Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday July 14, 2013, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Amos 7:7-17

Psalm 82

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

If you know the lyrics, sing along. If you don’t, then just hum. Nobody is going to mind.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood; it’s a beautiful day for a neighbor. 

Would you be mine? Could you be mine? 

It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood; a neighborly day for a beauty. 

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

I’ve always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.

 I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; 

since we’re together we might as well say:

“Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”

Won’t you please, won’t you please, please won’t you be my neighbor.[1]

New episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” were shown on PBS stations from 1970 until 2001 and on National Educational Television two years before that. Reruns aren’t available on local stations, but they are through the PBS Kids web site.[2]

The show was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentleness. Episodes did not have a plot, but they did have a theme. They consisted of Rogers speaking directly to viewers about various issues, taking the viewer on tours of factories, demonstrating experiments, crafts, and music, and interacting with his friends. The half-hour episodes were punctuated by a puppet segment chronicling occurrences in the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”

At the beginning of each episode, Mister Rogers enters his television studio house singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” He hangs up his suit jacket, puts on a zippered cardigan, then takes off his dress shoes to put on his sneakers. One of Rogers’ sweaters now hangs in the Smithsonian, a testament to the cultural influence of his simple daily ritual.

Rogers covered a broad range of topics over the years, and the series did not shy away from issues that other children’s programming avoided. In fact, Rogers endeared himself to many when, on March 23, 1970, he dealt with the death of one of his pet goldfish. The series also dealt with competition, divorce, and war. Rogers returned to the topic of anger regularly and focused on peaceful ways of dealing with angry feelings.[3]

All of this happened in the context of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a mystical place where the imaginary fourth wall of the television screen magically disappeared for a half hour and we were all welcomed into a world of peace and grace.

Considering Mister Fred Rogers was a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an ordained PC(USA) Minister, welcoming children into a world of peace and grace was his vocation as well as his passion.

So the expert in religious law came to test Jesus asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies in true rabbinical fashion, asking a question when an answer is sought. “What is written in the Law?”

The lawyer answers this question by a perfect recitation from Leviticus and Deuteronomy[4] saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus affirms the lawyer’s answer saying, “Do this, and you will live.” The experts in the law commonly accepted that observance of the Torah was essential to inherit eternal life.[5] So when Jesus and the lawyer agree on this point, they share the truth of thousands of years of tradition.

But the lawyer’s questions are more than an academic or rabbinic exercise. He wants to justify himself. So he asks Jesus another question, “Who is my neighbor?” This is an important question, more important than we may suppose. What gets lost in the translation of Leviticus is that the original command to love the neighbor specifies “your kin” and “any of your people.”[6] So the lawyer wants to be justified that by helping his family, his people, and his nation he will inherit eternal life.

Then Jesus tells the legal expert a story and asks him another question, “So which of these three, the Priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

The lawyer answers, “The one who showed him mercy was a neighbor.” This must have been difficult for the expert in the law. He knew it wasn’t his people, the Priest or the Levite, but he couldn’t push the name of his dreaded cousin past his lips. Instead he says, “The one who showed him mercy was a neighbor.”

Saying this, the lawyer, the expert in the law tells the world that being a neighbor is about more than just being kin or members of the same nation. It has to do with action and mercy.  Being a neighbor now means more than it did in Leviticus. Then Jesus gives him his charge, “Go, and do likewise.”

Jesus shares the vision of inheriting eternal life written in the Torah with the lawyer.  Then he shows him that the Living Torah, the person and the work and the word of Jesus Christ, expands the Torah given to Moses. Justification by the Torah now means that loving God and loving your neighbor are inseparable.[7] Being justified means more than just taking care of business as usual.

The hardest part about this story is that the holy men in the parable, the priest and the Levite, were doing what they were supposed to do. They were going to work. They were doing what was right in the name of the Law. They followed the rules and abided by the regulations approved by the General Assembly, er, the Presbytery, er, the law handed down to Moses. They did the right thing in the eyes of the law, but doing what was right was no longer enough in the eyes of God.

To the Greco-Roman world, the cradle of Western culture, mercy was a character flaw; the ideal was justice. Since mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it was contrary to justice. This unearned relief, we call it grace.

Sociologist Rodney Stark put it this way. “The notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was something entirely new.”[8]

Mercy is the new benchmark in justification. Mercy is the new benchmark in being a neighbor. Mercy has a place in the administration of justice in the Christ’s kingdom and only the Samaritan acted in accord with the living Torah.

Only the despised Samaritan showed love in an act of mercy. Only the loathed foreigner connected loving God and loving your neighbor as the way to being justified. Only the reviled outsider saw his brother left beaten on the side of the road. Only the detested alien saw the way to justification through mercy. Only the abhorred stranger showed the divinely required attitude we are to share with one another.

