Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

All Stories Tear by Brita Miko

There is the scream. The scream so loud it will be the last word. The scream so loud it will render the man mute. The scream so loud the man will die. You cannot release such a cry and survive.  You can only release such a cry if it is the last thing you do. You can only release such a cry if all things are done.

It is the cry of death.

It fills the whole earth. The very earth shudders. The very earth splits. The very earth might not survive. The very earth tears.

The very rocks tear.

And history tears. And all stories tear. My story tears.

Allow the Poor Man to Save You by Brita Miko

This article appears as a chapter of Brad Jersak's Kissing the Leper.

God sells righteousness very cheap to those who are eager to buy: namely, for a little piece of bread, worthless clothes, a cup of cold water and one coin.1

                               Abba Epiphanus

This began with a taste of heaven and hell. This began with a taste of peace and torment. This began while giving birth to my second child. The doctor broke my water just before 7 a.m., and my baby was born at 8:22 a.m. That final hour was contraction upon contraction. Labor is not the kind of pain that makes you cry; it’s the kind of pain that makes you gasp and writhe and cry out “O God, help me!” It’s also the kind of pain that makes you pass out—which I did, twice. Those unconscious moments of bliss during otherwise conscious pain were what started me thinking…

Die With Me: Pickton, Jesus, and Me by Brita Miko

(This piece began in a newsgroup. Brad Jersak’s words are here, enfolded in mine. All italicized words are Brad’s). 

Life is not theoretical. The reality of life is lived. Hard lived moment by hard lived moment. Moments of beauty. Moments of grace. Moments of agony. Moments of terror. We are inside it and it is inside us. 

The life of Christ is a life happening in these very specific particular moments, or it is not happening at all. It doesn’t only happen in the mind, like a disembodied Word. It is incarnated again and again, born anew into every circumstance. It is for everything or it is for nothing at all. It is always true or it never was true. The lived reality is where we must know it and receive it and be it. It cannot be magical words for another world. It must be the way through in this one. Or it is no way at all. 

The life of Christ is the life I believe I want. Most of the time. But sometimes, I become scared. I get scared by what the life of Christ might mean. Now is one of those times. 

Stories from the Street by Brita Miko

Brita Miko worked as a Women's Community Worker in the East End of Vancouver. These are a few of her reflections and impressions of people she met and those who befriended her in that community. Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

For an article that futher investigates the world of Vancouver's missing women, see http://www.missingpeople.net/the_hidden_world_of_hookers-june_8,_2002.htm

* * * *

Joe was born three blocks from where he now works. Both his parents are heroin addicts. Now at seventeen he is a male prostitute. He's been a heroin addict for a year, and sells his body for money to feed his addiction. He told me he doesn't want to be like this forever. He tried quitting once and he was able to last eight days. The drugs were out of his body, but not his mind. He couldn't get the thoughts of it out of his head, so he shot up again. Sometimes he comes down to Granville Street for a free meal before he heads off to shoot up.

Shaun's a street kid. He's lived on the street for three years. It's better than home.

Brenda is a beautiful girl about my age I think. She has two children. She worked at an agency as a prostitute for years underage, and a week ago started on the street. She hates it and wants off. She knows it's dangerous. I talked to her about God and she said she went to church until she was about twelve. She said she used to often pray to God and he never answered her prayers.

My first night out on the street I met a girl named Chris. She had no shoes. We gave her shoes and her boyfriend Bill, juice and watched him puke it all up, cup after cup. Ran into her again and she said they were trying to clean up so that they could get their daughter back. She said she was working so that they could get money to fly away to Saskatchewan. I told her about an airline that had cheap flights. Saw her again a few nights ago. She had been hit and left on the ground. By the time I saw her she was fast asleep and covered in tremendous amounts of sweat. Bill said, "Yeah, I'm the asshole." He told me she had not slept for six days... working for him. He told me he loved her and had called her mom to come get her out of here. She is dying. She is twenty-three and HIV positive. He can not stand to watch her die anymore. I told him that if her mom does not come and she wants out that she can call me. I know the way out. I told him God loves him, more than he loves Chris and God doesn't want to watch him die anymore. He nodded. I prayed over Chris.

I saw Deanna a few weeks ago. She had two black eyes. I told her I was sorry about her eyes and asked if he did it often. She said no, it was just some guy that didn't like her very much.

