D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "Violence - As American as Cherry Pie?" (August 13, 1967)
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| (organ music) | 0:12 | |
| (organ music continues) | 0:48 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 1:11 | |
| (organ continues) | 1:44 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 2:06 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 2:40 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 3:05 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 3:38 | |
| - | Beloved the holy scriptures tell us that he who thinks he | 4:04 |
| stands should take heed lest he fall. | 4:07 | |
| Sometimes we become rather smug in our concepts of our own | 4:11 | |
| righteousness and our worthiness before almighty God. | 4:15 | |
| It is therefore important that regularly | 4:20 | |
| we examine our hearts, | 4:22 | |
| acknowledge our unworthiness and ask for the grace | 4:25 | |
| of our heavenly father. | 4:28 | |
| For that reason, | 4:32 | |
| let us now unite in our prayer of confession and for pardon, | 4:32 | |
| let us pray. | 4:37 | |
| Almighty God. | 4:39 | |
| We humbly confess that we are guilty people. | 4:40 | |
| We cannot count the sins that we have done | 4:44 | |
| nor can we remember | 4:47 | |
| all the evil thoughts of our hearts. | 4:49 | |
| We have neglected thy word and have taken lightly thy mercy. | 4:51 | |
| We have not turned away from violence and vanity. | 4:56 | |
| We therefore do not deserve the forgiveness | 5:00 | |
| that we pray for. | 5:03 | |
| But we ask thee to grant that we may | 5:05 | |
| from the heart be turned to thee, | 5:07 | |
| and that we may be reconciled to thee through Jesus Christ, | 5:10 | |
| our Lord, amen. | 5:14 | |
| The words of scripture, | 5:19 | |
| which beckon us to confess and repent | 5:22 | |
| also assure us of pardon when we do. | 5:26 | |
| In Micah, who is like unto God, | 5:31 | |
| who pardons inequity and passes over transgressions, | 5:36 | |
| he does not retain his anger forever because he delights | 5:41 | |
| in steadfast love. | 5:45 | |
| He will again have compassion upon us. | 5:48 | |
| He will tread our inequities under foot. | 5:52 | |
| He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. | 5:55 | |
| Maybe now, thoughtfully and reverently. | 6:02 | |
| and with a sense of Christian fellowship, | 6:05 | |
| join our hearts and our voices together | 6:08 | |
| in praying the prayer, | 6:10 | |
| which Christ has taught his disciples to pray, | 6:11 | |
| saying our father who art in heaven, | 6:14 | |
| hallowed be thy name. | 6:19 | |
| Thy kingdom come, thy will be done | 6:21 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 6:24 | |
| Give us this day, | 6:27 | |
| our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses | 6:28 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us, | 6:32 | |
| not into temptation, | 6:36 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 6:38 | |
| For thine is the kingdom and the power | 6:40 | |
| and the glory forever. | 6:42 | |
| Amen. | 6:45 | |
| (church organ plays) | 6:48 | |
| (choir harmonizes) | 7:09 | |
| (choir continues) | 7:35 | |
| (choir continues) | 7:59 | |
| (choir continues) | 8:24 | |
| (choir continues) | 8:58 | |
| (choir continues) | 9:27 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 9:52 | |
| Let us pray. | 9:56 | |
| Our heavenly father who has appointed us to live for thee, | 10:00 | |
| in a time of crisis and of adventure. | 10:05 | |
| We come now to this service of worship, to glorify thee, | 10:09 | |
| and to give thanks to thy holy name. | 10:14 | |
| We are here to celebrate the good news, | 10:18 | |
| which came to us and to all men in the incarnation | 10:20 | |
| of thy divine self in Jesus of Nazareth. | 10:24 | |
| We now ask of thee so to shed abroad, | 10:29 | |
| his love and our hearts, | 10:32 | |
| that we shall be a part of that good news to our needy | 10:34 | |
| and chaotic world. | 10:37 | |
| We rejoice in thy goodness, | 10:42 | |
| and give thee thanks for every expression of thy truth | 10:44 | |
| and beauty. | 10:48 | |
| Whether in scripture reading, in sermon, in daily life, | 10:51 | |
| drama, art, music, or labor. | 10:57 | |
| We are grateful for every classroom in which thy will | 11:03 | |
