Carlyle Marney - "As Fools Die" (October 14, 1973)

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	(choir sings)	0:05
	(bright organ-pipe music)	1:23
	(choir sings)	1:58
-	Our Lord has said,	6:01
	if anyone comes to me,	6:05
	I will in no way cast him or her out.	6:09
	Created in the image of God we have often failed	6:17
	to live up to our potential.	6:21
	In the presence of others like us,	6:25
	in the company of this supportive fellowship of worshipers,	6:30
	Let us now confess our sins to God, and to one another,	6:36
	Let us pray.	6:43
	Oh Lord, we come before you in the knowledge	6:46
	that we do not love you above all things.	6:49
	We do not cherish the beauty of your world,	6:53
	but literate with ugliness.	6:57
	We do not use the power you gave us over your creation	7:00
	to preserve and protect it,	7:04
	but to pave it over with monuments,	7:07
	to our own selfish achievements.	7:09
	You have given us the will to shape our lives	7:13
	and our institutions to serve all peoples.	7:17
	But we have advocated the power and greed.	7:21
	We turn to you now away from our mistakes and seek mercy	7:25
	for not knowing and for knowing what we do.	7:31
	We implore you whose nature and whose name is love	7:37
	to forgive us, us and in forgiving to heal us,	7:42
	so that in our lives, something will finally be changed.	7:46
	Amen.	7:51
	Let us continue with our personal prayers of confession.	7:53
	I say to you,	8:19
	by the witness of the Word and the church through the ages,	8:22
	you are accepted as you are.	8:25
	Your life does have some ultimate significance	8:29
	in this world.	8:34
	Your life is good as it is given.	8:37
	Your future is open.	8:42
	Receive every moment of it	8:45
	as God's good gift to you.	8:48
	Let us pray now as you find it in the bulletin.	8:55
	The prayer our Lord has given us praying,	8:59
All	Our Father who is in heaven,	9:03
	may all men come to respect and love you.	9:07
	May you rule in every heart and in all of life.	9:11
	Give us us day by day the things of life we need,	9:15
	forgive us, our sins like we forgive everyone	9:20
	who has done us wrong.	9:24
	Let nothing test us beyond our strength.	9:26
	Save us from our weaknesses,	9:30
	for yours is the authority, the power and the glory forever,	9:33
	Amen.	9:39
	(Soft organ-pipe music)	9:42
	♪ Holy, holy ♪	10:30
	♪ Holy ♪	10:37
	♪ Holy is the Lord ♪	10:44
	♪ Holy, holy ♪	10:58
	♪ Holy ♪	11:04
	♪ Holy is the Lord ♪	11:11
	♪ He is holy ♪	11:25
	♪ Forever more ♪	11:37
	♪ I will my praise ♪	11:50
	♪ Him more ♪	11:55
	♪ I will praise ♪	12:01
	♪ His name ♪	12:06
	♪ Holy, holy ♪	12:14
	♪ Holy ♪	12:20
	♪ Holy is the Lord ♪	12:28
	♪ Holy, holy ♪	12:42
	♪ Holy ♪	12:48
	♪ Holy is ♪	12:56
	♪ The Lord ♪	13:01
	♪ Lord I will praise ♪	13:10
	♪ Him more ♪	13:14
	♪ Holy, holy ♪	13:32
	♪ Holy ♪	13:38
	♪ Holy is the Lord ♪	13:46
-	Let us open our hearts and minds to the Word of God.	14:21
	The scripture this morning is taken from	14:26
	the third chapter of second Samuel versus 31 through 34.	14:29
	And the second chapter of first Kings.	14:35
	"Then David said to Joab and to all people	14:42
	who were with him,	14:47
	rend your clothes and gird on sack cloth,	14:49
	and mourn before Abner.	14:55
	And king David followed the bier.	14:58
	They buried Abner at Hebron,	15:03
	and the king lifted up his voice	15:06
	and wept at the grave of Abner, and all the people wept.	15:10
	And the king lamented for Abner saying,	15:18
	'should Abner die as a fool dies?	15:22
	Your hands were not bound.	15:27
	Your feet were not fettered.	15:31
	As one falls before the wicked you have fallen.'	15:35
	And all the people wept again over him."	15:40
	"When David's time drew near,	15:49
	he charged Solomon, his son saying,	15:52
	I am about to go the way of all the earth.	15:57
	You know, also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me,	16:03
	how he dealt with the two commanders	16:10
	of the armies of Israel.	16:13
	Abner, the son of Ner,	16:15
	and Amasa the son of Jether,	16:18
	whom he murdered avenging in time of peace,	16:22
	blood which had been shed in war,	16:27
	and putting innocent blood	16:31
	upon the girdle about my loins,	16:34
	and upon the sandals on my feet.	16:37