Jean is nineteen and has been working the street for six years. She wants out but says it is really hard because whenever she is out and gets low on money she thinks, how can I get more money? An hour later, she's two hundred dollars richer. It's so hard to get out, don't ever start, she told me.

There was a resident that never spoke much in Bible study, but when he did I always appreciated his words, for they were sincere and true. He was humble and quiet, and to me he shone like a star. When talking about how we are as people he once said his bikes always looked shiny, but needed an oil-change. I laughed and recorded his words.

Another time he said, "I kept putting prayer and meditation on the shelf, until I went through years of just not making it."

Two days before he was to graduate from the program he had to leave. He had failed a urine test. On the weekend he had gotten too high on cocaine and took heroin to bring himself back down. I pray God would be close to him wherever he is.

On the corner of Oppenheimer Park a couple weeks ago I was out with Streetlight. A prostitute saw the blue jacket and came running across the street to me and began to cry, "I'm so scared. I'm so scared." I held her as she cried and though most of her words were incoherent I understood snatches. "I don't want the devil to get hold of all of me... Thank you Jesus for sending this girl to me... I'm so scared." I prayed with her, and I told her that I knew the way out. "I can help you," I said. "I know somewhere safe we can go." She wasn't clean and she was terrified. And then another woman was there yelling at her and five or six people that had been on the hill behind me, came close. She began to run away asking for me to come with her. "I can't!" I yelled and then everyone was swearing at everyone and there was so much tension and rage. She ran crying away and I was left watching the aftermath, praying for the Spirit to come down on that comer and bring peace. And He did. I never saw that woman again.

Adrian is one of our many Granville Street regulars. Saw him yesterday and he said he had been reading the Bible that I had given him (that was so many weeks ago I had completely forgotten giving him one). He said that he sold his soul to the devil when he was in his mother's womb but he put in a clause that at twenty-five he could end the curse if he wanted to. He said that before he was born he told God that he did not want to be a human but a killer whale. He said he had millions of dollars in a bank account that he could not access until he was twenty-five. He said he hated himself. He said he wanted to save the world by going to hell. I told him Christ already did that. He said he loved Mother Earth more than God, and then he littered. He asked if I thought he was crazy. I said no, but that he had been told many lies... and he had believed them. He said he knew some of it was lies. I told him I would pray that confusion wouldn't bind him and he might know clearly what was truth and what was lies. He told me that he was praying for me too.

I met Elaine last night as I was waiting for the bus. She has AIDS and is dying. She started hooking when she was thirteen--that was seventeen years ago. She is going back to B.C.C.W. next week and is looking forward to it. But, she says I should come and play softball with them; bring some people from my church. It's lonely in there, never seeing people from the outside. People that smile, and are real, and have hope. I said I would love to come. She said just to play softball, volleyball or sing choruses, whatever… the women love visitors. She said lots of women from East Hastings are in and out there. I wonder what it would be like to be thirteen and turning tricks--or thirty and having AIDS. I asked her if she wanted out ever, and she said all the time. She said that she would be getting out soon though, by dying. She said, I know, it's the easy way out. I told her I knew another way. She knows there's God and there's heaven. She doesn't understand Jesus. She believes God can forgive us without Jesus. Just by His mercy. She needs to understand that the wages of sin is death, BUT the gift of God is eternal life. She needed to work, I needed to go home. She left and I sat there waiting for my bus. A man named Jeff began talking to me; he was a lonely bachelor looking for a date. I began praying that my bus would come soon. Jeff told me I better get--on the next bus and get out of here, because if he had his way I'd be going with him in his car. East Hastings is dangerous. I prayed the Granville bus would come soon and it did. I was wanting out so much and I had only been sitting there for three quarters of an hour. I can't imagine how much Elaine wants out but can't. It's no more dangerous for me there than it is for her. It's just Jeff had mercy on me because I was young and naive and protected by God. He might not have the same pity for Elaine. People think they get what they deserve. She doesn't think she deserves better, and he doesn't think she deserves better. That's the miracle about God. He gave us what we did not deserve. It's hard to accept because we're used to thinking all we deserve is nightmares and hell and death. And we do. And that's what Jesus got, was my nightmares, hell and death. And I got abundant life. It's not what I deserved. It was grace.

