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CR must have been thinking too much about the parable of The Prodigal Son lately, because he just can’t get this story off his mind.  After all, when you find a story in the bible that really relates to your world view, then you think about that story a lot….and CR thinks about stuff a lot.  It is one of the crosses that CR needs to bear — because his life seems to be angst-ridden and one of the ways CR lessens his burdens is to write down CR’s thoughts.  

CR feels the angst the younger son in this story must have been going through.  It was a hundred million miles from the happiness he felt on that fateful day he dared ask his healthy, much alive father for his share of the family inheritance.  That feeling of happiness, and excitement, and joy — you know that feeling — when you are on the eve of “that trip you have been planning for a year”-nervous-stomach kind of feeling – this is the feeling the younger son had before he left on his trip.  Now, it was a whole different feeling in the pit of his stomach.  Now it was a combination of hunger, fear and loathing.  And it was growing by the footstep — and the closer he got to home, the worse it got.

How could he face his father and mother, not to mention his brother?  How could he look them in the eye ever again?  This was going to be a “Hard, Hard, Conversation”.

Hard conversations.  We all have hard conversations — and we all will have more hard conversations in the future.  We know we will — we know we must — and we know we will dread them as well.  What hard conversation have you been putting off?  Maybe you need to talk to one of your aging parents about giving up their driver’s license.  Now, that is a hard conversation.  But, it is a necessary conversation — you may just be saving their lives or someone else’s life by having that conversation.  Or maybe your church needs to have that hard conversation where it is necessary to face the reality that, as much as every church believes they are a loving, welcoming faith community, in fact they are a judgy, aloof and unwelcoming community. Or, maybe your family has a different hard conversation that needs to happen — your child has a drug problem, your company might be downsizing, your marriage is falling apart, or the beloved pet needs to be euthanized.   

Nothing prepares us for these hard conversations.  But, do you know what happens when we don’t have hard conversations?  Hard feelings begin to develop — and before you know it, they are cemented into our relationships — cemented so much nothing will be able to break through the walls of hurt, division, and destruction.

How do we begin the process of having the hard conversations?  We look to the younger son in the story of the Prodigal — he finally “comes to himself” and decides the time has arrived.  He is carrying a burden — it is what Thomas Francis Meagher called the “Burden of Memory”.  We all carry some burden of memory — for the youngest son it is how he has treated his family, and thus he must face this “hard conversation”.   To avoid it means death.  To have it may also mean death — but it would be death on his terms, not necessarily fate.  And so he carries his “burden of memory”, the memories of how he hurt his family, how he alienated himself from his brother, his mother, and particularly his father, and with each step his feet grow more heavy and his heart more weary — but with each step he also gathers his thoughts and his courage — he must unload his “burden of memory”.

Today, you may be facing a “hard conversation” — and you may be wondering how you will get through.  Remember, G-d is always with us — and like the father from the story of the Prodigal, G-d always welcomes us with arms wide open and forgiveness that is unlimited.  Oh, the conversations will still be hard, but in the end a burden will be lifted and healing can begin.  And G-d, our father, gathers us in G-d’s arms every day to remind us that we are welcome, that we are loved, and that we have unconditional grace.  It is the Grace of G-d that reminds this Cranky Reverend that we have a G-d who gathers us, claims us and seeks a relationship with us — even runs to us when we come to ourselves and realize our need for repentance and forgiveness.  This reality helps us deal with our “Burdens of Memory”.

Crankeverend….Out!

“Toleration — isn’t the church about toleration” the young man said sitting in Crankeverend’s (CR) office one day.  “Didn’t Jesus teach something about toleration?”

“Nope.  Sorry!  Jesus did not teach us to tolerate anything”, CR told the stunned young man.  “We are not to tolerate the hypocrites of this world, we are not supposed to tolerate people who think differently than us, who look different from us, and who talk differently than us.  Jesus said nothing about toleration.  He didn’t say we should tolerate sinners, tolerate liars, tolerate backstabbers, tolerate poor people, tolerate the homeless, or tolerate yuppies, guppies and puppies.”

“Wait”, he said.  “Are you sure Jesus didn’t say “Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, mind and strength, and tolerate your neighbor”?  “Tolerate your neighbor?” CR said.  “What does that look like, tolerate your neighbor?”  “Well”, he said.  “Aren’t we supposed to tolerate people when they come to our church but only want to have a baptism or a wedding, and then they don’t come anymore once it is complete?  Or aren’t we supposed to tolerate those who come to church and have opinions that are not like ours — so we tolerate them until they either get the message that they are not wanted here and go to another church or they learn to stop sharing their opinions?  And what about the young families who bring their children into the church, and they cry and cry — aren’t we supposed to tolerate them, shooting them evil looks, but tolerate those babies until the parents realize there are no programs for them anyway so we tolerate them until they decide to go somewhere else?”

“Nope.  Sorry!  We shouldn’t even tolerate that”, CR said.  “CR doesn’t think Jesus wants us to tolerate anyone who is different from us, or louder than us, or thinks differently from us, because if we tolerate one group, well then we will have to tolerate all different groups of people, and then there will be chaos in the church.  And besides, you’re going to have to leave now because CR can’t tolerate all of your questions anymore.”

The young man left CR’s office as confused as he was when he came in.  “Tolerate others”, CR said to himself.  “Jesus said nothing about toleration — in fact CR hates the thought of toleration.”  Looking at the ceiling, CR shouted, “CR cannot tolerate the word tolerate” as if yelling at the ceiling means G-d will hear CR better.

CR remembered a quote he once read about this thinking, and so he began feverishly digging through his records, until he found the quote.  It was from an opinion piece written in the Presbyterian Outlook in 2003.  The quote read:

“There is room for everyone in the household of faith, but it is the genius of American Protestantism that nearly every Christian believer can find and affiliate himself with a religious community that is congenial to his cast of mind.  The important thing is that we should all respect these differences, not that we should try to bridge over them.”

“There it was”, CR thought to himself.  “There is some proof that many people think Jesus taught us to tolerate one another.”

Crankeverend (CR) plopped his medium sized frame on one of the seats he tolerates in his office, and slowly shook his head.  Tolerate one another.  CR tolerates the chairs in his office, and still plops his butt on them, but he is just as willing to throw them into the dumpster in the alley if he gets the mind to stop tolerating them.  And that is the same thinking that many have in the church today, that if they just tolerate people they don’t like long enough, that eventually they too will go the way of the chairs we finally choose not to tolerate.

But people are more than furniture, and Jesus taught more than toleration.  What Jesus taught is love — a love that is so deep, so unconditional, so all encompassing that the example he chose to give was a “Father running to hug the son that treated him like he was dead”, The Prodigal Son.   Not only did the son treat him like he was dead, demanding his inheritance before his father had died, but he wasted it on parties and women.  And when the son finally came to himself and decided it would be better to work for his father, the one he treated so disgracefully, than to be working with pigs, when the son was still far off, the father ran to the son to welcome him home.  That is not toleration, that is a love you and CR could wish to show others, but can only dream of showing to everyone, all the time, in all situations — because we are human — and humans have trouble with unconditional love.  Humans are good at toleration — we are terrible at love.

Do any of the presidential candidates talk about love — or do they all speak of toleration?  In the church, we better be working at loving people with the love Jesus is talking about, or who will tolerate coming to join us?

Crankeverend……………Out!