	Act therefore according to your wisdom,	16:41
	but do not let his head go down to sheal in peace."	16:45
	Here ends the morning lesson.	16:53
	(bright organ-pipe music)	16:56
	(choir sings)	17:05
-	Together, let us affirm our faith.	17:37
All	We are not alone, we live in God's world.	17:42
	We believe in God who has created and is creating,	17:47
	who has come in the true man, Jesus,	17:52
	to reconcile and make new,	17:55
	who works in us and others by His spirit.	17:58
	We trust Him.	18:02
	He calls us to be in his church	18:03
	to celebrate his presence, to love and serve others,	18:06
	to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified	18:11
	and risen, our judge and our hope,	18:17
	in life, in death, in life beyond death,	18:21
	God is with us, we are not alone,	18:25
	we believe in God, thanks be to God.	18:29
-	The Lord be with you.	18:36
Congregation	And with the spirit.	18:37
-	Let us pray.	18:39
	Oh God, our father, we thank and praise you for a new day.	18:51
	And a new time of worship in this place of beauty,	18:58
	of inspiration and of fellowship.	19:01
	We thank you for the life that stirs within each of us.	19:06
	For this beautiful world into which we go and in which move.	19:12
	For the work and the study you have given us to do	19:18
	for our friends and families.	19:25
	For music and books and good company,	19:29
	and all the good pleasures in life.	19:34
	Here our prayer we offer for others.	19:40
	We pray, oh God,	19:45
	for those in whom the pulse of life grows weak.	19:50
	For the sick, who miss the brightness of the day,	19:56
	and the moon light of the night.	20:02
	For the overworked, who take no time to relax	20:08
	and have no joy in leisure.	20:13
	For the unemployed, who have no labor,	20:18
	who have no joy of labor.	20:23
	In particular in this moment, oh God,	20:28
	We raise our prayers for peace in the Middle East.	20:34
	We do not understand all the complexities	20:41
	which cause war to be waged there.	20:44
	But we do understand that war is hell.	20:49
	That war brings death pain, brokenness,	20:54
	widows, and orphans.	21:01
	Help us to cry peace, peace,	21:06
	and someday, oh, God defined that there is peace.	21:10
	Also, oh God,	21:18
	in the confusion of leadership which has become our country,	21:23
	may your will of truth and justice	21:31
	and righteousness become clear	21:36
	to our leaders.	21:42
	And may they follow your will.	21:46
	Hear oh, God our prayer, which we offer for our needs.	21:53
	Oh God, keep us from over indulgent, self-centeredness.	21:59
	From careless destruction of life and beauty.	22:08
	From intentional harm to this good earth,	22:13
	which you have given us.	22:17
	We realize we are human, oh, God.	22:24
	And we need not only our own power,	22:28
	but strength that comes from beyond us.	22:31
	Help us to grow in grace and in concern.	22:36
	As our minds grow wiser, make us kinder of heart.	22:41
	As our arms grow stronger, make our hearts deeper.	22:48
	As our world grows smaller, make our hearts larger.	22:54
	As our neighbor grows colder, make our hearts warmer.	23:01
	May we or God be persons who meet and fulfill	23:10
	our responsibilities in life with songs of joy and love	23:15
	and real caring as Jesus, our Lord came caring.	23:20
	May our lives also reflect his loving concern	23:26
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord,	23:34
	these words are offered as our prayer	23:37
	for this moment, Amen.	23:43
	Our preacher for this morning	23:52
	is Dr. Karl Earl Magni.	23:56
	Theologian, philosopher,	24:01
	writer, interpreter of life,	24:07
	to a countless number of persons.	24:13
	Preacher of preachers.	24:18
	But above all, a warm human being,	24:24
	who knows we're on the path of life he is traveling	24:30
	And tries constantly to help others of us on that same road,	24:38
	to find meaning and assurance.	24:46
	It is a personal joy and a privilege for those of us	24:51
	who worship in this chapel to hear him,	24:55
	Dr. Magni.	25:01
-	The Chaperone, I would be a delict to myself,	25:11
	if I did not begin by expressing my infinite regard	25:17
	for this place and this people.	25:22
	I think I'd rather go to church here than any place	25:27
