Chester A. Pennington - "The Church as Counter - Culture" (December 12, 1971)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| (congregation singing) | 0:07 | |
| - | Dearly beloved on this founder's day, | 2:31 |
| as we begin our service of worship to God, | 2:35 | |
| may we unite our hearts and our prayer | 2:38 | |
| to the heavenly father. | 2:42 | |
| Oh God, we have come into your presence | 2:47 | |
| not because we are worthy, but because you have called us. | 2:50 | |
| We are indeed not worthy unless you make us worthy. | 2:57 | |
| You have created us for righteousness, | 3:02 | |
| but we have been unrighteous. | 3:05 | |
| You have called us to be loving. | 3:08 | |
| But as we think about it, | 3:10 | |
| we know that we have been more selfish than loving. | 3:11 | |
| You have set good example before us, | 3:17 | |
| but we often have followed bad examples instead. | 3:19 | |
| When offered Christ or Barabbas, | 3:24 | |
| we have sometimes chosen Barabbas and have crucified Christ. | 3:27 | |
| Even in the Christmas season, | 3:33 | |
| we have given more thought to what we are going to get. | 3:35 | |
| And we have to the possibility | 3:38 | |
| that the Christ event may reoccur in our hearts. | 3:40 | |
| We confess that we have shown too little gratitude | 3:46 | |
| for what our founders did for our university. | 3:49 | |
| We have usually accepted their gifts as a matter of course | 3:53 | |
| and even complained that | 3:57 | |
| we have not had more things done for us. | 3:59 | |
| We confess that we have had a tendency | 4:03 | |
| to blame somebody else for everything we don't like | 4:05 | |
| and have not been willing to assess | 4:08 | |
| our own share of responsibility. | 4:10 | |
| Now, oh God, in this moment of honesty, | 4:14 | |
| we confess all this wrongdoing and wrong thinking, | 4:18 | |
| and we pray that you will take it away, | 4:22 | |
| that you will forgive us, that you will make us | 4:25 | |
| by your grace worthy to be in your presence. | 4:28 | |
| And to keep us honest in Jesus name, amen. | 4:33 | |
| In the Christian scheme of things, | 4:44 | |
| there are certain steps which follow other steps. | 4:47 | |
| When a person has come into the presence of God | 4:51 | |
| and has acknowledged that he is less than God, | 4:55 | |
| into the presence of beauty | 5:00 | |
| and has acknowledged that he is not beautiful. | 5:02 | |
| In the presence of love | 5:05 | |
| and has acknowledged his own lack of love, | 5:07 | |
| and is asked to be restored to the fellowship of God. | 5:11 | |
| The Christian answer is that God forgives him, | 5:16 | |
| restores him, accepts him, | 5:24 | |
| owns him as a son or as a daughter, | 5:27 | |
| and gives him new grace. | 5:31 | |
| For the scriptures say, if we confess our sins, | 5:34 | |
| he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins | 5:37 | |
| and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. | 5:42 | |
| And because of that, we are thankful. | 5:46 | |
| And because of that, we now join together our hearts | 5:49 | |
| and our voices in our unison prayer of thanksgiving. | 5:51 | |
| Let us pray. | 5:55 | |
| Almighty God, whose mercy is over thy works. | 5:57 | |
| We praise thee for the blessings | 6:02 | |
| which have been brought to mankind by thy holy church | 6:04 | |
| throughout the world. | 6:08 | |
| We bless thee for the grace of thy sacraments, | 6:10 | |
| for our fellowship in Christ with thee | 6:13 | |
| and with one another, | 6:16 | |
| for the teaching of the scriptures | 6:18 | |
| and for the preaching of thy word. | 6:20 | |
| We thank thee for the holy example | 6:23 | |
| of thy saints in all ages, | 6:25 | |
| for thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear, | 6:28 | |
| and for the memory and example | 6:32 | |
| of all that has been true and good in their lives. | 6:34 | |
| And we humbly beseech thee that we may be numbered with them | 6:39 | |
| in the great company of the redeemed in heaven, | 6:43 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 6:46 | |
| And now as our savior Christ has taught us, | 6:50 | |
