William C. Smith, Jr. - "Beyond Liberalism" (July 8, 1973)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| - | Testing 1, 2, 3, 4, | 0:04 |
| testing 1, 2, 3, 4. | 0:06 | |
| (mumbling) | 0:09 | |
| (liturgical music) | 0:38 | |
| - | Join me in our Prayer of Confession, | 4:17 |
| may we be seated. | 4:20 | |
| Let us pray. | 4:28 | |
| Almighty and merciful Father, | 4:30 | |
| we have sinned and strayed from your ways like lost sheep, | 4:34 | |
| we have followed more often than not | 4:38 | |
| the devices and selfish desires of our own hearts, | 4:41 | |
| we have disregarded your holy laws, | 4:46 | |
| we have turned our backs on obvious responsibility | 4:49 | |
| and engaged in activities that we knew were destructive | 4:53 | |
| to ourselves and others. | 4:57 | |
| There is much untruthfulness in us, | 5:00 | |
| but oh Lord we recognize and confess our weakness, | 5:03 | |
| our incompleteness, our sin against you | 5:07 | |
| and it is our strong belief that forgiveness awaits | 5:11 | |
| those who are truly repentant. | 5:15 | |
| Our Father, according to your promise | 5:18 | |
| to all people in Christ, | 5:21 | |
| restore our health and our wholeness | 5:23 | |
| to the glory of your holy name, amen. | 5:26 | |
| Words of assurance are these. | 5:33 | |
| Love bears all things, | 5:36 | |
| believes all things, | 5:38 | |
| hopes all things, | 5:40 | |
| endures all things, | 5:41 | |
| love never ends. | 5:43 | |
| We enter into the prayer of our Lord. | 5:46 | |
| Let's pray. | 5:50 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, | 5:52 | |
| hallowed be thy name, | 5:56 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 5:58 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 5:59 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread | 6:04 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 6:07 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us | 6:09 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 6:13 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 6:16 | |
| For thine is the kingdom | 6:18 | |
| and the power and the glory forever, amen. | 6:20 | |
| (liturgical music) | 6:29 | |
| Let us pray. | 10:40 | |
| Grant we beseech thee, all mighty God, | 10:44 | |
| that the words which we hear this day with our outward ears | 10:47 | |
| may through thy grace, | 10:52 | |
| be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, | 10:54 | |
| that they may bring forth in us | 10:57 | |
| the fruit of good living | 10:59 | |
| to the honor and praise of thy name, | 11:01 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 11:04 | |
| Scripture lesson for this morning | 11:14 | |
| is taken from the 17th chapter | 11:15 | |
| of Acts of the Apostles, | 11:17 | |
| 16 through the 32nd verse. | 11:20 | |
| Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, | 11:28 | |
| his spirit was provoked within him | 11:30 | |
| as he saw that the city was full of idols. | 11:33 | |
| So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews | 11:36 | |
| and the devout persons | 11:39 | |
| and in the marketplace every day | 11:40 | |
| with those who chanced to be there. | 11:41 | |
| Some also of the Epicurean and stoic philosophers met him. | 11:45 | |
| And someone said, "What would this babbler say?" | 11:49 | |
| Others said, "He seems to be a preacher | 11:52 | |
| "of foreign divinities | 11:54 | |
| "because he preached Jesus and the resurrection." | 11:56 | |
| And they took hold of him | 12:00 | |
| and brought him to the Areopagus saying, | 12:01 | |
| "May we know what this new teaching is | 12:04 | |
| "which you present. | 12:06 | |
| "For you bring some strange things to our ears. | 12:08 | |
| "We wish to know therefore what these things mean." | 12:11 | |
| All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there | 12:15 | |
| spent their time on nothing | 12:18 | |
| except telling or hearing something new. | 12:20 | |
| So Paul standing in the middle of the Areopagus said, | 12:24 | |
| "Men of Athens. | 12:27 | |
| "I perceive that in every way, you are very religious, | 12:29 | |
| "for as I passed along | 12:33 | |
| "and observed the objects of your worship, | 12:34 | |
| "I found also an altar with this inscription | 12:37 | |
| "to an unknown god. | 12:39 | |
| "What therefore you worship as unknown, | 12:42 | |
