A Rude Awakening

Before I share with you this moment of self-revelation, there are a few things I should probably tell you about myself. I’m a pastor. Well, technically I’m a reverend, an elder in full connection with the Great Plains Conference of The United Methodist Church. But I never liked the title of Reverend for myself. It always made me feel set apart (& somehow above), the members of the congregations I served, not to mention all the folks with whom I worked outside of the church. Whether in deference or with resentment, the title seemed to elevate me in the eyes of others to a place of spiritual & moral superiority that never quite felt right.

I was much more comfortable simply being called “Pastor”. Actually, I preferred people call me “Randy”, but if they thought a title was required, “Pastor” seemed best suited to me. It felt a little more accessible, ordinary, humble & human. Don’t get me wrong, people still treated me differently. As soon as I entered a room (or at least once people knew my vocation), both conversations & behaviors seemed to change. People wouldn’t tell me the jokes that had them rolling with laughter just moments before &, if someone did say something coarse or vulgar, they would immediately blush with shame & apologize. Around strangers, I tried to avoid telling them what I did for a living unless they specifically asked. Then it was always, “I’m a pastor” (or minister), never a Reverend.

The story I’m about to share with you is one with which I have regaled every congregation I have served since it happened as an illustration of how human & just like everyone else I am. But before we get to that, there is one more thing you should know about me.

Micah 6:8 is probably the most succinct way to describe who I aspire to be & how I want to live my life. The prophet asks & answers his own question with these words: “[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good; & what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, & to love kindness, & to walk humbly with your God?” (NRSV)

Justice, love, kindness, mercy, humility—basically, do what’s right & don’t make a big deal about it. Oh, & walk with God, or, as the third of the three simple rules we hold so dear in our denomination states: “Stay in love with God.” (The other two rules are, “Do no harm,” & “Do good.”) Simple, right? “Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.” (Yes, the phrase is a lot older than Stephen King’s The Shining, but the reference to Jack is what I’m after here. Just as he had his demons….)

Of course, living all of that is a whole lot more complicated than those few words would seem to imply. But justice was the one where my soul was most fractured & I was least cognizant of it. I knew that when I witnessed an injustice I would be offended, heartbroken & try to set it right. What I had never faced in myself was that when the perceived injustice hit close to home, I wasn’t simply offended & heartbroken. I got angry. Which brings me to our story.

We had traveled to celebrate Christmas from Selby, South Dakota, where my wife & I served four small churches, down to Hays, Kansas where her parents lived. We enjoyed a wonderful time with her family, her mother’s fine cooking, & her father’s love of football. (Okay, I was the one who enjoyed the football with him.) It was Sunday night, December 29, 1992 (I think?), the last full night of our visit. My wife & I would be leaving early the next morning.

With the leftovers finally gone, it was decided we would each fend for ourselves for supper that night. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It was the first day McDonald’s was offering the opportunity to buy a copy of the movie, “Dances with Wolves” to anyone who purchased a sandwich. I loved that movie.

I stopped at the convenience store around the corner to pick up some pop on the way to Mickey D’s. No prices were marked in the cooler, but I thought, “How much could a six pack be, anyway?” Answer: over four dollars.

Now I was accustomed to picking up twelve-packs of soda at our local grocery store on sale for $1.99, so four dollars for a six-pack seemed a bit steep. I didn’t say anything before leaving the store, but by the time I got to the car I was fuming. There was no way in God’s green earth I was going to tolerate being charged four dollars for a six-pack of pop!

I decided to stop at Walmart (also on the way to Mickey D’s), & pick up a two-liter bottle for ninety-nine cents (why hadn’t I simply done that in the first place?), then get my sandwich & movie. When I got to Mickey D’s, I was told they hadn’t received their shipment of movies yet & didn’t know whether they would have them in before we left town. But I was welcome to come back & check in the morning.

So now, as I headed back to the convenience store to return the pop, I was both angry & disappointed. When I arrived, I realized the clerk who had checked me out just twenty minutes earlier was no longer behind the counter. There had been a shift change. I waited in line, practicing my speech under my breath.

When it was my turn, I explained that when I had been in just a short time earlier, I had picked up a six-pack of pop, not knowing how much it would cost since nothing in the cooler was marked. I had been stunned to find that it cost over four dollars. By the time I had gotten to the car I’d decided that as soon as I’d completed my errands, I would return it for a refund. (If this sounds as though I was calm & polite, make no mistake—I was angry. There was a lot of tension in my voice, & I was getting louder by the second. Think of me as a “Karen” long before “Karen”s were a thing. If someone had been recording the exchange, such incidents I’m sure would have been called “Randy”s instead.)

The clerk very calmly told me that would be fine & asked for my receipt. I literally growled back at him, “You didn’t give me one!” His countenance fell & he told me that without a receipt there was nothing he could do.

I must interrupt at this point to tell you one more thing about myself. When I was in seminary, I worked at the 7-Eleven just off-campus. I knew about convenience store prices & policies & why they were the way they were. In the moments that followed, I was keenly aware of this. It was almost as though I was having an out-of-body experience, observing my behavior with incredulity even as my in-body self was exploding.

I immediately launched into a self-righteous tirade that kept the other customers frozen in place, like the proverbial “deer caught in the headlights.” I accused “them” of treating “us” this way because they knew we were from out of town (how he would have known that I have no idea), & that nothing would come of it. What they didn’t understand was that my in-laws lived just around the corner & conducted a lot of business there, business they were now sure to lose.

Having finished sputtering my threats, judgments & condemnation upon this poor clerk, I turned around to storm out the door. And there, right behind me, the very next customer in line, was the senior pastor to whom my in-laws had introduced me just that morning. They had been proud to let him know that we were two of his colleagues serving in South Dakota. Meeting him that morning had felt good. This was mortifying.

To this day I remember the words of excuse I muttered to him, knowing they did nothing to exonerate me. “It’s been a bad day.” But it hadn’t been. It had been a good day. It was only the last thirty minutes that had been miserable for me.

As I walked to the car to return to my in-laws’ home, I remember laughing at myself & thinking, “Boy, did you deserve that, Randy! Dear God, you got me good!”

Twenty-nine years later, I’m still embarrassed by the incident. I wish I could go back & apologize to that poor clerk & all those who suffered my abuse that night. On the other hand, perhaps what it means for them today is that whenever someone shows them another video of a Karen, they can respond with, “Have I story to tell you.”

For me, being confronted by the fact that someone I knew—who knew me as a pastor—saw me behaving so badly & treating another person so horribly, it has prodded me to treat others who are not at their best with a little more grace & understanding. I don’t always get it right (I probably get it wrong more often than not), but it’s encouraged me to see in them the sister or brother they truly are.

And when someone else thinks they’ve been so terrible as to be beyond any love, grace, mercy, or forgiveness, I find it good to be able to say, “Let me tell you a story.”