Josh Broward
September 19, 2010
Luke 15:11-32 and Luke 20:9-19
With 5 seconds left on the clock, the quarterback dodged a tackle, rolled out to his right and threw a desperate pass toward Jaime Alejandro. Jaime launched over two defenders to make a one-handed catch in the end zone.
The stadium erupted! People rushed to the field celebrating the amazing catch which earned the Fighting Falcons their first State Football Championship in history. Everyone was caught up in a wave of euphoria - jumping, shouting, crying, hugging.
Everyone - except Jorge. Jorge Hernandez was the other wide receiver. Jorge was sitting in the other corner of the end zone, seething in jealousy. “That pass should have been to me. I was wide open!” As Jaime was carried of the field by cheering teammates and fans, Jorge brewed alone about his long-standing rivalry with Jaime Alejandro. Somehow, although he was just as talented, just as smart, and - in his opinion - better looking, Jorge was constantly coming up short of Jaime.
As the two fastest high school athletes in their city, both Jorge and Jaime qualified for the Regional Tournament in the 400 meter dash. Before the race, Jorge cut Jaime’s shoelace on one shoe. Jaime never noticed until the shoe started coming off around the the second turn. Amazingly, Jaime just kicked it off and finished the race with one shoe. Jaime still finished first and earned a photo in the front page of the city newspaper for the escapade.
After high school, Jorge studied law, and Jaime studied for the ministry. Both were smart and successful, but they took very different paths.
Jorge started his own practice in real estate law and acquisitions. He made his money by buying up foreclosed properties. Jorge slowly became a slumlord, owning half of the worst houses and apartments in the inner city. Jorge developed a reputation for being a ruthless landlord. If you couldn’t pay, you were out - immediately. He accepted no excuses and gave no mercy.
Jorge ventured into dirty real estate deals, bribing bank managers and city land officers. Slowly, Jorge began to develop connections with organized crime. Drugs, gangs, car theft rings, prostitution, gambling - everything from the underworld - had to pass through the back office of Jorge Hernandez. Jorge had his hands in every dirty corner of the city.
Jaime had graduated from seminary and returned to his home neighborhood, which was racked by poverty, crime, and hopelessness. Jaime established a small church and ministry center. Jaime worked with compassion, integrity, and wisdom, so he was able to gather a wide range of partners and resources. His little ministry center slowly grew to address nearly every problem plaguing their community. There was an after-school program, a drug rehabilitation center, a job training center, an adult literacy program, a single mom’s support group, a neighborhood watch group, and a community advocacy program.
It was this last program that stirred the most controversy. Many people throughout the city had been run out of their homes through a variety of shady practices by Jorge’s business H & A (Hernandez and Associates). Jaime’s advocacy group was regularly filing petitions and motions at the local courthouse protesting the unfair and unjust practices of H & A. Jaime was a thorn in Jorge’s side.
Jorge decided that he could exercise more power and make more money from inside the political system, so he decided to run for the city council. No one was willing to run against Jorge Hernandez and his web of corruption and underhanded power. After a painful pause in which it appeared that Jorge would win a seat on the city council uncontested, Jaime Alejandro, the inner city pastor and champion of the poor, stepped forward to run against Jorge.
Jorge used every dirty political trick in the book, but Jaime’s grassroots support was still winning out. Out of desperation, Jorge arranged for Jaime’s car to be bombed. (This was not the first time Jorge had resorted to violence - not in the least, but it was definitely his most public act of hostility.) Jaime’s long time assistant took the car that morning, and he suffered Jaime’s intended fate. The extended news coverage at the funeral propelled Jaime into a landslide victory, by a two to one margin.
Once on the city council, Jaime initiated an investigation that brought to light some of Jorge’s criminal activity. Jorge was sentenced to ten years of prison.
For the next few years Jaime led a quiet life serving on the city council. People began to ask why Jamie had never married. Jaime explained that he was waiting for his dream girl. When he described the kind of woman he was looking for, people just laughed. One guy actually said, “Such a mythical creature does not exist!” It was as if Jaime had said he wanted to marry a unicorn.
Against all odds, Jaime did meet his dream girl ... believe it or not, while riding a city bus. Jamie still took the bus whenever possible, and one day when he stepped onto the bus, he was shocked to see a gorgeous woman with long, curly raven-black hair smiling at him. He was so stunned that he actually dropped his coins and had to catch them as they rolled to the back of the bus. After paying his fair, Jaime overcame his wounded pride and started a conversation with Maria. That conversation lasted for years as they fell in love and got married. Within a few years, they had a baby boy, whom they named Emil. Jaime and Maria were obviously crazy about each other, and they could often be found holding hands as they walked together in the park.