An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the Rabbi. “Could it be,” asked another, “when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” said the Rabbi. “Well, then what is it?” his pupils demanded. “It is when you look on someone’s face and can see… your brother. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”[9]

In the past month, there has been quite a commotion about Mr. Rogers. The people at Fox News found a 2007 article by Jeffrey Zaslow from the Wall Street Journal titled, “Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled” [10] At the center of the article was LSU finance professor Don Chance who observed a “culture of excessive doting” in 21^st Century university students The article begins:

[The professor] says it dawned on him last spring.  The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s.

 “They felt entitled,” he recalls, “and it just hit me.  We can blame Mr. Rogers.”

Professor Chance notes Asian students, students who did not grow up with Mr. Rogers, accept “B’s and C’s as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately.” The article continues:

By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to “hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard,” says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: “The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you want to be special, you'll have to prove it.”

If there is one thing I can agree with after working over ten years in higher education, it’s that there is a sense of entitlement among students. I have seen that sense of entitlement reinforced by some parents and grandparents who called to ask if there wasn’t any way I could give Junior one more chance. I don’t say that Professor Chance is wrong about that. I do say that his finger pointing is misdirected. I won’t say where it should be directed, but putting this on Mr. Rogers is wrong.

Looking at Mr. Rogers’ point of view, we need to remember that he was a Christian and a Presbyterian minister. He pastored children daily for over 40 years. He told children, the weakest members of any society, that in the eyes of God they are loved and have value. He told misfits they are loved. He told fat kids they are loved. He told bullied kids they are loved. He told poor kids they are loved. He told abused kids they are loved. Even if it is just in his neighborhood, they are loved.

He loves them. He is their neighbor. He invited children into that neighborhood daily not so that they could beg for grades from Professor Chance fifteen years later, but so that they could know grace and peace and mercy and love and hope. It’s true; this world isn’t looking to do them or anyone else any favors, but through Christ God offers us grace, peace, mercy, love, hope, and salvation. We are freely offered grace as a gift, not as payment for services rendered. If it were, it wouldn’t be grace. This is what Mr. Rogers offered his audience daily.

Gentleness, love, mercy, peace, grace; isn’t this what we want from our neighbors? It sure beats the scorn and ridicule, derision and division we see every day. We want people in our lives showing the fullness of God’s mercy to everyone, not just some.

We want to know what it is to receive divine mercy, God’s divine loving-kindness. We must realize that this mercy arises out of a mutual relationship one for another, not just as a winner-take-all justice the ancient Greeks favored.

If Professor Chance and Fox News want us to believe we have no value outside of what we can do for our economy and ourselves that is their business. It is after all the way of the world. On the whole though, I prefer to live a state of grace, a place where I know what is most important cannot be earned, it can only be given. A place where that grace is freely given, even if it’s just for 30 minutes a day with a man in a zip up cardigan.

Luke shows us the lawyer accepts Jesus’ revision of the Torah. He learns that the one who shows mercy like the Samaritan is the neighbor, not those who share family or heritage like the priest and the Levite. What might have started as a theological exercise between the lawyer and teacher becomes more when the Torah comes to life in Jesus Christ.

When the law comes to life, we can no longer answer these questions like we’re taking a college entrance exam. We now have to answer the questions with our hands even more than we do with our heads. Jesus commands us to be good neighbors; loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength; and our neighbor as ourselves.  On this the words of the Law and the prophets hang.

This is our call, this is our vocation. It is no longer enough to do just what the written law tells us; now there is more. We are called to this new word of discipleship when Jesus charges the lawyer, “Go, and do likewise.” Or as Mr. Rogers once said:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Friends in Christ, Mr. Rogers tells us, Jesus tells us, those who help are our neighbors. So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; since we’re together we might as well say: Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?

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[1] Rogers, Fred, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”  Pittsburgh, PA: Family Communications, Inc., 1967.

[2] From the PBSKids.org websie retrieved July 12, 2013.

[3] Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood, retrieved July 8, 2010

[4] Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5

[5] “Adlet and Blink,” Commentary section, from Homiletics Online, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=930000347, accessed June 10, 2007.

[6] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 427. 

[7] Kittel, Gerhardt, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. vi, page 316

[8] Galloway, Paul, “How Jesus Won the West: Christianity became dominant because it offered better ideas and unexpected mercy,” The Lutheran, November 1998, 19.

[9] Thompson, Marjorie J. “Soul Feast” Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, 127.

[10] Zaslow, Jeffrey, “Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled.” Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2007, retrieved July 12, 2013.

