Barnacles

          Imagine living life cemented upside down at your forehead to a rock. If that is you, you may be a barnacle.

Fertilized barnacle eggs hatch into one-eyed larvae, which search for firm places to attach. Once they locate a suitable site, larvae glue themselves permanently headfirst. Then they build protective plates of calcium carbonate around themselves, and extend eight pairs of feathery arms to spend their lives filtering plankton from the water. Sounds like fun.

As part of God’s good creation, barnacles play a role in life’s web. But they can cause problems. The U.S. Navy estimates that heavy barnacle growth on ships increases weight and drag by as much as 60%, resulting in as much as a 40% increase in fuel consumption. That can be disastrous in time of war.

Metaphorical barnacles can attach, often initially unnoticed, to our personal and church lives. Things that may be good enough in themselves, but do not belong glued to us to weigh and slow us down.

Church barnacles are of many subspecies. Barna­calicus translationatae requires that only one Bible version be allowed. Barnacalum mywayhighway believes it alone knows the best answer to every question, and disallows any discussion. Barnacalicus antiquitus insists that everything be done as it has always been done, world without end, whereas the totalicusnovicus variety feeds only on what is new. These comprise only a sample; the list of churchly subspecies is interminable.

Individuals also can grow barnacles. We may come to think of ourselves as deserving titles or privileges. We always need to sit in the same place. Again, the list of subspecies is endless. Using a different figure, Jesus spoke of seed choked by weeds—“the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth” that “choke the word, making it unfruitful.” He could have said, “barnacles that cement to us and slow us down.” No wonder Hebrews urges, “Let us lay aside every weight....”