Howard C. Wilkinson - "Sanity and Christianity" (June 8, 1986)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ music) | 0:03 | |
- | Welcome to New Chapel. | 12:36 |
Our guest preacher is the Reverend Dr. Howard Wilkinson. | 12:38 | |
Dr. Wilkinson is a former chaplain here at Duke University, | 12:44 | |
and former president of Greensboro College. | 12:48 | |
He currently serves on the chapel development committee, | 12:51 | |
and we are delighted to have him | 12:54 | |
back in the pulpit of Duke Chapel today. | 12:56 | |
A number of Dr. Wilkinson's friends this year | 12:59 | |
have instituted a fund for the Howard Wilkinson | 13:02 | |
guest preacher, which will be established here in the chapel | 13:07 | |
to invite distinguished preachers to our pulpit. | 13:11 | |
Today at 5:00, our organist Doctor Monica Umstaedt Rossman, | 13:15 | |
will present a concert that the public is cordially invited. | 13:21 | |
Let us continue our worship. | 13:27 | |
(choir singing) | 13:42 | |
(organ music) | 14:41 | |
(choir singing in unison with organ music) | 15:10 | |
- | As a forgiven and reconciled people, | 18:22 |
we gather to glorify God and to sing praises | 18:25 | |
unto His name in recognition of all His mighty acts. | 18:28 | |
Let us confess our sins so that we may acknowledge | 18:33 | |
God's mercy towards us, and be at one with our creator. | 18:37 | |
Have mercy upon us oh God, | 18:55 | |
according to thy loving kindness, | 18:58 | |
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, | 19:00 | |
blot out our transgressions. | 19:04 | |
Wash us thoroughly from our iniquities, | 19:07 | |
and cleanse us from our sins, | 19:09 | |
for we acknowledge our transgressions, | 19:12 | |
and our sin is ever before us. | 19:15 | |
Create in us clean hearts, oh God, | 19:18 | |
and renew a right Spirit within us | 19:21 | |
through Jesus Christ Our Lord, amen. | 19:24 | |
Hear the good news. | 19:29 | |
Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. | 19:31 | |
That is God's own proof of His love towards us. | 19:35 | |
- | In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. | 19:40 |
- | Let us pray. | 19:57 |
Open our hearts and Minds, oh God, | 20:01 | |
by the power of your Holy Spirit | 20:04 | |
so that as the Word is read and proclaimed, | 20:07 | |
we might hear with joy | 20:10 | |
what you say to this day, amen. | 20:12 | |
The first lesson is taken from the first book of Kings. | 20:21 | |
"After this, the son of the woman, | 20:27 | |
"the Mistress of the house, became ill, | 20:29 | |
"and his illness was so severe | 20:32 | |
"that there was no breath left in him. | 20:35 | |
"And she said to Elijah, 'What have you against me, | 20:38 | |
"'oh man of God? | 20:42 | |
"'You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance | 20:43 | |
"'and to cause the death of my son.' | 20:47 | |
"And he said to her, 'Give me your son.' | 20:50 | |
"And he took him from her bosom and carried him | 20:55 | |
"into the upper chamber where he lodged and laid him | 20:57 | |
"upon his own bed, and he cried to the Lord, | 21:01 | |
"'Oh Lord my God, hast thou brought calamity even upon | 21:05 | |
"the widow with whom I sojourn by slaying her son?' | 21:09 | |
"Then he stretched himself upon the child three times | 21:14 | |
"and cried to the Lord, 'Oh Lord my God, | 21:17 | |
"let this child's soul come unto him again.' | 21:20 | |
"And the Lord harkened to the voice of Elijah, | 21:25 | |
"and the soul of the child came unto him again | 21:29 | |
"and he revived, and Elijah took the child | 21:33 | |
"and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house | 21:37 | |
"and delivered him to his mother. | 21:40 | |
"And Elijah said, 'See, your son lives.' | 21:43 | |
"And the woman said to Elijah, 'Now I know | 21:48 | |
"that you are a man of God, and that the word | 21:51 | |
"of the Lord in your mouth is truth.'" | 21:55 | |
This ends the reading of the first listen. | 22:00 | |
(organ music) | 22:12 | |
♪ Oh, sing unto the Lord ♪ | 22:19 | |
♪ Sing unto the Lord ♪ | 22:22 | |
♪ Sing unto the Lord a new song ♪ | 22:25 | |
♪ Sing, sing unto the Lord a new song ♪ | 22:29 | |
(choir singing hallelujahs) | 22:35 | |
♪ Sing unto the Lord ♪ | 22:59 | |
♪ Oh, oh oh oh oh ♪ | 23:02 | |
♪ Sing unto the Lord, oh ♪ | 23:09 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:15 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:18 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:21 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:24 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:27 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:30 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 23:34 | |
(organ music) | 23:41 | |
(choir singing in unison with organ music) | 23:59 | |
- | The second lesson is taken from Galatians. | 25:03 |
"For I would have you know, brethren, | 25:08 | |
"that the Gospel, which was preached by me, | 25:11 | |
