Gazania

This is Gazania, a pleasant flower that seems common to New South Wales. It is named after Theodorus Gaza, a fifteenth-century Greek who found employment in Rome translating Greek classics into Latin. Pope Sixtus IV commissioned him to translate Aristotle, for a few of gold pieces. Unfortunately, he was insulted by the amount paid, and angrily threw the money into the River Tiber.

My mother once told me that she knitted a garment for a work colleague, which took a great many hours and tested her skill. No money was agreed beforehand, but the recipient gave her the equivalent of twenty pounds, which, like Gaza, created insult. It would have been better to have offered nothing at all and received it as a gift. And so with God. So many think they can buy His salvation and curry His favour with pious deeds, complicated ritual and verbose prayers. How insulted must the great God be that He could be bought with such tawdry trinkets and cheap ephemera. Salvation is given freely, or it is not given at all. Gazania’s other name is Treasure Flower. Some treasures are just too dear to buy.

Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient,

“The stone which the builders rejected

Has become the chief cornerstone” 1 Peter 2:7, New King James Version