Joseph R. Sizoo - "Religion in Depth" (December 17, 1962)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | There is a sentence in the Advent lesson | 0:09 |
which always sobers me and pulls me up. | 0:13 | |
I would like to hold it before you a little while today. | 0:17 | |
"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." | 0:22 | |
The heart of the world is kneeling once again, | 0:28 | |
before the entrancing story of the Nativity. | 0:31 | |
It is the ever, never-old story | 0:36 | |
of which childhood never grows weary, | 0:39 | |
and for which old age never loses its affection. | 0:42 | |
It is simple and artless in its setting. | 0:48 | |
It is so timeless in its meaning. | 0:53 | |
It is so constant in its implication. | 0:56 | |
It is a story which warms the heart | 1:02 | |
and fires the flames of faith, | 1:05 | |
leads many to unaccustomed charities, | 1:09 | |
offers forgiveness to the unforgiving, | 1:13 | |
cushions the blows of adversity, | 1:16 | |
and brings the wanderer home. | 1:20 | |
Chesterton wrote it this way. | 1:23 | |
"To an open house in the evening | 1:25 | |
home shall men come. | 1:27 | |
To an older town than Eden, | 1:30 | |
and a taller town than Rome. | 1:32 | |
To the end of the way of the wondering star | 1:35 | |
to things that cannot be, and that are, | 1:38 | |
to the place where God was homeless, | 1:41 | |
and all men are at home." | 1:44 | |
It isn't a festival simply of one religion. | 1:48 | |
This has become humanity's day of Jubilee. | 1:52 | |
As well unto its moonbeams | 1:57 | |
that fall with a yellow glow, | 2:00 | |
on the hills all about you | 2:02 | |
as to suppose you can untwist this story | 2:05 | |
from the hope and the heart of contemporary life. | 2:08 | |
Now, why is that so? | 2:14 | |
How do you explain the fact | 2:17 | |
that in each recurring yuletide, | 2:19 | |
the world's affection for this day grows? | 2:23 | |
What explains it? | 2:27 | |
When Christ was born, | 2:30 | |
and God broke through in history, | 2:32 | |
a whole new concept of life came into being. | 2:35 | |
The Advent announces that religion to be real | 2:41 | |
must be felt and lived and experienced. | 2:47 | |
It can only be transmitted and mediated | 2:52 | |
through a person. | 2:57 | |
Not by debating, but by demonstrating | 2:59 | |
will men walk back to God. | 3:04 | |
Words by themselves are never enough. | 3:08 | |
Now, the reason is simple, | 3:14 | |
because words mean different things to different people. | 3:16 | |
No two people will give you | 3:20 | |
the exact same definition of the same word. | 3:22 | |
There are some ideas that are too big for words. | 3:26 | |
Words like love and faith and honor and virtue | 3:30 | |
have no meaning until somebody lives them. | 3:36 | |
They have to be felt and lived and experienced | 3:41 | |
to be made real. | 3:45 | |
One day the brilliant Harvard professor, Josiah Royce, | 3:48 | |
was sitting in his study at Harvard. | 3:51 | |
The door opened and a freshman entered. | 3:55 | |
He came to the desk and said, "Professor Royce, | 3:58 | |
what is the definition of a Christian?" | 4:01 | |
Professor Royce looked at the freshman, | 4:04 | |
got up from his chair, walked to the window and said, | 4:07 | |
"I do not know what is the definition of a Christian, | 4:10 | |
but there goes Phillips Brooks." | 4:13 | |
Religion to be real, must be transmitted | 4:17 | |
and mediated through a person. | 4:20 | |
Words are never enough, not even God's words. | 4:25 | |
So in the fullness of time, | 4:30 | |
God sent his Son, and the Word became flesh, | 4:32 | |
and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. | 4:36 | |
And when men saw Jesus, they said, | 4:39 | |
"Emanuel, God is with us." | 4:42 | |
And Jesus said, "He who has seen me, | 4:45 | |
hath seen the Father also." | 4:48 | |
Religion to be real, must be mediated through a person. | 4:51 | |