"is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from man, | 25:14 | |
"nor was I taught it, but it came | 25:20 | |
"through a revelation of Jesus Christ. | 25:23 | |
"For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, | 25:27 | |
"how I persecuted the church of God violently | 25:31 | |
"and tried to destroy it. | 25:34 | |
"And, I advanced in Judaism beyond many of | 25:36 | |
"my own age among my people. | 25:39 | |
"So extremely zealous was I | 25:42 | |
"for the traditions of my fathers. | 25:44 | |
"But when He, who had set me apart before I was born, | 25:48 | |
"and has called me through His grace, | 25:52 | |
"was pleased to reveal His son to me | 25:55 | |
"in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. | 25:59 | |
"I did not confer with flesh and blood, | 26:03 | |
"nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those | 26:06 | |
"who were apostles before me, but I went away | 26:09 | |
"into Arabia, and again, I returned to Damascus. | 26:13 | |
"Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem | 26:19 | |
"to visit Cephas, and remained with him 15 days. | 26:23 | |
"But I saw none of the other apostles, | 26:29 | |
"except James, the Lord's brother, | 26:31 | |
"and what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. | 26:34 | |
"Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, | 26:39 | |
"and I was still not known by sight | 26:43 | |
"to the churches of Christ in Judea. | 26:46 | |
"They only heard it said, 'He who once persecuted us | 26:49 | |
"'is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. | 26:55 | |
"And they glorified God because of me." | 27:01 | |
The gospel lesson is from Luke. | 27:10 | |
"And he came down with them and stood on a level place | 27:16 | |
"with a great crowd of his disciples, | 27:21 | |
"and a great multitude of people from all Judea | 27:24 | |
"and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, | 27:27 | |
"who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases." | 27:31 | |
When one has served in this chapel | 27:57 | |
for 15 of the best years of his life, | 28:01 | |
and then returns for an occasion, such as this today, | 28:05 | |
he has many pleasant memories | 28:10 | |
flooding through his consciousness, | 28:13 | |
and along with them, a few that are tense. | 28:16 | |
There is the temptation today to reminisce, | 28:22 | |
and I must not yield, | 28:26 | |
except to recount one useful episode | 28:28 | |
which some in the congregation may remember. | 28:33 | |
One Friday morning, I was putting the finishing touches | 28:38 | |
on a sermon scheduled for delivery | 28:41 | |
in this pulpit two days later. | 28:44 | |
There was a knock on the heavy door or my office, | 28:48 | |
and when I invited the person in, I found myself facing | 28:50 | |
a somewhat distraught graduate student | 28:56 | |
whom I had not met before, but who, at that very moment, | 28:59 | |
demanded that I surrender | 29:04 | |
this pulpit to him on Sunday, | 29:07 | |
for he had an important message straight from God, | 29:11 | |
which he absolutely had to present to the campus | 29:15 | |
at the earliest possible moment. | 29:18 | |
Well, I gave him several reasons | 29:22 | |
why this couldn't be done, and he left. | 29:24 | |
Well, at the appointed time on Sunday morning, | 29:28 | |
I came up into this awesome enclosure | 29:31 | |
and began to deliver the sermon. | 29:34 | |
When I was several minutes into the thing, | 29:38 | |
I noticed someone walking toward the front | 29:41 | |
in the north aisle over here. | 29:44 | |
When he passed the nearest column here, | 29:47 | |
I recognized my Friday visitor, | 29:50 | |
and I saw that he was coming toward the pulpit. | 29:53 | |
My first thought was of the fact that | 29:58 | |
we were broadcasting on radio station WDNC, | 30:00 | |
and people listen to our service all the way | 30:05 | |
to the Atlantic Ocean in the east as well as in Virginia | 30:07 | |
on to North and South Carolina in the other direction. | 30:11 | |
And, it was immediately clear to me that he was going | 30:15 | |
to try to take this pulpit away from me. | 30:18 | |
So, I gripped the pulpit securely with my left hand, | 30:23 | |
got ready to push him away with my right hand. | 30:28 | |
Fortunately, I had my manuscript with me on the pulpit. | 30:33 | |
Sure enough, he came up the pulpit steps, | 30:38 | |
took hold of my right arm and tried | 30:41 | |
to pull me out of this pulpit. | 30:44 | |
Silently, I pushed him, | 30:48 | |
and he pulled me. | 30:51 | |
This went on for a couple of paragraphs | 30:54 | |
of the sermon, | 30:57 | |
(audience laughing) | ||
which I hope I read coherently. | 30:59 | |
Now, at this moment, in today's sermon you may be wondering | 31:05 | |
why nobody in the congregation or in the choir on that day | 31:10 | |
came immediately to my rescue. | 31:15 | |
The answer actually is quite simple. | 31:20 | |
