Hugh Anderson - "One Step Enough" (May 13, 1973)
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| (grand piano music playing) | 0:03 | |
| (choir singing) | 1:27 | |
| - | The peace of God, our father | 4:22 |
| and the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all. | 4:24 | |
| When we gather to praise God, | 4:29 | |
| even in the midst of our celebrations, | 4:31 | |
| we remember that we are his people | 4:34 | |
| who have preferred our will to his. | 4:36 | |
| We confess that we are linked by a common humanity | 4:41 | |
| to all the sin and death which scars this earth. | 4:44 | |
| We know that we have done much | 4:49 | |
| that should not have been done and left undone | 4:50 | |
| much that needs doing. | 4:54 | |
| Accepting his promise and his power to become new persons | 4:57 | |
| in forgiving love. | 5:01 | |
| Let us confess our sins before God | 5:03 | |
| and before each other. | 5:06 | |
| Let us pray. | 5:08 | |
| Oh God, | 5:23 | |
| in whose mystery we abide | 5:24 | |
| and by whose mercy we are redeemed, | 5:26 | |
| we confess our sin against mankind and against thee. | 5:29 | |
| All our transgressions, hidden and open, | 5:35 | |
| the evil done, the goodness left undone. | 5:38 | |
| We have lied to ourselves about ourselves | 5:43 | |
| and more in mass and not trusted in law. | 5:46 | |
| We confess that we have been careful with things, | 5:50 | |
| careless with persons. | 5:54 | |
| Apt in taking, awkward in giving, | 5:56 | |
| in love with our fears | 6:00 | |
| and in fear of our loves. | 6:02 | |
| Forgive us for the times of our anger | 6:05 | |
| and the places of our stupidity. | 6:08 | |
| For the times of our cowardice | 6:11 | |
| and the places of our hesitation. | 6:14 | |
| For every time we did not love the goodness of persons | 6:17 | |
| nor praise the glory of God. | 6:21 | |
| Forgive us, | 6:24 | |
| lift us up | 6:26 | |
| and heal us this day | 6:27 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 6:29 | |
| Amen. | 6:32 | |
| Let us hear, receive and accept these words of assurance. | 6:36 | |
| Daily and hourly in this moment, | 6:42 | |
| God's good and forgiving grace | 6:45 | |
| can spring forth among even us. | 6:47 | |
| God, the father gives it, | 6:51 | |
| Jesus Christ reveals it, | 6:53 | |
| the Holy Spirit bears it to us and to all men. | 6:56 | |
| Grace is in us. | 7:00 | |
| Angels dance in our blood, | 7:03 | |
| the lame walk, | 7:06 | |
| the sick are healed, the mountains rejoice, | 7:08 | |
| the valleys are exalted. | 7:11 | |
| For this is the acceptable time of the Lord. | 7:14 | |
| Your prayers are heard. | 7:19 | |
| Your sins are forgiven. | 7:22 | |
| Your life is open. | 7:24 | |
| You are free to serve love. | 7:27 | |
| Glory be to the father and to the son and to the Holy Ghost. | 7:30 | |
| Amen. | 7:35 | |
| - | The scripture reading is from the 10th chapter of Luke. | 7:51 |
| And behold, | 7:57 | |
| a lawyer stood up to put him to the test saying, | 7:58 | |
| "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" | 8:03 | |
| And he said to him, "What is written in the law? | 8:07 | |
| How do you read?" | 8:10 | |
| And he answered, "You shall love the Lord, your God | 8:12 | |
| with all your heart and with all your soul | 8:16 | |
| and with all your strength and with all your mind | 8:19 | |
| and your neighbor as yourself." | 8:24 | |
| And he said to him, "You have answered right. | 8:27 | |
| Do this and you will live." | 8:30 | |
| But he desiring to justify himself, | 8:34 | |
| said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" | 8:37 | |
| Jesus replied, | 8:40 | |
| "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho | 8:42 | |
| and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him | 8:46 | |
| and departed, leaving him half dead. | 8:49 | |
| Now by chance, a priest was down that road | 8:53 | |
| and when he saw him, he passed on the other side. | 8:57 | |
| So likewise a Levite. | 9:00 | |
| When he came to the place and saw him, | 9:02 | |
| passed on the other side. | 9:04 | |
| But a Samaritan as he journeyed, came to where he was | 9:06 | |
| and when he saw him, | 9:10 | |
| he had compassion and went to him and bound up his wounds, | 9:12 | |
| pouring on oil and wine | 9:16 | |
| then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn | 9:19 | |
| and took care of him. | 9:22 | |
| And the next day he took out two denarii | 9:24 | |
| and gave them to the innkeeper saying, | 9:26 | |
| "Take care of him and whatever more you spend, | 9:28 | |
