McMurry S. Richey - "The Bias of Gratitude" (November 24, 1968)
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| (choir sings indistinctly) | 0:06 | |
| (bright organ music) | 0:51 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 1:28 | |
| - | Remain standing and turn to number 602. | 4:16 |
| This is Thanksgiving Sunday in the Duke Chapel | 4:21 | |
| and this responsive scripture reading | 4:26 | |
| from the Book of Psalms will express to almighty God | 4:28 | |
| our feelings of praise and thanks-giving. | 4:33 | |
| Let us read responsively. | 4:37 | |
| I will extol thee, my God and King. | 4:40 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 4:43 | |
| Every day will I bless thee. | 4:47 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 4:49 | |
| Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. | 4:52 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 4:56 | |
| One generation shall laud thy works to another | 4:59 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:03 | |
| On the glorious splendor of thine majesty | 5:06 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:09 | |
| Men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts | 5:13 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:16 | |
| They shall pour forth the fame of thy abundant goodness. | 5:19 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:23 | |
| The Lord is gracious and merciful. | 5:26 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:30 | |
| The Lord is good to all. | 5:34 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:36 | |
| All thy works shall give thanks to thee, O Lord. | 5:40 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:44 | |
| They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, | 5:47 | |
| and tell of thy power. | 5:50 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 5:52 | |
| Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. | 5:59 | |
| (congregation murmurs) | 6:02 | |
| (gentle organ music) | 6:26 | |
| (bright organ music) | 6:56 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 7:14 | |
| - | Today's scripture lesson | 12:15 |
| is taken from one of the beautiful psalms of David, | 12:16 | |
| in which he sings praise to God | 12:21 | |
| and gratitude for his bountiful gifts | 12:23 | |
| and his steadfast love. | 12:26 | |
| It is from Psalm 103:1-18. | 12:29 | |
| Bless the Lord, O my soul; | 12:36 | |
| and all that is within me, bless his holy name! | 12:39 | |
| Bless the Lord, O my soul, | 12:44 | |
| and forget not all his benefits, | 12:46 | |
| who forgives all your iniquity, | 12:49 | |
| who heals all your diseases. | 12:52 | |
| Bless the Lord, O my soul, | 12:55 | |
| who redeems your life from the Pit, | 12:58 | |
| who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, | 13:01 | |
| who satisfies you with good as long as you live | 13:04 | |
| so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. | 13:09 | |
| The Lord works vindication | 13:14 | |
| and justice for all who are oppressed. | 13:15 | |
| He made known his ways to Moses, | 13:19 | |
| his acts to the people of Israel. | 13:22 | |
| The Lord is merciful and gracious, | 13:25 | |
| slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. | 13:29 | |
| He will not always chide, | 13:34 | |
| nor will he keep his anger for ever. | 13:37 | |
| He does not deal with us according to our sins, | 13:40 | |
| nor requite us according to our iniquities. | 13:43 | |
| For as the heavens are high above the earth, | 13:47 | |
| so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; | 13:51 | |
| as far as the east is from the west, | 13:57 | |
| so far does he remove our transgressions from us. | 14:00 | |
| As a father pities his children, | 14:05 | |
| so the Lord pities those who fear him. | 14:08 | |
| For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. | 14:12 | |
| As for man, his days are like grass; | 14:18 | |
| he flourishes like a flower of the field; | 14:22 | |
| for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, | 14:25 | |