Only a very few weeks before, a group of our students | 31:24 | |
and two denominational chaplains had conducted | 31:27 | |
an experimental service in the chapel. | 31:30 | |
During which, one member of the group | 31:34 | |
interrupted the service, and many people in nursing homes | 31:36 | |
and hospitals listening by radio phoned the Durham Police | 31:41 | |
and told them to come out to the chapel and restore order. | 31:45 | |
(audience laughing) | 31:48 | |
So, while in actual reality, | 31:50 | |
my Friday visitor and I were existentially engaged | 31:52 | |
in a heavily struggle for a physical possession | 31:57 | |
of this pulpit, before the eyes of everybody in the chapel, | 32:00 | |
the congregation serenely, but disgustedly | 32:05 | |
sat in the pews wondering | 32:11 | |
what the chapel leadership might plan next. | 32:13 | |
(audience laughing) | 32:16 | |
at last, an undergraduate | ||
in the choir came to my rescue. | 32:20 | |
Ironically, the reason he did was that he had been | 32:24 | |
a member of the experimental group, which had planned | 32:28 | |
the earlier interruption, and he knew that I had expressed | 32:32 | |
rather sharp criticism of that. | 32:35 | |
So, he put two and two together and accurately concluded | 32:38 | |
that if I was critical of what they had done, | 32:42 | |
I wouldn't have scheduled this little wrestling match. | 32:45 | |
So, he came forward and led the graduate student | 32:50 | |
out of the chapel. | 32:54 | |
Once outside, the disturbed person | 32:57 | |
convinced the choir member that he would leave. | 32:59 | |
So, he turned him loose and return to the choir, | 33:02 | |
where upon my Friday visitor re-entered through | 33:05 | |
the transept door and quickly was again | 33:08 | |
at my right elbow yanking away. | 33:12 | |
This time, the choir member brought a buddy with him, | 33:17 | |
and they didn't turn to disturb the fellow loose | 33:20 | |
until he was safely inside | 33:22 | |
the psychiatric ward at the hospital. | 33:24 | |
Now, I bring this up today because of a comment | 33:28 | |
which was made to me on campus a week after the episode | 33:31 | |
by someone who had learned of it. | 33:35 | |
He told me that he had heard the news that a Duke student | 33:38 | |
had gone crazy over religion, and he wanted me to know | 33:41 | |
that the best way to avoid insanity | 33:45 | |
was to stay away from religion. | 33:48 | |
This was a very interesting comment, | 33:53 | |
and I reflected on it for quite a while. | 33:55 | |
I never did learn precisely what the student's illness was | 33:59 | |
or what had precipitated his psychosis, but it is true | 34:02 | |
that at the time his personality was falling into disarray, | 34:07 | |
his conscious mind was obsessed with some religious theme. | 34:11 | |
While I was reflecting on that, I heard a report of a man | 34:18 | |
drowning in the ocean off the North Carolina coast. | 34:21 | |
The person who told me about it had witnessed | 34:25 | |
the actual drowning, so I asked him some questions about it. | 34:28 | |
The swimmer had come to the surface | 34:33 | |
three times after first going under. | 34:35 | |
I asked what the endangered swimmer | 34:39 | |
did each time he came to the surface. | 34:41 | |
"Why, he gasped for air," said my informant. | 34:44 | |
After the questioning and the reporting were over, | 34:51 | |
it was clear that when the man drowned, | 34:53 | |
he was desperately trying to get air into his lungs. | 34:56 | |
Now, common sense tells us that his efforts to get air | 35:01 | |
were not the cause of his drowning, | 35:04 | |
even though he was completely devoted | 35:05 | |
to those efforts at the time he did drown. | 35:07 | |
Rather, it was his inability to get enough air, | 35:12 | |
and in time, which caused the drowning, not the opposite. | 35:16 | |
Somehow, after digesting that report, | 35:21 | |
my mind made a connection with the comment that was made | 35:25 | |
to me about the disturbed graduate student. | 35:29 | |
Surely, during the days that he was slipping | 35:33 | |
into a psychosis, his attention was centered | 35:35 | |
on some aspects of religion, | 35:38 | |
and he frantically was pursuing that aspect. | 35:41 | |
But, whether his fairly sudden interest in religion | 35:45 | |
logically means that his psychosis was caused by a religion | 35:48 | |
is at least open to serious question. | 35:53 | |
Rather, it may be that the human subconscious | 35:57 | |
instinctively knows that a relationship to God would bring | 36:00 | |
a stability to his soul that would be therapeutic. | 36:05 | |
Even as the subconscious of a drowning man | 36:09 | |
knows the air is needed. | 36:12 | |
There are times when many of us echo the feelings | 36:16 | |
of the psalmist who wrote: | 36:19 | |
"As the deer pants for the Water Brook," | 36:21 | |
"So Pants My Soul After You Oh God." | 36:25 | |
Well, whatever you or I may think about the influence | 36:30 | |
