WEBVTT
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Duke University Chapel, service of worship,
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fifth Sunday after Epiphany Day, February 6th, 1977.
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(quiet organ music)
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(lively organ music)
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(bright organ music)
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(choir singing)
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(organ music)
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(choir singing)
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With the promise and certainty
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that God is loving and forgiving,
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we find the courage to make our confession
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before God and our neighbors.
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Let us pray.
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Oh, holy God, hear our prayers.
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We confess that we have been inattentive
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to your word and your voice,
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that we have failed to think and pray and act
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for the mission and unity of your church,
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and that we have often tried to imprison you
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in words and institutions.
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Forgive us for thinking we have the whole truth.
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For our lack of feeling and intercession
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for the needs of our families,
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the oppressed, the hungry, the sick,
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and those without hope.
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For our uncritical attitude to our old membership
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and our society of (mumbles).
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For our cynicism,
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which refuses to recognize the hope which is ours,
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as is your presence among us.
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O Lord, forgive what we have been,
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sanctify what we are, and all that what and shall be,
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through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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Amen.
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God is forgiving.
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You are forgiven.
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And if God can forgive you and your neighbor,
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then you can forgive yourself and your neighbor.
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Live from this day as a new member of God's family.
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Amen.
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(gentle organ music)
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(choir singing)
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Will you all please rise
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for the reading of the Gospel Lesson?
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(crowd rising)
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When the son of man comes in his glory
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and all the angels with him,
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then he will sit on his glorious throne.
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Before him will be gathered all the nations,
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and he will separate them one from another
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as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
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and he will place the sheep at his right hand,
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but the goats at the left.
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Then the king will say to those at his right hand,
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"Come, O blessed of my father,
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"inherit the kingdom prepared for you
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"from the foundations of the world.
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"For I was hungry and you gave me food.
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"I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
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"I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
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"I was naked and you clothed me.
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"I was sick and you visited me.
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"I was in prison and you came to me."
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Then the righteous will answer him,
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"Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee?
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"Or thirsty and give thee drink?
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"And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee?
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"Or naked and clothe thee?
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"And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?"
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And the king will answer them,
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"Truly I say to you,
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"as you did it to one of the least of these,
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"my brethren, you did it to me."
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Here ends the reading of the scripture.
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(bright organ music)
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(choir singing)
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Let us affirm what we believe.
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We believe in God,
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who has created and is creating,
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who has come in the truly human Jesus
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to reconcile and make new.
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We trust God, who calls us to be the church,
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to celebrate life and its fullness,
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to love and serve others,
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to seek justice and resist evil,
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to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,
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our judge and our hope.
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In life and death and life beyond death,
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God is with us.
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We are not alone.
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Thanks be to God.
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The Lord be with you.
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(crowd mumbles)
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Let us pray.
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Oh, holy and loving God,
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we give you thanks for life and love,
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for all the simple joys of life,
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for all common and uncommon responsibilities
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which enlarge our souls.
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We bow before the mystery of your presence
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and of all of your creation.
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We feel, O God, that we and your whole creation
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are groaning in travail.
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We are deeply troubled of the plight
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of so many of your children.
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We give you thanks for the dedication of your people
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who have worked together to see
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that some people will not be cold this winter.
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Give us the stamina to continue to work together,
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responding and responsible to those who need us.
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Quicken our conscience that no one will have to die
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to mobilize us.
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Open our hearts and our eyes
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that we may feel and see
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those who reach out in desperation
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and those who are too weak or too frightened
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to risk reaching out.
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And may our response, O God, always be
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as to a brother or a sister
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so that we will not destroy those who are in great need.
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Give to our leaders the vision and the ability
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to work for more permanent changes
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so that no one will have to be cold or hungry
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or oppressed or destroyed.
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Hear us now as we pray for those who are sick,
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for those who are facing death,
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and for those who care for the sick and the aged.
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For those who are facing decisions and responsibilities
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and pain and loneliness, which are too much to bear alone.
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For those who feel separated from you and your love.
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And we lift to your loving care
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those we love who are separated from us.
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May they be supported by the certainty of our love
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and by your sustaining spirit,
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for you have made your dwelling among us,
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and you are present wherever we live.
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We cling to this grace.
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Help us to honor your presence.
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Give us wisdom and strength to build each other up
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into your city on this earth, the body of Christ,
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a world fit to live in today
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and forever.
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And hear us now as we pray the prayer of our Lord.
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Our Father who art in heaven,
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hallowed be thy name.
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Thy kingdom come.
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Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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Give us this day our daily bread
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and forgive us our trespasses
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as we forgive those who trespass against us,
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and lead us not into temptation,
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but deliver from evil.
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Thine is the kingdom,
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the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
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Amen.
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We will not continue the wood-cutting project this week.
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And speaking on behalf of all the groups
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who have been responsible for this project,
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I want to thank all who have helped
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make this one of the most important efforts
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in the Duke-Durham community,
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working together to respond to a local crisis.
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And as you know,
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people came from Chapel Hill and Raleigh and Fayetteville
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to join us in this effort.
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Groups will continue to, in their collection of money
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for the emergency-fuel fund.
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This week, Duke Circle K,
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with the support of Sanders Florist
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and Operation Breakthrough,
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is sponsoring a sale of carnations.
