Pastockwell's Blog

I wonder what happened to being neighborly in this political season. I have observed the political ads over the last few weeks as the parties have ramped up the rhetoric. Each side condemns to other of being off base from the wishes of the people, or the opponent has done some dastardly deed. I know this kind of campaigning is not new. However, it seems especially hateful in this year’s elections. One side calls the President a Nazi or a socialist. The other side calls the Tea Party members wacky and crazy.

Neighborliness has been the victim of this election cycle. We are mired in a great recession with people out of work and instead of working together to get out of this recession; we blame each side of the political issues and stagnate the country’s recovery. Who is my neighbor confounds us as we debate whether an Islamic mosque can be built near ground zero. We are lost in a morass of greed because of healthcare costs and TARP moneys and stimulus funds and what organizations and countries are contributing funds to campaigns. Can we be neighbors to those who truly need help? And how far do we go in giving help?

I guess my father’s sermon from many years ago can still offer some advice. The issue of ‘who is my neighbor’ was so important to him that he gave this sermon on eight different occasions. I sure hope I would be willing to help when seeing a “neighbor” in distress. I haven’t always been so inclined. Read the sermon and let me know what you think.

“True Neighborliness”

One of the best known and most beloved stories in the entire world is that of the Good Samaritan. It is so universally received, not only for its deep teaching of a universal and Godly truth, but also because of its innate simplicity and eternal beauty.

The story is one of character and depth. It begins with a theological controversy and ends in a description of “first aid” as a roadside. It arises in a question of eternal life and ends with a payment of room and board at a hotel.

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” was asked by an expert of the Jewish law. The scribe was not laying a trap; rather he was putting the new teacher to the test. Perhaps in self-confidence and conceit he was trying to head our Lord into a debate. It was most disconcerting to have Jesus reply, “What is written in the Law?” “How readest thou?” as if to say, “The law is your profession. You ought to know.” But the scribe was not to be caught short and rallied from the retort and recited smoothly, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God… and thy neighbor as thy self.” Then came the conclusive word: “Continually do that and thou shalt live.”

The scribe was placed in rather a poor light. He appears to have asked a needless question, who sufficient answer was the best known pronouncement of the law in which he was an expert. It was a sorry end to a promising debate. The scribe felt that he must absolve himself in the eyes of the bystanders. He must shoe Jesus that he was not without discernment. Jesus’ reply, as he would demonstrate, was far from conclusive. So ‘desiring to justify himself,” he said, “And who is my neighbor?”

It was a clever thrust, for it impaled Jesus on one of the sharpest questions of His age. The Jews did not regard a Gentile as a neighbor. How would Jesus answer? Was the lowly outcast Samaritan a neighbor? —Was a publican? — Or a sinner? Where did the line run? Jesus had shown strangely enough, a friendship foe the outcast: How would He define a “neighbor?”

So Jesus defined a neighbor in a story which lays its constraint on the conscience of mankind. He lifted the question out of the atmosphere of controversy, since in that atmosphere real questions can never be settled, and set it down — where? — on a dangerous road in Palestine.

“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” The road between the two cities would through mountainous country, whose limestone caves offered fine shelter to robber bands that preyed on the travelers. The road became known as the “Bloody Pass.” Many among Jesus’ hearers had traveled it. They listened and saw the “certain man” stripped, beaten and left half dead.

And then the story went on. “By chance a certain priest was going that way.” The chance or coincidence was in the parable, not in the purpose of the Teacher. He was moving with unerring intuition, dissecting with sure fingers the motive so the men. The priest was a fellow Jew and withal a pillar of the Temple. By birth and by sacred calling he was a neighbor to the robbed and wounded man, but he left him to his fate. And in like manner a Levite “… a door keeper in the house of God, a member of the hereditary order from which were chosen the singers in the Temple choirs — a neighbor to the life. Yet he too passed by on the other side.

“But a certain Samaritan —“He was a half breed, of a race which the Jews counted religiously in disrepute and with which they had “no dealings.” But “when he saw him, he was moved with compassion.”

In print the conduct of the priest and Levite seem monstrous, but in the print of our own experience it assumes a different color. Can we be sure that we would never play their part? Perhaps they were too busy with other good works. Perhaps they shrank, as we naturally do, from getting mixed up in such a case. Moreover, it was better to cure injustice at the source; better even if one man’s wounds went untended, to lend voice and influence to secure strong military protection thereafter along the dangerous road. Or how did they know that the victim was not a robber himself, a victim of a feud. There were a hundred good excuses for their callousness. If it was monstrous for them the quench sudden uprising of sympathy, the monstrous mood is very commonplace. Our diffused compassions are not often brought to the focus of actual help in an actual need. We herald the dawn of a new earth more easily than we lend our fingers to binding up present and particular wounds.

“And who is my neighbor?” To ask the question is a condemnation. True neighborliness is not curious to know where boundaries run; it cares little for boundaries as sun and rain care for the contours of our maps.. It seeks not for limits, but for opportunities.

“Who is my neighbor?” Nearness does not make neighborliness, the priest and Levite ere near both by race and by office, and the Samaritan, by race and by office, was remote. People may live, divided only by a narrow wall, and yet not be neighbors. People may live with no intervening wall, and yet not be neighbors. Only the eyes and the spirit of the Samaritan make neighborliness.

