Julian N. Hartt - Baccalaureate Sermon (June 4, 1961)

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	(choir singing indistinctly)	0:17
	(choir singing indistinctly)	1:48
	(choir singing indistinctly)	3:30
	(organ solo)	3:46
	(choir singing indistinctly)	4:04
	(organ solo)	4:16
	(choir singing indistinctly)	4:19
	(choir singing indistinctly)	5:09
	♪ Amen ♪	5:59
	♪ Amen ♪	6:04
-	You've heard it in the lesson.	6:49
	We look not to the things that are seen	6:52
	but to the things that are unseen,	6:54
	for the things that are seen are transient,	6:57
	but the things that are unseen are eternal.	6:59
	This text speaks to our anxiety about making ends meet.	7:05
	This is not the dollars and cents anxiety.	7:11
	As a nation, we have made very great progress	7:15
	in the solution of the question	7:18
	with what to live, with what to make a living.	7:21
	But the question for what to live,	7:28
	to what end to live,	7:30
	is the source of a deep and an ultimate anxiety.	7:33
	For in it there is expressed despair, terror, and rage	7:38
	over the actual meeting	7:44
	of the appointed ends of our existence.	7:46
	The first of these ends is the good,	7:51
	the end for which we are created.	7:55
	The second is death, for we are mortal,	7:59
	and we are mortal by design and not accident.	8:04
	We are mortal by God's design and not the devil's.	8:09
	The good and our death,	8:16
	these are the appointed ends of our existence.	8:20
	But when these ends meet,	8:25
	despair, rage, and terror sprout in the soul.	8:27
	For these ends do indeed meet,	8:34
	and the violence of their collision	8:38
	makes a wasteland of our heart,	8:41
	in which despair, rage, and terror naturally grow.	8:45
	Yet if we try to separate these two ends from each other,	8:53
	as try we do,	8:57
	the results are unlivable lies.	9:00
	We think too much and too badly about death.	9:04
	And the good is ruined in us,	9:08
	the joy of the good.	9:11
	Its health and its peace	9:12
	are frostbitten and blighted by death.	9:15
	Then it is possible for us to love death	9:19
	more than life.	9:22
	Failure to find our good may force a surrender	9:24
	of the soul to the love of death.	9:28
	But if in our enjoyment of the good	9:32
	we are not rightly instructed by death,	9:35
	if we take no thought of that end,	9:39
	keep it always out of our view,	9:41
	then we are fools,	9:44
	fools of the Bible, to be exact.	9:47
	Then we feel and act	9:52
	as though we were destined to live forever,	9:54
	and allow precious life to sift through our fingers.	9:57
	Life, precious and irrecoverable, is wasted now	10:01
	in dreaming and now in irrational, galvanic lunges	10:06
	at the fleeting shadows of good things,	10:12
	which in substance are beyond our in-fleshed spirits.	10:14
	Such folly is death-dealing when it is unleashed	10:21
	from its ordained linkage with life's good.	10:26
	Death drives off against every instinct	10:30
	and sense of life along the desecrating journey	10:33
	into kingdom's folly.	10:37
	The shape and the movement	10:44
	of the outer world are no great comfort to us	10:46
	in this condition.	10:49
	That world says, "achieve," "compete,"	10:51
	"scramble," "hustle," "be something,"	10:55
	"get hold of plenty of something,"	10:59
	"get hold of plenty of nothing."	11:02
	All of these demands, these summons, nudges,	11:06
	beckoning, punches, pulls, and tugs	11:10
	are gigantic public amplification of our internal agitation,	11:14
	for the awful din we hear and cannot flee	11:21
	is of course our own blood roaring in the inner ear,	11:24
	monstrously amplified.	11:30
	It's little wonder then that we cannot	11:34
	find a quiet place away from the turbulence	11:35
	of the outer world,	11:39
	a place, a walled garden, an inaccessible aerie,	11:40
	an unfrequented island, a place,	11:47
	a moment in which to be still and at peace.	11:50
	For even in such a perfect little hideaway,	11:55
	where the outer world is briefly hushed,	11:59
	the inner tumult persists.	12:03
	Death, terror, despair, rage	12:07
	tear to shreds the inner world.	12:12
	So when prophets warn us that the human race	12:20
