Evans E. Crawford - "A Message for the Left Hand" (May 7, 1967)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(pipe organ plays) | 0:02 | |
(footsteps) | 0:22 | |
(coughing) | 0:28 | |
- | I hope I'm safe. | 0:32 |
In concluding that most of you have | 0:35 | |
long since celebrated with me the | 0:38 | |
ending of the civil war | 0:43 | |
and will permit me to speak of one of the famous generals. | 0:44 | |
General Otis Howard. | 0:49 | |
The institution where I'm privileged to serve bears his name | 0:52 | |
and he was it's third president | 0:55 | |
and currently we are enjoying | 0:58 | |
observing our centennial year. | 1:02 | |
Of course we're concerned about the next 100 years but | 1:07 | |
in view of what some of you may have read on yesterday | 1:13 | |
you can understand where some of us | 1:15 | |
are just concerned to get through next year. | 1:16 | |
You may have read that there has been a-- | 1:22 | |
long with our centennial a sort of confrontation | 1:25 | |
between administration | 1:28 | |
and some students and faculty. | 1:30 | |
And since I understand that such confrontations | 1:33 | |
are being shared among several schools | 1:35 | |
including yours | 1:37 | |
I guess we can take a strange comfort | 1:39 | |
in that kind of equality. | 1:42 | |
But grace has brought us on thus far | 1:45 | |
and I'm sure that grace or the new left | 1:47 | |
will do its share to lead us on | 1:51 | |
into the future. | 1:53 | |
But I mention Howard because | 1:55 | |
it has been in view of a literal fact | 2:00 | |
concerning the life of General Howard | 2:02 | |
that has sparked what I call | 2:07 | |
meditations for the left hand. | 2:10 | |
For in the battle during the civil war | 2:14 | |
near Richmond, Virginia | 2:16 | |
General Howard lost his right arm | 2:19 | |
had to be amputated. | 2:23 | |
And he went through the war | 2:26 | |
and the rest of his life | 2:28 | |
with just an empty sleeve. | 2:31 | |
He had tried an artificial arm but he didn't like it. | 2:34 | |
And he went through life with the empty sleeve. | 2:38 | |
Certainly thinking about the suggestive images that | 2:44 | |
would some how catch the theme of his life | 2:49 | |
this scripture came to mind. | 2:54 | |
As I considered, not his work at Howard | 2:56 | |
but his work for many educational institutions. | 3:01 | |
Predominately negro, but only negro | 3:06 | |
in the south in cooperation with many denominations | 3:10 | |
and other groups. | 3:13 | |
Liberally, in the context of our scripture | 3:18 | |
which was read for you from Matthew. | 3:21 | |
The 6th chapter the third verses and those following. | 3:24 | |
General Howard did not let his left hand know | 3:32 | |
what his right hand was doing first because he couldn't. | 3:38 | |
But symbolically he did not either. | 3:42 | |
For Howard University, was founded in the prayer meeting | 3:46 | |
in the First Congregational Church. | 3:50 | |
Tenth and G in Washington, D.C. | 3:52 | |
And it seems an appropriate fitting for | 3:56 | |
the recent period in which we have observed | 3:58 | |
and celebrated the centennial Civil War occasions | 4:02 | |
and also in which many institutions | 4:05 | |
not only Howard that this current time | 4:08 | |
or just a few years away will be observing 100 years. | 4:10 | |
It suggest something about a minority | 4:15 | |
that is relevant and which can be explored | 4:19 | |
as we consider the ranges of the left hand. | 4:22 | |
Incidentally there is a current | 4:26 | |
article in Ebony magazine | 4:29 | |
the May issue of May Ebony magazine | 4:31 | |
by Hans J. Massaquoi under a title | 4:33 | |
'Left is the Maligned Minority' | 4:37 | |
He says that whatever your color, your sex, your nationality | 4:40 | |
or previous condition of servitude chances are | 4:43 | |
that you are one of an estimated 200 million left handers. | 4:48 | |
That much neglected and maligned minority. | 4:52 | |
Now I speak from a minority group very often | 4:56 | |
likewise I speak to a minority group very often | 5:00 | |
but this is going to be very enjoyable to me | 5:03 | |
