The Perils of 'Round John Virgin' and 'Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear'"
Communication is a wonderful invention. It has brought together such diverse personalities as rock musicians and dentists through unintelligible grunts. A dentist can understand every word you say even though your mouth has tooth parts flying in all directions, a grappling hook large enough to snag a whale is digging out leftover chicken between your teeth, and a sub-atomic vacuum, similar to those used to gut a mackerel, is sucking out all your bodily fluids.
To prove he understands you he keeps asking questions even though your gums are so dead your lower lip is scraping the floor. Wives, because of their exposure to rock musicians and dentists, are able to take this valuable information into the marital relationship and interpret their husband’s grunts. The conversation goes something like this – Unintelligible husband: “Honjye, whelkre is thke remtoe contolrr?” The patient wife hears “Honey, where is the remote control?” She then answers “It’s on the floor under your dirty socks.”
Another example of great communication happened in Colonial America, with the most notable incident involving Paul Revere and his midnight ride. That was when he gave the garbled and famously misunderstood message: “One in my hand, tooth in my seat.” One night Revere discovered some English grandmothers putting up vegetables in a cabin near Lexington. Known as a practical joker he jumped on his horse and started to ride like the wind, but he fell like a tree. his horse was still tied to the post.
After untying his horse, he remounted and rode away exclaiming, in a heavy “Bahston” accent, “The British are canning! The British are canning!” Well, the Minutemen had hearing problems from listening to their wives badger them about dirty socks on the floor. They misunderstood Revere, fired on a group of English dentists and the War for Independence (subtitled, The War for White Wigs and Tight Pants) was on.
We all chuckle when children tell us what they hear when they sing hymns in church. They hear “round John virgin” instead of “round yon virgin. They picture “gladly the cross-eyed bear” instead of “gladly the cross I’d bare.” We laugh at our children but we as adults sometimes do the same thing with the words of Jesus. In Matthew 6:33 he told us to “seek first the kingdom of God.” Do we really do that? Do we try to put the things of God first in our lives?
In Matthew 5:16, he tells us to “let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds.” In this case “men” means everyone, not just certain people. Do we let our light shine before everyone or just those we like? And in Matthew 23:12 Jesus says, “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Know any Christians who exalt themselves more than they humble themselves?
Why can’t we follow the words of Jesus? We know the ground is level at the foot of the cross, meaning Jesus died for everyone. But the ground is also level at the manger, meaning he was born and lived for everyone. Jesus loved people and he treated them all equally. Why can’t we do the shame? Excuse me – I meant to say “same.” It seems we’ve mastered the shame.