Build a Bridge of Love...... a narrative southern story sermon

"We build too many walls and not enough bridges"

Sir Isaac Newton

Love can build a Bridge
Between your heart and mine
Love can build a Bridge
Don't you think it's time?
Oh, don't you think it's time?

When we stand together
It's our finest hour
We can do anything, anything
Anything, anything
Keep believin' in the power

the judds

A Friday Treat or Retreat: 

take it or leave it

This good old Southern Tale in the form of

narrative story telling about Grace Ellen,

a fictional character who resides deep in the crevices of my being.  Occasionally, when she gets a good writing spark,

she gets to birth a story sermon and I get to give it.

Below,

I leave you with one...

Read it...

think about it...

take it in...

and

then

the next time you find yourself

at a crossroads of sort,

go ahead..

don't walk away,

don't close your eyes...

do it..

build a bridge out of nothing but love...

you just might be surprised what happens next!!!!

Note:  This should be read in the voice of a slow southern accent....go ahead try it out anyway.

Sermonic Design:  The design of this sermon is that of fictional story-sermon as taught by O. Wesley Allen Jr.  In this particular relationship with the texts, Grace Ellen recalls a visit at fat mamma’s house.  The sermon places the Luke text about Lazarus in the forefront as a way of “preaching against the text”---this is what can happen when chasms are crossed and risk of relationship occurs.  Implicitly and explicitly woven through the text is the Matthew text whereby our relationship with God moves us toward reconciliation with our brothers and our sisters in a relationship of neighbor.

My great-grandmother, Floridy Mae Gillard, or  “Fat mamma” as we grandkids always called her, loved to tell stories.  I believe it was probably her favorite thing to do—next to going to church that is—at least we grandkids always said that about her. 

    She was one of those people who’d wait for brief moment of silence in a conversation and before you knew it she’d sneak in with one of her stories and next thing you knew …..She had a captive audience---and it never mattered to “fat mamma where she was when it happened”.  “Fat mamma” was born and raised in Southern Alabama in small town called Hades Chasm.  She was a self-described “big boned woman” with a beehive hairdo and one who spoke with a long nasally southern drawl. 

Once Fat mamma started telling a story, she’d get so caught up in the telling that she’d run the ends of some words together and run them right into beginning of the next word.  I swear sometimes, I’d just watch to see how it would take her before she’d come up for a deep breath and as quick as she breathed she’d be off again.  “Fat mamma” never got in a hurry about anything----everything she did was sorta like what they call in the south, molasses in January.   

  The funniest thing about “Fat mamma” was that no matter what we were doing, she always would find some way to turn the occasion into some kind of “front porch Sunday School lesson.”

My twins brother, Richman Lee and Larry ray and I would usually go to stay with Fat mamma down in Hades Chasm nearly every summer when mama and daddy would take their annual “honeymoon trip” down to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee.  I remember the summer of my twelfth birthday probably the best, because it was the last time I  saw my fat mama alive.   

    This particular summer, I had grown-up quite a bit and instead of spending all my time playing out in the back woods behind fatmamma’s house, I found myself stuck like glue to fatmamma’s side.   I sure did love being there at Fatmamma’s.  When we were there, Richman Lee and Larry Ray would spend all their time out doing “boy things in the woods”---building forts, digging holes and catching crawl dads in the creek.   They’d spend so much time playing in the woods that I’d sometimes forget that I even had any mean old brothers.  You see Fatmamma always had a way of making me feel special----like a little Queenie bee.  In a way these vacations were my haven away from having pesky brothers….they knew better than to pick on me while we were at Fatmamma’s house….for two weeks every summer there would be no “pullin’ up of my skirt, no pinching and pigtail pullin’-----Fatmamma made sure of it…..she had this special way of loving everyone she met and making them feel special and that’s how I always felt when I was with her------special.

      This particular day of the last I spent with Fatmamaa was particularly memorable.

The boys had run-off in the woods, they were mad at Fatmamma.

 You see that morning at breakfast, they had them a knock-down drag out right there at the kitchen table over the last buttered biscuit.  Richman went for it first and then Larry Ray stabbed him with his fork----next thing they were on the floor with Fatmamma right in the middle of them yelling for them to stop.   Well nobody got the buttered biscuit that morning.  Instead, Fatmama got out that old yellow ruler that she kept in her tattered bible……..She hit it on the table and  then one of her Sunday School moments started…….

       

        “Boys, don’t y’all go to church every Sunday”….they looked and rolled their eyes……”  Yes mam, they said.  Well what have you learned in Sunday School about how to treat each other.   Before they could answer Fatmama was a thumbing through her bible and we knew one of them Sunday School moments was a comin’……

“You see this ruler here….I got that in Sunday School when I was about your age….it says, “do unto others as you’d want them to do unto you….Do Y’all know what that means?   