of religion upon mental health, it at least it's clear | 36:32 | |
that the Christian scriptures teach that our faith | 36:35 | |
is a positive influence upon our emotional | 36:38 | |
and mental well-being. | 36:41 | |
For many years, the preeminent verse, which was quoted | 36:43 | |
in support of this, was the King James translation | 36:47 | |
of 2 Timothy 1:7, | 36:51 | |
"For God gave us not a spirit of fear, | 36:53 | |
"but of power and love and of a sound mind." | 36:58 | |
However, the best Greek texts | 37:02 | |
do not support that translation. | 37:04 | |
The concept of discipline should be substituted | 37:07 | |
for the phrase sound mind. | 37:10 | |
There are other passages which do solidly | 37:14 | |
support the link between our faith | 37:17 | |
and the cure of illness, including mental illness. | 37:19 | |
In today's lectionary, there is reference to the reputation | 37:24 | |
which Jesus had in Palestine as a Healer of disease. | 37:27 | |
In both Luke and Acts, there are accounts of Jesus | 37:33 | |
casting out demons, which demons had caused their host | 37:36 | |
to behave in ways which resembled the behavior | 37:41 | |
of some mental patients today. | 37:44 | |
People believed in demons in that day, | 37:47 | |
and if we were to assume that Jesus actually knew | 37:50 | |
it was mental illness rather than demon possession, | 37:54 | |
it still would have been meaningless for Jesus, | 37:58 | |
two thousand years ago, to have described their condition | 38:01 | |
in the terms used by modern Psychiatry. | 38:05 | |
He would have been talking to them in an unknown tongue. | 38:09 | |
The 6th and 8th chapters of Luke describe episodes | 38:13 | |
in which Jesus cast out demons | 38:17 | |
and restored the poor victims to a soundness of mind. | 38:20 | |
I am not alone in my assumption that the work | 38:25 | |
which Jesus did in casting out demons in that far off time | 38:28 | |
could be described today in the language of psychiatry. | 38:32 | |
Yet, people today are as much in need of a cure | 38:36 | |
which Jesus brought as were the people | 38:39 | |
to whom he ministered in Palestine. | 38:42 | |
And, if you remember, he admonished his disciples | 38:45 | |
that as the Father sent him into the world, | 38:51 | |
so he sent his disciples into the world. | 38:54 | |
Indeed, the early church took very seriously | 38:58 | |
this instruction of Jesus Christ. | 39:01 | |
We read the following in Acts 5:16. | 39:04 | |
"And there were also those who came together | 39:09 | |
"as a multitude from the cities around about Jerusalem | 39:12 | |
"bringing sick folks, and them that were vexed | 39:16 | |
"with unclean spirits, | 39:20 | |
"and they were healed." | 39:23 | |
During the years when I ministered here in the chapel, | 39:28 | |
as Will Willimond mentioned a while ago, I always felt that | 39:30 | |
the Duke psychiatrists were up on their end | 39:35 | |
of the campus casting out demons | 39:38 | |
and restoring sick people to their right minds. | 39:40 | |
On returning this weekend, I am pleased to find | 39:44 | |
that they are still at it. | 39:46 | |
By the way, I noticed that | 39:51 | |
one of them has changed furniture. | 39:53 | |
He has traded the therapeutic couch | 39:56 | |
for a swivel chair of administration. | 39:58 | |
I wonder if he has found it harder to cast out the demons | 40:02 | |
in administration than the ones in the psychiatric ward. | 40:06 | |
However, I digress. | 40:11 | |
Part of the problem that we face whenever we try | 40:14 | |
to answer any question which deals with mental health | 40:17 | |
is that we do not all have the same definition of sanity. | 40:20 | |
Joe says Tom is crazy, Tom says Joe is crazy. | 40:26 | |
Across the years of my ministry, I've dealt with | 40:31 | |
scores of individuals who were pronounced insane | 40:33 | |
by knowledgeable professionals, and yet more than two-thirds | 40:36 | |
of those individuals claimed they were sane, | 40:40 | |
and other people, including their doctors, were batty. | 40:44 | |
We would have troublesome problems enough | 40:49 | |
if that were the extent of our disagreement over | 40:52 | |
who is sane who isn't, but our dilemma is worse than that. | 40:55 | |
For example, the Methodist Council of Bishops | 41:00 | |
recently issued a pastoral letter on the subject | 41:02 | |
of nuclear war, in which they called for a moratorium | 41:06 | |
on all nuclear testing and manufacture, | 41:10 | |
and the beginning of the dismantling of nuclear arsenals. | 41:14 | |
The ink was scarcely dry on the letter when a group | 41:19 | |
of militaristic hawks called the Council of Bishops insane. | 41:23 | |
The Bishops replied, "It is the nuclear | 41:29 | |
"arms race which is insane." | 41:32 | |
Well, there's no way Jose a definition | 41:36 | |
satisfactory to all is gonna come out of the sermon today. | 41:39 | |
Let me simply say that for purposes of today's subject, | 41:45 | |
