Paul Tillich - "The Flight From God" (November 17, 1957)

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	(indistinct talking)	0:24
-	Our text is taken from the Gospel of Matthew	0:28
	the 26th chapter, the 56th verse.	0:34
	Then all the disciples	0:40
	forsook him and fled.	0:43
	And one evening, I listened	0:50
	to the records of Bach's Passion	0:55
	according to St. Matthew.	1:00
	I was struck by text and music	1:04
	of this one line.	1:09
	Then all the disciples	1:12
	forsook him and fled.	1:16
	It anticipates	1:20
	the word of Jesus on the cross,	1:24
	my God, my God,	1:28
	why hast thou forsaken me?	1:31
	He who is forsaken by all men	1:38
	feels forsaken by God.	1:43
	And, indeed, all men left him.	1:48
	And those who were nearest to him	1:54
	fled farthest away from him.	1:58
	We ordinarily are not aware of this fact.	2:03
	We are used to imagine the crucifixion	2:09
	in terms of those beautiful pictures	2:14
	in which, besides his mother and other women,	2:19
	at least one disciple is present.	2:22
	The reality was different.	2:27
	They all fled.	2:31
	And some women dare to watch	2:34
	only from far.	2:38
	An unimaginable loneliness in the moments	2:42
	in which his life and his work were broken.	2:48
	What shall we think about the disciples?	2:55
	Our first reaction probably is the question,	3:01
	how could they forsake Him,	3:06
	whom they had called The Messiah, the Christ,	3:10
	the Bringer of the New Age of the World,	3:16
	whom they had followed	3:21
	having left everything for His sake?	3:24
	But my reaction was different when I heard	3:30
	the words and tones of the record.	3:33
	I admired the disciples.	3:39
	For it is they to whom we owe	3:43
	the words of our text,	3:47
	they did not hide their flight,	3:51
	they simply stated it	3:56
	in one short sentence,	3:59
	a sentence by which they are judged for all times.	4:03
	The gospel stories bring many judgments	4:10
	against the disciples.	4:15
	We hear that they,	4:19
	including his mother and his brothers,	4:22
	misunderstood him continuously	4:25
	and that their misunderstanding	4:30
	increased his daily passion.	4:34
	We read that some of the most important amongst them	4:39
	made claims to receive exceptional	4:44
	glory and power in the world to come.	4:48
	We hear that Jesus reproached them	4:55
	because their zeal for Him	5:01
	made them fanatical against those	5:05
	who did not follow Him.	5:11
	And in the reports	5:15
	we last saw Peter himself,	5:18
	we read that Jesus had to call him Satan	5:22
	because Peter tried to dissuade him	5:29
	from going to Jerusalem into his death.	5:34
	And we read in the same reports	5:39
	that Peter denied his discipleship	5:43
	in the hour of test.	5:47
	These reports are astonishing.	5:51
	They show what Jesus did to the disciples.	5:55
	He taught them to accept judgment	6:01
	and not to present themselves	6:06
	in a favorable light.	6:10
	Without accepting such judgment	6:14
	they could not have been his disciples,	6:19
	and our gospels would not be what they are	6:23
	if the disciples had suppressed	6:29
	the truth about their	6:33
	own profound weakness,	6:36
	the glory of the Christ	6:40
	and the misery of his followers	6:43
	would not be manifest in the records	6:47
	as it is now.	6:52
	And yet	6:56
	even in the same records,	6:59
	the desire of men to cover up his ugliness	7:02
	makes itself felt.	7:07
	Later traditions in our gospels	7:11
	tried to smooth the hard and hurting edges	7:15
	of the original picture.	7:20
	One could not bear within the established congregations	7:23
	the fact that all the disciples fled,	7:29
	that none of them was a witness of the crucifixion	7:34
	and the death of the master.	7:38
	One could not accept the fact	7:42
	that only far away in Galilee	7:45
	their flight was arrested by the appearance of Him	7:49
	whom they left alone	7:54
	in the hour of his agony and despair.	7:57
	So later on one said	8:02
	that Jesus himself had told them to go to Galilee.	8:07
	Their flight was not a real flight.	8:11
	And still later one said that they did not flee at all,	8:15
	but remained in Jerusalem.	8:20
	From earliest times on,	8:24
	the church could not stand the judgment against itself,	8:28
	its past and its present.	8:33
	It tries to hide that the disciples,	8:37
	what the disciples openly admitted,	8:41
	that we all forsook him and fled,	8:45
	that this is the truth about all men	8:50
	including the followers of Jesus	8:55
	today as in all times.	9:00
	The flight from God starts in the moment	9:06
	in which we feel His presence.	9:10
	Such feeling can work in the dark	9:15
	half conscious regions of our being,	9:19
	unrecognized but effective	9:23
	in the restlessness of the	9:27
	child's asking and seeking,	9:30
	of the adolescence's doubts and despairs,	9:34
	of the adult's desires and struggles.	9:38
	God is present, but not as God.	9:44
	He's present as the unknown force in us	9:49
