Donald O. Soper - Opening Sunday (September 25, 1966)
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| - | There is a temptation which afflicts the visiting preacher | 0:23 |
| who for one small time has the opportunity of saying | 0:27 | |
| what is in his heart. | 0:32 | |
| He may think as he thumbs over his various sermons, | 0:35 | |
| however large or meager the repertoire may be, | 0:38 | |
| that he ought to choose some particularly explosive theme | 0:42 | |
| and leave some reverberating notes of challenge | 0:46 | |
| on some great issue. | 0:49 | |
| He will be the more courageous | 0:52 | |
| because he has no fear of repercussions. | 0:54 | |
| He will have disappeared long before | 0:58 | |
| any retaliatory reaction can be taken, | 1:00 | |
| nevertheless, resisting that temptation for its own sake. | 1:04 | |
| I believe that it is necessary and right | 1:11 | |
| that we should seek vast and profound themes | 1:13 | |
| for our discussions about Christianity | 1:18 | |
| and for our nourishment in the faith today | 1:20 | |
| because it is at the heart of Christianity | 1:23 | |
| that the confrontation now appears, | 1:26 | |
| and it is about the central truth of the Christian faith | 1:30 | |
| that we are most in perturbation. | 1:34 | |
| Therefore, I will accept the valedictory advice | 1:39 | |
| given by Dr. Oman to the theological students | 1:43 | |
| at the better of the two great English universities, | 1:46 | |
| Cambridge University. | 1:50 | |
| When they were about to embark upon the ministry, | 1:52 | |
| he said to them, "Take large texts, gentlemen. | 1:56 | |
| "And when they persecute you in one city, | 1:59 | |
| "flee into the next. | 2:02 | |
| "I'm going back to New York fairly soon." | 2:04 | |
| I want to try in a little while | 2:10 | |
| to say something about three, though not exclusively, | 2:12 | |
| three of the paramount issues | 2:16 | |
| with which as Christian people, old and young, | 2:18 | |
| beginners and veterans, we now have to do business. | 2:21 | |
| And the first and perhaps the most declamatory | 2:27 | |
| is the general pervasive nature of doubt, | 2:30 | |
| for there are many of you in this congregation this morning | 2:37 | |
| who do not believe so completely and simply | 2:41 | |
| in the dogmatic assertions of the Christian faith | 2:45 | |
| as once you did. | 2:47 | |
| You might be unprepared to discuss this others, | 2:50 | |
| and you might feel almost the sense of shame | 2:53 | |
| that such things have happened to you. | 2:56 | |
| I think that shame would be unnecessary. | 2:59 | |
| We live in an age in which there is so much more | 3:03 | |
| with which we have to come to terms. | 3:06 | |
| The world is so much more complex, | 3:09 | |
| and at a superficial level at least, | 3:11 | |
| we know so much more about it | 3:15 | |
| that a neat and tidy dogmatic face is hard to come by | 3:17 | |
| and harder still to maintain. | 3:23 | |
| For the last 40 years, I have stood every Wednesday | 3:28 | |
| at an open air pitch called Tower Hill in London, | 3:32 | |
| and I've tried to talk about religion | 3:38 | |
| and I've been compelled to listen. | 3:39 | |
| For it is a church service, we like to think of it | 3:43 | |
| in that denomination in which the liturgy | 3:44 | |
| is very generously shared by the congregation. | 3:48 | |
| They heckle. | 3:52 | |
| They disagree. | 3:53 | |
| They are concerned, many of them. | 3:56 | |
| And over those 40 years, I have noticed one change, | 4:01 | |
| there may be many others, | 4:06 | |
| and that change is where once upon a time, | 4:08 | |
| the communist was quite certain | 4:11 | |
| about his dialectical materialism, | 4:12 | |
| and the denominationalist of the Christian persuasion | 4:16 | |
| was quite certain about his particular faith, | 4:18 | |
| and the atheist was quite sure about his atheism, | 4:22 | |
| and the agnostic was quite sure about his lack of sureness. | 4:27 | |
| That has changed, | 4:34 | |
| and there is now a pervasive mood of questioning. | 4:37 | |
| It is a little difficult to believe in a neat and tidy faith | 4:43 | |
