Once upon a time there was a Fiery Godmother; and this is her story.

Somewhere along the line you may have heard another version of this story, under another name; and the way you heard it, you might have heard reference to a Fairy Godmother. But that image might not tell you what you actually need to know, because it could make you think of fairies like Tinkerbelle, dainty little things: perhaps they are magic and all that, but they are small and shy and fragile.

This Fiery Godmother was aflame with goodness and love, and she was not small, nor shy, nor fragile. Sometimes she was a tornado, sweeping everyone and everything from her path: you would not be well advised to get in her way. Sometimes she was a rock, immovable despite the fierceness of the storms were that broke themselves against her strength. She was not small, nor shy, nor fragile.

It was the night of the ball. Cinderella was supposed to go to the ball; indeed, she was scheduled to meet the Prince and fall in love and live happily ever after. But she had nothing to wear. Nothing except the same old everyday dress, torn and patched and patched again, and threadbare in places and needing to be patched once again. In desperation Cinderella tried to find a scrap or two of material to cover the holes and tears and worn spots: but it could not be done.

And so Cinderella slumped down into the corner, in the dust and ashes at the edge of the fireplace, and she wept. Life wasn’t supposed to be this way. Her stepmother and stepsisters were going to the ball, and she was left out.

Sometimes people refer to the other members of this family as “her wicked stepmother” and “her wicked stepsisters.” And maybe that is right, maybe they truly were wicked in the depths of their hearts. Some people are, I guess. But most of the people I have met have seemed to me to be other things, rather than wicked: they have been confused, worried, scared, determined. Confused about the purpose of their lives, worried about resources, scared that they and their children might not have enough, and determined that they would get enough, no matter what.

All of those characteristics seem pretty normal and human to me. I don’t think those things are wicked. But it seems to me that they can become wicked, when they take place in isolation from their human context: their human neighborhood, their wider community. When I am confused about the purpose of my life to the point that I no longer care about your life; when I am worried about resources for me and no longer care about resources for you; when I am scared that my family may not have enough and no longer care whether you and your children have enough; when I am determined that we will get enough, no matter what – even if we have to ignore your needs, even if we have to take something away from you in order to have a stronger margin of security for us – then it is no longer just normal and human. When it no longer matters to me what happens to you, as long as I get what I want: maybe that’s the place where wickedness starts.

And I guess that means that Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters did indeed qualify for the adjective “wicked” – but it was not because they were more evil than anyone else. It was not because when they were little girls they had dreamed of what they wanted to be when they grew up, and their dream had been “I want to be wicked!” I don’t think they ever said, “When I grow up, I want to be, like, a totally evil stepmother!” No. I suspect that the wickedness in their hearts was simply the ordinary outgrowth of these normal human characteristics: confusion about purpose, worry about resources, fear about scarcity, and the determination that they were going to get the good stuff, even if someone else was left out.

Cinderella’s step-mother and step-sisters had made their arrangements, and now they were going to get the good stuff, and Cinderella was left out. And there was nothing Cinderella could do about it.

But there was something the Fiery Godmother could do about it. Right in the midst of Cinderella’s weeping the Fiery Godmother showed up, and waved her magic wand, and – wow! There on the hanger was this shimmering blue ball gown, so fine, just radiant with loveliness. Then the Fiery Godmother snapped her fingers, and her wand turned into a wireless microphone, and she began to do a beatbox rhythm to accompany herself as she rapped out her high energy admonition to Cinderella:

Get up, girl! Get up! Don’t mope in dust and ashes:
Get up and brighten up those sad eye lashes!
Get up, girl! This ain’t no night for dark distress:
Get up and go, girl! Go get on your dancing dress!

Cinderella gasped; and then her heart leaped in a wild exultant Yes! “Oh, thank you,” she exclaimed, “thank you, Fiery Godmother!”

And so, with great courage and with the haste born of desperation, Cinderella grabbed her sewing shears, and began to cut patches out of the ball gown, and to sew them onto her tattered dress. In short order she had patched six new patches onto her dress, and it was sturdy and serviceable once more. But – the colors did not quite match. So she grabbed two boxes of dark blue RIT dye, and dumped them and the dress into the washing machine, and dyed it so that it all came to one reliable dark blue. Then she threw it into the dryer, turned the heat up to high, and waited impatiently for the dryer cycle to finish, pacing and fretting and watching the clock.

