The Way of the Donkey
Some fragmented thoughts on my tortured ordination process, a Palm Sunday sermon, French music, poetry, and tulips
Thursday, April 7
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Greetings, friendly reader.
Some of you know that I have been in something of an extended ordination process. What typically takes three years has stretched to six. While my congregation and my local judicatory (the Classis, in the Reformed Church in America’s parlance) have been overwhelmingly supportive, my denomination is still debating the place of queer people in its midst. Though the national board that confers certificates of fitness for ministry has confirmed that I’ve met all the published requirements, it’s the unpublished ones that are always trickiest: The board has declined to vote on the granting of my certificate because of my marriage. Some weeks ago, I received a letter that informed me that my candidacy was on hold for the foreseeable future. Essentially, I’m stuck in ordination purgatory.
On my good days, I remember why Tristan and I have chosen not to walk away: I still feel called, even to keep showing up in this fractious, odd family of faith. It’s the board’s job to let their yes be yes and their no be no. And while I’m rarely bold enough to say that I see God’s hand in particular actions, I hold in my heart the memories of several instances during my ordination journey that have felt nothing short of otherworldly. Yet in my lower moments, it can be hard to summon the energy to keep going. I wonder if I’m a self-flagellating fool. I ask whether it’s ridiculous to stay where I’m not wanted.
I don’t see ordination as a credential so much as the confirmation of a call by concentric circles of community. This is the part where I gently ask you to refrain from making your sales pitches for your particular spiritual community, well meant as they might be. Because when I doubt the point of it all, and when I wonder whether I belong, I remember those who have poured encouragement into me, enfolded me into their embrace, and affirmed that call. Which is why I found myself thinking this week of the good people of the Reformed Church of Bronxville, in Bronxville, N.Y.
During seminary, I did my pastoral internship at RCB. It is also the church where I’m still officially on the rolls. We were living in Brooklyn when I began my ordination process; when it became clear that more-conservative churches in Brooklyn Classis would nix my candidacy, RCB, 20 miles away in Westchester County, accepted me as something of a spiritual refugee and took me under their care. We worked through Scripture together, prayed together, worshiped together. Members entrusted me with stories, confided their doubts and their questions to me, fed me—and I never forget anyone who feeds me well.
I had only ever preached a handful of sermons when, in 2018, the pastors invited me back to preach on Palm Sunday. As I worked through the text, I was drawn again and again to a supporting character in the story of Jesus’s triumphal entry: the donkey. The sermon became a meditation on the way of the donkey.
Donkeys are such weirdos. One that has a particularly special place in my heart: Eeyore. Of course he became a character in the sermon.
The donkey Eeyore is the sad sack to Pooh Bear’s winsome, happy-go-lucky self. Where Pooh sees joy in a pot of honey, Eeyore sees sticky mess. If Pooh is sunshine, Eeyore is rain. Where Pooh wanders the world blissfully ignorant to what he’s missing—did you ever notice that in the Disney movies, he’s never wearing any pants?—Eeyore knows what he lacks—in one story, he lets everyone know that he's missing his tail—and he engages in the theological practice of lament.
One day, the boy Christopher Robin greets Eeyore.
“How are you?” Christopher Robin says.
“It’s snowing still,” says Eeyore gloomily.
“So it is,” Christopher Robin says.
“And freezing,” Eeyore says.
“Is it?” Christopher Robin asks.
“Yes,” Eeyore replies. “However,” he says, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately!”
Where other people saw melancholy, Eeyore and I saw clarity. Where others read pessimism, Eeyore and I read humble reality. Where others felt the shadow of clouds, Eeyore and I felt we weren’t blinded by sunshine—we could see a way forward, a hopeful way, because we were dealing with our true condition.
It should surprise no one that I have a soft spot for Eeyore—and for donkeys in general. There’s little glamorous about them. The way they just get on with their work moves me. Could we learn something from the way of the donkey?
Society has consistently denigrated and underestimated donkeys. Philo and Plutarch both called the donkey “the stupidest of the beasts.” Aristotle commented on its foolishness. It’s largely Shakespeare’s fault that “ass” became a slur; in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the mischievous Puck makes a literal ass out of Nick Bottom, giving him a donkey’s head. Even in Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore is often the butt of the joke.