“Who is my neighbor?” “I do not know,” Jesus retorts; “But life will reveal him to you. He is not of one class or nation. He is anybody in need. You will find him as you journey. You will come upon him by chance. He is not of this or that religious allegiance; he is not a sinner or a saint. He is not brutish or refined. He is ‘A certain man’ — any man needy at your roadside. The parable goes on to tell us that true neighborliness has three definite qualities.

The neighbor had “insight of sympathy.” He was the only man traveling on the road who really saw the victim of the robbers. The priest and Levite saw a bruised and battered man but they did not see a man made in their own likeness. Rarely do we see people and rarely do we wish to really see them. We are content to look upon the armor we wrap around them to excuse our ignorance or selfishness. We say he is American; he is German,; or a negro. We label them Catholic or Protestant. Rarely does ur sight pierce beyond the accidents of wealth or poverty. Rarely do we discover a human being, one desirous of love, affection, and kindness. Max Mueller has written that to the Greek every foreigner was a barbarian, to the Jew, every alien was a “gentile dog”; and the Mahometan, every stranger was an infidel. Then Jesus came, and erased these condemning titles from the dictionaries of mankind, and wrote in their stead, “brother.” The stricken man was brother to the Samaritan because the stricken man was also human. It si required of a neighbor that he shall pull aside the armor long enough to see “a certain man.”

Then secondly, the model neighbor rendered a “personal service.” It would have been easier to be compassionate by proxy — to have phoned the hospital and have them send out an ambulance. But the Samaritan bound up the wounds with his own hands. He poured in oil and wine. He placed the unfortunate on his own beast. He might have paid toll the customary charities and held himself aloof. He might have sat the committee and directed relief from afar. But in giving help he gave himself.

It would be absurd to speak against any of the organized charities we have in the land. Charity need channels. Unguided pity like unguided water stagnates into a malarial swamp. But the wellspring of neighborliness is personality in the strictest sense of the word — the spirit of the individual. “I may hire a man to do some work, but I can never hire a man to do my work,” said Dwight L. Moody. There must be personal service rendered to have the true spirit of brotherly love. “If I give all my goods to feed the poor and have not love, it profiteth me nothing” — and it profits the poor hardly more. Life demands that we choose a road through life and act the neighbor to those who fall by the wayside.

Then thirdly, the model neighbor rendered a “thorough service.” Beginning to help, he saw it through. Of spasmodic and inadequate relief it has been wittily said that it creates one-half the misery it relieves, but cannot relieve one-half the misery it creates. But the Samaritan’s love was painstaking and complete. He made himself responsible even for the prolongation of help beyond the limits of probable need. “Whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back, will repay thee.” Such love is costly. His beast was weary and his saddle stained with blood, property rights surrendered at the demands of love. His journey was broken and his business errand hindered; profits capitulated to human need. The Samaritan suffered, but he counted the suffering for joy. It was a thorough job done. He did not start something and then leave it half done. He set forth his true character; the quality of which is eternal life.

One thing is to be remembered in all this. The Samaritan spirit is not to be conceived as merely humaneness or as a substitute for religion. True religion in its outworking is neighborliness, and neighborliness in its final implications is religion. A religion which “passes by on the other side” is a mockery, not a faith. “Kindness is enough.” Let him remember rather that Jesus fashioned the parable from the fiber of His own spirit; that Jesus died as a Good Samaritan at the world’s darkest roadside; and that the fountain head of the motive of Jesus is found in that mystic depth from which He said: “I and my father are one.”

“and he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And He said unto him. Thou has answered tight: do this and thou shalt live.”

The Reverend Norman Stockwell – Sept. 3, 1944 at Jerome, Gooding, and Shoshone, Idaho. Sept. 16, 1945 at Navy Chapel in Long Beach, California. Aug. 22, 1946 at St. Thomas in Taunton, Massachusetts. Nov. 14, 1948 at Palouse, Washington. June 10, 1956, Aug. 31, 1958, and Aug. 27, 1961 at Twin Falls, Idaho. 

I wonder what happened to being neighborly in this political season. I have observed the political ads over the last few weeks as the parties have ramped up the rhetoric. Each side condemns to other of being off base from the wishes of the people, or the opponent has done some dastardly deed. I know this kind of campaigning is not new. However, it seems especially hateful in this year’s elections. One side calls the President a Nazi or a socialist. The other side calls the Tea Party members wacky and crazy.

Neighborliness has been the victim of this election cycle. We are mired in a great recession with people out of work and instead of working together to get out of this recession; we blame each side of the political issues and stagnate the country’s recovery. Who is my neighbor confounds us as we debate whether an Islamic mosque can be built near ground zero. We are lost in a morass of greed because of healthcare costs and TARP moneys and stimulus funds and what organizations and countries are contributing funds to campaigns. Can we be neighbors to those who truly need help? And how far do we go in giving help?

I guess my father’s sermon from many years ago can still offer some advice. The issue of ‘who is my neighbor’ was so important to him that he gave this sermon on eight different occasions. I sure hope I would be willing to help when seeing a “neighbor” in distress. I haven’t always been so inclined. Read the sermon and let me know what you think.

“True Neighborliness”

One of the best known and most beloved stories in the entire world is that of the Good Samaritan. It is so universally received, not only for its deep teaching of a universal and Godly truth, but also because of its innate simplicity and eternal beauty.