Business as Unusual

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday February 20, 2011, the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Leviticus 19: 1-2, 9-18
Psalm 119:33-40
1Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
Matthew 5:38-48

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

For the last three weeks, the lectionary, the list of readings I use for sermons, has set us on a journey through The Sermon on the Mount.  We started with the Beatitudes which describe the characteristics of Christ’s disciples.  These statements described disciples who long to love God and seek justice, just as the prophet Micah beckoned.  They describe not how to be disciples but who the disciples are; who the disciples are while Jesus still walks the earth.

The next week we were reminded that we are the salt of the earth.  We bring spice to life.  When used in accord with the Lord’s desires we bring holiness to the world.  We serve as a preservative keeping fresh God’s word in life.

It also says we are the light of the world, shining the light where it is meant to be seen.  The darkness never overcomes the light, the light overcomes the dark.  The light too must shine, or it is without use.  In ancient times, it was dangerous to shine the light of Christ, but they were still called to let light shine.

This is where we are reminded that salt and light can only be salt and light.  They have very specific uses; all of them for the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Last week the Sermon on the Mount took us through some very heady territory, judgment.  We discovered that there are things that will cause us to be judged, some by the church council and others by God’s own self.  Yet in all of this judgment, Jesus teaches us that now we are being held to a higher standard.  This difference is made clear as Jesus begins a saying with “You have heard it was said…” then turning the saying to something higher beginning with the proclamation “But I tell you…”

So we are still under the Torah, but we live under the Living Torah, the Law of Jesus Christ.  This is because Jesus teaches faithfulness to the law, not just simple following.  Lemmings follow, but when they do they often run off of the edge of a cliff seemingly without a second thought.  Jesus wants more for his people.  Jesus wants more from his people.  Jesus wants disciples, not lemmings.

This brings us to our reading today, our final reading from the Sermon on the Mount, the notorious “turn the other cheek” passage.  This presents us with an issue that is as difficult for us to manage as it was for the hearers to manage then.  One of my commentaries noted that if we followed these instructions to the word we would quickly be naked and broke leading to prison and disgrace.[1]  While Jesus’ disciples found themselves imprisoned and disgraced by the cross, this imprisonment is not what Jesus had in mind.  So we have two competing thoughts.

The first is that Jesus said what he meant and meant what he said.  When Jesus said “turn the other cheek” he meant that if we were to be struck by the powerful then we should offer them more.  On the other hand, as I said last week, Jesus does not mean for anyone to be abused.  So how do we balance this?  Where does Jesus point us today?  How can we be faithful to not just the words but to the higher standard the words point toward?

There is one more thing we need to consider that I haven’t said over the past three weeks.  We hear the Sermon on the Mount from our own ears, from our own lives and life experience.  Would you be surprised if I told you that Jesus was not talking to people like us?

Jesus lived in a backwater of the Roman Empire.  The power rested in Rome.  The power for Palestinians to control their own destiny was not what we have today.  Taxation was a farce.  Those who got taxed the hardest were the people who would actually pay their taxes.  That way the tax man was covered when Rome came looking for their share of the spoils.

Conscription was a way of life.  You could be drafted into service by a Roman soldier for a thousand paces, a mile, if the soldier wanted.  In fact, the word the New International Version translated as “forces” can be translated “conscripts.”  There is a definite military overtone to the word in Greek that just isn’t there in English.

The only reason Judaism was allowed to exist in the day was that the faith didn’t cause any problems for the state.  If Rome is happy then everybody’s happy.  So if the church was not causing a ruckus then Rome was fine with the church.  For the followers of Jesus, for these first Christians, this was far from true.  The followers of Jesus had caused trouble in the temple; trouble that would cause Jesus to be executed in the most degrading way the Empire could devise.

So here’s the point: The life experience of the first century Christian is not much like ours.  From a cultural point of view, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is not speaking to the same crowd I am speaking to today.  On the whole, we American Christians are an affluent people, not so the conquered people of Israel some two millennia ago.

Now I know that none of us bathe in champagne.  Averages do that to us; it takes extremes and makes them seem like one specific someone somewhere in the middle.  Averages take away individuality and as the song goes, “numbers don’t lie, but numbers don’t bleed.”[2]  The numbers say one thing, but our individual lives often say something else.  Yet from a global perspective, even those of us who are living in American poverty are doing better than most of the world.

Let’s make this clear though, the one thing that we are not is the oppressed minority.  We cannot be forced to carry a soldier’s tools for even one step.  We have the power to speak and vote, powers that others in this life would die for; and recently a lot of people in Near East Asia and North Africa are fighting and dying for these very rights.  There are nations where we would be arrested simply for possessing the Word of God, much less studying it and praising its creator.

Jesus was talking to the oppressed minority, not to the power elite.  Pagans were in charge.  The faith of Matthew’s community was suspect in the citadels of both the city and the church.  Expressing their faith could be dangerous, yet Jesus called them to continue sharing so that their light could be seen.