| in the presence of such a booming, buzzing confusion, | 4:46 | |
| which I think it was Henry James once described | 4:50 | |
| as the multiverse in which he thought he lived. | 4:53 | |
| What are we to do about it? | 4:58 | |
| Well, we shall not save our souls, | 5:03 | |
| and we shall not edify our generation | 5:04 | |
| if we persuade ourselves that we ought to return | 5:09 | |
| to a kind of dogmatic totalitarianism | 5:11 | |
| and tell people that they must accept the Bible | 5:14 | |
| from cover to cover. | 5:17 | |
| We shall not save our souls | 5:19 | |
| by embarking upon evangelical jam bere | 5:21 | |
| in which we invite a great many adults | 5:24 | |
| to get back into the spiritual cradle | 5:25 | |
| where it's much more comfortable | 5:27 | |
| and there are a few questions which are asked. | 5:29 | |
| We shall only meet this challenge | 5:33 | |
| when we find out more clearly what is the Christian faith | 5:37 | |
| and what, essentially, it has to say. | 5:42 | |
| Now, a second change. | 5:48 | |
| I delight when I can to quote Bertrand Russell | 5:52 | |
| for his variously wise and occasionally unwise, | 5:54 | |
| and perhaps it's impertinent for me to even say that | 5:59 | |
| for I have the greatest of respect for him. | 6:01 | |
| One of the things that Bertrand Russell said | 6:05 | |
| was that up to the 18th century in Europe, | 6:07 | |
| it may have been otherwise here, | 6:10 | |
| all thinking was about death. | 6:13 | |
| That's a strange and perhaps an oversimplified statement | 6:17 | |
| but ponder it a moment. | 6:21 | |
| Most people died before they were 30 years of age. | 6:25 | |
| Most babies died before they were a year old. | 6:29 | |
| About 40% of mothers bearing their children | 6:34 | |
| died in childbirth. | 6:37 | |
| Nearly every soldier who was wounded died of his wounds. | 6:41 | |
| In the Crimean War, 92% of those who were wounded | 6:44 | |
| died of their wounds. | 6:48 | |
| In your Civil War, by which, as an English historian, | 6:53 | |
| I find it necessary to cross the Atlantic | 6:58 | |
| to find some in indubitable facts, | 7:00 | |
| it is recorded that nearly all the soldiers | 7:04 | |
| who were wounded in Richmond died of their wounds. | 7:07 | |
| Those who fell ill | 7:13 | |
| died of their injuries and their illnesses. | 7:14 | |
| Death was cheek by jowl. | 7:18 | |
| We love to sing in England, though I think we sing them | 7:21 | |
| far often nowadays, some of the Negro spirituals | 7:24 | |
| with their deceptively simple words and their lilting tunes. | 7:28 | |
| One of our favorites, I dare say it is | 7:31 | |
| one that you've heard ad nauseam here, | 7:33 | |
| "I got shoes, you've got shoes. | 7:36 | |
| "All God's children got shoes. | 7:38 | |
| "When I get to heaven, gonna put on the shoes. | 7:40 | |
| "I'm going to walk all over God's heaven." | 7:43 | |
| That was first sung not in America but in the West Indies. | 7:46 | |
| I went to the place where many of these Negro slaves | 7:50 | |
| first made these delightful Negro spirituals, | 7:53 | |
| Kingston, Jamaica. | 7:58 | |
| And I saw some of the hobbles still bearing testimony | 8:03 | |
| to the pestiferous nature of the slave trade. | 8:07 | |
| What had a Negro who was a slave to hope for in this life? | 8:13 | |
| Nothing. | 8:17 | |
| Shoes were a spiritual promise postponed to another world. | 8:19 | |
| Any pie was pie in the sky when you die. | 8:24 | |
| Any clothes that were worth wearing | 8:28 | |
| were clothes for which you had to wait | 8:30 | |
| until you were clad in heavenly garb. | 8:32 | |
| Is it any wonder that the preoccupation of religion | 8:36 | |
| for the Negro and for a great many other people | 8:40 | |
| living in an age when death was cheek by jowl with us all, | 8:43 | |
| the preoccupation was with another world? | 8:47 | |
| Of course not. | 8:52 | |
| This was why John Wesley was able to persuade people | 8:54 | |
| to flee from the wrath to come | 8:58 | |
| because they were already aware that death was near. | 9:00 | |
| It's very difficult to preach about the wrath to come now | 9:05 | |