| is made known. | 11:06 | |
| And for every laboratory in which students discover | 11:08 | |
| thy laws. | 11:11 | |
| We acknowledge gratefully | 11:14 | |
| thy help to us and we confess that it has been greater | 11:16 | |
| than our help to thee, by far. | 11:20 | |
| We admit that thy care for us has been more steadfast | 11:23 | |
| than our care for thee, or even of our fellows. | 11:28 | |
| But Lord, | 11:34 | |
| today we come to ask for more blessings for new mercies. | 11:35 | |
| And yet we come not so much to ask for the things | 11:42 | |
| that we want, but to ask thee | 11:45 | |
| to show us what is good for us, that is what we should want. | 11:47 | |
| So that when we ask in prayer, we may not ask amiss. | 11:54 | |
| We pray for the grace for ourselves and pray that we may be | 11:59 | |
| gracious toward others. | 12:03 | |
| Grant that this service of worship now may bring such | 12:06 | |
| spiritual blessings to us that we shall become in a sense | 12:11 | |
| partners with thee, in the transformation of thy world. | 12:16 | |
| We are very mindful today, holy father, | 12:23 | |
| and pray for the conversion of the prejudice | 12:26 | |
| and the enlightenment of the narrow minded. | 12:31 | |
| We pray thee, that the groups, | 12:35 | |
| which spread hatred and fear may be confounded | 12:37 | |
| in their plans and converted in their hearts. | 12:42 | |
| Grant that this university, its faculty, | 12:47 | |
| and its students may be an instrument | 12:50 | |
| in thy hands to bring truth to those who suffer | 12:53 | |
| and who brings suffering upon others | 12:58 | |
| because of their ignorance. | 13:01 | |
| We pray that this university may be effective | 13:04 | |
| in its witness, not only in the distant places of the earth. | 13:08 | |
| Through its medical service, | 13:14 | |
| to underdeveloped nations and through its students, | 13:16 | |
| going in groups to underdeveloped nations, | 13:20 | |
| but especially, and humbly, | 13:25 | |
| we pray that it may be of service here in our own land, | 13:27 | |
| which has had the blessing of the gospel and of the truth. | 13:34 | |
| We ask thee, to thwart any evil work, | 13:41 | |
| which we may have performed in the name of righteousness. | 13:44 | |
| We pray thee to arrest us, | 13:48 | |
| if we are going down the wrong path, even now, | 13:50 | |
| while thinking it is the way of eternal life. | 13:52 | |
| Oh God bring us to know thy perfect way and will. | 13:56 | |
| Overcome any error, | 14:02 | |
| we may have taught in the name of truth or science. | 14:03 | |
| Help us not only to learn facts, but the truth | 14:08 | |
| which leads to meaning and to creativity. | 14:11 | |
| Heavenly father open our hearts and minds. | 14:18 | |
| Help those who are confused. | 14:22 | |
| Comfort those who are grief stricken, | 14:25 | |
| give strength to the sick, | 14:28 | |
| and to all give an awareness of thy loving presence. | 14:31 | |
| We make our prayer in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. | 14:36 | |
| Amen. | 14:40 | |
| (mic popping) | 14:59 | |
| - | Scripture lesson is from the book of the prophet | 15:13 |
| Hosea, the fourth chapter. | 15:16 | |
| The first through the 10th verses. | 15:20 | |
| Hear the word of the Lord, | 15:24 | |
| oh people of Israel for the Lord has a controversy | 15:25 | |
| with the inhabitants of the land. | 15:28 | |
| There is no faithfulness or kindness and no knowledge of God | 15:31 | |
| in the land. | 15:35 | |
| There is swearing lying, killing, stealing, | 15:36 | |
| and commit adult committing adultery. | 15:39 | |
| They break all bounds and murder follows murder. | 15:42 | |
| Therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish, | 15:45 | |
| and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, | 15:50 | |
| and even the fish of the sea are taken away. | 15:52 | |
| Let no one contend, let no one accuse | 15:57 | |
| for, with you is my contention oh priest. | 15:59 | |
| You shall stumble by day, | 16:02 | |
| and the prophet shall also stumble with you by night. | 16:04 | |
| I will destroy your mother. | 16:07 | |
| My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, | 16:09 | |
| because you have rejected knowledge. | 16:13 | |
| I reject you from being a priest to me. | 16:15 | |
