Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

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-	Duke University Chapel service of worship,	0:04
	September 11th, 1977.	0:08
	(organ playing hymns)	0:16
	(congregation singing hymn)	11:40
	(organ playing hymn)	12:25
	(congregation singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	13:04
-	I greet you in the name and in the spirit	17:01
	of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.	17:04
	Life is difficult.	17:10
	Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.	17:13
	Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail.	17:18
	Sometimes we help, sometimes we hurt.	17:24
	Sometimes we build up, sometimes we tear down.	17:28
	Sometimes we obey God, sometimes we do not.	17:34
	For those moments, we need to confess and seek forgiveness.	17:41
	Let us join together and offer our confession to God.	17:48
	Let us pray.	17:54
Together	Oh God, we confess that sometimes	17:57
	we do not like ourselves as we are.	18:00
	Sometimes we long for different families and friends.	18:04
	We would exchange our places for the places of others.	18:09
	We would like to do away with some of our past.	18:14
	We are afraid of our moods and feelings.	18:18
	We wish we had more time.	18:22
	We would like to start over again.	18:25
	We long for the position of others.	18:28
	We think more education will solve our problems.	18:32
	We resent the injustices we have suffered	18:37
	and hold on to our sorrows.	18:40
	We want to be appreciated for our small graces.	18:44
	We are enchanted by the past and enticed by the future.	18:48
	We have not often been understood.	18:54
	In short, we refuse to live	18:58
	because we hold out for better terms.	19:01
	Heal us, God.	19:05
	From the distance we put between ourselves and life,	19:07
	restore to us a love for you	19:12
	and for our real selves,	19:15
	help us be renewed in the fullness of our lives	19:18
	through Jesus Christ, our savior.	19:23
-	Let us continue in prayer.	19:27
	Nothing, not even our sin and failure	19:40
	can separate us from the love of God	19:46
	in Christ Jesus, our Lord.	19:49
	I invite you now accept and receive	19:53
	the forgiveness God offers, amen.	19:58
	(organ playing hymn)	20:05
	(choir humming melodically)	21:38
	♪ Fairest Lord Jesus ♪	22:54
	♪ Ruler of all nature ♪	23:03
	♪ O thou of God ♪	23:12
	♪ And man the Son ♪	23:18
	♪ Thee will I cherish ♪	23:29
	♪ Thee will I honor ♪	23:38
	♪ Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown ♪	23:46
	♪ Beautiful Savior ♪	24:03
	♪ Lord of all nations ♪	24:11
	♪ Son of God ♪	24:20
	♪ And son of man ♪	24:26
	♪ Glory and honor ♪	24:37
	♪ Praise, adoration ♪	24:46
	♪ Now and forevermore be thine ♪	24:53
	♪ Now and forevermore ♪	25:05
	♪ Be thine ♪	25:19
-	The Old Testament lesson is from the first chapter	25:44
	of Genesis, verses 24 to 28.	25:47
	And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures,	25:53
	according to their kinds, cattle and creeping things,	25:57
	and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.	26:01
	And it was so, and God made the beast of the earth,	26:05
	according to their kinds and the cattle,	26:09
	according to their kinds and everything	26:12
	that creeps upon the ground according to its kind,	26:15
	and God saw that it was good.	26:18
	Then God said, let us make man	26:21
	in our image after our likeness and let them	26:25
	have dominion over the fish of the sea	26:29
	and over the birds of the air	26:33
	and over the cattle and all the earth	26:35
	and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.	26:38
	So God created man in his own image, in the image of God,	26:43
	He created him, male and female He created them	26:47
	and God blessed them.	26:52
	And God said to them,	26:54
	be fruitful and multiply	26:55
	and fill the earth and subdue it	26:58
	and have dominion over the fish of the sea	27:00
	and over the birds of the air,	27:03
	and every other living thing that moves upon the earth.	27:06
	The epistle lesson is from the second chapter	27:12
	of Philippians verses five to 11,	27:14
	have this mind among yourselves,	27:22
	which you have in Christ Jesus,	27:24
	who though he was in the form of God	27:26
	did not count equality with God.	27:28
	I think to be grasped, but emptied himself,	27:31
	taking the form of a servant,	27:34
	being born in the likeness of men	27:36
