This is the nice mnemonic to help you to remember the predator / prey relationship, the relationship between what like to eat, and what likes to get eaten. Now, obviously nobody and nothing wants to get eaten, but some things are predators, and some other things are prey. And prey has been equipped with various survival strategies to help them to avoid, evade, or fight their way out of capture and inevitable death. Whether it be horns, claws or deadly poison, whether it be speed or shells, prey would like to have a way to stop being killed for food.
That's good for them, but bad for us.
Before we as humans domesticated animals, we hunted them. Before we put fences around animals so they couldn't get far, we had to hunt them, chasing them down, and attacking them with spears or driving them off of cliffs. This was a good way to get meat, but it wasn't perfect. If we wanted to keep our meat fresh, then we were going to want to do something a little outlandish, which was to instead of hunting the animals, we would keep them close to us.
This is going to involve something specific though. If you're going to domesticate an animal, you're going to want to do something important, which is to take away its survival instinct. For if an animal is going to want to survive, it's going to want to evade capture and death from all its predators, including but not limited to the farmer. The animal has to be taught not to fight the farmer that is raising it, and that's what domestication is all about. In order to keep the animals close to you, to make it so they don't run away, you have to kill the survival instinct that they have. You have to give them nothing to strive for, nothing to work for. If you pen them in, if you fence the cattle in, and give them food and water, safety and shelter, gradually cattle will stop running into you with horns outstretched, and will inevitably focus on just wandering about from place to place, eating, sleeping, and mating. And that's all.
So, ask yourself what it is that you're here for. You are the same as likely all people, which is that you have a life, you have decisions that you can make, and likely you have been listening to the same instructions as the rest of us. And I do mean instructions. There is a good chance that you've been hearing the same instructions that I have. We've been hearing the same things, that tell us that the things we ought to do is to eat, sleep, mate, and that's it. There are great forces out there that are happy, very happy, for you to be essentially gelded. There are forces out there that are quite pleased for you to move around in a circle, eating and sleeping, mating and dying, without ever lifting your head up to realize the talents, skills and abilities that you've been given.
The first epistle of Peter says to us, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Can you imagine if a lion could be assured of getting a kill? Can you imagine a situation in which the gazelles, or the wildebeest were just milling around, captive, and never looking up to see the lions awaiting them? It seems unlikely, but that's the best situation for the lion to be in. A position in which the prey doesn't even bother to look up, because they're amused to death.
And this is the situation that we are in today. We are being amused to death. We are being quite happily amused down to nothing. We are quite happy being led around by our instincts, and being defined by our consumption, and not by our production. We are quite happy to be moved about, directed by our passions, with our gods in our bellies, face down in the grass, quietly munching away while we are awaiting butchery. But we aren't meant to be killed and eaten you know. We were made and placed by God on earth to use our skills, talents and abilities to do the extraordinary. We were placed by God to do something fantastic. We were baptized with the holy spirit and with fire, to lift up our eyes to the hills, and to be focused on things far far more significant than just our bodily passions, and to be focused on things far more relevant than just surviving the day.
In the parable of the talents, we heard about how there was a master, an overseer, who gave his servants some talents, and then left on a journey. And the big question for each of those servants was what they were going to do with those talents. How were they going to employ these things in service to their master? Two of the servants, those that had the lion's share of the money, invested said money until it doubled in size, and well and good. But the third servant, the one who had received only one talent took it and buried it. Better to leave it buried, hidden away, than to let it be seen, let it be used, to risk using it or tarnishing it. Burying things, leaving them in the dirt, staying face down, that's sort of the way we do, isn't it? We are keen to just keep our heads down, bury our talents, and just live day to day. That's what the world wants, that's what our flesh wants, that's what the devil wants. And that's why we are called to do more.