| And since you have forgotten the law of your God, | 16:18 | |
| I will also forget your children. | 16:21 | |
| The more they increase, the more they send against me, | 16:24 | |
| I will change their glory into shame. | 16:28 | |
| They feed on the sin of my people. | 16:31 | |
| They are greedy for their iniquity | 16:34 | |
| and it shall be like people, like priest. | 16:36 | |
| I will punish them for their ways and requit them | 16:39 | |
| for their deeds. | 16:42 | |
| They shall eat, but not be satisfied. | 16:44 | |
| They shall play the Harlet not multiply | 16:47 | |
| because they have forsaken the Lord | 16:50 | |
| to cherish Harlet truth. | 16:53 | |
| Let us pray, | 16:55 | |
| Pray the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 16:59 | |
| be acceptable in thy sight. | 17:02 | |
| Oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. | 17:04 | |
| Amen. | 17:08 | |
| Look, magazine | 17:13 | |
| annually gives a number of dubious achievement | 17:16 | |
| or some such awards to those who attain | 17:19 | |
| real distinction in mediocrity, | 17:22 | |
| absurdity, banality, and the light. | 17:25 | |
| Last year one of these awards went | 17:29 | |
| to president Johnson for his statement | 17:32 | |
| that rioting killing looting and burning are not | 17:34 | |
| in the best American tradition. | 17:37 | |
| More recently, | 17:40 | |
| Mr. H. Rap Brown of the now misnamed student, | 17:42 | |
| nonviolent coordinating committee has declared | 17:46 | |
| that violence is as American as cherry pie. | 17:49 | |
| The two statements are of course not contradictory. | 17:56 | |
| In fact, it may be said that they illumine one another. | 17:59 | |
| Probably Mr. Johnson has not thought to be grateful | 18:03 | |
| to Mr. Brown, but perhaps the ought to be, | 18:06 | |
| for what Brown says rescues the president's words | 18:09 | |
| from the very brink of absurdity. | 18:12 | |
| Maybe violence is not un-American after all, | 18:15 | |
| maybe the violence that has so recently visited American | 18:20 | |
| cities is shocking to us primarily because it is Negro | 18:24 | |
| violence and it has hit close to home. | 18:27 | |
| Yes. | 18:32 | |
| And although it most often has caused suffering and death | 18:33 | |
| among Negros because its real object is the white man. | 18:36 | |
| And that is what frightens most of us who are white. | 18:43 | |
| There's a very ancient and eloquent testimony | 18:48 | |
| to the causes of such violence in the book | 18:51 | |
| of the Prophet Hosea. | 18:53 | |
| Passage from which has just been read in our hearing. | 18:56 | |
| We shall of course find there no easy answer | 19:00 | |
| to the problem of violence in the streets of our cities. | 19:02 | |
| And yet perhaps Hosea will help us understand what is a foot | 19:06 | |
| in our own land. | 19:10 | |
| Hosea's prophetic ministry began during the last days | 19:15 | |
| of the reign of king Gerald born the second over Israel. | 19:19 | |
| This was a period of considerable prosperity, | 19:25 | |
| at least at a superficial level. | 19:28 | |
| And also if we are to believe Hosea's contemporary Amos, | 19:31 | |
| it was a period of social injustice. | 19:36 | |
| We learned something about the conditions of injustice | 19:41 | |
| in this period, from the prophet Amos, | 19:44 | |
| the greater part of Hosea's ministry, however, | 19:47 | |
| fell not in this time, but during the period, | 19:50 | |
| which followed it, | 19:53 | |
| which was a period characterized by political instability. | 19:54 | |
| One king followed another often by means of assassination. | 19:59 | |
| And thus Hosea saw the oppression of the poor and the heart | 20:04 | |
| by the heartless and the prosperous followed by a breakdown | 20:07 | |
| in civil order. | 20:11 | |
| A direct relationship between the two might be hard to draw. | 20:14 | |
| And yet in some respects, | 20:18 | |
| it can be said that Hosea's times were not unlike our own. | 20:20 | |
| Now the opening words of our text and upon these, | 20:25 | |
| I should like to concentrate, the opening words of our text | 20:28 | |
| reflect Hosea's own perspective on these times. | 20:32 | |
| In fact, they marked the beginning of the main body | 20:36 | |
| of the prophetic oracles in the book | 20:38 | |
