1 John 4:19-21

This is a modern parable. I have seen or heard several versions. In some, there are two rooms, side by side. In others, someone travels from hell to heaven or the other way. I have added a room.

In a vision, a woman was shown three rooms side by side. From one room came the sounds of moaning and groaning. Her guide pointed to that door. Hesitantly, she opened the door a crack and peeked inside.

She gasped, then turned to her guide. “What a gorgeous banquet table! It’s piled high with food. I can see salads, fruit, vegetables, meat, breads, … And oh! Look at the deserts!”

“Look again, please.” He pointed back into the room.

She did and gasped again, but for a different reason. “But nobody is eating! It looks like they haven’t eaten for weeks!”

She stepped closer to the table. “There aren’t any plates! Why?”

“The problem is not the plates.”

She took another hesitant step, but nobody paid an attention to her. “It’s the eating ware. It’s all really long, maybe three feet long?”

The guide nodded.

She watched as a person nearby reached his spoon into a bowl of pudding. Then he tried to turn it to his mouth.

“His arm’s not long enough,” the woman noted. Others were also struggling to eat the food at the end of their long utensils. Nobody succeeded.

She backed out of the room and heard laughter and singing coming from the second room. Expecting to be welcomed, she opened the door wide and walked in. People looked over at her and smiled.

She saw a similar table with salads, fruits, vegetables, meat, breads, and luscious deserts but no plates. This room, however, was bustling with activity.

She smiled back at her guide. “So this is how they do it?” T

The food was disappearing from the platters, as spoons and forks removed it to feed the person on the other side of the table. Everyone was eating by being fed by another.

Someone even reached a forkful of banana cream pie out to her. “Want to try it? It’s delicious.”

Smiling and opening wide, the woman accepted it. “Oh, my, yes. My congratulations to the cook.”

As she left the second room, her guide took her arm and led her to the third door. “Be careful,” he warned, as he held the door slightly ajar behind her.

Here the scene was different. She peeked in, then turned back to the guide. “But the food is overcooked, burned, moldy.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Look again.”

She did. The utensils were the same, long handles strapped to people’s arms, and the people were feeding each other. But she could see by their frowns and hear by the language they used that no one was happy. Anyone who noticed her sent her a glare of hatred.

She quickly escaped back into the hallway, and her guide closed the door. “What …?” she asked. “Why …?”

“Why the different food?” he finished her question. “The food comes from the same kitchen. It’s all the same when it reaches each room. But the anger and hatred in that room immediately turn it into what you saw. And they continue to feed each other on anger and hatred.”

“So how is that different from the first room?”

“In the first room, those people only care about themselves. They don’t see the pain of others and what they do to cause it. They are like the rich, young ruler who could not give up what he had to help others.” The guide hesitated.  “Some of them may figure it out. Sometimes they do.”

“In the second room, the feeders are happy to do what they can to help another. They see the need and respond to it. And they are fed by those they feed. Like Peter’s mother-in-law, after Jesus took away her fever, she got up and helped with feeding him and the disciples.

“But the third room?” The guide sighed. “It’s complicated. They divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ depending upon a lot of different factors: race, gender, sexuality, class, income, nationality, cultural backgrounds … I could go on and on.

“For some, it’s out of fear. They see the food as a finite amount. If someone else eats something, they lose. If someone else has more food, then they have less. And they are afraid of losing what they have.

“Greed does the same. Resources in this world are limited: clean water, breathable air, food, gas for their vehicles, health care. There is never enough for everyone, either privileges or money. They have to have all they can get.

“For others, it’s power, power over the rest of the world. They can only be on top if there are lessers below them. They gather others around them and give them just enough of what they want to keep to them in line.”

He led her over to a bench and they sat down together.

“The problem in the third room is that they feed each other their lies. They feed each other, not out of compassion, not to be helpful, but to keep what they have and make sure someone else doesn’t get any. Anyone who stands in their way, who disagrees with them, who is different must be scapegoated.”

“Scapegoated?” the woman asked. “I’m not sure what that means.”

The guide smiled. “In simplest forms, it’s what you do when you say it was your brother who broke the vase.”

Her face turned red. His smile faded.

“But it’s much more than that.

“In the Old Testament, people took a goat, cast their sins upon it, and the priest sent it off into the wilderness. When people repented, that was good because they felt forgiven for the things they knew they should not have done.

“But when they condemn other people, people who have done nothing wrong, then they grieve God. And history is full of it, from the very beginning. Since Adam and Eve. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve said it was the serpent.

 “Scapegoating divides people into those who are for us on one side and everyone else on the other. It causes wars, little ones and big ones. And it harms so many.”

He hesitated and then concluded, “It’s what killed Jesus. It’s what has martyred so many more.”

They sat silently for what seemed to the woman to be a long time. For her guide, it was just another piece of eternity.

Finally, he stood up, took her hand, and asked, “And have you learned something?”

General questions

1) How does this story follow its Scripture?

2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?

3) What is the message of this story?

4) How does the message apply to us today?

Specific questions

5) The guide told the woman that sometimes people in the first room figure out that helping others helps them. If only one person helps another, would someone reciprocate and help them?

6) What would it take to help people in the third room?

7) Can you name biblical people for each room? Do they stay in the same room? Do some move from the first or third into the middle room? Or out of the middle room?

8) For those who do move, what allows them to change?