In a significant way, Jesus was not talking to us.  He was talking to a church that was being born, not a faith that is 2,000 years old.  It could well be the difference between what you would say to a toddler and to a full grown adult.  In the opinion of much of the world, and whether right or wrong it is their opinion, we are more like Rome than we are the ancient Christians.

Regardless of the opinion of these mythical others, regardless of the differences between us and the ancient church, these words are meant for us, and Jesus means for us to live by the higher standard they put into words.  In these expressions, one of the things that Jesus says is that there are standards for individuals and there are standards for the church.

Something that gets lost in the translation is you can tell the difference between “you” and “you all” in the original text.  This gets lost in English.  Our English versions reflect verses 38 through 48 are all directed at some unspecific you.  What English doesn’t tell us is that verses 38-42 are singular; these verses are directed toward individual believers.  Verses 43-48 are plural; they are directed toward the entire community.  The first paragraph of our reading is directed at each of us, the second is directed at all of us.

What makes this important, what gets lost in the translation, is that there are some commands that are for us individually.  How we treat others in relationship is important.  How we treat others with power, especially others with the power to make our lives far, far worse is important to each of us.  We are to treat others with love, caring, respect and dignity; especially those who do not treat us the same.

As a community, as a nation, as a people, we are called not to return hate with hate.  We are not to persecute those who would persecute us.  We are not to persecute those who have persecuted us.  This is especially true when the tables turn and the persecuted become the persecutors.

The reason we do this, the reason Christians are called to do this is that we are called to a higher standard.  The Psalmist prays that the Lord will give us understanding so that we will keep and obey the law with all our heart.  We seek our understanding in the law through Jesus Christ, through the foundation laid by Jesus Christ.  This foundation is based in an understanding that is deeper than the words of the law itself, it is in Christ’s embodiment of the law.

The basis of that deeper understanding is here, what we do we don’t do for ourselves.  What we do we don’t do to build individual temples.  We don’t do for us; we do for the glory of God.  That’s the deeper understanding; we do what we do for the glory of God.  Our understanding of God and God’s law and Christ’s embodiment of the law are all for one end, the glory of God.

In a way, by turning the other cheek we show others that what they can do to us does not hurt us like they would desire.  It also teaches us that as we turn from taking excessive punishment as a form of justice, we turn toward grace.  We don’t turn from punishment, we aren’t soft on crime, but we turn from the eye for an eye of the Torah to the command of Jesus.

By carrying a soldier’s pack two miles instead of one, we have actually taken power from the one who would conscript us.  In choosing to carry the wares an extra mile we have effectually chosen the first mile too.  This actually takes power from the oppressor.  This is counterintuitive, it goes against logic, but this entire passage moves like that.

There is an old Gary Larson “The Far Side” cartoon that shows this.  It’s a scene from the bowels of hell with two overseer devils looking over their dominion.  There are several men doing their work in anguish and, out of place, there is one minion whistling a happy tune moving his wheelbarrow through the depths of the underworld with a smile on his face and a glint in his eyes.  The caption is one devil saying to the other, “We’re just not getting through to that guy.”

Jesus wants us to be that guy, working joyfully for the glory of God as we are being wrung through the grinder of daily life.  By God’s grace and peace, Jesus wants us to be “that guy” who life can’t spit out at the end of the day.

When I took Driver's Education, the teachers were teaching defensive driving.  Their take on the whole issue of right of way was dealt with asking “who is supposed to yield the right of way?”  That wasn't the way we thought of it when we were fifteen, we always heard about who had the right of way and suddenly we were supposed to turn that thinking 180 degrees and think about yielding the right of way.

I came to think of it this way, I can be as right as I want.  I can be the one who should be allowed to go, but if someone fails to yield the right of way when they should, I can be as right as I want but that is of little consolation on the way to the hospital.

You have heard it said “I have a right...”  Jesus doesn’t tell us we have a right.  Jesus tells us we have a responsibility.  Jesus calls us to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect, but not perfection based in flawlessness.  Surely that’s tempting to lean toward since God is flawless, but that’s impossible for us and nobody knows that better than Jesus.

Instead, perfection has to do with relationships.  It has to do with righteousness between one and another.  It has to do with honesty and sincerity.  It has to do with authentically genuine relationships that reflect the new Torah lived in Christ the Lord.  Perfection deals in complete relationships that move us toward reconciliation instead of retribution, justice instead of vengeance.  It has to do with caring even for those who wish us harm so that as Matthew tells us we may be sons and daughters of our heavenly father.

Is this difficult?  Sure it is; this isn’t business as usual, not then and not now.  This is a new way of seeing the law.  This is a new way of dealing with others.  How difficult is it?  We need Jesus; we can only do this with the help of Jesus.  As scripture reminds us, anyone can love their friends; it takes God to show us how to love our enemies.

