James T. Cleland - "Therefore and Because" (January 21, 1962)
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| - | Let us pray. | 0:05 |
| Let the words of my mouth | 0:08 | |
| and the meditations of our hearts | 0:11 | |
| be acceptable in thy sight, | 0:13 | |
| oh Lord our strength and our Redeemer. | 0:16 | |
| Amen. | 0:21 | |
| The other day, | 0:28 | |
| a puzzled but | 0:31 | |
| serious faculty wife, | 0:33 | |
| exclaimed, | 0:35 | |
| "I wish someone would tell me the difference | 0:38 | |
| between religion | 0:41 | |
| and ethics." | 0:44 | |
| I wish someone would tell me the difference | 0:47 | |
| between religion and ethics. | 0:50 | |
| It's a good query, | 0:55 | |
| and today we shall look at one aspect of the matter. | 0:57 | |
| There is such a thing as religion | 1:04 | |
| without ethics. | 1:07 | |
| A student questionnaire | 1:11 | |
| filled out as a requirement in a sociology class, | 1:14 | |
| suggested as one of its conclusions that | 1:19 | |
| attendance at the chapel service | 1:23 | |
| has no real effect | 1:27 | |
| on the ethical behavior | 1:31 | |
| of a majority of the worshipers. | 1:34 | |
| Now that deduction received support elsewhere. | 1:40 | |
| A hypocrite has been defined | 1:47 | |
| as a man who isn't quite himself on Sunday. | 1:50 | |
| You know too the not all together fair comments | 1:57 | |
| about the Roman Catholic confessional | 2:03 | |
| and resulting behavior. | 2:06 | |
| Religion and ethics for too many of us | 2:11 | |
| can be | 2:14 | |
| and are kept | 2:15 | |
| in watertight compartments. | 2:18 | |
| There is often no corridor in our train | 2:22 | |
| between the Sunday coach | 2:27 | |
| and the other six named Monday through Saturday. | 2:30 | |
| The Bible is not unaware of this phenomenon. | 2:37 | |
| Listen to Amos writing in the eighth century. | 2:42 | |
| God is speaking to the Israelites | 2:47 | |
| about their religious services. | 2:51 | |
| "I hate, | 2:55 | |
| I despise your feasts, | 2:57 | |
| and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. | 3:01 | |
| Even though you offer me burnt offerings | 3:07 | |
| and cereal offerings, | 3:10 | |
| I will not accept them. | 3:12 | |
| And the peace offerings of your fatted beasts, | 3:16 | |
| I will not look upon. | 3:19 | |
| Take away from me the noise of your songs | 3:23 | |
| to the melody of your hearts, | 3:28 | |
| I will not listen. | 3:31 | |
| But let | 3:35 | |
| justice roll down | 3:36 | |
| like waters | 3:39 | |
| and righteousness | 3:41 | |
| like an ever flowing stream. | 3:43 | |
| Yes, there can be religion | 3:49 | |
| without any to be | 3:52 | |
| expected | 3:54 | |
| ensuing | 3:55 | |
| ethics. | 3:57 | |
| Similarly, there is such a thing as ethics without religion. | 4:00 | |
| A most puzzling phenomenon to a God fearer | 4:06 | |
| is the goodness of an atheist. | 4:11 | |
| There's plenty of such goodness here in this university. | 4:17 | |
| Men and women of high ethical behavior | 4:22 | |
| who pay no attention to the character | 4:27 | |
| or even to the fact | 4:30 | |
| of deity. | 4:33 | |
| John Stuart Mill built his utilitarianism | 4:35 | |
| on no God necessary foundation. | 4:39 | |
| For him, any act towards right and good, | 4:43 | |
| would produce the greatest happiness | 4:48 | |
| of the greatest number. | 4:51 | |
| Now, the new Testament is not blind to this phenomenon. | 4:54 | |
| Listen to Saint Paul, | 4:58 | |
| "When Gentiles, | 5:01 | |
| who do not have the law," | 5:04 | |
| That is, the revealed law of God, The Torah. | 5:06 | |
| "When Gentiles who do not have the law, | 5:11 | |