| we humbly pray. | 6:52 | |
| Our father who art in heaven | 6:54 | |
| hallowed be your name. | 6:57 | |
| Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth | 6:59 | |
| as it is in heaven. | 7:03 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 7:05 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 7:08 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 7:10 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 7:14 | |
| but deliver us for from evil, | 7:17 | |
| for thine is the kingdom | 7:19 | |
| and the power and the glory forever. | 7:21 | |
| Amen. | 7:24 | |
| (congregation singing) | 7:42 | |
| - | The lesson is from the 12th chapter of Romans. | 8:31 |
| I appeal to you, therefore, brothers | 8:38 | |
| and beg of you in view of God's mercies | 8:42 | |
| that you offer your very selves to him a living sacrifice, | 8:46 | |
| dedicated and fit for his acceptance, which is the worship. | 8:52 | |
| It is right for you to give him. | 8:57 | |
| Do not let the world around you | 9:00 | |
| squeeze you into its own mold, | 9:02 | |
| but let yourselves be transformed | 9:06 | |
| by a renewing of your minds. | 9:08 | |
| So as to find and follow God's will. | 9:11 | |
| That is what is good, well pleasing to him, and perfect. | 9:16 | |
| For by the favor that God has shown me, | 9:21 | |
| I would tell every one of you | 9:24 | |
| not to estimate himself above his real value, | 9:26 | |
| but to think with sober judgment, | 9:30 | |
| according to the measure of faith which God has given him. | 9:33 | |
| For just as in the human body, | 9:38 | |
| there is a union of many parts | 9:40 | |
| and each part has its own function. | 9:43 | |
| So we, being many are one body in Christ | 9:46 | |
| and we are individually parts of one another. | 9:51 | |
| The gifts we possess differ | 9:55 | |
| as they are allotted to us by God's grace, | 9:57 | |
| and must be exercised accordingly. | 10:01 | |
| He that has the gift of prophecy, | 10:05 | |
| let him exercise it | 10:08 | |
| according to the proportion of his faith. | 10:09 | |
| He that has the gift of ministration, let him minister. | 10:14 | |
| The teacher must mind his teaching. | 10:19 | |
| Let the man who gives in charity do so | 10:23 | |
| with a generous heart. | 10:26 | |
| Let him who is in authority exercise due diligence. | 10:28 | |
| And he who shows mercy must be cheerful. | 10:33 | |
| Let love be without hypocrisy, | 10:37 | |
| hate what is wrong, cling to the right, | 10:41 | |
| be affectionate in your love for the brotherhood. | 10:44 | |
| Outdo one another in showing honor. | 10:48 | |
| Never be lazy in your work. | 10:51 | |
| Be a glow with the spirit. | 10:54 | |
| Be true bondsman of your Lord. | 10:57 | |
| (soft piano music) | 11:04 | |
| (congregation singing) | 11:14 | |
| (soft piano music) | 11:53 | |
| (congregation singing) | 12:50 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 17:06 |
| Let us pray. | 17:10 | |
| May we sincerely unite in prayer | 17:20 | |
| as we use the litany of commemoration. | 17:24 | |
| Almighty and eternal God in whom our fathers trusted. | 17:29 | |
| We their children on this day of remembrance | 17:34 | |
| offer unto thee our litany of commemoration. | 17:37 | |
| For the men and women of this state, | 17:45 | |
| Methodists and Quakers, farmers and merchant men, | 17:48 | |
| teachers and administrators who believed in education | 17:52 | |
| and made their belief prevail. | 17:57 | |
| For the embodiment of their dreams. | 18:03 | |
| Private school, academy, college, university, | 18:05 | |
| founded in hope, continued with perseverance, | 18:11 | |
| growing in outreach, established in assurance. | 18:16 | |
| For educators whose vision was matched by their courage, | 18:22 | |
| whose patients was tempered by their ending nation, | 18:26 | |
| whose idealism was moderated by their awareness of sin. | 18:30 | |
| For the Duke family, father, sons, and their wives | 18:38 | |
| grandchildren, and continuing generations | 18:45 | |
| who with wonder and surprise, bewilderment, and tenacity, | 18:48 | |
| laid a good foundation, built a worthy school, | 18:54 | |
