James T. Cleland - "Nowadays" (June 21, 1970; July 5, 1970)
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| (solemn choir singing) | 0:08 | |
| (solemn choir singing fades) | 1:27 | |
| (lively church organ music) | 1:45 | |
| (lively choir singing) | 2:26 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 3:09 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 3:53 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 4:37 | |
| (choir singing concludes) | 5:25 | |
| - | Let us offer our prayer of confession. | 5:41 |
| Our Father, God, | 5:48 | |
| We confess that in our attitudes, words, and deeds, | 5:50 | |
| we have sinned against that mercy | 5:55 | |
| revealed to us in Christ Jesus. | 5:57 | |
| You know us as we are, | 6:02 | |
| you search our hearts, | 6:05 | |
| and yet, you constantly forgive and restore us. | 6:07 | |
| But we often look upon our fellow human beings | 6:13 | |
| and forget that they are like us, | 6:16 | |
| in need of our understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness. | 6:20 | |
| Forgive us our judgment of outward appearance | 6:27 | |
| and apparent circumstances. | 6:30 | |
| Forgive us our words of impatience and condemnation | 6:34 | |
| that come quick and cutting, | 6:38 | |
| grant us your mercy again, Oh Lord, | 6:42 | |
| and grant that, remembering the mercy in which we are kept, | 6:46 | |
| we may heal and not hurt, | 6:50 | |
| help and not crush down, | 6:54 | |
| For Jesus' sake. | 6:57 | |
| Amen. | 6:59 | |
| Hear the comforting word of God | 7:03 | |
| written for those who truly repent of their sins, | 7:05 | |
| whereas the heavens are high above the earth, | 7:10 | |
| so great as His steadfast love toward those who fear Him | 7:13 | |
| as far as east is from the west, | 7:19 | |
| So far, does He remove our transgressions from us. | 7:22 | |
| Amen. | 7:26 | |
| (soft church organ music) | 7:37 | |
| Let us off her up our prayer of thanksgiving. | 8:15 | |
| Heavenly Father, | 8:20 | |
| the giver of every group and perfect gift. | 8:22 | |
| We thank you for our creation in your own image, | 8:26 | |
| for your preserving mercy every day of our lives, | 8:31 | |
| for the protection and comfort of our homes, | 8:35 | |
| for all who love and whom we love, | 8:39 | |
| for healing in sickness, | 8:43 | |
| deliverance in danger, | 8:45 | |
| and strength in sorrow, | 8:47 | |
| for the work given us to do, | 8:49 | |
| and the ability with which to do it, | 8:52 | |
| for the uncounted mercies of your mindful providence, | 8:55 | |
| and above all, for your beloved Son into the world. | 8:59 | |
| For the gracious words He spoke, | 9:04 | |
| for the kind work He did, | 9:07 | |
| for His bitter passion, | 9:10 | |
| and atoning sacrifice on the cross, | 9:11 | |
| for His mighty resurrection from the dead, | 9:15 | |
| we express our gratitude for the means of grace | 9:18 | |
| the inward dwelling of your spirit and the life eternal. | 9:23 | |
| Amen. | 9:27 | |
| (soft church organ music) | 9:31 | |
| (solemn choir singing) | 10:01 | |
| (solemn choir singing continues) | 10:58 | |
| - | Let hear the word of God, | 11:52 |
| as it is contained in the scriptures of the Old Testament. | 11:55 | |
| In the first book of Samuel, | 12:00 | |
| 25th chapter, | 12:02 | |
| at the second verse. | 12:05 | |
| "Then David rose and went down | 12:09 | |
| to the wilderness of Paran, | 12:11 | |
| and there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. | 12:13 | |
| The man was very rich. | 12:18 | |
| He had 3000 sheep, and 1000 goats. | 12:21 | |
| He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. | 12:25 | |
| Now the name of the man was Nabal, | 12:30 | |
| and the name of his wife, Abigail. | 12:33 | |
