Tharon McConnell - "Called to Be Reconcilers" (February 22, 1970)

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	(solemn music playing)	0:05
	(choir singing indistinctly)	4:22
	(choir singing softly indistinctly)	5:17
	(organ playing music)	5:48
	(choir singing indistinctly)	6:38
Male Speaker	The prophet Isaiah said,	10:32
	in the year that King Uzziah died,	10:33
	I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne,	10:36
	high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple	10:40
	and one cried unto another and said,	10:45
	"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.	10:48
	The whole earth is full of His glory."	10:53
	And then he followed that having seen the vision of God	10:57
	with a confession of his own unworthiness saying,	11:02
	"Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone.	11:06
	Because I am a man of unclean lips	11:11
	and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.	11:15
	For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."	11:19
	Even so, we having seen the King,	11:25
	are in need of confession and of repentance.	11:30
	So may we be seated and sing together the first two stanzas	11:33
	of our prayer of confession, number 412.	11:38
	(organ playing)	11:42
	(choir singing indistinctly)	12:06
Male Speaker	After Isaiah had made his confession of sin	14:36
	and had asked the forgiveness of God,	14:39
	the lesson continues.	14:44
	And then flew one of the seraphim unto me.	14:47
	Having a live coal in his hand,	14:51
	which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar,	14:55
	and he laid it upon my mouth and said,	14:59
	"Lo, this has touched thy lips	15:03
	and thine inequity is taken away	15:08
	and thy sin purged." Amen	15:12
	(organ playing music)	15:24
	(choir singing indistinctly)	16:02
Male Speaker	It is perfectly obvious	18:56
	to the members of the worshiping congregation	18:57
	who are present here in the chapel today that,	19:00
	an unusual service is to be held	19:04
	in the chapel today at 4 o'clock	19:07
	because of the props, that are so obviously about you.	19:10
	The members of the congregation who are listening on radio,	19:15
	do not see those and may have not read	19:19
	the publicity about the most unusual contemporary	19:22
	performance, which is to be held here today.	19:28
	I will not, at this time, go in detail about it,	19:32
	except to say that those who are not here today	19:35
	to see it and hear it and experience it at 4 o'clock,	19:40
	will spend the rest of the year regretting the fact	19:44
	that they were not, as they hear the reports of it	19:47
	from those who were.	19:49
	I do invite your attention,	19:51
	attention and your attendance at (indistinct)	19:53
	at 4 o'clock today.	19:59
Female Reader	Scripture lesson this morning,	20:14
	comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17-21,	20:15
	"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,	20:22
	the old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.	20:27
	All this is from God, who through Christ,	20:32
	reconciled us to Himself and gave us	20:35
	the ministry of reconciliation,	20:38
	that is God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,	20:40
	not counting the trespasses against them	20:45
	and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.	20:48
	So we are ambassadors for Christ.	20:51
	God making His appeal through us.	20:54
	We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconcile to God.	20:56
	For our sake, He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin.	21:01
	So that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."	21:05
	(organ playing)	21:12
	(choir singing indistinctly)	21:21
Male Speaker	The Lord be with you.	21:56
	(congregation speaking indistinctly)	21:58
Male Speaker	Let us pray.	21:59
	Almighty God, who does give us a new day	22:10
	and a new opportunity.	22:14
	We come now to offer our thanks	22:17
	for giving us a chance to ennoble our lives,	22:20
	by worshiping Thee.	22:23
	We thank Thee for all the open doors,	22:27
	which Thou has set before us.	22:30
	If our health is less than perfect,	22:33
	we thank Thee that there are doctors and nurses,	22:36
	medicines, clinics and hospitals.	22:40
	If our spiritual health is at a low ebb,	22:45
	we thank Thee we have Thy loving invitation,	22:49
	whosoever will, may come.	22:53
	And that Thou has provided the Scriptures, the church,	22:56
	teachers, preachers, counselors, friends,	23:01
	services of corporate worship.	23:06
	If we have failed to establish righteousness and order,	23:10
	we thank Thee for a new day,	23:15
	for new resources and a new chance to try.	23:17
	We thank Thee for the promise of Spring,	23:24
	near the end of Winter.	23:27
