Paul Tillich - "Be Strong" (March 13, 1955)

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-	Oh God, the fountain of all good,	0:47
	we bring to thee our gifts according as thou has prospered	0:51
	us, enable us with our earthly things	0:55
	to give thee the love of our hearts and the service	0:59
	of our lives, through Jesus Christ thou God, amen.	1:02
-	The text is speaking from first Corinthian 16, 13 to 14.	1:36
	Be watchful, stand firm in your faith,	1:46
	be courageous, be strong.	1:54
	That all, that you do be done in love.	2:01
	Out of this well known passage,	2:11
	I choose two words	2:16
	on which I want you to center your attention	2:20
	in this hour.	2:23
	The words, be strong.	2:26
	How can I obtain strength?	2:33
	This is a question asked in all	2:38
	ages of mens life	2:42
	and in all periods of human history.	2:47
	It is a question asked	2:53
	with passion and despair in our time	2:57
	and asked most impatiently by those,	3:03
	who are no more children	3:09
	and not yet adults.	3:13
	In our text, Paul uses	3:19
	several times the imperative.	3:24
	Be strong, he asks the questions.	3:29
	We easily slip over it,	3:37
	but the short arrest of attention	3:42
	as fully, perhaps even more,	3:46
	than the other words of our text.	3:52
	For the demanding word "be"	3:58
	contains in its two letters, the whole riddle	4:04
	of the relation of men to God.	4:11
	Paul asks of the Christians of Corinth,	4:19
	not something, which is strange to them.	4:24
	He asks them to be what they are,	4:29
	Christians.	4:34
	All the imperatives he uses	4:37
	are descriptions of something, that is	4:42
	before they become demands	4:49
	for something that ought to be.	4:53
	Be what you are,	4:59
	that is the only thing one can ask of any being.	5:04
	One cannot ask of a being to be something,	5:12
	it is not according to its true nature.	5:18
	But this can and must one ask.	5:23
	One has a feeling	5:31
	as if life in all its forms,	5:34
	desires to be asked, to receive demands,	5:39
	but no life can receive demands	5:48
	for something, which it is not.	5:55
	It wants to be asked to become what it is	6:00
	and nothing else.	6:06
	This seems surprising,	6:10
	but the little part shows us, that it is true.	6:14
	Nobody questions,	6:21
	that one cannot ask fruits from ferns	6:25
	or grain from weed.	6:30
	Or water from a dry fountain	6:36
	or love from a cold heart.	6:40
	Or courage from a cowardly mind	6:44
	or strength from a weak life.	6:49
	If we ask such things from beings,	6:55
	who don't have them, we are foolish.	7:00
	And either they will laugh at us	7:06
	or they will move against us	7:10
	as unfair and hostile.	7:15
	We can ask of anything or anyone	7:21
	only to bring forth what he has,	7:27
	to become what he can become.	7:32
	Out of what is given to us we can act,	7:37
	receiving in all life	7:43
	precedes acting.	7:47
	Be strong, says Paul, he says it to those,	7:53
	who have received strength,	7:59
	as he himself has received strength	8:03
	in his weakness	8:07
	and the power of a new reality grasps him	8:10
	on his road to Damascus.	8:14
	Now some of us will ask, what about us?	8:20
	Who feel, that we have nothing received.	8:27
	That we do not have faith,	8:32
	courage and strength and love.	8:36
	We are wanting in all this,	8:43
	so is he commanding be of Paul not set to us?	8:49
	Or if somebody says it to us,	8:57
	must we not remain unconcerned	9:01
	or become hostile to him who says it?	9:06
	We are not strong,	9:12
	so nobody can ask us to be strong.	9:15
	Shall we remain weak?	9:21
	Shall we fall into resignation and become	9:25
	cynical about such demands and say,	9:30
	they may be for others,	9:36
	they are not for us.	9:39
	I hear many people,	9:43
	more than we believe, saying that.	9:47
	I hear whole classes of young people speak like that.	9:51
	I hear many individuals	9:58
	in the older generations repeat it.	10:01
	And I don't find any consolation in the Bible.	10:09
	There's a parable of the different soils,	10:17
	on which the seed of the divine message falls	10:22
	and on which only one soil brings fruit.	10:28
