Bradford S. Abernethy - "A Time for Presence" (April 20, 1969)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(church choir singing) | 0:05 | |
- | Beloved, may we unite our hearts and our voices | 5:22 |
in our unison prayer of confession and for pardon? | 5:26 | |
Let us pray. | 5:30 | |
Oh Lord, Holy and Righteous God, | 5:32 | |
we acknowledge before thee, | 5:36 | |
that we do not fear thee, | 5:38 | |
and that we do not love thee above all things. | 5:40 | |
We do not delight in prayer, nor take pleasure in thy word. | 5:44 | |
We do not really love our neighbor. | 5:49 | |
We lack the conscience | 5:52 | |
that should accompany our Christian profession. | 5:53 | |
Our hearts are divided, | 5:57 | |
crossed by doubts, and guilty desires. | 5:59 | |
We accuse ourselves before thee, oh God. | 6:02 | |
We implore thee whose nature and whose name is love | 6:06 | |
to for forgive us. | 6:10 | |
And in forgiving, to heal us, | 6:12 | |
so that in our lives, | 6:15 | |
something will finally be changed, Amen. | 6:16 | |
From the book of Micah, | 6:23 | |
we find words which are comforting | 6:25 | |
to those who are sincerely sorry for their sins. | 6:28 | |
The prophet says, | 6:34 | |
"Who is like unto God, | 6:37 | |
who pardons inequity, and passes over transgression. | 6:40 | |
He does not retain His anger forever, | 6:45 | |
because He delights in steadfast love. | 6:49 | |
He will again have compassion upon us. | 6:53 | |
He will tread our equities under foot. | 6:56 | |
He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." | 6:59 | |
Amen. | 7:04 | |
(organ pipe music) | 7:14 | |
(church choir singing) | 7:55 | |
- | "Now, Moses tending the flock | 10:14 |
of his father-in-law, Jethro the priest of Midian, | 10:17 | |
drove the flock into the wilderness | 10:20 | |
and came to Horeb, the Mountain of God. | 10:23 | |
An angel of the Lord appeared to him | 10:26 | |
in a blazing fire out of a bush. | 10:28 | |
An angel of the Lord appeared to him. | 10:31 | |
He gazed and there was a bush, all aflame. | 10:34 | |
Yet the Bush was not consumed. | 10:37 | |
Moses said, 'I must turn aside | 10:39 | |
to look at this marvelous sight. | 10:42 | |
Why is the Bush not burned?' | 10:44 | |
When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, | 10:46 | |
God called him out of the Bush, 'Moses, Moses.' | 10:49 | |
He answered, 'Here I am.' | 10:53 | |
And He said, 'Do not come closer. | 10:56 | |
Remove your sandals from your feet, | 10:58 | |
for the place in which you stand his Holy ground.' | 11:01 | |
'I Am,' He said the God of your father, the God of Abraham, | 11:04 | |
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. | 11:09 | |
And Moses hid his face, | 11:12 | |
for he was afraid to look at God. | 11:14 | |
And the Lord continue you, 'I have marked well, | 11:16 | |
the plight of my people in Egypt, | 11:19 | |
and have headed their outcry because of their task masters. | 11:21 | |
Yes, I am mindful of their sufferings. | 11:25 | |
I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians, | 11:28 | |
and to bring them out of that land | 11:31 | |
to a good and spacious land, | 11:33 | |
a land flowing with milk and honey. | 11:35 | |
The home of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, | 11:39 | |
the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. | 11:43 | |
Now the cry of Israelites has reached me. | 11:48 | |
Moreover, I have seen how the Egyptians | 11:51 | |
have oppressed them. | 11:53 | |
Come therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, | 11:55 | |
and you shall free my people, | 11:57 | |
the Israelites from Egypt.' | 11:59 | |
But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh | 12:02 | |
and free the Israelites from Egypt?' | 12:06 | |
And He said, 'I will be with you. | 12:09 | |
