Five years ago, I was sitting in my office when I got a telephone call. His name was Don. I had never seen him before. He began the conversation in the strangest way.
“What do I call you?” he said.
Hmm. I guess that depends on your mood. But Kate is fine. Some folks call me Mother Kate if they want to be reminded that I am a priest. “Mother Kate, my name is Don. I have never been to church. Well, except for a few funerals and a wedding or two. I am 76. …
“yes?”
“I just went to the doctor because I’ve had pains in my back. I hate the doctor and don’t usually go, but it was really hurting…so he did some tests. ..
“yes?”
“I have cancer everywhere, Mother Kate. I have only a few weeks to live…
There was silence on the end of the phone.
“Is it too late to become a Christian?”
“It is never too late.” I said.
“Can you come over?”
Within a few hours, I found myself driving down a busy street. Off to the side were some apartments that I had never noticed before. I found his apartment tucked in the back of the complex.
He opened the door and let me in. It was dark and it didn’t smell very good. There was a long hallway that led into the living room. He had a large liquor cabinet and a huge flat screen TV, but not much furniture or decorations. This was an old bachelor pad. It felt lonely and damp.
Don asked me how to do this, how to become a Christian. “I don’t want to go to hell,” he said. ‘What if there is a God? Is it too late for me? Am I crazy?”
He proceeded to tell me all about his life, a life of incredible games and lies, women and infidelity. He had hurt many people. His ex wife no longer spoke to him. His mistress no longer spoke to him.
“I am such a mess,” he said. “I must be crazy for calling you here.”
“Don, we are all crazy in some way…” I said. “I’m just glad you called.”
I was struck by his faith, if you could call it that. Basically, the only reason he called was to try to get out of some kind of damnation at the last minute. He wanted, quite literally, to be saved. It was a selfish motivation, his fear and longing for salvation. It was all about him. But he was being honest and he really wanted to talk. He was working hard to find something more before he died.
He confessed his sins. We prayed. I told him to call in a few days. I said that I would try to get him to church, that someone would give him a ride. He thanked me. I closed the door.
You all know the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son was selfish. He wanted to have fun. His left his father’s house to sow his wild oats. He partied, he made mistakes, he lived dangerously and tried all kinds of things. And then his money ran out, his luck ran out, and he decided to turn around and head for home. After all, it was better than eating pig slop.
The prodigal son did not head home for the love of his father or his brother. He just wanted a bed again, some food, a place to live. He realized that life at home had been better than life on the streets. He was still selfish, he was still about himself and himself alone, but he realized that home was the best place for him. So he turned around and headed home.
The prodigal son is walking back when his Father sees him from afar. And the Father runs.
He runs to the son. He does not wait patiently for his arrival. He does not ask him why he has returned. He does not get angry about being used for his food or lodgings. He doesn’t say a thing. He just runs.
He runs to his son with his arms outstretched and he embraces his son.
The Greek word for repentance is Metanoia. Metanoia, means turning towards God. It does not mean “getting it all right” or even “having all the right motivations.” Turning our faces towards home is enough.
There is a beautiful painting by Rembrant. The father is holding his son. The son is bald and dirty, he is kneeling before his father, and the father’s arms are on his son’s shoulders. And the Father has this look, of ultimate contentment on his face. There is not a trace of Where were you or what the heck happened to you or you are such a lazy guy or I feel used or all the feelings that I know I would have if my loved one ran off, spent all my money and then came crawling home. No, all the Father seems to be feeling is love, perfect and unbelievable love.
The love of the Father is irrational. It so unlike human love. It bears no grudges, expects nothing. All that the Father needs is for us to try to return. We don’t even have to get there! We can be way far off, but at least headed in the right direction and then there He is, running to us.
It is hard for us to understand this kind of love, the kind that expects nothing more than our desire to return. It is hard for us to understand the kind of unequivocal joy that God has for us. We don’t have to earn our way to God. We don’t have to make it back on our own, we just have to start, just try to get there and that is enough-God meets us on the way, running to us with outstretched arms.
One of my favorite stories is a story about Loren Einsley, the famous biologist. I wrote about this story in my Advent book. Never have I found a greater analogy for the love of God than this story.
Einsley was traveling in the Colorado Rockies. He was trying to capture a rare breed of sparrow-hawk. One day, as the sun was setting, he found himself walking by an old, abandoned stone cottage. He heard a rustling inside. “Ah!” he thought. “Just the right kind of place for a sparrow hawk to nest!”
He crept inside. Sure enough, nestled on top of a bookshelf by an open window, there were two sparrow-hawks, a male and a female. He crept slowly to the bookshelf. Taking an old chair, he stood up to the level of the birds. With one hand, he shined a flashlight on them. With the other hand, he reached out and grabbed the female.
The male jumped on his hand and began biting him furiously. He let go of the female and she flew through the window. He dropped the flashlight, trying to grab the male with his other hand. The bird continued to peck and claw until his hands were a bloody mess. Finally, he succeeded in capturing the male. He put the bird in a small black box that he carried with him. It had holes for air, but it was small. Just big enough to hold the bird, but small enough so that the bird could not flail around or hurt itself. He took his prize back to the camp.
That night, Einsley couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about that bird and about his mate, who was long gone.
Early the next morning, he got up and surprised himself. He took that little black box and brought it out to the field next to his campsite. Just as the sun was rising, he took the bird out of the box and laid it on the grass. It lay there for an entire minute as if it were dead, then in an instant, it shot upwards. And Einsley said that, at that moment, he heard a scream the likes of which he had never heard before. The female came hurtling down to meet her mate, screaming in the sky. They danced in the air together.
When we turn to God, when we repent and turn towards home, God responds like that sparrow-hawk. God comes running to us, hurtling down to meet us wherever we are. And when we die, if we ask for Jesus, he comes screaming to us to dance with us in the air. For we were lost and have been found. We were dead and now we are alive. We were entrapped in lives of obsessions and selfishness, trapped inside little boxes of our own design, and now we are free.
After the private confession sacrament that we offer in the church, when the penitent is absolved, the priest says And now there is rejoicing in heaven for you were lost and are found you were dead and now you are alive in Christ Jesus.
Three days after I visited Don, he called me.
“Mother Kate,” he said. “I was sitting in my easy chair. I don’t know if I fell asleep or what, but I saw the most beautiful man. He was dressed in a brown robe. He was walking to me and smiling…” Don began to cry over the phone. “Mother Kate, I have never seen anything like it. He was so beautiful. He was SO BEAUTIFUL. Who was that? Am I loosing my mind??”
(Isn’t it funny how people always ask if they are crazy when they start experiencing God. I have to do a lot of convincing that mental illness is not what it’s all about. God is just so scary, so other, that often we wonder if we have just gone and lost our minds.)
“Don, you know who it was . You tell me.” I said.
He said, in a small voice. “It was Jesus, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Don, yes it was Him!!”
“Oh my God, I never knew he was like THAT!...But I’m such a jerk, I’m such a mess. Why would he come here??”
“Because you invited him in, Don. Because you asked for him…”
Don never even made it to church, two days later, he was dead. Jesus came for him, just at the last moment.
His funeral was a mess because his ex-wife and his mistress would not look at each other or speak to each other. Each was still in their own little box of misery and anger, still too full of themselves to know what had happened to Don.
But I knew. I knew that he has torn himself out of that tiny black box of despair just in time to meet his Maker.
And Jesus ran to him -- flew to him -- screaming and crying with elation. And He held Don in his arms.
As God will hold you too. If you just try to Come to Him.