| I will repay you when I come back." | 9:31 | |
| Which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man | 9:34 | |
| who fell among the robbers?" | 9:38 | |
| He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." | 9:42 | |
| And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise" | 9:46 | |
| (grand piano music playing) | 9:56 | |
| (choir singing) | 10:04 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 14:31 |
| (congregation responds) | 14:32 | |
| Let us pray. | 14:34 | |
| Let us offer unto God | 14:38 | |
| a litany of thanksgiving. | 14:40 | |
| Hear, oh God, | 14:46 | |
| this prayer of thanksgiving | 14:47 | |
| which we offer to you. | 14:49 | |
| For the homes from which we have come, | 14:52 | |
| for parents and guardians | 14:55 | |
| and sponsors who believed in education | 14:58 | |
| and made it possible for us to be at Duke | 15:01 | |
| and to leave this university as its sons and daughters, | 15:04 | |
| we give you thanks and praise. | 15:08 | |
| For the interplay of the colleges and schools, | 15:12 | |
| undergraduate, graduate and professional, | 15:15 | |
| which widened our horizon and deepened our understanding | 15:19 | |
| and stretched our imagination, | 15:23 | |
| we give you thanks and praise. | 15:26 | |
| For people, | 15:29 | |
| all kinds of people. | 15:31 | |
| For classmates who grew with us and accepted us | 15:33 | |
| and loved us as friends, | 15:37 | |
| for teachers who realize | 15:40 | |
| that a good instructor teaches a person | 15:42 | |
| as well as a subject. | 15:45 | |
| For administrators, maids, secretaries, maintenance crews, | 15:47 | |
| known and unknown, | 15:54 | |
| who worked for our benefit, | 15:56 | |
| we give you thanks and praise. | 15:58 | |
| For memories which will challenge us. | 16:02 | |
| The colors in the Fall, | 16:05 | |
| the empty quad in Winter, | 16:07 | |
| the gardens in the Spring, | 16:10 | |
| and the library, the lab, the chapel, | 16:13 | |
| the Cambridge Inn, | 16:17 | |
| newspapers, flyers and placards | 16:19 | |
| for all memories, | 16:23 | |
| we give you thanks and praise. | 16:25 | |
| For the fact that this university | 16:28 | |
| still pays more than lip service | 16:30 | |
| to (indistinct). | 16:33 | |
| To knowledge which is linked with reverence. | 16:35 | |
| To insight that has a place for piety. | 16:39 | |
| To an awe before the universe and before our neighbor, | 16:43 | |
| which may be the beginning of wisdom. | 16:48 | |
| We give you thanks and praise. | 16:51 | |
| For you, | 16:54 | |
| your prophets, psalmist and law givers, | 16:56 | |
| for Jesus of Nazareth and for your Holy Spirit. | 17:00 | |
| Glory be to you, oh God. | 17:05 | |
| Amen. | 17:08 | |
| Let us continue in the spirit of prayer | 17:11 | |
| as we offer our prayers of intercession and supplication. | 17:13 | |
| Oh God, invisible and eternal, | 17:20 | |
| thou of 100 names but ever the same | 17:23 | |
| in mercy and in love, | 17:26 | |
| we praise thee for thy creation, | 17:30 | |
| for all the blessings that have come to us at this time. | 17:33 | |
| God of liberation and reconciliation | 17:38 | |
| to whom all things are possible, | 17:41 | |
| we offer our prayers of concern for our world, | 17:44 | |
| our brothers and sisters, and for ourselves. | 17:47 | |
| We call on thy spirit, | 17:52 | |
| we ask thy presence and thy power for all people | 17:54 | |
| who call this earth their home, oh Lord. | 17:59 | |
| But we know in the great God | 18:03 | |
| the twisted things are straightened, | 18:05 | |
| the crippled are enlivened and made whole, | 18:09 | |
| blind men see | 18:12 | |
| and the slain arise in resurrection. | 18:14 | |
| And thee oh Lord, | 18:18 | |
| the tired one shall run, | 18:19 | |
| the angered one shall speak peace | 18:22 | |
| and those tangled in darkness shall declare the light. | 18:25 | |
| In thee shall every man know the time of his own rejoicing. | 18:30 | |
| Gracious Lord, our father, | 18:38 | |
| we pray for ourselves and this university, | 18:39 | |
| this society of truth, | 18:43 | |
| that accepting with gladness the high offices of thought, | 18:46 | |
| that seeing clearly and feeling deeply, | 18:51 | |
| we may go forth to be in the world as those who serve. | 18:54 | |
| Give us oh God, our father, the listening ear, | 19:01 | |
| and the responsive will. | 19:05 | |
| Bring such answer to each of our prayers | 19:08 | |
| as each of us needs. | 19:13 | |
| Giving to one of us more courage, | 19:16 | |