	that makes us restless.	9:54
	But in some moments He appears as God,	9:59
	the unknown force in us which caused our restlessness	10:04
	becomes manifest as the God in whose hands we are	10:09
	with ultimate threat and ultimate refuge.	10:15
	In such moments it is as	10:22
	if we were arrested in our hidden flight.	10:26
	But it is not an arrest by brutal force,	10:32
	it is an arrest which has the character of a question,	10:36
	and we remain free to continue our flight.	10:43
	This is what happened to the disciples.	10:50
	They were powerfully arrested	10:54
	when Jesus first called them,	10:57
	but they remained free to flee again.	11:01
	And so they did when the hour of test came.	11:06
	And so it is about the church and all its members,	11:12
	they are arrested in their hidden flight	11:17
	and brought into the conscious presence of God	11:21
	but they remained free to flee again.	11:26
	Not only as individual men,	11:31
	but also as bearers of the church	11:34
	pushing the church itself	11:38
	upon the road to Galilee,	11:42
	driving it as far away as possible	11:45
	from the point	11:50
	where the eternal breaks into the temporal.	11:52
	Men is fleeing from God.	11:58
	He's fleeing from God even in the church,	12:07
	in the place in which we are supposed to be arrested	12:12
	by the presence of God.	12:18
	Even there we are in flight from him.	12:21
	If the ultimate cuts into the life of men,	12:30
	he tries to take cover in the preliminary.	12:34
	He flees from the attack of that which hit him	12:40
	with unconditional seriousness	12:45
	running for a safe place.	12:48
	And there are many places which look as safe to us	12:52
	as Galilee looked for the fleeing disciples.	12:58
	Let us consider some of them.	13:03
	Perhaps most effective in providing safety	13:08
	from the threatening presence of God	13:13
	is in our time the work we are doing.	13:17
	This was not always so.	13:22
	The attitude of the ancient men towards work	13:25
	is well summed up	13:29
	in the curse God speaks over Adam,	13:32
	in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,	13:36
	and in the words of 90 Psalm	13:41
	about the short years of our life,	13:44
	yet their span is but toil and trouble.	13:48
	Later on, bodily labor, with its toil and its drudgery,	13:55
	was left to the slaves, serfs or uneducated classes.	14:01
	And it was distinguished from creative work,	14:07
	the privilege of the few based on leisure time.	14:12
	Medieval Christianity	14:18
	considered work as a discipline	14:21
	especially in the monastic life.	14:25
	But in the last period of our history,	14:29
	work has become the all-dominating	14:33
	destiny of all of us.	14:37
	If not, in reality, so in demand.	14:41
	It is everything.	14:45
	Discipline, production, creation.	14:47
	The difference between labor and work is gone.	14:51
	The fact that it stands under a curse	14:56
	in biblical view is forgotten.	14:59
	It has become a religion in itself,	15:02
	the religion of modern industrial society,	15:07
	and it has all of us in its grip.	15:12
	Even if you were able to escape	15:16
	the punishment of starvation for not working,	15:18
	something within us would not permit an escape	15:22
	from the bondage to work.	15:27
	For most of us, it is both a necessity	15:30
	and a compulsion.	15:35
	And as such it has become the	15:38
	favored way of our flight from God.	15:42
	And nothing seems to be safer than this way.	15:49
	We ourselves get out of it the satisfaction	15:54
	to have fulfilled our duty.	15:58
	We are praised by others and by ourselves	16:01
	for work well done.	16:05
	We are providing support for our family	16:08
	or care for its members.	16:13
	We overcome day by day the dangers of leisure,	16:17
	boredom and disorder.	16:21
	We get a good conscience out of it.	16:24
	And as a cynical philosopher has said,	16:27
	the real end of it, a good sleep.	16:31
	And if we do that kind of work,	16:36
	which is called creative,	16:40
	we have an even higher satisfaction.	16:43
	The joy of bringing something new	16:48
	into being.	16:54
	If somebody tells us that this is not his way	16:57
	to flee from God, we should ask him,	17:02
	did you never draw a balance	17:07
	sheet of your whole being,	17:11
	and if you did it honestly	17:14
	and discovered many points	17:18
	on the negative side, did you not write then	17:20
	on the other side your work	17:24
	and gained a positive balance in this way?	17:28
	The Pharisee of today would boast before God,	17:36
	not so much of his obedience to the law	17:40
	and of his religious exercises,	17:44
	as he would boast of his hard work	17:47
	and his disciplined successful life.	17:52
	And he would also find sinners,	17:56
	with him he could compare himself favorably.	18:00
	For there is another way to flee from God,	18:08
	the way which promises to lead us	18:12
	into the abundance of life	18:16
	and which keeps this promise to a great extent.	18:19
