Chickens.
My daughter keeps a little flock of these gentle creatures.
The little flock is cooped at night where they are protected from the
assortment of wild animals that inhabit the woods that surround us – the foxes,
coyotes, opossums, and owls that do their nocturnal hunting after the sun goes
down.
The little flock is turned out during the day to scratch and
forage for bugs and such.
These are a particularly gentle breed. Watching them scratch
and forage is always a source of amusement for us. We do have to be mindful of
leaving doors open or they will accept them as opportunities to follow us
inside or enter our living spaces when we are not looking.
My daughter feeds them twice a day. I like to toss them a
little grain between times.
A memory came to me yesterday as I tossed a few kernels of
corn to the birds. It is interesting how memories emerge from the recesses of
our minds where they have been stored away and covered over.
I was a young preacher back then in 1984 - fresh out of my Bible College
training and serving a small “out on the prairie” church that had called me to
be their pastor. I had been there only a few short weeks.
Bill was a retired prairie farmer. He had spent his life
raising cattle and growing wheat. He, and his family, were members of the small
church.
Memory does not recapture the topic that I was preaching on that
Sunday morning. I do recall that, in those early days, my delivery was pretty
much along the lines of typical fire and brimstone evangelical preaching.
After the morning church service, replete with my fire and
brimstone style of preaching, I stood in the small foyer to shake hands, thank people
for coming to church, and to wish them well during the week.
I shook Bill’s hand. Bill had a farmer’s grip.
He, with a firm grip on my hand, looked me square in the
eyes and said,
“Preacher, you said some really good things in your preachin’.
Do you think, though, that it might be a good idea if you didn’t throw the corn
so hard at the flock?”
We, the Church, have been entrusted with the most beautiful
message that can ever be proclaimed. Our individual vocalizing of this message
is important. The Apostle Paul tells us, “For
since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it
pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”[1]
The world outside the Church has always been “hard of
hearing”. It is easy for the world to turn a deafened ear to the noise we make
in proclaiming the sweetest message that can ever be heard. Perhaps it is our
style of delivery that turns them away? Even chickens scatter when you forcefully throw
handfuls of corn at them.
Though the hearing is dulled, the sight is still keen.
I
remind myself that people in the world are watching. I remind myself that
fellow believers, all of whom are at different points along their journey of
faith, are watching.
I also remind myself that Christ offered the totality of
himself to me.
What can I possibly offer unto him in return other than the
totality of myself?
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