	and being found in human form.	27:39
	He humbled himself and became obedient unto death,	27:40
	even death on a cross.	27:44
	Therefore God has highly exalted him	27:47
	and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.	27:49
	That at the name of Jesus,	27:54
	every knee should bow in heaven and on earth	27:55
	and under the earth.	27:58
	And every tongue confess	28:00
	that Jesus Christ is Lord	28:02
	to the glory of God the father.	28:04
	Here ends the readings from the holy scripture	28:07
	praise be to God.	28:10
	(organ playing hymn)	28:12
	(congregation singing hymn)	28:22
	Let us affirm what we believe.	28:58
Together	We believe in God who has created	29:01
	and is creating,	29:04
	who has come in the truly human Jesus	29:06
	to reconcile and make new.	29:09
	Who works in us and others by the spirit.	29:13
	We trust God who calls us to be the church,	29:17
	to celebrate life and its fullness,	29:22
	to love and serve others,	29:25
	to seek justice and resist evil,	29:28
	to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,	29:31
	our judge and our hope in life, in death,	29:36
	in life beyond death, God is with us.	29:41
	We are not alone.	29:46
	Thanks be to God.	29:48
-	The Lord be with you.	29:51
	(muffled response)	29:53
	Let us pray.	29:54
	Oh God ever present and ever near,	30:03
	we come to this moment to offer ourselves anew to you,	30:09
	our hopes and anxieties, our fears and frustrations,	30:14
	our angers, and our loves.	30:19
	Transform us as we need to be.	30:23
	Renew us as we long to be.	30:26
	Remake us as you would have us to be.	30:30
	Help us define life in the midst of our everyday.	30:36
	Relief from the worry of yesterday	30:40
	and hope for the gift of tomorrow's day,	30:44
	may we, oh God, be mindful,	30:50
	not only of the struggles which we have,	30:52
	but ever sensitive and ever aware	30:55
	of the struggles of others.	30:58
	Keep us in touch with the hurt	31:00
	and heartache and heaviness and hopelessness of others	31:03
	that we might love as our Lord calls us to love.	31:09
	And wherever we go around, oh Lord,	31:14
	may the word follow with us that indeed the sorrowing	31:17
	have been comforted,	31:20
	the weary have been lifted,	31:22
	the oppressed relieved,	31:25
	the lonely visited and the hungry fed	31:27
	all in the name and for the sake of our Lord, Jesus Christ.	31:31
	And now, oh living and loving spirit,	31:36
	wake us up, give some new joy, some new vitality,	31:39
	some new promise in this moment,	31:45
	in this time of worship to each of us,	31:50
	we pray not in our name,	31:55
	but in the name and in the spirit of our Lord, Jesus Christ,	31:57
	who taught us to pray.	32:01
	As we pray together, our father who art in heaven,	32:03
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	32:08
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	32:13
	Give us this day, our daily bread	32:18
	and forgive us our trespasses.	32:21
	As we forgive those who trespass against us.	32:24
	Lead us not into temptation,	32:28
	but deliver us from evil.	32:31
	Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.	32:34
	Amen.	32:41
	We are delighted to see you here this morning.	32:45
	The first service of worship	32:48
	after the first week of classes,	32:50
	my blessings upon you all.	32:56
	There are a group of students,	33:02
	there are some students who are in the process	33:04
	of organizing a Methodist student group.	33:07
	They invite all persons who would like to join them	33:10
	in this Methodist student group	33:14
	to meet with them tonight at six o'clock	33:17
	in the divinity school student lounge,	33:19
	you're asked to bring a snack.	33:22
	Drinks will be provided and any and all persons	33:25
	who are interested are urged to come.	33:27
	Wednesday night we will continue with a service	33:30
	which was begun last Wednesday night	33:34
	here in the chapel at 10 o'clock,	33:36
	there will be music at 9:45 and the service itself	33:39
	will last from 10:00 until 10:30.	33:42
	You're invited to come and join in this mid-week	33:45
	time of worship together.	33:47
	Tonight at seven o'clock Fenner Douglas,	33:50
	university organist and professor of music here at Duke,	33:54
	will play the first concert of this year.	33:58
	The program for the concert is listed	34:02
	on the back of the bulletin.	34:04
	You're urged to come and share in this time together.	34:06
