Bishop Earl G. Hunt - "Pilate's Washbowl" Homecoming Service (October 13, 1968)
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| (choir singing indistinctly) | 0:09 | |
| (organ music) | 0:47 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 1:31 | |
| - | [Presiding Minister] Beloved not as any tried formality, | 3:25 |
| but because of our needs that as unite, | 3:28 | |
| our hearts and voices in our prayer | 3:32 | |
| of confession and for pardon. | 3:35 | |
| Let us pray. | 3:37 | |
| Almighty God we humbly confess that we are guilty people. | 3:39 | |
| We cannot count the sins that we have done | 3:44 | |
| nor can we remember all the evil thoughts of our hearts. | 3:48 | |
| We have neglected dive work | 3:52 | |
| and have taken lightly thy mercies. | 3:55 | |
| We have not turned away from violence and baggage. | 3:57 | |
| We therefore do not deserve | 4:02 | |
| the forgiveness that we pray for. | 4:03 | |
| But we ask thee to grant | 4:06 | |
| that we may from the heart returned to thee | 4:08 | |
| and that we may be reconciled to thee | 4:12 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 4:15 | |
| Amen. | 4:17 | |
| From the book of Micah we find words that are comforting | 4:21 | |
| and comfortable to those who are sorry for their sins | 4:26 | |
| and wished to be delivered from. | 4:30 | |
| The words are "Who is like unto God? | 4:34 | |
| Who pardons inequity and passes over transgressions. | 4:39 | |
| He does not retain his anger forever, | 4:44 | |
| because he delights in steadfast love, | 4:47 | |
| He will again have compassion upon us. | 4:52 | |
| He will tread our equities under foot, | 4:55 | |
| He will pass all our sins into the depths of the sea." | 4:59 | |
| Amen. | 5:04 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 7:08 | |
| Summon Reader | Our scripture lesson | 14:18 |
| for this home coming Sunday morning, | 14:20 | |
| Is taken from the 27th chapter of the gospel | 14:25 | |
| according to Saint Matthew 15:24 | 14:28 | |
| "Now at that base, | 14:40 | |
| the governor was accustomed | 14:41 | |
| to release for the crowd | 14:43 | |
| any one prisoner whom they wanted, | 14:44 | |
| and they have been a man some notoriety called Barnabas | 14:49 | |
| So Pilate, when he was faced by the crowd said, | 14:56 | |
| 'Which one do you want me to set free by Barnabas or Jesus | 14:59 | |
| who is called Messiah?' | 15:07 | |
| For he was well aware | 15:11 | |
| that they had brought him up for judgment | 15:12 | |
| because they were jealous. | 15:15 | |
| While he was still sitting in court | 15:19 | |
| his wife sent word to him. | 15:22 | |
| 'Do not meddle with this innocent man. | 15:26 | |
| I was much troubled on his account in my dreams last night.' | 15:31 | |
| But the chief priests and the elders | 15:38 | |
| persuaded the mob to ask for Barnabas | 15:40 | |
| and demand Jesus' execution. | 15:45 | |
| The governor however said unto them, | 15:50 | |
| which of the two will you that I released unto you? | 15:52 | |
| They said, 'Barnabas.' | 15:57 | |
| Pilate said unto them | 16:03 | |
| 'What shall I do then with Jesus was called Messiah.' | 16:04 | |
| They all shouted back, 'Crucify him.' | 16:09 | |
| The governor said, 'But what crime is he committed?' | 16:14 | |
| But they cried louder than ever saying, | 16:18 | |
| 'Let him be crucified.' | 16:22 | |
| When Pilates saw that he was getting nowhere, | 16:28 | |
| but that instead the confusion was increasing. | 16:32 | |
| He took water and washed his hands | 16:38 | |
| in full view of the people saying, | 16:42 | |
| 'I am innocent of this man's life see to it yourselves.' | 16:46 | |
| (organ music) | 16:58 | |
| (choir singing indistinctly) | 17:06 | |
| The Lord be with you? | 17:56 | |
| Congregation | And your spirit. | 17:58 |
| - | [Presiding Minister] Let us pray. | 17:59 |
| Heavenly father we thank thee | 18:08 | |
