Howard C. Wilkinson - "One - Man Dialogue" (October 31, 1971)
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Transcript
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- | Confession of our sins to set forth our praise, | 0:06 |
to hear the most holy word, to declare our faith, | 0:10 | |
to ask for ourselves and all people, those things, | 0:15 | |
which are necessary, | 0:19 | |
for the body and soul | 0:20 | |
to offer the service of our lives | 0:22 | |
and to receive the blessing. | 0:25 | |
Wherefore, | 0:28 | |
let us invoke God's presence | 0:29 | |
with us now and confess our sins | 0:31 | |
in this almighty presence. | 0:34 | |
All | Almighty and most merciful father, | 0:38 |
we confess that we have sinned against thy love | 0:41 | |
and against thy truth, | 0:46 | |
neither with heart nor soul nor strength | 0:49 | |
have we loved thee nor have we loved | 0:53 | |
our neighbor as ourselves. | 0:57 | |
We confess especially that we have not loved thee, | 1:00 | |
with all our minds. | 1:05 | |
We have not owned thy Lordship in our thinking. | 1:07 | |
Wherefore, we pray thee, to have mercy upon us, | 1:12 | |
forgive the sins we have done to please ourselves, | 1:17 | |
and the sins we have done to please others. | 1:22 | |
Forgive us those sins, which we know | 1:26 | |
and those sins which we know not. | 1:29 | |
Forgive them all of thy great goodness | 1:33 | |
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 1:36 | |
- | Who is like unto God who pardons iniquity, | 1:42 |
and passes over transgressions. | 1:45 | |
He does not retain his anger forever | 1:47 | |
because he delights in steadfast love. | 1:50 | |
He will again have compassion upon us. | 1:54 | |
He will tread our inequities underfoot. | 1:57 | |
He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. | 2:00 | |
Amen. | 2:05 | |
(gentle music) | 2:10 | |
(woman singing) | 3:22 | |
(choir singing) | 9:10 | |
The scripture lesson today comes | 9:54 | |
from Roman seven and eight. | 9:56 | |
The law is spiritual, we know that, | 9:59 | |
but then I am a creature of the flesh | 10:02 | |
in the thraldom of sin. | 10:05 | |
I cannot understand my own actions. | 10:07 | |
I do not act as I want to act. | 10:11 | |
On the contrary, I do what I detest. | 10:14 | |
Now when I act against my wishes, | 10:18 | |
that means I agree that the law is right. | 10:20 | |
That being so it is not I who do the deed, | 10:24 | |
but sin that dwells within me. | 10:27 | |
For in me, that is in my flesh, | 10:30 | |
no good dwells I know. | 10:33 | |
The wish is there but not the power of doing what is right. | 10:36 | |
I cannot be good as I want to be | 10:41 | |
and I do wrong against my wishes. | 10:44 | |
Well, if I act against my wishes, | 10:47 | |
it is not I who do the deed, but sin that dwells within me. | 10:50 | |
So this is my experience of the law. | 10:55 | |
I want to do what is right, but wrong is all I can manage. | 10:58 | |
I cordially agree with God's law so far | 11:03 | |
as my inner self is concerned, | 11:07 | |
but then I find quite another law in my members, | 11:09 | |
which conflicts with the law of my mind | 11:13 | |
and makes me a prisoner to sins law | 11:16 | |
that resides in my members, | 11:19 | |
thus left to myself. | 11:22 | |
I serve the law of God with my mind, | 11:23 | |
but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. | 11:26 | |
Miserable wretch that I am, | 11:30 | |
who will rescue me from this body of death. | 11:33 | |
God will, thanks be to him | 11:36 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 11:39 | |
Thus, there is no doom now | 11:41 | |
for those who are in Christ Jesus, | 11:44 | |
the law of the spirit brings the life, | 11:47 | |
which is in Christ Jesus. | 11:50 | |
And that law has set me free | 11:51 | |
from the law of sin and death. | 11:54 | |
Amen. | 11:56 | |
(choir singing) | 12:07 | |
Be seated. | 12:44 | |
The Lord be with you, | 12:51 | |
let us pray. | 12:54 | |
Our heavenly God, | 12:57 | |
we come before you to exalt you | 12:59 | |
