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Some people say that animals are dumb. I don't know exactly what "dumb" means. If it means not being perceptive, not being sensitive, not understanding, not caring, then people are wrong, for animals are perceptive and sensitive, they are understanding and caring. I know, because I am an animal, and I understand many things and I care a great deal. But if dumb means unable to speak with a human voice and in human words, which apparently it sometimes does mean, well then, animals may often be dumb. But not always, for I am an animal who finally had to speak, and speak in such a way that my human master could plainly understand me. I am a donkey - the donkey of a man who is a prophet. My master's name is Balaam, and we live in Mesopotamia, in a city named Pethor, near the Euphrates River. We live in that part of the world where human civilization began. I would tell you my own name if I had one, but I have never had a name. I am just Balaam's donkey.

But I can tell you my story - or better, our story. It's quite a story. Someone who has made a study of the stories in the Bible has called our story one of the most intriguing stories in the Old Testament, and at the end, it becomes clearly a story of what you know as Advent. But you can see all that for yourself as I tell you our story. And I am so glad that when I need it, I do have the power of speech, because that is what makes it possible for me to tell you all that happened when my master's services were sent for by the King of Moab.

I had been Balaam's donkey for several years before these particular events began to unfold - I had been Balaam's donkey long enough so that we knew each other's habits and expectations, and pretty much trusted each other. Donkeys are not elegant beasts, but we get the job done. The rich and powerful have camels especially for their longer journeys. Camels handle the mountain and desert terrain around here pretty well. Their dispositions aren't too good, but then we donkeys are seen often as being slow and stubborn, so we're in no position to be too judgmental. My life as Balaam's donkey had been ordinary before all these events about which I am going to tell you. I never foresaw or imagined what I'd be confronting, either.

I should tell you just a little about Balaam - you really don't need to know a lot. We live in this small city, somewhat out of the mainstream of traffic and life in our land, and Balaam generally goes about his business without pushing himself too hard and without making too many demands upon me. Balaam is what you might call a small-time wholesale merchant. He deals mostly in cloth, in dry goods - picking up odds and ends where he can, from caravans passing through and from weavers in our rural areas, and selling his goods to other merchants in our city. Balaam and I are on the move a good deal, but I don't mind that - it's better than being tethered all day in a stable. And I only have to carry Balaam - he has other donkeys who carry the goods.

But the more interesting side of Balaam's life is his hobby or special interest, or whatever you might call it, in magic - not magic in the sense of making things or people disappear, or pulling rabbits out of hats, but magic in the sense of providing blessings and curses - for a price - to people who are in tight places and have tried everything else. It's those contacts Balaam has with the caravans which give him the chance to find out about many gods, and to pick up insights into the workings of the supernatural. People in our land have always been interested in the supernatural, in mysterious hidden powers and the possibility of finding and using them. I have to tell you I had not taken Balaam's interest in these things too seriously until that delegation arrived from the King of Moab. How on earth Balaam's name and reputation got as far as Moab, I cannot imagine - but then, as I said, he had these contacts with the caravans. And of course I was not where I could hear all that took place while I was tethered and he was off among strangers doing business in cloth, but also doing some business in magic.

Anyway, one day this impressive group of strangers arrived at the door of Balaam's small house. They said that they had been sent by King Balak of Moab, who had directed them to obtain the services of Balaam for the purpose of cursing an entire small nation of people. This was a larger order than Balaam had handled before, but he was very smooth in his responses as he obtained further information from the messengers. Their exact words were, "Balak is afraid that this people will lick up all the other nations in the region, just as an ox licks up all the grass in the field. These people have come out of Egypt, and if we don't slow them down, they are going to cover the face of the earth!" When Balaam heard "Egypt" a quick look of alarm passed over him, and he asked more specifically just who these objectional people were. "Why," said the messengers, "They call themselves the children of Israel." And the look on Balaam's face was one of more deepseated alarm. But the messengers from Moab were so full of their subject that they did not perceive how Balaam was reacting. I was the one who knew how to read Balaam better than they did, for I have lived intimately with him for these years.

Balaam replied to the messengers, the "elders of Moab" as they called themselves, "I will not be able to tell you what I'm going to do for you until tomorrow." So the men went away, saying as they left, "Please try to come. Our King Balak is sure that whomever you bless will be blessed, and whomever you curse will be cursed!" They were hardly out of sight when Balaam and I started off for a visit with the people in a caravan which had come to our city two or three days earlier from the west from that very land of Egypt. Balaam knew enough about these children of Israel to know that he wanted to know more before he got involved with them, and he heard plenty in a short while from the members of that Egyptian caravan. He heard that the children of Israel had a special relationship with a powerful divinity, and that before they had left Egypt, they had instituted curses which involved locusts and flooding and epidemics, and at last the deaths of many male children.