And it shall be your sign, that it was I who sent you. | 12:11 | |
And when you have freed the people of Egypt, | 12:15 | |
you shall worship God at this mountain.' | 12:17 | |
Moses said to God, 'When I come to the Israelites | 12:20 | |
and say to them, 'The God of your fathers | 12:23 | |
has sent me to you.' | 12:25 | |
And they ask me, 'What is His name?' | 12:26 | |
What shall I say to them?' | 12:30 | |
And God said to Moses, 'Ehyeh asher ehyeh.' | 12:32 | |
He continued, 'Thus shall you say to the Israelite, | 12:36 | |
Ehyeh sent me to you.' | 12:39 | |
And God said further to Moses, | 12:41 | |
'Thus shall you speak to the Israelis, | 12:43 | |
the Lord, the God of your fathers, | 12:46 | |
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, | 12:48 | |
the God of Jacob has sent me to you. | 12:51 | |
This should be my name forever. | 12:54 | |
This my appellation for all eternity.'" | 12:56 | |
(organ pipe music) | 13:02 | |
(church choir singing) | 13:09 | |
- | The Lord be with you. | 13:58 |
- | And with your spirit. | 14:00 |
- | Let us pray. | 14:02 |
Our heavenly Father, in the quietness of this moment, | 14:11 | |
we turn our thoughts to you. | 14:16 | |
We now wish to approach you in prayer. | 14:20 | |
We praise you for the great privilege, which is ours, | 14:23 | |
to bring our human needs to your divine attention. | 14:27 | |
We glorify you that in times past, | 14:32 | |
you have heard of our prayers, | 14:35 | |
and that you have answered them with a loving wisdom | 14:38 | |
greater than ours. | 14:40 | |
Oh God, we thank you that today, | 14:43 | |
as we come here to renew our prayers, | 14:46 | |
there is fresh grace available to supply our necessity. | 14:49 | |
We thank you that we were given enough grace | 14:55 | |
to desire to worship. | 14:58 | |
And we give you thanks that all who seek, find. | 15:00 | |
And that to all who knock, the door of your love is opened. | 15:06 | |
We come acknowledging our unpayable indebtedness | 15:12 | |
to you, oh Lord, | 15:15 | |
because of your unnumbered benefits to us. | 15:17 | |
You have met repentance with forgiveness. | 15:21 | |
You have rewarded our high aspirations. | 15:25 | |
You have strengthened our feeble efforts for right. | 15:28 | |
You have given us the material necessities of existence. | 15:32 | |
We thank you, Almighty God for these, | 15:37 | |
and all other mercies. | 15:40 | |
And now we come to offer unto you our petitions | 15:43 | |
for new blessings. | 15:46 | |
And we pray that you will send these blessings | 15:48 | |
not on upon us and our own people, | 15:51 | |
but upon all your children in every place. | 15:55 | |
Give us hearts which regularly care | 16:00 | |
for all whom you have made. | 16:03 | |
Take away from us those self-centered tendencies, | 16:06 | |
which frequently lead us even to pray chiefly for ourselves. | 16:10 | |
Remove from our hearts, oh God, the sham and pretense, | 16:16 | |
which so often spoil our religious life. | 16:21 | |
Keep us from complimenting the church, | 16:26 | |
while we fail to heed its gospel. | 16:29 | |
Deliver us from pious sounding talk about the Bible, | 16:33 | |
while we ignore your living word. | 16:36 | |
May we not substitute neat prayers in church | 16:41 | |
for genuine communication and confrontation with you | 16:45 | |
in the secret places of our hearts. | 16:48 | |
Oh Lord, let this time of worship be used by your spirit | 16:53 | |
to accomplish these things for which we have prayed. | 16:57 | |
We come now to intercede for our university, | 17:04 | |
asking that the spiritual purposes | 17:07 | |
which motivated its birth, may now strengthen its youth. | 17:10 | |
We ask you to strengthen the leaders of school, | 17:16 | |
of state, and of nation, | 17:19 | |
that your people may be wisely led by inspired men. | 17:22 | |