| to another self-restraint | 19:19 | |
| and yet to another freedom from selfishness | 19:22 | |
| and self-interest. | 19:24 | |
| Rescue us, oh God | 19:27 | |
| from the meager use of thy great gifts. | 19:28 | |
| Maintain in us the fidelity of those to whom | 19:32 | |
| much has been given and from whom much will be required. | 19:35 | |
| Our father in heaven | 19:42 | |
| who has so made us that we reach attainment | 19:43 | |
| only through striving | 19:45 | |
| and who has placed in our hearts conflicting desires | 19:47 | |
| that we may learn to choose the things that are worthwhile, | 19:52 | |
| grant us the grace to choose responsibly in this | 19:56 | |
| and every time | 20:00 | |
| and in every expenditure of our strength. | 20:02 | |
| Help us to face squarely the responsibilities | 20:06 | |
| that go with the moral issues of our time | 20:08 | |
| and to range our own personal power and influence | 20:12 | |
| on the side of those ideals | 20:16 | |
| in which we honestly now believe. | 20:18 | |
| While we pray and work for peace | 20:21 | |
| in the affairs of men, | 20:23 | |
| may we never forget that there is no peace | 20:25 | |
| in the struggle against evil. | 20:28 | |
| Warm with confidence and the eternal value | 20:31 | |
| of all that is true and beautiful and good, | 20:34 | |
| and give us strength every hour | 20:40 | |
| to do the things that we know are right. | 20:42 | |
| Oh God, our father who art the great teacher | 20:47 | |
| and the great physician, | 20:51 | |
| we lift our prayers with the graduates | 20:53 | |
| of the class of 1973. | 20:55 | |
| Teach them, oh God as they go forth from this, | 21:00 | |
| their home of learning, to be free men and women, | 21:03 | |
| to embrace, live values, | 21:08 | |
| diverse styles | 21:11 | |
| and loving conflicts. | 21:13 | |
| May they possess vision without narrowness, | 21:15 | |
| courage without coldness | 21:19 | |
| and compassion without confusion. | 21:22 | |
| Send them forth, oh Lord, | 21:26 | |
| well loved into a world in need of much love. | 21:28 | |
| Where there is no justice, no peace, no hope, | 21:32 | |
| let them enter that place and plant a colony of like. | 21:37 | |
| Where there is no mother, no daughter, no brother, | 21:42 | |
| no son, let them join hands with that person | 21:46 | |
| and build a family of love. | 21:50 | |
| Our father, we ask that thou has confirmed them | 21:54 | |
| in their determination to summon every bit | 21:58 | |
| of their humanity in the face of every effort to deny it. | 22:01 | |
| May they not skirt the uncomfortable | 22:06 | |
| nor rationalize the unacceptable. | 22:09 | |
| May they become more than they now are. | 22:12 | |
| May they become more than they think | 22:16 | |
| they can ever become. | 22:18 | |
| The makers and the bearers of a new tradition of justice | 22:20 | |
| and compassion that their children may know the presence | 22:24 | |
| of something different in this our world. | 22:29 | |
| Something as full of joy and hope as childhood itself. | 22:32 | |
| Oh God, | 22:39 | |
| may we all join with them here and the world around | 22:40 | |
| to make life beautiful with sanity | 22:45 | |
| and real with love. | 22:48 | |
| Through Jesus Christ our Lord | 22:51 | |
| who taught his disciples to pray together saying, | 22:53 | |
| our father who art in heaven, | 22:57 | |
| hallowed be thy name, | 22:59 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 23:01 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 23:03 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 23:07 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 23:10 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 23:12 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 23:16 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 23:19 | |
| For thine is the kingdom | 23:21 | |
| and the power and the glory forever. | 23:23 | |
| Amen. | 23:27 | |
| - | I am very grateful to president Sanford, | 23:55 |
| to the university marshal, professor (indistinct) | 23:59 | |
| and to the committee responsible | 24:02 | |
| for arranging these graduation exercises, | 24:04 | |
| for making my visit here possible. | 24:08 | |
| It is for me a very great delight | 24:11 | |
| to be back in this familiar sanctuary | 24:14 | |
| and to be in the midst of the life | 24:18 | |
| of this distinguished university. | 24:20 | |
| I would want to say to you who are graduating at this time | 24:23 | |
| that your lines have been set | 24:27 | |
| in very pleasant places indeed. | 24:29 | |
