THE RING OF TRUTH!

You will appreciate that I’m not really referring to the weather when I say that the other day, as I took a walk down along the Seine in between the downpours, it reminded me of the fifth day of Christmas. Why the fifth day, and not the fourth or the sixth or any other day, you might ask? Well, it was because of the Christmas carol that was brought to mind – you know the one – about the twelve days of Christmas! And it was on the fifth day that my true love gave to me “five golden rings”! It’s all well and good referring to Paris as the capital of romance, but the amount of ‘true loves’ offering me gold rings is becoming ridiculous!

I don’t know whether you have been subjected to the Paris Golden Ring scam yet, but if I had held on to all the ‘golden’ rings that have been found around my feet and offered to me by the kind person who spotted it before I did, at this stage I would be able to open my own plumbing store! No, I didn’t mean ‘jewellery’ – I meant ‘plumbing’ – because, despite their helpful efforts to point out to me the marking that ‘proves’ they are gold, these are in fact the compression rings used in joining copper tubing!

If these people only realised that they are in the halfpenny place when it comes to offering me riches! Hardly a week goes by but some poor distressed widow from some African country doesn’t offer me the millions that have been left by her kind-hearted, but sadly deceased, husband, who knows that I would use it to relieve the sufferings of the poor of the world. All I need do is send them details of my bank account and how it can be accessed, so that, ahem, she can transfer the money right away – yeh, right away from my account into her account! (I particularly like the versions that have my address, with the wrong street number, at the top, and explaining that, sadly, their efforts to contact me by post have been unsuccessful!)

Sadly, we live in a world full of con artists. Come to think of it, in view of all the other museums and art galleries here, I wonder if there’s a “Musée des Artistes Con” anywhere in Paris? Now, that I would find an interesting place to visit! There’s certainly a long history there, from the serpent conning Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, and Jacob conning Esau out of his heritage, etc. And they’ve obviously kept their art up-to-date, using the latest technology.

But one guy who wasn’t going to be conned was Thomas in our gospel today. He’s had a rather poor press over the years – to be called a “doubting Thomas” is not seen as a compliment! And yet we owe Thomas for exposing for us the greatest con of all, the one without which most others cons could not work. I’m referring to the false claim that doubting something shows a great lack of faith, of trust in people or in God. How often has that con been worked on us – “don’t question my authority, my integrity, my honesty, my competence …… in fact just don’t question me, you’re being a nuisance” – when our every instinct is telling us that not to question is simply the lazy or maybe cowardly way out! Thomas didn’t believe, so why should he say otherwise? It didn’t upset Christ. Why should it upset us? In fact, it sometimes takes a lot more faith to question – there’s an implied trust you will get the true answer!