James T. Cleland - "The Image of God" (December 13, 1964)
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| - | Let us pray. | 0:13 |
| Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 0:17 | |
| be acceptable | 0:24 | |
| in thy sight | 0:26 | |
| oh Lord our strength and our Redeemer | 0:28 | |
| Amen. | 0:33 | |
| If we look at the front of the order of worship | 0:45 | |
| for today's university service of worship | 0:48 | |
| we notice that today, December 13 | 0:53 | |
| is designated Christmas Sunday | 0:58 | |
| as the chaplain pointed out. | 1:02 | |
| Now, that is wrong | 1:06 | |
| and it is right. | 1:10 | |
| According to the ecclesiastical Christian year | 1:14 | |
| it is wrong. | 1:18 | |
| December 13 is too early for Christmas Sunday. | 1:21 | |
| Today is really the third Sunday in advent. | 1:27 | |
| But according to the Duke academic Christian year | 1:33 | |
| it is right. | 1:38 | |
| We want to celebrate Christmas as a university community | 1:42 | |
| but we disappear as such a community | 1:49 | |
| in the flesh | 1:53 | |
| next Saturday. | 1:55 | |
| Therefore, for better or for worse | 1:57 | |
| we celebrate Christmas today | 2:00 | |
| as an academic worshiping community. | 2:04 | |
| What is Christmas all about? | 2:10 | |
| Are we deep down | 2:15 | |
| below surface signs and the trappings of the marketplace. | 2:18 | |
| What is Christmas all about? | 2:23 | |
| Now we are not going to get mad at anybody | 2:27 | |
| merchants | 2:31 | |
| advertisers | 2:33 | |
| radio announcers | 2:35 | |
| battalions of Santa Claus | 2:38 | |
| chambers of commerce | 2:42 | |
| we just want to ask one serious question | 2:44 | |
| what is Christmas all about? | 2:48 | |
| Really | 2:51 | |
| fundamentally | 2:54 | |
| thoroughly. | 2:56 | |
| Christmas has a history. | 2:59 | |
| It has a pre history | 3:03 | |
| as well as a post history. | 3:06 | |
| So let us begin by looking at one pre Christmas fact | 3:09 | |
| in our attempt | 3:15 | |
| to grasp the significance of this annual season. | 3:16 | |
| And let this pre Christmas fact be focused for us | 3:22 | |
| in the second commandment | 3:28 | |
| which was read as part of our morning lesson | 3:31 | |
| and which in summary and perhaps in its original form | 3:35 | |
| is just, "Thou shall not make any graven image." | 3:39 | |
| The 10 commandments, the Decalogue, the 10 words | 3:48 | |
| are the summary of the primary religious ethical duties | 3:54 | |
| required of the Hebrew. | 4:00 | |
| God himself is assumed to have spoken | 4:03 | |
| or to even to have written these requirements. | 4:07 | |
| The first four deal with man's relation to God | 4:12 | |
| the vertical element. | 4:18 | |
| The second six deal with man's relation to man | 4:20 | |
| under God, the horizontal element. | 4:25 | |
| Within the tribes of Israel | 4:30 | |
| these 10 laws were not made for all nations. | 4:35 | |
| They were for the chosen people. | 4:41 | |
| God's right to require them | 4:46 | |
| is that he had delivered them out of the land of Egypt | 4:48 | |
| out of the house of bondage. | 4:53 | |
| Therefore, he had a claim on them | 4:57 | |
| and their obedience to the law | 5:00 | |
| was an expression of gratitude | 5:02 | |
| for divine favor. | 5:06 | |
| It's wise for us to remember | 5:09 | |
| especially for Christians to remember | 5:10 | |
| that in the Old Testament, the law is rooted in grace | 5:13 | |
| in the graciousness of God | 5:21 | |
| and obedience to the law | 5:25 | |
| was the response | 5:29 | |
| in love of those who knew they had been delivered. | 5:31 | |
| Now the second commandment prohibits the making of any image | 5:38 | |
| or likeness of God. | 5:42 | |
| God is a spirit. | 5:45 | |
| He is not to be captured in a carving. | 5:47 | |
| He is real, but He is unseen. | 5:52 | |
| He is beyond man's comprehension to translate into any image | 5:57 | |
| or likeness or form. | 6:03 | |
| Now we are not told the why of this prohibition | 6:07 | |
| it is just flatly speaking | 6:13 | |
| but we can make intelligent guesses that the reason. | 6:16 | |
| There's always the danger | 6:21 | |
| that the image will become an idol. | 6:24 | |
