Article from Epistle to the Presbyterians, March 2005

by Thomas A. Sweet

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Earlier this afternoon, I visited our residents at Loyalton, sharing poetry, conversation, and Holy Communion.  Some of the poems were funny, some poignant and powerful, and one I used to prepare us for the celebration of the Eucharist.  It seemed to me a wonderful midrash on the parable of the prodigal son, the one story in scripture I would keep if I could keep only one.  That poem, To My Mother, by Wendell Berry appears below in its entirety:

                                                I was your rebellious son,

                                                do you remember?  Sometimes

                                                I wonder if you do remember,

                                                so complete has your forgiveness been.

                                                So complete has your forgiveness been

                                                I wonder sometimes if it did not

                                                precede my wrong, and I erred,

                                                safe found, within your love,

                                                prepared ahead of me, the way home,

                                                or my bed at night, so that almost

                                                I should forgive you, who perhaps

                                                foresaw the worst that I might do,

                                                and forgave before I could act,

                                                causing me to smile now, looking back,

                                                to see how paltry was my worst,

                                                compared to your forgiveness of it

                                                already given.  And this, then,

                                                is the vision of that Heaven of which

                                                we have heard, where those who love

                                                each other have forgiven each other,

                                                where, for that, the leaves are green,

                                                the light a music in the air,

                                                and all is unentangled,

                                                and all is undismayed.*

“So complete has your forgiveness been I wonder sometimes if it did not precede my wrong, and I erred, safe found, within your love…” That, my dear ones, is the gospel.  In Jesus’ parable, the prodigal’s carnal cavorting did not excise him from his father’s heart.  Deep down I think he knew that there was nothing that could separate him from his father’s love.  It was the fecundity of his father’s fidelity that provided the spaciousness for him to test his wings and fail, to come to greater understanding of himself, and to be raised from his dead-end life.

I think of God as my savior, not Jesus.  At least not in the way the church often has talked about Jesus as savior.  The great treasure bequeathed to us by Jesus is that he trusted God’s love no matter how steep the cost and thus displayed for us the incredibly free and compassionate life we can live on earth if we likewise trust.  Sin is serious and we must be prepared to bear the consequences of our sin in this life.  But from what do we need to be eternally saved?  Surely not sin, for when we sin, we do not sin apart from God’s love but within it.  Our salvation comes as part and parcel of our creation from the God within whose life our lives are lived.  As Jesus did, we always and already abide within God’s love on our way to becoming Love ourselves over which even death has no dominion.  That is the Easter glory.

*This poem is included in Garrison Keillor’s collection of poetry entitled Good Poems, Viking Publishers, 2002.

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