Paul S. Minear - "A New Creation" (June 27, 1976)
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| (soft instrumental music) | 0:24 | |
| (piano drowns singers) | 6:48 | |
| - | Let us confess together our sin before all mighty God, | 13:02 |
| let us pray. | 13:06 | |
| We confess our offenses, oh God, | 13:10 | |
| against you, against our neighbors, | 13:13 | |
| and against ourselves. | 13:16 | |
| We have talked boldly of being your people in the world. | 13:19 | |
| Yet we have used our freedom to forget you. | 13:23 | |
| We have bemoaned our little faith. | 13:27 | |
| Yet we have been too busy to explore and deepen it. | 13:30 | |
| We have celebrated the wonder of your infleshment | 13:35 | |
| in our common life. | 13:38 | |
| Yet we have shut you back in a sanctuary, | 13:40 | |
| have loved our religion instead of you. | 13:43 | |
| We have gazed at this Christ to dare to be fully human. | 13:47 | |
| Yet we have evaded His call to be fully involved | 13:52 | |
| in the lives of our brothers and sisters. | 13:55 | |
| We have heard ourselves called to be the church. | 13:59 | |
| Yet we have begged to remain wayward children | 14:02 | |
| a little longer. | 14:05 | |
| Oh God, forgive us all the despairs | 14:07 | |
| and enable us to live in newness of life | 14:11 | |
| through our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. | 14:14 | |
| This is the message we have heard | 14:40 | |
| from Him and proclaim to you, | 14:42 | |
| that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. | 14:45 | |
| If we walk in the light as He is in the light. | 14:51 | |
| We have fellowship with one another, | 14:55 | |
| and the blood of Jesus His son, cleanses us | 14:58 | |
| from all sin. | 15:03 | |
| (soft instrumental music) | 15:11 | |
| (piano drowns singers) | 15:55 | |
| Let us hear the Old Testament lesson. | 20:12 | |
| The 17th chapter of Genesis, the first through the 10th, | 20:14 | |
| and the 14th verses. | 20:19 | |
| "When Abram was 99 years old, | 20:25 | |
| the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, | 20:27 | |
| I am God almighty walk before me and be blameless. | 20:31 | |
| And I will make my covenant between me and you, | 20:36 | |
| and will multiply you exceedingly. | 20:39 | |
| Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, | 20:42 | |
| behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father | 20:46 | |
| of a multitude of nations. | 20:50 | |
| No longer shall your name be a Abram, | 20:52 | |
| but your name shall be Abraham. | 20:56 | |
| And I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. | 20:58 | |
| I will make you exceedingly fruitful, | 21:02 | |
| and I will make nations of you | 21:05 | |
| and king shall come forth from you. | 21:07 | |
| And I will establish my covenant between me and you, | 21:10 | |
| and your descendants after you throughout their generations | 21:14 | |
| for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you, | 21:17 | |
| and to your descendants after you. | 21:21 | |
| And I will give to you and to your descendants after you | 21:24 | |
| the land of your soul journeys, all the land of Canaan | 21:27 | |
| for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. | 21:31 | |
| And God said to Abraham, as for you, | 21:37 | |
| you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants | 21:41 | |
| after you throughout all their generations. | 21:44 | |
| This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you, | 21:47 | |
| and your descendants after you. | 21:51 | |
| Every male among you shall be circumcised. | 21:54 | |
| Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh | 21:58 | |
| of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people, | 22:03 | |
| he has broken my covenant." | 22:06 | |
| The new Testament lesson is found | 22:11 | |
| in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians. | 22:14 | |
| The fifth and sixth chapters. | 22:22 | |
| Reading selected versus. | 22:30 | |
| "For freedom Christ has set us free. | 22:37 | |
| Stand fast therefore and do not submit again | 22:42 | |
| to a yoke of slavery. | 22:45 | |
| Now I Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, | 22:50 | |
| Christ will be no advantage to you. | 22:55 | |
| I testify again to every man who received circumcision, | 22:59 | |
| that he is bound to keep the whole law. | 23:02 | |
