Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam - "The Mission of the Church" (January 15, 1956)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| - | It is hard for us to realize, I think, | 0:06 |
| but once upon a time there was neither a cross nor a church | 0:09 | |
| in all of Europe. | 0:14 | |
| That was a little more than 1900 years ago | 0:16 | |
| before the Apostle Paul entered Greece. | 0:18 | |
| Now many here who know, I think that | 0:22 | |
| the Greek government recently and the Greek Church | 0:24 | |
| decided to celebrate the 1900th anniversary | 0:28 | |
| of the coming of St. Paul to that country. | 0:30 | |
| Invitations were sent to the nations of the world, | 0:34 | |
| to the churches of the world. | 0:36 | |
| And if you were pardon me, | 0:38 | |
| I had the honor of representing our American churches | 0:40 | |
| upon that occasion. | 0:42 | |
| The delegates were received with the king and the queen, | 0:44 | |
| the Archbishop, the leaders of state and of the church. | 0:46 | |
| And then in an extraordinary expression of hospitality, | 0:49 | |
| the Greek Church chartered a steamship. | 0:53 | |
| And as the guests of the church, we sailed the seas | 0:56 | |
| the Apostle Paul had sailed 1900 years before us. | 1:01 | |
| I shall never forget the morning | 1:06 | |
| we came to the city of Kavala, the ancient city Neapolis, | 1:07 | |
| we docked about five o'clock in the morning | 1:12 | |
| and already upon either side of the avenue | 1:14 | |
| that led from the dock, up the hill toward the cathedral, | 1:16 | |
| soldiers had been posted. | 1:20 | |
| After the time the procession left the ship, | 1:23 | |
| it was met by our procession coming down the hill | 1:25 | |
| led by the Archbishop. | 1:28 | |
| There were the words of greeting. | 1:30 | |
| And then together we went to the cathedral | 1:31 | |
| and shared in the holy liturgy of the Greek Church. | 1:33 | |
| That is the way we were received | 1:38 | |
| in Greece a short time ago. | 1:41 | |
| But that's not the way Christianity came to Europe. | 1:44 | |
| There was no committee of welcome awaiting Paul and Silas | 1:49 | |
| when they came to that city 1900 years before us. | 1:52 | |
| You may remember that they walked over the old Roman road | 1:56 | |
| to the city of Philippi. | 1:59 | |
| We rode in comfortable automobiles, | 2:01 | |
| and we looked down upon the very stones | 2:03 | |
| their feet had touched 19 centuries ago. | 2:05 | |
| It's not my purpose this morning | 2:09 | |
| to relate the Philippian episode, | 2:11 | |
| but you'll remember the first convert to Christianity | 2:13 | |
| in all of Europe was one there, Lydia a seller of purple. | 2:16 | |
| And then you'll remember there was rioting, | 2:21 | |
| Paul and Silas was stripped and beaten | 2:24 | |
| and thrown into the inner prison. | 2:26 | |
| That night an earthquake, the doors fell out | 2:30 | |
| and the jailer fearful least he lose his prisoners. | 2:32 | |
| And you'll recall in those days, | 2:35 | |
| if a jailer lost a prisoner, he might be executed. | 2:37 | |
| The jailer rushed into the prison and Paul noting the man, | 2:40 | |
| said, "Do yourself no harm. We're still here." | 2:44 | |
| It seems incredible. | 2:49 | |
| But before very long, | 2:51 | |
| the jailer actually turns to the prisoner and says to Paul, | 2:52 | |
| "Sir, what must I do to be saved?" | 2:55 | |
| The answer then is now | 3:01 | |
| believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ. | 3:03 | |
| It is hard to believe the record, | 3:07 | |
| but before that day was over, | 3:09 | |
| these prisoners are seated at the table of the jailer, | 3:11 | |
| the jailer and his family baptized. | 3:14 | |
| That is the way Christianity came to Philippi. | 3:17 | |