The horse is usually the hero—regal, majestic, riding to victory. The Roman cavalry that conquered ancient Israel was an army of horses. And if Jesus is the Messiah, if Jesus is liberator and conqueror, maybe Jesus should have been atop a regal horse.
Yet, as ever, Scripture flips the script. Throughout Scripture, the horse is described as a swift, powerful four-legged weapon of domination and war. It often represents the oppressor. The psalms tell us that horses signify “vain hope for victory.”
The donkey is essentially the non-horse. It is usually depicted in the Bible as a carrier of truth and a bearer of peace.
The donkey is one of just two animals in Scripture with a speaking role. If the serpent is devious, the donkey is true. There’s a story in the book of Numbers about the prophet Balaam who rides a donkey. The donkey doesn’t seem to follow Balaam’s instructions, constantly veering off the path. What the donkey sees and what Balaam can’t is an angel of God, blocking the way. Balaam is blind to what’s happening, but the donkey sees. Three times before God opens Balaam’s eyes to the full picture, Numbers 22 tells us, “the donkey saw.” When God opens the donkey’s mouth, it tells Balaam of its holy perspective.
1 Samuel has another donkey story, in which a woman named Abigail urges David not to launch a bloody battle. She loads her donkey with bread and wine, the very elements that later, in our tradition, will come to symbolize the life we have through Jesus. Abigail successfully convinces David not to go to war.
Some commentators argue that Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey echoes King Solomon’s parades. They point to translations of the Old Testament that describe Solomon and before him, his father David, riding royal donkeys. But this isn’t quite right. The Hebrew texts say that David and Solomon rode mules—half-horse, half-donkey, mules carried the symbolism of both war and peace, battlefield glory and hard-won comfort.
But Jesus chooses to go donkey-only. No war, only peace. This is a different kind of king. This is a king who, according to our tradition, had been heralded hundreds of years earlier by the Prophet Zechariah; Zechariah 9 says: "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey." This is a Messiah who, in his parable of the Good Samaritan, again makes the donkey an animal of healing: It’s a donkey onto which the Good Samaritan puts the injured man. It’s a donkey that carries the sick soul to safety and security.
People gush over the beauty of horses, but can’t remember a single instance in which someone said, “Oh, what a gorgeous donkey.” Maybe that says something about the kind of beauty we’re looking for, the sort of appeal that tends to captivate us. G.K. Chesterton also wrote a poetic appreciation called The Donkey, but I wonder whether his imagined donkey carries a little more haughtiness, a little more spite, than mine.
Over and over in reading Scripture, we overlook this lowly creature, this unsexy half of the mule. Over and over in our own lives, we look to the beautiful, glamorous, and powerful for lessons. But I wonder: What if we’re supposed to be more like the donkey? What if we're supposed to be more humble, obedient, eyes focused on navigating the uneven terrain? What if we're supposed to devote our entire being to fulfilling our calling? What if it is our bodies that are meant to convey the good news of Jesus? What if we are called not to shout hosannas or wave palm fronds but to bear Jesus himself into the world?
Who are the holy donkeys among us? Who are the people who put their lives on the line for the Gospel, people who with their bodies carry the King’s good news into our midst, only to be undervalued, even ignored?
Friends, as we look toward Easter, let us meditate on the example of the donkey who, in Jesus, found its greatest purpose. The way of the donkey is a humble way, a countercultural way, sometimes a difficult way. But as our Scripture exhorts us, “Do not be afraid! Look, your king is coming!” This way is ultimately more beautiful than anything else this world can offer, because of that King. It is the way of grace, and it is the way of love, and Jesus promises He will be with you all along that way, never letting you go and cheering you on and even giving his life for you and then conquering death itself—for you. He is for you, and He is with you—with every breath, with every step of the way.
I’m resting this morning in the quietly inspiring example of the donkey. I still have so much to learn: so much about patience, so much about the art of plodding perseverance, so much about seeking purpose and finding satisfaction in the right places. As we move toward Holy Week, may you too find inspiration in the donkey.