We pray, oh God, for those who mourn a loved one. | 17:30 | |
We pray for those who have had an accident. | 17:36 | |
For those who seek to regain their health. | 17:40 | |
For those who are aiding the sick, find health. | 17:44 | |
May all who need thy special providence, | 17:48 | |
find it through thy love. | 17:51 | |
Our Father, we pray that you will fulfill | 17:56 | |
the longing of our souls for a vision of you. | 17:59 | |
You have made us in your image, | 18:04 | |
and we cannot be satisfied with our fellowship with you. | 18:06 | |
Our hearts and our flesh cry out for the living God. | 18:11 | |
Give us so to know Christ and His life, | 18:17 | |
at the same mind, which was in Him, may be in us. | 18:20 | |
That we may be in the world as He was in the world. | 18:25 | |
Give us so to know Christ and his death, | 18:30 | |
that we may not glory except in his cross. | 18:34 | |
Give us so to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, | 18:38 | |
that like, as He was raised from the dead | 18:42 | |
by the power of the Father, | 18:45 | |
we also may walk in newness of life | 18:47 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 18:51 | |
Now, remembering the words | 18:56 | |
which Christ has taught us to pray. | 18:57 | |
We say our, Father who art Heaven | 19:01 | |
hallowed would be thy name | 19:05 | |
thy kingdom come, | 19:07 | |
thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. | 19:09 | |
Give us this day, our daily bread | 19:13 | |
and forgive us our trespasses | 19:16 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us | 19:18 | |
and lead us, not into temptation, | 19:22 | |
but deliver us from evil, | 19:24 | |
for thine is the kingdom, | 19:26 | |
and the power, and the glory forever, Amen. | 19:28 | |
- | If a very brief personal word of appreciation | 19:49 |
may be allowed at this time | 19:53 | |
for the invitation to preach in this chapel, | 19:56 | |
I should like to express it. | 20:00 | |
It is good for those of us who come | 20:04 | |
from small intimate colonial chapels, | 20:07 | |
with small intimate congregations | 20:13 | |
to see how the other half lives. | 20:17 | |
And furthermore, it has never before happened, | 20:21 | |
that when I have preached in the chapel of a friend of mine, | 20:26 | |
that he has been able to provide as the lector, | 20:33 | |
the daughter of another college chaplain, | 20:37 | |
whom I have known for many years. | 20:39 | |
So, for many reasons, | 20:42 | |
I have reason to be grateful | 20:44 | |
for these expressions of Southern hospitality. | 20:46 | |
We had a few friends in for dinner in the evening, | 20:52 | |
not long ago. | 20:57 | |
And since it was a group which in age, | 20:59 | |
at least had long since ceased to be trustworthy, | 21:03 | |
I thought a pencil and paper game | 21:08 | |
might be in order. | 21:12 | |
And one of these was an observation game. | 21:15 | |
Each person was given three minutes to study a picture, | 21:19 | |
the same picture for everyone, | 21:25 | |
knowing that at the end of the three minutes, | 21:28 | |
certain questions would be asked about the picture, | 21:30 | |
which would test their powers of observation. | 21:35 | |
It was a drawing of a house, | 21:39 | |
which judging from footprints entering and leaving the door, | 21:42 | |
had presumably been burgled. | 21:49 | |
And there were clues in the picture as to the time of day | 21:52 | |
the vandalism occurred, whose house it was, | 21:56 | |
in what direction the burglar had fled, et cetera. | 21:59 | |
At the end of the three minutes, | 22:04 | |
time was called and the papers were turned over. | 22:06 | |
And I reached for the printed sheet | 22:10 | |
of questions to be asked. | 22:12 | |
To my great surprise and dismay, | 22:15 | |
I discovered that what I had | 22:19 | |
