James M. Lawson, Jr. - Sermon Untitled (February 21, 1971)

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	(choir singing)	0:02
Narrator	Dear friends and beloved,	4:36
	we welcome you to this service of worship in the Duke chapel	4:39
	and we have gathered here for the purpose of worshiping	4:44
	Almighty God and having Christian	4:46
	fellowship with each other.	4:48
	It is not my unusual prerogative to be able to welcome you.	4:51
	Actually we should welcome each other.	4:59
	I think it would be a good thing if we did that right now.	5:03
	Would you turn to the person, one of the persons	5:07
	near you and simply by extended your right hand,	5:09
	say welcome to this person to this house of God.	5:14
	We might try that next Sunday even without a	5:27
	special prompting from the lectern.	5:30
	I want to say also that this afternoon at four o'clock in	5:35
	the chapel we shall have another very wonderful opportunity	5:41
	to worship God through music, through the artistry of	5:46
	many kinds of music.	5:50
	If the inserted part of your bulletin didn't go sliding out	5:54
	halfway across the floor when you opened your bulletin	5:58
	you will notice in it offerings by Beethoven, Bach,	6:03
	and Stravinsky that will be given at 4 o'clock by the	6:09
	North Carolina wind ensemble, the University	6:13
	chancel singers and the Chiomfy quartet.	6:19
	This, I think represents an amazing offering for today.	6:22
	And there's one special thing about it.	6:29
	We've talked with you a little bit about what we're doing	6:32
	here in the chapel physically.	6:35
	In coating the sound absorbent tile to make it more	6:37
	suitable for such musical events as we are having.	6:43
	It has now already become a much more satisfactory room	6:47
	in which to perform music.	6:52
	At the end of this 4 o'clock concert today the Stravinsky	6:55
	mass will be repeated for those who wish to stay and try	7:01
	out listening to it in different parts of the chapel.	7:06
	You can come at 4, simply play it straight, hear the concert	7:10
	and leave or you may then stay afterward if you wish.	7:15
	And along with some of the professional find out how the	7:20
	music sounds in different parts of the chapel.	7:28
	Thank you for being here today, and we pray that this	7:32
	may be a wonderful time together in God's presence.	7:35
	Let us turn now to the the back part of our hymnals	7:40
	to number 615, which is a combination of our responsive	7:43
	prayer confession and words of assurance from the scripture.	7:49
	This being from Psalm 130 according	7:53
	to a very ancient translation.	7:57
	Let us pray.	8:02
	Out of the deep have I called unto thee oh Lord.	8:05
	(unanimous chorus)	8:10
-	Let thine ears consider well.	8:11
	(unanimous chorus)	8:14
-	If thou Lord will be extreme to mark what is done amiss.	8:16
	(unanimous chorus)	8:21
-	For there is mercy with thee.	8:23
	(unanimous chorus)	8:27
-	I look for the Lord, my could doth wait for him.	8:29
	(unanimous chorus)	8:34
-	My soul freeth unto the Lord before the morning watch.	8:36
	(unanimous chorus)	8:40
-	Oh Israel trust in the Lord, for with the Lord	8:43
	there is mercy.	8:48
	(unanimous chorus)	8:51
-	And he shall redeem Israel.	8:53
	(unanimous chorus)	8:55
	(choir music)	9:01
-	This scripture is taken from first John,	11:40
	fourth chapter, 12th through the 21st verses	11:45
	Phillip's translation.	11:50
	It is true that no human being has ever had a direct vision	11:52
	of God, yet if we love one another God	11:56
	does actually live within us.	12:00
	And His love grows in us toward perfection.	12:03
	And as I wrote above the guarantee of our living in Him	12:07
	and his living in us is the share of His own spirit,	12:12
	which he gives us.	12:16
	We ourselves are eye witnesses, able and willing to testify	12:19
	to the fact that the father did send the son to	12:23
	save the world.	12:27
	For everyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God,	12:29
	finds that God lives in him and he lives in God.	12:32
	So that we come to know and trust the love God has for us.	12:37
	and the man who's life is lived in love does in fact	12:45
	live in God, and God does in fact live in him.	12:49
	So our love for him grows more and more,	12:54
	filling us with complete confidence for the day when	12:58
	he shall judge all men.	13:01
	For we realize that our life in this world is actually	13:03
	his life lived in us.	13:06
	Love contains no fear.	13:09
	Indeed fully developed love expels every particle of fear.	13:12
	For fear always contains some of the	13:17
	torture of feeling guilty.	13:20
	This means that the man who lives in fear has not yet	13:23
	had his love perfected.	13:26
	Yes we love him because he first loved us,	13:29
	but if the man says I love God and hates	13:32
	his brother he is a liar.	13:37