and praise your name for you have done | 13:02 | |
and will do wondrous things. | 13:05 | |
The works of your hand are certain and just. | 13:08 | |
They are done in truth and confidence. | 13:13 | |
You have been a strong hold to the poor | 13:17 | |
and to the needy in their distress. | 13:20 | |
Your justice stands forever. | 13:23 | |
Your demands are true. | 13:25 | |
You have sent liberation to your people | 13:28 | |
and to eternity you will uphold your covenant. | 13:31 | |
Blessed and holy is your being | 13:35 | |
your knowledge and wisdom is perfect. | 13:38 | |
We come before you also to give you thanks | 13:41 | |
for all that you have given us, | 13:45 | |
our lives, the lives of others | 13:47 | |
and the community of the faithful. | 13:50 | |
We give thanks that all people are loved by you | 13:53 | |
and that you have given us a good earth | 13:57 | |
from which to sustain all things that have life. | 14:00 | |
We give thanks for the joy and sorrow | 14:04 | |
that faces us and draw strength | 14:07 | |
and courage from each new opportunity and challenge | 14:10 | |
that life presents to us. | 14:14 | |
We are grateful for the tolerance | 14:17 | |
that you have with our blundering, misinformed, fearful, | 14:19 | |
stumbling toward your kingdom | 14:24 | |
and pray for the courage to try everything. | 14:27 | |
We pray that we can never hope for too much | 14:30 | |
from the growing unity of mankind. | 14:34 | |
We offer now our prayers of intercession. | 14:38 | |
We pray for the poor and hungry | 14:42 | |
for migrant workers and the unemployed. | 14:45 | |
We pray for the street and ghetto people | 14:48 | |
and children who are unwanted in their homes. | 14:51 | |
We pray for prisoners and exiles | 14:55 | |
and for all the persecuted | 14:58 | |
because of conscience or resistance. | 15:00 | |
We pray for the sick and suffering in mind or body | 15:03 | |
for alcoholics and those spaced out on drugs or fear. | 15:08 | |
We pray for prostitutes, for policemen, | 15:14 | |
for jailers and soldiers, | 15:17 | |
and for all prisoners of a degrading system, | 15:19 | |
we pray for the oppressors, | 15:23 | |
exploiters and imperialists | 15:25 | |
that they may be confused and disarmed by love. | 15:28 | |
We pray for the masters of war | 15:32 | |
that they may be given a new transplant of flesh | 15:35 | |
in place of their heart of stone. | 15:39 | |
We pray for all whom we fear, resent or cannot love. | 15:41 | |
And for the unlovable, | 15:47 | |
we pray for all minority people | 15:49 | |
that they may truly gain power | 15:52 | |
and freedom and be able to determine their own lives. | 15:54 | |
We pray for all white people | 15:59 | |
that they may learn how racism oppresses even them, | 16:01 | |
and that they may find the courage and energy | 16:05 | |
to overthrow all our racist systems | 16:08 | |
for the betterment of all mankind. | 16:11 | |
We pray for all those who are close to us here | 16:13 | |
and in every place, | 16:17 | |
we pray for the reconciliation of mankind | 16:19 | |
through nonviolent revolution, | 16:22 | |
we pray for an environment without pollution. | 16:25 | |
We pray for all churches | 16:29 | |
that they may be both prophetic and priestly. | 16:31 | |
And finally, we pray for all that | 16:36 | |
we are not wise enough to ask for ourselves. | 16:38 | |
We call on you our God to bind us together in solidarity | 16:42 | |
with all people who are using their lives | 16:47 | |
to resist evil and affirm love and justice. | 16:51 | |
We bind ourselves to you as we pray together, | 16:55 | |
the prayer given to us by Jesus. | 16:59 | |
All | Our father, who art in heaven, | 17:03 |
hallowed be thy name, | 17:06 | |
thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, | 17:08 | |
as it is in heaven. | 17:14 | |
Give us this day, | 17:16 | |
our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses | 17:17 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us | 17:21 | |
and lead us not into temptation, | 17:26 | |
