Benjamin Garrison - "Way to Go" (October 27, 1974)
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| (choir harmonizing) | 0:03 | |
| (choir harmonizing continues) | 0:30 | |
| (church organ music) | 0:47 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 1:27 | |
| (organ and choir continue) | 1:53 | |
| (organ and choir continue) | 2:41 | |
| (organ and choir continue) | 3:05 | |
| (distortion organ plays) | 3:55 | |
| (church organ resumes) | 4:33 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 5:20 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 6:03 | |
| - | Dear friends in Christ. | 6:21 |
| The scriptures lead us to acknowledge and confess our sins | 6:24 | |
| before almighty God, | 6:29 | |
| with a lowly penitent and obedient heart | 6:32 | |
| so that we may receive forgiveness by his infinite goodness | 6:38 | |
| and mercy. | 6:42 | |
| And so I invite you to join with me in confessing our sins | 6:44 | |
| and in seeking God's renewing grace, let us pray. | 6:52 | |
| Oh, holy God. | 7:00 | |
| We have been so far from what we ought to have been. | 7:01 | |
| Sometimes we seem not to know how to love you nor to love | 7:06 | |
| ourselves and our neighbor. | 7:10 | |
| We have given in to resentment and cherished bitterness. | 7:13 | |
| We have panicked over all the pressures and demands, | 7:18 | |
| which are upon on us. | 7:21 | |
| We act as if the world begins and ends with us | 7:23 | |
| and our problems. | 7:27 | |
| Forgive us. Oh God. | 7:29 | |
| When it seems to take the destructiveness of a hurricane | 7:31 | |
| to break through this barrier, oh God, | 7:34 | |
| in your mercy heal us and cause us as individuals | 7:38 | |
| and as a community to be born | 7:44 | |
| anew in Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 7:46 | |
| Amen. | 7:50 | |
| Let us continue with our personal of prayers of confession. | 8:03 | |
| God's word says to us, if we confess our sins, | 8:36 | |
| he is faithful and just, | 8:42 | |
| and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all | 8:46 | |
| unrighteousness. | 8:50 | |
| In the name of Christ, | 8:54 | |
| I declare your sins are forgiven for his sake. | 8:56 | |
| Amen. | 9:05 | |
| (church organ plays) | 9:09 | |
| (organ music continues) | 9:57 | |
| (female choir member harmonizes) | 10:02 | |
| (choir harmonizes) | 10:32 | |
| (choir harmony continues) | 11:06 | |
| (choir harmony continues) | 11:30 | |
| - | The scripture lesson this morning is taken | 12:04 |
| from the 35th chapter of Isaiah. | 12:05 | |
| The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, | 12:10 | |
| the desert shall rejoice and blossom, | 12:14 | |
| like the Crocus it shall blossom, | 12:17 | |
| abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. | 12:18 | |
| The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. | 12:22 | |
| The majesty of Carmel and Sharon, | 12:25 | |
| they shall see the glory of the Lord and the majesty | 12:28 | |
| of our God strengthen the weak ends, and make firm, | 12:31 | |
| the feeble knees, say to those who are of a fearful heart, | 12:35 | |
| be strong fear not. | 12:41 | |
| Behold your God will come with vengeance, | 12:43 | |
| and will recompense of God. | 12:46 | |
| He will come and save you. | 12:48 | |
| Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears, | 12:50 | |
| of the death unstopped, | 12:54 | |
| then shall the lay man leap with the heart. | 12:56 | |
| And the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy. | 12:59 | |
| For water shall break forth in the wilderness, | 13:03 | |
| and the streams in the desert and the burning sands | 13:05 | |
| shall become a pool. | 13:09 | |
| And the thirsty ground springs of water and the haunt of | 13:11 | |
| jackels shall become a swamp. | 13:15 | |
| The grass shall become reeds and rushes | 13:18 | |
| and a highway shall be there | 13:21 | |
| and it should called the holy way. | 13:22 | |
| An unclean shall not pass over it. | 13:25 | |
| And fools shall not air there in. | 13:28 | |
| No lion shall be there nor shall any ravenous | 13:32 | |
| beast come up on it. | 13:35 | |
| They shall not be found there, | 13:37 | |
| but the redeems shall walk there. | 13:39 | |
| And the ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion | 13:42 | |
| with singing with everlasting joy upon their heads, | 13:45 | |
| they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow, | 13:50 | |
