Merrimon Cuninggim - "Freedom Is Commitment" (January 22, 1956)

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-	Seldom have the comments that	0:16
	I have been called to make in talk or sermon,	0:18
	being more clearly dictated by the situation.	0:24
	There is no way for me to keep away from reminiscences.	0:29
	For I was a student on this campus	0:35
	and later I had a tour of duty on the faculty.	0:39
	And thus, you can understand how at this moment,	0:43
	I am both nervous	0:48
	and full of the most delightful apprehension.	0:50
	For over life's broad sea, our fate may follow us bear,	0:55
	but I never thought that they would bear me back	0:58
	to the in this particular fashion.	1:01
	And the sentiments that come to mind on this occasion,	1:04
	are dictated almost because of the nature of the experience,	1:09
	which I rather imagine you have had in this place,	1:14
	even as I, whether you be student or faculty member	1:17
	or per chance visit on occasion.	1:24
	You will notice that the theme suggested	1:28
	for our thinking together this morning,	1:31
	is the theme, "Freedom is Commitment."	1:33
	This is the place of my freedom.	1:38
	I was free in all kinds of ways,	1:43
	when I was a Duke University.	1:47
	And those of you who know me	1:50
	need not to be reminded of those ways,	1:51
	and for the rest of you,	1:54
	the information certainly would be no profit.	1:56
	This is also, as I dare say	2:00
	it may be for you, for me, a place of commitment.	2:02
	Or to be truthful, a place of many different commitments.	2:07
	And I rather imagine it is the rare preacher	2:12
	from this pulpit who has been married in this sanctuary.	2:16
	And so as I come back home,	2:22
	these two themes,	2:27
	keep going through my mind, freedom and commitment.	2:28
	And I want to suggest	2:35
	that even as the place requires it of me,	2:36
	you too think with me about the paradox of the relationship	2:40
	between these two strange elements in our living.	2:46
	If it is true that there is a kind of paradox	2:53
	between freedom and commitment in our life,	2:56
	certainly we do not need to believe	3:00
	that there is irreconcilable conflict.	3:02
	I for one do not believe this is so.	3:06
	And I have the feeling that	3:09
	such experiences as any one of us has had	3:11
	on this or some other campus,	3:13
	such as experiences as we have in the process of growing	3:15
	to maturity, wherever we are,	3:19
	show us in one or a thousand ways,	3:22
	that these two elements of living	3:26
	can live together in fruitful tension.	3:29
	Freedom and commitment belong together	3:33
	and most of all, we are told by our Christian faith.	3:36
	Since it happened by chance to be that on these walks	3:41
	and in these halls, I first began to get a glimmer	3:46
	of the way they belong together.	3:50
	I want to share with you something of what coming home	3:54
	says to me about them.	3:59
	Something which I believe the Christian faith	4:02
	seeks to remind all of us all.	4:05
	First of all, I believe these two are related	4:11
	in that freedom entailed commitment.	4:13
	Freedom is commitment in the sense that	4:19
	freedom result in commitment.	4:21
	The proper use of our freedom is to become committed.	4:23
	Of all the immaturity, of which you and I have been subject,	4:31
	the assumption that freedom and commitment	4:38
	cannot go to the other is probably the most immature.	4:43
	The assumption that we can or ought to be neutral	4:47
	is certainly the silliest,	4:51
	if also the most widespread notion	4:53
	that you and I are invited to make, as we grow up.	4:56
	Somehow or other we are led to assume that	5:02
	if we commit ourselves this isn't a sophisticated posture	5:04
	and whatever else we must do these days,	5:07
	we must be sophisticated.	5:10
	We must sit on the philosophical fence of life.	5:12
	Sit there like mugworts and make up our minds	5:17
	never to make up our minds.	5:22
	We teeter on the tight rope,	5:24
	and assume that because we are in such a dangerous position	5:26
	we are thereby lifted above the common herd.	5:31
	We accept the old folk advice,	5:35
	don't climb out on a limb.	5:37
	College is a time when this point of view	5:41
	is often especially attractive.	5:44
	And it is attractive I think to faculty,	5:47
	as well as students.	5:50
	Perhaps on occasion to faculty, more than students.	5:52
	It seems to me that there are two things	5:56
