Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Strange Building Project" (January 17, 1965)

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	(gospel singing)	0:06
-	A little while ago	0:32
	as Rick Burtz was reading our morning scripture lesson,	0:32
	it being a portion of the 23rd chapter of Matthew's gospel.	0:36
	I wonder if you were marveling,	0:42
	as I have been for some time.	0:44
	At the way Jesus denounced the scribes	0:48
	and Pharisees of his day without using profanities.	0:51
	It is only because the words	0:59
	of scripture are so familiar to us.	1:01
	And because we tend to think of Jesus	1:04
	as being the meek and mild Galalion,	1:06
	that we are not shocked.	1:11
	By the absolutely blistering language,	1:14
	which the prince of peace used in addressing	1:18
	the scribes and Pharisees.	1:22
	To the woman caught	1:26
	in defenseless sin and found in open shame.	1:27
	Jesus spoke tenderly,	1:32
	Assuring her that he did not condemn her.	1:34
	And he bade her to go and sin no more.	1:38
	To a dying robber who deserved the crucifixion	1:42
	he was getting, Jesus took time out	1:45
	from his own undeserved agony to speak a promise	1:49
	of paradise to come.	1:53
	He comforted an officer in the Roman army of occupation.	1:57
	He wept at the tomb of a dead friend.	2:02
	And he brought kindness in hope	2:06
	to the heart of a despised tax collector	2:09
	by a reckless act of public acceptance.	2:12
	It therefore is so very arresting.	2:17
	When in reading the record of the words and actions of Jesus	2:21
	we come across his words to the public leaders	2:25
	of morality and religion describes in Pharisees.	2:29
	While we read no soothing words	2:35
	of kindness to them at all.	2:37
	Instead of the soft word.	2:40
	He heaped linguistic fire and brimstone upon their heads.	2:43
	Again and again, Jesus stormed at them, 'woe to you	2:50
	scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.'	2:55
	Indeed, In the 23rd chapter of Matthew,	3:01
	we find in the space of less than 20 verses,	3:04
	that our Lord called them hypocrites five times.	3:08
	He called them blind five times and then top these epithets	3:12
	by calling them also fools, white wash tombs, Serpens	3:17
	and a brute of Vipers.	3:22
	When I suppose I were to stand up here today	3:26
	in this honored pulpit and talk to you folks like that.	3:29
	The very least that you would do	3:35
	if I did this would be to demand an explanation	3:36
	for all this bycuperation.	3:40
	So let's ask the same of these words of Jesus.	3:43
	What had the describes in Pharisees done	3:48
	to deserve such an unrelenting tongue lashing	3:50
	from the son of God?	3:54
	Were they criminals, law breakers, wife, beaters, rapists?	3:56
	No, they were not robbers,	4:02
	like the man who were crucified beside Jesus.	4:05
	They were not adulterers like the woman	4:09
	who had been dragged to his feet.	4:11
	They were not slave traders and they were not spies.	4:14
	Well, what kind of people were they?	4:18
	According to the biblical scholars	4:22
	of every major religion today,	4:24
	the Pharisees were in their time and in the terms	4:28
	of the standards of public morality,	4:32
	the best men of their day.	4:34
	Consequently, it is indeed strange	4:39
	that Jesus would have reserve for them	4:42
	is most acid denunciations.	4:45
	And it is still more strange when we notice what it	4:49
	was that brought forth the severest of all his severe words.	4:51
	When he pronounced the final woe	4:58
	of seven in the 23rd chapter, he added the insult.	5:00
	You serpents, you brod of Vipers.	5:05
	And then he explained why he called them such ugly names.	5:10
	What they were doing that so aroused	5:15
	the wrath of Christ was building	5:19
	the tombs of the prophets.	5:23
	Here are the very words of Jesus, "woe to use scribes	5:29
	"and Pharisees hypocrites.	5:33
	"For you build the tombs	5:36
	"of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous."	5:37
	Hold up.	5:43
	Now what, let us ask	5:45
	in all fairness was, so iniquitous about that?	5:47
	The prophets were men of God who courageously spoke out	5:52
	for the right and they declared the will of God	5:56
	in the open face of the sun, even when it was unpopular	6:00
	to do so.	6:04
	In some instances, they were honored while they lived.	6:06
	But more often they died in disrepute,	6:11
	if not in actual persecution.	6:13
	Now the Pharisees proposed to honor these men of God,	6:17
	they were busy building tombs for their bones to rest in	6:24
