Out Our Way: The quiet one - Isaiah 42:1-9

Out our way, I found working cattle was a lot different from what I grew up seeing on TV. Of course, there is a difference between trailing cattle hundreds of miles and simply moving a herd from one pasture to another, but some things I suspect were the same. Quiet herding was better than being loud and noisy.

I have written about my first round up in Wyoming when we were gathering cow/calf units for the branding. Things were going smoothly until the owner of the herd drove up in his pickup and started blowing the horn to get the cattle moving faster. All he accomplished was to panic them and send them racing in every direction.

I had seen in the movies and read in books that a "stampede" was headed off by riding fast to the front of the panicked cattle and turning the lead cow, so the others would follow and begin to circle and eventually settle down. Well, I either did it wrong or that theory doesn't work, for I raced to the head of the running herd, got the lead cow to turn aside and kept her turning ... and the rest of the herd ignored us and just thundered by.     

Eventually, it occurred to me that there was a better way, a gentler way. So I let her go, cut across the pasture, went up over the ridge and, now hidden from the herd, galloped ahead. After about a mile, I rode back up and over the ridge and calmly walked "Blackie" down to the pasture where the spooked cattle were.

With no pursuit, no loud shouts, no truck horns, they had slowed from their run to a slow trot, and gradually into a walk. That is how I found them, confused and still a bit panicky, but no longer terrified. And so I rode quietly toward them, occasionally singing something soft and gentle, and they came to a halt. Then, with very little pressure from me, they turned back and began walking in the direction they needed to go again. It took a little over an hour of slow and quiet herding, but except for a few strays I had to go pick up along the way, I just rode quietly along the whole way.

Reading the passage from Isaiah regarding the coming of Christ into the world, I remembered that roundup. The description of the Messiah coming softly and gently so that "a bruised reed will not be broken nor a smoldering wick be snuffed out" (vs3). And it occurred to me that, as He came quietly into the dark times of the world 2,000 years ago, He still comes to us today in the same way. 

I know we get frustrated and, like old Ted, the herd owner in the pickup truck who started the stampede with his impatient honking, we want to get things moving faster and are frustrated at how long it takes to turn the world around. Look at history and see the damage and destruction wrought by "good people" who try to force change quickly. A wise early Christian noted, "The devil will attack from the left as well as the right," and as we have seen this past year, extremism from one side tends to push and encourage extremism from the other. And nobody wins.  

It is time to follow the quiet way of Christ. Justice and righteousness will not come by attacking and seeking to force compliance with our views by subduing - often with violence - those who are not convinced. The best argument is not to attack or vilify those with whom we disagree but to quietly show them a better way by seeking to live it ourselves. Right now the "folks honking horns" to terrify and incite stampedes claim it is justified and necessary. Their goals may seem good and righteous, but their means are not, and the results we have seen this year, and throughout history, show that indeed the Evil one can and does attack from the right and from the left. The gullible only see the darkness of the other side and fail to realize the darkness in their own.    

Time to end the stampede and seek the Way that neither "breaks a bruised reed nor snuffs out a smoldering wick." Believe me, sisters and brothers, this message from the Lord is aimed at me as much as anyone else. May we both pay heed to it.

Be blessed and be a blessing!

Brother John

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The Rev. John Bruington is the retired pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Havre. He now lives in Colorado, but continues to write "Out Our Way."