Robert E. Cushman - "Invincible Ignorance" (October 20, 1968)
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| Male Voice 1 | Grace that whatever you have done, | 0:03 |
| you are free from bondage to your past | 0:06 | |
| and from anxiety for your future. | 0:10 | |
| You are free to live fully and completely in the present. | 0:13 | |
| You are valued as you are. | 0:18 | |
| Your future is open. | 0:20 | |
| Again I say to you, be of good cheer, | 0:23 | |
| for God has redeemed His people. | 0:27 | |
| Arise from your past, pick up your life | 0:30 | |
| and walk in the praises of the Lord, Amen. | 0:34 | |
| (organ music) | 1:09 | |
| (choir singing) | 2:14 | |
| Male Voice 2 | Hear the word of the Lord as it comes to us | 6:21 |
| from John's gospel, the third chapter, | 6:22 | |
| the first through the ninth verses. | 6:26 | |
| "Now there was a man of the pharisees named Nicodemus, | 6:31 | |
| a ruler of the Jews. | 6:35 | |
| This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, | 6:38 | |
| 'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God | 6:40 | |
| for no one can do these signs that you do | 6:44 | |
| unless God is with him.' | 6:47 | |
| Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, | 6:50 | |
| unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' | 6:52 | |
| Nicodemus said to him, | 6:58 | |
| 'How can a man be born when he is old? | 7:00 | |
| Can he enter a second time | 7:03 | |
| into his mother's womb and be born?' | 7:05 | |
| Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, | 7:08 | |
| unless one is born of the water and of the spirit, | 7:10 | |
| he cannot enter the kingdom of God. | 7:14 | |
| That which is born of the flesh is flesh, | 7:18 | |
| and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. | 7:21 | |
| Do not marvel that I have said to you | 7:25 | |
| you must be born anew. | 7:27 | |
| The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it | 7:30 | |
| but you do not know whens it comes or whether it goes. | 7:34 | |
| So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.' | 7:39 | |
| Nicodemus said to him, 'How can this be?'" | 7:43 | |
| May Thy word be Thou word read, | 7:49 | |
| may Thy word read be Thou word heard, | 7:54 | |
| and may Thou word heard be Thou word come alive | 7:58 | |
| in our lives, Amen. | 8:01 | |
| (organ music) | 8:06 | |
| (congregation singing) | 8:14 | |
| Male Voice 1 | The Lord be with you, | 8:42 |
| let us pray. | 8:46 | |
| Almighty and eternal Father, | 8:59 | |
| we approached Thy throne with the spirit | 9:04 | |
| of thankfulness in our heart. | 9:06 | |
| The bread we eat, | 9:10 | |
| the roof which shelters us, | 9:12 | |
| the light of day which gives us sight, | 9:15 | |
| the darkness of the night which grants us rest, | 9:18 | |
| the work of our hands by which we serve the world, | 9:22 | |
| the dreams of our hearts which lure us to greater deeds. | 9:26 | |
| All of these we have by Thy grace. | 9:30 | |
| We remember before Thee oh Lord, | 9:35 | |
| the accustomed things we have grown to know and to love, | 9:37 | |
| and the bright invasion of new glory | 9:41 | |
| from unexpected sources. | 9:44 | |
| All these things and more beside, | 9:47 | |
| praise Thy name with thankfulness. | 9:50 | |
| Through Jesus Christ, the eternal gift | 9:53 | |
| of Thy goodness unto us. | 9:55 | |
| Almighty God, who has committed to Thy people | 10:00 | |
| the ministry of intersession, | 10:04 | |
| hear us now as we pray for others | 10:08 | |
| and grant that our hearts may be so filled | 10:11 | |
| with peace and charity, | 10:14 | |
| that we may be fit instruments of Thy will | 10:16 | |
| for our neighbors needs. | 10:20 | |
| Oh Lord, into Thy hands we remember before Thee, | 10:24 | |