| And here you have lived and worked in an environment | 24:32 | |
| that has offered you the opportunity | 24:37 | |
| of a very authentic community of learning. | 24:40 | |
| I bring you greetings from an ancient university | 24:44 | |
| across the seas | 24:47 | |
| and wish you well in your chosen careers. | 24:48 | |
| Between 1957 and 1966, | 24:53 | |
| I spent what I would consider | 24:56 | |
| to be the very happiest years of my life | 24:59 | |
| here in this place with my family. | 25:02 | |
| Sometimes I confess during these days, | 25:05 | |
| we used to be haunted by a kind of nostalgia | 25:08 | |
| for the highland hills and glens of Scotland. | 25:12 | |
| And you would understand | 25:16 | |
| that the old home places mean a lot. | 25:17 | |
| But then such is the irony of life | 25:22 | |
| that now that we are back in Edinborough, | 25:24 | |
| on many a dreary gray day there, | 25:27 | |
| we are haunted by precisely the same kind of nostalgia | 25:30 | |
| for the clear blue of the Carolina sky | 25:33 | |
| and the limpid yellow of the Carolina moon. | 25:36 | |
| That's how life is. | 25:40 | |
| We're never apparently, completely at home anywhere. | 25:41 | |
| It is good to be back. | 25:46 | |
| It is a very a great thrill | 25:48 | |
| to share this high occasion with you at this time. | 25:50 | |
| Let us pray. | 25:54 | |
| Bless the works of my lips | 25:58 | |
| and the thoughts of thy peoples' hearts, | 26:01 | |
| oh God, our strength and our redeemer. | 26:04 | |
| Amen. | 26:10 | |
| The title of my address this morning | 26:15 | |
| is "One Step Enough." | 26:18 | |
| Reading the (indistinct) items of news | 26:25 | |
| about the United States that appear in foreign newspapers, | 26:29 | |
| that's not really help us very much | 26:34 | |
| to gauge the mood or moods of the American people. | 26:37 | |
| I think you would need to live in the midst for that. | 26:43 | |
| Consequently, a guest speaker like myself, | 26:48 | |
| just flown in from Scotland | 26:52 | |
| is obviously at a considerable disadvantage. | 26:54 | |
| Just who is one speaking to? | 27:00 | |
| And what are your feelings? | 27:03 | |
| Your calm exteriors | 27:07 | |
| conceal your deepest thoughts and sentiments. | 27:10 | |
| You could be a congregation in (indistinct) or Paris | 27:15 | |
| or Edinborough. | 27:20 | |
| Only I might see conceit perhaps a degree higher | 27:22 | |
| on the scale of aesthetic appeal. | 27:26 | |
| Nevertheless, it is not altogether impossible | 27:31 | |
| to discern some of the signs of the times | 27:35 | |
| even across national frontiers. | 27:39 | |
| And if I am not mistaken, | 27:43 | |
| the present generation of students, | 27:45 | |
| both here and in Europe, | 27:49 | |
| is tending to sink into a somewhat listless mood | 27:52 | |
| of apathy or torpor. | 27:56 | |
| The broader visionary gleam of young people | 28:01 | |
| in our universities seems to be entering its twilight. | 28:04 | |
| Larger idealisms fondly cherished | 28:10 | |
| are worn terribly thin now | 28:14 | |
| against the bedrock facts of recent history. | 28:17 | |
| Universal philosophies and theories are corroded | 28:21 | |
| by the acid reality and sheer complexity of human affairs. | 28:26 | |
| Comprehensive methodology has proved quite inadequate | 28:33 | |
| when put to the test of the exigencies of the moment. | 28:37 | |
| Revolutionary dreams flicker out | 28:43 | |
| and the restless longings that surged among us | 28:47 | |
| for the cessation of undeclared wars | 28:51 | |
| in both Northern Ireland and Vietnam, | 28:55 | |
| as well as for racial tolerance and justice, | 28:59 | |
| these revolutionary dreams subside | 29:03 | |
| and the final verdict appears to be (indistinct). | 29:07 | |
| Another question I think | 29:16 | |
| that we are gently need to ask ourselves today | 29:17 | |
| is whether our ideologies have not in fact, | 29:22 | |
| all along been far too greatly oversimplified. | 29:26 | |
| Mind you, | 29:32 | |
| our addiction to vague and abstract ideological constructs | 29:34 | |
| is not entirely self-inflicted. | 29:39 | |
| We catch it like a fever. | 29:42 | |
| Politicians, | 29:46 | |
| moralists, sociologists and not least, preachers, | 29:47 | |
| have somehow encouraged us to believe | 29:53 | |
| that we cannot think about politics, | 29:57 | |
| morals, society or religion at all | 30:01 | |
| except with a view to offering great overarching principles, | 30:06 | |
| grandiose plans, | 30:12 | |