I had heard a lot about Arlene before I met her... that she was in an abusive relationship; that he was very sweet, that she did want out. And when I met her, I understood it to be true. She kept a big smile on her face for the passing cars as she answered our questions, rarely looking at us. We asked how she was doing. Smile, nod, "okay." We asked if she wanted to leave. Smile, nod. I told her that we didn't have a woman's worker at the mission right now, but until we did we would do whatever he could to get her off the street. Smile, nod. I told her she was beautiful, and she was. Smile, nod. She hugged us all and thanked us, smiled at the passing johns. Andrea told her that if she was ever awake at 9:00 Sunday morning to come down to her church, we'd love for her to come. Smile, nod... but now she was close to tears. She said she needed to be working, and so we left her. She called after us that God would bless us or be with us. And I looked back to thank her and saw her one last time, smiling for the johns.

When I met Lesha she had just found out she was HIV positive. She was in the hospital, her shrunken body was covered in scabs and scars, and she was trying to make sense of dying. She was trying to make sense also of living--when her life had gone from suffering at the hand of a gross and abusive father to years of suffering on the streets of Vancouver. She was trying to make sense of why, when she wanted to know God so badly, she could never feel His presence. Where had he gone? Then she began to get frustrated with herself, saying that she didn't know what suffering really was. She had seen a special on Mother Teresa and she was ashamed because she had never suffered as much as Mother Teresa's children in Calcutta had or as much as Jesus had, and she began speaking of the agony of Christ. She said she hated it when she became self-pitying and she began apologizing to God for not being more thankful and thanking Him for all she had. She was so grateful and thankful for her life--her pain-filled and ending life. "Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus."

I've long believed Jesus is in disguise in the homeless, the hungry, the sick, but this is the first time I felt like Isaiah, "Woe to me. I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."

I received a letter from a girl who used to be down here. She had gone from prostitution (at maybe 15) to an abusive boyfriend, to an exploitive lesbian before she finally returned home, at age nineteen. She wrote from home, "I feel a very small feeling of happiness for the first time in awhile. God cares for me."

There is a common thread here among the prostitutes. They wash up on these shores after years of tragedy, poverty and abuse. Drugs are everywhere and getting high or stoned on them gives momentary freedom from their broken world. Their existence soon becomes a never ending hustle for a few bucks for more drugs to forget. They will pay for this freedom with their bodies, their dignity, their self-respect, their minds, their hearts and their lives.

I met a fellow named Larry who became a Christian in these woods. God had given me a message about the woman caught in adultery--il1egal sex, on death row, waiting to get stoned. I explained how getting stoned in those days was different from "getting stoned" nowadays and how these streets here are death row, too. I've never been around so much death in my life as I am here (suicides, murders, drug overdoses).

Afterwards Larry said to me, "People are still getting stoned to death." I had never thought of it that way before, but he is right. In the downtown eastside there are 300+ deaths a year from people getting stoned to death by overdosing.

Two thousand years later Jesus is still working with women caught in adultery--illegal sex, on death row, waiting to get stoned. Their hope remains in Jesus who is no more condemning now than he was then; Jesus who knows the cost of their sin and then takes that cost upon himself. He already paid for their freedom with his body, his dignity, his self-respect, his mind, his heart and his life. It’s real easy to throw the first stone. Oh God help me to offer them your freedom and not to cast the first stone.

The Dear Hunter by Brita Miko

Dear Father God, we ask that you would feed Your children. We ask not for tater tots, but that you would give us meat right off the bones. We pray it would be so succulent that juices would run down our chins. Help us to taste and see you and that you're good - deliciously good. In Jesus' name, Amen.

If you were asked to choose one animal to describe who God was, which animal reveals something about His nature? - there would be many different directions you could go. A Lion would be a likely response - majestic, powerful, gorgoeus, terrifying. And we see God using Lion as an image of himself to.
Rev. 5 5Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." 6Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.
He reveals himself as both lion and lamb. Majestic, powerful, meek, wounded. In Matthew and Luke we see him using a simile of a mother hen to describe his feelings - an image loving, protective. Each animal he likens Himself to tells us something more about who He is. Each is just a piece but nonetheless a piece of the whole.

A. W. Tozer wrote "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

Each of us would sees God differently, but our ideas of him often tend to be colored one way. Some see him mostly as "Judge." Heaven itself will be good BUT, there's a certain dread about dying because there will be this terrible judge and this terrible ordeal of examining our whole lives. That's how some people primarily see him. Others maybe see him as "Friend." A God who is so close, so near. A God who hears the little prayers of "Help me to get my house clean before all the company arrives." Some see him as lawmaker. Some see him as Cheerleader.