| for the failure of our unworthy schemes | 18:10 | |
| that forced us to make worthy plan. | 18:15 | |
| We thank thee that we did not succeed | 18:18 | |
| in our attempts to play God. | 18:21 | |
| So that in our frustration, | 18:24 | |
| we learned the grace of humanity. | 18:25 | |
| We express our gratitude | 18:30 | |
| for friends who encourage us | 18:31 | |
| and who recognize our strong points. | 18:33 | |
| We are grateful to thee | 18:37 | |
| for Friend who help us to see | 18:38 | |
| where we are wrong and need to improve. | 18:39 | |
| We are thankful that evil is not so strong, | 18:44 | |
| but that we can rise above it. | 18:47 | |
| When we surrender our wills to thine, | 18:49 | |
| seek thy divine grace. | 18:52 | |
| We bless thee for victories of health over disease | 18:55 | |
| victories of love over hate, of unity over division | 19:00 | |
| of truth over error of beauty over ugliness | 19:06 | |
| of order over and anarchy, | 19:13 | |
| peace over war. | 19:17 | |
| We express our gratitude to thee for seed time and harvest | 19:21 | |
| for full burns and full employment | 19:26 | |
| for the abundance of industry | 19:29 | |
| for improve distribution | 19:31 | |
| for greater sharing of the fruits of honest labor. | 19:34 | |
| We thank you the for pioneers who found the way to | 19:39 | |
| (indistinct) relationships in the homes, office, | 19:42 | |
| in the market, in the classroom, in the halls of government. | 19:46 | |
| We thank thee that while we were yet sinners | 19:53 | |
| Christ died for us. | 19:55 | |
| And we bless thee for our fault | 19:58 | |
| of the final triumph of righteousness, | 20:00 | |
| and the life everlasting, | 20:03 | |
| even as we thank thee oh God for these blessings, | 20:07 | |
| we pray for yet other blessings | 20:11 | |
| for ourselves and our friends or our enemies, | 20:13 | |
| we pray thee for grace, | 20:19 | |
| it would keep us from being willing | 20:21 | |
| to cleanse only part of our lives | 20:23 | |
| while withholding a little private precinct | 20:27 | |
| from thy cleansing grace | 20:29 | |
| little pockets of time, little stores of money | 20:33 | |
| that are not offered up | 20:39 | |
| for the sanctifying influence of thy Holy spirit. | 20:41 | |
| We pray to keep us from emphasizing exterior beauty | 20:46 | |
| while forgetting the importance | 20:50 | |
| of interior love and greatness. | 20:52 | |
| Keep us oh God from complaining | 20:56 | |
| that we are too busy to do the things we should | 20:58 | |
| while being impatient with others | 21:01 | |
| who have given us less than perfect service. | 21:04 | |
| We ask that we may be kept by thy grace | 21:09 | |
| from pretending that issues are terribly complicated, | 21:13 | |
| which thou has to reveal to be very simple. | 21:17 | |
| Keep us from the kind of boldness, rashness, | 21:22 | |
| which declares impossible, | 21:26 | |
| those things which thou has said are possible by thy grace. | 21:28 | |
| Keep us from acting as though we are God. | 21:35 | |
| We ask that we may have the judgment and wisdom | 21:41 | |
| not to put our trust | 21:45 | |
| in academic grades and academic degrees. | 21:47 | |
| To the extent that we assume knowledge and wisdom | 21:51 | |
| are guaranteed by them, | 21:54 | |
| help us to find knowledge and wisdom in thee. | 21:57 | |
| Keep us oh God from believing that | 22:04 | |
| if we will only ignore our problems, they will go away. | 22:06 | |
| Keep us from acting as though we are able | 22:13 | |
| to reveal thy moral laws, | 22:15 | |
| by our books or our loud voices. | 22:18 | |
| Give us grace to have a proper balance between | 22:25 | |
| loving the sinner and hating the sin. | 22:27 | |
| It seems to us that sometimes in our impetuousness | 22:32 | |
| we have loved the sinner | 22:39 | |
| but have left We should take seriously | 22:42 | |
