Fearless Faith

Chicken behavior has long been studied for its contribution to, and partial explanation of, models of human sociology. Aside from establishing pecking order and other flock behaviors, chickens in particular exhibit a number of unique responses to frustration conditions, and just like humans, responses are variable.

When individual birds are highly stressed or frustrated they tend to react in surprising ways. One is to become more aggressive, targeting that which frustrates by taking it out on more passive birds. Anyone who has been chased across a chicken yard by a mean-spirited rooster can attest to the fear that leg spurs and a stout beak inspire (on the chicken, not the person … though one wonders at times).

A second response is for the individual bird to become more passive in the face of some stress condition it cannot overcome. Establishing pecking order at the grain feeder is one example of this, a typical behavior when new chickens are added to the flock.

Yet a third response defies logic. When faced with frustration, stress, or even extreme peril (think cornered by a fox), some birds resort to a substitute behavior, as if not a single thing was amiss. At a time when their very life may hang in the balance, they display a striking disregard for doing something – anything – that could mitigate the stressor at hand.

So it is in the life of the too many churches. For most issues we have discovered ways of coping, for dealing with differences, for challenging and inspiring one another to greater understandings of God and God’s relationship with us. If, you look closely around us, however, peppered among our churches, congregations, religious institutions, and communities, are a plethora of chicken tracks and evidence of much pecking. These tracks represent a frustration response to many issues within the church.

Some, within the safety of the chicken coop, have become uber aggressive in hopes that a more rigorous and demanding pecking order will resolve our concerns. Aggressiveness is not confined to one particular breed or another. It is an equal opportunity scrum. Other birds quietly and passively step back in hopes of maintaining the peace. They are guilty of omission, an unfortunate trait of humanity. Most of the membership, however, is backed into a corner of the henhouse, foxes imperiling their very existence. And the chickens? They have begun dancing and pecking and generally behaving as if contrary issues will suddenly, mysteriously, magically, remove themselves so they can resume their fowl lives without further disturbance or distress.

Wisdom has built her house … she has mixed her wine … and set her table. She has sent out her servant-girls … [S]he calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (Proverbs 9:1-6, NRSV).

May God bless all of us with insight during these troubled times as we engage one another, not with aggression or passivity, nor with illogical and unfruitful frustration responses of pecking and scratching. Rather, let us be of one flock under the shelter of each other’s wings, fussing over each other like mother hens. If we do not, the consequences may come home to roost. The fox is grinning at the thought.