Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Homily by F R Christopher Heying
This man’s grandson murdered this man’s son, and today they
brought us all here in the power of compassion and forgiveness. [1]
Those are the words whereby Azim Khamisa and Ples Feliz are introduced to students at Gompers Charter Middle School in the 2007 documentary The Power of Forgiveness.
Azim Khamisa explains that when introduced this way it is often the first time in their young lives these children have actually seen an alternative to violence. Most of what they have seen is an eye for an eye.
Azim tells the middle schoolers that on the evening of January 21, 1995, his twenty-year-old son Tariq, an art student at the University of San Diego, delivered a pizza to a group of teenagers who had been drinking and using drugs all day and planned a robbery. It was Ples Feliz’s fourteen-year-old grandson Tony who pointed a gun at Tariq and demanded the pizza. When Tariq refused, Tony pulled trigger and killed him with a single shot.
Azim said that at first anger set in and he could not believe his son had been murdered. But he quickly saw that there were victims at both ends of the gun, his son to be sure but so too the shooter, a victim of society, whose mother had him at 15, whose father abandoned them, whose uncle was shot in front of him when he was nine, whose other uncles and aunts were gang members, dealing drugs, or in jail. His grandfather did take him in and loved him but Tony knew his parents had abandoned him.
Tony confessed to the crime, even asking forgiveness which he knew “he did not deserve.”
Following the 14-day period of grief in his Sufi Muslim tradition, Azim, Tariq’s father, was encouraged by his spiritual counselor to do a good and compassionate deed, so he created the Tariq Khamisa foundation to stop kids from killing kids and then asked Ples, the grandfather of his son’s murderer, to join him which he immediately did. They now go around the country, speaking to students about the need for and power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Azim asks the students, will revenge bring Tariq back? Will it stop the pain and grief I feel? I don’t forget, but I can forgive. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself. If I did not forgive Tony, I would be very angry. If am angry, who does it hurt? It hurts me. Anger is not good for you.
And then Azim goes on to interact with the students. Perhaps you have a problem with someone in your family, he says, your father or mother, your brother or sister. Reach out to forgive that person. Think about how you want to heal that relationship. It is very good for you and good for the other person.
Tony who is now serving 20 years to life for murdering Tariq relates how forgiveness has changed his life. He says that if Azim is able to forgive him, surely he can forgive others in prison. In fact, Azim has asked that the sentence be reduced, even offered Tony a job at the Tariq Khamisa Foundation whenever he is released.
And so Azim asks the middle schoolers (and us), who is going to be a forgiving person from now on? One raises his hand, another raises her hand, and Azim says, “I hope all of you.”
The grandfather says, “Azim and I are brothers. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. Nothing he wouldn’t do for me.”
The documentary concludes with Azim asking, “If all the conflicts in the world could be resolved like with Plez and me, what would the world look like?”
Today is Rose Sunday, or more particularly, “Laetare Sunday,” from the introit for the Fourth Sunday in Lent of the Latin Mass, which begins “Laetare Jerusalem” or, in English, “Rejoice, O Jerusalem.”
So as we walk again the Way of the Cross, the church invites us to live in a world that is characterized by joy.
The reading from Joshua tells us that God has “rolled away” our disgrace, so rejoice.
The Psalmist says confession leads to forgiveness, so rejoice.
Paul explains we really don’t have to be stuck in our sins, for in Christ Jesus we have been reconciled to God, even given to us the ministry of reconciliation, so rejoice.
And Luke gives us Jesus telling us of a love that is so prodigal, so reckless, that when we least deserve it, our father celebrates our return by throwing a big party for us, so rejoice.
But let’s not kid ourselves this morning. Are you really joyful? Am I?
I suspect we come all too often to this place lacking in the joy we are told this morning that we should have.
Over the years, I have been told by more than one unhappy parishioner, “I just can’t find joy anymore.” At times it has been a not-so-veiled indictment of my priestly ministry, when such a statement (whatever the context) is really a confession of where that person is spiritually, sometimes seen by drifting away from commitments to church.
By the way, let me say that I have not seen a single example where reduction in commitment led to increased joy.
But so too I must confess . . . that there have been many times where I too have had great difficulty finding joy and great ease finding things or people to blame for my lack of joy, but all the blame in the world has not ever brought me even the slightest joy.
Today the church and the scriptures call us to joy, a joy we may find ourselves struggling to find.
The waters of baptism have not given a Teflon coating to insulate us either from hardship of life or even petty grievances at our church. It is an indisputable fact that recession, health problems, even family tragedies, such as that which came to Azim and Ples, rain upon the just and unjust alike.
But if nothing, not even death can separate us from the love of God, why is it hard to find true joy?
Could it be that we sometimes get a tad bit lazy in our spiritual life, that we wait for joy to come to us magically, rather than choosing the difficult, and at times painful, work of forgiveness which may be a prerequisite to joy?
There may be no better way to guarantee that we will not have the joy—and the ring, the sandals, the robe, the fatted calf—that our heavenly Father generously, even recklessly gives, if we choose not to forgive others or, what is often more challenging work, choose not to forgive ourselves.
What if we actually prefer to hold onto our anger or to nurse our wounded-ness, than to receive joy?
If all the conflicts in the world could be resolved in the power of forgiveness what would the world look like?
If all the conflicts in the world could be resolved in the power of forgiveness, what would our joy be like?
[1] The Power of Forgiveness (2007), a documentary film by Martin Doblmeier.