| and both inform and in content | 20:41 | |
| they're fairly typical of Israelite prophecy. | 20:43 | |
| First, there is the call to hear the word | 20:47 | |
| of the Lord. | 20:50 | |
| For the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants | 20:51 | |
| of the land and then comes an unrelenting enumeration | 20:55 | |
| of the charges against these inhabitants of the land. | 21:00 | |
| There is no faithfulness or kindness and no knowledge of God | 21:04 | |
| in the land. | 21:08 | |
| There is swearing lying, killing, stealing, | 21:09 | |
| and committing adultery. | 21:12 | |
| They break all bounds and murder follows murder. | 21:14 | |
| Finally, the sentence of judgment is pronounced. | 21:19 | |
| Therefore the land will mourn and all who dwell in it | 21:23 | |
| will languish and also the beasts of the field | 21:26 | |
| and the birds of the air. | 21:29 | |
| And even the fish of the sea will be taken away. | 21:31 | |
| We have here a kind of controversy in court, a legal suit, | 21:36 | |
| so to speak, | 21:41 | |
| the unusual aspect of this suit is that the accuser | 21:43 | |
| and the judge are one in the same. | 21:46 | |
| God, both accuses and judges his people. | 21:49 | |
| Now this is clearly quite an extraordinary kind of legal | 21:53 | |
| procedure, an extraordinary courtroom scene, | 21:56 | |
| and yet such oracles in which the accuser and the judge | 22:01 | |
| are one in the same, namely God, | 22:04 | |
| are quite typical of old Testament prophecy. | 22:06 | |
| Now the charges that are brought are of two sorts, | 22:11 | |
| two kinds, | 22:15 | |
| the second set points to the actual conditions in the land. | 22:16 | |
| There is lying, swearing, killing, stealing, | 22:22 | |
| adultery, murder, following upon murder. | 22:26 | |
| We recall for example, | 22:30 | |
| the prohibition of such deeds in the 10 commandments. | 22:32 | |
| And yet these are, but symptoms of a deeper illness, | 22:37 | |
| something that lies beneath the surface, | 22:40 | |
| namely the lack of faithfulness and kindness, | 22:43 | |
| and the absence of the knowledge of God from the land. | 22:48 | |
| These things are fundamental. | 22:53 | |
| That is the absence of faithfulness and kindness | 22:55 | |
| and the absence of the knowledge of God. | 22:58 | |
| So Hosea has spoken of them first. | 23:00 | |
| They are perhaps not so easily observable as murder, rape, | 23:04 | |
| stealing, | 23:08 | |
| but they do not escape the eye of the seer who beholds | 23:09 | |
| the plight of his people. | 23:13 | |
| And hears the word of God against them. | 23:15 | |
| Now, why does this lack of faithfulness and kindness, | 23:21 | |
| this absence of the knowledge of God, | 23:24 | |
| why does it have such a terrible issue? | 23:26 | |
| Because in the biblical view, in Hosea's view, | 23:29 | |
| faithfulness and kindness are not mere personal virtues. | 23:31 | |
| They are social necessities. | 23:34 | |
| They are the basis of community. | 23:37 | |
| Without them, the people cannot live in peace, | 23:40 | |
| and in order. | 23:42 | |
| In his dealings with Israel, | 23:44 | |
| God is faithful and shows his kindness, his mercy, | 23:45 | |
| therefore in the peculiar logic of the Bible, | 23:50 | |
| the people are to respond by being faithful and kind, | 23:54 | |
| not so much to God as to each other. | 23:58 | |
| Where they do so, they show | 24:02 | |
| that they're posseesed of the knowledge of God, | 24:05 | |
| where they do not, there is no knowledge of God in the land. | 24:08 | |
| You see the knowledge of God is not some kind of special | 24:14 | |
| spiritual insight divorced from the tangible realities | 24:17 | |
| of everyday life. | 24:20 | |
| Of course it is not in the Bible thought of as sociological | 24:22 | |
| theory or insight, | 24:25 | |
| but it is nevertheless intrinsically related to personal | 24:26 | |
| life and to the social structures. | 24:30 | |
| In Hosea, as in the Bible generally, | 24:33 | |
| the knowledge of God is inseparable from the knowledge | 24:35 | |
| of God's ways with men and indeed of men's | 24:39 | |
| ways with each other. | 24:42 | |
| Now all of this forms quite a contrast to some recent views | 24:45 | |
| or modern views about the knowledge of God, | 24:48 | |
