James T. Cleland - "Micah Got It All Together" (January 17, 1971)
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| (organ playing hymn) | 0:15 | |
| (congregation singing) | 0:58 | |
| Priest | Christian friends, | 3:56 |
| with humility, | 3:58 | |
| with sincerity, | 4:00 | |
| openness of mind, | 4:02 | |
| let us join together in our hearts | 4:04 | |
| and our voices in our prayer of confession and for pardon. | 4:07 | |
| Let us pray. | 4:12 | |
| Almighty God, | 4:14 | |
| we humbly confess that we are a guilty people. | 4:16 | |
| We cannot count the sins that we have done, | 4:20 | |
| nor can we remember all the evil thoughts of our hearts. | 4:23 | |
| We have neglected Thy word, | 4:28 | |
| have taken lightly Thy mercies. | 4:30 | |
| We have not turned away from violence and vanity. | 4:33 | |
| We, therefore, do not deserve | 4:37 | |
| the forgiveness that we pray for, | 4:39 | |
| but we ask Thee to grant it through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 4:42 | |
| Amen. | 4:48 | |
| Hear now the words of Scripture, | 4:51 | |
| were written for our comfort, for our benefit. | 4:54 | |
| "Though your sins be as scarlet, | 4:59 | |
| they shall be as white as snow. | 5:03 | |
| Though they be red like crimson, | 5:07 | |
| they shall be as wool." | 5:10 | |
| (organ playing hymn) | 5:18 | |
| (congregation singing) | 5:52 | |
| - | Here again at the sixth verse | 12:13 |
| of the sixth chapter of the book of the prophet, Micah. | 12:15 | |
| "With what shall I come before the Lord | 12:19 | |
| and vow myself before God on high? | 12:21 | |
| Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, | 12:26 | |
| with calves of a year old? | 12:29 | |
| Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, | 12:31 | |
| with 10 thousands of rivers of oil? | 12:35 | |
| Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, | 12:39 | |
| the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? | 12:43 | |
| He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good. | 12:47 | |
| And what doth the Lord require of you, | 12:51 | |
| but to do justice and to love kindness, | 12:55 | |
| and to walk humbly with your God? | 12:59 | |
| Hear the blessings. | 13:04 | |
| (organ playing hymn) | 13:07 | |
| (congregation singing) | 13:15 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 13:49 | |
| Let us pray. | 13:53 | |
| Almighty God, | 14:01 | |
| in recognition of the fact | 14:04 | |
| that we are not entirely sufficient unto ourselves, | 14:06 | |
| we are not our own creators, | 14:10 | |
| that we receive use and enjoy great many things | 14:14 | |
| we did not ourselves provide. | 14:18 | |
| We now also acknowledge this. | 14:21 | |
| Be aware of our indebtedness to others | 14:25 | |
| and to the ultimate source of our belongings and blessings. | 14:27 | |
| We recognize Thee and Thee being our source. | 14:33 | |
| We realize that we have not deserved these gifts. | 14:37 | |
| We know that the only reasonable attitude we have | 14:41 | |
| is one of thanksgiving. | 14:44 | |
| So here we are with gratitude on our lips | 14:47 | |
| and in our hearts. | 14:50 | |
| We give thanks for the degree of health, which we have, | 14:53 | |
| for the measure of peace there is in the world, | 14:57 | |
| for the percentage of employment we have in our nation, | 15:02 | |
| for the extent to which | 15:06 | |
| we have mastered our courses this semester, | 15:07 | |
| for all of the pluses in our lives, | 15:12 | |
| which tend to offset the minuses. | 15:14 | |
| We especially thank Thee that even the minuses | 15:18 | |
| can, with divine help, become pluses. | 15:20 | |
| We're grateful for light shining and darkness, | 15:24 | |
| for warm places on a cold day, | 15:28 | |
| for fresh insight in the midst of our confusion, | 15:31 | |
| and for a friend in our times of anxiety. | 15:36 | |
