Great, just great. I suppose most of you identify with my
younger brother, don’t you? Can think of
a time when you needed forgiveness, were down on your luck, needed a helping hand? And there were the open arms of compassion
just waiting for you.
Nice that throughout all of
Christendom, I’ll always be the party pooping older brother. Which is really stupid when you think about
it. Because what is religion if it isn’t
about some solid family values—some values which help us define what is right
and wrong, good and evil?
I just wonder what kind of families you think you would all have, what kind of churches, if those families and churches were more like my younger brother than they were like me? Think about it--how many of the faithful church members would you be able to keep if you were actively out there celebrating the entrance of people who had never darkened the door of a church before? Things would change, I tell you. The faithful members wouldn't have as much say in the goings-on in the church. So you better be careful not to let those new ones have any real power--any real say, or else you will never have church as we have come to know it.
See, that’s what ticks me off. I played the rules of the game. I was responsible. I did more than my share for the family. And now, now he gets the party! Family is just like church in that those who
paid their dues should be able to reap the benefits. All I’m saying is that my little brother should
pay some dues.
I don’t get my father’s notion that I
have had all the benefits of the family with my participation in it all these
years. He says, “Sure, the family is
great for you, because you helped set it up.
You profit from it every day.”
“But sometimes,” he said, get this,
“sometimes the family has to be broken so people like your brother can share in
the good things.” Let me get this
straight. I helped create some of the
wealth and the good times and the glory years here . . . and now . . . now we
need to break the family for people who did not help to bring the good times
and the glory to fruition. You figure
that one out.
My dad says I miss out on a whole lot
of fun just because I won’t celebrate other people, but I say, “Well, those other
people, they ain’t me!” My dad says that
families have to be all about welcoming and inviting people to return
home. I say it is about time I got to
decide, I got to run the show.
The embarrassing part was how my father humiliated himself in front of everyone else. Here I go trying to provide decorum for the family, and, my dad, without shame, without a thought to appearances and the neighbors, runs out to my long, lost brother. At least wait till he gets all the way home! That way the neighbor might think the stranger who smells like pig rot is just another vagrant looking for work.
But that’s the way it’s always been
with my dad. It truly is amazing that
the family survives. He mouths rules and
responsibilities to live by, but then somebody breaks with the rules and
responsibilities . . . and he runs shamelessly out to the street corner to
blubber all over them. He puts rings on
their fingers, bells on their toes, and seems to have an irrepressible urge to
give them responsibility again. So now
we have this huge extended family at the ranch.
Now that’s ok, I’ve got a few friends in that group, but all I asked for
was to have my own little farm where I could have control and run things the
way I want them.
And I have reached out to the
neighborhood around the ranch. It’s not
that I think we should stay all to ourselves.
Two, count them, two big parties where I invited other ranch families. And people turned out, but my father, he even
chided for me that. “Why,” he asked,
“did I have the parties? Merely to have
people just like me show up and grumble and complain about the servants and the
increase in taxes?
I don’t know. When you throw a party at your church, who
gets invited? People just like you. Everybody does it. I just have an old man who complains about
it.
The ranch, the church, it’s all the
same thing, isn’t it? We all have these
responsibilities we would love to give over to the people coming to the place .
. . but . . . you know better than anyone else that the church is yours to run,
and it’s important to run things the way you want them. After all, who will get blamed if it
fails? When the lost show up found, do
we get any credit for staying in the flock or herd? Or are we just supposed to celebrate at the
big party where everybody is rejoicing?
Give me a break. I would rather
miss out on rejoicing than sell out on the rules I was taught so long ago.
Needless to say, my brother and I
have not been getting along since the big reunion day. My father comes to me and says, “You know, I
hold you responsible for this conflict growing deeper and deeper. You’ve decided to moan and complain about the
family not going the way you want it to and punishing your brother through your
behavior whenever it doesn’t go your way.”
