threatens to leave. It’s also possible the ‘reward’is temporal rather than of an eternal nature? What does this text mean is asked in light of what does this text mean in its context in the larger piece. But this interpretation has only been around since around 1850 (which raises issues about how we should respond to ‘novel’ interpretations…) [note: I remembered this from some teaching on this I heard years ago, but a friend has pointed out that Aquinas’ Catena Aurea which compiles patristic comments on the biblical texts suggests that this might claim be wrong!] How do you do?” the American says in greeting, using his only Indian word. Matt 25.37 parallels this thought and its very language. As Craig Keener notes (Commentary p 602), in rabbinical parables, the figure of the king is nearly always God, and it is God’s role to exercise judgement over the nations. She works as hard as he does, or harder, getting up at dawn to fix his morning meal, and taking odd jobs at the Big House when their stores are low. through simple debt? Goats have a higher milk yield than sheep, and so the idea of the promised land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’ is actually most likely a reference to the benefits of a land where goats graze. We cannot give all the world the lifestyles we enjoy. Reading the text carefully in its cultural context actually drives us back to read the text itself more carefully. If we were to distribute the world’s wealth equally, what we would do is just add the middle-class westerners back to the land of suffering. The narrator describes Kritam’s erosion and Muni’s decline dispassionately, without regret; conversations between Muni and his wife, or Muni and the shopman, are told from Muni’s perspective, but with his calm acceptance of whatever fate brings him. Sorry if I’ve not got it clear. Sheep and goats are able to breed but often produce still-borne young. Moreover, Jesus is clear that to follow him means to be homeless; in reply to a teacher of the law who would follow him, Jesus replies: Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head (Matt 8.20 = Luke 9.58). This collection has received no formal criticism, but was reviewed in major American newspapers and magazines. Voices in the City (1965) Yet one or two works do stand out—like the novel The Guide (1958) and the short story “A Horse and Two Goats.” To many, Narayan is best known as the creator of Malgudi, one of literature’s most enduring and endearing fictional worlds, so it is somewhat ironic that “A Horse and Two Goats” is one of only a handful of Narayan’s stories not to be set in the brilliantly-realised world of Malgudi. Johnson, Gordon. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination process across the United States has been, to put it lightly, a hot mess. Those that were pro-Israel enter the earthly kingdom. 2. However, while I agree that following Jesus may often have meant (risking) the kinds of deprivation described (except in the rich West, as you say), the passage doesn’t speak of risking it, but experiencing it. . I think I would modify my comment on further reflection. Like my page on Facebook. In the Medieval Period, the narrow interpretation is found in Anselm of Laon, who says that “the least” are not the poor in general, “but only those who are poor in spirit who, having put aside their own will, do the will of the heavenly Father” (p. 168). Goats reproduce faster than sheep, and if a herdsman is going to keep his flock properly balanced, then as a matter of course he will need to cull the male kids (baby goats), since otherwise they will outnumber the sheep, and with too many males he will not have a supply of milk (a small herd would typically only need a couple of males). Muni launches into a long explanation of his innocence of whatever crime the man is investigating, and the American asks questions about the horse statue, which he would like to buy. "A Horse and Two Goats That seems to contradict Jesus’ words elsewhere, not to mention Paul. It reached an even wider audience in 1985 when it was included in Under the Banyan Tree, Narayan’s tenth and best-selling collection. Although no longer up to date, this is the most readable overview of Narayan’s life and work. It is a possible reading of the passage. . The attendance of ‘his angels with him’ is an allusion to Zech 14.5, there the ‘holy ones’ accompany Yahweh, ‘my God’. But is she? While this conflict may be painful at times, here he finds it merely amusing. I wonder if 25. the two, not only in the way neither understands the other’s language, but also in the absolute contrast of their cultural and economic backgrounds, emphasised by the way each values the clay horse. I can only get Nation/Them or Nations/Peoples from the text. Once he was prosperous, with a large flock of sheep, but a series of misfortunes have left him with only two scrawny goats. Muni remembers that in his youth he was often chosen for the women’s roles in the plays the community performed. The great Indian epics, composed approximately two thousand years ago, contain stories of several important female characters, including two that Muni mentions: the goddess Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, and Sita, wife of Rama. SOURCES Narayan takes great pains in the opening of the story to show how desperately poor Muni is, and to emphasize that even in his time of “prosperity” his standard of living was still greatly below that of most Americans. …I havn’t thought it through. Of course, the language barrier prevents him from receiving Muni’s interpretation, but it never even crosses his mind to ask. I can only assume that he was not alone in this among his contemporaries. In this speech, Muni comes as close as he ever will to stating the truth about wives: it may be annoying when they stay, but it is devastating when they leave. The uneducated Muni tries to tell him the significance of the horse statue, but the American sees it only as a living room decoration. “It’ll do you good.” Muni takes the goats to their usual spot a few miles away: a grassy area near the highway, where he can sit in the shade of a life-sized statue of a horse and a warrior and watch trucks and buses go by. On the other hand: do you think that the only ways someone could end up in prison was if they were either bona fide criminals or persecuted Christian missionaries? To welcome and help Jesus’ disciples was to welcome the message they brought. In other words, the focus is not on the different types of animals, but on the process of separation. He and his wife have no children to help them in their old age, so their only income is from the odd jobs his wife occasionally takes on at the Big House. All I am pointing out is that, whilst Jesus says a lot about that elsewhere, he is not talking about that here.