| We are grateful for the creative people in our lives. | 15:41 | |
| Above everyone else, for Jesus. | 15:45 | |
| O God, even as we express our gratitude | 15:50 | |
| for past and present blessings, | 15:54 | |
| we renew our request for new ones. | 15:57 | |
| As final exams are in front of us, | 16:02 | |
| all of us pray for each other and ourselves. | 16:06 | |
| For professors, we pray that | 16:11 | |
| examinations may be given in fairness and with imagination, | 16:14 | |
| that grades may be given without bias. | 16:19 | |
| For students, we pray that there may be clarity and honesty, | 16:24 | |
| the sense of perspective. | 16:30 | |
| We pray that this may be a good time of examination, | 16:35 | |
| that wisdom may come in along with facts. | 16:40 | |
| Help us, O God, to understand that | 16:47 | |
| this is symbolic of the many times of testing in our lives, | 16:48 | |
| the many times when we shall be tested throughout life | 16:55 | |
| and that ultimate final examination that we shall have | 17:01 | |
| before Thee. | 17:05 | |
| O God, we ask on this day, | 17:08 | |
| Thy blessing, Thy mercy, Thy healing. | 17:11 | |
| Come to the tortured land of Vietnam, | 17:16 | |
| all of that part of the world. | 17:19 | |
| For peace and understanding and forgiveness | 17:24 | |
| to be in the Middle East. | 17:26 | |
| For a concern for human welfare | 17:30 | |
| and peace in Latin America. | 17:33 | |
| For brotherhood and justice and kindness at home. | 17:37 | |
| O God, we ask that | 17:44 | |
| the way of Jesus may be seriously examined in our day | 17:47 | |
| for its relevance to our own problems. | 17:52 | |
| Once more as ever, | 17:59 | |
| our heavenly Father, we lift our hearts and prayer | 18:02 | |
| for those of our who are sick. | 18:06 | |
| Thou knowest their needs better than we. | 18:10 | |
| Thou are able to provide their needs better than we. | 18:14 | |
| And yet, help us to see the ways in which we can help. | 18:18 | |
| May kindness and good insight be given | 18:23 | |
| to doctors and nurses. | 18:27 | |
| May all of us have a generous, liberal quality of love. | 18:30 | |
| We pray, our Father, for everyone who is anxious, | 18:39 | |
| who does not know what the outcome will be, | 18:43 | |
| whatever their problem. | 18:46 | |
| May tranquility and insight, Christian grace and love, | 18:49 | |
| to come to all of us. | 18:54 | |
| We make these prayers | 18:58 | |
| in the spirit of Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 18:59 | |
| who has taught us when we pray we say: | 19:04 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, | 19:07 | |
| hallowed be Thy name. | 19:10 | |
| Thy kingdom come, | 19:12 | |
| Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 19:14 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 19:17 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 19:20 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 19:22 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 19:26 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 19:29 | |
| For Thine is the kingdom, | 19:31 | |
| the power and the glory. | 19:32 | |
| Forever. | 19:35 | |
| So God, deliver us all. | 20:01 | |
| This is a bad period of the year. | 20:07 | |
| January is a long, cold tunnel of a month. | 20:13 | |
| Gray in color, | 20:19 | |
| damp in character, | 20:22 | |
| seemingly endless in duration, | 20:25 | |
| with examinations thrown in for bad measure. | 20:30 | |
| Moreover, the good intentions | 20:36 | |
| with which we started the new year | 20:37 | |
| are, but shadows of things have lost the way. | 20:41 | |
| The good resolutions, for most of us, | 20:49 | |
| have turned out to be vague prisons. | 20:52 | |
| What do we do for the rest of the year? | 20:58 | |
| Instead of resolutions, | 21:04 | |
| let us look at the criterion of excellence | 21:06 | |
| found in the old Testament, | 21:11 | |
