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Fatted Calves
A
Lentem Reflection For
The Church of Jesus Christ Incarcerated
March 18, 2007
By
Philip D. Ropp
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When I was a boy entering into my early
teenage years, I attended Sunday School at Eastminster Presbyterian
Church. My teacher was a young man in
his mid 20’s named Gary Fetzner. Mary
knows Gary’s
younger brother John. He’s president of
our parish council at St. Mary’s. John’s
younger brother, Rex, is one of my best friends, and has been going all
the way
back to this time back in the mid 1960’s.
Gary had been a very
successful business man at a very young age, and as he was approaching
his full
adult potential, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. While
his doctors didn’t know that he was
dying, Gary,
somehow, did. He moved his family back
home to Alma from the Detroit area, and spent his remaining years
assuring
that his life – and his death – meant something. To this day, I
have never seen anyone ravaged
by this disease as hard as he was, and never have I seen anyone
persevere the
way that he did in the midst of this kind of adversity.
As
Gary got sicker
and sicker, he continued to teach Sunday School until he was being
rolled in
and out of our classroom in a wheelchair. Week by week we watched in
horror as
his health deteriorated and his suffering increased. Yet, through it
all, his
faith never wavered. If such a thing was
even possible, it grew stronger. He became the lesson; a lesson in
trusting God
in the midst of our troubles and even thanking him for them.
While all that knew him struggled to
understand God’s purpose in this, Gary
knew and he accepted his fate and even embraced it. When asked
how he felt or how he was doing,
he had one stock answer, “Terrific!” His
speech became increasingly slurred, his eyes rolled in different
directions,
and when he finally could no longer speak intelligibly he had to stop
teaching
our class. However, he never stopped teaching
all that knew him and all that he met right to the very end. Here
was a man so tight with God that he
never questioned why this was happening to him, but only how he could
use it to
communicate his faith. “What did he say?”
someone would ask. “He said he’s
‘Terrific,’” we would answer.
There
came a time when I could no longer deal with this. I couldn’t
stand to see Gary in this condition, and the time came
when we all knew that the miracle of his healing wasn’t to be, no
matter how
long and hard we prayed. I couldn’t
visit him anymore, and in the days when his death was finally and
mercifully
approaching, I was angry at God and kept my distance. It seemed
such a waste. I couldn’t bring myself to attend his funeral,
and this is something that I’ve only managed to apologize to Rex for in
the
past few years.
At
about this time there was another tragedy that struck the Eastminster
Church
family, and it was another faith shaker.
Our pastor and his wife, a couple by the name of Ross and Ginny
Macdonald,
had a six-year-old son that was hit by a truck as he rode his bike and
died
after five hours or so of feverish emergency surgery. During this
time, prayer was asked for over
the local radio station and the town of Alma
spent this lovely summer afternoon in prayer.
This is the only time I can ever remember something like
this. In the
early evening hours word came that young Bobby Macdonald had passed
away.
While
the details of the aftermath of this are as you’d expect, suffice it to
say
that these two events would ride heavy on my soul. When I entered
college to study for the
Presbyterian ministry, I did so in the hopes that studying religion
would
strengthen my waning faith and answer the question that haunted many
others and
me: “Why?” But just the opposite proved
true. My Bible professor was angry and
estranged from God due to the death of his father when he was 14 –
something I
could, at the time, certainly sympathize with. He taught me the Bible
wasn’t
true. My theology professor was a Marxist who had long ago sacrificed
his faith
upon the altar of a worldly socialism.
He taught me God did not exist.
The man that guided my religious vocation was a churchman with a jolly
façade who hid his lack of spiritual substance in the political
machinery of the
earthly church world. He taught me faith
didn’t matter.
The more I studied
about God, the less I knew of him. The
less I knew of God, the more hedonistic my behavior became. The
more hedonistic my behavior became, the
farther I sank into the morass of sin. I
entered into that time that Saint John
of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul.” It is that time
in which, to bring a soul to
the light, God allows that soul to become immersed in utter
darkness.
To draw that soul to him, God removes himself
from it. My cries to heaven echoed
across a cold, empty universe, and I was lost and alone.
There
was a song back then by a group called Rufus.
It was sung by their featured singer, Chaka Kahn. It was called Tell Me Something Good.
My
own mantra became “show me something real.”
In the month after my graduation, I turned to the occult in the quest
for anything spiritual: for something real. Then one day, at the end of
a dead
end road, there was a house. In this
house was something. To tell the truth,
I didn’t know if it was real or not.
When I spoke to it, it seemed to answer in my head. I asked it to
come with me. And it did.
Over
the next few days, I would discover just how real this thing was.
Invisible, inaudible, yet able to demonstrate
its presence in subtle ways, by day three it had become powerful,
ever-present
and increasingly malevolent. Fear turned to foreboding.
Foreboding turned to resignation. Resignation meant yielding
control, and
yielding control brought on the conviction of complete
hopelessness.
