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"So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, 'Here comes this dreamer; come now, let us kill him and throw

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him into one of the pits. Then we shall say that a wild beast has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.' But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, 'Let us not take

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his life.' And Reuben said to them, 'Shed no blood; cast him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him, that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father.'

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So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore, and they took him and cast him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat."

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And from the Gospel according to Matthew, I read from the Sermon on the Mount, the fifth chapter, two verses. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.

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First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. And may God bless to us and to our understanding these readings from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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What would you say is the most heartless verse in the Bible? Well, I suppose there might be as many opinions as there are people in this room this morning or folks listening in our radio audience. For me, the most heartless verse in Scripture is to be found in the story of Joseph.

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The story of Joseph is one of the most exciting adventures in the Old Testament. This young man who starts out as a slave boy and becomes a national leader, that story has enough adventure in it to capture any sensitive person's imagination. There is one particular detail of the story that I would ask you to notice with me this

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morning. Joseph was not appreciated by his brothers because he, first of all, was very much favored by his father, and he also seemed to have in him some streak of arrogance or conceit. So he comes one day to meet his brothers in the field, and they decide to kill him and

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would have done so had it not been for Reuben, who suggested that instead they throw him into a pit. So when Joseph drew near, the Scriptures say, they took him and cast him into a pit where there was no water.

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Then they sat down to eat. Now think about that. Then they sat down to eat with the cries, with the pleas, with the entreaties of their little brother sounding in their ears.

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He was bone of their bone. He was flesh of their flesh. The blood of the same father flowed in their veins. They ate regularly at the same table.

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They slept in the same tent. They worshiped together. They were as one. And now, even as they hear from him his whimpered expressions of fright, they sat down to eat.

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I submit to you that that is awful, that that is the most heartless scene that I know of in the Scriptures. And it's appropriate for our thinking this morning because, you see, as we come to this table spread with white linen and shining silver and with bread and wine, I suggest

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to you that even as we sit down to eat, the cries of our brothers are to be heard about us. I hear, for example, this morning the cry of the unsaved. Many people believe that God is more in the country than he is in the city.

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I don't believe that, but I would suggest to you that it's often difficult to see good, to see God and the things of God in the city. You see, evil is more organized in a city than it is anywhere else. We have our police who are seeking to do good, but we also have organized crime that is seeking

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to do evil. We have our schools that are trying to lift up our young people, but we also have those who are trying to trap our young people and to bring them down. We have citizens who give themselves to the advance of noble causes, and we have organized

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lobbies that seek to manipulate the society to their own selfish purpose. All of these things are seen more vividly in a city than anywhere else. We're here, sitting in the center of one of America's largest cities today. There are about us those who are crowded in with others and yet feel a deep and profound

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loneliness. They are busy with a thousand different things and yet find little to be of real purpose. They are rich by the standards of the world, many of them, and yet at the same time, they are absolutely ethically poor.

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They have 35 agencies to keep them safe, the police and the fire department and building inspectors and food inspectors and suicide prevention bureaus and all kinds of protective agencies about them, yet they are afraid of that man they see standing at the corner in the shadows.

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People in cities, by and large, ignore religion. They seek answers which can come only from God, yet they turn away from the things of God. It's only God that is going to enable them to be able to live and to love in a place

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like this, in cities which are growing all across the world. I hear this morning of those in the city who cry out in guilt. I hear this morning their expressions of hope. I see and hear two-income families that are trying to find things you really can't buy

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for money. I hear those who are crying out for someone who will put ideals before deals and people before profit. I hear those who want to be creative in the midst of a place like this, who want to have

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a family life which is more than just a feeding station, who want to have technological miracles serve not as masters but as servants of the society, from the holes about us. I hear the cries of city people who don't know that they need God but who cry out for God.

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In other words, they are the unsaved. And as we come to this table this morning with its white linen and its shining silver and its bread and its wine, as we sit down to eat, do we hear their cries? And if so, what are we doing about them?

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I hear also this morning the cries of the unemployed and the poor. You know, the one subject that is discussed more than any other in the Scripture is idolatry, the worship of false gods. But the second subject of principal concern in Scripture is the poor.

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There are more than a thousand verses directly relating to the state of the poor. They appear in more than 400 places in the Scripture. In 61 of the 66 books of the Bible, the plight of the poor is discussed. The book of Psalms has more references than any other.

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God, you see, cares about the poor. Now in our county, we have 115,000 people who are unemployed. And we have those who were poor even before the days of unemployment. And they're crying out.

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And to some extent, the Church is hearing. We have our Lazarus Fund to assist them. Our Presbytery Camp is using every spare acre of ground to grow food which can be used for the hungry.

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But by and large, most Christians that I know are perhaps not quite as obtuse as this, but have come close to the testimony of a woman who said to me, "I don't really believe that there are any people who are really poor and hungry." I wish I could take her someday with me.