| It will cease to be the visible symbol of God | 6:30 | |
| and become | 6:34 | |
| God. | 6:36 | |
| Isaiah 2 describes the transition from symbol to idol | 6:38 | |
| in the case of a man who cut down a tree | 6:45 | |
| and uses part of it | 6:49 | |
| for fuel | 6:52 | |
| to bake bread | 6:54 | |
| and the rest for a graven image. | 6:56 | |
| Here's what Isaiah says about him. | 6:59 | |
| "No one considers nor is there knowledge or discernment | 7:02 | |
| to say, half of it I burned in the fire | 7:07 | |
| I also baked bread on its coals | 7:12 | |
| I roasted flesh and have eaten. | 7:14 | |
| And shall I make the residue of it an abomination? | 7:19 | |
| Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" | 7:24 | |
| Well the answer is obviously, yes. (chuckles) | 7:30 | |
| So Isaiah goes on, | 7:33 | |
| "He feeds on ashes. | 7:35 | |
| A deluded mind has led him astray | 7:39 | |
| and he cannot deliver himself or say, | 7:43 | |
| is there not a lie | 7:46 | |
| in my right hand?" | 7:50 | |
| Isn't that well put? | 7:52 | |
| There's a lie at work | 7:54 | |
| in the hand | 7:58 | |
| that fashions the idol. | 8:00 | |
| Image making could be the cause of bad thinking | 8:05 | |
| and the result to bad thinking could be idolatry. | 8:09 | |
| Moreover, image making led not only to bad thinking | 8:16 | |
| it ended up by way of idolatry in immorality. | 8:19 | |
| Even when Moses, under God, was shaping the 10 commandments | 8:24 | |
| the Israelites, under Aaron, were shaping a golden calf. | 8:30 | |
| Now, following their worship of this replica of God | 8:37 | |
| there is a statement which sounds innocent enough | 8:42 | |
| in the King James translation, | 8:45 | |
| "The people rose up to play." | 8:48 | |
| P-L-A-Y. | 8:53 | |
| Now, I shall not take time to exegete the verb, to play | 8:55 | |
| except to say that it's content | 9:01 | |
| almost makes the Threepenny Opera | 9:04 | |
| look like a morality play. | 9:07 | |
| (audience laughing) | 9:09 | |
| And Paul in his letter to the Romans | 9:13 | |
| in the first chapter combines these two aspects | 9:15 | |
| futility in thinking | 9:20 | |
| and naughty conduct | 9:22 | |
| in an outburst | 9:25 | |
| damning the use of idol. | 9:27 | |
| I suppose | 9:29 | |
| the basic religious problem | 9:31 | |
| in idolatry | 9:34 | |
| is that because it makes God, it assumes it can control God. | 9:37 | |
| Now in a higher religion | 9:44 | |
| God controls the worshiper | 9:47 | |
| not vice versa. | 9:51 | |
| Now to give the Hebrew, the Israelite, the Jew credit | 9:54 | |
| he tried to live up to the second commandment. | 9:58 | |
| His God was no object that could be seen | 10:03 | |
| He was the creator and not the creature or the creation. | 10:07 | |
| Man is to worship the unseen | 10:13 | |
| ungraven | 10:17 | |
| undepicted creator. | 10:18 | |
| When Pompey, the Roman general captured Jerusalem in 63 BC | 10:23 | |
| he did one thing for which the Jews never forgave him | 10:29 | |
| although he treated them well, otherwise | 10:34 | |
| he entered the Holy of Holies | 10:38 | |
| in the temple. | 10:42 | |
| Only one man was allowed access to the Holy of Holies | 10:45 | |
| and he but once a year | 10:52 | |
| the high priest | 10:57 | |
| on the day of atonement. | 10:59 | |
| Pompey found no replica of Yahweh | 11:02 | |
| in the innermost shrine of the temple. | 11:07 | |
| Naturally | 11:11 | |
| thou shall not make unto thee any graven image. | 11:13 | |
| But it is said that Pompey started a rumor. | 11:19 | |
| When asked what he found there | 11:23 | |
| he's reported to have said, "An ass' head." | 11:25 | |
| Now I'm trying to find out from the Latin department | 11:31 | |
| if that is a symbol for nothing. | 11:33 | |
| But the story spread that the Jews worshiped a donkey. | 11:37 | |
| A silver ass is one variant of the gossip. | 11:42 | |
| And the amazing thing is that a similar story | 11:46 | |
| is told about the Jews 100 years earlier | 11:49 | |
| when Antiochus Epiphanes entered the temple. | 11:54 | |
| Only he said that it was a donkey's head | 11:58 | |
| made of the gold of considerable value. | 12:01 | |
| But by and large | 12:06 | |
