What the Ducks Do for Us

Homily for Sunday, October 24th

Lessons:
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10

The Dell Pond is a lovely oasis of peace in the midst of the racket of human endeavor on Grounds, as we say, at the University of Virginia. On Emmet Street, right next to the Curry School of Education and across from the Newcomb Hall parking garage, the little pond is passed daily by hordes of people on foot or in vehicles. For the last two years the construction of Bavaro Hall, the Curry School's new building, was going on just a stone's throw away from the pond, and now cranes and construction crews are at work on the garage across the street from it. Still, as I walk past it most days, the beautifully landscaped pond, with its water lilies and weeping willows, is the very image of tranquility and grace.

When I first began to work at my present job, a pair of domesticated ducks were permanent residents of the pond, and I monitored their activities as I walked to and from work. Watching them as they glided across the water or rested on the grass, I was touched by their dependence on each other, on the way they did everything side by side. I found myself feeling anxious for them if I didn't see them and delighted when they reappeared. Snapping turtles occasionally rise to the pond's surface, golden koi flash far beneath, and sometimes a great blue heron stands knee-deep at its edge, but the ducks have been a constant presence on the pond.

I have discovered that I am by no means the only one who feels an affectionate attachment to the Dell Pond ducks. On nice days parents with young children stop by to see and feed them, older adults relax on the bench overlooking the pond, and students snap photos of the ducks with their cell phones. One day I met one of my coworkers passing the pond, and I found out that Peter often brings the ducks cracked corn during the winter.

In the spring of '09, the white female duck disappeared and did not return. Her mate was clearly grieving, and I was devastated. There had been local news stories about a den of foxes that lived near the railroad tracks under Beta Bridge--a rabid fox had bitten someone--so I assumed a fox had killed the female duck. After a few weeks of watching the lonely duck grieve, Peter and his wife Ann called the SPCA to ask if they had any ducks who needed a home, and three new ducks came to live at Dell Pond. The original lone duck was immediately enfolded into the new flock. Last winter when deep snow covered the ground and the pond was frozen, I wondered how the ducks would manage, but they survived. Since then, another buff-colored female duck has disappeared, but the remaining three ducks are always together.

What have the ducks done for us? What do they represent? A community of caring has sprung up around these ducks, and although we don't all know one another, we share a common cause. When one of the female ducks was laying eggs on the grassy turf beside the pond, a student left a sign near the eggs, imploring the groundskeepers not to discard the eggs. My friend Peter brings them cracked corn, and children toss bread crumbs their way. I believe I am not the only person who verbally greets the ducks upon encountering them. Those three brave and vulnerable ducks are the unifying bond of a group of otherwise unconnected people.

Shared belief in Christ is the common cause that creates a community of worship and brings us all here to gather under this one roof. Though our lives, our politics, and our opinions on outside issues may vary greatly, our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ unites us. We expect to encounter the Risen Lord here in each other. As Henri Nouwen said, "God has given us the church as the place where God becomes God-with-us." In the ways that we worship together and love one another, we experience God. Community is essential for that purpose.

In today's epistle, Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing." Paul hails the church at Thessalonica as a model church because the people there lived in mutual love and support of one another. We are all called to be part of such a community, with our common cause the love of the Lord, and our expression of this love revealed in the way we treat each other and our neighbors.

Our gospel lesson for today, the story of Jesus's encounter with a tax collector named Zacchaeus, perfectly illustrates the inclusiveness of the Lord's community. You may remember the old Bible school song about Zacchaeus and what a "wee little man was he." It's a silly song, so I won't repeat it, especially since the song fails to convey one very important fact about Zacchaeus: though he may have been a man short in physical stature, Zacchaeus was not equally short in economic or social status. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and a very rich man. Why would such a powerful man press to get through the crowd to see a controversial itinerant preacher? Why would this tax collector, hated by his fellow Jews because of his position, risk making a fool of himself by climbing a tree to see Jesus? God has a way of placing such desires in our hearts; we love God because he first loved us. Zacchaeus must have felt his heart stirred by the words of Jesus, and his heart was rewarded when Jesus looked up in the sycamore tree and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today."

Others in the crowd grumbled because Jesus chose to go to the house of someone they considered a sinner and a rogue. They could find no common ground with Zacchaeus, and they judged him for his obvious faults. But Zacchaeus, at the Lord's invitation, was more than willing to become a part of the community of believers, even though his self-righteous neighbors wished to exclude him. He promised the Lord to give half of all he had to the poor and to make reparation to those he had harmed. Jesus has the final word for anyone who thinks he or she is better behaved and more worthy of the kingdom than someone else: "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost."

I fear there are too many old stories and bad jokes about St. Peter standing at the pearly gates and barring the entrance to heaven. That kind of expectation has all of us casting judgment on ourselves and on each other, deciding who is good and who is bad, who will make it into the kingdom and who will not. Truly, judging is not and has never been our job, and we can give thanks for that. How grateful should we be for the wideness of God's mercy that forgives us seventy times seven!

As former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Edmond Browning wrote: "The church is a group of people united in gratitude to God for the redemption of the whole creation from the decay of sin and death, not an elaborate set of reasons why I am saved and you are not...What will we be asked when we stand before God? Were you right all the time? Do you qualify for membership? That is not my image of God's judgment. I think we will be asked if we loved God and tried to show it in the things we did." Bishop Browning is really speaking of the greatest and most simple commandment, the one the Lord told us was the only one we need to remember. "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart and love your neighbor as yourself."

Like the community of duck fanciers who pass by the Dell Pond, the church is a place where the common cause of love is the bond that unites us all. And like the ducks themselves, we are better off when we stick together.