Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [72]
I believe it concludes quite effectively. It says Jesus puts His hearer in the role of the father, of the one who forgives. Because if we are, so to speak, the debtor (and of course we are that, too), that suggests no graciousness in us. And grace is the great gift. So to be forgiven is only half the gift. The other half is that we also can forgive, restore, and liberate, and therefore we can feel the will of God enacted through us, which is the great restoration of ourselves to ourselves.
That still seems right to me. I think it is a sound reading of the text. Well, in 1947 I was almost seventy, so my thinking should have been fairly mature at that point. And your mother would have heard me preach that sermon, come to think of it. She first came to church on Pentecost of that year, which I think was in May, and never missed a Sunday after it except the one.
It rained, as I have said, but we had a good many candles lighted, which has always been our custom for that service, when we could afford them. And there were a good many flowers. And when I saw there was a stranger in the room, I do remember feeling pleased that the sanctuary should have looked as cheerful as it did, that it should have been such a pleasant place to step into out of the weather. I believe that day my sermon was on light, or Light. I suppose she hasn't found it, or she doesn't remember it, or she doesn't think it was especially good. I'd like to see it, though.
I do enjoy remembering that morning. I was sixty-seven, to be exact, which did not seem old to me. I wish I could give you the memory I have of your mother that day. I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing, I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.
Once, I went out with Glory to take some things to that little baby. The family lived just across the West Nishnabotna, and when we came to the bridge we saw the two children, the baby and her mother, playing there in the river. We drove on to the house and set the food we had brought by the fence. We didn't approach the house, because that pack of dogs came roaring out to the gate and no one appeared to call them off—we always brought canned ham, canned milk, and so on, things the dogs couldn't get into. The little girl must have heard the car passing and the dogs barking and known that we had come to her house, since it was a Monday. She would have ignored us if she did. She loyally reflected her father's view of us. She was offended by our concern and our helpfulness and let us know as much by ignoring us as often as we gave her the chance.
And I must say I do not find that hard to understand. Her father clearly assumed that we were going to so much bother and expense in order to keep Jack out of trouble. And while no one ever said such a thing or even hinted at such an idea, I can't say he was altogether wrong. Nor can I say that it was no part of Jack's motive in confessing to his father, that he knew poor old Boughton would respond to the situation as he did. That would explain why he left the Plymouth.
In any case, Glory and I parked the car along the road a hundred yards beyond the bridge and walked back and stood on the bridge and watched those children. The baby, who had just begun to walk, didn't have a stitch on, and the little girl was wearing a dress that was soggy to her waist. It was late summer. The river is very shallow at that time of year, and the bottom was half exposed