	I know now in this country.	25:32
	And if I did not express	25:36
	my tremendous personal satisfaction	25:38
	that working with the persons with whom I'm privileged	25:43
	to work briefly part of each week, one semester	25:47
	as a visiting guru of some sort.	25:50
	I have infinite regard for this place.	25:56
	Consequently, I'll do the latest thing I know.	26:00
	And the best thing I know anytime I come.	26:04
	And I'm grateful for the privilege of worshiping with you.	26:09
	I suppose the title as fools die seems stupid.	26:14
	It could read all fools die.	26:19
	Or it could read everybody dies.	26:24
	Or it could read all fools die.	26:28
	All fools in the day of rath.	26:32
	For what I am concerned to get across	26:36
	is the inescapable morality of politics.	26:39
	Anybody whose way of life is political gets it.	26:48
	Long years ago now Paul Sherason said,	26:56
	that four kinds of American religion ought to die	27:00
	and they ought die, for they cannot help us.	27:04
	The merely intellectual, the merely emotional,	27:10
	the merely therapeutic with its medicine kit under its arm,	27:15
	and the merely moral.	27:19
	We had a birth of all of it lately.	27:23
	and especially as Meneger has put it,	27:26
	pastors aren't very good chief psychiatrists,	27:29
	we really aren't, and there's a great deal more	27:34
	for us to be.	27:38
	But who wouldn't wish for the death	27:40
	of all mere religion anyhow.	27:43
	Real religion is intellectual.	27:47
	It is emotional.	27:51
	It is always therapeutic.	27:53
	And as others have said here also,	27:57
	basically irrefragably religion is moral, really moral.	28:00
	And so is politics always moral.	28:09
	That is to say life as religious and life as political	28:14
	has something to do with character.	28:19
	All of the great novels in plays.	28:26
	All of the histories of dynasties in power are memories	28:29
	of the violation of a basic moral expectation.	28:34
	In particular, the pageant of the Kings of Israel in Judah	28:41
	is an epitome displayed against a backdrop	28:46
	of moral expectation.	28:50
	The violation of which is death.	28:55
	Now, if I were a Jacob Blue Vic Mendelson Bartore,	28:59
	I do with the rest of my life,	29:03
	a set of auditorials about this.	29:06
	I do a king Hezekiah for Woodrow Wilson.	29:10
	I do a Nebuchadnezzar for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.	29:17
	I do a Tiglef Palizer III for Harry Truman.	29:23
	I do a sort of Midwestern Kansas Solomon	29:29
	for General Azin Howard.	29:34
	I do a tragic unrealized Jonathan,	29:38
	for John Kennedy.	29:43
	I do a gaunt dark but giant sow	29:46
	for Lyndon Johnson.	29:52
	And in the last of my auditorials,	29:55
	I'd leave king David in a office For Richard Nixon,	29:59
	With Abner and Joab in the front office.	30:06
	Indeed, I think in minor key now,	30:13
	I'd had a subset interlude on Ish Bashef for Spiral Agnew.	30:18
	But if you think, I mean to compliment by ascribing	30:25
	by David as I did, you simply do not know David	30:29
	or Abner, or Joab.	30:34
	The morale of the politician	30:39
	and the morals of the king are most safe	30:42
	when Abner and Joab occupy the front office.	30:48
	With Abner and Joab in the front office,	30:54
	the king doesn't have to know anything.	30:58
	He is safe, his morals are safe.	31:02
	King David can play his harp, sing his songs,	31:06
	dance before the altar, preach at the funerals,	31:10
	issue press releases, wait for his friends	31:13
	while Abner and Joab make his wheels go round.	31:16
	The morality of it is is,	31:24
	David saw Abner die by knife	31:27
	as a fool dies he said.	31:31
	And his last word to Solomon condemned his Joab	31:34
	to the acts of Beniah.	31:40
	Until here of late, where was there ever a pair	31:46
	of administrators like Abner and Joab,	31:50
	nephews of Kings, 30 year career men of highest rank,	31:54
	one dispatched by his service of two small a principal,	32:01
	the other act by putting functions so high,	32:08
	he lived on manipulated relation.	32:13
	Both days are utterly moral.	32:18
	Abner was a man of war.	32:23
	He had lived as a man of war and as a politician.	32:27
