Anthony Campolo - "A Psychology for Christians" (March 18, 2001)

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  Educational Use Permitted
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='//idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4s17t71r?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4s17t71r
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

-	Let's pray together.	0:13
	May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts	0:15
	be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,	0:19
	our strength and our redeemer, amen.	0:21
	Abraham Maslow said that we are Homo sapiens endeavoring	0:27
	to become human beings.	0:31
	I like that, because to a large degree,	0:33
	we lost our humanity because of the fall.	0:36
	The sin in our lives have diminished our humanity	0:40
	and made us less than we oughta be.	0:43
	All of us are in process.	0:46
	All of us are trying to become human beings.	0:48
	I remember when my son was just a little guy,	0:51
	he had to do a talk at school.	0:54
	The subject was, what are you going to be when you grow up.	0:57
	He asked me for some help.	1:01
	I said, "You go in there and you tell the teacher,	1:03
	"and you tell the class, that when you grow up,	1:06
	"you're going to be a completely actualized	1:09
	"and fulfilled human being, like Jesus,	1:11
	"and that what she meant to ask	1:15
	"was what are you going to do to make money?"	1:16
	(congregation laughing)	1:20
	He did, and it didn't go over well at all.	1:22
	(congregation laughing)	1:25
	If there's anything that Jesus is about, it's about this.	1:28
	It's about restoring us to what we ought to be,	1:32
	making us into complete human beings.	1:37
	Jesus was the only human being that ever lived.	1:41
	He was the only one that was a full reflection	1:45
	of the heavenly Father.	1:48
	To be human is to be in the image of God,	1:49
	and that means these things.	1:51
	First of all, it means to be alive to the wonders of life.	1:54
	If there wasn't any heaven, if there wasn't any hell,	1:59
	I would still become a Christian,	2:02
	simply because the Jesus who died on the cross for my sins	2:04
	and is resurrected is alive in my life today	2:07
	and heightens my awareness of how glorious life really is.	2:12
	One morning, I got going rather late.	2:21
	It was a Saturday morning, and I turned on the television	2:25
	and who should be on the television but Mr. Rogers.	2:28
	To say it's a low-tech show	2:33
	is the understatement of the year.	2:35
	And what Mr. Rogers has going for him	2:39
	is that his audience is predominantly children	2:42
	who know how to appreciate the ordinary wonders of life.	2:44
	I can still remember that morning, as he said,	2:48
	"Boys and girls, we're going	2:50
	"to fill this fish bowl with water, glass,"	2:53
	and he began to pour it, "by glass, by glass,"	2:59
	and I'm sitting there going, wow.	3:03
	(congregation laughing)	3:07
	And suddenly, the glory of the ordinary	3:08
	became very, very clear to me.	3:11
	I am amazed at how dead people have become.	3:14
	I am particularly upset, sorry about this,	3:18
	with college students.	3:21
	I mean, no reflection on you.	3:22
	I mean, you look alive.	3:25
	But I have to teach people like you.	3:28
	Pouring out your heart for truth,	3:30
	wrenched from existential suffering.	3:32
	And then to have some student on the last row raise his hand	3:36
	and say, do we have to know this for the final?	3:39
	(congregation laughing)	3:42
	I was delivering a speech	3:45
	to a corporate gathering in Chicago.	3:46
	I'm in the Hyatt, I'm on the 10th floor.	3:50
	It's 10 o'clock.	3:53
	I'm supposed to be in the ball room	3:55
	delivering the speech at 10 o'clock.	3:56
	I rush to the elevator, get on the elevator.	3:58
	There's a college kid standing next to me.	4:01
	He's got his baseball hat on backwards,	4:04
	he's kind of slumped like this,	4:05
	and not really awake to the glories	4:07
	of life, to say the least.	4:10
	We come down to the first floor.	4:14
	I'm late for this meeting.	4:15
	The elevator doors do not open.	4:17
	I start banging on the doors.	4:20
	"Open up out there!"	4:22
	"Open up, I'm late for a meeting, open up," I'm yelling.	4:24
	And suddenly, there was a voice behind me	4:28
	that said, "Sir, the door is open."	4:30
	And I turned.	4:35
	It was one of those elevators that had doors on both sides.	4:36
	(congregation laughing)	4:39
	And I'm over here banging on the door,	4:39
	and the doors open behind me.	4:41
	And this kid next to me did not laugh.	4:43
	(congregation laughing)	4:46
	I grabbed him by the shoulders and I shook him,	4:47
	and I said, "Kid, laugh!	4:50
	"This is funny!"	4:52
	(congregation laughing)
	If the Bible says anything about Jesus,	4:57
	it says this, that he who ascended	4:59
	has come back as the Holy Spirit to invade us	5:01
	and we who were dead, we who were dead in the trespasses	5:05
	of our sins, through his Spirit, he makes us alive.	5:10
	And that's, that's what it means to be human, to be alive.	5:16
	Most people are not alive.	5:21
	They suffer from a kind of insomnia.	5:23
	When they're awake, they're half-asleep,	5:26