	For if he does not love the brother before his eyes	13:40
	how can he love the one beyond his sight.	13:42
	And in any case it is his explicit command that the one who	13:46
	loves God must love his brother too.	13:51
	(choir music)	13:57
-	With you, let us pray.	14:38
	Almighty God, our heavenly father.	14:49
	We offer our thanks that we were born into a generation	14:53
	which has a great and challenging responsibility	14:57
	which no honest person may escape.	15:01
	We are grateful, we think, that the time is calling out	15:06
	the best that is in us and will not allow us	15:10
	to be complacent.	15:14
	We thank thee that before this world was ours	15:17
	it belonged to thee.	15:20
	That before the responsibilities of this university	15:23
	and this nation and our own personal lives were laid upon	15:27
	our shoulders thou didst love it, love us,	15:32
	care for it, care for us.	15:39
	And even now the students in this university are more truly	15:42
	thy sons and daughters than they are the sons	15:50
	and daughters of their earthly parents.	15:54
	Oh God we thank thee for this divine companionship	15:58
	in our joint endeavor here.	16:02
	We not only offer our prayers and thanks giving but our	16:08
	prayers and intercession for each other.	16:11
	For students here and everywhere that they may have grace	16:17
	to learn the aspects, especially wisdom	16:21
	to learn about life while living life.	16:29
	Grant that they may achieve their own individuality.	16:34
	Their own separate person hood.	16:41
	That the may have grace to rebel	16:44
	without becoming rebellious.	16:47
	That they may be able to handle skepticism of every kind	16:51
	without becoming paranoid.	16:55
	They may have the good judgment to hear all voices	16:58
	that are being spoken without becoming the slaves	17:02
	of any one voice.	17:06
	Grant that all of them and all of us may choose voluntarily	17:10
	to become slaves of Jesus.	17:17
	We offer our prayers also for administrators and faculty	17:23
	trustees, parents, that they may be given	17:28
	the grace of wisdom too.	17:34
	Wisdom in the midst of confusion.	17:37
	Grace of patience under what seems like annoyance.	17:40
	And grace of independence in a network of inter relatedness.	17:47
	And the grace to wait and hope and love.	17:53
	Give those who are charged with responsibility the skill	18:00
	to attract the necessary financial support.	18:06
	Give them success in maintaining academic freedom,	18:11
	strength in defending the university against both	18:16
	anarchists and bigots.	18:19
	And grant them that degree of human and divine support	18:23
	without which no individual can endure.	18:27
	God of the nations.	18:34
	Thou who art the Lord of history	18:36
	we pray thee to give peace in the world.	18:39
	Give grace to overcome the fruit of our pride and stupidity.	18:44
	Give men everywhere are heart of love	18:50
	to overcome the bitterness	18:53
	and greed which have brought the nations to their present	18:54
	chaos and conflict.	18:58
	Oh Lord thou knowest how many individual lives have been	19:03
	damaged and destroyed by this war.	19:06
	It is chiefly thy grace which can heal the hurt.	19:10
	And even the part which we need to play in it ourselves	19:16
	needs the motivation of thy grace.	19:18
	So we pray for the wives, and children, the parents of	19:23
	those who have been killed.	19:26
	We pray for those who are missing in action	19:29
	and who's loved ones in some cases do not even know	19:32
	if they are alive or dead.	19:35
	We pray for the prisoners of war, for all who suffer	19:39
	undergird them with thy presence.	19:44
	We pray for all suffering people everywhere.	19:48
	Those who are shut in at home, those who have been	19:53
	injured, those in the hospital who have been operated on	19:58
	and who now look for recovery.	20:03
	Oh God we pray for their recovery.	20:07
	We know that thou art the great physician.	20:11
	And that thy spiritual power has great strength.	20:15
	And so with hope and love we pray for health to come	20:20
	not only to the bodies of the sick but to the spirits	20:26
	of all of us,	20:32
	for we are all sick in spirit unless we have thy truth	20:34
	and they love.	20:38
	Draw us close together in one fellowship	20:41
	and help us really understandingly to make our own	20:44
	the prayer which thy son Jesus has taught us to pray.	20:50
	Saying, our father who art in heaven, hollowed by they name,	20:54
	thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is	21:00
	in heaven, give us this day our daily bread.	21:05
	And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who	21:10
	trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation,	21:13
	but deliver us from evil.	21:17
	For thine is the kingdom and the power	21:19
	and the glory forever, amen.	21:22
