(choir singing) (organ playing) (choir singing with organ) 

Speaker 1: The scriptures tell us, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Let us therefore make our common confession to almighty God. Oh, holy God. We give thanks for our heritage. We confess before you and our neighbor that our pious language and actions have often deceived us and blinded us to the deceits and the destructive use of power. Which has been a part of our history. We confess with shame our broken trust and treaties. The massacres and the enslavement, which are part of our past open our eyes that we may see and confess the injustice and oppression, which we now participate in through our active involvement. For our passive silence, and then put in our hearts the desire and the power to heal, to enlighten and to set free. Amen. Let us continue in prayer. As we make our individual confessions to almighty God. Hear these words of assurance, as we find them in the prayer book of the church. The psalms, he will hide me in his shelter and the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of his tent. Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Yay. Wait for the Lord. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (organ playing) (choir singing) Our Old Testament lesson is from several portions of the Old Testament. The first, the book of Exodus the 20th chapter, these select verses. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land, which the Lord, your God gives you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his man servant, or his maid servant, or his ox or his ass. Or anything that is your neighbors. From the 15th chapter of Psalms. Oh Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tent who shall dwell on thy holy hill. He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth from his heart who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his friend. Nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor. And from the 24th chapter. The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place. He who has clean hands and a pure heart who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from the God of his salvation. Such, is a generation of those who seek him. Who seek the face of the God of Jacob. And from Micah, the prophet, the sixth chapter. With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings? With calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams? With 10 thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. And the New Testament lesson from the epistle of James. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man's religion is vain. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the father is this. To visit orphans and widows in their affliction. And to keep oneself unstained from the world. Here ends the morning lesson. (organ playing) (choir singing) We are not alone. We live in God's world. 

All: We believe in God who has created and is creating, who has come and the truly human Jesus to reconcile and make new. Who works in us and others by the spirit We trust God who calls us to be the church to celebrate life and its fullness, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen. Our judge and our hope in life and death in life beyond death. God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. 

Speaker 1: The Lord be with you. Let us pray. We thank the Lord of life and death bestower of time and former of creation. That thou has made us, but a little lower than the angels. For lips to praise the. For tongues to thank the. For minds to glorify the. We give thanks and praise. Neither tongue nor mind, word nor thought can contain our joy and gladness that you are the one who has created and redeemed us. We delight in your wisdom. We grow by your forgiveness. Your spirit enlarges our spirits and by your presence, our time is made pregnant with meaning and purpose. Oh Lord, our Lord. How magnificent is your name and all the Earth, how magnificent thy redeeming and regenerating influence in our unfulfilled lives. And this Pentecost season, we pray the holy comforter, that thou who must need the, that we who most need the that thou be with us and with all those who need the most in whatever station and whatever circumstance and whatever place they may be. That they may feel thy comforting presence in a special way, and receive its manifold benefits of body and spirit. Mindful as we are of your life giving and profoundly comforting presence in this special season. We lift up now the special needs of those near and dear to us. We name them silently in our hearts before the. Oh thou Lord of nations and creator of history, the Sunday after independence day, we give thanks, especially for the great moments and the great persons and dreams in our nation's history. There is indeed much in our national story which we must lament. But much there is to which we must also celebrate. We pray the Lord confirmed the good, sift the evil and ill inspired. Raise up out of our midst, strong-willed women and men with visions for justice and peace. To provide the right kind of leadership and influence. We are glad for this land Lord and we pray privately that it may be indeed throughout its history, a light to the nations. Dispelling the shadows of tyranny, greed and injustice both at home and abroad. We pray to the our Lord keep us all close to the. That we may dwell evermore in the. And the, in us. We make our prayer in the name of our Lord and Savior who taught us to pray saying... 

All: Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen. 