| because if you bid them flee, very few congregations | 9:07 | |
| are even prepared to break into a trot. | 9:11 | |
| We know that this world offers, | 9:17 | |
| by the many factions of science, | 9:20 | |
| as well as by its infamous perversions, | 9:22 | |
| the realization of hopes of shoes here, | 9:28 | |
| of clothes here, of health. | 9:33 | |
| I don't know how long you expect to live, | 9:37 | |
| but as an Englishman, I have the lively anticipation | 9:38 | |
| with my fellows of living to an age of 63. | 9:42 | |
| In fact, I'm already living on borrowed time. | 9:45 | |
| If you happen to be a woman, | 9:51 | |
| it's 65. | 9:53 | |
| I have no doubt that it's longer over here. | 9:56 | |
| The prospects are, and I have no warrant for saying this | 10:00 | |
| except the evidence of their who know so much more about it | 10:03 | |
| than I do, but in perhaps 200 years, | 10:06 | |
| the expectation of life may well be 150. | 10:10 | |
| You may regard that as a melancholy thought, | 10:14 | |
| and you may take comfort from the fact | 10:18 | |
| that you won't live to see it, | 10:19 | |
| but I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it happens. | 10:22 | |
| Therefore, when the Christian talks | 10:26 | |
| of the heaven beyond the skies, | 10:29 | |
| it is not surprising that most people | 10:31 | |
| are more or less indifferent to what he has to say. | 10:33 | |
| And when the evangelists invites us to sing hymns | 10:38 | |
| which contain words like these, | 10:41 | |
| you've heard them, I dare say, | 10:43 | |
| if you've ever been to the Billy Graham rally, | 10:45 | |
| watching and waiting, looking above. | 10:47 | |
| Now, there's a other really inadequate occupation | 10:51 | |
| for healthy young people. | 10:53 | |
| One of the outstanding troubles | 10:58 | |
| that afflict the preaching of the word today | 11:01 | |
| is that there is so much more to be offered in this life. | 11:03 | |
| And therefore, people are not particularly interested | 11:10 | |
| in the hereafter. | 11:14 | |
| I believe the answer here also is to be found | 11:17 | |
| in the true nature of the Christian faith. | 11:20 | |
| Now, one other characteristic, if I may. | 11:24 | |
| It is the characteristic of mass violence. | 11:27 | |
| I make no bones about it, and I don't apologize for it. | 11:33 | |
| I'm a pacifist. | 11:35 | |
| I'm thoroughly in favor | 11:36 | |
| of the total and complete demobilization | 11:37 | |
| of all the forces of all the nations | 11:39 | |
| beginning, shall be say, with the British. | 11:41 | |
| Now, you may regard that as cloud cuckoo land. | 11:44 | |
| You may regard that as perverse. | 11:48 | |
| And it is not my business to abuse your hospitality | 11:51 | |
| by preaching a pacifist sermon. | 11:55 | |
| I testify to it. | 11:56 | |
| You will not, however, be unprepared, surely, | 12:00 | |
| to accept that the outstanding characteristic of this world | 12:04 | |
| as it would be seen from some visitor from another planet | 12:07 | |
| or from another universe, | 12:11 | |
| and for all I know, they may be here are already. | 12:12 | |
| I only hope they're friendly. | 12:15 | |
| I cannot believe that they are further advanced than we are, | 12:19 | |
| and therefore, we have much to gain | 12:22 | |
| from any contact with them. | 12:23 | |
| What would some visitor from another universe, | 12:27 | |
| what would he say on return in making his report, | 12:31 | |
| if we can, with any reality, anticipate such a report? | 12:35 | |
| Surely, he would say that the most extraordinary fact | 12:40 | |
| about this human Earth | 12:43 | |
| is that we are mobilized in nation states | 12:46 | |
| with the capacity totally to annihilate each other. | 12:50 | |
| In fact, the nation state is the most predatory, | 12:54 | |
| violent institution that man has ever put his hand to. | 12:58 | |
| And you needn't accept that because Lenin said it. | 13:03 | |
| You can prove it by asking yourself, | 13:07 | |
| how did nations qualify | 13:08 | |
| in the old days of the League of Nations? | 13:10 | |
