REMEMBER THE RACCOON

Last month a raccoon died in Toronto, Canada. 

It made the news.

It wasn’t a toxic raccoon, a pet raccoon, or a raccoon from a move, or the beloved attraction at a local zoo.  Just a regular raccoon.  Around 9 A.M., Someone discovered the creature’s body on a sidewalk.  They called the city of Toronto, and someone there said they’d send someone from Animal Services to remove the thing.  No one came.  All day and into the night people passed by the dead raccoon. 

They took pictures. 

They tweeted about it.

They made phone calls.

They ranted about the city’s lack of response.

People spent time and real money creating a mock memorial.

 

You know what no one did?

No one scooped the dead raccoon up off the street.

A shovel, a trash bag, and 2 minutes to toss it in a dumpster.  10 minutes to bury it in a backyard.  The photo-shopping, printing, and matting on the framed picture definitely took longer than that.

But, this  is who we are.  We are a series of cities filled with people who can launch a website in under an hour but can’t move a dead raccoon.  We can choreograph a flash mob singing “Uptown Funk” in Grand Central Station, but we can’t move a dead raccoon.  We want freedom and privacy, but we need the combined resources of a major metropolitan municipal government to move a dead raccoon.

We are so pitiful.

We’re like Jesus’ disciples in Luke 9.   Jesus and His disciples had retreated to a deserted area to debrief and relax after their first evangelistic mission, but the crowds found them and Jesus, moved by their needs, spent the day preaching and healing people.  By the end of the day, Jesus and the disciples were looking out at 5,000+ exhausted and hungry people scattered over the countryside.

The disciples accurately discerned the problem in their makeshift community, and they collectively advised Jesus to outsource the solution. 

This was the city’s problem. A charity should handle this.  Perhaps there was an NGO or local non-profit that could address the problem.  Better yet, these people should go and seek relief in the private sector.

“Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.” (Luke 9: 12)

Get them together, Jesus. Educate them on their problem.  And send them to somebody else for help.

In Matthew’s account, Jesus responded, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14: 16)

Dude, you see the raccoon lying there. Move it.

The disciples counted their treasury and polled the 5,000+ population for support.  They came up waaay short (Mark 6: 37).  But they pooled what woefully insufficient resources they had gathered and brought it to Jesus. (Luke 9: 13b)

They organized the people into smaller groups and got to work (Luke 9: 14).  Miraculously, with God’s blessing, it worked.  The needs were met, and the disciples each had lunch for the next day. 

So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. (Luke 9: 17)

It took the government of Toronto 14 hours to send a city employee to remove the dead raccoon. It didn’t take 14 hours, but it took 14 hours.

Our government has the capacity to solve your communities’ unemployment, crime, education, infrastructure, obesity, and litter problems. 

But will they?  And if they do, how long will it take?

Probably longer than it would take you and me to do incredible work with insufficient resources. 

Jesus started Christianity with a core group of 4 failed fishermen, a tax agent who quit his job, a couple of frustrated militants (zealots), a pessimist, and a few others who were so un-remarkable that the four gospel writers can barely keep their names straight.

What amazing things could you or I do with Jesus’ blessing our inadequate resources and un-remarkable congregations?

Let’s find out.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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