The story is one of character and depth. It begins with a theological controversy and ends in a description of “first aid” as a roadside. It arises in a question of eternal life and ends with a payment of room and board at a hotel.

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” was asked by an expert of the Jewish law. The scribe was not laying a trap; rather he was putting the new teacher to the test. Perhaps in self-confidence and conceit he was trying to head our Lord into a debate. It was most disconcerting to have Jesus reply, “What is written in the Law?” “How readest thou?” as if to say, “The law is your profession. You ought to know.” But the scribe was not to be caught short and rallied from the retort and recited smoothly, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God… and thy neighbor as thy self.” Then came the conclusive word: “Continually do that and thou shalt live.”

The scribe was placed in rather a poor light. He appears to have asked a needless question, who sufficient answer was the best known pronouncement of the law in which he was an expert. It was a sorry end to a promising debate. The scribe felt that he must absolve himself in the eyes of the bystanders. He must shoe Jesus that he was not without discernment. Jesus’ reply, as he would demonstrate, was far from conclusive. So ‘desiring to justify himself,” he said, “And who is my neighbor?”

It was a clever thrust, for it impaled Jesus on one of the sharpest questions of His age. The Jews did not regard a Gentile as a neighbor. How would Jesus answer? Was the lowly outcast Samaritan a neighbor? —Was a publican? — Or a sinner? Where did the line run? Jesus had shown strangely enough, a friendship foe the outcast: How would He define a “neighbor?”

So Jesus defined a neighbor in a story which lays its constraint on the conscience of mankind. He lifted the question out of the atmosphere of controversy, since in that atmosphere real questions can never be settled, and set it down — where? — on a dangerous road in Palestine.

“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” The road between the two cities would through mountainous country, whose limestone caves offered fine shelter to robber bands that preyed on the travelers. The road became known as the “Bloody Pass.” Many among Jesus’ hearers had traveled it. They listened and saw the “certain man” stripped, beaten and left half dead.

And then the story went on. “By chance a certain priest was going that way.” The chance or coincidence was in the parable, not in the purpose of the Teacher. He was moving with unerring intuition, dissecting with sure fingers the motive so the men. The priest was a fellow Jew and withal a pillar of the Temple. By birth and by sacred calling he was a neighbor to the robbed and wounded man, but he left him to his fate. And in like manner a Levite “… a door keeper in the house of God, a member of the hereditary order from which were chosen the singers in the Temple choirs — a neighbor to the life. Yet he too passed by on the other side.

“But a certain Samaritan —“He was a half breed, of a race which the Jews counted religiously in disrepute and with which they had “no dealings.” But “when he saw him, he was moved with compassion.”

In print the conduct of the priest and Levite seem monstrous, but in the print of our own experience it assumes a different color. Can we be sure that we would never play their part? Perhaps they were too busy with other good works. Perhaps they shrank, as we naturally do, from getting mixed up in such a case. Moreover, it was better to cure injustice at the source; better even if one man’s wounds went untended, to lend voice and influence to secure strong military protection thereafter along the dangerous road. Or how did they know that the victim was not a robber himself, a victim of a feud. There were a hundred good excuses for their callousness. If it was monstrous for them the quench sudden uprising of sympathy, the monstrous mood is very commonplace. Our diffused compassions are not often brought to the focus of actual help in an actual need. We herald the dawn of a new earth more easily than we lend our fingers to binding up present and particular wounds.

“And who is my neighbor?” To ask the question is a condemnation. True neighborliness is not curious to know where boundaries run; it cares little for boundaries as sun and rain care for the contours of our maps.. It seeks not for limits, but for opportunities.

“Who is my neighbor?” Nearness does not make neighborliness, the priest and Levite ere near both by race and by office, and the Samaritan, by race and by office, was remote. People may live, divided only by a narrow wall, and yet not be neighbors. People may live with no intervening wall, and yet not be neighbors. Only the eyes and the spirit of the Samaritan make neighborliness.

“Who is my neighbor?” “I do not know,” Jesus retorts; “But life will reveal him to you. He is not of one class or nation. He is anybody in need. You will find him as you journey. You will come upon him by chance. He is not of this or that religious allegiance; he is not a sinner or a saint. He is not brutish or refined. He is ‘A certain man’ — any man needy at your roadside. The parable goes on to tell us that true neighborliness has three definite qualities.

The neighbor had “insight of sympathy.” He was the only man traveling on the road who really saw the victim of the robbers. The priest and Levite saw a bruised and battered man but they did not see a man made in their own likeness. Rarely do we see people and rarely do we wish to really see them. We are content to look upon the armor we wrap around them to excuse our ignorance or selfishness. We say he is American; he is German,; or a negro. We label them Catholic or Protestant. Rarely does ur sight pierce beyond the accidents of wealth or poverty. Rarely do we discover a human being, one desirous of love, affection, and kindness. Max Mueller has written that to the Greek every foreigner was a barbarian, to the Jew, every alien was a “gentile dog”; and the Mahometan, every stranger was an infidel. Then Jesus came, and erased these condemning titles from the dictionaries of mankind, and wrote in their stead, “brother.” The stricken man was brother to the Samaritan because the stricken man was also human. It si required of a neighbor that he shall pull aside the armor long enough to see “a certain man.”