	It is not necessarily the way of the Prodigal Son	18:24
	in the Parable of Jesus,	18:28
	it can be the acceptance of the fullness of life	18:31
	open to us by a searching mind	18:35
	and the driving power of love	18:39
	taught the greatness and beauty of creation.	18:42
	Such longing for life does not need to close our eyes	18:47
	to the tragedy within greatness,	18:52
	to the darkness within light,	18:55
	to the pain within pleasure,	18:57
	to the ugliness within beauty.	19:00
	Perhaps the life of all men would be more abundant	19:03
	if more men and women dared to experience	19:09
	the abundance of life.	19:14
	But this also can be a way of fleeing from God,	19:18
	just as the way of labor and work,	19:23
	in the ecstasy of living the limits	19:27
	of the abundance of life are forgotten.	19:29
	I do not speak of the shallow methods	19:34
	of having a good time,	19:38
	of the desire for fun and entertainment,	19:40
	this is in most cases the other side	19:44
	of the flight from God under the cover of labor and work,	19:48
	it is called recreation and is justified	19:54
	by everybody as a means of better work.	19:58
	But I speak of the ecstasy of living	20:03
	which includes participation	20:08
	in the highest and the lowest of life	20:11
	in one and the same experience	20:14
	and this demands courage and passion	20:18
	but it also can be flight from God.	20:22
	We should not	20:27
	be judged morally for it,	20:30
	but we should be made aware	20:34
	of the restlessness	20:38
	and the fear to encounter God.	20:41
	The men who is under the bondage of work	20:45
	should not boast against the men	20:50
	who loves the abundance of life,	20:55
	but he should not, the other one should not boast either	20:59
	against him who is in the bondage of work.	21:05
	Both are fleeing from God.	21:10
	There are many in our time who have experienced	21:16
	the limits of both ways,	21:19
	for whom successful work has become as meaningless	21:22
	as diving into the abundance of life.	21:27
	I'm speaking of the skeptics and cynics	21:31
	of those in anxiety and despair,	21:35
	of those who for a moment in their lives	21:39
	have been stopped in their flight from God	21:42
	and then continued, though, in a new form,	21:45
	in the form of consciously questioning or denying Him.	21:50
	Their attitude is very much described	21:56
	in our period by literature and the arts,	22:01
	they are considered as the two representatives	22:05
	of men's predicament.	22:10
	And somehow this is justified.	22:12
	If they are serious skeptics,	22:16
	their seriousness and the suffering	22:20
	following from it justifies them.	22:24
	If they are desperately in despair,	22:28
	the hell of their (audio cuts)	22:32
	and witness to it. They are edified by it.	22:41
	They are better than the disciples.	22:46
	But are they really?	22:50
	If the cross has become a tenet of our religious heritage,	22:53
	of parental and denominational traditions,	22:58
	is it then still the cross of the Christ,	23:03
	the decisive point in which the eternal	23:07
	cuts into the temporal?	23:11
	But perhaps it's not the paternal tradition	23:16
	which keeps us near the cross,	23:20
	perhaps it's the sudden emotional experience, a conversion,	23:23
	under the impact of a powerful preacher or evangelist	23:28
	that has brought us for the first time	23:33
	face-to-face with the cross.	23:37
	Even then, on the height of our emotion,	23:40
	we should ask ourselves,	23:44
	is our bow to the cross	23:48
	not the safest form of our flight from the cross?	23:51
	Or are we arrested, like the disciplines in Galilee,	23:58
	honestly and lastingly?	24:04
	On each road of his flight from God,	24:09
	men can be stopped.	24:13
	God can arrest him.	24:16
	There are many ways in which this can happen,	24:19
	and there's no royal way,	24:23
	no church and no sect and no preacher	24:26
	has a royal way.	24:29
	As Paul was arrested by a blinding light	24:32
	and by questioning words,	24:36
	and Augustine by the voice of a child,	24:39
	and Luther by the flash of lightning.	24:43
	So innumerable small or big experiences	24:46
	may stop our flight from God.	24:51
	However they occur, they have one quality,	24:55
	they cut into the ordinary processes of life,	25:01
	into the bondage to our work,	25:07
	into the abundance of our life,	25:10
	into the despair of our heart,	25:14
	into the devotion of our soul.	25:17
	But whenever the eternal cuts into the temporal	25:21
	it shakes and opens and disrupts the temporal.	25:27
	It is a hard experience to be arrested	25:33
	on one's flight from God.	25:38
	Somehow in the bondage of their work	25:43
	and something happens that throws them out of it,	25:47
	and it seems that the meaning of their life is gone.	25:53
	Or they are just in the midst of their work	25:58
	and suddenly they realize that	26:02
	what they are producing	26:06
	soon will sink into the darkness	26:09