| and massive blueprints | 30:14 | |
| that our only goal is the forging out | 30:18 | |
| of an all-embracing message for man and for society. | 30:21 | |
| Well, you know, if that is what a message is, | 30:26 | |
| we can only agree with Samuel Goldwyn, | 30:30 | |
| that messages are for Western Union. | 30:33 | |
| But that is not as I understand it, | 30:39 | |
| what a message really is. | 30:42 | |
| And I have a message for you now. | 30:45 | |
| It is quite simply that it is a mark of genuine maturity | 30:48 | |
| to learn to look fixedly at one thing at a time. | 30:55 | |
| At the same moment remembering | 31:01 | |
| that there are other things we have already looked at | 31:03 | |
| and there are other particular things | 31:07 | |
| still waiting to be looked at. | 31:09 | |
| In short, over against the seeming failure | 31:12 | |
| of our glorious visionary schemes for man and society, | 31:16 | |
| we must know face again, the challenge | 31:22 | |
| of the particular and the concrete. | 31:25 | |
| As the old hymn writer put it, | 31:29 | |
| "I do not ask to see | 31:31 | |
| the distance scene, | 31:34 | |
| one step enough for me." | 31:36 | |
| One step is enough. | 31:41 | |
| There was a day not so long ago | 31:45 | |
| when a plea for the concrete or the empirical | 31:47 | |
| in this most pragmatic of societies | 31:51 | |
| would have been like transporting sand to Arizona. | 31:54 | |
| But even then in those days, | 31:59 | |
| the word empiricist to be sure led a sort of double life. | 32:02 | |
| To be in protocol in science, history, medicine | 32:08 | |
| and engineering was both Orthodox and acceptable. | 32:12 | |
| But in politics, ethics or religion, | 32:18 | |
| the empiricist could just as readily be dismissed | 32:22 | |
| as a (indistinct) or a mindless muddler through | 32:27 | |
| tinkering with little tunes while Rome burn. | 32:32 | |
| Be that as it may. | 32:38 | |
| In the meanwhile, | 32:41 | |
| philosophers have continued to double in universals. | 32:43 | |
| Always wanting to know everything before knowing anything | 32:48 | |
| in particular. | 32:53 | |
| Politicians have indulged and are indulging | 32:55 | |
| in vacuous rhetorical generalities. | 32:59 | |
| Educators have labored over theoretical methods | 33:04 | |
| of education. | 33:07 | |
| Theologians have speculated over whether God is dead or not. | 33:09 | |
| Patriots have upheld that most banner of all perspectives, | 33:15 | |
| the fantasy of superiority which affirms my country | 33:20 | |
| right or wrong. | 33:26 | |
| It's all been happening and the Summer of our high dreams | 33:28 | |
| is past and gone | 33:32 | |
| and we are not saved. | 33:34 | |
| We are constrained to think again. | 33:38 | |
| So I want us to ask ourselves now, | 33:43 | |
| whether the scope and range of our reason or intelligence | 33:47 | |
| as applied to the problems of man in society | 33:54 | |
| are liable to be extended more | 33:58 | |
| by thrashing about with long tail generalizations | 34:01 | |
| than by concentrated application to the practical | 34:07 | |
| and apparently quite trivial problem | 34:12 | |
| that is immediately to hand, perhaps even today. | 34:15 | |
| We can say that for a generalizations, | 34:21 | |
| nicely spun theories and broadly-based questions | 34:25 | |
| can all too easily become hopelessly innocuous | 34:30 | |
| and irrelevant in the next moment's concrete encounter | 34:34 | |
| with a fellow man or woman. | 34:40 | |
| Yet our young people, | 34:46 | |
| perhaps particularly in the university environment | 34:47 | |
| are most accustomed | 34:52 | |
| to raise the all-encompassing kind of question. | 34:53 | |
| They say to the teacher, "What is your methodology? | 34:58 | |
| What are your standards? | 35:02 | |
| What criteria are you using?" | 35:05 | |
| They see to Scottish preachers, | 35:08 | |
| "How is Scottish preaching done? | 35:10 | |
| How do you define beauty or justice or tragedy | 35:13 | |
| or human mind?" | 35:19 | |
| Young people even give the impression | 35:23 | |
| that we must answer questions like these | 35:25 | |
| before we could answer others more direct and concrete. | 35:28 | |
| Is this fair or foul? | 35:33 | |
| Is he a citizen or an immigrant? | 35:35 | |
| Is that sad or is that funny? | 35:39 | |
| Is that (indistinct) or ball-forward? | 35:42 | |
| To all of which I would want to respond | 35:47 | |
| that it is quite futile in the last analysis | 35:50 | |
| to scan the far horizons | 35:54 | |
