Keeping your feet out of the Poo
The call of the barnyard by the19th Century Danish Theologian and philosopher, Soren Kirkengard
A flock of wild ducks were flying in formation, heading south for the winter. They formed a beautiful V in the sky, and were admired by every one who saw them from below. One day, Wally, one of the wild ducks in the formation, spotted something on the ground that caught his eye. It was a barnyard with a flock of tame ducks who lived on the farm. They were waddling around on the ground, quacking merrily, and eating corn that was thrown on the ground for them every day. Wally liked what he saw.
"It sure would be nice to have some of that corn," he thought to himself. "And all this flying is very tiresome. I’d like to just waddle around for awhile." So after thinking it over a while, Wally left the formation
of wild ducks, made a sharp dive to the left, and headed for the barnyard. He landed among the tame ducks, and began to waddle around and quack merrily. He also started eating corn.
The formation of wild ducks continued their journey south, but Wally didn’t care. I’ll rejoin them when they
come back north in a few months, he said to himself. Several months went by and sure enough, Wally looked up and spotted the flock of wild ducks in formation, heading north. They looked beautiful up there.
And Wally was tired of the barnyard. It was muddy everywhere he waddled, nothing but duck poo. "It’s time to leave," said Wally. So Wally flapped his wings furiously and tried to get airborne. But he had gained some weight from all his corn eating, and he hadn’t exercised his wings much either. He finally got off the ground, but he was flying to low and slammed into the side of the barn. He fell to the ground with a thud and said to himself, "Oh well, I’ll just wait until they fly south in a few months. Then I’ll rejoin them and become a wild duck again."
But when the flock flew overhead once more, Wally again tried to lift himself out of the barnyard. He simply didn’t have the strength. Every winter and every spring, he saw his wild duck friends flying overhead, and they would call out to him. But his attempts to leave were all in vain. Eventually Wally no longer paid any attention to the wild ducks flying overhead. He hardly even noticed them. He had, after all, become a barnyard duck.
What lessons can we learn from this story?
What looks attractive isn’t always what it appears to be – beyond the quacking, waddling and the corn was the mud and the poo, and eventually a boring lifestyle
Much as we would like to get out of our circumstances, we just don’t have the willpower to get out
We become complacent and begin to accept our circumstances - we get used to the mud and the poo
Interesting doing the telephone book drop last week in a depressed area of town – amazing what filth people will live with
Do you sometimes feel like you are missing out on all the fun because you are a Christian family?
Parents wouldn’t let me go to town on a Friday night
Get to town the next night and hear about all the fun you missed out on
I resented my parents religion
I may have been missing out on all the fun, but what else was I missing out on?
Underage drinking, fooling around with the wrong crowd getting into petty crime, street fights, drunken behaviour, loose sexual behaviour
What I came to realise later on was beneath all that fun, was a lot of mud and poo
I had friends who lost their lives racing cars, girls became pregnant, some arrested by the police
Can you think of a Biblical example where someone chose to leave the wild duck formation and join the barnyard ducks?
Genesis 13:10-13 Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the LORD or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 Lot chose that land for himself—the Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. 12 So while Abram stayed in the land of Canaan, Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom, among the cities of the plain. 13 The people of this area were unusually wicked and sinned greatly against the LORD.
To Lot, the land looked really attractive didn’t it, but beneath the bright lights and the big city attractions, there was a lot of duck poo on the ground. Do you think he knew about all the mud and duck poo in the city of Sodom?
Funny thing is, the poo had always been there, but our minds focus on the positive – we see the corn we hear the quacks, we see the waddling and forget about the mud and the poo just below the surface
Do you think Lot went down there expecting to become like the people in the city?
“It won’t happen to me”
Have you ever tried walking in a chicken or a duck pen and not get any poo on you?
Doesn’t matter how careful you are, sooner or later, some of the poo is going to get on you
Was he able to live like a Wild duck while surrounded by Tame ducks?
Genesis 19:4-8 4 as they were preparing to retire for the night, all the men of Sodom, young and old, came from all over the city and surrounded the house. 5 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out so we can have sex with them.”6 Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. 7 “Please, my brothers,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing. 8 Look—I have two virgin daughters. Do with them as you wish, but leave these men alone, for they are under my protection.”
Lot hadn’t realised it, but over a period of time he had slowly changed into a tame duck
Like a frog in boiling water
Later on in the story we read his daughters had also been effected by their time in Sodom
When the time came for Lot to leave did he want to go?
Genesis 19:15-17 At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out of here right now, or you will be caught in the destruction of the city.” 16 When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the LORD was merciful. 17 “Run for your lives!” the angels warned. “Do not stop anywhere in the valley. And don’t look back! Escape to the mountains, or you will die.”
Why do you think he didn’t want to leave?
Lot liked the lifestyle, the fact he sat at the gates of the city meant he was one of the elders of the city, had a nice home, his family was there
Like the duck in our story, after a while you begin to accept the mud and the poo and even became comfortable with it
And you begin to think you can’t live any other way
Does this mean if we ever were to find ourselves in these circumstances there is no hope for us to take off and rejoin the wild ducks? When Lot was unable to bring himself to leave, who stepped in?
Its the same with us, we may have become fat on the diet of this world, our feet stuck in the mud, unable to get airborne again, but who comes to our rescue? – Jesus Christ
We sing the song, “You rescued me”
Luke 4:17-19 The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, 19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
The good news Jesus brought was he can deliver us when we can’t free ourselves
Regardless of how deep we are in the mud and the poo, Jesus can set us free
When we are born, what are we, Wild ducks or Tame ducks?
Whether we have grown up as a Christian or not, we all need rescuing from our carnal heart
Our carnal heart will always be drawn towards the “dark side”
Sooner or later, until we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, repent of our sins, are baptised, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, we will never be free from the barnyard
But for Christian kids, we can avoid much of the pain associated with the barnyard
The best option is not to get lured into the barnyard in the first place
The sooner we accept Jesus as our savior, the less we will be drawn to the barnyard
Is it just young ducks that are drawn to the barnyard?
Sometimes older Christians too get tired of being wild ducks -- followers of Jesus Christ.
It’s not always easy being obedient to God, doing the christian things
Sometimes we become envious of the world, we would like to just rest and coast for a while
There’s a real danger there, that’s when Satan tempts us to "fall out of formation" and to join the barnyard ducks--- (the world).
But remember what happened to Wally. He thought he would just "check it out" for a while and
then leave when he wanted to. But he couldn’t do it.
Sin is like that. It’s a trap, and it has a way of changing us into people we don’t even want to become.
Eventually we loose touch with who we really are -- the sons and daughters of the Most High and we become barnyard ducks.
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
So stay away from the duck poo, it has a bad habit of sticking
