Faithfulness

"Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove

faithful." (1 Corinthians 4:2, NIV)

"I meant what I said and I said what I meant...

An elephant's faithful one hundred percent!"

(Horton, from "Horton Hatches the Egg")

That great theologian, Dr. Seuss, wrote a wonderful parable of faithfulness back in 1940 called "Horton Hatches the Egg".

It's about an elephant named Horton who is suckered by a lazy bird named Mayzie into sitting on her egg while she takes a short vacation.

Horton dutifully climbs into the tree to keep Mayzie's egg warm. Enjoying the sunshine in Palm Beach, Mayzie decides she's NEVER going back.

So poor Horton endures the elements. He sits on the egg through thunderstorms. He sits on the egg through the fall, then the winter.  Spring comes, and all Horton's animal friends gather to make fun of him sitting in a tree on Mayzie's egg. Though Horton wants to go play with his friends, he stays at his post.

Through all the trials, Horton's mantra is, "I meant what I said and I said what I meant/An elephant's faithful one hundred percent."

But things get worse for Horton. Hunters come through the jungle and spy Horton in his tree. With three rifles pointed at him, Horton stays on Mayzie's egg. "Shoot if you must, but I won't run away," he resolves. " I meant what I said and I said what I meant/An elephant's faithful one hundred percent."

But the hunters don't shoot. They realize that an elephant sitting on an egg in a tree is a curiosity, and decide to take him home and sell him.  They dig up Horton's tree and take him, still sitting on the egg, through the jungle to their boat. They take him on a two-week boat trip back to New York, where they sell him to a circus. Horton, as we expect by now, endures faithfully despite the long trip, seasickness, and the indignity of being sold. An elephant, after all, is faithful. One hundred percent.

The circus travels all over the country, with Horton sadly but faithfully sitting on the egg. And guess who flies into the big top one day? Of course. Mayzie.

By this time, Horton has been on the egg for one week shy of a year. Horton and Mayzie come face-to-face. Before Horton can say anything, the egg starts to hatch.

And...

Well, what happens next can wait. Because in this silly children's book is a very serious point.

Faithfulness is never easy. Faithfulness is a struggle. It requires endurance, determination, character. Faithfulness often requires that we be true to our word when it'd be easier and even understandable for us to go back on it. Faithfulness often means giving up part of our lives for something outside ourselves. Faithfulness is dedication to something that provides no immediate gratification. It's perseverance in the face of discomfort, hardship, often even danger.  Faithfulness is giving yourself totally to something because you believe in it more deeply that you believe in yourself.

Faithfulness is more easily demonstrated than defined. It's Abraham climbing a mountain trail that he never wants to see the end of to make a sacrifice he doesn't even want to think about. It's Noah dutifully building an ark in his driveway in spite of his neighbors' mockery. It's Ruth sticking with Naomi when there's nothing for her with Naomi anymore.  It's David keeping his word to Mephibosheth. It's Jesus in Gethsemane, sweating out his fear and settling his mind and body for a cross.

And more. Faithfulness is a white-haired man in a hospital room keeping a lonely vigil over his beloved wife's final days. It's a mother spending hours each day moving the limbs of her profoundly brain-damaged child because a doctor has told her that it might help him to regain a tiny fraction of his function. Faithfulness is the man who spends every night in a nursing home with his mother, the unappreciated employee who gives her best in spite of the fact that she's never noticed, the widow on a fixed income who always has something for the offering plate. It's the missionary who endures hardship for the sake of the gospel, and the student who endures ridicule for the same gospel. It's the preacher whose refusal to play power games costs him his job. It's the soldier who shoulders his weapon and marches willingly to his death because he believes desperately in what he's fighting for. It's the firefighter who

rushes into a burning tower because it never occurred to him NOT to.

When we see faithfulness, we know we're on holy ground.  Holy ground, because it seems to me that faithfulness is part of the image of God in which we were created. We're faithful sometimes because God is always. Look no further to see it than his commitment to his people, compared in various parts of the Bible to a father's love for a rebellious child, a mother's love for a nursing infant, a broken-hearted husband's love for his wayward wife. God never gives up on his people. He pursues us, woos us, cajoles us, corrects us. He even went so far as to send his Son to us to redeem us. And his faithfulness still moves us today.

That's the thing about faithfulness. As unappreciated as it might be at

times, it is never without effect. Certainly, that was true in Horton's

story. When that egg Horton faithfully sat on hatched, the bird that

fluttered out was like no bird ever seen before or since. "It had

ears...and a tail...and a trunk just like his!" Horton hatched an

elephant-bird. His faithfulness created something that had never existed

before.

And so will yours. So be faithful, in whatever God has given you to do,

because he has been faithful to you. His faithfulness has created

redemption, and life, and hope, and a community of people bound together

by his Spirit. What might your faithfulness create? I don't know, but I

know that it can only be born of your faithfulness to what God has given

you to do. What that might be, I leave to you, with only one suggestion.

Look where you are, not where you would like to be. Often, we spend too

much time fantasizing about the great things we COULD do and never get

around to being true in the things we SHOULD do. "You have been faithful

with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things." (Matthew

25:21, 23, NIV)

"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant..."

Will you be faithful? One hundred percent?

Patrick Odum