This parable is for kids, just for fun. It is not connected to a particular scripture text, but you can probably think of some that are well represented by this story.
Once upon a time, there was a very poor prince. He could not afford to do the things that other princes did, or to buy the things that other princes bought. In fact, he just barely had enough to eat and to pay the rent on his castle. And he would not have had that if it were not for the good and generous King, who lovingly forgot to collect the taxes due for the last ten years.
It was grocery day, and the Poor Prince was counting his money to see if he would have enough for both the groceries and the rent. He began to pray to God for help when he realized that there was not enough money for both. As he prayed he heard a knock on the castle door.
“God has answered my prayers,” the Poor Prince thought as he ran to open the door.
But it was only the Old Gardner who used to care for the castle’s gardens. The Poor Prince had fired him to save the money.
“Master, my family is hungry,” he said, “and I have no job. So I came hoping that you could pay me some of the back wages that you still owe me so that I could buy a bit of food for them.”
“Are you kidding,” the Poor Prince moaned, “I don’t even have enough to pay the castle rent and buy my own groceries.”
The Old Gardner sadly went back to his home in the village. The Poor Prince went back to praying to God for help.
The Poor Prince often prayed to God asking for more money, but God never gave it to him. This seemed unfair to the Poor Prince, since God helped all the other princes.
“If God is really so loving, as everybody claims, why won’t God help me?” the Poor Prince thought to himself.
As he thought about this, he began to get really angry with God.
“If you are so wonderful, God, why won’t you give me more money? I am sick of being so poor! I am sick of the tiny little bit of money that you give me! And I’m sick of you! I’m through begging! So don’t give me any more money, because I don’t want anything more to do with you or your puny little hand-outs! I am going to get rid of the last little bit I have, and then I will starve to death. And it is going to be your fault, God!”
That same day, the Poor Prince gathered up the money he had been counting for buying the groceries and paying the castle rent. He went out, and gave all of it to a blind beggar selling pencils. Then he went home to starve to death.
The Poor Prince sat in his empty kitchen looking at all the bare cupboards. There was not a morsel of food in the whole castle, and he was beginning to get hungry. But he was determined not to use anything that God had given him.
As he sat there thinking about how determined he was, the Poor Prince remembered the money he had saved for a rainy day.
“No! I don’t want anything that God has given me!” the Poor Prince yelled.
He ran upstairs as fast as his legs could carry him. There way in the back of his bedroom closet were a few coins sitting on an empty chest. The Poor Prince counted them.
“Only seventy-seven cents,” the Poor Prince mumbled to himself. “I know that there was seventy-eight cents here the other day. One must have fallen behind this empty chest.”
He felt around the chest looking for the lost penny, determined to get rid of everything that God had given him. When he still could not find it, he tried to move the chest out of his way, but it would not budge.
“I thought this chest was empty,” the Poor Prince thought to himself, “but if it were empty it would not be so hard to move.”
So he lifted the lid of the chest to see what could be inside it. Jewels, thousands and thousands of them began falling out of the chest! Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and all kinds of other jewels, fell in a big pile in front of the chest. There were so many, they nearly buried the Poor Prince’s feet!
“Aaaaaaaggg!” the Poor Prince screamed. “This is terrible! This is awful! I don’t want these jewels! I don’t want anything from God! I’m going to die of starvation, and God can’t stop me!
So the Poor Prince gathered up every diamond and ruby, every emerald and pearl, every single jewel, and put them all back into the chest. Then with great effort, he loaded the heavy chest onto an old wheelbarrow, and started out of the castle and into the village at the bottom of the hill. He went straight to the Old Gardner’s hovel.
When the children of the Old Gardner opened the door, the Poor Prince gave all three of them a heaping handful of jewels.
“Here’s your father’s back wages,” the Poor Prince said.
Then he gave them each three more heaping handfuls of jewels. And when the Old Gardner and his wife came to the door, the Poor Prince also gave them each heaping handfuls of jewels.
When the Poor Prince went back to the chest in the wheelbarrow, it was still incredibly full of jewels. It was as if he had not given away any jewels at all. So he went through the whole village leaving a handful of jewels at the door of each hovel and shack.
As he did this the Poor Prince was a little surprised at how many people lived in the village, and at how terribly poor they all seemed to be. He had never noticed it before. Even more surprising to the Poor Prince were the jewels that lasted and lasted until he had gone to the very last door in the village, and then suddenly there were no more jewels. The chest was finally empty.
The Poor Prince then returned to the castle thinking, “I have given away all that God has given me, even the jewels I didn’t know I had. Now I will die and God will be sorry that he has always kept me so poor.”
