Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
[00:00:05] Good morning again.
[00:00:08] You know, this is my third Sunday with you all and my last Sunday with you all.
[00:00:14] But three weeks ago, when I first started, I told the people who gathered that day that that Sunday and these next two Sundays, including this one, they'd hear a good deal about forgiveness and repentance.
[00:00:28] Which brings us now to this Sunday and this parable.
[00:00:33] This parable?
[00:00:36] Yep.
[00:00:38] I remember when I first studied this parable, thinking it kind of brings home the readings of the last couple of weeks.
[00:00:45] And when you read it, you think, this makes absolutely no sense.
[00:00:51] It makes no human sense, but it absolutely makes God sense. And I want to try to explain this parable in a different way with you all by telling you a story. Is that okay? Can I tell you a story?
[00:01:02] You're good with stories. It's a doozy.
[00:01:06] And unfortunately, it's true.
[00:01:08] Unfortunately, it's true.
[00:01:11] It's about an experience with my daughter.
[00:01:14] Her full name is Lisa Jardine Bruce, but we always call her Jardine because my husband, he loves my maiden name.
[00:01:23] And today is our daughter's birthday. Actually, she's 40 years old. I'm not quite sure how that happened.
[00:01:30] I don't feel that old.
[00:01:32] And our son Max is 43. How did that happen, too? I don't know.
[00:01:37] Holy guacamole. I'm getting old.
[00:01:40] So you need to know that when my children were small, I knew one thing for certain.
[00:01:46] If my son Max was in his room with the door closed and he was quiet, he was reading. Hence, he's a professor at the University of Chicago today.
[00:01:57] If my daughter Jardine was in her room with the door closed and quiet, I knew she was getting into some kind of trouble.
[00:02:06] I could tell you stories about the antics she got into. But I will spare you that right now.
[00:02:12] One day When Max was 7 and Jardine was 4, I went to check on them. Well, because they were both quiet in their rooms with the doors closed.
[00:02:24] Sure enough, Max was reading. He loved the Goosebumps series.
[00:02:28] As I didn't hear noises coming out of Jardine's room, I held my breath and opened the door.
[00:02:35] And here's what I saw.
[00:02:37] Jardine was sitting on the floor in the middle of her room.
[00:02:42] Now, I need to share with you all before I go any further, that by the time she was 4 years old, she had at least 40 or 50 Barbie dolls.
[00:02:54] Everyone loved to give her Barbie dolls.
[00:02:57] So that's the background.
[00:02:59] Here's the scene I walked in on.
[00:03:02] On one side of her room were the tattered Barbies, you know, the ones who saw the bottom of the pool one time too many.
[00:03:09] Or those whose outfits were tattered because she tried to do her own alterations at the tender age of four.
[00:03:16] Or those Barbie dolls where she might have cut their hair or tried to redo their makeup with permanent magic marker.
[00:03:23] And on the other side of the room were all the pristine Barbie dolls, practically new out of the box, beautiful pristine outfits, along with the Barbie Ferrari and the Lone Ken doll.
[00:03:37] So I looked at this scene and I thought to myself, I probably shouldn't ask, but I'm going to anyway.
[00:03:45] Jordy, what are you doing?
[00:03:48] I'm playing good heaven, bad heaven, she said.
[00:03:51] And I went, this is honest God, truth.
[00:03:57] So I had to continue my line of inquiry journey.
[00:04:02] What do you mean, good heaven, bad heaven, Mommy, I heard you tell Daddy that in the Bible. It talks a lot about heaven, but not a lot about hell.
[00:04:13] So I think there's got to be a good part of heaven and a bad part of heaven.
[00:04:20] Okay, you know, I had to ask more.
[00:04:23] Jardine, how do you get to good heaven?
[00:04:26] Oh, Mommy, that's easy. She says, you know God, God, God knows you. God always loves you. You love God, you die, you go to heaven. God knows you. You know God, God loves you. You love God, you know it's God. God points you to good heaven.
[00:04:44] Okay, that wasn't too bad.
[00:04:46] So I had to ask more. Jardine, how do you get to bad heaven?
[00:04:52] God loves you. God always loves you. God knows you, but you don't know God.
[00:04:58] You die, you see God, but you don't know it's God. God knows you. God loves you, but you don't know that's God. So God points you to bad heaven.