| The woman was a good understanding and beautiful, | 12:38 | |
| but the man was churlish, | 12:44 | |
| and ill-behaved. | 12:47 | |
| He was a Calebite. | 12:50 | |
| David heard in the wilderness that Nabal | 12:53 | |
| was shearing his sheep. | 12:56 | |
| So David sent 10 young men, | 12:59 | |
| and David said to the young men, | 13:02 | |
| 'Go up to Carmel, | 13:04 | |
| and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. | 13:07 | |
| And thus you shall salute him, | 13:13 | |
| peace be to you, | 13:16 | |
| and peace be to your house, | 13:20 | |
| and peace me to all that you have. | 13:24 | |
| I hear that you have shearers, | 13:29 | |
| now, your shepherds have been with us, | 13:32 | |
| and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing, | 13:37 | |
| all the time they were in Carmel. | 13:42 | |
| Ask your young men and they will tell you. | 13:46 | |
| Therefore, let my young men find favor in your eyes, | 13:51 | |
| For we come on a feast day. | 13:57 | |
| Pray, give whatever you have at hand to your servants | 14:01 | |
| and to your son, David.' | 14:07 | |
| When David's young men came, | 14:13 | |
| they said all this to Nabal in the name of David. | 14:15 | |
| And then they waited. | 14:21 | |
| And Nabal answered David's servants, | 14:25 | |
| 'Who is David? | 14:29 | |
| Who is the son of Jesse? | 14:33 | |
| There are many servants nowadays | 14:38 | |
| who are breaking away from their masters. | 14:41 | |
| Shall I take my bread, | 14:46 | |
| and my water, | 14:49 | |
| and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, | 14:51 | |
| and give it to men who come from, I do not know where.' | 14:55 | |
| So David's young men turned away and came back | 15:03 | |
| and told David all this. | 15:08 | |
| And David said to his men, | 15:12 | |
| 'Every man, | 15:16 | |
| gird on his sword.' | 15:19 | |
| And every man of them girded on his sword, | 15:23 | |
| David also girded on his sword, | 15:26 | |
| and about 400 men went up after David, | 15:29 | |
| while 200 remained with the baggage. | 15:34 | |
| But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, | 15:39 | |
| 'Behold David sent messengers out of the wilderness | 15:44 | |
| to salute our master, | 15:47 | |
| and he railed at them. | 15:50 | |
| Yet the men were very good to us, | 15:53 | |
| and we suffered no harm. | 15:56 | |
| And we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, | 15:59 | |
| as long as we went with them. | 16:02 | |
| They were a wall to us, | 16:06 | |
| both by night and by day, | 16:09 | |
| all while we were with them keeping the sheep. | 16:12 | |
| Now, therefore, know this, | 16:15 | |
| and consider what you should do, | 16:20 | |
| for evil is determined against our master, | 16:23 | |
| and against all his houses. | 16:28 | |
| And he is so ill-natured, | 16:31 | |
| that one cannot speak to him.'" | 16:34 | |
| And for the rest of this story, | 16:41 | |
| you will have to wait until the sermon. | 16:43 | |
| Amen. | 16:47 | |
| (lively church organ music) | 16:50 | |
| (choir singing) | 16:59 | |
| (choir singing concludes) | 17:28 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 17:35 |
| (congregation responds faintly) | 17:37 | |
| Let us pray. | 17:38 | |
| Oh God, | 17:51 | |
| whose word comes to us in strength, | 17:53 | |
| and judgment, and grace, | 17:56 | |
| hear are the prayers of this congregation. | 17:59 | |
| A few of us speak Your word, | 18:04 | |
| most of us, read Your word, | 18:08 | |
| some of us, even try to publish Your word | 18:12 | |
| in books and journals. | 18:14 | |
| Oh God, | 18:19 | |
| are we a people becoming so saturated | 18:21 | |
| with your word that our minds are now closed, | 18:23 | |
| our spirits, resentful, | 18:28 | |