	For the thrill,	23:30
	of every new and recurring opportunity.	23:32
	We bless Thee for the sense of satisfaction,	23:38
	which comes when a job has been well done.	23:41
	We come with gratitude for great music,	23:46
	for great musicians.	23:50
	For the imagination of those	23:53
	who do not rely entirely on the past,	23:55
	but who blaze new trails for today and tomorrow.	23:59
	For inspiring art, for inspired artists.	24:04
	We express our thanks to Thee O God	24:09
	for a start house of learning, which beckons us.	24:11
	And for teachers who guide us toward it	24:15
	and fellow students who share the path.	24:19
	We thank Thee for the creative relationship of love	24:25
	between true lovers, who are not exploiting each other,	24:29
	but who do love each other, unselfishly and devotedly.	24:34
	We thank Thee most of all for Jesus Christ,	24:40
	the Lord of Life.	24:43
	The Conqueror of Death, who purifies and ennobles	24:44
	every relationship of life.	24:50
	O God we make our prayer of intercession for our fellows,	24:56
	those around the world that we do not know,	25:02
	but about whom we know.	25:05
	Who are known to Thee and who are loved by Thee,	25:08
	as much as we are.	25:12
	We pray for the sick, the bitter, the alcoholic,	25:16
	the drug addict, the biased and the bigoted.	25:22
	We pray for those who believe that they have gone too far,	25:28
	in their habitual sin to return to a loving Father.	25:32
	We pray for those who are leaders of church and of State.	25:40
	Who are student leaders, leaders of the adult world,	25:46
	that all may be led by Jesus Christ.	25:50
	And all men understand their need of each other and of Him.	25:54
	We pray for those O God,	26:02
	who are in trouble spots of the world today.	26:05
	In the near East and the far East,	26:12
	in Europe, at home.	26:16
	For those who are seeking to bring love and reconciliation	26:21
	into those areas.	26:25
	Give them and give us hearts that are hots with concern,	26:29
	heads that are cool with wisdom,	26:34
	muscle and nerve to act,	26:38
	wills firmly under the control of judgment.	26:42
	Give all of us a vision of Thy Kingdom	26:48
	and of Thy will for our lives.	26:51
	Grant unto us the Spirit which Thy Son Jesus Christ had,	26:55
	as He taught us as we pray to say,	27:02
	Our Father who art in Heaven,	27:05
	Hallowed be Thy name,	27:08
	Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done	27:10
	on earth as it is in heaven.	27:14
	Give us the day our daily bread	27:16
	and forgive us our trespasses,	27:19
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	27:21
	And lead not into temptation	27:25
	but deliver us from evil.	27:28
	For Thine is the Kingdom and the power	27:30
	and the glory forever. Amen.	27:33
Female Speaker	It has been some 3 1/2 years now,	27:56
	since I left the United States,	28:01
	headed for a country who's name was	28:04
	rapidly becoming a household word,	28:07
	Vietnam.	28:11
	And even as I left,	28:14
	and new step in escalating the war has taken place,	28:17
	as the bombing of the North has been increased.	28:22
	And yet, I was a very naive young girl,	28:27
	as a flew across the Pacific headed for Vietnam.	28:31
	My knowledge of Vietnam was a flake.	28:38
	My understanding of war had come from	28:43
	movies, television, novels.	28:46
	And I think that I can be very honest when I say that	28:52
	as I headed toward Vietnam,	28:56
	I really had a vision of myself as a sort of	28:59
	heavenly light, going out to the middle	29:02
	of the battlefields of Vietnam,	29:06
	to bring back great miracles of life to the people there.	29:08
	Well believe me,	29:15
	movies, television, novels	29:17
	cannot begin to prepare one	29:22
	for what it really means to war for over 3 years	29:26
	in the middle of war.	29:31
	They cannot prepare one	29:35
	for actually seeing and feeling	29:37
	man's inhumanity to man.	29:42
	I have returned from Vietnam	29:46
	concerned for this country,	29:49
	and for the suffering of the people there.	29:52
	I returned with a new understanding of my own country.	29:56
	I have returned with new sense of values.	30:03
	I have returned with a real fear	30:08
	of war, of violence and of hatred.	30:12
	Because for three years I saw, I felt,	30:18
	what it does to people.	30:24
	And I have returned convinced,	30:28
	that those of us who would dare to call ourselves Christians	30:30
	must daily mind what it means	30:37
	to participate in this thing, we call reconciliation.	30:40
	We must come in to terms,	30:47
	with our own relationship to God,	30:50
	and learned what it demands of us,	30:59
	in our day-to-day relationships with one another.	31:03
	I was in Vietnam as a member of an organization called,	31:10