Sometimes once we think we know who He is, we have a tendency to filter all our ideas through it. We lock into anything that re-enforces the image and we rationalize away the verses and the experiences that don't. Before long we can get stuck with a very rigid of idea of who God is and what He would or would not do. We make Him monochromatic.

IMAGES OF GOD
He is not one colour or one note. Each note, each image, each color may contain pieces of truth as to who He is but He is not reducable to one. And sometimes our image of who He is contains lies, as well as truth. Scripture gives us MANY, MANY, images of who He is and each of them help us to understand a part of Him, though none contain Him completely.

A BABY. Who is God? He gives us an image of himself lying in a manger every Christmas. Look, there God is. That little one who can't feed himself, or carry his own weight. Helpless. Tiny. Absolute perfection. God incarnate. Red as a beet. Holy. Divine. Lovely. That little one soiling the straw. That's how he first appeared among us as a man. That was Him kicking Mary's tummy in the womb. Did He give Himself to us this way? Is this how the shepherds saw Him? This image of God? You bet. They worshipped the baby. He wanted us to see Him that way. He wanted us to know that was a part of who He is just as it is a part of who you are. This raises questions. Would we be comfortable worshipping the infant God? Kneeling at the baby's feet? We pray to Christ our Saviour, we pray to Christ our Crucified One, could we pray to Christ our Baby? What does it mean that this image contains Him? How does it affect our other images of Him?

A ROCK. "The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; 3 my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior- from violent men you save me." We see an image of God as a rock. Not a slippery step that we slide off. Not a rotting wood floor that could cave in on us. He's sure. He's true. He trustworthy. Strong. Stable. Solid.

DEAD. One of the ancient heresies was that Jesus never really died. He rolled the stone away and was seen again because He stayed alive. Even though it's extremely important to our faith that He was dead, it's an image we seem to avoid. We don't like to think that the fully God part, along with the fully man part died there on the cross. We don't like to think that the only part of him that could rise from the dead, the only part of him who conquered death, was that part of him that was dead. Usually we say he was crucified rather than saying he was dead. But really it would seem to be the same thing. Our unease may be that we have such a limited understanding of death. We only see it from this side. But what does it mean that He gives us an image of himself dying? dead? what does it mean when we see people we have loved dying? dead? What does it mean to know - He came back. He came back from real death. As we think of who God is, this is one of the colors.

We could go on peeking at different images of Him, different notes He sounds, contemplating what they mean. Lover. Shepherd. Risen One. Creator. Ancient of Days.

But today we look at one image - not the whole of God story - just a piece, that He wants us to see.

It is another colour shimmering through, showing our hearts a new way of seeing Him.  It is the idea of God as a Hunter.

LUKE 15
11Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

So, we have these devout, frustrated religious leaders and teachers. I actually suspect that a part of them wants to believe Jesus and accept His teachings as making sense with their Scripture. We do know, that they wanted more than anything, for their Messiah to come. We do know that all their hopes were pinned on God returning to vindicate His people - a conquering king was actually the image they were looking for from the Old Testament. However, Jesus continual actions, His persistence in going against what they knew to be true like welcoming sinners and eating with them was a barrier they couldn't overcome. Also present are these "men and women of doubtful reputation" (The Message) who were gathering around to hear him. There's an irony, there's a peculiarity in how all the bad people were so hungry for Jesus words. You would think they would avoid Him. But again and again they crowd Him. It's almost as if God really, actually is as truly good and truly loving as what we say He is. He was saying something to their hearts that made them love Him. Conversely, He was saying something to the hearts of the religious people that made them hate Him, and eventually seek to destroy Him. But we're not quite there yet. So, Jesus is looking at these strange bedfellows - the sinners and the righteous and He can choose any nouns, any verbs, any images to teach them. To help them to understand the heart of God. And so He tells them these stories...

43Then Jesus told them this parable: 4"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 7I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

He's saying to the pharisees, do you not understand why God is doing what He's doing? You would hunt for your lost sheep. You would. You really, really would. He is hunting for His lost lamb. And when He finds it He stops looking and celebrates. And I imagine everyone present knew that the little lost lamb was the tax collector, the sinner. What would they have felt in their hearts? He wants them. He leaves everyone else just for them. He leaves everyone just for you.