but deliver us from evil. | 17:28 | |
For thine is the kingdom | 17:31 | |
and the power and the glory forever and ever. | 17:33 | |
Amen. | 17:37 | |
- | Good morning. | 17:57 |
Those who are worshiping with us by radio, | 18:01 | |
who are still in bed and have not turned back their clocks, | 18:05 | |
think I should have said good afternoon, | 18:07 | |
Which is another way of saying | 18:11 | |
that it's nice to be preaching | 18:12 | |
to an uncommonly well slept congregation. | 18:14 | |
Before I get into this thing, which we call a sermon, | 18:19 | |
there's something else I'd like to do. | 18:22 | |
I'd like to make a statement, | 18:26 | |
which will be both an explanation of something | 18:28 | |
and a progress report. | 18:32 | |
During the last day and a half, | 18:35 | |
quite a few people have asked | 18:37 | |
who we have in that big box at the back of the chapel. | 18:42 | |
Actually, we don't know what's in that box | 18:47 | |
because we haven't opened it yet, | 18:50 | |
but since it came from Zandum Holland | 18:52 | |
and was sent by Mr. Flynn Tropp | 18:56 | |
and he said that he was sending a little organ | 19:00 | |
in it, we presume that's what it is. | 19:02 | |
Now, that's an explanation. | 19:05 | |
The progress report is the rest of the story, | 19:07 | |
which is that Mr. Flynn Tropp | 19:09 | |
who is building the great organ, | 19:14 | |
which will be between the arches | 19:17 | |
of the great jam just as you come in | 19:20 | |
the main entrance of the chapel, | 19:23 | |
is sending a little, | 19:27 | |
what he calls a positive organ over here | 19:29 | |
to get the sound or the feel of the chapel. | 19:31 | |
And then after he has played it in here | 19:36 | |
and has made his calibrations, | 19:39 | |
he will then tune the large pipes | 19:41 | |
on the instrument that is to be installed later. | 19:45 | |
Okay. | 19:50 | |
Now the sermon. | 19:52 | |
Since January, 1967, | 19:55 | |
when Joe Harris and I preached the first dialogue sermon | 19:58 | |
that had ever been delivered in this chapel, | 20:02 | |
I have had the privilege of preaching dialogue sermons | 20:06 | |
with six other Duke undergraduates, | 20:10 | |
making a total of seven thus far. | 20:13 | |
You would be interested to know that the other students, | 20:18 | |
in addition to Joe Harris are Dennis Campbell, | 20:21 | |
Ninian Bell, Peggy O'Reilly, Reed Kramer, | 20:24 | |
Tom Reiper, and C.G Newsome. | 20:29 | |
But a moment ago, when I stepped into the pulpit, | 20:34 | |
unaccompanied, by any other visible companion. | 20:37 | |
You probably assumed that this would | 20:42 | |
not be a dialogue sermon like those others. | 20:44 | |
However, I want to say right now | 20:49 | |
that it will be a dialogue sermon, | 20:52 | |
perhaps not exactly like the ones which featured | 20:55 | |
two physical bodies visibly present | 20:59 | |
and in close proximity to each other. | 21:03 | |
And having said that, I should hasten to add | 21:06 | |
that it will also not be like the dialogue | 21:09 | |
between Elwood P. Dowd and his imaginary friend Harvey | 21:13 | |
in Mary Coyle Chase's famous Broadway production Harvey. | 21:19 | |
Well, in what sense then will it be a dialogue sermon? | 21:24 | |
It will be a dialogue sermon in the sense | 21:31 | |
that every sermon ought to reflect dialogue | 21:33 | |
in the sense that every major decision you make | 21:39 | |
in your life should reflect dialogue. | 21:44 | |
In the sense that the innermost being of you yourself | 21:50 | |
is in continual dialogue. | 21:56 | |
In the sense that dialogue is really inescapable | 22:01 | |
in all normal living. | 22:04 | |
And one of the hopes I have for this sermon today | 22:08 | |
is that it will bring both the necessity | 22:10 | |
and the desirability of one-man dialogue | 22:14 | |
to the center of your attention. | 22:19 | |
The explanation of this necessity | 22:24 | |
and desirability is that we humans | 22:27 | |
are not sewn together from only one piece of material. | 22:30 | |