because I'm privileged to speak now to a minority | 5:05 | |
that we can pick out of this group. | 5:09 | |
For some of you are left handed | 5:11 | |
and Massaquoi says that you are, | 5:12 | |
you have a lot of problems. | 5:15 | |
You live in a right handed world for one thing. | 5:17 | |
He said only the right handed hand shake will do. | 5:20 | |
It's proper that only the right hand | 5:23 | |
should hold the writing pen. | 5:25 | |
Only the right hand is to be trusted when raising | 5:27 | |
and taking the oath. | 5:30 | |
There are many things that lefters have to suppress | 5:32 | |
or many things in which they will have to conform | 5:35 | |
in a right handed pulp | 5:37 | |
or be miserable amidst gadgets | 5:39 | |
and tools and musical instruments | 5:42 | |
buttons and keys and what not. | 5:44 | |
However, the word is not hopeless. | 5:47 | |
For one message for the left handers | 5:52 | |
is that there is hope on the way. | 5:56 | |
He reports that after reviewing the various theories | 5:58 | |
about how we have diverse differentiations by the hand, | 6:01 | |
he then concludes | 6:04 | |
by saying that manufactures now | 6:07 | |
are considering left handers | 6:08 | |
and you'll be able to get all sort of instruments | 6:10 | |
Left handed musical instruments, left handed scissors | 6:12 | |
and so that there's hope for you. | 6:15 | |
For those of you then that have wondered about the title | 6:17 | |
and you're left handed | 6:20 | |
that is the message for you | 6:21 | |
that comes out of a recent article | 6:23 | |
and some research about left handed people in the world. | 6:24 | |
But really the minority with which | 6:29 | |
I have been concerned | 6:32 | |
and the perspective of the life of General Howard | 6:34 | |
uh, properly fits the minority I think | 6:38 | |
to whom Jesus was talking in Matthew. | 6:40 | |
For Jesus was talking to a minority | 6:45 | |
He was talking to his disciples | 6:47 | |
and those who had come to join His band | 6:49 | |
He was giving a sermon on the mount | 6:53 | |
the situation over against which He spoke. | 6:57 | |
Was a situation of the Pharisees. | 7:00 | |
If we were honest with ourselves we could not say | 7:03 | |
that these were wicked people, | 7:05 | |
they were upstanding citizens of the community. | 7:06 | |
People who took their religion seriously | 7:09 | |
but people who as Jesus saw it | 7:13 | |
had not broken through to the proper balance | 7:17 | |
that God always call us to in a form of liberation. | 7:21 | |
They had not outwitted the ego | 7:26 | |
as Allan Watts talks about it in 'Beyond Theology'. | 7:28 | |
They had not broken the circle of self conscientiousness. | 7:33 | |
So, as although they had intended | 7:37 | |
for this was not a part of their tradition. | 7:39 | |
He used the proverb like statement | 7:42 | |
even when they prayed | 7:45 | |
their left hand knew exactly | 7:48 | |
what their right hand was doing | 7:50 | |
so they blew trumpets | 7:53 | |
so that they would call attention to it. | 7:55 | |
Or they stood in the street | 7:58 | |
so that they could be seen of men. | 8:00 | |
Not evil people, serious people | 8:04 | |
but they had not outwitted the ego. | 8:07 | |
They had not prepared themselves | 8:12 | |
to get into the vision were God works | 8:16 | |
and God works in secret. | 8:18 | |
God works upon the heart. | 8:21 | |
Now Jesus said to His disciples | 8:25 | |
When you give your arms | 8:28 | |
when you do your works of your righteousness. | 8:31 | |
Don't let the right hand | 8:35 | |
know what the left is doing | 8:39 | |
and don't let the left know what the right is doing. | 8:40 | |
This is the message | 8:42 | |
that Matthew reports for us for the left hand. | 8:46 | |
It's well known, it's familiar | 8:49 | |
and I suggest this morning it might be helpful | 8:51 | |
for us in the university setting first, | 8:53 | |
to see how this may apply to us | 8:55 | |
and then let's look at it | 8:58 | |
in a fast moving era of our lives of social change | 9:00 | |
in the urban community | 9:03 | |
