I really enjoyed reading this and wanted to pass it along. Personally I was a duck for 24 of my 37 years and now I am finally flying as one of the geese. Hope some of you will find the courage and faith to join me as geese too. Lilly
THE DAY GRACE WAS PREACHED AT FIRST DUCK CHURCH
One Sunday morning a community of ducks waddled off to the First Duck Church to hear their duck preacher. The ducks had always “done” church in a particular way, they were comfortable with their status quo religion. What the ducks did not realize was that even though they had been told their church was a Christian church, they had also always been taught that how they walked (waddled) and talked (quacked) was the basis of their salvation and faith.
They had always kept to themselves and were suspicious of other fowl, and they rejected those who had anything to do with the “outsiders”. They felt that they were better Christians than chickens (and geese for that matter) because of their longstanding special beliefs and practices.
One of the most unique proofs that they felt set them apart and made them better Christians than chickens and geese – was their distinctive waddle and their unique Quack. Some of the bolder ducks actually said what others only dared to think. They dogmatically claimed to be the one and only true Christians because of their waddle and quack. Their usual Sunday fare was one of these two themes:
- How much better they were than ducks in other fowl churches
- How God was not happy with many of them, because they were slipping in their devotion to the rules and regulations of First Duck, and consequently they needed to “get right or get left”
But this Sunday was like no other Sunday. This Sunday they heard the pure, authentic, and unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ. The duck preacher gave an inspirational and eloquent sermon about God’s grace – about how, because of God’s grace, the ducks would no longer have to live the way they lived. The duck preacher spoke eloquently from Galatians, but he also quoted Isaiah 40:28-31, explaining that God, by his grace, had given the ducks wings with which to fly – they would no longer have to waddle.
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint
The sermon was so inspiring and the preacher was so convincing that a few quacks of “a-men” reverberated throughout the duck congregation before those who responded had a chance to really think about how the message of the sermon might change their lives. After the service was over many of the ducks discussed the sermon in front of the church. After intense conversations most of them decided that there was no way that they would start flying like geese. After all, many emotionally quacked, their families had waddled for years, and it was what they had always done. They wanted to be different. It made them feel special. They bristled at the suggestion that their duck waddle would be discarded and left behind in favor of grace and soaring on wings like eagles. So the duck preacher’s sermon that proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ was – well, it was like water off of a duck’s back. Most of the congregation rejected the gospel that day and waddled back home. All too often we waddle into church, then we waddle back into our lives, unchallenged and unchanged. If we attend a Christ-centered church, we will hear about the gospel of Grace. We hear that god will give us what we lack, that he will fill us with his goodness and love………but then, perhaps because we are creatures (or ducks) of habit, we simply waddle back to our comfortable ritualistic deeds and habits.
Greg Albrecht in “Bad News Religion” world publishing 2004