	is threatened with a man-fashioned destruction,	12:23
	and in this crisis, this era of crises,	12:27
	elevate the protection of our way of life as the good	12:29
	to which the heart can wholly give itself,	12:33
	we turn away, sick with fright and disgust.	12:36
	For mortal and immortal enemies,	12:40
	we do indeed need protection.	12:43
	But shall we say also that the good	12:46
	for which we live is as uncertain of its future	12:48
	as we of ours?	12:52
	Or ought we rather in good faith to confess	12:55
	that good in amplitude sufficient	12:59
	for all living souls to live within it in peace and joy	13:03
	and in substance durable through every vicissitude,	13:09
	calamitous and irritating.	13:12
	Such good hardly needs defense against evil men,	13:16
	time, and death.	13:19
	And least of all, that defense,	13:23
	which promises to turn the outer world	13:25
	into a desert and threatens now	13:27
	to drain the inner light	13:30
	of the last ounce of freedom over terror and rage.	13:32
	Where, then, shall we turn for prospects of life	13:40
	in which the proper ends of life come into view,	13:43
	to each other reconciled?	13:46
	Real good, well within the reach of mortal love,	13:49
	its beauty not destroyed by our destruction.	13:52
	Death, encompassed in a life unmarred	13:57
	by recoil into terror, rage, or despair.	14:00
	Today, where shall we turn?	14:07
	In the moment, where shall we turn?	14:10
	The turn is a turning again.	14:14
	The turn is a return.	14:17
	In the mind's eye, returning back over the route	14:19
	we have been rushing down in fearful hate,	14:23
	back over this route to the condition	14:26
	in which God created us,	14:28
	still remembered, still affirmed in pious sentiment,	14:31
	but also violently denied in act and desire.	14:36
	Of one mankind, God has created us,	14:43
	in one body, for one life.	14:48
	In one body only do we have the good of our creation,	14:52
	however far from that body rebellious spirit seeks to run	14:56
	and no matter how numerous, petty, and diseased	15:00
	the divisions the spirit in us make and cherishes.	15:02
	In God's creation, mankind is one community.	15:08
	Therefore, nothing which obscures that great divine fact	15:11
	can itself be good.	15:15
	For whatsoever divides as to set us	15:17
	against one another diminishes and corrupts us all.	15:20
	And whatever so unites us as to maximize	15:25
	the distinctive value of each of us enhances all of us.	15:29
	So we are created to have a life together	15:37
	and to be one people	15:39
	in the love of a common good.	15:42
	To that life, each of us is able	15:44
	to make a distinctive contribution.	15:46
	By that life, we are sustained	15:49
	and to be rebuked by that common life	15:52
	when we violate its requirements	15:55
	is part of its providence.	15:58
	And to know that God's own life has been committed	16:01
	to that light,	16:04
	for its perfection in good time	16:05
	is that pure gift of God we rightly call faith.	16:08
	But how far along what dusty and tortured road	16:15
	we have traveled from the community of God's creation,	16:19
	the communities in which we stand today	16:23
	are all fragments of the common human life,	16:26
	that great community: mankind itself.	16:29
	We who dwell in the fragments of community	16:33
	are ourselves only fractions of persons	16:36
	and irrational fractions, at that.	16:40
	The hardest kind to add up.	16:43
	We take our stand on being A, B, C,	16:48
	D, M, Q, out to Z, fight,	16:51
	Protestant, Democrat, I hope, American, educated,	16:54
	Sigma Nu.	16:59
	And hopefully, at the last, at the end,	17:02
	the hopeless, hapless, last:	17:06
	human beings.	17:09
	Ah, but at the last, we should arrive	17:12
	at the point from which we have begun,	17:14
	and from which we have splintered ourselves	17:18
	into thousands of irrational fractions.	17:21
	For are these fractional interests, in the sum, a life?	17:26
	The spirit really moves in all such parts?	17:31
	Reproving what needs reproof?	17:34
	Punishing what needs punishment?	17:37
	Cutting away dead tissue that new life may grow,	17:40
	fashioning a whole being	17:43