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[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol.. VIII, Leander E. Keck, Convener and Senior New Testament Editor, Nashvile, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 197.

[2] Walkenhorst, Bob, “Too Many Twenties.”  From the album “Skin” by The Rainmakers.

Go and Be Reconciled

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday February 13, 2011, the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
1Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

As many of you either saw or heard last Sunday, pop music diva Christina Aguilera “sang” the national anthem at Super Bowl XLV.  Well there were a lot of folks who were outraged by her rendition, wishing that singers of the anthem would just stick to the tune Francis Scott Key used when he put lyrics to melody in the first place.  It was reported by Us Weekly[1] that among the many Americans who felt this way, the most famous was former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.

According to a source, Governor Palin reportedly blasted Christina Aguilera’s disastrous performance of the national anthem at Super Bowl XLV calling Aguilera a “demanding beauty queen who’s clearly in over her head.” The report also mentioned the Governor wanting to “deport” Aguilera, after having “to suffer through a performance by a foreigner with a poor grasp of the English language.” Palin also levied criticism on the Obama administration for allowing “spicy Latin princesses” to do the jobs of American pop divas.

The source reported a radio interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity where the Governor says “Quite frankly, Sean, public figures must be held accountable for what they say,” explained Palin.  “Here’s another case of an airhead diva going on TV, running her mouth off, sounding like a fool.  She doesn’t understand something so basic about America, yet we’re supposed to tolerate her diva behavior?  Americans can see through that, Sean.”

These are pretty heavy words.  She even used the “F” word, fool.  But there’s one more thing you need to know about this, none of it was true.  The story was created by a satirical “news organization” called SuperTuesdayNews.com.[2]

The real Governor Palin later responded to the false reports. “I had no interview with Sean [Hannity] and I have never bashed Christina.  In fact,” Palin adds in an on the record interview with Us Weekly, “I’ve defended her by telling folks to back off the criticism of her mistake.”

This spoof of Governor Palin has been blown way out of proportion after media reported the former vice presidential candidate’s fabricated comments as fact.  It was comedy, it was satire, and it was taken for fact by “real” news organizations.

Anyone who says Raca, an ancient Aramaic insult, is answerable to the Sanhedrin.  But anyone who says, “You fool” will be in danger of the fire of hell.  If there is a problem with the written word it’s that it’s hard to detect sarcasm and anyone who has accidently insulted somebody online knows this.  SuperTuesdayNews.com was telling a joke, a joke that got lost on Us Weekly and everyone else who picked up this item as gospel truth.

SuperTuesdayNews.com was being mean for the sake of the joke.  By our reading, this would place them in danger of the fire of hell.  The only people on a slipperier slope would be those who repeated this story as truth, without first finding that it was a joke.

There are two parts to our gospel reading today.  The first we have just touched upon, injuring another.  Jesus tells those who have just heard the beatitudes, those who had just heard that they are salt and light, that if they are angry with their brother they are as subject to judgment as they would be if they murdered.  Insult your brother and you’re answerable to the Sanhedrin, but calling someone a fool, well, that makes God your judge.  This is expanded in the rest of our reading.

It’s easy to understand the injunctions against taking vows.  This is the heart of the commandment that says thou shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.  Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.  Don’t swear by anything because once your reputation is damaged all that is left is to try to earn back the trust you have lost.  Also taking oaths by greater things adds nothing to your word.  Demanding others take oaths by greater things simply means distrust.  So let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, anything else is either window dressing or a smoke screen.

As for the injunctions against adultery and divorce, these are landmines of our time.

Jesus tells us that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart.  If this causes you to sin, it is better to eliminate the part of the body responsible than to allow the possibility of sin.

Well, this is one of those times when something gets lost in the translation.  Let me explain this by comparing two levels of lust.  Let’s call the first “Gee, she’s (or he’s-your choice) kinda cute” and the second “Gee, how can I go all King David on this Bathsheba?”  The first type, noting someone is attractive, is not the lust of the original Greek language.  Doing something about it, as David did with Bathsheba, that’s a sin.  On top of that, considering how to do “The David” is a sin.  That’s what this passage is talking about.

Oh, and scholars agree that the self mutilation of this passage is an exaggeration, it’s just an expression used by Jesus to make sure the people understood how important this teaching was.  I’m willing to agree with them, but then again, the vast majority of these scholars were men as am I.  Men probably aren’t the most unbiased of judges on the whole “pluck it out/chop it off” matter.

The divorce statutes are even more difficult to interpret for our day and time.  It’s because so many of us are either divorced or have friends and family who are divorced.  This includes my family where among the five of us, two parents, two siblings, and me, there are seven divorces, so finding an interpretation that is faithful and pastoral means cutting away a lot of things that aren’t necessary to the core of this teaching.