I could see what was going on in Balaam's mind. He was attracted by the generous rewards the King of Moab had promised for his services, but he knew enough about the gods of the region and about their powers, that he did not want to take any chances getting on the wrong side of them. Most especially, he did not want to set himself against this god of Israel. We went back to Balaam's house, and that night, using his skills of incantation, Balaam tried to put himself in touch with the Israelite god. He connected with someone, anyway, and it seemed to him that the divinity he was communicating with said to him, "Who are these men who have been talking with you?" I think Balaam took it more as a test than as a request for information, but Balaam answered carefully, and then he seemed to hear the god's direction to him, "When these men come back, tell them you cannot go with them, for the people whom they want you to curse are being well blessed by me." For the moment, that was enough for Balaam, and he sent the elders back to King Balak with his refusal to serve.

But King Balak appeared to have his heart set on Balaam, for he sent a second delegation back to Pethor, made up of higher ranking elders, who offered Balaam a larger reward if he would only come and cast some kind of evil spell over those children of Israel. Balaam was strongly tempted, but thought he'd better have another conversation with the god, so this delegation also found some lodging and promised to return the next day. That night, Balaam seemed to hear the god direct him, saying, "You may go if you are bound to go, but you'd better be careful to say nothing over or about my Israelites except what I tell you to say!" On that basis, Balaam told the men the next day that he would go back with them, and as soon as we could get organized, Balaam and I were incorporated into their company.

But I think the god of those children of Israel would rather have had Balaam stay home - or else he wanted to impress upon him more fully the urgency of Balaam's saying only what this god would allow over the Israelites. In any case, we felt a certain supernatural tension in the atmosphere around us as our journey progressed, and it became visible just at the point where this story really becomes my story.

We were passing through an especially difficult and threatening portion of the route, a mountain area where some passages were very narrow, and where the footing was rather uncertain. I wasn't afraid. I haven't found a place yet that I cannot walk over or get through. But I could tell that Balaam was nervous. He had never been in such tight places - and I'm sure that the unsettled state of the spiritual atmosphere was affecting him, too. But it was myself who first got the big surprise. I was picking my way along the path when suddenly I saw a figure of tremendous brightness just in front of me, a man in white robes, glowing with unearthly sheen - a man who held a huge sword in his obviously strong right hand. He seemed to be pointing the sword straight at me and Balaam.

I stopped dead in my tracks, only to have Balaam beat me! Then I realized it was only I who was seeing the figure - Balaam saw nothing. I stumbled to the side, toward the wall of a vineyard that someone was trying to cultivate up in that lonely place. I lost my footing for a moment, and Balaam's leg was squeezed against the wall. This made him angrier, and he beat me again. I got my balance and tried to start forward, but the path by then had narrowed even more, and the angel filled the path from one side to the other, looking more threatening than ever. At this point, I simply lay down in the path, with Balaam on my back. I was careful not to tip him, but that was no help as far as his anger at me was concerned. He beat me for the third time, hard.

At that point, the most remarkable development occurred. Through all this time, thoughts had been going through my mind about what I would like to say to Balaam, if only I could talk to him in the language in which he was talking to me. And suddenly I found that very language rising in my throat. I felt that suddenly I was going to be able to say words. And when that feeling came upon me, it was no longer my anger at Balaam that I wanted to express, so much as my sorrow that he had not trusted me in the tight place where I could see what he could not, and I could walk where he could not. The words that came out were, "Balaam, am I not your faithful donkey, upon whom you have ridden every day of life? Have I ever let you down? Have I ever not been careful? Have I ever not been loyal to you?"

And it was as if, in the intensity of the moment, Balaam did not realize what an impossible thing had happened - that his donkey had talked to him. He simply heard my questions - they got through to him, through his preoccupation with the challenge of how to curse Israelites and stay in the framework their God had established. Balaam dropped his whip and sorrowfully replied to me, "No, you have never let me down." And at that moment, Balaam also was allowed to see the angel, and he nearly fell off my back in a faint. But he managed to hold onto himself enough so that what he actually did was to bow down and fall on his face before the angel. And the angel said to Balaam, "Why have you been beating your donkey? I have been trying to get your attention." And Balaam, thinking that the angel must be the god of the Israelites, declared, "You have my attention now. If you want me to go back home and forget this cursing project, I will certainly do that!" But the angel said, "No, you can go to Moab - only be sure to remember to say just the things that I tell you to say." Well, if Balaam had had any idea of double crossing that god of the Israelites, the encounter with the angel in the wilderness settled the issue once and for all.

I can tell you pretty speedily the rest of the story. We got to Moab, and Balak was eager to receive us and to put Balaam to work. Balaam warned Balak, "The word that God puts in my mouth, that must I speak." King Balak took Balaam to the top of a high rise of ground overlooking some of the Israelites, and my master Balaam asked for seven altars to be built land seven bulls and seven rams for sacrifice. Balak did all that Balaam ordered, and the burnt offering was made, and King Balak and the elders and princes of Moab waited for Balaam's word of curse. But Balaam's word was, "How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom God has not denounced?" And King Balak of Moab was very angry, but Balaam said simply, "Must I not take heed to speak what the Lord puts into my mouth?"