was the printed sheet of answers. | 22:21 | |
It had been some time since we had played the game, | 22:26 | |
and I had thought to check | 22:28 | |
to see if all the necessary parts were at hand. | 22:30 | |
So, there I was, assembled guests | 22:33 | |
eager to display their powers of observation, | 22:37 | |
and I had answers, but no questions. | 22:40 | |
And obviously, the game took an unexpected turn. | 22:44 | |
As I found it necessary to say, | 22:48 | |
for example, what would question 17 be? | 22:50 | |
The answer to which is yes. | 22:54 | |
(congregation laughing) | 22:57 | |
I must say, it made it a bit difficult to grade | 23:01 | |
to determine which question did the best job | 23:06 | |
of eliciting the answer, yes. | 23:08 | |
But I'm not at all sure, we didn't have a better time | 23:10 | |
than if we had played it straight. | 23:14 | |
Now, this experience will help to account | 23:17 | |
for the particular tack we're going to take this morning. | 23:19 | |
A fairly common, and perfectly respectable, | 23:24 | |
and legitimate type of sermon, | 23:28 | |
is the problem centered sermon. | 23:30 | |
It begins as the game did, by inviting the hearers | 23:34 | |
to observe something that is going on in the world. | 23:38 | |
Can be the state of affairs in Vietnam, | 23:44 | |
or South Africa, or Washington, or New Brunswick, or Durham. | 23:46 | |
It can be the state of race relations, | 23:50 | |
or of contemporary immorality, | 23:52 | |
or this revolting student generation, | 23:54 | |
or almost anything. | 23:59 | |
The listeners are asked to observe something | 24:02 | |
the preacher has observed. | 24:05 | |
They may not see it the way he does, | 24:08 | |
but they will usually not walk out on him. | 24:11 | |
The next stage in this type of sermon, | 24:15 | |
is to focus on one or more questions, | 24:18 | |
which presumably, arise for the hero | 24:22 | |
out of the observations he has just engaged in such as, | 24:24 | |
what is my role as a Christian with respect to Vietnam? | 24:29 | |
Or how can one live serenely | 24:35 | |
in this pressure cooker type of society? | 24:39 | |
Or how can one find viable moral standards, | 24:43 | |
or find what it takes to want to keep them | 24:47 | |
after they have been found? | 24:50 | |
Or how can the university be both a free | 24:53 | |
and a disciplined community? | 24:56 | |
In this stage, you see the observed situation | 25:00 | |
is hopefully brought to assume | 25:04 | |
some kind of personal dimension. | 25:07 | |
The third stage, if the preacher ever gets to it, | 25:12 | |
is the search for, or consideration of possible answers. | 25:14 | |
They are customarily sought in the biblical witness. | 25:21 | |
And it is at this point, | 25:25 | |
that difficulties are up to be most numerous | 25:26 | |
for both preacher and listeners, | 25:29 | |
for it is not easy | 25:30 | |
to span 2000 years or more, | 25:33 | |
and sound convincing in offering a biblical solution | 25:36 | |
to the problem of what the Christian ought to do | 25:42 | |
about Vietnam, or student demonstrations, | 25:45 | |
or any of the other things which he has observed. | 25:48 | |
I'm sure we lose a lot of our listeners at this point. | 25:53 | |
And since that is so, | 25:57 | |
I wonder whether one might experimentally, | 25:58 | |
at least turn the whole method upside down. | 26:02 | |
Instead of saying what answers can we find | 26:07 | |
in the biblical record to questions that confront us. | 26:10 | |
Suppose we were to say, what questions can we find | 26:17 | |
for answers that confront us in the biblical record? | 26:23 | |
Is what means starting with answers, | 26:29 | |
and looking for the questions | 26:32 | |
to which those answers applied, | 26:34 | |
and then seeing whether the questions were still valid. | 26:36 | |