	and when they're asleep, they're half-awake.	5:28
	Erich Fromm has said it well.	5:30
	We have produced a society in which we have machines	5:32
	that function like people, and we have people	5:36
	who function like machines.	5:40
	Herbert Marcuse said it this way.	5:43
	He said, most people are absent when they're present.	5:45
	I know what that's like.	5:49
	Right, have you ever been out on a date	5:50
	and you felt like she wasn't there?	5:52
	You looked over, and she wasn't there.	5:55
	She was someplace else.	5:58
	And you wished you weren't there.	6:00
	(congregation laughing)	6:03
	There is a deadness to life,	6:06
	but when one surrenders to Jesus,	6:07
	I mean, not just believes in Jesus,	6:11
	not just accepts the historical truth	6:13
	that 2,000 years ago, when he died on the cross,	6:15
	he took the punishment for our sins,	6:17
	but when one surrenders to Jesus	6:18
	and invites Jesus to invade him or her,	6:21
	that person becomes alive to the ecstasies of life.	6:24
	That's part of what it means to be human.	6:30
	The second thing, it goes with it,	6:33
	is that the Spirit of God,	6:36
	when the Spirit of God invades us,	6:37
	empowers us to connect with people,	6:39
	to care about people, to be at one with people	6:42
	in the deepest of ways.	6:46
	I remember, I remember as a young person,	6:49
	reading the book "Franny and Zooey."	6:53
	Many of you have read that book.	6:55
	In the book, Franny comes home from the university,	6:57
	and she's really spaced out, to say the least.	7:01
	She's not all there.	7:05
	She's had a nervous breakdown.	7:07
	Her brother, Zooey, is trying to bring her back to reality	7:10
	and there is this incredible conversation	7:13
	in which Zooey says to Franny,	7:15
	Franny, remember what Seymour, our older brother,	7:16
	used to say to us just before we did our radio show?	7:21
	The family had a radio show every week,	7:24
	and Seymour would always say	7:27
	to these brothers and sisters of his,	7:29
	stand up straight, straighten your clothes, do your best.	7:34
	Remember you're doing it for the fat lady.	7:40
	What came to your mind?	7:45
	And Franny said, I always imagined a woman	7:48
	in the general hospital suffering from cancer	7:52
	and I wanted to be extra good	7:54
	so that she would forget her pain.	7:56
	What did you think of?	7:58
	He said, I always thought of, I always thought of	8:01
	a woman with cancer, but she was out in the middle	8:06
	of New York state, all by herself, with nobody around.	8:08
	And she wanted to be, we wanted to be extra good	8:14
	so she'd forget her loneliness.	8:16
	And then, Zooey says to Franny,	8:20
	Franny, don't you know who the fat lady is?	8:22
	Don't you know who the fat lady is?	8:26
	The fat lady is Jesus.	8:30
	What an interesting thing to say.	8:33
	What did he mean by that?	8:35
	Well, he meant this,	8:37
	that the same Jesus who died on the cross,	8:39
	and the same Jesus who was resurrected	8:41
	and ascended to the Father and come back as the Holy Spirit,	8:43
	that same Jesus chooses to come	8:46
	through people who are in need.	8:50
	And whenever we encounter somebody who is in desperate need,	8:52
	whenever we find the lonely, the desperate, the forsaken,	8:56
	we're to look closely into their eyes,	8:59
	and if we do, we will have this uncanny awareness	9:02
	that Jesus is staring back at us.	9:04
	Jesus is waiting to be loved,	9:08
	in those who confront us as strangers.	9:12
	And the only description he gives of judgment day	9:16
	is how we related to him as we found him in other people.	9:18
	You see, I believe that one	9:22
	becomes Christian by having a personal relationship	9:27
	with Jesus Christ, but I don't believe you can have	9:31
	a personal relationship with Jesus Christ	9:34
	unless you connect with Jesus as Jesus waits	9:36
	to be encountered in people who are in need.	9:40
	So every time you look into the eyes of somebody	9:43
	who is in desperate need, if you are Spirit-filled,	9:46
	you should see or sense Jesus coming back at you.	9:49
	This is why President Bush may be on the right track	9:53
	with his talk about faith-based programs.	9:57
	He says they are more effective than programs	10:00
	that do not have a spiritual dimension to them.	10:03
	And I believe he's right for this reason,	10:06
	having organized and having established a host	10:10
	of faith-based programs using young people,	10:14
	many of whom have come from this university, as workers.	10:17
	Because they are Christians, we tell them to do something.	10:21
	We tell them that every time they look	10:25
	into the eyes of an inner city kid,	10:27
	a broken down kid or a hurt kid,	10:29
	to look deeply, to look prayerfully,	10:33
	and to try to feel Jesus in that person,	10:36
	try to feel Jesus in that person.	10:42
	It changes the whole way in which you relate	10:45
	to people who are in need.	10:48
	They are no longer pathetic individuals,	10:49
	they are no longer persons	10:52
	who you are reaching down to help.	10:54
	If you see Jesus in them, you cannot help	10:58
	but have a sense of awe and reverence	11:01
	and incredible respect.	11:04
	You lift up the humanity.	11:05
	You enhance the humanity of that person	11:07