	and giving them such belated praise as might be possible.	6:28
	Whereas generations, before these Pharisees had been perhaps	6:33
	unmindful of the injustices that had been perpetrated	6:37
	upon the prophets and probably many of the contemporaries	6:41
	of these Pharisees, likewise were heatless.	6:45
	The Pharisees of Jesus day were mindful of history sins	6:49
	and they wanted to correct them.	6:56
	Well, I think we ought to pause long enough here to say	7:00
	that these actions up to this point	7:03
	have much to commend them.	7:07
	There certainly is nothing wrong with correcting	7:09
	the outrages of history per se.	7:11
	And we cannot find fault with any sincere attempt	7:15
	to honor the prophets and martyrs	7:18
	who lived and died among people	7:20
	who failed to appreciate them.	7:22
	Indeed, one of the tragic facts of human existence	7:25
	is that all too often, an unselfish person lives	7:28
	and dies heroically	7:33
	but nobody on earth ever any attention to his heroism.	7:37
	Over and over, it happens that injustice crucifies justice	7:43
	and on earth, the crime is not corrected.	7:48
	And perhaps not even noticed.	7:52
	I am perfectly certain	7:56
	that Jesus did not intend to criticize the practice	7:57
	of calling attention to the noble	8:01
	and faithful witness of deceased great men	8:03
	because he used this very tool himself to win acceptance	8:07
	of his message when he was teaching and preaching.	8:12
	Chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews recounts at length	8:16
	the accomplishments of the prophets	8:21
	and other great men of the past.	8:23
	And then the author uses this recital	8:25
	of their deeds to spur his readers	8:28
	onto a life of faith and of high adventure for God.	8:31
	So we have to conclude	8:36
	that when our Lord castigate the Pharisees	8:38
	for building the tombs to the prophets, he had in mind	8:41
	their motives and their words	8:44
	rather than the building project itself.	8:47
	Now this brings us to take a close look	8:51
	at their words and their motives.	8:53
	The Pharisees were not content to build the tombs	8:56
	of the prophets.	8:59
	And to explain that the prophets were unjustly	9:00
	killed by unjust men.	9:02
	They were not willing to leave anything indeed	9:05
	to the imagination	9:07
	of the spectators who watched this building project.	9:08
	The Pharisees told the people	9:13
	exactly what they wanted them to conclude.	9:14
	They said, "If we had lived	9:18
	"in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part	9:21
	"with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.	9:25
	That's what they wanted them to conclude.	9:30
	Oh no, of course not.	9:33
	They certainly wouldn't have done that.	9:36
	They wouldn't have killed a mere prophet.	9:39
	They were plotting to crucify the very son of God.	9:43
	And so it becomes not only clear, but very understandable	9:49
	that Jesus would have reserved for them,	9:53
	His most stinging, chastisement	9:57
	the scribes and Pharisees were in very truth, hypocrites.	10:00
	They were evil men	10:05
	with guilt written all over their black hearts.	10:06
	They sought to soothe their consciences on the one hand	10:10
	and make themselves appear outwardly righteous.	10:14
	On the other hand, one	10:16
	in the same time by building the tombs	10:17
	of the prophets who were safely dead and by making it appear	10:20
	that they themselves were in the tradition of the prophets	10:24
	all the while laying schemes to kill that greatest	10:27
	of all prophets Jesus Christ.	10:31
	Well, if this were an isolated event in history	10:36
	with no modern parallels	10:39
	we would not be discussing it here this morning	10:41
	in this university service of worship.	10:43
	If those ancient Jewish leaders were the last men on earth	10:46
	to be guilty of this type of subterfuge,	10:50
	we could leave the incident to the department of history	10:54
	or to the department of religion for academic study.	10:57
	But it is not, so.	11:01
	It is sad but true that this strange building project	11:03
	is going forward in our time,	11:08
	on many continents of the earth.	11:11
	There are people today who are building tombs	11:14
	for dead prophets as a cover-up for their persecution	11:17
	of the living prophets.	11:21
	And let me remind you of something here that happened	11:24
	during the last World War to give point to this.	11:27
	As Hitler spread his army and his agents across Germany	11:32