| "this I proclaim to you. | 12:45 | |
| "The God who made the world and everything in it, | 12:48 | |
| "being Lord of heaven and earth | 12:51 | |
| "does not live in shrines made by man, | 12:54 | |
| "or is he served by human hands | 12:57 | |
| "as though he needed anything | 12:58 | |
| "since he himself gives to all men, | 13:00 | |
| "life and breath and everything. | 13:02 | |
| "And he made it from one every nation of men | 13:06 | |
| "to live on all the face of the earth, | 13:09 | |
| "having determined the law head periods | 13:11 | |
| "and the boundaries of their habitation, | 13:13 | |
| "that they should seek God | 13:16 | |
| "in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. | 13:17 | |
| "Yet He is not far from each one of us | 13:21 | |
| "for in him we live and move and have our being. | 13:23 | |
| "As even some of your poets have said, | 13:28 | |
| "but we are indeed his offspring. | 13:31 | |
| "Being then God's offspring, | 13:35 | |
| "we ought not to think that | 13:37 | |
| "the deity is like gold or silver | 13:38 | |
| "or stone or a representation | 13:40 | |
| "by the art and imagination of man. | 13:42 | |
| "The times of ignorance God overlooked, | 13:45 | |
| "but now he commands all men everywhere to repent | 13:48 | |
| "because he has fixed a day | 13:53 | |
| "on which he will judge the world in righteousness | 13:54 | |
| "by a man whom he has appointed | 13:57 | |
| "and the of this has given assurance to all men | 14:00 | |
| "by raising him from the dead." | 14:02 | |
| Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, | 14:06 | |
| some mocked, but others said, | 14:08 | |
| "We will hear you again about this." | 14:10 | |
| May God interpret to our understanding this day, | 14:14 | |
| this portion of the holy scripture. | 14:16 | |
| (liturgical music) | 14:19 | |
| - | Let us affirm our faith. | 15:02 |
| We believe in God | 15:04 | |
| who has created and is creating, | 15:06 | |
| who has come in the true man, Jesus, | 15:10 | |
| to reconcile and make new, | 15:12 | |
| who works in us and others by his spirit. | 15:15 | |
| We trust him. | 15:19 | |
| He calls us to be in his church, | 15:21 | |
| to celebrate his presence, | 15:24 | |
| to love and serve others, | 15:27 | |
| to seek justice and to resist evil, | 15:30 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 15:33 | |
| our judge and our hope, | 15:37 | |
| in life, in death, | 15:40 | |
| in life beyond death, | 15:42 | |
| God is with us. | 15:44 | |
| We are not alone. | 15:46 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 15:48 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 15:50 | |
| (mumbling) | 15:53 | |
| Let us pray. | 15:54 | |
| Eternal God, our father, | 16:12 | |
| we offer praise for the revelation of the truth | 16:18 | |
| that our existence is meaningful, | 16:20 | |
| that each of us is known and precious, | 16:25 | |
| that we are never really alone | 16:30 | |
| even when we feel most isolated, | 16:32 | |
| that we are not without hope | 16:36 | |
| no matter how deep our momentary despair. | 16:38 | |
| For the stillness and freshness of each new morning, | 16:44 | |
| for the infinite variety of good smells and bad, | 16:49 | |
| for 10,000 different textures of the world | 16:54 | |
| that make the experience of touching | 16:57 | |
| one of the unique pleasures of our lives. | 16:59 | |
| For those moments of joy | 17:04 | |
| when two people share with each other | 17:06 | |
| their understanding and love, | 17:08 | |
| we are grateful. | 17:11 | |
| We give thanks for the freedom to be ourselves | 17:16 | |
| even when we sometimes can't accept that freedom. | 17:19 | |
| We rejoice in the truth that we are in so many ways | 17:24 | |
| alike in our needs, | 17:28 | |
| and can reach out for the help of someone who cares. | 17:31 | |
| But especially that the creator of all life | 17:35 | |
| is continually extending his gift of healing | 17:38 | |
| to all who will receive it. | 17:41 | |
| Our father, we are children | 17:47 | |
| who hardly know how to walk in the world, | 17:49 | |
| afraid to cry or unable to stop crying. | 17:54 | |
| We don't know how to love very well, | 18:00 | |
| or how to accept love. | 18:03 | |
| We are too much concerned | 18:06 | |
| with measuring up to the standards of the world | 18:08 | |