	He mixed his political techniques with war tactics	32:32
	at the Watergate in Gibeon where 12 against 12,	32:36
	they had fought with knives.	32:42
	And then he commanding general was maneuvered into killing	32:45
	a sub turn Lieutenant, insult of insults	32:51
	with the butt end of his spear.	32:56
	But the dead man was Asahel, little brother to Joab,	33:00
	his opposite number in politics.	33:06
	Now back to the merely political,	33:10
	having lived by sword and chicanery,	33:13
	Abner now wishes to live only on chicanery.	33:17
	So he took off his sword, he didn't wear his knife,	33:20
	he forgot his basic principle, his opposite number Joab,	33:26
	David's nephew, chief of staff.	33:33
	And he died with a knife of Joab in his belly	33:35
	at the gate, at his funeral David wept.	33:39
	For he needed Israel's Abner, and he said, Abner,	33:44
	you died as a fool dies from the morality of politics.	33:48
	And Joab, son of the David's sister,	33:57
	crew, chief, commando leader, top banana	34:02
	in David's bandit days long since army commander,	34:06
	trusted advisor, chief of staff to the king.	34:11
	He became willingly the servant of the back end	34:16
	of somebody else's virtue.	34:20
	Here David incubates King Louis 14,	34:26
	by some centuries for Louis to knew	34:30
	what one needs in the front office.	34:36
	And would say, I, my chancellor is a scandaler,	34:40
	but I cannot do without him.	34:46
	What if David is acting when he says in public,	34:52
	that Joab is too hard for him?	34:55
	What if Joab is not an independent operator,	34:59
	but is organically and functionally the backside	35:03
	of David's public virtue?	35:07
	What if the David-Joab relation is such that Joab will do	35:11
	what David wants, regardless of what David says he wants.	35:16
	What if Joab knew David needed Abner dead?	35:22
	In spite of David's tears at the funeral,	35:28
	See Joab grinning In the wings.	35:32
	What if in spite of David's gentle terms for Rayma,	35:39
	Joab knew David wanted no more threat	35:43
	from that troublesome quarter.	35:46
	So he Joab would destroy all evidence of David's complicity	35:49
	in the death of Uriah, by making seemed to have been	35:53
	so vicious a fight, that the cry no quarter	35:57
	was justified.	36:03
	What if Joab is so near as David's backside	36:06
	that he knew that Absalom had to die.	36:11
	Even while the king weeping on the rooftop at Mahanaim,	36:15
	had ordered, don't you hurt that young man.	36:21
	See Joab slither out the limb of the Terrabens.	36:26
	And with his hand, no bull, just with his hand,	36:30
	first, an arrow into the throat, to the rioting Absalom.	36:35
	That was never until lately a front man,	36:41
	like Joab, it worked.	36:45
	Never shall trusted and administrator.	36:50
	Never so fear, sidekick so faithful as steward	36:54
	until I after 30 chapters or so.	36:59
	The X,	37:03
	the morality of politics,	37:07
	King David on his deathbed sings for Solomon,	37:11
	I am about to go the way of all the earth.	37:15
	You what Joab did to me,	37:19
	how he used the tools of war in my front office	37:24
	in a time of peace.	37:29
	How he put innocent blood on my girdle.	37:33
	Don't let his head go down to the grave in peace.	37:38
	Last shot, Joab clinging	37:44
	to the horns of the altar	37:49
	in the tent of the Lord,	37:52
	before Beniah sent to axe him in the head	37:54
	and succeed him as commander.	38:02
	For politics like religion	38:05
	is moral when it's real.	38:09
	(speaks foreign language)	38:13
	Is it all really so moral, reverend?	38:16
	Can you really expect a modern audience in such a center	38:21
	to be receptive to such a dictum as that.	38:25
	Politics is immoral, unmoral, non-moral,	38:30
	beyond morals and unmoral,	38:34
	but it's hardly ever moral long.	38:36
	Of course, and everything dies	38:40
	not just us fools I know that.	38:44
	But it all adds up to a moral set of moral alternatives	38:48
	for life and living for of politics like religion	38:52
	is always moral in its nature.	38:56
	So it simply means that politics and religion	38:59
	are dimensions of human life, so much a like	39:03
	that each is a medium through which and within	39:07
	which mans real nature	39:11
