Merrimon Cuninggim - "Freedom Is Commitment" (January 22, 1956)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | 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 |