	and offering up both what he's doth achieved	17:45
	and what failed to such achievement,	17:47
	offering it all up to almighty God,	17:50
	in whose abundance of life	17:53
	we have both our life and our death.	17:54
	The fragments do not add up to a human life,	18:00
	and the reason is clear.	18:03
	The condition of the spirit. That is the reason.	18:06
	Spirit requires freedom to weave the diverse elements	18:11
	of existence into a significant living whole.	18:14
	That the elements be ever so diverse,	18:19
	all the way from humanity to Sigma Nu and back.	18:23
	If freedom is given to spirit and the unity	18:28
	of the ends of our creation come into view,	18:31
	good, rather than a merely useful life, will emerge.	18:35
	And we should like to see dropped from our lexicon	18:40
	the term, "the useful life,"	18:44
	and with the God, "the good life"	18:47
	might take its place.	18:50
	Though the creation of such a life be difficult,	18:53
	beyond the comfort of the goodies	18:58
	that we all so greatly enjoy,	18:59
	its most painful moments are more meaningful	19:03
	than the happiest hours,	19:06
	accord to the life which does not add up	19:08
	and therefore remains a jumble of odds and ends	19:11
	stuck together in a crude working order by social pressure.	19:16
	In our time, social pressure	19:25
	has become omnipotent itself,	19:27
	required to shape us up for the day's work.	19:31
	As the day's work becomes less and less interesting	19:37
	to more and more people,	19:40
	the pressure required to shape them and control them	19:42
	for the sake of the day's work must be immensely increased.	19:46
	But this is just one kind of pressure	19:51
	applied by one kind of a public	19:54
	to which each of us belong.	19:57
	The societies upon which we depend for daily bread,	19:59
	for human warmth, for personal recognition,	20:03
	all of these are so many publics	20:06
	over which no one overarching community	20:09
	of mankind appears visible in our view.	20:13
	So all of these publics,	20:20
	like each of us within these publics,	20:22
	are so many irrational fractions.	20:24
	Each reigns for supremacy in the position	20:27
	and the employment of power over us.	20:31
	Therefore the spirit commissioned originally	20:36
	to preside over the creation	20:39
	of an effective unity of life	20:41
	is reduced to the status of an errand boy,	20:43
	running from one public to the next,	20:47
	carrying out his mission,	20:49
	being a transit point for the communication	20:53
	of omnipotent social power.	20:57
	Because our grip upon essential human community seems weak	21:05
	even unto death,	21:08
	we are committed to an insane alternation	21:10
	of internal tyranny and civil war.	21:14
	But of course the claims made	21:20
	by all of these warring publics upon one another,	21:21
	and upon ourselves,	21:25
	every one of these claims is a fraudulent claim.	21:26
	And no matter the piety with which they are advertised,	21:30
	including the advertisement of the church public,	21:33
	which is just as familiar with the devices	21:39
	of power and the application of social pressure,	21:41
	as any other of our public is.	21:44
	All of these claims are fraudulent, every one,	21:48
	for none can provide what it is obliged in our time	21:51
	to promise, that kind of unity,	21:55
	each person with himself, each with others,	21:58
	in which alone	22:01
	health, joy, and peace are attainable.	22:02
	True, many of these clamorous groups	22:06
	have a partial value to communicate,	22:09
	but fullness of life, none of these has.	22:12
	So the claims they press home upon us are fraudulent	22:16
	precisely at the moment in which	22:20
	they are heard to promise fullness of life.	22:22
	But now an uneasiness agitates the spirit got,	22:29
	for all of their fraudulent demands upon us,	22:35
	to be loved absolutely,	22:38
	these fractions in which we vainly seek wholeness	22:41
	and fullness of light are at least concrete.	22:45
	They are at least visible.	22:49
	Here and now they stand of earth, earthy.	22:51
	Therefore, certainly just objects	22:56
	of our flesh-bound love,	22:58
	who have no native power to see and to love	23:01