| and sign shall flee away. | 13:53 | |
| May God add his blessing to this reading | 13:56 | |
| (church organ plays) | 14:00 | |
| (choir harmonizes) | 14:07 | |
| - | Together, with one voice, let us affirm our faith. | 14:38 |
| We are not alone. | 14:43 | |
| We live in God's world. | 14:46 | |
| We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 14:48 | |
| who has come in the true man, Jesus | 14:54 | |
| to reconcile and make new, | 14:57 | |
| who works in others. | 15:00 | |
| We trust him. | 15:04 | |
| He calls us to be in his church to celebrate his presence, | 15:06 | |
| to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, | 15:12 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen our judge and our hope | 15:18 | |
| in life in death. | 15:24 | |
| In life beyond death, God is with us. | 15:27 | |
| We are not alone. | 15:31 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 15:33 | |
| Lord be with you. | 15:36 | |
| Let us pray. | 15:39 | |
| Gracious God, our God, | 15:51 | |
| you who are at home in every generation. | 15:56 | |
| We thank you that we know something of your peace | 16:00 | |
| in the clear nights and shining stars | 16:06 | |
| in the soft fall of autumn leaves | 16:09 | |
| in laughter, in quiet places, | 16:13 | |
| and in all the broodings of your spirit. | 16:18 | |
| We thank you that though we bluster and fight. | 16:22 | |
| We know that the eyes of your son are on us wherever we are. | 16:27 | |
| We thank you for peace in him. | 16:33 | |
| Peace with our past life, | 16:37 | |
| for where we are cleansed from an evil conscience | 16:38 | |
| peace for the coming days, | 16:45 | |
| because we know all powers are in your power. | 16:47 | |
| Yet save us, oh God, | 16:53 | |
| save us from cheap grace, | 16:57 | |
| lest we presume upon your goodness. | 17:01 | |
| Show us that we cannot love you unless we love all persons. | 17:06 | |
| Make us instruments of thy peace. | 17:15 | |
| Oh God, lord of the lonely heart | 17:21 | |
| and the lonely crowd | 17:24 | |
| you have loved us so that we might love each other. | 17:27 | |
| So we pray for our neighbors for anxious folk in big houses | 17:32 | |
| and in little houses or trouble comes the same to all. | 17:38 | |
| We pray for the lawless, | 17:47 | |
| that they may be won by your gentle law. | 17:50 | |
| And for those who are always lawful, | 17:56 | |
| who can't understand why oppressed people become lawless. | 17:58 | |
| We pray for those who expect from life. | 18:06 | |
| May their sky break with the song of an angel song. | 18:11 | |
| We pray for those who search in vain, | 18:18 | |
| send them your joy and your light on their way. | 18:21 | |
| Arrest us casual people by your flaming spirit. | 18:28 | |
| Open the prison doors of those who are frustrated, | 18:33 | |
| quicken the laughter of children so that we may know, | 18:38 | |
| we may all know, the joy of laughter. | 18:42 | |
| And may the joy of Christ be ours | 18:48 | |
| in the night and in the morning, | 18:50 | |
| ours to receive and ours to share. | 18:55 | |
| Hear us oh God, in these words, | 19:01 | |
| and in every prayer, which has been uttered | 19:07 | |
| from the heart and mind of any person here this day. | 19:11 | |
| Hear us what we pray in the name of Christ. | 19:18 | |
| And we pray now together the prayer, | 19:20 | |
| which he has taught us, praying, | 19:21 | |
| our father, who art in heaven, | 19:25 | |
| hallowed be thy name | 19:29 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 19:31 | |
| I will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 19:33 | |
| Give us this day, | 19:38 | |
| our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, | 19:39 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us | 19:43 | |
| and lead us, not into temptation. | 19:47 | |
| Deliver us from evil thine is a kingdom, | 19:50 | |
| the power and the glory, forever. | 19:53 | |
| Amen. | 19:58 | |
| You who worship here. | 20:06 | |
| And those of us | 20:10 | |
| who enjoy the work of his hands, | 20:13 | |
| will be interested in knowing | 20:19 | |
| that Mr. Sam Hammond was in a fire yesterday morning. | 20:21 | |
| I am pleased to share some good news with you. | 20:26 | |
| Sam, as you will know, | 20:31 | |
| is the carillonneur for the chapel, and is the librarian | 20:34 | |
| for the music department. | 20:39 | |
