hey up duck

Yesterday we had an uninvited guest in our house. You will have guessed from the photo that it was a duck. Yes, a bona fide wild(ish) duck decided to come into our house. I had left the back door open to get some fresh air circulating around the house and the duck must have seen it as an invitation. We think she had flown up from a pond about half a mile away, but why she landed in our garden we don’t know* as there’s nothing obviously for her (duck enthusiasts will already have observed her gender from the photo).

We ushered her back outside and lobbed some bread for her which she ate with relish (by which I mean she relished eating it, not that we put some relish on it). Then we put a bowl of water out and she had a drink. All the time she kept her distance, but only just out of reach. She was wary, but very brave and keen to interact with us… on her terms.

*We have a theory about this duck’s presence in our garden, which comes from the manner of her departure. In the end, to get rid of her, we closed the back door and left her alone. Watching through the back window we saw her fly out of the garden, and land in next door’s garden. We wondered if she had started at one end of our road and was working her way down the gardens: trying the ‘I’m so cute, feed me’ act on all whom she met along the way. Clever!

How many times to churches rejoice at the uninvited visitor, yet rather than allow them to interact with us on their terms, we impose our terms and conditions. You must be polite, you must be able to find your way around a book, you must smile at everyone (especially when you don’t feel like it), you must be able to work out some of the special words we use, you must be able to learn the songs we sing… and so on.

Jesus seemed to have a ‘feed the duck’ approach. Yes, he used 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed the hungry, but he actually first told his followers, “You give them something to eat.” He still does.

He welcomed the interested and got very angry when his followers stopped children from being brought to him. He still does. I wonder why, if the way Jesus did things was so different, we have allowed ourselves to become an institution that is more difficult to join than some golf clubs?

Jesus did have some parameters, and I am not suggesting a free-for-all. But as we look at ourselves are there things we do that are barriers to people finding Jesus that do not need to be there?

And I guess we could ask the same question of ourselves.

Be blessed, be a blessing.