| The early Christian was guaranteed no security. | 3:22 | |
| There was no certainty of comfort. | 3:26 | |
| This very man, Paul could write these words | 3:28 | |
| I quote him exactly, | 3:30 | |
| "I have been often at the point of death, | 3:32 | |
| five times that I got 40 lashes, | 3:34 | |
| all but one from the Jews, | 3:36 | |
| three times beaten by the Romans. | 3:38 | |
| Once pelted with stones, three time shipwrecked, | 3:40 | |
| drifted sea for the whole night and a day." | 3:43 | |
| And then he goes on through dangers of rivers | 3:45 | |
| and robbers of town and desert. | 3:48 | |
| Starving many a time, cold and little clad, | 3:51 | |
| and then lest he tires he says and all the rest of it. | 3:53 | |
| No Christianity did not bring security to these men, | 3:58 | |
| but it did something for them. | 4:00 | |
| It puts strength into their minds | 4:03 | |
| and sympathy into their hearts | 4:05 | |
| and steal into their will | 4:06 | |
| until this man Paul could actually say this, | 4:07 | |
| "None of these things moves me. | 4:10 | |
| I have been initiated into the secret | 4:16 | |
| for all sorts and conditions of life." | 4:18 | |
| It seems as though he is boasting. | 4:20 | |
| He says, "Wherever I go, thank God. | 4:22 | |
| He makes my life a constant pageant of triumph in Christ." | 4:24 | |
| And finally he climaxes with all with this, | 4:29 | |
| "I have fought a good fight. I've kept the faith." | 4:33 | |
| What was the faith? These men brought to Europe. | 4:37 | |
| It is the mission of the church. | 4:41 | |
| So to proclaim the faith that the faith comes alive | 4:43 | |
| in the practices of the common life, | 4:46 | |
| what was this faith? | 4:50 | |
| Will these early Christians really believed | 4:52 | |
| that this is our father's world. | 4:55 | |
| They believe that moral purposes | 4:58 | |
| written into the nature of things. | 5:00 | |
| They honestly believed | 5:02 | |
| that the eternal who keeps the stars and their courses | 5:04 | |
| notes the spirals fall. | 5:07 | |
| They believed that God's love wasn't an impersonal love | 5:10 | |
| for mankind in general. | 5:14 | |
| It was a personal love for each one of us in particular. | 5:16 | |
| These men would've found it a bit difficult | 5:21 | |
| to have understood Einstein in his statement. | 5:23 | |
| One of the great minds of all history, | 5:26 | |
| Professor Einstein contemplating the universe. | 5:29 | |
| One day, he wrote using a magnificent phrase. | 5:33 | |
| He spoke of the grandeur of reason incarnate, | 5:39 | |
| the regularities of the universe, | 5:45 | |
| the grandeur of reason incarnate. | 5:48 | |
| But these early Christians went beyond that. | 5:51 | |
| Beyond that they could not think in the terms of course, | 5:54 | |
| in which he thinks. | 5:57 | |
| But they could see more | 5:59 | |
| than the grandeur of reason incarnate. | 6:01 | |
| They beheld a glory of love infinite. | 6:03 | |
| These men and women so believe | 6:07 | |
| that when they sought to put the faith | 6:10 | |
| into a creedal statement, they said, | 6:12 | |
| I believe in God the Father Almighty. | 6:14 | |
| They believe that a man's relation to God is personal. | 6:19 | |
| It is direct. It is immediate. | 6:22 | |
| Nothing stands between a man and the eternal, | 6:25 | |
| nothing save his own will. | 6:27 | |
| They really believe that nothing can separate a man | 6:30 | |
| from the love of God, nothing. | 6:33 | |
| And when a man knows that he knows | 6:35 | |
| that in all matters affecting his eternal welfare, | 6:37 | |
| he's beyond the reach of any human dictator. | 6:40 | |
| He's not dependent upon any human institution. | 6:44 | |
| He can face the future unafraid. | 6:47 | |
| He can take anything that may happen to him | 6:50 | |
