SERMONS FROM THE HEIGHTS by Randy L. Hyde, D. Min., APC Senior Pastor Pulaski Heights Baptist Church Little Rock, AR 72205 www.phbclr.com rhyde@phbclr.com February 20, 2011 NEIGHBOR Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48 I was told a couple of years ago by our children s worship leaders that we were dismissing the children too soon from the big worship service. They felt it was important that the children stay at least long enough to hear and participate in the scripture readings from both testaments. That way, I was informed, the children would know, when they went downstairs, that what they would be talking about there is the same thing we would be considering up here in the sanctuary. And that would be a good thing, I was told. So, we began making provision for the children to leave the sanctuary after the New Testament reading. It may have backfired last week. Do you remember? The subject matter, mentioned by Jesus no less, was murder and judgment, anger and hell fire, adultery and lust. If your right eye causes you to sin, Jesus says, tear it out and throw it away. I have a feeling it might have been better if the teachers had taken the children downstairs earlier than usual... or maybe to have covered the children s ears. The following material is for mature audiences only. That means not under the age of 17, and that is true sometimes even when it comes to scripture.
But today we re back to the way things ought to be... at church anyway. Our reading certainly seems less offensive. You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye... But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer... turn the other cheek also... give your cloak as well... go also the second mile... give to everyone who begs from you... love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... In other words, be nice. Now, who doesn t want their children to be nice? Today, we re back to scripture the way scripture oughta be... filled with platitudes, spiritual admonitions, things that are supposed to be talked about in church. And isn t it true that we spend a lot of time in church talking about things that we know won t work out there in the real world but need to be talked about in church because they sound so good on Sunday but we must admit are often forgotten about Monday through Saturday? Like this loving your neighbor stuff. We know Jesus is right. We do need to love those who are different from us... until we re standing toe-to-toe with the challenge of doing it. Then, in our discomfort, we start looking for the nearest exit, don t we? You see, what Jesus says here what he is telling us today is no less unpleasant than what he told us last week. So if you re offended by what he said last week, maybe you better cover your ears today, because Jesus names what is widely taken for granted, and then speaks against it. 1 He explodes the way we behave and shows us a way that few of us are truly willing to follow. At the least, there s a disconnect between what we affirm in worship and the way we behave any place else or at any other time. If you doubt that, next week in Sunday School let s have a full-blown discussion about immigration. You see? To tell the truth, if we truly took to heart what Jesus is telling us to do here, we would find it difficult to get along in the world in which we live. After all, Jesus didn t do so well when it came to that, now did he? Fred Craddock tells of the first little rural church he ever pastored. It was not, I m sure, unlike those that just about every young budding minister, myself
included, has served when just starting out. It was in the eastern Tennessee hills, he explains, not too far from Oak Ridge. When Oak Ridge began to boom with the atomic energy plant, as he puts it, that little bitty town became a booming city just overnight. Every hill and every valley and every shady grove had recreational vehicles and trucks and things like that. People came in from everywhere and pitched tents, lived in wagons. Hard hats from everywhere, with their families, and children paddling around in the mud in those trailer parks... The church was not far away. It was a beautiful little church white frame building, one hundred and twelve years old. The church had an organ in the corner, which one of the young fellows had to pump while Ms. Lois played it. Boy, Craddock says, she could play the songs just as slow as anybody. The church had beautifully decorated chimneys, kerosene lamps all around the walls, and every pew in this little church was hand hewn from a giant poplar tree. After church one Sunday, Craddock asked the congregational leaders to stay. We need to launch a calling campaign, he said to them, an invitational campaign in all those trailer parks to invite those people to church. Oh, I don t know. I don t think they d fit in here, one of them said. They re just here temporarily, just construction folk. They ll be leaving pretty soon. Well, we ought to invite them, Craddock contended, make them feel at home. They argued about it for awhile, until time ran out. So, they decided to vote on it the next Sunday. Next Sunday, they all sat down for the business meeting. I move, said one of them, I move that in order to be a member of this church, you must own property in the county. 3
I second that! someone else said, and it passed. Craddock voted against it, of course, but was quickly reminded that he was just a kid preacher and didn t have a vote. So it passed. Years later, Fred took his wife to see that little church. He had told her that painful, painful story. The roads had changed. An interstate highway had been built through that part of the country and he had a hard time finding it, but eventually he located the state road, then the county road, and finally the little gravel road that led to the church. There, back among the pines, was the building, shining white. The parking lot was just full motorcycles and trucks and cars parked there. The Craddocks did the same and then went inside. The church had electric lights now, and the organ was still over in the corner. After all these years he recognized those hand-hewn pews, now pushed against the walls. Sitting there, as Craddock puts it, were all kinds of people... Parthians and Medes and Edomites and dwellers of Mesopotamia, all kinds of people. And do you know why? Because of the sign out front. It said: Barbecue, all you can eat. It had become a restaurant. Fred turned to his wife and said, It s a good thing this is not still a church, otherwise these people couldn t be in here. 2 I remember a story the late humorist Grady Nutt once shared with us in seminary chapel. He told of the time Jesus, as a teenager, was helping his father Joseph build a fence outside a home. Along came a Roman soldier and demanded that Jesus carry his bag and walk with him a mile. You see, it was Roman law in that day that when a soldier or any other Roman citizen demanded that a local person carry his goods one mile, it had to be done. You can imagine what kind of hostility this bred on the part of the Jews, who often were required to do it. When the soldier made his demand of Jesus, according to the way Grady told the story, without grumbling or saying a word which was extraordinary of itself Jesus simply picked up the soldier s burden and began walking with him. But unlike any other Jew the soldier had ever encountered, this young Nazarene was different. He began talking to the soldier in such a way that soon it became obvious to him that Jesus had a spirit in him that was rare. There was a 4
serenity about him, a sense of peace and purpose in his life that the soldier not only had never seen in a Jew but had never found among his own people either. The more they walked and talked together, the more he liked the young man. After awhile, he noticed that they were approaching the end of the required mile. Ordinarily a Jew would get to the end of the mile, drop the soldier's burden to the ground, and head back to town lickety-split. And all the soldier s souvenirs he had gotten at Stuckey s would be broken to pieces when it hit the ground. Instinctively the soldier reached for the bag before Jesus could let it go, but instead of dropping it Jesus shifted it up higher on his shoulder and said, Would you like to go another mile? Grady didn t stop his story there. He took us to a scene years later. That same soldier is in Jerusalem doing the dirty work that befell all Roman soldiers sooner or later. He was in charge of a crucifixion detail. This time, however, the face of the criminal in the center looked vaguely familiar to him. Could it somehow have been a face out of his past? It was when he spoke that the soldier recognized him. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And then the soldier remembered how years before a young Jew had walked with him outside Nazareth, not the required one mile, but two. And the soldier said, Truly, this man was the Son of God! I suppose, if you spent much time stroking the cynical side of your nature, you could take from this that truly being a neighbor, especially to those who are different from you, could very well get you today s equivalent of a cross. That s an unpleasant thought, isn t it? Makes us just a bit uncomfortable. But I think I hope I d rather take up a cross than risk being less than what God wants me to be. Is it too much to ask that we see in every face we encounter every one our neighbor? Jesus didn t think so, did he? Even when he was dying on a cross. Lord, help us to see really see our neighbor. And when we do, may your kind of love invade our hearts so we might be more like you. Amen. 5
Notes 1 Matthew Myer Boulton, Feasting On the Word: Year A, Volume 1, David L. Barlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 381. 2 adapted from Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, Editors (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), pp. 28-29. 6