| Very tragic occurrence in his apartment yesterday morning. | 20:42 | |
| But the doctors tell me this morning that things look | 20:45 | |
| very good and very promising for him. | 20:48 | |
| But may I ask that you remember him with your prayers | 20:52 | |
| and your expressions of concern? | 20:56 | |
| He is in room 41, 10 homes in the Duke hospital. | 20:59 | |
| Our prayers are with him. | 21:07 | |
| This Friday at 5:15, | 21:13 | |
| we will celebrate all saints day with an all saints | 21:18 | |
| choral eucharist here in the chapel. | 21:22 | |
| You're invited to share that service with us. | 21:26 | |
| You also are invited to join those who would like to have | 21:31 | |
| further conversation with Dr. Garrison, | 21:34 | |
| following the service today in room 101 | 21:36 | |
| in the union building, | 21:40 | |
| simply get your lunch and come join us there as soon | 21:42 | |
| following the service as possible for some additional time | 21:47 | |
| and conversation with him. | 21:51 | |
| We welcome to the pulpit of duke chapel this morning, | 21:54 | |
| Dr. Benjamin Garrison. | 21:57 | |
| Dr. Garrison is the minister | 21:59 | |
| of Wesley United Methodist Church | 22:04 | |
| and director of the Wesley foundation | 22:06 | |
| at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, | 22:09 | |
| a man who has written several outstanding and timely | 22:14 | |
| and provocative and insightful books, | 22:18 | |
| an authentic preacher of the word, | 22:21 | |
| a man who knows what it is to live with a congregation | 22:25 | |
| and to live with a university community. | 22:29 | |
| His uncle has graced our presence here | 22:34 | |
| in the Duke University community for the past two years, | 22:37 | |
| retired Bishop Edwin Garrison, | 22:41 | |
| but by no means retired as active as ever and as helpful | 22:43 | |
| as ever is on the faculty of the divinity school. | 22:47 | |
| So we welcome Dr. Ben Garrison to Duke, | 22:52 | |
| to the pulpit of Duke chapel and to this service. | 22:56 | |
| Ben, we anticipate your word with joy and excitement. | 23:00 | |
| (audience member coughs) | 23:09 | |
| - | It's a deep personal privilege to be part of this offering | 23:17 |
| to God with this incomparable and moving choir | 23:20 | |
| with the clergy and the chancel | 23:24 | |
| and with you ministers of Jesus Christ in the pews, | 23:27 | |
| let us pray. | 23:31 | |
| Put the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 23:36 | |
| be acceptable, oh lord, | 23:39 | |
| in thy sight, | 23:41 | |
| who art our strength and our redeemer, amen. | 23:44 | |
| It is significant that the origin of the word slang | 23:52 | |
| is unknown. | 23:55 | |
| Because slang words come from who knows where, | 23:59 | |
| and joy of brief, | 24:03 | |
| if somewhat hared existence and then pass on to an unmarked | 24:04 | |
| and unlamented linguistic grave. | 24:08 | |
| So a slang word, | 24:13 | |
| if it has any sense or any brains | 24:15 | |
| will expect at least two things, | 24:18 | |
| it will expect not to live very long. | 24:20 | |
| and then it will expect, while it lives, | 24:24 | |
| to suffer a kind of permanent identity crisis. | 24:25 | |
| Or even if it lives on it may live on with a meaning, | 24:30 | |
| which is utterly opposite from its first intent. | 24:33 | |
| For instance, my generation called the jazz | 24:36 | |
| it appreciated and approved, hot. | 24:40 | |
| A subsequent generation called its culty counterpoint, | 24:44 | |
| Cool. | 24:48 | |
| And what the present generation is calling it. | 24:50 | |
| I haven't the foggiest notion | 24:52 | |
| because I haven't checked since | 24:54 | |
| I left home from my teenage daughter on Thursday. | 24:55 | |
| For instance, | 25:00 | |
| spooning became smooching, | 25:03 | |
| became necking, became who knows what? | 25:06 | |
| Or no, I guess we do know what, | 25:11 | |
| but who knows what to call it. | 25:12 | |
| And so on. | 25:15 | |
| And so do our title way to go. | 25:17 | |
| Long glacial months ago, | 25:21 | |
| when I first got this sermon idea, | 25:23 | |
| it meant a term of affirmation, a term of approval, | 25:25 | |
| something like right on or atta boy. | 25:28 | |
| And I don't know what's happened to its meaning | 25:33 | |
| in the time between, | 25:34 | |
| but I have elected to let it stand at the head | 25:36 | |