| our ears dull, | 18:31 | |
| and our hearts cold, | 18:34 | |
| only You know, oh Lord. | 18:37 | |
| You know that we are a good people with good intentions, | 18:41 | |
| and yet Your word always seems to chastise. | 18:48 | |
| Some of us are poor and sick, | 18:54 | |
| yet Your word always seems so full of empty hope. | 18:58 | |
| Many of us are deeply disturbed and fearfully alone, | 19:05 | |
| yet Your word is often short-lived comfort. | 19:10 | |
| Help each of us this morning to grasp something | 19:15 | |
| beyond that word of Yours, which is written and spoken. | 19:17 | |
| Help us to see that Your word is a way of life, | 19:25 | |
| a living word, | 19:29 | |
| a word that invites us to go | 19:32 | |
| beyond the hearing of the gospel, | 19:34 | |
| even to the doing of it. | 19:37 | |
| Help us to grasp, not tightly and harshly, | 19:41 | |
| but lovingly and tenderly, | 19:44 | |
| Your word as we feed and clothe | 19:48 | |
| those who are poor in our cities. | 19:50 | |
| as we work for peace in Indochina, | 19:54 | |
| as we comfort the sick Vietnam veteran | 19:58 | |
| who lies suffering in the VA hospital, | 20:00 | |
| as we visit the man imprisoned | 20:05 | |
| because he will not go to Vietnam. | 20:07 | |
| We are good people, | 20:12 | |
| who remember in our prayers | 20:14 | |
| all who are poor and wounded, sick and in prison. | 20:16 | |
| Let Your words so live and burn in us, | 20:22 | |
| that remembering these friends will not be enough. | 20:25 | |
| Let Your words so live in our lives, | 20:29 | |
| so that just being good people will be insufficient. | 20:32 | |
| For Your work of peace and reconciliation in the world. | 20:37 | |
| Hear the prayers of Your congregation. | 20:43 | |
| In the name of Him who is our reconciler, | 20:46 | |
| amen. | 20:50 | |
| Let us pray the Lord's Prayer together. | 20:53 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, | 20:56 | |
| Hallowed be Thy name. | 21:00 | |
| Thy kingdom come. | 21:02 | |
| Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 21:04 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread, | 21:09 | |
| trespasses, | 21:13 | |
| as we forgive those who trespasses against us. | 21:14 | |
| And lead us not to temptation, deliver us from evil. | 21:18 | |
| For Thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever. | 21:23 | |
| Amen. | 21:29 | |
| - | Peace be to you, | 21:51 |
| and to all the people of God. | 21:54 | |
| Ever since Commencement, | 22:01 | |
| my mind's eye has been looking backwards. | 22:02 | |
| Its gaze has been on the past. | 22:08 | |
| The mind has become a memory, | 22:13 | |
| majoring in reminiscences. | 22:17 | |
| Now what triggered this reversion? | 22:22 | |
| The class of 1920, | 22:27 | |
| made me an honorary member | 22:30 | |
| at its 50th reunion, | 22:33 | |
| here at Duke. | 22:36 | |
| The survivors present, | 22:39 | |
| remarkably hale and hearty, | 22:42 | |
| were much more conscious of 1920 | 22:45 | |
| than they were of 1970. | 22:49 | |
| They held the year of their graduation | 22:53 | |
| in a kind of reverence, | 22:57 | |
| and their generous honoring of me, | 23:00 | |
| reminded me that I am an honorary member | 23:05 | |
| of the class of 1880, | 23:08 | |
| at Amherst College. | 23:12 | |
| Which this year should have been celebrating | 23:14 | |
| its 90th reunion. | 23:17 | |
| Except that I was the only member alive. | 23:21 | |
| The sole survivor. | 23:26 | |
| "Sic transit gloria mundi." | 23:29 | |
| The good old days are gone. | 23:34 | |
| And there follows the inevitable, | 23:38 | |
| if not always valid corollary, | 23:40 | |
| things are not what they used to be, | 23:44 | |
| implying that they are somewhat worse. | 23:48 | |
