James M. Lawson, Jr. - Sermon Untitled (February 21, 1971)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(choir singing) | 0:02 | |
Narrator | Dear friends and beloved, | 4:36 |
we welcome you to this service of worship in the Duke chapel | 4:39 | |
and we have gathered here for the purpose of worshiping | 4:44 | |
Almighty God and having Christian | 4:46 | |
fellowship with each other. | 4:48 | |
It is not my unusual prerogative to be able to welcome you. | 4:51 | |
Actually we should welcome each other. | 4:59 | |
I think it would be a good thing if we did that right now. | 5:03 | |
Would you turn to the person, one of the persons | 5:07 | |
near you and simply by extended your right hand, | 5:09 | |
say welcome to this person to this house of God. | 5:14 | |
We might try that next Sunday even without a | 5:27 | |
special prompting from the lectern. | 5:30 | |
I want to say also that this afternoon at four o'clock in | 5:35 | |
the chapel we shall have another very wonderful opportunity | 5:41 | |
to worship God through music, through the artistry of | 5:46 | |
many kinds of music. | 5:50 | |
If the inserted part of your bulletin didn't go sliding out | 5:54 | |
halfway across the floor when you opened your bulletin | 5:58 | |
you will notice in it offerings by Beethoven, Bach, | 6:03 | |
and Stravinsky that will be given at 4 o'clock by the | 6:09 | |
North Carolina wind ensemble, the University | 6:13 | |
chancel singers and the Chiomfy quartet. | 6:19 | |
This, I think represents an amazing offering for today. | 6:22 | |
And there's one special thing about it. | 6:29 | |
We've talked with you a little bit about what we're doing | 6:32 | |
here in the chapel physically. | 6:35 | |
In coating the sound absorbent tile to make it more | 6:37 | |
suitable for such musical events as we are having. | 6:43 | |
It has now already become a much more satisfactory room | 6:47 | |
in which to perform music. | 6:52 | |
At the end of this 4 o'clock concert today the Stravinsky | 6:55 | |
mass will be repeated for those who wish to stay and try | 7:01 | |
out listening to it in different parts of the chapel. | 7:06 | |
You can come at 4, simply play it straight, hear the concert | 7:10 | |
and leave or you may then stay afterward if you wish. | 7:15 | |
And along with some of the professional find out how the | 7:20 | |
music sounds in different parts of the chapel. | 7:28 | |
Thank you for being here today, and we pray that this | 7:32 | |
may be a wonderful time together in God's presence. | 7:35 | |
Let us turn now to the the back part of our hymnals | 7:40 | |
to number 615, which is a combination of our responsive | 7:43 | |
prayer confession and words of assurance from the scripture. | 7:49 | |
This being from Psalm 130 according | 7:53 | |
to a very ancient translation. | 7:57 | |
Let us pray. | 8:02 | |
Out of the deep have I called unto thee oh Lord. | 8:05 | |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:10 | |
- | Let thine ears consider well. | 8:11 |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:14 | |
- | If thou Lord will be extreme to mark what is done amiss. | 8:16 |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:21 | |
- | For there is mercy with thee. | 8:23 |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:27 | |
- | I look for the Lord, my could doth wait for him. | 8:29 |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:34 | |
- | My soul freeth unto the Lord before the morning watch. | 8:36 |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:40 | |
- | Oh Israel trust in the Lord, for with the Lord | 8:43 |
there is mercy. | 8:48 | |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:51 | |
- | And he shall redeem Israel. | 8:53 |
(unanimous chorus) | 8:55 | |
(choir music) | 9:01 | |
- | This scripture is taken from first John, | 11:40 |
fourth chapter, 12th through the 21st verses | 11:45 | |
Phillip's translation. | 11:50 | |
It is true that no human being has ever had a direct vision | 11:52 | |
of God, yet if we love one another God | 11:56 | |
does actually live within us. | 12:00 | |
And His love grows in us toward perfection. | 12:03 | |
And as I wrote above the guarantee of our living in Him | 12:07 | |
and his living in us is the share of His own spirit, | 12:12 | |
which he gives us. | 12:16 | |
We ourselves are eye witnesses, able and willing to testify | 12:19 | |
to the fact that the father did send the son to | 12:23 | |
save the world. | 12:27 | |
For everyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God, | 12:29 | |
finds that God lives in him and he lives in God. | 12:32 | |
So that we come to know and trust the love God has for us. | 12:37 | |
