Unlikely Friendships

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By Adrienne Wiebe, Policy Analyst, MCC Latin America, Mexico City

Lectionary Reflection for March 10, 2013 –  Lk. 15:1-3, 11-32

Olivia* and Miriam sit in the shade behind a cement-block building, drinking pop in the 40 degree C heat of August, 2012. With tears running down her cheeks, Olivia grieves the tragic death of her sixteen-year-old son, Jose. The teenager drown in a lake while swimming with his friends. Jose had been apprenticing as a mechanic, and Olivia was so proud and optimistic for his future. She had hoped that he would be able to help her maintain her other son, 12-year-old  Pedro, who has Down’s Syndrome.

Miriam Harder has come to visit and share Olivia’s grief. Olivia is an undocumented migrant from Nicaragua and a former prostitute who now manages a bar in Mexico. Miriam is a university-educated MCC worker from a middle-class family in Canada. Both are God’s beloved children. And both have more in common than they have differences.

My friend, Mayra Dominguez, owns a small road-side restaurant, in southern Mexico. She befriends and tries to support the migrant women caught in the sex trade in the bars nearby. In a recent letter, she described her experience with one of these women:

“Why does the Teacher eat with the tax collectors and “sinners”? (Lk 15:1-3) I understand this Bible passage in a different way after that night of my conversation with this woman. I understand that Jesus was a great companion and friend of sinners. He did not spend his time  judging the good and the bad, rather, Jesus focused on life.”

“This left me with an important teaching: to learn to listen without judging, without feeling that I am better than this woman. Because this is true love, that we love each other just the way we are. On that night I wished that I could go in front of my church just to tell them that we need to love like Jesus; that we are called to leave aside morality and religiosity. We need to learn to live a life without fear of being criticized because we are with people of dubious reputation.”

“That night I felt happy that a woman who worked as a prostitute brought me to Jesus. The prostitutes are children of the same Creator and need love, not more rejection, not more judgment, not for us to believe that we are better than them, because we are all in some way “sinners.”

“In the parables that Jesus tells in response to the question of the Pharisees in Luke 15, we are reminded of God’s preoccupation for those who are “lost,” and God’s joy when they are “found.”

During this Lenten season, may we remember that we are all, in some ways, “dead” but can come alive again in God’s love (Lk 15:32), and that we can experience this through the non-judgmental love we share with each other.

*Name changed.

Originally posted on http://mccottawa.ca/march-10-2013-fourth-sunday-lent