	rather than diminish that person's dignity.	11:10
	To not come as one aware that Jesus is waiting	11:12
	to be loved in the other, that the King of kings	11:17
	and the Lord of lords is waiting to be embraced in the other	11:20
	is to, in fact, treat the other as a pathetic individual	11:23
	who needs to be helped,	11:28
	instead of the King of Glory waiting to be served.	11:30
	It changes the attitudes,	11:34
	and I contend that in all social work,	11:35
	attitudes are of ultimate significance.	11:38
	Over the last three and a half years,	11:43
	we have started up a program called Mission Year,	11:46
	in which we recruit young people,	11:49
	not unlike the students at this school,	11:51
	to come and work with us	11:53
	in inner city situations for a year.	11:54
	My comment is quite simple.	11:56
	If the Mormons are able to challenge their young people	11:59
	to give two years of their lives,	12:01
	I wonder why Methodists can't challenge	12:03
	their kids to give one.	12:05
	Or maybe it's because the Mormons have a level	12:10
	of commitment that is seldom seen in mainline denominations,	12:13
	or for that matter, even in evangelical churches,	12:18
	not that the one is exclusive the other.	12:22
	But this has to be said.	12:25
	It's about time that young people recognize	12:28
	that before they move on into their professions,	12:30
	they need to live among the poor and the oppressed.	12:33
	They need to spend a year among the poor and the oppressed.	12:35
	You're gonna be a doctor?	12:38
	Great, if you spend a year among the poor	12:39
	and the oppressed, you'll be a different kind of doctor.	12:42
	You're gonna be a teacher?	12:45
	You'll be a different kind of teacher.	12:46
	You'll be a different kind of lawyer,	12:47
	you'll be a different kind of anything.	12:48
	Here's what the young people in Mission Year do.	12:51
	They get together in groups of six.	12:52
	We rent a house.	12:55
	The team is connected to some inner city church,	12:57
	usually an African American or Hispanic church.	13:01
	They go to the church, but they don't exercise	13:05
	any leadership because they're gonna be gone in a year.	13:07
	They spend 15 hours a week doing community service,	13:11
	soup kitchens, volunteering in the public schools,	13:14
	tutoring after school, building houses	13:19
	with Habitat for Humanity, good stuff like that.	13:22
	And then, and then, they spend 25 hours a week	13:25
	just getting to know people in the neighborhood,	13:31
	knocking on doors.	13:34
	When people answer, say, hey,	13:34
	we're from the church down the street.	13:36
	Don't get nervous, we're not trying to convert you	13:37
	or lay a trip on you, we just wanna do one thing.	13:39
	We wanna pray God's blessing on you.	13:42
	Would you let us pray God's blessing on you	13:45
	and the people that live in the house with you?	13:46
	It's an interesting thing to ask,	13:49
	because even the agnostics say,	13:50
	well, it'll make you feel any better, go ahead.	13:52
	(congregation laughing)	13:56
	And then we ask the second question.	13:58
	Do you have any special needs?	14:01
	It's amazing.	14:02
	You'll hear someone say, yes, my husband's lost a job.	14:03
	He's so depressed he doesn't get out of bed.	14:06
	Another will say, yes, my daughter's pregnant	14:09
	for the second time, she's 16.	14:11
	We don't know what to do.	14:12
	Another will say, my son's in jail,	14:14
	and he's on drugs, and we don't even wanna get him out	14:16
	because he gets worse all the time.	14:19
	And we pray.	14:22
	You say, that's it?	14:23
	We pray, of course, when we get back	14:24
	to the house at the end of the day,	14:26
	we go over the cards of the people we visit.	14:27
	Here's a man who is without a job.	14:29
	Doesn't the YMCA run a job placement service?	14:32
	Let's call them and tell them to get somebody over there	14:35
	to visit that man.	14:38
	This woman with a daughter that's pregnant	14:39
	for the second time, the Episcopalians,	14:41
	they run that crisis pregnancy center.	14:44
	Let's tell them to get over and visit that young woman.	14:45
	This boy on drugs, let's get him out of jail	14:50
	and put him into Teen Challenge,	14:53
	that charismatic group that is so effective	14:55
	in getting kids off of drugs.	14:57
	We find that you don't have	14:59
	to create new programs for the city.	15:00
	The programs already exist.	15:02
	We find that the problem is that the people	15:05
	who need the help never go	15:08
	to where the programs are situated.	15:09
	We've gotta get the people	15:13
	who run the programs to go to them.	15:13
	I got off the rapid transit system in Oakland.	15:17
	We have programs in Oakland, Chicago, Philadelphia,	15:21
	Atlanta, Georgia, about 30 to 40 kids aimed	15:25
	at each of those communities,	15:28
	working in those neighborhoods.	15:30
	And I'm walking down the street,	15:32
	trying to find the place where all the teams of Oakland,	15:33
	there's six teams in Oakland,	15:36
	we're going to meet for worship.	15:37
	I was supposed to be the speaker	15:39
	and I couldn't find the place.	15:40
	I asked two women on the street,	15:42
	I said, "Can you tell me	15:43