| which was read as our lesson, | 21:15 | |
| read by our Carmarden, | 21:20 | |
| whom you have heard so often | 21:23 | |
| I thought it was time that you also saw him. | 21:26 | |
| Here is what an English critic said of that passage | 21:30 | |
| last century. | 21:34 | |
| In the eighth century BC, | 21:38 | |
| in the heart of a world of idolatrous politics, | 21:42 | |
| Hebrew prophet put forth a conception of religion, | 21:47 | |
| which appears to me as wonderful and inspiration of genius | 21:53 | |
| as they are ridiculous of science of Aristotle. | 21:58 | |
| Many so-called religion takes away from this great saying. | 22:05 | |
| I think it wanted you to read. | 22:11 | |
| While it adds there too, | 22:15 | |
| I think it obscures the perfect ideal of religion. | 22:18 | |
| Now, who said what? | 22:27 | |
| Well, Micah was his name. | 22:32 | |
| Here, again, is what he said, | 22:35 | |
| "With what shall I come before the Lord | 22:39 | |
| and bow myself before God up high? | 22:44 | |
| Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, | 22:49 | |
| with calves of a year old? | 22:53 | |
| Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, | 22:57 | |
| with 10,000 rivers of oil? | 23:03 | |
| Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, | 23:09 | |
| the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? | 23:16 | |
| He has showed you, O man, what is good. | 23:24 | |
| What does the Lord require of you, | 23:30 | |
| but to do justice and to love kindness | 23:33 | |
| and to walk humbly with your God?" | 23:40 | |
| That is Micah's criteria of religious excellence. | 23:45 | |
| Now, we shall not spend any time on the question | 23:54 | |
| but the Micah of Moratia really said this off his own back. | 23:58 | |
| But if some unknown maker spiritual genius | 24:05 | |
| slipped it into Micah's lens, | 24:09 | |
| he wisely said of Homer's alien | 24:13 | |
| that if it were not written by Homer | 24:17 | |
| then it was written by another man called Homer. | 24:21 | |
| So with the summary of religion in the book of Micah, | 24:27 | |
| and it probably was a summary, | 24:31 | |
| termed to his three great predecessors | 24:36 | |
| among the inserted prophets | 24:39 | |
| and took from each a central emphasis | 24:43 | |
| and combined them. | 24:48 | |
| First of Amos. | 24:51 | |
| Now, what was his keynote? | 24:53 | |
| Justice. | 24:56 | |
| The recovery of the old nomadic ethic of the wilderness | 24:58 | |
| with the stress on the brotherhood, | 25:03 | |
| on community, | 25:06 | |
| on a classless society, | 25:08 | |
| where any superiority | 25:11 | |
| was that only of functional leadership. | 25:14 | |
| It's a point of view which keep the pack | 25:19 | |
| in the jungle world, | 25:21 | |
| the strength of the pack is the wolf | 25:24 | |
| and the strength of the wolf is the pack. | 25:29 | |
| Here is how Amos put it in a sermon at a special service | 25:33 | |
| in the royal sanctuary. | 25:38 | |
| He spoke as if his voice was the voice of the God: | 25:41 | |
| "I hate, I despise your feasts, | 25:45 | |
| and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. | 25:50 | |
| Even though you offer me burnt offerings | 25:54 | |
| and cereal offerings, I will not accept them. | 25:57 | |
| And the peace offerings of your fat beasts, | 26:03 | |
| I will not look upon. | 26:06 | |
| Take away from me the noise of your songs | 26:09 | |
| or the melody of your hearts, | 26:14 | |
| I will not listen. | 26:16 | |
| But when justice roll down like water | 26:20 | |
| and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." | 26:26 | |
| Hence Micah's, "What does the Lord require of you, | 26:32 | |
| but to do justice?" | 26:38 | |
| Then Micah turned to Hosea | 26:42 | |
| as firing a denunciator as Amos, | 26:45 | |
| but to also introduce the note of mercy, | 26:50 | |
| loving-kindness, | 26:55 | |