| and its place knows it no more. | 14:29 | |
| But the steadfast love of the Lord | 14:33 | |
| is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, | 14:35 | |
| and his righteousness to children's children, | 14:41 | |
| to those who keep his covenant | 14:44 | |
| and remember to do his commandments. | 14:47 | |
| May God bless the reading and the hearing of these words. | 14:50 | |
| (bright music) | 14:56 | |
| ♪ Glory be to the Father ♪ | 15:04 | |
| ♪ And to the Son and to the Holy Ghost ♪ | 15:08 | |
| ♪ As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ♪ | 15:15 | |
| ♪ World without end, amen, amen ♪ | 15:22 | |
| (cheerful organ music) | 15:32 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 15:47 |
| (congregation murmurs) | 15:49 | |
| Let us pray. | 15:51 | |
| Almighty God, we acknowledge before thee, | 16:01 | |
| that our prayers of confession are a problem to us. | 16:04 | |
| We are very sure that we are guilty of wrong doing, | 16:09 | |
| of wrong speaking, wrong thinking. | 16:13 | |
| This means that we do indeed stand under the necessity | 16:18 | |
| of making a confession of sin before thee, | 16:21 | |
| and in the presence of one another. | 16:24 | |
| We are all sinners. | 16:26 | |
| We have all come short of thy glory. | 16:29 | |
| And yet we have a problem | 16:32 | |
| because we have confessed before thee, | 16:34 | |
| that we were guilty, to confess | 16:36 | |
| of very much the same wrongs, which accuse us today. | 16:39 | |
| We were then penitent before thee, | 16:44 | |
| as we made our confessions. | 16:46 | |
| And we promised that by thy help | 16:49 | |
| we would put away those sins. | 16:50 | |
| We did receive thy pardon and we rejoiced in it. | 16:54 | |
| Thy came not only in the form of forgiveness, | 16:59 | |
| but also in the form of offered strength to overcome sin. | 17:02 | |
| But today we are back in thy house | 17:08 | |
| with heads bowed in prayer, | 17:10 | |
| confessing still that we are guilty of pride, | 17:12 | |
| that we have indulged in selfishness, | 17:16 | |
| that lust has not always has been conquered, | 17:19 | |
| that prejudice has shamed us once again. | 17:23 | |
| Some of us have been cruel. | 17:27 | |
| Some of us have been lazy in academic responsibilities. | 17:30 | |
| Some have gotten drunk. | 17:33 | |
| All of us have drifted along too much | 17:36 | |
| in the old ruts of complacency, | 17:38 | |
| self-centeredness, and arrogance. | 17:41 | |
| Our sinning has been more stubborn | 17:45 | |
| than our determination to grow in grace. | 17:47 | |
| So once more, we acknowledge our condition. | 17:51 | |
| Once more, we ask for pardon | 17:56 | |
| and pray for the kind of quickening | 18:00 | |
| which will lead us to a real renewal of our spirits. | 18:02 | |
| In the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 18:06 | |
| Almighty Father, we offer our prayers for the institutions, | 18:13 | |
| which support and bless and educate | 18:17 | |
| and inspire thy children. | 18:21 | |
| We intercede for the church, for the university, | 18:24 | |
| the school, the state, and the nation. | 18:28 | |
| We pray for the United Nations. | 18:34 | |
| Grant unto thy people the grace to put such content | 18:38 | |
| of justice and brotherhood into law and order | 18:43 | |
| that all these institutions for which we have prayed | 18:48 | |
| shall be strengthened. | 18:51 | |
| Give thy people the good judgment | 18:55 | |
| to support every worthwhile institution, | 18:56 | |
| to strengthen the good in them | 19:00 | |
| and to root out the bad in them, | 19:01 | |
| That peace may be realized | 19:04 | |
| and that lasting progress be made possible. | 19:07 | |
| Especially today, do we pray for the victims of strife, | 19:13 | |
| warfare in those areas of the world | 19:18 | |
| where order has broken down, | 19:21 | |
| where brotherhood is not experienced, | 19:24 | |
| where violence has taken command. | 19:27 | |
| May peace speedily come, | 19:31 | |
