The Story of Ants

By Janelle Esposito- Bruchko reading reflection

Dr. Redick read chapter 17 out loud to us in class and I read it over again for better understanding. The legend of the Motilone becoming an ant is a perfect reflection of what God did when he sent his to incarnate human existence. This is seen in Philippians 2:

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.


Like the Motilone, Jesus made himself as what we must appear to the heavens, a hill of ants.
As the story goes:

"Then, quite miraculously, he had become an ant. He thought like an ant, looked like an ant, and spoke the language of ant. He lived with the ants and they came to trust."

I have been thinking about what incarnational ministry might look as I consider doing urban ministry next year. Like Christ, I must humble myself, forget my preconceptions of my middle class existence and devote myself in becoming like the people I live with. I must learn their culture and honor it in all ways I can.

I loved when Olsen said: "If you are big and powerful, you have to become small and weak in order to work with other weak beings."


People can never enter cross-ministry with the attitude of imperialism. Their ministry would not be effective. I am saddened by the past marriage of missions and imperialism, and stunning people with your "higher" civilization is not effective in the long term. We must humble ourselves, making ourselves nothing, and completely forget ourselves to fully engage in another culture without snobbery. We can think of how become the people. We can build up trust by thinking if what we're doing, thinking or saying is building trust or undermining trust. We can look at cultural practices, and say, it's not right or wrong, just different from what I'm used to. This is what Olsen did, reflecting the attitude of Christ. He did not try to make Christianity textual to it's original Hebrewic context, but he contextualized to the truth already seen in that culture.