Then secondly, the model neighbor rendered a “personal service.” It would have been easier to be compassionate by proxy — to have phoned the hospital and have them send out an ambulance. But the Samaritan bound up the wounds with his own hands. He poured in oil and wine. He placed the unfortunate on his own beast. He might have paid toll the customary charities and held himself aloof. He might have sat the committee and directed relief from afar. But in giving help he gave himself.

It would be absurd to speak against any of the organized charities we have in the land. Charity need channels. Unguided pity like unguided water stagnates into a malarial swamp. But the wellspring of neighborliness is personality in the strictest sense of the word — the spirit of the individual. “I may hire a man to do some work, but I can never hire a man to do my work,” said Dwight L. Moody. There must be personal service rendered to have the true spirit of brotherly love. “If I give all my goods to feed the poor and have not love, it profiteth me nothing” — and it profits the poor hardly more. Life demands that we choose a road through life and act the neighbor to those who fall by the wayside.

Then thirdly, the model neighbor rendered a “thorough service.” Beginning to help, he saw it through. Of spasmodic and inadequate relief it has been wittily said that it creates one-half the misery it relieves, but cannot relieve one-half the misery it creates. But the Samaritan’s love was painstaking and complete. He made himself responsible even for the prolongation of help beyond the limits of probable need. “Whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back, will repay thee.” Such love is costly. His beast was weary and his saddle stained with blood, property rights surrendered at the demands of love. His journey was broken and his business errand hindered; profits capitulated to human need. The Samaritan suffered, but he counted the suffering for joy. It was a thorough job done. He did not start something and then leave it half done. He set forth his true character; the quality of which is eternal life.

One thing is to be remembered in all this. The Samaritan spirit is not to be conceived as merely humaneness or as a substitute for religion. True religion in its outworking is neighborliness, and neighborliness in its final implications is religion. A religion which “passes by on the other side” is a mockery, not a faith. “Kindness is enough.” Let him remember rather that Jesus fashioned the parable from the fiber of His own spirit; that Jesus died as a Good Samaritan at the world’s darkest roadside; and that the fountain head of the motive of Jesus is found in that mystic depth from which He said: “I and my father are one.”

“and he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And He said unto him. Thou has answered tight: do this and thou shalt live.”

The Reverend Norman Stockwell – Sept. 3, 1944 at Jerome, Gooding, and Shoshone, Idaho. Sept. 16, 1945 at Navy Chapel in Long Beach, California. Aug. 22, 1946 at St. Thomas in Taunton, Massachusetts. Nov. 14, 1948 at Palouse, Washington. June 10, 1956, Aug. 31, 1958, and Aug. 27, 1961 at Twin Falls, Idaho.

Pride can be a good thing. I am the proud grandfather of two adorable boys, almost 5 and three months. I revel in watching them as they grow. I feel their love when they talk to me. And yes, the three-month-old talks. He has his own language, of course, which is impossible to translate. I am a proud person who has accomplished much in my life. I have five talented, successful children and a loving wife. Retirement from public school teaching is great.
What bothers me about pride is watching and listening to people who expound upon their accomplishments and declare that no one is a good as they are. Self-righteous, hypocritical snobs who declare they have the only right answers to questions which have no right answer. I must be careful so that I do not join that group. Hypocrisy abounds in our political season this year and whereas I do have my favorites in this state, other states will face a daunting task of sifting through the minutia of promises given but unfulfilled.
My father’s preached about the sin of pride in a sermon given in 1950 in Moscow, Idaho. I think it speaks to the challenge we all have when it comes to being human and mostly self-serving. When I think about pride and greed and the effects they have on us as a society, I know I have much to learn. Enjoy the words from 60 years ago which still ring true today.

