JT walked all that day and the rest of the week until he came upon another town. It was unlike any town he had ever seen. There were dumps in between all the houses. At a distance it looked like a normal town, however the closer JT came, the worse it began to smell.

There were some people who walked around town with bags in their hands, held right before their noses. Others wore bags around their necks and seemed to be constantly sniffing them as they went about their business.

When JT entered the town walls the stench became stronger and stronger. He saw people leaning out of upper story windows and tossing buckets of produce and other undefinable things onto these tall piles of garbage.

A finely dressed, but quite dirty gentleman came up to JT and asked, “Why do you smell so badly?”

JT looked at him and replied, “I took a bath yesterday, I don’t smell bad.”

“Don’t argue with me young man, you don’t have one of these,” and with that he held out a little bag about the size of an orange that smelled strongly of perfume.

“What is that?” JT asked.

“Why that is a sachet, everyone has them.” The man replied haughtily. He held it up to his nose. With that he walked off to a nearby house and entered it with his muddy boots and dirty clothes. JT had to watch carefully where he walked so that he would not step into piles of extremely smelly, but unidentifiable piles of garbage.

JT wore clean clothes and shoes, yet he could see if he stayed in this town very long he wouldn’t stay clean.

“You there,” a richly dressed lady called out to him. “How dare you walk about in our town without a sachet? Do you think we want to smell you???” 4 men behind her in extremely dirty clothes nodded in assent.

JT saw that their shoes and stocking we covered in whatever had been thrown on the ground and yet they were calling him dirty. “You are the one who are dirty, not me.” JT exclaimed in defense.

“Sheriff, sheriff, arrest this vagrant, he is insulting our noses and making us sick with his stench.” JT started walking away from the lady and he entourage, but they continued to follow him calling out for the sheriff. An extremely dirty man came out of an alley with some other men stepping right through one of the piles of garbage.

“Young man, is it true that you have been harassing the mayor’s wife?” He stood there looking at JT, tapping his foot and peering at him very sternly over his filthy beard.

“Sir, I was defending myself when they called me dirty.” JT plaintively replied.

“You smell funny, and you don’t have a sachet, which is required by city ordinance. I’m afraid; I am going to have to throw you in jail unless you apologize right now!” The sheriff stated indignantly with his arms crossed.

“MiLady, I am very sorry that I offended you, I did not mean to do so.” JT said to the mayor’s wife with a deep bow. The mayor’s wife and her friends moved closer and he started to gag because they smelled so bad.

“There he is again, insulting us sheriff, take him away this minute.” With that, the mayor’s wife and her entourage flounced away in a huff.

The sheriff looked at JT and said quietly, “You can either leave town now, or go to jail.”

“I’d rather leave if you don’t mind,” and JT quickly turned on his heel and left the small town behind as quickly as possible.

QOTD: What scripture does this illustrate?

Is it possible to judge someone more harshly when your own house is not in order?

The answer to last weeks’ story: Jesus Trek – 7 – The Right Way (Matthew 5: 43-48)

To read the introduction to this story series please click HERE