Speaker 2: Church and Raleigh, which I have served as a minister with various degrees of success and unsuccess for 20 years. Recently, wish either to refurbish my sermons or my study. And then, doing the latter, my office, like that organ back there is undergoing some renovation. And in your case, a brand new organ, this innovation, which means I have the addition of a new filing cabinet. I forced me to go through with what the constitution calls my papers and effects. Some of this stuff, I am refiling. Some of it, I am mailing to the state historical society of Wisconsin in Madison. And some I'm shredding. In this summoning up, remembrance of things past in my life. I'm impressed with the consistency, with which I have at least tried to fulfill a commitment made years ago. Which was that my ministry should give major emphasis to corporate and collective ethics rather than to private and individual morality. Not that I have minimized or do minimize privatized or single sin, but that I have long known that some 95% of my fellow clergymen would be vigorously working that side of the street. To the neglect as I feared of what Saint Paul called the principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in the high places. What's a border from Reinhold Niebuhr's great book, Moral Man and Immoral Society. My decision was to leave moral man to the tender mercies of my brethren while I, however, ineffectively in my Don Quixote role would take on the immoral society. And I have no apologies except that I didn't do it well. But on this first Sunday, as you mentioned in the prayer to Richie. The first Sunday after the bicentennial, July four, I am making an about face in turning 180 degrees in the opposite direction. I'm talking with you today about personal and private morals of church people in America. And I'm referring to mea culpa. I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and I'm referring to your sins too. I'm raising the question with you about the separation of faith and morals. About people whose daily individual lives contribute to a decadent society. People who resent that phrase in the book of common prayer which tells us there is no health in us. People who wonder why a psychiatrist like Karl Menninger would write a book with a title, Whatever Became of Sin. I am in short calling for a recovery of puritanism. For many years, we have read an article, novels, or heard on TV, and radio or in polite conversation, the constant derision of puritanism or the Puritan ethic. A tour liberated cultured people like you and me loftily dismiss the restrictions and inhibitions and hesitance as to which all flesh is rightly air as puritanical. If it's puritanical, it's passé. People, we are told who have come of age transcend the hypocrisies and repressions of our New England heritage. Lord Macaulay, great English historian, early sounded this note when he opined that the Puritans of his day, opposed bear baiting. Not because of the pain that brought the bear, but because of the pleasure it afforded the spectator. But in light of recent revelations of the honor code violations by our military institutions and other educational institutions. In light of the outrageous misbehavior of some national legislators or the acceptance of bribes by high officials. The frightening increase of crimes of violence and white collar crimes. The proliferation of pornography, the breaking up of homes, the rise in illegitimacy and abortions. In light of all of this, we would do well, I think to give serious and prayerful thought to the Puritan and his ethic. But first, what is a Puritan? Now listen to this definition by our friend Webster, "Pilgrim is one who express it and they because of adherence to a religious sect. Practices or preachers a more rigorous or professedly purer moral code, then that which prevails. One who on religious or ethical grounds invades against current practices, pleasures or the like. Which he regards as lacks, impure, or corrupted. Now before some of the... The ERA devotees and this congregation reach the conclusion that we are dealing only with males. This is what he, the Puritan, felt and did. Webster ads by way of illustration, the following quotation from Shakespeare, "She would make a Puritan of the devil". Since I could not find this quote in Bartlett, a librarian of our congregation in Raleigh kind of sent word to me that it occurs in act four, scene six, line nine, a paraclete. I went back to Webster's depiction of our awesome parent. Is this description all bad? I find it forbidding and astaire, but also refreshing and bracing. After all, Jesus told his disciples that unless their righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, they would have no wise enter into his kingdom. Now as much as I believe in a more equitable distribution of the national wealth and I do. Or in social and economic justice, And I do. And in the bringing of all people under the protections of the bill of rights, And I do. I do not think that our nation has a future apart from some kind of revival and our private lives and hearts. Of this spirit of Puritanism. Wordsworth