| You are severed from Christ, | 23:06 | |
| you who would be justified by the law. | 23:09 | |
| You have fallen away from grace, | 23:12 | |
| for through the spirit, by faith, | 23:15 | |
| We wait for the hope of righteousness. | 23:18 | |
| For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision | 23:21 | |
| is of any avail, | 23:26 | |
| but faith working through love. | 23:29 | |
| See with what large letters I'm writing to you | 23:39 | |
| with my own hand. | 23:42 | |
| It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh | 23:45 | |
| that would compel you to be circumcised. | 23:48 | |
| And only in order that they may not be persecuted | 23:51 | |
| for the cross of Christ. | 23:54 | |
| For even those who received circumcision | 23:57 | |
| do not themselves keep the law, but they desire | 24:00 | |
| to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. | 24:03 | |
| But far be it from me to glory, | 24:08 | |
| except in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, | 24:11 | |
| by which the world has been crucified to me, | 24:16 | |
| and I to the world. | 24:20 | |
| For neither circumcision counts | 24:23 | |
| for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. | 24:25 | |
| Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, | 24:31 | |
| upon the Israel of God." | 24:36 | |
| And may God bless to our understanding this reading | 24:40 | |
| from His Word. | 24:44 | |
| (high intensity instrumental music) | 24:46 | |
| (piano drowns singers) | 24:55 | |
| Let us affirm together our faith. | 25:29 | |
| We are not alone. | 25:33 | |
| We live in God's world. | 25:35 | |
| All | We believe in God who has created and is creating. | 25:38 |
| Who has come into truly human Jesus, | 25:43 | |
| to reconcile and make new. | 25:46 | |
| Who works in us and others by the spirit. | 25:50 | |
| We trust God who calls us to be the church, | 25:54 | |
| to celebrate life and its fullness, | 25:58 | |
| to love and serve others, | 26:02 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil, | 26:05 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 26:08 | |
| our judge and our hope, in life in death. | 26:12 | |
| in life beyond death, God is with us, we are not alone, | 26:17 | |
| thanks be to God. | 26:24 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 26:26 |
| Congregation | And with the spirit. | 26:28 |
| - | Let us pray. | 26:30 |
| The eternal God, creator of heaven and earth. | 26:43 | |
| We raise our hearts and voice to thee in prayer and praise. | 26:46 | |
| Our lives are marred by wrongdoing as well as incompleteness | 26:51 | |
| by self concern and anxious care. | 26:56 | |
| Teach us not to trust ourselves, | 27:01 | |
| but to trust ourselves to thee. | 27:05 | |
| Consecrate to thy purpose, the work of this community, | 27:09 | |
| whether it be scholarly research, | 27:13 | |
| teaching, learning, the healing arts, | 27:15 | |
| or various forms of administration and service. | 27:20 | |
| May our search for truth not only redound to the glory, | 27:25 | |
| but bear fruit for the healing and guiding of mankind. | 27:30 | |
| We remember especially before thee our colleagues | 27:36 | |
| and friends who have been stricken with illness | 27:39 | |
| or burdened with grief. | 27:41 | |
| Comfort those for whom life has come | 27:45 | |
| to mean adversity or pain. | 27:47 | |
| Steady those who have recently discovered | 27:51 | |
| it's capriciousness and instability. | 27:54 | |
| Sustain those who approach it's end. | 27:58 | |
| Grant us all peace and joy in believing and hoping in thee. | 28:02 | |
| Guide, oh God, the people who bear special responsibility | 28:12 | |
| for the conduct of the larger affairs of state and nation. | 28:16 | |
| Direct the people in their choices of leaders | 28:22 | |
| and the leaders in the formation and execution of policy. | 28:25 | |
| Bring peace where there is war. | 28:31 | |
| We think, especially of Lebanon. | 28:34 | |
| May the killing there and elsewhere cease. | 28:38 | |
| Move in the hearts of all people that equal opportunity | 28:42 | |
| and justice may always prevail in this land. | 28:46 | |
| Deliver us from well-meaning incompetence | 28:50 | |
| as well as deliberate fraud in high places. | 28:53 | |
| Implant in us a renewed vision and sense | 28:58 | |