	but does not live rooted in earth, as we live.	23:04
	So what is eternity, but an abstract box	23:09
	around which a time-frightened and time-disgusted soul	23:13
	may abstractly play.	23:18
	Now our uneasiness blossoms religiously.	23:23
	If our true good is something eternal,	23:28
	we stand from the start accursed of God,	23:31
	haunted pointlessly by things we cannot have	23:35
	except in poets' dreams.	23:38
	Is this then in all fairness	23:43
	the faith to which the gospel brings us?	23:45
	But does it not tell us that the true community	23:48
	God created and God redeemed,	23:51
	the blessed unity of humankind is something eternal	23:54
	and therefore unseen?	23:58
	So then what reality of direction and fulfillment	24:02
	can that invisible world give our lives?	24:04
	How can such an end come into our flesh-bound view?	24:08
	This question exposes a natural philosophic disposition	24:15
	to isolate the eternal from the temporal.	24:19
	Saint Paul's language encourages this disposition	24:23
	but not his faithful thought.	24:27
	In his faith, Jesus Christ is the eternal holy,	24:30
	come into time.	24:32
	In him, God comes and dwells in all the authority	24:35
	of holy righteousness.	24:39
	He comes into our life bringing our salvation.	24:42
	His own life, our salvation.	24:45
	A life for life.	24:48
	And so, in the faith of the Christian Paul,	24:53
	or whoever he is,	24:55
	the eternal world appears in the power of Christ.	24:58
	Christ's power makes us one in reality	25:02
	and not only in prophetic dreams.	25:05
	He reconciles the good with our death,	25:09
	and in him, God calls off to practice dying	25:14
	for the sake of others,	25:18
	even as Jesus Christ died for all mankind.	25:19
	That in him, what God has begun as a unity	25:24
	might be brought to glorious fruit.	25:29
	Therefore, the gospel speaks this word:	25:33
	Jesus Christ brings the kingdom of God into visibility.	25:36
	What is hidden from sight	25:42
	is the time of fulfillment of all mankind in that community,	25:43
	but there is nothing invisible about the power-making	25:49
	for that end.	25:52
	We feel it all about us, and within.	25:54
	Our trouble is that we look for something immensely grand.	25:59
	Something stupefyingly beautiful and power.	26:03
	For if God were so good as to provide doth for us,	26:07
	the grandiosity of our dreams,	26:11
	the greatness, and the fantastic extravagances	26:14
	of our self love would then soar above every rebuke	26:18
	time and flesh put in place.	26:22
	As it is, a dog barking in the night	26:27
	can shatter our dreams, hopelessly.	26:29
	And the being who leaps out at us from the mirror	26:33
	in the dawn's cold, gray light is a doubtful friend	26:37
	and a potentially traitorous lover.	26:41
	And as it is, we feel the power of Christ	26:48
	in the tug at our hearts and wills.	26:53
	The lowliest of human creatures,	26:57
	the poorest and not the grandest,	26:58
	can exert just by being wretched,	27:01
	or, for that matter, just by being joyous.	27:06
	Quickly we learn to throttle that naturally good response	27:12
	to God's every creature.	27:17
	We throttle it until the person tugging	27:19
	at our hearts and our wills has been duly certified	27:22
	as to race, religion, politics, worldly goods,	27:26
	position to help us or hinder us	27:31
	in our pursuit of worldly plunder,	27:33
	geography, morality, and just plain likable-ness.	27:36
	Not many souls, living or dead, can pass all of those tests,	27:43
	any more than many of us would be willing to	27:49
	take our chances with such an admissions committee.	27:52
	Therefore, the community in which we live	27:57
	is likely to be narrow, unnatural,	27:59
	and alternately dull and violent.	28:03
	But not always.	28:08
	And, God grants, not for long.	28:11
	The spirit in us is under relentless pressure	28:15
	from Christ's spirit to break the yoke	28:18
	of these slavish restrictions,	28:21
	bending us out of Christ's shape	28:24
	in order that we may one day all stand up straight	28:27
	in the free air,	28:30
	and in the pure light of God's visible kingdom.	28:32