	"where Aldersgate Methodist Church is?"	15:45
	And she said, "Yes,	15:48
	"it's just up the street about two blocks."	15:50
	The other woman said, "Oh, no, no, no.	15:52
	"He's talking about that other church,	15:54
	"the church where they pray	15:57
	"for everybody in the neighborhood."	15:59
	What an interesting thing to say about a church.	16:02
	I've heard them say about a church,	16:05
	they have great music.	16:07
	I've heard them say about a church,	16:08
	they have great preaching.	16:10
	I've heard them say about a church,	16:11
	they have a great social action program	16:13
	or a great youth program.	16:14
	When was the last time you've heard them say about a church,	16:15
	oh, they're the people that pray for everybody.	16:18
	And yet, if there's anything that Jesus wanted	16:22
	his temple to be, he wanted it to be a house of prayer.	16:24
	He wanted it to be a people who upheld	16:28
	those who were around them in prayer.	16:31
	And I say to young people who come and work with us,	16:34
	listen, you spend one year praying through people	16:38
	in the inner city whose lives are such a mess,	16:41
	whose suffering is beyond ordinary expectations.	16:44
	If you're with those people, you'll be different.	16:50
	Your whole life will be different.	16:53
	Your heart will be broken by the things	16:55
	that break the heart of Jesus.	16:58
	When you become a Christian, you not only come alive	17:02
	to life and hence become more human	17:05
	because you have an awareness of reality.	17:07
	But when you become a Christian and Jesus invades you,	17:10
	I mean, not just believe in him, but he invades you,	17:12
	Jesus becomes a living presence in your life,	17:15
	you become very intensely committed	17:18
	with people who are around you,	17:22
	but there's even a deeper thing than that.	17:23
	The phenomenologist and sociologist,	17:26
	sociology helped us a lot,	17:28
	people like George Herbert Mead and Madison	17:31
	would say there are three levels of our humanity,	17:33
	if we can call ourselves human.	17:36
	We have three dimensions.	17:39
	First, each of us has a body.	17:41
	My body says, George Herbert Mead	17:44
	is a thing, an object in the world.	17:46
	I've had that experience where I smashed a finger,	17:48
	this finger, particularly, went to the hospital	17:51
	and had it sewed up.	17:54
	They put Novocain in my arm, so there was no feeling	17:56
	between my shoulder and my hand.	18:00
	They put a sheet over it and cut a hole in it	18:02
	and shoved my finger up through this hole and began to sew,	18:05
	but I felt no connectedness.	18:09
	It was the weirdest thing in the world,	18:11
	looking at that thumb and saying, that's me.	18:13
	That belongs to me.	18:16
	It was an object in the world, indeed,	18:18
	and Madison says we must see, first of all,	18:21
	that our bodies are objects in the world.	18:24
	The second level of our existence	18:27
	is our stream of consciousness.	18:30
	Very often, when young people in universities	18:33
	get together and try to make out,	18:35
	you know what I mean, yeah.	18:38
	I got one guy over here that's going.	18:40
	(congregation laughing)	18:41
	That usually, after the initial encounters,	18:44
	there's this thing where you try to be sophisticated	18:46
	and deep and you say, tell me about yourself.	18:50
	Oh, it gets so heavy.	18:54
	And as I tell this young woman about me,	18:57
	I realize there's a difference between me being described	19:00
	and I who am doing the describing.	19:05
	In matter of fact, I'm not lying to her.	19:06
	I'm just choosing very carefully,	19:10
	out of all the realities of my life	19:13
	those things which I believe would impress her.	19:15
	I am conning her.	19:19
	I am presenting, as Erving Goffman says,	19:22
	I'm making a presentation of myself to her,	19:25
	and I'm presenting those things about me	19:28
	which I believe will really turn her on.	19:30
	Don't feel guilty if you're doing that, fella,	19:33
	because in all probability, not only are you conning her,	19:35
	but she is conning you.	19:40
	And, as a matter of fact, what we find in life	19:42
	is that usually what happens at a wedding	19:45
	is that two con jobs	19:47
	make vows to stay together no matter what,	19:51
	only to find a few years later that they've been conned,	19:54
	(congregation laughing)	19:59
	that the person that they thought they were marrying,	20:00
	the persons they thought they were marrying,	20:03
	don't really exist.	20:04
	I mean, I've had them come into my office and say,	20:06
	this isn't the man I married.	20:09
	Of course not.	20:12
	You were had, honey.	20:13
	You were had.	20:15
	(congregation laughing)
	So when I tell you about me, there's a difference	20:19
	between the me that I am presenting	20:21
	and I who am doing the presenting.	20:24
	Ah, but there's a third level.	20:26
	I have a body, which is a thing, an object.	20:29
	There is a description of me, a presentation of self	20:32
	that I make to the other, but there is something deeper.	20:34
	I lie behind the me that I present to you.	20:38
	And I who lie behind the me that I present to you	20:43
	can often be lonely.	20:46
	Soren Kierkegaard graphically describes the fact	20:49