	of an utterly forgotten past.	26:13
	And they may even doubt about its value for today,	26:18
	they may realize in a flash of insight	26:23
	that most results of their work,	26:27
	which they have done so well,	26:30
	increases the amount	26:33
	of technical gadgets	26:37
	or intellectual sales goods,	26:40
	both of which have become a curse of our period.	26:45
	They are arrested and perhaps in this moment	26:52
	in which much is taken and broken	26:57
	also much may be opened	27:01
	in the depths of their world	27:03
	and in the depths of their souls,	27:06
	and they may hear a voice saying,	27:09
	why do you flee from me?	27:12
	Some have dived into the abundance of life	27:16
	with its greatness and its tragedy.	27:20
	Their relation to life is not superficial.	27:24
	They know its negative sides, but they love it	27:28
	and cover their flight from God with their love of life.	27:32
	And then it may happen that an experience	27:37
	of a deep disappointment,	27:41
	which is neither great nor tragic,	27:44
	but which reveals the emptiness	27:49
	lying at the roots of life may happen to them.	27:53
	Such an experience may be the way	27:59
	in which some are arrested in their flight from God.	28:03
	And in such moments not only the vanity of all things	28:08
	but also the fullness of that	28:13
	which shines through all things may appear	28:17
	and they may see a light which is blinding	28:22
	and illuminating together.	28:26
	The disciples called it the Light of Resurrection.	28:30
	It may become a light of resurrection	28:35
	for those who are arrested in their flight	28:38
	into the abundance and vanity of life.	28:42
	Some have fallen into the state of doubt and despair.	28:48
	They do not even try to cover up their flight from God	28:53
	by work or life; they simple deny Him.	28:57
	There's something surprising about them.	29:03
	They are most conscious in their flight from God	29:06
	but in reality their flight is already stopped,	29:11
	not completely, but more than in those	29:15
	who are unbroken in their bondage of work and life.	29:19
	Despair can be both	29:25
	the last step away from God	29:29
	and the first step towards God.	29:32
	Only one thing can arrest them radically,	29:37
	that they realize in a shaking awareness	29:41
	the lack of ultimate seriousness	29:45
	in their doubt and despair	29:49
	that they see the hidden arrogance	29:52
	and self-certainty in their cynicism.	29:56
	If they see this they are arrested on their flight	30:01
	and see hidden acceptance of truth	30:06
	which had made even possible their doubt and despair	30:09
	may become an overpowering light	30:14
	from which to flee there's no desire.	30:19
	Some have found the cover of their flight from God	30:24
	in their devotion to God.	30:28
	No cover can be safer than this,	30:31
	but God can arrest on their flight from Him,	30:35
	even those who use himself	30:40
	as a cover for their flight.	30:44
	He can show the futility	30:47
	of their religious work in many ways.	30:50
	He can break their confidence,	30:54
	and even their most serious devotion and discipline.	30:57
	He can undercut their doctrinal certainty,	31:01
	their moral laws, their ritual traditions.	31:05
	He can confront religion with the secular world	31:10
	and show them that He is the God of both	31:15
	and of the secular, not less than of the religious.	31:20
	This was and is the way in	31:26
	which many great religious men	31:29
	were and are arrested by God	31:33
	and they heard a voice saying to them,	31:38
	why don't you trust in me alone,	31:42
	instead of trusting in your religious discipline	31:46
	and knowledge and devotion?	31:51
	Why do you flee from me	31:54
	using my name for your flight?	31:57
	Why do you flee from me?	32:03
	Let you be arrested by me.	32:07
	For there is in me	32:11
	meaning and abundance	32:14
	and truth and an eternal	32:18
	yes over you.	32:22
	Accept this yes.	32:27
	End your flight.	32:30
	Amen.	32:34
-	Blessed are the poor in spirit	36:42
	for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	36:46
	Once upon a time there was a coed named Sally,	36:50
	who had the greatest difficulty getting along with people.	36:55
	She's not been happy in college.	36:59
	Her friends were few and her social relationships	37:02
	were confined to a single group on the campus,	37:06
	her denominational fellowship.	37:11
	She had done her best to identify herself with this group.	37:14
	She attended meetings every Sunday	37:19
	and was a ready volunteer for any work	37:22
	that seem needed to be done.	37:24
	But this was part of her problem.	37:27
	Her disposition was such that even the most patient	37:30
	and understanding of her fellow members	37:35
	often found her cooperation and obstruction.	37:39
	If she was for something it was often embarrassing	37:47
	and her presence in meetings were sometimes awkward.	37:52
	Her emotional instability kept everybody on edge.	37:56