| of destiny and purpose. | 29:01 | |
| Finally, grant us the strength of conviction | 29:04 | |
| to commit ourselves to the doing of thy will, | 29:07 | |
| and along with it, the receptivity of mind and spirit, | 29:11 | |
| that we may know what it is for us | 29:16 | |
| and for our times and places. | 29:19 | |
| We pray in the name of Jesus who taught us to say, | 29:23 | |
| "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 29:28 | |
| thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth | 29:33 | |
| as it is in heaven. | 29:37 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 29:40 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those | 29:43 | |
| who trespass against us. | 29:47 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 29:49 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 29:52 | |
| For thine is the kingdom and the power | 29:55 | |
| and the glory forever." | 29:58 | |
| Amen. | 30:01 | |
| Professor Paul Minear, | 30:09 | |
| is a distinguished New Testament, scholar, churchman, | 30:12 | |
| and at humanist. | 30:15 | |
| I know him chiefly as an interpreter of the Bible, | 30:18 | |
| especially the New Testament. | 30:21 | |
| He has taught hundreds of ministers, | 30:24 | |
| dozens of biblical scholars and teachers, | 30:27 | |
| and through his writings, many others. | 30:31 | |
| Though, he has never sought followers for himself, | 30:36 | |
| I have found his disciples among those | 30:40 | |
| who have only read his works. | 30:43 | |
| For two or more decades, he has been a seminal | 30:46 | |
| and influential mind in the World Council of Churches. | 30:50 | |
| For me, he has been a friend and advocate as well | 30:57 | |
| as the beloved teacher. | 31:00 | |
| His influence upon me began some 20 years ago | 31:03 | |
| when I read his "Eyes of Faith", | 31:06 | |
| and continued up through just yesterday, | 31:09 | |
| when I just finished reading his "Commands of Christ". | 31:11 | |
| Now that is admittedly not his most recent work. | 31:16 | |
| But now after his retirement from Yale Divinity School, | 31:21 | |
| he can obviously write books faster than I can read them. | 31:24 | |
| As the titles of these and his other work suggest, | 31:30 | |
| the question of the meaning and significance | 31:34 | |
| of the scriptures has always been at the heart | 31:37 | |
| of Paul Minear's work. | 31:42 | |
| It is my very great pleasure | 31:44 | |
| to welcome him and Mrs. Minear, | 31:46 | |
| to Duke University, and to this service of worship. | 31:49 | |
| - | I appreciate very much this word of welcome. | 32:07 |
| It is a privilege to worship with you this morning. | 32:11 | |
| And I hope that the chairman may contribute | 32:18 | |
| to your worship of God. | 32:23 | |
| Some years ago in Europe, there was a clown | 32:30 | |
| who included the following parable in his regular routine. | 32:35 | |
| The stage would be in darkness except | 32:42 | |
| for a spotlight playing on upon a small space in the center. | 32:46 | |
| The clown would enter, move into that spotlighted area, | 32:54 | |
| and begin looking for something | 33:00 | |
| without success. | 33:03 | |
| Then a policeman would enter, | 33:07 | |
| "what's the matter?" | 33:11 | |
| "I'm looking for something." | 33:15 | |
| "What have you lost?" | 33:18 | |
| "The key to my house." | 33:21 | |
| So the policeman joins in the search. | 33:25 | |
| But after a few moments, the policeman asks, | 33:29 | |
| "are you sure you lost it here?" | 33:33 | |
| "No, over there." | 33:38 | |
| Pointing to the dark section of the stage. | 33:40 | |
| "Then why on earth are you looking for it here?" | 33:44 | |
| "Because there's no light over there." | 33:49 | |
| We who worshiped this morning have joined in an affirmation | 33:56 | |
| of faith, an affirmation that celebrates | 34:01 | |
| as good news, the death and resurrection of Jesus. | 34:05 | |
| But do we restrict the light from that event, | 34:12 | |
| to a small section of the stage of our life? | 34:18 | |
| And do we, in the light of that event, | 34:24 | |
| discover the key to our house? | 34:29 | |
| Whatever it may be true of us, | 34:35 | |
| the apostle Paul was one who found | 34:38 | |
| that nothing in life or death was not illuminated | 34:42 | |
| by the death and resurrection of Jesus. | 34:47 | |
