Paul Tillich - "The Flight From God" (November 17, 1957)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(indistinct talking) | 0:24 | |
- | Our text is taken from the Gospel of Matthew | 0:28 |
the 26th chapter, the 56th verse. | 0:34 | |
Then all the disciples | 0:40 | |
forsook him and fled. | 0:43 | |
And one evening, I listened | 0:50 | |
to the records of Bach's Passion | 0:55 | |
according to St. Matthew. | 1:00 | |
I was struck by text and music | 1:04 | |
of this one line. | 1:09 | |
Then all the disciples | 1:12 | |
forsook him and fled. | 1:16 | |
It anticipates | 1:20 | |
the word of Jesus on the cross, | 1:24 | |
my God, my God, | 1:28 | |
why hast thou forsaken me? | 1:31 | |
He who is forsaken by all men | 1:38 | |
feels forsaken by God. | 1:43 | |
And, indeed, all men left him. | 1:48 | |
And those who were nearest to him | 1:54 | |
fled farthest away from him. | 1:58 | |
We ordinarily are not aware of this fact. | 2:03 | |
We are used to imagine the crucifixion | 2:09 | |
in terms of those beautiful pictures | 2:14 | |
in which, besides his mother and other women, | 2:19 | |
at least one disciple is present. | 2:22 | |
The reality was different. | 2:27 | |
They all fled. | 2:31 | |
And some women dare to watch | 2:34 | |
only from far. | 2:38 | |
An unimaginable loneliness in the moments | 2:42 | |
in which his life and his work were broken. | 2:48 | |
What shall we think about the disciples? | 2:55 | |
Our first reaction probably is the question, | 3:01 | |
how could they forsake Him, | 3:06 | |
whom they had called The Messiah, the Christ, | 3:10 | |
the Bringer of the New Age of the World, | 3:16 | |
whom they had followed | 3:21 | |
having left everything for His sake? | 3:24 | |
But my reaction was different when I heard | 3:30 | |
the words and tones of the record. | 3:33 | |
I admired the disciples. | 3:39 | |
For it is they to whom we owe | 3:43 | |
the words of our text, | 3:47 | |
they did not hide their flight, | 3:51 | |
they simply stated it | 3:56 | |
in one short sentence, | 3:59 | |
a sentence by which they are judged for all times. | 4:03 | |
The gospel stories bring many judgments | 4:10 | |
against the disciples. | 4:15 | |
We hear that they, | 4:19 | |
including his mother and his brothers, | 4:22 | |
misunderstood him continuously | 4:25 | |
and that their misunderstanding | 4:30 | |
increased his daily passion. | 4:34 | |
We read that some of the most important amongst them | 4:39 | |
made claims to receive exceptional | 4:44 | |
glory and power in the world to come. | 4:48 | |
We hear that Jesus reproached them | 4:55 | |
because their zeal for Him | 5:01 | |
made them fanatical against those | 5:05 | |
who did not follow Him. | 5:11 | |
And in the reports | 5:15 | |
we last saw Peter himself, | 5:18 | |
we read that Jesus had to call him Satan | 5:22 | |
because Peter tried to dissuade him | 5:29 | |
from going to Jerusalem into his death. | 5:34 | |
And we read in the same reports | 5:39 | |
that Peter denied his discipleship | 5:43 | |
in the hour of test. | 5:47 | |
These reports are astonishing. | 5:51 | |
They show what Jesus did to the disciples. | 5:55 | |
He taught them to accept judgment | 6:01 | |
and not to present themselves | 6:06 | |
in a favorable light. | 6:10 | |
Without accepting such judgment | 6:14 | |
they could not have been his disciples, | 6:19 | |
and our gospels would not be what they are | 6:23 | |
if the disciples had suppressed | 6:29 | |
the truth about their | 6:33 | |
own profound weakness, | 6:36 | |
the glory of the Christ | 6:40 | |
and the misery of his followers | 6:43 | |
would not be manifest in the records | 6:47 | |
as it is now. | 6:52 | |
And yet | 6:56 | |
even in the same records, | 6:59 | |
the desire of men to cover up his ugliness | 7:02 | |
makes itself felt. | 7:07 | |
Later traditions in our gospels | 7:11 | |
tried to smooth the hard and hurting edges | 7:15 | |
of the original picture. | 7:20 | |
One could not bear within the established congregations | 7:23 | |
the fact that all the disciples fled, | 7:29 | |
that none of them was a witness of the crucifixion | 7:34 | |
and the death of the master. | 7:38 | |
One could not accept the fact | 7:42 | |
that only far away in Galilee | 7:45 | |
their flight was arrested by the appearance of Him | 7:49 | |
whom they left alone | 7:54 | |
in the hour of his agony and despair. | 7:57 | |
So later on one said | 8:02 | |
that Jesus himself had told them to go to Galilee. | 8:07 | |
Their flight was not a real flight. | 8:11 | |
And still later one said that they did not flee at all, | 8:15 | |
but remained in Jerusalem. | 8:20 | |
From earliest times on, | 8:24 | |
the church could not stand the judgment against itself, | 8:28 | |
its past and its present. | 8:33 | |
It tries to hide that the disciples, | 8:37 | |
what the disciples openly admitted, | 8:41 | |
that we all forsook him and fled, | 8:45 | |
that this is the truth about all men | 8:50 | |
including the followers of Jesus | 8:55 | |
today as in all times. | 9:00 | |
The flight from God starts in the moment | 9:06 | |
in which we feel His presence. | 9:10 | |
Such feeling can work in the dark | 9:15 | |
half conscious regions of our being, | 9:19 | |
