The Third Sunday of Lent

While we were yet a long way off

By Fr. David Kenney

While I was busy
interrupting God’s plan
for all Creation,
including God’s plan for me myself,

me being busy with
unsurpassed self will
and inexhaustible self interest
and being a sort of
self-guided missile careening
through this life,
don’t you know,
even though I had a
nearly-constant glimpse of
God, sort of quietly hovering there,
in the shades of my mind,
always there,

well . . .
God saw me,
a long way off.
And smiled.

While you were busy –
too busy to care –
winging your way through this life,
with a sort of blind eye to
what you were leaving in your
everyday trail,
 
God winced at the pollution
of Creation that you
left in your wake,
and the lack of concern
in your head and heart,
but God still saw you,
when you were still a long way off,

and God knew that
there was an idea within you
to care for the world,
not to spoil it,
and God smiled.

While I plotted my revenge on
the latest offenders,
who had jolted me
or jilted me
or joked about me
or jammed me up
something terrible,
and while I devoted hours
of consciousness to
ruminating about
their ruin,
God noticed that my
conscience was tweaked,
and my heart was not
entirely
given over to this resentment,

and God smiled.


While you were busy deciding
that the whole idea of God
was a bit much to accept,
and after all,
it seemed God
wasn’t answering your prayers,
and anyway all your friends
were more or less unbelievers,

and the church didn’t serve you, really,
and you were confused by
everything from Gregorian Chant
to the meaning of Eucharist –

all the while,
God was busy answering
your prayers.
Smiling all the way.

How unlike me and you
God is.

How curious,
that God should be so eager
to welcome us home,
we the profligate,
straying,
self-fulfilled ones.

Yet God does.


How odd that God
should have arms outstretched for us
before even the notion has fully taken hold
within us,
that our way has led nowhere
and that we so badly needed
to come home.

We’ve been lost without always knowing it,
at least without admitting it,
and God doesn’t seem to mind,
so long as we come home.

What kind of God is this?
Amazing God.

Amazing grace.

We’ve been adrift in the fields of self-will so long,
we cannot imagine playing in the fields of the Lord,
yet there they are,
the fields of wonder and excitement,
of the thrill of knowing God loves us!

The Garden of Eden,
just maybe,
was made of the awareness
of the Father’s absolute,
truly unconditional love –
not just pretty words,
but the very thing itself.


Such a God,
such a Christ
such a Spirit.

We’re still far off,
and already they’ve
set a place at the table for us,
so we can share
a feast beyond our imagination.

Such a deal.

Such an amazing God.
Such amazing grace.

Amen.