Thomas A. Langford - "To Pick up the Wrong Bag" (January 22, 1967)

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	(organ music)	0:03
-	Oh God, accept this offering of thy people,	0:16
	and so follow it with thy blessing	0:20
	that it may promote peace and goodwill among men	0:22
	and advanced thy kingdom of justice and righteousness.	0:26
	As we place this money upon the offer,	0:30
	we bring together the sacred and the secular,	0:34
	the material and the spiritual, work and worship	0:37
	help us to use all our gifts to unify life	0:42
	and not to split it apart,	0:45
	to create fellowship and not to disrupt it.	0:47
	In the name of Christ, we pray.	0:51
	Amen.	0:54
	(organ music)	0:55
	The way preachers come by sermon titles	1:26
	is probably as varied as the men who preach	1:30
	in the occasions, when they preach.	1:32
	In this particular instance,	1:37
	I decided first, what I wanna do and preach about,	1:39
	and then tried to find a title for the sermon.	1:42
	And the title was given me out a supper meeting,	1:48
	when the word "bag" was used	1:53
	to mean a basic or primary concern.	1:58
	And what I want to talk about	2:05
	is a confluence and sometimes a confusion of concerns,	2:09
	which are very basic,	2:16
	very primary to the college student at least,	2:17
	but a concern, I think,	2:22
	which is also a part of the lives of many of us.	2:23
	I wanted to make this explanation about the title	2:30
	because it came to my attention	2:34
	that there are some confusions which are possible.	2:36
	And since I'm using a language	2:40
	with which I'm not a wholly familiar,	2:41
	I thought perhaps I better clarify it	2:44
	for at least those of you,	2:46
	or somewhere on the far side of 30.	2:48
	One of the most persistent cries	2:55
	of contemporary college students	2:57
	is that the university must be a place	3:00
	where personal relationships occur.	3:02
	At a recent meeting of people from this campus,	3:10
	I heard once again, the student entreaty,	3:15
	"I want to know my profs as people."	3:19
	"Education must be personal."	3:26
	"The university must be a community of persons."	3:31
	These demands or pleas,	3:40
	and perhaps they are the latter in the form of the former,	3:43
	are both persistent and loud.	3:48
	No one today can be near or on the campus	3:53
	without hearing such pronouncements,	3:58
	whether it be Students for Democratic Society,	4:03
	the New Left or dissident denominational groups,	4:07
	or individuals, or dorm discussion groups,	4:12
	or bull sessions,	4:16
	one hears time and again,	4:16
	this imperious and poignant cry.	4:19
	But what he's meant?	4:25
	The university must be personal.	4:28
	How has this demand to be interpreted?	4:33
	Why are students so restive and so pushy	4:37
	about the situation?	4:41
	As an attempt to answer these questions,	4:46
	I'd like to make several suggestions.	4:48
	In the beginning,	4:53
	it's necessary to recognize that this demand,	4:54
	that the university be the exemplary locus	4:58
	of significant interpersonal relationships	5:02
	is in some ways uniquely contemporary.	5:07
	It represents the perplexity and the hope	5:13
	of the current college undergraduate generation,	5:18
	faculty attitudes perhaps indicate this change.	5:25
	The faculty member who has over 35	5:30
	is often perplexed by the demand of the student	5:33
	for inter-involvement,	5:36
	and he responds by saying,	5:39
	"I never went to one of my faculty members	5:43
	asking this sort of question.	5:44
	In fact, I was quite happy to keep my distance."	5:47
	And as a matter of fact, he probably was.	5:51
	For the most part, the faculty member is unsure	5:56
	or ill at ease about the student demand.	5:58
	He can relate to the student in terms of subject matter,	6:02
	but how does it mean to relate to the student	6:07
	simply as a person?	6:10
	Puzzled, the teacher asked certain questions himself,	6:15
	does this kind of relationship imply	6:22
	or sort of engagement of the naked egos	6:24
	and what in the world would this be?	6:30
	Why can't I relate to my students	6:33
	as a specialist in History, or English or Physics or Logic?	6:34
	Does it mean that one must deny himself in these ways	6:44
	in order to relate to the student?	6:47
	The faculty member raises questions,	6:52
	but the student doesn't want questions	6:57
	he wants personal relationship.	6:59
	He wants some sort of intense engagement	7:03
	with both the faculty and with his peers,	7:05
	and perhaps most of all in the second category.	7:07
	He wants to know people as people,	7:11
	he wants to be really and significantly conditioned	7:13
	by the way, in which he stands to them	7:17
	and the way in which they stand to him.	7:19
	Why this passionate concern?	7:25
	Perhaps the young person today is more intensely aware	7:30
	than have been any of his forebears	7:33
	or the isolation of his present existence.	7:38