and the man who's life is lived in love does in fact | 12:45 | |
live in God, and God does in fact live in him. | 12:49 | |
So our love for him grows more and more, | 12:54 | |
filling us with complete confidence for the day when | 12:58 | |
he shall judge all men. | 13:01 | |
For we realize that our life in this world is actually | 13:03 | |
his life lived in us. | 13:06 | |
Love contains no fear. | 13:09 | |
Indeed fully developed love expels every particle of fear. | 13:12 | |
For fear always contains some of the | 13:17 | |
torture of feeling guilty. | 13:20 | |
This means that the man who lives in fear has not yet | 13:23 | |
had his love perfected. | 13:26 | |
Yes we love him because he first loved us, | 13:29 | |
but if the man says I love God and hates | 13:32 | |
his brother he is a liar. | 13:37 | |
For if he does not love the brother before his eyes | 13:40 | |
how can he love the one beyond his sight. | 13:42 | |
And in any case it is his explicit command that the one who | 13:46 | |
loves God must love his brother too. | 13:51 | |
(choir music) | 13:57 | |
- | With you, let us pray. | 14:38 |
Almighty God, our heavenly father. | 14:49 | |
We offer our thanks that we were born into a generation | 14:53 | |
which has a great and challenging responsibility | 14:57 | |
which no honest person may escape. | 15:01 | |
We are grateful, we think, that the time is calling out | 15:06 | |
the best that is in us and will not allow us | 15:10 | |
to be complacent. | 15:14 | |
We thank thee that before this world was ours | 15:17 | |
it belonged to thee. | 15:20 | |
That before the responsibilities of this university | 15:23 | |
and this nation and our own personal lives were laid upon | 15:27 | |
our shoulders thou didst love it, love us, | 15:32 | |
care for it, care for us. | 15:39 | |
And even now the students in this university are more truly | 15:42 | |
thy sons and daughters than they are the sons | 15:50 | |
and daughters of their earthly parents. | 15:54 | |
Oh God we thank thee for this divine companionship | 15:58 | |
in our joint endeavor here. | 16:02 | |
We not only offer our prayers and thanks giving but our | 16:08 | |
prayers and intercession for each other. | 16:11 | |
For students here and everywhere that they may have grace | 16:17 | |
to learn the aspects, especially wisdom | 16:21 | |
to learn about life while living life. | 16:29 | |
Grant that they may achieve their own individuality. | 16:34 | |
Their own separate person hood. | 16:41 | |
That the may have grace to rebel | 16:44 | |
without becoming rebellious. | 16:47 | |
That they may be able to handle skepticism of every kind | 16:51 | |
without becoming paranoid. | 16:55 | |
They may have the good judgment to hear all voices | 16:58 | |
that are being spoken without becoming the slaves | 17:02 | |
of any one voice. | 17:06 | |
Grant that all of them and all of us may choose voluntarily | 17:10 | |
to become slaves of Jesus. | 17:17 | |
We offer our prayers also for administrators and faculty | 17:23 | |
trustees, parents, that they may be given | 17:28 | |
the grace of wisdom too. | 17:34 | |
Wisdom in the midst of confusion. | 17:37 | |
Grace of patience under what seems like annoyance. | 17:40 | |
And grace of independence in a network of inter relatedness. | 17:47 | |
And the grace to wait and hope and love. | 17:53 | |
Give those who are charged with responsibility the skill | 18:00 | |
to attract the necessary financial support. | 18:06 | |
Give them success in maintaining academic freedom, | 18:11 | |
strength in defending the university against both | 18:16 | |
anarchists and bigots. | 18:19 | |
And grant them that degree of human and divine support | 18:23 | |
without which no individual can endure. | 18:27 | |
God of the nations. | 18:34 | |
Thou who art the Lord of history | 18:36 | |
we pray thee to give peace in the world. | 18:39 | |
Give grace to overcome the fruit of our pride and stupidity. | 18:44 | |
Give men everywhere are heart of love | 18:50 | |
to overcome the bitterness | 18:53 | |
and greed which have brought the nations to their present | 18:54 | |
chaos and conflict. | 18:58 | |
Oh Lord thou knowest how many individual lives have been | 19:03 | |
damaged and destroyed by this war. | 19:06 | |
It is chiefly thy grace which can heal the hurt. | 19:10 | |
And even the part which we need to play in it ourselves | 19:16 | |
needs the motivation of thy grace. | 19:18 | |
So we pray for the wives, and children, the parents of | 19:23 | |
those who have been killed. | 19:26 | |
We pray for those who are missing in action | 19:29 | |
and who's loved ones in some cases do not even know | 19:32 | |