| the awful consequences in sin. | 22:44 | |
| Sometimes in our unguided moments, | 22:49 | |
| we've been so zealous to uproot the sin | 22:52 | |
| that the sinner has gone unloved. | 22:57 | |
| And so we need thy wisdom for which we pray. | 23:02 | |
| We need thy guidance in our lives | 23:06 | |
| thy strength to be the people we must be | 23:08 | |
| in this crucial hour. | 23:11 | |
| In these and in every other way which seems good to thee | 23:16 | |
| Through that will give us a blessing, | 23:20 | |
| enable us to understand the meaning of the prayer, | 23:24 | |
| which Christ has taught all his disciples to join and pray. | 23:29 | |
| Saying | 23:34 | |
| Our father who art in heaven, | 23:35 | |
| hallowed be thy name, | 23:38 | |
| thy kingdom come | 23:40 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven | 23:42 | |
| give us this day our daily bread | 23:46 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 23:49 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us | 23:51 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 23:54 | |
| but deliver us from evil | 23:56 | |
| for thine is the kingdom | 23:58 | |
| and the glory forever. | 24:00 | |
| Amen. | 24:04 | |
| Preacher | And the heart of the scripture | 24:23 |
| Lashon read so helpfully | 24:25 | |
| for us President Mike | 24:29 | |
| there is this verse the 24th verse | 24:33 | |
| and the 27th chapter of St. Matthews gospel. | 24:38 | |
| When Pilates saw that he could prevail nothing | 24:42 | |
| but Barnabas (indistinct) | 24:49 | |
| he took water and washed his hands before the multitude | 24:54 | |
| saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person, | 25:00 | |
| see ye to it | 25:08 | |
| Pilate wash bowl. | 25:15 | |
| It was a symbol of responsibility dodged | 25:19 | |
| of opportunity flashed away, | 25:25 | |
| a brutalized cowardice | 25:31 | |
| adopted mold (indistinct) for life. | 25:35 | |
| And of a scale values, | 25:42 | |
| more tragically distorted than any and all the centuries. | 25:45 | |
| Pilate lived in then the long, long ago. | 25:52 | |
| And ironically is remembered in our time | 25:56 | |
| only because of the person who he sentenced | 26:01 | |
| upon the faces of such gross misjudgment. | 26:06 | |
| His historical relevance lies in the plain and tragic back | 26:13 | |
| that he has so very many counterparts in our world. | 26:20 | |
| And then the church of our day. | 26:27 | |
| If one listens carefully in the modern century | 26:32 | |
| above the martial music, | 26:39 | |
| he can hear still the noise | 26:43 | |
| of the spiking of water in Pilate washbowl. | 26:48 | |
| Pilate washbowl reminds us this morning | 26:56 | |
| of certain responsibilities that last | 27:02 | |
| inevitably of our man and women | 27:04 | |
| who are sensitive to the spiritual and to God, | 27:10 | |
| but it reminds us also that | 27:16 | |
| we do not always accept and implement goals responsibility. | 27:20 | |
| (indistinct) may remind us today | 27:29 | |
| of the responsibility which we have to express our faith. | 27:36 | |
| In uprightness of daily life and attitude, | 27:43 | |
| true blood the startling thing | 27:50 | |
| When you reminded us that we are equally shocked at hearing | 27:54 | |
| the Christian faith denied | 28:01 | |
| and seeing it practiced. | 28:05 | |
| it is true that our primary path is to make better people | 28:11 | |
| but it is also true that people cannot be better, | 28:17 | |
| any final or glorious backward until both | 28:22 | |
| their attitude and their relationship | 28:27 | |
| with their fellow human beings have been redeemed. | 28:30 | |
| Jesus things about quotation about possession | 28:35 | |
| about fair dealing between employer and employee. | 28:40 | |
| And between employee and employer | 28:45 | |
| about justice and brotherhood | 28:50 | |