	Novelist had been saying for a generation	7:43
	that man is alone and lonely.	7:46
	Contemporary art expresses personal isolation.	7:52
	Popular songs and dances reveal the insularity	7:58
	of individual existence.	8:04
	Technology, mass culture, urbanization,	8:09
	social cultural transformations,	8:14
	all of these make the individual today aware	8:16
	of his standing alone and increase his search	8:20
	for meaningful relationships.	8:27
	Before the student goes to the university	8:32
	or immediately upon entering the university,	8:35
	he becomes cognizant of these realities.	8:39
	He can't read the assignments in English 1, 2, 55, 56,	8:41
	or for that not of, French literature	8:50
	and sometimes in History.	8:54
	Without being aware of his condition as a modern man.	8:57
	The brokenness of human relationships	9:06
	is lifted in bold relief,	9:08
	and that's what she's been taught is most essential.	9:12
	Is that what she now realizes	9:16
	is most foreign to his experience.	9:18
	This is a contemporary problem.	9:24
	Previous generations have neither emphasize	9:27
	the primacy of human relationships as much as have we,	9:29
	nor have they seen the individual as so sliced apart	9:35
	or isolated as have we.	9:38
	Human relationships have been lifted to an ultimate position	9:44
	and they are not fulfilling that	9:49
	which this attributed value requires.	9:51
	Families fail to live creatively in personal ways.	9:55
	Friendships seem ephemeral and incomplete.	10:01
	Contemporary student knows what it means to walk alone.	10:06
	And if one simply keeps his ears open	10:13
	on this campus,	10:15
	any week, he will hear such questions or statements	10:17
	as those with I've heard	10:25
	within just the very last short while.	10:28
	Do you know what it means to live in a family alone?	10:32
	I think I've never known what it was to have a friend.	10:41
	I see my life as being lived	10:51
	only within the confines of my own interests.	10:56
	The student and we've taught is aware of his isolation.	11:06
	In a culture where the individual has been eulogized far	11:17
	and incarcerated in its individuality.	11:20
	There is a significant searching for relationships,	11:23
	for community, for significant sharing of life,	11:26
	reaching out in desperation to grasp someone,	11:31
	to meet someone,	11:34
	to be encountered by a persons he can respect	11:37
	or who will respect him.	11:40
	The student turns to the university and to the teacher.	11:43
	He turns to the university as the last preserve,	11:50
	the last sanctuary of personal regard and respect.	11:55
	He turns to the teacher because	12:01
	the teacher is supposed to know if anyone does	12:03
	the fact of human isolation.	12:07
	In addition, he supposed to care about his students.	12:11
	He's a humanitarian and supposed to be humane.	12:16
	In a call to which is so largely lost the dimension	12:22
	of significant interpersonal relationships.	12:25
	The university often seems to be the last hope	12:28
	for finding such a community.	12:31
	It's not an exaggeration I think,	12:37
	to say that the modern student	12:41
	often looks at the university,	12:42
	as his father might have looked to the church.	12:43
	The university, and the words of one of my colleagues	12:47
	has perhaps become the secular church.	12:51
	The university has become the possible redemptive community.	12:55
	The campus is in prospect, the promised land.	13:00
	If personal relationships are to be found anywhere	13:04
	in contemporary America,	13:07
	the student thinks they must be found	13:08
	in the campus community.	13:12
	Dave Harris and his visit here from Stanford	13:15
	probably put it best when he said,	13:18
	"What we're talking about and therefore we expect, is love."	13:21
	and he was right.	13:28
	This is what the student is seeking,	13:30
	but this is a significant point.	13:32
	Today he seeking it on the campus.	13:35
	It may be the case of the experience of hope and despair	13:39
	occurs only after the student arrives at the university.	13:43
	In a bittersweet experience,	13:48
	he sometimes finds both the possibility and the frustration	13:50
	of interpersonal relationships in the university community.	13:55
	Perhaps, for some, it's the encounter of another person	14:01
	who's searching for truth who shows concern	14:06
	and who's willing to share his life.	14:11
	But in any case,	14:16
	the finding itself seems to create frustration	14:18
	for the promise which is offered	14:23
	by the university and on the university campus,	14:25
	seems to be withdrawn	14:29
	almost as quickly as is profit.	14:31
	The parallels between	14:37
	the contemporary student's attitude toward the university	14:38
	and previous generations' attitudes toward the church,	14:40
	are rather marked.	14:43
	The president of the university comes to represent	14:45