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I'd like her to smell poverty, which is dirty underwear and rotten teeth. I'd like her to see mattresses that are stained and have no sheets. I'd like her to smell the onions cooking in apartment after apartment, because cooking onions you see cover other, more obnoxious aromas.

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I'd like her to go to a place where they have no money for soap. I'd like her to understand what it's like for a person to finally put aside all of their pride and go to an agency for help, and to spill out all of their plight to admit the shame of their poverty.

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And then after they have finally poured it all out, to be told by the person at the agency, "I'm not the person you want to hear. You'll have to tell it to the person in the office down the hall." And so they go there and they have to do it over again.

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And they're told once and again and again, "Wait." They have no pencils and no crayons and no paper so their kids can get ready for school. They may have the money to go to clinics, but probably not to take their children there. Poverty is an acid which eats away at personality.

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Poverty is a chisel that cuts away at honor. And I would remind you that the sixth largest poverty group in the world lives within the boundaries of the United States of America. Oh, I know there are people who sell food stamps in order to buy booze.

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I am not trying to romanticize the poor. There are many sinful poor people, just as there are many sinful rich people. They rob with guns. These people rob with lobbies or with one form or another of political or social power.

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Yes, there's sin on every level, but my friends, as we come to this table this morning set with its white linen and its silver and its bread and its wine, are we hearing those who are crying out from pits of poverty? And what are we doing about it?

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And then I hear the cries of those who are racially deprived. Many people are not going abroad this summer because of the terrorist threats. They're traveling in the United States, and I suppose that's good, and they'll go to see the Mount Rushmore Memorial, and they'll go to see the Lincoln Monument and the Statue

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of Liberty, and all of that is good. But as they're traveling about, I wish also that they'd go and see Harlem or Lowndes County, Alabama, or parts of the Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Did you know that the average black man in this city dies 15 years earlier than his white

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compatriot, and that the principal cause of death amongst blacks is high blood pressure, the environment in which they're forced to live and cannot escape from? Do you know that this June, the average white boy graduating from high school will make more money than the average black boy graduating from college?

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Do you know that fewer and fewer black people have the money to go to college, that the number attending is significantly lower than it was a decade ago, and a mind is a terrible thing to waste? Do you know what the principal cause of death is in America amongst black males between

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25 and 35 years of age? It's murder. That's a jungle out there. Did you know that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has the highest black infant mortality rate

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of any city in America? Did you know that the political structure of this city is such that there's not a single black woman or man to represent the black community on the city council of Pittsburgh? James Baldwin, the great black author, was sitting once talking with some clergymen,

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and he was pleading with them to become involved in the terrible things that are happening in a named or unnamed prejudice. And as he spoke, one of the men who was a bishop and who was wearing a gold cross about his neck said, "You must give us time.

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We need more time, more time." And Baldwin looked at him and said, "The sooner you get that cross on your back, the better." Well, we come this morning to this table set with its white linen and its shining silver and its bread and its wine.

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And where is the cross? Behind our neck, in a lapel pin, or on our back? Do we sit down to eat with the cries of our brothers all about us? Of course, to broach this theme, one has to be honest and ask why we do it that way, why

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we often do not hear. I think there are two reasons. The first is that most of us are very successful, and the tendency on the part of successful people is to believe that they have what they have because they have earned it or because

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they live good enough lives that God has given them to them. That's one of the great perils in privilege. You remember that nursery rhyme from years ago, "Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his Christmas pie.

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He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, 'Naught, O Lord, I thank thee that thou dost forgive me a sinner, and that thou hast in great mercy given to me this succulent pie.'" No, that's not what he says.

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When he sticks in his thumb and pulls out a plum, he says, "What a good boy am I!" Our problem, you see, many times is that we become so satisfied with ourselves that our world is no bigger than our own hatband. We forget that the letter at the middle of the word "sin" is "I."

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And when we focus much upon ourselves, we obviously tend to forget other people. Do you remember the parable of Divies and Lazarus that Jesus told in Matthew chapter 16? Divies was the rich man, and Lazarus was the poor man, the beggar who lived at his gate.

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And he lives off the crumbs that come from Divies' table. Now, that's an interesting reference. You see, in those days, they didn't have cloth napkins. Cloth was too expensive to be used to wipe your face and your fingers.

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So what they would do is they would have large, flat loaves of bread, and when the face or the fingers became greasy, you'd wipe the hands or the face with the bread, and then threw the bread away. That was what Lazarus, the beggar, was eating.

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Now, the detail of the story which fascinates me the most is—and remember, Jesus told it—is that Divies never knew that Lazarus was at his gate. Divies was so caught up in his own life that he never knew the beggar was there. And that's what happens to us.

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We become so caught up in our own things that we don't see others. They live in a different part of town. They send their children to different schools. They ride on different buses.

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They work in different departments. Herbert Spencer, the great English philosopher, was riding once on a railway train, and a very poor laborer was sitting across from him, and the man began to eat his lunch, and he was rude and crude and vulgar in the way he ate it.