regarding John Milton, who was the Puritan par excellence. Wordsworth regarded at Milton as a man of great faith and morals. And he wrote in 1802 these words of invocation, "Milton, thou shouldst to be living at this hour. Angland, hath need of the, she is a fan of stagnant waters. Altar, sword, and pen, fireside, the heroic wealth of hauling power. Have forfeited their ancient English hour of endless happiness. We are selfish men. Oh, raise us up. Returned to us again. And give us manners, fresh air, freedom, power. We need only substitute America and American for England and English and read the portion of the sonnet again, to bring it home. Milton, thou shouldst to be living at this hour. America hath need of the. She, is a fan of stagnant waters. Altar, sword, and pen, fireside. The heroic wealth of hauling power have forfeited their ancient American hour of endless happiness. We are selfish men. Oh, raise us up. Return to us again and give us manners, fresh air, freedom, power. A few weeks back, the announcement appeared in the papers of the death of the famous preacher, Dr. Leslie Weatherhead in England. Years before we were tossing about the term permissiveness, Dr. Weatherhead wrote of a young wife who confessed to her husband, an act of infidelity for which she was deeply contrite. He forgave her immediately and handsomely, which both surprised her and moved her to gratitude until she learned later that he himself had been involved in numerous infidelities. How much of what passes for broad mindedness and acceptance may in fact be self-serving and defensive. We do not stand in judgment or protest wrong. When we see it. For fear that we ourselves may be subjected to scrutiny. In an open society, this could be called live and let live. But a conscience informed by the Christian faith warrants, that it may also be sin and let sin. The Psalmist speaks of the man in whose eyes a re-appropriate is condemned because that man fears the Lord. Now your true Puritan will have none of this. He subjects himself to the highest ethical standards and he is rigorous in its enforcement. When he fails, he is not afraid to experience guilt. Then go around consulting every psychiatrist or counselor to remove him from guilt. He's not afraid of repentance and amendment. By the same token, he does not hesitate to identify and protest wrong in other people. He knows little of permissiveness. Though, he may know much of forgiveness. And if this Puritan could find some kind of rebirth in our hearts and I would want a generous addition of compassion and the milk of human kindness. He may not have possessed when he preceded the stern and rock bound coast. If this could happen, how would this affect your life and mine? With regard to our legislators and the infamy they have brought to the nation. We would make it crystal clear, I think. That those who cannot refrain from breaking the law will be constrained from making the law. We will be tolerant of (indistinct) that overlooks mistresses and revelry. As human for so long as they are not put on the public payroll. Neither will we fall for any ploy about Washington being the great corrupter of morals. We would learn about the private morals and business ethics of politicians. Before we sent them to Washington. This of course goes for every public office, including the president. We, of course, would exercise our right to demand that no candidate for president shall be fuzzy on the issues. Such a secret intelligence, federalization of the welfare, national health, relief for the cities, revision of the tax structure, and foreign policy. But we would also exercise the right to demand that no candidate shall be fuzzy in private morals. While neither the constitution or Christian reality require that we have a Saint to be elected president and short of Lincoln we never got one. No one should offer for this position who does not score high. If you will forgive a pun on ethics, purity... It has been remarked of George Orwell who kept up a long feud with the institutionalized Trish 1984 is getting close. It's been remarked of Orwell that he was a moralist without religion. Here in America where spiritual fervor and charisma seemed to be reaching new heights. There is much religion without morality. Everyone believes, for example, in the ultimacy of the great commandment thou shalt not kill. Yet, our nation has perhaps the highest incidence of homicides of any of the industrialized countries. The heart of this human carnage is the hand gun. Judges boasts that they take the gun with them to the bench. Untold millions of guns circulate freely across the land of the stash and our homeless where far more kinsmen are killed by them then burglars. A car parked at a hospital, I recently visited display this message, "Anyone who takes away my gun will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers". The mirror suggestion of the mildest form of licensing of the gun. Even the handgun. Raised as a human cry of protests, not just from the all powerful national rifle association, but from church bodies gathered in the name of the prince of peace. Japan, for