The Splendor of Poop...And Other Theological Truths I Learned from my Three-Year-Old Niece

Georgia then...

  I’m not a fan of children.  It’s no secret.  They creep me out.  They always seem to be watching me, and never have anything constructive to offer about their observances.  They are largely uneducated, they’re selfish, their hygiene is deplorable, and their conversation lacks depth.  I once had a thirty-minute discourse with my two-year-old niece during which her only response—in fact, the only word she used during the entire conversation—was “Fork.”  And little babies are even worse.  Imagine a six-foot, physically mature baby.  It would literally tear you to pieces for a cheerio.  
            But my niece, Georgia, was the exception.  (I say “was” because she’s much older now.) But as a baby she was no less selfish and no better educated than most of the other small human children I’ve known.  Mysteriously, however, I found her more tolerable.  Besides that, being related to her, there was just no avoiding some social interaction.  At three or so, the conversation began to attain a certain depth, but it tended to revolve around unicorns, which I don’t find all that interesting.  One Christmas, I was obliged to spend an entire hour playing “American Girl Dolls” with Georgia (and for the record, I cannot imagine a less enriching, less intellectually stimulating pastime than having tea with a fake human.  There wasn’t even any actual tea—and even that took twenty minutes to arrive at the table.  Still, I persevered.

            The thing is, tea—even invisible tea—has a certain stimulative effect on my digestive system, so about half way through, I had to excuse myself.

            “Gussy, where you going?” she asked.  (For the record, there are only three people in the world allowed to address me as Gussy, and they are all related to me.)

            “I’m going to duck in to the bathroom for a moment,” I answered.   “I hope that’s okay.”

            “Fine,” she said.  “But it’s gonna be stinky.”

            She said this with such gravitas that I felt obliged to thank her for the warning. 

            When I returned a few minutes later, I found Georgia deep in thought.  She seemed almost troubled.

            “Is everything okay?” I asked.

            “Gussy,” she said after a bit more silent reflection, “did Jesus poop?”

            It wasn’t anything I had given much thought.  Presumably, he had a perfectly efficient digestive system.  But then again, the food he consumed was harvested from a fallen world—not to mention that certain fibers and whatnot, even and especially in a perfect digestive tract, would have to be expelled.

            “Yes, Georgia,” I said, “I believe he did.”

            At this her face brightened.  In fact, the whole room seemed to get a little brighter.  She grinned at me, shook her doll in the air and shouted, “Jesus pooped!”

            She spent the rest of the Christmas season discoursing on this theological wonder to her parents, her friends, her relatives…even complete strangers.  On her way out of church the next Sunday, she was still spreading the good news.

Because, you see, at that time in her life, Georgia was only really good at one thing.  And it was a revelation to her that, thanks to the incarnation, she could be like Christ when she did it.

And she really did have the scriptures to back her up. After all, Saint Paul himself said, “Everything. You do, do for the glory of God.”

You may remember that Martin Luther used the analogy of a dunghill covered by snow to illustrate his theology of humanity’s utter depravity.  We’re all basically manure, he said, but Jesus hides this from God’s aight by covering us with the snow of his grace, so that when he looks down on us, all he sees is the purity of the snow. And that is dead wrong.  It’s wrong because it does not acknowledge the fundamental goodness of God’s creation. 

Our identity, in other words, is in our goodness—NOT in our sinfulness.  What’s more, the eucharist itself ensures that our flesh is imbued with divine dignity.  “The cup of blessing that we bless, it is a participation in the Blood of Christ! The bread that we break, it is a participation in the Body of Christ!

            We call the story we read this morning “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.”  And isn’t that just typical us to identify the main character by his worse attribute.  But you can be sure the father in the story does not know him this way.  When the prodigal son returns from his journey covered in filth, the father recognizes him immediately—recognizes him from a long way off—as “this son of mine” and “your brother.”

            Over the summer, a friend told me about an encounter he had at the University where he is campus minister.  He was confronted by a representative of the LGBT community who announced that he identified as female and demanded to be treated as such.  “Fine” said my friend, “but that goes both ways, doesn’t it?  You have to treat me the way I identify, don’t you?”  His interlocutor grudgingly agreed that he would.  “Fine then,” said my friend, “I identify as your brother.”  And the two hugged it out, then went their separate ways.

            To be sure, we live in a culture that insists on finding ugliness and conflict in everything.  But this isn’t something new. Our job as Christians is now and always has been to return with confidence to the Father in the sure and certain hope that he will recognize us as his sons and daughters.  Then to recognize that same sonship in our brothers and sisters.

...and now.