| of this sermon as a kind of secular text. | 25:39 | |
| Because it has a number of important biblical counterparts. | 25:43 | |
| The English by Bible uses the word way or ways | 25:48 | |
| some 947 times. | 25:52 | |
| I instance, three here at the outset. | 25:55 | |
| God says to the prophet, | 26:00 | |
| Jeremiah, and through him to us ask where is the way | 26:01 | |
| that leads to what is good? | 26:07 | |
| And then later you shall say further to this people. | 26:10 | |
| I offer you now a choice between the way of life | 26:13 | |
| and the way of death. | 26:16 | |
| And the third, the best known | 26:19 | |
| because it comes from the lips and life of Jesus. | 26:21 | |
| I am the way. | 26:25 | |
| So I invite you to linger with me a bit this morning, | 26:27 | |
| as we consider the way to go. | 26:30 | |
| In order to get started on that way, | 26:35 | |
| I would like to invite you to join me in a little experiment | 26:36 | |
| in paraphrase. | 26:39 | |
| I think you won't have too much difficulty identifying | 26:41 | |
| with the situation. | 26:44 | |
| Once upon a time, | 26:46 | |
| except in this instance, | 26:48 | |
| the persons and events are very real, however, fantastic. | 26:49 | |
| Once upon a time, there was a chief of state | 26:54 | |
| whose name for the moment will be unmentioned. | 26:57 | |
| He had come to national prominence | 27:02 | |
| at a comparatively early age. | 27:04 | |
| The following description of him has been put together | 27:08 | |
| as a kind of composite from a variety of commentators. | 27:10 | |
| Criticism was aimed at least until the last, | 27:15 | |
| rather more upon his advisors than upon him. | 27:18 | |
| For government policy was framed by men | 27:23 | |
| with little or no experience in state craft. | 27:25 | |
| There was no wisdom left to direct, | 27:29 | |
| no strength to carry out. | 27:31 | |
| No moral principle. | 27:34 | |
| The old evils were back under an utterly selfish rules, | 27:37 | |
| suddenly gathered to a head. | 27:42 | |
| From the number of calls for diligence and justice | 27:46 | |
| in the administration, | 27:49 | |
| we may safely infer that there was something lacking | 27:50 | |
| in that area. | 27:53 | |
| The situation grew so grave that some of the citizenry | 27:55 | |
| refused to acknowledge him as their leader, | 27:59 | |
| yearning rather for one or another | 28:02 | |
| of his distinguished predecessors. | 28:05 | |
| Meanwhile, self-righteousness strode | 28:08 | |
| like a booted giant across all criticism, | 28:11 | |
| maintaining that in spite of a few minor violations | 28:15 | |
| of the law, of course, | 28:17 | |
| the promises of the founding fathers would be fulfilled. | 28:19 | |
| Throughout this period and almost to the end, | 28:24 | |
| one popular preacher kept making moral pronouncements, | 28:28 | |
| totally incommensurate with the situation, | 28:32 | |
| both in the capital and in the countryside. | 28:34 | |
| The chief executive himself | 28:39 | |
| characterized by many as vacillating, | 28:41 | |
| became anxious and finally frantic to dissipate | 28:44 | |
| the rumors about his unfaithful behavior. | 28:48 | |
| Eventually his term of service, | 28:52 | |
| so-called ended (iaudible), | 28:54 | |
| to the fatigued relief of almost the entire citizenry. | 28:58 | |
| Now, if I were a betting man, | 29:04 | |
| I would be willing to offer a copy of a complimentary copy | 29:07 | |
| of my next book to anybody who has correctly identified | 29:10 | |
| the person I've been describing | 29:13 | |
| and the collective dollar from everybody | 29:16 | |
| who has guessed wrong, | 29:17 | |
| but I've had my fun. | 29:20 | |
| So I'll review the name on my cue card. | 29:22 | |
| His name is Zedekiah, who reigned as king of Judah | 29:25 | |
| for 11 years, from 597 to 587 BC. | 29:30 | |
| So there. | 29:36 | |
| Into this todry situation came a prophet of the Lord | 29:41 | |
| who was certainly not the most popular, | 29:43 | |
| but he turned out to be the most permanent | 29:47 | |
| of all the prophets. | 29:49 | |
| He was called a traitor because he dared to question | 29:51 | |
| what the big wigs were doing in contrast | 29:54 | |
| to what they said they were going to do. | 29:57 | |
| He was hooted at and dismissed. | 30:00 | |
| Because he talked about morality. | 30:03 | |
| He called it righteousness, | 30:05 | |
