James T. Cleland - "The Way at the River Kwai" (January 31, 1965)
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| - | Academic corporate life, | 0:03 |
| which received merciless criticism | 0:07 | |
| in the editorial columns of our campus newspaper | 0:11 | |
| or in the letters to the editor. | 0:15 | |
| But one institution seems to be doing a good job | 0:20 | |
| judging from the way in which it is left alone. | 0:26 | |
| Namely the Quadrangle Pictures. | 0:31 | |
| Now that we are given a chance | 0:36 | |
| to see the movies we have missed downtown | 0:38 | |
| or at home, or overseas. | 0:42 | |
| We're given the opportunity to see for a second time | 0:46 | |
| those films which impressed | 0:50 | |
| or delighted or baffled us. | 0:52 | |
| Now recently, the Quadrangle Pictures brought back | 0:57 | |
| to a large and awed audience, | 1:01 | |
| "The Bridge over the River Kwai." | 1:06 | |
| A prize winning picture | 1:10 | |
| based on a novel of the same name, | 1:12 | |
| written 10 years ago by a French novelist. | 1:16 | |
| It's a story of the building of a wooden bridge | 1:24 | |
| by British prisoners of war, | 1:27 | |
| on the Siam-Burma border | 1:31 | |
| to carry the rail road | 1:34 | |
| which would enable the Japanese to invade India. | 1:36 | |
| Do you remember the triangular contest | 1:42 | |
| involving this sadistic Japanese colonel | 1:45 | |
| who must have the bridge? | 1:50 | |
| The militarily ritualistically correct | 1:53 | |
| British colonel, who supervises its building, | 1:58 | |
| and the cloak and dagger boys from Calcutta | 2:02 | |
| who want to blow it up. | 2:07 | |
| Sir Alec Guinness was the British colonel. | 2:10 | |
| Your feet are right now, | 2:15 | |
| probably tapping out the rhythm of its theme song, | 2:17 | |
| Colonel Bogey. | 2:22 | |
| Now a second book was written about the River Kwai, | 2:25 | |
| in 1962. | 2:29 | |
| The author was Ernest Gordon. | 2:34 | |
| And the title was, "Through the Valley of the Kwai." | 2:37 | |
| It became a best seller, | 2:43 | |
| and was translated into at least two foreign languages. | 2:45 | |
| It may now be purchased in paperback, and you should buy it. | 2:50 | |
| It is a biographical narrative of three and a half years | 2:56 | |
| in the prison camp, | 3:01 | |
| whose inhabitants actually built the bridge. | 3:04 | |
| It was written by a professional soldier, | 3:09 | |
| an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. | 3:13 | |
| Now let me give you a resume | 3:18 | |
| of what happened in that far away place, | 3:19 | |
| for "Through the Valley of the Kwai," | 3:24 | |
| is the text of the sermon. | 3:28 | |
| The background can be sensed | 3:32 | |
| in two or three paragraphs of Gordon. | 3:34 | |
| During the four years they were in control, | 3:39 | |
| the Japanese military violated every civilized code. | 3:43 | |
| They murdered prisoners overplayed by banting, | 3:49 | |
| shooting, drowning or decapitation. | 3:53 | |
| They murdered them covertly, | 3:58 | |
| by working them beyond human endurance, | 4:00 | |
| starving them, torturing them and denying them medical care. | 4:04 | |
| The survivors built the bridge unwillingly, says the author. | 4:11 | |
| At banat point and under the bamboo lash, | 4:17 | |
| taking any risk to sabotage the operation | 4:21 | |
| whenever the opportunity arose. | 4:25 | |
| Lying in the death house, | 4:30 | |
| which was the prisoner's name for the camp hospital, | 4:33 | |
| Gordon overheard the medical officers | 4:38 | |
| discussing his own case. | 4:40 | |
| His had the words, malaria, dysentery, | 4:43 | |
| beriberi plus some kind of blood infection | 4:50 | |
| he can't identify. | 4:54 | |
| Oh yes, he's also had an appendectomy, | 4:56 | |
| and on top of that, a bad case of diptheria, | 4:59 | |