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Two thirds of the money you will spend
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when you buy a beautiful flower
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will go to the emergency-fuel fund.
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Please note the announcements in your bulletin,
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particularly this is the first Sunday of the month.
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We will celebrate holy communion in Memorial Chapel
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immediately after the service,
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and this evening at 8:15,
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Sam Hammond will play a concert on the Aeolian organ.
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And then note that on this coming Saturday,
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you have the opportunity to hear Will Campbell
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and Jim Cone in a dialogue at 6:00
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in the Divinity Student Lounge.
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We are pleased that Will Campbell
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is the person to begin our Theologian in Residence Program.
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In his gentle way, he has opened our eyes
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to new dimensions of Christian living and responsibility,
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and through his loving actions and words,
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we have heard God's voice come to us.
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But Will may be remembered longest here
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as the person who has the record
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for cutting the most wood in the Duke forest.
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It would have been hard for us to have found
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another theologian in residence
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who could have matched this particular feat.
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Will, we're glad you're gonna be here two more weeks,
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and we look forward to hearing the Word again today.
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Good morning.
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Everybody ought to be good for something.
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And there's nothing wrong with being good
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for running a chainsaw.
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This is something, isn't it?
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I want to try this morning to make
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a few simple points
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and to speak briefly about my understanding
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of the Gospel, the Good News.
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Jesus said on one occasion,
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"In as much as ye have done it
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"unto one of the least of these,
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"you have done it to me."
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18 years ago last September,
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I sat one night in a modest house
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in Little Rock, Arkansas.
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The man I was visiting was old, and he was black.
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That day, two of my friends and I
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had walked down to the schoolhouse with his daughter.
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Her name was Elizabeth Eckford.
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We had walked to school with her
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because she and eight of her young friends
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were going to the schoolhouse for the very first time
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in that previously all-white school.
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And because the governor of her state and his state
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had stationed a battalion of troops around the schoolhouse
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with tanks, and automatic weapons, and air cover,
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and chemical weapons to protect Central High School
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from this horrendous onslaught.
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The children did not succeed in entering the school,
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despite our presence.
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I was there visiting this man, I suppose in my naivete,
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to say that I was sorry.
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His voice was calm, his manner was polite.
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I was white, he was black.
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He said that he had been present in Elaine, Arkansas
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some decades earlier,
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had seen state troopers gun down men and women and children,
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many of them with cotton sacks still on their backs,
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really because they owned some land
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which had been found to be valuable and the state wanted it.
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He said that he had heard Dr. King speak,
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that he did not like violence,
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but he spoke of his 17-year-old daughter as "my baby."
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And he said, "I am armed.
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"I am an old man, my life is over.
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"If anybody harms my baby, I will kill them."
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This anecdote to say
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that 18 years ago,
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as a young, fairly young,
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Christian preacher from Mississippi,
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I suddenly knew that civilization as we know it
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would not survive.
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And should not survive.
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Even though at the time, I did not revel at the thought
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of hearing my own epitaph.
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I knew that we would play out the drama,
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perhaps taking much longer than my own lifetime,
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but that with the emergence of the third-world countries
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throughout the world, most of which are
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non-white,
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civilization as we knew would not survive.
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And I thought also as I sat there,
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still in my naivete,
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"in as much as ye have done it unto the least of these,
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"ye have done it unto me."
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Perhaps the most blatantly racist thought,
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perhaps the most blatantly racist text,
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which could have been going through my white head,
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because in that moment the least thing I could think of
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was an old black man.
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00:28:50.673 --> 00:28:55.470
Five years ago, I was spending a week
271
00:28:55.470 --> 00:28:57.290
with a friend of mine who heads up
272
00:28:57.290 --> 00:29:02.290
what I call the Maoist wing of the Ku Klux Klan.
273
00:29:02.421 --> 00:29:04.710
I call it the Maoist wing because he had split
274
00:29:04.710 --> 00:29:09.638
with the United Klans of America as being revisionist.
275
00:29:12.540 --> 00:29:14.160
He was considered by the FBI
276
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:18.363
to be an extremely dangerous man.
277
00:29:18.363 --> 00:29:20.810
His wife was seriously ill,
278
00:29:20.810 --> 00:29:25.810
and my mission in the home was to help take care of her,
279
00:29:26.560 --> 00:29:29.140
finding nothing in the scripture
280
00:29:29.140 --> 00:29:34.056
which exclude the sick of any ideology.
281
00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:38.885
I had asked him earlier in the evening
282
00:29:38.885 --> 00:29:43.885
what his organization, the Ku Klux Klan, stood for.
283
00:29:44.450 --> 00:29:46.850
He replied quite calmly,
284
00:29:46.850 --> 00:29:51.809
"Well, it stands for peace and harmony and freedom."
285
00:29:56.557 --> 00:30:00.965
I supposed I was not quite ready for that response.
286
00:30:00.965 --> 00:30:03.708
But being educated,
287
00:30:03.708 --> 00:30:08.100
I decided to play a little Socratic, fun game with him
288
00:30:08.100 --> 00:30:10.450
and ask him the very profound question
289
00:30:10.450 --> 00:30:14.177
which we sometimes ask people when we are stalling for time,
290
00:30:14.177 --> 00:30:17.596
"And what do you mean by peace and harmony and freedom?"