Meanwhile, Jorge up to his old tricks. Behind bars, Jorge was networking, making plans, offering bribes to guards, and continuing his dirty business in all sorts of dangerous but unprovable ways. After four years, Jorge Hernandez was released for “good behavior.”
Once released, Jorge was out for revenge. For many years, he longed to one-up Jaime Alejandro, but he was never quite been able to finish the deed. Now Jaime had advanced to the position of city mayor, and Jorge’s feud with Jaime has been the fuel for gossip columns for years. All suspicion would point to Jorge if Jaime so much as scraped his knee. Jaime was untouchable politically and physically. Jorge had an unquenchable thirst for revenge, but how?
Jorge Hernandez began to remodel his public image. He set himself up as a successful, upstanding businessman working to help the underdogs. Jorge started a rehabilitation program for ex-convicts leaving prison to help them reintegrate into society. In actuality, Jorge was simply using them as pawns in his his underworld crime circuit. Years passed, and to most law-abiding citizens, it seemed that old Jorge Hernandez had actually cleaned up his act and turned over a new leaf.
Jorge became a generous philanthropist, donating money left and right. Jorge served on the arts committee, the homeless committee, the committee to reduce illiteracy, every kind of group that would make him look good. Slowly, he worked his way into the inner circles of the city’s elite.
Jorge went to special lengths to support Maria Alejandro’s charity for children of single-parents. He gave tens of thousands of dollars. He planned high-profile fundraisers with CEOs and TV producers from around the city. Eventually, he earned a position on the managing board of the charity.
This put Jorge and Maria in a close working relationship. Jorge lavished little gifts on Maria - nothing too large, but something small and significant each time they met. He was effusive with praise privately and publicly. They had long dinner meetings ... just to discuss the charity, of course.
Jorge offered some bribes to Jaime’s secretary, and newspaper photographers just happened to be present when the secretary gave Jaime a kiss outside a hotel. The newspaper printed a story that Jaime was having an affair. Jaime denied it, but Maria’s trust was shaken.
Maria began to spend more time with Jorge. Maria deflected Jaime’s words of caution about Jorge’s character, blinded by his generosity toward her charity. Eventually, Jaime’s words of caution became requests to stay away from Jorge, but this only led Maria to exert her independence. She began spending more and more time away from Jaime and more and more time with Jorge. Jaime could see what was happening, but he couldn’t stop it.
Finally, the unthinkable happened. Maria actually slept with Jorge. The thrill of secrecy, breaking the rules, and avoiding discovery accelerated her infatuation with Jorge. Their covert affair over the next few weeks slowly became more daring. They began seeking each other outside of working hours. She made excuses to come home later and later. She faked a business trip out of town to spend a weekend with Jorge in the mountains.
Slowly, Maria stopped trying to hide the affair, and Jaime acknowledged that he was being betrayed. Jaime suggested marriage counseling. Maria refused. Despite all his efforts to win her back, Maria drifted further and further away. Finally, she moved out.
To say that Jaime was heartbroken would be an understatement. Jaime’s heart was ripped out of his chest, torn into a thousand pieces, and run over by a truck. Maria was the love of his life. He felt as if he was living without the right side of his body. To make matters worse, Jaime knew that Maria was with his worst enemy, a completely evil man, who would only hurt her in the end. He grieved for her as well as for himself.
And every day, when he woke up in an empty bed, he grieved all over again.
After many months with Maria, Jorge decided to step up the revenge. One night while Maria was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Jorge called Jaime on his cell. Jorge whispered a few hideous words and then set down the receiver without hanging up. Then as Jaime listened on - frozen in shock and pain - Jorge commenced to thoroughly enjoy Jaime’s wife, and there was nothing Jaime could do to stop it.
Maria’s character slowly changed through her time with Jorge. She slowly became more and more like him. Slowly, Jorge revealed his underworld dealings to Maria, and ever so slowly Maria became involved in his corruption: bribes, illegally won contracts with the city, slick real estate moves. Eventually, Maria was a full player in all of Jorge’s dirty deals, from money laundering to drug dealing. They stood at the center of a wide web of graft, crime, and corruption, with Maria loving the money, the luxury, and the adrenaline of it all.