In a gathering physical and spiritual
darkness, I saw the light coming from the snack bar at the student
union. In this light sat a friend of mine. With the last
ounce of my free will, I walked
in and sat down across from him. He was marginally aware that something
strange
was going on with me. And, through the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he suddenly knew, instinctually, what
to do.
We
walked out into the night and he told me to pray. For the first
time in years, I really
did. The darkness that threatened to
envelope me abated somewhat and I felt a glimmer of hope. Across
the deserted campus and to the
football field we walked. He told me to
kneel, and so I did. He laid his hands
on my shoulders and prayed earnestly in the name of Jesus Christ that
whatever
was tormenting me should be gone. I fell forward unto all fours.
Something took control of my throat and was
using my vocal chords to issue a series of bloodcurdling primal screams
into
the warm, spring night air.
While this was
happening, I found myself falling endlessly into a dark abyss. As
I fell, I could hear the screams coming
from my own throat recede into the distance above me. Then I saw
a light that was hidden behind a
cloud. It looked very much like a
thunderhead passing in front of a full moon. As it came closer, a hand
extended
from the cloud. At the base of the palm,
where the hand meets the wrist, was the imprint of a nail. I
reached out and took this hand and grasped
it with all my strength. When I did, my falling slowed to a stop;
then I felt myself catapulted
upward.
As I rose, I could hear the screams coming
from my own throat grow closer.
Suddenly, I felt myself slam into my own body with a force that knocked
me down face first onto the ground. The
screams abruptly stopped. The night was
quiet, and it was gone.
In
the days that followed this incident, the Holy Spirit filled my soul
like
sunshine on a bright summer day. I began
reading and studying the Bible, not as a scholar but as one thirsting
for truth
and knowledge. I let the New Testament
fall open, and there before me was the prodigal son passage from Luke
that is
also our Gospel reading for tonight. The first person I thought of was
Gary
Fetzner, the finest man I’ve ever known and the second was Bobby
Macdonald, the
most innocent child I’ve ever known.
As I
prayed and meditated on this scripture back then, I realized that the
deaths of
Gary Fetzner and Bobby Macdonald were not random acts in a godless
universe,
nor were they the cruel and capricious whim of a God with no
heart.
On faith, I came to understand that God does
all things for a reason – the great spiritual lesson that Gary had
tried so valiantly to get across
from inside that failing body so many years ago. And God rejoices in no
uncertain terms whenever anyone finds his way home to him. I did not
understand
why, because, at this time in my life, the important thing was to come
to peace
with this, which I did. It was as I
prepared these words for you that I finally understood the
“why” of it
all.
In
the parable, the father celebrates the return of his wayward son by
killing the
fatted calf for the celebration that is to take place. The fatted
calf was the choice animal;
selected at birth and fed a special diet so that it might grow to be
both
tender and delicious. It was the best
that he had to offer, the prize of his herd.
And it was a young animal and, so, pure in the innocence of its
youth.
The fatted calf, then, is much like the
Paschal Lamb that was selected to be sacrificed at Passover because it
was
without blemish and so pure in its innocence that for centuries it
served as
the stand in and symbol of the true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.
Sometimes,
God sends us the very best and most special people that he has and then
takes
them home to be with him at what seems to us to be the most
inappropriate or
inopportune times. While there is only
one worthy to be the Lamb of God, we have all known those that have
excelled in
their humanity through an exceptional goodness or innocence and so have
achieved a status that is beyond the rest of us. From a broader
and more heavenly perspective
than our humanity usually permits, we should not be surprised that
these souls
are called to go home to be with God earlier than the rest of us.
We might well call them the “Fatted Calves of
God.” There are many souls like this
that the Church celebrates as saints, and there are many more, like
Gary
and Bobby, that we
can name from our own experience and that are just as saintly.
And because of their abbreviated lives and
seemingly tragic deaths, they teach many of us what we need to know to
achieve
the eternal life that they already experience. Like
Jesus, they do, in their own way, go ahead to prepare a place for us in
the
life that is to come. And when we get
there I can assure you that Gary Fetzner will be the first to tell us
that’s just
“Terrific!”
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March 18, 2007
Psalm:
Sunday 10
Jos
5:9a, 10-12
The LORD said to Joshua,
“Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.”
While the Israelites were encamped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho,
they celebrated the Passover
on the evening of the fourteenth of the month.
On the day after the Passover,
they ate of the produce of the land
in the form of unleavened cakes and parched grain.
On that same day after the Passover,
on which they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased.
No longer was there manna for the Israelites,
who that year ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.
Ps
34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
R. (9a) Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Glorify the LORD with me,
let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
2
Cor 5:17-21
Brothers and sisters:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.
And all this is from God,
who has reconciled us to himself through Christ
and given us the ministry of reconciliation,
namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
not counting their trespasses against them
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
So we are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
Lk
15:1-3, 11-32
Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So to them Jesus addressed this parable:
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’
So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’
He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’
He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”
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