| and give little attention to the qualities | 18:12 | |
| of integrity and reverence for our lives as children of God. | 18:14 | |
| Forgive us for blaming the past for our faults | 18:23 | |
| and for avoiding responsibilities of the present moment | 18:27 | |
| in waiting for tomorrow. | 18:30 | |
| Forgive us for the dishonesty of making ourselves believe | 18:36 | |
| when doubt is the shape of who we are | 18:40 | |
| and from making ourselves doubt when we really believe. | 18:43 | |
| Help us to know that you do not need our consistency. | 18:48 | |
| Oh God, we are so often insensitive | 18:58 | |
| to the pain crying out around us, | 19:00 | |
| overbearing in our demands on others, | 19:05 | |
| provincial in our vision and awareness | 19:09 | |
| and too preoccupied with the trivial | 19:13 | |
| to be surprised by the joy of the continual unfolding | 19:15 | |
| of your creation, forgive us. | 19:18 | |
| We offer up our thanksgiving this day for this day | 19:26 | |
| which contains the possibilities | 19:30 | |
| for the heights of exquisite joy and ecstasy, | 19:32 | |
| as well as the black depths of despair and sadness. | 19:37 | |
| We thank you for this magnificent chapel | 19:43 | |
| and for freedom of worship. | 19:45 | |
| We thank you for Bill Smith | 19:49 | |
| and his Ministry of Healing and Laughter | 19:50 | |
| which has touched and transformed so many lives, | 19:52 | |
| speak through his word | 19:58 | |
| so that each of us might renew our faith | 19:59 | |
| and say yes to life. | 20:01 | |
| God, there as much suffering in this world. | 20:07 | |
| There is in fact, a lot of pain | 20:12 | |
| on many of the streets of our own city. | 20:13 | |
| We raise up in our concern all those who are lonely, | 20:19 | |
| those who suffer the pangs of separation, | 20:23 | |
| those who are fugitives and are being pursued. | 20:27 | |
| We lift up parents and children, | 20:32 | |
| the very young full of questions | 20:35 | |
| and the very old full of questions. | 20:37 | |
| Those who are oppressed, | 20:41 | |
| suffering injustice for whatever reason. | 20:43 | |
| We lift in our concern | 20:49 | |
| those who face great and small decisions, | 20:50 | |
| those who have made wrong decisions | 20:55 | |
| and are now suffering the consequences, | 20:57 | |
| those who wait in fear | 21:00 | |
| for an analysis report from the lab | 21:02 | |
| or word from the doctor. | 21:04 | |
| Father, there are many private and personal needs and cares. | 21:09 | |
| We ask that you will minister | 21:15 | |
| through us and through your spirit | 21:16 | |
| to encourage, to heal, to accompany, | 21:18 | |
| to release, to feed, to care, to lift, to accept, | 21:20 | |
| to fill with power and resurrect with joy. | 21:26 | |
| Dearest Father and help us to receive | 21:32 | |
| your gift of forgiveness and life, | 21:34 | |
| in Jesus Christ our Lord, | 21:39 | |
| amen. | 21:43 | |
| - | A recent issue about Christianity in crisis | 22:05 |
| had what was entitled | 22:09 | |
| "My first and last sermon" by Margaret Mead. | 22:12 | |
| She had consented to fill the pulpit | 22:18 | |
| for her friend, Bill Coffin, | 22:20 | |
| when he had to be away for some reason or another. | 22:23 | |
| The sermon was quite good, I thought. | 22:28 | |
| Read the, his private fashion, | 22:31 | |
| but she said she never intended to preach again | 22:35 | |
| because of the fact that | 22:38 | |
| she felt so separated from | 22:39 | |
| those who were there before her. | 22:43 | |
| There was not the give and take | 22:45 | |
| that she is accustomed to in her own profession. | 22:47 | |
| Granted those difficult is here today | 22:53 | |
| from this imminence where I stand to where you are there, | 22:56 | |
| it is a privilege for me to be here in this place. | 23:01 | |
| In 1958, I came to assume the position | 23:07 | |
| which now David May has, | 23:10 | |
| and I have been in close touch | 23:13 | |
| with this university since then. | 23:15 | |
| I've been bound to it | 23:18 | |
| with chords of respect and affection. | 23:19 | |
| I come to speak today on a subject, | 23:26 | |
| which I think I've learned a great deal more about | 23:29 | |
| through my contacts with friends, colleagues, | 23:33 | |
| and especially students | 23:39 | |
| whom I've have known in this university since. | 23:41 | |