I doubt whether a sermon is the best vehicle | 26:41 | |
for this kind of experiment, | 26:45 | |
but it is the handiest one available to me, | 26:47 | |
at least at the moment. | 26:50 | |
Let me suggest one phrase. | 26:53 | |
There are many others, of course, | 26:56 | |
which might be considered in the category | 26:58 | |
of a biblical answer. | 27:00 | |
The gist or substance of it | 27:05 | |
appears with sufficient frequency | 27:07 | |
that we may consider it | 27:08 | |
one of the Almighty's standard answers. | 27:10 | |
The phrase is, "I shall be present." | 27:14 | |
We meet the phrase of, or if you will, the answer | 27:22 | |
first in the episode of Moses in the Bush, | 27:25 | |
which burned but was not consumed. | 27:27 | |
If you do not recall hearing it | 27:32 | |
in the lesson which was read, | 27:34 | |
it is because there are any number | 27:37 | |
of ways of translating the name of himself, | 27:39 | |
which God gave to Moses, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh." | 27:42 | |
Translated in the King James, "I Am that I Am." | 27:49 | |
In the Revised Standard Version, "I Am Who I am." | 27:53 | |
Martin Buber in his book, | 27:58 | |
Moses makes a persuasive case for rendering it, | 28:00 | |
"I shall be present" | 28:03 | |
A wording which brings out the reality | 28:07 | |
for which the name stood | 28:10 | |
rather than the enigmatic name itself. | 28:12 | |
Appearing first in connection | 28:19 | |
with the calling of an individual, | 28:20 | |
the idea is met soon again | 28:23 | |
in connect with the birth of the Israelite community | 28:26 | |
at their Exodus from Egypt. | 28:29 | |
"I will go before you, | 28:32 | |
a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night." | 28:35 | |
Ezekiel has this word of the Lord | 28:41 | |
for those about to be carried into exile, | 28:44 | |
"I will be to them a little sanctuary | 28:46 | |
in the place where they shall go." | 28:50 | |
The Psalmist reflects his awareness | 28:52 | |
of it in the familiar "23rd Song." | 28:56 | |
And we could pick up the thread of this theme answer | 29:01 | |
at many places in the New Testament, | 29:04 | |
though, here it is often spoken with the accents of, | 29:07 | |
or in respect to Christ. | 29:10 | |
"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." | 29:13 | |
"Who shall separate us," say A. Paul, | 29:20 | |
"from the love of Christ." | 29:22 | |
And he is persuaded that nothing in this world | 29:24 | |
or the next, would be able to do that. | 29:27 | |
All of these you see are expressions in one way or another | 29:29 | |
of this basic biblical answer, | 29:33 | |
"I shall be present." | 29:37 | |
Now, what was the question | 29:44 | |
to which this was the answer given? | 29:46 | |
There is I think a sameness about the question. | 29:50 | |
In its simplest form, the question begins, what am I? | 29:54 | |
Or what are we going to do when.... | 29:59 | |
That unfinished sentence. | 30:06 | |
Moses, "What am I going to do when my brethren in Egypt | 30:10 | |
want know by what right I have come back | 30:14 | |
to lead them out of bondage, and who sent me?" | 30:16 | |
The Israelites, "What are we going to do | 30:21 | |
when we are on our own in the wilderness, | 30:25 | |
or later in the far country of exile?" | 30:28 | |
The Psalmist, "What am I going to do | 30:33 | |
when I'm face-to-face with the inescapable fact of death?" | 30:37 | |
The disciples, "What are we going to do, Lord, | 30:44 | |
when you are no longer here to show us the way?" | 30:47 | |
St. Paul, "What am I going to do in the event | 30:52 | |
that persecution, and famine, and threats of all kind | 30:57 | |
bear down on me and martyrdom looms?" | 31:00 | |
These were the specific questions to which the answer, | 31:05 | |
"I shall be present" was offered. | 31:11 | |