| And then last Sunday night, I watched on television, | 23:53 | |
| an episode of the Forsyte Saga, | 23:57 | |
| whose widespread popularity has exceeded all expectations. | 24:00 | |
| It is the tale of the upper-middle crust | 24:07 | |
| of English society, | 24:11 | |
| concentrating for the most part on real estate and consoles, | 24:13 | |
| looking to Queen Victoria as the Rock of Gibraltar, | 24:20 | |
| and the prudential society become flesh. | 24:25 | |
| The gaze was backward too, | 24:30 | |
| when John Galsworthy penned his unexpected | 24:33 | |
| and continuing bestseller. | 24:37 | |
| The "Golden Age," | 24:41 | |
| was in the days of Auld Lang Syne. | 24:43 | |
| And at this point there surfaced from my subconscious, | 24:49 | |
| An Old Testament story. | 24:54 | |
| About an Israelite named Nabal, | 24:58 | |
| who was a man of property, | 25:02 | |
| and about his intelligent wife named Abigail, | 25:05 | |
| and about a guerilla warrior named David of Bethlehem. | 25:10 | |
| We've heard something of them in the morning lesson. | 25:16 | |
| They, along with the two anniversary classes | 25:20 | |
| and the Forsyte family primed this sermon. | 25:24 | |
| Now let me sketch the Old Testament background. | 25:29 | |
| David and his followers have detached themselves | 25:34 | |
| from Saul, king of Israel. | 25:37 | |
| And are living in the wilderness, | 25:41 | |
| keeping themselves alive by raids on the settled population | 25:44 | |
| or by blackmail. | 25:51 | |
| David is either a rural gangster, | 25:55 | |
| or a Jewish Robin Hood, | 25:59 | |
| depending on your own overall estimate of him. | 26:02 | |
| Nabal was a man of some substance. | 26:07 | |
| He he had 3000 sheep and 1000 goats. | 26:09 | |
| He was a nomadic Hebrew Forsyte. | 26:15 | |
| But according to one of his servants, | 26:20 | |
| he was so ill-natured, | 26:21 | |
| that one cannot speak to him. | 26:24 | |
| The New English Bible translates the verse. | 26:26 | |
| "He's such a good-for-nothing, | 26:29 | |
| that it's no good talking to him." | 26:31 | |
| He was a boor and a churl. | 26:34 | |
| He declined to listen to David's suggestion | 26:39 | |
| of protection payment, | 26:42 | |
| so David decided to obliterate all the males | 26:44 | |
| of Nabal's line. | 26:48 | |
| But Abigail, | 26:51 | |
| who was charming, | 26:53 | |
| and sensible, | 26:55 | |
| and shrewd, | 26:57 | |
| set out for David's headquarters with a caravan, | 26:59 | |
| carrying bread, | 27:03 | |
| and wine, | 27:05 | |
| and mutton, | 27:07 | |
| and parched grain, | 27:09 | |
| and raisins, | 27:11 | |
| and figs. | 27:12 | |
| David was so impressed with the bounty, | 27:15 | |
| and even more so with Abigail, | 27:19 | |
| that he called off the raid. | 27:21 | |
| The next morning, | 27:24 | |
| Abigail told Nabal what she had done, | 27:26 | |
| and he died 10 days later. | 27:30 | |
| The commentators suggest a cerebrovascular accident. | 27:34 | |
| The Bible says the Lord smote him. | 27:40 | |
| Is that the end of this tale of life | 27:44 | |
| in the early Israelite kingdom? | 27:46 | |
| Not quite. | 27:49 | |
| David married Abigail. | 27:51 | |
| Now there's one verse in the story, which intrigued me. | 27:55 | |
| It's this verse, which the 1920 reunion | 28:00 | |
| and the Forsyte story recalled to my memory. | 28:04 | |
| It's the rhetoric of Nabal to David's request | 28:08 | |
| for Baksheesh. | 28:12 | |
| "Who is David? | 28:14 | |
| Who is the son of Jesse? | 28:19 | |
| There are plenty of slaves nowadays, | 28:23 | |
| all breaking away from their masters." | 28:27 | |
| That single word "Nowadays," stands out for me. | 28:31 | |
| Nowadays. Do you ever say it? | 28:36 | |
| Nowadays, the country is going to the dogs, | 28:39 | |
