Mary Magdalene shared with me her story, of facing her brother when he had nothing but condemnation for her.
Cleo, one of my brothers was a moneylender. He had a raw and blustery personality. He laughed a good deal more than he should have, and at the expense of others.
He had been broken in the shame of our poverty. The family valued truth and love above all. He found this a poor companion when he hungered and was cold and shivering as a child. So he vowed he would be one of those who ate well and laughed at children begging in the street. He chose to cut himself off from all signs of who he had been.
Our parents had been good to him, and he hated them for their poverty. He felt their values to be cheap and he mocked them. He shunned me for many reasons, and abandoned our whole family. He left and rose himself above us all as a rich man, lived in a big house, without regard for his parents or his sisters.
I wanted to offer him healing, so I journeyed to his home. I visited him. He laughed in my face. He called me a whore, an unsuccessful one at that. He said if I was any good I’d not be dressed in rags. He sent me away humiliated. And I offered him the love and healing I knew he needed anyway. As I left I witnessed the flowers blooming on his doorstep. I forgave him his foolishness and pride. And I wandered away to sleep in a doorway down the street.
The reason I tell you this is, I know your plight. To face those who have profited from their lies and coldness is not an easy, or often worthy task. It feels uncomfortable and unprofitable in every way. Why waste my time? Why speak to one who is the destroyer of so much good and give him the blessing of my love, so he can crush me and laugh at my loving kindness?
Because I loved him, he was my brother. He needed love. He needed the truth. And the only way he would ever change is to see that truth, one day, and to remember the forgiveness of his sister and her kindness, even as he had her thrown out of his house. We cannot change anyone. Yet we can give them the truth.