[Barking; Meowing…]
I just wanted to welcome our special guests today! Not all us speak the same language, you know!
And, if I may be so bold as to point out the elephant in the room [pointing] – no, we don’t have any real elephants here today, but most of us are aware that we do have some cultural differences from our animals. Some of us may walk a little differently than others. Some have unusual fashion senses – I won’t say who!
But we all have one thing in common here today, we are all creatures created equally by God. As the story of Noah-and-the-Ark says, each of us “of every kind, of all flesh,” has been given “the breath of life.” And every creature: wild and domestic animals, creeping and flying animals – oh yes – and humans, all were invited to enter Noah’s Ark. All God’s creatures, animals and their people were saved, there was no distinction. So, welcome aboard Noah’s Ark!
You may think we’re doing this because, as one congregant lovingly described us, this is the church where anything goes! But that’s not it, not exactly, although that probably doesn’t hurt! But mainly it’s because, God made each unique individual creature, with “the breath of life.” And that consequently, humans are all less, without our pets and all animals.
Three days ago on October 4th, we commemorated St Francis of Assisi. His care for the poor, and for all animals as our “brothers and sisters,” back in the 12C, gave rise to a number of legends, which still speak powerfully to us today. In a parallel age of great abandonment, killing and war, Francis stood as a person of faith for partnering together locally, to live in a No-Kill-Ark of Caring-Compassion for all animals and people created with “the breath of life.”
One popular legend was the saving of a small Italian town that was being terrorized by a ravenous wolf. Wolves of course, are actually very social creatures. What we call packs, are their extended families. This lone wolf, however, was abandoned and hungry, without its natural support system, and so he turned to preying on the town’s most vulnerable. And St Francis took it upon himself to go into the woods to find the wolf.
And as the legend goes, when he found him, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him, and not to hurt anyone anymore. And the wolf stopped growling, and closed his jaws, and lay down in front of him. And Francis said, “brother wolf, you do much harm in these parts… and the people accuse and curse you… So, brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people.” And when Francis walked into town with the wolf by his side, the town’s people we’re astounded! “And Francis made a pact between the people and the wolf, that because the wolf had done evil out of his hunger, the townsfolk had the responsibility to feed the wolf, and in return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks.” And finally, Francis gave the wolf a blessing as a sign of new life, a new beginning in its community, and in partnership with its people.
Animals, it turns out, are pretty amazingly smart, in ways we may never be. Remember when the Indian Ocean Tsunami’s massively destructive wave struck without warning the day after Christmas in 2004, mainly affecting Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, and some 230,000 people suddenly, and tragically, died? Yet in the months afterward it was discovered that, in the animal world, they somehow seemed to perceive its arrival, and got out of the way, even before it hit – call it a keen sixth sense! Elephants screamed and ran for higher ground. Dogs refused to go outdoors. Flamingos abandoned their low-lying breeding areas. Zoo animals rushed into their shelters and could not be enticed to come back out. It was nearly impossible to find any animals that didn’t survive!
One couple that lived to tell about the tsunami, credited their survival to their animals. Their dogs, who loved to walk on the beach every day, and always jumped at the opportunity, flat out refused to go to the ocean-side, on that morning of the tsunami, saving their lives. Different language; different culture; unbelievable sixth sense, but creatures created and loved by God, and, like humans - animals are made with “the breath of life,” just like us.
But our amazing domesticated animals also depend on us, for their survival. They look to us for everything from food and shelter, to medical care and companionship. They need us, as much as we desire their companionship and love. Today we forge a new life-giving relationship between church and animal rescue alliance, we’re creating, you might say, our own neighborhood Ark. On this Ark, the animals are seen through God’s eyes as our equals, our “brothers & sisters,” and we are given the power and responsibility to reawaken their people, and to rescue and save animals on this Ark, a sign of a people-animal alliance, creating, like St Francis, a No-Kill Ark of Caring-Compassion. Today is important because we have included in a very tangible way, our extended families of animals and their people, here on this Ark, a sanctuary and safe place, to get to know one another, that extends out into our community.
In addition to St Francis, there is one other character who speaks powerfully to us today, the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan that Jesus described, continues to raise-up our awareness to care for our fellow neighbor, without distinction, for everyone who has the breath of life. And the Good Samaritan didn’t just stop with offering the man abandoned on the side of the road, a bandage. But this kind of Samaritan person sees themselves as part of an Ark of Caring, taking time out, without a thought, from a busy schedule, and uses their personal resources, their animal, to carry the abused and beaten man, not leaving him abandoned. And finally the Good Samaritan teams up with the nearest local agency, the neighborhood Inn and Rescue Center, and makes a gift to pay for lodging for the injured person! This, says Jesus, is how to be a neighbor, and to love one another.