| but he was talking about morality. | 30:07 | |
| He was actually finally imprisoned because he suggested | 30:09 | |
| in word and enacted indeed his belief that God | 30:13 | |
| just might be working through | 30:17 | |
| some other nation besides theirs. | 30:19 | |
| He ticked off the practices, which were in his judgment, | 30:23 | |
| inconsistent with Judah's holy inheritance, | 30:26 | |
| which were subversive of their father's wisdom. | 30:30 | |
| And he named names. | 30:34 | |
| He did it right in the presence of the temple | 30:36 | |
| judiciary committee, as it were, | 30:38 | |
| whose chairperson was probably somebody named | 30:42 | |
| Samuel Hervenstein from north Canaan. | 30:44 | |
| (audience laughs) | 30:47 | |
| And so they tossed him into pokey. | 30:51 | |
| He was alike critical of the working man | 30:55 | |
| and of the affluent | 30:57 | |
| of the envious and the religious, listen. | 30:59 | |
| An appalling thing. | 31:03 | |
| An outrage has appeared in this land, | 31:04 | |
| prophets prophesy lies, | 31:07 | |
| and priests go hand in hand with them | 31:09 | |
| and my people love to have it, so. | 31:13 | |
| How will you fare at the end of it all? | 31:15 | |
| You see his converse with God | 31:19 | |
| had led him into conflict with the authorities. | 31:21 | |
| Some people think that Jeremiah's name means God hurls. | 31:27 | |
| Well, whether so or no, | 31:32 | |
| he hurled hot molten words of indignation. | 31:33 | |
| And yet in all of this, | 31:38 | |
| he sought accurately to see his people | 31:39 | |
| and fairly to judge them. | 31:42 | |
| Neither to idealize them, nor to put them down. | 31:45 | |
| One of the high points of this prophetic annunciation | 31:50 | |
| tempered by a love, | 31:53 | |
| willing to suffer for those who criticized is found | 31:54 | |
| in the sixth chapter of Jeremiah, | 31:57 | |
| It is set in this Zedekian period when weak men | 32:00 | |
| in high places were under the self-induced illusion | 32:03 | |
| that they could shilly shalley their way out | 32:07 | |
| of the on rushing disaster. | 32:09 | |
| Here's what he said to them, | 32:12 | |
| hurled at them, | 32:13 | |
| Stop at the crossroads, look for the ancient paths. | 32:15 | |
| Don't just quote from those beloved documents | 32:21 | |
| and then shred them to smithereens by your actions. | 32:23 | |
| Ask, he said, | 32:29 | |
| where is the way that leads to what is good? | 32:30 | |
| And then take that way. | 32:33 | |
| And a bit later, another valley from on high, | 32:36 | |
| I offer you now a choice between the way of life | 32:40 | |
| and the way of death | 32:43 | |
| he was talking about the way to go. | 32:44 | |
| Well, what was that way? | 32:52 | |
| The thing toward which he was urging them and inviting them. | 32:54 | |
| Let's observe first that the way to go is a great deal | 32:58 | |
| more than what is commonly called the law of God, | 33:02 | |
| although let's not hurry on too fast, | 33:05 | |
| it's not any less than the law of God. | 33:07 | |
| Every culture, | 33:10 | |
| whether religious or otherwise, identifies and tries | 33:11 | |
| to articulate certain minimal standards of conduct | 33:15 | |
| for the community and for the individual. | 33:18 | |
| Once these standards are written down, | 33:22 | |
| whether on paper or papyrus or more deeply upon the human | 33:24 | |
| heart, they're usually called laws. | 33:28 | |
| Moreover, they have a certain urgency about them. | 33:34 | |
| A certain commanding quality about them. | 33:37 | |
| The Decalogue has been graven on the tablets of the human | 33:41 | |
| heart as the 10 commandments, | 33:44 | |
| not as the 10 friendly suggestions. | 33:46 | |
| Moral law, whether religiously understood | 33:51 | |
| or externally imposed or internally appropriated | 33:53 | |
| moral law has about it a decidedly imperious quality. | 33:57 | |
| The life of goodness arises from a majestic must, | 34:03 | |
| not from a permissive, perhaps. | 34:08 | |
| It's not just a matter of opinion | 34:11 | |
| or a personal preference or priority, | 34:13 | |
| but right there at the moment that law is born, | 34:16 | |
| a difficulty is twin born with it. | 34:23 | |
| For it is always possible. | 34:27 | |
| Indeed, it is probable that any law, however noble, | 34:28 | |
| will be applied in the wrong way | 34:32 | |