The Sin of Pride
“God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are. Luke 18:11
In the Gospel for today Jesus tells a little story which must have shocked those who first heard it. We know it so well that it makes little impression on us. We expect no good of the Pharisees, and we know that Jesus was very friendly toward publicans and sinners. But the impression this story made upon those who first heard it was just the opposite, because the Pharisees were the best people of the time. They really were. They were not all hypocrites. Jesus never said they were. They were a good deal like the Puritans in New England. They sincerely wished to purify the Jewish religion, and to lift it to as a high a plan as possible. Jesus refused to join any of the parties into which the Jewish religion was divided — The Sadducees, who were quislings, who ran the Temple and robbed the people who worshipped there, and who were collaborationists with the Romans, the Zealots; who were terrorists, just like those in Palestine today, patriotic, but misguided; or the Essenes, who lived in the desert — apart from the life of the world. This may sound strange, but it is true, that the people whose views were nearest those of Jesus were Pharisees, that is the best of them. Therefore, this parable shocked all the people who heard it.
I think we can bet get the real effect of it by trying to imagine how Jesus might tell it if He were here today. I think He would say something like this. “One Sunday morning two men came to church. One of them was a vestryman, who walked up to his pew and knelt in prayer. He said a formal prayer, but what he was really thinking was this: ‘It is most gratifying to be an influential member of this parish and to have been able to do so much to help support it. I am thankful that because of my leadership the Every Member Canvas was so successful, and that because of my generous gift the people of parish were inspired to raise the salary of our rector. I certainly thank the Lord that I have been able to accomplish so much for His church, and that I have been strong enough to resist so many temptations to which others have yielded. Thank the Lord that I am not that man I just passed in the back pew. I wonder what he’s doing here anyhow. He’s a saloon-keeper and has a gambling-joint on the side. He’s been in jail at least once.’
The man in the back pew had not been to church since he sang in the choir many years ago. But he followed the service, and all through the service, there was just one thought in his mind, ‘O Lord, I have made a mess of my life. Please help me to be a better man.’
I tell you, God has more use for that man than for the man who had done so much for the church, and who was so well satisfied with himself.
Told this way, the parable is something of a shock, but no more so than it was when Jesus first told it. In saying that God was more pleased wit the publican than the Pharisee, it almost seemed, did it not, as if Jesus was condemning righteousness and praising sin.
But He did not mean to condemn the good deeds of the Pharisees nor to praise the sins of the publican. What wa wrong with the Pharisee was not his good deeds, but his attitude toward them, his complete satisfaction with them. And what were right with the publican were not his sins, but his attitude toward them. He wanted to confess them and get rid of them, and rise above them.
Pride is the greatest of all the sins because it is the most selfish. Like no other sin, it separates us from others and lifts us above them. Highway robbers, gamblers, drunkards, harlots, can enjoy their sins together, and share with each other the pleasure they get out of them. But the proud person cannot share his pride with others. No one would be proud of having a million dollars if everyone else had the same. No, the proud man glories in the fact that he has more than anyone else. He is proud because he thinks that he is a better man than anyone else. In school he is not proud because he is bright and has passed his examination with a good mark. He is proud because his is the smartest pupil in the class, or thinks he is.
And the proud person seldom realizes that he is committing this great sin. The Pharisee in the Temple or the proud man in the church thought they had good reason to be satisfied with themselves. But how we hate this pride, this conceit, when someone else has it. We come home from a party and complain that someone pushed himself forward and wanted to do all the talking. What really troubles us is that we wanted to be the center of things. We condemn the other man’s pride just because we ourselves have so much of it. We hate pride in others because it interferes with our own pride.
How can we be delivered from this great sin, the greatest sin because it separates us from our fellow men, because it leads us to despise them, to think that we are the center of the universe about which everything should turn.
The first step to true Christian humility is to realize that neither god nor the world owes us anything. As St. Paul so truly says, everything that we have was given to us. Instead of sitting down and glorying in the wonderful things that we have been able to accomplish, let us look at our inheritance, the teaching we have received from our parents, from our church, the numberless blessings that have come to us, and confess that we have not done one-half of what would have been possible if we had lived up to our opportunities.
There need be no morbid humiliation of ourselves. We do not need to call ourselves “vile earth and miserable sinners” No; we are children of God, which means that we belong to the Royal Family. We are a “chosen race, the royal priesthood, the consecrated nation, God’s own people.” But because we are that, we must not be proud of ourselves, and exalt ourselves above the less privileged. We are God’s chosen People, but for one reason, “That we may declare the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into His wonderful light.”
There are two helpful means of keeping ourselves humble. The first is to realize that everything we have, everything we have done, we owe in some measure to someone else. There are some foolish people who themselves “self-made men.” They are independent souls who say that they owe nothing to anyone. But let us sit down sometime and ask ourselves just how much we have done all by ourselves and how much was given to us. We may have certain natural gifts and talents. We owe those to our parents and our ancestors from whom we have some sort of an education.
Somebody besides ourselves taught us a good deal. And how about those experiences which some people call chance and others call the Providence of God, which have completely altered our lives? We happened to meet a man on a certain day who recommended us for a job, or who gave us an idea which we successfully worked out. No, once we start to analyze our loves, there is very little left of which we can say, “This I did all by myself, with help and advice from no one, and I alone deserve all the credit.
The second cure for pride is to remember how many souls there are greater, more worthy than we are, and how there is one great soul before whom we are but dust. The moment we begin to feel proud of ourselves, satisfied with what we have accomplished, let us stand beside Jesus Christ, and how we shrink. If we think that no one has suffered more bravely than we have all manner of trials and sacrifices, let us stand a moment beside the Cross of Calvary, and we dare not presume to call anything that we have suffered a Cross. If we think that we have stood up pretty bravely against misrepresentation and slander, let us stand a moment beside our Lord before Pilate. Whenever we are tempted to pride, we have about to stand beside the Master and we shall have to say, as Peter did, “I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
Pride is the greatest sin because it is the most selfish. It is the one sin which separates us from others and makes us despise them. It is the most dangerous sin because we so seldom recognize it ourselves, though we cannot stand it in others. The cure is to realize how small we are, how much we owe to God and to God’s children, and best of all, to stand at our full height beside Jesus Christ, and discover how very small we really are.
There isn’t a man living who can honestly thank God that he isn’t as other men are.
The Reverend Norman Stockwell August 20, 1950 – Moscow, Idaho