unrecognized but effective | 9:23 | |
in the restlessness of the | 9:27 | |
child's asking and seeking, | 9:30 | |
of the adolescence's doubts and despairs, | 9:34 | |
of the adult's desires and struggles. | 9:38 | |
God is present, but not as God. | 9:44 | |
He's present as the unknown force in us | 9:49 | |
that makes us restless. | 9:54 | |
But in some moments He appears as God, | 9:59 | |
the unknown force in us which caused our restlessness | 10:04 | |
becomes manifest as the God in whose hands we are | 10:09 | |
with ultimate threat and ultimate refuge. | 10:15 | |
In such moments it is as | 10:22 | |
if we were arrested in our hidden flight. | 10:26 | |
But it is not an arrest by brutal force, | 10:32 | |
it is an arrest which has the character of a question, | 10:36 | |
and we remain free to continue our flight. | 10:43 | |
This is what happened to the disciples. | 10:50 | |
They were powerfully arrested | 10:54 | |
when Jesus first called them, | 10:57 | |
but they remained free to flee again. | 11:01 | |
And so they did when the hour of test came. | 11:06 | |
And so it is about the church and all its members, | 11:12 | |
they are arrested in their hidden flight | 11:17 | |
and brought into the conscious presence of God | 11:21 | |
but they remained free to flee again. | 11:26 | |
Not only as individual men, | 11:31 | |
but also as bearers of the church | 11:34 | |
pushing the church itself | 11:38 | |
upon the road to Galilee, | 11:42 | |
driving it as far away as possible | 11:45 | |
from the point | 11:50 | |
where the eternal breaks into the temporal. | 11:52 | |
Men is fleeing from God. | 11:58 | |
He's fleeing from God even in the church, | 12:07 | |
in the place in which we are supposed to be arrested | 12:12 | |
by the presence of God. | 12:18 | |
Even there we are in flight from him. | 12:21 | |
If the ultimate cuts into the life of men, | 12:30 | |
he tries to take cover in the preliminary. | 12:34 | |
He flees from the attack of that which hit him | 12:40 | |
with unconditional seriousness | 12:45 | |
running for a safe place. | 12:48 | |
And there are many places which look as safe to us | 12:52 | |
as Galilee looked for the fleeing disciples. | 12:58 | |
Let us consider some of them. | 13:03 | |
Perhaps most effective in providing safety | 13:08 | |
from the threatening presence of God | 13:13 | |
is in our time the work we are doing. | 13:17 | |
This was not always so. | 13:22 | |
The attitude of the ancient men towards work | 13:25 | |
is well summed up | 13:29 | |
in the curse God speaks over Adam, | 13:32 | |
in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, | 13:36 | |
and in the words of 90 Psalm | 13:41 | |
about the short years of our life, | 13:44 | |
yet their span is but toil and trouble. | 13:48 | |
Later on, bodily labor, with its toil and its drudgery, | 13:55 | |
was left to the slaves, serfs or uneducated classes. | 14:01 | |
And it was distinguished from creative work, | 14:07 | |
the privilege of the few based on leisure time. | 14:12 | |
Medieval Christianity | 14:18 | |
considered work as a discipline | 14:21 | |
especially in the monastic life. | 14:25 | |
But in the last period of our history, | 14:29 | |
work has become the all-dominating | 14:33 | |
destiny of all of us. | 14:37 | |
If not, in reality, so in demand. | 14:41 | |
It is everything. | 14:45 | |
Discipline, production, creation. | 14:47 | |
The difference between labor and work is gone. | 14:51 | |
The fact that it stands under a curse | 14:56 | |
in biblical view is forgotten. | 14:59 | |
It has become a religion in itself, | 15:02 | |
the religion of modern industrial society, | 15:07 | |
and it has all of us in its grip. | 15:12 | |
Even if you were able to escape | 15:16 | |
the punishment of starvation for not working, | 15:18 | |
something within us would not permit an escape | 15:22 | |
from the bondage to work. | 15:27 | |
For most of us, it is both a necessity | 15:30 | |
and a compulsion. | 15:35 | |
And as such it has become the | 15:38 | |
favored way of our flight from God. | 15:42 | |
And nothing seems to be safer than this way. | 15:49 | |
We ourselves get out of it the satisfaction | 15:54 | |
to have fulfilled our duty. | 15:58 | |
We are praised by others and by ourselves | 16:01 | |
for work well done. | 16:05 | |
We are providing support for our family | 16:08 | |
or care for its members. | 16:13 | |
We overcome day by day the dangers of leisure, | 16:17 | |
boredom and disorder. | 16:21 | |
We get a good conscience out of it. | 16:24 | |
And as a cynical philosopher has said, | 16:27 | |
the real end of it, a good sleep. | 16:31 | |
And if we do that kind of work, | 16:36 | |
which is called creative, | 16:40 | |
we have an even higher satisfaction. | 16:43 | |
The joy of bringing something new | 16:48 | |
into being. | 16:54 | |
If somebody tells us that this is not his way | 16:57 | |
to flee from God, we should ask him, | 17:02 | |
did you never draw a balance | 17:07 | |
sheet of your whole being, | 17:11 | |
and if you did it honestly | 17:14 | |
and discovered many points | 17:18 | |
on the negative side, did you not write then | 17:20 | |
on the other side your work | 17:24 | |
and gained a positive balance in this way? | 17:28 | |