	It is our privilege today to welcome back home again,	34:11
	Dr. Carlisle Marney and his wife, Elizabeth.	34:15
	Marney has thrilled us and confronted us	34:18
	and challenged us and moved us in the past	34:21
	with his preaching.	34:24
	He is a visiting professor during the spring semester	34:27
	in the divinity school.	34:30
	He is now director of Interpreter's House at Lake Junaluska.	34:33
	He is a friend of Duke	34:38
	and he has endeared himself to many of us.	34:39
	Marney, we're delighted to have you back	34:42
	to preach to us on this particular day.	34:44
-	This contemporary energy crisis means	34:56
	no more or less than this:	35:00
	there is a wall around our garden.	35:04
	Creation has edges,	35:08
	those predecessors of Columbus were right,	35:11
	one can literally sail off the edge of the earth.	35:15
	A laboratory culture really can exhaust the air	35:20
	and its envelope.	35:24
	A species really can overrun the garden.	35:26
	Us bees really are killer bees,	35:31
	and we brown rats really do become cannibals when crowded.	35:36
	The poor, we do have always with us	35:43
	and we create the poor.	35:46
	You should have seen this field when God had it all	35:50
	by his self runs the old farmer, preacher, Joe,	35:54
	but the line has this merit.	35:59
	It reminds us that even God almighty had need for a keeper,	36:02
	agent, junior partner, responsible for creation too.	36:07
	And so he made and commissioned a species of caretaker.	36:13
	Hence, any lifestyle that is Christian	36:20
	takes its rights, not in our salvation,	36:24
	but in creation.	36:29
	For if, as the blessed Salter puts it,	36:31
	God belongs in the heavens,	36:34
	it continues the earth he has given to us,	36:37
	but not surely to make it a swampy sewer choked	36:43
	with the bones of the prematurely dead,	36:48
	strangling on the noise and gaseous fumes	36:51
	of our iron horses, breaking wind	36:55
	in their mad climb to the top of Athos	36:59
	or Sinai or the moon.	37:02
	I've made three points:	37:06
	One, the limits on creation	37:09
	require an ethic of parsimony.	37:14
	The nature of covenant implies an ethic of responsibility.	37:19
	Incarnation is the mode for any ethic of identity.	37:25
	Salvation is created,	37:31
	runs the text of a glorious Russian anthem,	37:33
	but for here I reversed the words,	37:36
	creation is salvation.	37:39
	God's first good.	37:43
	Good is a word of grace before man or law or atonement.	37:45
	We're a more than a gleam in God's eye.	37:50
	Christians divide unhappily enough into sheep and goats.	37:54
	And one can really tell the goats from the sheep	37:59
	by whether we make the matter of our salvation	38:03
	a means or an end.	38:07
	For salvation is a stop gap intended only	38:11
	to keep the keeper from running off the edge	38:15
	of creation into abyss.	38:17
	Redemption is a bypass to keep the traffic flow	38:21
	toward God's own destination,	38:25
	which, and is the triumphant completion	38:29
	of all that the maker has made and makes and will make.	38:32
	So creation is stage and we creatures,	38:37
	part of nature all are actors,	38:42
	and God, he just may be indeed the only audience,	38:46
	unless there are, as Billy says, angels.	38:52
	Now, stages have edges and so does creation.	38:58
	This, we simply have not seen.	39:03
	All gardens have in common order,	39:06
	some kind of order, even a studied disorder.	39:10
	And all gardens have boundary, fence, limit.	39:15
	Man has grown up thinking and acting,	39:21
	ripping and tearing,	39:26
	using and misusing as if the garden has no age or limit.	39:28
	And as if he himself, herself were not a part	39:35
	of nature whose very continued existence	39:41
	depends upon the state of the garden.	39:45
	It just may be the heresy of all our reading of our history	39:49
	that we have thought ourselves above nature,	39:56
	instead of nature bound.	40:00
	But even Mrs. Prometheus is bound.	40:05
	Prometheus is beholden to the sacrament of limits.	40:11
	Phylogenetic biochemical photosynthetic processes	40:16
	bind our species and everything that organic life exhibits.	40:21
	Systems, neural, blood, bone, and cellular.	40:27
	Cultural, familial, political, and mythic.	40:32
	Ethical, psychic, sociobiological,	40:35
	philosophical, economic, and religious hold us.	40:37
	And spheres, biosphere, zoisphere, lewisphere,	40:41