| tenderness. | 26:57 | |
| The change is so dramatic that Dr. Stinespring, | 26:58 | |
| professor of Old Testament in our own divinity school, | 27:03 | |
| just deposited the theory that there were two Hoseas. | 27:08 | |
| And what caused this emphasis on mercy? | 27:13 | |
| An unsuccessful man. | 27:20 | |
| Hosea's wife proved unfaithful. | 27:25 | |
| The law required divorce. | 27:28 | |
| Then Micah discovered, | 27:33 | |
| I mean, Hosea discovered | 27:36 | |
| that he still loved her. | 27:38 | |
| She was about to be sold as a slave. | 27:42 | |
| He bought her | 27:45 | |
| and brought her back into this home. | 27:48 | |
| Not his wife, | 27:54 | |
| but he took care of the home. | 27:56 | |
| And then he drew his conclusions. | 27:58 | |
| If I can love my wife who has been unfaithful, | 28:01 | |
| who became a prostitute, | 28:06 | |
| surely God can love Israel | 28:10 | |
| despite its worship of the Baals | 28:14 | |
| and his heart. | 28:19 | |
| Here is Hosea's big achievement. | 28:21 | |
| When Israel was a child, | 28:23 | |
| I loved you. | 28:26 | |
| Now, Egypt I call my son, | 28:28 | |
| the more I called them, | 28:32 | |
| the more they went from me. | 28:34 | |
| They kept sacrificing to the Baals | 28:38 | |
| and burning incense to idols. | 28:40 | |
| Yet it was I who taught and freed them. | 28:45 | |
| I let them with chords of compassion, | 28:49 | |
| with the bands of love. | 28:52 | |
| Then God comes to this conclusion: | 28:58 | |
| "I will not execute my fierce anger. | 29:00 | |
| I will not again destroy Israel. | 29:05 | |
| But I am God, | 29:09 | |
| but not man, | 29:12 | |
| and I will not come and destroy." | 29:15 | |
| Hence, Micah's "And to love and kindness." | 29:20 | |
| Let's turn to Isaiah. | 29:27 | |
| He's more famous, contemporary, | 29:29 | |
| whose vision in the temple has become | 29:32 | |
| almost the order of public worship. | 29:34 | |
| The mood is one of reverence, | 29:38 | |
| reverence filled with joyous gratitude, | 29:41 | |
| because of the revelation that God, | 29:45 | |
| the great God, | 29:48 | |
| is one who cares | 29:51 | |
| and who cleanses | 29:54 | |
| and who asks for man's cooperation | 29:56 | |
| in the day in, day out | 30:00 | |
| task of making and keeping the heart of mind, | 30:03 | |
| the heart and the mind of the will of God. | 30:08 | |
| Here are some verses from Isaiah's apocrypha. | 30:13 | |
| "In the year that the king Uzziah died | 30:18 | |
| I saw the Lord sitting up on a throne. | 30:21 | |
| Above Him stood the seraphims, | 30:26 | |
| each had six wings. | 30:30 | |
| One called to the other and said, | 30:34 | |
| "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. | 30:36 | |
| The whole earth is full of His glory." | 30:40 | |
| And I said, woe is me, | 30:45 | |
| but I'm lost. | 30:49 | |
| I'm a man of unclean lips. | 30:51 | |
| I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, | 30:53 | |
| and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. | 30:57 | |
| Then flew one of the seraphims to me, | 31:03 | |
| having in his hand a burning coal, | 31:05 | |
| which he had taken with tongs off the altar, | 31:08 | |
| and he touched my mouth and said, | 31:11 | |
| 'Behold, this has touched your lips, | 31:14 | |
| your guilt is taken away, | 31:18 | |
| your sin forgiven.' | 31:21 | |
| And I heard the voice and the Lord saying, | 31:27 | |
| 'Whom shall I send? | 31:30 | |
| Who will go for us?' | 31:34 | |
| And I said, | 31:37 | |
| here am I, | 31:39 | |
| send me." | 31:42 | |
| Hence, Micah's, "And to walk humbly with your God", | 31:45 | |
| which is to walk modestly with God, | 31:50 | |
| to conduct oneself without self-assertion, | 31:55 | |
| to call God, Sir. | 31:59 | |
| This is the background of Micah's perception of religion, | 32:03 | |
| drawn from his three predecessors, | 32:07 | |
| Amos, Hosea, Isaiah. | 32:10 | |