When the dryer dinged at the end of the cycle, Cinderella ran and opened the door and pulled out her dress: and it was horribly rent and mangled now, for in the heat of the dryer the different fabrics had shrunk at different rates, tearing apart from each other. The dress had been embarrassing before, but now it was a catastrophe.

An immense wail of despair burst forth from Cinderella’s soul: for now it was clear. Hope had been overwhelmed by desolation: indeed she saw that all hope was vain. She would never go to the ball. She would never meet the Prince. They would never fall in love. They would never live happily ever after.

But. The Fiery Godmother had not abandoned Cinderella. Once again she appeared, aflame with love for this poor foolish girl who was so slow to get it. The Fiery Godmother did not berate Cinderella. She did not scold. For a moment she said nothing at all. And then she spoke in a voice so soft: “There is a lesson here.” And she waved her magic wand, and the slashed up gown was suddenly whole once again, shimmering blue, perfect.

And Cinderella exclaimed, “Oh, thank you, Fiery Godmother!” And she dried her tears, as hope crept into her soul once again. “There is a lesson here.” And there was still time, thought Cinderella: she could learn her lesson, and there was still time. And then she picked up her sewing shears once again, and she began to cut patches out of the ball gown, to cover over the tatters and tears in her old worn dress. “Slowly and carefully,” she told herself. “There is a lesson here,” she told herself, and she would profit from this lesson and this time she would not go too fast. This time she would not overheat it. If she did it just right, she could finish this task, and still make it to the ball by 11:30 and meet the prince. If it didn’t take too long. If she didn’t rush too much.

Once upon another time, when God the Son was here on earth, he told a brief parable that said, “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made” (Matthew 9:16).

Which is to say, “Nobody would ever do this, would they? Nobody would ever take a new dress and cut patches out of it to repair an old one? Because, if you did that, the new dress would end up full of holes, and the places you wanted to patch up in the old garment would tear away and leave you with a worse mess than before.”

But more than once, upon many a time, there have been people who lived their lives in just such a way, as followers of Jesus. It is clear enough to each of us that there are places where our lives are tattered and torn, and it would sure be good to get those places patched up somehow. Along comes Jesus, and he gives us the gift of a brand new life, full and radiant and holy: a life that is astonishing in its goodness. And we think: I could take some pieces out of that life that Jesus offers, and use them to patch those awkward spots in my life that are torn and embarrassing.

Once upon yet another time, there was a boy named Oliver Twist, living in an orphanage. (As a storyteller, I like to give credit for where the story I am telling came from, when I can; and I would do that in this case, too, if I could just remember who the dickens wrote Oliver Twist.) Growing boys are famous for being hungry all the time; yet every day Oliver received only one small bowl of porridge for his supper. Not a very attractive meal: but hunger is the best sauce, and one night Oliver stepped up to the front of the dining room to Ask For More. “Please, sir, may I have some more?”

But in the orphanage you were never allowed to ask for more. You were allotted your meager portion, and that was it. No matter how much you might want more, you must never say, “Please, sir, may I have some more?” And Oliver’s story proceeds from there, from the trouble he got in for asking for more.

In truth I see nothing strange about Oliver’s request. When we are living in deep need, with never enough to meet the hunger within us, it is not strange that someone should say, “Please, may I have some more?” Yet in the midst of our need Jesus comes to us and offers us all things new: and here is the strange thing. Our reaction is strange: for we end up saying, “Please, Jesus, may I have a little less?”

Please, Jesus, my life is in tatters, and you have provided for me a glorious new life that I could put on like a robe of splendor: but instead of taking the whole thing, may I have a little less, could I just cut some swatches out of it and use them to patch over a few of the more embarrassing holes in my own life?

Please, Jesus, the hunger within me is so relentless, and I thank you for the invitation to the great feast of the kingdom, the marriage supper of the King’s Son: but instead of going in and sitting down and making myself at home with the rest of the family there in the banquet hall, may I have a little less, could I just hang out here in the hallway, and maybe get a sandwich?