	Allow me first of all to express	21:48
	a word of my own personal	21:53
	sense of joy and privilege at being here this morning.	21:54
	I know that the afro american society on campus as well	22:01
	as Doctor Wilkinson	22:04
	made the request that I would be here	22:08
	and I'm more than pleased that this particular Sunday	22:09
	was free enough for me to come.	22:14
	This is not my first visit to Duke.	22:18
	But it is my first visit to your chapel on a Sunday morning.	22:23
	My congregation in Memphis	22:34
	is in the very heart of one of the	22:37
	largest poverty pockets in the nation.	22:40
	And consequently	22:45
	throughout the last six years at least	22:50
	we've had any where from one to six young men from our	22:55
	congregation or from our larger parish in Vietnam	23:00
	at one time.	23:05
	And on any number of occasions when these men have returned	23:10
	home they have said to me	23:13
	reverend over there	23:17
	everyone believes in God.	23:21
	Now that remark represents	23:26
	a very necessary	23:30
	human experience.	23:34
	It's something like this, that whenever human beings	23:39
	no matter who they are or what they are, are pushed to their	23:42
	extremities, where they know the naked threat of their	23:46
	own personal life annihilation, or where they sense that	23:51
	somehow there is nothing but nothingness facing them	23:54
	in their experience,	23:59
	they begin to grapple and probe.	24:02
	To discover whether or not they can find those resources	24:04
	of depth that can provide if not courage	24:09
	at least some sense of meaning and direction.	24:16
	It is out of this, and I chose it as a theme for us to	24:24
	look at this morning, the only question that counts.	24:28
	My first point is fairly simple.	24:34
	No human being can be	24:37
	without a religion	24:42
	or without faith.	24:46
	Well let me state it negatively.	24:48
	No person can be an atheist, now the webster dictionary	24:50
	defines an atheist as an unbeliever.	24:55
	A part of our dilemma in the United States at least in	25:00
	talking about atheism	25:03
	is the simple fact that there is	25:07
	such a thing in our midst which many of us kind of sense.	25:10
	That we can call a practical atheist.	25:16
	That's very often many of us who	25:23
	are in places like this Sunday after Sunday.	25:28
	But one of the troubles is that no one ever calls us	25:34
	atheists because we do say all the right words,	25:37
	and we go through all the proper gestures.	25:41
	But we are play actors about God.	25:47
	Very frequently we are the friends	25:52
	of the enemies of the human race.	25:58
	We do not march for human dignity.	26:02
	We find it very easy to tolerate the cruelty	26:07
	that oppresses other people even our own communities,	26:11
	not to speak of the cruelties of Vietnam,	26:14
	or in Africa or Asia.	26:18
	And the growing numbers of the young or the old all	26:23
	around the world who are beginning to raise their voices	26:27
	in identity with one another for a different kind of world.	26:33
	We are not to be found.	26:36
	And that's why Jesus himself at one point	26:41
	called us play actors.	26:43
	Was fairly harsh about it. He said in fact,	26:48
	that men walk over us as though we were whitewashed	26:52
	tombs or graves and not even know	26:57
	that they're walking over the grave of someone.	27:02
	Well I have to admit in my own personal life that for	27:09
	a long time as I have fellow shipped with an Albert Camus	27:11
	I have felt him to be a more authentically religious man	27:17
	than a Richard Millhouse Nixon.	27:23
	Even though Albert Camus would never go	27:28
	to a prayer breakfast.	27:29
	Even as a fellow pastor I have to say that as I watched	27:35
	and read the spiritual odyssey of Malcolm X,	27:40
	even though he remained all of his days a member of the	27:44
	Islamic faith I count him more	27:46
	of a serious friend of Jesus	27:52
	than Billy Graham even though Billy Graham is called	27:56
	sometimes a doctor Christian.	27:59
	Well let me reiterate, well I said no one could be	28:05
	an unbeliever,	28:07
	after all what is religion?	28:13
	Well we can define it in a great number of ways.	28:14
	We can go to a Milton Younger, a sociologist of religion.	28:16
	And he suggested religion is nothing more than a system	28:22
	of beliefs and practices by means of which a people	28:25
	struggle with the ultimate problems of human life.	28:28
	That is the refusal to capitulate to death	28:31
	to give up in the face of frustration, or to allow hostility	28:33
	to tear apart one's human association.	28:38
	One of the reasons that there is, whether many of us	28:45
	cannot recognize it or not, historically among Black	28:49
	people in America a very serious religious dimension	28:52
	is because Black people in spite of their experience	28:57