We are each one of us separately, a patchwork quilt. | 22:36 | |
You individually are a miscellaneous collection | 22:44 | |
and all the items in the collection | 22:48 | |
do not speak the same word, | 22:49 | |
want the same thing, | 22:53 | |
point in the same direction or act | 22:56 | |
with the same degree of wisdom. | 22:59 | |
Yet all of that hodgepodge collection adds up | 23:03 | |
to just one person who has just one life to live | 23:06 | |
on this earth and most of the time | 23:12 | |
has to behave in something | 23:16 | |
like a unified and consistent fashion. | 23:17 | |
Within my earthly temple, there's a crowd, | 23:23 | |
there's one of us that's humble. | 23:27 | |
One, that's proud. | 23:29 | |
There's one that loves his neighbor as himself. | 23:31 | |
And one that cares for not, but fame and pelf. | 23:34 | |
There's one who's broken hearted for his sins | 23:38 | |
and one who unrepented sits and grins. | 23:42 | |
From much corroding care I would be free | 23:47 | |
if once I could determine which is me. | 23:51 | |
So wrote an anonymous poet, | 23:58 | |
But the relevant point just now is that all of us | 24:01 | |
have to settle the argument finally | 24:04 | |
and determine which is me. | 24:07 | |
You know, Shakespeare gives a beautiful | 24:12 | |
and dramatic portrayal of this one man dialogue, | 24:14 | |
when he brings Hamlet on the stage just after the king | 24:17 | |
and Polonius have slipped off stage | 24:22 | |
and the prince of Denmark then engages | 24:25 | |
in dialogue with himself, "To be or not to be?" | 24:29 | |
That is the question, | 24:35 | |
Whether tis nobler in the mind | 24:37 | |
to suffer the slings and arrows | 24:39 | |
of outrageous fortune, | 24:41 | |
or to take arms against a sea of trouble | 24:44 | |
and by opposing end them. | 24:47 | |
Put yourself in Hamlet's place, | 24:51 | |
when your consciousness is on stage, | 24:55 | |
what is the topic of your dialogue? | 25:00 | |
Is it, shall I change my major from what I have declared? | 25:04 | |
Or shall I continue with the one I chose at first? | 25:10 | |
Or shall I apply for admission to law school? | 25:14 | |
Or shall I try for a PhD in political science? | 25:19 | |
Or shall I declare that I am a conscientious subjector | 25:24 | |
to war and apply for a CO classification? | 25:29 | |
Or shall I allow myself to be drafted into the army | 25:32 | |
and just hope I don't have to kill anybody. | 25:36 | |
Now, the difficulty of making a decision | 25:40 | |
after dialogue is due partly to the fact | 25:44 | |
that we often cannot know what the end result | 25:48 | |
of our decision will be for years and years to come. | 25:53 | |
As part of the difficulty, | 25:59 | |
the other part is due to the fact | 26:01 | |
that at least one strong appeal | 26:03 | |
is usually attached to almost any course | 26:09 | |
we might contemplate taking. | 26:13 | |
So that doesn't really help us with a decision. | 26:16 | |
Suppose for example, someone gives you a joint, | 26:21 | |
tells you to have fun. | 26:24 | |
You perhaps had never before actually faced in your hands, | 26:28 | |
a decision on whether to smoke marijuana. | 26:32 | |
Now you have the decision to make, | 26:37 | |
to smoke or not to smoke. | 26:39 | |
That is the question. | 26:41 | |
Either decision you make has | 26:45 | |
at least one strong appeal going for it. | 26:47 | |
You're told that everybody is doing it, | 26:52 | |
everybody but everybody. | 26:54 | |
You like to do what everybody else is doing, don't you? | 26:58 | |
You were made that way. | 27:03 | |
So was I, | 27:05 | |
you like to do what others are doing | 27:06 | |
just because others are doing it. | 27:10 | |
You're told that it gives you a pleasant feeling. | 27:14 | |
You prefer pleasant feelings to unpleasant feelings, | 27:18 | |
don't you? | 27:22 | |
But there's a voice from an another side of your nature, | 27:24 | |
which speaks up and reminds you that very little research | 27:29 | |
has been done actually on the effects of pot | 27:32 | |