The Pharisee of today would boast before God, | 17:36 | |
not so much of his obedience to the law | 17:40 | |
and of his religious exercises, | 17:44 | |
as he would boast of his hard work | 17:47 | |
and his disciplined successful life. | 17:52 | |
And he would also find sinners, | 17:56 | |
with him he could compare himself favorably. | 18:00 | |
For there is another way to flee from God, | 18:08 | |
the way which promises to lead us | 18:12 | |
into the abundance of life | 18:16 | |
and which keeps this promise to a great extent. | 18:19 | |
It is not necessarily the way of the Prodigal Son | 18:24 | |
in the Parable of Jesus, | 18:28 | |
it can be the acceptance of the fullness of life | 18:31 | |
open to us by a searching mind | 18:35 | |
and the driving power of love | 18:39 | |
taught the greatness and beauty of creation. | 18:42 | |
Such longing for life does not need to close our eyes | 18:47 | |
to the tragedy within greatness, | 18:52 | |
to the darkness within light, | 18:55 | |
to the pain within pleasure, | 18:57 | |
to the ugliness within beauty. | 19:00 | |
Perhaps the life of all men would be more abundant | 19:03 | |
if more men and women dared to experience | 19:09 | |
the abundance of life. | 19:14 | |
But this also can be a way of fleeing from God, | 19:18 | |
just as the way of labor and work, | 19:23 | |
in the ecstasy of living the limits | 19:27 | |
of the abundance of life are forgotten. | 19:29 | |
I do not speak of the shallow methods | 19:34 | |
of having a good time, | 19:38 | |
of the desire for fun and entertainment, | 19:40 | |
this is in most cases the other side | 19:44 | |
of the flight from God under the cover of labor and work, | 19:48 | |
it is called recreation and is justified | 19:54 | |
by everybody as a means of better work. | 19:58 | |
But I speak of the ecstasy of living | 20:03 | |
which includes participation | 20:08 | |
in the highest and the lowest of life | 20:11 | |
in one and the same experience | 20:14 | |
and this demands courage and passion | 20:18 | |
but it also can be flight from God. | 20:22 | |
We should not | 20:27 | |
be judged morally for it, | 20:30 | |
but we should be made aware | 20:34 | |
of the restlessness | 20:38 | |
and the fear to encounter God. | 20:41 | |
The men who is under the bondage of work | 20:45 | |
should not boast against the men | 20:50 | |
who loves the abundance of life, | 20:55 | |
but he should not, the other one should not boast either | 20:59 | |
against him who is in the bondage of work. | 21:05 | |
Both are fleeing from God. | 21:10 | |
There are many in our time who have experienced | 21:16 | |
the limits of both ways, | 21:19 | |
for whom successful work has become as meaningless | 21:22 | |
as diving into the abundance of life. | 21:27 | |
I'm speaking of the skeptics and cynics | 21:31 | |
of those in anxiety and despair, | 21:35 | |
of those who for a moment in their lives | 21:39 | |
have been stopped in their flight from God | 21:42 | |
and then continued, though, in a new form, | 21:45 | |
in the form of consciously questioning or denying Him. | 21:50 | |
Their attitude is very much described | 21:56 | |
in our period by literature and the arts, | 22:01 | |
they are considered as the two representatives | 22:05 | |
of men's predicament. | 22:10 | |
And somehow this is justified. | 22:12 | |
If they are serious skeptics, | 22:16 | |
their seriousness and the suffering | 22:20 | |
following from it justifies them. | 22:24 | |
If they are desperately in despair, | 22:28 | |
the hell of their (audio cuts) | 22:32 | |
and witness to it. They are edified by it. | 22:41 | |
They are better than the disciples. | 22:46 | |
But are they really? | 22:50 | |
If the cross has become a tenet of our religious heritage, | 22:53 | |
of parental and denominational traditions, | 22:58 | |
is it then still the cross of the Christ, | 23:03 | |
the decisive point in which the eternal | 23:07 | |
cuts into the temporal? | 23:11 | |
But perhaps it's not the paternal tradition | 23:16 | |
which keeps us near the cross, | 23:20 | |
perhaps it's the sudden emotional experience, a conversion, | 23:23 | |
under the impact of a powerful preacher or evangelist | 23:28 | |
that has brought us for the first time | 23:33 | |
face-to-face with the cross. | 23:37 | |
Even then, on the height of our emotion, | 23:40 | |
we should ask ourselves, | 23:44 | |
is our bow to the cross | 23:48 | |
not the safest form of our flight from the cross? | 23:51 | |
Or are we arrested, like the disciplines in Galilee, | 23:58 | |
honestly and lastingly? | 24:04 | |
On each road of his flight from God, | 24:09 | |
men can be stopped. | 24:13 | |
God can arrest him. | 24:16 | |
There are many ways in which this can happen, | 24:19 | |
and there's no royal way, | 24:23 | |
no church and no sect and no preacher | 24:26 | |
has a royal way. | 24:29 | |
As Paul was arrested by a blinding light | 24:32 | |
and by questioning words, | 24:36 | |
and Augustine by the voice of a child, | 24:39 | |
and Luther by the flash of lightning. | 24:43 | |
So innumerable small or big experiences | 24:46 | |
may stop our flight from God. | 24:51 | |
However they occur, they have one quality, | 24:55 | |