if they are alive or dead. | 19:35 | |
We pray for the prisoners of war, for all who suffer | 19:39 | |
undergird them with thy presence. | 19:44 | |
We pray for all suffering people everywhere. | 19:48 | |
Those who are shut in at home, those who have been | 19:53 | |
injured, those in the hospital who have been operated on | 19:58 | |
and who now look for recovery. | 20:03 | |
Oh God we pray for their recovery. | 20:07 | |
We know that thou art the great physician. | 20:11 | |
And that thy spiritual power has great strength. | 20:15 | |
And so with hope and love we pray for health to come | 20:20 | |
not only to the bodies of the sick but to the spirits | 20:26 | |
of all of us, | 20:32 | |
for we are all sick in spirit unless we have thy truth | 20:34 | |
and they love. | 20:38 | |
Draw us close together in one fellowship | 20:41 | |
and help us really understandingly to make our own | 20:44 | |
the prayer which thy son Jesus has taught us to pray. | 20:50 | |
Saying, our father who art in heaven, hollowed by they name, | 20:54 | |
thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is | 21:00 | |
in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. | 21:05 | |
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who | 21:10 | |
trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, | 21:13 | |
but deliver us from evil. | 21:17 | |
For thine is the kingdom and the power | 21:19 | |
and the glory forever, amen. | 21:22 | |
Allow me first of all to express | 21:48 | |
a word of my own personal | 21:53 | |
sense of joy and privilege at being here this morning. | 21:54 | |
I know that the afro american society on campus as well | 22:01 | |
as Doctor Wilkinson | 22:04 | |
made the request that I would be here | 22:08 | |
and I'm more than pleased that this particular Sunday | 22:09 | |
was free enough for me to come. | 22:14 | |
This is not my first visit to Duke. | 22:18 | |
But it is my first visit to your chapel on a Sunday morning. | 22:23 | |
My congregation in Memphis | 22:34 | |
is in the very heart of one of the | 22:37 | |
largest poverty pockets in the nation. | 22:40 | |
And consequently | 22:45 | |
throughout the last six years at least | 22:50 | |
we've had any where from one to six young men from our | 22:55 | |
congregation or from our larger parish in Vietnam | 23:00 | |
at one time. | 23:05 | |
And on any number of occasions when these men have returned | 23:10 | |
home they have said to me | 23:13 | |
reverend over there | 23:17 | |
everyone believes in God. | 23:21 | |
Now that remark represents | 23:26 | |
a very necessary | 23:30 | |
human experience. | 23:34 | |
It's something like this, that whenever human beings | 23:39 | |
no matter who they are or what they are, are pushed to their | 23:42 | |
extremities, where they know the naked threat of their | 23:46 | |
own personal life annihilation, or where they sense that | 23:51 | |
somehow there is nothing but nothingness facing them | 23:54 | |
in their experience, | 23:59 | |
they begin to grapple and probe. | 24:02 | |
To discover whether or not they can find those resources | 24:04 | |
of depth that can provide if not courage | 24:09 | |
at least some sense of meaning and direction. | 24:16 | |
It is out of this, and I chose it as a theme for us to | 24:24 | |
look at this morning, the only question that counts. | 24:28 | |
My first point is fairly simple. | 24:34 | |
No human being can be | 24:37 | |
without a religion | 24:42 | |
or without faith. | 24:46 | |
Well let me state it negatively. | 24:48 | |
No person can be an atheist, now the webster dictionary | 24:50 | |
defines an atheist as an unbeliever. | 24:55 | |
A part of our dilemma in the United States at least in | 25:00 | |
talking about atheism | 25:03 | |
is the simple fact that there is | 25:07 | |
such a thing in our midst which many of us kind of sense. | 25:10 | |
That we can call a practical atheist. | 25:16 | |
That's very often many of us who | 25:23 | |
are in places like this Sunday after Sunday. | 25:28 | |
But one of the troubles is that no one ever calls us | 25:34 | |
atheists because we do say all the right words, | 25:37 | |
and we go through all the proper gestures. | 25:41 | |
But we are play actors about God. | 25:47 | |
Very frequently we are the friends | 25:52 | |
of the enemies of the human race. | 25:58 | |
We do not march for human dignity. | 26:02 | |
We find it very easy to tolerate the cruelty | 26:07 | |
that oppresses other people even our own communities, | 26:11 | |
not to speak of the cruelties of Vietnam, | 26:14 | |
or in Africa or Asia. | 26:18 | |
And the growing numbers of the young or the old all | 26:23 | |
around the world who are beginning to raise their voices | 26:27 | |
