The Thrush and the Rat
The Thrush and the Rat
If the holy angels of God were to disguise themselves as a creature, I do not doubt they would choose to be thrushes. Their beauty and fragility and song are exquisite. Sometimes, I just stand and listen to one singing; it is hard not to imagine that song going straight to touch the Creator's heart.
On the other hand, the vilest creature I am forced to share my environment with, is the rat. We are presently living near a creek which has been "rat-central", probably for centuries. If they stayed at home, that might be alright. But they insist on roaming and invading and destroying and defiling...my habitat.
Through the winter I've been at war with these filthy rodents...wiping out a few here and there with trap and bait. I've been very, very careful to place my traps as far away from innocent enquiry as possible;
successfully, until now.
The other afternoon I could see in the murk beneath our garden shed, that something was in the trap. My rejoicing - that another rat had been viciously and painfully executed - swifly turned to guilty and very great sorrow, when I found that I had killed a bird...and of all that play in our garden, it was a thrush!
"He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty." (Luke 1.51-53)
This prophesied, vigorous overturning of injustice by the Lord, we are waiting to see...especially in the Church. I believe there are those who now feel completely ring-fenced and immured from such an upheaval of the "established" order because it has gone on for so long. Injustice is the status quo!
"First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is this "coming" He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything has gone on as it has since the beginning of creation.' " (2 Peter 3.3-4)
Since my earliest days as a Christian preacher (1970s), I have been often perturbed (occasionally tempted to despair) that the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ appears all too often to be in the hands of "the rats", and not "the thrushes". I've been unable to fathom why, again and again, in ecclesiastical conundrum after ecclesiastical fracas, it's not "the rats" who end up in "the traps" of Church discipline and correction, but "the thrushes"?
How come? What meaneth this?
When I found the beautiful thrush, crushed in my ugly wood and wire trap, I felt like lying down in the dry dust and decomposing leaves of my yard and weeping for it...and for all the innocent Believers (especially servant-leaders) I've known personally who have been ground to fine dust by the insatiable, brutal jaws of religious power-politics. And incidentally, these crackbrained and treacherous "games" are played at every level - both high and low, clergy and laity - in God's House.
How come, time-and-again, "the thrushes" are killed, and "the rats" slip away to plot their next upwardly-mobile move in their campaign to create church in their own image? How come?
Because "the rats" set the traps which are meant to catch "the rats"...knowing full well that they and their henchmen in-the-know will never fall in. But with a little bit of "luck" one of those frustratingly "naive" thrushes will stumble in. Whack! Good job! One less inconvenient voice of truth and conscience to silence.
The Church "rats" loved Friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98). The fast-gaunt, Dominican priest-prophet drew their applause as his unsparing sermons tore into the irreligious excesses and immorality of Florence's temporal eminences...along with that Renaissance city's wayward residents.
But then he turned his homiletical guns on "the rats".
"In the primitive Church," he said, "the chalices were of wood, the prelates (leaders) of gold. In these days, the Church hath chalices of gold, and prelates of wood."
They up and killed him. That's what "rats" do to "thrushes"...when you really push them. Poor Girolamo! They suspended him from a cross in chains over a fire, which was kept stoked until even his dust had vanished away on the wind.
And if the writer...this out-of-fashion and no-account preacher...has seen through this strutting nonsense - the slanderous destruction of rivals, inflated accounts of others' failings (both real and imagined), exaggerated reports of meeting sizes and "revival", the misappropriation of finance collected for God, but kept for "the ministry" - then how much more clearly does the Maker of my eyes see you?
"In his arrogance the wicked man...says to himself, 'God has forgotten. He covers His face and never sees.' " (Psalm 10.2 and 11)
"Does He who formed the eye not see?" (Psalm 94.9)
"The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord is on His heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men; His eyes examine them." (Psalm 11.4)
And no matter how "important" the man, ministry, church, movement-denomination may be to the Kingdom of God...we are accountable, and one day our account will be rendered and we will have to pay!
"Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, 'He won't call me to account'? But You, O God, do see trouble and grief; You consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless." (Psalm 10.13-14)
And do not delude yourself that because no account has ever been rendered to anyone you may know, that it will not come...that it does not even exist. No matter how many super-spiritual scholars or grandees you may gather in "holy" convocation, not one syllable of His Word can you strike down. Our bills must come. And if not today or tomorrow...then most certainly on the Last Day.
"The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgement ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them." (1 Timothy 5.24)
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants." (Matthew 18.23)
"For we will all stand before God's judgement seat. It is written: 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.' So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God." (Romans 14.10-12)
"So we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad." (2 Corinthians 5.9-10)
"Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account." (Hebrews 13.17)
"But they will have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead." (1 Peter 4.5)
"Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly (by a more severe standard)." (James 3.1)
What am I here agitating for? The swift destruction of "the rats" from amongst the People of God? No!
"The Lord...is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3.9)
"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd (prudent) as snakes and as innocent (devoid of double-dealing) as doves." (Matthew 10.16)
Those who find themselves lowly placed (even as leaders!) in the Church, need not accept being used as door mats by their brothers and sisters in Christ. And even more importantly, those who discover themselves at an advantage over others, have an obligation before God to conduct themselves (and their ministries) humbly, selflessly, and with genuine purity of heart.
I am pleading for a Church wherein the poor, the weak, and the powerless are not beaten up for their petty misdemeanours. I am asking for a Church where the powerful, the wealthy, and the influential take off their (flashy) outer clothing, and wrap towels (of servanthood) around their waists; pour water into basins and begin to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with towels that are wrapped around them. (John 13.4-5)
And I am praying that we will do this ourselves through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. For if we will not so reform ourselves, then there is One who will.
"The Judge is standing at the door." (James 5.9)
