Desertification is Not Sweet

Luke 2:22-40
2:22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
2:23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"),
2:24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
2:25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.
2:26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah.
2:27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law,
2:28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
2:29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;
2:30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
2:31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
2:32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
2:33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.

 

Those of you with sharp eyes have noticed that the text listed for today is not the text for Transfiguration Sunday, which is last Sunday.  If you missed it, don't feel bad, it wasn't test. I really hate that so many Christian holidays, that have such importance, get skipped over with no notice.  It just so happens that Tuesday was an ancient Christian Holiday called "The Presentation of The Lord".  I know, I forgot to put up my POTL decorations this year too.  Actually the church year is full of small holidays and observances like this that go completely unnoticed.  Sometimes I imagine that all these little holidays are sitting around forlorn at the lectionary old-folks home wishing that someone would visit them from time to time.  So let's visit POTL for a day and let Sunday wait a bit.  



Let's start with desertification.  

Above is the Sahara Desert in African.  It is a huge, sand-covered expanse of desert.  Other than the Antarctic, which is technically a desert, the Sahara is the largest desert on Earth.  Frighteningly enough every year this desert gets bigger.  In theory it could eventually spread across all of sub-Saharan Africa to take over the whole north half of the continent.  That's a problem.  

Environmentalists have been working now for years trying to find ways to help the delicate lands at the edge of the Sahara.  They have studied, written papers, argued in debates, and written more papers, and more, and more.... In the end the cause of rapid desertification (the process of the desert expanding) seems to be universally agreed upon:  cattle.  



Yep, Ol' Bossy there is causing a desert...kind of.  Changing weather patterns and global warming certainly are main factors here, but it is the cattle that really put the pedal to metal on desertification. Environmentalists have long felt that domestic cattle represented a major threat to the delicate sub-Saharan lands and have been working to limit their grazing rights well before anyone realized the desert was expanding...this was because they were seen as an "invasive species." Afterward everyone noticed that where cattle were grazed and penned the desert expanded faster.  So, all over Africa environmentalists have been working to further limit and, when possible, ban cattle grazing from this land.  Amazingly enough a number of governments have been willing to work with them and have banned cattle grazing in some of the most endangered sections.  

Guess what happened?  

It got worse.  

Yep, take away the cattle and the desert creeps forward faster.  It completely baffled the scientific community.  They knew cattle were bad.  Grazing cattle here was bad.  Eliminating cattle was good.  So, something else must be happening.  And they went crazy trying to find it.  Until one renegade scientist tried fixing the problem in an unthinkable way.

He used cattle.  



That is a real picture of what you can do to the desert using cattle.  It seems that what happened is this...

Cattle are good at two things:  stomping and pooping.  When cattle stomp around on a piece of dry, hard earth they churn it up and turn it over.  This allows rain to penetrate the ground instead of running off into dry riverbeds.  At the same time cow manure both is a fantastic fertilizer as well it serves to transport and distribute seeds in a way that allows for a flourishing ecosystem. Put cattle on a piece of land for a while, take them off and wait...presto! Desertification reversal.  So why were cows the villains before and the heroes now?

The problem had to do with what happened initially when environmentalists lobbied to limit cattle grazing to small pieces of land.  When the cows were penned up like that instead of free-range grazing and rotating between pasture lands they did in fact damage the land.  But the ranchers were only doing that because the environmentalists were making them.  

Hang on to your hats folks:  environmentalists cause accelerated desertification.  (OK...climate change, weather pattern shifts, and the effects of urbanization are all in there too, but the environmentalists didn't help...)

The solution is to graze and pasture larger herds of cattle but keep them moving so they only use the same pasture space once every three years. Which, for the record, is how ranchers were doing it before the helpful environmentalist came along.  

Believe it or not there are still environmental groups lobbying for the removal of cattle.  There are still African politicians trying to eliminate cattle grazing.  Why? Well, when us humans get something in our heads, it takes a lot of work to get it back out again.  No matter the evidence to the contrary.  



In Jesus' day if you asked anyone what the Messiah would look like they would have pointed to something a little like the guy pictured above.  Rich.  Powerful. Heavily armed.  War-like.  A general of a huge army....Nothing like Jesus.  

Only three people ever recognized Jesus for who he really was without having to be convinced by irrefutable, startling evidence:  John the Baptist,  Simeon (the guy in text for today), and the Prophetess Anna (who appears next in a text that follows the one from today).   Everyone else had to be convinced that Jesus what in fact the Messiah and in the end most folks, despite irrefutable evidence, refused to believe it.  

Messiahs are worldly kings and cows cause deserts.  Humans and our thick heads!

We could shake our fingers at those dunces in ancient Palestine and those slow thinkers in Africa, but are we really all that different?  



If you ask me most humans really suffer from the same problem those scientists and the people of ancient Palestine suffered from:  we find it hard to escape our preconceptions.  We assume we know how God can, and will work in our lives.  We assume we know what God can, and cannot do with us. We assume that the will of God is as limited as our own, or that it IS limited by our own will.   None of these things are true.  We all need to learn to be more like Simeon and Anna (and Allan Savory, the scientist who figured out that cattle were good, not bad).  We need to look for the coming of God into our lives in all the ways that God may choose to come.  We need to ask, "how does God see me?" not, "how do I see me?"  

In order to do this we need to be ready to respond to God's call to action and service even when it comes in ways we don't expect.  We need to learn to set aside our human preconceptions, both small and big.

Christians are full of preconceptions. It's part of our worship life; if it wasn't why would we all still be fighting about what sorts of songs to sing in church?  "Old hymns can't possibly inspire young people...they're old!"....""Praise songs can't possibly teach something important about God....they're all full of feelings and emotions!"... "God can't possibly use me to do ministry, that is the Pastor's job!"...

Maybe we all need to take a breath; sit down and and calm ourselves; say a little prayer and ask God what God wants; and then wait and see.

Simeon and Anna did not know what they were waiting for, but when a poor couple and their son entered the temple of God the Holy Spirit spoke into their hearts and said, "There! That's the one!"  They could have hesitated.  They could have resisted and said, "but he isn't rich, powerful, royal, and majestic!" but they didn't. How many times has God passed you by because you simply were not willing to see his presence?  How many times did the voice of God call you forward but you didn't respond because that was not the way you expected God to call you.  Instead of adding to the desertification of your soul let the Holy Spirit guide you into a newness of life and an exciting discipleship.  You may have to let go of some of your preconceptions but that is OK.  Our God is a god of surprises and blessings...how will God bless you today?