| and equal opportunity. | 28:54 | |
| About grace about international (indistinct) | 28:57 | |
| which happened to be accepted and incorporated | 29:04 | |
| into the the thinking and believing of a man or a woman | 29:09 | |
| before that person is really a preacher. | 29:15 | |
| Religion in order to be effective | 29:20 | |
| makes personal it requires to be consistently social. | 29:22 | |
| To undertake (indistinct) the responsibility | 29:31 | |
| for regenerating good social attitude, | 29:33 | |
| through insisting upon a brand of religion | 29:37 | |
| which does the same soothing stockman into the all source | 29:42 | |
| of human personality and of society | 29:53 | |
| is to live in a food paradise upon deferred. | 29:57 | |
| And to we danger one than heroin when they can in that, | 30:00 | |
| going to church, a reputation for a decent neighborhood | 30:06 | |
| (indistinct) | 30:15 | |
| transforming power which cleans us and redirect all of life, | 30:18 | |
| but there is still a clear line of righteousness. | 30:28 | |
| Even in these days of ethical confusion | 30:33 | |
| which by fact all of human life | 30:37 | |
| therefore the church to ignore the bad line of righteousness | 30:42 | |
| and to surrender to (indistinct) | 30:48 | |
| to teach, to educate it or to Paternal agencies the higher | 30:53 | |
| responsibility in my job, | 31:03 | |
| attitude and action is for the church | 31:08 | |
| to forming its own legitimate claim from now on | 31:12 | |
| leadership in society. | 31:17 | |
| The glory of the church (indistinct) | 31:20 | |
| as been its willingness to aspire the will of Jesus Christ | 31:24 | |
| at the expense of the opposition. | 31:30 | |
| And the better understanding of men and women | 31:36 | |
| whose lives are still controlled by selfishness | 31:41 | |
| and not by God. | 31:45 | |
| At the very best our ladies were the efforts | 31:48 | |
| to eliminate the old higher predicament moralism | 31:54 | |
| from contemporary understanding of religion. | 32:00 | |
| We're not intended to destroy or to invalidate | 32:03 | |
| the role of ethical quality in a Christian's life. | 32:08 | |
| There is no way I am persuaded or a | 32:15 | |
| man or woman could to belong to Jesus Christ | 32:20 | |
| and to ignore that consequences of that relationship, | 32:25 | |
| is his attitude and his actions at possible of life. | 32:31 | |
| What I'm saying. All right. | 32:40 | |
| Luckily if you please on my Christian, | 32:42 | |
| there will be places where that person does not go. | 32:47 | |
| There will be places where he does go. | 32:52 | |
| That might be things that he does not do. | 32:56 | |
| There will be maybe that he will do. | 32:58 | |
| And I this election year | 33:02 | |
| there will be ways in which he will not look. | 33:05 | |
| And there will be ways in which he will look. | 33:10 | |
| Not because of any exterior commotion above the man, | 33:15 | |
| but because of an interior response to a relationship, | 33:23 | |
| that is just between God and himself. | 33:30 | |
| Here's a bowl. | 33:35 | |
| I have heard the | 33:36 | |
| gypsies to me of the elder. | 33:37 | |
| Tell a story about a young stenographer in London who had | 33:45 | |
| given her life to the principles of Jesus Christ. | 33:53 | |
| She was picking a letter one morning and from her employer, | 33:58 | |
| she knew on up about his business. | 34:01 | |
| It was dictating, | 34:05 | |
| but recognize that the paragraphs of that letter with, | 34:07 | |
| for to a dishonest transaction, | 34:10 | |
| very quietly she closed her stenographic pad | 34:14 | |
| laid aside her pencil and said, | 34:18 | |
| am sorry sir but I cannot take this left | 34:23 | |
| He may not have been with Paul. | 34:31 | |
| (indistinct) | 34:34 | |
| Yeah, that will never, | 34:47 | |
| the risk Christian man or Christian woman take the | 34:52 | |