| Would you bow with me for a word of prayer. | 23:46 | |
| Almighty God, cleanse our hearts | 23:52 | |
| by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, | 23:55 | |
| that we all may more perfectly love thee | 23:58 | |
| and more worthily magnify thy holy name | 24:04 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 24:10 | |
| As minister of a congregation affiliated with a denomination | 24:23 | |
| identified as liberal, | 24:28 | |
| that is the United Church of Christ, | 24:32 | |
| I read with perhaps more than common interest, | 24:35 | |
| a book entitled "Why conservative churches are growing." | 24:41 | |
| The book has sold a great many copies. | 24:47 | |
| I understand the specialty around | 24:50 | |
| denominational headquarters of those several denominations | 24:53 | |
| named in there, | 24:57 | |
| which are on the decline using the usual indicators | 24:58 | |
| that we employ in our society, that is, | 25:02 | |
| those churches which are losing members, | 25:07 | |
| which have declining national budgets, | 25:12 | |
| and whose church school enrollments | 25:16 | |
| are in a tailspin downward. | 25:19 | |
| As I recall the decline of the United Church of Christ | 25:23 | |
| is perhaps even more precipitant, | 25:27 | |
| more dramatic than that in the United Presbyterian, | 25:30 | |
| the Episcopal, the United Methodist, | 25:35 | |
| the Presbyterian US, | 25:38 | |
| to name some of those | 25:40 | |
| identified along with us as liberal churches. | 25:41 | |
| It was interesting in that book | 25:48 | |
| to see some ideas propounded by Dr. Peter Berger | 25:50 | |
| used in quite a different way | 25:54 | |
| from that in which I had employed them myself | 25:57 | |
| in the classroom setting. | 25:59 | |
| Dr. Berger, in his book, "The sacred canopy" | 26:02 | |
| has developed, I think beyond dispute, | 26:07 | |
| the fact that, | 26:11 | |
| religion serves the very important purpose | 26:13 | |
| for those of us finite creatures | 26:16 | |
| bound we know for death | 26:18 | |
| and enabling us to live with some kind of meaning | 26:24 | |
| in this situation. | 26:27 | |
| Religion is a sacred canopy, | 26:30 | |
| the product of our externalization of our needs | 26:34 | |
| to have a sense of meaning in our lives | 26:38 | |
| else we go mad. | 26:41 | |
| One of those products of this externalization is church | 26:44 | |
| with sacraments, ministry buildings, | 26:48 | |
| all of those things that are pregnancies | 26:50 | |
| of organized religion. | 26:52 | |
| This objectified product of our externalization, | 26:55 | |
| of our need to externalize our search for meaning | 27:00 | |
| then becomes itself a means of internalizing those values, | 27:04 | |
| which that institution has been established to promulgate. | 27:11 | |
| One of Dean Kelly's thesis is | 27:18 | |
| that conservative churches are doing a better job | 27:22 | |
| of communicating meaning to their members | 27:26 | |
| than liberal churches are. | 27:30 | |
| It seems if that'd be true, | 27:34 | |
| that the more rigidly Orthodox, | 27:37 | |
| the more demanding of root in terms of | 27:40 | |
| the denial of coffee, tea, | 27:44 | |
| or whatever else one uses to put on the forbidden list, | 27:46 | |
| that the more demands made upon the time | 27:51 | |
| of those who are adherence to that religion, | 27:54 | |
| the more successful it will be. | 27:58 | |
| Now, for most of us, | 28:03 | |
| if the choice was lie | 28:06 | |
| between that kind of restrictive understanding of religion | 28:07 | |
| and no religion at all, | 28:13 | |
| we most certainly would choose none whatsoever. | 28:15 | |
| It just isn't possible for us to surrender our minds | 28:19 | |
| into the keeping of some orthodoxy | 28:22 | |
| established generations ago, | 28:24 | |
| laid into the hands of people | 28:27 | |
| in whom we cannot trust that much, | 28:29 | |
| or to allow our lives to be disciplined in these petty waves | 28:33 | |
| by rules which seem to us foolish. | 28:39 | |
| And if religion is going to prosper only in that setting, | 28:41 | |
| then perhaps religion will have to be | 28:45 | |
| for those who are weak enough | 28:48 | |
| to need meaning provided for them by | 28:50 | |
| individuals who are strong enough, smart enough, | 28:53 | |
| or perhaps crafty enough | 28:56 | |