	of what it means to be a human in this kind of a land	29:01
	have none the less refused to capitulate to their	29:05
	own annihilation and to their own death.	29:10
	We have, as many like to say, we have survived, and not	29:14
	simply survived, endured, and not simply endured!	29:18
	We've endured with a great sense of who we are	29:23
	and what we are.	29:27
	Paul Tillet might define religion as that which	29:30
	concerns us ultimately.	29:35
	And Alfred Whitehead might say that religion is a vision	29:37
	of something which gives meaning, even while it keeps	29:41
	deluding our apprehension.	29:44
	Well the point is that religion or faith is nothing more	29:48
	but nothing less than the way in which we somehow	29:53
	discover that all of the energies of our living	29:58
	are integrated and organized	30:03
	by inner logic, a transcendent awareness.	30:08
	Well this is why it seems to me that most region in our	30:15
	land is nothing more than a cultural thing.	30:18
	I would call it a pagan thing.	30:23
	Most of the religion of our land, including most of the	30:25
	religion of the churches is nothing more than	30:28
	a cultural thing, it is not the religion of Moses,	30:31
	or Isiah, or Jesus.	30:37
	Or Martin Luther kIng.	30:40
	It is a religion that is terribly infiltrated with	30:43
	the viruses of greed, and of racism,	30:46
	of the will to power for no meaning of violence.	30:51
	If you asked the average American today to draw a picture	30:57
	of God, that God would look something like this.	31:01
	He would be white, over 55	31:04
	and male.	31:09
	He would look like either Santa Claus, or Uncle Sam	31:13
	or a little of both.	31:16
	Nonetheless the human scene	31:20
	makes of each one of us	31:24
	a religious person.	31:27
	We will either by drifting or we will by struggle.	31:29
	We will by conscious awareness of our unconscious	31:32
	powers within us hammer and wrestle out	31:36
	an inner logic to which we give our loyalty our devotion	31:40
	and by which we organize our energy.	31:45
	An old testament theologian was hinting at this when he said	31:51
	you are made in the image of God,	31:56
	you are spirit,	31:59
	you have always across your life the necessity of	32:02
	making choices of freedom and limitation.	32:05
	You have within the marrow of your bones the necessity	32:09
	not only of being loved but of loving.	32:13
	Now to that kind of human scene comes the dimension that	32:18
	all men have known and know	32:23
	the necessity of faith or religion.	32:27
	Let me then move on to my second point.	32:34
	The only question that counts is what kind of religion	32:38
	do I have, who is the God of the energies of my living.	32:41
	Is he no God, as Isaih frequently said in his ministries?	32:48
	Or is he the living God of Moses or Jeremiah?	32:55
	Well obviously one cannot answer this massive kind of	33:01
	a question simply in one moment of worship.	33:04
	But let me just throw out in trying to provide a kind	33:09
	of way of you hammering an authentic faith	33:12
	three kinds of criteria by which you and I at this moment	33:15
	can try to judge	33:19
	the faith that is forming in us, even now.	33:22
	The first criteria, regardless of my own frustration	33:26
	of fear, of turmoil.	33:32
	Regardless of the confusion of my own life, and the life	33:35
	of history as I see it day after day,	33:38
	is there taking form in me	33:41
	a sense that I belong to life	33:45
	to love	33:53
	not to death.	33:55
	Is there something that escapes my real definitions	34:01
	that nonetheless makes me aware again and again	34:07
	that I belong,	34:12
	not by virtue of where I was born or how	34:14
	or where I live or my income	34:19
	or educational status of prestige,	34:21
	but because of the gift of my life.	34:23
	Now let us acknowledge for a moment now that there are	34:31
	multitudes of people who do not feel as though they were	34:35
	meant at all to live.	34:39
	One of the places where this has come home to me	34:43
	in a shattering kind of way was in the plays	34:48
	of Eugene o'Neile.	34:51
	And in his long days journey into night	34:54
	there is an especially poignant scene.	34:59
	The father and Edmund the oldest boy are drunk	35:04
	but late at night they are talking to each other.	35:10
	But more than that they are really, they're really	35:14
	touching each other as men for the first time.	35:18
	And sometimes they say cruel things to each other	35:23
	and sometimes they say loud things to each other	35:25
	but nonetheless they are touching one another's lives.	35:28
	And at one point Edmund says to his father,	35:33
	it was a great mistake my being born a man.	35:36
	I would've been more successful as a seagull or a fish.	35:44
	As it is I will always be a stranger who never feels	35:47
	at home, who does not really want, who is not really wanted.	35:50
