The Gospel According to Beatrix Potter Part 2

Simpkin's story in The Tailor of Gloucester is about repentance.  The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck is about street smarts.  Street smarts, I contend, is a too-often-ignored Biblical principle.

Jemima is a duck who goes off in search of a place to hatch her eggs.   She runs into a fox, who shows her a wonderful place, perfect in every way.  "He was mighty civil and handsome" thought Jemima trustingly.  The reader can easily imagine his real intent, but Jemima is clueless. 

Fortunately the collie dog Kep, seeing Jemima go off every day to lay an egg in this "perfect" spot, gets suspicious.  He stages an invasion with a group of eager, if clumsy, young dogs. They make short work of the fox and save Jemima. 

The eggs, however, are a loss--the eager, inexperienced puppies gobble them up.

It doesn't seem at first glance to be close to anything about Jesus.    But that's because we've edited out so much of his personality.   His tough street smarts and party-animal nature, documented in the Bible (you do remember when he made wine, it was good wine?) do not come across in the portraits of the gentle-looking hippie holding the lamb.

But what about this Jesus--"Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."?   We're so focused on being Innocent, and Good, and Gentle, we don't ask--"Wise as serpents?  Really?"  In another place, Jesus tells a crowd concerning Herod:  "You tell that old fox ... "  Jesus knows, in Paul's words, what time it is.  He knows what Herod's up to and he knows that evil and conniving are rampant.  He knows that just because somebody is "mighty civil and handsome" does not mean they are up to any good.  Watch out, he says. 

I think a lot of very earnest people, Christian and not, are like Jemima--shocked and surprised by evil, trusting foxes.  The tragic thing--the thing I learned the hard way--is that when we go around like Jemima, all trusting and naive and innocent, we don't just harm ourselves, we harm our vulnerable loved ones.  Jemima escaped the effects of her naivete, but her eggs did not.

Kep is my hero.  I want to be more like him.  Keeping my eyes open to treachery, which doesn't only exist in barnyards--it is everywhere, in churches, schools, hospitals, communities.  "Where are you going every day, Jemima?"  Wise as a serpent, that dog.