	and all of Europe, he demand complete submission	11:37
	to his tyranny in every country and in every area of life	11:41
	he made it clear that the penalty for resistance	11:46
	would be the concentration camp or death.	11:49
	The only freedom he was willing to approve was the freedom	11:54
	of every person to agree with him.	11:57
	This was enforced in brutal fashion by the army	12:00
	the SS guards, the agents of the Gestapo.	12:05
	Who was supported	12:11
	by a steady stream	12:12
	of scientifically developed propaganda brainwashing.	12:13
	In the United States, there was almost	12:19
	unanimous denunciation of this Hitler tyranny,	12:22
	by the leaders of education leaders of religion	12:27
	the leaders of government and the government	12:30
	of the United States are organized to combat this menace	12:32
	in Europe, by a military enterprise	12:35
	under the command of general Eisenhower.	12:37
	While all of this was going on,	12:42
	reports were filtering out of Europe	12:45
	through the underground of great courage,	12:47
	On the part of European church	12:52
	who are willing to defy Hitler	12:55
	at the risk of their lives.	12:57
	Many of these people were killed.	13:00
	One whose writings are very popular today	13:02
	was Dietrich who was martyred.	13:05
	Many hundreds more were crammed	13:10
	into very inhuman concentration,	13:12
	never knowing at what moment the executioner	13:16
	might come for them.	13:18
	One was pastor Martin Nee Muller	13:21
	who was spared almost miraculously who preached	13:24
	in this very pulpit a year and a half ago.	13:27
	And who is now one	13:31
	of the presidents of the world council of churches.	13:32
	This great man was pastor of a church at Berlin	13:36
	very early in the Hitler regime.	13:40
	He outspokenly called for obedience	13:42
	to God rather than to any man.	13:44
	He was thrown into a concentration camp where he rotted	13:47
	until the wars end.	13:50
	In spite of the fact that he knew he would be released	13:52
	if only he would support Adolf Hitler.	13:57
	Incidentally, his associate pastor was the father	14:01
	of Hans Hilabra, who is one of the professors now	14:04
	in our divinity school.	14:07
	Well Nee Muller and Bon Heffa of course were not	14:10
	the only two outspoken voices, voices of protest in Europe.	14:13
	There was count Vangalan,	14:18
	the Bishop of Munster who steadfastly resisted,	14:19
	Archbishop Graber of Freeberg issued a very	14:23
	bold letter of protest.	14:26
	Had it read in all the churches of his archdiocese.	14:28
	Patriarch Gabrelo of the Serbian Orthodox church	14:32
	in Yugoslavia was such an effective resistor	14:35
	that he was imprisoned.	14:40
	Then there was Cardinal van Roy and Belgium	14:42
	who resisted the nausea tyranny to the very end.	14:45
	He even issued in order to the effect	14:49
	that no one who appeared at church wearing a Nazi uniform	14:50
	could be admitted to the service.	14:53
	Archbishop Dejong of Utract joined forces with Protestants	14:57
	in Holland form a very effective Christian resistance.	15:01
	He directed that any church member who cooperated	15:07
	with the specifically pagan practices of the Nazi ideology	15:11
	should have the sacraments refused to him.	15:15
	What time would fail us to tell of others	15:18
	of Lutheran Bishop Bargrove, who was called Quizling's thorn	15:20
	in the flesh in Norway,	15:24
	of Dr. Howcoke, professor of theology at the university	15:26
	of Copenhagen, and many, many other saints.	15:29
	And Martys who in our time stood firmly in Europe	15:32
	against the darkness of NAZI tyranny.	15:37
	Many of whom paid the Supreme sacrifice.	15:40
	These Christians and others like them	15:45
	gave the modern world a shining example	15:49
	of courage to the death.	15:51
	And they serve notice that the boldness	15:53
	of the prophets is not entirely a virtue	15:55
	of the ancient past.	15:59
	This is all very good.	16:02
	What troubled me at the time	16:07
	all this was going on was the fact	16:09
	that some churchmen in America,	16:11
	were rejoicing so greatly	16:15
	in the bravery of the church under Hitler	16:17
	that they apparently didn't have time to notice	16:19
	the evils in America, which needed their attention.	16:22
	Some of them had time to write articles	16:26
	and to preach sermons	16:28
	about the Christians who were attacking evils in Europe	16:29
	but they did not write articles	16:33
	nor preach sermons against the movement in America	16:34
	which sought to make all of us hate the Germans.	16:38