	Who can never belong.	35:53
	Who must always be just a little in love	35:56
	with death.	36:01
	I wanna describe this spirit.	36:06
	And I call it sometimes a savage spirit	36:09
	savage sickness, one can find in many parts	36:12
	of our own land today.	36:16
	It's a sickness which afflicts multitudes of our people	36:23
	both black and white, both white and black.	36:27
	For years I suspected this.	36:33
	It's becoming more and more real to me,	36:36
	the heart of the issue in our nation today	36:41
	stands in the heart of each one of us	36:46
	and in the heart of we as a people.	36:50
	I describe what this is thusly.	36:57
	In spite of a vision of those who came to this land,	37:04
	some came in bondage.	37:10
	In spite of the dream of the American experiment	37:15
	some people we found here we tried to put in bondage.	37:19
	And we justified both the dream	37:27
	for some, and the bondage for others.	37:33
	We thought that such a dichotomy of love	37:41
	could be successfully done without affecting ourselves.	37:48
	But now that dualism has returned in full force,	37:55
	so that we are willing to sacrifice	38:02
	our children	38:07
	on the altar of our own delusion.	38:10
	Who are those who die from our land in Vietnam	38:17
	18 and 19 and 20 year olds, our sons,	38:20
	not our fathers or our uncles, but our sons.	38:24
	And even when we move to the extent that we shoot down	38:32
	people at Kent State or Jackson State,	38:37
	most of us feel that somehow	38:44
	if they weren't at the	38:51
	wrong place at the wrong time that they	38:52
	would not behave been shot down.	38:54
	But that spirit is spreading.	39:02
	Last year it came to my attention	39:07
	that a man by the name of Arvil Garland,	39:12
	the Detroit railroad worker,	39:15
	expressed this infanticide spirit.	39:21
	He'd been having trouble with his daughter Sandra for some	39:28
	two or three years.	39:30
	He wasn't able to understand her and she felt	39:35
	that he was oppression for her.	39:40
	She ran away a couple of times, they went and got her	39:46
	and brought her back.	39:49
	Her first year in college she left home,	39:52
	she planned it and so she urged her friends	39:58
	not to mention where she lived.	40:03
	Her daddy searched but could not find her.	40:09
	He did discover though that she had a boyfriend.	40:12
	He found out where the boyfriend lived.	40:16
	He went, he could never find Sandra there.	40:18
	But one early morning 2 am, he kicked down	40:25
	the doors of the apartment where the boyfriend lived.	40:30
	He found Sandra age 17 in the bed, in one of the beds rather	40:34
	with the boyfriend.	40:39
	He hit the boy over the head.	40:42
	The bullet went off and killed Sandra.	40:46
	Then he shot the boy.	40:50
	There was a roommate in the room in another bed.	40:54
	He was sleeping.	40:57
	The father killed him.	40:59
	In a next bedroom there was a black boy partner in the	41:02
	apartment, he killed him,	41:07
	four teenagers 16, 17 18.	41:12
	His trial was held in December of last year.	41:16
	Time magazine reported it in the early part of the month.	41:21
	He received hundreds of letters from all around the country	41:25
	Time reported in January.	41:28
	Let me quote specifically what Time said.	41:34
	Time magazine in the January 25th issue, thought this was	41:39
	so critical that it took and put it as it's second	41:43
	comment in that edition.	41:47
	Said one California father of a teenage girl,	41:52
	there are surely many among us	41:56
	who have done in our hearts	42:00
	what you have done with your hands.	42:02
	To have those to whom we opened our hearts and treasure	42:08
	say your truth is not truth,	42:11
	your values are without value can be beyond bearing.	42:14
	Other messages were simply congratulatory.	42:19
	One came with a $20, none contained	42:22
	any criticism of the killing.	42:25
	How does such a savage spirit take place.	42:32
	I want to see if I can again suggest why.	42:35
	Because you see teaching	42:39
	any form of racism	42:43
	either by word or by the ways in which we organize	42:47
	our children in classroom which are lily white	42:51
	teaches that child not to accept	42:56
	God's gift of life.	42:59
	Now don't take my word for it, go and read Gordon Alport	43:03
	on the nature of prejudice.	43:07
	Or Kenneth Clarke the sociologist on your	43:09
	child and prejudice.	43:13
	Or read Benjamin Spark who has lectured in this area	43:15
	to parents in relationship to the raising of their children.	43:19
	And what do these men say?	43:22
	I could describe it in the way in which I sensed it.	43:25
	Becoming a father in the last nine years	43:28
	and watching my sons grow.	43:31
	I've been in a park with them in Memphis.	43:34
	And they've been having a good time, and then	43:39
	I notice white children in the park who joined them	43:45