| So I have taken a text from Paul's letter to the Galatians, | 34:53 | |
| the sixth chapter, 14th and 15th verses, | 34:58 | |
| with a slight paraphrase to bring out the meaning. | 35:03 | |
| "God strike me down if I boast of anything, | 35:08 | |
| but the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 35:15 | |
| through which the world has been crucified to us. | 35:20 | |
| And I have been crucified to the world. | 35:27 | |
| For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision | 35:32 | |
| counts for anything. | 35:36 | |
| The only thing that counts is a new creation." | 35:38 | |
| How has our world | 35:46 | |
| been crucified to us? | 35:49 | |
| How have we been crucified to the world? | 35:53 | |
| This is the question that I would like | 36:01 | |
| to have you ponder. | 36:04 | |
| To understand Paul's thinking, | 36:10 | |
| we need to begin by recalling | 36:14 | |
| that chapter from Genesis, Genesis 17. | 36:17 | |
| The account of God's covenant with Abraham. | 36:23 | |
| "You shall be the father of many nations, | 36:28 | |
| kings and people shall come forth from you. | 36:32 | |
| This is an everlasting covenant, you shall keep it. | 36:37 | |
| You shall circumcise every male child | 36:42 | |
| and any uncircumcised male shall be cut off from my people. | 36:46 | |
| And over against that scripture, | 36:53 | |
| which to Paul represented the Torah, the law of the Lord. | 36:56 | |
| The statement from Paul, if you receive circumcision, | 37:02 | |
| Christ will be of no advantage to you. | 37:07 | |
| To understand what had happened to Paul, | 37:13 | |
| we must live with him through a drama of four acts. | 37:15 | |
| A tragic drama in which an irresistible force, | 37:21 | |
| met an immovable object in such a way that | 37:28 | |
| through inescapable suffering a victory is won. | 37:33 | |
| Act one, shows us the immovable object. | 37:40 | |
| It was Paul's loyalty to the God of Abraham, | 37:46 | |
| and therefore to God's covenant with Abraham. | 37:51 | |
| It was this loyalty that had given Paul his vocation, | 37:56 | |
| had led him through his study, | 38:03 | |
| had guided his work as an adult. | 38:05 | |
| It was this law that had led Paul to participate | 38:09 | |
| in the stoning of Stephen. | 38:13 | |
| It was this covenant which led Paul to ask | 38:17 | |
| from the high priest for letters, | 38:20 | |
| for the authorities in Damascus, | 38:24 | |
| so that he would go to Damascus and there carry on | 38:28 | |
| his pogrom against the Christians. | 38:32 | |
| These Christians had been encouraged by Stephen, | 38:41 | |
| yes, and by Jesus, | 38:44 | |
| to ignore or to break the law of the Sabbath, | 38:48 | |
| the law of the temple. | 38:52 | |
| And these Christians had begun to accept Gentiles | 38:55 | |
| into their fellowship without circumcision, | 39:00 | |
| against all of this God's law. | 39:06 | |
| God's covenant with Abraham aroused the stiffest opposition, | 39:10 | |
| and Paul was its spearhead. | 39:16 | |
| "This is the immovable object," act one. | 39:19 | |
| But in act two, the irresistible force | 39:26 | |
| comes into the picture, | 39:31 | |
| or rather an irresistible person. | 39:33 | |
| A person who produced the most dramatic reversal. | 39:38 | |
| You know the story of Paul's trip to Damascus, | 39:44 | |
| seeking out Christians whom he might persecute. | 39:48 | |
| And you recall of the great collision | 39:53 | |
| that took place on route. | 39:55 | |
| "Who are you?" | 40:00 | |
| "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." | 40:04 | |
| If we may expand upon that conversation a bit, | 40:09 | |
| "I am Jesus, the sinner, | 40:14 | |
| the criminal, the crucified, | 40:19 | |
| the traitor to Israel. | 40:25 | |
| I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. | 40:29 | |
| I am the Gentiles who are responding to my invitation. | 40:33 | |
| I am the Jews who are accepting the Gentiles | 40:40 | |
| in family fellowship without requiring circumcision. | 40:43 | |
| I am freedom from the law. | 40:49 | |
| I am freedom from God's covenant with Abraham. | 40:53 | |
| Those who follow me, are Abraham's children. | 40:58 | |
| This is the irresistible force speaking. | 41:05 | |
| I became a sinner, can you seek righteousness? | 41:09 | |
| I became humiliated, can you seek the glory of man? | 41:17 | |