| and commit the sick, the sorrowful, | 10:30 | |
| the lonely, and tempted. | 10:35 | |
| That they may know Thy healing and sanctifying power | 10:38 | |
| and obtain the victory of faith, | 10:42 | |
| which comes through Jesus Christ Thy son. | 10:44 | |
| Let us pray for peace in our world. | 10:49 | |
| Lord, in a time of war, | 10:55 | |
| we ask that Thou wouldst grand us peace. | 11:00 | |
| Yet even as we ask, | 11:04 | |
| we know that Thou will not impose peace upon us, | 11:05 | |
| smothering our minds, making robots out of reasoners | 11:09 | |
| and mannequins out of men. | 11:14 | |
| And so we ask Thee, who art light, | 11:17 | |
| to illumine the lane that leads to peace. | 11:20 | |
| We are lost oh God, in a labyrinth, | 11:24 | |
| fighting a war we are afraid to win, | 11:27 | |
| for a cause unclear. | 11:31 | |
| Committing our sons to peril and conflict, | 11:33 | |
| to which we ourselves are uncommitted. | 11:36 | |
| Omniscient Lord, banish our bewilder we ask, | 11:40 | |
| Thou who has promised freedom through truth, | 11:47 | |
| free us from fear of following truth on the path to peace, | 11:51 | |
| that Thy will maybe obeyed among the nations, | 11:56 | |
| in our own land and in our hearts. | 11:59 | |
| Oh God, our Heavenly Father, | 12:06 | |
| we asked that Thou wouldst look upon the human needs | 12:07 | |
| gathered before Thee in this Thy sanctuary. | 12:10 | |
| Oh Thou in Thee, all the ages are as one time, | 12:14 | |
| walk with us now as we face the future. | 12:19 | |
| If we are young, oh Lord, | 12:23 | |
| and all our hopes and dreams are snarled and tangled | 12:25 | |
| in the wild tempest of this world's absurdity, | 12:29 | |
| grant us, we ask, such wisdom and insight, | 12:33 | |
| that we may posses our souls with tenacity, | 12:36 | |
| for a destiny which is still beyond our present sight. | 12:39 | |
| If we are old, oh God, | 12:45 | |
| and our anxieties and fears are worse confounded | 12:48 | |
| by the fury of this age, | 12:50 | |
| keep us steady, we ask, | 12:53 | |
| with the strength of such remembrances | 12:55 | |
| as have Thee and Thy grace in days now gone. | 12:58 | |
| That we may confront the world and the future, | 13:03 | |
| with quiet minds and resourceful hearts, | 13:06 | |
| knowing the victory which comes from faith. | 13:09 | |
| Oh Lord, if we stand midway in life, | 13:14 | |
| having seen one world depart | 13:17 | |
| and waiting for another not yet born, | 13:19 | |
| with youth behind us and age before us, | 13:22 | |
| we pray Thee to teach us how to make all our years | 13:26 | |
| ascend to new levels of human fulfillment. | 13:29 | |
| Give us courage oh God, to continue to dream dreams | 13:33 | |
| and to seek the visions of our Father's faith. | 13:37 | |
| Help us to openly welcome the winds of change in church, | 13:41 | |
| in society that are seeking to | 13:46 | |
| turn our statutes into songs, | 13:48 | |
| our laws into grace, | 13:51 | |
| our legalism into love, | 13:53 | |
| our collectivities into communities | 13:56 | |
| and our constraints into communion. | 13:59 | |
| Teach us oh Lord so to lay hold on Christ, | 14:02 | |
| that we might have power to bring to fruition | 14:06 | |
| the potentialities of every human being we meet | 14:09 | |
| and every human institution to which we belong. | 14:13 | |
| And save us oh God, from that impatience that would destroy, | 14:18 | |
| from the religious evil that would spurn the efforts | 14:23 | |
| of those who wear a different label. | 14:26 | |
| Give us Thine own unmarried passion, | 14:29 | |
| to bring forth and to perfect what is good in all men. | 14:33 | |
| Give us, we ask oh God, deep sympathy | 14:38 | |
| with all who are depressed by unfulfilled hopes, | 14:42 | |
| all who despair of themselves, | 14:46 | |