	and they proceed to play as children will.	43:49
	And as this has happened my wife and I will almost	43:55
	invariably start looking around to see if we can see	43:58
	the fathers and the mothers or the grandparents	44:01
	of the white children.	44:03
	Well we can frequently spot them while we're enjoying the	44:06
	fact that our children are having joy and play,	44:10
	they by their facial expression express up tightness.	44:14
	Because the children are playing with Black children.	44:20
	Soon mommy or daddy will come over and grab	44:25
	little Johnny and take him away.	44:27
	And I can imagine what she says.	44:29
	You mustn't play with those children	44:33
	they're dirty, they're colored, they're this they're that.	44:36
	And momma thinks that she is helping her child to	44:42
	develop discrimination in his life.	44:45
	Selectivity of friends.	44:49
	But little Johnny doesn't see it that way,	44:53
	for he too is human being though a child	44:56
	and he deals with that experience as a child.	44:59
	And he deals with that experience from the place of	45:02
	was it good play, was it fun.	45:07
	Did the other kids know how to do it?	45:11
	Were they good to play with?	45:15
	And so when mommy or daddy try to impose upon him this idea	45:18
	that those children no good, he says well that	45:22
	can't be so because they knew how to play like I know	45:24
	how to play so it must not be them it must be me,	45:27
	who's not worth having that kind of experience.	45:35
	And So Benjamin Spark says very clearly, that the first	45:40
	seed of self to suspicion,	45:43
	of self inability to accept	45:48
	the gift of life takes hold.	45:51
	And as that child maturates, that seed maturates	45:53
	so that all through that child's days	45:57
	there is a deeply seated unconscious sense	46:03
	that they're not really	46:09
	worth the gift of life.	46:14
	So James Baldwin puts it very succinctly when he says	46:20
	what the white man does not know about the black man	46:25
	he does not know about himself.	46:30
	What the white man fears about he black man he in truth	46:34
	fears about himself.	46:39
	And the Christian faith would say it another way.	46:40
	Any man who knows that he belongs to light knows the	46:44
	most critical things about every other human being.	46:49
	But what I know about Jim Lawson, I know about you and you.	46:55
	What I know or fear about myself	47:03
	will be the premises	47:09
	of my fear of you or any other human being.	47:10
	Be he a Vietcong	47:14
	Or is there taking seed in your life a sense	47:27
	that you were meant for love and for life	47:33
	not for death?	47:39
	Or for the second kind of criteria, it's not enough	47:46
	to have an inner transcendent logic that makes you	47:55
	feel who you are and that you belong to life.	47:58
	There must also be what you can call	48:02
	a kind of uptight cool.	48:06
	A kind of uncomfortable	48:11
	contentment.	48:17
	Let's see if I can talk about it a different way.	48:21
	Those of you who are sportsmen you'll know that a few	48:25
	weeks ago Yogi Berra,	48:28
	the former great catcher of the	48:31
	New York Yankees was not voted into the baseball	48:33
	hall of fame.	48:37
	And it brought home a story, one of my favorite	48:39
	stories about him.	48:43
	He was a bad ball hitter, notoriously known for it,	48:47
	and on a beautiful afternoon he was up to bat,	48:54
	and the pitcher was little bit wild and the first pitch	48:58
	went clearly outside the base,	49:00
	outside the plate,	49:05
	and Yogi sure enough swung and missed.	49:08
	Well the pitcher figured he had Yogis number,	49:14
	so he put he ball almost exactly in the same spot,	49:16
	still outside the plate.	49:20
	Berra swung again, and missed.	49:24
	Well the third time the pitcher put the ball still further	49:29
	outside the plate and Yogi swung with all of his might	49:32
	hitting the dust as he swung.	49:36
	Well he threw the bat down in disgust and stumbled	49:39
	back to the dugout and his teammates expected to hear	49:43
	him explode in self disgust, but he didn't say a word.	49:47
	Came on down the dugout steps,	49:54
	then as he went toward the seat, he was heard to mutter	49:57
	to himself how in the world does a pitcher like that	50:02
	stay in this league?	50:06
	Another way of talking about this was the story of a wise	50:18
	old bishop in the state of Virginia, was Episcopalian	50:21
	and he persuaded a very fine upstanding young layman	50:24
	to run for Congress.	50:28
	And that young man won, his first time out	50:31
	in a political effort.	50:35
	And some nights after that the bishop and his good friend	50:37
	were sitting together talking about what this new	50:43
	vocation meant.	50:45
	It was storming outside, and at one point the bishop	50:47
	said to his friend, look Bill	50:52