	She was opinionated, unreceptive of other's opinions,	38:01
	she long to have friends and to be friendly	38:07
	but she was such a bundle of unattractive complexities.	38:11
	Super sensitive, hypercritical,	38:15
	quick-tempered, sharp tongue.	38:19
	And nobody doubted Sally's sincerity.	38:24
	But she was becoming quite a problem.	38:28
	So much so that one afternoon,	38:31
	as she left a committee meeting on the verge of tears,	38:34
	one of the members whose name was Mary	38:38
	put into words a question which, at some time,	38:42
	it puzzled the rest of the group.	38:45
	Since Sally is a Christian, why isn't she a better person?	38:49
	Why doesn't her religion do something	38:55
	about her terrible disposition?	38:58
	After all, aren't Christians suppose to be nicer people	39:02
	than those who aren't?	39:05
	In a short while, the real reason	39:09
	for the committee meeting was quite forgotten.	39:12
	Everybody was talking about Sally.	39:15
	But Mary kept leading the group back	39:19
	to the original point of her question.	39:21
	If what the Christian church calls conversion	39:26
	makes no improvement in a person's behavior patterns,	39:30
	if one continues to be just as unpleasant and disagreeable	39:35
	and as selfish as they were before	39:40
	and tends to be self-righteous besides,	39:43
	isn't this person's so-called conversion	39:47
	largely an illusion?	39:52
	Didn't St. Paul say that any person who is in Christ	39:55
	is a new creation?	40:01
	And didn't Jesus say that no good tree bears bad fruit?	40:05
	And again each tree is known by its fruit.	40:11
	Doesn't this plainly teach that we have a right	40:17
	to judge the sincerity and the value	40:21
	of a person's religious commitment?	40:24
	By its results, a tree is known by its fruits,	40:28
	the Christian Gospel is tested by its products.	40:33
	In our agitated way, Mary began	40:38
	to monopolize the conversation.	40:40
	It was almost dinner time and the chairman	40:43
	adjourned the meeting, and most of the members	40:46
	excused themselves thinking	40:49
	that the whole thing had deteriorated.	40:50
	But Mary and her roommate walked back across the campus.	40:54
	And Mary couldn't let the subject drop.	40:58
	Indeed when they passed Joe,	41:01
	with his broad smile and friendly greeting,	41:04
	her questions seemed more relevant than ever.	41:08
	Now take Joe, Mary said, there isn't a person	41:12
	who is better liked on either campus.	41:16
	He seems to be self-possessed, even-tempered,	41:20
	a well-rounded personality, adequate	41:25
	for most of the situations of life,	41:28
	he's been elected to practically every office on campus,	41:32
	he's never been known to criticize people	41:36
	unless, at the same time, he says something good about them.	41:39
	He fits the stereotype precisely, a good Joe.	41:44
	But notice this.	41:52
	He's not a Christian.	41:54
	He makes no bones about saying it.	41:56
	He hasn't affiliated with any Christian church.	41:59
	He doesn't go around knocking the religious groups on campus	42:04
	but apparently he doesn't feel any need for them.	42:09
	He never attends the chapel.	42:14
	He plays golf on Sunday mornings.	42:17
	On those rare mornings, (mumbles), when it doesn't rain,	42:20
	and he sleeps in when it does,	42:24
	or takes a girl for a wonderful ride in his MG.	42:28
	Now from all appearances, Sally's personality,	42:33
	in spite of her pretentions to Christianity,	42:38
	doesn't compare very favorably with Joe's personality.	42:43
	Mary stopped in the front of her dormitory,	42:50
	and turning to her roommate she said,	42:54
	now with Sally and Joe as examples,	42:56
	can anybody contend that Christianity works	43:00
	as an instrument for producing the right kind of persons?	43:06
	Commenting on Mary's question,	43:13
	it is well for us to hold in mind	43:16
	just what it is that Christianity claims to do	43:18
	with respect to human personality.	43:23
	Mary is right.	43:26
	In declaring that the gospel does promise	43:28
	that any person, any person,	43:32
	who responds in faith to God's offers	43:35
	will become a better person than he or she was before.	43:40
	Indeed the New Testament writers	43:46
	declare that the result will not only be	43:48
	a better person of the same sort,	43:51
	they talk about the new birth.	43:55
	Now it is true that it is never said	44:01
	that this new creation of God	44:04
	will become a perfect creature overnight.	44:08
	One of the earliest and most influential	44:13
	representatives of Christianity, the Apostle Paul,	44:16
	talked a great deal about the radical difference it made	44:21
	between a person who lived apart from Christ	44:26
	and the benefits of the gospel	44:29
	and the person who was a new man in Christ.	44:32
	Yet toward the end of Paul's life,	44:37
	he spoke of pressing on toward the goal,	44:40
	toward a perfection which he never once planned,	44:45
