Homily: Blessing of the Animals

Homily: Blessing of the Animals

October 8, 2017

Rev. Stephanie Ryder

Psalm 104:24, 27-31:

OLord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

These all look to you to give them their food in due season;

when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.

May the glory of theLordendure forever; may theLordrejoice in his works.

Job 12:7-10:

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you;ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.Who among all these does not know that the hand of theLordhas done this?In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”

We set the date for this service months and months ago. I am grateful that we chose this day. It’s fitting, I think, that we come together to celebrate what is good, what is pure, what is holy and sacred and peaceful and healing in our lives. It is fitting to honor what brings joy, what elicits joy – our animals, that represent unconditional love. The pure love of God.

Last Sunday, we didn’t yet know about the tragedy about to take place in Las Vegas later that evening. My son was in Vegas at the Life is Beautiful music concert the very weekend before, wherethe shooter was now known to have rented a room overlooking that concert as well. The tragedy comes too close to home for so many of us, who knew personally those injured or killed in the attack; or those who survived, or those who prepared to go but changed their plans at the last minute.

“When you hide your face,the psalmist cries out to the Lord in today’s first reading,“the earth’s creatures are dismayed.” Lord, we are indeed dismayed; we are discouraged, disheartened, demoralized, downcast, distressed, and dreadfully disappointed; when you take away their breath, the psalmist continues, they die and return to their dust.”

As a little girl, I had a hermit crab as a pet – you know, the little crabs, that live in shells?. A shop in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware sold the hermit crabs in little cages, I transferred mine, named Sunny, to an aquarium, where I provided bigger shells like the pet shop instructed, so that when Sunny grew, he could crawl out of his shell into a bigger and roomier shell.

I loved Sunny. I loved the feel of his light little red legs crawling in my hand, I loved his big black eyes and feelers, I loved watching him eat and drink from the inverted metal jar caps that served as his feeding dishes, I loved watching how fast he could run across my room, I loved how he was able to immediately shut down and have a place to hide when he was scared. His own shell.

I had Sunny for two years when one morning I awoke to find him, laying limp and pure white in his cage. “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” the saying goes, and I immediately knew. I was devastated by the loss of my hermit crab, Sunny. I waited to clean out his cage, because I couldn’t through the sobs and tears.

When I eventually, sadly and tenderly, began removing the items in his cage, the rocks, the water dish, the other shells, I happened to notice something strange in one of the shells. It was a mass of light pink squishy substance in there. “Sunny?!” I exclaimed. Sunny had not died. He had shed his skin. The white, limp, lifeless body was what he had shed to grow into a bigger body. He had outgrown his shell, and transferred to another one. It seemed like a miracle to me.

“OLord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures,”the psalmist begins. “When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” Sunny had been reborn, renewed, in his very own unique and wise way.

This is the promise we are given. God renews the face of the ground. This is the glory of the Lord that endures forever. When God’s spirit is sent forth, there is new creation. We are confronted with devastation time after time, and yet the spirit of the Lord continues to renew: to renew our hope, renew our love, renew our peace.

Darkness does not overcome the light and evil does not overcome the good. We have the good among us, and its power is strong, stronger than any evil. This good will manifest in many ways – in first responders, in people coming together to take action on policies and procedures that will make us safer from gun violence and other forms of terrorism.

Theologian David Lose asks us to remember that rather than return violence for violence, in the cross of Jesus, God absorbs our violence and responds with life, with resurrection, with Jesus triumphant over death and offering in his return to life, not retribution, but peace.

He does not shrink from the sacrifice on the cross, he does not return with vengeance, he does not kick anyone out of the kingdom of heaven. Instead, the resurrected Jesus, having taken on the worst that our violence can inflict, comes back and instructs his disciples to take the good news of the Gospel to the very ends of the earth, promising to be with them always.

The good news means in part that violence does not and will not have the last word. Tragedy and death and loss and hatred are, in the end, no match for love and life and forgiveness and peace.

And this is what the animals have to teach us. “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,” our second reading begins, “the birds of the air, they will tell you;ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.Who among all these does not know that the hand of theLordhas done this?In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”

Author Caroline Hamm writes in an article entitled, “Things that pets give us: broken stuff, healing love,”about when her Siamese cat broke her family heirloom antique lamp. She was outraged until she saw the cat’s face, and realized that in the contest between things versus pets, there is no contest, because pets always win; though there are occasional problems including destruction of precious belongings, pets promise unconditional love and are capable of enormous affection, addressing, if not always curing, many of life’s ills. And things like lamps cannot greet you at the door when you arrive home. They cannot kiss your face in unfettered joy or sit with you when you are weeping about one of life’s cruelties.

Hamm says she is surprised when the vets ask in surveys, “Do you think of your pet like a member of your family?” because her answer is always no. She thinks much more highly of her pet than her family members and she would never think of insulting her pet that way!

Caroline claims that her husband, Carl, was not a cat-lover when they met, but soon came to find an afternoon nap was not complete without a cat, nor was reading the box score of his favorite baseball team to make it less painful. Carl had high blood pressure that medication could not control and was monitored by a doctor. A year and a half after Carl’s cat conversion, he had a checkup and the reading of his blood pressure was normal. The doctor asked him what was different in his life. Was he taking some new medication he hadn’t reported? Was he practicing meditation or had he taken a vacation? “No,” Carl said. “I am now owned by a cat.”

Let us look to the animals to teach us. To teach us about kindness, love, forgiveness, humor, gentleness, humility.

I am reminded of a list of great lessons we can learn from dogs and their behavior:

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lay on your back in the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree.

When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you’re not.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

Sunny the hermit crab did eventually die, and somehow I knew that though he was gone in body and shell, he was once again growing and going to a bigger place. Death is not the last word. Let us affirm today that indeed Life is Beautiful. Let our love and certainty of this grow ever stronger today, as we lift up the beauty of all God’s creatures, and the beauty in our relationships with them.

When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. May the glory of theLordendure forever.

Please join me in prayer: O sweet maker of all, we ask your blessing on every creature gathered here today, the large and the small. May they live peacefully in praise of you. Bless us all to love your creation, and revere its sacredness. We ask this blessing in the name of the one who was, is, and always will be, our Creator, to whom every creature belongs. Amen.

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