Slowly, Jorge turned more and more abusive. First, there was the emotional abuse - shouts of worthlessness and sly little insults. Then, there was actual physical abuse - mostly just a slap here and there. But one night, after a bad week of “business” for Jorge, Jorge had too much to drink, and he found Maria at home. He beat her so badly she had to go to the hospital.
The emergency room doctor called Jaime. Jaime arranged for the best possible care for Maria. The next morning, when she woke up, Jaime was sitting by her bedside. This was his chance - he thought. Surely, she would come back to him now, after so much abuse.
But she wouldn’t listen to anything Jaime said. She was still “in love” with Jorge. “He was just drunk. Something just went wrong at work. It won’t happen again.” And a little voice in her head reminded her that she was in too deep. She was an accomplice to all of Jorge’s crimes. Despite all his pleadings, Maria walked out of the hospital, away from the only man who has ever truly loved her, to go back to the man who had stolen her, abused her, and used her as a pawn for revenge.
There, in the hospital, Jaime saw changes in Maria that he had not noticed before. It wasn’t just the bruises from the night before. It was the residual effect of the muck she had been living in for the past two years. Her skin was sallow and beginning to wrinkle. Her eyes were dim and distant without their former sparkle. Her face was deeply sad. Even her walk had lost its bounce; now it was more of a deliberate march as if she had to fight with every step to keep an air of composure and dignity. She hasn’t lost her beauty, but it is definitely fading. And there was something he didn’t recognize in her, something dark.
That was the ultimate revenge. Not only had Jorge stolen Jaime’s one true love, not only was Jorge flaunting his adultery, not only was Jorge involving Maria in crime and subjecting her to abuse, but the final, most painful act of revenge was that Jorge was changing the woman Jaime loved into someone else, someone darker.
Jaime tried everything he could think of to win Maria back - not only for himself, but also to set her free from Jorge’s destructive hold on her. Jaime went in person. Jaime sent friends. Jaime sent employees. Jaime sent emails, letters, text messages, instant messages, telegrams, flowers, singing messengers - anything he could think of that might remind her of his love and give her the strength to return to him.
By this time, Emil, Jaime and Maria’s only child, had grown up. When he graduated from high school, Maria didn’t even come to the ceremony. That was when Emil knew he had to do something. His kind, loving mother had changed. She was becoming something else. She was being destroyed. He knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He was going to go get his mother and bring her back - no matter the cost.
Emil and Jaime talked long into the night for many nights. They discussed the risks. They discussed other options. They knew there was a chance that Emil might not come back, but they both agreed that this was the last best chance to save Maria.
After dark, armed with nothing but undying love, Emil left his father’s house to find his mother and to bring her home. He went to the night club owned by Jorge which served as the nerve center of his underworld operations. Maria was there, sitting at a table in the VIP section with Jorge.
As Emil approached, the crowd parted and people quit talking. Everyone watched the drama unfold. For a long time, with tears running down his face, Emil said only one word: “Mom ... Mom ... Mom!”
Maria put down her drink, her voice cold but shaky: “Emil.”
“Mom, we love you. Come home!”
Maria was trying to maintain composure: “Go home, Emil.”
“Mom, we will always love you. We will never stop loving you. Come home to us.”
“Go, Emil. Just go.”
“I’m not leaving without you, Mom. Don’t you see what’s happening to you. This place is destroying you. All of this is ruining who you are. We can’t let this happen to you. We love you too much for this. Come home, Mom.”
At that point, Jorge motioned to his bouncers, and instantly two big guys were on each side of Emil. One of the guys opened his coat and showed Emil a gun, “Maybe you didn’t hear her. She told you to go home. She likes it here. Turn around and walk out of here while you still can.”
“No! I’m not leaving with out you, Mom! I love you too much to leave you here. You’ve got to come home with us. We love you. We love you! Don’t you understand that? We love you!”
Jorge motioned again, and the bouncers got physical. They tried to force Emil out of the building, but he wouldn’t go. A fight broke out. Emil kept trying to reach Maria. The whole time he was shouting, “Mom! Just come home. Mom! We love you! Mom!”
In the midst of all the fighting and struggling, one of the bouncers got out his gun. He looked briefly at Jorge for the signal. Jorge gave a nod - ever so slight, but clear in its intent. Then, BANG!! The shot echoed against the night club walls. Everyone’s ears were ringing.
The people who had been fighting stepped away. Emil was laying face down in a pool of blood. He was dead.
Maria stood up. She walked out of the night club into the street and the open air. And she went home.
WE ARE ALL MARIA.
