Look at the birds of the air

Anyone remember the prophet Balaam? The story about him and his donkey? In the book of Joshua, Balaam was hired by the kings of the Canaanites to curse Joshua and the Israelite people, even though he wouldn't he still showed up when they called. So God sent an angel to kill Balaam but the donkey saw him and refused to move, so Balaam started beating him with a stick to get him to move. Then the donkey started talking to Balaam, asking him why he doesn't trust him and is abusing him in such a way. The angel then appears and tells Balaam that the donkey saved his life and Balaam repents his abuse of the donkey and his attending to the kings against Israel.

For most of us, our pets are not just like family, but are family. For some of us, we may even like our pets better than people and some family. They hold a very special place in our hearts and our lives. Even those of us who have raised chickens, sheep, goats, and other livestock cannot see them just as dumb animals. Each one, when we payed attention, have a distinct personality, some are calmer or agitated, shy or exuberant, curious or aloof. We can give God thanks for them in our lives and know that our quality of life has risen because they are in our lives.

There are stories about animals throughout the Bible, but they seem few and far between. Last week's creation story of the Garden of Eden comes closest to seeing animals as a part of creation as Elohim Adonai forms each animal from the clay and the Human One/Adam gives it a name, but the purpose of that was to find a helper and one was not found so God fashioned Eve out of the rib. In today's creation story of the seven days, it is much more of a ruler centered story where the king/God proclaims what is to be done and the work is carried out. No, rolling up the sleeves and getting down in the soil/humus. Even Jesus, in today's reading of part of the Sermon on the Mount, lifting up the birds of the air and the lilies of the field uses them as an illustration, a little bit inaccurate, to make a point to us humans, that they don't toil and God supplies what they need, so we should be more like them and not worry.

In much of the Bible, the world and all that is in it is centered on human beings. Though in the wilderness story of Jesus going out forty days, a reading with alternative punctuation would show that animals and angels attended to Jesus need. In our creation story today, we find that God creates the swarming fish, the flying birds, the herd-animals, and the things that crawl and are blessed by God and also told to be fruitful and multiply. But then, but then human beings are given dominion over them, and they become food after Noah's Ark from which they are saved from God's punishment of humans for our wickedness. It's a complicated relationship we have with the animals of the world through our religion. Being kosher was not just about what animals we could eat or can't eat, but the humane treatment of them, even as they are killed to become food for us.

If we are to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, it is that we should not be so anxious, though we shouldn't be. However, it is to remember that we are to work for our daily bread, not to work so that we have more than we need or to try to fill up on what we want. It is to recognize that the animals and plants of this world were also created, blessed, and given life by God, who supplies their needs by creating a world in which we live together and work together in harmony so each may compliment one another, not compete against one another. It is to value their place in God's creation and their rights to live are just as important as ours. Amen? Amen.

Nothing Outside Contaminates

First we start with the human traditions, not all of humanity, but Western civilization under the Doctrine of Discovery that basically states that any European explorer (especially from countries that were still Roman Catholic) coming upon any land and people that weren't Christian were able to claim the land and people in the name of their king and country. This created human traditions of enslavement and taking what isn't theirs which is still happening today in Sudan with diamonds, the Congo with lithium, and Palestine with natural gas. We continue to the 1980's were the wealthy were given massive tax cuts and the unions were routinely broken up and laws were put in place to make it very hard to create one in the 'Right to Work' states. Our human traditions have created once again a wealthy class that if they lost 90% of their wealth, they would still be the most wealthy people in the world. It probably started with philosopher Francis Bacon who helped begin th...

Selling Out

Last Fall, I read a book called, "A History of Burning." It is a multi-generational story about a family that migrates from India to Uganda for hopes for a better future to help the British build a railroad, whose children through education secures a government job, but then Uganda throws off their colonial oppressors and gains independence and turns against the Indians who live there, and they have to migrate again and start all over in Toronto, Canada. It is a sad story of colonial power of the British Empire bringing in foreign cheap labor to build their infrastructure that leaves out the local population. And once Uganda gets independence, the corporations still control much of the economy and fosters division between the Ugandans and Indian to keep the country unstable. It is a triumphant story of human determination in the face of adversity, but only a few make it. One of the first paragraphs in a Wikipedia search about Africa told me that Africa is politically unstab...

You Will Be My Witnesses

The first time I served communion as a licensed minister in Fargo, ND, I picked up the tray of cups and proclaimed, "This is the cup of the new covenant!" And then I remembered we serve the bread first, panicked, and said, "Which comes after the bread!" The next time, months later, I served communion, I took the cover off the communion cups, and the altar table was stone, and I timed it perfectly, and purely accidentally, so the cover spun on the table, and you would hear it go, "whew, whew, whew" faster and faster. Sitting near the front was a couple that worked closely with me in the youth groups, each time when I began and messed up, they were bent over, hands covering their faces, taking great humor in my mistakes. In my first church in Walker, MN I messed up just about every baptism, including one time putting the head right on my lavaliere mike and the baby started crying into mike, and I almost dropped the baby when switching it around in my arms....

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