they cut into the ordinary processes of life, | 25:01 | |
into the bondage to our work, | 25:07 | |
into the abundance of our life, | 25:10 | |
into the despair of our heart, | 25:14 | |
into the devotion of our soul. | 25:17 | |
But whenever the eternal cuts into the temporal | 25:21 | |
it shakes and opens and disrupts the temporal. | 25:27 | |
It is a hard experience to be arrested | 25:33 | |
on one's flight from God. | 25:38 | |
Somehow in the bondage of their work | 25:43 | |
and something happens that throws them out of it, | 25:47 | |
and it seems that the meaning of their life is gone. | 25:53 | |
Or they are just in the midst of their work | 25:58 | |
and suddenly they realize that | 26:02 | |
what they are producing | 26:06 | |
soon will sink into the darkness | 26:09 | |
of an utterly forgotten past. | 26:13 | |
And they may even doubt about its value for today, | 26:18 | |
they may realize in a flash of insight | 26:23 | |
that most results of their work, | 26:27 | |
which they have done so well, | 26:30 | |
increases the amount | 26:33 | |
of technical gadgets | 26:37 | |
or intellectual sales goods, | 26:40 | |
both of which have become a curse of our period. | 26:45 | |
They are arrested and perhaps in this moment | 26:52 | |
in which much is taken and broken | 26:57 | |
also much may be opened | 27:01 | |
in the depths of their world | 27:03 | |
and in the depths of their souls, | 27:06 | |
and they may hear a voice saying, | 27:09 | |
why do you flee from me? | 27:12 | |
Some have dived into the abundance of life | 27:16 | |
with its greatness and its tragedy. | 27:20 | |
Their relation to life is not superficial. | 27:24 | |
They know its negative sides, but they love it | 27:28 | |
and cover their flight from God with their love of life. | 27:32 | |
And then it may happen that an experience | 27:37 | |
of a deep disappointment, | 27:41 | |
which is neither great nor tragic, | 27:44 | |
but which reveals the emptiness | 27:49 | |
lying at the roots of life may happen to them. | 27:53 | |
Such an experience may be the way | 27:59 | |
in which some are arrested in their flight from God. | 28:03 | |
And in such moments not only the vanity of all things | 28:08 | |
but also the fullness of that | 28:13 | |
which shines through all things may appear | 28:17 | |
and they may see a light which is blinding | 28:22 | |
and illuminating together. | 28:26 | |
The disciples called it the Light of Resurrection. | 28:30 | |
It may become a light of resurrection | 28:35 | |
for those who are arrested in their flight | 28:38 | |
into the abundance and vanity of life. | 28:42 | |
Some have fallen into the state of doubt and despair. | 28:48 | |
They do not even try to cover up their flight from God | 28:53 | |
by work or life; they simple deny Him. | 28:57 | |
There's something surprising about them. | 29:03 | |
They are most conscious in their flight from God | 29:06 | |
but in reality their flight is already stopped, | 29:11 | |
not completely, but more than in those | 29:15 | |
who are unbroken in their bondage of work and life. | 29:19 | |
Despair can be both | 29:25 | |
the last step away from God | 29:29 | |
and the first step towards God. | 29:32 | |
Only one thing can arrest them radically, | 29:37 | |
that they realize in a shaking awareness | 29:41 | |
the lack of ultimate seriousness | 29:45 | |
in their doubt and despair | 29:49 | |
that they see the hidden arrogance | 29:52 | |
and self-certainty in their cynicism. | 29:56 | |
If they see this they are arrested on their flight | 30:01 | |
and see hidden acceptance of truth | 30:06 | |
which had made even possible their doubt and despair | 30:09 | |
may become an overpowering light | 30:14 | |
from which to flee there's no desire. | 30:19 | |
Some have found the cover of their flight from God | 30:24 | |
in their devotion to God. | 30:28 | |
No cover can be safer than this, | 30:31 | |
but God can arrest on their flight from Him, | 30:35 | |
even those who use himself | 30:40 | |
as a cover for their flight. | 30:44 | |
He can show the futility | 30:47 | |
of their religious work in many ways. | 30:50 | |
He can break their confidence, | 30:54 | |
and even their most serious devotion and discipline. | 30:57 | |
He can undercut their doctrinal certainty, | 31:01 | |
their moral laws, their ritual traditions. | 31:05 | |
He can confront religion with the secular world | 31:10 | |
and show them that He is the God of both | 31:15 | |
and of the secular, not less than of the religious. | 31:20 | |
This was and is the way in | 31:26 | |
which many great religious men | 31:29 | |
were and are arrested by God | 31:33 | |
and they heard a voice saying to them, | 31:38 | |
why don't you trust in me alone, | 31:42 | |
instead of trusting in your religious discipline | 31:46 | |
and knowledge and devotion? | 31:51 | |
Why do you flee from me | 31:54 | |
using my name for your flight? | 31:57 | |
Why do you flee from me? | 32:03 | |
Let you be arrested by me. | 32:07 | |
For there is in me | 32:11 | |
meaning and abundance | 32:14 | |
and truth and an eternal | 32:18 | |
yes over you. | 32:22 | |
Accept this yes. | 32:27 | |
End your flight. | 32:30 | |
Amen. | 32:34 | |
- | Blessed are the poor in spirit | 36:42 |