we are talking about | 41:49 | |
the ability to manage one's emotions, | 41:51 | |
instincts, problems, frustrations, | 41:54 | |
and goals with a fair degree of success. | 41:57 | |
In Freud's terms, we are talking about the ability | 42:03 | |
of the ego to control both the id and the super-ego | 42:05 | |
so that each can function acceptably well, | 42:10 | |
but neither will have unleashed license. | 42:13 | |
In all of this, the individual should have enough | 42:18 | |
peace of mind and freedom from inner conflict to be able | 42:20 | |
to conduct his life at a reasonable level of efficiency. | 42:24 | |
Now, that's what I'm talking about. | 42:28 | |
Briefly, before suggesting some specific ways | 42:33 | |
in which Christianity promotes sanity, | 42:37 | |
I wish to enter two caveats. | 42:40 | |
The first is, that some practitioners of religion | 42:43 | |
say and do harmful things to mental health, | 42:47 | |
make no mistake about it. | 42:52 | |
In the name of Christian faith, these self-appointed | 42:54 | |
religious spokesman, some on radio and TV, | 42:57 | |
encourage attitudes and practices not in keeping | 43:00 | |
with the mainline of the historic Christian community, | 43:04 | |
and which sometimes destroy mental health, | 43:08 | |
rather than strengthen it. | 43:12 | |
Let their followers beware. | 43:15 | |
Any potential leader who has not submitted himself | 43:20 | |
to the instruction, the examination, the discipline, | 43:23 | |
and the appointment of some recognized branch | 43:28 | |
of the Christian community may so distort Christianity, | 43:32 | |
that the effect of his leadership will be to create mental | 43:38 | |
and emotional problems rather than solve them. | 43:41 | |
During the years of my ministry, I've had occasion | 43:45 | |
to witness quite a bit of this damaging distortion. | 43:48 | |
Now, the second caveat is a caution against thinking | 43:54 | |
that if one is Christian, all mental problems | 43:57 | |
or emotional disturbances will disappear overnight | 44:01 | |
and never return under any circumstances. | 44:04 | |
Some mental and emotional illness is caused by physiological | 44:08 | |
and biochemical quirks, notably Alzheimer's disease | 44:13 | |
and schizophrenia, to mention only two. | 44:17 | |
The biochemical abnormality which accompanies Alzheimer's | 44:21 | |
has already been pinpointed here at Duke hospital. | 44:24 | |
And, although the physiological and biochemical cause | 44:29 | |
of schizophrenia has not yet been so precisely identified, | 44:32 | |
and number of physiological aspects | 44:37 | |
of the disease have been traced in the laboratory. | 44:39 | |
If, therefore, one word to say to the victim of | 44:43 | |
either of these diseases that he or she is sick | 44:46 | |
because of a lack of Christianity, this would not only be | 44:50 | |
a cruel word, but a non-scientific word also. | 44:55 | |
Much yet remains to be known about the causes | 45:00 | |
of certain mental and emotional disturbances. | 45:03 | |
Okay, with that behind us, what then are the ways | 45:07 | |
in which our Christian faith exerts a positive influence | 45:11 | |
upon the health of our minds? | 45:16 | |
The ones that I shall mention are representative | 45:19 | |
of others I shall not take time to mention. | 45:22 | |
The first derives from the fact that Christian faith | 45:26 | |
offers an explanation of the reality, | 45:28 | |
which allows the believer | 45:32 | |
to make sense of his universe, | 45:34 | |
which gives him a scenario that tells him | 45:38 | |
where he came from and where he is going. | 45:40 | |
It assures him that this is not an impersonal universe, | 45:43 | |
and that the God who brought it | 45:47 | |
into being is intelligent and just. | 45:48 | |
While it is true that biblical Christianity | 45:52 | |
does not answer every question that | 45:55 | |
a curiosity seeker might ask, the basic questions | 45:57 | |
are dealt with and answers provided. | 46:01 | |
To see the importance of this, compare what Christian faith | 46:05 | |
offers with what the scientific method offers. | 46:08 | |
In an essay which Einstein published late in his life, | 46:12 | |
he acknowledged that science can provide | 46:15 | |
only 20% of the questions which humans asked, | 46:20 | |
and that the 20% it can answer are the questions | 46:25 | |
least important to human happiness | 46:30 | |
and peace of mind. | 46:34 | |
It has been my observation that individuals | 46:37 | |
who have no notion of who they are | 46:39 | |
or where they come from, where they're going, | 46:41 | |
or what the human experiment is all about | 46:43 | |
often are also unsure of what they should be doing today, | 46:46 | |
and they occasionally suffer from an anxiety | 46:50 | |
that is born of this sweeping uncertainty. | 46:53 | |
This anxiety cannot be cured by psychotherapy. | 46:57 | |
It can be banished only by one's coming | 47:01 | |