example, has strict gun control. Last year that was one recorded homicide in that country by a gun. In New York city alone, during the same year, 1200 people were shot with guns and killed. Violence must be indeed as American as apple pie. In a world, where millions of human beings are literally dying of starvation. Millions of little children will never live beyond eight or ten years. We, we are overfed. We are over boozed. We are overstimulated. We are over entertained and we are not happy. Some people call this enemy. We require not once, but again and again. Abortion on demand. As though the killing of a human fetus were a cool, uncluttered clinical thing. We call adultery open marriage. We call the divorce mill, a modern phenomenon. We cheat on our income tax at home and our children cheat on their exams at school. And the fault there, Brutus, lies not in the act, but in the being caught in the act. Our racist hearts are exposed, not only in the convulsions at Boston. But then those subtle, hidden, and refined ways that still perpetuate the inequities of our society. On November 20, 1886, James Russell Lowell wrote a motto for the American copyright league, which to use an overworked word seems relevant today. Listen, in vain, we call old notions, budge and bend our conscience to our dealings. The ten commandments will not budge and stealing still continues stealing. We are in short, paganized Christians. Our faith is one thing, our morality, or lack of it is something else. What God has joined together. We day by day put us under. The scriptures, read this morning, it's richly speak clearly of this indissoluble union. Who shall ascend and under the heel of the Lord? He didn't have clean hands and a pure heart. What does the Lord require of us? To do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God. What is religion, pure and undefiled before God? To visit the widows, the orphans in their need. Keep oneself unspotted from the world. Can we fail? There we have failed. To see puritanism in all of this. Only when we have this insight, can we understand as few of us do. The great beatitude blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. It was after God commanded that we love him with all our hearts, that we were then commanded. Thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet. We are in closing. We are not required to save this world. Though Jesus did tell us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. That salt must never lose its savor nor light put under a table. St. Paul did say that we were to shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and adulterous generation. We are, nonetheless, not required to save the world. Even though God sent Jesus into the world because he so left it. But we are required to remain faithful to our Christian witness and calling. no matter what the world does or which way it goes. Put another way, as Methodist missionary E. Stanley Jones used to say, "we are to be a part, not of the disease, but of the cure". And we respond to the calls and needs and suffering in the world. We ought to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. We are in the world, but not of the world. This is Puritanism at its best. So, where there is drunkenness let us stand for sobriety. Where there is conspicuous consumption let us stand for frugality. Where there is self indulgence let us stand for self denial. Where there is waste let us stand for the economy. Where there is lust let us stand for virtue. Where there deceit let us stand for rectitude. If this be puritanism, make the most of it. There can be no further enrichment of your material life and mind. Well that they can comment impoverishment of someone else's life. That can mean no further increase. And the national GNP without diminishing the national GP of developing nations. That's why we went to Vietnam and that's why they got mixed up in Angola. And don't let nobody tell you different. The Puritan ethic will teach us to live in a world and share it. We are finally not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds and hearts. Even in the world of pornography, of obscenity, of perversity, of infidelity, of greed, violence, racism, and hatred. And as St. Paul put it have it done all we ought to stand. Toward the end of his long and productive life, George Santayana wrote a book, which he titled The Last Puritan. If need be, we must be just that. We shall pray. Take away our love of sinning. Pure and spotless. Let us be in the faith at its beginning. Set our hearts at Liberty. Amen. (organ playing) (choir singing) (organ playing) (organ playing) (organ playing) (choir singing) (organ playing) 

Speaker 1: Oh Lord our God, send upon us thy holy spirit to cleanse our hearts, to hallow our gifts and to perfect the offering of ourselves to the Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (organ playing) 

Speaker 1: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God, the communion and the fellowship of the holy spirit. Be with us all this day and forevermore. (choir singing) (bell ringing) (bell ringing) (bell ringing) (organ playing) (clapping)