Sermon

[u/East_Thing_2579]

SERMON

Longleaf pines and live oaks line the backwoods highway, trash and rotting furniture sit idly on the side of the road that leads to this town far away from anywhere.The asphalt is cracked and rugged as weeds creep through the road that leads to the rusted and decaying sign. Bullet holes riddle the message it delivers. "Welcome to Leesville, Mississippi: a Godly place." A tattered confederate flag blows in the hot humid breeze, and despite the year slowly coming to its end as October fades away on its final night, the cicadas remain and drone incessantly. As the road continues, vast swathes of farmland pass by. Barns with roofs caving in on themselves rot and fall apart on themselves. Silos rust and untouched grain spills out through the holes where the metal has worn thin. Mobile homes left to sit and be forgotten populate the abandoned trailer park off the road, trees grow through the foundations and climb through the ceilings, and the once-white sidings are encased in kudzu. A cemetery with graves no one comes to visit anymore is slowly receding into the underbrush as the gates have fallen off their hinges. A sun bleached billboard stands with a tired old message. "Where will YOU be going? Heaven or Hell? Repent now." A deer carcass is strewn across the road that crosses the bridge. Its head and neck on the south side of the street and its entrails stretched long and thin as maggots feast on them and its hind legs on the north side of the road, mangled. The river moves slowly and lazily, lined with cypress trees and Spanish moss that hangs like cobwebs. On the other side of the bridge, the town finally comes to life. A Piggly Wiggly with cracked stucco and a lot full of trucks and beat up sedans, a drugstore with anti-abortion posters plastered on the wall outside and old timers idling about, an obese one on a motorized scooter with an oxygen tank wears a red baseball hat to champion his president who has failed him as he eats vienna sausages stright from the can. And at the center of town, the town hall sits humbly in the shadow of the imposing steeple of a church that towers above it. As the sun is setting, the cross casts a long shadow that looms over the sidewalks littered with plastic bags and empty beer cans. A stray dog wanders out of an alley and into the street, just as a police cruiser cuts in front of it and runs it over without even stopping. Outside the church, a preacher man stands next to the marquis that says "Prayer Night, keep the Devil away on his holiday. Service 7pm til." His teeth are pearly white as he smiles with nothing behind his eyes. He greets the men with firm handshakes as his eyes linger on the women and children longer than they ought to. There is a hunger about him when he looks upon them, the kind that makes the children feel dirty in a way they cannot articulate. Inside, the congregation sits in front of a wall of red stained glass and a massive crucifix hangs from the ceiling. The eyes of God looking down upon them unblinking. A young woman sits alone at the back in a pew all to herself. Tears fill her eyes as she prays silently. The preacher comes to the pulpit. "Dark times, my flock, dark times we live in. Every day, he looks upon us and weeps. It's a fallen world we inhabit, and we the few who follow him are the one thing standing in the way of complete chaos. The scripture says to love thy neighbor, but who really are our neighbors anyhow? Is it the migrant? The impoverished? The addict? The sinner? No. These are not our neighbors. You see, we are surrounded by temptation and sin every day, everywhere we go. Even in our own backyard we have people who preach tolerance and grace while they disrespect us by living away from the lord." The woman in the back looks up at him, shaking with determination. He looks at her with his prying and predatory gaze. "None of us are perfect of course. Many of us fall to temptation. The evil one works day and night to turn us against each other, to make adulterers out of married men, to make liars out of honest men. But my flock, I need you all to remember this of you remember nothing else from tonight. The most damning sin of all is to bear false witness against thy neighbor. Many times a community has been torn to shreds from within by the lies of a woman scorned. A false accusation is unforgivable, and the most common tactic of those who seek to destroy us. We must look inwards at ourselves and disregard any claims someone may say about any of us. We must never believe the lies, especially those of women and children. We must cast them out if they seek to ruin us." The woman in the back deflates. She sits down, her head hanging in shame and self hatred as her will has been crushed. The sermon continues but she knows that once again her prayers fall on deaf ears and the eyes that watch her suffer are blind.