291
00:30:17.596 --> 00:30:20.950
(audience laughs)
292
00:30:20.950 --> 00:30:25.950
And he replied, "I mean what you mean.
293
00:30:26.347 --> 00:30:31.347
"Uh, if you don't know what the words mean,
294
00:30:31.997 --> 00:30:36.947
"there's a dictionary. "Look 'em up."
295
00:30:37.843 --> 00:30:42.843
A bit pushy, I thought, but it was my game.
296
00:30:42.850 --> 00:30:45.900
And I knew that I was holding the good cards
297
00:30:45.900 --> 00:30:50.401
and would play them one by one until he folded.
298
00:30:50.401 --> 00:30:54.851
In other words, I said, "You define the words." Yes.
299
00:30:54.851 --> 00:30:58.928
Who defines the words you use?
300
00:30:58.928 --> 00:31:00.620
When you use a word, it's your word.
301
00:31:00.620 --> 00:31:04.136
You know what it means.
302
00:31:04.136 --> 00:31:08.540
That to suggest that all language is a symbol
303
00:31:08.540 --> 00:31:11.819
and nothing more than a symbol.
304
00:31:11.819 --> 00:31:14.421
And I was ready to make my play.
305
00:31:14.421 --> 00:31:17.187
"Alright, the Ku Klux Klan
306
00:31:17.187 --> 00:31:20.585
"stands for peace and harmony and freedom.
307
00:31:20.585 --> 00:31:25.545
"You admit that you define the words.
308
00:31:25.545 --> 00:31:28.215
"Now,
309
00:31:28.215 --> 00:31:33.057
"what means are you willing to use
310
00:31:33.057 --> 00:31:38.057
"to accomplish those glorious ends?"
311
00:31:38.207 --> 00:31:43.087
"Oh," he said, "I see now what you're getting at.
312
00:31:43.087 --> 00:31:46.850
"The means we're willing to use are murder, torture,
313
00:31:46.850 --> 00:31:50.547
"threats, blackmail, intimidation, guerrilla warfare,
314
00:31:50.547 --> 00:31:51.910
"whatever it takes."
315
00:31:51.910 --> 00:31:53.510
And then he stopped, and I stopped,
316
00:31:53.510 --> 00:31:55.403
for I knew that I had set a little trap for him
317
00:31:55.403 --> 00:31:58.640
and cleverly had let him snap the trigger
318
00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:00.747
until he continued again.
319
00:32:00.747 --> 00:32:05.747
"Now, preacher, you tell me what we stand for in Vietnam."
320
00:32:06.040 --> 00:32:09.930
We being at that time in the middle of that great tragedy.
321
00:32:09.930 --> 00:32:14.880
And it took no genius to know who had fallen into the trap,
322
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:17.920
for we all knew what we stood for there,
323
00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:20.740
for peace and harmony and for freedom,
324
00:32:20.740 --> 00:32:22.890
and we knew that we defined the words,
325
00:32:22.890 --> 00:32:25.740
that we did not let, ask, the Vietnamese
326
00:32:25.740 --> 00:32:28.310
north or south to define them.
327
00:32:28.310 --> 00:32:30.230
And the means we were willing to use
328
00:32:30.230 --> 00:32:33.170
and are still willing to use,
329
00:32:33.170 --> 00:32:35.600
in our policies throughout the world,
330
00:32:35.600 --> 00:32:40.003
were precisely those he had described.
331
00:32:40.003 --> 00:32:44.936
That to say that we are a nation of Klansmen.
332
00:32:48.500 --> 00:32:52.640
Later in the evening, he was showing me his new...
333
00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:55.931
Klan robe.
334
00:32:55.931 --> 00:33:00.931
Very proud of it, as all of us who wear robes are,
335
00:33:01.610 --> 00:33:06.198
or we wouldn't wear them.
336
00:33:06.198 --> 00:33:08.823
His was a crimson red,
337
00:33:08.823 --> 00:33:13.823
and he had a hood that was made of fine satin.
338
00:33:14.145 --> 00:33:18.620
And here's a man who is almost violently anti-intellectual.
339
00:33:18.620 --> 00:33:22.077
As he says, "Show me a Ph.D. and I'll show you a communist.
340
00:33:22.077 --> 00:33:24.590
"Show me a master's and I'll show you a socialist,"
341
00:33:24.590 --> 00:33:26.738
and so on down the line, till
342
00:33:26.738 --> 00:33:27.670
(audience laughs)
343
00:33:27.670 --> 00:33:30.886
I suppose a
344
00:33:30.886 --> 00:33:35.094
a Duke A.B. would rate about a
345
00:33:35.094 --> 00:33:38.444
Jake Javits republican, or something like that.
346
00:33:38.444 --> 00:33:42.540
(audience laughs)
347
00:33:42.540 --> 00:33:46.568
And strutting around the room, he'd said,
348
00:33:46.568 --> 00:33:49.029
"What do I look like, preacher?"
349
00:33:49.029 --> 00:33:52.330
I said, "You look like a Harvard professor."
350
00:33:52.330 --> 00:33:54.367
(audience laughs)
351
00:33:54.367 --> 00:33:57.912
"Colors and all."