| to do it for them. | 28:58 | |
| There is one point, however, he makes, | 29:02 | |
| which I think is very important. | 29:04 | |
| And this is that | 29:06 | |
| there is a correlation between expectations, | 29:08 | |
| which churches have of their members, and the | 29:12 | |
| consistency with which people live out | 29:18 | |
| their commitment within Christianity. | 29:22 | |
| And today I want to talk about | 29:28 | |
| a subject which needs perhaps some clarification, | 29:31 | |
| but the title is "Beyond liberalism." | 29:34 | |
| I do not want you to leave here thinking | 29:38 | |
| that I am an illiberal person. | 29:40 | |
| That I am against the free exchange of ideas, | 29:44 | |
| that I think we should begin to be intolerant | 29:47 | |
| of other opinions than our own, | 29:50 | |
| that I think, in fact, | 29:53 | |
| it is possible for any one person | 29:54 | |
| to know exactly what is the truth | 29:56 | |
| about God, man, and the universe, | 29:59 | |
| and then to insist that others accept that teaching | 30:02 | |
| upon pain of some kind of punishment or another. | 30:06 | |
| I have been pleased to be considered a liberal | 30:11 | |
| all of my life. | 30:16 | |
| I'm thinking this morning about liberal | 30:19 | |
| in the strict sense that | 30:22 | |
| it has come to be applied or implied, | 30:24 | |
| or has been practiced in Protestant churches | 30:27 | |
| in the last decade specifically. | 30:33 | |
| And perhaps rather than define the word, | 30:36 | |
| I can describe the actions | 30:39 | |
| which usually go under this rubric | 30:42 | |
| and will be clearer for the doing of it. | 30:44 | |
| Liberal action, first of all, is the study of a problem. | 30:48 | |
| Before we begin to do anything, | 30:54 | |
| we want to know what it is we're about, | 30:55 | |
| we want to consider the various options, | 30:58 | |
| we want to know the factors that have created the situation | 31:00 | |
| with which we're trying to deal. | 31:04 | |
| So we appoint a committee | 31:07 | |
| to study the matter thoroughly | 31:09 | |
| and to present us a paper, a result, | 31:11 | |
| the result of their work | 31:13 | |
| in order that we may enter into the process of thinking | 31:14 | |
| in which they were engaged | 31:18 | |
| and we may add our own thinking to it. | 31:19 | |
| Liberal action is concerned with resolutions, | 31:22 | |
| the statement oppositions | 31:25 | |
| on racism, on war and peace, | 31:28 | |
| on women's liberation, | 31:31 | |
| on a myriad of other subjects. | 31:33 | |
| Liberal action is concerned with dramatic action, | 31:36 | |
| with joining the pickets in front of the store | 31:40 | |
| whose lunch counter has always been segregated, | 31:43 | |
| or those who are working for human decency in California, | 31:47 | |
| or those who are protesting | 31:52 | |
| our involvement in Southeast Asia. | 31:55 | |
| Point action, dramatic action. | 31:58 | |
| It involves the giving of money, | 32:01 | |
| sharing of our substance | 32:04 | |
| in order that those who give full time to this enterprise | 32:06 | |
| may have the means whereby to disseminate those things, | 32:09 | |
| which all people need to know | 32:14 | |
| in order that they may respond. | 32:16 | |
| Liberalism is all of these things | 32:18 | |
| and I commend them all. | 32:21 | |
| I take issue with it only when it stops there. | 32:23 | |
| When study of the problem | 32:29 | |
| is the only thing that we do about it. | 32:30 | |
| A little pamphlet, which is on a table in my room, | 32:34 | |
| is entitled, " Listen Christian." | 32:37 | |
| One of the pages they're in has this, | 32:40 | |
| "Listen Christian, I was hungry | 32:43 | |
| "and you formed a study group on hunger." | 32:46 | |
| And the words are poignant because | 32:51 | |
| I know that that has been the end of the action sometimes. | 32:54 | |
| We could also say, "Listen, Christian, | 32:59 | |
| "I was in jail and you passed a resolution | 33:02 | |
| "on criminal justice, | 33:06 | |
| "and that was all that you did." | 33:08 | |
| Or I could say, | 33:13 | |
| "Listen, Christian, men and women | 33:14 | |
| "were being napalmed in south Vietnam | 33:17 | |
| "and you, on Moratorium day, | 33:21 | |
| "lit a candle and walked in procession, | 33:24 | |
| "protesting that fact along with millions of others | 33:26 | |