| and do it in the certainty and the serenity | 6:53 | |
| that categorized Jesus. | 6:55 | |
| It's all very easy to say this, | 6:57 | |
| I believe in God the Father Almighty. | 7:00 | |
| I don't know about you, | 7:04 | |
| but my faith has cost me nothing, nothing. | 7:06 | |
| I've never been in prison. | 7:11 | |
| Nobody's ever thrown a rock at me. | 7:13 | |
| I've never been hungry. | 7:15 | |
| I don't know the meaning of the word persecution. | 7:17 | |
| My faith has cost me nothing. | 7:21 | |
| It has come to me by way of heritage, | 7:24 | |
| just as my freedom has come. | 7:27 | |
| But during recent years, | 7:30 | |
| I've had the privilege of working with men | 7:31 | |
| whose faith has cost them something, | 7:33 | |
| in the executive committee | 7:37 | |
| of the Royal Council of Churches so often. | 7:38 | |
| I've had the privilege of sitting next | 7:42 | |
| to Berggrav of Norway. | 7:44 | |
| The former primate of the Norwegian church, | 7:46 | |
| one of the great ecclesiastic leaders of the world. | 7:48 | |
| You remember it was Berggrav who gave the word | 7:52 | |
| when the Nazis came into Norway? | 7:54 | |
| a Bayno dictated the Nazi and the realm of the spiritual. | 7:57 | |
| Of course he was thrown into prison. | 8:00 | |
| Suffered, health impaired, he'll not be with us much longer. | 8:02 | |
| His faith is costing something. | 8:07 | |
| There at the same table Martin Niemoller, | 8:09 | |
| eight years in the prisons of Hitler, | 8:12 | |
| and a man perhaps not so well known to you. | 8:14 | |
| I refer to Bishop Lilje, Bishop of Hanover, | 8:17 | |
| the President of the Lutheran World Federation. | 8:21 | |
| If you know him you will recall | 8:24 | |
| that he was a speaker of unusual power. | 8:26 | |
| Speaking to German students in the great universities, | 8:30 | |
| dealing with profound themes he had so mastered them | 8:33 | |
| that he could speak simply, | 8:36 | |
| but he was anti Hitler. | 8:39 | |
| He knew the day would come around the night, | 8:41 | |
| when there would be the knock upon the door. | 8:43 | |
| It came, it was a Saturday night. | 8:45 | |
| He was making ready for the great congregation | 8:47 | |
| he would face on the morrow. | 8:50 | |
| He's written a little book called, | 8:52 | |
| "In the Valley of the Shadow." | 8:53 | |
| It's going to take its place in the classics | 8:55 | |
| of the literature of courage. | 8:58 | |
| He writes, | 9:00 | |
| 'The most terrible moment for me | 9:01 | |
| was when the steel door of my cell slam shut. | 9:03 | |
| There was an awful finality about it. | 9:06 | |
| Separating me from my home, my family, my church. | 9:07 | |
| It seems hard to believe with the Nazis | 9:11 | |
| actually fetted man at night. | 9:13 | |
| It wasn't enough to put him in a cell, | 9:15 | |
| chains from his wrists to his ankles at night. | 9:18 | |
| They took the punished man in the daytime.' | 9:22 | |
| One day he writes, | 9:26 | |
| I heard a prisoner whistling right down the cell block. | 9:27 | |
| Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing | 9:31 | |
| my great redeemers praise. | 9:33 | |
| He said, I rushed to the bars of my cell | 9:35 | |
| and I whistled back and definitely, | 9:37 | |
| and oh, for a thousand tongues to sing | 9:38 | |
| until the guards silenced us. | 9:41 | |
| Then came his first Christmas Eve in prison. | 9:44 | |
| He was thinking of his family, | 9:46 | |
| thinking of the congregation he had addressed | 9:48 | |
| the year before. | 9:50 | |
| He remembered even the text. | 9:51 | |
| The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. | 9:53 | |
| It came from Isaiah. | 9:56 | |
| It was 11 o'clock at night and he heard his number called. | 9:57 | |
| He said, as a rule, that meant nothing good. | 10:01 | |