	hemisphere and galactic contain us.	40:47
	There is no escape.	40:50
	We cannot get out.	40:52
	There is no door	40:54
	and here we adjust and adapt or and we die.	40:55
	And if we bear the cosmic burden of knowing this,	41:01
	it only adds to the incredible obligation we have within all	41:05
	this precisely because we can do know this.	41:09
	This sacrament of limits is served only	41:16
	by acceptance of limits.	41:21
	Acceptance of limits supposes upon me	41:24
	what I have fled all my life.	41:28
	I have despised discipline.	41:31
	But this I must buy: if I continue to live long,	41:36
	or if ever, I should live well.	41:41
	And this discipline, it is which	41:44
	if preservative will be conservative,	41:48
	that is to say,	41:52
	I have been pushed to an ethic of parsimony,	41:54
	even while living in a cornucopia of supply.	41:59
	Parsimony is the only ethic I know	42:04
	that can protect homeostasis	42:07
	in a context of limited creation.	42:11
	But look again at my limits, stomach, bladder, bowels,	42:15
	heart, kidneys, head, muscle, nerve, bone,	42:20
	time, space, place,	42:25
	memory, mind, expectation.	42:28
	I am surrounded, halted, estopped	42:31
	with minimal power to move or move out.	42:35
	This is the given basis for an ethic of parsimony.	42:38
	I have myself survived a systolic blood pressure of 47,	42:43
	but I was clammy and barely living.	42:50
	If that same pressure should reach 180,	42:53
	I'm sitting on an explosion looking for a weak wall	42:57
	where it can happen.	43:01
	My belly juices are no longer those of an Irish setter.	43:03
	I can burn only 30 grams of carbohydrate a day,	43:09
	not the 380 grams of the average American's diet.	43:14
	I cannot live if I am more than six days from any water.	43:19
	And while my average is about three hours,	43:24
	I will become convulsive if I go too long between urinals.	43:28
	I can go 130 days without food, three minutes without air.	43:34
	I need electric stimuli on a mini-second interval,	43:40
	potassium, magnesium, salts and metals in constant supply.	43:44
	And I can't live a day without love.	43:49
	On the average American street,	43:54
	there is a sexual stimulus about every seven minutes,	43:57
	but if this is expressed in a breeding situation,	44:02
	I'm out of room to live in a single generation,	44:06
	marooned on acres of babies.	44:09
	How does one live with his limits	44:13
	up to his rear in crocodiles?	44:16
	How does he think about draining the swamp?	44:20
	The ethical principle involved here, I call parsimony.	44:24
	And this seems a crazy inversion	44:30
	when one has lived in an unlimited creation.	44:33
	But the law of parsimony means	44:38
	both qualitatively and quantitatively.	44:40
	The least that will really do.	44:45
	Professor Tom Terence told me last week	44:50
	that Dr. Einstein hesitated	44:53
	when asked to set a salary at Princeton,	44:55
	and then said he preferred a checking account.	44:59
	Who wouldn't?	45:02
	At the end of a year, trustees found	45:04
	that the great mind and his wife had used $1,700.	45:07
	Wesley may have said, "get all you can, give all you can",	45:15
	but he prescribed no more than eight ounces of any meat	45:19
	and 12 of vegetables a day for his clergy.	45:24
	And then added, no more than a glass of wine.	45:27
	"Never take more than three items at table",	45:33
	he is said to have said,	45:36
	which may explain why he never weighed more than 120,	45:38
	but it also explains why he could preach to 4,000 miners	45:42
	at Gwennap Pit at four o'clock in the morning	45:48
	when he was 82 years old.	45:51
	He was even parsimonious about sleep	45:54
	and ordered his men to study themselves	45:57
	and take no more than was needed to work well.	46:01
	Now, not frugality,	46:06
	frugality is the least I can get by with.	46:08
	Not penuriousness, which begrudges me,	46:12
	even the minimum needs of my own belly,	46:16
	but parsimony, the least that will really do.	46:19
	It means the shrinking of gargantuous gullet.	46:24
	The constriction of the appetite of Amazon,	46:28
	the drastic reduction of the belly of mammon.	46:31
	This is what I have sought.	46:36
	And one is rich in proportion	46:38
	to what he can do without, says Thoreau.	46:40
	The house farthest out in Dean Sam Miller's lovely gift	46:44
	had no television.	46:48
	He shall give thee thy heart's desire	46:51