| the Jews tried to live up to the second commandment | 12:07 | |
| and the Christian faith has paid some attention | 12:10 | |
| to this second prohibition. | 12:13 | |
| Do you realize that the crucifix was not used | 12:16 | |
| in Christian worship until the sixth century? | 12:19 | |
| And the Iconoclastic Controversy | 12:26 | |
| which revolved around the use of images, icons | 12:30 | |
| in places of worship | 12:34 | |
| plagued the United Catholic Church from 726 to 842 | 12:36 | |
| over 100 years. | 12:42 | |
| And of course the Protestant Reformation | 12:45 | |
| in enthusiastic and indiscriminate, though devout fashion | 12:49 | |
| used sledgehammers and pickaxes | 12:54 | |
| to implement the second commandment. | 12:57 | |
| It has remained a haunting ideal of a refined | 13:01 | |
| and pure worship. | 13:06 | |
| Art may deplore the prohibition | 13:08 | |
| but it stands in strength or in weakness | 13:12 | |
| to be set and tease the worshiper. | 13:15 | |
| But in plain fact | 13:22 | |
| the second commandment has placed the worshiper | 13:26 | |
| in an intolerable position. | 13:30 | |
| On the one hand he acknowledges | 13:35 | |
| that God is unseen and unseeable | 13:36 | |
| though he believes in God as real. | 13:39 | |
| On the other hand, he wants an image | 13:43 | |
| a likeness | 13:48 | |
| a form | 13:50 | |
| a representation of deity. | 13:52 | |
| Most men think picturesquely | 13:54 | |
| not abstractly. | 13:57 | |
| Psychologically they need a representation | 14:00 | |
| even though they may not consider any image as an idol. | 14:04 | |
| The average man is like the soldier | 14:08 | |
| who had just heard a sermon on the 10 commandments | 14:10 | |
| on all of them. (mumbles) | 14:15 | |
| Under the door he was heard to mutter, | 14:18 | |
| "Well, I've never made a graven image." | 14:21 | |
| (audience laughing) | 14:26 | |
| Now if we take the phrase literally | 14:29 | |
| most of us like that GI will not flunk on this commandment | 14:33 | |
| but image is a good word in our day. | 14:38 | |
| We talk of the image of America | 14:43 | |
| of Duke | 14:46 | |
| of the fraternity sorority system. | 14:48 | |
| The word which suggests not only description | 14:52 | |
| but idealization, even veneration | 14:54 | |
| as an element of reverence in our use of image. | 14:58 | |
| Why? Because man needs an image of his god | 15:03 | |
| therefore he makes one or sometimes more than one. | 15:08 | |
| Now, there are some people who worship what they make. | 15:12 | |
| The most real thing in life for them | 15:16 | |
| it's the controlling fact in their lives | 15:18 | |
| it's their object of worship. | 15:20 | |
| A mother asked a small boy, busy with pencil and paper | 15:23 | |
| what he was doing. | 15:26 | |
| He answered, "I'm drawing a picture of God." | 15:28 | |
| She commented, "But no one knows what God is like?" | 15:32 | |
| And his withering and confident reply was, | 15:37 | |
| "Well, they'll know now." | 15:40 | |
| That youngster made God | 15:46 | |
| probably according to his own image if not in his own image. | 15:48 | |
| And you and I both know self-made men | 15:55 | |
| who worship their creator. | 16:00 | |
| I suppose this is the constant appeal of classical | 16:05 | |
| capitalism. | 16:09 | |
| It encourages us to create and control what we make | 16:11 | |
| each for himself. | 16:16 | |
| But there are others who worship what makes them. | 16:19 | |
| One of the broadest but best definitions of religion | 16:25 | |
| is religion is self committal to the more than self. | 16:28 | |
| Religion is self committal to the more than self. | 16:33 | |
| The more than self is what gives sense and direction | 16:38 | |
| and motivation to our lives. | 16:41 | |
| We lose and we find the self in the more than self | 16:44 | |
| which to all intents and purposes is God for us. | 16:49 | |
| The interesting thing is this, that for the Jew | 16:53 | |
| the law became the image of God. | 16:58 | |
| The law is God made known in His character and purpose. | 17:03 | |
| I preached in a Jewish synagogue about four weeks ago. | 17:07 | |
| And at one point in the sturdy | 17:12 | |
| the clergy, who were on the platform | 17:15 | |