| to the wrong circumstance. | 34:34 | |
| I recall studying one afternoon | 34:38 | |
| in a New Jersey, suburban library | 34:40 | |
| waiting for my spouse to get off work, and a young, | 34:44 | |
| obviously very precocious child came to the desk | 34:49 | |
| to check out a book. | 34:53 | |
| I remember the look of consternation | 34:56 | |
| and frustration on his face | 34:58 | |
| as the librarian pointed him back toward | 34:59 | |
| the children's section, | 35:02 | |
| adding the exquisitely asinine suggestion | 35:05 | |
| that maybe he'd profit more from reading the Bobbsey twins, | 35:08 | |
| which will show you how long ago it was. | 35:11 | |
| The library apparently had a rule | 35:14 | |
| and a librarian that were born about the same year | 35:16 | |
| and were about equally inflexible. | 35:20 | |
| It was a good rule. | 35:23 | |
| The rule was, | 35:25 | |
| I guess that you had to be in high school | 35:26 | |
| to use the adult section of books. | 35:28 | |
| It was a useful rule, | 35:30 | |
| in biblical terms, a good law. | 35:33 | |
| But it was only a good law if applied wisely. | 35:37 | |
| Oppositely, the biblical greats understood | 35:42 | |
| that the very law of God is the way that leads | 35:44 | |
| to what is good as Jeremiah phrased it | 35:48 | |
| only if that law is carefully appropriated and wisely | 35:50 | |
| applied and compassionately understood. | 35:54 | |
| Rabbi Mark Tenenbaum, surely one of the most articulate | 35:59 | |
| interpreters of biblical religion in America, | 36:03 | |
| suggested in a lecture last summer | 36:07 | |
| at Mount St. Joseph's College in Cincinnati, | 36:09 | |
| that it has been a colossal and misleading mistake | 36:14 | |
| to translate the word Namos in the Greek or Torah | 36:16 | |
| in the Hebrew as law. | 36:19 | |
| Rather, he said, it's literally the way to go. | 36:23 | |
| Its closest english equivalent is the way of life. | 36:27 | |
| You see this place is the stress where it belongs | 36:32 | |
| on the life that the law is supposed to point toward. | 36:35 | |
| Of course the law has its place, practical injunctions, | 36:40 | |
| moral maxims, rules, but it is a subordinate place. | 36:43 | |
| Subordinate that is to the life, | 36:49 | |
| the law is intended to point toward. | 36:52 | |
| Thus, when solomist cries out, | 36:56 | |
| the Lord appointed a law in Israel, | 36:58 | |
| he was pointing toward a path, not nodding toward a statute. | 37:00 | |
| So this is the reason that Jeremiah kept reminding his | 37:06 | |
| people that they stood at a crossroads | 37:09 | |
| because he believed that life | 37:11 | |
| is an unceasing series of crossroads. | 37:13 | |
| Almost all of us could testify to that | 37:19 | |
| out of our own experience. | 37:21 | |
| You decide to answer a given advertisement | 37:24 | |
| and a career chain to set in motion. | 37:28 | |
| You decide to attend a certain meeting | 37:31 | |
| or to register at a particular university | 37:33 | |
| and you meet someone who captures your | 37:35 | |
| heart and changes your life. | 37:38 | |
| Oppositely, you take the other fork | 37:42 | |
| in the road with similarly unforeseen results. | 37:45 | |
| Results, which hurt or hamper or burden or break. | 37:49 | |
| Old Jeremiah didn't invent crossroads, | 37:55 | |
| but he was early and urgent and insisting | 37:59 | |
| how crucial they are. | 38:02 | |
| He was sadly insistent upon the rock hard fact | 38:04 | |
| that any way, except God's way is a by way. | 38:08 | |
| I offer you now a choice between the way of life | 38:12 | |
| and the way of death. | 38:16 | |
| Now, the other thing I wanna say to you is this. | 38:21 | |
| For Christians this way is given finer focus | 38:24 | |
| by the statement of Jesus. | 38:30 | |
| I am the way. | 38:32 | |
| It's a very surprising statement. | 38:34 | |
| It's almost embarrassingly unique. | 38:37 | |
| Others had claimed to point to the way the Buddha, | 38:39 | |
| for instance, called himself the rediscover | 38:42 | |
| of an old path, long covered path. | 38:45 | |
| And if you've ever tried to clear away the brush | 38:49 | |
| and pull back the trees from a long covered forest path, | 38:51 | |
| you know that was no small boast. | 38:54 | |
| And yet even this great Indian personage who has influenced | 38:57 | |
| over the life and thought of over half of the human race, | 39:00 | |