Words are never enough. | 4:57 | |
Now it is so, that the early Christian community | 5:01 | |
came into being. | 5:05 | |
This little handful, went out into a world which hated them | 5:08 | |
and a generation which hooted them, | 5:12 | |
unperturbed by cross bearing | 5:14 | |
and undisturbed by their persecution. | 5:16 | |
They went out into a world which hated them. | 5:21 | |
And within three centuries, | 5:25 | |
from 3 to 7 million had been brought into their fellowship, | 5:27 | |
and they carried the gates of empire from its hinges. | 5:32 | |
How did they accomplish it? | 5:37 | |
Not by debating it, but by demonstrating it. | 5:39 | |
They did not give their generation an argument, | 5:45 | |
but they gave it the alluring loveliness | 5:48 | |
of a Christ-filled life. | 5:51 | |
Chesterton, if I may quote him again, | 5:55 | |
once said that in the first century, | 5:59 | |
Christianity was advanced | 6:04 | |
by Christians who practiced it. | 6:06 | |
In later centuries, they tried to advance it by preaching, | 6:09 | |
because it was easier. | 6:14 | |
But words by themselves are never enough. | 6:17 | |
They did not debate it, but they demonstrated it. | 6:21 | |
I have said all this | 6:27 | |
because it's profoundly relevant | 6:29 | |
in our contemporary scene. | 6:32 | |
This is something which needs saying today. | 6:35 | |
Great move movements, convictions, ideas, | 6:40 | |
to be real must be mediated through a person. | 6:44 | |
Words are never enough. | 6:49 | |
That is obviously true | 6:53 | |
in the affairs of the world all about us. | 6:56 | |
It is becoming increasingly clear | 6:59 | |
that the tensions, strains, misgivings, dangers | 7:02 | |
which hunt and confront our time arise out of words. | 7:07 | |
The Cold War is a war in which the weapons are words. | 7:14 | |
Modern man has developed a demonic skill | 7:20 | |
in juggling with phrases, | 7:23 | |
and giving a false twist to words | 7:25 | |
so that they lose their original meaning. | 7:28 | |
The result is that today words are meaningless and empty | 7:32 | |
and become dangerous shibboleth. | 7:35 | |
When Mr. Kay talks about the glory of democracy in Russia, | 7:39 | |
he has drained that word dry of its meaning, | 7:45 | |
and poured into it concepts | 7:48 | |
that are utterly foreign to it. | 7:51 | |
He calls something out of every religion, | 7:54 | |
every philosophy, every social theory, | 7:57 | |
every psychological program. | 8:00 | |
He adds to it, the dream of Mohammed | 8:03 | |
and the vision of Joan of Arc | 8:06 | |
and the trickery of Machiavelli, | 8:09 | |
the genius of American advertising, | 8:12 | |
the ruthlessness of a Chicago gunman | 8:16 | |
rolls it all up into a ball and calls it democracy. | 8:18 | |
That's for the birds. | 8:22 | |
When the screaming, bearded Castro | 8:26 | |
shouts about emancipating his people, | 8:31 | |
it isn't the kind of freedom | 8:34 | |
for which our forefathers fought, bled and died. | 8:36 | |
When we pray grand peace in our time, oh God, | 8:41 | |
that word is haunted by a glory and a hope | 8:44 | |
that rings through the centuries. | 8:47 | |
But when he talks about peace, | 8:50 | |
he means a classless society held in force | 8:52 | |
by suspicion and by hate, and by intrigue. | 8:56 | |
There are certain words, | 9:03 | |
truth, goodwill, democracy, freedom, | 9:06 | |
which have gone deep in the minds of modern men, | 9:11 | |
so much so, that they have definite and distinct meanings. | 9:17 | |
But these words today are twisted out of shape | 9:22 | |
so that they no longer mean what they say, | 9:26 | |
or say what they mean. | 9:28 | |
It is as if you emptied an eight-ounce bottle of honey, | 9:32 | |
and poured into it, vinegar without changing the label. | 9:37 | |
Words today terrorize modern society, | 9:43 | |