	that a faculty person must necessarily do for his students.	5:58
	During the course of a student's career,	6:03
	the faculty person must encourage his students	6:08
	in full investigation of the truth,	6:11
	in an attitude of tolerance towards the points of view	6:15
	that are exposed in the determination to inspect	6:19
	different points of view, as far as they can.	6:24
	Well and good.	6:28
	Number one, we are all aware that this is part of the duty	6:28
	of a college and of its faculty.	6:33
	The faculty person in any kind of college however,	6:36
	that is worthy of the name has a second duty to perform,	6:38
	to encourage his students, to make up their mind.	6:42
	To let his students know that mature people	6:49
	do commit themselves, all the time and of necessity.	6:52
	However, are tentatively, to let them know that they	6:57
	as professors do.	7:03
	To label their commitments as such	7:06
	not to require the acceptance of their commitments	7:08
	as part of the requirements of the course.	7:10
	Nevertheless still, to let the students know that	7:12
	commitments are made.	7:15
	That proverbial horse that is led to water.	7:19
	It is true that you can't make him drink	7:24
	But it is also true that he should be invited to drink,	7:28
	and that he should be told that others have drunk	7:33
	to their comfort.	7:37
	I wouldn't want to press that analogy too far	7:40
	with respect to the campus scene.	7:42
	But time and again, our professors,	7:47
	and I know because I've been one and I've done it,	7:51
	our professors lay forth the truth	7:54
	in such fashion as to suggest that it has been this to a	7:57
	and that to b,	8:00
	and in inevitably imply that it's a matter of pay your money	8:02
	and take your choice.	8:06
	We are afraid to get caught.	8:08
	And thus, we need to look at that little bit	8:14
	of proverbial advice, a little more carefully	8:16
	and realize that the thing that it says to us,	8:18
	if we are ever to grow up,	8:20
	is just the opposite climb out on a limb.	8:22
	Hope to be sure we must be careful	8:25
	that it's not a twig to which we give our weight.	8:28
	But there is a dimension of life	8:32
	that calls for us to make commitments.	8:35
	It is an assertion of our freedom.	8:38
	Two illustrations come quickly to mind,	8:43
	drawn from the memories connected with this place.	8:45
	The first of them is, as you might expect, falling in love.	8:50
	I shall not bore you with any autobiographical memories,	8:54
	but you'll simply seek to suggest to you	8:58
	that you ask yourself what has happened to that person	9:01
	yourself or another in such a place as this campus,	9:04
	who confesses to having fallen in love.	9:09
	Has that person and thrown his freedom away?	9:13
	Not to hear him tell it.	9:18
	He has asserted it in the most forthright assertion	9:20
	of his freedom, that he has yet made.	9:26
	He has not denied his freedom,	9:30
	he has exercised it in his youth.	9:32
	And thus, he is not doleful about its supposed loss,	9:36
	he is glad in its actual employment.	9:41
	The tip off to this being a correct interpretation	9:46
	of what happens in this situation is in the attitude	9:50
	of those who are not in love.	9:53
	They always want to be.	9:56
	I do have all kinds of memories of this place,	10:00
	and I can remember dances galore.	10:02
	with Johnny Long and Les Brown and Frankie Gerald	10:05
	when they were students at Duke.	10:08
	And I'd go over all alone and sing my little heart out	10:10
	to Diana and Sally and Mary Lou and Marie and Louis	10:14
	and Marquita and sweet Jenna Lee	10:18
	and almost anybody I could think of, to the lilting strains	10:20
	of those gorgeous orchestras of the past.	10:23
	The dead days are always better you realize.	10:26
	(congregation laughing)	10:29
	Desperate because I had my freedom	10:31
	but I didn't have any way to use it.	10:36
	And it all added up to one thing,	10:39
	my freedom is illusory if I can't use it.	10:43
	Religion knows the truth of this insight most of all.	10:50
	The second illustration has to do	10:55
	with the Duke University Church.	10:57
	You will note that the first line,	11:00
	on the order of service on the first page,	11:02
	indicates that this is the service	11:04
	of the Duke University Church interdenominational.	11:06
	This was not always so.	11:09
	Time was when this chapel first being completed,	11:11
	services were held here	11:15
