Burning Love
There is a unique storytelling program I listen to each week on public radio, called The Moth Radio Hour.
People from the audience stand up and share their stories, some funny, some painful, all highly engaging and thoughtful.
In yesterday's episode, Jeffrey Rudell shares a very troubling tale about how his parents reacted to him coming out, and how he has battled with the pain of their rejection his whole adult life.
In his story, Under the Influence, Jeffrey tells us his parents taught him that love can help overcome any and all conflicts in life, but when he told them he was gay, the love stopped.
He describes an event his sister shared with him after he returned to college. His mother and father gathered up all Jeffrey's belongings, pictures, even furniture, and burned them in a huge fire on the front lawn.
"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" - Luke 12: 49
In today's Gospel reading, Jesus paints an equally disturbing picture of the struggles within households, where parents and children are pit against each other, and everything is disrupted.
That's not the way we like to think of Jesus. The one we call the Peacemaker, is bringing anything but peace. So what gives?
In many households, what Jeffrey shared would have remained hidden, kept secret, stored away, never revealed, and the life Jeffrey would have lived in that situation would have been false.
His parents might have wondered about him, but they would have gone on pretending it was not real, and all would be as it had always been.
Jeffrey believed their love for him would have been sufficient to help them come to accept who he was, but despite years of trying and hoping, they ignored and refused his attempts to reconnect.
Jesus tells us that we are beyond the time of living lies, and we need to be honest, with each other and with ourselves. This life is short. How will this life we live stack up against the test of truth?
When I hear Jesus speak of judgment and the present time, I can think that he is talking about others and not me. But maybe the things I think are acceptable behavior, the positions I take and the comments I make about others, might just be signs that I am falling into the trap of thinking I am above the fray, better than the average, one of the good guys.
If there is something to take away from Jeffrey's story and from the harshly biting words of Jesus it may be this. Be honest in my love for others.
Don't pretend to be accepting to one's face, while shutting them away to be forgotten when they are out of sight.
The cleansing fire of truth is already kindled. I need to add my false assumptions and judgments to the heap and let them go.
More to come...