| which abstracts it from its relationship to the world of men | 24:51 | |
| and events. | 24:54 | |
| I mean the peculiar popular view of God as something | 24:56 | |
| or somebody who draws us out of the world, | 25:00 | |
| Jesus calls us o'er the Tumult. | 25:03 | |
| He may, but at least in the biblical perspective, | 25:08 | |
| he doesn't call us out of the Tumult. | 25:12 | |
| The outcry that often occurs when the church or someone | 25:15 | |
| in the church speaks out on what's going on in the world | 25:19 | |
| is more often than not an expression | 25:23 | |
| of this unbiblical idea | 25:25 | |
| about the knowledge of God that separates | 25:28 | |
| it from the tangible realities of human life. | 25:30 | |
| It's of course true that the Bible addresses itself | 25:34 | |
| to individuals and that it speaks of spiritual things. | 25:36 | |
| And yet the individual cannot be isolated from the community | 25:41 | |
| which produced him, in which sustains him | 25:44 | |
| in which he has his existence. | 25:47 | |
| And the spiritis not some kind of mysterious | 25:50 | |
| exit from this world. | 25:52 | |
| Rather, the spirit is a power | 25:54 | |
| with irrelevance for this world. | 25:56 | |
| It's a common place to say this, I suppose, | 26:00 | |
| at least in certain circles, | 26:02 | |
| but we often seem to forget it in the church. | 26:04 | |
| Several years ago, | 26:08 | |
| I was witness to an incident in which a part or a committee | 26:09 | |
| of a congregation attempted to censure a minister | 26:13 | |
| for preaching a sermon in which he expressed support | 26:16 | |
| of the United Nations to censor him. | 26:19 | |
| Now, | 26:23 | |
| I suppose one could take some comfort in the fact | 26:24 | |
| that the sermon at least turned out to be provocative. | 26:27 | |
| At least it stimulated some people to action of a sort, | 26:30 | |
| and certainly no one could deny the right | 26:34 | |
| of individuals to disagree. | 26:36 | |
| There were those, however, who wanted to go beyond this | 26:40 | |
| and to forbid the minister from speaking on controversial | 26:43 | |
| issues of any sort. | 26:46 | |
| Now, whether they intended to exclude sin and salvation | 26:48 | |
| from these controversial issues, | 26:52 | |
| I do not know. | 26:54 | |
| Fortunately, | 26:57 | |
| this effort to muzzle the pulpit did not finally succeed. | 26:58 | |
| And yet it was extremely interesting and enlightening | 27:02 | |
| in one way, because in the course of the discussion, | 27:05 | |
| there came to the surface, | 27:08 | |
| a great feeling of resentment that anyone should disturb | 27:09 | |
| the peace and tranquility of the Sunday morning service | 27:12 | |
| by introducing harsh notes of discord | 27:15 | |
| from the outside world. | 27:18 | |
| Here again, the knowledge of God was being reduced | 27:22 | |
| to a purely personal and spiritual matter, | 27:26 | |
| whether conceived as some did in terms of traditional piety | 27:29 | |
| or conceived in terms of peace of mind, | 27:35 | |
| such an understanding of the knowledge of God | 27:39 | |
| is not biblical. | 27:42 | |
| I think it can be shown to be unsound theologically, | 27:44 | |
| but in the church we could probably get by with it. | 27:49 | |
| And in fact, we would try to, | 27:51 | |
| if the world would only let us, but out there in the world, | 27:53 | |
| there are loud and angry voices demanding, | 27:57 | |
| denouncing, Whitey, denouncing, uncle Tom, | 28:00 | |
| and threatening our peace. | 28:04 | |
| Some of them even have the afrontery to suggest that their | 28:07 | |
| demand for violence is entirely at home in this land, | 28:09 | |
| indeed indigenous to it. | 28:13 | |
| So we church people, or so to speak, dragged, | 28:17 | |
| kicking and screening out of our comfortable pews | 28:19 | |
| into the hurley burley of the cruel old world. | 28:22 | |
| Since we can't ultimately get away with the delusion, | 28:27 | |
| that our religion is a purely personal and spiritual matter, | 28:30 | |
| a sanctuary from the world, | 28:33 | |
| we may at least take some solace in the fact that the Bible | 28:35 | |
| offers us some relevant counsel for the ways of God and men | 28:38 | |
| in the world. | 28:43 | |
| But how shall we apply what the Bible says to our own times, | 28:45 | |