Unity partners today with Famous Fido, to support one another in an Ark of healing and wholeness, care and compassion, in this neighborhood, and in all creation, forging a new alliance in a world of abandonment.
So today, I invite you to do two things: One, reach out across the aisle and meet someone new here and at the luncheon to follow. Because of our extended families, animals and their people, here today, it’s easier and more natural to introduce our households to one another. And secondly, If you can, I invite all of you here today to support the ongoing work of Famous Fido by making a monetary offering in the envelope provided today.
All of us are messengers, and this is another vital way we proclaim the news of our Saving and Caring Ark for all things with the breath of life. A crucial difference in the culture of humans and animals is that we humans are the story-tellers. We tell the story of our beloved animals, how they are welcome among us, {an amazing gift, intricately woven in to the fabric of all life from our creator God} and consequently how unacceptable it is to abuse, abandon or euthanize them. We do this not only with our courageous words of support, and our loving care and concern for animal life in our homes and habitats, but also (like the Good Samaritan), with our financial resources.
And finally, let me just say a word about how amazed I am with the passion that Gloria, the director of Famous Fido, has for her work of animal rescue and adoption. She is definitely a Good Samaritan, and her love and commitment raise our awareness of the need for a No Kill Chicago for our animals. As a person of faith herself, she has told me repeatedly how animals also have souls – in effect, are created by God with the breath of life. Her voice and her organization have saved many pets that would otherwise have been euthanized. She spends all she has to find good partners, and willing Inn-keepers in the community, to make sure the animals she rescues have permanent loving homes. I’m looking forward to the ways Unity can partner with Famous Fido, not only in this celebration, but in the coming days and years.
+ So, once again let me say, Welcome to God’s Ark of Caring-Compassion, where all are made equally with the “breath of life.”
+ God blesses all animals and their people, and we rejoice in the partnerships God is forging amongst us today, and look forward to where the Ark takes us in the days ahead.
I just wanted to welcome our special guests today! Not all us speak the same language, you know!
And, if I may be so bold as to point out the elephant in the room [pointing] – no, we don’t have any real elephants here today, but most of us are aware that we do have some cultural differences from our animals. Some of us may walk a little differently than others. Some have unusual fashion senses – I won’t say who!
But we all have one thing in common here today, we are all creatures created equally by God. As the story of Noah-and-the-Ark says, each of us “of every kind, of all flesh,” has been given “the breath of life.” And every creature: wild and domestic animals, creeping and flying animals – oh yes – and humans, all were invited to enter Noah’s Ark. All God’s creatures, animals and their people were saved, there was no distinction. So, welcome aboard Noah’s Ark!
You may think we’re doing this because, as one congregant lovingly described us, this is the church where anything goes! But that’s not it, not exactly, although that probably doesn’t hurt! But mainly it’s because, God made each unique individual creature, with “the breath of life.” And that consequently, humans are all less, without our pets and all animals.
Three days ago on October 4th, we commemorated St Francis of Assisi. His care for the poor, and for all animals as our “brothers and sisters,” back in the 12C, gave rise to a number of legends, which still speak powerfully to us today. In a parallel age of great abandonment, killing and war, Francis stood as a person of faith for partnering together locally, to live in a No-Kill-Ark of Caring-Compassion for all animals and people created with “the breath of life.”
One popular legend was the saving of a small Italian town that was being terrorized by a ravenous wolf. Wolves of course, are actually very social creatures. What we call packs, are their extended families. This lone wolf, however, was abandoned and hungry, without its natural support system, and so he turned to preying on the town’s most vulnerable. And St Francis took it upon himself to go into the woods to find the wolf.
And as the legend goes, when he found him, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him, and not to hurt anyone anymore. And the wolf stopped growling, and closed his jaws, and lay down in front of him. And Francis said, “brother wolf, you do much harm in these parts… and the people accuse and curse you… So, brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people.” And when Francis walked into town with the wolf by his side, the town’s people we’re astounded! “And Francis made a pact between the people and the wolf, that because the wolf had done evil out of his hunger, the townsfolk had the responsibility to feed the wolf, and in return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks.” And finally, Francis gave the wolf a blessing as a sign of new life, a new beginning in its community, and in partnership with its people.