	And they seemed unable to confess the sins of America	16:41
	which made it possible for Hitler to overthrow democracy	16:44
	in Germany and seize the reigns of power.	16:48
	At that time	16:52
	this would've been very unpopular to preach in America.	16:53
	It was safer to build the tombs of the European prophets.	16:57
	During the war, the doctrine	17:03
	of military necessity was conceived and spread in America.	17:04
	It went like this.	17:08
	Winning the war is a necessity.	17:10
	So that whatever appears to be a contribution	17:13
	to winning must be allowed.	17:16
	Morale is one of the ingredients of victory.	17:19
	And so whatever promotes morale must be tolerated.	17:22
	This was as closed a system	17:27
	of moral tyranny as NAZIism was in Europe.	17:30
	And by means of it, some Americans justified everything.	17:37
	Hatred, revenge lies, adultery, prostitution.	17:39
	You can name the list.	17:43
	Where was the voice	17:46
	and the influence of those American churchmen	17:47
	when this doctrine was preached	17:50
	and practiced in our own land?	17:52
	Too often their voice and energy were preoccupied	17:56
	with building tombs for overseas prophets.	18:00
	Up until the second world war Albert Einstein had	18:05
	expressed little regard for the Christian Church	18:08
	but during the war, he issued some amazing statements	18:13
	of admiration for the church.	18:17
	At that time, he was living in America and it has to be said	18:21
	to the eternal shame of the Christian Church	18:25
	in this nation, that he had to make it clear	18:27
	that it was not the American church, which converted him.	18:32
	It was the church in Europe.	18:36
	No, my friends, it is one thing to build the tombs	18:40
	of the prophets and adorn the monuments	18:43
	of the righteous at a safe distance.	18:45
	But it is another thing to stand	18:48
	with the courage was theirs against the evils,	18:50
	which are ours.	18:54
	It's hard on a man's soul to boast of the heroism	18:56
	and martyrdom of those distant promise either	19:00
	in history or in geography,	19:03
	because it is very easy then to boast of their courage	19:05
	and feel that we have thus paid our proper	19:10
	for respects to bravery.	19:12
	So what then, can we ask of those churchmen in Birmingham	19:15
	and Montgomery, Alabama, And of Philadelphia, Mississippi	19:20
	and of little rock in St. Augustine,	19:25
	who currently are thanking God in public prayers	19:28
	for the courage of the white me missionaries	19:32
	who have recently become the butchered martyrs	19:34
	in the Belgian Congo, or we need not ask them	19:36
	if this heartless massacre took place,	19:41
	or we know that it did.	19:44
	We do not need to ask them about the devotion	19:47
	of those faithful missionaries, or we already know	19:49
	that they lovingly poured out the last full measure	19:53
	of their devotion.	19:56
	Someone needs to ask them about the reason	19:59
	why these massacres took place.	20:02
	The white missionaries had lived and worked	20:07
	among the Congolese for many years.	20:10
	Some of my own friends were a among them.	20:13
	During all of this time,	20:17
	there was no butchering of the white missionaries.	20:19
	Then came the communists with their schemes,	20:23
	and with true reports of little rock and Philadelphia	20:27
	of bombed Negro churches in America,	20:34
	and of discrimination	20:39
	against black men by American white men.	20:40
	Well, the communists, no doubt exaggerated.	20:44
	Used these events	20:47
	to whip up some of the Congolese into a fanatical	20:48
	revolutionary force, which was willing to follow	20:51
	the wicked schemes of the communists.	20:55
	It was then that the butchering of the white missionaries	20:58
	from America took place.	21:02
	But there's little reason to suppose that the massacre	21:05
	could have happened.	21:09
	Had it not been possible for the communist	21:11
	to recite so many sorry, incidents from American life.	21:14
	Therefore when churchmen in this region, boast	21:19
	of the heroic martyrdom of the missionaries in the Congo	21:22
	someone must ask them, where was your voice?	21:25
	When the police dogs tore at the flesh	21:30
	of teenage American girls, whose only crime	21:33
	was that they took the United States constitution	21:36
	and the Christian religion, seriously.	21:39
	Someone must ask Where was your Christian in influence,	21:44
	when the bulldozers pushed dirt over the graves	21:48
	of three young Americans who were murdered simply	21:51