and finally view it in it's ultimate context for all of us. | 9:05 | |
I think Jerome S. Bruner, | 9:08 | |
in his book written in 19 hundred 62 | 9:11 | |
'On Knowing' with the subtitle, Essays for the Left Hand. | 9:13 | |
You may be familiar with it | 9:18 | |
those of you who are in Psychology. | 9:20 | |
He said that he has written the book | 9:22 | |
because from a child | 9:24 | |
he's always been struck by the symbolism | 9:25 | |
of the right and left hand. | 9:28 | |
And you might say that a man | 9:31 | |
reaching with a right hand is, is the reach of science. | 9:33 | |
He said that's not so important alone | 9:38 | |
the most exciting thing about that is | 9:41 | |
the great hypotheses however, | 9:43 | |
are gifts held in the left hand. | 9:46 | |
And he said this has intrigued him. | 9:49 | |
Really you could say that when man | 9:52 | |
reaches with the left hand | 9:55 | |
he reaches for art | 9:57 | |
but we could not say that the right hand | 9:58 | |
is not important because man needs technique. | 10:00 | |
He needs order. | 10:04 | |
But he has written this book | 10:06 | |
primarily to explore the range of the left hand, | 10:07 | |
and it's influence upon the act of knowing. | 10:11 | |
He has found that in the process of writing in his field | 10:16 | |
of psychology, usually the journals report | 10:19 | |
to the abstraction which are necessary. | 10:22 | |
The work of the right hand, | 10:25 | |
but it says here that | 10:28 | |
he has found that as he has studied | 10:29 | |
and done further investigations | 10:30 | |
that it's also interesting to get the other kind of writing, | 10:33 | |
Where people let you know about the metaphors. | 10:36 | |
The intuitive processes. | 10:40 | |
Which are usually symbolized by the left hand | 10:43 | |
because he feels that man will find that proper rhythm, | 10:46 | |
even in the pursuit of knowledge and truth | 10:49 | |
whereby he can catch the metaphors | 10:52 | |
and then domesticate them | 10:55 | |
and make them ready to be tested. | 10:59 | |
He's really concerned about that perception | 11:03 | |
of the intuitive processes of mankind. | 11:08 | |
Whereby we can then make the shift | 11:11 | |
to the right hand | 11:16 | |
and we can work with order | 11:17 | |
and with imagination. | 11:19 | |
That's a word for the left hand | 11:22 | |
of those who pursue truth within the university. | 11:25 | |
I've always been intrigued in my own life | 11:28 | |
at Boston University when the school was consolidating | 11:30 | |
having been located all over the city | 11:33 | |
and they brought together the School of Theology | 11:35 | |
right up the street, they brought the School of Fine Arts | 11:38 | |
and I never will forget that the students | 11:40 | |
in the College of Business | 11:41 | |
always looked at the ministers you see | 11:44 | |
and the artists as if we were some kind of queer individuals | 11:46 | |
you now how this kind of mentality works. | 11:50 | |
Well actually it's only a symbol | 11:54 | |
but it does seem sometimes if the artist has to apologize. | 11:56 | |
It does seem sometimes if the minister is too sentimental. | 12:02 | |
And while it might be, | 12:06 | |
but maybe this word from Jerome Bruner, | 12:08 | |
just a word for an appreciation of the left hand | 12:11 | |
might put into proper perspective | 12:14 | |
the interdisciplinary concerns which we all ought | 12:17 | |
to consider as we go on into the new century | 12:19 | |
and consider the problems of our time. | 12:22 | |
Now Jerome Bruner says | 12:26 | |
that if we consider then the left hand | 12:29 | |
not be ashamed of it | 12:32 | |
and work out within internal processes | 12:34 | |
the ability to make the shift. | 12:38 | |
He believes that education will be freer | 12:42 | |
and those of us who march from the campuses | 12:44 | |
will be more competent not only | 12:47 | |
of the mind, but of the heart and of the soul. | 12:50 | |
And so there's a message for the left hand | 12:55 | |
relevant to the university. | 12:57 | |
But now those of us that consider the words of Jesus | 13:01 | |