| The guard came unlocked the door, | 10:03 | |
| took the fetters from him and said, follow me. | 10:05 | |
| He walked down the cell block and came to the commandant. | 10:08 | |
| The commandant said to the guard roughly, | 10:11 | |
| bring number 212 also. | 10:14 | |
| 212 was one of the great violinists of Germany. | 10:17 | |
| And he was under sentence of execution. | 10:20 | |
| Together they walked to another cell. | 10:23 | |
| The door was open standing there was a German Count, | 10:25 | |
| Bishop Lilia knew him. | 10:28 | |
| He wondered what it meant. | 10:29 | |
| And then he understood the Count was soon to go | 10:30 | |
| and had asked for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. | 10:35 | |
| Bishop Lilje writes, | 10:39 | |
| I had my congregation, the commandant, the Count, | 10:41 | |
| the violinist, the guards stood just outside the cell door. | 10:45 | |
| He said they brought a bit of bread and wine | 10:50 | |
| and it seemed to befitting to read the lesson | 10:52 | |
| for the Christmas day. | 10:54 | |
| Now it came to pass I went without a decree. | 10:55 | |
| The violin has played a Bach corral, exquisitely. | 10:59 | |
| Then writes the Bishop, | 11:03 | |
| The Count knelt down upon the hard stone floor, | 11:06 | |
| and as I prayed aloud the ancient prayer of confession, | 11:09 | |
| from Thomas Campbell which he himself had chosen, | 11:14 | |
| and pronounced absolution, | 11:17 | |
| the tears were streaming silently down his cheeks. | 11:18 | |
| It was a very quiet celebration of the Sacrament, he writes. | 11:22 | |
| Full of divine mercy, | 11:26 | |
| almost palpably we felt the wings of the divine mercy | 11:27 | |
| hovering over us. | 11:31 | |
| We we're prisoners of Gestapo Berlin, | 11:32 | |
| but the peace of God enfolded us. | 11:35 | |
| It was very real in prison, | 11:37 | |
| like a hand laid gently upon us. | 11:39 | |
| Nothing can separate a man from the love of God. | 11:44 | |
| It is the mission of the church. | 11:47 | |
| So to proclaim that, | 11:48 | |
| that God does in fact become relevant | 11:50 | |
| to all the activities of men. | 11:52 | |
| I believe in God the Father Almighty. | 11:56 | |
| But isn't it strange that when the jailer said to Paul, | 11:59 | |
| "Sir, what must I do to be saved?" | 12:03 | |
| Paul, didn't say, believe in God, | 12:05 | |
| that isn't what he said at all. | 12:09 | |
| He said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." | 12:10 | |
| Why did he put it that way? | 12:14 | |
| I don't know. | 12:16 | |
| But we can surmise. | 12:19 | |
| Certainly the eternal has known from the beginning, | 12:21 | |
| what it takes us a long, long time to learn namely, | 12:24 | |
| that ideas are meaningful for most men | 12:27 | |
| when they are beheld incarnate in other men. | 12:30 | |
| If you want to know the meaning of an idea, | 12:33 | |
| you must see it alive in a person. | 12:35 | |
| Have you ever noticed this? | 12:38 | |
| Mother's Day. | 12:41 | |
| Some preacher takes a half an hour | 12:42 | |
| trying to tell somebody what a mother is. | 12:45 | |
| Most of these sermons are sentimental not to say silly. | 12:49 | |
| Why should an individual take a half an hour | 12:53 | |
| trying to tell anybody what a mother is? | 12:56 | |
| All that's necessary is to have a young woman | 12:58 | |
| come into the sanctuary with a baby in her arms. | 13:01 | |
| When you see a mother, you know the meaning of the term. | 13:05 | |
| At the very heart of the Christian faith is this belief. | 13:10 | |
| And it's the mission of the church to proclaim it. | 13:13 | |
| That the Eternal took upon Himself | 13:15 | |
| the limitations of humanity. | 13:17 | |
| The ultimate became intimate. | 13:21 | |
| Perfection came alive in personality, | 13:23 | |