	because they were seeking to aid American citizens	21:55
	to exercise the right to vote?	21:57
	What were you doing while these and other dramas	22:02
	of cruelty were being acted out, thus furnishing	22:05
	the communist schemers with fuel for a great Congo bonfire?	22:08
	Woe be unto the man who has to answer	22:15
	that he gave the consent of silence while being too busy	22:19
	in building the tomb of some profit safely dead	22:23
	or safely distant.	22:27
	In similar fashion, we see how some citizens	22:31
	of our land may make a great fuss over the founding fathers,	22:33
	and the leaders of the American revolution.	22:38
	But apparently have no interest at all,	22:41
	in applying the principles of our revolutionary forefathers	22:44
	to the contemporary issues in this land of the free	22:48
	and the home of the brave.	22:52
	They want to enshrine the founding fathers	22:54
	and create the impression	22:57
	that they are their proper descendants.	22:58
	They form groups to honor our revolutionary	23:03
	and Aedence and to establish themselves	23:05
	as their true sons and daughters.	23:07
	They're not willing to allow history to judge	23:11
	whether they are the true sons	23:14
	and daughters of the founding fathers.	23:15
	They want to lay verbal claim to the prize now.	23:18
	Whatever historians may write later.	23:22
	The judgment of Jesus and the judgment	23:26
	of history is that the Pherases	23:29
	these were not the sons of the prophets.	23:30
	They were the sons of their fathers who killed the prophets.	23:34
	There is an important difference between a true son	23:39
	of the prophets and a false son of the prophets.	23:42
	But the difference is subtle.	23:46
	The all new way to be a true son	23:49
	of the prophets is to be a prophet.	23:50
	The late Dr. Albert Russell, who was Dean	23:56
	of our divinity school once was invited	23:58
	to Massachusetts to speak at the founding	24:01
	of a society of Quaker descendants.	24:03
	He wanted to know what it was	24:05
	about their Quaker ancestors, which they admired.	24:07
	He was told that they fed and clothed the poor	24:11
	that they helped the underprivileged	24:14
	that they were a powerful influence for peace	24:17
	and brotherhood, and that they sought to establish justice	24:19
	and honesty within a frame of love for all men.	24:23
	That sounded pretty good to Dean Russell.	24:29
	He replied that there was still a great need	24:31
	for men like that now.	24:33
	And while he would be happy to come	24:36
	and help them to form a society of Quakers.	24:37
	He wouldn't be interested	24:41
	in helping them to establish a society	24:42
	of quaker descendants.	24:45
	Building the tombs of the prophets is a fine	24:49
	and commendable enterprise, unless it becomes a substitute	24:52
	for honest Christian living in the present.	24:57
	But if it is a substitute	25:02
	then it becomes a subterfuge and it falls under all the woes	25:05
	which our Lord Jesus Christ pronounced upon it.	25:09
	It becomes a very strange and hypocritical building project.	25:13
	The life and the heroic death	25:18
	of the prophets, the martyrs, the saints	25:20
	and the founding fathers can be a powerful stimulus to us,	25:22
	us to emulate their devotion.	25:28
	This will happen if we honestly say,	25:32
	with a great American that we hear highly resolved	25:35
	that these dead shall not have died in vain.	25:39
	Almighty God our heavenly father, who has called us	25:50
	to great and heroic living,	25:55
	we now offer unto thee our hearts and lives in dedication,	25:59
	whatever the cost.	26:04
	And we pray that we may have the thy spirit	26:05
	and strength to meet the challenge of our day.	26:08
	And now may the peace of God	26:12
	which passes all understanding,	26:14
	keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge	26:16
	of God and in the love and service of Jesus Christ.	26:19

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Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Strange Building Project" (January 17, 1965)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4kp7zs75

Date:

January 17, 1965

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0280
ref5765_hiq
uachapelsermaud
duke:628438
dcrau002279
ark:/87924/r4kp7zs75
b0f5ff9e-8f7e-4715-95bc-9039b257b7cf

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Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Strange Building Project" (January 17, 1965)

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