Loading...The Poet Thinks About The Donkey (by Mary Oliver)
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
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Following in the way of Jesus is a way of service.
It is a way of humility.
It is a way of listening and going where called, even if that means nothing particularly grand, glamorous, or glitzy.
Jesus is among us a one who serves.
He is one who sets aside his ego and all that is rightfully his
to serve, to love, to be with us in the lowest point of our lives.
(and the best, and all the points in between)
“though he was in the form of God,
[Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.”
Even though Jesus is Divine and part of the Trinity,
he didn’t use that as an excuse to get out of serving all creation
by becoming human – after all, we muck around in the hard places of life either by causing it to ourselves or others.
And then, as one of us human beings,
Jesus was humble; he lived in the way of humility –
even to the point of giving up his own life and
dying the ignoble death of a cross of torture.
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“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,”
Paul invites us. Or, exhorts us, as that is more Paul’s style.
Serve like Christ Jesus. Live in humility like Christ Jesus.
Love all of creation as Christ Jesus does.
Give of yourself to other,
even to the point of giving up what seems most important to you.
The last stanza of Mary Oliver’s poem about the donkey is so poignant:
“I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.”
May we all lift our “dusty hooves” and step, as we have to, forward
to love and serve as Christ Jesus does. Amen