What I’m Listening to: Sometimes when I feel sad, I park myself at my laptop and I watch video after video of TV talent-show auditions. There’s something inspiring about the singers’ enduring hope, misplaced as it might sometimes be. I especially like the French version of The Voice. My French isn’t great—even after four years of high-school classes and two in college, I have the vocabulary of a three-year-old. Dommage, non? But it doesn’t matter when it comes to music. When an excellent artist lifts her voice, the emotion transcends language, whether it’s an Italian opera or a Fairuz ballads. One of the La Plus Belle Voix judges is the French singer-songwriter Vianney, whose songs have come to be part of my writing soundtrack. I don’t know much about Vianney’s reputation in France. I just find his music to be gentle, sweet, and sometimes appealingly melancholy (on brand, I know). One favorite is “J’ai Essayé,” from his 2020 album N’Attendons Pas (Let’s Not Wait): “J'avais planté des graines dans un potager; j’avais semé du seigle dans un champ fané.... Qu’importe car au fond, j'ai essayé,” the song goes. “I planted grains in a garden; I sowed rye in a withered field.... What does it matter? Deep down, I tried.” Put that on an inspirational poster.
What I’m Reading: What is it about poetry that unearths my intellectual insecurities? Maybe it’s that the genre inevitably takes me back to ninth-grade English and my own bad compositions, or to freshman-year English in college, when I was baffled by the blowhardy emissions of my classmates, who would sometimes confess later that they hadn’t taken the time before class to read the work about which they had so much to say once the professor entered the room. Sometimes, reading poetry has felt like looking at a postcard from a land I have never visited. I can see buildings and features of the landscape and recognize them as buildings and features of a landscape. But I often feel as if I can’t see beyond the surface image, even though I know there’s more there. Occasionally, though, I encounter verse that cuts through all my layers of opposition. A few years ago, I encountered the writing of the Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong. I still can’t explain to you why Vuong’s work draws me in and holds my attention. But perhaps you’ll see, through this Time Magazine profile by the gifted writer Nicole Chung, the winsomeness and wisdom that is characteristic of Vuong’s presence in the world. I will say that I felt a deep kinship when I read this line: “I’m not legible until my career makes me legible.” Perhaps I’ll have more to share about that another time. I’m still pondering why it pierced me so deeply.
What I’m Watching: Some months ago, I started checking in on the FalconCam, a video feed from atop the Campanile, the clock tower on the UC-Berkeley campus. The stars of this reality show: two peregrine falcons named Annie and Grinnell. No spoilers here, but you can read more about their story in this piece by Jeff Bercovici in the Los Angeles Times.
What I’m Growing: Ugh, I am so behind. Living in a house that’s still mid-renovation has upended me a little psychologically too. But one of my commitments this year has been to cultivate more simply for the sake of beauty and delight. Last December, amid some slightly warmer weather, the soil softened enough for me to hurriedly stick some bulbs in the ground. I’ve never grown tulips before. To see some of them begin to peek out of the ground has been a source of happiness and hope.
If you’re in the Chicagoland area, I’ll be preaching at Flossmoor Community Church in Flossmoor, Ill., this Sunday, April 10. No donkeys in this Palm Sunday text, which is a doozy: John 19:1-16a. Worship begins at 10 a.m. Central, and if you’re not in the area, you can join via livestream. After worship, we’ll be having a conversation about Wholehearted Faith. Would love to see you there.
As ever, I’d love to know what’s on your hearts and minds, and if there’s anything I can be remembering in prayer.
I’m so glad we can stumble through all this together, and I’ll try to write again soon.
Yours,
Jeff
I always find your newsletters healing and full of hope and joy - even when you write about difficult things. Did you know that donkeys are often placed with horses to protect them from predators when they are in open pastures? I learned this recently, and was reminded of it when reading your sermon. Symbols of peace and protection.
I loved this. Feel like no matter whose sermon I hear this weekend,I have been fed already. Thank you. And I finished “Wholehearted Faith” last week - a beautiful book that made me both sad for Rachel’s death (again) and grateful for her words. So beautifully curated that I could not discern where hers stopped and yours began. A wonderful tribute to your friend, Jeff. Well done.