| especially to this situation, | 28:50 | |
| which now seems to be surrounding us and threatening us? | 28:51 | |
| How should we apply it? | 28:56 | |
| Well, we did not, I think | 28:58 | |
| dwell upon the references to killing, murder, | 29:01 | |
| stealing in the prophet Hosea. | 29:05 | |
| What they correspond to is obvious enough. | 29:09 | |
| The important things and the crucial things for Hosea | 29:13 | |
| are faithfulness, kindness, and the knowledge of God. | 29:18 | |
| What may these mean? | 29:24 | |
| How may they apply to our own time? | 29:26 | |
| Now I can think immediately of one way that will be | 29:31 | |
| seem obvious and attractive to a great many people. | 29:35 | |
| We don't. | 29:39 | |
| We need to only point out that the militant | 29:40 | |
| Negro has broken faith with the rest of the community | 29:42 | |
| and turned to fund it in violence. | 29:45 | |
| He has forsaken all councils of kindness | 29:48 | |
| and declared war on society. | 29:50 | |
| Our society in particular, and this, | 29:53 | |
| after that society had been faithful to him and kind to him | 29:57 | |
| and striving to assure him of equality under the law. | 30:01 | |
| After we had adjusted our laws to the higher demands | 30:06 | |
| of justice for his sake. | 30:09 | |
| Now he has forsaken the law. | 30:11 | |
| The conditions of community have been broken. | 30:15 | |
| How can we understand this? | 30:19 | |
| Well, you might ask, | 30:22 | |
| is it so difficult to under stand after all? | 30:22 | |
| No wonder there is disorder, | 30:26 | |
| for there is no knowledge of God in the land, | 30:28 | |
| no knowledge of God in the land. | 30:31 | |
| Why, no look, | 30:33 | |
| the militant Negro turns away from the god of our fathers | 30:34 | |
| to worship strange gods, | 30:38 | |
| the gods of black power and the gods of black nationalism | 30:39 | |
| and meanwhile, | 30:43 | |
| white skin theologians triumphantly announced the advent | 30:45 | |
| of the death of the old God, | 30:49 | |
| why I heard one do it not so very long ago, | 30:52 | |
| right here in this very chapel. | 30:55 | |
| It was as someone facetiously | 30:58 | |
| remarked murder in the cathedral. | 31:00 | |
| Now the specious aspects of such arguments as these, | 31:05 | |
| and I think they have their specious aspects | 31:09 | |
| must not obscure | 31:12 | |
| the fact that they point to things that are real, | 31:13 | |
| to things that are really happening. | 31:16 | |
| Many black militants present a fearful picture | 31:19 | |
| of molten hate and violence about to erupt. | 31:22 | |
| The lack of appreciation for the struggle that has gone on, | 31:26 | |
| on behalf of the Negro in this country is colossal. | 31:29 | |
| They're entirely contentious of yesterday's heroes | 31:33 | |
| of the civil rights movement, | 31:35 | |
| whether they're whether they be black or white, | 31:37 | |
| they want nothing to do with white man's Christianity, | 31:40 | |
| which admittedly, | 31:43 | |
| if not disintegrating seems to be pulling several different | 31:44 | |
| ways at once. | 31:47 | |
| Moreover and meanwhile, whether we like it or not, | 31:49 | |
| there is the theology of the death of God, | 31:53 | |
| which I think has to be taken seriously, | 31:57 | |
| not just as the opinion of a few far out theologians | 32:00 | |
| here and there, | 32:04 | |
| but is something that is symptomatic of the absence of God | 32:05 | |
| from the land. | 32:09 | |
| It's a moral political and social reality, | 32:11 | |
| at least as far as a lot of people are concerned, | 32:14 | |
| for God doesn't count anymore. | 32:17 | |
| Or so it seems, | 32:20 | |
| and yet we do Hosea and the God of Hosea an injustice. | 32:25 | |
| If we simply use the prophetic oracle to denounce those | 32:31 | |
| who are the most immediate or obvious causes of the violence | 32:35 | |
| in our land, | 32:39 | |
| and those who seem to be the most immediate and obvious | 32:40 | |
| representatives of the absence of God from our land. | 32:44 | |
| Is it not just possible that Hosea's most immediate | 32:49 | |
| and important message is really for us, | 32:52 | |
| the majority of white, | 32:54 | |
| more or less middle class Americans who wish the rest would | 32:57 | |
