Yes, this is going to be a story about Christians in their natural habitat, but bear with me anyway. It fits in with the diaries about teabirthers, death panelists, and gullible seniors.
Follow me below the fold to meet what I secretly nicknamed "The Pharisees Club."
I'm not usually one of those women who crush on the pastor, but that might change. At my church, we have a new visitation pastor (who ministers to the church members in nursing homes or hospitals), Pastor Steve. As of last week, he has also taken over the Wednesday morning Bible study group.
The group mostly consists of ladies between the ages of 75 and 90 (the 90-year-old is the youngest at heart, btw), with periodic drop-ins by other people. I occasionally participate because a friend of mine, who has since moved away, used to be in charge of that group (ironically, my friend is flamingly gay and the ladies never figured it out) and invited me to come. I still get invited and go when I can since they are sweet ladies. Unfortunately, they are also Republicans.
Our church membership is an interesting mix of downtown-living, latte-sipping, Prius-driving liberals (many of whom are gay) and arch-conservative farmers and retirees who have belonged to the church all their lives since when they were young, there were no Lutheran churches near where they lived. Among the latter group racism, homophobia, and Democratophobia run rampant. The funny part is that they LOVE most of the gays and Democrats that they personally know (often they are unaware of their friends' affiliations). In the day-to-day life of the church, political topics are avoided whenever possible.
Since the inception of the Bible study, the members have tried to find an appropriate name for the group but haven't been able to come up with one that is pithy and does not limit the membership to a certain demographic (so anything with "widows" or "Golden Girls" in it is out).
In his inaugural session, Pastor Steve chose the parable of the Prodigal Son. You know, Jesus' story about the younger son who demands his share of the inheritance, squanders it, ends up herding swine, and finally returns to beg his father for forgiveness. The father, overjoyed to see his son again, throws a party for him. The older son is pissed because, after all, he has done everything right and no one ever gave him a party.
After reading the story out loud, Pastor Steve asked with which character in the story we most identified. As the bleeding-heart liberal of the group, even though I don't have any children, I identified with the father. If I had an estranged family member whom I had not expected to see again, and that person came back and apologized, yes, I might throw a party. Everyone else related to the older son.
You see, as members of the so-called "Greatest Generation," these ladies have done "everything right." They had good marriages, raised good children, worked hard, went to church, saved democracy, and never asked for "handouts." And now there are all those pinko-commie socialist illegal immigrants who live the high life on decent Americans' taxes instead of going back to where they belong and GET A JOB! Oh, and parents these days simply don't know how to raise children anymore. Nor do they instill any family values in their kids. (Btw, the ladies' children, all raised with those superior values, never come to visit them.)
Loreen, who still substitute teaches, was downright pissed at the father in the story. Of course the father should have forgiven the son, but everything beyond that was over the top. He was doing his son no favors, Loreen said. He should have given him a job on the farm and made him pay back every penny he spent. How else would he learn to appreciate the value of a dollar? (Dollars in the Holy Land? Well, never mind...)
Pastor Steve looked at Loreen, smiled his mild-mannered pastoral smile, and asked, "You do know, of course, that the father represents God? Are you saying that God is wrong?" As I suppressed a giggle, Loreen's jaw dropped. "Well," she finally huffed, "this is certainly not the way I raised my children."
Elaine, who has a chip on her shoulder because time did not stop in 1957, asked, "So what happened to the older son?"
Pastor Steve: "That was left open on purpose, wasn't it? He had a choice: he could either go off by himself and pout, or he could join the party."
Elaine: "Well, he was totally right to be upset!"
Pastor Steve: "You are aware that he represents the Pharisees, aren't you? And you do know how the Pharisees felt about Jesus, don't you?"
I felt the strong urge to offer Pastor Steve a fist bump, but I sat too far away. For the rest of the hour, the ladies were a lot quieter than they usually are.
The most outspoken member of the group is Marilyn (whenever Pastor Steve can't think of her name, I sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," which cracks him up). She lives in my neighborhood but never comes to my house because she is deathly afraid of cats and I have three pooties. Since she has become a disciple of Glenn Beck, her phobias have extended to the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State (actually, I presume the Hillaryphobia goes further back than that). Since she is 86 years old (a very stylish 86; you should see her), she believes she is near the top of the Obama Death Panel's hit list.
Last Wednesday, she said while she knew that Christians weren't supposed to hate anyone, she was wondering if it was okay to dislike someone. Pastor Steve went: "Oh?"
Marilyn: "I dislike Obama."
Pastor Steve: "Be very careful. The more you think like that, the more you move away from the light of Christ."
Me: "Besides, if you dislike someone who doesn't know you, you're the only affected anyway."
Pastor Steve: "Thank you for that, Maike."
Loreen (righteousness personified): "But we don't dislike him personally, we dislike what he stands for." (Meaning, whatever Glenn Beck says Obama stands for)
Pastor Steve: "Well, it is possible to disagree without being disagreable."
At which they all shut up. Thank you, Pastor Steve!
I am definitely going to drop by again next week. But if the issue of a group name comes up again, I will have to bite my tongue.