| response for the empty Russian of him or her. | 34:59 | |
| Maybe he had applied daily like and attitude | 35:04 | |
| there is the need for integrity. | 35:10 | |
| can you hear the knowing of the flagging of one | 35:21 | |
| Pilate washbowl | 35:27 | |
| we've got a game Pilate washbowl reminds | 35:34 | |
| us of the responsibility we have to | 35:39 | |
| Amper compassionately into the plight of humanity. | 35:43 | |
| during the day of the second world war. | 35:51 | |
| The great pianos(indistinct) | 35:55 | |
| was living in 85 in west Palm Beach Walnut. | 36:01 | |
| In our own country. | 36:05 | |
| You know, our own thing to recuperate the combined, | 36:08 | |
| the rigors of his Brady | 36:11 | |
| and a core of reporters | 36:17 | |
| one morning to interview Mr (indistinct). | 36:20 | |
| They discovered that the apartment | 36:24 | |
| had been wired for broadcasting, | 36:26 | |
| the brave piano. | 36:28 | |
| Wasn't the police didn't bring a management, | 36:30 | |
| which in a few moments he would read out over the air. | 36:33 | |
| They wondered with if real | 36:37 | |
| would be able to marshal it up energy. | 36:42 | |
| To send his voice on the radio | 36:44 | |
| Surprisingly enough, when the moment came and execute, | 36:47 | |
| read the words of this manual script | 36:51 | |
| with power and with eloquence. | 36:54 | |
| as he wore the punch of those | 36:57 | |
| totalitarian bull of the weak democracy, | 37:01 | |
| we had concluded the brassy. | 37:09 | |
| There was an awkward silence broken by a mother | 37:11 | |
| for reporters who grew up in a corner | 37:17 | |
| of the living room of the apartment. | 37:22 | |
| five way for us while we were | 37:24 | |
| shaking his hand, he replied, I am sorry | 37:26 | |
| (indistinct) | 37:34 | |
| I pan up way a day while my on. | 37:43 | |
| This simple stories suggest that | 37:55 | |
| the great Christians first of all are compassion | 37:58 | |
| which is key to the very a part of the gospel of Jesus | 38:03 | |
| compassion has been seriously threatened | 38:10 | |
| in our time threatened by affluence. | 38:13 | |
| Or if there is any radio result of economic luxury. | 38:19 | |
| It is the peril of insensitivity to one neighbor. | 38:26 | |
| Brian Niebuhr in an essay said | 38:34 | |
| the United States is like dead gadget filled paradise | 38:37 | |
| suspended in a hell of international insecurity security. | 38:40 | |
| There is another deep personalization. | 38:45 | |
| Deep personalization to see which religion | 38:52 | |
| it is a disease which religion and our kind | 38:57 | |
| seems to often to have caught in our society. | 39:02 | |
| There can be no communication without participation. | 39:12 | |
| (indistinct) | 39:19 | |
| how terrible river of human brain must flow through | 39:24 | |
| one cannot convert to the heart of Jesus | 39:29 | |
| without examining afraid. | 39:39 | |
| The Christian peach have always been a peach | 39:45 | |
| that could be disturbed by the power of a hungry child. | 39:50 | |
| By the mode of a wounded solider | 39:56 | |
| by the distress of loneliness or shame of a human being | 40:00 | |
| (indistinct) | 40:12 | |
| bread alone for women. | 40:21 | |
| What were y'all doing before? | 40:29 | |
| What part of the same job that we have that lovely little | 40:30 | |
| Tammy or patient where Jesus cried with him | 40:34 | |
| and with X, with it, with, with the woman? | 40:36 | |
| Well, | 40:38 | |
| I made it over again to keep my pastor's heart. | 40:39 | |
| The other Saturday morning, | 40:44 | |
| I was at work in my office in Charlotte, all them times, | 40:46 | |
| working alone on Saturday without my secretary. | 40:50 | |
| (indistinct) | 46:21 | |
| (indistinct) | 46:29 | |
| in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy spirit | 52:45 | |
| Congregation | Amen | 52:50 |
| (organ music) | 53:01 |