| and with it may justice be both discerned and followed. | 19:33 | |
| We pray for President Johnson, for President-Elect Nixon, | 19:40 | |
| that they may be shown a way to bring peace to our world, | 19:46 | |
| unity and brotherhood to our nation. | 19:50 | |
| We pray for our loved ones who are at home, | 19:55 | |
| for those who are far away, | 19:59 | |
| for roommates, friends, and sweethearts at hand. | 20:02 | |
| God, we pray for those | 20:08 | |
| who have been crippled or burned or scarred | 20:10 | |
| by the unexpected accidents and tragedies of life, | 20:16 | |
| who now find themselves facing a future with problems, | 20:20 | |
| which are new, strange, unanticipated. | 20:23 | |
| Sustain them with the good news | 20:29 | |
| that the great physician came to this world | 20:31 | |
| for the benefit of the sick and descendible. | 20:33 | |
| So give them patience to awake the final victory, | 20:37 | |
| give them light to see the next step | 20:41 | |
| and grant them eyes to see thy idyllic work on every side. | 20:44 | |
| We intercede, O God, for the alcoholic | 20:50 | |
| who has been deceived by those | 20:54 | |
| who willingly put profit above persons. | 20:55 | |
| May the alcoholic put his trust in thee | 21:00 | |
| and find that daily spiritual manner from heaven, | 21:03 | |
| which will enable him to overcome. | 21:08 | |
| Now, O God, we pray for ourselves. | 21:12 | |
| Grant that we may not live out our days | 21:16 | |
| in monotonous conformity | 21:18 | |
| as though Christ had not been raised from the dead, | 21:20 | |
| doing merely the minimum good, | 21:24 | |
| saying the trite and average words, | 21:27 | |
| behaving as the crowd behaves. | 21:30 | |
| Give us wisdom instead to know thy will for our lives. | 21:33 | |
| Give us the courage and decisiveness to live by that will, | 21:37 | |
| whatever others do. | 21:41 | |
| And in whatever circumstances that may place us, | 21:43 | |
| accompany us with a vivid sense of thy presence, | 21:48 | |
| as even now we pray for thy presence. | 21:53 | |
| Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 21:58 | |
| who has taught us when we pray to say together, | 22:00 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; | 22:05 | |
| thy kingdom come; thy will be done | 22:10 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 22:13 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread; | 22:16 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 22:19 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 22:21 | |
| And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil | 22:25 | |
| for thine is the kingdom | 22:29 | |
| and the power and the glory forever. | 22:31 | |
| Amen. | 22:35 | |
| - | Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, | 23:06 |
| bless his holy name! | 23:10 | |
| Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, | 23:12 | |
| Soon president and governor and mayor | 23:24 | |
| will summon us to count our blessings | 23:30 | |
| and render Thanksgiving | 23:32 | |
| for seasonal harvest of nature's bounty, | 23:36 | |
| greater perennial harvest of our national habitual life, | 23:43 | |
| liberty, and pursuit of happiness, | 23:49 | |
| for all the benefits of favoring circumstances | 23:53 | |
| and special privileges we enjoy more than others, | 23:57 | |
| indeed for the constitute events and historical destiny | 24:03 | |
| that enable us to be who we are and have what we have today. | 24:08 | |
| And we shall have much for which to be profoundly thankful. | 24:17 | |
| But gratitude does not come easily or naturally for some. | 24:25 | |
| Perhaps a minor word of thanks is due for the fact | 24:35 | |
| that Thanksgiving proclamations were not juxtaposed | 24:39 | |
| in this morning's paper | 24:44 | |
| with recollection of the day JFK was shot, | 24:47 | |
| or the specter of the international monetary crisis | 24:54 | |
| or sad vigils where 78 coal miners lie trapped, perhaps dead | 25:01 | |
| or even (indistinct) course. | 25:11 | |
| No glib counting of our blessings | 25:16 | |
