Bishop Thomas A. Fraser - "Commitment" (June 23, 1963)
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| - | The reception which we always receive on this campus. | 0:11 |
| The owner of a large business | 0:22 | |
| who had been generous in making loans to his employees | 0:27 | |
| decided the time had come | 0:32 | |
| when he must collect his rightful debts. | 0:34 | |
| He had loaned $10,000 to one of his close associates | 0:39 | |
| who had foolishly invested it | 0:44 | |
| and was unable to pay his debt. | 0:46 | |
| The owner was upset by this and threatened to sue him, | 0:51 | |
| but his associate had a sad story. | 0:55 | |
| There had been sickness in the family. | 0:59 | |
| There was a mortgage on his house, | 1:03 | |
| and he had children in school. | 1:05 | |
| "Be patient with me," he said, "and I will pay you." | 1:08 | |
| The heart of the owner of the business | 1:14 | |
| was softened by this sad story, | 1:15 | |
| and he told his associate to forget the debt. | 1:17 | |
| The associate, however, was shaken by this experience | 1:22 | |
| and on his way home met a friend | 1:25 | |
| to whom he had loaned a hundred dollars. | 1:27 | |
| He immediately asked for his money, | 1:32 | |
| but his friend had lost the money gambling | 1:36 | |
| and was unable to pay. | 1:38 | |
| He, too, had a sad story. | 1:41 | |
| Be patient with me and I will pay you. | 1:44 | |
| This further excited the associate, | 1:49 | |
| and he immediately brought charges against his friend. | 1:51 | |
| Now, people who knew both of these men | 1:57 | |
| were horrified by what had taken place, | 1:59 | |
| and went to the owner of the business and told him. | 2:02 | |
| In indignation, the owner sent for his associate, | 2:07 | |
| and after exercising his wrath on him | 2:11 | |
| demanded that he meet his debt in full. | 2:14 | |
| The point of this story, | 2:21 | |
| which is recorded by St. Matthew, is perfectly clear. | 2:22 | |
| We will hold others responsible for their behavior, | 2:28 | |
| but do not hold ourselves equally responsible. | 2:33 | |
| St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians | 2:40 | |
| spoke strongly to this point when he said | 2:42 | |
| "you must work out your salvation in fear and trembling." | 2:45 | |
| Paul had been living with the people in Philippi, | 2:51 | |
| helping them to develop a Christian way of life. | 2:54 | |
| He was now ready to leave them | 3:00 | |
| and was encouraging them to stand on their two feet | 3:02 | |
| and to work out their salvation in fear and trembling. | 3:04 | |
| One of the characteristics of our age | 3:10 | |
| is a lack of responsibility for what we do. | 3:12 | |
| The students of human behavior tell us | 3:17 | |
| that this is attributed to the fact | 3:20 | |
| that we have developed a pattern of dependence | 3:22 | |
| on parents, friends, government, | 3:26 | |
| and the generosity of others. | 3:29 | |
| Therefore, we do not feel responsible for what we do | 3:32 | |
| because we can always blame it on our heredity, | 3:35 | |
| our environment, our teachers, | 3:38 | |
| or even the lack of good schools. | 3:41 | |
| This pattern of dependence in time deteriorates | 3:45 | |
| into the irresponsible use of freedom. | 3:49 | |
| We insist upon our freedom, but we are not equally insistent | 3:53 | |
| upon assuming the responsibility for our choices. | 3:57 | |
| It was not long ago that a national magazine | 4:03 | |
| made one of its religious surveys. | 4:05 | |
| The answers to the questionnaire were submitted | 4:10 | |
| to three scholarly representatives | 4:12 | |
| of the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faiths, | 4:14 | |
| but furnished the following analysis. | 4:17 | |
| 95% of the people who answered the survey | 4:21 | |
| said that they believed in some kind of God, | 4:24 | |
| but only 26% thought that God had any personal relation | 4:28 | |
| to their daily behavior. | 4:32 | |
| 91% said that they were trying to lead a good life, | 4:36 | |