| "on that day, but that was all that you did." | 33:30 | |
| Or "Listen, Christian, | 33:35 | |
| "I was lonely, very, very lonely, | 33:37 | |
| "and you gave a small contribution | 33:43 | |
| "in order that someone else | 33:46 | |
| "might set aside a portion of her time | 33:48 | |
| "to be a friendly visitor, to the lonely." | 33:52 | |
| When I speak of | 33:57 | |
| the liberal position not being sufficient, | 33:59 | |
| I think specifically of this | 34:01 | |
| in the book of Acts, which I read | 34:04 | |
| where it is recorded that, | 34:06 | |
| those who were in Athens, | 34:09 | |
| both the natives and the foreigners, | 34:11 | |
| delighted always to hear something new. | 34:14 | |
| And they invited Paul to come to talk to them | 34:17 | |
| about Jesus and the resurrection | 34:20 | |
| because they had never heard anything about that | 34:22 | |
| and they wanted to know what new thing it was, | 34:26 | |
| new gods, they thought there were two, | 34:29 | |
| because resurrection is a feminine word in the Greek. | 34:31 | |
| They were rather put off by what Paul said | 34:37 | |
| when what he had to reveal to them | 34:39 | |
| had to do with history, | 34:41 | |
| and had to do with death and resurrection. | 34:42 | |
| Most of the people said, | 34:45 | |
| "Well, this has been an interesting experience, | 34:47 | |
| "perhaps someday, perhaps someday we will hear you again," | 34:49 | |
| because we are interested in words | 34:54 | |
| and that's really about all that we're interested in. | 34:58 | |
| Jesus, a crucified Lord, | 35:01 | |
| is hardly just a matter of words. | 35:05 | |
| Here is word indeed. | 35:09 | |
| And that's a different matter. | 35:11 | |
| The present situation in the churches | 35:15 | |
| after a decade of action | 35:17 | |
| is not really encouraging those of us, | 35:19 | |
| especially in the clergy. | 35:23 | |
| There has been apparently a liberal flight | 35:28 | |
| from the churches. | 35:31 | |
| A Presbyterian minister in Illinois, | 35:33 | |
| writing in the Christian Century, | 35:35 | |
| recently asked plaintively, | 35:37 | |
| "Where have all the liberals gone?" | 35:39 | |
| He said, "You know, | 35:42 | |
| "we have grown, we have responded to the proddings, | 35:44 | |
| "which you have provided for us | 35:48 | |
| "and now we have made tremendous changes in our common life. | 35:51 | |
| "We have committed ourselves unequivocally to issues, | 35:55 | |
| "which you helped us to see, | 35:59 | |
| "but now where are you?" | 36:01 | |
| He said the conservatives in his church are still there. | 36:04 | |
| They're still very regular in their attendance | 36:09 | |
| and yes, even still regular in there giving | 36:12 | |
| because apparently, the decline in giving | 36:15 | |
| is not so much backlash | 36:17 | |
| by those who disapprove of the church's programs | 36:19 | |
| as it is just | 36:23 | |
| not being there by people who, | 36:27 | |
| just a short while ago, | 36:30 | |
| were very much in favor of these very things. | 36:31 | |
| One writer, as a matter of fact, Dean Kelly, | 36:37 | |
| at another point in his book, | 36:40 | |
| observed that in some of the churches he had served, | 36:41 | |
| conservatives were usually found | 36:45 | |
| to be paying the bills for programs | 36:47 | |
| to which they had originally been quite opposed, | 36:49 | |
| but they had not left, there they were. | 36:52 | |
| It's discouraging in this time to see those | 36:57 | |
| in the churches leadership at the national level | 36:59 | |
| and oftentimes in the pastorates too say, | 37:03 | |
| "Now, we've done social action for a decade, | 37:05 | |
| "let's get back to religion. | 37:09 | |
| "Let's get back to prayer and Bible reading. | 37:12 | |
| "Let's get back to | 37:14 | |
| "helping our people be prepared to meet the storms | 37:16 | |
| "and the stresses of life." | 37:19 | |
| As is if, in fact, there were any people | 37:22 | |
| who were neglecting these for 10 years. | 37:23 | |
| And worse than that, | 37:26 | |
| as if everything were done. | 37:29 | |
| As if racism now were dead. | 37:31 | |
| Ben Chavis doesn't think racism is dead. | 37:35 | |
| Ben is an employee of the Commission for Racial Justice | 37:40 | |
| of our United church of Christ. | 37:43 | |