She didn’t wait for an answer but went right on talking….. “listen here to what the word of God says right in here in Matthew chapter 22,

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

And one of them asked him a question to test him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is the greatest commandment.  And a second is like it:  ‘ You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.  On these two commandments hang all law and the prophets. (verses 31-40)

So now let me ask you a question boys?  Do you know that God loves you right now as much as God ever loved you?  Do you know that when you realize that God loves you so much, there is no real need for all this fightin’ over a biscuit and pickin’ at each other.  (of course Fatmamma never waited for them to answer, but got up hummin, “yes Jesus loves me and goes over to her junk drawer, pullin’ out two pencils and some yellowed pieces of paper…..now after you boys wash up, I want you to sit down here and copy the 23^rd Psalm and come and recite it to me.   That’s how all three of us learned that passage….Every summer when we acted out….Fatmamma would make us write it and recite.  I want you two to love  each other, cause neighbors include brothers and I want you two to learn to live together in love----not fightin over a buttered biscuit.”  She got up and cleared the table, hummin’ her song and we breathed a sigh because we knew that this particular Sunday School lesson was over….

The boys finished their assignment, and I heard them mumblin’ The Lord is my shepherd….to  Fatmamma and then they took their bag lunch out into the woods for a day of exploring…..I decided to just be around the house this day……

I had walked out to fatmamma’s flower garden to look at all the colors and when I came back, Fatmamma was sittin’ on the front porch with her granite pan and a big basket of fresh picked garden green beans….she was snapping and hummin’ the tune of Amazing grace……….so I sat down with her……Everytime she rocked back you’d hear the snap of her beans and then the thug of them hitting the

Bottom of her granite pan…..Fatmamma seemed alittle quiet and distant……..which was real unusual for her…..

I could finally stand it no more and I said quickly, “Fatmamma what in the tarnation are you thinkin’ about…..your just too quiet.

She kinda smiled at me, set down the green beans and looked at me in a weird way—I think she was trying to decide whether I was old enough to hear what she was a thinkin’ and for once she was quiet for several minutes……

In my twelve year old way of knowing how to be quiet, I just sat, stared back at her and waited until the silence got the best of her…

She stopped rocking, looked at me and then I knew some kind of big long serious story was a comin’

….

Grace Ellen, [and I knew it was serious, cause Fatmamma usually called me Sis] 

Way back when I was a girl [that’s really how most of her stories started]….

Life was different than it is now…

   I remember the house we lived in….it was a fancy one for those times.  I guess I never realized how lucky I was back then.   We always had plenty to eat, I had several fancy dresses, mostly Sunday ‘go-to-meetin’ ones---one of them was real pretty, it was my favorite, the purple one that daddy surprised me with that came from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue.  We had lots of hired hands, usually poor men who worked real hard to try and keep food on the table for their families.    And even through it was not the “thing” to do back then, mama and daddy made no difference between me and the boys about makin’ sure all of us were in school everyday.

     Fatmamma got real quiet then and stared off into nowhere and I swear I thought her eyes were gonna pop right out of head she was thinkin’ so hard..

                      Finally she started again,

“One summer the farm got real busy, so busy daddy that he and his hired men could hardly stop to eat lunch or supper.  One day, Daddy went into town and found some people he said was “from the other side of the tracks---I knew that meant that they was dirt poor”….One of the families moved into one of daddy’s shanties down in the hollar…..Mama and Daddy warned all of us not to be playing or talking with the people from the other side of the tracks……cause all knew better than to associate with dirty poor people—no tellin’ what we might catch.  You know sis, that wasn’t what the preacher preached about on Sunday or what Ms. Ethel taught me in Sunday School….I though we were supposed to love everybody---I never understood why mama and daddy thought there was a difference in people.

         Shortly after this conversation, I saw Etta Jean Endicott.  Her family was the one who moved into daddy’s shanty that was located right across from Lazarus Creek….You know for the longest time Etta didn’t know I even existed….funny thing is, she often walked with her daddy and would sit on the edge of the fields as her daddy plowed and weeded.  She was a real skinny kid with frizzy red hair that went in all directions at one time…….you know as I’d watch her, her eyes always seemed real sad….kinda like she was one of those old souls caught in a young body….

I never paid much attention to her, never really noticed her much, cause you know mama and daddy had told me not to….But you know Grace Ellen, I always believed that if God loved me so much, then God must love everybody ‘bout the same……..I never did believe that I was any better than Etta Jean, or any of the other people working on my daddy’s land, but I never had the courage to say that to mama and daddy……but I just didn’t believe it….

                      Fatmamma sat for a minute….probably to make the next part alittle more suspenseful and then she started again..