| do by nature what the law requires, | 5:15 | |
| they are a law to themselves | 5:19 | |
| even though they do not have the law. | 5:21 | |
| They show that what the law requires | 5:26 | |
| is written in their hearts | 5:28 | |
| while their conscience also bears witness." | 5:32 | |
| Paul elsewhere talks about | 5:36 | |
| a breach of ethical standards in the Corinthian church, | 5:39 | |
| and I quote, | 5:44 | |
| "Of a kind | 5:45 | |
| that is not even found among pagans." | 5:48 | |
| Yes, there can be ethics, | 5:54 | |
| ethics of a fine type, | 5:56 | |
| without any theological reference. | 5:59 | |
| But the normative Judeo-Christian position | 6:05 | |
| is that religion and ethics | 6:10 | |
| are inseparably linked, | 6:12 | |
| entwined, | 6:16 | |
| interdependent. | 6:19 | |
| For the Jew and for the christian, | 6:22 | |
| there is no ultimate separation | 6:25 | |
| between the service of God | 6:29 | |
| and social behavior. | 6:31 | |
| Micah points that out. | 6:35 | |
| "He has showed you, oh man, what is good. | 6:38 | |
| And what does the Lord require of you, | 6:44 | |
| but to do justice, | 6:48 | |
| and to love kindness, | 6:51 | |
| and | 6:55 | |
| to walk humbly with your God." | 6:57 | |
| There are the vertical and the horizontal dimensions | 7:01 | |
| in one verse. | 7:06 | |
| And yet, | 7:09 | |
| listen to Jesus speaking to the Pharisees, | 7:10 | |
| who were the most God conscious men in Judaism. | 7:16 | |
| "Woe to you, | 7:21 | |
| scribes and Pharisees, | 7:24 | |
| hypocrites! | 7:28 | |
| For ye tithe mint, | 7:31 | |
| and dill, | 7:33 | |
| and cummin, | 7:34 | |
| and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, | 7:36 | |
| justice, | 7:41 | |
| and mercy, | 7:44 | |
| and faith. | 7:45 | |
| These you ought to have done | 7:46 | |
| without neglecting the other." | 7:49 | |
| Even to the early Christian Church, | 7:54 | |
| the author of second Timothy could write, | 7:56 | |
| "For though they keep up | 8:01 | |
| a form of religion, | 8:04 | |
| they will have nothing to do with it | 8:09 | |
| as a force." | 8:12 | |
| Though they keep up a form of religion, | 8:14 | |
| they will have nothing to do with it as a force. | 8:18 | |
| And when the writer used force, | 8:22 | |
| he meant and expected an ethical force. | 8:25 | |
| Because the preceding verses deal with the | 8:31 | |
| unbelievable behavior of men, | 8:34 | |
| and he isn't very complimentary to women | 8:37 | |
| in the succeeding verses. | 8:39 | |
| Now, such a separation of religious commitment | 8:43 | |
| and ethical behavior | 8:47 | |
| is contrary to the norm | 8:50 | |
| of our spiritual heritage. | 8:52 | |
| So, let us look at the matter, even more closely. | 8:55 | |
| One of the first biblical passages memorized | 9:00 | |
| by most of us in Sunday school | 9:03 | |
| is that known as | 9:06 | |
| The 10 commandments. | 9:07 | |
| We could still recite them from memory, | 9:11 | |
| although some of us might get mixed up | 9:16 | |
| in the order of the last five. | 9:18 | |
| But how many of us learned | 9:23 | |
| or remember | 9:26 | |
| the verse which precedes the 10 commandments | 9:29 | |
| as recorded in Deuteronomy five? | 9:33 | |
| Do you know what it is? | 9:37 | |
| "I am the Lord your God, | 9:39 | |
| who brought you out to the land of Egypt, | 9:44 | |
| out of the house of bondage." | 9:48 | |
| Then follows, | 9:51 | |
| "You will have no other gods before Me," | 9:53 | |
| and the other nine requirements. | 9:56 | |
| Do you notice the unwritten, | 10:01 | |
| but assumed adverbial conjunction, | 10:03 | |