That ground is here.  Jesus is teaching faithfulness.  I look to our reading from Deuteronomy when interpreting this passage.  Deuteronomy tells us to be obedient, not to bow down and worship other gods.  The passage ends with Moses declaring to the congregation to choose life so that you and your children may live.  This is our call, to choose life so that we all may live.

Divorce and adultery are about the ancient legal status that someone bestows upon another by their actions.  Whether it’s by infidelity or by legal certificate, it is about what one person in a relationship does to another.  What the passage is saying is that we are not to behave in a way that would cause dishonor to another, particularly someone we love.

Jesus is talking about relationships.  Jesus is talking about faithfulness.  Jesus is talking about choosing life not just for yourself, but for your whole family.  It’s about life that is wonderful and glorious, a delight in the eyes of God.

What it’s not about is life lived in abuse.  It is not about life lived where you wonder where your partner is, and with whom.  It’s not about worrying if you are going to survive your partner’s viciousness or carelessness.  It’s not about staying in marriage because it’s what the law requires.  It’s about relationships grounded in God’s loving kindness given without reservation to those who have not earned it, but it’s not about tolerating infidelity and horror.

The common bond of all of these specifics, murder and anger and adultery and divorce, and even oath taking, the common bond between these is that there is a higher calling than what the law calls us to live.  That higher calling is the law made and embodied in the living Torah that is Jesus the Christ.  It is Christ who tells us that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  It is about relationships lived in faithful gracious love with one another, and the truth that we often make this life more difficult than necessary.

The way we live into this new life is the second major part of our reading.

Earlier this week I got a facebook friend request from an elementary school buddy who I haven’t seen in thirty-five years.  He began, “Dear Paul, I’m sorry.”  Now, I expected the usual things someone says in a facebook friend request. I did not expect this and I had no idea the emotional impact that it would have on me.  A simple “Dear Paul, I’m sorry” made me reel.

He went on to say that after his family moved away, he had become messed up because of drugs.  He reminded me of a time at the old municipal swimming pool a few years later, we must have been about thirteen or so, and he said something about my weight. I said, “Thanks a lot.”

He wrote, “I never forgot how mean and wrong it was to say that and I still hurt really bad for having said it.”  He said he had tried to find me for the last few years on line and succeeded just last week.  He repeated his apology and asked me to forgive him.  He regretted that I was hurt and that he did not apologize then.

Jesus says “If you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there.  First go and be reconciled to your brother.”

This is what he did.  This is what God calls us to do.  But it is very important to note what he did and what Jesus says, “If you remember that your brother has something against you, you are to go and be reconciled.”  It doesn’t say we get to sit in self pity and wait for someone who has wronged us to come and make it right, it says to go out and seek who you have wronged, who we have wronged.  It says go and be reconciled.

Jesus does not call us to passively sit by waiting for the world to apologize for its injustices.  It calls us to go out and right the wrongs we have done against others.  Take my word for it, having been on both sides; these words can be difficult to say, but they are glorious to hear. It’s not easy, but it is glorious.

My response began, “Think nothing more of it.  I forgive you.”

This is something we do every week.  Every week we come together and pray a Confession of Sin.  Then we hear the Assurance of Pardon.

Today we prayed God’s compassion and mercy on us.  We prayed that we acknowledge God’s statutes and our way of replacing them with our own desires. We prayed God set us right in accord with his design for us.”

Then we heard the Assurance of Pardon, We boldly declare God will put the law within us, writing them on our hearts.  God will forgive our iniquity and remember our sin no more.[3]

We hear the Good News of the Gospel; through Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin preached that he is “stunned by people who… say, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins,’ as if it were a piece of cake.”  He continues “The Assurance of Pardon is what takes humility, because it means giving up your opinion of yourself and accepting someone else’s opinion of you.  It means allowing someone else to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.  It means that you recognize that finally your value is a gift, not an achievement.”[4]

Coffin says that he believes the Assurance of Pardon is the most exciting part of the worship service.  Yet there is another part of liturgy that I believe is just as exciting.

There is something called “Passing the Peace” which you may have participated in at another church or at Presbytery worship.  It isn’t a time to meet and greet one another; it is a time when after we confess our sin and receive the assurance of pardon people extend that same peace to one another.  People shake hands and hug, usually saying something like “Peace be with you” and are answered with something like “And also with you.”  It is a way that people in the church offer and share forgiveness received from God with each other.  It is a way people go and become reconciled one to another before coming to the altar.

The 2010 film “The Book of Eli”[5] ends with this prayer, this benediction if you will.  Denzel Washington’s Eli says:

“Dear Lord, thank you for giving me the strength and the conviction to complete the task you entrusted to me. Thank you for guiding me straight and true through the many obstacles in my path. And for keeping me resolute when all around seemed lost. Thank you for your protection and your many signs along the way. Thank you for any good that I may have done, I’m so sorry about the bad. Thank you for the friend I made. Please watch over her as you watched over me. Thank you for finally allowing me to rest. I’m so very tired, but I go now to my rest at peace knowing that I have done right with my time on this earth. I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.”