Jesus comes to us and says: “Child of God, I have come that you might have abundant life, the fullness of gifts of the Spirit, and the sureness that the purpose of your life as one of my disciples will make a difference in this world.”

“Please, Jesus: may I have a little less?”

And once upon a time, once upon a distant time so very long ago, the people of God were in despair. This is one of the most important of all the stories in the Bible; yet it is a Bible story that we don’t know as well as we should. Lots of people know the stories of Noah and the ark, Jonah and the whale, Jesus and the little children; lots of people know the story of the children of Israel as slaves in Egypt, and led out by Moses during the Exodus; but we mostly don’t know the story of the children of Israel, captive in Babylon.

Our people, our spiritual great-great-great-great-grand-ancestors, the people of God some six centuries before the time of Jesus: they had lost the war. The Babylonians had battered down the gates of Jerusalem, and all that was left was devastation. The Babylonians stole everything worth stealing. They chained up every able-bodied man, woman, and child, and marched them to Babylon to be sold as slaves.

Our people, our spiritual great-great-great-great-grand-ancestors: they were slaves in Babylon for many decades. They had babies there; and they taught their children about the promised land, and about God’s covenant and how it had been broken, and so they had ended up in exile and slavery: but someday, someday, please God someday they would be restored. And then they began to die off.

But their children grew up and taught these things to their children: and then that second generation also started dying off. And then, in the time of the grandchildren, this prophecy from Isaiah 52 came to pass.

Jump up and shout, it says. People of God, put on your dancing dress. Don’t sit there in the dust and ashes any longer: it’s time to celebrate! It’s time to go to the ball and live happily ever after: for after all those years of despair comes the time of restoration and gladness.

I mentioned earlier that you may have heard another version of the Fiery Godmother’s story. People tell this story fairly often; but they often don’t tell it all that well. They tell the story as if the main things were that Cinderella was pretty, and the Prince was charming. They tell it as if Cinderella had these delicate little feet, and as if the charming Prince was looking for someone whose beautiful foot would fit into this fragile glass slipper.

But Cinderella was a worker. You knew that, didn’t you? Even though they probably skipped past this part kind of quickly when they told you this story, I bet you picked up on the fact that Cinderella was a worker. She had her fingernails cut short and there was dirt under them; she had bruises and calluses on her feet from scurrying around getting her work done, grime and cinders ground into the skin. Cinderella was no glamor girl. Her face was not on the cover of some magazine, eternally twenty years old, with perfect skin and flawless feet.

People tell the story as if the Prince looking for the girl with the beautiful feet was looking for someone who had delicate little feet that would fit this fragile glass slipper.

But Isaiah tells us that the Prince of Peace says this:

The Prince of Peace is indeed looking for the girl with beautiful feet; but we should notice that the beauty he recognizes shows up in feet that have run miles over stony ground, feet that have crossed mountains in order to bring the good news of God’s powerful fiery love.

The story of the people of God is indeed a Cinderella story: from the ash heap of Babylon to the happily ever after of the new Jerusalem. But even more than that, it is a Fiery Godmother story. It is the story of our God whose love is like a burning fire, who offers us transformation and newness of life. It is a story of how we don’t get it, and try to cut out little squares of the new life Jesus gives us, so we can use them to try to patch over our old tattered lives. It is a story of how God doesn’t give up on us, but keeps providing one more last chance. It is a story that unfolds in the way that that Fiery Godmother somehow knew all along: it is a story that becomes the story of the Prince of Peace and the girl with the beautiful feet: bruised feet, calloused feet, dust-stained feet, feet that didn’t give up when the road was hard, feet that were often weary and sometimes bleeding but kept on going, step by step: beautiful feet. How beautiful, crossing mountains, are the feet of those who proclaim this good news!

This story of the people of God is indeed our story. It is the story of how walking a hard and stony road taught us to persevere and never give up: it is the story of how our feet are beautiful, not in spite of but because of the scars and bruises we carry: it is the story of how our lives were cinders and dust and ashes, but now we are resplendent in robes of righteousness and glory: it is the story of how we and the Prince of Peace do indeed live happily ever after, in the fiery love of our God.