	but he had obtained, it should be realized too	44:49
	that this new birth and these unlimited possibilities	44:54
	for growth which follow it	45:00
	are represented in the New Testament	45:03
	as conditional promises.	45:05
	They are conditioned quite clearly	45:09
	by one's willingness to put himself	45:12
	under the management of Christ.	45:15
	A willingness to avail one's self	45:18
	from all the means of grace which Christ himself	45:21
	promises to His followers.	45:25
	It's only on the basis of such claims as these	45:30
	that one ought legitimately detest	45:34
	the practical value of the Christian religion	45:37
	as a force in the reformation of human personality.	45:41
	But in the light of these, I suggest that we take up	45:47
	the challenge of Mary and consider the examples	45:51
	which she holds before us.	45:56
	The examples of Sally and Joe.	45:59
	The comments that follow here, in part,	46:05
	rest upon some observations which I heard	46:09
	that C.S. Lewis made once on the radio program	46:13
	in Great Britain.	46:18
	The first word about Sally, it's undeniably true	46:22
	that Sally's disposition and temperament are unattractive,	46:27
	and that the side of her that is most evident	46:34
	to her classmates is no reflection	46:37
	of the traditional virtues we associate	46:42
	with Christ or the Christian religion.	46:45
	To call Sally a saint, merely on the basis of her	46:49
	profession of faith, would be absurd.	46:53
	Hereditary factors and the influences	46:58
	of Sally's early environment have produced in her	47:02
	an oversensitiveness, a hostile and defensive attitude	47:07
	toward other persons which go far to account	47:12
	for her unpleasantness.	47:15
	From the Christian perspective,	47:19
	one might say that providence has allowed	47:22
	natural causes to produce Sally's difficult disposition.	47:26
	In time, God may intend to set that part of Sally right.	47:33
	We believe that He will.	47:39
	But on the basis of Christ's teachings,	47:42
	this is not the thing about Sally	47:45
	which most concerns God or the present.	47:48
	Sally has freely turned to God in her sense of need.	47:53
	She has accepted His offers, His gifts and promises.	47:59
	She believes that He can, and will, remake her personality.	48:05
	She has fulfilled that one condition	48:11
	upon which even God must wait,	48:15
	if ever a real transformation is to take place	48:19
	in Sally's nature.	48:22
	But since she has, it is of secondary importance	48:27
	for the present.	48:30
	Whether her personality is pleasant or unpleasant,	48:32
	she has declared her utter dependence upon God.	48:37
	She knows that she needs His power for her salvation.	48:41
	The primary condition of faith having been met	48:47
	she struggles on in spite of her many disappointments	48:52
	in the hope that His promise to her will yet be fulfilled	48:57
	that she will be changed into the likeness of Christ	49:02
	from degree of glory unto another.	49:07
	But now what about Joe?	49:12
	It is undeniably true that his personality is pleasant	49:15
	and that in spite of his practical atheism,	49:20
	he may be set to personify many of the traditional virtues	49:24
	we associate with Christianity.	49:29
	Of course it so happened that it is not his credit	49:32
	that his parents were blessed with remarkably good health,	49:35
	an ample financial resources, and a nearly ideal conditions	49:40
	were provided for his infancy and boyhood.	49:45
	These favorable natural factors, lacking in Sally's case,	49:51
	have produced a personality in Joe	49:57
	which appears to be healthy, normal in America.	50:01
	Now from the Christian perspective again,	50:09
	providence has been good to Joe.	50:12
	The psychological raw material	50:16
	with which he has been endowed for life	50:19
	has been shaped in him to form	50:23
	a most pleasing personality profile.	50:26
	Presently, all of this may fall apart.	50:31
	The result of bad health and unfortunate marriage,	50:35
	a business failure or the like.	50:40
	But from where we stand, it appears that Joe would be voted	50:44
	the most, the student most likely to succeed.	50:49
	Yet, on the basis of Christ's teaching,	50:55
	this is not the thing about Joe	50:59
	which concerns God at present.	51:02
	God is watching and waiting, indeed He is working	51:07
	for something to take place in Joe.	51:13
	Something which in the nature of things	51:17
	he will never coerce, never force.	51:19
	It is something which Joe can freely give or refuse God.	51:24
	Will Joe offer his nature to God to perfect?	51:30
	Will he permit a potentially fine personality	51:37
	to be made into an eternal thing of beauty?	51:41
	It is here that an importance difference	51:46
	between Sally and Joe comes to light,	51:49
	and enormous difference according	51:52
	to the teachings of Christ.	51:55
	Sally has given over the management of her life to God.	51:58