to have a sound philosophy of life. | 47:04 | |
I believe that the person who accepts Christian faith | 47:09 | |
will find that although that faith makes | 47:12 | |
stringent demands upon him, it also | 47:14 |
- | The worldview that nourishes his mental health. | 0:03 |
The second support is a derivative of the first, | 0:08 | |
this God who brought order into the universe | 0:12 | |
and a sensible plan into our lives | 0:15 | |
is a personal God who takes a personal interest in us. | 0:17 | |
We are not alone. | 0:21 | |
This creator even notices the fall of a dying sparrow, | 0:24 | |
but is much more interested in caring for human beings | 0:28 | |
whom he has created in his own image. | 0:32 | |
Especially for the individual who has a tendency | 0:35 | |
to feel unimportant and alone. | 0:37 | |
Christian faith brings a sturdy reassurance | 0:41 | |
that God values him or her | 0:43 | |
and is seeking to bring strength and salvation. | 0:48 | |
Someone has said that God does not love you | 0:52 | |
because you are important, | 0:54 | |
you are important because God loves you. | 0:57 | |
I once knew a man who was hospitalized | 1:02 | |
with a serious mental illness. | 1:05 | |
The physicians were unable | 1:07 | |
to help him make permanent progress | 1:08 | |
because he steadfastly denied | 1:10 | |
that there was anything wrong with him at all. | 1:12 | |
He was about to be sent therefore | 1:16 | |
to a long term custodial institution. | 1:18 | |
When I had an opportunity to talk with him privately. | 1:21 | |
I told him straight out that I believed he was a sick man, | 1:25 | |
but I said I have some good news for you. | 1:29 | |
Sick or well, if you will put yourself in the hands of God, | 1:33 | |
your eternal security will be guaranteed. | 1:38 | |
Because God, even more than human fathers, | 1:42 | |
tenderly loves his sick children | 1:46 | |
and would certainly not forsake you. | 1:49 | |
Well in a simple prayer at that moment | 1:53 | |
he intentionally put himself into the hands of God. | 1:55 | |
Very few people who knew this man ever understood | 1:59 | |
why he made such a dramatic improvement from that day. | 2:03 | |
He admitted to me that deep down he had believed | 2:08 | |
that he was far sicker than even the doctors thought, | 2:10 | |
and the assurance that God would accept him | 2:15 | |
just as he was, enabled him | 2:18 | |
to pull together the discarded parts of his personality | 2:23 | |
and a few years later he was elected to public office | 2:28 | |
by the larges majority anyone in his county | 2:32 | |
had ever achieved. | 2:35 | |
The love of man by God and the love of man by man, | 2:37 | |
both of which are strong ingredient in Christian faith, | 2:42 | |
have a powerful and positive effect on your | 2:46 | |
and my mental health. | 2:50 | |
Its interesting to remember the even humanistic analysts | 2:53 | |
and psychotherapists of the Eric Fromm variety, | 2:57 | |
have great respect for the emphasis upon a God they love, | 3:01 | |
which is in true Christianity. | 3:06 | |
The third resource of Christianity | 3:11 | |
that supports mental healthy is the possibility | 3:13 | |
of the forgiveness of sins. | 3:15 | |
The gospel pulls no punches in declaring | 3:19 | |
that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. | 3:21 | |
But one of the leading themes of our religion | 3:26 | |
is that God calls the sinner to repentance. | 3:29 | |
Declaring every which way that those who do repent | 3:33 | |
will absolutely will be forgiven | 3:38 | |
and their sin will not even be remembered anymore. | 3:40 | |
Physicians who practice in the area | 3:46 | |
of psychosomatic medicine report dramatic cures, | 3:49 | |
dramatic cures in both the psychs and the soma. | 3:53 | |
When an individual has been burdened down | 3:59 | |
by a sense of guilt is brought | 4:02 | |
to an experience of forgiveness. | 4:05 | |
Flanders Dunbar has written extensively | 4:08 | |
about the clinical effects of a patients release | 4:11 | |
from the sense of guilt. | 4:14 | |
One aspect of this matter of guilt and forgiveness | 4:18 | |
has intrigued me in recent years. | 4:21 | |
I had previously assumed that | 4:24 | |
the only people who experienced a deep sense of guilt | 4:26 | |
were those who believe in a God of righteousness, | 4:30 | |
who took a dimmed view of the transcription | 4:32 | |
of his code of justices. | 4:36 | |
Those who violate that code have reason to feel guilty, | 4:38 | |
but what came as a surprise to me in more recent years | 4:43 | |
was the discovery who do not believe in God, | 4:47 | |
so they say, | 4:52 | |
nevertheless are burdened down by an oppressive | 4:54 | |
and unremitting load of guilt | 4:57 | |
which undermines their mental health. | 5:01 | |
If on the one hand their sense of guilt does not come | 5:04 | |
from an acknowledge duty to a righteous God, | 5:08 | |