| when the boat you've been waiting for | 35:57 | |
| is only a stone's throw from the shore. | 36:00 | |
| So I begin to wonder whether the younger generation | 36:04 | |
| and they are now rapidly feeding our idealism. | 36:09 | |
| We're not in any case too long on theory | 36:12 | |
| and too short on mechanics. | 36:17 | |
| I wonder, | 36:21 | |
| have we not all, younger and older, | 36:23 | |
| begun to realize that it can be explosively dangerous, | 36:28 | |
| quite explosively dangerous | 36:33 | |
| to go on believing | 36:38 | |
| that certain large and fundamental questions | 36:41 | |
| admit of one cotton-dried answer. | 36:45 | |
| The passionate conviction we bring | 36:50 | |
| to the one answer we imagine we've discovered | 36:54 | |
| may in fact be the very reason why | 36:57 | |
| amid the conflict of human wills in our time, | 37:02 | |
| no solution can be found | 37:06 | |
| to the ongoing problems of the daily ride. | 37:08 | |
| The glorious nostrums we advocate for social salvation | 37:13 | |
| are like that, are they not? | 37:17 | |
| Our (indistinct) formulations | 37:21 | |
| and our absolute modes of propitiation | 37:24 | |
| become in our hands a sort of magical medicine | 37:28 | |
| for driving away the world's problems. | 37:32 | |
| And then suddenly these big theories of ours | 37:36 | |
| don't work anymore | 37:39 | |
| and we are back at square one | 37:41 | |
| and we embark on the old quest again | 37:44 | |
| for another general answer and another new theory. | 37:46 | |
| So at this juncture, | 37:52 | |
| I am prompted to say to you | 37:53 | |
| that whatever else your years at Duke | 37:56 | |
| may have meant to you, | 37:59 | |
| I hope your education here has inculcated in you | 38:02 | |
| an honest recognition of the limits | 38:07 | |
| of theoretical knowledge. | 38:11 | |
| In his inaugural address last year, | 38:14 | |
| as the chancellor of the University of Glasgow, | 38:17 | |
| Sir Alexander Cairncross stated, | 38:20 | |
| "There is very often in university education | 38:25 | |
| an emphasis on theory for its own sake, | 38:29 | |
| which contrasts strikingly with the emphasis outside | 38:33 | |
| on problems to which theory rarely provides a direct answer. | 38:38 | |
| Scientific analysis aims at providing a complete | 38:46 | |
| and self-consistent theory | 38:49 | |
| on the basis of working assumptions. | 38:51 | |
| But in real life, in real life, | 38:54 | |
| one has to start at the other hand with the problems | 38:57 | |
| and struggle for an understanding of them | 39:02 | |
| often with only very limited help from theory. | 39:06 | |
| Thinking should be directed toward action." | 39:11 | |
| Now, the truth enshrined in these words | 39:18 | |
| is much more likely applicable. | 39:21 | |
| It applies right away to our sporadic theorizings | 39:24 | |
| and reflections on the kind of society | 39:28 | |
| we would like to build. | 39:32 | |
| There is in fact very grave doubt | 39:34 | |
| as to whether the figure of building a society | 39:37 | |
| is at all appropriate. | 39:41 | |
| Society can be maintained or destroyed. | 39:44 | |
| It can be repaired or ravaged | 39:49 | |
| but it cannot be built or even rebuild. | 39:53 | |
| In other words, | 39:57 | |
| we can only start at the point at which we find ourselves | 39:59 | |
| as of now, in a social structure which we did not build. | 40:03 | |
| So the dream of our being able in revolutionary fashion | 40:11 | |
| to make all things new, | 40:16 | |
| appears somewhat an end today. | 40:19 | |
| It is the property of God alone to declare, | 40:22 | |
| "Behold, I make all things new." | 40:26 | |
| The aspiration in man to make all things new at once | 40:30 | |
| is both incoherent and enfeebling. | 40:36 | |
| But it would be ironic indeed | 40:41 | |
| and even comic | 40:45 | |
| if I were to use all my time to speak in a generalizing way | 40:47 | |
| about the challenge of the specific | 40:53 | |
| or the conflict. | 40:56 | |
| You have the right to request | 40:58 | |
| that I address myself to the question | 41:01 | |
| of how the philosophy of one step at a time | 41:04 | |
| fits in with that Christian religion, | 41:08 | |
| the profession of which has brought us all together here | 41:11 | |
| at this (indistinct). | 41:15 | |
| Believing that it does most earthly fit, | 41:17 | |
| I venture on the subject now in closing | 41:20 | |
| just a very little way. | 41:23 | |
| Beyond a doubt, | 41:26 | |
| beyond a doubt, | 41:28 | |
| popular piety has a habit | 41:30 | |