	and they were nothing but services of a Sunday morning.	11:16
	That is to say there was no call of loyalty.	11:20
	There was no group.	11:23
	There was no sense of community about what went on here.	11:25
	There was no church.	11:30
	And as time passed, many who worshiped here regularly	11:32
	both students and faculty	11:37
	felt that this was a strange and anomalous situation.	11:38
	And out of that feeling came the structure	11:42
	of the Duke University Church.	11:46
	Now notice, no force was used in this situation	11:48
	to establish this institution.	11:52
	The institution itself,	11:56
	and the individuals related to this program	11:58
	were operating in a context of freedom.	12:02
	Free choice to found or not to found this church.	12:07
	To attend or not to attend.	12:11
	Freedom was used to assert a new loyalty,	12:15
	a freely assumed commitment.	12:20
	The university committed itself	12:24
	to the sponsorship of a program.	12:26
	The students and faculty committed themselves	12:28
	to the experiment	12:31
	of a campus based corporate worship program.	12:33
	From the beginning therefore,	12:37
	the Duke University Church	12:38
	represented both the commitment of the larger community,	12:39
	the university, and itself, the committed community.	12:45
	This was the result of the exercise of free choice,	12:50
	on the part of all, for freedom was commitment	12:54
	in the sense that it resulted in it.	12:59
	The next realization that we are called to make	13:04
	as we examine our own experience in growing up,	13:06
	is that commitment itself has an open end.	13:11
	The kind of allegiance that springs from conscious choice	13:17
	that is freely given, that is not forced on us.	13:23
	That kind of allegiance is the sort that,	13:31
	because it started with eyes wide open,	13:34
	continues to keep eyes wide open.	13:37
	It's about this point that some cynical critic might suggest	13:44
	you're trying to have your cake and eat too, aren't you?	13:47
	You you've escaped from one paradox,	13:51
	freedom versus commitment, only to fall in another trap,	13:53
	commitment versus the open mind.	13:55
	What are you gonna try to do?	13:57
	What is it?	13:59
	Allegiance or tentativeness?	13:59
	You can't have it both ways.	14:01
	We gotta watch that critic.	14:04
	He's all around us in our midst.	14:06
	And yet the confusion is his and it is of a two fold nature.	14:08
	This critic has confused first,	14:13
	the open mind with neutrality.	14:16
	And secondly, he has confused commitment with gullibility.	14:21
	But what a pitiful understanding, of all of those elements.	14:29
	Commitment certainly is not tentativeness.	14:34
	Certainly not neutrality.	14:38
	It does mean giving one self fully and freely	14:40
	to the best one knows at the time of the giving.	14:44
	But commitment of the sort of which we are speaking	14:49
	does not deny the possibility of a future	14:52
	and what that future might bring.	14:56
	Because it sets its course for the future in its loyalty.	14:58
	It does not pretend either to control,	15:02
	or to disregard the future.	15:06
	Thus, its is not gullibility.	15:09
	It must maintain that is, all the way through	15:12
	a searching disposition.	15:16
	If the commitment is one's own,	15:20
	then understanding of what it is one is committed to	15:23
	is demanded, we can never get enough of it.	15:27
	This is the sense in which we are called to realize	15:34
	that commitment has an open end,	15:38
	and end pointed toward the future,	15:41
	free allegiance and the open mind are not a contradiction,	15:44
	on the contrary, they are inseparable partners.	15:49
	Take the area of our governmental life as an example.	15:54
	Political liberty of the nature that we have	15:58
	in this country, calls us to make two insights	16:02
	if we are loyal to it.	16:05
	First, liberty is alive only for him who loves it.	16:07
	Here is the emphasis on passionate attachment,	16:12
	loyalty to death if need be.	16:14
	Commitment, oh, beautiful for heroes proved	16:16
	in liberating strife who more than self their country loved	16:19
	and loved it more than life.	16:23
	And then freedom calls us to make a second commitment.	16:26
	Freedom is precious only to him who understands it	16:31
	and understanding it knows it is never fully	16:36
	and finally gained.	16:40
	Eternal vigilance is its proverbial price.	16:42
	And this means, that we must continually reexamine	16:46