| held himself to be the path finder, not the path. | 39:05 | |
| Lao Tzu the fourth century Chinese priest | 39:11 | |
| and teacher came to be seen as a God of sorts. | 39:14 | |
| He promised his followers that they would find the way | 39:18 | |
| to peace of mind if they would cultivate | 39:21 | |
| the same mystic visions that he had. | 39:23 | |
| But again, significantly, | 39:26 | |
| he did not claim to be peace of mind. | 39:27 | |
| I'm afraid we have grown. | 39:34 | |
| We take this personalistic nature of the Christian faith | 39:36 | |
| too much for granted. | 39:40 | |
| We have grown too accustomed to his face, | 39:41 | |
| missing the fact that this stands alone and unparalleled | 39:45 | |
| in the history of religion. | 39:49 | |
| Because after you've sheared away | 39:52 | |
| the border and cut away the non-essentials, | 39:53 | |
| Christianity is above all and after all Christ, | 39:56 | |
| and if you want to test the reality of that, | 40:01 | |
| I invite you to consider what Islamic believer, | 40:03 | |
| however fervent, would dream of singing Mohamed | 40:07 | |
| lover of my soul. | 40:09 | |
| And so if I may say in this academic context, | 40:13 | |
| as I have said in the one in which I am privileged to labor, | 40:15 | |
| comparative religion is a valuable discipline, | 40:18 | |
| but it is more likely to come out as contrasting religion. | 40:22 | |
| Search as you will, and find as you can, | 40:27 | |
| the things in Christianity which have their parallels | 40:31 | |
| in other religions, Virgin born gods, the golden rule, | 40:33 | |
| all of that, | 40:38 | |
| still what we have here is not so much comparative religion | 40:39 | |
| as contrasting religion. | 40:42 | |
| Because when we come upon the statement, | 40:44 | |
| I am the way, we have arrived at the great divide. | 40:46 | |
| One of my friends is a priest in the Anglican church | 40:51 | |
| and a Canadian. | 40:54 | |
| He describes standing on a certain bluff in Ontario | 40:56 | |
| where looking down into the valley, | 40:59 | |
| he sees two lakes lying side by side. | 41:00 | |
| They look almost like twin sisters. | 41:03 | |
| And yet he says the lake on the north empties | 41:07 | |
| into the Arctic ocean miles and miles away. | 41:10 | |
| Whereas the other lake in appearance, | 41:14 | |
| just like its sister, empties into the great lakes | 41:15 | |
| and finally into the Atlantic. | 41:19 | |
| So you see this statement of Jesus is the great divide. | 41:21 | |
| Say what you will about his being a great teacher. | 41:27 | |
| There have been other great teachers, perhaps greater ones. | 41:30 | |
| Insist as you may, that he is the finest example | 41:35 | |
| of humanity, right. | 41:39 | |
| But Socrates also lived a noble life | 41:42 | |
| and died a heroic death. | 41:45 | |
| However, say that he is the way | 41:47 | |
| and you have found the place and point at which | 41:51 | |
| the waters of the world's great religions | 41:53 | |
| begin to flow into their own separate seas. | 41:56 | |
| So we're not surprised at the very earliest designation | 42:00 | |
| by which the little band of Christians | 42:03 | |
| was called was followers of the way. | 42:06 | |
| When St. Paul set out for Damascus to find and arrest | 42:10 | |
| and bring back those followers of the Galilean | 42:13 | |
| Luke records that he was looking for any | 42:15 | |
| who might be followers of the way. | 42:19 | |
| Of course, it's terribly easy, | 42:23 | |
| as the early Jews learn to turn this way | 42:26 | |
| into a new legalism. | 42:29 | |
| Just as our Jewish cousins easily forgot the abiding, | 42:32 | |
| godly grace, which made the law a living way. | 42:36 | |
| So too we, Christians have too often ignored | 42:40 | |
| the sheer givenness of it, | 42:44 | |
| the undeserved and unearnable gift of it, | 42:46 | |
| the splendid grace of it. | 42:50 | |
| The forest path has been cleared, | 42:52 | |
| but not by us, | 42:54 | |
| a light from on high illumines us, | 42:56 | |
| but it is one given by one who promised his prophet | 42:59 | |
| and a highway shall be there. | 43:03 | |
| And it should be called the holy way. | 43:07 | |
| Despite this, | 43:10 | |
| some Christians persist in the remarkable fiction, | 43:12 | |
| that they and they alone have found the path | 43:15 | |
| on their own or worse that they are the special | 43:18 | |
