Good Neighbors
It is a cliche that it is a small world, but sometimes it really does seem that way. As I was leaving a basketball game twenty-four years ago, a lady stopped me and said, “I know where Letona is.” Earlier, I had written of my father spending a part of his childhood in the tiny town north of Searcy, Arkansas. She went on to say that she had read the article and asked me if I had ever heard of Skinny Aaron. I told her I had not, but would see if my dad remembered him.
In the spring of 1934, my Grandpa Shelton was in bed with what was called “malarial fever.” Planting time was at hand, but he was too sick to do any work. My dad, who was only twelve at the time, had gone out into the field to break it up with a cultivator and prepare it for planting. Their cultivator was powered by two small mules. He had the mules hooked up properly, but was having a hard time adjusting the cultivator to the proper depth. It turned out a man was watching this little boy struggle with the cultivator, stopped what he was doing, and came over to see if he could help. The man set the cultivator to the proper depth and allowed the little boy to do the work his father was too sick to do. That man who took the time to come over and help was Skinny Aaron.
Although it had been sixty-six years since that incident took place (and it has been 90 years now), at the mention of Skinny Aaron’s name, that one good deed immediately came to dad’s mind. Good deeds are often long remembered. Of all the things we go through in our lives, the things that may be remembered the longest and are the most treasured are small, simple acts of kindness by good neighbors.
To me, one of the most interesting stories in the Bible is the story of the wedding at Cana. You remember how Jesus, his disciples, and his mother, Mary, had been invited to the wedding of an unnamed couple in this village. At some point during the perhaps week-long festivities, the wine ran out. From what we know of first century weddings and social etiquette, this could have been a major embarrassment. For some reason, Mary knew they ran out of wine and told Jesus. It would be interesting to know how she said it and how she looked at Jesus when she said it because Jesus seemed to immediately realize she was wanting Him to do something about the problem. Jesus responded with a Hebrew idiom that translates into modern English as, “What does that have to do with us?” He told her that His time had not come. Mary then turns and tells one of the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
It seems that Mary knew Jesus could be imposed upon to help. I have this image of her turning to tell the servant to do whatever Jesus says and then looking around at Jesus with a little smile as she walked off. Moms know their boys. And there stood God in the flesh left to decide if the Divine Schedule would be changed to do a good deed at the urging of a woman. He may have even chuckled at the predicament. God allowed Himself to be interrupted, if you will, and two thousand years later we remember the Divine Neighbor helping a neighbor, the very Lord who tells us to love our neighbor as ourself. On a much larger scale, that is also what happened at Calvary. The God of the Universe took on flesh to perform the ultimate Good Deed to save mankind.
Philippians 2:5-8 (NASB) Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Good deeds are remembered.
-Jim Shelton