| all who are attempted to give up | 14:49 | |
| the struggle for better things. | 14:50 | |
| May we live in their midst as followers of Him | 14:53 | |
| who came not to destroy, | 14:56 | |
| but to fulfill. | 15:00 | |
| We asked this oh Lord, through Jesus Christ, | 15:04 | |
| who dared to become involved in other people's problems, | 15:08 | |
| who suffered the consequences and through it all | 15:12 | |
| became the conqueror of sin and of death. | 15:15 | |
| Who taught us that we could be bold to pray together | 15:21 | |
| as Christians saying, "Our Father who art in heaven, | 15:23 | |
| halloweth be Thy Name, | 15:29 | |
| Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, | 15:31 | |
| on earth, as it is in heaven. | 15:34 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 15:37 | |
| and forgive us our tresses. | 15:40 | |
| As we forgive those who trespass against us, | 15:42 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 15:46 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 15:49 | |
| For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, | 15:51 | |
| forever, Amen." | 15:56 | |
| Minister | Through the scripture lesson | 16:34 |
| from John's gospel, | 16:36 | |
| I had a reading from Matthew, | 16:38 | |
| the 22nd chapter, | 16:42 | |
| beginning at the 34th verse. | 16:45 | |
| "But the pharisees when they heard | 16:50 | |
| that He had put the sadducees to silence, | 16:52 | |
| gathered themselves together. | 16:57 | |
| One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question trying Him. | 17:00 | |
| 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?' | 17:06 | |
| He said unto him, 'Thou shall love the Lord thy God | 17:11 | |
| with all thy heart and with all thy soul | 17:17 | |
| and with all thy might. | 17:21 | |
| This is the great and first command. | 17:24 | |
| And the second, like unto it is this. | 17:28 | |
| Thou shall love thy neighbor as thy self. | 17:30 | |
| On these two commandments, the whole law hangeth | 17:35 | |
| and the prophets.'" | 17:42 | |
| The sermon topic is not as it is announced in the bullet. | 17:50 | |
| It is different. | 17:59 | |
| The title is "Practical atheism, | 18:02 | |
| on some plain words, | 18:07 | |
| on the need of conversion". | 18:09 | |
| Or to paraphrase John Cotton or Roger Williams, | 18:13 | |
| or perhaps it was Thomas Boston, | 18:18 | |
| "Milk for babes | 18:22 | |
| drawn from the breasts | 18:26 | |
| of both testaments". | 18:28 | |
| Race | 18:36 | |
| and racism. | 18:38 | |
| These are the real problems of our day. | 18:41 | |
| These words are not mine. | 18:48 | |
| When they were spoken this past week in my hearing, | 18:52 | |
| I bridled a bit as a theologian | 18:56 | |
| and openly dissented. | 19:00 | |
| But they are the words of a earnest, | 19:04 | |
| younger leader of the black community here in Durham. | 19:08 | |
| The gentleman was speaking directly to me in my home. | 19:14 | |
| It was at the close of an evening discussion | 19:21 | |
| for the group of graduate students and their wives. | 19:26 | |
| The subject was, "The present situation". | 19:32 | |
| "The black and white situation in Durham and abroad". | 19:37 | |
| It was the situation seen against the background | 19:45 | |
| of the plight of the Negro | 19:48 | |
| as the Negro sees it | 19:51 | |
| over a long past. | 19:54 | |
| A past which in the view of the speaker that evening, | 19:59 | |
| has been degrading and dehumanizing | 20:05 | |
| to its race. | 20:10 | |
| It has been revolting and it is to be revolted the against. | 20:13 | |
| But as I listened, | 20:20 | |
| I was above all struck | 20:22 | |
| by the speaker's interpretation of black power. | 20:25 | |
| White power, I thought, | 20:32 | |
| ought to hear | 20:35 | |