352
00:33:57.912 --> 00:34:02.410
This my friend denied with considerable embellishment,
353
00:34:02.410 --> 00:34:05.847
and I said, "Now, I am not rich by any means,
354
00:34:05.847 --> 00:34:07.157
"and I'm not much of a gambler,
355
00:34:07.157 --> 00:34:10.257
"but I would make you a bit of a wager
356
00:34:10.257 --> 00:34:11.207
"that the next time
357
00:34:11.207 --> 00:34:14.857
"there is an academic procession near you,
358
00:34:14.857 --> 00:34:19.857
"particular one with a divinity school," I named one,
359
00:34:21.409 --> 00:34:26.336
"go at the last moment and get in line.
360
00:34:27.572 --> 00:34:29.917
"And I'll make you a little wager
361
00:34:29.917 --> 00:34:34.583
"that the marshal will not challenge you.
362
00:34:34.583 --> 00:34:37.709
"That no one will know the difference."
363
00:34:37.709 --> 00:34:38.890
And he said something then
364
00:34:38.890 --> 00:34:43.881
that's bothered me for a long time.
365
00:34:43.881 --> 00:34:48.881
He said, "Yes, they would know the difference there,
366
00:34:49.499 --> 00:34:54.424
"because my robe has a cross on it."
367
00:34:57.100 --> 00:35:00.942
That to say whatever you might want it to say.
368
00:35:00.942 --> 00:35:04.461
It says different things to me at different times.
369
00:35:04.461 --> 00:35:08.010
This morning it raises in my mind certain questions
370
00:35:08.010 --> 00:35:08.843
about the matter
371
00:35:08.843 --> 00:35:12.133
in which we have intellectualized the Gospel.
372
00:35:12.133 --> 00:35:17.128
Categorized it in terms of critical and post-critical eras.
373
00:35:18.700 --> 00:35:20.875
Theologized it.
374
00:35:20.875 --> 00:35:24.200
Complicated it with the trappings of academe
375
00:35:24.200 --> 00:35:26.730
to make it intellectually respectable
376
00:35:26.730 --> 00:35:29.472
in the company of the learned,
377
00:35:29.472 --> 00:35:33.400
rather than letting it remain the scandal,
378
00:35:33.400 --> 00:35:38.356
stumbling block, and laughingstock it was and is.
379
00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:43.174
It reminds me of something I have known for a long time.
380
00:35:43.174 --> 00:35:48.174
That the more academic and sophisticated
381
00:35:48.450 --> 00:35:50.870
a faith becomes,
382
00:35:50.870 --> 00:35:55.845
the more it takes on the coloration of the world about it.
383
00:35:56.740 --> 00:35:59.310
That every time a group of Christians have moved
384
00:35:59.310 --> 00:36:01.860
from a brush arbor,
385
00:36:01.860 --> 00:36:06.041
from the catacombs to a brush arbor,
386
00:36:06.041 --> 00:36:08.670
from the brush arbor to a wooden-frame building,
387
00:36:08.670 --> 00:36:11.610
from a wooden-frame building to a brick structure,
388
00:36:11.610 --> 00:36:15.848
to God knows what after that,
389
00:36:15.848 --> 00:36:18.480
each time it has moved along the way,
390
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:20.570
it has lost something.
391
00:36:20.570 --> 00:36:24.170
It gave up something it believed about Jesus
392
00:36:24.170 --> 00:36:28.898
and never seems to get it back.
393
00:36:28.898 --> 00:36:30.880
And as I set there in this man's house,
394
00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:35.878
though I thought again, pridefully,
395
00:36:38.070 --> 00:36:41.607
self-righteously, "in as much as ye have done it
396
00:36:41.607 --> 00:36:46.354
"unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
397
00:36:46.354 --> 00:36:49.550
Still, you see, letting the culture
398
00:36:49.550 --> 00:36:54.503
define and decide what the least of these are.
399
00:36:56.240 --> 00:36:57.470
Little over a year ago,
400
00:36:57.470 --> 00:37:02.401
I sat in a tiny courtroom in Newport, Tennessee.
401
00:37:05.210 --> 00:37:08.270
Two of my friends had been arrested
402
00:37:08.270 --> 00:37:12.572
and sentenced to 30 days in prison
403
00:37:12.572 --> 00:37:17.572
for handling rattlesnakes in a church service.
404
00:37:18.360 --> 00:37:21.560
The purpose of the little
405
00:37:21.560 --> 00:37:25.440
non-organization for which I worked,
406
00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:28.140
called the Committee of Southern Churchmen,
407
00:37:28.140 --> 00:37:30.670
is to try to have some kind of administry
408
00:37:30.670 --> 00:37:33.680
to the various and sundry alienated minorities
409
00:37:33.680 --> 00:37:36.746
in American culture as best we can.
410
00:37:36.746 --> 00:37:39.230
Klansmen and other poor whites,
411
00:37:39.230 --> 00:37:41.250
people who get put in jail
412
00:37:41.250 --> 00:37:44.210
whether handling snakes in church or not,
413
00:37:44.210 --> 00:37:46.520
poor black people and draft resistors,
414
00:37:46.520 --> 00:37:51.288
prisoners of all sorts are among those.