	is always crippled or blessed.	39:14
	And the moral effect aspect is that he man,	39:20
	has choices and is responsible.	39:27
	Then if Abner and Joab political supreme to say to us,	39:36
	"Are you trying to say that we should live like characters	39:43
	in gun smoke, that we should watch out for our enemies,	39:45
	that we should throw away all pocket knives	39:52
	and search all our house guests, not at all."	39:54
	I mean, only to say that life itself is moral	39:59
	and that neither in religion nor politics,	40:03
	can a man expect more than life from life	40:06
	than his basic principle can deliver.	40:12
	He works most everywhere.	40:18
	Those who see marriage as a mere meeting of emotional needs	40:21
	must prepared for changing needs to over spill the relation	40:25
	and dissolve the marriage,	40:29
	for marriage is a moral commitment.	40:30
	Those who live utterly on material principles	40:34
	ought not to expect spiritual rewards.	40:37
	Those whose creed put self at center must be prepared	40:42
	to endure a life that finds its limit at that center.	40:46
	Those whose principle is psychological behaviorism need	40:50
	to expect little from unconditioned love.	40:54
	Those who bet on a naturalistic determinism	41:00
	should not require themselves to do free acts of decision.	41:03
	If you limit me to optimistic humanism, forget immortality.	41:10
	If your origins are really contained	41:17
	in scientific materialism,	41:20
	quit bothering these gurus about the inner life.	41:24
	What is your basic principle?	41:30
	It will determine as it did with Abner, what you get.	41:32
	In political religion it means,	41:39
	that those who model their church	41:43
	on the American business community must not look	41:45
	for the new Jerusalem to come down or of it isn't coming,	41:48
	it's already here.	41:52
	In the religion of politics,	41:55
	it means that if my basic principle,	41:59
	my wearing of the sword is loyalty.	42:02
	If loyalty is my virtue,	42:07
	I better hope that the object of my loyalty stays in power.	42:10
	If I live for control, I must not expect love for it.	42:18
	If my character is conformity,	42:26
	I must not expect creativity of me.	42:30
	If my God is always deemed right,	42:35
	I should not look for any much good out of it.	42:40
	Is innocence my prime virtue?	42:46
	I'd better not look for accomplishment to.	42:50
	Is the political God of the country power?	42:55
	Then forget peace as a prospect.	43:01
	No country has ever had both dominance and loving neighbors.	43:05
	If it's Caesars, Jesus, has said to have said,	43:13
	give it to him.	43:18
	But it meant no separation of state and church,	43:21
	politics and religion have done.	43:25
	The two kingdoms represent all categories used by Augustine,	43:29
	the Roman church, and not abandoned the even by Luther,	43:35
	our present day, political protestants.	43:40
	None of that two kingdoms business really holds	43:44
	for politics or religion.	43:46
	Calvin made no such mistake,	43:50
	one kingdom, and he knew who should rule	43:55
	and where his oracle could be heard,	43:59
	Though Jonathan Swift would later characterize	44:04
	the Scottish version as the emission	44:06
	of oracular belches delivered before panting disciples.	44:10
	But the real point here is that my basic principle	44:18
	had better be broad enough to contain what I have ordered	44:22
	from politics, for that base will determine the nature	44:26
	of my gathering in.	44:31
	Jesus illustrates this with his least understood parable,	44:34
	about a manager that got it in the nick.	44:38
	And to which the object of the parable was,	44:42
	if I live by the book, I had better be the book keeper.	44:45
	For the man out front is dispensable, disposable	44:52
	and vulnerable, especially in the religion of politics.	44:56
	And the religiopolitics of life and living,	45:03
	it's all the same.	45:09
	If you goal is to be harmless as a dove,	45:11
	you really will need the wisdom of a snake as a base,	45:14
	for politics gets rough.	45:19
	And if you are going to live on grace,	45:23
	you had better come to terms with responsible guilt.	45:27
	It's too late to be innocent.	45:32