| and provided for exciting growth | 18:59 | |
| beyond there can in years unseen. | 19:01 | |
| For the continuance of good ideas, | 19:07 | |
| the union of truths and reverence, | 19:10 | |
| the freedom of responsible academic thought, | 19:13 | |
| and the right of public concern. | 19:17 | |
| The joint care of the body and the spirit, | 19:20 | |
| the linking of science and humanities, | 19:23 | |
| the realization that the old order changes. | 19:27 | |
| For the future of our university, | 19:34 | |
| established to thy glory and for the relief of man's estate. | 19:36 | |
| For the consecration of the discontent of the young, | 19:41 | |
| for wisdom in the conservation of the middle aged, | 19:46 | |
| for resiliency in the obstinacy of the old, | 19:50 | |
| for understanding cooperation, | 19:54 | |
| and a sense of humor within our community. | 19:58 | |
| And to thee, we shall ascribe as is most do | 20:04 | |
| all praise and glory, world without end. | 20:09 | |
| Amen. | 20:14 | |
| (soft piano music) | 20:40 | |
| (congregation singing) | 22:11 | |
| (soft piano music) | 27:04 | |
| (congregation singing) | 27:27 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 27:38 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 27:41 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 27:58 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 28:00 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 28:03 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 28:06 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 28:10 | |
| - | Almighty Gog, on this day | 28:28 |
| when we remember what our founders have established, | 28:30 | |
| we come here to dedicate this portion of our money | 28:33 | |
| and all of ourselves, | 28:36 | |
| that we may establish something worthwhile for man | 28:38 | |
| and for God in Christ's name, amen. | 28:42 | |
| - | Christians are intended to constitute | 29:21 |
| a sort of counterculture. | 29:24 | |
| You might not guess this from looking at the church | 29:30 | |
| because most religious institutions | 29:33 | |
| generally fail to be what they are intended to be. | 29:35 | |
| And yet the church though, | 29:41 | |
| all mixed up with the establishment | 29:44 | |
| knows itself to be committed to a faith, | 29:48 | |
| which is greater than any status quo. | 29:52 | |
| Christians know themselves to be called to an allegiance | 29:57 | |
| which defies when necessary every claim of any culture. | 30:04 | |
| We who name the name of Christ | 30:11 | |
| are intended to constitute a counterculture. | 30:15 | |
| Now this puts the church in a rather awkward position. | 30:21 | |
| It would be amusing if it were not so uncomfortable. | 30:25 | |
| The establishment expects the church | 30:30 | |
| to be chaplain to the status quo. | 30:33 | |
| We say prayers on special occasions. | 30:37 | |
| And somehow the clergy is always called upon | 30:40 | |
| to say these prayers. | 30:43 | |
| The anti-establishmentarians therefore reject the church | 30:47 | |
| as being part of convention. | 30:51 | |
| And yet those who take the Christian faith seriously | 30:56 | |
| know very well that we are called to a faith | 30:59 | |
| which is beyond anything expressed in our culture. | 31:04 | |
| We know that we are called to allegiance, | 31:11 | |
| to values and standards, | 31:13 | |
| which judge our civilization. | 31:18 | |
| There's a sense in which the university | 31:23 | |
| and the church are very much alike at this point. | 31:26 | |
| When we are doing our jobs properly, | 31:31 | |
| we do indeed contribute to the health | 31:33 | |
| and strength of the civilization of which we are a part. | 31:35 | |
| But at the same time, we are committed to humane values. | 31:41 | |
| We are committed to standards of excellence, | 31:44 | |
| which set us over against any civilization | 31:48 | |
| in which we are immersed. | 31:53 | |
| There is a sense in which university and church alike | 31:56 | |
| are countercultures dedicated to the purging, | 32:01 | |
| the upgrading of the civilization | 32:06 | |