| something of it. | 20:38 | |
| Essentially, it was this. | 20:41 | |
| Black power means the new time. | 20:44 | |
| The new coming of age. | 20:49 | |
| Black power means long, deferred self acceptance. | 20:53 | |
| It means the black man's espousal of his own dignity | 20:59 | |
| as a human person. | 21:03 | |
| Perhaps his God given dignity. | 21:06 | |
| The speaker mentioned being converted to this standpoint. | 21:11 | |
| He suggested more than once that it means | 21:16 | |
| a kind of rebirth. | 21:19 | |
| He used New Testament language, "Being born again" | 21:22 | |
| and applied it to a new unabashed acceptance | 21:29 | |
| by the black man of the God givenness, | 21:34 | |
| the dignity of blackness. | 21:39 | |
| In all this, | 21:43 | |
| he declared, | 21:45 | |
| he insisted, | 21:46 | |
| he spoke as a Christian. | 21:48 | |
| The speaker's words were a kind of testimony | 21:54 | |
| out of a personal agony. | 21:59 | |
| It was plain that this being reborn into self acceptance | 22:02 | |
| was not unattended by trauma. | 22:08 | |
| If it were to be liken to conversion, | 22:13 | |
| it was surely attended by the familiar concomitance | 22:16 | |
| of heightened struggle and release. | 22:21 | |
| The reasons are clear. | 22:26 | |
| For a long time, the black man | 22:29 | |
| himself | 22:33 | |
| has exceeded to the white society's primacy of whiteness. | 22:35 | |
| If conversion means above all self-acceptance, | 22:42 | |
| then on its other side, it a also means rejection | 22:47 | |
| of the entrenched superiority of whiteness. | 22:53 | |
| Such a rejection is traumatic, even to the black man. | 22:58 | |
| If it is accompanied by convulsion of spirit, | 23:03 | |
| it is nevertheless, the straight gate and the narrow way | 23:07 | |
| to a new life, | 23:14 | |
| to a new time. | 23:16 | |
| It is coming of age, | 23:19 | |
| and it is a time of promise | 23:22 | |
| of entrance into a new openness | 23:24 | |
| of heightened acceptance. | 23:29 | |
| But acceptance of the inherent worth | 23:33 | |
| and dignity of blackness | 23:35 | |
| is not a simple or painless accomplishment. | 23:39 | |
| I was being told you see, | 23:44 | |
| it is conversing. | 23:48 | |
| And this is what I got by just listening. | 23:51 | |
| It is not acceptance of the necessity of being black. | 23:56 | |
| That was the old posture. | 24:01 | |
| The one of resignation. | 24:05 | |
| Rather as I heard it, | 24:08 | |
| it is the acceptance of the creaturely privilege | 24:11 | |
| of being oneself and this without any apology whatsoever. | 24:15 | |
| And of course, from the Christian standpoint, | 24:23 | |
| this is just exactly the acceptance of God's gift. | 24:27 | |
| The greatest gift, that of sonship of God. | 24:33 | |
| It is a conversion of ethos. | 24:40 | |
| It is a revolution of perspective | 24:43 | |
| and whether it obtains for blacks, whites or yellows, | 24:47 | |
| this conversion to self-acceptance, is to become a man. | 24:52 | |
| It is to possess and enter into one's inheritance under God. | 24:59 | |
| And to espouse one's destiny. | 25:07 | |
| As I listened, there was something in all of this | 25:13 | |
| that made the words of Jesus, about new birth, | 25:17 | |
| piercingly appropriate. | 25:22 | |
| This entrance into the dignity of manhood | 25:25 | |
| as a personal realization, | 25:29 | |
| was strangely like the kingdom of God | 25:32 | |
| into which those enter Jesus said, | 25:34 | |
| who are born of the spirit, and only those. | 25:37 | |
| Here was our guest, | 25:41 | |
| testify to such a conversion of himself | 25:44 | |
| and of his fellows. | 25:49 | |
| A transition from self depreciation, to self acceptance. | 25:51 | |
| But it was a rough process. | 26:00 | |