in identity with one another for a different kind of world. | 26:33 | |
We are not to be found. | 26:36 | |
And that's why Jesus himself at one point | 26:41 | |
called us play actors. | 26:43 | |
Was fairly harsh about it. He said in fact, | 26:48 | |
that men walk over us as though we were whitewashed | 26:52 | |
tombs or graves and not even know | 26:57 | |
that they're walking over the grave of someone. | 27:02 | |
Well I have to admit in my own personal life that for | 27:09 | |
a long time as I have fellow shipped with an Albert Camus | 27:11 | |
I have felt him to be a more authentically religious man | 27:17 | |
than a Richard Millhouse Nixon. | 27:23 | |
Even though Albert Camus would never go | 27:28 | |
to a prayer breakfast. | 27:29 | |
Even as a fellow pastor I have to say that as I watched | 27:35 | |
and read the spiritual odyssey of Malcolm X, | 27:40 | |
even though he remained all of his days a member of the | 27:44 | |
Islamic faith I count him more | 27:46 | |
of a serious friend of Jesus | 27:52 | |
than Billy Graham even though Billy Graham is called | 27:56 | |
sometimes a doctor Christian. | 27:59 | |
Well let me reiterate, well I said no one could be | 28:05 | |
an unbeliever, | 28:07 | |
after all what is religion? | 28:13 | |
Well we can define it in a great number of ways. | 28:14 | |
We can go to a Milton Younger, a sociologist of religion. | 28:16 | |
And he suggested religion is nothing more than a system | 28:22 | |
of beliefs and practices by means of which a people | 28:25 | |
struggle with the ultimate problems of human life. | 28:28 | |
That is the refusal to capitulate to death | 28:31 | |
to give up in the face of frustration, or to allow hostility | 28:33 | |
to tear apart one's human association. | 28:38 | |
One of the reasons that there is, whether many of us | 28:45 | |
cannot recognize it or not, historically among Black | 28:49 | |
people in America a very serious religious dimension | 28:52 | |
is because Black people in spite of their experience | 28:57 | |
of what it means to be a human in this kind of a land | 29:01 | |
have none the less refused to capitulate to their | 29:05 | |
own annihilation and to their own death. | 29:10 | |
We have, as many like to say, we have survived, and not | 29:14 | |
simply survived, endured, and not simply endured! | 29:18 | |
We've endured with a great sense of who we are | 29:23 | |
and what we are. | 29:27 | |
Paul Tillet might define religion as that which | 29:30 | |
concerns us ultimately. | 29:35 | |
And Alfred Whitehead might say that religion is a vision | 29:37 | |
of something which gives meaning, even while it keeps | 29:41 | |
deluding our apprehension. | 29:44 | |
Well the point is that religion or faith is nothing more | 29:48 | |
but nothing less than the way in which we somehow | 29:53 | |
discover that all of the energies of our living | 29:58 | |
are integrated and organized | 30:03 | |
by inner logic, a transcendent awareness. | 30:08 | |
Well this is why it seems to me that most region in our | 30:15 | |
land is nothing more than a cultural thing. | 30:18 | |
I would call it a pagan thing. | 30:23 | |
Most of the religion of our land, including most of the | 30:25 | |
religion of the churches is nothing more than | 30:28 | |
a cultural thing, it is not the religion of Moses, | 30:31 | |
or Isiah, or Jesus. | 30:37 | |
Or Martin Luther kIng. | 30:40 | |
It is a religion that is terribly infiltrated with | 30:43 | |
the viruses of greed, and of racism, | 30:46 | |
of the will to power for no meaning of violence. | 30:51 | |
If you asked the average American today to draw a picture | 30:57 | |
of God, that God would look something like this. | 31:01 | |
He would be white, over 55 | 31:04 | |
and male. | 31:09 | |
He would look like either Santa Claus, or Uncle Sam | 31:13 | |
or a little of both. | 31:16 | |
Nonetheless the human scene | 31:20 | |
makes of each one of us | 31:24 | |
a religious person. | 31:27 | |
We will either by drifting or we will by struggle. | 31:29 | |
We will by conscious awareness of our unconscious | 31:32 | |
powers within us hammer and wrestle out | 31:36 | |
an inner logic to which we give our loyalty our devotion | 31:40 | |
and by which we organize our energy. | 31:45 | |
An old testament theologian was hinting at this when he said | 31:51 | |
you are made in the image of God, | 31:56 | |
you are spirit, | 31:59 | |
you have always across your life the necessity of | 32:02 | |
making choices of freedom and limitation. | 32:05 | |
You have within the marrow of your bones the necessity | 32:09 | |
not only of being loved but of loving. | 32:13 | |
