Finding God on the Farm

Finding God on the Farm
North Hill Adventist Fellowship, August 19, 2009
Texts: Exodus 20:10; Numbers 22, 1 Samuel 9; Matthew 10:29

I got home Wednesday afternoon about 2:00. I walked out back to where my daughter was working her horse.

“I’m going to eat lunch,” I told her. “ Then I’m headed to the church.”

“Okay,” she responded, “but you should know Bolero has knocked down the electric in his stall.” (We use electric fencing to keep the horses from chewing up the wood in their stalls.)

Great, I thought. Always something.

I had spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning in continuing education meetings for pastors. I sated with theological theories and methodology for church life. I was impatient to get on with the actual work of ministry. I had come home thinking I would eat a good lunch, then dive into my to-do list. Now I had to mess with horse damage.

I don’t do animal care at our house. I don’t feed or clean stalls. But I do handle the repairs. And it seems like the animals are always tearing up something.

I was really hungry, and I was impatient get going on my to-do list for the church. But if I didn’t fix the electric now, no telling how badly it might be mangled later. So I headed over to check out Bolero’s stall.

Bolero is my wife’s treasure, a one-year-old colt she has raised from birth. He is full of energy and mischief. Because of the weather and Karin’s work schedule, he had been penned up in his stall for the last couple of days. So no wonder he got into mischief.

As I unlatched the gate on his pen he came toward me. I stared in horror at the right side of his head. Where his eyeball was supposed to be was a weird red patch of tissue. I couldn’t see the eye ball at all.

I called to Bonnie. “We’ve got a big problem. There’s something terribly wrong with Bolero’s eye. I’ve got to call the vet.”

I reached Dr. Campbell on my cell phone. Yes, we could bring the horse over for him to look at.

Since Karin was at work, it was up to Bonnie and me to take care of the problem.

Lunch would have to wait.

She put her horse away and we walked Bolero the quarter mile up the road to the vet’s place. He sedated the horse, then checked out the eye. Fortunately, it was not as bad as I feared. The red tissue was the result of some kind of inflamation around the eye. With proper care, it would probably heal up fine.

He gave the horse a couple of injections. Put some ointment in the eye, then sent us home with instructions to ice the eye immediately while the horse was still drunk from the sedative.

It was kind of funny walking a drunk horse down the road home. He staggered all over the road. Several times he nearly staggered into the ditch. We got him home, tied him up to the hitching rack and fetched an ice pack from the house. I set the alarm on my phone for 15 minutes and held the ice pack to his eye. He wasn’t crazy about the operation, but he was too drunk to protest effectively.

Standing there for fifteen minutes with nothing to do except make sure he didn’t fall over and keep the ice pack on his eye gave me some time to think.

Naturally, my first reaction was resentment. I really had more important things to do than stand there holding an ice pack on a horse’s eye. Besides, I was seriously hungry. And it wasn’t my horse. Then I had to laugh. What a perfect illustration of the truth I’ve been focusing on in this sermon series.

God had shown up on our farm in the person of a horse.

Naturally enough, we expect to encounter God in religious places like church, prayer and the Bible. In reality God shows up all over the place if only we have eyes to see.

God is in the glory of mountains and in the sweet beauty of lilies and columbines. God also reveals himself in the terror of avalanches and consuming power of thirty-foot surf.

Romance and sexual intimacy teach spiritual truths that are only hinted at in words in books. God is also revealed in the challenge of unity between beings as different and difficult as men and women.

In the city, we readily honor the reflection of God we see in the achievements of academics and artists. We marvel at the technological innovation and complex systems of transportation and communication. God is also present in the pain and dysfunction of miserable humans so evident in the crumbling parts of the metropolis. Meth addicts, prostitutes, homeless schizophrenics are all God’s children. When we touch them with care and hope, we are easing the pain of God.

And God lives on the farm. On our farm. Your farm. And not just in the glory of galloping horses on sunny mornings or the purr of contented cats. God is also present in the demands animals make on us through their needs.

God must have special appreciation for horses and cows. He actually included them in the fourth commandment. “Remember the Sabbath to keep holy . . . don’t work . . . and don’t work your horses or cows.”

The most repeated picture of God in the Bible is God responding to the human predicament. Humans are in trouble because of something stupid they have done or something evil someone else has done. People are in trouble and God steps in.