| which left him without the use of his legs. | 5:02 | |
| That is the background. | 5:07 | |
| Now the first reaction to this kind of existence | 5:10 | |
| on the part of the prisoners, | 5:13 | |
| was an upsurge of religion. | 5:16 | |
| Church services, Bible reading, private prayer. | 5:18 | |
| It didn't last, | 5:25 | |
| because it didn't work. | 5:28 | |
| God declined to be used as a personal expedient. | 5:32 | |
| The counter reaction was a widespread self-centeredness, | 5:39 | |
| which revealed itself in selfishness, hatred, and fear. | 5:44 | |
| Gordon called it, the law of the jungle. | 5:49 | |
| Men stole from one another. | 5:53 | |
| They cursed so creatively, | 5:57 | |
| that they constructed whole sentences | 6:00 | |
| in which every word was a curse. | 6:03 | |
| And yet the strongest still died. | 6:08 | |
| The Wiliest and the cleverest perished with the weak. | 6:12 | |
| Gordon wrote a letter to his parents saying goodbye. | 6:18 | |
| And then things began to happen, | 6:26 | |
| which are told in a chapter entitled, | 6:28 | |
| "Miracle by the River Kwai." | 6:31 | |
| Some of Gordon's friends built him a hut, | 6:34 | |
| where he could sweat out his illness in quiet, | 6:39 | |
| and if necessary, die in peace. | 6:43 | |
| An Englishman by the name of Dusty Miller, | 6:48 | |
| I will remember his name. | 6:52 | |
| Dusty Miller came voluntarily | 6:55 | |
| and daily to bathe Gordon's putrid ulcers. | 6:58 | |
| With the help of another soldier, | 7:03 | |
| the officer was nursed back to life. | 7:06 | |
| And then stories of voluntary martyrdom | 7:10 | |
| began to be whispered. | 7:13 | |
| There was the soldier who died of starvation | 7:16 | |
| because he gave his rations to a sick friend. | 7:20 | |
| There was the soldier who "confessed," | 7:26 | |
| and confessed must go in quotation marks. | 7:29 | |
| Who confessed that he had "stolen," | 7:32 | |
| and that must go in quotation marks. | 7:35 | |
| He "confessed" that he had "stolen" a missing shovel | 7:37 | |
| because he saw that the guard was angry enough | 7:40 | |
| to shoot every man in the squad. | 7:45 | |
| And because he confessed, | 7:51 | |
| that soldier was beaten to death where he stood. | 7:53 | |
| And that night when the tools were counted again, | 7:58 | |
| no shovel was missing. | 8:03 | |
| But listen to the ending of that story. | 8:07 | |
| Admiration for the Argyll transcended hatred | 8:09 | |
| for the Japanese guard. | 8:15 | |
| An Australian was decapitated | 8:18 | |
| because he was caught outside the prison fence, | 8:19 | |
| trying to obtain medicine from the natives | 8:24 | |
| for his sick friends. | 8:27 | |
| And his last words to the agitated chaplain were, | 8:29 | |
| "Cheer up, padre. | 8:33 | |
| It doesn't as bad as all that. I'll be all right." | 8:36 | |
| And thus, the law of the jungle was denied. | 8:40 | |
| The law of the jungle is not a law for men. | 8:45 | |
| Men cannot become a beast, | 8:51 | |
| though he may become less than a beast. | 8:55 | |
| Now Gordon thought about this. | 9:02 | |
| He puzzled to find a common denominator, | 9:04 | |
| the two soldiers who cared for him were Christian, | 9:06 | |
| but one was a Methodist, the other a Roman Catholic. | 9:10 | |
| Was there any word which linked them and the others | 9:16 | |
| who had given up the law of the jungle? | 9:19 | |
| Could it be love? | 9:22 | |
| Does love of neighbor have any relation to love of God? | 9:25 | |
| Love from God? | 9:30 | |
| A new kind of life was begun in the camp. | 9:34 | |
| A discussion group was started by the Australians | 9:37 | |
| who wanted to find out what Christianity was all about. | 9:41 | |
| Gordon was asked to lead it, | 9:45 | |
| because he was a university man. | 9:48 | |
| But on one understanding, | 9:53 | |