A real cleansing
On Sunday the priest at my church gave a sermon about the lepers who approached Jesus and asked to be cleansed of their infirmity. Leprosy has mostly been eradicated from the major disease lists of the world. However, pockets of high endemicity still exist in parts of the poorest countries of the world. So what was leprosy in the ancient world? The priest in his sermon explained that any skin malady was considered leprosy. Today, we can easily control Hansen’s disease, as well as serious skin problems such as acne, eczema or psoriasis. So what is our leprosy today?
Humankind mistreated the lepers of Jesus time, forcing them from society through the legal isolation declared by the high priests. Who do we isolate and debase today because of their difference from the rest of us? As a Christian I live by the premise of loving all my fellow humans. I do not always agree with their activities or lifestyles. However, I do get to choose my own lifestyle and how I choose to act. Politically, I am a progressive who revels in the idea God wants us to learn. But I have listened to rancorous political ads and candidates who vilify people who do not fit their idea of proper people.
Whether a person is straight or gay, tall or short, black or white, obese or slim, why do we vilify people by ostracizing some who are minorities of some sort? We can be cruel to a person who does not fit into a belief or tenet of our social strata. Being a Christian means I reveal my faith to others. I do not force it upon them. I am not to condemn others who are Islamic, Jewish, or followers any other religion. I do not condemn atheists or agnostics.
Jesus sent the lepers to the priests, a proper action so they could rejoin society. Only one turned back proclaiming his thanks. Jesus declared his faith made him whole. Funny, isn’t it, that the leper who was made whole was an outcast Samaritan. Guess we all need to be sure we are not condemning anyone.
My father’s sermon was given on October 9, 1977 at St. Paul’s Church in Bremerton, Washington. Please enjoy and become whole.

As they went they were cleansed
One day, as Jesus was traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem, he was met by 10 men who were lepers. How they knew Jesus was going to come we do not know. Somehow word of Jesus visit was given and these men were waiting- hoping for a miracle of healing.
Today with miracle drugs and modern medicine, it is hard for us to realize with what fear and disgust a man with leprosy was held by society. It was a terrible, mysterious, disfiguring affliction. People were afraid of it, not only as a disease – but as a sign of the curse of God. Consequently, lepers were outcasts of society – living in caves, dumps, etc.
Use your imagination to see how there men looked, and what their need was, when they cried out to Jesus, “Master, have mercy on us.”
Jesus responded instantly. “Go show yourselves to the priests.” That was in strict accordance with Jewish law. Since leprosy was thought to be a curse of God, it was recognized that none by God could affect a cure. So before a person could be admitted back into society, he had to convince the priests of his cure. So Jesus said, “Go show your selves to the priests.”
The lepers cried for help and all they heard was his command. The leprosy was still in them. What would they do? What would you do?
I suppose the great miracle was they did what they were told. Even with their leprosy still on them, they started out. “And as they went they were cleansed.”
I cannot emphasize that too heavily. It is fundamental in our Christian life. “as they went they were cleansed.”
Christian understanding, Christian power, Christian soul-cleansing, renewal of life is a growth – not a conclusion. Christian conversion is a beginning not an end. The Christian Gospel is a medicine not magic. Even the best of medicines are powerless to heal if they are left in the bottle on the shelf of the medicine cabinet.
Many important people demand that the Christian Gospel heal them, and cleanse the world about them, demand it without taking one step, themselves in the way the Gospel points. They want life without walking in the Way of Life.
They say, “God has failed me. I asked Him to heal me and to cleanse my world, and He has done nothing.”
It is significant that the name the first Christians most often used to describe Christianity was “The Way.” There are some many in the today’s world not working in The Way that it is not cleansed. Look at the world and its people. What leprous things we love. Cruelty, hatred, suffering, greed, drugs, but human in the spirit of it all.
Like those lepers who met Jesus: odious, deformed, frightful – but human. That is the tragedy of it all. If all were bad, we might not care. Humanity under a curse, yet with every capacity to be a child of God. There, in that modern form is the light of reason, the capacity for kindness, the flame of courage, the tenderness of love. It’s all there in the poor leper’s life.
We all cry out with them, “Jesus, have mercy.” And He does have mercy. He is powerful to save and cleanse. But His answer is not magic, it is medicine. To heal, it has to be used. We have to wash in the Way. As we go we shall be cleansed.
So I speak to you and to myself. How satisfied are you with your life? How is it with you? I’m not speaking to anyone who is satisfied – who have no problems. If such is your life, God bless you. But to those who hurt, no matter how well you hide it. Those who have sorrows or problems, those who have nothing but desperate futility and emptiness, I tell you Jesus can lift you out of that. He can give you joy in your living – even though everything doesn’t go your way. He does give peace, and a richness and fullness of life. He can make you clean, can restore your self-respect.
There isn’t one of us that is all he might be, or should be. We still gall short of perfection. But Jesus leads us on.
Put yourself in His Way. His Word to you and me is the same as it was to those lepers whom he healed long ago. Walk in God’s Way. As you go, you will be cleansed.
The Reverend Norman Stockwell
October 9, 1977 at St. Paul’s in Bremerton, Washington

My father was a priest for 43 years in the Episcopal Church. I plan to post his sermons as they might apply to our world today. As a preacher’s kid, I endured the stereotypical sarcasm of my friends and acquaintances. However, I learned from him and though he is long gone from this world, I feel his presence in my life today. Today’s posting is called the “The Worth of Man.” The sermon was preached as a radio broadcast in 1946 in Moscow Idaho, in 1948 in Palouse, Washington, and again in Twin Falls and Buhl, Idaho in 1958. In these troubles times of 2010, the words ring true to me as I hope they will ring true to you. I look forward to reading your comments. May we all find our worth in the worthless human existance. 

The Worth of Man 

This morning for the few minutes that I have, I should like to think with you about the current disillusionment of the worth and ability of natural man that is so prevalent in the world today. 