| should ignore the stark tragedy, the parental crisis, | 25:19 | |
| the encompassing trouble for so many near and far. | 25:25 | |
| If we use our imaginations | 25:34 | |
| and allow ourselves to be sensitive | 25:38 | |
| to one other's experience, shall we, | 25:40 | |
| can we trumpet about life and liberty and happiness | 25:44 | |
| in the dark streets and teaming misery of the ghetto? | 25:49 | |
| Shall we tell the poor how much better off they are | 25:55 | |
| than their brothers in Asia or Latin America? | 25:58 | |
| Shall we remind the sufferer in physical pain | 26:03 | |
| or the patient with incurable malady | 26:08 | |
| that things could be worse? | 26:11 | |
| Shall we reassure idealistic concerned youth | 26:16 | |
| that Dallas and Memphis and Chicago are with incidents? | 26:21 | |
| Shall we comfort the declining agent | 26:31 | |
| or the defeated middle years, the neglected, | 26:34 | |
| the rejected with cheap and cheery words? | 26:40 | |
| Shall we speak to the discouraged faculty member, | 26:48 | |
| his work, which his contribution passed by, | 26:53 | |
| or the student who finds it hopeless now? | 26:58 | |
| Shall we speak grimly and easily of Thanksgiving? | 27:04 | |
| Shall we tell the burned and the bombed and the ruined | 27:11 | |
| in South Vietnam or North Vietnam, | 27:14 | |
| that all will be well at last? | 27:18 | |
| And the opera? And Nigeria? | 27:23 | |
| What are those who have come and last | 27:29 | |
| to philosophies of despair, | 27:32 | |
| whether in gentle, reluctant, regretful resignation, | 27:35 | |
| or in progressive rejection that lashes out | 27:43 | |
| at our hopes and goods and meanings? | 27:48 | |
| Mentally, we can survey the instances today. | 27:54 | |
| Purely in actuality or imagination, | 28:00 | |
| we are often with all of these, | 28:03 | |
| or close enough to guard against easy assurances | 28:06 | |
| or Pollyanna notions of blessings in disguise, | 28:11 | |
| or superficial assentation | 28:16 | |
| like that song of our youth recently reviewed, | 28:18 | |
| "Keep Your Sunny Side Up?" | 28:21 | |
| We never had it so good? | 28:24 | |
| All of this may seem as factual, | 28:31 | |
| as the adult coercing the three year old | 28:34 | |
| into saying "thank you." | 28:38 | |
| Whether we experience it personally or vicariously, | 28:43 | |
| regularly or occasionally, | 28:49 | |
| they're suffering and contradiction, and trouble enough | 28:51 | |
| to foster a habit of despair, of hopelessness, of mistrust | 28:55 | |
| and a hostile rejection. | 29:01 | |
| Or some far from us, some around us, some among us here, | 29:05 | |
| some of us at times. | 29:11 | |
| It may seem futile or ironic or cruel or even offensive | 29:14 | |
| to summon to Thanksgiving, | 29:23 | |
| to tell us we ought to be grateful, | 29:26 | |
| to exalt us, to praise. | 29:28 | |
| We either are grateful or we are not, | 29:31 | |
| and there is much for which we cannot be. | 29:36 | |
| But the extraordinary thing is that we may be, and some are, | 29:43 | |
| and some of us are, at least some of the time. | 29:49 | |
| We know persons that we know ourselves at times | 29:54 | |
| to experience a profound gratitude. | 29:58 | |
| There's a basic outlook on life: | 30:02 | |
| a gratitude for the goods that come our way to be sure, | 30:05 | |
| but also a more underlying gratitude | 30:10 | |
| despite whatever happens. | 30:12 | |
| Apparently little dependent | 30:15 | |
| on current circumstance and change. | 30:18 | |
| Indeed a sort of bias of gratitude | 30:22 | |
| built into our proceeding and interpreting | 30:26 | |
| and responding to life as much built in | 30:31 | |
| as that bias of despair, to which we have alluded. | 30:34 | |
| As we reviewed or imagined those instances of despair, | 30:41 | |
| the fostering deprivation or crisis or rejection | 30:48 | |
| in others, as well as sometimes ourselves, | 30:53 | |
| can we not also instance this bias of gratitude, | 30:56 | |