| the lads won't stand for any Sunday school stuff. | 9:55 | |
| What they want is the real dingo. | 10:00 | |
| Well, they got it. | 10:04 | |
| And that class grew into the Jungle University, | 10:06 | |
| with a curriculum which offered courses in history, | 10:10 | |
| economics, philosophy, mathematics, | 10:14 | |
| several of the sciences and at least nine languages, | 10:16 | |
| including Latin, Greek, Russian and Sanskrit. | 10:22 | |
| An orchestra was formed, | 10:27 | |
| and a theater was established. | 10:29 | |
| Artificial legs were made for the legless, | 10:32 | |
| who in turn made legs for the other legless. | 10:36 | |
| Men painted card, pen sketch and gave exhibition. | 10:40 | |
| They invented drugs and anesthetics. | 10:46 | |
| They manufactured surgical implements. | 10:51 | |
| They recovered respect even for the dead. | 10:55 | |
| Instead of being chucked into a common pit, | 11:00 | |
| each corpse received a personal burial, | 11:04 | |
| with a little cross to mark the grave. | 11:08 | |
| Casually, quietly, | 11:12 | |
| a church was built. | 11:15 | |
| A church in the open air, a church that was outdoors. | 11:18 | |
| Do you know the name of it? | 11:23 | |
| The Church of the Captivity. | 11:24 | |
| Here are Gordon's words about it. | 11:28 | |
| "The church was a fellowship | 11:30 | |
| of those who came in freedom and love, to do three things. | 11:32 | |
| To acknowledge their weakness, | 11:40 | |
| to seek a presence, | 11:43 | |
| and to pray for their fellows." | 11:46 | |
| Not for themselves, for their fellows. | 11:52 | |
| The confession was Jesus Christ as Lord. | 11:56 | |
| That was the only requirement for membership. | 12:01 | |
| Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. | 12:04 | |
| The church was made up of Methodists, Baptists, | 12:08 | |
| Episcopalians, Presbyterians, | 12:11 | |
| Congregationalists and former agnostics. | 12:13 | |
| Sounds like the duke chapel. | 12:17 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 12:19 | |
| When the end of the war came, | 12:24 | |
| well, let me quote Gordon again. | 12:27 | |
| "The incoming liberators, they were American and British. | 12:30 | |
| The incoming liberators were so infuriated by what they saw, | 12:36 | |
| that they wanted to shoot the Japanese guards on the spot. | 12:41 | |
| Only the intervention of the prisoners prevented it." | 12:48 | |
| Hectors were spared by their captives. | 12:55 | |
| Not an eye for an eye, a limb for limb this time, | 13:00 | |
| said these exhausted but forgiving men. | 13:06 | |
| And all this happened at a POW camp, | 13:11 | |
| near the bridge over the River Kwai. | 13:15 | |
| Now, as I read this book, | 13:19 | |
| two passages from the New Testament surfaced | 13:23 | |
| from my subconscious memory, | 13:26 | |
| two which were read as this morning's lesson. | 13:29 | |
| Let me quote a verse from each, | 13:32 | |
| hoping that you will spot the noun, | 13:35 | |
| which is common to both verses. | 13:39 | |
| First, "Teacher, we know that you are true | 13:41 | |
| and teach the way of God truthfully." | 13:48 | |
| That was said to Jesus, probably in sarcasm. | 13:53 | |
| And second, "And Paul asked the high priest | 13:57 | |
| for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, | 14:01 | |
| so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, | 14:05 | |
| he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." | 14:11 | |
| The noun common to these two passages is way. | 14:16 | |
| W-A-Y. | 14:20 | |
| One of the many New Testament names | 14:23 | |
| for the Christian manner of life. | 14:27 | |
| For the walk and congregation | 14:31 | |
| of those who sought to understand | 14:33 | |
| and implement the will of God through the teaching of Jesus. | 14:36 | |