                There are those who are of the opinion that Christianity in its teaching about the common man is wandering in world of make-believe. It has told us to respect, to trust, to believe in this low fellow, the common man, and to call him a son of God. 

                It is this doctrine that is confusing so many of our people today, I believe. They look about them and see what man really is, what he done, and where he is heading and then say, “How can I accept it?” man is a failure, he is a fool. Man is a killer. Never in all of history has he sunk to a lower level than right now. 

                I have had good people say to me, “I do wish to believe in God and to serve Him if I can; but I simply cannot believe in man. And you tell me I believe in the worth of man if I am to be acceptable to God.” 

                My friends, we must remember that this problem of the worthlessness of man is a new problem only in our modern age.” It is not a new problem in history. Many centuries ago the psalmist was perturbed by the same thoughts and wrote, “What is man that thou are mindful of him, or the son of man that thou regardest him?” It the bothered the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, who said, “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil; madness is in them while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” And there has been no end of intelligent observers both religious and secular who have come to the same conclusion. 

                For decades now we here in America have been taught that man is by nature both competent and good. Modern people, certainly most Americans, have come to think that the world of human affairs will get better and better with the passing of time; that all that is needed if we are to transform the earth into a new Eden is an increase in the abundance of earthly wealth for all to enjoy plus a general education of everyone in A: how to get ahead, and B: how to live a full bull worldly life. 

                The futility of these doctrines has been discovered. Today, we have more wealth, more widely distributed than ever in the history of time and look at our society. Today illiteracy is almost non-existent in the greater civilized countries and look at our depravity. 

                The best thinkers of our times are more convinced than ever that man is incompetent, morally corrupt, untrustworthy, and self-destructive, and more than a little disgusting — which is precisely what Christianity has always said is true of man when man is left to himself. 

                If you want to know what Christianity teaches about the natural man, go to the Bible. See what St. Paul thinks about it for example. He says, that natural man is “Filled with all manner of wickedness, depravity, lust and viciousness, filled to the brim with envy, murder, quarrels, loathed by God, outrageous, haughty, boastful, inventive of evil, disobedient to parents, devoid of conscience, false to their word, callous, and merciless.” St. Paul insists that the Psalmist was quite right when he sang of man: 

                No one is righteous, no not one; 

                No one understands, no one seeks for God. 

                Certainly the Apostle was not given to an over praise of man’s inherent goodness. 

                Or we may read the words of Jesus, “Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction and many go that way.” And again Jesus cries, “For all their seeing they perceive no; for all their hearing they do not understand.” 

                In brief, our religion maintains that man is bad, so bad that he brings only sorrow on himself and ruin on Society unless man is willing that God shall save man from himself. 

                God looks on man and knows his common failure, his folly, his sin, know it better than man’s bitterest human critic can possibly know it. But God, as He looks on man, knows also that if and when man will perceive his sin and admit it an cry for aid to God who is “that Power not of ourselves which make for righteousness,” then God can save man. God sees in man that which is worth saving, the incorruptible possibility. God see that. We must see it, too. 

                A priest in my church ministers to the hopelessly insane. “How can you do it?” he was asked by a friend who had been with him in a room of idiots. The priest replied, “I see in each one of them his human dignity. I had to be taught how to see it. God teaches me as day by day I take His Holy Body in my own poor, sinful hands at the Altar. As God see his child in my defaced humanity, so I see the same in these poor creatures. Don’t you see it, too? I pray God that you may.” 

                God knows the decay and evil in man’s nature, in me, in you. It moves His heart to compassion, not to and easy contempt. Man being what man is, God died for love of him. You being what you are, God died for love of you. I being what I am, God died for love of me. When I perceive that brethren in the midst of self-made hell shall I, for whom God has died in pity and in love, stand aside in scorn? I cannot believe in man, no Christian can, “unless man lets God burn away the evil in a corrupt soul with the fire of divine compassion.” 

                Jesus came into history. He conquered the evil power and then founded a conquering company of those whom He rescues from the futility of history. They are not freed from human woes; but they are freed from the damning frustration involved in self-seeking. Human history for those who are unredeemed has no meaning; to those who are redeemed, history is a matrix out of which emerge, in response to the call of God, men and women who eternally matter, men and women who try with hope of success themselves to live in such a fashion as, if all men lived that way, would make our earth a part of heaven rather than a vestibule to Hell. 

                And the only way to make history meaningful or to make human life worthwhile in our world today is that all men shall submit themselves to the will of God. That is not only the Christian answer but the salvation of our very life. And the critic will ask, “ And do you think there is any likelihood of men doing any such thing?” That is hardly the point. It may well be that the human race which having eyes sees not and having ears hears not, will continually go right on into bitter failure. But as for you and me, we al least, must live in the way man was made to live, the way man would live if he were not enslaved and drugged by an evil nature. We, at least, can so live, please god, that if all men lived so the world would be a better place, a decent place. I so living we shall fail often, sin often; but we can by the power of God continue to defy the evil power, sure that God is stronger. We can do it, for God who is our rescuer imparts to us His own sufficient strength. We must attempt to do it and will do it thought the world laugh at us for trying, conspire against us, crucify us. In so doing we shall bring light into a darkened world.  

