This weekend I have been praying for a team of women who
have gone into Dayton Correctional Institution for ministry, as well as residents
they are ministering to. They are volunteers with Kairos Prison Ministry. The experience
has been interesting and meaningful for me, because I knew very little about
the Kairos program before this weekend. But Verna, a member of Bath Church who
participates in our book group, is a member of that Kairos team this weekend
and she asked for prayer support.
I signed up to cover two hours, Friday and Saturday
morning, and Verna gave me a sheet of paper with four columns of suggested
prayer petitions. In praying these prayers, I was drawn inside this ministry in
a certain way. I felt the love for these women I have not met, and a desire for
them to know the love and freedom of Jesus Christ in a powerful, transformative
way. And I felt connected to the women who have volunteered this weekend to
minister, bringing the message of forgiveness and new life through Jesus
Christ. And it occurred to me that they may be using these words from Ephesians
to share the message: You were once dead through the trespasses and sin in
which you once lived. But God who is rich in mercy made us alive together with Christ. It is by grace you
have been saved through faith, not your own doing. It is the gift of God.
This message from the letter to the Ephesians is a
powerful gospel message. You were once lost to sin. But now, by the mercy of
God, you are found. And it is all gift – not earned through works of your own
doing.
This is not to say, however, that you are free to continue
living the same life. God’s mercy and grace changes everything! You are now a
new life, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has prepared for
you to be your way of life.
And yet, it’s easy to confuse the order of things. We get
mixed up and think that our good works come first, and only then does the grace
of God kick in. We think we have to, somehow, get this new life written about
in the scriptures before God will accept us. But how is that even possible?
We get things mixed up. We think that we need to tally up
enough good works on our own before God will grace us with God’s presence. But
how do we imagine that is even possible?
Do we suppose that we are more powerful than God? Do we
assume that we appease God with our pitiful efforts? Are we counting on our own
goodness to assuage God’s anger? And what, then, when our own goodness is not
enough?
What do we have left when there is no way for us to earn
our way back into God’s grace? What do we have left when we cannot see our way
to deserving God’s forgiveness?
On this Lenten journey, you might find yourself more
troubled than usual about your own sinfulness. You might find yourself more
often in low places contemplating your shortcomings and frailties. You might wonder
how God can help you, if God can help you; you might even wonder, at times,
whether God even cares to help you.
The film The Mission focuses on just such things. It takes
place in South America in the 18th century among Jesuit Priests and
Spanish and Portuguese settlers. Rodrigo is a mercenary and a slave trader. He
goes into the jungles and captures the natives – trapping them like animals – so he can sell them to the Portuguese and Spanish
settlers.
Rodrigo has a fiancé, Carlotta, and a brother, Felipe –
both of whom he loves. But one day Rodrigo discovers that Felipe and Carlotta
love each other, and in a rage, Rodrigo kills his brother in a duel. The law does not condemn Rodrigo, but he
condemns himself. He turns to the sanctuary of the church, but he refuses to
accept forgiveness. He keeps himself in solitude and doesn’t believe that God
has the will or ability to reach him and do anything to redeem him. He has been
abandoned, in his eyes, and he wishes only to die.
Father Gabriel visits Rodrigo and challenges him to accept
penance for his sins by traveling with him to the mission he has founded up
above the falls – a mission to the same native tribes that Rodrigo hunts.
Rodrigo accepts the challenge, knowing that once he gets
up there he will be at the mercy of these natives. He insists on dragging a net
full of his armor and weapons to make his penance more difficult. The priests
are troubled by Rodrigo’s insistence on bearing this burden. At one point in
their journey, when Rodrigo was stuck, Father John cut the net loose. With an
angry and stubborn expression, Rodrigo climbs down to retrieve the net, ties it
back on, and continues. It is as if he is saying, “I do not recognize your
authority to releases me of my burden.”
The scene where they finally reach the top and are met by
the men of the tribe is the most powerful, poignant scene I have ever
witnessed. With little strength left, Rodrigo pulls himself and his burden up
to the top of the cliff. He faces the tribal men on his hands and knees. You can
see the anger in their faces as these men recognize Rodrigo as the slave trader
and murderer. One of them picks up a knife and rushes toward him, shouting
angry words, and presses the blade against Rodrigo’s throat. Rodrigo is
perfectly still. Then the man removes the knife from his throat and uses it to
cut the rope binding Rodrigo to his burden. He kicks the net full of armor and
weapons into the river below. The camera draws in to Rodrigo’s face. We see him
shaking, crying, then sobbing which rocks his whole body. He is laughing, he is
crying. It is a release of sorrow, pain, fear, joy.
Looking at Rodrigo’s face at this moment, I think I am
seeing the face of a man who, finally, knows himself forgiven. This is what it
is like to truly know yourself forgiven. It is a powerful thing.
No matter what we do, no matter how far we distance
ourselves from God, God’s promise is steadfast. God’s promise is unbreakable.
As we remember God’s promises to Noah, to Abraham, to
Moses, we have remembered again and again that God’s faithfulness does not
depend on our faithfulness. No matter how hard we try we could never do it on
our own. No matter how hard we try we cannot hold up our side of the covenant.
Only God can keep God’s covenant, and all thanks and glory be to God who is
steadfast in love.
When it was necessary to take on human flesh, to become
one of us for the sake of the world God loves, God sent us Jesus, who lived and
died for our sake, so that we might know ourselves truly forgiven.
For God so loved the world that God gave his only Son so
that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life. So much did
God love the world God created. So faithful is God to God’s covenant with us.
You may carry burdens that are so heavy, yet feel
impossible to set down, to cut loose. But know that God is standing ready to
cut you loose from this burden, to have you receive the forgiveness that has
been extended. And to begin to live as one truly forgiven, transformed, made
new in Christ to live the life for which you have been made. All thanks and
glory to God.
Photo: Robert DeNiro as Rodrigo Mendoza in the 1986 film, The Mission
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