Now to that kind of human scene comes the dimension that | 32:18 | |
all men have known and know | 32:23 | |
the necessity of faith or religion. | 32:27 | |
Let me then move on to my second point. | 32:34 | |
The only question that counts is what kind of religion | 32:38 | |
do I have, who is the God of the energies of my living. | 32:41 | |
Is he no God, as Isaih frequently said in his ministries? | 32:48 | |
Or is he the living God of Moses or Jeremiah? | 32:55 | |
Well obviously one cannot answer this massive kind of | 33:01 | |
a question simply in one moment of worship. | 33:04 | |
But let me just throw out in trying to provide a kind | 33:09 | |
of way of you hammering an authentic faith | 33:12 | |
three kinds of criteria by which you and I at this moment | 33:15 | |
can try to judge | 33:19 | |
the faith that is forming in us, even now. | 33:22 | |
The first criteria, regardless of my own frustration | 33:26 | |
of fear, of turmoil. | 33:32 | |
Regardless of the confusion of my own life, and the life | 33:35 | |
of history as I see it day after day, | 33:38 | |
is there taking form in me | 33:41 | |
a sense that I belong to life | 33:45 | |
to love | 33:53 | |
not to death. | 33:55 | |
Is there something that escapes my real definitions | 34:01 | |
that nonetheless makes me aware again and again | 34:07 | |
that I belong, | 34:12 | |
not by virtue of where I was born or how | 34:14 | |
or where I live or my income | 34:19 | |
or educational status of prestige, | 34:21 | |
but because of the gift of my life. | 34:23 | |
Now let us acknowledge for a moment now that there are | 34:31 | |
multitudes of people who do not feel as though they were | 34:35 | |
meant at all to live. | 34:39 | |
One of the places where this has come home to me | 34:43 | |
in a shattering kind of way was in the plays | 34:48 | |
of Eugene o'Neile. | 34:51 | |
And in his long days journey into night | 34:54 | |
there is an especially poignant scene. | 34:59 | |
The father and Edmund the oldest boy are drunk | 35:04 | |
but late at night they are talking to each other. | 35:10 | |
But more than that they are really, they're really | 35:14 | |
touching each other as men for the first time. | 35:18 | |
And sometimes they say cruel things to each other | 35:23 | |
and sometimes they say loud things to each other | 35:25 | |
but nonetheless they are touching one another's lives. | 35:28 | |
And at one point Edmund says to his father, | 35:33 | |
it was a great mistake my being born a man. | 35:36 | |
I would've been more successful as a seagull or a fish. | 35:44 | |
As it is I will always be a stranger who never feels | 35:47 | |
at home, who does not really want, who is not really wanted. | 35:50 | |
Who can never belong. | 35:53 | |
Who must always be just a little in love | 35:56 | |
with death. | 36:01 | |
I wanna describe this spirit. | 36:06 | |
And I call it sometimes a savage spirit | 36:09 | |
savage sickness, one can find in many parts | 36:12 | |
of our own land today. | 36:16 | |
It's a sickness which afflicts multitudes of our people | 36:23 | |
both black and white, both white and black. | 36:27 | |
For years I suspected this. | 36:33 | |
It's becoming more and more real to me, | 36:36 | |
the heart of the issue in our nation today | 36:41 | |
stands in the heart of each one of us | 36:46 | |
and in the heart of we as a people. | 36:50 | |
I describe what this is thusly. | 36:57 | |
In spite of a vision of those who came to this land, | 37:04 | |
some came in bondage. | 37:10 | |
In spite of the dream of the American experiment | 37:15 | |
some people we found here we tried to put in bondage. | 37:19 | |
And we justified both the dream | 37:27 | |
for some, and the bondage for others. | 37:33 | |
We thought that such a dichotomy of love | 37:41 | |
could be successfully done without affecting ourselves. | 37:48 | |
But now that dualism has returned in full force, | 37:55 | |
so that we are willing to sacrifice | 38:02 | |
our children | 38:07 | |
on the altar of our own delusion. | 38:10 | |
Who are those who die from our land in Vietnam | 38:17 | |
18 and 19 and 20 year olds, our sons, | 38:20 | |
not our fathers or our uncles, but our sons. | 38:24 | |
And even when we move to the extent that we shoot down | 38:32 | |
people at Kent State or Jackson State, | 38:37 | |
most of us feel that somehow | 38:44 | |
if they weren't at the | 38:51 | |
wrong place at the wrong time that they | 38:52 | |
would not behave been shot down. | 38:54 | |
But that spirit is spreading. | 39:02 | |
Last year it came to my attention | 39:07 | |
that a man by the name of Arvil Garland, | 39:12 | |
the Detroit railroad worker, | 39:15 | |