As he got ready for bed, the Poor Prince noticed the seventy-seven cents that he had forgotten when he found the chest of jewels. But he was just too tired to do anything with it, and went on to bed.
“I will give it away in the morning,” the Poor Prince wearily thought. “I do not want anything that God has given me……….zzzzzzzz.”
Early the next morning, the Poor Prince was awakened by knocking at the castle door. He slowly got out of bed, and opened the door.
“Greetings from the King!” proclaimed the King’s messenger. “The King has heard of your great generosity to the villagers, and wants you to know that the news has made him very happy. Because of this, he has sent me to inform you that he has cancelled all you owe on back taxes, and all future taxes on you. You will live tax free to the end of your life! And… at this very moment, this castle and all the land around it is being deeded over to you. Congratulations! You are rich!”
“Oh no,” the now Rich Prince, who used to be the Poor Prince, whimpered, “the King is in cahoots with God. They are both trying to make me rich against my will.”
The Rich Prince was about to give in, but then he got an idea. He immediately left for the Old Gardner’s house, forgetting to even change out of his pajamas.
When the Rich Prince reached the Old Gardner’s house, the gardener and his family were eating a luscious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage links, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and cinnamon muffins, with glasses of orange juice and milk to wash it all down.
“Your Highness!” the Old Gardener’s wife called out when she saw the Rich Prince. “God bless you, sir!” called the Old Gardener.
“Come join us for breakfast,” his wife added.
The Rich Prince hungrily sat down to eat, but then he jumped up again when he remembered how determined he was to starve to death.
Thinking they were working with the King and God, trying to trick him into not starving to death, the Rich Prince was determined not to fall for their deceit. “I’m sorry, but I do not have time to eat,” said the Rich Prince to the Gardener and his wife. “I came to give you ownership of my castle. Get a pen and paper, and I will put it all in writing.”
Looking surprised and confused, the Old Gardener did as he was told. As the Old Gardener went searching for a pen and paper, his littlest daughter pulled on the Rich Prince’s sleeve and said, “I like your new clothes. They look just like pajamas.”
“Here’s paper,” the Old Gardener broke in. “We do not have a pen, but we just bought several pencils from a blind man.”
“A pencil will be fine,” answered the Rich Prince.
“Before you start writing, sir,” said the Old Gardener, “you should know that my wife and I cannot possibly accept the deed to your castle. You have done too much for us already, and the castle is your home.”
“What if I order you to take it?” asked the Rich Prince.
“You could put me in jail, sir. You could lock me in stocks. You could even cut off my head. But there is no way that anyone can force me to do anything to hurt you,” answered the Old Gardener. “You have saved the lives of my hungry family, and I cannot thank you enough.”
“It’s you again, isn’t it God!” shouted the Rich Prince as he shook his fist toward the sky.
“There is one little thing that you could do for me, sir,” the Old Gardener meekly said. “You could sell me a little piece of land for a garden of my own. I have always dreamed of having a little garden behind my house. But don’t worry, I will always take the best care of your gardens as long as I live.”
“It’s yours!” said the Rich Prince, and he quickly took out his map of the castle grounds, land that he now owned, thanks to the King and God. He marked out a section which included the Old Gardener’s hovel and the land around it. Then he wrote out a deed, and gave it to the Old Gardener and his wife.
Without a word, the Rich Prince ran to the next hovel, and the next, and the next. Every family in the village received a section of land for their own, but none of the villagers would let the Rich Prince give them the deed to his castle. He even tried to write the castle into the small print of the deed he gave to Widow Gump, a woman with very poor vision. But her son read the deed, and she chased after the Rich Prince, and tore up the deed right in front of him. He quietly gave her a new deed, with no small print and no castle as part of it.
The Rich Prince was so tired when he got back to the castle, that he was glad that he had not changed out of his pajamas, because he was too tired to do anything but just fall into bed.
The Rich Prince wanted very much to sleep, but being so hungry was keeping him awake. So he decided to try to think of a way to get rid of the castle the next day. If he could not give the castle away, perhaps he could sell it by advertising it in one of the big city’s newspapers.
“Yes, that’s what I will do,” thought the Rich Prince. “I’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning. Then I will die a poor man, and God will be sorry that he has always kept me so poor.”
It was late the next day, when the Rich Prince was awakened by the growling of his stomach. “Wow! Am I ever hungry!” he said to himself. “I never knew it hurt this much to be hungry, but just the same, God cannot make me eat. I am going to die by starvation, and by the way I feel my plan is starting to work.”