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And as Spencer looked at him, he became disgusted and then angry. But there was no place in the railroad car to which he could move, so he had to sit there and watch. And as he sat and watched, he noted—and he wrote this later in his diary—the "woe-begone

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expression on the man's face, the years of suffering that had been there, the sad eyes, the deep lines carved into the countenance by decades of misery." You see, most of us never see that. We come to this table this morning, set with its white linen and its shining silver and

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its bread and its wine, and people from pits of evil and pits of poverty and pits of prejudice cry out, and we don't hear them as we sit down to eat. After all, out of sight, out of mind. That is the reason that this morning I ask you with me to make participation in this

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communion an act of profound resolution. In Matthew chapter 5, I read it to you a moment ago, Jesus says, "If you are coming to worship and you remember that your brother has something against you, go and straighten that out and then come back and worship."

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Unfortunately, we can't do that, because you see, the things we're talking about are not easily corrected. It's not a single deed. It's not a single word.

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It's not a single thought that is to be straightened out. It's a whole way of life. So we cannot just go out and fix things up and come back again. We must come to this table because it is a table of forgiveness, and we must seek that

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forgiveness here, but this is also a place for us to make promises, personal promises. I read about a little boy who was given a dollar for his birthday and announced he was going to spend it to buy the biggest ice cream sundae he could get for a dollar. And his father said to him, "Why don't you give the dollar to the poor?"

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And the boy said, "Well, I thought about that, Daddy, but I decided to give the dollar to the ice cream man and then let him give it to the poor." There's no place for that kind of casuistry here. This is an intensely personal place.

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Remember what it says in Proverbs chapter 21, "Those who close their ears to the cry of the needy will themselves cry out and not be heard." We must come here with our sins asking forgiveness, with our needs asking fulfilling, and to make our pledge to hear those who are crying out and to answer them.

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It's a good place for us to do it because this is a sacrament. The word "sacrament" comes from the Latin "sacramentum." Now the sacramentum was the oath which a Roman soldier took to his commander. It was taken in a very interesting way.

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One soldier would come forward and recite the whole oath in which he promised three things—to be allegiant to his captain, to obey every order that was given to him, and to never flee the field of battle. And after this one soldier had made those three commitments, every other soldier in

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the regiment would come forward and say, "The same for me." Well, let it be so for us. Let us come and make those same promises—to be allegiant always to God, to be obedient to the word and teaching of Jesus Christ, and never to flee from the obligations of

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our discipleship as we go out to the least of the brethren. You see, my friends, the kingdom of heaven is not entered into by relaxation. There was a young Indian brave who went to his grandfather, who was the chief of the tribe, and he said to him, "Grandfather, what must you do to become the chief of the tribe?"

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The grandfather looked at him very bravely and said, "You must pluck hairs from the tail of a living bobcat. You must wrestle the great white buffalo to the ground by hand. And you must fight a bear and win in fighting him two falls out of three.

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And then there are the usual trials of fire and water." To which the astonished young brave replied, "Granddad, what ever happened to wholesome good looks and a nice personality?" Well, you see, we have wholesome good looks and we have nice personalities.

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We're nice folks and we're coming to a nice table. But you see, it's not niceness that gets you to the kingdom. The scriptures say in 1 John, "My little children, if anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how can God's love abide in him?

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Let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and truth, and by this they will know we are of the truth." That's what it is to be in the kingdom, to be of the truth. I invite you then in the name of Jesus to come to his table, set with white linen and

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shining silver and bread and wine. Let us confess our sins. Let us promise to be his faithful servants. And then let us go out and live those promises to the glory of God and to the freeing of

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all those who are in pits. To anyone, anywhere, whom Jesus Christ would have us serve. Let us pray. As we come now to communion, Father, let it not be casual.

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Spare us by thy spirit so that we will go away from this table, different from the way in which we come to it. We pray our prayer in Jesus name. Amen.

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[Music] [Music] [Music] He was only about six years old and he went to the store to buy eggs for his mother

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as he was coming home from the store he tripped and fell and broke them all, each and every one. And he knelt there in the middle of the sidewalk crying over the broken eggs. And a few people who went by said, "I'm sorry." And then one lady came and kneeling down beside him she said, "I'm sorry a quarter's worth," and she gave him a quarter.

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And a man came by and he said, "I'm sorry fifty cents' worth," and he gave him a half a dollar. And a youngster came by and said, "I'm sorry a nickel's worth," and gave him a nickel. And pretty soon he had enough money to go and buy new eggs to take them home to his mother. Being sorry is not something that you just say.

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Being sorry is something that you do. As John has written, "Love is not word. By focusing our attention on the letter to the Hebrews, we can grow in the power of Jesus Christ."

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And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give to you. And to all those whom you love, and to all those who know him,

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give unto him the peace which is in you. Those who serve the Temple have no right to . . .