Story of Emma the dog

You Save Humans and Animals Alike, O Lord (Psalm 36:6)

                A couple weeks ago Emmanuel had the wonderful opportunity to rescue a homeless, hungry and ill dog. Our parishioners met the call to rescue and help fund her care, and she was named Emma after our church. This is a clear demonstration of stewardship and love for all of God’s creatures. Over the past few weeks, and particularly when I got to see a healthy and refreshed Emma , I have had many thoughts about why she chose our church and the workings of God’s providence in our lives. Was it blind luck that Emma happened to wander into the cemetery of a church that has a pet ministry or did God lead her to us? I’d like to share these ponderings and where we stand on proper environmental stewardship.

                About a year and a half ago I first visited Emmanuel with my partner Michael. I quickly discovered that Emmanuel is unlike any church that I have ever attended. With a firmly placed foot in the 21^st Century, Emmanuel is a wonderful steward, and a necessary member of our community. With tremendous community involvement, it’s amazing to think that our doors aren’t being torn down from the people that we help. We recognize that our job is not only to feed the hungry and clothe the homeless. It is to be servants of the entire community, including animals and the environment.

                The bible mentions over 120 different species of animals (none of whom are cats; sorry cat lovers). Sadly, in both Testaments, dogs are mostly mentioned is in degrading terms. One of the most profound is in 2^nd Kings. After her death, Jezebel’s body is eaten by dogs (2 Kings 9:36). Jezebel was not to receive a proper burial. Instead, her flesh was eaten by dogs so that she was unrecognizable and, in many ancient Hebrew traditions, cursed. In Matthew 15, Jesus tells us that it isn’t fair to give food designated for children to dogs (Matthew 15: 22-26).

                 Nonetheless, we do find a couple instances of dogs that are positive. In the apocryphal book of Tobit, we learn that Tobit had a dog. The story of Tobit is quite fantastic. It most likely didn’t make the Biblical cut because of its stories of disguised angels and magic fish as well as its similarities to Homer’s Odyssey. In verses 6:2 and 11:4, Tobit’s dog appears. He has nothing to do with the story and could be excluded all together with no consequence. What we find is historical evidence that domestic dogs were present, and dogs of that time act much like our modern pets. That is, they seem to just show up whenever something exciting is happening. Consequently, the popular dog name “Toby” is attributed to Tobit having a domestic dog.

                Now for the really good news. Psalm 36:6 tells us, “Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.” This passage speaks to me as a charge to do God’s work on earth as God’s representatives and stewards. We were created in the image of God and were given dominion over animals. Understand that nowhere is it mentioned that we are given domination over the earth. Having dominion means that while animals can be used to serve us, we have a responsibility to ensure that they are treated fairly and kindly, and that we never abuse this privilege. God will save both humans and animals alike through us, God’s servants.

                So we come back to Emma. Her situation reminds me of something that could be in a Shakespearean play. She was gravely ill and chose a cemetery to die. The allusion is there in the most poetic way (think Romeo and Juliet going to the family tomb to commit suicide). Thankfully,  Rev. Alley and Rev. Messer have windows that overlook the cemetery. There they found her. She was hungry, dehydrated, exhausted, nails so long that it was probably hard for her to stand or walk, skin eaten up by fleas, and had a terrible scab on her ear. As a congregation we came together to feed her, provide medical care, and ensure that she have a home. We named her Emma, after our church, Emmanuel. Of course Emmanuel means God is with us. I can attest that God was with Emma that day in the church cemetery.

                The Holy Spirit works in wonderful, amazing, and often confusing ways. I don’t think it was an accident that Emma came to us to be saved. God protected Emma and gave her one of the best places to be found. That day we met our charge of saving animals as we meet our charge to save humans every day. The Holy Spirit worked through Emma to help her find her way and it has worked through us to give us guidance, love, and compassion for all of God’s creatures. Remember that God is with us. God is with the hungry, homeless, imprisoned, in danger, in grief, in sickness. God is also with animals. God saves both humans and animals alike.

Emma asleep in her new home.

Us VS Them

August 6, 2012

The Rev. Marguerite C. Alley

Us Versus Them

So let’s think about the Chick-fil-A situation for a few minutes. Following the president of that company’s statement about his stance on the blessing of same sex unions, there has been a load of responses, both in support of Chick-fil-A and against. Some responses have been very compassionate and thoughtful (as in discrimination for any reason is wrong), some have been pragmatic (it is private company, he can say or do anything he wants) and some have been down right mean spirited (maybe if all restaurants would stop serving them, they would starve and the problem would go away). Sadly, the overall dialogue has once again caused bigotry to rear its ugly head in the American Christian churches. The potential for any meaningful dialogue has been lost in name-calling and who can shout the ugliest rhetoric the loudest.

I kind of wonder what Jesus would have said to us about this?

Picture this: Jesus is on a lovely grassy hillside, teaching a large gathering of people. He says: "Treat people the same way you want to be treated." Don’t just love the ones you like because they look, act and think like you, I want you to love the ones who are different from you and you find hard to understand and disagree with, too."

As Jesus is closing his day and coming down from the hillside, he is approached by a leper. Now, in this time, a leper was required by law to shout “unclean! unclean!” as a warning to anyone who came near that they were infected with leprosy. Jesus reaches out and touches him! Right there in front of God and everyone he was just teaching, Jesus completely ignores Jewish custom and law, and touches the man. The touch brings healing and restoration to the “unclean” one and the crowd (presumably) sees the importance of his teaching. Do you think that example changed their thinking? Does asking and reminding ourselves “what would Jesus say/do in this situation” change how we think or act?

 

Not too long ago, a well-known young minister was just about to publish a book. In that book, he questioned a long held theological precept that only Christians go to heaven, by asking if Ghandi was in heaven or hell.

That question caused quite a stir and the author was accused of being a heretic and more or less became an “untouchable”. That one single question ended up being more important in the minds of many Americans than the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that killed over 25,000 people!

It would appear that here in the last few weeks, the choice of whether or not to eat at Chick-fil-A is more important than the tragic shooting in Colorado, the huge forest fires making thousands of people homeless, the trial of a pedophile, the genocide happening in Syria, or even the Olympics. I would think that Christians would have loads to discuss about how we have an opportunity to work with God in the reconciliation of all things rather than whether or not we should eat at Chick-fil-A.

This brings me to my real point. This controversy is not a new one, nor is it actually about sexuality at all. It is about people who are different. Sexuality is just the newest label we have affixed to this age-old issue of people who are different from us. We do or have done the same to dark skinned people, people who don’t speak English, people who have been in prison, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, no faith, democrats, republicans, libertarians; even people who live in different states, go to different schools or root for different teams! We do it with anyone  we view as "them."

So really, we are the problem. We try to understand the teaching of Jesus but it challenges our understanding of “others”. Sadly, we try to get others to believe exactly the way we do BEFORE we agree to have dialogue with them at all! If we try rather, to engage each other in helpful informative dialogue, before we decide they are “them”, we are more likely to discover that our commonalities far outweigh our differences.

So for the time being, what do you say we completely ignore the question of whether or not to eat at Chick-fil-A and focus instead on reaching out and touching “them”, whoever “they” are for you? I suspect that Jesus would be a lot happier with us all if we tried to follow his example rather than trying to bully/coerce/force someone into seeing through the same tiny lens.