| It was a transition hard to come by. | 26:03 | |
| If I mistake not the marks of ambivalence, | 26:09 | |
| might yet remain. | 26:13 | |
| As a whole like the children of Israel before them, | 26:16 | |
| the black people might still be | 26:21 | |
| in the crossing of the red sea, | 26:23 | |
| but the house of bondage was behind them. | 26:27 | |
| The years of servitude to Pharaoh were past, | 26:31 | |
| and an ampler land of promise opened out | 26:35 | |
| a larger prospect for the future. | 26:38 | |
| To those who still know enough scripture | 26:43 | |
| to catch the analogies, | 26:48 | |
| the wilderness sojourn might yet intervene. | 26:51 | |
| The longing for the flesh pots of Egypt | 26:56 | |
| with the security of the older paternalism, | 26:59 | |
| might divert some, | 27:03 | |
| but the main body of Israel, | 27:06 | |
| that is the people of God, | 27:09 | |
| was on the mark. | 27:12 | |
| for their due dignity, | 27:15 | |
| for a long differed dignity. | 27:18 | |
| Now, according to the printed program this morning, | 27:23 | |
| the topic of this sermon was | 27:28 | |
| "The opinion of the invincible". | 27:29 | |
| I had intended to point out some stereotypes, | 27:34 | |
| by which we contrive to blind our minds, | 27:38 | |
| too many of the realities about us | 27:44 | |
| and live on a miscellaneous of unexamined notions. | 27:48 | |
| With these, we preconceive | 27:55 | |
| and sometimes so distort our world, | 27:59 | |
| that we do not allow it to speak to us. | 28:03 | |
| Instead of depicting that blindness, | 28:08 | |
| I am prompted to deal this morning with its pure, | 28:12 | |
| hence the revised topic. | 28:17 | |
| "Practical atheist, | 28:21 | |
| some plain words, | 28:24 | |
| on the need of conversion." | 28:27 | |
| This morning then, I am conveying the substance | 28:31 | |
| of what I heard the other night, just by listening. | 28:36 | |
| What I heard or thought I heard, | 28:42 | |
| was a very up to date interpretation | 28:45 | |
| of the puzzling words of Jesus to Nicodemus. | 28:48 | |
| "Unless one is born anew, | 28:52 | |
| he cannot enter the kingdom of God." | 28:56 | |
| Nicodemus was puzzled | 28:59 | |
| and he has had many successors. | 29:02 | |
| But the other evening, I heard a black man | 29:07 | |
| insisting upon a new birth. | 29:11 | |
| He was insisting upon the indispensability of conversion, | 29:15 | |
| even of the trauma of passing through it | 29:20 | |
| to undeviating self accept. | 29:25 | |
| To Jesus, | 29:30 | |
| I think this would warrant | 29:35 | |
| His words to others. | 29:40 | |
| You are not far from the kingdom of God. | 29:43 | |
| For in Jesus view, self acceptance is acceptance | 29:49 | |
| of the dignity of sonship under God. | 29:52 | |
| Sonship is affirming one's being, | 29:57 | |
| as it comes to a man from the creator. | 29:59 | |
| It is consent to one status under God. | 30:03 | |
| That it is attended by privileges, | 30:08 | |
| so it carries also responsibility. | 30:11 | |
| Thus sonship to God, entails both rights and obligations. | 30:16 | |
| These belong inalienably to every son of God. | 30:22 | |
| That is, to every man without respect | 30:27 | |
| to any accident of birth or station whatsoever. | 30:29 | |
| This is the call of the message of Jesus | 30:35 | |
| and of the Christian faith concerning man. | 30:39 | |
| This is milk for babes. | 30:43 | |
| And in that absolute center, | 30:47 | |
| every man's dignity is guaranteed | 30:51 | |
| by the creator and can be neither conferred | 30:54 | |
| nor denied by man or nations. | 30:56 | |
| A point which Thomas Jefferson actually thought | 31:01 | |
| into the Declaration of Independence. | 31:07 | |
| And insofar as black power so called, | 31:12 | |
| means this and the affirm it. | 31:14 | |