The Rich Prince got out of bed, and went downstairs to his dining room to write out the notice for advertising the sale of his castle. “AAAAAAAAAGGG! No! No! Take it away!” begged the Rich Prince. People from the village were bringing breakfast for the Rich Prince. His dining table was already piled high with every kind of breakfast food you could imagine. There were: forty-six bowls of different types of cereal; plus twelve kinds of hot oatmeal, wheat and rice dishes; eggs fried, scrambled, over-easy, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached, western style, eggs benedict, and at least twelve different kinds of omelettes; fritters were fried in apple, peach, pear, pineapple, corn, and watermelon flavors; there were seventy-three different flavors of pancakes and crepes, in every flavor from blueberry to bubblegum; French toast, Texas toast, cinnamon toast, and regular toast with fifty-one different jams and jellies, as well as twenty-two tubs of fresh butter. There were Belgian waffles, Norwegian waffles, sugar waffles and regular waffles, all with sixteen different types of syrup. There were breakfast rolls, sugar rolls, pecan rolls, walnut rolls, turnovers, flips, twists, snaps, and monkey-bread. Coffee cakes, breakfast cakes, cobblers and up-side-down cakes were all present in great variety. Fruit plates contained every kind of fruit, berry and nut known to grow anywhere nearby and far away. Pitchers were piled everywhere with orange, grape, apple, apricot, pineapple, grapefruit, pear, peach, blueberry, cherry, strawberry, elderberry, and raspberry juices. Fresh-brewed international coffees in all kinds of flavored lattes, mochas, and frapes sat steaming in their pots. Forty-six flavors of hot teas sat whistling in their pots. Fourteen gallons of flavored hot chocolates and sixty-one gallons of milk, some flavored with chocolate, strawberry, eggnog and, yes, even one peanut-butter-and-jelly flavor, and at least six huge pitchers of milk fresh from neighborhood cows. And did we mention all the various cuts of bacon, sausage, steak and breakfast fish? How about the seventeen types of biscuits with thirty-one types of gravy? Anyway, let’s just say the Rich Prince’s table was full of food and drink.
The Rich Prince, hungry as he was, saw it all, smelled it all, and drooled over it all. Then he turned and ran as fast as he could go out the castle door, and ran right into a cow. He bounced back, and fell on the dirt road.
From his seat on the road, the Rich Prince looked around and saw a whole herd of cows, and a great many people carrying more breakfast foods. And everyone he saw was dressed in pajamas, all but the King’s messenger.
“Sir,” the King’s messenger said to the Rich Prince, “his majesty has sent this herd of cows for you to give to the villagers. He is also having a deed drafted to give you ownership of the river valley where the cows can graze. Sheep and goats will be coming tomorrow, as soon as the King puts the Twin Mountains in your name so they have a place to graze too. And may I say that the King is very pleased with what you are doing.”
“Sir,” interrupted the Old Gardner, “the people of the village are so thankful for all your help that they wanted to do something for you. So everybody brought a bit of something for your breakfast, and while you eat we will till your gardens and paint your castle. What color would you like? Royal Blue? How about Purple Majesty?
“Sir,” interrupted the Blind Beggar, “I believe you are the Very Rich Prince who gave me money earlier. I used your money to buy twelve thousand pencils, and the villagers all bought some with the money from the jewels you gave to them. Now I have enough profits that I can open a small office supply store in our village, and I will still have enough left to return the money you loaned me.”
Then he gave back the money that the Very Rich Prince had given to him earlier, as the Very Rich Prince stood mumbling something about, “I gave that money to you. I didn’t loan it to you.” But the Blind Beggar had already left to open his new office supply store.
“Sir,” called a villager from the castle doorway, “you should get started on breakfast now, because the villagers will be bringing your lunch in thirty minutes.”
“I’m giving up, God!” said the Very Rich Prince. “I do not understand, but I give up! You have always kept me so poor, why are you dumping all these riches on me now, when all I want is to starve to death penniless?”
Then there was a rumble in the sky, and the wind began to blow. And a rich, full voice that everyone recognized as God’s answered the Very Rich Prince saying, “Everything in the world belongs to me. What people claim to own is only borrowed from me. Everything I lent to you in the past, you always kept for yourself. So, I only lent you what you absolutely needed to stay alive. Now, everything I lend to you, you quickly give away to others. So, I am lending you much more so that you can use it to help others. This is what I want all my people to do.” And God said no more.
“Well,” said the Very Rich Prince, “I cannot possibly eat all that breakfast by myself! Come on, everyone, let’s all eat!”
Never before in God’s eyes had such a marvelous breakfast been enjoyed by so many marvelous people. Although it was a little strange to see so many people still in their pajamas, but the Very Rich Prince had unknowingly started a new fad when he had hurried around the village the day before. Now everybody loved him so much, they all wanted to dress like him too.
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