| as well as the congregation | 17:18 | |
| turned and faced the shrine. | 17:20 | |
| And the young boy there | 17:25 | |
| who was to receive his bar mitzvah the next day | 17:26 | |
| went forward to the shrine and pulled aside the curtains | 17:30 | |
| and what was there? The five scrolls of the law. | 17:33 | |
| Why should the Jews stand for that? | 17:42 | |
| Because it is the law | 17:44 | |
| which has made a Jew | 17:46 | |
| a Jew. | 17:49 | |
| Read the sonnets of Rupert Brooke, especially The Soldier | 17:52 | |
| if you want to understand nationalism | 17:56 | |
| the love of country as the more than self | 17:59 | |
| if i should die, think only this of me | 18:02 | |
| that there's some corner of a foreign field | 18:05 | |
| that is for ever England. | 18:09 | |
| He even talks of England, that poem as heaven. | 18:12 | |
| Why? | 18:15 | |
| Because England made Rupert Brooke what he was. | 18:16 | |
| What's the god of a scientist? | 18:22 | |
| At its best, isn't it the truth? | 18:25 | |
| The verified objective fact. | 18:27 | |
| Listen to the prayer of a scientist. | 18:31 | |
| In Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith, | 18:33 | |
| "God give me unclouded eyes and freedom from haste | 18:36 | |
| God give me a quiet and relentless anger | 18:41 | |
| against all pretense and all pretentious work | 18:44 | |
| and all work left slack and unfinished. | 18:49 | |
| God give me a restlessness | 18:54 | |
| where by I may neither sleep nor accept praise | 18:56 | |
| until my observed results | 19:01 | |
| equal my capitulated results | 19:04 | |
| or in pious glee, I discover and assault my error. | 19:07 | |
| God, give me strength | 19:13 | |
| not to trust to God." | 19:16 | |
| His worship of scientific truth despite some backsliding | 19:21 | |
| was what made Martin Arrowsmith. | 19:26 | |
| And his lab was his church | 19:30 | |
| and his test tubes were his icons. | 19:33 | |
| Yes, man needs an image. | 19:37 | |
| What's more, he will make one. | 19:40 | |
| The pathos and the tragedy arise | 19:43 | |
| when the image becomes an idol. | 19:46 | |
| Now, when does that happen? | 19:48 | |
| When the worship which should be given only to Almighty God | 19:50 | |
| creator, sustainer and Redeemer | 19:54 | |
| is paid to that which is less | 19:58 | |
| than Almighty God. | 20:01 | |
| Now this happens even within Christianity. | 20:03 | |
| When undue reverence is given to the Bible | 20:07 | |
| or to the sacraments | 20:11 | |
| or to the denomination. | 20:14 | |
| It's a risk run by the Christian | 20:17 | |
| and the non-Christian alike. | 20:20 | |
| It behooves us to be wary, very wary | 20:22 | |
| and yet it merely confirms a very human fact | 20:26 | |
| which we had better accept | 20:29 | |
| that most folk want | 20:32 | |
| need and make images. | 20:34 | |
| Now, let's see where we stand in this map | 20:39 | |
| we who worship in the Duke chapel | 20:41 | |
| on this academic Christmas Sunday. | 20:43 | |
| We accept the second commandment literally. | 20:47 | |
| We recognize what it's trying to say | 20:51 | |
| it's not in man's power to make an image of God. | 20:54 | |
| The second commandment endures state, let it stand. | 20:58 | |
| But we also recognize the psychological inevitability | 21:04 | |
| that man wants to portray and picturesque | 21:09 | |
| a symbolic fashion, the more than self | 21:11 | |
| which gives his life meaning and dignity. | 21:15 | |
| Is there any way out to this dilemma for us? | 21:18 | |
| Since the Christian admits that he may not make the image | 21:23 | |
| though realizing he needs the image | 21:28 | |
| there's only one way out, only one | 21:30 | |
| one way which both satisfies his need | 21:36 | |
| and avoids the danger of the sin of idolatry | 21:39 | |
| God | 21:44 | |
| must make the image. | 21:45 | |
| God must make the image. | 21:50 | |
| If He will not allow man to shape the likeness of God | 21:52 | |
| then God must fashion it for God knows man needs it. | 21:57 | |
| It's up to God. | 22:06 | |
| And the teaching of the New Testament | 22:08 | |
| the good news of Christmas, is that God came through. | 22:10 | |