| which connects the statement about the God of Israel | 10:07 | |
| and his 10 commandments? | 10:11 | |
| It is | 10:16 | |
| therefore. | 10:18 | |
| I am the God who rescued you from Egypt | 10:21 | |
| therefore, | 10:27 | |
| you had better recognize me as your God | 10:28 | |
| and do what I tell you. | 10:33 | |
| Ethical behavior is posited on theological | 10:36 | |
| apprehension. | 10:41 | |
| Since that kind of deity is their God, | 10:44 | |
| then, | 10:49 | |
| therefore, | 10:52 | |
| that kind of behavior is accepted by them. | 10:53 | |
| It's accepted as a legitimate claim | 10:59 | |
| upon them | 11:02 | |
| because He rescued them. | 11:04 | |
| Obedience to the law | 11:08 | |
| is never for its own sake. | 11:11 | |
| Obedience to the law | 11:15 | |
| is the outward sign | 11:17 | |
| of the Israelites grateful acknowledgement | 11:20 | |
| of an act | 11:25 | |
| of divine grace. | 11:27 | |
| This, | 11:29 | |
| therefore, that. | 11:31 | |
| God, | 11:34 | |
| therefore, | 11:35 | |
| behavior. | 11:36 | |
| Now the new Testament is at one with the old, | 11:38 | |
| in this recognition of the dependence of ethical behavior | 11:42 | |
| on theological understanding. | 11:46 | |
| In his letter to the Romans, | 11:51 | |
| which Paul used to introduce himself | 11:54 | |
| to the church in the Imperial city, | 11:57 | |
| he spends | 12:00 | |
| 11 chapters, | 12:02 | |
| 11 chapters | 12:05 | |
| explaining his theology. | 12:07 | |
| He follows the 11 | 12:11 | |
| with four more | 12:14 | |
| on how we should behave | 12:15 | |
| if we accept that theology. | 12:19 | |
| Now, notice the verses of transition | 12:24 | |
| from the 11 chapters to the next four. | 12:28 | |
| Here are first two verses of the 12th chapter. | 12:33 | |
| "I appeal to you, | 12:36 | |
| therefore," | 12:40 | |
| "therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God," | 12:42 | |
| That refers back to the first 11 chapters. | 12:46 | |
| "To present your bodies | 12:50 | |
| as a living sacrifice, | 12:52 | |
| holy and acceptable to God, | 12:55 | |
| which is your spiritual worship. | 12:58 | |
| Do not be conformed to this world, | 13:01 | |
| but be transformed." | 13:05 | |
| How? | 13:09 | |
| "By the renewing of your mind, | 13:11 | |
| that you may prove what is the will of God." | 13:16 | |
| Now, what is the will of God? | 13:22 | |
| What is good, | 13:25 | |
| and acceptable, | 13:28 | |
| and perfect. | 13:30 | |
| The Judeo-Christian ethic | 13:34 | |
| depends on the character and will | 13:37 | |
| of the God who motivates it. | 13:40 | |
| As C. H. Dodd, the distinguished new Testament scholar, | 13:44 | |
| puts it, | 13:47 | |
| "Christianity is an ethical religion | 13:48 | |
| in which ethics are directly related to a set of convictions | 13:53 | |
| about God, | 14:00 | |
| and man, | 14:02 | |
| and the world." | 14:03 | |
| One word then, which links religion and ethics | 14:06 | |
| for a Christian is, therefore. | 14:09 | |
| It signifies that what follows is a necessary deduction | 14:13 | |
| from what preceded. | 14:17 | |
| It connects with unshelterable intimacy, | 14:20 | |
| the consequence and the cause. | 14:25 | |
| In our faith, | 14:29 | |
| theology precedes ethics. | 14:31 | |
| Ethics is dependent on theology. | 14:36 | |
| The upheaval of the reformation | 14:42 | |
| with all kinds of radical, ethical changes | 14:44 | |
| was due so far as Martin Luther was concerned | 14:48 | |
| to his interpretation of one verse of scripture. | 14:51 | |
| "The just | 14:56 | |
| shall live | 14:59 | |
| by faith." | 15:01 | |
| Just, | 15:03 | |
| live, | 15:05 | |