| or as the book puts it, the Word became flesh. | 13:26 | |
| And dwell among us. | 13:30 | |
| If you would know the eternal, | 13:32 | |
| study the mast. | 13:36 | |
| I know we must undergird the faith with sound theology. | 13:39 | |
| I would not for a moment discount the theologian | 13:43 | |
| he has his necessary and proper place. | 13:45 | |
| Obviously there must be technical jargon | 13:49 | |
| in this field as in other fields. | 13:51 | |
| But for me, it is easier | 13:54 | |
| to turn to my blessed Lord. | 13:57 | |
| Let me suggest it. | 14:00 | |
| I know this isn't in the record. | 14:01 | |
| Would you imagine that when Jesus left Nazareth, | 14:02 | |
| perhaps Mary stood there in the doorway | 14:05 | |
| waving goodbye to him, not as we do, | 14:07 | |
| but perhaps with a gesture of the near East. | 14:10 | |
| They have an interesting gesture there. | 14:12 | |
| When someone goes, they wave like this. | 14:14 | |
| You're going away, come back. | 14:16 | |
| I don't know that she did that. | 14:17 | |
| He starts upon His ministry. | 14:20 | |
| Will you think | 14:22 | |
| that seated upon a great stone beneath a tree | 14:23 | |
| and a crowd about him? He's teaching, | 14:25 | |
| they're listening intently. | 14:27 | |
| As a little girl outside that crowd | 14:29 | |
| she's been caught by his voice. | 14:30 | |
| Perhaps she may have seen his eyes. | 14:32 | |
| She breaks the stem of a Palestinian Lily, | 14:34 | |
| and she's going to give it to Him. | 14:36 | |
| She makes her way in and out among the older people | 14:37 | |
| as only a child can, | 14:39 | |
| and she's about to give him the Lillian one, | 14:40 | |
| the older person's restrains her. | 14:43 | |
| I don't know that it was at that time that Jesus said, | 14:46 | |
| "Suffer the little children to come unto me," | 14:49 | |
| but He might have. | 14:51 | |
| I think He would've taken that child into His arms | 14:53 | |
| and he might have said to her, "What's your name?" | 14:55 | |
| And she might have said, "My name is Mary." | 14:59 | |
| And if she had, I know that Jesus would've said to her, | 15:02 | |
| "Oh, that's a beautiful name. That's my mother's name." | 15:05 | |
| And she might have given Him the flower | 15:08 | |
| and Jesus might have said, | 15:11 | |
| "Mary, do you know who takes care of the flowers?" | 15:13 | |
| If she had said, "No," I think Jesus would've told her | 15:16 | |
| the one who cares for the flowers, | 15:19 | |
| but cares infinitely more for every child | 15:21 | |
| upon the face of the earth, | 15:23 | |
| white, black, red, yellow, brown, | 15:25 | |
| every child God's like that. | 15:28 | |
| I can understand that. | 15:32 | |
| I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord. | 15:33 | |
| I see Him again this time in the great city, | 15:37 | |
| there's a crowd, they're going to stone a woman | 15:40 | |
| who is supposed to have made a mistake. | 15:43 | |
| When are we going to learn that you don't solve problems | 15:46 | |
| by throwing rocks? | 15:48 | |
| These hypocrites because mobs are always made up | 15:50 | |
| of cowards and hypocrites. | 15:53 | |
| Jesus stepping into the crowd. | 15:56 | |
| Know me and only Jesus, | 15:58 | |
| but I think a man with his eyes flashing turns upon them, | 15:59 | |
| He knows them. | 16:02 | |
| If any of you haven't sinned, you cast a stone | 16:03 | |
| her will you? | 16:05 | |
| In a moment, they've hidden the stones and they've gone. | 16:07 | |
| And Jesus looking down, "Woman where are thine accusers?" | 16:11 | |
| "O Lord, they've all gone." | 16:15 | |
| "Neither do I condemn you. | 16:19 | |
| You go your way and sin no more." | 16:21 | |
| God's like that. | 16:23 | |
| I can understand that. | 16:25 | |