| of pronouncing and spelling out the word God | 41:33 | |
| as an abstract term that means relatively speaking nothing. | 41:38 | |
| And that infinitely removes us from the very one | 41:45 | |
| we are eager to bring close. | 41:49 | |
| On the other hand, | 41:53 | |
| learned theological discourse | 41:54 | |
| instead of making God real | 41:57 | |
| by it's pale and colorless jargon wraps God up in the mists | 42:00 | |
| of a terrible obscurity. | 42:05 | |
| I condict metaphysics | 42:09 | |
| and yet still hold that scholastic speculation | 42:12 | |
| about the hypostatic union of three persons, | 42:17 | |
| father, son, and Holy Spirit | 42:20 | |
| is quite off-putting to say the least. | 42:23 | |
| Even worse is it that when clarification is demanded, | 42:27 | |
| we theologians are prone to take refuge in replying | 42:32 | |
| that we are speaking about an incomprehensible mystery. | 42:36 | |
| To say that much is just about the same as confessing | 42:41 | |
| that we may be speaking about nothing at all. | 42:46 | |
| In Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Looking Glass," | 42:50 | |
| Alice, | 42:54 | |
| scanning the horizons, remarks, | 42:56 | |
| "I see nobody on the road." | 42:59 | |
| Where upon the king replies fretfully, | 43:04 | |
| "I only wish I had such eyes to be able to see nobody | 43:07 | |
| and at that great distance too." | 43:13 | |
| God forbid that God himself should be apperceived | 43:19 | |
| as a nobody. | 43:24 | |
| Either through our genius for abstraction, | 43:26 | |
| or through our all too garrulous use of his name. | 43:30 | |
| Louis Chamberlain has it in a verse of his poem | 43:36 | |
| on the church in Dallas. | 43:40 | |
| God is very big in Dallas. | 43:43 | |
| Just about everybody talks about God. | 43:46 | |
| I don't think you could ever amount to much in Dallas | 43:50 | |
| if you went around bad-mouthing God. | 43:53 | |
| There isn't much Jesus, but there's a lot of God. | 43:56 | |
| Dallas of course is not all that exceptionable. | 44:02 | |
| Edinborough is very much the same. | 44:07 | |
| Believe you me, there isn't much Jesus. | 44:09 | |
| For Jesus wears a human face | 44:14 | |
| and wearing a human face, | 44:17 | |
| he becomes all too close for comfort, doesn't he? | 44:19 | |
| Happily, it is beginning to dawn in the church | 44:25 | |
| in some places that most of our God-talk has been too big | 44:28 | |
| and too nice and too pleasant, | 44:34 | |
| if not altogether meaningless. | 44:38 | |
| And the upshot is that now there is a distinct trend | 44:40 | |
| to start Christian theology from below, | 44:47 | |
| from the realm of the human, | 44:50 | |
| from the empirical data of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, | 44:53 | |
| whose chief insignia is a cross. | 44:57 | |
| We have decided to beat the drum for God at last, | 45:01 | |
| from the side of the truly and profoundly human. | 45:06 | |
| And in order to finish by doing that, | 45:11 | |
| I want to focus for a moment | 45:16 | |
| on the parable of the good Samaritan. | 45:19 | |
| It is as you know, | 45:23 | |
| a wholly remarkable story | 45:24 | |
| that doesn't need to be retold. | 45:28 | |
| But its authentic message does need to be interpreted. | 45:31 | |
| To label the story of the good Samaritan | 45:36 | |
| as an appeal for human kindness simply | 45:39 | |
| is like describing Homer's "Odyssey" as a book about travel | 45:43 | |
| or Homer's "Elliot" as a book about war. | 45:48 | |
| And we are suffering already | 45:52 | |
| from a (indistinct) of vagueness, | 45:55 | |
| vague benevolence | 45:58 | |
| of what David Riesman calls a non-involved sociability | 46:00 | |
| that costs us nothing and is in reality | 46:06 | |
| the ruination of human relationships. | 46:10 | |
| No, the good Samaritan is not about kindness | 46:13 | |
| nor does its main point concern religious men, | 46:19 | |
| priest and Levite who wish to secure their standing | 46:23 | |
| before God by punctilious observants of religious duties | 46:27 | |
| and meanwhile pass by on the other side | 46:32 | |
| and neglect their obligation | 46:35 | |
| to the poor fellow in the ditch. | 46:37 | |
| Nor is it about the transecting of racial barriers, | 46:40 | |
| though it is true, the hero, the Samaritan | 46:44 | |
| is the member of a despised race. | 46:47 | |
| Jesus' decisive intent in telling this brief anecdote | 46:53 | |
| can only be grasped when you take full account | 46:59 | |
| of the context. | 47:03 | |