| implying something unworthy about dogs. | 28:44 | |
| Nowadays, people have no religion, | 28:49 | |
| which may just mean that they're not Southern Baptists. | 28:53 | |
| Nowadays, the colleges and the universities | 28:57 | |
| including Duke are not what they used to be. | 29:00 | |
| Suggesting that the golden age of academia is in the past. | 29:04 | |
| When a sentence begins with "Nowadays", | 29:11 | |
| one expects a chant on a minor key, | 29:14 | |
| if not a blast of vituperation. | 29:18 | |
| Now for my generation to make its theme song, | 29:22 | |
| "When I was a boy at school," | 29:26 | |
| may give us some comfort, | 29:28 | |
| even a measure of self complacency. | 29:31 | |
| However, there are three questions to be put | 29:35 | |
| to the biblical Nabal and to his censorious | 29:38 | |
| contemporary descendants. | 29:42 | |
| Let's look at them together. | 29:45 | |
| First, | 29:47 | |
| do you, Nabal, really remember the past? | 29:49 | |
| Do you really remember the past? | 29:57 | |
| Do you recall how Israel's history began? | 30:01 | |
| With a slave revolt in Egypt, | 30:07 | |
| under Moses? | 30:11 | |
| There were many slaves who broke away from their masters, | 30:13 | |
| in those days. | 30:18 | |
| No rebellion, | 30:20 | |
| no Israel. | 30:22 | |
| Nabal, are you glad that your ancestors | 30:25 | |
| cleared out of the Nile Valley, | 30:28 | |
| or would you rather be a serf, | 30:31 | |
| amid the fleshpots of Egypt? | 30:34 | |
| Nabal, does the past change color as it recedes? | 30:39 | |
| Do we look at it through rose-colored glasses? | 30:45 | |
| Is it normal for conservative souls | 30:50 | |
| to idealize the past in a romantic fiction? | 30:53 | |
| Which of these two memories is truer for you? | 30:58 | |
| "I remember, I remember, the house where I was born, | 31:04 | |
| a little window where the sun came peeping in at morn, | 31:10 | |
| It never came a wink too soon, nor brought too long a day, | 31:15 | |
| but now I often wish the night had borne my breath away." | 31:20 | |
| Or is a parody of that poem, closer to the facts. | 31:26 | |
| It was written by a Glasgow University student. | 31:32 | |
| "I forgotten, I forgotten the house where I was born | 31:35 | |
| The little milk window where the milk | 31:39 | |
| was shoved right in at morn. | 31:42 | |
| I used to come in with the milk, | 31:44 | |
| which you must understand, | 31:46 | |
| was really quite appropriate, for both of us were canned. | 31:48 | |
| It's either true? | 31:55 | |
| Is neither true? | 31:57 | |
| Is it axiomatic that for the conservative, | 32:00 | |
| the golden age always seems to be in the past? | 32:03 | |
| I wonder if Homer knew that he was living | 32:09 | |
| in the Homeric Age? | 32:13 | |
| Or if Victorian England, | 32:16 | |
| sighed for the good old days of Queen Anne. | 32:18 | |
| "Romance gilds the past. | 32:22 | |
| A knowledge of history seldom does." | 32:26 | |
| Read Dickens on Victorian England. | 32:29 | |
| Do we long for the time when the slave trade | 32:35 | |
| was backed by church and state? | 32:38 | |
| When we rid the man with the hoe, | 32:44 | |
| aren't we glad that agriculture has been mechanized? | 32:48 | |
| When we read the "Song of the Shirt," | 32:53 | |
| don't we have some inkling by trade unions came into being? | 32:57 | |
| When a contemporary Nabal says that religion was purer | 33:04 | |
| in days of yore, | 33:08 | |
| then the adjective "purer", has to be defined. | 33:10 | |
| McLeod Campbell, a Scottish parish minister, | 33:16 | |
| was the deposed in 1832, for heresy, | 33:22 | |
| by the general assembly, | 33:27 | |
| at the request of his parishioners. | 33:29 | |
| What was his heresy? | 33:33 | |