So be strong, be straight.  Lord, keep us on straight paths through the many obstacles life places in our way.  Thank you for keeping us when all seems lost.  Thank you for your protections and signs.  Thank you for new friends and watch over them as you have watched over us.  Be with us so that we may know the higher law that is your life and the good we do by it.  And when we stray, we are sorry about the bad and pray for your forgiveness and grace as you send us to go and be reconciled, to one another and to you.

---

[1] Oops! Sarah Palin Didn’t Call Christina Aguilera an Airhead,” http://www.popeater.com/2011/02/10/sarah-palin-christina-aguilera-super-bowl/, retrieved February 10, 2011.

[2] “Palin Says She’d Deport Christina Aguilera for Botching National Anthem,”

 http://www.supertuesdaynews.com/1/post/2011/02/palin-says-shed-deport-christina-aguilera-for-botching-national-anthem.html, retrieved February 10, 2011.

[3] Kirk, James G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.” Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001, page 33-34.

[4] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 312

[5] “The Book of Eli.” A Warner Brothers Movie, 2010.  The quote comes from the Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037705/quotes, retrieved February 11, 2011

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday July 11, 2010, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. If the church had a video projection system, I would have played this video before the sermon:



Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

If you know the lyrics, sing along. If you don’t, then just hum. Nobody is going to mind.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood; it’s a beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood; a neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
I’ve always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; since we’re together we might as well say:
“Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”
Won’t you please, won’t you please, please won’t you be my neighbor.[1]

New episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” were shown on PBS stations from 1970 until 2001 and on National Educational Television two years before that. Reruns can still be seen on many PBS stations including the one I saw this morning on KAFT.[2]

The show was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentleness. Episodes did not have a plot, but they did have a theme. They consisted of Rogers speaking directly to the viewer about various issues, taking the viewer on tours of factories, demonstrating experiments, crafts, and music, and interacting with his friends. The half-hour episodes were punctuated by a puppet segment chronicling occurrences in the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.”

At the beginning of each episode, Mister Rogers enters his television studio house singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” He hangs his suit jacket in a closet, puts on a zippered cardigan, and takes off his dress shoes to put on his sneakers. One of Rogers’ sweaters now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution, a testament to the cultural influence of his simple daily ritual.

Rogers covered a broad range of topics over the years, and the series did not shy away from issues that other children’s programming avoided. In fact, Rogers endeared himself to many when, on March 23, 1970, he dealt with the death of one of his pet goldfish. The series also dealt with competition, divorce, and war. Rogers returned to the topic of anger regularly and focused on peaceful ways of dealing with angry feelings.[3]

All of this happened in the context of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a mystical place where the imaginary fourth wall of the television screen magically disappeared for a half hour and we were all welcomed into a world of peace and grace.

Considering Mister Fred Rogers was a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an ordained Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacrament, welcoming everyone into a world of peace and grace was right up his alley.

So the expert in religious law came to test Jesus asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replies in true rabbinical fashion, asking a question when an answer is sought. “What is written in the Law?”

The lawyer answers this question by a perfect recitation from Leviticus and Deuteronomy[4] saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus affirms the lawyer’s answer saying, “Do this, and you will live.” The experts in the law commonly accepted that observance of the Torah was essential to inherit eternal life.[5] So when Jesus and the lawyer agree on this point, they share the truth of thousands of years of tradition.

But the lawyer’s questions are more than an academic or rabbinic exercise. He wants to justify himself. So he asks Jesus another question, “Who is my neighbor?” This is an important question, more important than we may suppose. What gets lost in the translation of Leviticus is that the original command to love the neighbor specifies “your kin” and “any of your people.”[6] So the lawyer wants to be justified that by helping his family, his people, and his nation he will inherit eternal life.

Then Jesus tells the legal expert a familiar little story and asks him another question, “So which of these three, the Priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

The lawyer answers, “The one who showed him mercy was a neighbor.” In saying this, the lawyer, the expert in the law tells the world that being a neighbor is about more than just being kin or members of the same nation. It has to do with action and it has to do with mercy. Being a neighbor now means more than it did in Leviticus. As a result, Jesus gives him his charge, “Go, and do likewise.”

Jesus shares the vision of inheriting eternal life written in the Torah with the lawyer. Then he shows him that the Living Torah, the person and the work and the word of Jesus Christ, expands the Torah given to Moses. Justification by the Torah now means that loving God and loving your neighbor are inseparable.[7] Being justified means more than just taking care of business as usual.