King Balak thought he'd try again, and he took Balaam to another high place, to the top of Mount Pisgah and built seven more altars and offered more sacrifice. And again Balaam prophesied, and this time he declared, "I have received a command to bless, for their god has blessed this people, and I cannot revoke or go against his blessing." And King Balak was more angry, and he said to Balaam, "If you can't curse them, then at least don't take part in their blessing!" And yet for a third time, Balak required Balaam to climb up a mountain, this time to Mount Peor, and again the altars were built and the bulls and rams were sacrificed, and this time, Balaam shouted out, "How fair are your tents, oh Jacob, and your encampments, oh Israel. Jacob shalt eat up the nations his adversaries, and Israel shall break their bones in pieces."

Well you can imagine how King Balak was filled with anger by this time. He struck his hands together and shouted at Balaam, "I brought you here to curse my enemies, and three times you have blessed them! Go home!" But Balaam said, "I told you I would have to say what this god tells me to say, and there is even more that he is telling me to say now. He tells me to say that a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. And all the lands including Moab shall at last come under the rule of that star and that scepter!" Balak did not know what Balaam was talking about, but he knew he did not like it. It was clear that there would be no reward for Balaam after this, and he and I had to return to our home in Pethor by ourselves, after having been escorted so grandly to the land of Moab. But the trip back was not a bad journey. Somehow after that encounter with the angel in the wilderness, something had changed in Balaam. He seemed to trust me more - there was a better relationship between us. We got home safely, and compared with all that great adventure, our life has since been uneventful.

But I've thought a great deal about everything that happened then. I have not spoken much since I was given the gift of speech, but I have thought a good deal. Something bigger seemed to be going on in that pull-and-tug about Balaam cursing the Israelites for King Balak. It was really remarkable how those leaders of Moab heard about Balaam and came for him - who would have expected that my little prophet would play on such a large stage? And what is more remarkable is how he took direction from that strange god of the Israelites, even when it cost him the fee that Balak had promised. And then there's the matter of that angel in the road. I know I saw that angel far more clearly than Balaam did. My stopping before him simply strengthened my reputation as a stubborn donkey, but I knew what I was doing and why I had to do it. That god of the Israelites is really a powerful god, to have done something like that to us. He is the most powerful god Balaam, in all of his experiments and explorations in the spiritual ever has had anything to do with. I think one of the purposes of this whole episode was for that great God to show how he is not a god whose power is confined just to the Israelites. That God deals with everyone, including a poor foreign prophet like Balaam, and a poor foreign donkey like me.

And what was that about a scepter and a star? It doesn't really make sense, but since I have been able to speak, I have been hearing things as well. I have even been hearing other donkeys who use human speech, and I seem to hear them even when they are not here and now. The voice of one keeps somehow coming back to me - back as if it's way ahead of me in time, and yet as if we are somehow both part of the same enterprise:

"I," said the donkey, all shaggy and brown,
"I carried his mother up hill and down,
"I carried his mother to Bethlehem town,
"I," said the donkey, all shaggy and brown.

What donkey is that, and where and when? Whose mother? Where's Bethlehem? I don't know - I don't really know a thing. And yet I feel it's somehow all connected - Balaam going to work for the God of the Israelites, and my being warned and then befriended by an angel, and those words Balaam spoke about a scepter and a star. I'm sure that what that God had Balaam say is going to happen. Some special star is going to shine, some special thing is going to take place in a town called Bethlehem, and somehow, somehow, a donkey just like me is going to have a part in all of it. I wish I could be there - oh, how I wish I could be there. Amen.


Advent 2

Children's Lesson

Christmas has lots of animals in it, doesn't it? Can you tell me some animals that are connected to Christmas? (Rudolph, reindeer, etc.) Think about our creche, our manger scene - what animals are there? (Sheep, cows, doves, camels, donkey.) What did the donkey have to do with Christmas? (Brought Mary to Bethlehem.)

This morning I'm going to tell you about another donkey, a donkey who lived long before Mary's donkey - a donkey we can read about in the Bible, in the Old Testament. I don't know the name of this donkey, but his master's name was Balaam. This donkey, like Mary's donkey, was a good and faithful donkey - so faithful that one time he didn't do what Balaam wanted him to do. That may not sound like being a good donkey, but it was, because the donkey could see something Balaam could not see - an angel was blocking the way in front of Balaam and the donkey. Balaam grew angry and beat the donkey, and at that moment a most wonderful thing happened, for at that moment God gave the donkey the power to speak.

Sometimes we feel our animals and pets would like to speak to us. Well, Balaam's donkey said, "Balaam, why are you beating me? I've always looked after you and have always been faithful to you!" And Balaam was amazed - and just then he, too, could see the angel, who told Balaam and the donkey what God wanted them to do. In a few minutes I'll be telling more of the story of Balaam and his donkey. I think Balaam's donkey and Mary's donkey were actually a lot alike. Listen to the story and see if you don't think they were, too.