	There's the word of the many, who are called	10:36
	and the few who are elected.	10:41
	There's a terrifyingly realistic statement of Jesus,	10:47
	that those, to whom much is given	10:53
	will receive more	10:57
	and that from those to whom little is given,	11:01
	even this will be taken away.	11:07
	There's a contrast between those,	11:12
	who are born out of light and have	11:16
	become its children and those who are born	11:21
	out of darkness	11:26
	and have become its children.	11:29
	There's the parable of man as clay,	11:35
	which cannot revolt against God's potter,	11:40
	whatever the potter does to the clay.	11:46
	We would like to revolt,	11:52
	when we hear this.	11:56
	Many Christians revolt	11:59
	and have revolted,	12:05
	I have heard many of them, whenever they read	12:08
	or heard these words.	12:12
	They close their ears against such hard words,	12:16
	because they cannot stand them.	12:23
	We would like to revolt, when we hear this also,	12:30
	but if we look around us and to the life of men,	12:38
	we are false to say, they are true	12:44
	the Bible at least	12:51
	sees reality as it is, even if the	12:52
	preaching of the Bible does not.	12:58
	We would like to say in good democratic phrasing,	13:03
	everyone gets a chance by God to reach fulfillment,	13:10
	but not everybody uses it.	13:16
	Some do, some don't.	13:19
	Both have their ultimate destiny in their own hands.	13:22
	We would like, that it were so,	13:30
	but we cannot escape the truth,	13:34
	that it is not so,	13:38
	the chances are not even.	13:42
	There's only a limited number of human beings	13:46
	to whom one can say, be strong,	13:52
	because they have received strength	13:58
	and the others,	14:03
	to whom many of us may belong,	14:06
	the only thing, the only honest thing	14:11
	I could say to them is accept,	14:16
	that you are weak.	14:21
	Don't pretend, that you are strong	14:25
	and if you dare to be what you are,	14:30
	this will be your strength,	14:35
	the only one you can have now.	14:39
	Accept, that you are weak,	14:44
	that is what we should say to those, who are weak.	14:48
	Accept, that you are a coward,	14:55
	that is what we should say to those, who are coward.	14:59
	Accept, that you are uncertain about your faith,	15:05
	that's what we should say to those, who are not firm in it.	15:11
	And to those, who don't learn,	15:18
	we should say accept it,	15:22
	that you are not able to learn.	15:27
	This sounds strange,	15:33
	but everyone who knows the human soul,	15:37
	above all, who knows his own soul,	15:42
	will understand what is meant.	15:46
	He will understand that for the weak ones,	15:50
	the first thing is to acknowledge and to accept	15:55
	their weakness. He who does this	16:00
	will cease to deceive himself by saying,	16:06
	I have at least something of what the apostle demands,	16:11
	he can demand it from me or partly at least I have it.	16:16
	There are perhaps people, who could rightly speak	16:23
	this to themselves,	16:28
	but just they would not do it.	16:31
	That there are others, for whom it is self deception,	16:35
	if they judge themselves in this way	16:41
	and to them we must say,	16:46
	accept, that you are weak	16:50
	for you are weak. Be honest towards yourselves.	16:53
	Let me say a word to those,	17:01
	who are responsible for others,	17:05
	as parents, teachers,	17:08
	ministers, counselors, friends.	17:12
	Don't say the demanding "be" to anybody	17:18
	without fear and great hesitation,	17:23
	if you use it, even if you use it towards yourselves,	17:28
	you touch at the mystery	17:35
	of a person's destiny	17:40
	in the perspective of the eternal.	17:44
	You touch at the mystery	17:50
	of your own eternal destiny.	17:54
	And all that's here, what Paul says to those,	18:01
	whom he considers to be strong.	18:06
	And whom therefore he can asked to be strong.	18:11
	The first thing he says is,	18:16
	that they shall we watchful.	18:20
	He knows, there is a non Christian	18:24
	in every Christian,	18:30
	there is a weak one in every strong one,	18:33
	there's cowardice in every courage.	18:38
