What the Hell are We Afraid of ???

It's not my story - but I remember it because I was blessed by the privilege of being there as Faith was lived and a prophetic truth was walked ...

She took his hands and said - "It's not you, it's the alcohol. Get help."

She wept at the senselessness of what had happened, and she begged him to get help.

She held his hands, and stared into his eyes and said "Get help."

Weeks later she sat across the room from him. She stared directly at him and kept saying, "You did this. You know you did this. Just get help ..."

With tears in her eyes, she said those words over and over until he stood up and asked the Judge to change his plea from "not guilty" to "guilty."

"I did it," he said avoiding her gaze, "I did it, and I need help ..."

There was no satisfaction in that moment, only the utterance of truth ...

She had lost a daughter to a murder that remains unsolved, and she couldn't bear to the loss of her son to a murder that was so senseless. She wanted him to get help. He was her family too. He was better than this.

She took held his hands through the bars of his cell the day we buried her son. She offered him forgiveness, but demanded that he get help to be free of the alcohol that had fueled his crime.

In the courtroom that day she, as a grieving mother and elder, stared at him and begged him to own the truth and get help ... she made no excuses for his behaviour, and she forgave him because her faith told her that it was the only way ...

That day she taught many of us, especially me, about the power of faith ...

Her motivation came the day we visited the house where her son died and we found hanging on the wall over the spot his body a plaque with the simple words: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do ..."

On the fridge in the kitchen was a tattered Bible tract with the words, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do ..."

On top of the tv sat her son's Bible, long unused and unread. It was open and face down. It had rested that way for a long time. She picked it up and turned it over. Circled on the open page were the words: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do ..."

"We have to forgive him for this ..." she whispered through her tears.

As we left the house that day, an Eagle landed in the tree branch not 3 metres from her. She greeted it in her language. It cocked its head and chittered in reply. She smiled, tears still streaming down her cheeks and continued to speak to the magnificent Bald Eagle sitting, staring at her.

"It's him," she announced as the eagle flew away, "he came to tell us he's okay, and that we need to forgive ..."

She lived her faith ... two children had been murdered ... untold suffering had been visited on her family over the years ... and yet she held true to her faith ... She told her sons - each one of them carriers of powerful warrior spirits - we have to forgive ... her words ran counter to their desire for revenge ... but they listened. As hard as it was for them. They listened to her ... They saw the signs too ...

Today I thought of her as I walked home ... I was listening to an old pop song with the words - "he could preach the Bible like a preacher. Full of ecstasy and fire ..." and I wondered why we want to nice-ify the Bible and make it warm, pink, fuzzy and insipid ... where is the fire and the passion?? where is the prophetic presence that dares to say through the bars of a cell - I forgive you, when the victim is our own beloved child????

I got home and read from Walter Brueggemann:

The re-experiencing of the prophetic tradition - that is the rehearing and re- speaking of the texts with fresh contemporaneity - does not depend primarily upon critical and technical interpretative matters, but upon a capacity for imagination and intuition, coupled with courage, which dares to assert these texts, concretely located and specifically addressed, can now be and must be concretely relocated and specifically readdressed as illuminating and revelatory in contemporary contexts. Those who are able to make this stunning interpretive maneuver are those who can give themselves over to the text and its startling, enigmatic quality without encumbrance. One cannot anticipate the emergence of such voices when they are nurtured and evoked in the community of the text, but only recognize and receive them with gratitude when they emerge. They are the ones who permit the explosions of text whereby the world is transformed.

We are afraid to let the texts speak fully to us ...

They challenge us to move outside our comfort zones, and to critically examine even our most deeply held and cherished belief ...

We prefer the comfort of the known to the discomfort of texts that challenge us to see ourselves, not as the one who is marginalized and outcast, but rather as the one who is in need of God's love and forgiveness ...

But to experience forgiveness when the prophetic message explodes upon us, we must commit to repentance ... and repentance demands owning our sins and misdeeds ... and in the Modern Church we prefer to maintain the illusion that we're okay ...

She took his hands and looked into the eyes of the one who had killed her child ... and said the words we ALL dread to hear - "you know YOU did this ... just get HELP !!!"

Few voices in the Church dare to speak such words - EVER.

I'm glad I heard her say them ... it helps me remember that those eight simple words are the heart of the Gospel ... and they should be the heart of the Church too ...

Maybe one day we'll grasp that and the real work of being the Church will finally begin ...

One can always hope !!