| and exclusive guardians of it. | 43:21 | |
| Not so. | 43:24 | |
| It is a gift. | 43:26 | |
| You can spurn it, but you can't earn it. | 43:27 | |
| What you can do is this, | 43:33 | |
| you can walk it. | 43:34 | |
| Having caught a glimpse of that way, | 43:35 | |
| even if only out of the corner of your spiritual eye, | 43:37 | |
| you can walk it. | 43:41 | |
| In recent years, there have been a series | 43:43 | |
| of imaginative and productive walks for various causes. | 43:45 | |
| The walks for development, | 43:48 | |
| the walks and marches for peace, | 43:51 | |
| the walks for justice and human rights. | 43:53 | |
| Our daughter will be walking some 30 miles this week | 43:59 | |
| for Honduran relief. | 44:02 | |
| Well you see, the way to go is in its own way, | 44:05 | |
| all of these walks rolled into one. | 44:09 | |
| It is the walk for development, the walk for peace, | 44:11 | |
| the walk for justice, the walk for humanity. | 44:14 | |
| It winds its way from home to lab and from office | 44:18 | |
| to classroom, | 44:21 | |
| from city center to sanctuary from wherever people hurt | 44:23 | |
| or harbor their fears to wherever they hope | 44:27 | |
| and offer their prayers. | 44:30 | |
| It includes teachers and students, | 44:33 | |
| children and parents, wise and foolish, | 44:36 | |
| good and bad, all who seek to celebrate what they have been | 44:40 | |
| led to find namely the way that leads to what is good, | 44:44 | |
| and that all includes you, | 44:51 | |
| or is meant to. | 44:55 | |
| And you shall say to this people, | 44:57 | |
| I offer you now a choice between the way of life | 44:59 | |
| and the way of death. | 45:03 | |
| In that choice at the junction | 45:05 | |
| where your hopes and your fears cross and collide | 45:08 | |
| lies the way to go. | 45:13 | |
| In the name of the father | 45:16 | |
| and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. | 45:17 | |
| (church organ plays) | 45:26 | |
| (organ music continues) | 45:53 | |
| (choir harmonizes) | 45:58 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 46:27 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 46:46 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 47:11 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 47:30 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 47:55 | |
| (organ continues) | 48:33 | |
| (audience shuffles in pews) | 49:01 | |
| (organ continues) | 49:13 | |
| (organ continues) | 49:48 | |
| (organ music continues) | 50:13 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 50:16 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 50:40 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 50:59 | |
| (choir harmonizes) | 51:30 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 51:46 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 52:03 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 52:34 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 53:01 | |
| (organ music continues) | 53:51 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 54:04 | |
| (choir and organ cease) | 54:52 | |
| - | Grant, we ask you, oh God, | 54:55 |
| that our gifts and we being dedicated to your service | 54:59 | |
| may be used for the good of your church | 55:05 | |
| and the good of all persons | 55:09 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 55:12 | |
| (church organ resumes) | 55:19 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 55:47 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 56:10 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 56:41 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 57:05 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 57:37 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 58:10 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 58:46 | |
| The grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. | 59:00 | |
| The love of God, the father, | 59:05 | |
| the communion and fellowship of the holy spirit be with you | 59:08 | |
| and with those whom you love now, now, and forever. | 59:14 | |
| (choir harmonizes) | 59:23 | |
| (choir continues) | 59:53 | |
| (choir continues) | 1:00:24 | |
| (church bells ring) | 1:00:41 | |
| (church organ plays) | 1:00:53 | |
| (church organ continues) | 1:01:31 | |
| (church organ continues) | 1:02:03 | |
| (church organ continues) | 1:02:41 | |
| (church organ continues) | 1:03:10 |