| Listen | 22:17 | |
| Jesus is the image of the invisible God. | 22:18 | |
| That's from the second part of our morning lesson. | 22:24 | |
| It is God who said, | 22:29 | |
| "Let light shine out of darkness who has shown in our heart | 22:30 | |
| to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God | 22:34 | |
| in the face of Jesus Christ." | 22:38 | |
| That's Paul writing the Corinthians. | 22:40 | |
| Jesus reflects the glory of God | 22:44 | |
| and bears the very stamp of His nature | 22:46 | |
| that's the unknown author of the epistle to the Hebrews. | 22:49 | |
| In the beginning was the Word | 22:53 | |
| and the Word was with God and the Word was God | 22:54 | |
| and the Word became flesh | 22:58 | |
| and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory | 23:01 | |
| glory as of the only begotten of the Father | 23:05 | |
| full of grace and truth. | 23:08 | |
| That's the story. | 23:12 | |
| Now, it needn't surprise us. | 23:14 | |
| Any word | 23:17 | |
| any idea has to become flesh | 23:18 | |
| for the ordinary person to grasp it. | 23:21 | |
| We may be able to reduce democracy | 23:24 | |
| to a few abstract principles | 23:26 | |
| and so God that it's content | 23:29 | |
| but it's both easier to grasp and livelier to picture | 23:31 | |
| when democracy becomes flesh, (mutters) Lincoln. | 23:35 | |
| Courage incarnated in a man or a woman | 23:41 | |
| is a clearer conveyor of the idea of valor | 23:44 | |
| than even the best dictionary definition. | 23:48 | |
| And a lover can tell us more of the breadth and height | 23:51 | |
| and depth of love than Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 23:55 | |
| with her most eloquent sensitivity. | 24:00 | |
| Any word is more easily understood when it is enfleshed. | 24:03 | |
| Because a person | 24:10 | |
| a human being | 24:12 | |
| is our yardstick for the appraisal of a vital idea. | 24:14 | |
| And a person is the inspiration for our being motivated | 24:21 | |
| to possess it or to be possessed by it. | 24:25 | |
| Therefore, it's not as surprising, a dumbfounding fact | 24:29 | |
| that when God wish to reveal his Godness | 24:33 | |
| that He should wrap it up in a man. | 24:39 | |
| Anything less would have been unworthy. | 24:44 | |
| Anything more would have been unintelligent. | 24:48 | |
| It's part and parcel of the Christian faith | 24:52 | |
| that Jesus of Nazareth | 24:55 | |
| in a unique | 24:59 | |
| though not in an incredible way, reveals the nature of God. | 25:01 | |
| Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus | 25:07 | |
| the enfleshment of the divine | 25:13 | |
| at Bethlehem. | 25:18 | |
| Now, this approach to Christmas and to Bethlehem | 25:21 | |
| is not philosophical or metaphysical | 25:23 | |
| it's religious. | 25:28 | |
| It's in the realm of storytelling | 25:29 | |
| and poetry | 25:32 | |
| and drama. | 25:34 | |
| It turns on the psychological fact | 25:36 | |
| that what man needs most when he wishes | 25:43 | |
| is a human likeness of the divine. | 25:47 | |
| And our religion has positively answered | 25:52 | |
| that Jesus of Bethlehem | 25:56 | |
| and Nazareth | 26:00 | |
| is the image of God. | 26:02 | |
| That is why the best name for Him | 26:05 | |
| certainly at Christmas | 26:09 | |
| is not prophet | 26:12 | |
| is not Messiah | 26:15 | |
| not even Lord | 26:18 | |
| but Emmanuel | 26:21 | |
| Emmanuel | 26:25 | |
| which means | 26:29 | |
| God | 26:31 | |
| with us | 26:33 | |
| God | 26:35 | |
| with us. | 26:36 | |
| That I think, I hope | 26:37 | |
| is what Christmas is all about. | 26:41 | |
| Amen | 26:46 | |
| let us pray. | 26:48 | |
| Almighty God who has never left thyself without a witness | 26:54 | |
| we give thee thanks for Jesus | 27:00 | |
| the very Word of God | 27:04 | |
| become flesh | 27:06 | |
| for our sakes and to our benefit | 27:09 | |
| and may God Almighty bless you | 27:12 | |
| may God Himself protect and defend you in all things | 27:17 | |
| who for our sakes mercifully took upon Himself | 27:23 | |
| our human infancy | 27:27 | |
| through Him who is Emmanuel | 27:29 | |
| even Jesus Christ | 27:32 | |
| our Lord. | 27:35 | |
| (soft melody begins) | 27:41 |
