Benediction (Plainsong #3)(38)

The light had gone out of the sky by now and the street lamps had come on and she rode, going back and forth, from pool of light to pool of light.





25


AFTERWARD IT WASN’T CLEAR what Lyle expected the sermon to accomplish. But he wasn’t even half-finished when some of the congregation, men mostly, hurrying their wives and children with them, but some women too, began to rise up from their pews and glare at him and walk out of the church.

The sermon came after the call to worship and the first hymn and after Wandajean Hall sang “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling” as a solo anthem in her thin sweet wavering soprano, and it came after the reading of the Bible text but before the offering and the doxology and the Lord’s Prayer and the benediction, because they never got that far in the normal order of worship. By that time the people who were so angry and outraged that they felt they had to leave had already marched out the big doors at the back of the sanctuary, leaving Lyle’s wife Beverly and their son John Wesley and the two Johnson women and the old usher and the remainder of the small congregation still sitting in the church, still looking around at one another in embarrassment and disbelief, many of them just as angry and outraged as the others had been but unwilling to make any display or public objection in church on Sunday morning, still waiting along with the pianist who was still seated down front at the piano.

It began simply enough. He gave the reading. He took up the Bible and stood out at a little distance from the pulpit. He didn’t often do that. But he had done it once or twice before so people were not immediately bothered or surprised by it. So he began to read to them without benefit of the barrier of the pulpit between him and them. Just his reading and the Bible. He didn’t wear a suit or suit coat this morning, not even a light summer suit. Instead he was wearing a white shirt open at the neck with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of black slacks and a black belt with a silver tip, his dark hair fallen as usual across his forehead. He looked good. There were women who came to church for that reason though they would never have said so.

The text was from Luke.

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. If you love only the people who love you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you receive a blessing?

He went on reading and came to the end of the text.

Love your enemies and do good to them, lend and expect nothing back. You will then have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High God. For He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.

Then he stopped and stood quietly and looked out at the congregation. The sanctuary was hot. The windows were open but it was a hot day and hot inside. Women fanned at their faces with the church bulletin. A car drove by in the street. There was birdsong from a nearby tree. He turned and set the Bible on the pulpit. Then he began to talk.

This passage, he said, is usually referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. Augustine first called it that. It appears in the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke but the texts differ somewhat. Matthew’s is over a hundred verses long. Luke’s is only some thirty verses. Matthew says Jesus sat and spoke to the multitudes and his disciples from a hill, a mount. The writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus stood on a level place and spoke there. Both Gospels begin with the Beatitudes. The Blesseds. In Matthew there are nine and in Luke four. But the most important of these Bible texts say essentially the same thing. These are the ones I’ve read just now. The crux of the matter for us. The soul of our lesson and the very essence of the teaching of Jesus.

Love your enemies. Pray for those who harm you. Turn the other cheek. Give away money and don’t expect it back.

But what is Jesus Christ talking about? He can’t mean this literally. That would be impossible. He must have been speaking of some utopian idea, a fantasy. He must be using a metaphor. Suggesting a sweet dream. Because all of us here today know better. We’re awake to reality and know the world wouldn’t permit such a thing. It never has and never will. We can be clear about that right now.

Because here we are at war again. And we know the inescapable images of war and violence so well. We’ve seen them all too often.

The naked young girl running in terror toward us, crying and screaming, away from fires behind her.

The boy in the hospital room with his little brother and their frightened mother. He’s been blinded, his face is scarred. Am I ugly now, Mother? he says.

We see the pictures of the headless body dumped out beside the road in a ditch.

We’ve seen the soldier, the black stiff grotesque thing that once was a man, burned now and hanged, dragged through the streets behind a truck.

We’ve watched in horror the human figures leaping out of the windows of the burning towers.

And so we know the satisfaction of hate. We know the sweet joy of revenge. How it feels good to get even. Oh, that was a nice idea Jesus had. That was a pretty notion, but you can’t love people who do evil. It’s neither sensible nor practical. It’s not wise to the world to love people who do such terrible wrong. There is no way on earth we can love our enemies. They’ll only do wickedness and hatefulness again. And worse, they’ll think they can get away with this wickedness and evil, because they’ll think we’re weak and afraid. What would the world come to?