8"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' 10In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
He's saying to the pharisees, do you not understand why God is doing what He's doing?  He's hunting for His lost coin.
He gives us these two images of God hunting for the one who is precious to Him. We see a God on a careful search. A God on the prowl. A God who hunts. God the Hunter.

THE CHARACTERS
Before we look at the last story, we need to ask, why this story? why this moment? why now? why reveal this aspect of Himself? Perhaps, an image of who these characters are - the pharisees and the tax collectors might help us.
I lived in Vancouver for 3 years and spent one year in the downtown eastside working as a Women's Community Worker. I had, in fact I still have, a deep love for the women of that community - it's the poorest community in Canada. Many of the women I worked with were involved in prostitution, many were involved in drugs. These were not escort girls, they were women who were destitute, their skin covered in sores that never healed, their hair often matted, their makeup smears. They were beautiful... and so completely vulnerable and desperate. When I walked down Hastings I would glare at all the ones who I thought preyed upon them - the pimps, the drug dealers, the slumlords. They all exploited my women for their own profits and it made me so mad. They made money off of exploiting other people's misery. I really hated them. Then one day I was reading in Scripture - in fact, Luke 7 where Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Now being the Bible College graduate that I was I knew, the tax collectors had a special kind of freedom. The Romans expected a certain amount of money from each citizen, but the tax collectors were free to collect any sum they wanted as long as they passed the correct amount up the chain. So, if Jesse owed 10 dollars, the tax collector could say, "Jesse you owe 15 dollars" and Jesse would have to pay the 15. 10 would go up the chain and the drug dealer - I mean - the tax collector would keep the difference. Jesse had no options and no choice in the deal. So, the tax collectors were the exploiters of the poor, back when Jesus walked the earth. And they got rich. And they were hated by the poor, the religious, everyone. I was struck, thunderstruck, by how that was kind of like, actually REALLY LIKE the pimps, drug dealers and slumlords in my neighborhood. The crucial difference being, Jesus was a friend to the exploiters in his locale, and I was an enemy. He was the one eating with the slumlord and as I glared at them, I was the muttering pharisee. I wanted to be Jesus to the prostitutes, but not those other jerks. I didn't want to have mercy for them.

It really was the classic moment we see again and again in the Gospels where the religious leader (i.e. me) CANNOT MAKE SENSE of what God does. We're the ones who study Him! Why do we have this re-occuring problem of not getting His ways? In those moments, it's tempting to be disappointed by God - why do you love these mean, trouble-causing people? Why? But I found I wasn't. Instead I was disappointed in me. You know, I thought I was doing good. I thought I was loving the sinners. I thought I had some understanding of what God was like. He's so much better than what I thought He was like. He's so different.

I mean, He really does love the pimps.  And I saw that.

Oh, you infuriating Jesus, welcoming the tax collectors that have torn our families apart!!!
We expect Satan to welcome them, not you!  You are ours!!  Aren't you?

So, to this audience, the Bible college profs, elders, ministers, drug dealers, slumlords, prostitutes -

11Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' 20So he got up and went to his father.
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

THE YOUNGEST SON
If we look at this youngest son monochromatically we would probably see him as weak, irresponsible, wild. He's the one who misses all the family functions. Money appears to mean nothing to him. He's the unemployed one. The one who never amounted to anything. And he's picked up a few diseases along the way. I wonder if Jesus is painting the younger son maybe as the son the sinners were to their parents. What picture does He show, what image does He give of God to them?
The shepherd hunted for the lost sheep. 
The old lady hunted for the lost coin. 
Does the father hunt? 
THE HUNTER WAITS
He hunts by waiting. Waiting is an important part of hunting. There are times in our lives when we feel that God is doing nothing. That we can't see Him anywhere. If God hunts us - if he searches for us like these stories seem to suggest, then wouldn't there be times when he was waiting out of sight? To us it would seem He had forgotten or abandoned us. To us it would seem like He was doing nothing. However, when a hunter lies on his belly in the thick grass, completely hidden and holds still for hours, we don't look upon those hours as time spent doing nothing - we look upon those hours as time spent hunting. Maybe you think He's forgotten you but really He is on the prowl just where you can't quite see Him. He's after you. Right there, beyond your line of sight. And when He finds you, the Lost Child, He's going to celebrate. He really does love. He really is kind.
If the drug dealers had only me to represent God they would not have known how welcomed and loved they were. And I have a feeling that if the eldest son had been the Father, the younger son might not have bothered coming home. You see, the eldest son is quite different from the Father. Don't imagine the Father to be like the eldest sons you know. I suspect, the eldest son was actually a little glad when you left, but the Father is only glad when you come home.
He's not like them.

