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

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-	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.)

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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

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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English

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

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