	why don't you go outside in the rain and stand up and look	50:59
	at the heavens, and just stand there and let that rain	51:04
	pour down on your face and keep looking up.	51:07
	You'll get a revelation, and if you're going to be a good	51:13
	congressman you need revelations.	51:17
	Well the newly elected congressman didn't think very much	51:24
	of the idea but he said okay I'll do it.	51:27
	So he went out and stood up in the rain looking up.	51:29
	He of course got soaking wet, he came back in wailing,	51:32
	he said look at me bishop, I'm soaking wet,	51:34
	I didn't get any revelation I just feel like	51:39
	a blithering idiot.	51:41
	The old bishop laughed and said to him Bill,	51:44
	that's a pretty good revelation for the first time.	51:48
	Well the second point, second question, criteria	51:57
	is there at the same moment taking root in me the sense	52:02
	that somehow I'm not yet where I ought to be.	52:07
	A discomfortable questioner of the directions of my living.	52:13
	Well the inferior sense of belonging, and the	52:22
	external critic must be seen in the final question	52:26
	and it goes like this.	52:30
	Do I find myself day after day	52:34
	being tied by steel like	52:39
	chains of solidarity	52:43
	to all human kind.	52:48
	Do I sense that not only do I belong to life,	52:51
	and am being pushed by life but at the same moment	52:55
	I belong also to my fellow sojourner	52:57
	near and far?	53:02
	Wrote Kenneth Patchen in his memoirs of a shy pornographer	53:08
	says something like this, I think it's childish to imagine	53:10
	that somewhere, somehow is something that will punish us	53:13
	if we do evil, reward us if we do good.	53:17
	That's a monstrous idea of God,	53:20
	it means that we can cheat, lie, kill each other	53:22
	with the nice comforting thought that we're stepping on	53:25
	the toes of something that someday maybe will	53:27
	fix us for it.	53:30
	No, God stands before every man.	53:31
	When you cheat you cheat him, when you lie	53:35
	you lie to him, and when you kill you kill him.	53:37
	Not in some nebulous hereafter but this moment now.	53:39
	He is every man.	53:44
	What we do we can only do for each other.	53:46
	Any dream we have is a dream all must share in.	53:48
	Any goal we set forth ourselves,	53:52
	must be a goal	53:57
	we are willing to set	53:59
	for every other human being.	54:04
	Vatican two put it this way.	54:17
	The hopes, the afflictions, the poverty, the anguish	54:22
	the joy, of the sons of man	54:28
	must become the joy, the poverty, the anguish,	54:32
	the affliction of the followers of Christ.	54:35
	Without the inward sense	54:43
	that you belong to life	54:48
	your faith will have	54:52
	no genuine	54:55
	life power.	54:59
	Without the transcendent critic	55:05
	your faith will not have direction.	55:10
	Without	55:17
	the knowing	55:22
	that you are a part of the human race	55:25
	for better or for worse	55:33
	your faith will have no style.	55:36
	You know John in his first letter	55:47
	was quite correct,	55:52
	that no man has ever had a direct vision of God.	55:54
	But when we love one another	56:03
	we are in God and God is in us.	56:09
	The man who is involved in love	56:11
	is in fact involved in God,	56:15
	and God is in fact involved in him.	56:18
	You may not know how to describe that faith which is	56:28
	taking form in you even at this moment.	56:31
	But if in spite of the struggles of your own	56:37
	present human scene	56:40
	you find dimly and at other moments of bright illuminating	56:44
	power that your life is not an accident	56:48
	but a gift then	56:52
	it is the living God who has already begun to plant	56:55
	faith in you.	57:00
	If in moments both of your despair at the same time	57:05
	in moments of your greatest exhilaration of being alive,	57:09
	you know that somehow life is still pushing you towards	57:13
	different dreams and up a different kind of mountain.	57:18
	The faith taking form in you is authentic	57:25
	and if against your own wishes,	57:30
	contrary to your own best interests you have to find that	57:36
	in spirit, in body,	57:40
	in attitude, in word,	57:42
	again and again you have to identify with the hurt,	57:45
	and the lonely, and the weak,	57:49
	and every human person around the world	57:52
	faith in you is taking on form and might.	57:56
	You're involved with the living God.	58:01
	The God of Moses and Jesus and Martin King.	58:04
	And more than that God	58:11
	is involved in you.	58:16
	Let us pray.	58:24
	Let not our meandering though God in this place be in vain.	58:35
	But let that faith that even in this moment	58:44
	that in every moment of our living is taking place	58:46
	and taking form in us	58:50
	be that which you, life force, love, sprit, truth, power,	58:54
	is at every moment creating for us	59:05
	and in us	59:12
	amen.	59:19
	(choir music)	59:23