| He said that Jesus Christ died for all men, | 33:35 | |
| and not just for Presbyterians. | 33:39 | |
| And 36 years later, one of the four Scottish universities | 33:45 | |
| awarded him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, | 33:51 | |
| Honoris Causa. | 33:54 | |
| It was Jesus who commented, | 33:57 | |
| "You have heard that it was said by men old, | 34:00 | |
| but I say to you." | 34:06 | |
| It was Tertullian, | 34:10 | |
| a conservative theologian, | 34:13 | |
| who surprisingly ejaculated, | 34:15 | |
| "Jesus Christ said, 'I am truth,' | 34:18 | |
| not, 'I am tradition.'" | 34:23 | |
| Remembering the past, | 34:28 | |
| I'm glad that I did not live in the good old days. | 34:30 | |
| Second, | 34:37 | |
| do you, Nabal, really discern the present? | 34:39 | |
| Do you really discern the present? | 34:44 | |
| Oh, it's easy for us to decry you, Nabal, | 34:48 | |
| because you did not realize that David was not | 34:52 | |
| just a slave who had broken away from his master. | 34:55 | |
| But if you hadn't been so alcoholically south | 35:00 | |
| when Abigail told you that she had bought off David, | 35:04 | |
| you might never have had that stroke. | 35:08 | |
| And you might have lived to see | 35:11 | |
| the shepherd lad of Bethlehem become king of Israel. | 35:13 | |
| Yet, didn't you know about his prowess | 35:19 | |
| against the Philistines? | 35:22 | |
| And his friendship with Jonathan, Saul's son? | 35:24 | |
| And his to marriage to Michal, King Saul's daughter? | 35:30 | |
| This is no ordinary slave, | 35:35 | |
| but you couldn't or you wouldn't see it. | 35:39 | |
| Why? | 35:42 | |
| Because your own sour, ill-tempered, | 35:44 | |
| self-centered disposition blinded you to everything, | 35:49 | |
| but yourself. | 35:53 | |
| I suppose, Nabal that you looked upon yourself | 35:55 | |
| as an outstanding example of the nomadic glory, | 35:59 | |
| which was the true Israel. | 36:04 | |
| Is that true of us too? | 36:08 | |
| Would we rather be somewhere else than in the USA, | 36:11 | |
| in some other year than 1970? | 36:16 | |
| Really? | 36:21 | |
| Listen to this quotation from the Saturday Review, | 36:23 | |
| about two weeks ago. | 36:26 | |
| "From the point of view of providing the external conditions | 36:29 | |
| of the good life for a larger percentage of its citizens, | 36:32 | |
| the United States is, on balance, | 36:38 | |
| as good as, if not better than, | 36:42 | |
| any other country in the world today, | 36:45 | |
| and vastly better than any state that ever existed | 36:49 | |
| in the past." | 36:55 | |
| Now that was written by a sober philosopher. | 36:57 | |
| And the reviewer of the book, | 37:00 | |
| who disagrees somewhat with it, | 37:02 | |
| ended his critique with these words. | 37:05 | |
| "In America, more people are living well | 37:08 | |
| than have done so in any other time or place | 37:13 | |
| in human history." | 37:17 | |
| Despite tensions international and internal, | 37:20 | |
| despite questions, which cannot be given good answers, | 37:24 | |
| despite cliques, and sects, and wings, and factions, | 37:29 | |
| this is a good time to be alive, | 37:34 | |
| and a good land in which to breathe. | 37:39 | |
| I'm glad that I came to a country | 37:43 | |
| which has a place for John L. Lewis, | 37:46 | |
| and Martin Luther King, | 37:49 | |
| and Walter Reuther, | 37:51 | |
| and Norman Thomas, | 37:54 | |
| and Brandeis, and Cardozo, and Stone. | 37:56 | |
| The right wing also has its men and women | 38:01 | |
| who have done good things for us. | 38:03 | |
| Carnegies, and Dukes, and Fords, and Mellons, | 38:06 | |
| and Rockefellers. | 38:10 | |
| Now, lest you think me too naive, or over-optimistic, | 38:11 | |
| Let me add that I do not confuse the United States | 38:16 | |