Animals, it turns out, are pretty amazingly smart, in ways we may never be. Remember when the Indian Ocean Tsunami’s massively destructive wave struck without warning the day after Christmas in 2004, mainly affecting Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, and some 230,000 people suddenly, and tragically, died? Yet in the months afterward it was discovered that, in the animal world, they somehow seemed to perceive its arrival, and got out of the way, even before it hit – call it a keen sixth sense! Elephants screamed and ran for higher ground. Dogs refused to go outdoors. Flamingos abandoned their low-lying breeding areas. Zoo animals rushed into their shelters and could not be enticed to come back out. It was nearly impossible to find any animals that didn’t survive!
One couple that lived to tell about the tsunami, credited their survival to their animals. Their dogs, who loved to walk on the beach every day, and always jumped at the opportunity, flat out refused to go to the ocean-side, on that morning of the tsunami, saving their lives. Different language; different culture; unbelievable sixth sense, but creatures created and loved by God, and, like humans - animals are made with “the breath of life,” just like us.
But our amazing domesticated animals also depend on us, for their survival. They look to us for everything from food and shelter, to medical care and companionship. They need us, as much as we desire their companionship and love. Today we forge a new life-giving relationship between church and animal rescue alliance, we’re creating, you might say, our own neighborhood Ark. On this Ark, the animals are seen through God’s eyes as our equals, our “brothers & sisters,” and we are given the power and responsibility to reawaken their people, and to rescue and save animals on this Ark, a sign of a people-animal alliance, creating, like St Francis, a No-Kill Ark of Caring-Compassion. Today is important because we have included in a very tangible way, our extended families of animals and their people, here on this Ark, a sanctuary and safe place, to get to know one another, that extends out into our community.
In addition to St Francis, there is one other character who speaks powerfully to us today, the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan that Jesus described, continues to raise-up our awareness to care for our fellow neighbor, without distinction, for everyone who has the breath of life. And the Good Samaritan didn’t just stop with offering the man abandoned on the side of the road, a bandage. But this kind of Samaritan person sees themselves as part of an Ark of Caring, taking time out, without a thought, from a busy schedule, and uses their personal resources, their animal, to carry the abused and beaten man, not leaving him abandoned. And finally the Good Samaritan teams up with the nearest local agency, the neighborhood Inn and Rescue Center, and makes a gift to pay for lodging for the injured person! This, says Jesus, is how to be a neighbor, and to love one another.
Unity partners today with Famous Fido, to support one another in an Ark of healing and wholeness, care and compassion, in this neighborhood, and in all creation, forging a new alliance in a world of abandonment.
So today, I invite you to do two things: One, reach out across the aisle and meet someone new here and at the luncheon to follow. Because of our extended families, animals and their people, here today, it’s easier and more natural to introduce our households to one another. And secondly, If you can, I invite all of you here today to support the ongoing work of Famous Fido by making a monetary offering in the envelope provided today.
All of us are messengers, and this is another vital way we proclaim the news of our Saving and Caring Ark for all things with the breath of life. A crucial difference in the culture of humans and animals is that we humans are the story-tellers. We tell the story of our beloved animals, how they are welcome among us, {an amazing gift, intricately woven in to the fabric of all life from our creator God} and consequently how unacceptable it is to abuse, abandon or euthanize them. We do this not only with our courageous words of support, and our loving care and concern for animal life in our homes and habitats, but also (like the Good Samaritan), with our financial resources.
And finally, let me just say a word about how amazed I am with the passion that Gloria, the director of Famous Fido, has for her work of animal rescue and adoption. She is definitely a Good Samaritan, and her love and commitment raise our awareness of the need for a No Kill Chicago for our animals. As a person of faith herself, she has told me repeatedly how animals also have souls – in effect, are created by God with the breath of life. Her voice and her organization have saved many pets that would otherwise have been euthanized. She spends all she has to find good partners, and willing Inn-keepers in the community, to make sure the animals she rescues have permanent loving homes. I’m looking forward to the ways Unity can partner with Famous Fido, not only in this celebration, but in the coming days and years.
+ So, once again let me say, Welcome to God’s Ark of Caring-Compassion, where all are made equally with the “breath of life.”
+ God blesses all animals and their people, and we rejoice in the partnerships God is forging amongst us today, and look forward to where the Ark takes us in the days ahead.
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