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. | 36:46 | |
Once upon a time there was a coed named Sally, | 36:50 | |
who had the greatest difficulty getting along with people. | 36:55 | |
She's not been happy in college. | 36:59 | |
Her friends were few and her social relationships | 37:02 | |
were confined to a single group on the campus, | 37:06 | |
her denominational fellowship. | 37:11 | |
She had done her best to identify herself with this group. | 37:14 | |
She attended meetings every Sunday | 37:19 | |
and was a ready volunteer for any work | 37:22 | |
that seem needed to be done. | 37:24 | |
But this was part of her problem. | 37:27 | |
Her disposition was such that even the most patient | 37:30 | |
and understanding of her fellow members | 37:35 | |
often found her cooperation and obstruction. | 37:39 | |
If she was for something it was often embarrassing | 37:47 | |
and her presence in meetings were sometimes awkward. | 37:52 | |
Her emotional instability kept everybody on edge. | 37:56 | |
She was opinionated, unreceptive of other's opinions, | 38:01 | |
she long to have friends and to be friendly | 38:07 | |
but she was such a bundle of unattractive complexities. | 38:11 | |
Super sensitive, hypercritical, | 38:15 | |
quick-tempered, sharp tongue. | 38:19 | |
And nobody doubted Sally's sincerity. | 38:24 | |
But she was becoming quite a problem. | 38:28 | |
So much so that one afternoon, | 38:31 | |
as she left a committee meeting on the verge of tears, | 38:34 | |
one of the members whose name was Mary | 38:38 | |
put into words a question which, at some time, | 38:42 | |
it puzzled the rest of the group. | 38:45 | |
Since Sally is a Christian, why isn't she a better person? | 38:49 | |
Why doesn't her religion do something | 38:55 | |
about her terrible disposition? | 38:58 | |
After all, aren't Christians suppose to be nicer people | 39:02 | |
than those who aren't? | 39:05 | |
In a short while, the real reason | 39:09 | |
for the committee meeting was quite forgotten. | 39:12 | |
Everybody was talking about Sally. | 39:15 | |
But Mary kept leading the group back | 39:19 | |
to the original point of her question. | 39:21 | |
If what the Christian church calls conversion | 39:26 | |
makes no improvement in a person's behavior patterns, | 39:30 | |
if one continues to be just as unpleasant and disagreeable | 39:35 | |
and as selfish as they were before | 39:40 | |
and tends to be self-righteous besides, | 39:43 | |
isn't this person's so-called conversion | 39:47 | |
largely an illusion? | 39:52 | |
Didn't St. Paul say that any person who is in Christ | 39:55 | |
is a new creation? | 40:01 | |
And didn't Jesus say that no good tree bears bad fruit? | 40:05 | |
And again each tree is known by its fruit. | 40:11 | |
Doesn't this plainly teach that we have a right | 40:17 | |
to judge the sincerity and the value | 40:21 | |
of a person's religious commitment? | 40:24 | |
By its results, a tree is known by its fruits, | 40:28 | |
the Christian Gospel is tested by its products. | 40:33 | |
In our agitated way, Mary began | 40:38 | |
to monopolize the conversation. | 40:40 | |
It was almost dinner time and the chairman | 40:43 | |
adjourned the meeting, and most of the members | 40:46 | |
excused themselves thinking | 40:49 | |
that the whole thing had deteriorated. | 40:50 | |
But Mary and her roommate walked back across the campus. | 40:54 | |
And Mary couldn't let the subject drop. | 40:58 | |
Indeed when they passed Joe, | 41:01 | |
with his broad smile and friendly greeting, | 41:04 | |
her questions seemed more relevant than ever. | 41:08 | |
Now take Joe, Mary said, there isn't a person | 41:12 | |
who is better liked on either campus. | 41:16 | |
He seems to be self-possessed, even-tempered, | 41:20 | |
a well-rounded personality, adequate | 41:25 | |
for most of the situations of life, | 41:28 | |
he's been elected to practically every office on campus, | 41:32 | |
he's never been known to criticize people | 41:36 | |
unless, at the same time, he says something good about them. | 41:39 | |
He fits the stereotype precisely, a good Joe. | 41:44 | |
But notice this. | 41:52 | |
He's not a Christian. | 41:54 | |
He makes no bones about saying it. | 41:56 | |
He hasn't affiliated with any Christian church. | 41:59 | |
He doesn't go around knocking the religious groups on campus | 42:04 | |
but apparently he doesn't feel any need for them. | 42:09 | |
He never attends the chapel. | 42:14 | |
He plays golf on Sunday mornings. | 42:17 | |
On those rare mornings, (mumbles), when it doesn't rain, | 42:20 | |
and he sleeps in when it does, | 42:24 | |
or takes a girl for a wonderful ride in his MG. | 42:28 | |
Now from all appearances, Sally's personality, | 42:33 | |
in spite of her pretentions to Christianity, | 42:38 | |
doesn't compare very favorably with Joe's personality. | 42:43 | |
Mary stopped in the front of her dormitory, | 42:50 | |
and turning to her roommate she said, | 42:54 | |
now with Sally and Joe as examples, | 42:56 | |
can anybody contend that Christianity works | 43:00 | |
as an instrument for producing the right kind of persons? | 43:06 | |
Commenting on Mary's question, | 43:13 | |
it is well for us to hold in mind | 43:16 | |