then where on the other hand will their assurance | 5:11 | |
of pardon come from? | 5:15 | |
In Christian faith one acquires his feeling of guilt | 5:18 | |
from the righteousness of God and his assurance | 5:21 | |
of forgiveness of the love of that same God. | 5:24 | |
One of the passages in the New Testament | 5:29 | |
underwent a radical reinterpretation | 5:31 | |
after the advent of psychosomatic medicine | 5:35 | |
a few generations ago. | 5:37 | |
It was in the second chapter of Mark | 5:41 | |
that there is an account of Jesus visit to Capernaum. | 5:43 | |
Where a man was brought to him on stretcher, | 5:47 | |
immobilized by palsy. | 5:50 | |
Jesus simply said to him, | 5:53 | |
"Son, your sins are forgiven." | 5:56 | |
The account relates that the previously paralyzed man | 6:02 | |
then got up and carried his bed home. | 6:05 | |
In former years the reader had a choice, | 6:08 | |
either he believed in miracles or he didn't. | 6:11 | |
If he didn't believe in miracles | 6:14 | |
he had to decide that this report in Mark was fiction. | 6:16 | |
But along came the psychosomatic physicians saying | 6:20 | |
that this type of cure happens frequently, | 6:23 | |
when one is relieved of a sense of guilt. | 6:27 | |
They say that if a paralyzed man believed | 6:32 | |
Jesus had authority to forgive sins, | 6:34 | |
it makes sense that he could have taken up his bed and walk. | 6:37 | |
Its interesting that the early church | 6:42 | |
seemed to be aware of the connection | 6:44 | |
between the forgiveness of sins and healing. | 6:46 | |
In the fifth chapter of James we read these words, | 6:50 | |
"is any among you sick?" | 6:55 | |
"Let him call for the elders of the church, | 6:58 | |
"if he has committed sins it shall be forgiven him." | 7:01 | |
"Confess therefore your sins one to another" | 7:06 | |
"and pray for one another, | 7:12 | |
"that you may be healed." | 7:14 | |
Well the fourth and last resource making for mental health, | 7:18 | |
which I shall take time to mention is the emphasis | 7:21 | |
which Christianity places upon the family. | 7:24 | |
In both the old and new testament, | 7:29 | |
there's constant encouragement to strengthen family ties. | 7:31 | |
Over and over again we are admonished | 7:37 | |
to have strong families and to nourish one another | 7:39 | |
in the family relationship. | 7:43 | |
Nowhere in the cultures of the world do we find an | 7:46 | |
ethical, moral or religious system, | 7:49 | |
which more tenaciously promotes the family | 7:52 | |
than does the Judao-Christian tradition. | 7:56 | |
Do strong family ties promote mental health? | 8:01 | |
One way to answer that question is to ask another question, | 8:06 | |
is mental health as well protected in a society | 8:11 | |
which takes a casual attitude | 8:14 | |
towards marriage and family ties? | 8:17 | |
If we attempt to answer either | 8:21 | |
of these questions at the adult level, | 8:23 | |
we shall be involved in claims | 8:25 | |
and counter claims and while I believe the weight | 8:27 | |
of the evidence shows that adults sanity | 8:30 | |
is better promoted by strong family ties. | 8:32 | |
The conclusion seems to be beyond all question | 8:36 | |
at the level of childhood. | 8:40 | |
There's a very immanent Harvard psychologist Robert Coles, | 8:44 | |
has written 36 books and 850 articles | 8:48 | |
in his life long campaign | 8:52 | |
to build a better world for children. | 8:55 | |
In 1972 Time magazine called him | 8:58 | |
the most influential living psychiatrist | 9:00 | |
in the United States. | 9:03 | |
In his books, he lets little children talk about their lives | 9:05 | |
talk bout their feelings, he tells you what kind | 9:10 | |
of families they come from. | 9:13 | |
These are children from the slums, | 9:16 | |
children from the upper crust, | 9:19 | |
children from Appalachia, | 9:21 | |
children from the Eskimos, | 9:24 | |
children from third world, | 9:26 | |
children who live in academia. | 9:28 | |
Children from shattered families | 9:31 | |
and children from strong families. | 9:33 | |
One thing, which stands out in these books and articles, | 9:37 | |
is the underlying theme of the force of strong family ties, | 9:41 | |
whether in poverty or in affluence, | 9:48 | |
making for mental health. | 9:52 | |
So in conclusion let me express the opinion | 9:55 | |
that if my Friday visitor who came back on Sunday, | 9:59 | |
took full advantage of the therapeutic | 10:03 | |
skills of the Duke psychiatrist | 10:06 | |
and if his sudden interest in religion | 10:09 | |
became a substantiated interest | 10:11 | |
and if it lead to a study of the faith, | 10:15 | |
then it might very well be true | 10:19 | |
that one day he could be invited to return to this pulpit | 10:20 | |
and no one would try to push him out. | 10:24 | |
And perhaps his message would be | 10:27 | |
very helpful to the congregation. | 10:29 | |
The Christian gospel offers hope | 10:32 | |