| What was the determination of a nation? | 13:13 | |
| What was the criteria of a nation state? | 13:15 | |
| And the only answer | 13:18 | |
| with which they could all agree was this, | 13:18 | |
| that a nation state is any community of people | 13:20 | |
| possessing its own armed forces. | 13:23 | |
| We are mobilized in terms of mass violence. | 13:28 | |
| We are upon the edge of mass destruction. | 13:33 | |
| And the pertinent cynicism, nuclear energy is here to stay. | 13:39 | |
| The important question is, are we. | 13:44 | |
| I know, and thank God for it, that there are many evidences | 13:49 | |
| in the world in which I live and in which you live | 13:54 | |
| of the impregnation of Christian principles. | 13:57 | |
| I live in a country where the welfare state | 14:01 | |
| is the most Christian thing that's happened in my lifetime. | 14:03 | |
| I rejoice in the campaign for nuclear disarmament | 14:09 | |
| in which I took apart some years ago, | 14:12 | |
| standing up, and walking around, | 14:15 | |
| and sitting down, and getting arrested. | 14:16 | |
| And when I was all prepared with a martyr's crown | 14:20 | |
| of going to prison, they let me out. | 14:22 | |
| Most embarrassing. | 14:25 | |
| (crowd laughs) | 14:27 | |
| There is no doubt at all | 14:33 | |
| that the man in the street in England | 14:36 | |
| believes that you cannot carry a gun in one hand | 14:38 | |
| and the Christian gospel in the other. | 14:42 | |
| But be that as it may, | 14:46 | |
| the outstanding characteristic of the world is violence. | 14:48 | |
| The ultimate arbitrament is violence. | 14:54 | |
| And for reasons good and bad, | 14:57 | |
| and it would be impertinent for me to make over judgments, | 14:59 | |
| very often much more in sorrow than in anger | 15:03 | |
| and much more in ineptitude than in immorality, | 15:05 | |
| the nations of the Earth | 15:10 | |
| commit themselves to unlimited slaughter. | 15:11 | |
| This is the beginning of a new term in a university, | 15:17 | |
| and there are many who will be asking themselves, | 15:27 | |
| am I a Christian? | 15:29 | |
| Ought I to go under that title? | 15:30 | |
| I believe that before you can answer that question, | 15:34 | |
| you will have to face at least these three characteristics, | 15:39 | |
| doubt, | 15:46 | |
| the viability of the kingdom of God on Earth | 15:50 | |
| rather than postponed for life hereafter, | 15:54 | |
| and mass violence. | 15:59 | |
| For whatever else Christianity may say to this generation, | 16:03 | |
| if it fails to say something about these matters, | 16:06 | |
| it will be guarded as completely irrelevant. | 16:09 | |
| And men will pass it by. and they will say to themselves, | 16:11 | |
| "If Christians like to make pious noises in peculiar places, | 16:13 | |
| "it's nobody's business but their own," | 16:18 | |
| but, in the countrymen's terms, | 16:19 | |
| it doesn't butter any parsnips. | 16:21 | |
| In order to make Christianity relevant, it must meet doubt, | 16:25 | |
| and it must meet the challenge of this life, | 16:32 | |
| and it must meet the challenge of violence. | 16:36 | |
| I believe it does. | 16:40 | |
| And in a very few words, I would try to offer to you, | 16:45 | |
| if I may, how I have found this answer. | 16:49 | |
| Once upon a time, when I was a very young minister, | 16:57 | |
| I imagined that the business of a Christian minister | 16:59 | |
| was to answer all the questions that anybody could ask. | 17:01 | |
| I have learned how stupid that is | 17:05 | |
| and how even more stupid it is to give the impression | 17:09 | |
| that Christianity provides all the answers. | 17:13 | |
| It does nothing of the sort. | 17:16 | |
| What it does do is it provides enough of the answers | 17:19 | |
| to enable us to live with the rest of them unanswered. | 17:25 | |
| And it transfers the emphasis | 17:31 | |
| away from academic and metaphysical thought | 17:34 | |
| and puts it fairly and squarely in another place, | 17:37 | |
| and that place is the kingdom of God. | 17:42 | |
| This is the answer to the problem | 17:45 | |