| It is in fact a republication | 31:17 | |
| of the essential biblical faith. | 31:19 | |
| Insofar as it signifies the black man's determination | 31:23 | |
| to claim his inheritance under God | 31:26 | |
| It is not so much a revolution, | 31:29 | |
| as a traumatic conversion and rebirth. | 31:32 | |
| It must so far for, | 31:37 | |
| I think, be honored as such by the white society | 31:41 | |
| in so far as the latter owns allegiance | 31:47 | |
| to either the Jewish or Christian tradition. | 31:50 | |
| If however, I am led to put biblical construction | 31:56 | |
| upon the meaning of black power | 32:01 | |
| from the testimony of the other eve, | 32:02 | |
| something powerful. | 32:06 | |
| It is that true self acceptance, | 32:09 | |
| in the Christian view, | 32:13 | |
| pass out anger of alienation | 32:16 | |
| or the acceptance of sonship under God, | 32:20 | |
| as it matures, | 32:24 | |
| is attended by confident rejoicing | 32:26 | |
| in the new freedom to be oneself. | 32:30 | |
| This truth is the manifest destiny | 32:34 | |
| of the son of God. | 32:40 | |
| Something else came to me, the other evening, | 32:44 | |
| simply at the low cost of hearing. | 32:49 | |
| It was a word to me | 32:56 | |
| and to the others assembled that evening. | 32:59 | |
| Our guest called upon us to reinforce | 33:04 | |
| his conversion and rebirth by sharing. | 33:07 | |
| It was an appeal to us to accept rebirth too. | 33:13 | |
| It was perhaps a tactful invitation to all Christians, | 33:17 | |
| to square their deeds and attitudes with their professions. | 33:23 | |
| I was reminded of the words of the Psalmist. | 33:28 | |
| "My people honor me with their lips, | 33:32 | |
| but their hearts are far from it." | 33:35 | |
| I was reminded of St. Paul's words. | 33:38 | |
| "There is neither Jew nor Greek, | 33:42 | |
| neither bound nor free, | 33:45 | |
| there is neither male nor female, | 33:48 | |
| for you are all one that is before God in Christ Jesus." | 33:50 | |
| Are Christians really committed to this | 33:58 | |
| or do they need to be converted? | 34:00 | |
| Was our guest really appealing over again | 34:05 | |
| to what my great and late teacher, | 34:08 | |
| H. Richard Niebuhr never tired of of urging? | 34:11 | |
| This namely, | 34:16 | |
| that the churches and professing Christians | 34:19 | |
| require to be converted to Christianity, | 34:23 | |
| every generation of them. | 34:27 | |
| On reflection, it seems to me that | 34:31 | |
| the answer to these questions is, yes. | 34:32 | |
| Our visitor was asking for acceptance as the neighbor, | 34:36 | |
| at the same time he was putting before us | 34:41 | |
| the Christian vocation of neighborliness. | 34:45 | |
| Not as something he or any man could require of us, | 34:49 | |
| but as something our own religious profession required. | 34:54 | |
| He was asking for the signs of genuine Christian commitment | 35:00 | |
| in the absence of which Christian profession | 35:05 | |
| is both hypocritical and decaying, vanity as well. | 35:09 | |
| It is hard to believe that | 35:17 | |
| any Christians are really innocent | 35:18 | |
| of what the signs and doctrines | 35:21 | |
| of genuine Christians commit to God. | 35:23 | |
| They're not confined with the New Testament. | 35:28 | |
| Jesus declared them to be the heart of the law Moses, | 35:32 | |
| upon them and he declared the whole law of the prophets. | 35:37 | |
| Perhaps their enactment and observance, however, | 35:44 | |
| does in fact, as Jesus declared Nicodemus | 35:49 | |
| require a new birth and conversion. | 35:53 | |
| The signs and marks of our better Christianity are given | 35:59 | |
| in that twofold command. | 36:04 | |
| "Hear, oh Israel, | 36:08 | |
| that is those of you, | 36:12 | |