and some medical doctors, | 27:37 | |
and some psychiatrists have strongly insisted | 27:38 | |
that marijuana has some very harmful consequences. | 27:41 | |
Now you wouldn't want to be the victim of bad consequences. | 27:48 | |
Would you? | 27:53 | |
You're also reminded by this other voice in your nature, | 27:56 | |
that laws against the use of pot were passed democratically. | 27:59 | |
And you don't like to see yourself | 28:05 | |
as a violator of democracies decisions. | 28:07 | |
Do you? | 28:11 | |
So your dialogue about smoking pot, | 28:14 | |
or not smoking it becomes real. | 28:16 | |
And you find yourself pulled in two opposite directions | 28:18 | |
by strong appeals. | 28:22 | |
Or again, suppose you're invited to join a typical commune | 28:25 | |
and you don't have a ready-made answer. | 28:31 | |
So you listen to the voices from within and from without. | 28:34 | |
You're told that joining a commune would provide you | 28:39 | |
with warm acceptance by a small group of intimate friends. | 28:43 | |
You would like to receive warm acceptance by a small group | 28:52 | |
of intimate friends, wouldn't you? | 28:57 | |
You're told that communes would offer you plenty of sex. | 29:02 | |
You have a sexual instinct | 29:07 | |
and you'd like to have sex, wouldn't you? | 29:10 | |
you're told that the commune is the great new experiment | 29:14 | |
in human living. | 29:18 | |
Those who join in now will be recognized as pioneers later. | 29:19 | |
You'd find it pleasant to think of yourself as a pioneer, | 29:25 | |
wouldn't you? You know, Magellan, Columbus, | 29:29 | |
Wright Brothers, Buzz Aldrin, you. | 29:32 | |
But a different voice within you speaks up | 29:38 | |
and reminds you that there are reports | 29:44 | |
that many communes have already been known to break up | 29:47 | |
in bitterness and anger | 29:51 | |
with the most responsible members of the commune | 29:54 | |
being hurt the worst, both financial and emotionally. | 29:57 | |
This voice also reminds you that sex without real love | 30:03 | |
and permanent commitment is degrading to personality. | 30:07 | |
And further states that sociologists claim | 30:13 | |
that civilization has to have for its survival, | 30:15 | |
a very strong monogamous marriage, | 30:20 | |
And that the commune movement obviously weakens | 30:23 | |
the institution of monogamous marriage. | 30:27 | |
So you dialogue back and forth, | 30:32 | |
and the dialogue is very real. | 30:36 | |
And you need to hear all of the voices from within you. | 30:39 | |
These are some of the kinds of considerations, | 30:46 | |
which you and I face every day as we carry on | 30:52 | |
our one-man dialogue. | 30:55 | |
We discover that it is very hard work, | 30:59 | |
especially if we're honest with ourselves. | 31:03 | |
If we do not push down some legitimate part | 31:08 | |
of our human nature. | 31:12 | |
And so there comes the temptation to avoid the dialogue | 31:17 | |
if we can. | 31:21 | |
We're tempted to go along with whatever voice | 31:24 | |
is speaking loudly at the moment. | 31:27 | |
If we happen to find ourselves in church, like right now, | 31:32 | |
we go along with a religious sentiment. | 31:36 | |
If we're in the stadium and are | 31:40 | |
on the Duke side of the stadium, we root for the Duke team. | 31:42 | |
But if we're in the class of a professor who dislikes | 31:47 | |
both religion and athletics, we go along with him. | 31:51 | |
My only comment would be that for the student who goes | 31:58 | |
through four years in that kind of sheep like conformity, | 32:01 | |
the most appropriate gift the dean's could give him | 32:06 | |
at the end of the four years | 32:09 | |
would be a sheep skin. | 32:10 | |
One of the settler forms of the temptation | 32:15 | |
to avoid one-man dialogue | 32:19 | |
is the idea that we don't really | 32:21 | |
have to make a choice. | 32:25 | |
We can be smart enough to have our cake and eat it too. | 32:28 | |
So we think. | 32:32 | |
Last Monday evening here in this place, | 32:35 | |