	Better take a look at the morality	45:36
	of religiopolitical life.	45:38
	A childhood vow too narrow, really constricts.	45:41
	A man who models himself on a warped and twisted leader	45:49
	will be himself warped and twisted.	45:53
	A person whose cultural values are local and regional,	45:57
	Harvard Yard, or Southwest Texas Teachers College,	46:03
	both are too local, you may count on it.	46:09
	For the business of your living will end up by reflecting	46:16
	what you have really treasured.	46:19
	Poor Abner, he thought Joab had become civilized.	46:23
	He thought the ground rules had changed.	46:30
	He forgot to wear his basic principle,	46:34
	This as Paul Tilik knew and said really is your life.	46:39
	The shape of your ultimate concern is that shape	46:45
	you really live by and for this indeed is faith,	46:49
	your ultimate care.	46:55
	At this point in time,	47:01
	when I was writing yesterday, this piece.	47:05
	Through my window at Carolina Inn,	47:09
	I could see old man Sam Irwin, loading a thin suit bag	47:12
	in the back end of an old blue Chrysler,	47:18
	headed up the Hills to Morganton, I suppose.	47:23
	In spite of his voting record on the social issues	47:29
	I have supported and he didn't.	47:32
	He reminds me that there's a different kind of politics	47:36
	and political living.	47:41
	He would not change places within any chief in Washington.	47:45
	For there's a different way to be political.	47:52
	Two Yankee visitors passed my open window at the same time,	47:57
	one stretched and said,	48:03
	"The air is really different down here in the south."	48:07
	So mode it be.	48:14
	But we've a lot to face as religio-political persons	48:18
	now alive who are moral and there is a higher way.	48:23
	In the realm of political public religion,	48:29
	whether civic or folk religion,	48:32
	there's simply no way that the institutional church can talk	48:35
	its way out of the fix into which we've come in the sixth	48:39
	and seventh decades of the 20th century.	48:44
	And the issue really lies where Jesus put it,	48:48
	God or mammon translated.	48:53
	It means humanity or security,	48:56
	people or property,	49:00
	and the awful fact remains the only institutional church,	49:03
	more helpless than the church without people,	49:07
	but property is the church without property,	49:12
	which has lots of people.	49:16
	There's really not much room to play around with this.	49:20
	And of all the religious,	49:24
	the pastor is in the middle tempted	49:28
	toward the lower politics.	49:31
	It covers him with a virtual necessity,	49:35
	to use relations in such a manipulative way as to guarantee	49:39
	the function that supports the total enterprise.	49:44
	The threat here of the lower joy of politics	49:49
	is that I may very well anywhere I work,	49:54
	become the backside of somebody's virtue.	49:58
	I may have been hired to make somebody look good	50:05
	or somebody's class look good,	50:09
	and that's rough to live with	50:12
	unless you happen to like this sort of thing,	50:15
	the higher politics.	50:20
	Only those religious institutions which have changed	50:23
	neither theology, their ecclesiology,	50:26
	their social ideas, nor their customs.	50:30
	Only those that have really served their bunch,	50:33
	their class only these have stayed solvent,	50:36
	Some even prosper.	50:41
	And what kind of backside of virtue is that?	50:43
	It's as if to opt for mammon breeds mammon.	50:48
	It's as if money is only worth its power.	50:53
	And believe me, it has been used for power,	50:58
	the awful power of withholding life.	51:01
	The iniquitous, ubiquitous temptation for all relig youth	51:06
	is to get with it, to throw your weight on the side	51:11
	of the power.	51:15
	To pick up one skirt and tiptoe gingerly across	51:17
	this long muddy flat, until some catastrophe changes	51:21
	the political mind of the churches and puts us out	51:26
	in the streets where we belong.	51:29
	But the temptation of the lower politics is still to go	51:32
	for the support of the buggy, and let others choose, turned,	51:37
	and drive the horses to death.	51:43
	There must be a better way to be.	51:47
	The old Senator was backing out now,	51:53