	that the me that he presents to other	20:52
	is gregarious and funny and he talks	20:55
	about going to a party and being the life of the party	20:58
	and everybody thinks he's clever and debonair and smooth	21:00
	and exciting, and he said, and I went home	21:03
	and I wanted to blow my brains out.	21:05
	I am different from the me that I present to you.	21:10
	But through the power of the Holy Spirit,	21:14
	something can happen.	21:16
	I can connect with that third level	21:17
	of your humanity, with your I.	21:21
	I'm standing on a street corner at Penn.	21:26
	I taught at Penn for 10 years, University of Pennsylvania,	21:28
	and the duck lady came up alongside of me.	21:32
	We called her the duck lady	21:36
	because she never stopped quacking.	21:37
	She made this incessant song,	21:39
	she wandered around the campus,	21:40
	nobody knew what to do with her.	21:41
	We never knew what building she was sleeping in at night.	21:43
	We called her the duck lady because it was constant.	21:46
	Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack,	21:49
	she made this quacking song, quack, quack.	21:50
	She came right up alongside of me.	21:52
	I turned to her, she turned to me.	21:56
	And I reached into her eyes, and down into the depths	22:00
	of her being, and I connected.	22:03
	And in that I-thou encounter, she was no longer an object.	22:06
	I knew very little about her life,	22:10
	and yet, as Paul so eloquently says	22:14
	about such encounters, and yet, I knew her,	22:16
	even as also I am known.	22:20
	I felt myself connected, suddenly, through the power of God.	22:22
	This was no longer a superficial relationship,	22:27
	something profound was happening.	22:31
	She stopped her quacking.	22:33
	She looked around with an air of wonder,	22:36
	and she said, "It's lovely."	22:39
	It's lovely, and before I could ask her what she meant,	22:42
	the light changed.	22:46
	Someone bumped against her and her head shook,	22:48
	she fell back into her schizophrenic state,	22:50
	she started quacking again.	22:53
	She wandered down the street and disappeared	22:55
	into the crowd, and I thought to myself,	22:57
	if only I could have connected with her	22:59
	for just a minute or two longer,	23:00
	maybe three or four minutes,	23:02
	maybe the deliverance would have been more lasting.	23:04
	I believe in psychiatry and psychotherapy,	23:10
	but I wanna tell you that after they've done	23:12
	all that they can and failed,	23:14
	there is still a balm in Gilead.	23:15
	There is still a power that comes into our lives	23:18
	that enables us to connect with people	23:20
	on their deepest level, and that's where the healing	23:22
	of the soul takes place.	23:25
	To be human is not only to be alive to the wonders of life,	23:28
	but to be connected with people,	23:32
	to be connected with people in the deepest	23:34
	and most profound way.	23:37
	How many of us see each other as though	23:39
	through a glass darkly instead of face to face?	23:41
	How many of us know each other only in part	23:44
	instead of knowing each other even as we know ourselves?	23:46
	To be alive is one part of being human.	23:52
	To be connected in depth is another.	23:56
	But the last thing is this.	24:00
	To be human is to be able to imagine the future	24:02
	with glorious hope.	24:07
	Psychology has its limitations in America,	24:12
	because it tends to be bound by various forms	24:14
	of behaviorism and neo-Freudianism,	24:18
	and both of them have this mistake in common.	24:19
	They both understand that a person is predominantly	24:22
	the result of the experiences of the past,	24:26
	that what the culture has done	24:29
	and what past experiences have done	24:30
	to mold the individual have determined	24:32
	what the individual is, so if you take a psychology course	24:34
	in your first year of school,	24:37
	they want you to write a case study,	24:38
	because who you are is determined by what you've been.	24:40
	That's what is implied in the exercise.	24:44
	That's where Christianity differs.	24:49
	Christianity does not say what you are	24:52
	is the result of what you've been.	24:55
	What you are is determined	24:58
	by what you can imagine yourself becoming.	25:00
	The future molds you in the present	25:03
	more than anything in the past.	25:06
	In short, from a Christian perspective,	25:09
	we don't care where you've come from.	25:11
	We care about where you're going.	25:14
	What are your dreams, what are your visions?	25:15
	I worry about young people in universities	25:18
	because their dreams and visions tend to be about stuff.	25:20
	It's a consumeristic society, so that doesn't surprise me,	25:26
	but you know what I'm talking about.	25:28
	You ask 'em, why are you in school?	25:30
	You get one standard answer.	25:32
	Well, my parents told me if I get a good education,	25:34
	I'll get a good job.	25:36
	And if I get a good job, I'll make a lot of money.	25:39
	And if you have a lot of money,	25:44
	you'll be able to buy a lot of stuff.	25:45
	The size of American houses have increased 20%	25:48
	over the last 10 years,	25:51
	not because we have more children,	25:53
	not because we have larger families,	25:55