just what it is that Christianity claims to do | 43:18 | |
with respect to human personality. | 43:23 | |
Mary is right. | 43:26 | |
In declaring that the gospel does promise | 43:28 | |
that any person, any person, | 43:32 | |
who responds in faith to God's offers | 43:35 | |
will become a better person than he or she was before. | 43:40 | |
Indeed the New Testament writers | 43:46 | |
declare that the result will not only be | 43:48 | |
a better person of the same sort, | 43:51 | |
they talk about the new birth. | 43:55 | |
Now it is true that it is never said | 44:01 | |
that this new creation of God | 44:04 | |
will become a perfect creature overnight. | 44:08 | |
One of the earliest and most influential | 44:13 | |
representatives of Christianity, the Apostle Paul, | 44:16 | |
talked a great deal about the radical difference it made | 44:21 | |
between a person who lived apart from Christ | 44:26 | |
and the benefits of the gospel | 44:29 | |
and the person who was a new man in Christ. | 44:32 | |
Yet toward the end of Paul's life, | 44:37 | |
he spoke of pressing on toward the goal, | 44:40 | |
toward a perfection which he never once planned, | 44:45 | |
but he had obtained, it should be realized too | 44:49 | |
that this new birth and these unlimited possibilities | 44:54 | |
for growth which follow it | 45:00 | |
are represented in the New Testament | 45:03 | |
as conditional promises. | 45:05 | |
They are conditioned quite clearly | 45:09 | |
by one's willingness to put himself | 45:12 | |
under the management of Christ. | 45:15 | |
A willingness to avail one's self | 45:18 | |
from all the means of grace which Christ himself | 45:21 | |
promises to His followers. | 45:25 | |
It's only on the basis of such claims as these | 45:30 | |
that one ought legitimately detest | 45:34 | |
the practical value of the Christian religion | 45:37 | |
as a force in the reformation of human personality. | 45:41 | |
But in the light of these, I suggest that we take up | 45:47 | |
the challenge of Mary and consider the examples | 45:51 | |
which she holds before us. | 45:56 | |
The examples of Sally and Joe. | 45:59 | |
The comments that follow here, in part, | 46:05 | |
rest upon some observations which I heard | 46:09 | |
that C.S. Lewis made once on the radio program | 46:13 | |
in Great Britain. | 46:18 | |
The first word about Sally, it's undeniably true | 46:22 | |
that Sally's disposition and temperament are unattractive, | 46:27 | |
and that the side of her that is most evident | 46:34 | |
to her classmates is no reflection | 46:37 | |
of the traditional virtues we associate | 46:42 | |
with Christ or the Christian religion. | 46:45 | |
To call Sally a saint, merely on the basis of her | 46:49 | |
profession of faith, would be absurd. | 46:53 | |
Hereditary factors and the influences | 46:58 | |
of Sally's early environment have produced in her | 47:02 | |
an oversensitiveness, a hostile and defensive attitude | 47:07 | |
toward other persons which go far to account | 47:12 | |
for her unpleasantness. | 47:15 | |
From the Christian perspective, | 47:19 | |
one might say that providence has allowed | 47:22 | |
natural causes to produce Sally's difficult disposition. | 47:26 | |
In time, God may intend to set that part of Sally right. | 47:33 | |
We believe that He will. | 47:39 | |
But on the basis of Christ's teachings, | 47:42 | |
this is not the thing about Sally | 47:45 | |
which most concerns God or the present. | 47:48 | |
Sally has freely turned to God in her sense of need. | 47:53 | |
She has accepted His offers, His gifts and promises. | 47:59 | |
She believes that He can, and will, remake her personality. | 48:05 | |
She has fulfilled that one condition | 48:11 | |
upon which even God must wait, | 48:15 | |
if ever a real transformation is to take place | 48:19 | |
in Sally's nature. | 48:22 | |
But since she has, it is of secondary importance | 48:27 | |
for the present. | 48:30 | |
Whether her personality is pleasant or unpleasant, | 48:32 | |
she has declared her utter dependence upon God. | 48:37 | |
She knows that she needs His power for her salvation. | 48:41 | |
The primary condition of faith having been met | 48:47 | |
she struggles on in spite of her many disappointments | 48:52 | |
in the hope that His promise to her will yet be fulfilled | 48:57 | |
that she will be changed into the likeness of Christ | 49:02 | |
from degree of glory unto another. | 49:07 | |
But now what about Joe? | 49:12 | |
It is undeniably true that his personality is pleasant | 49:15 | |
and that in spite of his practical atheism, | 49:20 | |
he may be set to personify many of the traditional virtues | 49:24 | |
we associate with Christianity. | 49:29 | |
Of course it so happened that it is not his credit | 49:32 | |
that his parents were blessed with remarkably good health, | 49:35 | |
an ample financial resources, and a nearly ideal conditions | 49:40 | |
were provided for his infancy and boyhood. | 49:45 | |
These favorable natural factors, lacking in Sally's case, | 49:51 | |
have produced a personality in Joe | 49:57 | |
which appears to be healthy, normal in America. | 50:01 | |
Now from the Christian perspective again, | 50:09 | |