| Justice of a brotherhood, | 32:14 | |
| a loving-kindness for the undeserving, | 32:17 | |
| the kind of attitude which knows that God is top priority. | 32:21 | |
| Micah got, altogether, | 32:28 | |
| about 700 years before the Christian. | 32:32 | |
| Now does this view of religion stand up down the centuries? | 32:38 | |
| Yes. | 32:44 | |
| All kinds of people, folk who we admire, we respect, | 32:45 | |
| we wish we could emulate, | 32:49 | |
| saints, | 32:52 | |
| on the matter of justice, | 32:54 | |
| listen to two or three of them. | 32:56 | |
| What is justice? | 32:59 | |
| Giving to a person that which is due to him. | 33:01 | |
| Jesus knew the need for justice, | 33:08 | |
| if there was to be any sense of community, | 33:11 | |
| but Jesus widened the idea of community and so of justice | 33:14 | |
| to include sinners | 33:20 | |
| and Samaritans | 33:23 | |
| and an officer in the Roman army. | 33:26 | |
| When an end was put to Jesus' earthly existence, | 33:33 | |
| Paul picked up the idea | 33:37 | |
| and made a famous statement | 33:39 | |
| about the brotherhood of the church | 33:40 | |
| in which there was no distinction between Jew and Gentile, | 33:43 | |
| between freeman and slave, | 33:49 | |
| even between male and female. | 33:53 | |
| All are one. | 33:55 | |
| Maybe not in the world. | 33:58 | |
| One in the church. | 34:01 | |
| A person is a person is a person, | 34:06 | |
| has to be treated as such. | 34:11 | |
| Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice" | 34:16 | |
| astutely widens into the world | 34:19 | |
| when Shylock say, | 34:22 | |
| "I am a Jew. | 34:25 | |
| Hath not a Jew eyes? | 34:29 | |
| Hath not a Jew hands, organs, | 34:33 | |
| dimensions, senses, affections, passions, | 34:36 | |
| fed with the same food, | 34:42 | |
| hurt with the same weapons, | 34:44 | |
| subject to the same diseases, | 34:48 | |
| healed by the same means | 34:51 | |
| warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer | 34:54 | |
| as a Christian is? | 34:58 | |
| If you crack us, do we not bleed? | 35:01 | |
| If you tickle us, | 35:07 | |
| do we not laugh? | 35:10 | |
| Poison us, | 35:13 | |
| do we not die?" | 35:15 | |
| Justice for all or just for some? | 35:19 | |
| The same justice for all | 35:26 | |
| within a community which knows | 35:29 | |
| what a community is all about. | 35:31 | |
| The need and the hope are ever with man | 35:34 | |
| and with men. | 35:41 | |
| How about mercy? | 35:43 | |
| Kindness, simple. | 35:45 | |
| What is mercy? | 35:49 | |
| And compassion so great has to enable a person to forbear | 35:52 | |
| even when justice demands punishment. | 35:58 | |
| It's more than tolerance. | 36:02 | |
| It is a positive, | 36:06 | |
| positive goodwill to the undeserving. | 36:07 | |
| Jesus expressed that to the woman taken in adultery, | 36:12 | |
| to Peter, when his disciple publicly cursed | 36:17 | |
| and swore that he had no dealings with Jesus, | 36:22 | |
| to a thief dying alongside him on a second cross. | 36:29 | |
| He even forced an ecclesiastical lawyer | 36:36 | |
| to use the Word. | 36:40 | |
| The scribe had asked him, "Who is my neighbor?" | 36:43 | |
| This continual old problem of community. | 36:46 | |
| Jesus told a story, | 36:52 | |
| the one we call "The Good Samaritan". | 36:54 | |
| And at the end Jesus, just asked the lawyer a question, | 36:57 | |
| "Which of these three, | 37:02 | |
| priest, Levite, Samaritan, | 37:04 | |
| do you think proved to be good | 37:09 | |
| to the man who fell among the robbers?" | 37:12 | |
| The lawyer knew, | 37:18 | |
| but he didn't, | 37:21 | |
| maybe he wouldn't say, "Samaritan". | 37:23 | |
| What he did say was, "The one who showed mercy." | 37:28 | |
| Jesus didn't leave it at that. | 37:36 | |
| He asked him, "Go and do likewise." | 37:40 | |
| One of the beatitudes is, | 37:46 | |