| just keep quiet and leave us alone? | 33:01 | |
| We who are relatively prosperous, overtly respectable, | 33:05 | |
| moderately religious, can Hosea's word in any way, | 33:10 | |
| strike us? | 33:14 | |
| Do we lack faithfulness and kindness? | 33:16 | |
| Is the knowledge of God absent from among us? | 33:19 | |
| Put the question another way. | 33:24 | |
| Do we understand who we are, what we are doing, | 33:27 | |
| where we are going, | 33:31 | |
| in the light of any honest standard | 33:33 | |
| of justice, not to mention mercy? | 33:36 | |
| Give it another twist, | 33:41 | |
| and a concrete point of reference. | 33:42 | |
| Should we be surprised? | 33:46 | |
| Do we have any right to be surprised that the Negro is not | 33:48 | |
| grateful to us after all we have done for and to him? | 33:51 | |
| As unrealistic as are the demands of the militant Negro, | 33:58 | |
| that ancient wrongs be right overnight. | 34:02 | |
| Perhaps this is after all a minor extravagance in the face | 34:05 | |
| of our own enormous complacency and self righteousness about | 34:10 | |
| ourselves and our history. | 34:14 | |
| Have we not always cut the Negro off from the faithfulness | 34:18 | |
| and kindness, which is the basis of the rest of our society? | 34:22 | |
| We make him endure generations of indignity. | 34:28 | |
| If not suffering, we snicker at his immorality. | 34:32 | |
| We take lightly his violence so long as it is Negro violence | 34:39 | |
| against Negro. | 34:43 | |
| We take it seriously only when it threatens to become Negro | 34:44 | |
| violence against white. | 34:47 | |
| Finally, | 34:50 | |
| when we do decide to adjust our laws so that he is treated | 34:52 | |
| as an equal, we are amazed that from the ghetto, | 34:55 | |
| there does not arise, a great hymn of praise and gratitude. | 34:58 | |
| All of these and more hard facts of history | 35:04 | |
| and of our present society are forgotten | 35:07 | |
| when the specter of Negro violence arises and threatens us. | 35:10 | |
| Oh, not by everybody to be sure, | 35:17 | |
| but unless I badly read the signs by the generality of us, | 35:19 | |
| white Americans. | 35:24 | |
| For example, | 35:26 | |
| there is a great hue and cry raised against a couple | 35:28 | |
| of rabble rousers, barely out of their teams. | 35:32 | |
| Congress draws up a highly dubious law, | 35:36 | |
| making it a crime to cross the state line | 35:38 | |
| in order to incite a riot. | 35:42 | |
| We investigate the poverty workers, | 35:45 | |
| a prominent Senator announces that he fears | 35:48 | |
| that in all the concern over the social causes of the riots, | 35:50 | |
| the danger to law and order will be obscured. | 35:54 | |
| The danger to law and order will be obscured. | 35:58 | |
| Is this conceivable? | 36:02 | |
| Is not precisely the reverse, the danger? | 36:05 | |
| Are we not so wrought up over the danger to law and order | 36:08 | |
| and to ourselves that the social causes | 36:11 | |
| of the unrest will be buried? | 36:14 | |
| We doubtless need to improve law enforcement | 36:18 | |
| and we doubtless need to improve methods of riot control, | 36:20 | |
| not only to prevent and stop riots, but also to save lives. | 36:23 | |
| The fabric of the social order has to be repaired | 36:28 | |
| and maintained if by police force, if necessary, | 36:31 | |
| but as mayor Ivan Allen of Atlanta has recently said, | 36:34 | |
| it would be ridiculous, foolish, stupid, | 36:39 | |
| and insane to hide our heads in the sand now, | 36:42 | |
| and merely hide behind a facade of law and order. | 36:46 | |
| It's a pain to talk about the knowledge of God, | 36:53 | |
| unless at the same time we consider whether we know | 36:56 | |
| ourselves, understand our situation, | 37:00 | |
| acknowledge our history and act on our deepest convictions. | 37:04 | |
| In Hosea, | 37:11 | |
| the knowledge of God is deeply involved | 37:12 | |
| with all of these things. | 37:14 | |
| Can it be any different with us? | 37:17 | |
| Who are we? | 37:21 | |
| What have we really done? | 37:23 | |
| What are we doing? | 37:25 | |
| Where are we going? | 37:25 | |
| The biblical writer thought that a true knowledge of God | 37:27 | |
| demanded a valid understanding of these things and a valid | 37:30 | |
| understanding of the times as they frequently put it. | 37:35 | |