expressed this infanticide spirit. | 39:21 | |
He'd been having trouble with his daughter Sandra for some | 39:28 | |
two or three years. | 39:30 | |
He wasn't able to understand her and she felt | 39:35 | |
that he was oppression for her. | 39:40 | |
She ran away a couple of times, they went and got her | 39:46 | |
and brought her back. | 39:49 | |
Her first year in college she left home, | 39:52 | |
she planned it and so she urged her friends | 39:58 | |
not to mention where she lived. | 40:03 | |
Her daddy searched but could not find her. | 40:09 | |
He did discover though that she had a boyfriend. | 40:12 | |
He found out where the boyfriend lived. | 40:16 | |
He went, he could never find Sandra there. | 40:18 | |
But one early morning 2 am, he kicked down | 40:25 | |
the doors of the apartment where the boyfriend lived. | 40:30 | |
He found Sandra age 17 in the bed, in one of the beds rather | 40:34 | |
with the boyfriend. | 40:39 | |
He hit the boy over the head. | 40:42 | |
The bullet went off and killed Sandra. | 40:46 | |
Then he shot the boy. | 40:50 | |
There was a roommate in the room in another bed. | 40:54 | |
He was sleeping. | 40:57 | |
The father killed him. | 40:59 | |
In a next bedroom there was a black boy partner in the | 41:02 | |
apartment, he killed him, | 41:07 | |
four teenagers 16, 17 18. | 41:12 | |
His trial was held in December of last year. | 41:16 | |
Time magazine reported it in the early part of the month. | 41:21 | |
He received hundreds of letters from all around the country | 41:25 | |
Time reported in January. | 41:28 | |
Let me quote specifically what Time said. | 41:34 | |
Time magazine in the January 25th issue, thought this was | 41:39 | |
so critical that it took and put it as it's second | 41:43 | |
comment in that edition. | 41:47 | |
Said one California father of a teenage girl, | 41:52 | |
there are surely many among us | 41:56 | |
who have done in our hearts | 42:00 | |
what you have done with your hands. | 42:02 | |
To have those to whom we opened our hearts and treasure | 42:08 | |
say your truth is not truth, | 42:11 | |
your values are without value can be beyond bearing. | 42:14 | |
Other messages were simply congratulatory. | 42:19 | |
One came with a $20, none contained | 42:22 | |
any criticism of the killing. | 42:25 | |
How does such a savage spirit take place. | 42:32 | |
I want to see if I can again suggest why. | 42:35 | |
Because you see teaching | 42:39 | |
any form of racism | 42:43 | |
either by word or by the ways in which we organize | 42:47 | |
our children in classroom which are lily white | 42:51 | |
teaches that child not to accept | 42:56 | |
God's gift of life. | 42:59 | |
Now don't take my word for it, go and read Gordon Alport | 43:03 | |
on the nature of prejudice. | 43:07 | |
Or Kenneth Clarke the sociologist on your | 43:09 | |
child and prejudice. | 43:13 | |
Or read Benjamin Spark who has lectured in this area | 43:15 | |
to parents in relationship to the raising of their children. | 43:19 | |
And what do these men say? | 43:22 | |
I could describe it in the way in which I sensed it. | 43:25 | |
Becoming a father in the last nine years | 43:28 | |
and watching my sons grow. | 43:31 | |
I've been in a park with them in Memphis. | 43:34 | |
And they've been having a good time, and then | 43:39 | |
I notice white children in the park who joined them | 43:45 | |
and they proceed to play as children will. | 43:49 | |
And as this has happened my wife and I will almost | 43:55 | |
invariably start looking around to see if we can see | 43:58 | |
the fathers and the mothers or the grandparents | 44:01 | |
of the white children. | 44:03 | |
Well we can frequently spot them while we're enjoying the | 44:06 | |
fact that our children are having joy and play, | 44:10 | |
they by their facial expression express up tightness. | 44:14 | |
Because the children are playing with Black children. | 44:20 | |
Soon mommy or daddy will come over and grab | 44:25 | |
little Johnny and take him away. | 44:27 | |
And I can imagine what she says. | 44:29 | |
You mustn't play with those children | 44:33 | |
they're dirty, they're colored, they're this they're that. | 44:36 | |
And momma thinks that she is helping her child to | 44:42 | |
develop discrimination in his life. | 44:45 | |
Selectivity of friends. | 44:49 | |
But little Johnny doesn't see it that way, | 44:53 | |
for he too is human being though a child | 44:56 | |
and he deals with that experience as a child. | 44:59 | |
And he deals with that experience from the place of | 45:02 | |
was it good play, was it fun. | 45:07 | |
Did the other kids know how to do it? | 45:11 | |
Were they good to play with? | 45:15 | |