	says my old neighbor in Paraguay	46:54
	means that God almighty will fix your water,	46:57
	if you'll let him.	47:02
	Not frugality, this is a venal sin	47:04
	and a crime against nature.	47:08
	Not penuriousness, that's a spiritual condition,	47:10
	but parsimony, an empirical, administrative,	47:15
	judgemental, principle, operative	47:19
	with the least that will really finish creation.	47:22
	This is what I mean.	47:27
	It works especially, and even in psychic therapy	47:29
	for the hero's response is properly the least	47:34
	that we'll really do, lest he invade	47:38
	and assume another's privacy and responsibility	47:41
	of covenant and its concomitant responsibility.	47:48
	I do speak with passion	47:52
	and my passion is not devoid of precedent.	47:54
	It's 20 years now since I came east from Austin	47:59
	to do my structures of prejudice in public	48:02
	and found myself rooming with that covenantal monument,	48:06
	James Muilenburg, and could hear, see him	48:11
	be that Abraham's sinking into covenant	48:15
	with the Yahweh of grace and mercy.	48:20
	And I climbed those seven stories with dear Muilenburg	48:23
	to come to see where the human partner connected by covenant	48:28
	with both creation and salvation is reminded of duty	48:33
	and decision and a necessary declaration.	48:39
	Responsible I am, as Imago Dei,	48:43
	for the parsimonious caretaking	48:48
	of everything else and myself in creation.	48:51
	If entering now the Zenith of my brief arc	48:57
	across and within creation,	49:01
	I should enter God's grand assize hall tomorrow,	49:05
	called to account for myself,	49:10
	I would offer this confession and defense,	49:16
	if indeed I could do more than fall down,	49:21
	but if able to give vocal utterance at all, I should say,	49:25
	thou knowest, dear Lord of our lives,	49:30
	that for 50 of my years in ignorance, zest, zeal, and sin,	49:34
	I lived as if creation and I had no limit.	49:42
	I lived and wanted and was as if I had forever	49:46
	without regard for time or wit or strength	49:52
	or need or limit or endurance.	49:56
	And as if sleep were a needless luxury	50:00
	and digestion an automatic process.	50:03
	But thou, oh Lord of my love, did snatch my bits	50:08
	and did the drive me into thy back pasture,	50:13
	and did rub my nose in my vulnerability,	50:18
	and did split my lungs into acquiescence,	50:22
	and did freeze my colon in grief and loss,	50:26
	and did press me into that long depression	50:30
	at the anger I directed against myself	50:34
	and did so pressed me to knee drop	50:38
	where the only word of petition I could utter	50:41
	was a despair laden open, open,	50:44
	and thou didst read my diary over my shoulder	50:48
	on that long journey when at last I did melt before thee	50:52
	as mere creature than thou didst here.	50:58
	Hear now my pitiable defense,	51:04
	in all my 60 years, I killed no creature of thine	51:09
	I did not use for food except for a few rattlesnakes,	51:14
	a turtle or two, two quail I left overlong in my coat,	51:19
	three geese poisoned before I shot them	51:25
	on bad grain in Nebraska,	51:28
	plus one wood duck in Korea.	51:30
	In all my years, I consciously battered no child,	51:35
	though my own claim much need to forgive me	51:39
	and I consciously misused no person,	51:44
	thou knowest my aim to treat no human as thing.	51:47
	Never to hate overlong and to pass no child without her eye.	51:52
	And my inner most wish to love as thou doest love	52:00
	by seeing never any shade of class or color.	52:03
	And thou didst 30 years ago hear my cry	52:08
	to let me out of Paducah.	52:12
	Thou knowest my covenant with Elizabeth in our youth.	52:17
	Thou knowest it has been better kept	52:22
	than my covenant with thee	52:24
	and will thou forgive, indeed thou hast.	52:27
	Hear now mine intention with grace as if it were fact.	52:32
	I do and I have intended to be responsible	52:37
	in creation by covenant	52:42
	and where I have defaulted	52:46
	do thou forgive?	52:48
	Forgive thou, my vicarious responsibility	52:51
	for all the defection from thy purpose	52:55
	of all thy responsible creatures and accept thou this,	52:58
	my admission of utter dependence upon thy mercy.	53:03
	And this, dear friends, is as near as I wish now	53:09
	to come to total disclosure of what I mean	53:14
	by responsible ethic within my limits	53:18
	of God's limited creation, but there is more.	53:22