because words by themselves are never enough. | 9:47 | |
That is true in areas much nearer home. | 9:52 | |
We make a great deal of the word democracy. | 9:56 | |
The desire for freedom goes deep with us. | 10:00 | |
We take rather seriously the Declaration of Independence, | 10:04 | |
that all men are created free and equal. | 10:07 | |
But somehow it seems like a lonely island | 10:12 | |
in a sea of hate and suspicion. | 10:15 | |
Why is that? | 10:17 | |
Can it be because once upon a time, | 10:19 | |
democracy men, goodwill, understanding, | 10:21 | |
religious tolerance, racial understanding. | 10:26 | |
Today, so often it is a substitute | 10:30 | |
for the words self-interest, | 10:33 | |
pressure groups, political double talk, | 10:35 | |
indifference to education, | 10:39 | |
inordinate display of wealth, social irresponsibility, | 10:41 | |
juvenile delinquency, and political detachment. | 10:46 | |
Not long ago, the United States State Department, | 10:55 | |
called a conference of businessmen on Route 40, | 10:59 | |
because they had refused service to certain ambassadors | 11:05 | |
and members of the embassy of foreign countries, | 11:11 | |
who desired their services. | 11:15 | |
At a public hearing, it was told to them | 11:18 | |
that they were hurting this country. | 11:22 | |
And in this public hearing tape recorded, | 11:26 | |
one of them said to me, "That's not my concern. | 11:29 | |
That's not my problem. | 11:34 | |
That's the problem of government." | 11:36 | |
I had supposed that democracy meant | 11:40 | |
a government of the people, by the people | 11:43 | |
and for the people. | 11:47 | |
It is a sobering fact | 11:49 | |
that many who are so dramatically leading | 11:52 | |
the peoples of South America, Asia and Africa | 11:56 | |
into the Soviet orbit were educated in our universities. | 12:00 | |
There is something wrong with us and our education | 12:07 | |
when those who have been educated among us | 12:11 | |
and are benefactors of it, turn against us. | 12:14 | |
Words are never enough. | 12:19 | |
Now, what is true is especially true | 12:23 | |
in the area of religion. | 12:27 | |
If it is to be vital, it must be felt | 12:30 | |
and lived and experienced. | 12:33 | |
When clouds gather and storms roll over you, | 12:37 | |
you want something more than a syllogism | 12:42 | |
to see you through. | 12:45 | |
When misgivings crowd in on you, | 12:48 | |
what you need is not somebody to debate religion, | 12:51 | |
but to demonstrate it. | 12:55 | |
Thomas Carlisle was sitting one day in his study. | 12:58 | |
There was a knock at the door, | 13:03 | |
and the new parish minister came to pay a call. | 13:05 | |
During the course of the conversation, | 13:10 | |
the young minister said that Mr. Carlisle, | 13:14 | |
"Mr. Carlisle, what can a man like me | 13:17 | |
do in a parish like this?" | 13:21 | |
Carlisle turned to him grimly and said, | 13:25 | |
"What this parish needs is a man who knows God. | 13:28 | |
Otherwise, and by the methods of hearsay, | 13:32 | |
words are never enough." | 13:37 | |
And yet the tragedy of this attempt | 13:41 | |
to build the kingdom of God, | 13:43 | |
is to suppose you can advance it by words only. | 13:45 | |
If words can save a world, | 13:48 | |
this earth ought to be paradise. | 13:50 | |
When I was a boy, | 13:54 | |
I was almost kept out of the church for life, | 13:57 | |
literally for life, | 13:59 | |
because there lived in my community | 14:01 | |
a man who had all the answers. | 14:03 | |
He could argue every theological nicety | 14:06 | |
to a hair-splitting finesse, | 14:08 | |
but you couldn't trust him with a nickel. | 14:10 | |
I come from a godly home, but a poor home. | 14:13 | |
And this man was always trying to short change | 14:16 | |
my bonny mother. | 14:19 | |
What you say about Jesus Christ | 14:21 | |
must conform to the way you live with Him, | 14:23 | |
