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Learning from Vick                        James 1: 22-24                   August 30, 2009

"Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," the author of the Book of James wrote in our Epistle Lesson for today. "For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like."

With the powerful words of that passage fresh in our minds, I'd like to reflect, for a few minutes, on the lives of two very different people.

The first person is Michael Vick, who has been described - accurately, I think - as the most controversial addition to the squad in Philadelphia Eagles history.

You all know the Vick story, I'm sure. Convicted of profiting from a dog-fighting operation in which the losing dogs were tortured and killed, he was recently released after spending 18 months in a federal prison.

When the Eagles offered Michael Vick a contract to play professional football once again they ignited a firestorm of reactions. Many have argued that he should be banned from the NFL for life. Others have gone further and suggested he be neutered - or worse. Predictably, a website has emerged - www.sackvick.net - featuring t-shirts and bumper stickers emblazoned with "Hide your beagle, Vick's an Eagle" slogans.

The most interesting and thought-provoking reaction came, I think, from Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin, who wrote an article right after Vick's signing entitled "An animal-rights activist stands up for Vick."

The animal-rights activist that Rubin referred to in his column is Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and the author of a book called Animal Liberation, widely considered to be the bible of the animal-rights movement.

"I've read about Michael Vick," Rubin quoted Singer as saying. "I know the Eagles just signed him. What he did was certainly awful. But many people do or participate in things regarding animals that are awful. To some extent, I think people may have rushed to judgment because he did something awful to dogs."

"What I'm saying," Singer went on to say, "is that the people who are very quick to jump on Michael Vick maybe could spend some time thinking about how they participate in the cruelty to animals just by walking into the supermarket, spend some time thinking about what happened to that animal before it was turned into meat."

"There are pigs, probably millions, on factory farms," he said, "who are having a worse time than Michael Vick's dogs. That's what I find a little incongruous about the response to what he did."

So Peter Singer, despite his position as a major animal-rights advocate, is in favor of giving Michael Vick a second chance. "If this is what he does best, play football," Singer says, "I don't think he should be prevented from playing for the rest of his life." Go figure.

The closing paragraphs of Daniel Rubin's column were the clincher, for me. I've thought about them a dozen times since I first read the column. Let me read that portion of his article for you:

The goal, Singer said, is to make people behave better. "How do you do that? Do you make him an example? Do you lock him in a cell and throw away the key? If we said, 'No football,' we'd be punishing him the rest of his life.

Or do you accept that he may be sincere and hope he's sincere and give him an opportunity to show he can make a difference?"

"I had to tell Singer that I didn't know what to say next," Rubin writes. "I had spent the day savoring the satisfaction of the moral high road, never thinking that I would run into compassion and a belief in redemption along the way."

"Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," wrote James. Perhaps that means compassion and a belief in redemption; even for Michael Vick.

The Michael Vick story raises all sorts of issues and questions. It raises questions about forgiveness and redemption, and it also raises questions about the way we treat animals - not just the animals we often welcome into our homes as pets but the animals we slaughter and butcher to put food on our tables as well.

Which leads me to the second life I'd like to reflect upon.

The second person I've been thinking about this week is Temple Grandin, probably the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. She has been featured on major television programs, such as "ABC's Primetime Live", the "Today Show", "Larry King Live", "48 Hours" and "20/20" and has been profiled in articles in Time, People and the New York Times. She is also the author of several best-selling books about animals.

I first heard about Dr. Grandin, a while ago, when I listened to her being interviewed on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." I was truly impressed. At a number of levels. I found myself having a "driveway moment" - one of those times when you sit in your car waiting to hear a radio program end before going into the house.

Temple Grandin, I learned, didn't even talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating instead by screaming, peeping and humming. In 1950, when she was labeled "autistic," most professionals and parents assumed that receiving such a diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to any achievement or productivity in life.

But today, more than fifty years later, after having earned a PhD in animal science, she works as an Associate Professor at Colorado State University, speaks around the world and is a successful livestock handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world.

Like bioethicist Peter Singer, Temple Grandin is well known as an animal rights advocate. Her research and her autism have helped her understand how animals feel.

Grandin says that she thinks in pictures rather than in words - as she believes animals do. She is also extremely sensitive to all kinds of sensory stimuli and very conscious of detail - characteristics that she says also help her to understand the way that animals see the world.

Despite her identification with animals - her latest book is entitled Animals Make Us Human - Grandin is not opposed to eating meat.

"I've designed a lot of equipment for meat plants," she writes. "The cattle would have never been born, you know, if we hadn't raised them. And I feel very strongly, we've got to give animals a good life. I've worked really hard improving slaughter plants and animal handling and transport. I want to educate people about autism and I also want to improve, you know, animal handling and transport and make a real change out in the field on the ground."

"Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves." Perhaps it means doing everything we can to assure that we treat the animals we depend upon with caring and compassion.

The author of the Epistle of James - possibly James, the brother of Jesus and possibly not - clearly was not thinking about animals when he wrote the words that I keep repeating this morning: "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves."

But when he wrote those words and followed them with "For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like;" when James wrote those words he was intending to remind his readers that God talk and Faith talk and even Jesus talk is all pretty worthless unless it is followed with actions.

So this week, when Michael Vick's return to football is in the news and on the lips and pens of the local commentators and bloviators, it is appropriate, I think, to ask ourselves if our Christian faith should inform our attitude toward the animals with whom we share this planet. And to ask ourselves how it should inform our attitude toward Vick himself - who displayed such reprehensible disregard for animals and yet, hard to love and harder still to forgive though he may be, is still a child of God.

Perhaps we can learn from bioethicist Peter Singer and extend compassion and a belief in redemption to a young man who made some horrible decisions and spent nearly two years in prison on account of those decisions.

And perhaps we can learn from Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who rose above her disability and continues to dedicate her life to finding ways to treat animals like part of the family of God's creatures.

"Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves," wrote James. May we be reminded, today, that no part of our life is exempt from that directive. It's generally not the easy thing to do, but it's always the right thing to do.

                                                                             AMEN

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