| who desire to be regard | 36:17 | |
| as the children of God, | 36:20 | |
| hear oh Israel, thou shall love the Lord thy God | 36:24 | |
| with all thy heart and with all thy soul | 36:29 | |
| and with all by might. | 36:32 | |
| This is the great and first commandment. | 36:35 | |
| The second life unto it is this, | 36:39 | |
| Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. | 36:44 | |
| On these two commands, | 36:49 | |
| hang all the law of the prophets." | 36:53 | |
| There are no words in the Western world are better known | 36:59 | |
| nor more honored and none are more frequently dishonored | 37:05 | |
| in the breach than these. | 37:11 | |
| They summarized the common substance of both the old | 37:16 | |
| and the New Testaments. | 37:19 | |
| In plain language, | 37:23 | |
| what Jesus saw and lived by, | 37:26 | |
| was this. | 37:31 | |
| That the love of God is really empty, | 37:33 | |
| unless it includes love for what God love. | 37:37 | |
| That is the neighbor, | 37:43 | |
| of whatever station. | 37:46 | |
| He also proceeds that men have to be converted | 37:49 | |
| to that perspective | 37:53 | |
| and usually obtain it only through the trauma of new birth. | 37:55 | |
| A birth, not of the flesh, but of the spirit. | 38:01 | |
| And so committed was Jesus to this perspective | 38:07 | |
| that he was willing to become himself | 38:11 | |
| the vehicle, the medium, | 38:14 | |
| of that transformation of mind. | 38:17 | |
| And so I ask, | 38:24 | |
| why can't so-called Christians get it straight? | 38:29 | |
| Why can't we Christian so-called, get it straight? | 38:34 | |
| That acceptance of the role of neighborliness | 38:41 | |
| is the cynic more known of being Christian at all. | 38:46 | |
| The answer I know, | 38:52 | |
| is complex | 38:56 | |
| and I could give a semesters course to explain it. | 38:59 | |
| But in the end, it is, I believe, | 39:05 | |
| that we nominal Christians, | 39:08 | |
| stand in league of being converted to Christianity | 39:12 | |
| for our country. | 39:17 | |
| Let me put the matter at one or two levels. | 39:20 | |
| I do not know whether my fellow Methodist brethren | 39:28 | |
| in this city desire to attend my church, | 39:32 | |
| but I regard it as hypocrisy. | 39:40 | |
| No, virtual apostacy. | 39:44 | |
| That it is not publicly known that they are welcome. | 39:50 | |
| I do not know whether my Negro brethren | 39:58 | |
| desire to dwell in my part of town, | 40:02 | |
| but I regard it as a contrite injustice and hypocrisy. | 40:06 | |
| If desirous and able, | 40:13 | |
| they are prevented by subterfuge | 40:17 | |
| respecting either contract or finance. | 40:19 | |
| And until these things with others like them | 40:26 | |
| are assured, | 40:29 | |
| the white society deserves to be discomforted | 40:32 | |
| by the word yet. | 40:35 | |
| Our Lord once told a story. | 40:47 | |
| they call it a parable, | 40:50 | |
| to illustrate what it means to be a neighbor. | 40:54 | |
| This is part of our trouble. | 40:58 | |
| You have to inquire as to what it means to be a neighbor. | 41:02 | |
| The parable was calculated frankly, | 41:09 | |
| to scandalized the pharisees. | 41:13 | |
| For the true neighbor turned out to be an outcast Samaritan. | 41:17 | |
| It was this outcast, | 41:24 | |
| not the scribe and the priest, | 41:27 | |
| who assisted the man who fell among trees | 41:30 | |
| along the Jericho road, | 41:34 | |
| But there are many ways to rob people | 41:40 | |
| and there are commensurate ways to make restitution. | 41:44 | |
| Perhaps the most vicious form of robbery | 41:50 | |
| is that of robbing people of their dignity and self esteem. | 41:54 | |
| The long and dismaying story of this robbery, | 42:01 | |
