A man walked into a
restaurant with a young ostrich behind him, and as he sat down, the waitress came
over and asked for his order.
The man said, “I'll have a
hamburger, fries and a coke,” then turned to the ostrich. “What's yours?” “I'll have the same,” said the ostrich.
The waitress returned with
the order. “That will be $11.75 please,”
she said. And the man reached into his
pocket and, without even looking at the money, pulled out exact change and
handed it to her.
The next day, the man and the
ostrich came in again and the man said, “I'll have a hamburger, fries and a
coke,” and the ostrich said, “I'll have the same.” Again the man didn’t even look as he reached
into his pocket and paid with exact change.
This became a routine until
late one evening, the two entered again. “The usual?” asked the waitress. “No, this is Saturday night, so I will have a
steak, baked potato and salad,” said the man. “Same for me,” said the ostrich.
When the waitress returned
with the order she said, “That will be $24.89.” Once again the man reached into his pocket and
pulled out exact change and placed it on the table.
The waitress couldn’t stand
it anymore. “Excuse me, sir. How do you manage to always come up with the
exact change out of your pocket every time – without even looking at it?” “Well,” said the man, “several years ago I
was cleaning the attic and I found an old lamp. When I rubbed it a genie appeared and offered
me two wishes. My first wish was that if
I ever had to pay for anything, I would just put my hand in my pocket, and the
right amount of money would always be there.” “That's brilliant!” said the waitress. “Most people would wish for a million dollars
or something, but you'll always be as rich as you want for as long as you
live!” “That's right! Whether it's a gallon of milk or a Rolls
Royce, the exact money is always there,” said the man.
The waitress then said, “One
other thing, sir, what's with the ostrich?” The man sighed, and answered, “That’s my
second wish. I wanted a tall chick with
long legs who agreed with everything I said!”
In the 1997 Academy Award
winning film, Good Will Hunting,
there is a wonderful scene near the end of the film. It takes place in the office of Sean Maguire,
a psychologist, played wonderfully by Robin Williams. Sean has been working with Will Hunting – a
troubled mathematical genius – who suffered horrible physical abuse as a child,
which left him scarred, both inside and out.
In this climactic scene, Sean admits to Will that he too was physically
abused as a boy. Sean steps close to
Will, grabs him by the shoulders, looks him in the eyes and says, “It’s not
your fault.” Meaning that it wasn’t Will’s
fault that he had been abused by his father.
Will’s eyes dart away and he says, “Yeah. I know.”
Sean stays right in front of him and repeats, “It’s not your
fault.” Again, Will’s eyes avert as he
says, “Yeah. I know.” Sean does this several more times before
using an insistent tone when he says, “It’s NOT YOUR FAULT!” At which point, Will breaks down and
sobs. It is not until Will Hunting
finally internalizes – or lets his heart acknowledge – what the therapist has
said that he finally begins to FEEL the magnitude of the words.
It is the same way with
God’s message of love for us. Think
about the story of humanity’s interaction with God. God made Adam & Eve, put them in the
Garden and said, “I love you.” They
said, “I love you, too,” and they meant it.
After The Fall, (after they did the only thing God told them not to do) they
hid and the next time God said, “I love you,” they averted their eyes and said,
“Yeah, I know.” Through the generations,
God repeatedly said, “I love you.” And
the people always looked away and said, “Yeah, I know.” Occasionally the people really got it. Occasionally they really internalized the
message.
The children of Israel were
enslaved by Pharaoh and God said, “I love you.”
The children said, “Yeah, we know.”
But when God delivered them on dry land and they stood and watched as
the chariots and soldiers were swept away by the Red Sea, God said, “I love
you,” and the children said, “Wow! God
REALLY loves us.” They understood. But no sooner were they in the wilderness
than they forgot again. And over the
succeeding generations, they never seemed to get it.
When Jesus began His
ministry, He taught the people that God loved them and they glanced away and
responded, “Yeah, I know.” But individually,
Jesus touched people’s lives and they would say, “Wow! I get it, God really DOES love me.” Even as Jesus was touching lives though, most
of the people still looked away and said, “Yeah, I know.”
God wanted so much to get
the message across, that that’s why God became human – in Jesus Christ – to
metaphorically (and in some cases literally) hold us by the shoulders, look us
in the eye and repeat over and over, “I love you.” Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than to
lay down his life for a friend.” That’s
exactly what Jesus did. For
us. There never was a moment in
human history where love was more perfectly played out than that one. Jesus died so that we could live.
“Jesus said to his
disciples, ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in
my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy
may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” In other words, love as Jesus loved,
internalize and share God’s “I love you,” to us, and your own joy will be
complete, just as God’s joy for you is complete.
Rather than trying to open
up God’s undying love for us in words, here is an example of that love being made
complete. This story was told by Sr.
Miriam Brasher of the St. Mary’s Convent in Sewanee, Tennessee.
The scene is a courtroom trial in South Africa. A frail black woman, over 70 years old, gets
slowly to her feet. Facing her are
several white security police officers. One
of them, a Mr. van der Broek, has just been tried and found guilty in the
murders of the woman’s son and husband. He had come to the woman’s home, taken her
son, shot him at point-blank range, and burned his body while he and his
officers partied nearby.
Several years later, van der Broek and his cohorts
returned for her husband as well. For
months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then, almost two years after her husband’s
disappearance, van der Broek came back to fetch her.
How vividly she remembered that night. They took her to a riverbank where she saw her
husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood.
The last words she heard from his lips
as van der Broek and his fellow officers poured gasoline over his body and set
him on fire were, “Father, forgive them … ”
When the woman stood in the courtroom and listened
to the confessions of van der Broek, a member of South Africa’s Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (the tribunal set up to deal with the aftermath of
apartheid-era atrocities) turned to her and said, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has
so brutally destroyed your family?”
“I want three things,” said the old woman calmly and
confidently. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was
burned to gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.” She paused, then continued, “My husband and
son were my only family. So I want Mr.
van der Broek to become my son. I want
him to come twice a month to my house and spend the day with me so I can pour
out on him whatever love I have remaining in me.”
“Finally,” she said, “I would like Mr. van der Broek
to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband. So, I would kindly ask someone to come to my
side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. van der Broek in
my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven.” As the court assistants came to lead the woman
across the room, van der Broek fainted, overwhelmed by what he had heard. As he struggled for consciousness, those in
the courtroom — family, friends, neighbors,
all victims of decades of oppression and injustice — began to sing softly and
assuredly, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
In closing, let us again pray this morning’s
Collect. O God, you have prepared for
those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our
hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all
things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, Amen.
[Easter 6B Sermon 050921, Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98, 1
John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17]
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