| faith. | 15:07 | |
| "He shall not live by buying indulgences, | 15:09 | |
| nor by drawing on the merits of the saints, | 15:15 | |
| nor by overstressing good works, | 15:21 | |
| nor by venerating holy Relics. | 15:25 | |
| He shall trust God | 15:30 | |
| and live in goodwill | 15:34 | |
| with his fellows." | 15:37 | |
| God loves him, | 15:41 | |
| therefore, | 15:43 | |
| Martin Luther loves God and all folk | 15:45 | |
| as his brothers and sisters. | 15:50 | |
| Good works follow. | 15:53 | |
| They are the inevitable fruit of belief in God, | 15:56 | |
| of trust in God. | 16:00 | |
| Analogically, | 16:03 | |
| we can begin to understand this, | 16:06 | |
| if we consider a doctor's behavior | 16:11 | |
| in the light of the Hippocratic Oath, | 16:16 | |
| which is taken at graduation, | 16:20 | |
| or of a nurses' department, | 16:23 | |
| as adherence to the Florence Nightingale Pledge. | 16:27 | |
| Come commencement, | 16:34 | |
| listen to what graduating seniors promise | 16:36 | |
| as potential officers | 16:40 | |
| at the Air Force and the Navy | 16:44 | |
| ROTC swearing in ceremonies. | 16:47 | |
| There is acknowledged here, a therefore. | 16:52 | |
| A, therefore, | 16:58 | |
| linking | 16:59 | |
| between acceptance of a norm and resultant behavior. | 17:01 | |
| That's what's implied in two of the lines | 17:06 | |
| of the second hymn which we sang. | 17:09 | |
| "Oh love of God | 17:11 | |
| beneath our lives, | 17:14 | |
| the fountain | 17:18 | |
| to the stream." | 17:20 | |
| Now, what does this mean for us? | 17:24 | |
| It means that we should know and worship | 17:27 | |
| and even come to love the God | 17:30 | |
| who is the cause of, | 17:33 | |
| the motivation for, | 17:35 | |
| the inspiration of day by day living in the world. | 17:36 | |
| This usually requires study, | 17:41 | |
| attendance at corporate worship, | 17:45 | |
| conversations with the saints, the little saints, | 17:49 | |
| quiet moments of reflective prayer. | 17:53 | |
| Why? | 17:57 | |
| For it is in this way that we come to know God. | 17:59 | |
| What He's like, | 18:04 | |
| what he's done for us as creator, | 18:07 | |
| sustainer, | 18:09 | |
| Redeemer. | 18:11 | |
| What it means for Him to be loved. | 18:13 | |
| Once we grasp that we can begin to be aware | 18:17 | |
| of the adverbial conjunction, therefore. | 18:21 | |
| And then the therefore, | 18:26 | |
| returns us to the ordinary world we've always lived in, | 18:28 | |
| but with a new attitude toward it. | 18:33 | |
| We want to behave as God behaves, | 18:36 | |
| so far as we can, | 18:39 | |
| so help us God. | 18:41 | |
| We listen | 18:45 | |
| with a different kind of an ear | 18:46 | |
| to the needs of the Edgemont Community Center | 18:51 | |
| and the right refuge. | 18:56 | |
| We ask sympathetic questions | 19:01 | |
| about what our fellow students are doing Sunday mornings, | 19:04 | |
| in the veteran's hospital | 19:08 | |
| and at the Cerebral Palsy hospital. | 19:11 | |
| We begin to wonder if for some of our fellow students | 19:17 | |
| there is, a therefore conjunction | 19:20 | |
| between their religious outlook and | 19:23 | |
| Operations Crossroads Africa, | 19:27 | |
| or Project Nicaragua. | 19:30 | |
| And one day | 19:35 | |
| maybe, | 19:37 | |
| perhaps | 19:39 | |
| one of us, | 19:41 | |
| two of us, | 19:44 | |
| some of us, | 19:46 | |
| say, | 19:48 | |
| therefore. | 19:49 | |
| Then we begin to live with a new understanding | 19:51 | |
| of the relation between what we believe about God | 19:55 | |
| and what we do | 19:59 | |
| right down here on the campus. | 20:02 | |