| transmuting suffering, transcending circumstance, | 31:02 | |
| triumphing over adversity, | 31:08 | |
| discerning beneath it all the good, the trustworthy, | 31:11 | |
| the supporting in the way things are, | 31:16 | |
| in others as they are, | 31:20 | |
| in growth. | 31:23 | |
| We might look back into early childhood and infancy | 31:27 | |
| where, as Erik Erikson and others will tell us, | 31:34 | |
| basic trust may be engendered, | 31:41 | |
| as fostering persons and circumstance | 31:46 | |
| become adequate to our needs, and we are at home. | 31:51 | |
| We belong. | 31:57 | |
| And perhaps because we are at home and belong early, | 31:59 | |
| experience trust and faith, confidence and love, | 32:04 | |
| perhaps we can stick it up though all the trials that come, | 32:12 | |
| however jarring or disturbing, as life goes on. | 32:17 | |
| Or perhaps in other and later experiences | 32:23 | |
| of discovering, of having discovered to us, | 32:27 | |
| what is good and trustworthy and supporting and renewing, | 32:33 | |
| in the persons we encounter, | 32:39 | |
| in love, which comes home to us, | 32:43 | |
| in meanings, which we find and absurd. | 32:47 | |
| We might look especially to our nurturing | 32:54 | |
| and celebrating communities, | 32:56 | |
| which long have awaken such trust, | 32:59 | |
| have informed such faith, have enabled such love. | 33:05 | |
| Consider our Hebrew forebears, | 33:11 | |
| their characteristic praise and trust and gratitude, | 33:15 | |
| which seems to be the most pervasive spirit | 33:20 | |
| in all scripture. | 33:23 | |
| Thankfulness for particular deeds of God | 33:27 | |
| as they perceive them in their personal and social history, | 33:31 | |
| thanks for this rescue, that deliverance, this blessing, | 33:37 | |
| this leader, that message. | 33:42 | |
| But thanks not just for daily changes | 33:46 | |
| and benefits, the blessings, | 33:52 | |
| thanks for the character of reality, | 33:57 | |
| which affords such daily thank sorry givers. | 34:00 | |
| Thanks to God. | 34:04 | |
| as they felt, perceived him, responded to him, | 34:08 | |
| celebrated him in praise. | 34:15 | |
| And as we find him in Hebrew scripture, | 34:21 | |
| relevant with praise, characterized by the songs, | 34:26 | |
| this informing, shaping power in our own life and thought, | 34:33 | |
| so we find it all the more consummated | 34:40 | |
| in the New Testament witness with the same God | 34:42 | |
| thanked for his saving manifestation in Jesus Christ | 34:48 | |
| and for the new kind of community of love and forgiveness | 34:53 | |
| and renewal brought into being by his presence among us. | 34:59 | |
| Deep down What they were thankful for, | 35:06 | |
| what they have somehow impressed on us to be thankful for, | 35:10 | |
| was what? | 35:16 | |
| What it was? | 35:18 | |
| What God was? | 35:19 | |
| What God is? | 35:21 | |
| And they rooted an ethic in that praise. | 35:24 | |
| Over and over, | 35:28 | |
| they could call the roll of the heroes of the faith | 35:28 | |
| and someone us to belong to and carry on their tradition, | 35:34 | |
| or they could recount the great saving deeds of God | 35:40 | |
| in their history and say, "therefore," | 35:44 | |
| and call us to faithful belonging and service. | 35:50 | |
| Thankfulness for action of the same good God | 35:57 | |
| in their history, | 36:02 | |
| in Jesus Christ and all down the ages in the church. | 36:04 | |
| This has been a nurturing, forming, | 36:10 | |
| empowering influence in our life. | 36:15 | |
| And we are beneficiaries | 36:18 | |
| of such profound, pervasive gratitude, | 36:20 | |
| and our celebration of it keeps engendering it in us | 36:24 | |
| and enabling parents to awaken basic trust and faith | 36:29 | |
| and gratitude and love in children, | 36:36 | |
| and enabling members of the fellowship | 36:40 | |
| to overcome for one another the distorting and disturbing | 36:43 | |
| and despairing experiences of life. | 36:49 | |
| So that the psalms become our songs, | 36:54 | |
