Three Men "a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim" in a Pit
by Bento Leal (9 September 2004)
Now it came to pass in the hills of Judea that three men
"a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim" who were travelling separately,
fell one by one into a pit from which they could not escape.
They were both outraged and fearful at their plight,
but even more so that they were trapped in the pit with each other,
whom they had distrusted and disdained from time immemorial.
Each man shouted and called out for help, but nobody heard them.
They cried out to their God for aid, but none came.
Angry and frustrated, they sat in the hole each muttering to themselves.
The night passed coldly, and the only thing that kept them warm
was the heat of the argument of each man's faith railing against the other two.
After several hours of acrimony, they finally fell asleep "shivering alone"
then awoke at dawn as the sun broke above them.
Again, they called out into the morning air as loud as they could, but no one came.
So they just sat there, grumbling to themselves,
with no idea of how, when or if they might be saved.
About midday, a man from the east came upon the scene and peered down into the hole.
The men were overjoyed that someone had finally appeared.
They looked up at the man but couldn't see his face as the sun shone brightly about him.
He asked the men what had happened.
They each replied that they had been travelling alone, fell into the pit and could not get out.
The man paused for a moment in silence and then told them that he would lower three ropes:
one for each of them. Then tying the end of each to a rock, he lowered the ropes one by one.
The Jewish man's rope was thick, yet slippery to hold.
The Christian's rope was strong but too thin to grasp.
The Muslim's rope was knotted but fragile and easily broken.
The man from the east then said, "Your unity will save you," and then he left.
The men mocked each other's rope thinking they had the better.
To prove their point and escape the pit, they each immediately struggled to climb out.
The Jewish man grabbed his thick rope but it was too slippery for him to climb,
and he fell back to the ground each time he tried.
The Christian man couldn't grasp his thin strong rope with his hands no matter how hard he tried.
The Muslim man grabbed his knotted rope but the bottom piece broke off in his hands.
The men were even more enraged at their predicament than ever
and cursed the visitor for having lifted their hopes and then abandoning them to this awful fate.
Resigned, they sat on the ground and looked at their ropes in frustration and despair believing all was lost.
Then suddenly, as if by some divine command, they each came to the same realization:
there was a way out after all.
They looked at each other, dropped their countenance of anger and resentment,
and then humbly motioned to each other to get up and move toward their individual ropes.
Then standing side by side with their ropes in their hands,
they began to braid the ropes together, each man putting one hand over the other's,
until finally all three ropes had been braided into a single thick, strong, knotted rope!
With smiles on their faces, they tied off the bottom, gave a strong, unified tug,
and then proceeded to climb up the newly-formed rope one by one and out of the pit.
Once out of the hole, they embraced each other and danced with joy,
their differences melted in their excitement of having been freed.
"Praise the Lord! Thanks be to Yahweh! Allah is great!" they cried,
"We're saved! We're saved!"
"Our communities have missed us," said the Jewish man,
"and surely must be worried about our fate.
Let us return to our villages at once to embrace them and calm their fears."
"Yes," said the Christian man, "and let us have a celebration banquet together!"
"Indeed," said the Muslim man, "let us do so at once!"
They re-embraced as brothers and hurried off in separate directions to their villages.
When they each arrived at their village, the men were greeted with hugs and shouts of joy.
Tears streamed down their faces. The men told the story of their plight and how they were saved.
The villagers were amazed.
The next day the men and their villagers gathered as planned at the site of the pit
to have their celebration feast with all the delicacies each village had prepared.
At first, the villagers of each man felt uncomfortable joining with the villagers of the others,
but the men stood and addressed the crowd saying,
"Too long we have looked upon each other with enemy eyes and hearts.
How this has pained both God and ourselves and cost us many years of knowing and loving each other.
As the sons and daughters of Abraham, let us weave a new bond of heart and
mutual respect for each other and become as mighty and strong as the rope that saved our lives!"
All agreed.
With that, the villagers commingled and shared each other's delicious foods in a tapestry of warmth and fellowship.
Toward the end of the banquet, the man from the east reappeared in the distance.
The three men shouted with joy and rushed to meet and embrace him.
The villagers followed and surrounded them all.
The three men told the crowd of this man's special and wise assistance
saying that he had saved them, but the man from the east responded,
"I merely gave you the ropes; it was you who wove them together and saved yourselves."
No one disagreed.
With that, the men and all the villagers celebrated the beginnings of a newfound love and respect
for each other and resolved to focus on those things that bound them together,
and where there were any disagreements to discuss and
work through those differences as members of the same extended family.
It was a new dawn that day.
The pit that had been their hole had actually become their salvation.
They all prayed to God with new hope that an era of peace might finally come
and have a chance to take root, blossom and flourish in the land.
And they now knew well that the prospects for creating such a peace lay squarely in their hands.