415
00:37:51.288 --> 00:37:54.200
Now most often they minister more to us than we do them,
416
00:37:54.200 --> 00:37:56.240
but that is always the case.
417
00:37:56.240 --> 00:37:58.640
My purpose in being there was twofold.
418
00:37:58.640 --> 00:38:02.430
One, simply to be with these families as prisoners.
419
00:38:02.430 --> 00:38:04.930
And two, to take them a modest purse,
420
00:38:04.930 --> 00:38:06.490
which we had collected,
421
00:38:06.490 --> 00:38:11.398
since they do not get paid to preach as most of us do.
422
00:38:12.240 --> 00:38:15.040
Now, after the conviction, the case was being appealed,
423
00:38:15.040 --> 00:38:17.107
and the judge was trying to persuade them,
424
00:38:17.107 --> 00:38:20.277
"Please, please, fellas, if you just promise
425
00:38:20.277 --> 00:38:25.060
"not to pick up any more snakes,
426
00:38:25.060 --> 00:38:26.517
"I won't make you serve this thing.
427
00:38:26.517 --> 00:38:31.375
"We know it's going to be appealed through the courts."
428
00:38:31.375 --> 00:38:36.375
And my friends were more than a bit confused
429
00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:37.880
at these proceedings,
430
00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:40.860
not being versed in the finer points of the law
431
00:38:40.860 --> 00:38:44.773
and criminal justice, or injustice.
432
00:38:44.773 --> 00:38:48.839
And finally one of 'em said, "But, judge,
433
00:38:48.839 --> 00:38:53.811
"we don't, we don't decide when we gonna lift up serpents.
434
00:38:54.857 --> 00:38:59.812
"We do it only when we're anointed by the spirit to do it."
435
00:39:01.848 --> 00:39:04.510
And the judge was not sure what they meant by this,
436
00:39:04.510 --> 00:39:07.440
for he was equally unversed
437
00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:10.565
in the finer points of the scriptures.
438
00:39:10.565 --> 00:39:14.110
So he asked the bailiff to go out and get a dictionary,
439
00:39:14.110 --> 00:39:19.098
so he could read to them what the word anoint meant.
440
00:39:19.940 --> 00:39:21.340
And then he couldn't remember
441
00:39:21.340 --> 00:39:23.259
whether anoint had one N or two,
442
00:39:23.259 --> 00:39:24.380
(audience laughs)
443
00:39:24.380 --> 00:39:29.377
but he found it and said, "Now, anoint, anoint means,"
444
00:39:30.530 --> 00:39:33.827
and he slow and deliberately read from his authority,
445
00:39:33.827 --> 00:39:36.067
"Mr. Webster says that to anoint
446
00:39:36.067 --> 00:39:40.727
"means to pour oil on, to consecrate as if to heal.
447
00:39:40.727 --> 00:39:43.804
"Is that what you're talking about?"
448
00:39:43.804 --> 00:39:47.280
And there was some confusion on the part of my friends,
449
00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:49.639
and finally without realizing the profundity
450
00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:53.270
of what he was saying,
451
00:39:53.270 --> 00:39:58.270
one of them pleaded, "But, judge, but, judge,
452
00:39:58.867 --> 00:40:02.278
"we don't live by Mr. Webster.
453
00:40:02.278 --> 00:40:04.598
"We live by the Bible,
454
00:40:04.598 --> 00:40:09.390
"and we already know what anoint means."
455
00:40:09.390 --> 00:40:13.640
That to say that Christians in our day have,
456
00:40:13.640 --> 00:40:18.330
for the most part, permitted society,
457
00:40:18.330 --> 00:40:23.330
permitted the culture to choose what our authority will be.
458
00:40:24.860 --> 00:40:27.870
Caesar, you tell us what is right.
459
00:40:27.870 --> 00:40:30.970
You tell us when we can kill and when we can't.
460
00:40:30.970 --> 00:40:35.970
When we can lock up and when we can't.
461
00:40:36.640 --> 00:40:39.150
That also to say
462
00:40:39.150 --> 00:40:43.470
that the cults and the sects of rural and urban America,
463
00:40:43.470 --> 00:40:47.370
the storefronts and little concrete block houses,
464
00:40:47.370 --> 00:40:49.890
up the (mumbles) and hollows, Appalachia,
465
00:40:49.890 --> 00:40:52.340
and throughout the region,
466
00:40:52.340 --> 00:40:57.152
the holy rollers and sin shouters of cabin row
467
00:40:57.152 --> 00:41:01.013
are more to be praised than scorned.
468
00:41:01.013 --> 00:41:06.013
For despite some unpleasant side effects
469
00:41:06.610 --> 00:41:11.378
from handling copperheads and drinking strychnine,
470
00:41:11.378 --> 00:41:13.950
when placed alongside the side effects,
471
00:41:13.950 --> 00:41:15.980
the sickness unto death,
472
00:41:15.980 --> 00:41:19.800
brought into the region by New England missionary churches,
473
00:41:19.800 --> 00:41:21.790
which have now become the mainline,
474
00:41:21.790 --> 00:41:26.240
steeple-structured institutions throughout the land,
475
00:41:26.240 --> 00:41:29.858
equating the Christian faith so often
476
00:41:29.858 --> 00:41:33.445
with civilization as we know it,
477
00:41:33.445 --> 00:41:36.720
the first church of St. Pitston's Coal by the bank
478
00:41:36.720 --> 00:41:40.430
taking their cue from culture, from society,
479
00:41:40.430 --> 00:41:45.430
becoming little more than a class in sixth-grade civics.