	The name above every name at which every knee shall bow	53:28
	has not yet been uttered.	53:33
	This name appropriated is the content and context	53:37
	of our responsible identity.	53:42
	I wrote 20 years ago,	53:46
	my suffering servant for Eastertide	53:48
	and the artists commissioned	53:53
	to do His dear face for its cover.	53:55
	Smitten, deaf, and dumb in her infancy	54:00
	to the astonished eyes of her editorial colleagues	54:05
	did for the face of the Christ, her own self portrait.	54:10
	It's authentic.	54:18
	And it hangs now in my study,	54:20
	but the blessed Jesus never referred to himself	54:23
	by that suffering servant title.	54:26
	Servant, yes.	54:30
	Son, yes.	54:32
	Rejected, yes.	54:34
	To suffer, yes.	54:36
	But he never appropriated Isaiah's graphic poem	54:38
	as his own name.	54:42
	Who then laid it on him,	54:46
	that he was bruised for our iniquities.	54:49
	The chastisement of our peace was laid on him.	54:53
	Who recognized first that he was despised	54:58
	and rejected a man of sorrows and a grief knower?	55:02
	That all we like sheep had gone astray	55:08
	that we had turned every one to his own way,	55:12
	and that the Lord had laid upon him the iniquity of us all?	55:17
	Answer, the whole believing first century community	55:23
	laid it on him when they saw his cross death.	55:28
	In unison, as they looked back, they said there,	55:35
	there in the St. Mark gorgeous liturgy,	55:40
	it comes in the fourth century,	55:44
	the Lord hath reigned from the tree	55:46
	and he is suffering servant.	55:52
	Jesus never claimed the title.	55:55
	And for that matter, there's no label on Matterhorn.	55:58
	It waits for you to gasp and know where you are.	56:03
	There's no sign on Grand Canyon,	56:11
	the overlooker just gasps and draws back.	56:14
	There's no placard for suffering servant,	56:20
	but the whole community of believers says,	56:23
	God comes and has come to us.	56:27
	The divine has emptied himself.	56:31
	Dear Augustine puts it, God has become a peasant,	56:34
	and still man is proud.	56:39
	Pass by him the man, and you will come to God,	56:44
	do not ask for any other way to come to him	56:47
	for if he had not vouched safe	56:50
	to be the way we should all have gone astray.	56:52
	Therefore I say to thee do not seek the way,	56:56
	the way has come to thee, rise and walk.	57:00
	Our Christian secret, says the aged Karl Barth,	57:07
	is that I know you, who you are,	57:12
	and you know, me, our name is Jesus,	57:16
	and this puts us in church.	57:20
	But he goes on and also we also know	57:25
	this about all them others out there,	57:30
	whether they know it or not.	57:35
	And this changes our style with them	57:39
	and puts us all in church.	57:43
	And what does this mean for us here and now?	57:45
	It means at least this,	57:51
	I am not to derive my name and identity	57:54
	from culturally imposed designations.	57:58
	My sex and my race and my religion and region	58:03
	and class and economic location and family and education	58:07
	are not identification tags.	58:12
	My name is the highest I know.	58:16
	Jesus, who is the Christ, the best of breed is my species.	58:19
	This imposes a higher identity secretly upon me.	58:25
	But how, and with what effrontery	58:31
	would I assume this identity?	58:35
	My culture, class, town, and family,	58:40
	my religion, education, and values structures,	58:44
	my race, economic location, and national heritage	58:48
	all tell me that I am supposedly male, white,	58:52
	east Tennessee, Democrat lower-class, Baptist, ordained,	58:57
	half-educated and certified.	59:02
	Is there for me a higher identity resting	59:06
	on God's own recognition?	59:09
	I certainly hope to God so.	59:12
	Jesus Christ is my species and my breed.	59:18
	Our incarnation is a stupid fantasy.	59:22
	And John Hick's little new essay could go far,	59:26
	except I was with John McAuley when he came out	59:31
	and he'd already written an answer,	59:33
	the truth of incarnation.	59:36
	But what happens if I know and assume	59:39
	that my identity is Jesus Christ, catastrophe.	59:43
	It's an ego maniacal self-aggrandizing assumption	59:50
	of false identity.	59:54
	Unless. Unless I wait.	59:57
	Wait, wait for you to see this.	1:00:00
	Wait for you to give me my name as priest of God to you.	1:00:05
	For you to tell me who I am to you,	1:00:12