	political freedom itself	16:50
	and explore its dimensions more fully,	16:52
	freedom, as we know it in our political life	16:55
	is not a closed system.	16:59
	Certain present day, worshipers of past	17:01
	struggles for freedom to the contrary and not withstanding.	17:04
	Oh beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years.	17:08
	It looks to the future.	17:15
	The commitment that is our American brand	17:17
	of political freedom has an openness about it.	17:19
	That saves it from being either servile or blind.	17:22
	And that openness is not its weakness, but its strength.	17:27
	This is true for religion,	17:33
	especially in a university setting.	17:35
	Students come with a variety of commitments.	17:37
	Of fundamental beliefs that are all set	17:40
	and sometimes they are afraid	17:43
	of what the university will do to them.	17:44
	They are inclined to believe	17:46
	that their commitments are to be left alone.	17:48
	Now a university ought not to tamper	17:50
	and certainly universities such as this do not tamper.	17:53
	It is not their intention to destroy	17:57
	fundamental points of view,	18:00
	and certainly it is not necessary.	18:01
	But examination of the commitments	18:03
	that we bring to college with us,	18:06
	is required to the end of strengthening them,	18:08
	not destroying them.	18:12
	The committed individual examines his commitments	18:14
	over and over again, for free allegiance has an open end.	18:18
	So open as to envisage the possibility even of escape	18:24
	and all for the purpose that growth may be real,	18:29
	and commitment itself more free.	18:34
	I hope you got that last comment.	18:42
	I hope you wondered, did he say what he meant?	18:46
	Commitment itself more free?	18:49
	Is he doubling back in his argument?	18:52
	For the answer is yes.	18:55
	The third realization that Christianity forces upon us,	18:58
	is that commitment is true freedom.	19:03
	The first two insights,	19:08
	represent a lower level of religious faith,	19:10
	an exploratory level.	19:13
	If we take real religion seriously at all,	19:15
	we will discover that freedom is commitment.	19:18
	If it is a religion that speaks to our minds,	19:22
	we will discover that commitment has an open end.	19:26
	Now we take one step further	19:30
	and here we strike the distinctively Christian witness.	19:33
	Commitment to the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ,	19:38
	is true freedom.	19:43
	What kind of nonsense and scandal	19:47
	and stumbling block is this?	19:49
	It has seemed so to others through the years	19:52
	and yet though difficult, it is not by that fact mysterious.	19:56
	We get glimpses of this truth	20:02
	in several areas of more mundane living.	20:05
	I wonder if you can remember the crushes	20:09
	you had back in high school.	20:11
	Others thought we were silly, didn't we?	20:13
	Wasting our time and limiting our loyalty	20:16
	to of Red Grange and Douglas Fairbanks Senior.	20:18
	Those were two of my heroes	20:23
	and that effectively dates me in your minds.	20:25
	And yet, no matter what others thought,	20:30
	When Red Grange ran for a touchdown,	20:32
	I had had released within me, a new and larger life.	20:35
	I was freer and bigger in my hero worship	20:39
	than ever I was as an ordinary little high school	20:43
	short stride.	20:46
	And when Douglas Fairbanks grabbed a chandelier	20:47
	and swung across the room	20:50
	and kicked the villain in the teeth,	20:52
	I had been released, as I had participated in that activity,	20:54
	not imprisoned, and the noble impulses within me	20:59
	had sprung to new life.	21:03
	We grew out of our crushes and it is good that we do.	21:06
	But there is a more mature kind of commitment	21:10
	that is not not unlike this sort of freedom we feel.	21:14
	Take real love, for instance.	21:19
	We began to note before what happens to the person	21:23
	who falls deeply in love.	21:26
	He gladly expresses freedom in commitment.	21:29
	Now we note further that when he does so,	21:34
	he discovers himself more free.	21:38
	He is not free to know what love	21:46
	at its depth and height can mean, until love has bound him,	21:49
	and in thought, heart and soul.	21:58
	The married couples who are not in love	22:05
	are the ones who feel caught and are caught.	22:09
	But those who are, know a freedom beyond compare,	22:13
	a joy at its highest, an understanding at its most profound.	22:18