“A lot of times, in the heat of the day, I’d sneak off to that old oak tree down by Lazarus Creek.  That’s where I’d go to pray, and sing and mostly just so I could be alone with God—it was the place we could be together….a special kind of place…one of those places that restored my soul….

One day, I was sittin’ there praying and I glanced up…….there she was, Etta Jean Endicott, sittin’ on that old plank bridge that ran across the creek……her bright red hair was flying every which way in the wind…..she didn’t look at me, but sat there all silent swinging her legs and starin off….

       I went there everyday and I’d see her sittin’ there and for the longest time I pretend that I didn’t….I’d look the other way, I’d run real quick as I passed the place where the bridge met my side of the Creek…….One day, as I runnin by, I fell down…my pride was hurt but not my body…..I looked to see if Etta was looking and our eyes met….Etta’s and mine….and before we knew we’d smiled at each other…

Few days later, I was walkin’ by and something gotta hold of me….it must have been a movement of the Spirit, because Sis I tell you ---something overtook me as well as my tongue….As I walked by I said, “hey!”

Etta was real shy and didn’t look up but waved….few days later that same ole Spirit moved in me again….and the next thing I knew I’d done it……..I done what mama and daddy told me not to do…..

I’d put my foot and the bridge and sat myself right down in the middle of Lazarus Creek Bridge…and I began swinging and talking to that crazy wild haired girl from the other side of the  tracks……

Turns Etta was my age and real funny….She’d never been to school so before we knew I started tracing letters in the mud along the banks of the creek teaching Etta her ABC’s.   Every day that it didn’t rain, I’d sneak down there and we’d talk, teach each other songs from our churches and sometimes we’d just sit and say nothing.

After awhile, I started teaching her some words, and then helped her learn to read from the Bible.  Etta was real smart and caught on real quick….she was so skinny, I worried that her family didn’t have enough to feed her well…so I started having Martha, our cook, pack me a real big lunch to take on my walks in the woods.  Most of the time, I’d give all of it to Etta, who was always hungry.  She became one of my best friends…

We did this everyday we could for the next two years and we grew real close…….When she was twelve, her daddy told her they were moving up to Ohio, his cousin had got him a real good paying job in a new factory and Etta was real happy about the move, ‘cause her daddy promised her that she could go to school when they moved…

Fatmamma had another lapse of silence and then she said aloud…..

“I just about grieved myself to death that summer she moved.  I prayed for her family every night for the next two years, but I never heard from her…..finally I just kinda forgot about her….

I didn’t hear from Etta Jean Endicott for the next twelve years and then one day when I visitin’ mama on a break from Teacher’s college she handed me this letter-----[fatmamma pulls a faded and torn envelope out of her apron pocket]……and continued, “I found it this morning when I was trying to teach Richman Lee and Larry Ray about loving your neighbor—it was stuck right there where that passage began….

This letter has no return address, but when I opened it, It was from Etta Jean.  She was thanking me for taking the time to teach her to read and write….mainly she was thanking me for being her friend in Alabama when she didn’t have any.  She just wanted me to know how much our time together had meant to her…and that because of my sitting down on a bridge and sharing alittle love….She was living a much better life……In her letter she said she’d just been hired to teach at a small school up in Abrams Bossom, Michigan.    Grace Ellen…it sure if funny how life works….

[                                  ]

You know one day your going down to sing a song about God at an oak tree, next thing you know the Spirit moves in your being and you say things and do things that you never expect….sometimes you even find yourself stepping on old planks bridges you think your not supposed to cross….sometimes you find yourself sittin’ down with folks your think your not supposed to talk to……….next thing you know……your building a bridge out of nothing but God’s love…..”

Grace Ellen, I want you to always remember this story, about how lovin’ your neighbor as yourself can change the world…but don’t just do it Sis……live it….and tell others about it………especially your those two brothers of yours….

Next thing I knew…..Fatmama was a rockin’ again and the sound of beans snappin’ began to fill the air……..next thing I knew Fatmama started hummin that old tune….
Amazing Grace and I cleared out……I didn’t want to be around when her praise service started on the porch……

So that’s why I’m here tellin’ you a story about Fatmama……when we really love God, we somehow are changed….

this love…..bubbles up…oozes out and touches the lives of others………

And so I tell you just like I’ve told Richmond Lee and Larry Ray and all of our kids……

Sometimes…….we come to chasms where there is no bridge….and the only thing we got to work with is God’s love…and I don’t mean to sound like Fatmamma and all,

but all of us got a lot of work to do….

there’s a lot of bridges needin’ to be build…..a lot love needin’ to be shared….a lot of chasms needin’ to be crossed…..

so let’s get busy lovin!   May it be so….for every one of us…..Amen.