I was seated in the congregation | 32:38 | |
during the formal installation of Dr. Thomas Langford, | 32:41 | |
as Dean of the divinity school. | 32:44 | |
Sitting in front of me was a Divinity Student | 32:47 | |
whose eyes were beholding the installation of the dean. | 32:51 | |
But whose ears were attuned to a transistor radio, | 32:56 | |
which he held closely to one ear | 33:00 | |
while the installation was going on. | 33:03 | |
He was physically present to the installation, | 33:06 | |
but his real attention was given to a musical program | 33:11 | |
being played some distance away. | 33:14 | |
Now, this sort of thing is not to be confused | 33:18 | |
with the rose comment | 33:21 | |
about stepping to the music of a distant drummer. | 33:23 | |
Which he described in Walden. | 33:26 | |
Let's look at that student and the dialogue, | 33:30 | |
which perhaps went through his mind before he came. | 33:34 | |
Would he stay home and listen to his favorite radio program | 33:40 | |
or would he do his duty and attend the dean's installation? | 33:45 | |
He probably imagined that modern technology | 33:50 | |
had made it possible for him to have his cake | 33:53 | |
and eat it too. | 33:56 | |
He could be physically present, | 33:59 | |
but he could also listen to his program. | 34:01 | |
But you see right away that this pretension | 34:04 | |
that he could really do both actually | 34:06 | |
was a subterfuge and it fooled no one. | 34:10 | |
Unless it fooled the man himself. | 34:14 | |
Actually we should resist the temptation | 34:18 | |
to avoid the dialogue | 34:21 | |
and honestly grapple with the pros and the cons, | 34:22 | |
which arise within us. | 34:26 | |
Because our decisions are likely to be more lasting, | 34:29 | |
more realistic, more wise. | 34:34 | |
If we have weighed the alternatives in the balance | 34:37 | |
before we decide. | 34:40 | |
And never forget it, | 34:43 | |
we do have to make decisions, | 34:45 | |
painful as they are. | 34:50 | |
Painful as they often are. | 34:53 | |
This is something which I admire about Billy Graham, | 34:57 | |
he emphasizes in his Hour of Decision program, | 35:01 | |
the necessity for everyone to make a choice. | 35:04 | |
Now, there are a great many churchmen | 35:10 | |
and educators who criticize Billy Graham. | 35:11 | |
And I must admit that I do not myself regard him | 35:15 | |
as an unmixed blessing, | 35:18 | |
But that does not keep me from appreciating | 35:21 | |
the truth of his insistence | 35:24 | |
that all of us reach a point sooner or later, | 35:26 | |
whether we are ready for it or not, | 35:31 | |
whether we like it or not. | 35:34 | |
And even if we are aware of it or not, | 35:37 | |
we must and we do make major decisions about our lives. | 35:40 | |
And it is useless, | 35:47 | |
utterly pointless to protest or deny this. | 35:49 | |
It's therefore better that we make them purposefully | 35:54 | |
and positively after considering the alternatives, | 35:58 | |
rather than to stumble into our decisions | 36:03 | |
in haphazard fashion under coercion. | 36:06 | |
Now I recognize the possibility that someone may feel | 36:12 | |
that this emphasis upon one-man dialogue is unhealthy | 36:15 | |
and that it would tend toward schizophrenia | 36:19 | |
in the personality. | 36:22 | |
But actually I have learned after talking this over | 36:25 | |
with psychiatrists, that the very opposite is true. | 36:28 | |
There's more of a tendency toward schizophrenia | 36:34 | |
and obsessive, compulsive behavior | 36:37 | |
if you don't dialogue with the different parts | 36:40 | |
of your nature. | 36:43 | |
If the port was correct in saying | 36:46 | |
within my earthly temple there's a crowd, | 36:48 | |
then the healthy course would be for one segment | 36:53 | |
of the crowd to converse | 36:56 | |
with the other segment of the crowd | 36:57 | |
and the unhealthy state of affairs | 37:00 | |
would be for them to remain strangers. | 37:02 | |
You will remember the strange case | 37:07 | |
