When God Hid in a Barrel

Based on Luke 14:1, 7-14 – Jesus invites the marginalised to the table.

Alex had taken the job for the money. It was meant to be a simple week’s work on the other side of the divide, a project worth enough to make the risk of travelling into militia-controlled territory seem tolerable. Crossing the border the first time had been easier than he expected. A few questions, a flash of the right documents, and he was through. He told himself he would keep his head down, do the work, and return home before anyone noticed.

But the week stretched long, the sound of gunfire never far away. Each night, he lay on a borrowed mattress, telling himself he had chosen wisely by staying instead of commuting. He worked quickly by day and counted the money in his head by night, a rhythm that made sense until the morning his papers went missing.

He had placed the envelope beside his chair at a café while eating bread and olives. When he reached for it, only crumbs remained. Panic punched through him. Without those papers, he was nobody. He sprinted out to the street, scanning alleys, until he caught sight of a boy darting between carts with the envelope tucked under his arm.

Alex chased him through the market, weaving between baskets of figs and barrels of pickled vegetables. The boy was quick, but not careful. A stall toppled in his wake, spilling lentils across the stones. Alex gained ground as the boy disappeared around a corner.

When Alex rounded it, silence met him. Empty street. No boy. He searched desperately until he noticed the lid of a barrel trembling slightly. He yanked it open, and there he was: wide-eyed, crouched, clutching the envelope to his chest.

“Nowhere else to run,” Alex said, breathless. “What’s your name?”

The boy’s grin broke through the fear. “Mowgli.”

It wasn’t his name, Alex was sure, but it fit. There was something feral about him, like he belonged more to the streets than any household.

Alex held out his hand. “The papers.”

Mowgli clutched them tighter. “Trade.”

They stared at each other until Alex, exasperated, dug into his pocket and produced the last sweet from his travels, a wrapped piece of chocolate. Mowgli’s eyes lit up. He dropped the envelope into Alex’s hand and snatched the sweet with the reflex of a bird.

That was the beginning.

Over the following days, Mowgli appeared wherever Alex went. Sometimes trailing behind, sometimes at his side, sometimes vanishing entirely for hours before re-emerging with a sly smile and a story about slipping past guards or swiping fruit from a cart. He treated survival as a game, though Alex could see the edge beneath the laughter. The boy was alone, resourceful, and always planning an escape route—like the barrel, which he later admitted was one of many bolt-holes prepared for emergencies.

Alex found himself sharing meals, small coins, and eventually conversation. He asked why Mowgli stole. The boy shrugged. “Because I can. Because no one else will give.”

The project finished. The money was earned. All Alex had to do was make it back across the border. He expected Mowgli to vanish when he packed his bag, but instead the boy tagged along, skipping stones on the roadside and pointing out back ways around checkpoints.

At the crossing, tension hung thick. Crowds pressed forward, documents clutched like lifelines. Soldiers barked orders, rifles slung loose but ready. Alex kept his eyes forward, rehearsing his answers, when he noticed an old man ahead struggling with a cart piled with sacks of grain. Each step seemed to buckle his legs, and guards shouted at him to move faster.

Alex told himself it wasn’t his problem. His only task was to get through. But then he glanced sideways. Mowgli stood nearby, watching. Not grinning this time, not playful, just watching.

Before he could second-guess himself, Alex stepped from the line. He grabbed the cart’s handles and pushed, the weight nearly toppling him. The old man gasped in surprise, then stumbled beside him as they heaved forward together. Guards barked but, seeing the load shift, let them pass. By the time they reached the front, Alex’s arms shook, but the old man managed to push on alone.

Mowgli slipped close and whispered, “You didn’t have to.”

“Maybe I did,” Alex replied, though he wasn’t sure what he meant.

As Alex reached the last checkpoint, the soldier barely glanced at his papers. He could have sighed with relief and hurried on, but instead, he paused when he saw an old woman struggling with her sack of flour. Without thinking, he set his own bag down and carried hers to the other side. She didn’t thank him — just nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Walking away, Alex wondered if the job had been worth the trouble — the bribes, the sleepless nights, the hiding, the risks. Would he accept another project from the same town or company and go through all this again? He didn’t have an answer. But he thought of Mowgli’s grin in that barrel, of strangers who had offered food, of hands that reached out when they had no reason to. And Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, in the least expected places, he had stumbled on a feast far greater than money could buy.

When God Hid in a Barrel

Based on Luke 14:1, 7-14 – Jesus invites the marginalised to the table.

Alex had taken the job for the money. It was meant to be a simple week’s work on the other side of the divide, a project worth enough to make the risk of travelling into militia-controlled territory seem tolerable. Crossing the border the first time had been easier than he expected. A few questions, a flash of the right documents, and he was through. He told himself he would keep his head down, do the work, and return home before anyone noticed.

But the week stretched long, the sound of gunfire never far away. Each night, he lay on a borrowed mattress, telling himself he had chosen wisely by staying instead of commuting. He worked quickly by day and counted the money in his head by night, a rhythm that made sense until the morning his papers went missing.

He had placed the envelope beside his chair at a café while eating bread and olives. When he reached for it, only crumbs remained. Panic punched through him. Without those papers, he was nobody. He sprinted out to the street, scanning alleys, until he caught sight of a boy darting between carts with the envelope tucked under his arm.

Alex chased him through the market, weaving between baskets of figs and barrels of pickled vegetables. The boy was quick, but not careful. A stall toppled in his wake, spilling lentils across the stones. Alex gained ground as the boy disappeared around a corner.

When Alex rounded it, silence met him. Empty street. No boy.

Continue reading the full story here.