4th Sunday in Lent

The Rev. Rob Fisher

St. Dunstan’s, Carmel Valley

Texts: Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I knew a doctor when I was living in Pasadena who decided one day several years ago to load up his truck with medical supplies, and to drive with his wife over the border of Mexico—which is just a few hours from Pasadena—to offer medical care to people in the poorest neighborhoods of Tijuana.

The next time he went, he brought another doctor friend.

Gradually, the group of people journeying down to Mexico with him grew so that when I knew him there was a caravan of cars with a few doctors, a dentist, some nurses, and a lot of bright-eyed medical students from USC.

The group went down four times a year, running a make-shift clinic in one neighborhood on Friday, and in another one on Saturday.

The first time I went down with them, 650 people came to see a doctor, mostly women and children.  15 people had teeth pulled.  And lots of kids got toys and clothes.

With a translator, I offered pastoral care to anyone who wanted to talk or to pray.

***

At the end of one of our days when we were closing down the clinic, I had the opportunity to take a walking tour around the neighborhood.

Incredibly, the neighborhood was actually built on top of a giant landfill—a whole neighborhood built on top of a garbage dump.

The rains we had while I was there had created pits of mud in the dirt streets, unearthing some of the garbage below.

We walked past the houses where people lived.  Bare box frames were used as fence doors.  Plastic tarps were laid across roofs for waterproofing.

At the end of the street we came upon the edge of a steep cliff, and we looked out over a canyon of garbage.

I noticed tires set into the side of the dirt to make steps, which led down to houses where laundry hung out to dry, and where we could see children playing.  There were places where the toxic waste was spontaneously combusting, blowing black fumes up to the houses above.  We stood on the edge of this cliff and looked out at literally hundreds of homes.

***

The most amazing thing was that in the midst of grinding poverty, when the people of this town on top of a dump spoke of their greatest hardships it was usually to do with their broken relationships.

They did not talk to me about anything material that they wanted, not that their poverty wasn’t a very serious matter for them.  Instead, they spoke with me, often with tears, of the restoration of broken relationships that they dreamed of.

One woman told of her daughter who had run off and would not speak to her.  Another person spoke about his brother who had severed their relationship

Loneliness and loss were what my translator and I heard about.  We heard about loved ones across the border not able to visit.

Broken ties.

What troubled them most greatly was not all that different from what troubles people anywhere in the world.

Imagine the tears that God sheds at the broken relationships with us his children, across the border and not returning his calls when he reaches out to us.

***

The parable this morning is of the prodigal son, one of the most famous stories in the Bible.

In a sense, it is a miracle story

It is about the miracle of grace

The miracle of a father’s forgiveness.

The father not only forgives.  He embraced.

It is a miracle story, no less marvelous than walking on water or turning water into wine.  The miracle of forgiveness.

This morning’s psalm begins with the words: “Happy are they who are forgiven!”

It might have also said, “happy are they who learn to forgive.”

Because to learn to forgive is to learn to live like God.

***

Note that Jesus tells this parable in the company of those who are most famous for their rigidity against forgiveness and grace, the Scribes and the Pharisees.

Forgiveness is not even a value for them.  They operate on rules and regulations to order their spiritual lives, and on a strong view of insiders versus outsiders.

The forgiveness that Jesus bears is utterly foreign to them.

Even for us, who may actually value forgiveness, it is hard.

Perhaps for forgiveness is even impossible.

***

In our Lenten book series, we are reading a book about Christian practices by a man named Brian McLaren.

McLaren says that being a Christian is not really about something you are, but something you practice.

Doctors will say, for instance, that they practice medicine, and lawyers will say that they practice law.  It would make good sense for Christians to say that they practice the Christian faith.

Being a Christian is not about a mere status at which one arrives.  It is not merely about a belief system, rather, it is a way of living.

McLaren’s definition of the word practice is interesting.

He says that the meaning of the word “practice” is to do something that is within your power today that will help you grow so that you can one day do that which is currently not within your power.

He says it is like practicing an instrument.

Or it is like training to run a marathon.

You don’t arrive all at once, but with baby steps.

Likewise, when Jesus commands us to love those people who are very hard to love, or to forgive those who have hurt us, we may be tempted to say “That’s just impossible,” and give up right there.

But if we practice in prayer, in reflection, in acts of devotion to God and compassion to others, we will grow in our ability to love God and to love our neighbor.

As McLaren says, practice may or may not make perfect.  What is important is that practice makes possible.

***

God gives us all that we are and all that we have because God is a giver by nature.  God is also a forgiver.

God has given us hearts with the capacity to grow in love and healing forgiveness.

Jesus is the path.

To “know Jesus” is not a badge of honor, or a status that should ever be held over another person.  Rather, to know Jesus is to know that, like the father in the parable, God gives us forgiveness, and asks of us the same.

Caring for the poor.

Forgiving  others.

These are tall orders.

They may even be impossible for us today.

But with practice, the impossible becomes possible.

Being a Christian is not so much a destination as a way of life—one that becomes easier when we take to heart the fact that we have been cared for first, and that through Jesus we have been forgiven already.

—Amen.