"A Little Left of Center"
Colossians 3:12-17
First Presbyterian Church
The Reverend Dr. John L. Schmidt
September 20, 2009
175th Church Anniversary
If you or a loved one has had cardiac catheterization, as
have I; if you or a loved one has had open heart surgery as have I; we are all
indebted to my friend of more than fifty years – Dr. Robert Singleton.
Years before the procedure was an established practice, Bob was designing
and fabricating instruments so that he might treat his patients with cardiac
catheterization. With the advent of
open heart surgery, he was involved in the design and development of the heart
lung machine and holds numerous patents on the equipment.
He was Professor of Cardiac Medicine and Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the
University of Maryland Medical School and the
Bob is one of the most compassionate and caring men I have
been privileged to know. He has
served his church as a Presbyterian Elder and in other capacities as well.
Bob is an avid cyclist. When
I would bike with him, we enjoyed the trail from the inner
When I contemplated what I might say today, here in the
church where I served half of my active ministry, I was reminded of Bob’s
words. “The human heart is a
little left of center.” I was
aware anew that we have to learn, over and over again, the love of God.
When all is said and done, when every subtle thing has been
dissected and analyzed every which way, Jesus’ message remains incredibly
simple, unbelievably beautiful, and as easy to translate into action as for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Nowhere is this simple message more clearly stated than in
the parable of the Good Samaritan. The
two men who passed by on the other side, the priest and the Levite, were
considered the most religious persons in the Israelite community, dedicated as
they were to the preservation of the faith through full time religious service.
But, the third man, the Samaritan, the one who showed mercy, who had
compassion, who proved neighbor to the bleeding man by the side of the road, was
only part Jew and believed only part of the Jewish Scripture.
To Jews, Samaritans were heretics, and
The same, simple, subversive message comes through in
Jesus’ other well know parable about the Prodigal Son.
Of course, we tend to identify with the elder brother because, like him
we want the irresponsible kid to get what he deserves.
But, the prodigal love of the father insists what the son get not what he
deserves, but what he needs – forgiveness, a fresh start, which is exactly
what God gives all of us. We can’t
be relieved of the consequences of our sin, but we can be relieved of the
consequences of being sinners. There
is more mercy in God than sin in us.
The culture of his time prevented
The neighbor to be loved according to the parable of the
Good Samaritan is the nearest person in need regardless of race, religion,
nationality, gender, or sexual orientation.
Such was the love St. Paul extolled; such was the love of God when at
Christmas he gave the world he so loved, not what it deserved, but what it
needed – his only begotten son, that “whoever should believe in him should
not perish but have eternal life.”
Love is the core of our personal life.
It is also the core of our communal life.
Without question, family responsibility, hard work, compassion, kindness,
all these individual virtues, are of endless importance.
But, a person’s moral character, sterling though it may be, is
insufficient to serve the cause of Christ, which is to challenge the status quo,
to try to make what is legal more moral, to speak truth to power, and to take
personal action against evil.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a mentor to many of my generation,
constantly contended that in a free society “some are guilty, but all are
responsible.” Cowardice is a
communal failure. “Some are
guilty, but all are responsible.”
Jesus was certainly more than a prophet, but surely nothing
less. That means the love that is
the core value of our individual life should also be the core value of our life
together. Love has a corporate
character as well as a personal one.
We Americans have so much, and we ask of ourselves so
little. What we are downsizing more
than anything else, in these critical times, are the demands of the Holy
Scripture.
Let us never forget how Jesus was concerned most for those
society counted least and last. Let
us all remember what Martin Luther King and Ghandi never forgot – how
frequently compassion demands confrontation.
Jesus subverted the conventional wisdom of his time.
We have to do the same – bearing witness to the “light that shines in
the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it;” bearing witness to the
cry of the prophet: “let justice roll down like waters;” and bearing witness
to the prophetic insight: “that we all belong to one another.”
That is the way God made us. Christ
died to keep us that way. Our sin is
that we put asunder what God had joined together.
God’s truth in its pure essence eludes us all.
We have to learn how to live his love over and over again.
As you, in this historic church, with its rich heritage of 175 years, now
look forward to the 200th year of this great congregation – may you
continue to learn of God’s love over and over again.
May you always err on the side of love.
May you always remember, “the human heart is a little left of
center.”
Amen.