And the questions all have, | 31:16 | |
the common element of genuine wonder, | 31:18 | |
which verges at times on panic, | 31:21 | |
wonder as to whether man really could hold up | 31:24 | |
in the face of his respective tumultuous surrounding. | 31:28 | |
What remains now, is to inquire | 31:37 | |
whether anyone is asking this sort of question anymore? | 31:41 | |
Can there be any doubt of it? | 31:48 | |
I suspect one does not have to pile evidence on evidence | 31:53 | |
in this kind of congregation, | 31:58 | |
that this kind of question is still with us, | 32:01 | |
what am I going to do when thus and so? | 32:05 | |
Still being uttered in genuine puzzlement | 32:11 | |
and often in near panic, | 32:14 | |
it is voiced collectively and individually. | 32:15 | |
And one may have in mind, | 32:20 | |
the worsening international situation, | 32:22 | |
or a career change, or a family crisis, | 32:24 | |
or impending graduation, | 32:27 | |
or a situation in which one | 32:29 | |
has morally fallen flat on his face. | 32:32 | |
Or academic requirements, | 32:35 | |
which seem out of proportion to one's capabilities. | 32:37 | |
To all intents and purposes, | 32:42 | |
it is the same question we met in the biblical record. | 32:43 | |
What am I going to do when? | 32:48 | |
And this brings us full cycle round | 32:52 | |
to considering the answer again, | 32:54 | |
that strange and perhaps puzzling answer, | 32:58 | |
"I shall be present." | 33:03 | |
Now, this is an unusual answer, admittedly, | 33:07 | |
and on the surface, it is not very satisfactory. | 33:09 | |
If you were to feed a problem to a computer, | 33:13 | |
and it came up with the answer, "I shall be present," | 33:16 | |
you would have every right | 33:20 | |
to think that someone had been playing around | 33:21 | |
with the circuitry. | 33:23 | |
The very idea | 33:26 | |
of an unseen Presence, capital P, | 33:28 | |
let alone the possibility of its being felt | 33:33 | |
in any recognizable sort of way, | 33:36 | |
has I think to meet two obstacles. | 33:41 | |
One of these, is the reluctance of many in our time | 33:44 | |
to give any house at all, to the idea of the supernatural. | 33:49 | |
An interesting and worthwhile contribution to this issue, | 33:57 | |
is to be found in Peter Berger's new book, | 34:01 | |
"A Rumor of Angels." | 34:03 | |
Professor Berger is professor of sociology | 34:06 | |
at the New School for Social Research in New York. | 34:08 | |
And he subtitles his book, "Modern Society, | 34:10 | |
and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural." | 34:14 | |
It is a book which is concerned basically | 34:18 | |
with a relation between theology and anthropology. | 34:20 | |
"In traditional Christian and Jewish thought," he says, | 34:28 | |
"we begin with God and proceed in despair, or in hope, | 34:31 | |
or alternating between them | 34:38 | |
to consider who or what man is and how he got that way." | 34:39 | |
Now, Berger refers to this as deductive faith. | 34:45 | |
Faith which moves from statements about God, | 34:50 | |
given statements, | 34:53 | |
to interpretations of human experience. | 34:54 | |
And in as much as many today, | 34:57 | |
simply don't find that way of moving | 34:59 | |
congenial or meaningful, | 35:01 | |
he consider there's the possibility of inductive faith, | 35:03 | |
moving from human experience | 35:07 | |
to statements about ultimate reality. | 35:10 | |
Now, he enumerates several human experiences | 35:15 | |
that are so common | 35:20 | |
as to appear to express something fundamental about man. | 35:22 | |
And in these experiences, | 35:27 | |
he feels there may be found what he calls | 35:30 | |
Signals of Transcendence. | 35:32 | |
A very graphic and a very useful phrase, I think. | 35:35 | |
And by Signals of Transcendence, | 35:39 | |