[00:05:10] And I thought, oh, shoot, I gotta ask more. I couldn't stop.
[00:05:16] Jardi, can you go from good heaven to bad heaven? Mommy, who wants to go from good heaven to bad heaven?
[00:05:23] And I said, I thought, here I go, here I go.
[00:05:30] Jardine, can you get from bad heaven to good heaven? I waited for the answer. Oh, sure. She says. I said, honey, how?
[00:05:39] She said, mommy, when you wake up, when you wake up.
[00:05:46] When you wake up.
[00:05:48] I was flabbergasted. I was a seminarian or about to start seminary at the time, and I thought, this is a paper.
[00:05:56] I went downstairs and wrote this story in her baby book.
[00:06:01] What I love about Jardine's four year old logic as to the workings of God, humanity and heaven is that it points to the fact that we are Never ever outside of God's loving care. Never.
[00:06:17] One person can live their entire life loving God, following in God's ways, loving their neighbor as themselves, loving others as Jesus loves us.
[00:06:30] Another person can live a life not only not loving God, not following God's ways, but harming others.
[00:06:40] Breaking the commandments as easy as breaking crackers into soup.
[00:06:46] But yes, but this is the hard part of that gospel parable and my then this is the hard part of that gospel parable and what my then 4 year old daughter understood.
[00:07:02] When one who has lived a notorious life or a life not understanding who God is when they wake up, in the case of the notorious person, this means sincerely and humbly seeking God's forgiveness and if possible, seeking the forgiveness of those they harmed, seeking repentance.
[00:07:25] When they do that, their reward is exactly the same as the pious person who always followed in God's ways throughout the length, the entire length of their life.
[00:07:38] Does that seem fair?
[00:07:40] Actually it is.
[00:07:44] I do want to explain and say I believe Jardine at the age of four was right.
[00:07:51] Even in death, those who have died can wake up and understand and feel that love that was always offered to them in this life and still offer to them in death.
[00:08:05] Every day in the Book of Common Prayer, in the daily office as well as the Eucharist, we remember and pray for those who have died.
[00:08:14] We do it all the time. I still pray for my parents who have died and my loved ones who have died around me.
[00:08:22] Don't we make the sign of the cross when we pray for the departed? Some of us do. Maybe you don't, but you'll see me do this.
[00:08:31] Does this make people sense?
[00:08:34] No, none of it makes people sense, but it absolutely makes God sense. And that's what Jesus was saying in this parable and that's what my daughter figured out.
[00:08:43] You know, the first time I preached on this gospel passage when I was a very new priest close to 30 years ago, a father and a son sought me out after the service.
[00:08:55] It fathered the 10 year old boy. That someone could try to be good all their life and someone can repent and be good just at the end of their life and they got the same reward.
[00:09:07] He didn't think that that was fair.
[00:09:10] The young boy wanted me to say that God doesn't work that way.
[00:09:15] But the truth is, God does. God does exactly work that way.
[00:09:20] God is always seeking us out, wanting us to be in relationship with God and in good relationship with each other, to love one another as Jesus loves us.
[00:09:31] If that happens at the beginning and all through one's life, great.
[00:09:37] But if it happens at the very end, when someone wakes up to the presence of God and owns up to whatever harm they may have done in this life, God rejoices.
[00:09:50] Does this mean we can live our lives and be a jerk and just say a few platitudes at the end of our lives to get a free ticket into heaven? No.
[00:09:59] No, that's not what that is.
[00:10:01] True remorse, turning to God, seeking forgiveness from God and potentially from ones that we have hurt. That must be sincere and it must be humbling.
[00:10:13] You know, I finally helped the young boy understand that the joy of living a life now where God is part of it, living that kind of life on this earth, a life where we follow Jesus, the rewards are great on earth.
[00:10:30] We actually get a foretaste here on earth of the home being prepared for us in the next life.
[00:10:37] So, yes, as I explained to the young boy, no matter when a person turns their hearts and minds to God, the reward at the end is the same.
[00:10:46] The payment, just like the workers in the vineyard, is exactly the same.
[00:10:52] Does it make human sense?
[00:10:55] No, but it makes God sense, and that's what's important.
[00:11:00] Amen.
[00:11:05] And by the way,