| but 82% admitted that the struggle | 4:41 | |
| seldom interfered with what they wanted to do. | 4:44 | |
| 90% believed that the problems of human society | 4:50 | |
| would be solved by following the law of love, | 4:53 | |
| and 80% felt they were attaining a high average | 4:57 | |
| in following that law, which certainly sounds optimistic. | 5:00 | |
| And since the problems of society are more acute than ever, | 5:07 | |
| it appears that 80% of the population | 5:10 | |
| are blaming somebody else for the failure. | 5:12 | |
| In other words, the people who answered this survey | 5:17 | |
| do not really feel responsible for their behavior. | 5:19 | |
| This all indicates a lack of commitment | 5:26 | |
| because only people who are committed feel responsible, | 5:30 | |
| and only responsible people are able to choose, | 5:37 | |
| and only people who are willing and able to choose | 5:42 | |
| will ever be free. | 5:46 | |
| If I may repeat... | 5:51 | |
| Only people who are committed feel responsible, | 5:54 | |
| only responsible people are able to choose, | 5:58 | |
| and only people who are willing and able to choose | 6:02 | |
| will ever be free. | 6:05 | |
| An American Bishop of the Episcopal Church | 6:10 | |
| tells a story about a trip to Russia not too long ago. | 6:12 | |
| He had a young lady, a college graduate, | 6:16 | |
| as his guide and interpreter, | 6:18 | |
| and she took him to all of the things worth seeing. | 6:20 | |
| The tombs, the marketplaces, | 6:22 | |
| the newly constructed apartment houses. | 6:24 | |
| On Saturday evening, | 6:28 | |
| he asked her if she would return on Sunday | 6:29 | |
| and take him to church, and the young lady refused. | 6:31 | |
| She was a Marxist, she had never been to church, | 6:34 | |
| she never had any intentions of going to church, | 6:36 | |
| much less serving as a guide | 6:39 | |
| and an interpreter for a Bishop. | 6:41 | |
| The Bishop bargained with her, | 6:45 | |
| and finally, when the price was right, she consented. | 6:46 | |
| They went to the cathedral on Sunday, | 6:50 | |
| members of the clergy recognized the visitor as a Bishop, | 6:52 | |
| and invited him to remain after the service | 6:56 | |
| to discuss church affairs. | 6:58 | |
| When the young lady returned on Monday morning | 7:02 | |
| to continue her guided tour, | 7:04 | |
| she took some pains to explain | 7:06 | |
| that her mother was pleased to know | 7:08 | |
| that she had been to a service of Christian worship. | 7:11 | |
| The experience evidently had gotten next to the young lady | 7:15 | |
| because she was filled with questions. | 7:18 | |
| She asked the Bishop, she said | 7:20 | |
| "Please tell me, is it true that people in America | 7:22 | |
| "spend millions of dollars in constructing churches?" | 7:24 | |
| The Bishop very quickly said, "Yes, it is, | 7:28 | |
| "we probably spend more money on constructing churches | 7:30 | |
| "than any other kind of construction in a given year." | 7:32 | |
| Then she asked, "Is it true | 7:37 | |
| "that people in America pray to someone they call God?" | 7:38 | |
| The Bishop said "Yes." | 7:42 | |
| "Is it true that people in America | 7:44 | |
| "read a book which they call the Bible?" | 7:46 | |
| The Bishop stalled a little bit, | 7:49 | |
| he said, "Yes, many people in America | 7:52 | |
| "read a book which they call a Bible." | 7:54 | |
| And then she asked, "Is it true that America | 7:57 | |
| "considers itself a Christian nation?" | 7:59 | |
| This raised some doubts in the Bishop's mind, | 8:04 | |
| but he said, "Yes, I think it is fair to say | 8:06 | |
| "that America does consider itself a Christian nation." | 8:09 | |
| And then came the final question. | 8:14 | |
| She said, "Now, Bishop, please tell me | 8:15 | |
| "if the people in America | 8:17 | |
| "spend all of this money building churches | 8:18 | |
| "and saying their prayers | 8:20 | |
| "and reading a book which they call a Bible | 8:21 | |
| "and consider themselves Christian, | 8:23 | |