of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson, | 37:09 | |
which is a case in point. | 37:16 | |
They were both the same man. | 37:19 | |
But although | 37:22 | |
Dr Henry Jekyll | 37:26 | |
knew of Mr. Edward Hyde, | 37:28 | |
he did not know that Mr. Hyde | 37:31 | |
inhabited his very own body. | 37:33 | |
They had never met. | 37:39 | |
There was no dialogue, whatever between them. | 37:41 | |
This was very unhealthy to say the least, | 37:45 | |
because in the personality of one individual | 37:48 | |
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde went past each other, | 37:51 | |
like two ships in the night. | 37:54 | |
The apostle Paul knew about this ambivalence | 37:58 | |
in his own nature. | 38:01 | |
And he dealt with it in his letter | 38:03 | |
to the Christians in Rome. | 38:05 | |
"I cannot understand my own actions," | 38:07 | |
he wrote. | 38:10 | |
"I do not act as I want to act, | 38:12 | |
on the contrary I do what I detest. | 38:16 | |
The wish is there but not the power of doing | 38:19 | |
what is right. | 38:23 | |
I cannot be good as I want to be, | 38:25 | |
and I do wrong against my wishes. | 38:29 | |
So this is my experience of the law, | 38:32 | |
I want to do what is right, | 38:36 | |
but wrong is all that I can manage." | 38:38 | |
Thus left to myself, | 38:41 | |
I serve the law of God with my mind, | 38:42 | |
but with my flesh I serve the law of sin, | 38:45 | |
miserable wretch that I am, | 38:49 | |
who will rescue me from this body of death. | 38:52 | |
God will. | 38:56 | |
Thanks be to Him through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 38:58 | |
Thus, there is no doom now for those | 39:03 | |
who are in Christ Jesus. | 39:06 | |
The law of the spirit brings the life, | 39:08 | |
which is in Christ Jesus. | 39:11 | |
And that law has set me free from the law of sin and death. | 39:13 | |
This is Moffatt's translation | 39:20 | |
of the last part of the seventh | 39:23 | |
and the early part of the eighth chapter of Romans. | 39:26 | |
So you see Paul looked at two sides of his own nature. | 39:30 | |
He consciously saw the ambivalence and the contradiction, | 39:33 | |
which he was experiencing. | 39:37 | |
And he made the decision finally | 39:39 | |
to give his life to Jesus Christ | 39:42 | |
and live by the spirit. | 39:45 | |
This I am sure did not forever end | 39:47 | |
any kind of ambivalence in his life, | 39:51 | |
but it did give Paul a principle around which | 39:54 | |
and a person around whom | 39:58 | |
he could increasingly organize and integrate | 40:01 | |
all of the dynamics of his being. | 40:05 | |
Paul also was given a new frame of reference | 40:09 | |
for his one-man dialogue. | 40:14 | |
This same Jesus Christ is available for you and me today. | 40:17 | |
And our need of him in our dialogue | 40:22 | |
is as great as that of Paul. | 40:27 | |
Let us pray. | 40:30 | |
Almighty God who has made us as we are, | 40:33 | |
who understands us better than we understand ourselves. | 40:38 | |
We turn to you for the solution to our dilemma. | 40:44 | |
And we thank you for the solution, | 40:50 | |
which is offered to us in Jesus Christ. | 40:52 | |
And we accept him as the goal of our lives | 40:56 | |
as the reason of our existence | 41:01 | |
and as our deliverance from sin and death. | 41:03 | |
Amen. | 41:08 | |
(choir singing) | 41:51 | |
(gentle music) | 45:01 | |
(choir singing) | 45:52 | |
- | Oh God, of whose gifts we have all received, | 53:39 |
accept this offering of your people. | 53:43 | |
Remember in your love, | 53:46 | |
those who have brought it and those for whom it is given. | 53:48 | |
And so follow it with thy blessing | 53:52 | |
that it may promote peace and goodwill | 53:55 | |
among all people. | 53:58 | |
And now may God bless you and watch over you. | 54:03 | |
God shine his face upon you and love you, | 54:06 | |
God lift up his face to you | 54:09 | |
and get his peace among you. | 54:11 | |
Amen. | 54:14 | |
(choir singing) | 54:20 | |
(bell chiming) | 55:28 | |
(people chattering) | 56:34 |