	And unbelief in every faith	18:41
	and much hidden hostility in every love.	18:46
	Watchfulness means,	18:53
	that the Christian never can rest on his being a Christian.	18:57
	That a strong one never can rely	19:03
	on his strength.	19:08
	He must rely on something else.	19:10
	Paul calls it faith,	19:16
	he asks the Corinthians	19:21
	to stand on a firm ground.	19:23
	On a ground, which cannot be shaken,	19:28
	when all other foundations have shaken.	19:32
	The ultimate, the divine ground.	19:35
	To stand on this ground means to stand in the faith.	19:41
	Paul of course thinks of the faith	19:49
	in the form in which he has brought it to the Corinthians,	19:54
	but in this faith, the faith itself is present.	20:00
	Namely the standing on the ultimate ground,	20:07
	below any shaking and changing ground,	20:12
	to break the way to this ultimate ground	20:17
	is a meaning of the Christ.	20:22
	Stand firm in your faith means,	20:27
	don't give up that faith,	20:32
	which alone can make you ultimately strong	20:34
	by giving you the ultimate ground on which to stand.	20:39
	And everybody needs a ground to stand on.	20:45
	Standing firm in one's faith does not mean	20:51
	to adhere to a set of beliefs,	20:56
	it does not request us	21:01
	to suppress doubts about Christian or other doctrines.	21:04
	But it points to something,	21:11
	which lies beyond doubt,	21:14
	in that depths, in which men's being	21:18
	and all beings are rooted.	21:22
	To be aware of this ultimate ground,	21:28
	whatever its name is,	21:32
	to live in it and out of it	21:36
	is ultimate strength.	21:40
	Be strong and stand in faith	21:44
	is one and the same demand.	21:49
	But now	21:55
	remembering what we first said	21:58
	about the limits of every imperative,	22:02
	some may reply, we do not stand	22:08
	in any faith,	22:13
	doubt or unbelief is our destiny,	22:16
	but not faith.	22:20
	We know, they continue, that you are right.	22:24
	That there is no strength, where there is no faith,	22:30
	but we have no faith.	22:35
	And if there's some strength in us,	22:38
	it is, if we can call it so,	22:43
	the strength of honesty.	22:47
	The unwillingness to subject ourselves	22:52
	to a faith, which is not ours.	22:57
	Be it for conventional reasons,	23:02
	be it for obedience to our parents,	23:07
	be it because of our own longing for strength,	23:12
	be it under the impression	23:18
	of emotion arousing evangelists	23:21
	as so many of our contemporaries.	23:26
	Our strength, they say,	23:33
	is to resist all this.	23:36
	And to reject strength coming	23:40
	out of the sacrifice	23:44
	of our intellectual integrity.	23:48
	Some of the best in our time would speak like this,	23:54
	to them I answer,	24:00
	your honesty proves your faith	24:04
	and therefore your honesty is your strength.	24:09
	You may not believe in anything,	24:15
	which can be stated in doctrines,	24:18
	but you stand on the ultimate ground,	24:22
	you stand firm in your faith as long as you stand in honesty	24:27
	and take your doubt	24:33
	and your unbelief	24:37
	seriously without restriction.	24:41
	Become aware of the faith, which you have	24:47
	and perhaps you will find even words for it,	24:52
	perhaps not.	24:58
	Perhaps you will find even Christian words for it,	25:00
	perhaps not.	25:05
	But with or without words, be strong,	25:08
	for you are strong.	25:13
	You are strong in the seriousness of your honesty.	25:17
	There's another enemy of strength,	25:26
	even more powerful, than the lack of faith.	25:30
	It is a disunity within ourselves.	25:36
	And the lack of courage coming out of it.	25:42
	The weakness which prevents us	25:49
	to say yes to ourselves.	25:55
	For the affirmation of one's self	25:59
	demands the greatest courage.	26:04
	He, who is united with himself	26:09
	is invincibly strong,	26:13
	but who is?	26:17
	We all are dominated by forces, which conquer	26:21
	parts of our being.	26:26
	And split our personality.	26:29
	We lack the strength, which is given with the united	26:33
	centered personality,	26:38
	we are disrupted by compulsions,	26:42