or nothing happens. | 14:26 | |
Up and down the streets of the world | 14:29 | |
are men and women whose lives | 14:33 | |
have been embittered, not sweetened, | 14:35 | |
made cynical, not believing, | 14:39 | |
darkened and not illumined, | 14:43 | |
because they met the wrong kind of Christian. | 14:47 | |
It is constantly true in the world in which we live. | 14:54 | |
And that kind of religion never lasts. | 14:58 | |
Sometimes you will come upon people | 15:02 | |
who toss religion out of their lives | 15:05 | |
in some moment of crisis when they need it most. | 15:07 | |
And when you ask them why they had religion of a kind, | 15:11 | |
but it didn't go deep, | 15:13 | |
it lacked what Paul Talley called, | 15:15 | |
it lacked a sense of depth. | 15:17 | |
We make a great deal of the cross, and we should. | 15:22 | |
We carve it on wood. | 15:27 | |
We emblazon it on spires. | 15:29 | |
We emboss it on prayer books. | 15:31 | |
We smother it with roses. | 15:34 | |
But it is hardly a way of life. | 15:36 | |
It is time to bring it out | 15:39 | |
of the stratosphere of abstraction, | 15:41 | |
and make it real in the political scene, | 15:45 | |
in labor disputes, in racial strife. | 15:49 | |
You may know all the of rules of baseball. | 15:55 | |
That doesn't make you a Babe Ruth. | 15:58 | |
You may know all the timetables of the world. | 16:02 | |
That doesn't make you a John Gunther. | 16:06 | |
You may know all about Christianity. | 16:09 | |
That doesn't make you a Christian. | 16:12 | |
Dr. Bridgman, the brilliant physicist, | 16:16 | |
and Nobel Prize winner wrote, | 16:20 | |
"The true meaning of a word is to be found, | 16:22 | |
not by what a man says about it, | 16:26 | |
but what he does with it." | 16:29 | |
The value of a dollar bill is determined, | 16:32 | |
not by the words printed on paper, | 16:35 | |
but the integrity of the government behind it. | 16:38 | |
If the government becomes irresponsible, | 16:42 | |
the paper is worthless. | 16:46 | |
The greatest barrier | 16:49 | |
to the coming of the kingdom of God | 16:50 | |
is not some lone atheist who can't gather | 16:53 | |
a corporal's guard, but those who name his name | 16:56 | |
before the world, and betray it in life. | 17:01 | |
I have come upon more cynicism, more bitterness | 17:07 | |
in universities and colleges in this country | 17:12 | |
because of that, than from any other reason. | 17:15 | |
A little over a year ago, Carl Sandberg came to Washington | 17:22 | |
to address a Joint Session of the United States Congress | 17:29 | |
on Abraham Lincoln. | 17:33 | |
It was a moving experience, I assure you. | 17:35 | |
He held them spellbound. | 17:39 | |
One sentence in that moving address was this. | 17:42 | |
"Millions there are, | 17:46 | |
who take him as a personal treasure. | 17:49 | |
He had something they would like to see | 17:53 | |
spread everywhere over the whole earth. | 17:56 | |
We can't find words | 18:00 | |
to say exactly what it was, but he had it. | 18:02 | |
It was there in the light and shadow of his personality." | 18:07 | |
Words are never enough. | 18:12 | |
Do you know the lines of John Drinkwater? | 18:16 | |
"We know the paths wherein our feet should tromp, | 18:19 | |
across our hearts are written thy decrees. | 18:22 | |
But now oh Lord my God, be merciful with more than these. | 18:25 | |
Knowledge we ask not, knowledge thou hast lent. | 18:29 | |
But Lord, the will, there lies our bitter need. | 18:31 | |
Give us to build the deep intent. | 18:35 | |
The deed, the deed." | 18:38 | |
And the Word became flesh, dwelt among us, | 18:42 | |
full of grace and truth. | 18:47 | |
Amen. | 18:51 | |
(organ music) | 19:18 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 19:26 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 19:29 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 19:31 |