Elephant walk

Proper 24 B 2012
Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45


How would you stop a mad elephant?

Lawrence Anthony was a researcher and activist on behalf of African elephants. He worked in a large elephant preserve that he and other workers tried to guard from poachers.

Many of the elephants did not appreciate being penned up in the preserve. Often they would break out in the most ingenious ways. Once outside, the elephants are legally considered “rogues”, and rogue elephants may be killed without penalty.

Once day the electrified fence signaled another breakout. Lawrence drove alone to that sector and found the most fierce and intelligent elephant of the preserve, a wild female and head of her herd, bashing down the electric fence so she could lead her herd out of the compound. This elephant was known to have a quick temper and a very aggressive nature.

Lawrence had no tranquilizer gun and no backup, and only a fence separating him from danger, a fence that was almost dismantled. On a fierce, loving impulse that surprised even him, he simply walked up to the rampaging elephant.

The elephant stopped her work to tear down the fence and stared at Lawrence fiercely. She trumpeted angrily and prepared to charge.

Lawrence stood his ground. He held out his arms with palms open to show he had no weapon. He opened his mouth and shouted, “NO! You can’t do that! If you leave, you will be killed! You can’t leave! Stay here. I will stay with you.”

The elephant and Lawrence stood near one another for several minutes, she trumpeting and menacing and he standing his ground, helpless if she chose to charge.

Finally, with one more stare and a toss of her trunk, the female turned and led her herd back into the safety of the preserve.

“Preserve the works of your mercy…”

Usually when we think of “preserving” anything, we try to make it invulnerable, safe from harm. We seal fruit and vegetables in airtight jars and call them “preserves.” We buy safe cars, we take out insurance policies, we save for a rainy day. We preserve our heads with bicycle helmets and preserve our buildings with alarm systems. We want to make ourselves invulnerable to being hurt, and keep from losing what we have.

But is this how God “preserves” what is most precious in God’s eyes? Is this the way of Jesus?

Isaiah presents a different vision of how God “preserves the works of his mercy.” We hear echoes of Holy Week in his haunting words, “Surely he has born our griefs, and carried our diseases…upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” The power of God comes to us, not in a powerful and invulnerable leader, but in a very vulnerable form, in the form of someone who suffered as we do, who did not shield himself from the violence and abuse that the cruel and the threatened dished out. We are tempted to think of our Savior as all-powerful and never losing his calm and assurance, but that is not the Gospel we have been given. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” The Son of God knew not only pain but also fear and anxiety, and he prayed for himself and for deliverance from suffering.

This is how new life has come into the world. What about us? Jesus’ question to James and John is meant for us as well. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" The difference between a mere fan of Jesus and a disciple of Jesus is out willingness to have our life look more like his. So serve, as he did. Walk in the world as he did. Seek the way of Jesus, the way of the Cross, the way of openness and vulnerability. It is the way of true peace.

I am not advocating leaving here to cancel our insurance policies of throw out our bicycle helmets. But in our lives we do not get to keep to ourselves anything we have been given, not even our sense of assurance and peace. Instead we are to serve as he served, will what he wills, and not belong to our anxieties and fears. As a church the way to a future that is “safe” is not to try and hug to ourselves what little we think we now have. The way that God wishes to “preserve the works of his mercy” is not to draw a wall around ourselves, but to risk giving our lives away, to meet the stranger and the outcast, to be with those in pain and desolation. In the strange world of the Gospel, we stay safe by taking risks and becoming vulnerable.

Lawrence continued his strange work with the wild elephants, making himself vulnerable over and over again with them, especially when they were angry or frightened. They never became cuddly pets or tame elephants, and he never treated them with anything but the respect that a wild creature deserves. Lawrence suddenly died of a heart attack. His body was laid out in his own research facility. Only hours after his death, the rest of the staff was startled by the appearance of two wild elephant herds who came into the research compound. They stayed, and for two strange days the researchers went about their business threading their way between wild elephants whom they would never approach normally, who never made a threatening gesture towards any human there. Then the elephants quietly drifted away. An elephant wake perhaps? One thing is sure—the elephants honored the one who risked his life to be vulnerable to them so that he might save some. So did the Son of God. And so are we to do, if we wish to follow in his footsteps.