	Vietnam Christian Service.	31:13
	This is an interdenominational organization,	31:16
	which was created to be the evidence	31:19
	of the concern of Christians around the world,	31:23
	with the suffering of the people in Vietnam.	31:28
	And those of us that joined this organization	31:32
	were asked to commit ourselves to three things.	31:35
	First of all to become ministers to the human needs,	31:39
	created by, by the war.	31:42
	Secondly, to become a Christian presence	31:45
	in the midst of the war.	31:50
	And thirdly, to bear witnesses to the Christ of Christ	31:53
	and the reconciling power of love.	31:58
	We worked as teams, usually community development teams.	32:04
	Assigned to areas	32:09
	where there were large concentrations of refugees.	32:11
	And thus we began to live and work	32:16
	among the people of Vietnam,	32:20
	to learn about war and what happens to people	32:23
	caught in the midst of war.	32:27
	What is it like to live in Vietnam?	32:32
	Well first of all to live in Vietnam,	32:37
	is to be constantly confronted by the war,	32:39
	in one way or another.	32:42
	Almost every family that I can think of this morning,	32:45
	has lost one, two, three,	32:50
	some of them even more members of their families,	32:55
	as a result of this war.	32:58
	Some of them has died as soldiers,	33:02
	fighting for one side or the other.	33:03
	Others have been caught in the crossfire in their villages.	33:07
	Still others have been killed by	33:12
	mortars, artillery, bombs.	33:14
	Secondly it means to live in the face of uncertainty,	33:20
	the uncertainty of life.	33:28
	Because in Vietnam, one never knows	33:31
	when the war will suddenly be right in his own front yard.	33:33
	This morning it may be 10 km away,	33:40
	and you hear it as you go about your activity,	33:43
	the sounds of guns,	33:47
	the sounds of mortars and artillery's or bombings.	33:49
	But its far away this morning,	33:55
	but tonight you can be wakened up at any time as it comes	33:59
	right to your own doorstep.	34:05
	And again it comes in many forms.	34:08
	Sometimes its in the form	34:11
	of National Liberation Front Terrorist activities.	34:12
	Sometimes its getting caught in the crossfire,	34:17
	as firefights takes place between opposing sides.	34:23
	And again it comes in the form of	34:28
	mortars, artillery or bombs.	34:31
	But it is always there.	34:36
	And you cannot run away from the war in Vietnam.	34:40
	It is meant the great dawn of the basic structure	34:46
	of Vietnamese society.	34:50
	For centuries life in Vietnam has revolved around the family	34:53
	and the strongest loyalty has always been to family.	34:58
	But now that is gone,	35:02
	the mom is left to be dad, mother	35:05
	and breadwinner as well.	35:10
	A 5, 6 month old baby	35:13
	is left in the care of 5 or 6 year old brother or sister,	35:15
	all their lives.	35:21
	It means a country prices that just kept on going up	35:25
	and the people with a standard living far below ours,	35:31
	trying to deal with the resulting inflation.	35:34
	And then of course for large number of people in Vietnam,	35:40
	it has meant to becoming refugees within their own country.	35:44
	Some of them have chosen to become refugees,	35:51
	they were scared of terrorists,	35:54
	of artillery and bombs	35:59
	which they learned are not discriminate.	36:00
	A fighting which was growing near their village.	36:04
	And so they left their villages and moved in near the cities	36:09
	looking for security.	36:13
	But some of the refugees are not volunteer refugees,	36:17
	they have been forced to become refugees,	36:22
	as a result of military strategy.	36:25
	10,000 of the refugees with whom I worked,	36:30
	were created by the latter.	36:33
	People forced to leave their valley,	36:37
	in order it might become a full strike zone.	36:40
	The villages destroyed, the farmlands defoliated.	36:45
	Refugees, frightened people	36:52
	removed from their farmland,	36:56
	lacking skills to earn an income,	37:00
	by people living close together,	37:05
	with few sanitary facilities.	37:08
	Refugees, a people discouraged,	37:12
	tolerated war, tired of being objects,	37:17
	moved about on a chess board,	37:22
	unable to shape and form their own lives.	37:26
	And it was to these people that we have come to minister.	37:33
	The first part of our task was perhaps the easiest.	37:37
	Ministering to human needs.	37:41
	There were so many human needs and they were very obvious.	37:44
	As a nurse, I hardly knew where to begin.	37:48
	But life seemed again to take the form of clinics,	37:52
	visits from the refugee camps to work with mothers,	37:58
	help education programs and for the last year and a half,	38:02
	it meant 18 student nurses.	38:08