He says I only include people if they follow my rules.
You know, that stinks because I don’t
think I’m the one who made up the rules.
I don’t think I’m the one who decided I was going to run this ranch
myself. So I’m supposed to help and
support him with his projects when I have no interest at all in what he’s
doing? I don’t think so. Just because he is a part of the family? I don’t think so.
I think it is high time that people
realized there would not be any conflict in this family if I had my say and my
opinion mattered. My father says that
that is all that matters anyway because I will subvert anyone’s opinion which
is different than mine just to get my way or win an argument.
Ok, maybe he has a point, but how
about all the investment that I have put into this ranch? Goodness knows, I have been the one who has
kept us from going under any number of times.
My father wants me to mentor, teach, show my younger brother the ropes
even more than he wants me to get my work done.
I just don’t get it. He says it’s
about family, it’s not about any of the buildings or cattle we have on the
ranch. Ok, but dad, barns and cattle . .
. that is a ranch. Just like a church is not a church without a
church building. Right? Right?
And I have tried to make it feel more
like family here. Those two parties I
threw last year really brought people out.
Sure we didn’t do anything about it once we got all those people to come
out, but how can I be blamed for that?
If people don’t feel welcome at the ranch, what more can we do? Plan on throwing a party once a month, every
time we have something small to celebrate?
That’s what father would do. Impractical. Waste of energy. Again,
what are we doing for the people who have been faithful from the
start? Is all this party money wasted on
the new people?
Now father is talking about even
leaving the ranch in the hands of the servants if we should all die off. I’m sorry, but these servants come from all
over the world. I’m sure they wouldn’t
take care of the ranch the same way we take care of the ranch. It just wouldn’t be the same—it wouldn’t be our
ranch.
You can make me out to be the bad guy
in the story if you want, but just remember that this ranch wouldn’t be
anywhere without me. Father says that if
I die, all the work I have done will die with me. Well, I mean, ok, but isn’t that the
point? Why should I have to spend the
time sharing what I know with everyone else when I’m working my fingers to the
bone as it is?
The ranch is the one thing I do well. So I overwork a little and don’t party with
the rest of the family. But I really
like the respect I get from people on neighboring plantations and ranches. They know that I’m one of the movers and
shakers here, and I can’t appear to be sloughing off.
All this supposed conflict could just
be avoided if people around here just listened to me a bit more. It’s not about conflict, it’s about who’s in
charge. I respect father and will do
what he wishes for now, but I mean to tell ya’, when he is gone, there will be
some changes made around here. Maybe
that will mean that I’ll have the farm and no family, but so be it. I’d rather have my reputation than some
malcontent sibling any old day of the week.
You must see the same doggone thing
in the church? Some folks who want to
take the church away from everything it is supposed to be? Some folks who seem to care more about how
you open it up to new people than deferring to those who have made it so
strong?
So go ahead and make me the bad guy
if that’s what makes you happy. Go ahead
and pretend that you don’t somehow think that someone else’s sins are a bit
more scarlet than yours . . . he was eating with pigs for goodness sakes! But you know . . . you know . . . that the
church hast to be more like me than my father or younger brother to
survive. Just like at the ranch, you
want the right people in the pews, and you certainly don’t want people like my
younger brother showing up at your door.
Life is all about being right. And if you are right, why worry about the
rest? Why worry about those who can’t
seem to find themselves included, when you have worked so hard to make your
ranch, your church comfortable for yourself and your friends? Why should you work so hard to make your
place comfortable for someone else?
Where is the joy in that?
Conflict only happens when somebody
starts asking questions and pushing those who have been shouldering the load
for so long. I guess what you saw from
the story you read today pretty much sums up my viewpoint: I’d rather go to my grave knowing I was right
and responsible, than go to my grave with family members like my brother. Maybe you end up with no family that way, but
the ranch . . . just like any church . . . should be about what’s right and not
about shamelessly running out to greet pig feeders.
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