	formerly called demonic powers.	26:46
	And who could tell this split personality,	26:53
	be strong.	26:57
	To which side of the personality can such a command	27:00
	be addressed, but something else can happen	27:05
	to such a personality	27:10
	and perhaps it has happened to some of us,	27:14
	healing power	27:19
	maybe coming through men,	27:22
	but ultimately coming from the ground on which we stand	27:27
	can enter the personality	27:33
	and can unite it with itself	27:37
	so that an act of courage can become possible.	27:41
	I speak of the courage	27:49
	which takes upon itself the anxiety	27:51
	of our split personality.	27:56
	This courage is the inner most center of faith,	28:01
	it dares to affirm ourselves	28:09
	in spite of the deep anxiety about ourselves.	28:14
	Out of this courage to say in spite of,	28:21
	strength emerges,	28:28
	that strength, which overcomes	28:31
	the power splitting our soul and our world.	28:35
	Be courageous,	28:41
	say yes, yes to yourself,	28:44
	yes to your world	28:48
	in spite of the anxiety of the no,	28:51
	which is always working within you.	28:57
	And now Paul adds something	29:04
	to what he asks of the strong personality,	29:10
	something, which seems to be almost the opposite of it,	29:16
	he says,	29:22
	let all that you do be done in love.	29:24
	The strength of the personality,	29:30
	who Paul has in mind,	29:34
	is based on something beyond courage and faith.	29:37
	It is not the strength of a hero,	29:43
	it is the strength of him	29:48
	who surrenders the praise, which he would have	29:50
	received as a hero,	29:54
	as a strong personality	29:58
	to the humility of love.	30:01
	We all know strong personalities,	30:07
	perhaps in our family, in our friendship,	30:11
	in public life, whom we admire.	30:16
	But of whom we feel, that something is wanting.	30:21
	One can be strong by subjecting one's self	30:28
	to a strong discipline and by suppressing much	30:31
	in one's self	30:36
	and becoming powerful in relation to others.	30:40
	It is often this type of men, which is called	30:46
	a strong personality,	30:50
	certainly strength without the ability	30:54
	to direct one's self is impossible.	30:59
	But those, who have this ability and are admired	31:03
	as strong personalities, should ask themselves	31:08
	whether something is wanting.	31:14
	They should ask themselves whether their strength	31:18
	is not without love.	31:25
	Perhaps in order to confirm themselves,	31:30
	to say yes to themselves,	31:35
	they force upon others	31:39
	the same restrictions of life they have imposed	31:41
	on themselves.	31:47
	And their domineering strength	31:50
	creates opposition	31:55
	or submissiveness and in any case,	31:59
	weakness in others.	32:04
	There's a profound ambiguity	32:08
	about the strong Christian personality.	32:12
	Christianity could not live,	32:18
	society could not go on without them.	32:21

Item Info

Title:

Paul Tillich - "Be Strong" (March 13, 1955)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 00:47. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 32:26.
Key quotation: “Stand firm in your faith means, don’t give up that faith which alone can make you ultimately strong by giving you the ultimate ground on which to stand…To be aware of this ultimate ground, whatever its name is, to live in it and out of it, is ultimate strength. Be strong and stand in faith is one and the same demand.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gt5fw13

Date:

March 13, 1955

Speaker:

Tillich, Paul, 1886-1965

Liturgical Calendar:

Lent

Biblical Book:

1 Corinthians

Chapter and Verse:

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0008
ref5239_ezj
uachapelsermaud
duke:320758
dcrau001769
ark:/87924/r4gt5fw13
c6156e0c-1545-41ce-a642-63d56f8a0060

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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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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Paul Tillich - "Be Strong" (March 13, 1955)

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