the minority disciples consider if you will | 13:03 | |
the minority of us who are privileged to participate | 13:06 | |
in higher education. | 13:09 | |
Think about what General Howard symbolized | 13:11 | |
for people who had capacity, but not a chance. | 13:15 | |
As I think about General Howard | 13:19 | |
and his relevance for communicating to us | 13:21 | |
some of the messages that come across the readings for the | 13:23 | |
left hand. | 13:27 | |
I think of the fact that General Howard | 13:29 | |
literally worked in that portion of the 19th century | 13:32 | |
which he lived and died. | 13:35 | |
He literally worked with the left hand. | 13:39 | |
The Freedmen's Bureau was the OEO | 13:40 | |
of his time and General Howard | 13:44 | |
was the first and only man to head it up. | 13:46 | |
An effort of America | 13:50 | |
to make good on it's promise of democracy. | 13:51 | |
Catching the frustrated and disorganized people | 13:55 | |
that came out of the Civil War. | 13:58 | |
Primarily Negroes but some white. | 14:01 | |
Trying to structure the concern of the country for them. | 14:04 | |
You should read his life | 14:09 | |
and find out how many times he was investigated. | 14:10 | |
And likewise how many times he was cleared. | 14:13 | |
It seems like when you're working the area | 14:15 | |
here where an accounting is not enough. | 14:17 | |
We need people who are appreciative of the left hand. | 14:21 | |
When you are working with bringing people's soul | 14:26 | |
and mind and heart together. | 14:28 | |
You need a room for imagination | 14:31 | |
and so it was with General Howard | 14:34 | |
and so it opened up all sorts of criticisms. | 14:35 | |
I say that in order to point out | 14:39 | |
to the unfinished business of education today, | 14:41 | |
which alerts us again to the sensitivity's of the left hand | 14:44 | |
and the right hand. | 14:46 | |
You know the hearings that are currently being held on OEO? | 14:49 | |
They're many things to be cleared up, | 14:54 | |
but I can look into the urban areas | 14:55 | |
and see program after program dying | 14:58 | |
and the urban areas once again becoming tender boxes. | 15:02 | |
Somehow even within the processes of our government | 15:06 | |
the message for the left hand | 15:11 | |
as Bruner formulates it for us in the university | 15:13 | |
as it is made more profound by the insight that comes | 15:16 | |
through the gospel of Matthew. | 15:19 | |
Those of us who are privileged | 15:22 | |
to work in the areas of mind and heart | 15:24 | |
maybe to work in the government | 15:28 | |
or to be sensitive once again to these. | 15:29 | |
You take the Head Start program | 15:32 | |
have you had the experience | 15:34 | |
of watching young people open up? | 15:36 | |
They have the capacity but they've never had the chance. | 15:40 | |
This was the kind of left handed venture | 15:43 | |
that our government began | 15:46 | |
and channeled first through the Freedmen's Bureau, | 15:48 | |
which died after only one leader. | 15:50 | |
Will that be the same for OEO? | 15:54 | |
Somehow we need an appreciation of the left hand. | 15:57 | |
I wonder if the strict accounting is enough? | 15:59 | |
Shouldn't we try to translate | 16:03 | |
all these programs into such a form | 16:04 | |
that God who has the vision to see in secret, | 16:07 | |
will not necessarily reward us now | 16:10 | |
but will reward us eventually. | 16:13 | |
This seems to me to be another message | 16:15 | |
for the left hand | 16:17 | |
of those who work in imaginative | 16:19 | |
programs in our government. | 16:21 | |
Now think of the urban area for just a moment. | 16:24 | |
Think of urban renewal. | 16:28 | |
Was and has urban renewal been really a process | 16:32 | |
of tearing down old houses | 16:36 | |
or has it been a process of removing people | 16:38 | |
who were bad for business. | 16:41 | |
Now to be sure there are many programs | 16:43 | |
that were conceived | 16:45 | |
but men who work as I found in Chicago | 16:47 | |
a few years ago | 16:50 | |
and never confirmed it until I came back to Harvard | 16:51 | |