and healing to every person, | 10:35 | |
not only in the four ways suggested here this morning | 10:38 | |
but in many other ways worth our exploring. | 10:42 | |
May God granted we shall take full advantage of it | 10:45 | |
and share it with our world, amen. | 10:49 | |
(calming organ music) | 10:57 | |
(chorus singing) | 11:21 | |
Man | The Lord be with you. | 13:19 |
Let us pray. | 13:22 | |
Oh gracious creative God, | 13:35 | |
we give you thanks for this day of worship and praise | 13:38 | |
which has become for us a gateway to your glory. | 13:42 | |
Having experienced your majesty in this morning, | 13:48 | |
having been brought close | 13:53 | |
to you in pray, preaching and song. | 13:55 | |
We now are bold to intercede for the needs of the world. | 14:00 | |
We beseech you oh God, for all hopeful | 14:07 | |
and constructive moments now afoot in human life. | 14:09 | |
We pray for all scientists seeking truth. | 14:15 | |
For all teachers trying to guide the minds of our young. | 14:21 | |
For all nurses and physicians that work in our hospitals, | 14:26 | |
particularly those working in the fields of mental health. | 14:32 | |
For all those who love beauty and seek to create it, | 14:38 | |
all artists, artisans, musicians, dancers. Sculptors. | 14:41 | |
For all philosophers who endeavor | 14:48 | |
to cast light upon the deep questions of human life. | 14:50 | |
For all servants of the common good, | 14:55 | |
who in seniority and truth are endeavoring | 14:58 | |
to life this low lying humanity of ours up | 15:02 | |
to the realm of peace. | 15:06 | |
We pray. | 15:08 | |
The rich wondering beauty of this place. | 15:12 | |
The stark contrast with the ugliness | 15:16 | |
which many of our brothers and sisters much live. | 15:18 | |
The ugliness of war, the horror of hunger, | 15:23 | |
the bitterness of oppression. | 15:25 | |
We think of them. | 15:29 | |
Claiming the beauty of your holiness as our | 15:31 | |
and their one best hope. | 15:34 | |
Especially do we beseech you | 15:39 | |
for the deep and unspoken needs | 15:42 | |
that have been brought into this chapel on this day. | 15:44 | |
Go deep, | 15:49 | |
into the hidden corners of our hearts. | 15:51 | |
If there are unforgiven sins | 15:55 | |
there in grant us true penitence | 15:57 | |
that we might be parton. | 16:00 | |
If there are weaknesses there which unknown to us | 16:03 | |
may yet cause our downfall in our own eyes | 16:06 | |
and the shame decide of others, | 16:10 | |
give us knowledge of them | 16:13 | |
that we be made strong where we are weak | 16:16 | |
and given power where we are frail. | 16:21 | |
May come off more than conquers. | 16:25 | |
Deal with us | 16:29 | |
and with our intersessions, oh God. | 16:32 | |
Not according to our (mumbles) which also few | 16:34 | |
but according to your good will and wisdom, | 16:40 | |
which is rich beyond measure. | 16:44 | |
Minister this day to the deep places of our hearts, | 16:48 | |
we ask it all in the name of Christ, amen. | 16:55 | |
As a forgiven and reconcile people | 17:02 | |
will the beneficiaries of the grace and love of God, | 17:06 | |
let us offer ourselves sand our gifts to God. | 17:08 | |
(calming organ music) | 17:22 | |
(chorus singing) | 18:04 | |
Man | Let us give thanks to God. | 23:21 |
It is a good thing to give thanks into the Lord | 23:24 | |
and suits to sing praises to thy name, | 23:28 | |
oh one in the most high. | 23:31 | |
To tell of thy loving kindness early in the morning | 23:33 | |
for thall Lord has made us glad through thy works | 23:38 | |
and we shall rejoice in giving praise for the operations | 23:43 | |
of thy good and gracious hands. | 23:47 | |
Direct us thy Lord in all our doings | 23:50 | |
with our most gracious favor | 23:52 | |
and further in us I continued help | 23:55 | |
that in all our works begun and continued and ended in the, | 23:58 | |
we may glorify thy holy name | 24:03 | |
and finally by thy mercy obtain ever lasting life, | 24:07 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord, | 24:12 | |
who has taught us when we gathered to pray. | 24:15 | |
Our father, who art in heaven, holit be thy name. | 24:19 | |
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on | 24:24 | |
Earth as it is in Heaven. | 24:27 | |
Give us this day, our daily prayer | 24:29 | |
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive | 24:33 | |
those who trespass against us | 24:36 | |
and lead us not to temptation | 24:39 | |
but deliver us from evil. | 24:42 | |
Thy is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. | 24:44 | |
Amen. | 24:49 | |
(calming organ music) | 24:54 | |
(chorus singing) | 25:51 | |
Man | And now may the grace of our Lord | 28:57 |
and savior Jesus Christ, the love of God | 28:59 | |
and the fellowship of the holy spirit | 29:03 | |
go forth with you now and always. | 29:05 | |
(chorus singing) | 29:18 | |
(calming organ music) | 30:14 | |
(incoherent chatter) | 40:40 |