| in American society, | 42:06 | |
| is today being painfully told. | 42:11 | |
| It is hardly strange that it is being told partly, | 42:17 | |
| in the form of militant reaction on the part the wrong. | 42:23 | |
| One thing is certain, | 42:31 | |
| at least for those who profess the name of Christian | 42:34 | |
| and are mindful of the twofold commandment, | 42:37 | |
| as the mark of authentic faith, | 42:41 | |
| there is immediate | 42:46 | |
| and prompt restitution. | 42:50 | |
| The restitution of neighborliness | 42:53 | |
| and its application to the hard realities | 42:57 | |
| of long tolerated and entrenched inequities. | 43:02 | |
| Some of it, | 43:08 | |
| remains sanctioned and lost. | 43:11 | |
| I mean, | 43:16 | |
| public housing needs reform in Durham, | 43:19 | |
| open housing needs implementation in Durham and elsewhere, | 43:24 | |
| equal employment opportunity on the basis of merit, | 43:31 | |
| demands an open door in Durham and elsewhere, | 43:36 | |
| and subsidy for industrial training should commend itself | 43:42 | |
| to wise industrialists, as well as to the mayor of Durham. | 43:47 | |
| Now, my final point is this. | 43:58 | |
| When our guest of the evening | 44:03 | |
| declared in party, | 44:06 | |
| that race and racism are the real problems of our day, | 44:11 | |
| I dissented. | 44:16 | |
| And possibly now you may guess why. | 44:20 | |
| I do not deny the urgency and weight of these problems, | 44:25 | |
| I have been acknowledging them. | 44:29 | |
| But from the christian standpoint, | 44:34 | |
| the standpoint which the speaker declared and retained, | 44:37 | |
| the really critical problem of our day | 44:43 | |
| is as old as man himself. | 44:45 | |
| The real and perennial problem is the conversion of men | 44:49 | |
| to acknowledgement of their common sonship under God | 44:53 | |
| and their consequent vocation to the neighbors. | 44:58 | |
| And it is my responsibility as a Christian minister | 45:03 | |
| in this place, to locate the real problem. | 45:07 | |
| The fact is, that the divisiveness of race, | 45:15 | |
| however grievous and destructive of human values and it is, | 45:19 | |
| is but one species of the divisiveness by which men | 45:26 | |
| who ignore their obligations under God, | 45:30 | |
| also ignore and even prostitute their relations | 45:33 | |
| with their neighbors. | 45:38 | |
| It is not race nor theoretical unbelief, | 45:41 | |
| but practical atheism. | 45:46 | |
| All purpose and illness, | 45:49 | |
| which is the plague of humankind. | 45:52 | |
| For this purpose, Jesus said to Nicodemus, | 45:56 | |
| "Truly I say to you, unless one is born anew, | 46:02 | |
| he cannot see the kingdom of God." | 46:09 | |
| Amen. | 46:17 | |
| In the name of the Father and of The Son | 46:18 | |
| and The Holy Spirit. | 46:21 | |
| So be it. | 46:24 | |
| (organ music) | 46:32 | |
| (congregation singing) | 47:31 | |
| (organ music) | 49:51 | |
| (choir singing) | 50:39 | |
| (congregation singing) | 54:08 | |
| Male Voice 1 | Oh God, who has called us | 58:37 |
| to this community of faith, | 58:39 | |
| we thank Thy that we are also called to share with all men | 58:42 | |
| what has been made ours in Christ. | 58:45 | |
| Here we dedicate our gifts of stewardship, | 58:48 | |
| of conviction and experience | 58:52 | |
| for the good of the family of men, | 58:55 | |
| and to the triumph of Thy kingdom. | 58:57 | |
| In the name of Him who came to point us | 58:59 | |
| to our neighbors needs, Amen. | 59:02 | |
| (man speaking in the background) | 59:12 | |
| (choir singing) | 59:31 | |
| (church bell ringing) | 1:01:01 | |
| (organ music) | 1:01:14 | |
| (people chattering) | 1:01:54 | |
| Male Voice 3 | Mind doing that again? | 1:02:07 |
| I didn't catch all that. | 1:02:08 |