| with the Kingdom of God, | 38:20 | |
| nor Durham with the New Jerusalem. | 38:23 | |
| But I'm glad that my nowadays is here and now. | 38:28 | |
| Third, do you, Nabal, truly apprehend the future? | 38:35 | |
| Do you truly apprehend the future? | 38:42 | |
| If Nabal is going to answer that question with intelligence, | 38:46 | |
| he will realize that there's more than a degree | 38:51 | |
| of difference between "apprehend" | 38:54 | |
| and "comprehend." | 38:58 | |
| We're not expecting him to have a complete grasp | 39:02 | |
| of what's going to happen in the days ahead. | 39:05 | |
| We do not expect him to understand the distant scene, | 39:08 | |
| but we would like to see some attitude of wonder, | 39:13 | |
| a gasp of excitement, | 39:18 | |
| an on-tiptoe approach, | 39:21 | |
| to the days ahead. | 39:24 | |
| There is going to be change. | 39:26 | |
| There is going to be decay. | 39:29 | |
| There's also are going to be the chance for experimentation, | 39:32 | |
| and the discovery of new frontiers, | 39:36 | |
| and the unexpectedness of surprise. | 39:40 | |
| Nabal did not live long enough | 39:45 | |
| to realize that David was not just a runaway slave | 39:48 | |
| at the head of a gang of freebooters. | 39:53 | |
| And some folks centuries later, | 39:56 | |
| did not live long enough to discover that Jesus | 39:59 | |
| was more than a carpenter's son. | 40:04 | |
| Therefore, we should view the future | 40:09 | |
| with some tentativeness, especially in condemnation. | 40:11 | |
| And we should walk into it with hope, even with confidence. | 40:18 | |
| Listen to St. Paul on the question of looking at the past | 40:23 | |
| and at the future. | 40:27 | |
| Paul had a good background. | 40:30 | |
| He was proud of his Jewish pedigree. | 40:34 | |
| And he was able to add to that, Roman citizenship, | 40:40 | |
| but he was willing to let all its glory go | 40:44 | |
| to become a Christian. | 40:50 | |
| Yet he knew he was no perfect Christian. | 40:53 | |
| He'd keep working at it, in hope. | 40:57 | |
| Listen to him. | 41:00 | |
| "I, myself have a reason for confidence in the flesh, also. | 41:03 | |
| If any other man thinks he has reason for confidence | 41:09 | |
| in the flesh, I have more." | 41:12 | |
| Paul never suffered from modesty, | 41:15 | |
| one has to realize that about him. | 41:17 | |
| "Circumcised on the eighth day, | 41:20 | |
| of the people of Israel, | 41:23 | |
| of the tribe of Benjamin, | 41:25 | |
| a Hebrew born of Hebrews, | 41:27 | |
| as to the law, a Pharisee, | 41:31 | |
| as to zeal, a persecutor of the church." | 41:34 | |
| And then listen to this phrase. | 41:38 | |
| "As to righteousness under the law, | 41:40 | |
| blameless." | 41:45 | |
| Now that's in a public letter. | 41:48 | |
| "As to righteousness under the law, blameless, | 41:51 | |
| without spot or blemish. | 41:55 | |
| But, | 41:58 | |
| whatever gain I had, I counted as lost | 42:01 | |
| for the sake of Christ. | 42:05 | |
| Indeed, I count everything is lost, | 42:07 | |
| because of a surpassing word of knowing Christ Jesus, | 42:10 | |
| my Lord, that I may know him, | 42:14 | |
| and the power of his resurrection, | 42:18 | |
| and may share his sufferings, | 42:20 | |
| becoming like him in his death, | 42:23 | |
| that if possible, | 42:26 | |
| I may attain the resurrection from the dead. | 42:28 | |
| Not that I have already obtained this, | 42:33 | |
| or am already perfect, | 42:35 | |
| but I press on to make it my own, | 42:38 | |
| because Christ has made me his own. | 42:41 | |
| Brethren, I do not consider that I've made it my own, | 42:46 | |
| but one thing I do, | 42:52 | |
| forgetting what lies behind." | 42:55 | |
