2/16/58
Who Is My Neighbor? [Luke 10: 30-37].
Scripture: Read Malachi 2: 5-11; 3: 12-4.
Text: Malachi 2: 10a; “Have we not all one father? Has not One God created us?”
Brotherhood is a week on the American Church and community calendar. Brotherhood is an attitude of life that illumines the whole field of human relationships. Brotherhood is an ideal to be examined, adopted, practiced. And, like other ideals to be known and fulfilled, it is not as easy as it sounds. It is rooted in the religious conviction that we are all the creatures of one God; the sons and daughters of one spiritual Father; and that we are brothers quite aside from whether we think we like it or not.
We are glad to be brothers of those with whom we get along easily and well; we are reluctant to recognize our brotherhood with those who differ sharply from us in ideas, in appearance, in status, in aims. But, whether the family of mankind is serene or in turmoil, we are yet brothers one of another.
In the book of Malachi, the prophetic writer chides the priests of his time with carelessness of the Jewish law and with moral laxity. A fair number of the Hebrews had returned from the Babylonian exile to reestablish their little country. But times were hard, the earth was not fertile without the necessary rains. The temple was not yet being rebuilt as they had hoped and planned, because the struggle for bare existence took the time and strength of so many. Worst of all, the priestly leaders were not giving spiritual leadership by teaching or by example. And some were actually corrupt. The prophet cries out: “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?”
The words were addressed to spiritually needy Hebrews and their lax priests. But they call up other suggestions to our minds as well. The Hebrews were first conscious of their brotherhood with one another. But many of them came to see that if One God is the creator of all mankind, then there is a sense in which all of mankind are brothers. We have a difficult time with some of our relationships, and that is one reason why we need a stressing of our brotherhood.
A man and his British wife came out of a downtown church in a large American city, having just heard an eloquent sermon on brotherhood. As they step to the sidewalk, a fellow with fury in his eyes rushes up and strikes the man, knocking him down and then kicking him. The victim is a small man, hardly 5 feet in height, and unable to defend himself from the onslaught. A policeman on the corner turns his head and continues to direct traffic. Shocked onlookers merely stare at what is happening, and the assailant walks away unrestricted and unrestrained. Returning to the church, the victim relates the incident to one of the ministers who expresses regret but says that nothing can be done. The outrage stands without protest.
Some of the unreasonable details of the story become clearer when you know more facts. The man was not an American Negro, but a man from India with quite dark skin. He was in this country doing advanced study. The attacker must have been incensed to see a black man coming out of a supposedly “white” church. The city is one in which segregation is practiced. The man is a Hindu, and says, after this encounter within “Christian” community, that he plans to remain a Hindu.
Race relations is not the only area in which brotherhood needs to be applied. We need it in our relations with those of other nations and other religions -- not as a means of leveling off all people, (heaven forbid!), but of intelligent understanding of each other, so that our common needs may be recognized and our essential differences intelligently understood and respected.
And for brotherhood to have any real meaning, it must begin with me and with you -- with each one of us.
[Continue: “Brotherhood begins with us,” sermon of 2/19/56]
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 16, 1958.