	to head across the Piedmont, another week done.	51:56
	In my heart, I wished him out my window	52:03
	a safe journey.	52:07
	And I didn't call out the open window	52:10
	as I really wanted to do,	52:12
	bravo! Bravo!	52:15
	But his late example presses me to offer	52:19
	an alternative prospect to the knife	52:23
	and the axe of Abner and Joab.	52:28
	It's for all of us, it's in the Book.	52:33
	What if your eye, your self regard and confidence,	52:38
	whoever you are is so high that you really do not have	52:43
	to stay as and where you are.	52:49
	What if God really does have other folks,	52:55
	other villages, where you can work?	52:58
	What if Caesar's share of things really is just a penny.	53:04
	What if there really is no secular holy dichotomy,	53:14
	and God Almighty has access to whatever he might want.	53:20
	What if your real worth is in your being	53:26
	and your having been, and your will be,	53:30
	more than it's in what you have or what you do.	53:35
	What if your prime gift is a of relations	53:41
	with brothers, sisters, fellows,	53:46
	and there is no thing you must be.	53:50
	What if your life really is a personal affair,	53:56
	not a professional thing at all?	54:02
	What if no rank or place or station	54:07
	can give me anything to keep?	54:11
	What if dear A.C. Reed was right when he says,	54:19
	in the Duke lectures years ago,	54:24
	"whatever you earn nature will collect."	54:27
	What if a life lived is my only word	54:35
	and that is moral.	54:40
	What if the issue really is God or Mammon,	54:45
	humanity or security people, or property,	54:48
	and God has got all the artillery.	54:52
	What if money is really means of loving or not loving?	54:57
	And what if really not one stone shall be left on top	55:03
	of another of any house we have built to God.	55:06
	What if God's flock all did have and always	55:12
	will have more lambs than it has rams,	55:17
	and there's only a few old rams	55:25
	a man has to share by hand in his lifetime.	55:27
	That's to say, what if he did say to Simon Peter,	55:33
	that third time feed the lambs,	55:37
	meaning that power does not matter much,	55:42
	the rams are old and will die.	55:45
	What if my real political life is of the same stuff	55:51
	as all the fellows I work with and for,	55:56
	and that I am expected to understand this is moral	55:59
	and cannot evade it by my mere bookkeeping.	56:03
	What if God Almighty won't marry mammon because	56:08
	He doesn't like or need mammon.	56:12
	And I can't pull it together.	56:16
	And my in house church roof really does fall in out of it.	56:19
	It's happened before.	56:28
	What if true politics requires me to opt for people	56:31
	where they could be instead of where	56:35
	our frozen institutions have kept them.	56:38
	What if gospel really is political, and is too tough,	56:44
	and too expensive, and too liberal, to be lightly taken.	56:49
	And what if I really do have	56:55
	to choose Joab, Abner, axe or knife,	56:57
	or is there not a higher way?	57:04
	What if the politics of life is inescapably moral?	57:08
	There's a life one way,	57:16
	and the horns of Joab's alter the other way.	57:20
	For hey, hey you,	57:25
	we are a people who really do know better.	57:29
	We know a way toward an ultimate earth	57:36
	and we are responsible,	57:42
	and politics is moral,	57:46
	just like life and living.	57:53
	Amen.	57:59
	(Bright organ-pipe music)	58:18
	(choir sings)	59:09
-	Let me say just a word about an announcement	1:02:06
	you find in the bulletin this morning	1:02:09
	concerning the friends of the chapel.	1:02:15
	A number of people have talked with me	1:02:20
	about this item.	1:02:25
	(speaking indistinctively)	1:02:29

Item Info

Title:

Carlyle Marney - "As Fools Die" (October 14, 1973)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4280905k

Date:

October 14, 1973

Speaker:

Marney, Carlyle, 1916-1978

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0673
ref6548_99h
uachapelsermaud
duke:627934
dcrau002651
ark:/87924/r4280905k
2172b3b6-6f27-47d8-996a-5b7cb2855f7f

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Carlyle Marney - "As Fools Die" (October 14, 1973)

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