Rick and I just returned from a vacation in the Canadian Rockies. The place we stayed at brought in naturalists each evening to teach the guests about what we were seeing. These naturalists were good scientists, fabulous teachers—and great showmen. They entertained us with clever ways to familiarize ourselves with the natural world. One night’s talk was Grizzly Gourmet—about the eating habits of you-know-what. Another night we learned about alpine birds as the naturalist put on funny clothing props to illustrate the lifestyles of the American dipper and harlequin duck. Another night was Rocky Mountain Romance. Each night was memorable, but my favorite talk was “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Ungulates.” Ungulates have become my favorite animal family. After that talk, wherever Rick and I drove—in both Banff and the US—we looked for ungulates—elk, moose, mountain goats, big-horn sheep, bison, mule deer, and the wily white tails. You will be happy to hear that we spotted all but one of the native North American ungulates, since there are no caribou in the Rockies.

Well, after how prominently that talk figured in our vacation adventure, I wasn’t too surprised to realize that the Highly Effective Habits of ungulates could also be understood as Highly Effective Habits of healthy Christians—at least according to today’s scripture readings. Ah, you say to yourself, since when do we baptize moose? We don’t. But the habits which make ungulates highly effective can also make Christians highly effective. Due to time constraints, you will be happy to hear that I’m not going to give you all seven habits today, but let’s look a three of them

First off, our naturalist said that one of the things that makes ungulates effective is diversity. Ungulate species aren’t all the same. Compare a moose to a mountain goat! Besides that, species exhibit lifestyle diversity, as the animals adapt to changes in their environments. In the course of a year, individuals diversify their behavior within their environment, in order to extend their ability to survive in that place. For instance, an ungulate gives up its single-minded devotion to its favorite food (perhaps succulent green grass), because the snow has covered it, and so in order to gain nourishment, it diversifies by munching on lichens. So a highly effective Christian might realize that just Sunday faith practice is not enough spiritual nourishment, and thus takes to teaching Sunday School or serving on the community care committee, in order to nourish their faith. Just as some ungulate species only have one stomach—due to an environment rich in an easily digestible food source—so other ungulates, with food sources more difficult to digest, need four stomachs in order to be an effective species. So it is that some highly effective Christians find they need to study scripture in a disciplined daily home study, while other highly effective Christians find they need a teacher and a class to make scripture more understandable—digestible—to them.

Another Highly Effective Habit of ungulates relates to their feet. While all have hooves, their hooves have developed in particular ways to adapt to the particular needs of their living environment. A moose has broad, heavy hooves to muck around in bogs without floundering. Moose hooves would not begin to work on bare, rocky cliff edges, where mountain goats use tiny, sure, and agile feet. [boot and baby shoe] Christians don’t have hooves. But as the hands and feet of Jesus, we adapt within our differing purpose environments. God has a purpose for each one of us, but these purposes vary from each other. God has musical purposes for Ruth and Kathleen at Springwater, but even though I admire those gifts and God’s purpose for them, that doesn’t mean we would feel quite as blessed if I (for instance) were the accompanist week after week. God has given me different hooves, as it were. Ruth and Kathleen are probably feeling blessed right now that their keyboard-shaped hooves are not being asked to preach. You can check this out in the 2 Timothy reading today, but it sure sounds to me as if, by virtue of God’s call, we have already been given the power to carry out that purpose. As if to say that, if God has put you there, God will make sure that your hooves are adapted to fulfill your role in that environment.

Now a word about headgear. [antlers] In an ungulate, headgear is for the purpose of advertising the goods. The main task of any animal, other than day-to-day survival, is continuation of the species. Male ungulates use their headgear to establish their superior qualities for fathering. But the point isn’t them as individuals. The point is raising up a crop of young ‘uns. The point is the species. Humans—and Christians especially—have an obligation to continue the species. We don’t use antlers, but what we do is how we “strut” our stuff. What we do advertises much more than what we say just what it is we are staking our lives on. And that is what gets passed on through us for the continuation of our species. We all stake our lives on something. How we spend our time, how we spend our money, how we use our talent—that shows what we stake our lives on. And that is mustard seed stuff. What we stake our lives on is that “faith” thing.

One definition of faith means being willing to do God’s will. Another definition is openness to God’s power, acting as if we trust in God’s faithfulness. What this means is that faith isn’t a commodity. It’s not about how much we’ve got or where we go to acquire “enough.” Faith is about God and God’s actions—not how much we humans do. Faith is about God’s limitless power and our openness to it. The mustard seed’s example of faith is of something that knows only one thing and does that one thing with all of its might: it turns into a mustard plant. Which makes more mustard seeds which make more mustard plants. A “disciple” is someone who does what Jesus taught. Our faith is to be as single-minded as the mustard seed about trying to be like Jesus. The point of the slave doing what the master asks him to do is that the slave knows what he’s supposed to do, to whom he belongs, and sticks to it.

If we have the faith of a mustard seed—or, as Jesus implies, since we have the faith of a mustard seed—we know that our faith is “enough.” That’s good news! There is never a surplus of faith, because it is new each day. But we’ve already got whatever we need to exercise the highly effective habits of Christians. We’ve got the hooves and the stomachs and the headgear necessary to make faith work where we’re at. God hired us to “do faith” on God’s behalf. We don’t hire a servant or a pastor to “do faith” for us, because we are all God’s got to “do faith” within the world, and that’s our job, that’s our purpose. As the apostle Paul assured Timothy his protégé, “I couldn’t be more sure of my ground—the One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.” You can stake your life on that.