The Worth of Man 

This morning for the few minutes that I have, I should like to think with you about the current disillusionment of the worth and ability of natural man that is so prevalent in the world today. 

                There are those who are of the opinion that Christianity in its teaching about the common man is wandering in world of make-believe. It has told us to respect, to trust, to believe in this low fellow, the common man, and to call him a son of God. 

                It is this doctrine that is confusing so many of our people today, I believe. They look about them and see what man really is, what he done, and where he is heading and then say, “How can I accept it?” man is a failure, he is a fool. Man is a killer. Never in all of history has he sunk to a lower level than right now. 

                I have had good people say to me, “I do wish to believe in God and to serve Him if I can; but I simply cannot believe in man. And you tell me I believe in the worth of man if I am to be acceptable to God.” 

                My friends, we must remember that this problem of the worthlessness of man is a new problem only in our modern age.” It is not a new problem in history. Many centuries ago the psalmist was perturbed by the same thoughts and wrote, “What is man that thou are mindful of him, or the son of man that thou regardest him?” It the bothered the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, who said, “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil; madness is in them while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” And there has been no end of intelligent observers both religious and secular who have come to the same conclusion. 

                For decades now we here in America have been taught that man is by nature both competent and good. Modern people, certainly most Americans, have come to think that the world of human affairs will get better and better with the passing of time; that all that is needed if we are to transform the earth into a new Eden is an increase in the abundance of earthly wealth for all to enjoy plus a general education of everyone in A: how to get ahead, and B: how to live a full bull worldly life. 

                The futility of these doctrines has been discovered. Today, we have more wealth, more widely distributed than ever in the history of time and look at our society. Today illiteracy is almost non-existent in the greater civilized countries and look at our depravity. 

                The best thinkers of our times are more convinced than ever that man is incompetent, morally corrupt, untrustworthy, and self-destructive, and more than a little disgusting — which is precisely what Christianity has always said is true of man when man is left to himself. 

                If you want to know what Christianity teaches about the natural man, go to the Bible. See what St. Paul thinks about it for example. He says, that natural man is “Filled with all manner of wickedness, depravity, lust and viciousness, filled to the brim with envy, murder, quarrels, loathed by God, outrageous, haughty, boastful, inventive of evil, disobedient to parents, devoid of conscience, false to their word, callous, and merciless.” St. Paul insists that the Psalmist was quite right when he sang of man:  

                No one is righteous, no not one; 

                No one understands, no one seeks for God. 

                Certainly the Apostle was not given to an over praise of man’s inherent goodness. 

                Or we may read the words of Jesus, “Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction and many go that way.” And again Jesus cries, “For all their seeing they perceive no; for all their hearing they do not understand.” 

                In brief, our religion maintains that man is bad, so bad that he brings only sorrow on himself and ruin on Society unless man is willing that God shall save man from himself. 

                God looks on man and knows his common failure, his folly, his sin, know it better than man’s bitterest human critic can possibly know it. But God, as He looks on man, knows also that if and when man will perceive his sin and admit it an cry for aid to God who is “that Power not of ourselves which make for righteousness,” then God can save man. God sees in man that which is worth saving, the incorruptible possibility. God see that. We must see it, too. 

                A priest in my church ministers to the hopelessly insane. “How can you do it?” he was asked by a friend who had been with him in a room of idiots. The priest replied, “I see in each one of them his human dignity. I had to be taught how to see it. God teaches me as day by day I take His Holy Body in my own poor, sinful hands at the Altar. As God see his child in my defaced humanity, so I see the same in these poor creatures. Don’t you see it, too? I pray God that you may.” 

                God knows the decay and evil in man’s nature, in me, in you. It moves His heart to compassion, not to and easy contempt. Man being what man is, God died for love of him. You being what you are, God died for love of you. I being what I am, God died for love of me. When I perceive that brethren in the midst of self-made hell shall I, for whom God has died in pity and in love, stand aside in scorn? I cannot believe in man, no Christian can, “unless man lets God burn away the evil in a corrupt soul with the fire of divine compassion.” 

                Jesus came into history. He conquered the evil power and then founded a conquering company of those whom He rescues from the futility of history. They are not freed from human woes; but they are freed from the damning frustration involved in self-seeking. Human history for those who are unredeemed has no meaning; to those who are redeemed, history is a matrix out of which emerge, in response to the call of God, men and women who eternally matter, men and women who try with hope of success themselves to live in such a fashion as, if all men lived that way, would make our earth a part of heaven rather than a vestibule to Hell. 

                And the only way to make history meaningful or to make human life worthwhile in our world today is that all men shall submit themselves to the will of God. That is not only the Christian answer but the salvation of our very life. And the critic will ask, “ And do you think there is any likelihood of men doing any such thing?” That is hardly the point. It may well be that the human race which having eyes sees not and having ears hears not, will continually go right on into bitter failure. But as for you and me, we al least, must live in the way man was made to live, the way man would live if he were not enslaved and drugged by an evil nature. We, at least, can so live, please god, that if all men lived so the world would be a better place, a decent place. I so living we shall fail often, sin often; but we can by the power of God continue to defy the evil power, sure that God is stronger. We can do it, for God who is our rescuer imparts to us His own sufficient strength. We must attempt to do it and will do it thought the world laugh at us for trying, conspire against us, crucify us. In so doing we shall bring light into a darkened world.

The Reverend Norman E. Stockwell

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