I don’t know how a four-year-old little boy managed to end up in that moat.  I can’t imagine the terror in the mind of that Mommy as she watched for long minutes as her little one was helpless and in danger.  I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have such animals confined.  I am certain that many who are second-guessing both mom and zoo are dealing with a view of life that is either uninformed or dangerously naïve.  But there are a couple of things that come to this writer’s mind.

First, there was a time when all animals would have never done harm to a human being.  There was a natural and universal sense in animals that mankind was the crown of God’s creation and they would have given a four year-old a respectful distance.  That was when creation came from the hand of the Creator.  God himself said it would be that way:  “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”  (Genesis 1:28)  In that world a zoo as we know it would have been quite unnecessary.  Mankind and the animals would have lived in proximity to one another and there would have been no danger posed by one to the other.

But that world – and that relationship between man and animals – no longer exists that way.  It hasn’t since the fall into sin.  It is safe to assume and unwise to ignore that the relationship of man and animals is included in St. Paul’s observation in Romans 8:20 – “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  Like everything else in the fallen world, the relationship of man and animals is broken, too.  Now there are animals that will not only resist man’s rule, but even kill him.  The idea of the noble ape who will cuddle and protect one of mankind’s little ones may sometimes happen, but it is foolhardy to assume that it always does.  Knowing what I know about how sin and the brokenness it has brought to our world affects all things, I would never bet the life of one of my grandkids who was in that situation that the animal would “do the right thing.”

Second, I am certain that Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:26 have something to say to us here:  “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?”  That four-year-old boy is much more valuable than any animal.  That four-year-old boy is part of the crown of God’s creation.  That little boy has an immortal soul.  God himself attached priceless value to that child when he spent his own Son to redeem him from sin, death and hell.   None of that is true of an animal.  Jesus did not die to redeem gorillas and not even angels; he died to redeem human beings.  To make the life of a child equivalent to the life of an animal does not elevate animal worth; it cheapens human worth. 

It is a tragedy that the situation unfolded as it did so that a magnificent silverback had to be shot.  The great apes are an amazing and magnificent part of God’s creation.  They deserve to receive the same careful stewardship and appreciation as every other thing God has made.   But if the choice is between an animal’s life and a human being’s life, the choice should be clear.  

“Sorry pastor – it seems like just about the time you begin your sermon, Niilo fills his diaper.”  I’m sure it was offered as an explanation as to why his Mommy or Daddy would take him out for a few minutes about that time each Sunday.  I’m sure they didn’t want me to think it was me or something I said or their infant son’s commentary on my preaching skills (or lack of them).  We had a good chuckle over it. 

But the more I thought about it the more it occurred to me that the situation is a rather earthy metaphor for what happens – or what God wants to happen – each time we gather in his house to hear his Word.  Bear with me, and think about it. 

All through our week the world in which we live gives us all kinds of stuff to try to digest:  gender identity and sexuality controversies, being told in subtle and overt ways that our worth is measured by what we have or earn or do, running out of time because there always seems too much to do and too little time to get it done,  trying to balance work and family, as well as trying to balance earthly and spiritual concerns, and more and more and more. 

And our world offers no end of temptations to gratify our sinful nature and its desires.  It seems that everything God has forbidden is accepted, defended, and even celebrated by our culture.  And the more we are exposed to that, the more our Christian conscience can become desensitized.  The more that happens, the easier it is to stumble and fall and rebel and choose that which God forbids. 

And there is also the guilt we carry inside of us – guilt for what we have done and not done, guilt for having neglected family for work, guilt for disappointing our God or ourselves, guilt for knowing less of the Word than we know we should, guilt for having failed to keep the personal spiritual commitments we made when we last sat in God’s house.

A Bible verse comes to mind that has a curious connection (at least in English) to that baby’s sermon-timed diaper habit.  Jesus said,   "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.”  (Luke 21:34)  The Greek word Jesus used there for is κραιπάλῃ.  Pronounce it “craipalay.”  The meaning of the world comes pretty close to the slang expression “crapola” – all that stuff that clutters up life and wastes both time and energy and distracts us from spiritual and eternal things.  Isn’t that we bring with us to God’s house on Sunday?  Hasn’t that been building up all week – or since the last time we came to God’s house?

How are ever going to sort through all of this and be able to do what Paul calls us to do?  - “Test everything.  Hold on to the good.  Avoid every kind of evil.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)  How will we find strength to resist temptation?  How can we unload the guilt that weighs us down?