	the ministerial leadership, the Episcopas.	14:47
	As a result, his actions are critically appraised	14:52
	in regard to their moral worth or instruction.	14:54
	And who has not heard university president's	14:59
	recently condemned for their moral action or posture.	15:01
	The campus community, it is contended as a witness	15:06
	and a mission to the world	15:10
	in regard to proclaiming redemptive community.	15:13
	Only again, within the last week,	15:17
	if I heard two students say,	15:20
	"The task of education is to make people learn	15:23
	what it means to live for others.	15:28
	The task of education is to teach people how to love."	15:31
	The ritual in life of the campus	15:39
	are given a symbolic significance	15:41
	and they become paradigmatic for the world.	15:43
	Students who are in look upon students who are out	15:47
	as apostates.	15:53
	And I'm not above thinking of excommunication.	15:56
	From this new perspective,	16:01
	teachers and students	16:02
	are communicants in a religio-moral community.	16:05
	And it's not without significance	16:10
	that many of the leaders among the student activists	16:11
	are among those who are ultimately concerned about religion,	16:15
	either positively or negatively,	16:18
	and that this concern focuses upon the university.	16:21
	Whatever one makes these parallels,	16:27
	it does seem to be the case	16:30
	that the university is looked upon today as a possible,	16:31
	and perhaps the possible redemptive community.	16:34
	Nevertheless, the frustrations which the student faces	16:39
	once he comes to campus are immediately apparent.	16:42
	The university is simply does not live up to those hopes,	16:47
	which it has helped to create.	16:52
	And again,	16:55
	this is a contemporary problem in a distinct sense	16:57
	because the size and the technological character	17:00
	of the university makes it quite a different place	17:03
	from what it once was.	17:06
	Interrelationships are as hard to come by on the campus	17:09
	as they were at home and in high school.	17:12
	Teachers sometimes evoke visions,	17:16
	but they usually remain distant, not uniquely humane,	17:18
	very seldom to show the kind of interest in the student,	17:25
	the student is seeking.	17:28
	Fellow students are self preoccupied,	17:31
	caught up in their own bag, groping past one another,	17:35
	the four walls of the dorm room, often box-in one's world.	17:41
	And one of the administration,	17:48
	the ministerial leadership also seems insensitive,	17:51
	self-preserving, lost in finances, trips and new buildings.	17:54
	As a consequence, hope	18:02
	which was placed in the faculty in one's fellow students	18:03
	and in the administration is frustrated.	18:06
	A vision is shattered.	18:09
	Now the student who had hoped to find a promise land	18:15
	comes to recognize that he's only found	18:20
	a continuation of the same road he'd already been traveling.	18:22
	There may have been glimpses of light,	18:26
	but a dank fog soon, shrouds the day.	18:31
	Nothing essential has changed,	18:35
	a new situation retains the old problems,	18:38
	but now these problems are more frustrating	18:42
	than ever before.	18:44
	Hope is raised, then denied.	18:47
	Expectation is smashed.	18:52
	It is the anger of frustration	18:58
	with the contemporary student unleashes	18:59
	against the university,	19:01
	and the anger is intensified by the fact	19:04
	that it's the failure of a final hope.	19:07
	With Langsdon Hughes we can ask,	19:13
	"What happens to a dream deferred?	19:16
	Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?	19:20
	or does it explode?"	19:25
	Meaningful human relationships,	19:30
	which are taken to be the sole redemptive possibility,	19:31
	appear to be promised than lost in the university.	19:35
	The failure of the church from the students' perspective,	19:39
	is its inability to communicate	19:43
	a genuine relationship with God.	19:44
	The failure of the university,	19:48
	from the same perspective,	19:50
	is its inability to provide	19:52
	for significant human relationships.	19:54
	But now an evaluation may be made.	20:01
	When the university is ascribed	20:06
	the functions of the church,	20:08
	when human relationships are asked to carry	20:11
	the totality of spiritual meaning,	20:14
	there is inevitable frustration,	20:17
	for neither human relationships nor the university,	20:21
	can or should fully carry these burdens.	20:26
	And perhaps at to this point,	20:32
	the Christian witness may become relevant.	20:34
	The witness of the Christian faith on campus	20:40
	at the present time is double-pronged.	20:42
	On the one hand, it must constantly reiterate	20:46
	the faith that the ultimately valid relationship	20:52
	is the relationship of man with God.	20:55
	And on the other hand,	21:01
	it must constantly attempt to translate this life with God,	21:03