Item Info

Title:

James M. Lawson, Jr. - Sermon Untitled (February 21, 1971)

Description:

All humans are religious, even if they profess to be atheists. However, not all humans have authentic faith. There are three primary criteria for determining whether your faith is authentic: 1.) Is there taking form in you a sense that you belong to life and not death?; 2.) Is there taking form in you a sense that you should not quite be content where you currently are?; 3.) Do you find yourself, day after day, more deeply bound in solidarity with all of humankind? If yes, then you are involved with the living God, and the living God is involved with you. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 21:48. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 58:21.
Key quotation: “If against your own wishes, contrary to your own best interests, you find that in spirit, in body, in attitude, in word, again and again you have to identify with the hurt, and the lonely, and the weak, and every human person around the world, faith in you is taking on form and might. You’re involved with the living God.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ks6jj7q

Date:

February 21, 1971

Speaker:

Lawson, James M., 1928-

Biblical Book:

1 John

Chapter and Verse:

1 John 4:12-21

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0560
ref6323_sci
uachapelsermaud
duke:320488
dcrau001794
ark:/87924/r4ks6jj7q
fd229ebc-888a-4bb7-9dad-672cd0200b24

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

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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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James M. Lawson, Jr. - Sermon Untitled (February 21, 1971)

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Duke University Archives

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