| Faith becomes active in love, | 20:07 | |
| as Saint Paul put it. | 20:10 | |
| But let's look at this method of religion and ethics | 20:14 | |
| in another way, | 20:16 | |
| beginning with our relation to one another, | 20:19 | |
| rather than with our relation to God. | 20:22 | |
| Let's start with the horizontal dimension | 20:25 | |
| rather than with the vertical. | 20:28 | |
| Back we go again to the Bible, | 20:32 | |
| to the new Testament, to Paul. | 20:36 | |
| In his letter to the Philippians, | 20:39 | |
| Paul really lets himself go, | 20:42 | |
| in poetic fashion, | 20:45 | |
| about who Jesus Christ really is. | 20:47 | |
| Now this is not the language of systematic theology. | 20:51 | |
| It's his heart rather than his head, | 20:55 | |
| which is driving his pen. | 20:58 | |
| Listen to him. | 21:00 | |
| "Jesus was | 21:02 | |
| in the form | 21:04 | |
| of God. | 21:06 | |
| Jesus did not think equality with God, | 21:09 | |
| a thing to be grasped. | 21:13 | |
| God has bestowed on Jesus | 21:18 | |
| a name which is above every name. | 21:20 | |
| Do you know what introduces this rhapsody? | 21:28 | |
| This flow of eloquence? | 21:32 | |
| This ecstatic effusion? | 21:33 | |
| Paul wants the church members | 21:39 | |
| to behave themselves for goodness sake. | 21:41 | |
| That's what introduces it. | 21:47 | |
| He's heard about self-centeredness, | 21:50 | |
| personal vanity and disruptive rivalry | 21:52 | |
| in the little bit of a church at Philippi. | 21:55 | |
| He suggests that they turn over in their minds and hearts | 21:59 | |
| such thoughts as harmony, | 22:02 | |
| humility, | 22:05 | |
| unanimity. | 22:07 | |
| Why does he suggest such conduct? | 22:10 | |
| Well, here comes our second adverbial conjunction, | 22:14 | |
| because. | 22:20 | |
| Because of what? | 22:23 | |
| Be humble | 22:26 | |
| because | 22:28 | |
| Jesus, who was practically on an equality with God, | 22:29 | |
| humbled himself. | 22:35 | |
| Taking the form of a slave, | 22:38 | |
| and dying the death of a common criminal | 22:41 | |
| so as to show us what God is like. | 22:44 | |
| A Christian behaves as he does | 22:48 | |
| because | 22:51 | |
| God in Christ behaved as he did, | 22:53 | |
| according to Saint Paul in our morning lesson. | 22:58 | |
| The adverbial conjunction, because, | 23:02 | |
| assigns a reason, | 23:05 | |
| immediate and explicit. | 23:07 | |
| It connects effect with cause. | 23:10 | |
| Christian ethical behavior is, | 23:14 | |
| or should be, | 23:18 | |
| what it is | 23:20 | |
| because the Christians believes that this is what God | 23:21 | |
| whom he accepts | 23:26 | |
| requires of him. | 23:28 | |
| He doesn't do good works so as to be right with God, | 23:31 | |
| he does them because he's right with God. | 23:36 | |
| As a grateful, thank you. | 23:40 | |
| This is the message constantly repeated | 23:42 | |
| in the church's long history. | 23:45 | |
| We can hear it from Augustine and Luther and Wesley | 23:47 | |
| and Barth and Brunner and Bultmann and Tillich. | 23:51 | |
| Now, these men differ radically | 23:54 | |
| in their views, | 23:58 | |
| on the church, and on the Bible, and even on Jesus Christ. | 23:59 | |
| But they are at one | 24:05 | |
| on the because relationship | 24:09 | |
| of works to faith. | 24:11 | |
| To understand the connection we have to work | 24:14 | |
| backwards and upwards, | 24:17 | |
| if we start with ethical conduct. | 24:20 | |
| So when a Christian is asked, | 24:25 | |
| why do you attend corporate worship, | 24:28 | |
| even during an exam period? | 24:32 | |