| of which we happen to be a part. | 32:11 | |
| On this Sunday, when we are recalling | 32:15 | |
| the founding of this university | 32:20 | |
| which still bears such good relations | 32:22 | |
| with the community of faith. | 32:24 | |
| I thought it might be appropriate for us | 32:28 | |
| to think about this vocation | 32:30 | |
| which we share this common calling. | 32:33 | |
| I haven't discovered any logical | 32:39 | |
| or orderly way of doing this. | 32:41 | |
| So I invite you simply to think about | 32:44 | |
| the role of the Christian faith | 32:49 | |
| and the Christian community as a counterculture, | 32:51 | |
| and to look at it from several different directions. | 32:56 | |
| First, a text. | 33:00 | |
| This extraordinary word of Paul | 33:06 | |
| in the second verse of the 12th chapter to the Romans. | 33:10 | |
| It was written 1900 years ago | 33:13 | |
| to a little community of Christians | 33:17 | |
| hardly noticed in the capital city of Rome, | 33:20 | |
| and yet it's just as relevant. | 33:24 | |
| Oh, blessed word. | 33:28 | |
| Just as relevant today as it was 1900 years ago. | 33:31 | |
| This is what Paul wrote to a handful of beligered Christians | 33:35 | |
| with little hope even of enduring. | 33:41 | |
| Don't let the world around you | 33:46 | |
| squeeze you into its own mold, | 33:48 | |
| but let God mold your minds from within. | 33:53 | |
| I suppose there has seldom been a civilization | 34:01 | |
| as clever in the ways of manipulation as our own. | 34:06 | |
| I suppose there has never been a day | 34:13 | |
| when it has been more important for us to affirm | 34:15 | |
| that it is necessary for us | 34:18 | |
| if we are to be persons of integrity at all. | 34:20 | |
| It is necessary for us to resist the coercions | 34:23 | |
| and blandishments of our culture | 34:27 | |
| and live according to values of our own choosing. | 34:30 | |
| And for those of us who take Jesus Christ seriously, | 34:34 | |
| that means to live out of faith in and commitment to him. | 34:37 | |
| Don't let the world around you | 34:42 | |
| squeeze you into its own mold, | 34:46 | |
| but let God mold your minds from within. | 34:51 | |
| The church under God is intended to be a counterculture. | 34:56 | |
| Now it may be that I'm using this term rather loosely. | 35:05 | |
| And if so, in the presence of experts, I apologize. | 35:10 | |
| But it seems to me that the term counterculture | 35:16 | |
| is being used in our time to designate adherence to values, | 35:18 | |
| which are contrary to conventional purposes, | 35:24 | |
| following a style of life which may be unconventional. | 35:28 | |
| And when a group of persons | 35:35 | |
| out of commitment to their values | 35:36 | |
| and out of adherence to a style of life. | 35:39 | |
| When they get together, they constitute a counterculture. | 35:41 | |
| This sort of thing has its highest visibility, | 35:47 | |
| I suppose among the young. | 35:50 | |
| There are many on any campus | 35:54 | |
| who have rejected the competitive ways of our society, | 35:55 | |
| who refuse to be taken in by the most recent fashions, | 36:00 | |
| who want to live simply, kindly, | 36:06 | |
| and who therefore adopt their own styles of clothing, | 36:10 | |
| of hair, of music. | 36:15 | |
| And so they take on a certain obvious visibility | 36:20 | |
| on the current scene. | 36:24 | |
| It's worth noting that there are many different kinds | 36:27 | |
| of such counter or subcultures. | 36:31 | |
| They range all the way from the radical left | 36:34 | |
| and other politically oriented groups | 36:38 | |
| to the Jesus people and other religious groups. | 36:41 | |
| Now once again, there is an awkward fact | 36:48 | |
| which we need to note, | 36:50 | |
| which makes it rather uncomfortable for the church. | 36:52 | |
| Many of these countercultures | 36:57 | |
| have no use at all for the church, | 36:58 | |
| but the one thing they have in common is, | 37:01 | |
| they reject Christianity | 37:04 | |
| because it does not champion their own enthusiasm. | 37:05 | |
| Every one of these subcultures has its own commitments, | 37:09 | |
