| May 14, 2000 |
Vol. III, No. 2
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A few years ago a Universalist preacher, Robert Fulgham, wrote “Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you... When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together...”
That’s not all he wrote, but that gets his point across. Well, I didn’t go to kindergarten and I missed the Sunday school sand pile. But I think I did him one better. What he learned in kindergarten, I learned from my mother. And a lot of other useful stuff, as well.
I learned that Sunday is the Lord’s day, Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:1-2. Depending on which Sunday it is, it may be “Mother’s Day,” or “Father’s Day,” or somebody’s birthday. But mostly, it’s the Lord’s day. If company came, we went to church. If there was a family reunion, we went to church first. If some of us were sick, those of us who were well enough went to church. (Of course, if the sick person were so sick someone needed to stay with him, one of us would stay.) If somebody was celebrating a birthday or whatever, we went to church first. Sunday was the Lord’s day.
I learned respect. Say “yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” “yes, mam,” and “no, mam.” I was not required to say “sir” and “mam” to my parents, but I knew better than to say “yeah” to them when I meant “yes.” I was taught not to talk back to my mother or to my dad. I tried it a few times, but I paid for it. And I learned not to do it. “You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man...” (Lev. 19:32). “Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters...” (1 Tim. 5:1-2). “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders... (1 Peter 5:5).
Mama cautioned me. “Don’t gamble. You’re not likely to win. And you can’t win without hurting somebody else.” “Don’t cheat. How would you like to be doctored by a man who cheated his way through medical school? How would you like your freedom to hinge on a lawyer who cheated his way through law school?” “Don’t trade.” It took me a while to figure this one out. I got in trouble once because I traded a rubber lizard my grandpa gave me for a real looking policeman’s badge. My mother made me give the badge back, but the boy I traded with wouldn’t let me have the lizard back. I’m not sure why Mama thought trading was so bad -- but I guess she knew if you didn’t cheat and you didn’t lie, it put you at a decided disadvantage in the trading world.
I learned that the Bible is the word of God. That it is the standard by which we’ll be judged at the end of the world. Of course, Mama thought she was right religiously, but she taught me to read and study for myself. She didn’t always agree with my conclusions, but she respected my study and my honesty. She never liked for me to initiate a discussion of our differences, but several times, she sought my judgment and my counsel, listened attentively, sometimes changed her mind, but always respected my study and my honesty.
I eventually learned that nobody but Jesus would ever love me more than she did. There’s just something about a mother’s love that is impossible to duplicate. I lost Mama in 1981. A few years ago, Lewis Grizzard wrote a book with a title he got from a telephone company commercial. Alabama football coach Bear Bryant did a commercial for AT&T a few weeks before Mother’s Day. The script called for his last line to be, to be, “Don’t forget to call your mama.” Coach Bryant read that line, then ad-libbed, “I wish I could call mine.”
Sometime back, I somehow got to thinking about my friends. Every place I’ve lived, I’ve had a few close friends. (I believe even preachers have a right to have a few close friends. I believe even Jesus did.) I got to wondering, “Who is the best friend I have on earth?” I thought about it for a few hours. I thought of friends in Liberty Hill, Texas where I grew up. I thought of my friends where I’ve preached, in Louisiana, in Pennsylvania, in Texas. Who would really go to bat for me if I needed their help? Who would put up with more out of me than any other person? And though I have some other close friends, the answer was clear. My best friend is Betty, the mother of my children.
This is the Lord’s day. Most of all I honor my Lord, the best friend I have in the universe. But He said for us to honor our fathers and our mothers, and so, today, I especially call attention to the honor, respect and love that is due our own mothers and the mothers of our children. “Don’t forget to call your mama. I wish I could call mine.”
--CRJ
When scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem to Galilee, they asked Jesus this question: “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread” (Matt. 15:3).
Their concern was not a matter of hygiene. It was a matter which their concept of religion made necessary. True, the Law of Moses under which they lived involved certain food restrictions and provided for numerous washings. Under Moses’ law a person who touched a dead body or the carcass of an unclean animal was himself “unclean” till evening. There were certain washings of vessels, and of the human body itself, required in certain cases of uncleanness, as mentioned in such passages as Lev. 11. Modern medical and scientific scholars recognize many of these so-called “ceremonial” restrictions in Moses’ law as being far ahead of their time. Moses and his generation knew nothing of bacteria or germs or viral infections, yet as God said to them, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and so what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you” (Ex. 15:26).
From the time of Moses to the time of Jesus there arose what came to be known as the “tradition of the elders.” This was a vast collection of oral additions and explanations that gradually became attached to the Law as it was taught. For instance, it was God who told the Israelites not to work on the Sabbath. Over the centuries, “the elders” added to and elaborated upon God’s original Sabbath law to decide for every devout Jew what was and what was not to be allowed on that day. Jesus never questioned or disregarded God’s law -- but He frequently departed from man-made regulations added by the scribes and Rabbis over the centuries.
Today, we live under the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament Scriptures, and all such restrictions of clean and unclean foods, etc., have been abolished. “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4-5).
Of course, common sense and proper respect for our physical bodies which have been purchased with the precious blood of Jesus, 1 Cor. 6:19-20, should be sufficient to cause us to practice good rules of physical hygiene, but no one should make such hand washing or dish washing a matter of religious law. The only physical washing of the New Testament system of religion is New Testament baptism which puts us in contact with the death (blood) of Christ, which in turn washes away our sins. See John 3:5; Eph. 5:26; Rom. 6:3-5; Titus 3:5; Rev. 1:5.
--CRJ