providence has been good to Joe. | 50:12 | |
The psychological raw material | 50:16 | |
with which he has been endowed for life | 50:19 | |
has been shaped in him to form | 50:23 | |
a most pleasing personality profile. | 50:26 | |
Presently, all of this may fall apart. | 50:31 | |
The result of bad health and unfortunate marriage, | 50:35 | |
a business failure or the like. | 50:40 | |
But from where we stand, it appears that Joe would be voted | 50:44 | |
the most, the student most likely to succeed. | 50:49 | |
Yet, on the basis of Christ's teaching, | 50:55 | |
this is not the thing about Joe | 50:59 | |
which concerns God at present. | 51:02 | |
God is watching and waiting, indeed He is working | 51:07 | |
for something to take place in Joe. | 51:13 | |
Something which in the nature of things | 51:17 | |
he will never coerce, never force. | 51:19 | |
It is something which Joe can freely give or refuse God. | 51:24 | |
Will Joe offer his nature to God to perfect? | 51:30 | |
Will he permit a potentially fine personality | 51:37 | |
to be made into an eternal thing of beauty? | 51:41 | |
It is here that an importance difference | 51:46 | |
between Sally and Joe comes to light, | 51:49 | |
and enormous difference according | 51:52 | |
to the teachings of Christ. | 51:55 | |
Sally has given over the management of her life to God. | 51:58 | |
Joe, confident and self-sufficient, has not. | 52:02 | |
And until he does this the primary condition | 52:09 | |
for realizing the true potential of his nature | 52:13 | |
in this world and beyond it is unfulfilled. | 52:18 | |
You see, it is quite true that Sally receives | 52:23 | |
Holy Communion in the chapel appears to her fellow students | 52:26 | |
to be far less of a Christian | 52:32 | |
than Joe who spends his time on the golf course on Sundays. | 52:37 | |
Yet these estimates are deceiving. | 52:41 | |
But while men judges by such exterior things, | 52:46 | |
God, we are told, looks upon the heart. | 52:52 | |
The Lord does not necessarily see what man sees. | 52:57 | |
Sally readily acknowledges her need for salvation | 53:03 | |
which the Christ on the cross offers her. | 53:07 | |
In fact she does not want merely to be improved, | 53:12 | |
she desires to avail herself of a costly redemption. | 53:16 | |
She wants to possess the new life in Christ. | 53:22 | |
On the contrary, Joe doesn't seem to be aware | 53:27 | |
of any radical transformation. | 53:31 | |
However, inoffensive and amiable he may be about, | 53:36 | |
he's still, from the perspective of the New Testament, | 53:41 | |
a stranger to the covenants of promise, | 53:46 | |
having no hope and without God in the world. | 53:50 | |
More than once Jesus is reported to have said, | 53:57 | |
how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. | 54:01 | |
One commonly thinks that this refers to the danger | 54:08 | |
of having great wealth and to the illusions of security | 54:11 | |
which money affords. | 54:16 | |
But plainly enough, any of the so-called natural gifts | 54:19 | |
carry the same dangers. | 54:25 | |
If one has sound nerves and even temperament, | 54:28 | |
a well-integrated personality | 54:35 | |
which gives him social poise, popularity, | 54:38 | |
such a person is also very likely to become self-sufficient | 54:44 | |
to succumb to that delusion | 54:50 | |
that one's amiable qualities are one's very own. | 54:54 | |
In other words, it is hard for the rich | 55:00 | |
(mumbles) sufficient to inherit the kingdom. | 55:04 | |
For the rich and the kingdom | 55:09 | |
of contradictions in turns. | 55:12 | |
Or to be a subject of the kingdom of God | 55:15 | |
means that God, not self, governs life at its center. | 55:19 | |
But it's very different for these people | 55:27 | |
who are all mixed up, | 55:29 | |
whose personalities are warped. | 55:33 | |
If they make the attempt to overcome | 55:39 | |
the defects of their personalities which alienate us | 55:42 | |
to find a socially useful life, | 55:47 | |
they quickly learn that they need help. | 55:51 | |
They are in one real and terrible sense | 55:55 | |
the poor that Jesus spoke about. | 55:59 | |
Since this is so it shouldn't surprise us at all | 56:04 | |
to find professing Christians | 56:07 | |
very far indeed from perfection. | 56:11 | |
There is every reason why such inadequate, | 56:15 | |
mixed up persons should turn to Christ and to the church. | 56:19 | |
There is every reason to find the church | 56:26 | |
full of such people. | 56:28 | |
They are the very persons whom Jesus says | 56:31 | |
He cames to seek and to save. | 56:35 | |
These are the sick in need of a physician. | 56:38 | |
Of course the Pharisee among us | 56:44 | |
and within us still says, | 56:47 | |
if Christ's religion be all that it's said to be, | 56:51 | |
then His followers wouldn't be | 56:55 | |
such pitiful examples of humanity. | 56:56 | |
But the community of Christ's followers | 57:02 | |
never was, and certainly isn't now, | 57:04 | |
a fellowship of perfect people. | 57:09 | |
The church is a community of sinners, | 57:13 | |
who, by God's grace, are being saved | 57:16 | |
according to their faith. | 57:20 | |
When this reality is acknowledged, | 57:24 | |
then something of a point of much criticism from without | 57:27 | |