	And the power of the Lord Christ is visible	28:38
	in yet another way.	28:41
	As living spirits, each of us is invited	28:43
	to discover his freedom by using his freedom	28:45
	to enrich the life of all.	28:49
	This each of us can do only by himself, resolving to do so.	28:52
	Society can seduce or compel consent to its purposes,	28:59
	but genuine self resolution	29:04
	is finally and unbelievably personal and solitary.	29:06
	In the moment of resolution, one indeed is alone,	29:12
	more so I suspect than at any other moment,	29:16
	more so than in the moment of death.	29:20
	The great thing about death,	29:24
	among others, and we will not go through the inventory	29:26
	at this point.	29:28
	The great thing about death	29:31
	is that one is relieved of a necessity,	29:33
	in his own case, of seeing how the final facing of it	29:36
	affects thereafter the lives of others.	29:41
	He can imagine how it will affect them.	29:45
	And the insurance companies	29:48
	are powerful aid and accessories to the imagination,	29:49
	but he cannot know how it will affect the lives of others.	29:54
	But this is not so for the resolution,	30:00
	the self-determination to be oneself	30:01
	for the lives of others,	30:04
	a person hopes to do his best,	30:06
	but he may very well live to see how badly his best	30:09
	turns out for everybody.	30:12
	That is a risk we must all face,	30:15
	unless terror or despair of life	30:18
	has driven us out of the real common life	30:20
	into a hopeless privacy.	30:23
	If we are still in business with the common life,	30:27
	if we still love it and desire to see its good increase,	30:30
	then the power of Christ ministers to us,	30:35
	whether or not we rightly name him	30:39
	in prayers and blessings	30:41
	rather than in oath and implication.	30:43
	The power of Christ, yes.	30:49
	The love, which opens our eyes	30:53
	to see the good of God's creation	30:55
	and quickens our hearts to love it	30:57
	and nerves the will to seek it.	31:00
	And then again, the power of the Lord Christ	31:05
	releases us to our freedom.	31:07
	This means that we cannot claim Jesus Christ as warrant	31:10
	when we discard freedom,	31:14
	for even the noblest policy and program for social justice.	31:17
	Using all his passion and his skill,	31:21
	a Christian may contrive a splendid program	31:24
	for social justice.	31:29
	And speaking of the tongues of angels,	31:31
	at least leads to him momentarily for this purpose,	31:33
	he may arouse wide and powerful support for his program.	31:37
	But that does not in itself make it Christian.	31:42
	Christian is his will to serve the Lord	31:46
	when he loves what the Lord loves	31:48
	and Christian too is my will in opposing him	31:51
	when I love what the Lord loves.	31:55
	The people each of us would see blessed and whole.	31:58
	Not my people or his people, but God's people,	32:04
	and, therefore, one people, together.	32:09
	I have come at the end to this conclusion	32:15
	for an obvious reason:	32:17
	The outer world is a turbulence arena	32:20
	in which world strategies compete	32:24
	for the domination of mankind,	32:26
	most of them in the name of human freedom and dignity.	32:30
	Hardly anyone anymore announces as his social strategy	32:34
	injustice, tyranny, and the suppression of human rights,	32:38
	but each such strategy makes its bid	32:45
	for loyalty of all mankind,	32:47
	with all of the persuasions available,	32:49
	all of the persuasions, promises, and threats,	32:52
	arousements of terror and of rage.	32:56
	Not one of these strategies is either likely or fit	33:00
	to rule the world absolutely,	33:05
	but nonetheless, each of us must decide	33:09
	for one or the other of these world strategies.	33:13
	And we must decide without halfheartedness,	33:16
	without the dreadful double mind.	33:20
	Yet we dare not forget what we ought to love	33:24
	is actual people, existing people,	33:28
	more than we love strategies and the social orders	33:33
	the strategies are calculated to preserve.	33:37
	We cannot love mankind's future,	33:40
	unless first our love is rooted	33:43
	in the existence of living souls.	33:46