| If you read the North Carolina anvil, | 37:46 | |
| you will know that he was offered | 37:49 | |
| a way out of his last trial. | 37:51 | |
| He was offered a slap on the wrist, | 37:54 | |
| the other two to go free | 37:56 | |
| if he were willing to plead guilty to a lesser charge, | 37:57 | |
| then conspiring with the person | 38:02 | |
| who was charged with the crime | 38:05 | |
| to tell other than the truth about it. | 38:08 | |
| While he didn't do it, | 38:10 | |
| and he was not even acquitted, | 38:11 | |
| the judge refused to send the case to the jury | 38:15 | |
| because there was so little evidence | 38:18 | |
| which the prosecutor had. | 38:20 | |
| But Ben Chavis will tell you that racism is not dead | 38:22 | |
| and my black brothers in the United church of Christ | 38:25 | |
| are very, very worried | 38:28 | |
| that we are going to think that it is ending. | 38:30 | |
| That all the battles have been won, | 38:34 | |
| that we have marched | 38:36 | |
| from Selma to Montgomery, | 38:37 | |
| that we have gathered in Washington | 38:39 | |
| and now the citadels have fallen, | 38:41 | |
| Jericho has been taken | 38:43 | |
| so we can go ahead and do something else. | 38:45 | |
| And their cry is, "No, racism is far from dead." | 38:48 | |
| The war is not over. | 38:53 | |
| Our men have come home, most of them. | 38:55 | |
| We don't have the reports, daily, of body counts, | 38:58 | |
| but the war is not over | 39:03 | |
| and if one thinks it's over, | 39:04 | |
| ask Lyle Snyder here in Durham, | 39:06 | |
| who has been sentenced to eight months in the federal prison | 39:09 | |
| for taking all of us in this room and around the world | 39:12 | |
| as his dependence | 39:15 | |
| as a sign of his rejection | 39:17 | |
| of the whole war enterprise. | 39:20 | |
| Acting upon his good quaker conscience, | 39:22 | |
| he took an action | 39:25 | |
| which is going to cost him eight precious months | 39:26 | |
| of his young life. | 39:29 | |
| Ask the Berrigans | 39:31 | |
| if the war really is over | 39:33 | |
| or the young man still in Sweden, | 39:36 | |
| or Canada, or in other places around the world, | 39:38 | |
| who because of their consciences, | 39:40 | |
| were not able to | 39:44 | |
| compromise with the war making power of this country | 39:46 | |
| in any way whatsoever, | 39:50 | |
| or labor has won their battles, we might say. | 39:53 | |
| Cesar Chavez would say differently. | 39:57 | |
| A wire came to our general Senate in St. Louis | 40:00 | |
| pleading with the group there assembled | 40:03 | |
| to come out and help them. | 40:06 | |
| To stand up on the picket lines with them, | 40:08 | |
| where his people were being beaten with baseball bats, | 40:10 | |
| where they were being attacked with ice picks, | 40:14 | |
| where houses were being burned down because | 40:17 | |
| they wanted to be represented by a union | 40:20 | |
| which they had chosen | 40:22 | |
| rather than one, which the growers | 40:25 | |
| had signed sweetheart contracts with. | 40:27 | |
| Our people went, 95 of them dead, | 40:30 | |
| and they found it to be just as he had said. | 40:33 | |
| The battles are not over. | 40:39 | |
| Those causes which called us | 40:41 | |
| with Clarion clarity | 40:44 | |
| in the 1960s and early in this decade | 40:48 | |
| are still with us, | 40:51 | |
| still calling for our study, our resolutions, | 40:53 | |
| still calling for our shared demonstrations | 40:58 | |
| against those things we abhor, | 41:01 | |
| still calling for our money | 41:04 | |
| but calling still for more. | 41:06 | |
| Calling for a radical obedience to a crucified Lord, | 41:08 | |
| which allows the possibility | 41:12 | |
| that we shall put our own lives and bodies on the line | 41:14 | |
| to suffer injury perhaps, | 41:19 | |
| our reputations to be attacked, | 41:23 | |
| perhaps as being rather irresponsible people | 41:25 | |
| that we'd be willing, in short, | 41:29 | |
| to take up a cross, | 41:30 | |
| bearing it after Jesus of Nazareth | 41:32 | |
| who came not offering sweet spiritual experiences | 41:36 | |
| in order that man might hide | 41:40 | |
| from the realities of life, | 41:42 | |
| but who came preaching his first sermon in Nazareth | 41:45 | |
| saying these words, | 41:48 | |
| "The spirit of the Lord is upon me | 41:50 | |
| "because he has anointed me | 41:51 | |