| A lawyer comes and interrogates him. | 47:05 | |
| "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" | 47:08 | |
| On being commended for responding correctly, | 47:13 | |
| that he must love God and his neighbor as himself. | 47:16 | |
| He then again asks, "And who is my neighbor?" | 47:20 | |
| There it is you see. | 47:25 | |
| What I've been speaking about. | 47:27 | |
| The large question. | 47:29 | |
| The philosophical big deal. | 47:31 | |
| The search for an exceptionless theory of the neighbor. | 47:34 | |
| And Jesus turns it all upside down | 47:39 | |
| by his devastating retort. | 47:42 | |
| "Which of these three, | 47:46 | |
| priest, Levite or Samaritan prove neighborly | 47:48 | |
| to the man who fell among the thieves?" | 47:52 | |
| In other words, | 47:57 | |
| the issue is not a theory of who the neighbor is. | 47:58 | |
| The issue is whether we, | 48:04 | |
| that means you and I, | 48:06 | |
| with all spontaneity under the object demands | 48:08 | |
| of the moment of encounter, | 48:12 | |
| can prove ourselves neighbor to the man next to us | 48:15 | |
| who is in need. | 48:20 | |
| Of opening ourselves up thus as neighbor to the other man, | 48:24 | |
| John Paul (indistinct) once said, | 48:29 | |
| "He has stolen away my wealth from me, this other fellow." | 48:32 | |
| But by becoming our world, | 48:38 | |
| he fills us with joy | 48:41 | |
| and is constituted a new basis for our own creativity. | 48:43 | |
| Becoming neighbor to the fellow man, | 48:49 | |
| not only moves us out of imprisonment | 48:51 | |
| in our own large questions and theories, | 48:54 | |
| it takes us away from our own little world | 48:57 | |
| and from our own restrictive and often idolatrous gods, | 49:00 | |
| the gods whom we have applause | 49:05 | |
| in the garments of our own selfish ambitions | 49:07 | |
| or of our own sect or race or church or party. | 49:10 | |
| When we become neighbor at last | 49:17 | |
| to the other person who evokes our redemptive concern | 49:20 | |
| then the true God's holy law | 49:25 | |
| is already in a quite empirical sense | 49:28 | |
| present with us in the world. | 49:31 | |
| The divine command itself has been here | 49:34 | |
| and the creator of the universe has spoken. | 49:37 | |
| So true is it that the transcendent, | 49:41 | |
| the ultimate must be fixed in humanity. | 49:46 | |
| It must appear in the flesh. | 49:50 | |
| So true is it also that in the humanity | 49:54 | |
| or the flesh of Jesus, | 49:59 | |
| who is the neighbor to us all, | 50:01 | |
| the eye of our faith may discern a parable | 50:04 | |
| of the living God. | 50:09 | |
| These few lines from Browning's poem, "Saul," | 50:12 | |
| are quite opposite. | 50:16 | |
| "It is the weakness in strength | 50:19 | |
| that I cry for. | 50:21 | |
| My flesh that I seek in the Godhead, | 50:23 | |
| I seek and I find it. | 50:27 | |
| O Saul, it shall be a face like my face | 50:30 | |
| that receives thee. | 50:34 | |
| A man like to me, | 50:36 | |
| thou shalt love and be loved by forever. | 50:37 | |
| A hand like this hand | 50:40 | |
| shall throw open the gates of new life to thee. | 50:42 | |
| See the Christ stand." | 50:46 | |
| So we really do not have to mourn the attrition | 50:51 | |
| of our more expansive ideals and philosophies. | 50:56 | |
| We do not have to explore the universe | 51:01 | |
| for a comprehensively satisfactory blueprint | 51:04 | |
| for the reformation of society. | 51:07 | |
| The power of reformation and transformation | 51:10 | |
| resides even now in a face like all humans faces | 51:14 | |
| and in a hand like all human hands. | 51:18 | |
| That being so, I believe that one step | 51:24 | |
| into the coming moment is quite enough. | 51:29 | |
| One step into the nearest problem. | 51:33 | |
| Into the nearest confrontation | 51:37 | |
| or claim upon our love. | 51:40 | |
| In the next empirical situation, | 51:44 | |
| God himself, maybe later | 51:48 | |
| and we must meet the next situation bravely, mustn't we? | 51:52 | |
| And with gallantry and courage and hope | 51:56 | |
| only so can the long for revolution begin. | 52:01 | |
| And unto God the father, God the son | 52:07 | |
| and God, the Holy Spirit, | 52:10 | |
| be all honor, glory, dominion and praise. | 52:11 | |
| World without end. | 52:16 | |
| Amen. | 52:18 | |
| (grand piano music playing) | 52:38 | |
| (choir singing) | 53:10 | |
| (grand piano music playing) | 56:19 | |
| (choir singing) | 56:59 | |
| (grand piano music playing) | 1:03:05 |