Isn’t that what God’s Word does?  For that time on Sunday morning (worship and Bible class), we have the opportunity to sit at the feet of our all-wise God and listen with our ears and hearts and minds as he helps us sort through it all.  And the more we do that, the less oppressive and confusing all that stuff of the world is.

And what of the guilt? That load inside gets released when we stand in God’s house, confess it all to him and then hear him assure us with the pastor’s voice, the written Word and the Lord’s Supper that the guilt is gone – forgiven and forgotten by our gracious God. 

Worship isn’t just what I render to God on Sunday morning.  It isn’t just about what he gets from me.  It’s also very much about what God does to serve us on Sunday morning and what we get from him.  That, quite simply stated, is to unload the guilt and help us pass that stuff that’s not good for us and get better at passing it up in the future. We get what he came to give us:  forgiveness, instruction, resetting our hearts and minds for the week ahead, and strengthening us for the challenges that lie ahead. 

So, when we start to hear our God speak to us in his life-giving and life-changing Word, just let all the stuff go.  Let the guilt go.  Let the confusion go.  Unload the preoccupation with the stuff that’s weighing you down in your walk of faith.  It appears that little Niilo has it right!

“Transplant rejection occurs when transplanted tissue is rejected by the recipient's immune system, which destroys the transplanted tissue. Transplant rejection can be lessened by determining the molecular similitude between donor and recipient and by use of immunosuppressant drugs after transplant.”

Most people don’t ever have to think about that, but I do.  I think about it almost every day.  My wife is a heart transplant recipient.  Nearly 5 years ago her own heart was so severely damaged by a virus that it began a downward spiral toward complete failure.  The only solution – and our one only hope – was a heart transplant.  If a heart did not become available to her in time I was going to lose the love of my life, the mother of my three daughters, and the grandma of three awesome little boys. 

There is no way to describe what goes through your head when you are teetering on the brink of that kind of loss, and suddenly you get a phone call telling you to get to the hospital because a heart has become available.  For us, that phone call came before dawn one morning.  To her credit, my wife’s first reaction was to have a prayer for the family of the heart donor.  She knew that they were, at that moment, having the worst day imaginable.  Their loved one, somewhere and under some circumstances unknown to us, had died.  And all of that person’s organs would have died too, but for their extraordinarily generous decision to be an organ donor.  So we prayed, we packed, we hurried to the hospital, and my wife received that transplant.

If you ran into her today you would never know she was a heart transplant recipient.  She is active and full of life.  She works out regularly, is involved with her grandkids actively, and is the picture of health.  But that’s because of the immunosuppressant drugs she will have to take for the rest of her life.  Her body, you see, still recognizes that heart as a foreign body.  It accepts it and is very well served by it only because of the daily doses of her treatment.  If she stops taking it, her body will go into transplant rejection.

As I worked on the sermon text for last Sunday, I was reminded of all of this by a statement the apostle Paul made in this section from Ephesians 4:  “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  {2} Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  {3} Make very effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  {4} There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – {5} one Lord, one faith, one baptism; {6} one God and Father of all, who is over all and though all and in all.”  As I think about the congregation I serve, I find that to be a profoundly important statement.  That’s because not one of the members of Jesus’ church – me included – are natural born parts of it.  Quite the opposite.  We were all born into this world dead in sin and unbelief and separate from Christ.  Left in that condition, I – we – would have died.  Eternally.  But then the Holy Spirit, that master transplant surgeon, acted.  By calling each of us to one and the same hope in Christ, he transplanted us into the Body of Christ, the Church.  Now we each draw our life from him.  Now we can contribute our spiritual gifts, our talents, our skills, our encouragement and support, and all that we have and are to benefit all the other parts of that Body. 

But did you notice in Paul’s words above that he is concerned about transplant rejection in that Body?  An unkind word, a grudge that’s held, forgiveness that is withheld,  a lack of concern for another part of that Body, the idea that I have more of a right to or am more important in the Body than another part of it – any of that stuff is nothing less than transplant rejection. To reject what God himself transplanted is a bad thing, don’t you think?

So every day each member of that Body has a responsibility to honor God and care for his or her fellow transplanted souls by administering that which preserves the unity God has given us.  Did you notice how Paul described that? – “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”  That shouldn’t be all that hard to do.  After all, that’s exactly how God loves each of us every day for Jesus’ sake.  All he’s saying here is this, “Let my humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness for you reflect from you to others.” When all is said and done, regular treatments of the gospel in Word and Sacrament are just what’s needed so that I (part of the Body) don’t reject Christ (the Head), and so that I don’t reject another part of the Body God himself thinks I need and who needs me.