| His answer should be, | 24:35 | |
| "In the company of my fellows, | 24:38 | |
| I want to say thank you, | 24:42 | |
| because of what God has done for me." | 24:46 | |
| Worship... | 24:50 | |
| This worship this morning is acknowledgment, | 24:51 | |
| response. | 24:55 | |
| It is done | 24:57 | |
| because | 24:58 | |
| God did something first. | 25:00 | |
| Worship is an answer, | 25:05 | |
| which means that someone else, God, | 25:08 | |
| has begun the conversation. | 25:12 | |
| This is also true of Christian behavior. | 25:15 | |
| One of our medical alumni, | 25:20 | |
| along with his wife | 25:22 | |
| has just left | 25:24 | |
| to join Albert Schweitzer | 25:25 | |
| in Lambarene. | 25:29 | |
| I'm sure that all of us wish him and his family | 25:32 | |
| Godspeed. | 25:37 | |
| Now he will soon learn one thing | 25:41 | |
| from that beloved physician. | 25:44 | |
| What? | 25:49 | |
| Healing | 25:51 | |
| precedes | 25:53 | |
| preaching. | 25:54 | |
| Healing | 25:58 | |
| precedes | 25:59 | |
| preaching. | 26:00 | |
| A patient recently operated upon asked Dr. Schweitzer, | 26:02 | |
| "Why do you do this for me?" | 26:07 | |
| And the answer is, | 26:12 | |
| "Oh, I'll tell you someday when you're feeling better." | 26:13 | |
| The day comes, | 26:20 | |
| and Schweitzer sits by the field hospital bed and tells him, | 26:23 | |
| "I am in Lambarene | 26:29 | |
| because | 26:32 | |
| of God." | 26:35 | |
| If the patient wants to know more, | 26:38 | |
| Schweitzer shares the religious reasons | 26:41 | |
| that prompted him to become a doctor and settle in Africa, | 26:43 | |
| but | 26:47 | |
| healing | 26:48 | |
| precedes | 26:49 | |
| preaching | 26:51 | |
| and teaching. | 26:52 | |
| There's no need for all of us to head for Africa. | 26:56 | |
| So is to behavior as Schweitzer does. | 26:59 | |
| There's plenty to do right here for folk | 27:03 | |
| who are sick in body, | 27:06 | |
| and heart, | 27:08 | |
| and mind, | 27:11 | |
| and pocket. | 27:13 | |
| But let us remember the order | 27:16 | |
| of Schweitzer's confession of faith. | 27:18 | |
| First, | 27:22 | |
| the act, | 27:23 | |
| then the explanation. | 27:25 | |
| Love is active | 27:29 | |
| because | 27:32 | |
| of faith. | 27:34 | |
| Therefore and because are little words, | 27:37 | |
| everyday words, | 27:41 | |
| commonly used words, | 27:44 | |
| yet what they connect, | 27:47 | |
| backward and forward is | 27:49 | |
| faith | 27:52 | |
| and works, | 27:53 | |
| conduct | 27:55 | |
| and belief. | 27:57 | |
| They are little words, | 28:00 | |
| but they are crucial | 28:02 | |
| in an understanding of our religion. | 28:04 | |
| They make religion and ethics | 28:09 | |
| almost indistinguishable | 28:13 | |
| for the Christian, | 28:17 | |
| which is what | 28:20 | |
| they should be. | 28:22 | |
| Amen. | 28:26 | |
| Let us pray. | 28:28 | |
| (papers rustling) | 28:30 | |
| (clearing throat) | 28:32 | |
| Almighty and eternal God | 28:35 | |
| whose will for man | 28:38 | |
| abideth forever the same. | 28:40 | |
| Teach us that to worship thee | 28:45 | |
| is to prepare to work for thee. | 28:48 | |
| That to work for thee | 28:52 | |
| is to continue to worship thee. | 28:55 | |
| So that our lives may be unified | 29:00 | |
| in faith and in action, | 29:03 | |
| as in thy son, | 29:06 | |
| Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 29:08 | |
| And may the blessing of the Lord come upon you abundantly. | 29:11 | |
| May it keep you strong and tranquil | 29:15 | |
| in the truth of his promises | 29:19 | |
| through the same Jesus Christ, | 29:21 | |
| our Lord. | 29:25 |
