MORE THAN THE ANIMALS
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
February 23, 2020
One of my favorite stupid tourist stories came out of
Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. If there is any one warning that visitors
to the park hear over and over again during their visit it is this: “Do not
disturb the wildlife.” That is, don’t provoke them by encroaching on their
territory or by otherwise causing them to be afraid or upset. They are animals,
and they will react as animals do.
So a guy who works as an emergency medic at Yellowstone
reported the story of a group driving through the park in a mini-van when they
came upon a herd of bison just standing in the road way…as they do. Bison are
generally very large and not very smart, and one thing about them is for sure:
they couldn’t care less about whether they are delaying your trip through the
park. The job for the tourist in a situation like that is to wait patiently in
your vehicle until the bison decide to move off the road to someplace else. But
these particular travelers were impatient, so the driver laid on the horn of
the vehicle to signal their presence to the animals.
And it certainly worked. After a couple of minutes of this,
one of the giant creatures ambled over to the mini-van, lowered its big furry
horned head and charged the vehicle until it tipped over on its side. That was
the end of the honking. In the end everyone was OK, and the EMT guy had a very
funny story to tell.
Yellowstone is one of the few places in the U.S. where it’s
possible to get up close and personal with wild animals as a casual tourist.
And that experience can teach us. Lesson #1 is that human beings are not wild
animals, so the cues that we communicate to one another are not just the same
as they are for beasts in the wilderness.
But lesson #2 is practically the equal and opposite one:
Human beings are graced by God, called to something higher than mere brut
survival—in fact we are created to be in communion with none less than almighty
God. But…we are still animals, still creatures of this earth, and therefore we
share in some of the most base and raw instincts that the bison do, like fear
when we feel threatened, and defensive when we are challenged, and vengeful
when we have been injured. And it’s that last instinct—the one about
revenge—which may be the one with which we humans have had to struggle the
longest and strongest in our history. Jesus knew all about it when he was
teaching his disciples in today’s gospel Sermon on the Mount. And we don’t have
to search very far in order to recognize it very much alive today.
We humans are the one species of animals that have been given
the gift of self-awareness, the ability to recognize the raw animal instincts
in us for what they truly are, and the courage and wisdom not to become
enslaved to them this is our honor. When we feel unjustly injured or unfairly
treated, we can react from the same primal fear and vengeance that a bison can.
But, unlike a wild animal, we don’t have to. And as Jesus teaches today, for
the Christian, we must not.
Vengeance is a self-evidently futile way to go through life:
“You hurt me, so I’ll hurt you back. You humiliate me and I’ll do the same to
you. You threaten my people and I’ll threaten yours.” And you know what happens
next? The same cycle repeats itself, and again and again until we are consumed
by our outrage, trapped in our hatred, and self-defined by wounds. This is no
way to live. It is certainly not God’s way.
We among all God’s creatures have the freedom not to live
that way, but to do that requires a measure of courage and a willingness to
appear weak and baffling to the mere animals among us. Jesus’ invitation in
today’s gospel is to step off the merry-go-round that leads to nothing more
than the same old nursing of injuries and quid pro quo (to borrow a current
idiom). We are created for so much better than this, and by the grace of God we
have it within our ability to live in to that more loving, forgiving, and
peaceful life.
“Love your enemies. Pray for your persecutors. Give more than
is absolutely necessary. Do not inflict punishment, even when you can and when
you feel you have a right to.”
These are not the dispositions of weak people, nor are they
the law of the jungle—or of Yellowstone National Park. These are the noble
commitments of Christians who are serious about following after their Lord, and
who know that to be mere creatures of base instinct is to be something small
and unworthy of our dignity. Our summons is to be holy, to be perfect as our
God is perfect. We aren’t there yet, but our greatest failure would be to
despair of the effort.
Lent is coming this week. Maybe there is a place for
considering our temptations toward revenge as we pray about our wishes for this
season.
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