| raised by the life lust of our present age. | 17:49 | |
| This is the answer | 17:54 | |
| provided for the mass violence of our generation. | 17:56 | |
| Christianity is not believing a number of things | 18:03 | |
| for the good of your soul, which, as a matter of fact, | 18:08 | |
| can be demonstrated to be untrue. | 18:10 | |
| It contains beliefs. | 18:14 | |
| Christianity is not the experience of life here, | 18:18 | |
| though it explains it, and it makes it real. | 18:22 | |
| Christianity is ultimately the search | 18:27 | |
| and the discovery of the kingdom of God. | 18:31 | |
| And when we transfer our emphasis | 18:37 | |
| away from preoccupation with academic thought, | 18:39 | |
| or preoccupation with the next world, | 18:43 | |
| or preoccupation with violence, | 18:45 | |
| when we begin to look for the kingdom of God, | 18:47 | |
| we shall find the answers. | 18:52 | |
| I have already begun to find them. | 18:54 | |
| I offer them to you. | 18:59 | |
| First of all, let me say it quite clearly, | 19:02 | |
| that they are the answers which Jesus gives. | 19:05 | |
| Jesus did not tell people | 19:10 | |
| to find their individual way to heaven. | 19:13 | |
| Jesus did not tell people to be preoccupied | 19:15 | |
| with the saving of their silly little souls. | 19:17 | |
| What Jesus said was, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God | 19:19 | |
| "and it's righteousness. | 19:23 | |
| "And all these things will be added to you." | 19:24 | |
| That's in the Sermon on the Mount. | 19:28 | |
| Some years ago, it may well have been, | 19:32 | |
| after I was here last time, I went to Montreal | 19:34 | |
| and was involved in a television program | 19:36 | |
| in which I was to be quizzed on a topic. | 19:39 | |
| And they asked me what topic | 19:42 | |
| I would like to be questioned about, | 19:43 | |
| and I said the Sermon on the Mount. | 19:44 | |
| And those who were to interrogate me | 19:48 | |
| were the two leading criminal lawyers | 19:50 | |
| in French-speaking Canada. | 19:53 | |
| I took the precaution of finding out | 19:55 | |
| that it was not only for that particular program | 19:56 | |
| that they'd enlisted criminal lawyers, but there they were. | 19:59 | |
| They were lapsed Roman Catholics, | 20:03 | |
| and they gave me a very rough ride | 20:07 | |
| until halfway through the program, | 20:08 | |
| with immaculate television brilliance, though unconscious, | 20:11 | |
| one of them turned away from the microphones and said to me, | 20:15 | |
| "I think I ought to say that I hadn't read | 20:19 | |
| "the Sermon on the Mount till last night." | 20:23 | |
| Well, I said, "I think you might read it again | 20:28 | |
| "because I'm sure you won't have got everything out of it | 20:29 | |
| "at first reading," and he said he would. | 20:31 | |
| And prompted by his candor, bless my soul, | 20:35 | |
| the other fellow said that he hadn't read | 20:39 | |
| the Sermon on the Mount till the night before either. | 20:40 | |
| By the way, have you? | 20:45 | |
| Don't tell me you have if you haven't. | 20:49 | |
| You've probably heard snippets from it. | 20:51 | |
| You've probably heard lessons read from it. | 20:53 | |
| But when did you last sit down | 20:57 | |
| at the place in St. Matthew's gospel where it says, | 20:58 | |
| "And seeing the multitudes," | 21:01 | |
| and read straight through to the place where it says, | 21:04 | |
| "And not as the scribes." | 21:06 | |
| Well, between those two parcels of words | 21:10 | |
| is the Sermon on the Mount. | 21:13 | |
| And in that television program, | 21:17 | |
| I had the extraordinary opportunity | 21:18 | |
| of talking to two sophisticated, elegant 20th century men, | 21:22 | |
| versed in all the affairs of this world, | 21:30 | |
| who had suddenly come upon the Sermon on the Mount. | 21:33 | |
| I asked them what they thought of it. | 21:38 | |
| Their first reply was a little devastating. | 21:42 | |
| They wanted to know why we Christians didn't believe it. | 21:44 | |
| And then they said this, | 21:50 | |
| "The Sermon on the Mount is not what we expected it to be. | 21:52 | |