| I became poor the poverty | 41:24 | |
| of a naked man on the cross. | 41:28 | |
| How can you seek wealth? | 41:32 | |
| I was rejected by the law, | 41:36 | |
| how can you worship that law? | 41:40 | |
| I'm a comrade of those whom you persecute, | 41:44 | |
| how can you continue to persecute them?" | 41:48 | |
| This irresistible force overcame the immovable object. | 41:53 | |
| So Paul could say, when Jesus was crucified, | 42:00 | |
| my world was crucified to me. | 42:04 | |
| It became dead to me. | 42:09 | |
| It lost its authority over me. | 42:13 | |
| And when Jesus was crucified, I was crucified to that world. | 42:17 | |
| I became dead to it. | 42:24 | |
| What world was that? | 42:28 | |
| It wasn't a secular pagan world, it was the religious world. | 42:31 | |
| A world of a community that separated itself | 42:38 | |
| from everything unclean. | 42:43 | |
| The segregation of one race from all other races. | 42:46 | |
| The world of circumcision. | 42:52 | |
| The world where righteous man separated | 42:55 | |
| themselves from sinners. | 42:59 | |
| The world of the temple and of the law. | 43:02 | |
| It was that religious world that was crucified to Paul. | 43:07 | |
| Act three. | 43:16 | |
| Act three takes us to the churches of Galatia in the period | 43:19 | |
| before Paul wrote this letter. | 43:24 | |
| Churches in which the immovable object, | 43:28 | |
| the immovable object remained immovable. | 43:31 | |
| Paul had preached in Galatia. | 43:39 | |
| He had announced the good news | 43:44 | |
| to Jews and to Gentiles. | 43:46 | |
| Both Jews and Gentiles had been converted. | 43:50 | |
| They had formed tiny little minority enclaves | 43:55 | |
| in an hostile world. | 44:00 | |
| They too were being persecuted like Jesus | 44:04 | |
| and Stephen and Paul. | 44:09 | |
| To avoid that persecution, | 44:14 | |
| to avoid the offense to their neighbors, | 44:18 | |
| some Jewish believers were requiring Gentile believers | 44:20 | |
| to be circumcised. | 44:25 | |
| And some Gentile believers were accepting that requirement | 44:28 | |
| and were being circumcised. | 44:32 | |
| On the other hand, other Jewish and Gentile believers, | 44:36 | |
| as part of a backlash against that reversion | 44:40 | |
| to the status quo ante, | 44:45 | |
| were saying uncircumcision is everything. | 44:48 | |
| So the churches that Paul had formed | 44:53 | |
| at great expense and great risk were divided | 44:58 | |
| between those for whom circumcision was everything, | 45:04 | |
| and those for whom uncircumcision was everything. | 45:08 | |
| The immovable object remained immovable. | 45:13 | |
| And it seemed that even Christ, the risen Christ, | 45:21 | |
| with all of his power could not move | 45:26 | |
| that resistance to change. | 45:31 | |
| So Paul wrote his letter | 45:37 | |
| for freedom as Christ set you free. | 45:40 | |
| If you accept circumcision, | 45:45 | |
| Christ will be of no benefit to you. | 45:48 | |
| Act four. | 45:53 | |
| Act four takes us into those congregations in Galatia. | 45:56 | |
| As they had read to them in a service of worship | 46:01 | |
| this letter from the apostle who had been instrumental | 46:06 | |
| in creating them as Christian churches. | 46:11 | |
| They heard this letter, | 46:17 | |
| what was their response? | 46:20 | |
| Would Jesus proved to be an irresistible person, | 46:25 | |
| or would their previous prejudices continue | 46:30 | |
| to represent an then moveable object. | 46:34 | |
| Did the light from the cross shine over the whole stage, | 46:39 | |
| or only over a small part of that stage. | 46:46 | |
| We don't know what happened in the churches of Galatia. | 46:51 | |
| We have no letter from them to Paul. | 46:56 | |
| However in fact, those same questions | 47:01 | |
| are raised for us today. | 47:07 | |
| For that same letter was read to us | 47:11 | |
| in this service of worship. | 47:16 | |
| And to read what Paul says about the triple crucifixion. | 47:20 | |
| The crucifixion of Jesus, and through crucifixion, | 47:25 | |
| the crucifixion of our world and our own crucifixion. | 47:30 | |
| This raises the question about how immovable | 47:37 | |
| is the object in our hearts. | 47:43 | |
| Do we realize the extent | 47:49 | |
| to which Jesus crucifixion challenges our ideas of security? | 47:51 | |