And so when mommy or daddy try to impose upon him this idea | 45:18 | |
that those children no good, he says well that | 45:22 | |
can't be so because they knew how to play like I know | 45:24 | |
how to play so it must not be them it must be me, | 45:27 | |
who's not worth having that kind of experience. | 45:35 | |
And So Benjamin Spark says very clearly, that the first | 45:40 | |
seed of self to suspicion, | 45:43 | |
of self inability to accept | 45:48 | |
the gift of life takes hold. | 45:51 | |
And as that child maturates, that seed maturates | 45:53 | |
so that all through that child's days | 45:57 | |
there is a deeply seated unconscious sense | 46:03 | |
that they're not really | 46:09 | |
worth the gift of life. | 46:14 | |
So James Baldwin puts it very succinctly when he says | 46:20 | |
what the white man does not know about the black man | 46:25 | |
he does not know about himself. | 46:30 | |
What the white man fears about he black man he in truth | 46:34 | |
fears about himself. | 46:39 | |
And the Christian faith would say it another way. | 46:40 | |
Any man who knows that he belongs to light knows the | 46:44 | |
most critical things about every other human being. | 46:49 | |
But what I know about Jim Lawson, I know about you and you. | 46:55 | |
What I know or fear about myself | 47:03 | |
will be the premises | 47:09 | |
of my fear of you or any other human being. | 47:10 | |
Be he a Vietcong | 47:14 | |
Or is there taking seed in your life a sense | 47:27 | |
that you were meant for love and for life | 47:33 | |
not for death? | 47:39 | |
Or for the second kind of criteria, it's not enough | 47:46 | |
to have an inner transcendent logic that makes you | 47:55 | |
feel who you are and that you belong to life. | 47:58 | |
There must also be what you can call | 48:02 | |
a kind of uptight cool. | 48:06 | |
A kind of uncomfortable | 48:11 | |
contentment. | 48:17 | |
Let's see if I can talk about it a different way. | 48:21 | |
Those of you who are sportsmen you'll know that a few | 48:25 | |
weeks ago Yogi Berra, | 48:28 | |
the former great catcher of the | 48:31 | |
New York Yankees was not voted into the baseball | 48:33 | |
hall of fame. | 48:37 | |
And it brought home a story, one of my favorite | 48:39 | |
stories about him. | 48:43 | |
He was a bad ball hitter, notoriously known for it, | 48:47 | |
and on a beautiful afternoon he was up to bat, | 48:54 | |
and the pitcher was little bit wild and the first pitch | 48:58 | |
went clearly outside the base, | 49:00 | |
outside the plate, | 49:05 | |
and Yogi sure enough swung and missed. | 49:08 | |
Well the pitcher figured he had Yogis number, | 49:14 | |
so he put he ball almost exactly in the same spot, | 49:16 | |
still outside the plate. | 49:20 | |
Berra swung again, and missed. | 49:24 | |
Well the third time the pitcher put the ball still further | 49:29 | |
outside the plate and Yogi swung with all of his might | 49:32 | |
hitting the dust as he swung. | 49:36 | |
Well he threw the bat down in disgust and stumbled | 49:39 | |
back to the dugout and his teammates expected to hear | 49:43 | |
him explode in self disgust, but he didn't say a word. | 49:47 | |
Came on down the dugout steps, | 49:54 | |
then as he went toward the seat, he was heard to mutter | 49:57 | |
to himself how in the world does a pitcher like that | 50:02 | |
stay in this league? | 50:06 | |
Another way of talking about this was the story of a wise | 50:18 | |
old bishop in the state of Virginia, was Episcopalian | 50:21 | |
and he persuaded a very fine upstanding young layman | 50:24 | |
to run for Congress. | 50:28 | |
And that young man won, his first time out | 50:31 | |
in a political effort. | 50:35 | |
And some nights after that the bishop and his good friend | 50:37 | |
were sitting together talking about what this new | 50:43 | |
vocation meant. | 50:45 | |
It was storming outside, and at one point the bishop | 50:47 | |
said to his friend, look Bill | 50:52 | |
why don't you go outside in the rain and stand up and look | 50:59 | |
at the heavens, and just stand there and let that rain | 51:04 | |
pour down on your face and keep looking up. | 51:07 | |
You'll get a revelation, and if you're going to be a good | 51:13 | |
congressman you need revelations. | 51:17 | |
Well the newly elected congressman didn't think very much | 51:24 | |
of the idea but he said okay I'll do it. | 51:27 | |
So he went out and stood up in the rain looking up. | 51:29 | |
He of course got soaking wet, he came back in wailing, | 51:32 | |
he said look at me bishop, I'm soaking wet, | 51:34 | |
I didn't get any revelation I just feel like | 51:39 | |
a blithering idiot. | 51:41 | |