to read a thesis that was done by a man | 16:54 | |
who sat in the inner chambers. | 16:56 | |
He admitted that he sat there. | 16:58 | |
That many times the urban renewal program | 17:00 | |
and some sections of that city | 17:03 | |
were wonderful thing for business men | 17:07 | |
because while they could say with straight faces | 17:08 | |
we're trying to remove the blight. | 17:11 | |
They were so happy it was clearing the undesirables out | 17:14 | |
of the community. | 17:17 | |
And so it was, but you see that's | 17:18 | |
left-handed, right-handed information interlocked. | 17:22 | |
And maybe the tender boxes | 17:27 | |
in the urban communities today | 17:29 | |
indicate that these men have had their reward. | 17:33 | |
And their children are reaping the whirlwind. | 17:37 | |
I will be very cautious here, | 17:43 | |
I will not make a statement in this regard | 17:44 | |
that everybody be careful | 17:47 | |
there's going to be another Watts. | 17:48 | |
We have to be careful that in saying this | 17:49 | |
we don't hint things to persons | 17:51 | |
who have no social responsibility. | 17:53 | |
But I am suggesting that these urban problems remain | 17:56 | |
and that this Word of God | 18:00 | |
and this formulation for us | 18:02 | |
and the university community to be sensitive | 18:03 | |
to the imaginative dimension of our life | 18:06 | |
is still a crying need in our time. | 18:10 | |
General Howard and Sergeant Shriver | 18:15 | |
Senator you may be, whatever it is | 18:18 | |
the church must work through laymen | 18:21 | |
who work in the world | 18:23 | |
and hopefully they are sensitized | 18:24 | |
to not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. | 18:27 | |
Let me share with you a personal experience of some | 18:30 | |
surprises with respect to this. | 18:33 | |
A few years ago in New England | 18:35 | |
a judge confronted the church | 18:37 | |
with this question | 18:39 | |
you have been preaching redemption | 18:41 | |
why don't you try to practice it | 18:43 | |
for many of the boys and girls | 18:45 | |
that really shouldn't be sent to the institution | 18:47 | |
to become hardened criminals. | 18:48 | |
And do something with them | 18:51 | |
and practice this redemption on them. | 18:52 | |
Well one church and denomination | 18:53 | |
heard his point was the American Baptist, | 18:55 | |
and they set out into the Mid West | 18:57 | |
and got a member of their juvenile protection | 18:59 | |
society and brought him out to New England. | 19:01 | |
And took one of their newest camps | 19:03 | |
and opened it for a month | 19:05 | |
for a different kind of camping | 19:07 | |
not to those who left the church | 19:09 | |
that was alright and still needed | 19:11 | |
but for those pre-delinquents, you know | 19:13 | |
the ones had removed the bicycles, broken the glass | 19:15 | |
nothing serious needing some kind of understanding | 19:19 | |
and they selected from the area personnel | 19:23 | |
especially picked to work was this new kind of camping | 19:25 | |
and I was fortunate to be one. | 19:29 | |
We were asked to go out two weeks before it opened | 19:31 | |
but this seemed rather harsh | 19:33 | |
I had worked for years as a theologian | 19:34 | |
in the theological in Boston South end, | 19:36 | |
one of the toughest districts in the world | 19:40 | |
and I filed for that job | 19:43 | |
I had some commitments | 19:44 | |
and I wouldn't change them | 19:45 | |
why should I go I knew the problem | 19:46 | |
so I went about three days late | 19:48 | |
and after I arrived, I was sorry | 19:49 | |
for there they had assembled | 19:51 | |
all of the available resources of the community | 19:52 | |
from high school principals, social workers, | 19:55 | |
pastors, et cetera. | 19:57 | |
They were getting the best insight | 19:59 | |
and the best condition into which to practice | 20:03 | |
the redemption that we praised. | 20:05 | |
One of the codes we adopted was never to hit a person | 20:08 | |
no corporal punishment. | 20:10 | |
I took it with a smile for I was reared in Texas | 20:12 | |