| And when he kneels in the garden, yearning for life, | 16:27 | |
| loving it as you love it and I love it. | 16:29 | |
| Suddenly one realizes that God Himself suffers. | 16:31 | |
| Of course He does. | 16:34 | |
| He has to deal with you and with me, | 16:36 | |
| how can He do other? Than suffer. | 16:38 | |
| I did not come here today to repeat the creed, | 16:42 | |
| an entirely different purpose. | 16:44 | |
| I believe in God the Father Almighty. | 16:46 | |
| It's the mission of the church to proclaim it | 16:48 | |
| until it soul lives in the common life | 16:50 | |
| that it really it is regiment. | 16:52 | |
| I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord. | 16:55 | |
| I am glad they climax that creed with the affirmation, | 16:58 | |
| I believe in the life everlasting, | 17:01 | |
| do you? | 17:05 | |
| I mean really. | 17:07 | |
| I know at the beginning of my ministry, | 17:09 | |
| when I was called upon to read those words, | 17:11 | |
| as we laid out dead away, | 17:13 | |
| there were times when I wondered, | 17:15 | |
| how can the power | 17:17 | |
| that directs the universe, | 17:21 | |
| these millions of suns, | 17:25 | |
| be interested in one individual | 17:28 | |
| who is here for a few years and gone. | 17:32 | |
| I was trying to compare out what cannot be compared. | 17:36 | |
| There is no statement to the creed | 17:39 | |
| that I can repeat with greater assurance today | 17:41 | |
| than the last one. | 17:44 | |
| I believe in the life everlasting. | 17:45 | |
| Well, you pardon me? | 17:49 | |
| During the world war, I flew over the Anzio Beachhead. | 17:50 | |
| I looked down upon that costly bit of sand. | 17:53 | |
| It seemed to me, it was like a face | 17:55 | |
| that had suffered from small pox. | 17:56 | |
| The German artillery fire so intense | 17:58 | |
| that every square yard had been turned up | 18:00 | |
| in the beachhead was Puck Bart. | 18:02 | |
| Later, I walked over the beachhead with my youngest son. | 18:04 | |
| He said, | 18:08 | |
| "Dad, of course the armies have gone to the north now." | 18:08 | |
| He said, "I'll take you to my foxhole." | 18:11 | |
| I said, "Nonsense, | 18:13 | |
| you can't find a foxhole on a beachhead like this." | 18:15 | |
| He said, "If you had been here for three and a half months, | 18:18 | |
| you could find it." | 18:20 | |
| We found it. | 18:21 | |
| And then after taking some pictures, he said, | 18:22 | |
| "I want you to come with me to the cemetery. | 18:25 | |
| It's nearby at a place called Letourneau. | 18:27 | |
| He took me to a certain cross and he said, | 18:30 | |
| "Dad, would you read a prayer here?" | 18:32 | |
| I said, "Why here?" | 18:34 | |
| But he said, "That's Danner. | 18:36 | |
| He was right beside me when he got it, | 18:38 | |
| just as we came ashore. | 18:40 | |
| They were the first outfits ashore." | 18:42 | |
| And so I read a prayer, | 18:45 | |
| the Chief Chaplain of the Mediterranean Theater, | 18:47 | |
| who was accompanying me said, | 18:49 | |
| "Bishop, will you read a prayer here?" | 18:50 | |
| I looked, | 18:52 | |
| it wasn't a cross, it was a Star of David. | 18:53 | |
| And I knelt down and read that little metal tag. | 18:56 | |
| I'll never forget that boy's name as long as I live. | 18:58 | |
| I think Louie Diamond, | 19:00 | |
| Brooklyn, New York. | 19:03 | |
| And it seemed to be fitting to read the 23rd Psalm. | 19:05 | |
| Whether he comes in the moment of the battlefield | 19:09 | |
| or whether it comes after three score years in 10 or more, | 19:12 | |
| it comes, | 19:15 | |
| it comes for all of us. | 19:17 | |
| Is this the end? | 19:19 | |
| It has been the Christian faith | 19:21 | |
| from the very, very beginning. | 19:23 | |
| I believe in the life everlasting. | 19:25 | |