The old bishop laughed and said to him Bill, | 51:44 | |
that's a pretty good revelation for the first time. | 51:48 | |
Well the second point, second question, criteria | 51:57 | |
is there at the same moment taking root in me the sense | 52:02 | |
that somehow I'm not yet where I ought to be. | 52:07 | |
A discomfortable questioner of the directions of my living. | 52:13 | |
Well the inferior sense of belonging, and the | 52:22 | |
external critic must be seen in the final question | 52:26 | |
and it goes like this. | 52:30 | |
Do I find myself day after day | 52:34 | |
being tied by steel like | 52:39 | |
chains of solidarity | 52:43 | |
to all human kind. | 52:48 | |
Do I sense that not only do I belong to life, | 52:51 | |
and am being pushed by life but at the same moment | 52:55 | |
I belong also to my fellow sojourner | 52:57 | |
near and far? | 53:02 | |
Wrote Kenneth Patchen in his memoirs of a shy pornographer | 53:08 | |
says something like this, I think it's childish to imagine | 53:10 | |
that somewhere, somehow is something that will punish us | 53:13 | |
if we do evil, reward us if we do good. | 53:17 | |
That's a monstrous idea of God, | 53:20 | |
it means that we can cheat, lie, kill each other | 53:22 | |
with the nice comforting thought that we're stepping on | 53:25 | |
the toes of something that someday maybe will | 53:27 | |
fix us for it. | 53:30 | |
No, God stands before every man. | 53:31 | |
When you cheat you cheat him, when you lie | 53:35 | |
you lie to him, and when you kill you kill him. | 53:37 | |
Not in some nebulous hereafter but this moment now. | 53:39 | |
He is every man. | 53:44 | |
What we do we can only do for each other. | 53:46 | |
Any dream we have is a dream all must share in. | 53:48 | |
Any goal we set forth ourselves, | 53:52 | |
must be a goal | 53:57 | |
we are willing to set | 53:59 | |
for every other human being. | 54:04 | |
Vatican two put it this way. | 54:17 | |
The hopes, the afflictions, the poverty, the anguish | 54:22 | |
the joy, of the sons of man | 54:28 | |
must become the joy, the poverty, the anguish, | 54:32 | |
the affliction of the followers of Christ. | 54:35 | |
Without the inward sense | 54:43 | |
that you belong to life | 54:48 | |
your faith will have | 54:52 | |
no genuine | 54:55 | |
life power. | 54:59 | |
Without the transcendent critic | 55:05 | |
your faith will not have direction. | 55:10 | |
Without | 55:17 | |
the knowing | 55:22 | |
that you are a part of the human race | 55:25 | |
for better or for worse | 55:33 | |
your faith will have no style. | 55:36 | |
You know John in his first letter | 55:47 | |
was quite correct, | 55:52 | |
that no man has ever had a direct vision of God. | 55:54 | |
But when we love one another | 56:03 | |
we are in God and God is in us. | 56:09 | |
The man who is involved in love | 56:11 | |
is in fact involved in God, | 56:15 | |
and God is in fact involved in him. | 56:18 | |
You may not know how to describe that faith which is | 56:28 | |
taking form in you even at this moment. | 56:31 | |
But if in spite of the struggles of your own | 56:37 | |
present human scene | 56:40 | |
you find dimly and at other moments of bright illuminating | 56:44 | |
power that your life is not an accident | 56:48 | |
but a gift then | 56:52 | |
it is the living God who has already begun to plant | 56:55 | |
faith in you. | 57:00 | |
If in moments both of your despair at the same time | 57:05 | |
in moments of your greatest exhilaration of being alive, | 57:09 | |
you know that somehow life is still pushing you towards | 57:13 | |
different dreams and up a different kind of mountain. | 57:18 | |
The faith taking form in you is authentic | 57:25 | |
and if against your own wishes, | 57:30 | |
contrary to your own best interests you have to find that | 57:36 | |
in spirit, in body, | 57:40 | |
in attitude, in word, | 57:42 | |
again and again you have to identify with the hurt, | 57:45 | |
and the lonely, and the weak, | 57:49 | |
and every human person around the world | 57:52 | |
faith in you is taking on form and might. | 57:56 | |
You're involved with the living God. | 58:01 | |
The God of Moses and Jesus and Martin King. | 58:04 | |
And more than that God | 58:11 | |
is involved in you. | 58:16 | |
Let us pray. | 58:24 | |
Let not our meandering though God in this place be in vain. | 58:35 | |
But let that faith that even in this moment | 58:44 | |
that in every moment of our living is taking place | 58:46 | |
and taking form in us | 58:50 | |
be that which you, life force, love, sprit, truth, power, | 58:54 | |
is at every moment creating for us | 59:05 | |
and in us | 59:12 | |
amen. | 59:19 | |
(choir music) | 59:23 |