he means, phenomena that are to be found | 35:42 | |
within the domain of our natural reality, | 35:45 | |
but which appeared to point beyond that reality. | 35:49 | |
One basic human trait, for example, in Berger's view, | 35:55 | |
is man's propensity for order. | 35:58 | |
He takes a number of these, this is only one of them. | 36:02 | |
And he uses the example of a child waking up in the night | 36:05 | |
from a frightening dream, | 36:09 | |
crying out in the darkness for his mother. | 36:12 | |
Father will usually do, I might add, he often does. | 36:16 | |
The parent will turn on the light and sit down on the bed, | 36:22 | |
stroke the child's head and say softly, "It's all right, | 36:27 | |
don't be afraid, everything's all right." | 36:33 | |
And if it has been just a bad dream, | 36:39 | |
the child's trust in his world is restored, | 36:42 | |
and he goes back to sleep. | 36:46 | |
Now, parenthetically, I might say here, | 36:50 | |
I don't know how it is with all modern parents | 36:51 | |
of young children. | 36:55 | |
Perhaps there are some who would not turn on | 36:57 | |
the comforting light, | 37:00 | |
and who would announce from the door, | 37:02 | |
"Sunny boy, you have just discovered something basic | 37:04 | |
about life, it's all a bad dream, so get used to it." | 37:07 | |
But I would still wager that such parents are rare excepts, | 37:14 | |
and that for some time to come, yet, | 37:20 | |
little children can count on the light | 37:22 | |
and the reassuring voice, "It's all right." | 37:24 | |
Now, we know perfectly well, everything is not all right. | 37:30 | |
But what keeps the parents word to the child | 37:35 | |
from being a lie, a bear-faced lie, | 37:38 | |
is a deep and often admitted | 37:43 | |
faith in orderliness at the root of things. | 37:46 | |
This kind of experience, | 37:52 | |
one of the most common and routine for parents, | 37:54 | |
provides Berger with one of his Signals of Transcendence. | 37:59 | |
It proves nothing, it points to nothing specifically. | 38:04 | |
It points in the direction of, | 38:08 | |
an ultimate reality. | 38:11 | |
The parent's role is a witness to something ultimately true, | 38:15 | |
pointing to a reality beyond the immediate darkness, | 38:20 | |
and the momentary terror. | 38:24 | |
Through such Signals of Transcendence, | 38:28 | |
one may perhaps come to live more easily in this time | 38:31 | |
with the idea, at least, of the supernatural, | 38:37 | |
A second obstacle that has to be met, | 38:44 | |
if the idea of a Presence is to be accepted, | 38:47 | |
is the proposition that it's truth | 38:52 | |
is going to be apparent only after one has trusted it. | 38:53 | |
Now, this goes against the grain for many. | 39:00 | |
One of the most sacred of academic caws, | 39:04 | |
is that one must first establish the truth of a theory, | 39:07 | |
then and then only, can one trust it. | 39:13 | |
Here, we are suggesting just the reverse, | 39:17 | |
saying that trust must precede | 39:20 | |
the determination of the truth of the proposition, | 39:23 | |
that there is a Presence. | 39:28 | |
Trust is a commodity that is in very supply these days, | 39:33 | |
especially on college campuses. | 39:37 | |
Does it make any sense to trust anyone | 39:40 | |
or anything in these days? | 39:43 | |
For an opinion on the score, | 39:48 | |
I turned to a Labrador retriever pup became acquainted with | 39:50 | |
recently in the summertime. | 39:57 | |
He belonged to a nephew of mine | 40:01 | |
who had brought the pup along | 40:03 | |
when he came to visit his parents | 40:06 | |
who have a cottage near ours on a lake in New Hampshire. | 40:08 | |
The Pup's energy is inquisitiveness | 40:14 | |
is our obvious love of life were exceeded | 40:16 | |
only by his clumsiness. | 40:19 | |