| In fact, the Way with a capital "W", | 14:41 | |
| becomes a designation for the church. | 14:44 | |
| But why not? | 14:49 | |
| Jesus had called himself the Way, | 14:51 | |
| and the church is supposed to be his body. | 14:56 | |
| Now such a way has always two complimentary | 15:04 | |
| and interacting aspects. | 15:07 | |
| One is theological, | 15:10 | |
| it's view of God who is conceived of analogically, | 15:12 | |
| as a father, rather than as a king or a judge. | 15:16 | |
| And the other of course is ethical, | 15:22 | |
| living here on earth in a way | 15:24 | |
| which is acceptable and satisfactory to such a father, God. | 15:29 | |
| Which comes first? | 15:37 | |
| For some people, the theological, | 15:40 | |
| for others, the ethical. | 15:44 | |
| But both would agree that both aspects are needed | 15:47 | |
| for a proper explication and application of the way. | 15:53 | |
| Some believe first, and act second. | 15:58 | |
| For others, action leads back to belief, | 16:03 | |
| faith and works. | 16:08 | |
| Works and faith never independent, always interdependent. | 16:12 | |
| Do you recall that one of the men who helped Gordon | 16:20 | |
| was a Methodist? | 16:23 | |
| Have you ever thought of John Wesley's followers | 16:27 | |
| as the people of the way? | 16:29 | |
| Isn't that what Methodist means? | 16:33 | |
| Methodist comes from the two Greek words, | 16:37 | |
| meta, according to, hadas, the way. | 16:40 | |
| Metahadas, Methodist. | 16:45 | |
| The name was originally one of several applied | 16:49 | |
| by fellow students to John Wesley and his friends at Oxford. | 16:51 | |
| It was originally a term of derision, | 16:57 | |
| it's no longer a term of derision. | 17:00 | |
| Christians are people of the way, | 17:04 | |
| in Jerusalem, in Damascus, | 17:08 | |
| at Oxford, on the banks of the River Kwai. | 17:13 | |
| Now I can almost hear your puzzled reaction to all this, | 17:18 | |
| such a way of life may be possible, | 17:24 | |
| in fact, it is possible in a closed society, | 17:27 | |
| especially one which is small. | 17:33 | |
| In the early church, in Wesley's Holy Club, | 17:36 | |
| in a prison camp from which death | 17:42 | |
| seem to be the only mistake, the only escape. | 17:45 | |
| It's possible in the orders of the Roman Catholic Church, | 17:49 | |
| in the sale groups within Protestantism, | 17:53 | |
| but it is impossible, unfeasible, | 17:56 | |
| for the Christian who has to live in contact | 18:01 | |
| with the widowed. | 18:04 | |
| As most of us have to live. | 18:06 | |
| Now let's be fair, the critic has a case. | 18:10 | |
| The average church member is too tame | 18:16 | |
| or too reluctant or to compromised, | 18:22 | |
| to think of living in so thoroughly a Christian way, | 18:28 | |
| as those prisoners in the church of the captivity. | 18:32 | |
| That fact hit Gordon, when he came back to Scotland. | 18:36 | |
| Here is his post-war description of the church in Scotland. | 18:41 | |
| "After my return, I had gone to church every Sunday, | 18:47 | |
| but what I saw, heard, and saw and heard depressed me. | 18:51 | |
| The sermons belong to a different age, | 18:56 | |
| they suggested Victorian parlors, | 19:00 | |
| elderly people dressed in black, | 19:03 | |
| horse hair chairs and ankle micasas. | 19:07 | |
| We had seen a vision of far horizons, | 19:12 | |
| and caught a glimpse of the city of God in all its beauty. | 19:16 | |
| Yeah, there's so little that is extraordinary | 19:23 | |
| about much church membership, | 19:27 | |
| it's just the religious gloss or luster | 19:31 | |
| on our normal secular living. | 19:37 | |
| And that is why the church of England | 19:41 | |
| has been not untruthfully defined as | 19:43 | |
| the conservative party at prayer." | 19:47 | |