Even at the very beginning. While Christian tradition imagines a period of blissful communion between God and Adam and Eve before they sin, the first recorded conversation between people and God happens only after the people get into trouble.

God comes looking for Adam and Eve, calling for them like we call after our missing pets. “Adam, Eve, where are you?”

God is the Savior, Shepherd, Comforter–all words that evoke images of responding to human difficulty.

So I’m standing there on Wednesday afternoon, keeping company with God, holding an ice pack to the swollen eye of one of God’s horses. This was not on my calendar. It was not on my to do list. But what can I do? It looks like my wife’s prize colt has lost its eye. So, naturally, I take the colt to the vet. Dr. Campbell said, “Ice that eye for fifteen minutes as soon as you get home, while he is still under the effective of the sedative.”

So, I’m icing the eye.

And hope that God is, indeed, keeping me company in the barnyard.

The Bible has a couple of stories about people who have significant encounters with God because of trouble with horses. (Well, actually donkeys. But I think that’s close enough to make my point.)

First is the story of Balaam. Balaam was a prophet. Not a Jewish prophet, but still a prophet with an extraordinary connection with God.

Some enemies of the Jews hire him to curse the Jews. After consulting God, Balaam tells them he can’t do that. They figure he is just holding out for a bigger honorarium. So they come back and offer him more money and greater honor and beg him to help them out by cursing the Jews. He checks with God again, then agrees to go with them to see about putting a curse on the Jews.

He is riding his donkey to his appointment when all of a sudden the donkey leaves the road and strikes off into a field beside the road. Balaam is understandably annoyed and beats his donkey with a stick, finally getting him back on the road.

A little later when the road goes through a narrow space between two walls, the donkey crowds to one side smashing Balaam’s foot against the wall. Again, Balaam beats the donkey with his stick.

Finally, they come to a very narrow place. This time the donkey just lies down. Balaam gets off the donkey and begins to flail away with his stick. Probably, he’s throwing in a few choice words as well.

About this time the donkey speaks up.

“Why are you beating me?”

“What do you mean, you stupid donkey, ‘why am I beating you?’ First, you take off into a field. Then you smash my foot against a wall. Now you lie down in the middle of the road. Why am I beating you? If I had a sword I’d kill you.”

“Have I ever acted like this before?” The donkey asks.

“No.” Balaam grudgingly acknowledged.

“Look, I’m the same donkey you have ridden all your life. If I have never before done anything like this, don’t you think there might be a good reason?”

About this time, God comes to the aid of the donkey. He allows Balaam to see an angel who is standing smack in the middle of road just ahead of where the donkey had lain down. The angel scolds Balaam.

“How come you beat your donkey like that? When he headed out into the field it was to avoid running into me. When he smashed your foot against the wall he was squeezing by me in the narrow road. And this time, there was no way to get around me.

“I have been sent by God to bar your way. Your donkey saw me and tried to comply with the obvious message conveyed by my presence in the middle of the road.

“If that donkey had run into me I would not have harmed the donkey, but I would have killed you.”

Balaam was stunned. Naturally. “I’m sorry.” he mumbles to the angel. “I didn’t know you were standing in the road. Now if you think I shouldn’t go, I’ll turn around and head back home.”

“No,” the angel said. “Keep going. Just make sure you speak only the words God gives you.”

So Balaam kept his appointment. He prophesied over the Jewish people. Instead of cursing them, he blessed them. A famous blessing still read 4000 years later, a blessing set up by a troublesome horse (or donkey).

The next story that comes to mind is the story of Saul, son of Kish. Some of Kish’s donkeys wander off. Kish sends out his son Saul and a servant to look for them. They hike for days through the hill country of Ephraim and Shalishah. They head on over into the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. Still no donkeys. Finally, Saul decides they better head back or Dad is going to be more worried about them than he is about the lost donkeys.

The servant says, “Wait. Before we head back, let’s go to the holy man in the next town. He is highly respected because everything he says comes true. Maybe he can tell us where to find our donkeys.”

Saul agrees to go meet the holy man who turns out to be the prophet Samuel. When they meet Samuel, it is obvious that Samuel is expecting them. He tells them not to worry about the donkeys. They are back home, and Saul’s father is now worried about Saul. Then Samuel tells Saul that God has chosen him to become the king of Israel.