	Jesus, who has appeared.	1:00:16
	But if I say this,	1:00:19
	I disfranchise the blessed Jesus and myself.	1:00:21
	You must tell me this, if it's so, and I must wait,	1:00:26
	and this is the ethic of identity.	1:00:31
	I need you to tell me who I am, Jesu mercy.	1:00:34
	And now I need a summary, and it defies my powers	1:00:42
	of condensation and consanguinity, whatever that is.	1:00:48
	But Jesus is my name.	1:00:53
	I am goyim, gentile, born out of due season,	1:00:57
	included by God's creator grace	1:01:04
	in all He has intended for all mankind.	1:01:07
	Within God's Israel by adoption, as are all them,	1:01:13
	and called to be Jesus where I can,	1:01:21
	under an ages old covenant of responsible presence	1:01:25
	in an arena of created powers and processes	1:01:31
	over which I exercise some kind of oversight	1:01:36
	as vulnerable, limited, inhibited, victim, and sinner,	1:01:40
	recalcitrant, redundant, reluctant	1:01:46
	junior partner in a creative process,	1:01:49
	which may or may not reach its fulfillment	1:01:53
	far beyond me and mine.	1:01:57
	Naked came I into the world, mama always says.	1:02:02
	How I'm dressed at conclusion makes no difference.	1:02:09
	A pair of jeans or a Glasgow gown, it makes no difference.	1:02:15
	Meantime, I mow. I cut wood for winter.	1:02:20
	I clean drainage ditches.	1:02:27
	I preach where I'm asked what is happening.	1:02:30
	And I listen and I wait and I want,	1:02:34
	and I work and I look to see what God will do in the earth,	1:02:38
	which asks for covenant response and glories in redemption	1:02:44
	as a weigh station en route to completion, Silas.	1:02:50
	But I watch out always for babies	1:02:57
	and little rabbits in front of my big mower,	1:03:00
	and old folks nearby,	1:03:05
	and black snakes that are worth preserving,	1:03:08
	and little puppies on the road,	1:03:11
	and all these young, old who stutter and lack	1:03:14
	and can hear too, the cry of all us faithful.	1:03:19
	Come Lord Jesus.	1:03:27
	Let us pray.	1:03:32
	Let thy holy presence come upon us,	1:03:37
	we beseech thee, oh Lord.	1:03:42
	Hallelujah.	1:03:45
	Amen.	1:03:47
	(organ playing hymn)	1:03:56
	(congregation singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	1:04:19
	♪ Amen ♪	1:05:54
	(organ playing hymn)	1:06:05
	(choir singing hymn)	1:08:01
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	1:11:32
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	1:11:47
	(organ playing hymn)	1:12:17
	(choir singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	1:12:43
	♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪	1:12:55
	♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪	1:13:16
	♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪	1:13:21
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	1:13:28
	♪ Amen ♪	1:13:36
-	Oh God, as we offer our gifts to you,	1:13:48
	may we also offer ourselves,	1:13:54
	take our bodies, our minds,	1:13:59
	our spirits, our whole selves,	1:14:01
	and use us in your ministry in your world	1:14:05
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	1:14:11
	(organ playing hymn)	1:14:20
	(congregation singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	1:14:59
	And now without bowing our heads or closing our eyes,	1:18:55
	may I offer you this blessing, this benediction,	1:18:59
	the grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.	1:19:04
	The love of God,	1:19:09
	the fellowship of the holy spirit	1:19:11
	be with you now and forever.	1:19:14
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	1:19:21
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	1:19:28
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	1:19:38
	♪ Amen ♪	1:19:55
	(organ playing hymn)	1:20:13
	(congregation chattering)

Item Info

Title:

Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4s46n758

Date:

September 11, 1977

Speaker:

Marney, Carlyle, 1916-1978

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0915
ref7033_rz0
uachapelsermaud
duke:628460
dcrau002859
ark:/87924/r4s46n758
042e61bf-8d5c-49c1-86c6-a8478c12e285

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

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

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Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

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Duke University Archives