| "to preach good news to the poor, | 41:53 | |
| "release all prisoners, | 41:55 | |
| "recovery of sight for the blind, | 41:58 | |
| "to let the victims go free | 42:01 | |
| "and to proclaim the acceptable ear of the Lord." | 42:04 | |
| I don't care especially for a caption here, | 42:10 | |
| but I guess Christian radicalism is the call | 42:13 | |
| which is beyond mere liberalism, liberalism alone. | 42:16 | |
| This is commitment to a costly long-term enterprise. | 42:21 | |
| It is a commitment to this same Jesus, | 42:26 | |
| self-identified as the anointed of the Lord, | 42:30 | |
| because his calling was to invest his life | 42:34 | |
| in the brokenness of God's people. | 42:36 | |
| It is commitment to a God who has promised his presence | 42:40 | |
| in the spirit | 42:44 | |
| when we are engaged in the cause of justice and peace. | 42:45 | |
| It is commitment to the cause of God, the creator, | 42:49 | |
| who is the guarantor of that time beyond this time, | 42:53 | |
| when we shall stand in the kingdom of God. | 42:57 | |
| It is a call to seriousness | 43:02 | |
| about what it is to be Christian. | 43:05 | |
| It is the awareness that some disciplines will be demanded. | 43:08 | |
| That enough is enough. | 43:12 | |
| For example, the material things that we don't need, | 43:14 | |
| half the things that we think we have to have now, | 43:18 | |
| because we have fought the line, | 43:22 | |
| put out by Madison Avenue, | 43:24 | |
| then we can lead simpler lives | 43:26 | |
| and share that abundance with other people. | 43:28 | |
| That we can, | 43:31 | |
| casting aside this need to be so comforted | 43:33 | |
| in material things, | 43:38 | |
| discover the freedom | 43:39 | |
| of the sons of God. | 43:41 | |
| There were that day in Athens, | 43:46 | |
| a few who believed. | 43:47 | |
| The verse not read in that section, | 43:49 | |
| verse 33 said some men joined him and became believers, | 43:51 | |
| including Dionysius, the Areopagus, | 43:57 | |
| a woman named Damaris, | 44:01 | |
| and some others. | 44:04 | |
| These few joined the little band of people | 44:06 | |
| who were to take 300 years almost | 44:08 | |
| establishing the rights of Christianity even to exist. | 44:14 | |
| There was no new calls to take up every decade | 44:20 | |
| or every half decade, | 44:23 | |
| there was no commitment for a day or a week or a month, | 44:25 | |
| there was a life long of commitment | 44:29 | |
| of all ones possessions, | 44:31 | |
| of all ones relationships, | 44:34 | |
| of ones whole body. | 44:36 | |
| That kind of calling has been accepted and followed | 44:40 | |
| in our own time by a few, | 44:43 | |
| a few well known, | 44:46 | |
| others not so well known. | 44:48 | |
| ML king, the Berrigans, | 44:49 | |
| I think Cesar Chavez, | 44:54 | |
| these who have | 44:57 | |
| heard the call of a distant trumpet, | 45:00 | |
| who have recognized in that calling | 45:03 | |
| the voice of God himself, | 45:05 | |
| who have seen themselves | 45:08 | |
| in the sound of that calling | 45:11 | |
| as children of the most high | 45:13 | |
| and who have decided to follow that, to be that, | 45:15 | |
| at whatever personal cost to themselves. | 45:20 | |
| Who've moved beyond mere words into word deed, | 45:23 | |
| who have discovered | 45:28 | |
| the cost and the joy of discipleship. | 45:30 | |
| There were a few in Athens, | 45:35 | |
| there always are a few, | 45:37 | |
| there's always room for a few more. | 45:40 | |
| Let us pray. | 45:45 | |
| Spirit of the living God, | 45:49 | |
| take these poor human words, | 45:50 | |
| grow upon them | 45:53 | |
| that the chaff which is there | 45:55 | |
| maybe separated from the pure wheat. | 45:56 | |
| Make that pure wheat, that grain of the living word | 46:00 | |
| to take root in our hearts and to grow | 46:05 | |
| the lives conformed to the image of thy self, | 46:08 | |
| reveal in the face of Jesus, who is our Lord, amen. | 46:12 | |
| (liturgical music) | 46:27 | |
| - | Our Father, we have received many gifts, | 55:34 |
| we now offer our gifts and gratitude and with joy, | 55:37 | |
| and in celebration of our common faith and community | 55:41 | |
| and our commitment to the Work of Christ Church | 55:43 | |
| in Christ's name, amen. | 55:47 | |
| (liturgical music) | 56:02 |