Saul is astonished. He left home looking for donkeys. He has spent the last several weeks wandering the Palestinian wilderness looking for lost donkeys. Where does his search for those perverse donkeys bring him? To an encounter with the leading holy man of Israel who gives him a message from God: You have been chosen king.

As I was standing there holding the ice pack to Bolero’s eye on Wednesday afternoon, I was hoping God was going to use this interruption of my life as a segue into some dramatic, heroic service.

Of course, that’s not what happened. After I iced his eye, I checked the electric in his stall. It wasn’t working at all. I found a problem in the plug on the electric charge box and fixed that. Then I spent close to an hour redoing all the insulators in his stall which he had rubbed on or kicked or chewed on. I replaced the electric tape and finally left the drunk horse to recover while I grabbed some lunch and headed toward the church for my evening meeting.

The only connection with God I was aware of in the whole operation was a reminder that God spends his whole life taking care of people who screw up.

That horse had screwed himself up. He needed help–help he could not summon or manage. He needed help that only I, at that moment, could give.

Just like people need God’s help to deal with the messes we make.


God’s care for animals is highlighted by Jesus in Matthew 10:10. Not a sparrow falls to the ground unnoticed by God’s loving attention. In Matthew 6, Jesus insists that birds eat because God feeds them.

This world is full of dramatic, horrific evil. We think of the stern, despotic rulers of North Korea or Burma. Going back a few decades we remember the horrors of Rwanda and Cambodia. Here in our own neighborhoods murders happen. In our own homes brutal words are used, maybe even physical abuse is dished out. I hope not.

In the face of all this God invites us to keep him company in giving care to the animals within our sphere. When we teach our children to feed their cats and dogs, we are teaching them to cooperate with God. God, too, is affected by their welfare.

Then looking beyond the care for animals, we are summoned to the care of people. Maybe we can lift our voice in protest against the burning of Christian homes and churches in Pakistan. Maybe we can lend our influence to oppose the systematic oppression of the Palestinians. Perhaps we can make a difference in the life of a kid through being a tutor or just a friend.

When we interrupt our big, important, significant work to give care to the insignificant, unimportant little ones, we are entering into the tenderness and attentiveness of God.

The Bible story begins with God taking initiative. God does God’s thing. He creates a world. But ever since, most of the action of God pictured in the Bible, is God reacting to human need. God deals with the fallout of human choices, human errors, human failures. God is kept busy all through the Bible cleaning up human messes.

We hurt ourselves. We mess up our world. We damage other people. And God does not turn away. God does not overlook our mess. He responds. He changes his plans to engage our reality. He holds ice packs to our eyes. He puts back up the guidelines we tear down in our boredom or rambunctiousness.


Near the end of Jesus’ ministry, when he finally decides it’s time to demonstrate his rightful claim to royalty, he rides into Jerusalem on a colt.

He must like horses.

Then in Revelation when Jesus is described as finally triumphing over the forces of evil, he is pictured as riding on a white horse followed by his people also mounted on white horses.

Wednesday night, I left it to Karin to continue the medical attention to Bolero. I could only stand so much direct cooperation with God in holding an ice pack to Bolero’s eye.

But I’ve found myself thinking all week, where else is God hiding? Where else would I encounter God, if I paid attention?

Bolero’s need for my immediate attention was not the only time this week the farm intruded into my life. Friday morning, I jumped up from my desk to go separate two dogs that got into a fight. It was not fun. It was not on my calendar or on my to do list. But it was care that was needed RIGHT NOW.

How often is “God’s Perfect Plan” rearranged to meet the actual situation of our lives? The Bible uses multiple images to persuade us that God is watching and responding to the human situation. When we who are farmers (or pet owners) respond to the needs and messes of our animals, we are walking with God. Throughout the Bible God is pictured as engaged with animals (and other little ones). He invites us to be aware of him keeping us company while we serve the voiceless ones in our care.

Maybe the animals on your “farm” are actually people–children, broken, hurting adults–people whose needs call you away from your preset plans. Pay attention. It may be that God is inviting you to spend fifteen minutes keeping him company holding an ice pack to his horse’s eye. Maybe God just wants to slow us down and keep him company in the barnyard. For a while.