	You students, don't sell your chance for it.	22:24
	For something cheap and narrow and momentary.	22:31
	That way you will lose your freedom.	22:36
	The realization of the full truth	22:42
	of this proposition I think is reserved	22:44
	for those whose conscious commitment is to God	22:47
	as revealed in Jesus Christ.	22:51
	Any lesser loyalty is likely some day to tie and bind.	22:55
	I'm speaking now, of course, not of the outer life of man,	23:02
	but of the inner spirit, the quality of his orientation	23:05
	in the world, the cut of his basic temper.	23:08
	The outer life of the Christian may seem to the outsider,	23:12
	under most rigid compulsion times.	23:16
	But his inner life is boundless and free.	23:20
	In the morning scripture and elsewhere,	23:24
	Paul tells us why to live to the law,	23:26
	to rule, to regulation, to Maurice, to custom,	23:30
	to conform in various ways to the world	23:33
	and to the flesh is to die.	23:35
	That way we are condemned to failure and slavery.	23:38
	For if we are sufficiently sensitive	23:42
	we know we can never succeed.	23:44
	Oblivious of God's grace, we try to pull ourselves up	23:47
	by our own moral bootstraps.	23:50
	To save ourselves, by our own good works, and we can't.	23:52
	Paul knew this.	23:57
	The evil that I would not that I do,	23:58
	the good that I would I do not.	24:00
	Oh, woe is me, who can save me from this bondage.	24:02
	Paul found the answer to his question.	24:10
	Commitment to the effort to save oneself is bondage.	24:15
	But Jesus revealed God in a new light	24:19
	and Paul bursts into the passage of our morning scripture.	24:22
	God's grace is available to all.	24:27
	God's willingness to receive all creatures as his children	24:29
	is not dependent on their deserving, but is free.	24:33
	We can achieve a loving relationship with him as father	24:38
	simply as we accept it, in trust.	24:43
	This is what is meant by that difficult phrase	24:49
	we sometimes run against justification by faith.	24:51
	Acceptance through trust.	24:55
	It is in Jesus, his sacrificial death,	24:59
	most clearly that men were given the chance	25:02
	to see God in this light.	25:06
	As Paul had to warn the early Christians time and again,	25:10
	this doesn't mean the moral law can be ignored.	25:14
	On the contrary, the sense of acceptance is God's children	25:17
	makes one moral alert to the moral guidance,	25:21
	which the law has to offer.	25:23
	But it does mean this,	25:25
	because one's basic allegiance is to God in Christ	25:27
	he possesses a sense of release of liberty	25:30
	that enables him to know life more radially.	25:35
	He is a new man.	25:39
	He is secure in the knowledge	25:41
	of God's sustaining love for him.	25:44
	This is as Paul writes to the Galatians,	25:48
	the freedom for which Christ has set us free.	25:50
	Here is real peace of mind.	25:54
	Not some spurious self attained composure.	25:57
	Paul writes again, since we are justified by faith	26:01
	we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.	26:05
	Through our Lord Jesus Christ.	26:11
	Or as Paul wrote to the Corinthians,	26:15
	it is God who said, "let light shine out of darkness,"	26:17
	who has shown in our hearts.	26:21
	To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,	26:25
	in the face of Jesus Christ.	26:30
	Then let Paul give the conclusion of the matter.	26:35
	I appeal to you therefore brethren,	26:40
	by the mercies of God,	26:43
	to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,	26:46
	holy acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.	26:52
	Do not be conformed to this world.	27:01
	But be transformed by the renewal of your mind,	27:06
	that you may prove what is the will of God.	27:12
	What is good and acceptable and perfect.	27:16
	That kind of commitment is the fullest freedom.	27:24
	Let us pray.	27:35
	Make me a captive Lord.	27:46
	And then I shall be free.	27:50
	Force me to render up my sword and I shall conquer away.	27:54
	I sink in life's alarms, when by myself I stand.	28:02
	Imprison me within thine arms and strong shall be my hand.	28:08
	And now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,	28:19
	and the love of God,	28:25
	and the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	28:30
	remain with us always, amen.	28:37
	♪ Amen ♪	28:46
	♪ Amen ♪	28:52
	♪ Amen ♪	28:57
	(bell ringing)	29:10
	(instrumental organ music)	29:18