| "The Sermon on the Mount | 21:56 | |
| "is not about getting individual souls to heaven. | 21:57 | |
| "The Sermon on the Mount | 22:00 | |
| "is about the kingdom of God and its righteousness." | 22:01 | |
| How right they were. | 22:05 | |
| The answer to our doubt | 22:08 | |
| is to take them and the little flicker of faith we have | 22:12 | |
| and set out to make the Christian church | 22:19 | |
| and the world in which we live the workshop | 22:22 | |
| of the kingdom of God, for in that workshop, | 22:28 | |
| we shall find the answers which are necessary, | 22:31 | |
| and we shall be prepared to leave the others | 22:36 | |
| in the heart and mind of our heavenly Father. | 22:40 | |
| It is in the search for the kingdom of God | 22:45 | |
| that we shall learn that Jesus did not invite people | 22:46 | |
| to look for a spiritual world. | 22:50 | |
| Only when he was asked where the kingdom of God was, | 22:52 | |
| he said, "It's within you." | 22:54 | |
| Or if you're a stickler for the Greek, "It's amongst you." | 22:57 | |
| And when they said to him, "What about eternal life," | 23:03 | |
| Jesus said, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." | 23:05 | |
| The Christian gospel is largely | 23:11 | |
| an essay in the present tense. | 23:12 | |
| And we are only recovering the apostolic authority | 23:16 | |
| when we look for that kingdom here in peace and justice, | 23:19 | |
| and feeding the hungry, and caring for those | 23:22 | |
| who are uneducated, and spreading abroad | 23:25 | |
| the family spirit and setting up the family table. | 23:30 | |
| There is so much of that kingdom | 23:35 | |
| that can be realized here and now. | 23:40 | |
| We have the machinery. | 23:42 | |
| We have the raw material. | 23:45 | |
| But if we fuss ourselves by inquiring | 23:51 | |
| as to the furniture of heaven, | 23:54 | |
| and there are not a few people who seem to be | 23:56 | |
| much better informed about the next world | 23:58 | |
| than they are about the affairs of their neighbors in this. | 24:00 | |
| We shall find that the Christian gospel is the open door | 24:05 | |
| to peace on Earth and goodwill among men. | 24:09 | |
| As the heavenly host sang, "When Jesus was born | 24:14 | |
| "and the Earth lay quiet, | 24:20 | |
| "to hear the song of the angels." | 24:22 | |
| And what, finally, about violence? | 24:27 | |
| There is only one answer of violence, | 24:31 | |
| and that is to expel it by a greater and deeper affection. | 24:33 | |
| I know very well how impracticable sounds | 24:39 | |
| the program of the cross, but I know that Jesus Christ | 24:44 | |
| would have passed into history as just another | 24:50 | |
| more or less insignificant resistance leader | 24:52 | |
| to the Roman empire had he chosen the way of violence. | 24:55 | |
| He chose the way of the cross. | 24:59 | |
| You heard read today one of the greatest passages, | 25:03 | |
| at least in my experience, | 25:08 | |
| in the whole of the New Testament. | 25:11 | |
| it is the threefold question that Jesus asked of Peter, | 25:14 | |
| "Peter, do you love me? | 25:21 | |
| "If you love me, then you will be able to do the things | 25:24 | |
| "that I charge you to do, | 25:28 | |
| "and you will be able to take up your cross." | 25:31 | |
| Well, that's the meaning of that other passage | 25:33 | |
| immediately following in which you remember | 25:34 | |
| the remark he's made about Peter being nailed to a cross. | 25:37 | |
| There is only one answer of violence. | 25:46 | |
| It is not to how convenient it would be | 25:47 | |
| or how opportune it would be, | 25:50 | |
| how existential it would be if we got rid of our arms. | 25:52 | |
| It is to expel the whole concept of violence | 25:55 | |
| by the inoculation, first of all, | 25:59 | |
| and then the incorporation of an entirely new spirit. | 26:01 | |
| And we are not ready for it, | 26:05 | |
| and we are not Christian enough to believe it. | 26:06 | |
| And I preach these were to myself as much as to you. | 26:08 | |
| We are not worthy to be called Christians | 26:11 | |