| and the New Testament deontologies, our deontologies, | 36:57 | |
| and handles Messiah our recurring celebration | 37:01 | |
| of the way things are. | 37:05 | |
| That is the way we have been given | 37:08 | |
| to proceed and interpret and respond. | 37:12 | |
| And so our worship is basically an expression of praise | 37:17 | |
| of Thanksgiving, the Eucharist, | 37:22 | |
| and that means thanks-giving, blessing | 37:27 | |
| has been the central event, commemorating and reconstituting | 37:31 | |
| the Christian community | 37:37 | |
| coming from its Jewish and Hebrew, forebears. | 37:39 | |
| It maybe sometimes that our own present community's | 37:44 | |
| ways of saying, of rehearsing deterring, archaic | 37:49 | |
| seem irrelevant to some. | 37:56 | |
| I for one way, way on that other side of the generation gap, | 38:00 | |
| can find some of the traditional language | 38:06 | |
| especially expressing of my faith and my thanks-giving. | 38:11 | |
| Indeed, some of the Greek prayers and the songs | 38:17 | |
| bear witness to the nature of faith | 38:23 | |
| far beyond all the formulations of theologians, | 38:25 | |
| all the propositions and books, | 38:28 | |
| because they somehow catch us up into a living relationship | 38:31 | |
| with that sustaining and gratitude evolving beyond. | 38:38 | |
| And so I can pray and theologize with words like these: | 38:44 | |
| Almighty God, Father of all mercies, | 38:51 | |
| we, thine unworthy servants, | 38:57 | |
| do give thee most humble and hearty thanks | 38:59 | |
| for all thy goodness and lovingkindness to us, | 39:03 | |
| and to all men; | 39:08 | |
| We bless thee for our creation, preservation, | 39:11 | |
| and all the blessings of this life; | 39:15 | |
| but above all, for thine inestimable love | 39:18 | |
| in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; | 39:22 | |
| for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. | 39:28 | |
| And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense | 39:34 | |
| of all thy mercies that our hearts | 39:37 | |
| may be unfeignedly thankful; | 39:40 | |
| and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, | 39:43 | |
| but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, | 39:46 | |
| and by walking before thee in holiness | 39:52 | |
| and righteousness all our days; | 39:54 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, | 39:57 | |
| to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, | 40:00 | |
| be all honor and glory, world without end. | 40:04 | |
| Amen. | 40:08 | |
| I say these great words of historic prayer, | 40:11 | |
| ancient and meaningful to some of our | 40:19 | |
| who closer to ancient times, turn me on. | 40:21 | |
| Do they turn you on? | 40:26 | |
| Possibly not. | 40:30 | |
| It's strange how those of us who are accustomed | 40:35 | |
| to traditional ways of celebrating, | 40:37 | |
| fail to understand, to respond to, | 40:42 | |
| to see meaning and value in some new ways of celebration. | 40:46 | |
| We may not recognize the profound gratitude, | 40:52 | |
| what I call bias of gratitude, which wells up | 40:59 | |
| in some of the new celebrations of the world today, | 41:06 | |
| and especially of youth. | 41:11 | |
| Those of us who are nurtured in older times | 41:14 | |
| and smaller towns, find it to be as strange | 41:17 | |
| and somewhat musing to celebrate, for example, | 41:22 | |
| the secular city, or to recognize the speeding technology | 41:27 | |
| as God gift to be used for his (indistinct), | 41:38 | |
| or to share enthusiastically with youth | 41:47 | |
| new discoveries of community, | 41:50 | |
| with ways and manners different from our generation. | 41:53 | |
| New appreciations of nature, of the body, of sexuality, | 41:59 | |
| new styles of dress or hair, | 42:07 | |
| New styles of ethical theory and decision. | 42:12 | |
| Indeed, some of the new crusade among us, | 42:17 | |
| which scare us of older generation, | 42:21 | |
| with their rejection of our accustomed compromises, | 42:25 | |