The hardest part about this story is that the holy men in the parable, the priest and the Levite, were doing what they were supposed to do. They were going to work. They were keeping their hands clean. They were doing what was right in the name of the Law. They followed the rules and abided by the regulations approved by the General Assembly, er, the Presbytery, er, the law handed down to Moses. They did the right thing, but by doing just what was right was no longer enough in the eyes of God.

To the Greco-Roman world, mercy was a character flaw; the ideal was justice. Since mercy involves providing unearned help or relief, it was contrary to justice. This unearned relief, we call it grace.

Sociologist Rodney Stark put it this way. “The notion that the gods care how we treat one another would have been dismissed as patently absurd. This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was something entirely new.”[8]

Mercy is the new benchmark in justification. Mercy is the new benchmark in being a neighbor. Mercy has a place in the administration of justice in the Christ’s kingdom. The ancient Greeks disagreed, but theirs is not the way to inherit eternal life. Our courts may disagree, but theirs is not the way to eternal life. The priests and the Levites met their obligations to the temple, but they didn’t act out of love. Only the despised Samaritan acted in accord with the living Torah.

Only the despised Samaritan showed love in an act of mercy. Only the loathed foreigner connected loving God and loving your neighbor as the way to being justified. Only the reviled outsider saw his brother in the man left beaten on the side of the road. Only the detested alien saw the way to justification through mercy. Only the abhorred stranger showed the divinely required attitude of mercy we are called to have toward one another. And all of this came from the mouth of a legal expert.

An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the Rabbi. “Could it be,” asked another, “when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” said the Rabbi. “Well, then what is it?” his pupils demanded. “It is when you look on someone’s face and can see… your brother. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”[9]

Eternal life and mercy; peace and grace; isn’t this what we want from our neighbors? We want people in our lives who show what it means to demonstrate the fullness of God’s mercy. We want people in our lives who act in ways that benefit all of us, not just a specific few. We want to know what it is to receive divine mercy, God’s divine loving-kindness. We must realize that this mercy arises out of a mutual relationship one for another, not just as a winner-take-all justice the ancient Greeks favored.

You all might remember this story Marie Bolerjack told:

She, Austin and the kids were going from Mississippi to Oklahoma to visit family. It was the mid 1960’s and the boys were still quite young. Well, it was about noonish when they hit Little Rock and the kids were hungry. Austin and Marie didn’t want to pull off the highway in Little Rock, so Marie promised the boys that they would get some lunch as soon as they got past the city. Well, being the mid 60’s there wasn’t one or six fast food places at every exit, so they ended up traveling quite a way before finding a little diner. They got out of the car, and I bet the boys were cheering as they went to the door. By this time, it was a little after one in the afternoon, they went into the diner and Marie asked if they are still serving lunch. The black woman behind the counter said “Sure honey, have a seat.”

As the afternoon went on, one at a time, several people, all black, came into the diner. They walked up to the woman at the counter, whispered something, and left. After this happened two or three times, it occurred to Marie that they were in a café for blacks. Oh. “But you know,” Marie said, “nobody made us feel uncomfortable. We had a nice lunch and got back on the road.”

Hearing this story, and knowing the volatile racial climate of Little Rock in the 60’s, this story is amazing. Who is my neighbor? To the woman running this diner, her neighbors were a family from Mississippi traveling across Arkansas who needed lunch. Austin and Marie became her neighbors as soon as she helped them on the side of the road.

The lawyer in the story accepts Jesus’ revision of the Torah. He learns that the one who shows mercy like the Samaritan is the neighbor, not those who share family or heritage like the priest and the Levite. What might have started as a theological exercise between the lawyer and teacher becomes more when the Torah comes to life in Jesus Christ.

When the law comes to life, we can no longer answer these questions like we’re taking a college entrance exam. We now have to answer the questions with our hands even more than we do with our heads. Jesus commands us to be good neighbors; loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves. On this the words of the Law and the prophets hang.

This is our call, this is our vocation. It is no longer enough just to do what the written law tells us; now there is more. We are called to this new word of discipleship when he charges the lawyer, “Go, and do likewise.”

So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day; since we’re together we might as well say: Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?

[1] Rogers, Fred, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Pittsburgh, PA: Family Communications, Inc., 1967.
[2] KAFT is the Arkansas Educational Television Network/Public Broadcasting System affiliate in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
[3] Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood, retrieved July 8, 2010
[4] Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5
[5] “Adlet and Blink,” Commentary section, from Homiletics Online, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=930000347, accessed June 10, 2007.
[6] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 427.
[7] Kittel, Gerhardt, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. vi, page 316
[8] Galloway, Paul, “How Jesus Won the West: Christianity became dominant because it offered better ideas and unexpected mercy,” The Lutheran, November 1998, 19.
[9] Thompson, Marjorie J. “Soul Feast” Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, 127.