| "Blessed are the merciful, | 37:47 | |
| they will receive what they give." | 37:50 | |
| Let's turn to Shakespeare again | 37:56 | |
| for "The Merchant of Venice" | 37:58 | |
| and listen to the question. | 38:01 | |
| "The quality of mercy is not strained. | 38:06 | |
| It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven | 38:10 | |
| upon the place beneath. | 38:14 | |
| It is twice blest. | 38:17 | |
| It blesseth him that gives | 38:21 | |
| and him that takes. | 38:24 | |
| 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. | 38:28 | |
| It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. | 38:32 | |
| His scepter shows the force of temporal power, | 38:38 | |
| the attribute to awe and majesty, | 38:43 | |
| wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. | 38:46 | |
| But mercy is above this sceptered sway. | 38:51 | |
| It is enthroned in the hearts of kings. | 38:56 | |
| It is an attribute to God himself, | 39:03 | |
| and earthly power doth then show likest God's | 39:08 | |
| when mercy seasons justice. | 39:13 | |
| Therefore, Jew, | 39:20 | |
| though justice be thy plea, | 39:24 | |
| consider this, | 39:27 | |
| that in the course of justice, | 39:29 | |
| none of us should see salvation. | 39:34 | |
| We do pray for mercy, | 39:40 | |
| and that same prayer doth teach us all | 39:45 | |
| to render the deeds of mercy." | 39:48 | |
| The mercy which seasons justice, | 39:53 | |
| this quality of good community endures. | 39:57 | |
| The need, the hope are still with us. | 40:02 | |
| What about walking humbly with God? | 40:06 | |
| Reverence for the holy. | 40:10 | |
| The acceptance of the fact that God is God | 40:13 | |
| and man is always only a creature, | 40:17 | |
| and yet a creature who may need the son. | 40:22 | |
| When one knows that and accepts it, | 40:30 | |
| then religion is adoration, | 40:33 | |
| homage emotion. | 40:35 | |
| God is at the center and man revolves around Him, | 40:38 | |
| but he does it willingly, | 40:42 | |
| honestly, | 40:45 | |
| cooperatively. | 40:46 | |
| This is so true of Jesus, | 40:48 | |
| that one may but think of the primacy of God | 40:52 | |
| at the beginning of his ministry | 40:55 | |
| in the three answers, | 40:58 | |
| which he gave to the devil in the temptation experience. | 40:59 | |
| The name, God, is in jest. | 41:03 | |
| And again, at the end of his ministry, | 41:08 | |
| in Gethsemane he said to God, | 41:11 | |
| "Not my will, | 41:15 | |
| but Thy will be done", | 41:17 | |
| though he did not look forward | 41:19 | |
| to what was going to be done. | 41:23 | |
| Name the heroes of the faith. | 41:27 | |
| Isn't it a case of God first? | 41:28 | |
| The rest, nowhere is that close to God. | 41:31 | |
| Paul and Santa Teresa. | 41:35 | |
| Augustine and Florence Nightingale. | 41:38 | |
| Joan of Arc. | 41:41 | |
| Martin Luther King. | 41:43 | |
| Reverence for God leads to reverence for life, | 41:46 | |
| the life of all kinds of people, | 41:50 | |
| because this third part of Micah's perception, | 41:54 | |
| to walk humbly with God, | 41:58 | |
| is what leads to doing justice. | 42:02 | |
| The loving mercy. | 42:06 | |
| The last two are the fruits of a life rooted in reverence, | 42:08 | |
| at all times, in all places, for all people. | 42:15 | |
| But does such a criteria of excellence make sense for us, | 42:22 | |
| my little campers? | 42:27 | |
| The vigil of a few years ago, | 42:35 | |
| the plea for group bargaining, | 42:38 | |
| even the agitation for co-ed dorms | 42:43 | |
| have some relation to a justice ending, | 42:47 | |
| which stresses community above past, race and sex. | 42:51 | |
| Of course, with the longing | 42:56 | |
| for equality of status and opportunity | 42:58 | |
| it's going to be a hard time for... | 43:01 | |
| The man with a Christ tag, whatever. | 43:06 | |
| There's truth in the old adage, | 43:10 | |