with a grandmother who loved me | 20:14 | |
but she did not spare the rod. | 20:16 | |
I thought this wouldn't work with them, but we tried it. | 20:17 | |
And I was surprised one day at my camp | 20:19 | |
when the youngsters said to me | 20:22 | |
as they said to many of the counselors, | 20:24 | |
Why don't you hit us? | 20:25 | |
Well I'd been preaching it, I hadn't thought about it | 20:28 | |
Why don't you hit us? | 20:30 | |
And then they said everybody else does. | 20:31 | |
And I put that away in my mind surprised. | 20:33 | |
I was thinking mostly about my experience, | 20:36 | |
you see the right hand was beginning to come in | 20:38 | |
I wasn't open for the experience. | 20:40 | |
It went on through many surprises like that. | 20:42 | |
We had another one. | 20:45 | |
They were a hard core of young people | 20:46 | |
who just didn't believe that these | 20:48 | |
nice, sweet church people could really turn the other cheek | 20:51 | |
so one boy we called Manny | 20:57 | |
for whom I have testified ever sense, | 21:00 | |
for this is my theme. | 21:02 | |
Manny didn't believe it | 21:04 | |
and he would pick up a rock | 21:04 | |
and wait until only until, | 21:06 | |
seven of the counselors were near bay, | 21:09 | |
and then he would toss it at one of those lovely | 21:10 | |
one hundred dollar plate glass windows. | 21:13 | |
He broke one, he broke two | 21:16 | |
after the second one we had a trustee from the | 21:19 | |
Baptist convention, who had come along to try to | 21:21 | |
play the game, but after the second one hundred dollar | 21:24 | |
plate glass window he became concerned. | 21:27 | |
So one day as we came out of the camp into the opening | 21:30 | |
we found this director with Manny on his knee | 21:33 | |
wailing the life out of him. | 21:36 | |
Have you ever had the vicarious experience of | 21:37 | |
having someone do what you wanted to do | 21:40 | |
while at the same time blaming them for doing it? | 21:43 | |
That was the experience some of us had | 21:47 | |
for we felt that while we were being surprised | 21:49 | |
by what we discovered with this principal | 21:53 | |
we felt it couldn't be applied across the board. | 21:56 | |
But we kept working with him | 22:02 | |
and Manny was still the one who didn't believe it. | 22:03 | |
He would wait until the director would announce | 22:05 | |
that there would be announcements, pull your seats | 22:07 | |
and only after he made that statement would he stand up | 22:09 | |
and go out and carefully scientifically slam the door. | 22:12 | |
Well, the director came to us one day | 22:18 | |
and said we're going to have call a meeting on Manny. | 22:20 | |
Well we all knew that was going to have to come | 22:23 | |
and we said we're gonna have to show you, | 22:24 | |
you just can't you know, be this way about it | 22:25 | |
and I'll never forget that meeting it was | 22:29 | |
called at 12 midnight, this was that kind of camp | 22:30 | |
you had to hope they were asleep. | 22:33 | |
And we walked into that meeting | 22:36 | |
and nothing was said for about three minutes. | 22:38 | |
Then the director asked this question, | 22:41 | |
as we thought about Manny and others. | 22:44 | |
What is Manny trying to tell us? | 22:47 | |
Well you know I never thought about that. | 22:51 | |
I thought about what I wanted to tell Manny. | 22:53 | |
I never thought of it. | 22:58 | |
And we decided to take him home for the benefit of the camp. | 23:01 | |
And I was selected with another person | 23:04 | |
to drive him in to Providence, Rhode Island. | 23:05 | |
I'll never forget that morning surprise. | 23:07 | |
We drove into the city, parked in front of his house | 23:09 | |
at ten o'clock in the morning | 23:12 | |
went up two flights of stairs, opened the door | 23:13 | |
and there sat his mother with hair disheveled | 23:16 | |
with four men around the table | 23:19 | |
covered with all sorts of alcoholic beverages. | 23:22 | |
The first and only sentence she said to him was | 23:26 | |
What are you doing home? | 23:29 | |
I thought you weren't due for two more weeks. | 23:30 | |