	Trying to teach them my own skills,	38:11
	so as to enable them to minister to the needs	38:16
	of their own people.	38:20
	For each of us on the team, it was different.	38:23
	But by putting together the very human needs and evidence,	38:26
	and my own talents,	38:30
	we began to come up with programs	38:33
	directed to solving some of the needs of the refugees	38:36
	but we had come to do more that this,	38:42
	we had come to be a Christian presence.	38:46
	And it was quite obvious to us	38:51
	that if we really meant to be Christians,	38:52
	witnesses to the reconciling power of love,	38:56
	that we must be available to all people in Vietnam.	39:02
	No matter what their political or religious affiliation	39:07
	might be.	39:11
	We had to be neutral.	39:15
	It meant that we are tempted to live in an open houses;	39:19
	no big concrete fences around them,	39:24
	no barbed wire,	39:28
	no armed guards out front to protect us,	39:31
	most of all, no guns.	39:37
	And secondly it meant that we had to allow people	39:43
	to become persons.	39:49
	Having chosen Jesus Christ,	39:54
	we had chosen the way of love.	39:58
	The kind of love that gets undermat,	40:03
	to find the real person who lies underneath.	40:08
	The kind of love that learns to accept	40:15
	and allow a person to be exactly	40:20
	who and what he is.	40:23
	War is so terribly dehumanizing,	40:28
	and there's a reason for that.	40:33
	Wars cannot begin and wars cannot continue.	40:36
	When we think in terms of killing persons,	40:41
	we just aren't made that way.	40:45
	But we can be taught to hate	40:48
	and to kill things.	40:52
	And though somehow in wars,	40:55
	people get turn into things.	40:59
	As we take away their humanity.	41:05
	We all do this,	41:09
	we participate in it everyday of our lives,	41:12
	when we fail to respond to real persons.	41:16
	And one of the most common method we use to accomplish this,	41:22
	is a way we pick up a label	41:27
	and attach it to someone else.	41:30
	We're really good at this, we put a label on someone,	41:34
	and then we never respond to that person as,	41:40
	anything other than the label,	41:44
	and of course I understanding on what that labels means.	41:47
	There are a lot of labels in our world today,	41:52
	we got radicals and reactionaries,	41:58
	doves and hawks, militant.	42:02
	Probably the label which I run into most frequently,	42:06
	is the idea connected with a missionary.	42:11
	You know, little old lady with her hair up in a bun,	42:15
	and a black skirt 4 inches below her knee,	42:18
	who's never read anything but the Bible.	42:21
	Well in Vietnam, people use labels too.	42:30
	We made those labels,	42:35
	and we have our own understandings of them.	42:37
	There's the Viet Cong, the gook,	42:42
	Charlie, puppets,	42:47
	American imperial.	42:53
	Well I can tell you that each one of those persons,	42:58
	those labels is a real person.	43:02
	And I know because I've met every single one of them	43:07
	in Vietnam.	43:10
	And I found out that they were just real persons,	43:13
	each of them has a very real need.	43:17
	Some of them were refugees, some of them were students,	43:24
	or soldiers, or government workers, or merchants.	43:29
	But each of them is a person.	43:37
	Being a Christian presence in Vietnam really meant,	43:41
	meant being open and available	43:46
	to each of these persons.	43:50
	Learning to be concerned about them as they were.	43:53
	Allowing them to be what they wanted to be,	43:59
	Vietnamese.	44:03
	Vietnamese who desire to be left alone,	44:07
	to settle their own differences,	44:12
	to choose and determine their own future.	44:16
	We all need to work at being able to give others	44:22
	the freedom to be what they are	44:27
	and what they want to become.	44:30
	In that country where people have been subjected	44:34
	to all kinds of propaganda for years.	44:36
	It is only those people	44:45
	who prove from day-to-day business of living,	44:46
	that they care.	44:51
	They really care about people.	44:54
	Not as political object in a game of power,	44:59
	but people worthy of being accepted.	45:05
	Because they are real people.	45:09
	It is only persons who can prove that they care,	45:13
	whoever learned to narrow the friendship	45:22
	of the people of Vietnam.	45:25
	Us persons motivated by	45:30
	our own understanding of Christian love.	45:35
	We tried to be this kid of person.	45:39
	We tried to minister	45:47
	to all people in Vietnam,	45:50
	to work ourselves into areas,	45:54
	where we knew we will be ministering to people,	45:58
	caught on both sides of the conflict.	46:02
	Because only that putting ourselves in such positions	46:06
	could we give the reconciling power of love	46:12