| I believe in God the Father, Almighty. | 19:29 | |
| I believe in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, | 19:31 | |
| I believe in the life everlasting. | 19:33 | |
| Why have I mentioned these matters to you today | 19:35 | |
| for this reason? | 19:37 | |
| The mission of the church. | 19:39 | |
| I fancy our primary need is for competent laymen | 19:42 | |
| and competently women | 19:46 | |
| who within the realm of their competency | 19:48 | |
| will discover the concrete means to translate | 19:51 | |
| the ideals of the faith into the realities | 19:54 | |
| of the common life. | 19:56 | |
| It's a summon to engineers, | 19:58 | |
| summons to engineers and to educators and executives | 19:59 | |
| and economists call the role | 20:03 | |
| to men and to women | 20:06 | |
| of competency, | 20:09 | |
| to lay hold upon the faith that is proclaim | 20:12 | |
| by the church to the end that it does live. | 20:15 | |
| I happen to know Mr. John Foster Dulles is quite well. | 20:20 | |
| I know he's under very severe criticism at the moment. | 20:23 | |
| I'm not dealing with a current political matter. | 20:25 | |
| I'm dealing with a person, | 20:28 | |
| I'm talking about competency. | 20:30 | |
| He's a man of extraordinary intellect. | 20:33 | |
| I think of unquestioned integrity. | 20:35 | |
| And according to his light, | 20:38 | |
| of devotion to the Christian faith. | 20:40 | |
| For a long time, | 20:42 | |
| he served as chairman of the commission | 20:43 | |
| on a just and durable piece of the federal council | 20:45 | |
| of the churches of Christ in America. | 20:47 | |
| I had the privilege of becoming | 20:49 | |
| well acquainted with him there. | 20:51 | |
| When he was charged by the previous administration | 20:53 | |
| with drafting the Japanese Treaty, | 20:55 | |
| he called a little group of his friends | 20:58 | |
| and he said in humility, he said, | 21:00 | |
| "I'm, I'm going to try to take those principles | 21:03 | |
| we worked out together | 21:05 | |
| and apply them now in practical states craft. | 21:07 | |
| Mr. Dulles would be the last to say, | 21:10 | |
| "I think that the Japanese treaty is a perfect treaty, | 21:12 | |
| but I think it is the first term that any statesman, | 21:16 | |
| at least that I know about. | 21:19 | |
| Deliberately took the Christian principle of reconciliation | 21:23 | |
| and tried to write it into a treaty, | 21:27 | |
| instead of the pagan principle of revenge. | 21:29 | |
| Without debating the current situation at all. | 21:33 | |
| I am talking about competent layman, | 21:36 | |
| who is in the realm of their competency | 21:38 | |
| will take their faith and try to give it life. | 21:40 | |
| Do you know the reason we have Costello's in New York city? | 21:42 | |
| I think I know | 21:47 | |
| because Christians want uninterrupted weekends. | 21:49 | |
| We just can't be bothered. | 21:54 | |
| There is a sufficient number of Christian men and women | 21:57 | |
| of competency in every community in the | 22:01 | |
| United States of America. | 22:03 | |
| So to move in upon our civic life | 22:04 | |
| and demonstrate what the free way of life means | 22:07 | |
| to those who challenge it. | 22:10 | |
| Enough Christians in this land. | 22:13 | |
| So to demonstrate the meaning of the faith in civic service, | 22:15 | |
| that our communities can be transformed. | 22:19 | |
| And instead of having to face | 22:20 | |
| embarrassing questions overseas, | 22:22 | |
| we would be standing as an example to the entire world, | 22:24 | |
| but we just can't be bothered. | 22:28 | |
| Now I know there are some here who be saying this morning, | 22:32 | |
| well, Bishop don't you understand? | 22:35 | |
| I do not expect to become secretary of, to take soon. | 22:37 | |