That was what Manny was trying to tell us. | 23:34 | |
Now I think we were justified in taking him home | 23:40 | |
for the benefit of the camp, but somehow | 23:42 | |
the call to liberation that comes out of Matthew, | 23:45 | |
to think of imaginative ways, predictive ways | 23:50 | |
second-mile-ways to help him, missed us. | 23:54 | |
He spent about two times after that in the reform schools. | 24:00 | |
Helpfully, hopefully, and wonderfully | 24:03 | |
the beneficent Congregational Church of Providence | 24:05 | |
taught him so that he could finish school | 24:08 | |
and they put him the direction of a job. | 24:10 | |
But the thing is that in the urban communities | 24:13 | |
we need people motivated by their religious commitments. | 24:17 | |
To be sensitive to the left hand | 24:24 | |
respect the right hand of order and authority | 24:27 | |
and discipline, yes there's a place for it. | 24:30 | |
But always to be open for the imaginative things. | 24:33 | |
In the area of human relations | 24:38 | |
and we may save another man | 24:41 | |
whose parents got their start | 24:45 | |
from a man with one arm | 24:48 | |
who was sensitive to the left. | 24:50 | |
Well we've seen the message from the left hand | 24:54 | |
generally to a minority, we've seen it | 24:56 | |
as it has been articulated through the university. | 24:59 | |
We has seen it as it has spoken | 25:01 | |
and can speak specifically to the urban community | 25:03 | |
Now find another considerate in it's alternate dimension. | 25:06 | |
And Dietrich Bonhoeffer can interpret it for us here | 25:10 | |
he says, differing with Jerome Bruner, | 25:14 | |
no he's not interested | 25:19 | |
in exploring the left hand to see it's effect upon knowing. | 25:20 | |
In the sense that Bruner meant it, yes. | 25:26 | |
But he says as we look at this passage from Matthew, | 25:28 | |
Jesus is saying, | 25:32 | |
man should not to attempt to be satisfied | 25:35 | |
with simply distinguishing good from evil. | 25:41 | |
So that he knows when he does well, that he does well. | 25:44 | |
This is not separating the left hand from the right | 25:49 | |
No Jesus is calling us to complete dependence upon Him | 25:52 | |
so that we do not take too much time out | 25:57 | |
to be judgemental and to be reflective | 26:01 | |
and omit to the call to action. | 26:04 | |
When this is done says he, | 26:09 | |
then we're able to hear this later word that Matthew | 26:12 | |
records for us. | 26:16 | |
When Jesus gathers those around him | 26:18 | |
as the shepherd gathers the sheep and goat. | 26:22 | |
And said those of you on my right hand | 26:25 | |
you fed me when I was hungry, | 26:27 | |
you gave me water when I was thirsty, | 26:29 | |
you visited me in prison. | 26:31 | |
Come up and receive the rewards of my father. | 26:33 | |
And they said when did we see thee thirsty | 26:36 | |
and you see that's it the surprise. | 26:40 | |
The message of the left hand | 26:42 | |
when did we see thee imprisoned | 26:43 | |
and those on the right hand | 26:45 | |
who had trumpets and who did it to be seen of men | 26:47 | |
were left out, I covered for you | 26:51 | |
the message of the left hand. | 26:55 | |
That causes you to move into life | 26:59 | |
to await the judgment of God. | 27:02 | |
Oh thou great companion of our souls | 27:17 | |
do thou go with us today | 27:20 | |
and comfort us by the sense of they presence. | 27:21 | |
In the hours of spiritual isolation. | 27:23 | |
Give us a single eye for duty | 27:27 | |
give us by the voice within, abidance | 27:29 | |
that we may take heed in all the judgements of thyself | 27:33 | |
and gather patiently whatever truth they hold. | 27:38 | |
And now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling | 27:44 | |
and to prevent you faultless | 27:47 | |
before the presence of his majesty with exceeding joy. | 27:49 | |
To the all wise God our Father | 27:52 | |
be majesty, dominion and power. | 27:54 | |
Both now and forever more. | 27:56 | |
♪Ahhhmen ♪ | 28:04 | |
♪ Ahhhhmen ♪ | 28:11 | |
♪ Ahhhhhhmen ♪ | 28:18 |