	we need bigger and bigger houses	25:57
	just to hold all the stuff.	25:59
	As I talk to students on campuses,	26:02
	their futures are wrapped up in stuff.	26:04
	I wanna get married, I wanna get a house,	26:06
	I wanna get a car, I wanna get the stuff, the stuff.	26:08
	And the culture has communicated to this generation	26:13
	that if you get all the stuff that the culture says	26:16
	you're supposed to have, there will be a deep sense	26:19
	of gratification and fulfillment.	26:22
	Man, Jesus had it easy.	26:26
	He said there are material things	26:28
	that will gratify material desires,	26:30
	but there are spiritual things,	26:35
	and they will gratify spiritual desires.	26:37
	Ours is a generation in which we dare to suggest	26:41
	to this generation of young people	26:43
	that material things will satisfy spiritual hungers.	26:45
	I am here to tell you that the greatest needs	26:50
	of the human heart cannot be gratified through shopping.	26:53
	And yet that's where we are.	26:58
	I was at UCLA and I was talking to students,	27:01
	and all they were talking about is success	27:03
	in terms of accumulation of stuff.	27:06
	And at a particular point, I had to say, "I'm 65.	27:09
	"You are 22, I am younger than you are	27:13
	"because people are as young as their dreams	27:16
	"and as old as their cynicism and for you,	27:20
	"it's all about manipulating the world	27:22
	"to get the stuff that you want."	27:24
	I have to ask every generation of young people	27:27
	this simple question.	27:30
	What's it all about?	27:31
	Lily Tomlin said, "I always said when I was a kid	27:33
	"that when I grew up I wanted to be somebody.	27:37
	"I should have been more specific."	27:41
	(congregation laughing)	27:43
	What are your dreams?	27:47
	What are your visions?	27:48
	The same Jesus that makes you alive to life,	27:50
	the same Jesus that empowers you to connect	27:52
	with others on the deepest level of existence,	27:55
	that same Jesus, that same Jesus	27:57
	comes into your life and gives you dreams and visions	28:01
	that are worthy of a human being.	28:05
	Working in the inner city,	28:11
	I was running a program one year in Philadelphia	28:14
	in nine different neighborhoods.	28:17
	We did all the things you do when you're working	28:19
	with inner city kids on a summer program.	28:21
	We did the Bible studies and the singing	28:23
	and the games, and then we had sports.	28:25
	By the end of the summer, we had a all-star basketball team	28:29
	that I set up against the Philadelphia Eagles football team.	28:32
	It was a wonderful, wonderful experience.	28:37
	I had the kids in a back room.	28:40
	I'm given them the old pep talk.	28:43
	I said, "I brought you out here to play	28:45
	"on a college court, because I wanted you to get the feel	28:47
	"of college ball, because I've got hopes for you,	28:49
	"I've got dreams for you."	28:51
	And their coach said, "Don't listen to him.	28:54
	"They came to my housing project	28:57
	"when I was a kid and they told me	28:59
	"that I could be something, that I could achieve,	29:00
	"that I could get out of the mess that I was in,	29:03
	"and I tried, I really tried,	29:05
	"but look at me, I'm still there.	29:07
	"And don't let him create false dreams for you."	29:08
	I hardly knew what to say.	29:13
	I turned to the kids and I modified Silverman's famous poem,	29:16
	and I said, "Listen to the mustn'ts, child.	29:20
	"Listen to the don'ts.	29:23
	"Listen to the never could bes,	29:25
	"and listen to the won'ts.	29:26
	"Listen to the never has been,	29:28
	"then listen close to me.	29:31
	"Anything can happen, child,	29:34
	"by God's grace, and through the power of God,	29:37
	"anything can be."	29:40
	To create hope.	29:43
	In the end, what does it mean to be a Christian,	29:44
	except this, as Hebrews, the 11th chapter,	29:46
	the first verse, faith.	29:48
	Having faith in Jesus, but what is faith?	29:50
	Faith says the scripture is the substance	29:52
	of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.	29:55
	What are your hopes?	29:58
	What are your dreams?	29:59
	I worry about young people who go to fancy schools like this	30:00
	because the system has the capacity	30:03
	to beat the dreams out of you.	30:05
	You were going to do something great,	30:08
	something magnificent, something daring,	30:09
	something that would change the world,	30:11
	something that would actualize something	30:13
	of the kingdom of God in history.	30:14
	You were gonna work for justice,	30:16
	you were gonna lift up the poor,	30:17
	you were gonna stand for the oppressed,	30:19
	you were gonna spend your lives sacrificially for Jesus	30:20
	and for the sake of others, and they beat it out of you.	30:24
	The problem with schools like ours	30:27
	is that they don't have good song writers anymore.	30:30
	Remember Pete Seeger?	30:35
	Little boxes on the hillside,	30:37
	little boxes made of ticky-tacky,	30:40
	little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same.	30:42
	There's a brown one and a blue one	30:44
	and a white one and a yellow one,	30:45
	and they're all made out of ticky-tack,	30:47
	and they all look just the same.	30:49