THE ELDEST SON
Well, it's almost over. The pattern in the first two stories is that the celebration is the end of the story for God the Hunter. The feast. The banquet. The BBQ. The party. The hunt is over and God invites the friends and neighbors in for the celebration. There was a clear message to the religious leaders as to why God welcomes the sinner, but until this point the stories have only been about God and the lost. However, in this final story, God the Hunter goes out one last time. There is one last child (baby) to bring home.

25"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
28"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
If we looked at him monochromatically (the way we saw the younger son as "partier" or "irresponsible") we would label him "dutiful." He actually is the epitome of duty. Other labels "hard-working," "responsible," - in fact all those particularly evangelical virtues, he exemplifies. And I suspect the pharisees felt that way too - after all Jesus' is clearly communicating that they are the eldest son. And he paints the eldest son as the son they would be proud to have of their own. Or perhaps Jesus describes him as the sons they were to their fathers.

There is a rock some of us stumble on as we try to understand this mysterious God of ours. Jesus most gracious, loving, merciful words are often spoken to - the nonreligious people. The ones the pharisees don't want included. His most piercing words are 99% of the time to the religious. And the most unflattering characters in His stories are the ones that represent them. It's easy to develop a sense of uneasiness that you can be religious all you want, but it still isn't enough. Which can be exaspirating as well as exhausting because - let me tell you - the life of the eldest son isn't easy. Or fun. And the religious have more fear of God then anyone else because - in their monochromatic picture of Him - He's always angry. He's the judge. And they live with the sense that He knows every move they execute could have been cleaner, faster, higher. They should have been smarter, better, harder. Though they are often unaware of it, their failures are failures of love, failures of forgiveness, failures of kindness, failures of compassion.
And always failures of mercy.
That's our eldest boy right here - 10.0's in the field, 10.0s in morality, propriety, reputability - but the big "2.1, 0.5, 3.2, 1.4..." in all those other areas, the ones of the heart.
Not the best. 
Not the gold medalist. 
Not even a contender.

So, what does the dear Hunter say to this dutiful, bitter boy? He doesn't say to him smart'en up. He doesn't condemn or judge or rebuke. He speaks more words of grace.
"My son" the Father said, "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours."

Or perhaps....
"My hardworking, responsible child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours."
"My driven, dutiful child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours."
"My careful, cautious child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours."

Reading on...
32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

And that is where Jesus ends the story.  He stops there.  That's it.
The men and women of doubtful reputation, the Pharisees and religious scholars - God wanted them all in His backyard. He loves them all - He hunts to bring us all home. He's our dear hunter.

Our Dear Hunter... thank you for seeking us all with such mercy. God, some of us try so hard to be so good and we know we're the eldest son. We know the sinner really frustrates and angers us. However, we have hope that the spirit of Christ, who once spoke these words, is ALIVE NOW in our hearts and He wants to speak these words again through us. We surrender our thirsts and desires to Him and we thank you for assuring us that we are yours. We ask that you would help us to become more like you, the Father, by your mercy and grace. We ask that in becoming more like you we would find more peace and joy in our hearts. And God, some of us are lost. We know we are far from you. We thank you that you are not going to stop hunting us. We thank you that you're still coming. We thank you that you want us to be yours. Help us to have the courage to start walking home, knowing that we will only find Love when we arrive. And God, some of us, are hunting at your side. Some of us are feasting with you and the tax collectors. Thank you for encouraging us to keep hunting and celebrating. Thank you for letting us enter into your beautiful, holy work. Thank you for coming to us all with your grace. We pray all these things in the name of your son, Christ Jesus, who is alive in this world, and alive in our hearts, in His name, Amen.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death by Brita Miko