480
00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:50.800
Taking their authority not from the Bible,
481
00:41:51.100 --> 00:41:55.516
but from Caesar. And those things considered,
482
00:41:55.516 --> 00:41:59.980
then the handling of reptiles looked pretty harmless,
483
00:41:59.980 --> 00:42:03.440
because the handling of the reptilic idols
484
00:42:03.440 --> 00:42:08.440
of civilization as we know it, of culture, of society,
485
00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:10.530
the copperheads of Caesar and culture,
486
00:42:10.530 --> 00:42:13.720
which we consecrate as sacred,
487
00:42:13.720 --> 00:42:17.560
these are the demons to be cast out.
488
00:42:17.560 --> 00:42:22.200
That also to say
489
00:42:22.200 --> 00:42:26.045
that I know
490
00:42:26.045 --> 00:42:31.021
I won't ever pick up a copperhead or rattlesnake,
491
00:42:31.021 --> 00:42:33.487
'cause I went to college,
492
00:42:33.487 --> 00:42:38.487
went to the university, went to theological school.
493
00:42:39.290 --> 00:42:43.836
But the rationale for the primitive cultists,
494
00:42:43.836 --> 00:42:47.150
lifting up serpents is not to venerate it,
495
00:42:47.150 --> 00:42:50.960
as is so often thought, but to conquer the evil
496
00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:55.960
which it represents. And I know
497
00:42:56.350 --> 00:43:01.350
that each time I participate in an organized,
498
00:43:01.685 --> 00:43:05.760
structured, heavily institutionalized,
499
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:10.721
steepled religious service in America,
500
00:43:10.721 --> 00:43:15.721
that I am handling a far more deadly reptile
501
00:43:16.405 --> 00:43:19.087
than my unlettered brothers have
502
00:43:19.087 --> 00:43:24.087
in handling their rattlers, cottonmouths, and copperheads.
503
00:43:24.528 --> 00:43:26.386
And I also know
504
00:43:26.386 --> 00:43:29.197
that my record in conquering that evil
505
00:43:29.197 --> 00:43:34.197
is not as impressive as theirs.
506
00:43:34.330 --> 00:43:39.305
I won't ever pick up any snakes. I'm educated!
507
00:43:39.305 --> 00:43:42.180
I know that Mark 16:17 and following
508
00:43:42.180 --> 00:43:46.806
is a latter edition to the text.
509
00:43:46.806 --> 00:43:48.464
Though they neglected to tell me
510
00:43:48.464 --> 00:43:51.164
how it did finally get there.
511
00:43:51.164 --> 00:43:55.361
I won't ever pick up any reptiles.
512
00:43:55.361 --> 00:43:58.930
And way down deep inside,
513
00:43:58.930 --> 00:44:02.590
I wish that maybe, sometime,
514
00:44:02.590 --> 00:44:07.525
perhaps, I could.
515
00:44:08.370 --> 00:44:13.060
Sitting there in that tiny courtroom,
516
00:44:13.060 --> 00:44:17.045
as I beheld this quiet strength and courage,
517
00:44:17.045 --> 00:44:18.800
this flaunting of their commitment
518
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:21.750
into the face of Caesar's judges and system,
519
00:44:21.750 --> 00:44:25.500
this tenacious determination to obey God
520
00:44:25.500 --> 00:44:30.466
rather than Caesar, I had the haunting feeling
521
00:44:30.466 --> 00:44:35.360
that I had not yet discovered the least of these
522
00:44:36.640 --> 00:44:40.296
of whom Jesus spoke.
523
00:44:40.296 --> 00:44:44.468
Who then are the least of these?
524
00:44:44.468 --> 00:44:49.468
What is the least thing you can think of this morning?
525
00:44:49.470 --> 00:44:51.550
Is it a black man, old and stooped,
526
00:44:51.550 --> 00:44:53.650
willing to walk into the face of a regiment
527
00:44:53.650 --> 00:44:56.470
of tanks and machine guns and automatic rifles
528
00:44:56.470 --> 00:45:01.470
with a tiny, one-shot weapon in defense of his baby?
529
00:45:01.550 --> 00:45:03.570
Is it a poor white who knows that something
530
00:45:03.570 --> 00:45:05.500
is dangerously and radically wrong,
531
00:45:05.500 --> 00:45:09.526
but picks the wrong enemy in the efforts to correct it?
532
00:45:09.526 --> 00:45:12.790
Is it the illiterate Appalachian working themselves
533
00:45:12.790 --> 00:45:15.620
into a frenzy, flinging rattlesnakes and cottonmouths
534
00:45:15.620 --> 00:45:18.870
over their heads to say to the world,
535
00:45:18.870 --> 00:45:21.952
"There is a power higher than you.
536
00:45:21.952 --> 00:45:25.757
"We must obey God rather than you.
537
00:45:25.757 --> 00:45:28.527
"Lock us up if you will,
538
00:45:28.527 --> 00:45:31.552
"but you really can't control us."
