A short story: Ashwell and the Radio

Yesterday I did the children's story at church. Telling the children's story is harder than preaching a sermon any day. The sermon (Marg preached) was on Jesus' encounter with the woman taken in adultery (Jn 8) -- a contested passage, but also a fascinating story that Marg dealt well with. My story was a memory of an offence and forgiveness 45+ years ago. Here it is.

The Freedom of Forgiveness

Many years ago when the world was young, or at least when I was younger than I am now, I taught high school in a country called Zimbabwe. I taught English classes and Mathematics classes, and I coached the high school soccer team at a school named Matopo Secondary School.

In order to play soccer, you have to have good soccer equipment. Every Saturday morning, a high school student named Ashwell came to my house to check the soccer ball. We had a lot of thorns on the ground, and he often had to open the ball up and take out the thorns and patch the ball, so that we could use it for our practices and games.

One Saturday, I went into the nearby city of Bulawayo for the day. Ashwell came to my house as usual and sat on the veranda to take care of our soccer equipment. When I got home in the evening, I noticed something inside my living room. I had a transistor radio to listen to the news and sports and music and such. Well, my radio had been moved. It was easy to pick up and carry, and I could tell that someone had come in to my house and used my radio. It had to be Ashwell!

I went down to where the male students had their rooms and found Ashwell. I asked him if he had gone into my house and borrowed my radio. It was a creepy feeling, knowing that he could have walked all over my house and gotten anything he wanted to from it.

Ashwell was clearly scared. He admitted that he had gone into the living room and brought the radio out. You could see that he thought I was going to report him to the principal of the school and get him in real trouble. He apologized and said he was really sorry for going in to my house and using my stuff without asking.

When I went down to Ashwell’s room, I was really quite upset. As I said, it was creepy knowing he had gone into my house without asking. But when he apologized, something happened. I realized I didn’t need to stay angry. I didn’t need to get him in trouble. I said something like, “Well, you have apologized and I forgive you. Don’t do it again.”

Somehow, apologizing and forgiving set us both free from what he had done. It doesn’t always work so simply, but this basic idea is true. Admitting what we have done and being forgiven really does set us free to live the way that we should. Ashwell and I were able to resume a good relationship and he kept coming to my house to work on the soccer equipment.

Most important of all, when we admit what we’ve done wrong to God, God forgives us and sets us free to live a better life. Ashwell and I are actually no different from each other. We both needed to admit to God who we really were, so that God’s mercy could flow over us. Mercy’s a big word – it’s another way of talking about God’s love. God loved all of us so much that God’s Son (Jesus) came to pour out God’s love and mercy in our lives.

Postscript: It would be interesting to know what Ashwell (not his real name) thought of the whole incident. He might remember quite differently from the way I have just recounted. That's one reason I didn't use his real name; besides, I didn't ask him if I could tell this story.