| Now, this is not forgetting sins. | 42:57 | |
| This is forgetting good things. | 43:00 | |
| "Forgetting what lies behind, | 43:04 | |
| and straining forward to what lies ahead, | 43:07 | |
| I press on toward the goal, | 43:11 | |
| for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. | 43:14 | |
| Paul's nowadays was open-ended, | 43:20 | |
| toward the future. | 43:26 | |
| John W. Gardner in his, | 43:29 | |
| "The Recovery of Confidence," | 43:32 | |
| might be commenting on St. Paul when he writes, | 43:34 | |
| "I speak for another kind of optimism, | 43:38 | |
| one that does not assume it has a cure for all life's ills, | 43:41 | |
| that recognizes the deep, | 43:47 | |
| intrinsic difficulties in social change, | 43:49 | |
| that accepts life's often and favorable odds, | 43:53 | |
| but will not stop hoping, | 43:58 | |
| or trying." | 44:02 | |
| Ever since Paul's day, | 44:04 | |
| the golden age of Christianity has been ahead. | 44:06 | |
| Our successes of yesterday and our failures of today | 44:12 | |
| are but lessons to instruct us well, in the days ahead. | 44:17 | |
| our eyes are toward the future. | 44:22 | |
| The only direction for a lively Christian. | 44:25 | |
| The name, "Nabal" has two different, but related meanings. | 44:31 | |
| It may be translated, "fool," | 44:37 | |
| a witless one, | 44:42 | |
| a lunatic, | 44:45 | |
| a person of unsound mind. | 44:47 | |
| It may be translated "boor," | 44:51 | |
| a rough, | 44:55 | |
| surly, | 44:56 | |
| ill-bred fellow, | 44:57 | |
| The opposite of "gentleman." | 44:59 | |
| It's a shame to have his blood in our spiritual arteries, | 45:04 | |
| when we may receive a transfusion, | 45:11 | |
| from David or Paul. | 45:14 | |
| It's a shame to be bound to the past, | 45:18 | |
| when we can be turned towards the future. | 45:22 | |
| Let us pray. | 45:30 | |
| Almighty God, | 45:33 | |
| who will be what Thou wilt be, | 45:35 | |
| Help us nowadays to forget even the good that lies behind, | 45:40 | |
| and to press forward to whatever lies before, | 45:46 | |
| that we may be worthy of the prize | 45:52 | |
| of continuing life with Thee, and with Thy Son. | 45:54 | |
| Even Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 46:00 | |
| Amen. | 46:05 | |
| (lively church organ music) | 46:08 | |
| (choir singing) | 46:52 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 47:39 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 48:27 | |
| (choir singing concludes) | 49:19 | |
| (soft church organ music) | 49:29 | |
| (choir singing) | 50:18 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 51:13 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 52:15 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 52:47 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 53:52 | |
| (choir singing continues) | 54:48 | |
| (choir singing concludes) | 55:35 | |
| (lively church organ music) | 55:42 | |
| (choir singing) | 56:04 | |
| (choir singing concludes) | 56:57 | |
| - | Oh, God, who has given us strength | 57:03 |
| and opportunity to share our keep, to earn it, | 57:06 | |
| we want to share your bounty | 57:11 | |
| with those who have less strength and opportunity. | 57:13 | |
| Accept these gifts as our down payment, | 57:18 | |
| and pledge that we want to give more of ourselves, | 57:21 | |
| fully and joyfully in service, | 57:26 | |
| to those in our community and around the world. | 57:29 | |
| Amen. | 57:32 | |
| And now may the God of hope | 57:36 | |
| fill you with all joy and peace, now and forever. | 57:38 | |
| Amen. | 57:43 | |
| (solemn choir singing) | 57:47 | |
| (solemn choir singing concludes) | 58:49 | |
| (church bell ringing) | 59:10 | |
| (lively church organ music) | 59:25 | |
| (indistinct conversations) | 1:00:06 |