539
00:45:31.552 --> 00:45:34.330
Is it Gary Mark Gilmore screaming epithets
540
00:45:34.330 --> 00:45:38.640
through the bars at us? Taunting us, mocking us?
541
00:45:38.640 --> 00:45:40.960
Telling us that we can kill him in revenge
542
00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:42.750
for his own killings,
543
00:45:42.750 --> 00:45:45.627
but that finally we will have put ourselves
544
00:45:45.627 --> 00:45:49.984
only on his level, becoming like the things
545
00:45:49.984 --> 00:45:53.120
we claim to detest?
546
00:45:53.120 --> 00:45:58.108
Or is the least of these none of these things?
547
00:45:58.108 --> 00:46:03.108
I don't know what Jesus was talking about.
548
00:46:03.410 --> 00:46:05.590
Sometimes the least thing I can think of
549
00:46:05.590 --> 00:46:08.760
is church bureaucrats,
550
00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:11.490
residing over their altar fires and tea parties
551
00:46:11.490 --> 00:46:14.370
in the midst of suffering and death.
552
00:46:14.370 --> 00:46:16.060
Big spires and steeples
553
00:46:16.060 --> 00:46:18.630
costing millions upon millions of dollars
554
00:46:18.630 --> 00:46:21.508
and casting their physical shadow
555
00:46:21.508 --> 00:46:24.730
upon slums, and whores, and pimps, and addicts,
556
00:46:24.730 --> 00:46:28.660
and drunks, and thieves, and rat-infested tenements,
557
00:46:28.660 --> 00:46:31.500
with the fingers and toes being gnawed
558
00:46:31.500 --> 00:46:34.646
off the young and the elderly.
559
00:46:34.646 --> 00:46:37.110
Investments and holdings and agencies
560
00:46:37.110 --> 00:46:39.670
whose profits are made from the manufacturer
561
00:46:39.670 --> 00:46:43.421
of instruments of death.
562
00:46:43.421 --> 00:46:48.151
Could that be the least of these of whom Jesus spoke?
563
00:46:48.151 --> 00:46:50.155
Could the least of these be summarized
564
00:46:50.155 --> 00:46:53.181
and symbolized by the giant statue
565
00:46:53.181 --> 00:46:55.960
each of us walked by as we entered this place this morning
566
00:46:55.960 --> 00:47:00.290
and which we will pass again as we depart?
567
00:47:00.290 --> 00:47:05.278
Could that be the least of these?
568
00:47:06.270 --> 00:47:09.650
Whatever
569
00:47:09.650 --> 00:47:12.906
the least of these may be,
570
00:47:12.906 --> 00:47:15.050
we have the words of Jesus
571
00:47:15.050 --> 00:47:20.050
that as we relate to them, we relate to him.
572
00:47:20.360 --> 00:47:24.719
Now I don't like that. I don't like it at all.
573
00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:27.080
I want an enemy.
574
00:47:27.080 --> 00:47:29.863
I want something or someone I can identify,
575
00:47:29.863 --> 00:47:33.795
point to, cast out, scream at, blame
576
00:47:33.795 --> 00:47:35.130
for the suffering and injustice
577
00:47:35.130 --> 00:47:39.070
that stalks and haunts the land.
578
00:47:39.070 --> 00:47:41.941
Even as we do that,
579
00:47:41.941 --> 00:47:43.900
there are some other words
580
00:47:43.900 --> 00:47:46.590
which best had give us pause.
581
00:47:46.590 --> 00:47:50.936
Some other words from this book,
582
00:47:50.936 --> 00:47:53.510
which say God was in Christ
583
00:47:53.510 --> 00:47:58.070
making everything cool between us and himself.
584
00:47:58.070 --> 00:48:03.070
And between us and us, all of us, the least of these,
585
00:48:04.750 --> 00:48:08.657
summarized in the words of a country song,
586
00:48:08.657 --> 00:48:10.717
"You can't find the one to blame,
587
00:48:10.717 --> 00:48:14.209
"it's too smart to have a name."
588
00:48:14.209 --> 00:48:16.830
'Cause it ain't flesh and blood we fight with,
589
00:48:16.830 --> 00:48:19.730
it's powers and principalities
590
00:48:19.730 --> 00:48:23.020
and Armageddon can't be far away.
591
00:48:23.020 --> 00:48:28.011
Words of St. Paul which say, "God was in Christ."
592
00:48:28.876 --> 00:48:30.950
And then the most radical verse,
593
00:48:30.950 --> 00:48:33.340
the most maddening, infuriating to me
594
00:48:33.340 --> 00:48:35.407
passage in the whole Bible,
595
00:48:35.407 --> 00:48:40.407
"No longer holding your misdeeds against you."
596
00:48:41.010 --> 00:48:43.384
God, I wouldn't have done that.
597
00:48:43.384 --> 00:48:47.942
I would have held onto somebody that I'd have popped them.
598
00:48:47.942 --> 00:48:50.380
I would have made some exceptions.
599
00:48:50.380 --> 00:48:52.867
I would have said, "God was in Christ
600
00:48:52.867 --> 00:48:55.537
"no longer holding your misdeeds against you
601
00:48:55.537 --> 00:49:00.436
"unless you head up the textile industry.
602
00:49:01.757 --> 00:49:05.172
"Or unless you kill civil-rights workers."