| My work will not take me into social reform. | 22:40 | |
| Yes, i know. | 22:42 | |
| I was reading in some of the writings of the late | 22:45 | |
| Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple recently. | 22:47 | |
| And right across this line, | 22:50 | |
| does it trouble you as it troubles me when | 22:52 | |
| a man say something that is so perfectly clear | 22:57 | |
| and you wonder why you never thought of it yourself. | 22:59 | |
| He said this, he was an educator you know? | 23:03 | |
| He said, the most important, of all educational factors | 23:06 | |
| is the conversation in the home. | 23:12 | |
| I never thought of that. | 23:16 | |
| Make no plea for artificial or stilted conversation | 23:18 | |
| in the home, not at all. | 23:21 | |
| But I am suggesting that everyone | 23:22 | |
| who is to have a home. | 23:25 | |
| A mother processes the most important of all | 23:28 | |
| educational factors conversation in the home, | 23:33 | |
| that faith itself can come alive | 23:36 | |
| in thinking of the child, | 23:38 | |
| as the child moves in to til eternity | 23:40 | |
| because of the conversion in the home. | 23:43 | |
| The mission of the church, | 23:46 | |
| so to proclaim the faith. | 23:47 | |
| The faith is incarnated in the person's who profess it. | 23:49 | |
| So to proclaim the faith will come alive | 23:52 | |
| and the practices of the common liar | 23:54 | |
| so do proclaim the faith of tomorrow. | 23:56 | |
| The world itself is able to say, | 23:59 | |
| "I believe God the Father Almighty. | 24:02 | |
| I believe in Jesus His Only Son our Lord. | 24:06 | |
| I believe in the life everlasting. | 24:09 | |
| May I close with an illustration? | 24:12 | |
| Centuries ago when Augustine was about to leave Africa, | 24:15 | |
| not St. August, but Augustine dissipated the sense | 24:18 | |
| satiated with a sensual. | 24:22 | |
| He goes to the boat | 24:25 | |
| and he's about to walk up a gangplank | 24:27 | |
| and His friend Martiano standing beside him | 24:28 | |
| and says this to him, | 24:31 | |
| "This day that brings another life to Thee, | 24:33 | |
| demands that thou, another man must be. | 24:37 | |
| Augustine never forgot it. | 24:42 | |
| He went to Milan and heard the great Ambrose preach | 24:44 | |
| then one day walking up and down in the garden | 24:46 | |
| in sprint into a struggling scene | 24:48 | |
| to hear someone say, "Take up and read it." | 24:49 | |
| And he took a book, written by the Apostle Paul | 24:51 | |
| and he ran across the words. | 24:54 | |
| Put it on the Lord Jesus Christ. | 24:56 | |
| It is the mission of the church, | 24:59 | |
| so to proclaim the faith | 25:01 | |
| that men become new men | 25:04 | |
| in Christ Jesus. | 25:10 | |
| I believe in God the Father Almighty. | 25:12 | |
| I believe in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord. | 25:16 | |
| I believe in the life everlasting. | 25:21 | |
| May we pray? | 25:26 | |
| Our Father we thank you for the men and women, | 25:34 | |
| whose faith has cost them something. | 25:40 | |
| We pray that we may be worthy of them | 25:43 | |
| and in the days to come. | 25:46 | |
| May the faith be so evident in each one of us. | 25:48 | |
| But others may behold it, | 25:52 | |
| living in a person. | 25:54 | |
| Bless this institution and from it, | 25:57 | |
| we pray that come those who will counter the faith | 26:01 | |
| to the world's itself. | 26:07 | |
| O Lord bless Thee and keep Thee. | 26:11 | |
| The lord makes His face to shine upon and be gracious | 26:15 | |
| on to Thee. | 26:19 | |
| Lord lift up the light in the covenant upon Thee, | 26:20 | |
| and give Thee peace. | 26:26 | |
| Amen. | 26:30 | |
| (choir singing "Amen") | 26:35 | |
| (church bells ringing) | 27:01 | |
| (organ playing) | 27:10 |