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) |