603
00:49:05.172 --> 00:49:10.170
I'd have done it that way.
604
00:49:11.240 --> 00:49:15.956
Ah, Mr. Jesus, I like it when you say,
605
00:49:15.956 --> 00:49:18.567
"And reconcile to old black men
606
00:49:18.567 --> 00:49:22.550
"with daughters facing hostile truths." That's cool.
607
00:49:22.550 --> 00:49:25.357
I like it when you say, "I'm reconciled to poor whites
608
00:49:25.357 --> 00:49:27.577
"and Kluxers and people whose ideologies
609
00:49:27.577 --> 00:49:29.317
"may differ from my own,
610
00:49:29.317 --> 00:49:34.020
"and yet from whose loins I sprang." I like that.
611
00:49:34.020 --> 00:49:36.220
I like it when you tell me I'm reconciled
612
00:49:36.220 --> 00:49:39.103
to the sin shouters of (mumbles),
613
00:49:39.103 --> 00:49:41.460
hurling poisonous reptiles through the air.
614
00:49:41.460 --> 00:49:42.850
I like that.
615
00:49:42.850 --> 00:49:47.818
But don't tell me I'm reconciled to the likes of all this.
616
00:49:51.295 --> 00:49:55.319
That's what he said. "God was in Christ
617
00:49:55.319 --> 00:49:58.570
"no longer holding our misdeeds against us."
618
00:49:58.570 --> 00:50:01.458
No exception.
619
00:50:01.458 --> 00:50:03.725
That's the good news,
620
00:50:03.725 --> 00:50:08.725
that it is the old man and governor Faubus in Little Rock.
621
00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:11.730
It is the grand dragon of the KKK,
622
00:50:11.730 --> 00:50:14.893
and those they claim to oppose.
623
00:50:14.893 --> 00:50:18.060
It is the snake handlers and the judges
624
00:50:18.060 --> 00:50:19.940
who send them to prison.
625
00:50:19.940 --> 00:50:24.565
It is me and the church bureaucrats
626
00:50:24.565 --> 00:50:28.258
my guts tell me are living in heresy,
627
00:50:28.258 --> 00:50:30.777
all holding hands and singing,
628
00:50:30.777 --> 00:50:34.290
"Jesus Christ is Lord, hallelujah."
629
00:50:34.290 --> 00:50:37.316
Cheap grace, you say.
630
00:50:37.316 --> 00:50:41.618
Four people this week had wanted to talk to me about
631
00:50:41.618 --> 00:50:45.010
what Jesus seemed to be saying is cheap grace.
632
00:50:45.010 --> 00:50:48.431
Well, what's the going rate of grace these days?
633
00:50:48.431 --> 00:50:53.402
What are you getting around here for a pound of grace?
634
00:50:54.420 --> 00:50:57.590
If there's a price on it, it isn't grace.
635
00:50:57.590 --> 00:50:59.720
It's a commodity.
636
00:50:59.720 --> 00:51:04.528
Cheap? No, not cheap.
637
00:51:04.528 --> 00:51:09.528
Price is a lowly Galilean, hanging on a cross
638
00:51:10.130 --> 00:51:15.130
outside a city, looking much like our own.
639
00:51:15.600 --> 00:51:19.346
That's what I believe. My time is over.
640
00:51:19.346 --> 00:51:22.004
Amen.
641
00:51:30.767 --> 00:51:33.934
(wistful organ music)
642
00:52:15.172 --> 00:52:17.839
(choir singing)
643
00:54:14.007 --> 00:54:17.174
(ominous organ music)
644
00:56:41.019 --> 00:56:43.686
(choir singing)
645
01:02:54.731 --> 01:02:57.898
(hopeful organ music)
646
01:03:15.137 --> 01:03:17.804
(choir singing)
647
01:04:24.457 --> 01:04:26.913
Oh, holy and loving God,
648
01:04:27.750 --> 01:04:31.120
we offer you these gifts
649
01:04:31.120 --> 01:04:34.470
as symbols of our lives.
650
01:04:34.470 --> 01:04:38.480
Guide those who are responsible for their use
651
01:04:38.480 --> 01:04:42.410
that they may express your love and concern
652
01:04:42.410 --> 01:04:47.220
for the well-being of all of your creation.
653
01:04:47.220 --> 01:04:50.940
And we offer you our lives.
654
01:04:50.940 --> 01:04:54.580
Use them that your love and work
655
01:04:54.580 --> 01:04:56.957
may be expressed through us
656
01:04:56.957 --> 01:05:01.610
and the ordinary and the routine of our lives.
657
01:05:01.610 --> 01:05:06.610
This we pray in the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
658
01:05:12.599 --> 01:05:16.182
("Amazing Grace" on organ)
659
01:05:42.296 --> 01:05:44.963
(choir singing)
660
01:08:42.027 --> 01:08:46.810
The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
661
01:08:46.810 --> 01:08:51.810
the love and fellowship of God and the holy spirit
662
01:08:53.240 --> 01:08:57.770
be with us all now and forever more.
663
01:09:03.323 --> 01:09:05.990
(choir singing)
664
01:10:09.404 --> 01:10:12.571
(ominous organ music)
665
01:19:55.110 --> 01:19:58.110
(audience applauds)