| Yes, the critic has an argument, | 19:54 | |
| but there's another argument. | 19:58 | |
| The way it was adopted in the first century and by Wesley, | 20:01 | |
| and at the River Kwai, | 20:06 | |
| as the only method, of transforming existence into life, | 20:09 | |
| of metamorphosing ugliness into beauty, | 20:17 | |
| of creating harmony out of discord. | 20:21 | |
| And are we really living | 20:25 | |
| in a much healthier situation today? | 20:27 | |
| What can we do? | 20:33 | |
| Oh, there's little that any one of us can do | 20:35 | |
| about world problems. | 20:38 | |
| Or impersonal social conflict. | 20:42 | |
| But there's much we can do within it. | 20:47 | |
| The alumni of the Kwai and the other hell camps knew that, | 20:53 | |
| that's why some entered the ministry | 20:58 | |
| to share with the church | 21:00 | |
| the vision they had seen in Thailand. | 21:02 | |
| Others became lay members of their local churches | 21:05 | |
| for the same reason, others by intention are teachers, | 21:08 | |
| welfare officers, doctors. | 21:14 | |
| In worship, or in work, | 21:18 | |
| they wanted to be in contact with people, | 21:19 | |
| and to share the good life they had discovered in prison. | 21:24 | |
| Because brethren, it takes only a cup of cold water, | 21:29 | |
| a sick visit, | 21:37 | |
| a piece of clothing, to get one into the kingdom, | 21:40 | |
| if they are given in love. | 21:47 | |
| That is the way. | 21:53 | |
| And yet blessed we leave this house of God | 21:57 | |
| with either a rosy glow or a cynical smile. | 22:02 | |
| There's one other thing to be said. | 22:08 | |
| You recall Dusty Miller? | 22:12 | |
| Who voluntarily bathed Gordon's wounds? | 22:15 | |
| What happened to him? | 22:20 | |
| Gordon asked that question too, | 22:22 | |
| when he was finally released. | 22:24 | |
| And listen to this dialogue. Gordon speaks first. | 22:27 | |
| "But what about Miller? | 22:33 | |
| He got the nip one officer in charge of his party | 22:37 | |
| down on him. | 22:41 | |
| What had he done wrong? | 22:44 | |
| That was it, he hadn't done anything wrong. | 22:47 | |
| The jack hated him because he couldn't break him. | 22:54 | |
| You know how he was, | 22:58 | |
| a good man, if ever there was one. | 23:00 | |
| That's why he hated him. | 23:04 | |
| What did the nip do to him? | 23:08 | |
| He strung him up to a tree. | 23:13 | |
| You mean? | 23:18 | |
| Yes, he crucified him." | 23:20 | |
| The way is not walked in a rosy glow. | 23:27 | |
| And there's little about it for the cynic to smile at. | 23:33 | |
| It is a way which we believe leads to the new Jerusalem, | 23:40 | |
| but across, maybe a waystation on it. | 23:44 | |
| It is not a way for idealists. | 23:50 | |
| It is a way for realists. | 23:55 | |
| A Christian had better be a realist about God, | 24:00 | |
| and about his fellow. | 24:07 | |
| There's a footnote to be added to the sermon. | 24:12 | |
| You know what Gordon the author is doing now? | 24:17 | |
| He is no longer a professional soldier. | 24:23 | |
| He is now the Dean of the chapel | 24:27 | |
| at Princeton University. | 24:31 | |
| Amen. | 24:37 | |
| Let us pray. | 24:39 | |
| Oh God, who has set us in the midst of strenuous days, | 24:44 | |
| teach us that we are always life's soldiers | 24:49 | |
| expected to serve under the banner of love, | 24:54 | |
| and to walk the way of love, | 24:59 | |
| as did thy son, even Jesus Christ our Lord. | 25:02 | |
| Now under God's gracious mercy and protection | 25:07 | |
| do we commit you, | 25:10 | |
| the Lord bless you, and keep you, | 25:12 | |
| the Lord make his face to shine upon you, | 25:17 | |
| and be gracious unto you. | 25:21 | |
| The Lord lift up his countenance upon you | 25:23 | |
| and give you peace, this day and forevermore. | 25:26 |