| Is it any different in our own day? | 37:39 | |
| Is not our own deepest fault, | 37:43 | |
| a lack of knowledge, not a lack of information? | 37:44 | |
| Although that may be real and very important, | 37:49 | |
| but a lack of perspective, a lack of conviction, | 37:52 | |
| a loss of direction. | 37:55 | |
| In such traits the most natural thing | 37:57 | |
| is instinctively to follow the course | 37:59 | |
| of self-preservation let every man seek for himself. | 38:01 | |
| Let every segment of society seek its own interests. | 38:04 | |
| Is this now happening? | 38:08 | |
| Faithfulness and kindness then evaporate. | 38:11 | |
| And there is no knowledge of God in the land. | 38:15 | |
| How do we differ from the sons of Israel to whom Hosea | 38:20 | |
| directed his fateful message of judgment? | 38:25 | |
| Back aways we started from the question | 38:31 | |
| of whether violence is as American as cherry pie. | 38:33 | |
| For obvious reasons Hosea does not answer | 38:39 | |
| that question since he knows nothing of either America | 38:41 | |
| or of cherry pie. | 38:45 | |
| But he may help us see that violence is an all too human | 38:49 | |
| trait, whether in ancient Israel or in modern America. | 38:53 | |
| Nobody has a corner on it. | 39:00 | |
| In the light of the word, | 39:03 | |
| which Hosea brings to his trouble land. | 39:04 | |
| We may also be led to think constructively about our own | 39:07 | |
| troubled land. | 39:10 | |
| Perhaps even we may be led to understand its violence better | 39:12 | |
| for the longer we ponder, | 39:17 | |
| the more clearly we may see that the riot | 39:20 | |
| in which we deplore was not born yesterday | 39:22 | |
| in the streets of Detroit or Newark | 39:26 | |
| or even Watts. | 39:28 | |
| Detroit and Newark are but the latest chapters in a long | 39:32 | |
| history of violence. | 39:37 | |
| David Riesman may exaggerate, | 39:41 | |
| and I think he does when he says that our entire society | 39:43 | |
| is a society of violence. | 39:47 | |
| And yet this is scarcely an exaggeration when applied | 39:50 | |
| to the history and the plight of the Negro in our society. | 39:53 | |
| Until we come to acknowledge this fact and act upon it, | 40:00 | |
| there will be no knowledge of God in the land. | 40:04 | |
| No faithfulness, no kindness. | 40:08 | |
| If finally we forsake this knowledge, | 40:12 | |
| then woe be to us for that other word | 40:16 | |
| of the prophet Hosea may prove to be true to us, | 40:20 | |
| for they, sew the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. | 40:25 | |
| May God deliver us. | 40:32 | |
| Amen. | 40:35 | |
| (church organ plays) | 40:54 | |
| (church organ continues) | 41:23 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 41:30 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 42:02 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 42:39 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 43:09 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 43:35 | |
| (organ continues) | 44:31 | |
| (choir continues) | 45:00 | |
| (choir continues) | 45:33 | |
| (choir continues) | 46:10 | |
| (organ continues) | 46:43 | |
| (organ continues) | 47:39 | |
| (organ continues) | 48:04 | |
| (organ continues) | 48:32 | |
| (organ and choir continues) | 48:46 | |
| - | Oh God, | 49:26 |
| most merciful and gracious of whose bounty we have all | 49:27 | |
| received accept this offering of thy people. | 49:31 | |
| Remember in thy love those who have brought it, | 49:36 | |
| those for whom it is given. | 49:39 | |
| And so follow it with thy blessing that it may promote | 49:42 | |
| peace and good will among men, | 49:45 | |
| both at home and abroad and advance the kingdom of our Lord | 49:48 | |
| and savior Jesus Christ. | 49:53 | |
| Amen. | 49:55 | |
| - | Now in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ | 50:02 |
| and the love of God | 50:04 | |
| and the communion of his holy spirit. | 50:06 | |
| (inaudible) Amen. | 50:11 | |
| (church organ plays) | 50:14 | |
| (choir harmonizing) | 50:18 | |
| (choir continues) | 50:44 | |
| (church bells ring) | 50:57 | |
| (church organ plays) | 51:07 | |
| (church organ continues) | 51:38 | |
| (church audience gossips) | 51:59 | |
| (church organ continues) | 52:20 |