	And the people in the houses all go to the university	30:51
	where they're all put into boxes,	30:55
	little boxes all the same.	30:57
	There are doctors, there are lawyers,	30:59
	and business executives, and they're all made	31:01
	out of ticky-tack, and they all look just the same.	31:04
	And they all play on the golf course,	31:07
	and they all drink their martinis dry	31:09
	and they all have pretty children,	31:11
	and their children go to school.	31:13
	And their children go to summer camp	31:15
	and then to the university,	31:17
	where they're all put into boxes,	31:19
	little boxes all the same.	31:21
	And a voice echoes down the cordons of time,	31:24
	and says, I beseech you, therefore, brothers and sisters,	31:26
	by the mercies of God, that you present yourselves	31:28
	as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God,	31:32
	which is your reasonable service,	31:35
	and don't let the world around you	31:37
	put you into their little box,	31:39
	but let God come in and may God live through you	31:42
	in such a way that you do the incredible things	31:46
	that you were designed to do when you were created.	31:49
	There's nothing wrong with being a doctor, a teacher,	31:53
	a businessperson, but what kind of doctor?	31:55
	What kind of teacher?	31:58
	What kind of businessperson?	31:59
	Are you gonna be somebody with dreams and visions	32:00
	that use your vocation to change humanity,	32:03
	to alter the course of history,	32:06
	to make a difference for the kingdom of God?	32:08
	My Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God.	32:10
	Be at work in this world, transforming the world	32:14
	into the world that God wills for it to be.	32:17
	Oh, people.	32:21
	My wife is here, and my mother and my wife	32:22
	have been two of the most influential people in my life.	32:26
	My wife always calls me to higher ground.	32:29
	My mother used to say this little poem,	32:31
	only one life, t'will soon be past,	32:33
	only what's done for Jesus will last.	32:35
	The future,	32:41
	because what you commit yourself to in the future	32:43
	overcomes all the influences of the past.	32:47
	That's what the word conversion is all about.	32:50
	Animals don't get converted, humans get converted	32:53
	because they are able to redefine the future	32:55
	by the power and by the grace of God	32:59
	and are able to escape the confines of social conditioning	33:01
	and become fully actualized human beings.	33:08
	Brothers and sisters, this is the Apostle John,	33:12
	it hath not yet appeared what I shall be,	33:15
	but when I shall see him, I shall become like him.	33:17
	To be Christian is to be transformed	33:20
	into an actualized human being like Jesus Christ.	33:23
	That's what it's about, not just believing,	33:27
	but surrendering to an eternal Jesus	33:29
	that would invade us and transform us.	33:33
	Do you believe that the same Jesus	33:35
	that was on the cross is alive in this sanctuary,	33:36
	waiting to invade you, waiting to transform you,	33:39
	waiting to empower you for aliveness,	33:42
	enable you for deep, intimate relationships,	33:46
	and ultimately, make you into somebody	33:50
	who can believe in the future.	33:53
	One last thing, the existentialist philosophers understood	33:54
	that being able to conceptualize the future	33:59
	is what makes us human, but it had dangers	34:01
	because the minute you start thinking about the future	34:04
	and become aware of death, death is out there, I know,	34:06
	because I'm 66 now.	34:09
	I don't know what's happened to me.	34:12
	I'm tired and I'm old, and my idea of a happy hour is a nap.	34:14
	(congregation laughing)	34:18
	Soren Kierkegaard said, each of us is like a smooth pebble	34:23
	thrown across the surface of a pond,	34:26
	and we dance gracefully until that moment comes	34:28
	when we run out of momentum, and we sink	34:30
	to 100,000 fathoms of nothingness.	34:33
	I feel myself reaching that point.	34:36
	We make noise on New Year's Eve, he said,	34:38
	to drown out the macabre sound	34:41
	of grass growing over our graves.	34:42
	Death, said Freud, destroys the zest for life.	34:45
	Death saps our energy.	34:52
	It creates anxieties about the future.	34:55
	We're afraid to even think of the future	34:57
	because we're afraid of what the future holds	34:59
	because ultimately, death lies out there.	35:01
	Young people don't grasp that as much as older people do,	35:04
	but I, as I put my head down	35:07
	on the pillow night after night,	35:08
	the thought comes to me, you're one day closer.	35:10
	You're one day closer.	35:14
	You're one day closer.	35:16
	But the Jesus that I preach, is a Jesus	35:18
	that not only makes us alive, is a Jesus	35:21
	that not only connects us with others in love,	35:24
	a Jesus that not only makes us into dreamers	35:27
	and visionaries, who will attempt great things for God	35:29
	and expect great things from God,	35:32
	but it's a Jesus that takes away	35:33
	the ultimate fear of human existence.	35:35
	"I am the resurrection and the life," saith Jesus.	35:39
	"He that believeth in me, though he were dead,	35:41
	"yet shall he live."	35:43