	Joe, confident and self-sufficient, has not.	52:02
	And until he does this the primary condition	52:09
	for realizing the true potential of his nature	52:13
	in this world and beyond it is unfulfilled.	52:18
	You see, it is quite true that Sally receives	52:23
	Holy Communion in the chapel appears to her fellow students	52:26
	to be far less of a Christian	52:32
	than Joe who spends his time on the golf course on Sundays.	52:37
	Yet these estimates are deceiving.	52:41
	But while men judges by such exterior things,	52:46
	God, we are told, looks upon the heart.	52:52
	The Lord does not necessarily see what man sees.	52:57
	Sally readily acknowledges her need for salvation	53:03
	which the Christ on the cross offers her.	53:07
	In fact she does not want merely to be improved,	53:12
	she desires to avail herself of a costly redemption.	53:16
	She wants to possess the new life in Christ.	53:22
	On the contrary, Joe doesn't seem to be aware	53:27
	of any radical transformation.	53:31
	However, inoffensive and amiable he may be about,	53:36
	he's still, from the perspective of the New Testament,	53:41
	a stranger to the covenants of promise,	53:46
	having no hope and without God in the world.	53:50
	More than once Jesus is reported to have said,	53:57
	how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.	54:01
	One commonly thinks that this refers to the danger	54:08
	of having great wealth and to the illusions of security	54:11
	which money affords.	54:16
	But plainly enough, any of the so-called natural gifts	54:19
	carry the same dangers.	54:25
	If one has sound nerves and even temperament,	54:28
	a well-integrated personality	54:35
	which gives him social poise, popularity,	54:38
	such a person is also very likely to become self-sufficient	54:44
	to succumb to that delusion	54:50
	that one's amiable qualities are one's very own.	54:54
	In other words, it is hard for the rich	55:00
	(mumbles) sufficient to inherit the kingdom.	55:04
	For the rich and the kingdom	55:09
	of contradictions in turns.	55:12
	Or to be a subject of the kingdom of God	55:15
	means that God, not self, governs life at its center.	55:19
	But it's very different for these people	55:27
	who are all mixed up,	55:29
	whose personalities are warped.	55:33
	If they make the attempt to overcome	55:39
	the defects of their personalities which alienate us	55:42
	to find a socially useful life,	55:47
	they quickly learn that they need help.	55:51
	They are in one real and terrible sense	55:55
	the poor that Jesus spoke about.	55:59
	Since this is so it shouldn't surprise us at all	56:04
	to find professing Christians	56:07
	very far indeed from perfection.	56:11
	There is every reason why such inadequate,	56:15
	mixed up persons should turn to Christ and to the church.	56:19
	There is every reason to find the church	56:26
	full of such people.	56:28
	They are the very persons whom Jesus says	56:31
	He cames to seek and to save.	56:35
	These are the sick in need of a physician.	56:38
	Of course the Pharisee among us	56:44
	and within us still says,	56:47
	if Christ's religion be all that it's said to be,	56:51
	then His followers wouldn't be	56:55
	such pitiful examples of humanity.	56:56
	But the community of Christ's followers	57:02
	never was, and certainly isn't now,	57:04
	a fellowship of perfect people.	57:09
	The church is a community of sinners,	57:13
	who, by God's grace, are being saved	57:16
	according to their faith.	57:20
	When this reality is acknowledged,	57:24
	then something of a point of much criticism from without	57:27
	concerning all of the pettiness	57:31
	and hypocrisy within the church is lost.	57:34
	What is often forgotten about these critics is this.	57:39
	It is a person's better sense of need,	57:45
	his awareness of his own sin, of his own pettiness	57:49
	and appallingly uncharitable disposition	57:54
	which drives him to Christ and to the church.	57:58
	In the effort to understand Sally,	58:06
	to sympathize with her personality problems,	58:09
	to honor in her the deepest commitment of her will	58:13
	to be and become a Christian	58:18
	is a danger that we shall leave the impression	58:21
	there's nothing really wrong with her.	58:23
	This would be a serious mistake.	58:27
	Her dogmatic self-assertiveness,	58:30
	her most charitable judgments of others	58:32
	are deplorable things.	58:36
	These unattractive qualities hinder her Christian witness	58:38
	and that of the group to which she belongs.	58:44
	Her Christian friends will do all that they possibly can	58:48
	to help her attain a less irritating	58:52
	and better balanced personality.	58:56
	Even so the church, when it's true to its mission,	59:00
	will support every possibly medical and educational means,	59:03
	every economic and political resource	59:08
	to produce a society where as many people as possible	59:12
	grow up well-balanced men and women of goodwill.	59:16