	a chance to prove itself.	46:17
	A chance to be filled,	46:20
	even in the midst of war.	46:24
	We attempted,	46:28
	and are still attempting,	46:31
	to maintain a ministry to the human needs	46:34
	of all the people of Vietnam,	46:36
	without regard to their religious or political affiliation.	46:40
	So much to bring love, acceptance	46:46
	and understanding.	46:53
	This is the beginning of reconciliation,	46:57
	its not the end,	47:02
	but its a start because it always begin	47:05
	on a person-to-person level.	47:08
	And so we were there working, on a person-to-level	47:12
	in an attempt to bring about reconciliation.	47:17
	But I'm no longer in Vietnam, my three years are over	47:22
	and I find myself once again still trying.	47:25
	And yet I am convinced, that I cannot stop now.	47:32
	Indeed that all of us, who are Christians,	47:39
	must really begin to work	47:43
	for peace and reconciliation.	47:46
	We have got to learn to accept people,	47:51
	to allow people,	47:56
	to be what they want to be.	48:00
	And in relation to Vietnam, I think this means,	48:04
	granting the freedom to determine their own destiny.	48:08
	It means being very aware	48:16
	of the moral questions involved in this war.	48:19
	Reading, seeking to understand what is going on.	48:24
	So that we can help our government,	48:32
	to develop policy	48:34
	which will be in the interest of the people	48:38
	most directly affected by this war,	48:40
	the people of Vietnam.	48:46
	We cannot lose sight of the fact,	48:50
	that as we debate, what should be done there,	48:52
	everyday lives are being lost	48:58
	and people are suffering.	49:04
	Our world today is torn with strife and hatred,	49:09
	and we the church, the people of God,	49:13
	are called to be in the midst of that strife.	49:18
	If we have indeed become reconciled with God,	49:22
	through Jesus Christ,	49:25
	it means that we have been called	49:28
	to a ministry of reconciliation.	49:30
	Caring to the world divided, a ministry of love.	49:34
	I warn you that it is not easy,	49:41
	it may mean that you are unpopular and misunderstood.	49:45
	Reconciliation means grappling with real issues,	49:53
	wherever we are, a war in Vietnam,	49:58
	conflict and tension between black and white,	50:06
	a generation gap,	50:13
	the problem that exists between the haves and the have nots.	50:18
	Reconciliation means honesty,	50:25
	recognition of the facts that we are all sinners,	50:29
	that that we have been set free from our past,	50:35
	with its prejudices and its malice,	50:39
	and openness today and tomorrow,	50:44
	to work for love, justice,	50:50
	peace for all people.	50:54
	Reconciliation means love and action.	50:59
	A willingness to place ones very being	51:04
	on the line, in the middle of conflict.	51:08
	In an attempt to help men understand each other.	51:14
	Reconciliation is a cross,	51:22
	and for one we call Jesus Christ,	51:27
	it meant death.	51:31
	If we had indeed been reconciled with God,	51:37
	through Jesus Christ,	51:42
	then we have been invited to become participants	51:46
	in the ministry of reconciliation.	51:52
	We are called to become reconciled.	51:59
	Are we willing,	52:06
	to risk our lives in the world	52:09
	to bring peace, understanding	52:15
	and love to all men?	52:21
	Father God,	52:29
	we thank you for Jesus Christ.	52:33
	For His willingness to put His life on the line for us.	52:37
	And we thank you for the way,	52:44
	He always responded to people wherever they were.	52:47
	We acknowledge our failure to live, as He did.	52:53
	Forgive ourselves astutedness,	52:59
	our failure to love,	53:03
	our failure to see the sufferings	53:07
	which goes on around us everyday.	53:10
	And send us forth into the world today,	53:17
	as persons willing to risk our lives,	53:23
	to become the peacemakers and reconcilers,	53:28
	that you have called us to become.	53:33
	In the name of Him who brought us reconciliation,	53:38
	Jesus Christ. Amen.	53:43
	(organ playing hymn)	53:49
	(choir singing indistinctly)	54:30
	(organ playing softly)	58:23
	(choir singing indistinctly)	1:01:19

Item Info

Title:

Tharon McConnell - "Called to Be Reconcilers" (February 22, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4x63g642

Date:

February 22, 1970

Speaker:

McConnell, Tharon

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0510
ref6225_c22
uachapelsermaud
duke:628062
dcrau002500
ark:/87924/r4x63g642
5ebb52ed-93ca-46eb-9691-1693d397d365

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Related Resources:

See below

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Tharon McConnell - "Called to Be Reconcilers" (February 22, 1970)

Transcript

Item Info

Related Item

Duke University Archives