| "please tell me what difference does it make?" | 8:26 | |
| The truth is that it doesn't make any difference. | 8:34 | |
| Unless the people who are free to build the churches, | 8:39 | |
| free to say their prayers, free to read the Bible, | 8:41 | |
| and who call themselves Christians | 8:45 | |
| are responsible in their behavior | 8:47 | |
| and are committed to something | 8:50 | |
| which is worth being committed to. | 8:52 | |
| The Bible tells a very fascinating story about commitment. | 8:58 | |
| It is the very familiar story of Abraham and Isaac. | 9:03 | |
| I must admit that this story | 9:06 | |
| sounds very primitive to modern ears | 9:08 | |
| and a strange thing for God to ask of a man, | 9:11 | |
| but in the days that was told, | 9:15 | |
| men took it for granted that devotion to God | 9:16 | |
| was shown by sacrificing upon the altar | 9:19 | |
| that which one valued the most. | 9:22 | |
| God tempted Abraham to sacrifice the son he loved best. | 9:27 | |
| Here was a man in the grip of an absolute obligation | 9:33 | |
| to give up everything to who withhold nothing. | 9:36 | |
| He was like Luther saying, "Here I stand, | 9:39 | |
| "I cannot do otherwise." | 9:42 | |
| He rose up early in the morning to escape from the house | 9:44 | |
| before his wife could ask him any questions. | 9:47 | |
| He saddled a donkey, took two servants and his son, | 9:51 | |
| gathered up a supply of wood | 9:53 | |
| and stored up some live calls and a pot | 9:55 | |
| and equipped himself with a knife. | 9:58 | |
| And that knife must have been the last straw. | 10:01 | |
| Abraham must have had many misgivings, | 10:05 | |
| for it took three whole days by foot | 10:07 | |
| to come to the land of Mariah. | 10:09 | |
| And when he saw the mountain, | 10:11 | |
| he left the two young men and the donkey | 10:12 | |
| while he and Isaac proceeded up along to the mountain top. | 10:14 | |
| Naturally, young Isaac was curious enough | 10:19 | |
| to have been asking himself questions | 10:22 | |
| about these mysterious proceedings. | 10:24 | |
| There was the wood, the fire, the knife, | 10:27 | |
| but where was the lamb for the burnt offering? | 10:28 | |
| "God will provide" was all he could learn | 10:32 | |
| from his silent father. | 10:35 | |
| Finally, they reached the place, | 10:38 | |
| and Abraham built stones into an altar. | 10:39 | |
| Every stone must have been a heartache. | 10:43 | |
| He laid on the wood, | 10:47 | |
| he bound his beloved son on the pile, | 10:48 | |
| and lifted up the knife. | 10:51 | |
| And in that up raised hand was expressed | 10:54 | |
| the last limit of commitment. | 10:57 | |
| And just at that moment, a voice said, | 11:01 | |
| "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, | 11:04 | |
| "for now I know that though fearest God | 11:06 | |
| "seeing that thou has not withheld thy son." | 11:09 | |
| You know the rest of the story. | 11:16 | |
| Nearby, he saw a ram caught by his horns in the thicket, | 11:18 | |
| an unforeseen substitute for his son. | 11:22 | |
| This ancient story from the Bible is without equal, | 11:27 | |
| however, in dramatizing, even to modern man, | 11:30 | |
| a man's sense of commitment. | 11:35 | |
| We have about us in our day and age | 11:41 | |
| many examples of commitment. | 11:43 | |
| People who are willing to sacrifice | 11:46 | |
| that which they love best, | 11:48 | |
| even their own lives for a cause | 11:50 | |
| which they hold to be dear and to be true. | 11:52 | |
| We might not like some of these illustrations of commitment. | 11:57 | |
| As a matter of fact, | 12:01 | |
| some of them are commitments to principles we oppose. | 12:02 | |
| But they are real, they are historic, | 12:07 | |
| and they are of our time. | 12:09 | |
| Japanese students demonstrated their dislike of America | 12:12 | |
| not too long ago and the American president | 12:15 | |
| to such an extent, | 12:17 | |
| that they forced the government of Japan | 12:19 | |