	And this is a demand of God's Christ.	33:51
	The garden of Eden was obviously	33:55
	a wonderful social structure,	33:58
	but thank God	34:01
	God loved Adam and Eve	34:02
	more than he did the original social arrangement,	34:04
	a truly godly example to be followed by us all.	34:10
	In the name of this God, then,	34:17
	we ought to choose the strategies of freedom	34:18
	as one aspect of the choice to live	34:20
	for the good of the whole community of mankind.	34:22
	That choice has other aspects too,	34:26
	because God provides inexhaustible ways	34:29
	in which we can participate freely	34:32
	in the terror, the misery,	34:36
	and the guilt of lost souls everywhere,	34:37
	and in the peace and joy of bound souls everywhere.	34:41
	In the name of God we ought to choose	34:48
	the strategies of freedom,	34:50
	both for domestic and foreign consumption.	34:52
	These strategies are not perfect programs,	34:56
	if we need to be reminded of this,	34:59
	for the realization of the human good.	35:02
	But we are not sat in this life	35:05
	to seek that form of perfection.	35:06
	Nonetheless, we cannot fail	35:09
	to remark an unnecessary imperfection	35:10
	exposed in the appeal in these recent weeks	35:14
	to choose democracy and justice at home	35:17
	because of the international repercussions	35:20
	of not doing so.	35:22
	Am I to be kind and to deal justly with my neighbor,	35:25
	whatever or whoever he is,	35:29
	because men elsewhere on this earth	35:32
	will think badly of the United States of America	35:34
	if I do not do so?	35:37
	This is something to be considered,	35:41
	but in just relationship to something else.	35:43
	One who believes in Christ	35:49
	is given also to believe that it is God	35:53
	who is most fully offended by my sins against my brother.	35:56
	It is not our foreign policy that is most grievously	36:01
	harassed and embarrassed	36:05
	by our harsh and iniquitous dealings	36:09
	with our brother.	36:15
	Therefore. I must seek my brother's good,	36:18
	not because I like him or because I fail to like him,	36:20
	but because God has a distinctive place for him too	36:27
	in his community, transcending all our divisions	36:30
	and all of our love of our divisions.	36:38
	Truly, then, God is good,	36:44
	who gives to our in-fleshed spirits	36:47
	such power to enjoy the joy of others	36:49
	and to deny itself the souls lost in terror,	36:53
	in darkness, in rage, might find health, joy, and peace.	36:58
	Thus, the ends of our creation meet in Christ's community.	37:09
	A good adhering view for which can cheerfully risk	37:15
	the all-out expenditure of self,	37:18
	for that good will not fade	37:22
	into our sick and our gaudy dreams.	37:24
	Love this good we can, then,	37:28
	without stint or stain of corruption	37:30
	imposed by fear or guilt.	37:33
	For in that kingdom, and in that love,	37:37
	death is no longer an evil intruder.	37:41
	Living in death, we are all in God's hands,	37:46
	and in God's hands only.	37:51
	So we pray, so we work, so we praise all the day long.	37:55
	For the God who brought us to the beginning of this day	38:04
	will receive us at its end.	38:09
	Amen.	38:14
-	Receive the benediction.	38:33
	Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,	38:38
	the love of God the Father,	38:40
	the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	38:44
	rest upon you and abide with you now and ever more.	38:54
	(choir indistinctly singing)	39:03
	(bell chiming)	40:22
	(upbeat organ solo)	40:33

Item Info

Title:

Julian N. Hartt - Baccalaureate Sermon (June 4, 1961)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4m32sb4c

Date:

June 4, 1961

Speaker:

Hartt, Julian N.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0146
ref5498_xxc
uachapelsermaud
duke:627943
dcrau002163
ark:/87924/r4m32sb4c
67d88773-854d-4eb2-8997-ebfbf9a2742e

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

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:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

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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