	Nevertheless, we as Christians should never forget	59:23
	that if we have succeeded in providing	59:28
	all of the conditions of physical and mental health,	59:30
	and everybody is a moral, benevolent and responsible citizen	59:35
	that their salvation has been achieved.	59:41
	A world of nice people, good Joes and Janes	59:45
	turned away from God, self-sufficient,	59:52
	would be just as desperately in need of His saving power	59:57
	as a world of perverted folk	1:00:03
	with the most unpleasant dispositions,	1:00:06
	selfish and anti-social.	1:00:08
	Well the gospel truth is this,	1:00:12
	that Joe needs the power of God for his salvation	1:00:15
	every bit as much as Sally.	1:00:20
	Although for the time being, it may appear to others	1:00:24
	and confidentially to himself	1:00:29
	as a very fine specimen of humanity.	1:00:32
	Joe may in fact had made so very little of his background,	1:00:36
	of his (mumbles), relatively speaking,	1:00:41
	and he's really less to be admired	1:00:46
	and respected and loved than Sally.	1:00:48
	Can we ever know how he would've behaved	1:00:52
	if he had been saddled with the qualities	1:00:55
	which appear in her personality profile,	1:00:59
	and this through no choice of his own.	1:01:02
	Perhaps this is one of the reasons	1:01:07
	that Jesus tells us never to judge,	1:01:09
	never to criticize or look with contempt upon other people.	1:01:14
	We really know so little about them,	1:01:20
	their limited opportunities, their inner intentions,	1:01:23
	their temptations.	1:01:28
	At any rate, the chief point seems to be	1:01:30
	that God himself doesn't judge	1:01:35
	these temperamental differences	1:01:36
	to be of such great importance.	1:01:40
	He seems rather far more concerned	1:01:43
	with what an individual does with what he has	1:01:46
	and what has been given.	1:01:50
	With a person's response to all the costly deeds of God	1:01:52
	and of others which are the very ground of His existence.	1:01:57
	You see, it's so easy for us all	1:02:03
	to fix our thoughts on the Sallys.	1:02:04
	Her faults are so glaringly un-Christian and so apparent,	1:02:08
	but this means it's so easy to bolster	1:02:13
	our own self-confidence by comparing ourselves	1:02:16
	with such persons and to grow self-complacent	1:02:20
	and self-righteous.	1:02:24
	By such devices, we close our eyes to the one person	1:02:26
	whose improvement is our own responsibility.	1:02:32
	Let us remember that Jesus never promised	1:02:37
	the abundant life to the proud, to the self-sufficient.	1:02:40
	Now was he ever able to do very much	1:02:46
	for good self-assured persons?	1:02:51
	Rather He declared, woe to you who are full now	1:02:57
	for you shall hunger.	1:03:04
	And blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God.	1:03:06
	Let us pray.	1:03:14
	Oh, God of mercy, look with compassion upon us	1:03:23
	in our very great poverty and need.	1:03:27
	Forbid that our pride ever blind us	1:03:31
	to our need for thy salvation.	1:03:33
	Lest in the blindness of self-sufficiency become lost.	1:03:36
	As we have received thy mercy through Jesus Christ,	1:03:42
	so may we be enable to love those who repel us	1:03:46
	by their words and ways.	1:03:49
	Help us to refrain from judging so much	1:03:52
	by outward appearance.	1:03:55
	Teach us to look upon the hearts of men	1:03:58
	through the eyes of Jesus Christ Our Lord.	1:04:02

Item Info

Title:

Paul Tillich - "The Flight From God" (November 17, 1957)

Description:

We are, in the very core of our being, in flight from God. There are many ways in which we mask our flight from God––our work, religious devotion, skepticism––but these point back to our fundamental restlessness and fear of truly encountering God. Yet, in all of these roads of our attempted escape, God is able to arrest us and welcome us into God's abundant life. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 00:28. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 32:37.
Key quotation: “Man is fleeing from God. He is fleeing from God even in the church, in the place in which we are supposed to be arrested by the presence of God. Even there we are in flight from Him.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4319sh1g

Date:

November 17, 1957

Speaker:

Tillich, Paul, 1886-1965

Biblical Book:

Matthew

Chapter and Verse:

Matthew 26:56

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0039
ref5299_lnm
uachapelsermaud
duke:320797
dcrau001774
ark:/87924/r4319sh1g
5b9eed61-5af1-4c08-9fa4-6c2de90291ff

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:

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This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For 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.

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Paul Tillich - "The Flight From God" (November 17, 1957)

Transcript

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