14th March 2010 - "Love actually"

Usha Hull - St Mary's and St Michael's
Luke 15 1-3, 11b-end
Mother's Day

Jesus loved to tell stories to the people around him, to teach them how to live better lives. He loved to take ordinary situations, with ordinary people like you and me, and weave tales that would be familiar to those listening. These stories often took the form of parables, or stories that tell of some of life’s lessons that we all need to learn. When he told the story of the prodigal son, he was telling a story about a father’s love and forgiveness.

So today, as Christians around the world celebrate Mothering Sunday, I’d like to tell you a little story, a true story as it happens, about a parent I knew who also loved very much.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a land far away to the East lived a woman, whom we shall call Reena, and her two children, a boy called Amit and a girl, called Leela. Reena was a widow. Her husband had died when her children were still very small, and she was also very poor.

She lived in a village where the dirt roads had huge potholes and where cattle wandered through the streets.

The little mud hut where Reena and her children lived had no running water or electricity and there was only one well in the village. Every day Reena would visit the well and carry home, on her head, huge jars of water. Every evening, when dusk fell she would light two little kerosene lamps so that by the light of them the children could do their homework. For Reena was passionate that both her children would be well educated. And did she work hard for this! And as she worked she scrimped and she saved, and she went without all kinds of little comforts for herself. She was determined that even though her children did not have a father, they would lack for nothing.

Reena had heard it said that there was a land far away where people did not have to do back-breaking work in the heat of the noonday sun in order to earn a living. In this land, she was told, the roads were so smooth they were like glass. In this land, even poor people drove big cars on such roads and what’s more, had running water in their homes and even electricity.

All this Reena found hard to believe. And when she was told there were no animals wandering the streets of this land, she was astonished.

‘What, not even a buffalo or goat grazing outside the home?’ she asked. ‘What do families do for milk then?’ And the answer came back that fresh milk, indeed all kinds of food, were cheaply and easily bought in huge shops that were called supermarkets.

So Reena began to dream and to plan. ‘Truly,’ she thought, ‘even if I cannot visit this land far away, then at least I will work and save so that my son Amit can. Perhaps he will earn enough there to contribute to his sister’s dowry so she can get married.’ So Reena tried to work even harder and save even more.

The bus came once a day to the village to take people to far away places from where they could get to the land of Reena’s dream. And at last came the day when Reena had saved enough to send Amit to this land.

Amit was now grown up and he towered head and shoulders over his little mother, who was stooped and frail after years of toiling in the sun.

‘Don’t worry Mother,’ said Amit, kissing his mum goodbye, ‘I will write to you every week and I will send money home so that you will never have to work so hard again.’ And with that he was gone.

Reena stood watching the bus disappear into the distance until it was just a dust cloud on the horizon, and a great sadness, like the dust, settled on her heart.

That’s when the sadness began. For days, months, and then eventually years were to go by without any word from Amit. He didn’t write when his sister Leela got married. He didn’t write when his mother had to stop work through failing health. And all the while, folks in the village muttered to Reena that she had better forget Amit.

Although Reena’s heart was slowly breaking, she thought she could understand if Amit didn’t want to send money home. ‘After all,’ she thought, ‘I am old and need very little and Leela is now happily married. But I don’t  understand why Amit doesn’t write even a few lines to wish us well. Has he ceased to love his old mother and his sister? Has this land far away hardened his heart? I cannot believe he won’t return to me.’

And hoping against hope, every day Reena took to walking to the edge of the village to where she could see the bus stop in the distance. But every day the bus came and went and there was no Amit and there was not a word from him, either.

So where was Amit all this time? Well he came indeed to a land where the roads were like glass and no cattle wandered the streets. Because of the education his mother had worked so hard to provide him with, he was able to get a job, make lots of money and visit those huge places called supermarkets where food and milk were so plentifully had. And no doubt, at first he had fully intended to write home and send money back, too.

But you know what? The longer you leave something, the harder it gets. So days turned to months and then to years and Amit found it first difficult and then impossible to write home.

Yet all the time he became increasingly lonely. Yes, he had money. Yes he had a big car to drive on roads that were like glass and there was no danger of knocking over a buffalo or even a goat. But he wasn’t happy. There were people around him who claimed to be his friends, but Amit knew that these people would be gone in an instant if he fell on hard times. He had no family around him, he had no one who loved him.

So the loneliness and the silence grew. ‘In this land,’ thought Amit sadly, ‘people behave in ways I don’t  really understand. For example, they might ask me how I am but not really wish for a truthful answer. Sometimes people don’t talk to each other, not even when they have lived next door to each other for years. Truly, I could die here for loneliness and it might be months before my body was even found.

‘Back in my village at home it was noisy and crowded at times, and sometimes people were nosy and wanted to know all about your business. But I suppose that’s what’s living in a community is all about. There are difficult people and good ones, too. But there never was any loneliness.’

The years went by, then the day came when the silence and loneliness all got too much for Amit and he said to himself, ‘I will return home and say to my mother, “Mother, I have failed you as a son and you may never want to speak to me again. I’m sorry and please forgive me. All I want now is to come home, and live here for the rest of my life.’”

So one day, when Reena was watching from afar, as she did every day, the bus drew up, stopped and drove off again. When the dust cleared, standing solitary in the road was a tall man whom she recognised even from a distance with her failing eyesight, as her son Amit.

The years of sadness and loneliness had finally come to an end. But did Reena pause to dwell on them? Was she going to tell her son off for causing her so much sadness and pain? Was she going to listen to those difficult and jealous souls in the village who had muttered against it all, all along?

Not for one moment! Running as fast as her increasingly old bones could carry her down that potholed, dusty road she threw herself on her son with joy and love. All that mattered to her was that the son she loved and had thought lost had finally come home.

And there I end this story.

Both this story and the parable of the Prodigal Son have a few things in common and I’ll mention them briefly.

The first is that it’s never too late to say sorry, or to  forgive. Both sons in today’s stories behaved very badly. But because they said ‘sorry’, everything was made alright again. Because we have a God who loves us, we can say to Him ‘I’m sorry’ and as long as we mean it He will forgive us time and time again. May  we who are forgiven, forgive others too.

Secondly, when you truly love someone you want to give them good things. Both Reena and the father in the Gospel story gave and gave of their love, simply and generously. In the same way, our Father in Heaven gives to us, too, and our lives are full of His goodness. May we who receive, give to others.

And finally no matter who we are and where we live in the world, our true home is where we can build ties of love and friendship. God our Father ever waits for us to come home, home to friendship, home to community, home to the love we celebrate this Mothering Sunday. May we who stray, find our way home.

I end with a little prayer from Psalm 27: ‘One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’

Amen.