| Who was more secure on Golgotha? | 47:59 | |
| Jesus, or the Jewish CIA, | 48:04 | |
| or the Roman FBI? | 48:08 | |
| Do we accept the reversal of our estimates | 48:14 | |
| of wealth and poverty, | 48:18 | |
| of honor and shame? | 48:21 | |
| Do we accept the challenge to our ideas of righteousness? | 48:26 | |
| What is righteous? | 48:31 | |
| What is sinful? | 48:33 | |
| Do we accept the challenge to the way in which our ideas | 48:37 | |
| of righteousness forms a barrier between us and them? | 48:40 | |
| The rightness and the sinners. | 48:48 | |
| Does this message create a challenge to this congregation | 48:53 | |
| with regard to the barriers that we have drawn | 48:59 | |
| between the Christian community and another community? | 49:03 | |
| More important, does the cross of Jesus radically change | 49:10 | |
| our estimates of life and death. | 49:16 | |
| On Golgotha, who was living? | 49:21 | |
| who was dead? | 49:26 | |
| There is in our minds and in our hearts, | 49:30 | |
| the same kind of immovable object, | 49:34 | |
| which was in Paul's heart and mind | 49:38 | |
| before he went to Damascus. | 49:42 | |
| The same kind of immovable object that became clear | 49:45 | |
| and obvious in the churches of Galatia. | 49:51 | |
| Can we testify to the irresistible person? | 49:57 | |
| By way of his power to overcome | 50:02 | |
| what is immovable | 50:07 | |
| in our religion. | 50:09 | |
| At the conclusion of Paul's letter, Paul wrote, | 50:14 | |
| "Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule." | 50:17 | |
| This is more than a prayer, this is a declaration. | 50:24 | |
| For all who walked by this rule there is peace, | 50:28 | |
| there is mercy, and they inherit | 50:33 | |
| that peace and that mercy. | 50:39 | |
| And thanks be to God in the Christian community today, | 50:43 | |
| there are those who can make the same confession | 50:48 | |
| that Paul made. | 50:53 | |
| Let me give two examples. | 50:56 | |
| When the committee was at work preparing Bible studies | 51:02 | |
| for the New Delhi Assembly. | 51:06 | |
| Studies dealing with Christ the light of the world. | 51:09 | |
| We had virtually completed our job, | 51:14 | |
| we had selected the passages in the Bible, | 51:18 | |
| we had written commentaries on them. | 51:20 | |
| We had reached the last evening of our committee work, | 51:24 | |
| and as chairman, more or less as a matter of form, | 51:28 | |
| I said, "well, now is there any other passage in the Bible | 51:33 | |
| that we should have dealt with, | 51:37 | |
| in dealing with Christ, the light of the world? | 51:40 | |
| And one of the members, I know old Testament scholar | 51:44 | |
| from Britain, Norman Snaith spoke up. | 51:47 | |
| And he said, yes, there's a passage. | 51:52 | |
| Our attention was not called to it because | 51:54 | |
| it does not mention the word light. | 51:57 | |
| Then he told about the time when he was studying | 52:02 | |
| in a British university, he was studying science, | 52:05 | |
| he had left the church, he had become an atheist, | 52:11 | |
| no more of this ridiculous Christian business for him. | 52:16 | |
| He was a superior intellect. | 52:23 | |
| And as many superior intellects, | 52:26 | |
| he turned his intellectual capacity into scoffing. | 52:28 | |
| A very promising scholar | 52:33 | |
| and a potential enemy of the church. | 52:36 | |
| Until one day he happened to read | 52:40 | |
| the gospel story of the death of Jesus according to Mark. | 52:45 | |
| And reading this story transform Norman Snaith. | 52:53 | |
| The light from the cross began to illumine | 53:01 | |
| the whole range of his experience, | 53:06 | |
| and he became a Christian. | 53:09 | |
| He died to the world and his previous world | 53:13 | |
| became dead to him. | 53:16 | |
| And the more recent example. | 53:20 | |
| An example provided by a Presbyterian pastor | 53:23 | |
| from Northern Ireland, Gordon Gray. | 53:28 | |
| He has lived in Belfast throughout the time of troubles | 53:32 | |
| in Northern Ireland, | 53:36 | |
| when Catholic and Protestant communities have been fighting | 53:38 | |
| against each other, partly because they have been identified | 53:41 | |
| with the two different economic classes. | 53:45 | |
| And partly because their economic interests | 53:51 | |
