Pentecost 14 – 2019
Luke 15:1-10
Marian Free
In the name of God who searches out the lost and brings them home rejoicing. Amen.
Will Patterson describes himself as an ordinary man – an ordinary man who went to jail. He was married with one son, had a good job in an insurance company, a house, a beach house and mounting debts As he explains it, it was when he extended his home that his finances got out of control. One day a cheque bearing his name came across his desk at work. Normally, Will would cancel any returned insurance payments but he put this this cheque in a drawer. After a few days of feeling guilt stricken, Will realised that no one had missed the cheque and he banked it into his account. So began a process of using, not only his own company identity, but also those of his wife and co-workers. Over time, he defrauded the company of $300,000. He explains that while he never felt good about it, once he had committed the first deceit subsequent deceits became easier. After all, he seemed to be getting away with it. When finally the company caught on to what was happening, Will felt an enormous sense of relief and freely admitted to what he had done.
His story, like that other other white collar criminals demonstrates how one false move can be the first on a slippery slope to ruin. Every fraud is the ‘last one’; the perpetrator often does not act without a sense of guilt and a fear of discovery; often they commit the fraud believing that they will pay the money back and, while seriously embarrassed, they are glad when they are finally caught out as that means that the stealing must stop.
In his own words: “The problem with breaking your moral compass is that nothing tethers you to your morals anymore. And after a week when you haven’t been caught and you’ve worked out that ‘here’s a way where I could maybe help me make ends meet’, you do it one more time. But it’s just one more time, and then you do it one more time but that’s the last time — and then you get used to having the money.”
In relating the story and his time in prison, Will states that there were a number of instances of grace that got him through to the other side and back into the workplace. One relates to his confessing his crime to his son. Will had used his wife’s security identity as part of the deceit. Not surprisingly, she informed him that he could not live with her anymore. Will moved in with his father, but did not immediately tell his son the reason why. One day the 12 year old asked why he couldn’t live at home anymore. Will told him what he had done and was surprised to hear his son take a leaf out of his own book.
Again, quoting Will: “The year before [he] had an incident where he bullied at school, and I had said to him ‘I am so mad at you right now, I can’t tell you what the consequences are going to be but there’s going to be a consequence because if you do something badly wrong you have to pay the price. When I told him what I’d done, he said to me ‘you will go to jail, dad’ and I went, ‘well that’s a possibility’. “He said ‘well good, because if you do something wrong you have to pay the price’.” Will could not have known the previous year that his response to his son’s behaviour would enable his son to cope with the possibility of his father going to prison.
Another instance of grace (and there were many) occurred when Will returned to the community and got a job with a Funeral Parlour. At first he didn’t share his criminal record. It was only when he was promoted to a position in which he was handling money that he felt that his employer should know of his past. To his surprise, when he confessed his employer said something to the effect of ‘that’s behind you now, we’ll leave it there.”
Will feels that he was able to resume his life thanks to the moments of grace that he experienced along the way. He knows what he has done and how easy it was to slip into it and he has put things in place to ensure that it never happens again.
When Jesus is criticized for welcoming sinners and eating with them, he tells the parables of the lost – those who have slipped from the path, taken a wrong turn, broken the law or done any number of things that separate them from from ‘law-abiding citizens’ and ‘decent folk’. The shepherd doesn’t ask why the sheep is lost or consider the safety of the 99 left behind. The shepherd doesn’t ask the 99 if they will welcome back the one who has gone missing. The shepherd knows and accepts the brokenness of the one who has strayed, knows how easy it is for someone to slip from good to bad and knows how easy it is to fall into despair when it seems that there is no way back. And so the shepherd, knowing the good in those who are lost, seeks them out and brings them back into the fold.
Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. He offered (and offers) moments of grace that proved salvific. When we, like Jesus, extend a welcome (share moments of grace) to those who have crossed a line, we are like the woman and the shepherd who know that a person who is lost is very often waiting for someone to find them and bring them home.
Swallowsrest 