| our hidden acculturation with their reiteration of ideals | 42:30 | |
| and their extraordinary commitment to their realization. | 42:36 | |
| Can we celebrate with them the underlying profound gratitude | 42:40 | |
| for the way things are and the way things need to be changed | 42:49 | |
| to accord with that ultimate reality? | 42:54 | |
| Just this week, I saw a rather poignant standoff, | 42:59 | |
| a radical youth and entire age, | 43:05 | |
| as a group of students in another city | 43:11 | |
| told it like it is, for an assembly of courtroom, | 43:17 | |
| and with perhaps two sweeping generalization, | 43:24 | |
| and quite obviously unsympathetic view | 43:28 | |
| of the older generation, and a hostility at times, | 43:31 | |
| but with a glue of enthusiasm and an obvious commitment, | 43:40 | |
| they talked about how the system had to be changed, | 43:48 | |
| how the establishment had to go, | 43:52 | |
| because of the way things now are impinging upon | 43:57 | |
| and morphing and hurting the light of men, | 44:01 | |
| of men and women and youth | 44:05 | |
| with whom they felt close kinship | 44:08 | |
| and with whom some of tired liberals around | 44:12 | |
| had almost given (indistinct). | 44:16 | |
| What was the point? | 44:20 | |
| Especially because here on the other side, | 44:22 | |
| were others who also with profound gratitude | 44:25 | |
| for the way things are had labored long and hard | 44:31 | |
| and made the tragic compromises | 44:36 | |
| that come with middle age and beyond, | 44:38 | |
| had adjusted to the restrictions and the difficulties | 44:43 | |
| of life around, | 44:47 | |
| and the blatantly called out for youth's recognition | 44:50 | |
| of the way they had tried to prepare the way. | 44:57 | |
| But here they stood in tension, | 45:03 | |
| almost completely at odds | 45:07 | |
| youth denouncing age, and age preaching back to youth. | 45:12 | |
| Futility. | 45:18 | |
| And yet down underneath it, | 45:20 | |
| one could discern extraordinary commonality, | 45:23 | |
| as these vigorous idealistic, radical Christian youth | 45:29 | |
| expressed in their way a bias of gratitude | 45:36 | |
| for the way God is and what God calls for in this life, | 45:41 | |
| and enthusiastic commitment | 45:47 | |
| to bringing life into accord with that reality. | 45:49 | |
| And in a sense, they were saying to their elders: | 45:54 | |
| "We're taking up the torch that you have left with," | 45:58 | |
| and if their elders could only have seen it, and some did, | 46:04 | |
| and some celebrated too, | 46:08 | |
| there was a loyalty to what they had been teaching, | 46:12 | |
| and what they had regretfully failed to see realize. | 46:18 | |
| But now what they could celebrate gratefully | 46:23 | |
| as abrupt coming (indistinct), | 46:28 | |
| at least until those youth to discover | 46:32 | |
| how the world bears in with a compromise | 46:36 | |
| and its failures and its tragedies. | 46:39 | |
| But hear what has a sense from both sides | 46:44 | |
| of the generation gap, | 46:47 | |
| that advice of gratitude and of loyalty | 46:51 | |
| to the way things are | 46:56 | |
| as our community has perceived and celebrated, | 46:58 | |
| there's such a bias both regnant to the ideals of the old | 47:04 | |
| and the ideals of the young. | 47:11 | |
| This is a kind of bias then has been engendered in us | 47:14 | |
| by our own privileged participation in a national community, | 47:18 | |
| but even more, a faith community, | 47:23 | |
| which awakens us to this strand of | 47:26 | |
| or this way of looking at reality. | 47:29 | |
| What does it come to for us? | 47:35 | |
| Not so much a telling of others to others, | 47:39 | |
| that they should be grateful in some cheap and easy way, | 47:42 | |
| but rather the kind of witnessing | 47:48 | |
| in our own attitudes toward them | 47:51 | |
| and in our concern over what life is doing to them | 47:57 | |
| and in our generous action to right wrongs | 48:02 | |
| and change circumstances, | 48:07 | |