| unless we are prepared to love as Jesus loved | 26:14 | |
| and to take up our cross. | 26:18 | |
| What does taking up a cross me? | 26:21 | |
| Oh, there is a dear lady in my church | 26:24 | |
| whose cross is lumbago, she says. | 26:26 | |
| Now, I've had lumbago, and I'm not inclined to laugh at it, | 26:30 | |
| but do you think that Jesus, when he said take up a cross | 26:35 | |
| was thinking of some minor or even major human ailment, | 26:38 | |
| a thorn in the flesh? | 26:42 | |
| Not a bit of it. | 26:43 | |
| We know very well what taking up a cross meant, | 26:45 | |
| and so did those who heard our Lord say these words, | 26:49 | |
| "When a man was condemned to be crucified, by Roman law, | 26:53 | |
| "he was required to take up the cross or part of it | 26:57 | |
| "on which later he was to be done cruelly to death | 27:01 | |
| "and carry it, carry it to the place | 27:05 | |
| "where he was to be killed." | 27:10 | |
| A man who took up his cross | 27:14 | |
| was a man who was going to the end of the road, | 27:17 | |
| and the taking up of his cross was his last free action. | 27:22 | |
| Nothing more could be required of him. | 27:26 | |
| To use a modern phrase, if it is still a modern phrase, | 27:30 | |
| he had gone to the limit. | 27:33 | |
| And I think of violence and the prudential reasons | 27:38 | |
| which are offered alike for armaments and disarmaments. | 27:42 | |
| When I testify to my pacifism as I do, | 27:48 | |
| I know that the only effective answer to violence | 27:52 | |
| is the love which belongs to the kingdom of God | 27:58 | |
| and the carrying of the cross, | 28:03 | |
| which is the only fit and adequate burden | 28:06 | |
| of those who would be called by the name of Jesus. | 28:12 | |
| I pray that those who live and work in this university | 28:18 | |
| will not spurn the Christian faith | 28:23 | |
| because they can't answer questions about is God dead, | 28:25 | |
| a frivolous question if ever I heard one. | 28:29 | |
| I hope that they will not be unduly disturbed | 28:33 | |
| because politics is the way things happen, | 28:35 | |
| and there are so few persons who seem to know | 28:41 | |
| the points of the compass about the political situation. | 28:43 | |
| I hope they will not be cynical because they see a world | 28:49 | |
| which is still prostituted to violence. | 28:53 | |
| I hope that they will see in Jesus Christ and his kingdom | 28:59 | |
| first, the vision, and then the power | 29:03 | |
| to take up his cross and make their way to his kingdom, | 29:08 | |
| for if they begin that Via Dolorosa, | 29:15 | |
| if they begin to lift that cross, | 29:21 | |
| if they begin to perceive that kingdom and to desire it, | 29:24 | |
| the promise of God is this, | 29:28 | |
| that they will be sustained, | 29:32 | |
| and his grace will be sufficient for them, | 29:34 | |
| for the city of God remaineth and the kingdom will come. | 29:39 | |
| May it come quickly. | 29:45 | |
| Let us pray. | 29:48 | |
| Oh, God, our heavenly Father, | 29:56 | |
| we pray that we may hear the gospel | 29:57 | |
| as Jesus proclaims it to us, | 30:00 | |
| that we may resolve our doubts | 30:05 | |
| and see his kingdom and learn to love him. | 30:07 | |
| And in that service | 30:14 | |
| to receive his grace and together with others, | 30:16 | |
| to move into that realm of peace and justice and goodwill, | 30:21 | |
| which is the anti past of his kingdom | 30:26 | |
| and which he has promised, so give to us strength and faith. | 30:30 | |
| And from this time forward, | 30:36 | |
| accept us as thy soldiers and servants. | 30:38 | |
| We humbly pray thee through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 30:41 | |
| You stand. | 30:49 | |
| Now, may the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, | 30:55 | |
| keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God | 30:59 | |
| and of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 31:03 | |
| And the blessing of God Almighty, | 31:06 | |
| the father, the son, and the holy spirit, | 31:08 | |
| be amongst you and remain with you always. | 31:11 |