The Thieves in the Kingdom

There once was a King. In his kingdom there were many villages, many people, many animals, hills, valleys, rivers, lakes and streams… Within this kingdom the King built an enormous house for his servants to live in. The house was beautiful and abundant, so far beyond mere sufficiency that there was room to spare in everyone’s living quarters. The only request that the King had was that while the servants lived there free of charge they run the Kingdom; gathering and grinding their harvest into bread, adding the leaven, waiting patiently for its rise, and producing enormous loaves to feed everyone in the kingdom without asking for additional payment in return, from him or from others…

The servants lived there happily, as the surrounding areas were not nearly as nice, either far too hot or far too cold. They lived there for many years but over time the house was over taken by robbers who would come periodically; taking what they wanted and leaving; coming and going when they felt the whim.

In time the robbers returned… But by the time they returned there was nothing left to steal and so the servants were confused at their presence. “You already have everything you could possibly want. All we have left here are scraps of food. What more do you expect to find by ransacking us again?”

But the robbers said that they were there to inform the servants of good news; that they no longer needed to live in these servant’s quarters; that they no longer needed to even work! “The king has now decided that you may live without doing any work unless you want to.”

“What do you mean?” the servants replied, “the King no longer wants us to work for him?”

“No, no, no! The king, of course would like to see you still devoted to him but there is no need to do so, he will not punish you if you do not work and you will be rewarded either way.”

This came as quite a shock to the servants. First of all the King had promised a very special son would come one day. This son would protect them from those who might harm them while they worked; people like the thieves… He would liberate them; saving them from oppression. But they had not met this son yet. Perhaps he was alive but it had not come to their attention if he was. Perhaps he was born and was growing to maturity. They had met many close to the King who they referred to as his sons. Yet, conversely, they had also met many imposters pretending to be the King’s son, it was in fact a common thing to hear from the deranged and from the charlatans who sought personal gain. Yet here was another one who they had not even heard of but from these robbers? It seemed difficult for them to believe on its own, and coming from these robbers it seemed a certainty that it was fabricated.

The servants were confused and ask about this. “How could this be? Why wouldn’t he be concerned with work being done? In the Kingdom there is always much work to be done or everything would fall into disarray and all would suffer.”

But the robbers explained that the King’s own son had done all of the work in the Kingdom and this was because he was so immensely powerful that he did it all in one afternoon and then died from exhaustion! However, they asserted, the King had used his royal power to magically raise his son back to life, never to need to work again either. It was only that he needed to do this work for everyone, just this one time, this one day and then no one actually needed to work again!

The servants however explain that they were not overworked; that they served the King not only because they loved the King but because the Kingdom itself is entrusted to them.

“When I work hard I benefit from it. I am not worked to death by the King, I work enough that my muscles grow stronger and I shed fat from my body. If working is no longer important for me then how could this be from the King? Does he want me to sit around and get fat and weak.”

The thieves replied: “No, no, no! You see, in the mansion there are weight rooms, gymnasiums… Just come with us and you will see. You can get strong and lean there! We all meet there every Sunday and workout a little before lunch. But there are some who like the weight rooms so much that they get very big and strong. We have teams for them to fight against one another in pretend battles and after we all gather on Sundays we have lunch and then watch them! It is so much better than this yolk of slavery that you have been bound to! Don’t you see that this is good news!?!”

Yet the people were still largely unconvinced… “But in the Kingdom we simply live our lives and are strengthened throughout the day with normal activities. Why bother with a gymnasium if your daily bread is gained through sufficient work to strengthen you?”

The thieves interrupted angrily: “Well if you do not come with us then your house will be destroyed and you will be left on the street!”

Another of the people retorted: “All of this because of the King supposedly wanting to work his son to death? This does not sound like our King; the King of our ancestors and the King that we know still today. He would not subject his son to death just to do our work! If the work was so great that he must die then he would first call upon his servants to share in the toil and then say ‘Look, my own son is working alongside of you so you know that there is no favoritism!’ He would not send he son to die so that we should recline on sofas all day, eating rich food and then forced to work off the excess in the gymnasium instead of in the fields, harvesting our own sustenance and playing ridiculous games of make believe battles while the kingdom lies in disarray! I believe that you have a different King than us, and that your king is not at all like our King. For starters, our King would never solicit robbers to command his own servants. What sign do you have from the King as authentication?”

The thieves replied: “We saw the sign of the King’s son in the clouds and it told us that we would be victorious in the slaughter our enemies! We then killed every last one of them just as the sign alluded and by this we know that we are the true servants of the King, his new chosen, and that the sign of the King for us is the sword stuck blade down in your fallen bodies.”

As they said this the people saw that they had been discussing all of this while others amongst the thieves had ransacked the kingdom and burnt the King’s own house to the ground…