concerning all of the pettiness | 57:31 | |
and hypocrisy within the church is lost. | 57:34 | |
What is often forgotten about these critics is this. | 57:39 | |
It is a person's better sense of need, | 57:45 | |
his awareness of his own sin, of his own pettiness | 57:49 | |
and appallingly uncharitable disposition | 57:54 | |
which drives him to Christ and to the church. | 57:58 | |
In the effort to understand Sally, | 58:06 | |
to sympathize with her personality problems, | 58:09 | |
to honor in her the deepest commitment of her will | 58:13 | |
to be and become a Christian | 58:18 | |
is a danger that we shall leave the impression | 58:21 | |
there's nothing really wrong with her. | 58:23 | |
This would be a serious mistake. | 58:27 | |
Her dogmatic self-assertiveness, | 58:30 | |
her most charitable judgments of others | 58:32 | |
are deplorable things. | 58:36 | |
These unattractive qualities hinder her Christian witness | 58:38 | |
and that of the group to which she belongs. | 58:44 | |
Her Christian friends will do all that they possibly can | 58:48 | |
to help her attain a less irritating | 58:52 | |
and better balanced personality. | 58:56 | |
Even so the church, when it's true to its mission, | 59:00 | |
will support every possibly medical and educational means, | 59:03 | |
every economic and political resource | 59:08 | |
to produce a society where as many people as possible | 59:12 | |
grow up well-balanced men and women of goodwill. | 59:16 | |
Nevertheless, we as Christians should never forget | 59:23 | |
that if we have succeeded in providing | 59:28 | |
all of the conditions of physical and mental health, | 59:30 | |
and everybody is a moral, benevolent and responsible citizen | 59:35 | |
that their salvation has been achieved. | 59:41 | |
A world of nice people, good Joes and Janes | 59:45 | |
turned away from God, self-sufficient, | 59:52 | |
would be just as desperately in need of His saving power | 59:57 | |
as a world of perverted folk | 1:00:03 | |
with the most unpleasant dispositions, | 1:00:06 | |
selfish and anti-social. | 1:00:08 | |
Well the gospel truth is this, | 1:00:12 | |
that Joe needs the power of God for his salvation | 1:00:15 | |
every bit as much as Sally. | 1:00:20 | |
Although for the time being, it may appear to others | 1:00:24 | |
and confidentially to himself | 1:00:29 | |
as a very fine specimen of humanity. | 1:00:32 | |
Joe may in fact had made so very little of his background, | 1:00:36 | |
of his (mumbles), relatively speaking, | 1:00:41 | |
and he's really less to be admired | 1:00:46 | |
and respected and loved than Sally. | 1:00:48 | |
Can we ever know how he would've behaved | 1:00:52 | |
if he had been saddled with the qualities | 1:00:55 | |
which appear in her personality profile, | 1:00:59 | |
and this through no choice of his own. | 1:01:02 | |
Perhaps this is one of the reasons | 1:01:07 | |
that Jesus tells us never to judge, | 1:01:09 | |
never to criticize or look with contempt upon other people. | 1:01:14 | |
We really know so little about them, | 1:01:20 | |
their limited opportunities, their inner intentions, | 1:01:23 | |
their temptations. | 1:01:28 | |
At any rate, the chief point seems to be | 1:01:30 | |
that God himself doesn't judge | 1:01:35 | |
these temperamental differences | 1:01:36 | |
to be of such great importance. | 1:01:40 | |
He seems rather far more concerned | 1:01:43 | |
with what an individual does with what he has | 1:01:46 | |
and what has been given. | 1:01:50 | |
With a person's response to all the costly deeds of God | 1:01:52 | |
and of others which are the very ground of His existence. | 1:01:57 | |
You see, it's so easy for us all | 1:02:03 | |
to fix our thoughts on the Sallys. | 1:02:04 | |
Her faults are so glaringly un-Christian and so apparent, | 1:02:08 | |
but this means it's so easy to bolster | 1:02:13 | |
our own self-confidence by comparing ourselves | 1:02:16 | |
with such persons and to grow self-complacent | 1:02:20 | |
and self-righteous. | 1:02:24 | |
By such devices, we close our eyes to the one person | 1:02:26 | |
whose improvement is our own responsibility. | 1:02:32 | |
Let us remember that Jesus never promised | 1:02:37 | |
the abundant life to the proud, to the self-sufficient. | 1:02:40 | |
Now was he ever able to do very much | 1:02:46 | |
for good self-assured persons? | 1:02:51 | |
Rather He declared, woe to you who are full now | 1:02:57 | |
for you shall hunger. | 1:03:04 | |
And blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God. | 1:03:06 | |
Let us pray. | 1:03:14 | |
Oh, God of mercy, look with compassion upon us | 1:03:23 | |
in our very great poverty and need. | 1:03:27 | |
Forbid that our pride ever blind us | 1:03:31 | |
to our need for thy salvation. | 1:03:33 | |
Lest in the blindness of self-sufficiency become lost. | 1:03:36 | |
As we have received thy mercy through Jesus Christ, | 1:03:42 | |
so may we be enable to love those who repel us | 1:03:46 | |
by their words and ways. | 1:03:49 | |
Help us to refrain from judging so much | 1:03:52 | |
by outward appearance. | 1:03:55 | |
Teach us to look upon the hearts of men | 1:03:58 | |
through the eyes of Jesus Christ Our Lord. | 1:04:02 |