| "Take what you like from life, | 43:13 | |
| but pay for it." | 43:17 | |
| And there are days ahead | 43:20 | |
| for other vigils and parades, | 43:21 | |
| picketing, | 43:26 | |
| and crisis to pay. | 43:29 | |
| It's good to remember that there's also a place for mercy, | 43:33 | |
| for loving-kindness, | 43:36 | |
| done without vigiling, | 43:38 | |
| or parading or picketing. | 43:40 | |
| And on that, some years ago, | 43:42 | |
| when I personally required an active blood transfusion, | 43:45 | |
| five divinity students gave the needed amount. | 43:51 | |
| I discovered their names, | 43:56 | |
| and two of them I didn't like. | 43:59 | |
| They probably didn't like me either. | 44:05 | |
| But I was a member of the beloved community who needed help, | 44:11 | |
| so they helped. | 44:19 | |
| That is mercy. | 44:21 | |
| There are folk all around us who need more than justice. | 44:25 | |
| A class mate, | 44:29 | |
| a janitor, | 44:31 | |
| a maid, | 44:33 | |
| a waitress, | 44:34 | |
| a cop, | 44:36 | |
| a bus driver. | 44:38 | |
| There's always room for mercy. | 44:42 | |
| There's also a place for the humility, | 44:48 | |
| the modesty and the lack of arrogance, | 44:50 | |
| which allows an opening for surprise and wonder and awe. | 44:53 | |
| It's the opposite of the Greek word, hubris, | 44:58 | |
| that suggests that we are the people, | 45:03 | |
| and wisdom will die with us. | 45:06 | |
| It's the reverence which brought 800 folk | 45:11 | |
| to this chapel at 11 o'clock on Christmas Eve | 45:15 | |
| a few weeks ago. | 45:21 | |
| It's the wonder, which made three astronauts | 45:25 | |
| on Christmas Eve, 1968, | 45:28 | |
| bring back to the listening earth | 45:31 | |
| part of the creation story from Genesis | 45:33 | |
| before they slipped around the far side of the morning | 45:38 | |
| for the first time ever. | 45:42 | |
| It is perhaps, I don't know, but perhaps, | 45:47 | |
| the reason that Duke still sponsors | 45:51 | |
| this university service. | 45:55 | |
| Suddenly, my son, | 46:00 | |
| yes. | 46:04 | |
| My first conception | 46:06 | |
| is not yet outdated. | 46:08 | |
| So, don't worry about broken or neglected resolutions. | 46:11 | |
| Make Micah's criteria your own | 46:15 | |
| in this new year, | 46:18 | |
| which has justly begun, | 46:21 | |
| to do justly, | 46:24 | |
| put love first, | 46:26 | |
| to walk modestly with God. | 46:28 | |
| Micah got involved in long before camp, | 46:31 | |
| and he must still be with us when camp is forgotten. | 46:38 | |
| Let us pray. | 46:46 | |
| O God of Micah and Jesus, | 46:50 | |
| love has shown us what is good. | 46:54 | |
| Active justice, | 47:00 | |
| to love-kindness, | 47:03 | |
| to carry ourselves without pretense, | 47:05 | |
| righteousness. | 47:10 | |
| Help us. | 47:13 | |
| We won't make it in our own strength, | 47:16 | |
| but we might. | 47:20 | |
| Amen. | 47:30 | |
| (organ playing hymn) | 47:33 | |
| (congregation singing) | 48:03 | |
| (organ playing hymn) | 52:21 | |
| (congregation singing) | 52:25 | |
| (organ playing hymn) | 55:37 | |
| (congregation singing) | 56:23 | |
| Almighty God, | 57:19 | |
| we present here as this offering | 57:21 | |
| a symbol of our presence our money and ourselves, | 57:24 | |
| with the prayer that | 57:32 | |
| we can be used to advance justice and mercy. | 57:35 | |
| Now, may the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, | 57:49 | |
| be with us all. | 57:53 | |
| Congregation | ♪ Amen ♪ | 57:57 |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 58:01 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 58:05 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 58:19 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 58:28 | |
| (organ playing hymn) | 59:18 | |
| (people chatting) | 59:45 | |
| (person whistling) | 59:58 | |
| (people chatting) | 1:00:05 |