| had created political rivalries, | 53:53 | |
| for which there seems to be no resolution. | 53:57 | |
| And many of the leading Protestant pastors | 54:02 | |
| had made themselves spokesman of Protestant antipathy, | 54:07 | |
| and struggled against the Catholics. | 54:12 | |
| Gordon Grey, a Presbyterian pastor, | 54:16 | |
| trying to make his church a center for reconciliation | 54:19 | |
| has written a long prayer poem, | 54:24 | |
| describing his own struggle in Belfast. | 54:29 | |
| Let me read just a few lines from this long prayer of his. | 54:34 | |
| "My hopes have been destroyed, | 54:40 | |
| but the death of these things I hope for | 54:45 | |
| has been celebrated by others | 54:49 | |
| as victory in your power, Father. | 54:53 | |
| Can this be so? | 54:57 | |
| I am perplexed, angry, | 55:01 | |
| hopeless, sick, | 55:05 | |
| hope deferred makes the heart sick. | 55:08 | |
| I want to turn my back, wash my hand, | 55:13 | |
| save myself, my family, get out. | 55:17 | |
| But every time I turned to go, there stands in my way | 55:24 | |
| a cross, recalling me to responsibility | 55:30 | |
| within my time and situation. | 55:36 | |
| Father, how much at times I have resented that cross | 55:40 | |
| that's seems to stand between me | 55:47 | |
| and my personal future. | 55:51 | |
| I am a prisoner of that cross. | 55:54 | |
| Lord, I am a prisoner of hope. | 56:00 | |
| There is a life before death." | 56:06 | |
| Gordon Grey is a witness in the Pauline tradition, | 56:13 | |
| whose vocation has been defined for him | 56:19 | |
| by the cross and resurrection of Jesus. | 56:23 | |
| Because we stand with the Galatian churches | 56:31 | |
| between act three and act four of this drama. | 56:35 | |
| I have felt that Paul's testimony calls for something | 56:42 | |
| of a confession, some sort of response from us. | 56:46 | |
| Can we on his invitation share | 56:54 | |
| in his confession concerning the power | 56:57 | |
| of the cross of Jesus Christ? | 57:03 | |
| If you can, I invite you to share with me in this response, | 57:08 | |
| our word to Paul, | 57:14 | |
| in response to his testimony | 57:18 | |
| in Galatians 6:14-15. | 57:22 | |
| Far be it from us to glory, accepting in the cross | 57:29 | |
| of our Lord, Jesus Christ. | 57:33 | |
| By His cross, the world has been crucified to us. | 57:36 | |
| (congregation recites) | 57:43 | |
| By His cross, we have been crucified to the world. | 57:56 | |
| (congregation recites) | 58:01 | |
| For now because of Christ's death for us, | 58:18 | |
| neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. | 58:21 | |
| (congregation recites) | 58:27 | |
| Neither being rich nor being poor counts for anything. | 58:30 | |
| (congregation recites) | 58:35 | |
| Neither being powerful, nor being weak counts for anything. | 58:39 | |
| (congregation recites) | 58:45 | |
| Neither being Catholic, | 58:48 | |
| nor being Protestant counts for anything. | 58:49 | |
| (congregation recites) | 58:54 | |
| Neither being wise nor being ignorant counts for anything. | 58:57 | |
| (congregation recites) | 59:02 | |
| Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule. | 59:06 | |
| (congregation recites) | 59:12 | |
| (soft instrumental music) | 59:19 | |
| (piano drowns singers) | 1:04:09 | |
| - | The Lord Jesus thou who was rich | 1:10:50 |
| and for our sakes became poor, | 1:10:54 | |
| that through thy poverty we might be enriched in thee. | 1:10:58 | |
| Accept these our gifts as token and acknowledgement | 1:11:03 | |
| that all that we have is from thee, Amen. | 1:11:09 | |
| (fast paced instrumental music) | 1:11:18 | |
| (piano drowns singers) | 1:11:52 | |
| Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 1:15:22 | |
| the communion of the Holy Spirit, | 1:15:25 | |
| the love of God be, with you all. | 1:15:28 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:15:38 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:15:44 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:15:49 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:15:53 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:16:02 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:16:10 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:16:20 | |
| (Bell chimes) | 1:16:32 | |
| (high paced orchestra music) | 1:16:47 | |
| (congregation claps) | 1:20:29 |