| a of witnessing that eventually convinces others to it, | 48:09 | |
| (indistinct) and morrow | 48:15 | |
| (indistinct) this grateful moment. | 48:19 | |
| One thinks of many ways in which a congregation like this | 48:25 | |
| would bear witness, | 48:31 | |
| trust in the order of worship this morning bulletin, | 48:33 | |
| a word about new openings for service | 48:38 | |
| in Bolivia and Nicaragua. | 48:42 | |
| And one thinks close by of Edgemont and our ministry there, | 48:47 | |
| and a way some can participate directly in others | 48:52 | |
| with generous support. | 48:56 | |
| One thinks of a man who stood in this pulpit | 48:59 | |
| a few months ago, a former secretary | 49:02 | |
| of the World Council Churches, | 49:06 | |
| who was going back to India, had gone back to India, | 49:10 | |
| to take the headship | 49:14 | |
| for a little theological seminary there. | 49:15 | |
| And the conversation we had after (indistinct), | 49:19 | |
| is casual information about the life of the seminary | 49:23 | |
| in response to our requirements? | 49:29 | |
| 69 students, nine faculty members, | 49:32 | |
| students whose room and board and tuition and total expenses | 49:38 | |
| were paid from the seminary funds | 49:44 | |
| because they hadn't enough to come otherwise. | 49:48 | |
| And then the realization that dawned on us, | 49:53 | |
| we couldn't hear him when he said it first, | 49:58 | |
| the realization that the total budget | 50:01 | |
| for the nine faculty members, their salary and upkeep, | 50:04 | |
| and for the 69 students, their total maintenance, $11,000, | 50:07 | |
| touch to the quick, we wondered how we could be held | 50:20 | |
| if our seminary, our university might not send special aid. | 50:24 | |
| And then discovered that they were not asking special aid. | 50:31 | |
| They intended to live within their situation. | 50:37 | |
| What they were asking for though | 50:41 | |
| was that we of the church begin to take responsibility | 50:44 | |
| for transforming the ethos of our nation, | 50:50 | |
| to the place where we see that some | 50:54 | |
| of our great national products, | 50:58 | |
| be available for other developing | 51:04 | |
| and leading nations like this, | 51:07 | |
| due to bias of gratitude engendered in us | 51:13 | |
| by the way our faith community has taught us | 51:19 | |
| how things are. | 51:24 | |
| And we made, if this is all men and liberating | 51:28 | |
| and enabling, we may help to make a new way (indistinct). | 51:33 | |
| Bless the Lord, O my soul; | 51:43 | |
| and all that is within me, bless his holy name! | 51:45 | |
| Bless the Lord, O my soul, | 51:49 | |
| and forget not all his benefits. | 51:52 | |
| Amen. | 51:56 | |
| (bright organ music) | 52:00 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 52:27 | |
| (dramatic bright organ music) | 54:08 | |
| (gentle organ music) | 54:38 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 55:05 | |
| (light uplifting organ music) | 1:00:08 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 1:00:34 | |
| (bright organ music) | 1:03:39 | |
| ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ | 1:04:03 | |
| ♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪ | 1:04:10 | |
| ♪ Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts ♪ | 1:04:16 | |
| ♪ Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost ♪ | 1:04:23 | |
| - | Worthy is the Lamb that was slain | 1:04:40 |
| and has redeemed us to God, by his blood | 1:04:43 | |
| to receive power and riches, and wisdom and strength, | 1:04:46 | |
| and honor, and glory, and blessings. | 1:04:52 | |
| Therefore, O God, we present thee offerings of our money, | 1:04:55 | |
| of our time and health, for his glory and his youth. | 1:05:00 | |
| Now may the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ be with us all. | 1:05:09 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:05:25 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:05:32 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:05:40 |