You may ask what happened to things like devil possession, to things like ghosts and goblins, the things that go bump in the night, the long-leggedy beasties, and the thing is, that the devil worked out some time ago that it was far far more profitable for him to just perpetually drown you in your desires, and then you'll never really have a chance to focus too much on what you really should be accomplishing. And as long as you're facedown in fleshly concerns, as long as you're thinking all day every day about eating and sleeping and mating, as long as you're thinking only about buying and selling, about profit and purchase, about sweet treats and pornography, as long as you're thinking about those things, then you have been made fully complacent. And the devil, who prowleth around, has got you exactly where he wants you, just thinking about yourself, and thinking with your belly.
But you weren't made to be a prey animal. You weren't here to eat and sleep and mate. You weren't put here on God's earth, as the crowning achievement of creation and the apple of his eye, just to binge watch Stranger Things and to take a woman you don't like and don't want to have children with home from the bar. Instead, you were entrusted with the tools, talents and abilities that God wants you to use in his service, and you were given the command, the order, to get those things working for Him, and by extension for you. And these days, complacency is your biggest enemy, the biggest threat, and the number one thing that the devil will attack you with. Instead of starving you, scaring you, or threatening you, he'll just give you whatever you want, and kill you with absolute complete complacency.
So the work of the Christian begins by recognizing that the horns and fangs and claws and hooves and teeth aren't just for show, they're not ornamental. The things that you were given by God aren't decoration, they're there to be used, to be activated in his kingdom pursuit. People often ask questions where they say 'why doesn't God just save everyone from hell?' Good question, and the answer to that question typically is 'why are you standing in his way? ' Why are you burying your talent, why are you roaming around in complacency, why are you walking from place to place in a big circle with your eyes focused on the ground, thinking only of eating, and sleeping, and mating? Why is this sufficient for your life? And the answer is that it isn't. This is not any kind of good use of your talents.
We'll get more into this next week, of course, but what you need to know for this week is that the person you are, the skills you have, the talents you enjoy are things that you are given not only to make you extraordinary, but also to do the work that has been set aside for you specifically to do. As the scriptures say, you are God's workmanship, created by him to do good works, which he has prepared in advance for you to do. This is true, and even if you're not a believing Christian (which you ought to be), you must realize that there are a great many tasks and responsibilities that you have before you that are straight up given to you and to you alone. There are many deeds that could be done by you, that don't really seem like they'd be suitable for anyone else. In other words, the abilities, skills, talents and resources that you have at your disposal seem to be awfully convenient for making inroads on some things you desperately need to do, and that God wants you to do. How do you get to it? Glad you asked.
If you know anything about the scriptures, about Jesus and his crucifixion, you'll know that he was taken to the place of the skull, Golgotha, Calvary, and was crucified there. And the Romans tended to crucify people in public, very much on display, so that the people of the surrounding region would look upon the condemned, and perhaps change their ways. They were placed way up high on crosses, way up high on a hill, and were put on humiliating public display. The words that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about this are words that display that he understood the significance of this act, saying to Nicodemus 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.' Lift up your heads. Look to the cross, and let the work that Christ has done shock you out of your complacency. Look upon the cross, and realize the price paid for you, the blood shed for you ,the wounds opened for you. Look upon the cross, and think of the crucified savior, who burst through the bounds of complacency to bring you life everlasting. And in doing so, you will find yourself less and less able to be complacent, to be servile, to be passive. You will find yourself thinking more of Christ, and less of yourself.
The theme at this time of year is very much about lifting up your head. About moving through the complacency, shattering through it, realizing that the devil is quite happy indeed to suffocate you with what you think you want, and to look up Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. He who did not scorn the cross, but instead bore it, and carried it up to Calvary. That man is the focus of what we do . If the focus is on us, and what we want, it will all be food and drink and sex. Always. But if the focus is on Christ, his work and his commands, then instead of being buried the talents that we have been given may very well be put to work. And we may very well be convinced that putting them to work isn't just the best thing for God in his majesty. It's the best thing for us too, moving us away from being complacent cattle, and into being women and men.
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