	My father in law died a couple of years ago,	35:46
	a few years ago.	35:49
	He went to bed, suffering from hardening of the arteries.	35:51
	For months previously, he wasn't able to think clearly	35:58
	or to remember correctly.	36:03
	He was an angelic man, and so he just sat around	36:07
	smiling all the time.	36:09
	And then one morning, at 6:15 a.m.,	36:13
	my mother in law said he sat up in bed.	36:17
	And he spoke coherently.	36:20
	He spoke to an unseen image in the room,	36:23
	and he yelled at it, "O death, where is thy sting?	36:27
	"O grave, where is your victory?	36:34
	"Praise be to God, that giveth me victory."	36:40
	And he leaned back in bed and he died.	36:46
	What a way to go.	36:52
	Triumphant in the face of the greatest enemy	36:54
	of human existence, knowing that those who are in Christ	36:57
	and those in whom Christ dwells	37:01
	are the overcomers of death itself.	37:03
	And so I call you today, not just to believe in Jesus,	37:08
	but to go to a quiet place, a still place.	37:13
	Jesus says go into the closet and shut the door.	37:16
	And in that stillness, beg Jesus,	37:19
	who is in that closet with you,	37:24
	to invade you, to take the deadness of your soul away	37:27
	and to give you a sense of wonder.	37:31
	Ask that Jesus to come into your life	37:35
	and empower you to connect with other people,	37:36
	especially those who are in need.	37:39
	Let that Jesus invade you.	37:41
	And make you into a dreamer and a visionary,	37:43
	knowing that it's never too old	37:46
	to have a happy childhood.	37:49
	Let Jesus come in	37:54
	and take away the fear of the final enemy.	37:56
	Pray with me.	38:02
	O Jesus, thou art not only the Son of God,	38:05
	but thou art the Son of Man.	38:09
	You come not only as a revealer of God,	38:12
	you come as a revealer of what each of us is called to be.	38:18
	I pray that people all over this sanctuary	38:24
	will, in the quietude of this morning,	38:27
	say Jesus, I've always believed in you.	38:30
	But this morning, I invite you into my life.	38:34
	I want to be invaded by you.	38:36
	I want to live with a sense of wonder.	38:39
	I wanna be connected with people in depth.	38:41
	I wanna be a person of dreams and visions about the future.	38:44
	I wanna be human.	38:52
	O Jesus, invade me and change me	38:56
	into what you are, amen.	39:02
	As the service is over, I will be in the back.	39:08
	I will be, I guess they call it the narthex.	39:10
	I'm Baptist, we don't have good names for things like that.	39:12
	(congregation laughing)	39:15
	I think we call it a vestibule.	39:17
	If you're between the ages of 18 and 30	39:20
	and you say, I'm ready to give a year of my life	39:23
	to being among the poor and the oppressed in the city,	39:27
	we will nurture you, we'll take care of you,	39:30
	we'll train you, we'll be with you,	39:31
	day after day after day, but would you come and be with us?	39:33
	Give me your name and address on a slip of paper.	39:36
	I wanna send you all the material	39:38
	that'll tell you about this.	39:42
	I am really, you say, what are you doing, recruiting?	39:44
	I am recruiting.	39:46
	(congregation laughing)	39:48
	The other thing is that I need people	39:49
	to put up money to keep these young people on the field.	39:51
	I have a couple of hundred now who wanna do this	39:53
	and so, if you're here today and you're over 30,	39:56
	I can't really say, come and live in our program,	40:00
	but I want your money.	40:04
	(congregation laughing)	40:07
	So on the way out, you give me your name and address	40:09
	and just say money.	40:10
	I would love you to commit something like 30 bucks	40:13
	a month, that's a dollar a day.	40:15
	You can afford it.	40:17
	You don't have to do this, though.	40:18
	Don't feel intimidated as you come out,	40:19
	don't feel that you have to sneak out another door.	40:22
	I mean, I won't give you a dirty look	40:24
	if you don't give me your name and address,	40:26
	but if you do, I will hug you.	40:28
	(congregation laughing)	40:31
	God bless you, it's been good, really good	40:32
	to be with you this morning.	40:35

Item Info

Title:

Anthony Campolo - "A Psychology for Christians" (March 18, 2001)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:25. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 38:02.
Using the tools of psychology and sociology alongside the Gospel of Jesus Christ, this sermon examines what it means to be truly human--to live in wonder, to allow Jesus to invade and transform us, to have hopeful vision, and to conquer death; the sermon calls the hearers to a deeper relationship with Jesus that will allow them to become more fully who God has intended humans to be. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4s17t71r

Date:

March 18, 2001

Speaker:

Campolo, Anthony

Liturgical Calendar:

Lent

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1057
ref10271_rvj
uachapelsermaud
duke:321163
dcrau001701
ark:/87924/r4s17t71r
069bfbab-e1a8-476d-88ed-a9de37ef4917

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Anthony Campolo - "A Psychology for Christians" (March 18, 2001)

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

More Info & Options