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All I Need to Know
“All I Need to Know”
Matthew 5:38 –6:6
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….”
July 18, 2010
Rev. David Dyson
Before I do anything else, I want to thank everyone who covered for me while I was away. That means Jonada Burson, the pride of our Sunday School and Rev. James Lee, the pride of Liberia. That was July 4th. Then on the 11th, thanks as always to Rev. Lynne West for leading the people in the service.
So while I’m away I try to catch up on my reading. Before I read anything I try to read the Sermon on the Mount, which I believe are the most important verses in the whole Bible. This is what Jesus was about, not Leviticus and the Book of Revelation-the Sermon on the Mount! I did read Diana Butler Bass’s People’s History of Christianity. I was reminded that in the Sermon of the Mount there is not a single word about what to believe, only words about what to do. It is a behavioral manifesto, not a propositional one. Three centuries later, when the Nicene Creed became the official oath of Christianity, there was not a single word in it about what to do, only words about what to believe.
Today the emphasis is on what to believe about Jesus- so that you will get stuff from Jesus- which is inherently selfish. Well, Jesus is not about selfish, which is why I always start with the Sermon on the Mount-the Sermon on the Mount; Matthew 5+6+7 is the basic core of the Christian message. This year at the church I want to get back to the basics.
I grew up in a town in Western Pennsylvania where the two biggest institutions were football and the Presbyterian Church. I was active in both. My little town had one football team and five Presbyterian churches. I continued to play football when I went to college which is why I had knee replacement surgery. My college coach was a colorful character by the name of Bob Goin. Since we were the Bethany Bisons everybody called him Bison Bob. Bison Bob was a traditionalist. He lined us up on the first day of practice and said, “ I know you ladies were big shots in high school. But you are mine now and we are going back to the basics. And then he uttered those immortal words for which he was famous, “There will be no razzle dazzle till you learn to block and tackle!”
This is a good rule for life: Don’t get so far out in front of yourself, that you forget the basics. The other thing that makes me remember this lesson is that great little book from a few years ago, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”. Do you know this book? It was written by Robert Fulghum who is an interesting man. Fulghum has been a ditch digger, a cowboy, an IBM salesman, a parish Unitarian minister, a bartender, and now a writer. Sounds like my kind of guy.
Robert Fulghum talks about getting ahead of himself. He says, “Each spring, for many years, I have set myself the task of writing a personal statement of belief: a Credo. When I was younger, that statement ran for many pages, trying to cover every base, with no loose ends. It sounded like a Supreme Court brief, as if words could resolve all conflicts about the meaning of existence. The Credo has grown shorter in recent years, sometimes cynical, sometimes comical, sometimes bland…The inspiration for brevity came to me at a gasoline station. I managed to fill an old car’s tank with super-deluxe high-octane go-juice. My old loopy couldn’t handle it and got the willies, kept sputtering out at intersections and belching going down hill … My mind and my spirit get like that from time to time. Too much high-content information and I get the existential willies… I realized then that I already know most of what’s necessary to live a meaningful life… and I have known it for a long, long time… All 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 is the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:
1. Share everything
2. Play fair
3. Don’t hit people
4. Put things back where you found them
5. Clean up your own mess
6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours
7. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody
8. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush.
9. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you (AMEN!)
10. Take a nap every afternoon
11.When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together”
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere: the Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm.
Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world- had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are- “when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”
When I worked for the clothing workers union, my boss was this rough and tumble, lean and mean lawyer by the name of Jacob Sheinkman. Jack for short. Jack had come up through the New York garment trade and he was a straight talking no-nonsense tough guy. Every couple of months we had a general executive board meeting and it was up to Jack, as president, to give a little state of the union pep talk at the beginning. One meeting Jack says, “I want to read something different today. I want to read something I think everybody should hear.” And much to everyone’s surprise, mostly mine, Jack Sheinkman starts reading the list from “All I Really Need to Know...”
§ Share everything
§ Play fair
§ Don’t hit People
§ Put things back where you found them
About half way through the list, Jack Sheinkman, one of the toughest men I ever knew, broke down in tears. In the midst of strikes and law suits and pension funds and contract negotiations, Jack Sheinkman was overcome by the simple truth of that little list. He recovered his composure and made it through to the end, and when he did there was not a dry eye in the room. We never had a better meeting in all of my 12 years at the union. Never under estimate the power of the simple and the profound. Never get so far out in front of yourself that you forget the basics.
And if you can’t find what you need to know in Fulghum’s book then you will find it in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus came not so that we should worship him as a statue or an idol. Jesus never meant to start a new religion…he came to bring the words of eternal life and life abundant, so that we might receive those words and then go out and live fulfilled lives. That is the path to the kingdom of God-deeds not creeds!
§ Share everything
§ Play fair
§ Don’t hit People
§ Put things back where you found them
§ Don’t take things that aren’t yours
§ Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody
§ Watch out for the traffic, hold hands and stick together
These things are simple but they are not simplistic.
As Jesus said to his disciples “Go and do likewise…." Amen.
