Parables with birds #2

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 09 January 2006 23:18:08

I have a regular walk from home, down a gravel lane that goes through farmland and a bit of natural bush. I love it. Walking on the beach is better but it's 7km away, so the lane has worn out several pairs of my shoes over the past 22 years.
Some time ago as I was nearing a particularly thick bit of roadside scrub, I saw a rooster scratching around on the ground. A beautiful bird, very proud looking, black with red feathers in his big tail that shone in the morning sun, he ran into the bush as I neared. Where did he come from? There were no houses near by.
For about two weeks I saw the rooster in the same place and I remember thinking that he should be in the safety of a henhouse somewhere.
Now, at the time I was very involved in the “small groups” stage in my Christian walk, you know...we must get together regularly (other than the one hour on Sunday) and share and support each other, “real” fellowship (koinonia) is the thing.
....and as I walked I started to see the rooster as how I used to be, a real loner, and that the fellowship that I was now in was like the henhouse that the rooster didn't have.
The metaphor became more poignant when one morning a pile of feathers on the side of the road showed that a fox had got the rooster.