	to life on the university campus.	21:07
	To witness to the primary place of man's relation to God	21:13
	is to lift the burden from human relationships,	21:16
	which they cannot carry.	21:19
	It is to free friendships	21:22
	from being more than friendships can be.	21:24
	It is to free the marriage relationships,	21:28
	from attempting to be more than marriage can be.	21:32
	It is to allow human relationships	21:38
	to be fully human or to ask of them, no more than that.	21:40
	And this is the freedom	21:49
	which the Christian gospel proclaims.	21:50
	Jesus Christ is Lord.	21:54
	The primary relationship is to Him	21:58
	and in the light of this relationship,	22:02
	every other relationship can find its proper place,	22:05
	its proper value, its proper importance.	22:10
	Human relationships enhance life.	22:16
	They make the experience of living rich,	22:21
	but life is more than human relationships,	22:26
	and that what's stand beneath,	22:32
	as man's relation to God and standing beneath.	22:34
	This primary relationship allows	22:42
	human relationships to be here.	22:45
	To translate faithful life with God	22:51
	and the life on the campus means,	22:53
	first of all,	22:55
	that we allow the university to be the university,	22:56
	with its possibilities and its limitation.	22:59
	There are valid functions of the university,	23:03
	which have no relationship to interpersonal activity.	23:05
	Important research, some solitary foraging for ideas,	23:10
	the isolated pursuit of understanding,	23:17
	students searching, studying,	23:21
	tool gathering,	23:29
	maybe absolutely authentic expressions of university life,	23:33
	though they have a non-personal quality.	23:38
	The university does for exist for students,	23:44
	but not only for students.	23:45
	There's a large context	23:48
	within which the educational institution lives,	23:50
	and there are a myriad number	23:54
	of legitimate claims upon the institution.	23:55
	What I'm trying to say is that the university	24:00
	has many authentic roles and we must leave it	24:01
	free to play these roles.	24:04
	And so far, however,	24:09
	as relationship with God may be reflected in the structure	24:11
	and personal relationships in the university.	24:14
	It is the Christian responsibility to make this manifest	24:17
	and to work and fight for this realization.	24:21
	Well there's also a freedom and a relaxation with life,	24:26
	which is allows us to let the university,	24:31
	be the university and not ask of it,	24:35
	that's what you cannot be.	24:40
	What we have suggested is that the contemporary student	24:44
	comes to and finds in the university,	24:47
	the place of final hope,	24:50
	only to discover a concomitant frustration.	24:52
	Nevertheless, in the frustration,	24:57
	which inevitably comes when human relationships	25:00
	and the community of the university are absolutized,	25:03
	the proclamation of Christian faith still has a relevance.	25:07
	The relevance is not that of capitalizing on the agony	25:12
	of the student's life,	25:15
	rather its significance is found	25:18
	in the prophetic declaration that only God is ultimate	25:20
	and all finite things find their proper place in Him.	25:25
	Its relevance is that of helping us to distinguish	25:31
	the concerns and of guiding us in choosing the proper bag.	25:33
	Personal relationships in the community of learning,	25:40
	each has its integrity and intrinsic value,	25:43
	but each is reinforced in its unique significance	25:48
	by setting it within the context	25:53
	of God's ultimate encounter of man	25:56
	in Jesus Christ.	26:00
	And recognize the value of both human relationships	26:05
	and the community of university life that does not fail,	26:11
	to recognize these to the ultimate times,	26:17
	in relation to that, which is ultimate even God.	26:20
	Let God be God.	26:26
	The name of the Father, and of the Son,	26:32
	and of the Holy Spirit.	26:36
	Now may the grace and love of God	27:13
	be with you today and always.	27:15
	Amen.	27:18
	(choir singing)	27:27

Item Info

Title:

Thomas A. Langford - "To Pick up the Wrong Bag" (January 22, 1967)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4416z12x

Date:

January 22, 1967

Speaker:

Langford, Thomas A.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0369
ref5941_iu0
uachapelsermaud
duke:628123
dcrau002365
ark:/87924/r4416z12x
20990bc4-e2f5-4251-8732-0393e4079bfb

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Thomas A. Langford - "To Pick up the Wrong Bag" (January 22, 1967)

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1. Thomas A. Langford - "To Pick Up the Wrong Bag" (January 22, 1967)

Duke University Archives

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Thomas A. Langford - "To Pick up the Wrong Bag" (January 22, 1967)

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