No sooner had he arrived in these strange new surroundings, | 40:23 | |
for he was a city born pup, | 40:26 | |
then he went down to the dock to investigate. | 40:29 | |
At the end of the dock, he stopped | 40:34 | |
and looked into the water. | 40:37 | |
Being a very clear and calm day, | 40:41 | |
he obviously discovered there, a playmate, | 40:44 | |
And the excitement was too much for him, | 40:50 | |
or else his vigorous tail wagging threw him off balance | 40:52 | |
at any rate, he fell in. | 40:56 | |
And, of course, promptly made a beeline for the shore. | 40:59 | |
Subdued, but only slightly, | 41:05 | |
he made for the end of the dock again, | 41:08 | |
and as before, looked down into the water | 41:09 | |
a bit more cautiously this time. | 41:12 | |
The playmate was a bit fuzzier than before, | 41:16 | |
but was undoubtedly there. | 41:19 | |
And once more, with a great yapping, | 41:23 | |
he leaned too far, and fell in. | 41:24 | |
This time, he came ashore more slowly, | 41:30 | |
discovering apparently what fun it was | 41:34 | |
to use those great big pause of his, | 41:37 | |
for the purpose nature intended, to swim. | 41:40 | |
And this time, once ashore, | 41:46 | |
he barely paused for a shake before getting a on the dock, | 41:48 | |
and this time he headed straight and fast for the end | 41:54 | |
and with a tremendous leap, | 41:57 | |
jumped into the water, and headed away from the shore. | 41:59 | |
It was a good 10 minutes before he'd gained to respond | 42:04 | |
to the rather anguished calls from the shore for his safety. | 42:08 | |
He was safe enough. | 42:14 | |
He had discovered that this strange new element | 42:17 | |
could be trusted, | 42:20 | |
and that he was made for the enjoyment of that trust. | 42:22 | |
With humanoids' trust, indeed is a cultivated posture, | 42:29 | |
a posture that involves the acceptance of risk, | 42:35 | |
honest recognition of, | 42:41 | |
and not running away from anxiety | 42:43 | |
about one's self in the future. | 42:46 | |
Setbacks in the exercise of patients. | 42:49 | |
Delay in the perceiving of results, | 42:54 | |
all this, to find the truth of that enigmatic name, | 42:58 | |
"Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," | 43:03 | |
I shall be present. | 43:07 | |
Near the end of the last book in the New Testament | 43:11 | |
as nearly its last word we read, "I am Alpha and Omega, | 43:15 | |
the beginning and the end." | 43:21 | |
The first word and the last word, "I shall be present." | 43:24 | |
I was present in creation, | 43:31 | |
I shall be present in consummation, | 43:34 | |
I am present in all the inbetweens. | 43:39 | |
Such and inbetween time, | 43:46 | |
is this, a time for Presence. | 43:49 | |
Let us pray. | 43:57 | |
Lord do thou grant to us courage to support us, | 44:03 | |
patience to restrain us, | 44:09 | |
love to empower us, | 44:14 | |
and a sense of thy presence to accompany us on our way. | 44:19 | |
Into thy hands we command our spirits. | 44:27 | |
Reserve us thine now and evermore | 44:32 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. | 44:37 | |
(organ pipe music) | 44:44 | |
(church choir singing) | 45:22 | |
- | Almighty God who does not need to be enriched | 53:38 |
with any gifts that we may bring, | 53:41 | |
yet, who loves the cheerful giver, | 53:44 | |
receive these, our offerings, | 53:47 | |
which we present unto you, and with them, ourselves, | 53:49 | |
our souls, and our bodies, | 53:54 | |
as a living and trusting sacrifice, | 53:57 | |
holy and acceptable to you, | 54:00 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 54:03 | |
Now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. | 54:11 | |
(church choir singing) | 54:23 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 54:25 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 54:33 |