As I would walk in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, occasionally I would get a sense that I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. There was the crying of sirens, which would spike right after welfare cheques came. The cries hear throughout the streets warned us all that an emergency had happened, that someone was in trouble, that someone needed help desperately. There was the violence: a man stabbed in Pigeon Park six times, a woman’s black eyes, a sinewy rope of bruises. There was the sickness, the disease ­people twitching, puking, shaking, convulsing, choking—from drug use, neglect, poverty, unprotected sex, you name it. Their bodies at times only blackened shadows. And there were the deaths. Mostly from drug "overdoses" (uncannily frequent "bad cuts"). The numbers were terrible, but worse than the anonymous numbers was when it was someone you knew. It made me want to smash my head against something out of the helplessness and devastation and just for the stupidity of it all. Walking the streets, surrounded by sirens, violence, disease and death itself, I would occasionally sense that I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

I will fear no evil. This sentence that the Psalmist sang, I would often hear. My heart would tell me, "I will fear no evil." I knew God was my Shepherd. I knew my Shepherd was with me. And in my year there, I had only two or three moments of not fear but something akin to panic—a sense that I did not know what I should do. It sounds worse than fear, but it wasn’t. I wondered, however, about the women. When they climbed into a car and faced a complete stranger, did they fear evil? They seemed so vulnerable to me, so unprotected. Even their bodies, so scantily clothed, made them seem even more exposed to everything—including evil.

For thou art with me. Sometimes when I walked, they would be focused on the cars, the men, the business. They would have little time to talk. Other times though, they would have been standing and waiting for hours. They would be bored, and we would visit to pass the time. Having seen the posted list of "bad dates" (both words being used euphemistically: "bad" was often horrific and "date" was, well, a business transaction). I wondered how they could keep doing it. How could they climb back into another car after what had happened the night before? I was surprised by the uniformity of their answers. Every time they had a bad date, before they even got into the car, their "gut" had told them, "Don’t go with this guy." Every time they had a bad date, they had ignored their gut and gone anyway. Why? They needed the money, the night had been slow, and so they questioned their gut. They told me that as long as they listened to their gut, they were safe. My heart filled with tears at their testimonies. Was the Holy Spirit leading them in these long, dark nights? If I didn’t have words for him, if I didn’t know about him, the words I would use to describe the experience of him leading me would be a feeling in my gut. Was the Shepherd watching over them in the valley of the shadow of death? I believe he was. He could and seemingly did seek to protect them. His kind-hearted mercy, love, and grace appeared to be leading them, even though sometimes they chose not to follow.

And then came the truth about the "missing women" of Vancouver’s downtown eastside. They weren’t missing; they were dead. They had been taken from the valley of the shadow of death to the valley of death itself. And I was angry. Everyone was. Part of me felt a sense of betrayal. I had heard stories from so many women’s lives—childhoods rife with invasive, violating hands, adolescences where they were pawed and pawned by empty, desperate people, and their days on the streets exchanging their very selves for contempt, humiliation, and dollars. I had wanted to believe that ahead there would be better times for them; that their future held something good; that one day there would be some small light in their lives. But it never happened. I felt betrayed, because I had no more hope for them. Their lives had so much hardship and then their deaths wer the most brutal devastation of all. I was furious. And in church on Sunday morning, we sang "Holy, Holy, Holy." We sang "merciful and mighty." We sang "all Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea." We sang "all the saints adore Thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea." And I cried. I cried because I had wanted God to do something good in those women’s lives. I cried because their lives had been brutal and their deaths cruel. I cried because I wanted to believe God was merciful and mighty. I cried because I couldn’t sing the song, and yet I still loved God. I cried because I didn’t understand. I wanted the women to be the saints. I wanted them to finally be happy casting down their golden crowns. I wanted them to be around the glassy sea. Oh please?

And then I got a feeling in my gut. When they saw they were about to be killed, they would have cried out to God, wouldn’t they? They would have wanted to be rescued, and they would have known only God could do

the rescuing. Who would not cry out to God when faced with someone who was trying to kill them? If their gut had warned them on the street before they even entered the car, then surely their gut would have communicated something to them before they died. They would have cried out to God. And God hears the cries of his people. Suddenly I knew they were around the glassy sea. They were with HIM. Everything in this world that had torn at them tore them no more. They were free. And in His presence, they finally had complete peace. My best wishes for them had come true. And I sang, "Holy, Holy, Holy." And I sang, "merciful and mighty.’ And I sang, "all Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea." And I sang, "all the saints adore Thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea." And I sang, "God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!"

And I knew every word was true.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." Psalm 23:4