| to cancel an important visit by the commander in chief | 12:21 | |
| of the strongest nation in the world. | 12:24 | |
| The students of Hungary were so committed to freedom | 12:27 | |
| in their demonstrations against Russian communism | 12:29 | |
| that strong Russia was forced to send thousands of troops | 12:33 | |
| and armed tanks across her borders | 12:36 | |
| to quiet the passion of commitment | 12:38 | |
| of this small band of students. | 12:40 | |
| A handful of American Negro students | 12:43 | |
| just a short distance from where you and I sit | 12:46 | |
| on the campus of A&T College in Greensboro | 12:49 | |
| were so committed to a cause of freedom that they forced | 12:53 | |
| and are still forcing cafeterias and restaurants | 12:57 | |
| throughout the United States to change their policies | 13:01 | |
| about who may be served and who may sit and be served. | 13:05 | |
| Today, young Germans have become so indignant | 13:10 | |
| about the wall that separates east and west Berlin | 13:13 | |
| that they are willing to risk their lives | 13:17 | |
| when they plant dynamite and blow holes in that wall | 13:20 | |
| that separates one part of the city from another. | 13:24 | |
| Recently, I was on the campus of the University of Panama, | 13:28 | |
| where just about six students | 13:31 | |
| so aroused the whole student body | 13:34 | |
| that it brought the government of that country to its knees | 13:36 | |
| and to exceed to their demands. | 13:41 | |
| And listen to what a young Russian student | 13:44 | |
| says to a traveler from the free and democratic west. | 13:46 | |
| "We have found reality. | 13:51 | |
| "It is the reality of things we do ourselves. | 13:54 | |
| "It is not the abstract reality of your Christian teachings. | 13:59 | |
| "It is the concrete physical hereness of our reality. | 14:05 | |
| "We know that we can do all things. | 14:10 | |
| "We know what we can do, no can take that from us, | 14:13 | |
| "because we will not permit it. | 14:17 | |
| "We will defend our reality to the death. | 14:20 | |
| "It is ourselves." | 14:25 | |
| We may not like all of these illustrations of commitment, | 14:31 | |
| but they prove that people of commitment | 14:36 | |
| are those people who are determining the course of history. | 14:39 | |
| And it is not without significance | 14:45 | |
| that they are all students, young people, youth, | 14:47 | |
| challenging us in this complex, confused, | 14:50 | |
| and frightening period of history. | 14:54 | |
| By their philosophy, their passion and their plan of action, | 14:57 | |
| these people are not victims of patterns of dependence. | 15:03 | |
| They are not blaming their failure on others. | 15:09 | |
| These are people who are demonstrating responsible action | 15:13 | |
| which is based on the commitment of one's life to a cause, | 15:17 | |
| even unto death. | 15:21 | |
| I submit to you | 15:25 | |
| that it is only people with this depth of commitment | 15:28 | |
| who will change the course of human events | 15:33 | |
| and who will determine the earthly destiny of mankind. | 15:37 | |
| I commend to you for serious thought, | 15:42 | |
| commitment to Jesus Christ | 15:46 | |
| and obedience to God and His church, | 15:48 | |
| if necessary, even unto death. | 15:52 | |
| Let us pray. | 16:00 | |
| (siren wailing) | 16:06 | |
| Teach us, good Lord to serve thee as thou deservest. | 16:12 | |
| To give and not to count the cost. | 16:16 | |
| To fight and not to heed the wounds. | 16:20 | |
| To toil and not to seek for rest. | 16:24 | |
| To labor and not to ask for any reward, | 16:28 | |
| save that of knowing that we do thy will | 16:32 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 16:37 | |
| and the blessing of God Almighty, | 16:41 | |
| the Father, the Son, and his Holy Spirit be amongst you | 16:43 | |
| and all those whom you love both this day and forevermore. | 16:49 | |
| (choir vocalizing) | 17:01 | |
| (bell ringing) | 18:01 | |
| (somber music) | 18:14 | |
| (choir vocalizing) | 18:40 |