| its own values, its own purposes. | 37:12 | |
| And they reject the church | 37:15 | |
| because the church does not always support them | 37:17 | |
| in their commitments. | 37:20 | |
| I ran head long into this quite unexpectedly, | 37:23 | |
| and therefore, I didn't carry myself very well. | 37:27 | |
| But I ran head long into this not long ago | 37:32 | |
| with a group of Marxist-oriented young people. | 37:34 | |
| And they just flatly rejected the church | 37:38 | |
| because it was not committed to Marxian ideology. | 37:41 | |
| And when I suggested rather timidly | 37:45 | |
| that maybe it isn't the business of the church | 37:48 | |
| to champion any ideology, whether Marxian or anything else. | 37:50 | |
| They were quite unimpressed. | 37:55 | |
| Yet certainly, it is true | 37:59 | |
| that the Christian community cannot take its cues | 38:01 | |
| not only from the establishment, | 38:05 | |
| but also not from the many countercultures, | 38:08 | |
| the subcultures which constitute our society. | 38:12 | |
| Therefore when the church determines what it must believe, | 38:16 | |
| it cannot allow the limits of its faith to be determined | 38:20 | |
| simply by the academic community. | 38:23 | |
| When the church determines what position it shall take | 38:29 | |
| with respect to the use of drugs, | 38:32 | |
| it cannot allow its standards to be shaped simply by those | 38:34 | |
| who are already committed to the drug culture. | 38:38 | |
| When Christians try to work out | 38:44 | |
| their best understanding of sexuality, | 38:46 | |
| they cannot simply accept the teachings of those | 38:50 | |
| who are already committed to a sheerly permissive society. | 38:53 | |
| The church happens to have certain commitments of its own. | 38:57 | |
| The Christian faith happens to mean certain basic beliefs | 39:01 | |
| and values and meanings. | 39:07 | |
| The church is itself a counterculture, | 39:12 | |
| and it must be faithful to its commitments. | 39:15 | |
| We who take Jesus Christ seriously | 39:19 | |
| believe that in him we are given the index | 39:24 | |
| to the meaning of our existence. | 39:27 | |
| We happen to believe that in him, | 39:32 | |
| God has come into our midst as he has nowhere else | 39:33 | |
| in all of history. | 39:38 | |
| That's what advent and Christmas is all about. | 39:38 | |
| And the style of life to which we are committed | 39:44 | |
| grows out of this understanding of ourselves | 39:46 | |
| and of God and of our existence. | 39:50 | |
| That's what it means to be a Christian. | 39:54 | |
| Now let me try to say this in a somewhat different way. | 40:03 | |
| This past spring, the church which I served | 40:07 | |
| gave me a short sabbatical. | 40:12 | |
| Very short when measured by academic standards, | 40:15 | |
| but long enough to give me a chance | 40:19 | |
| to do some consecutive study, | 40:21 | |
| which usually isn't possible, | 40:23 | |
| In the kind of life we have to carry on. | 40:26 | |
| And in the course of this study, | 40:30 | |
| I made several interesting discoveries. | 40:32 | |
| One of which is relevant this morning. | 40:34 | |
| I had heard about "The Greening of America" | 40:40 | |
| and had read it in digest form. | 40:42 | |
| But I decided in all fairness | 40:46 | |
| that a book that was at that time, | 40:49 | |
| at least getting so much attention | 40:52 | |
| ought to be read in its entirety and with greater care. | 40:54 | |
| So I read "The Greening of America." | 40:58 | |
| And I discovered to my surprise | 41:01 | |
| that most of the enthusiasts for consciousness three | 41:04 | |
| were overlooking one very significant aspect | 41:08 | |
| of the author's thought. | 41:11 | |
| In the very chapter in which he outlines | 41:15 | |
| or interprets revolution by consciousness. | 41:19 | |
| He makes the point again and again, | 41:22 | |
| that this new consciousness of goodwill | 41:25 | |
| and kindness and simplicity. | 41:27 | |
| This new consciousness comes into existence | 41:30 | |
| only as individuals decide how they are going to live. | 41:33 | |
| Consciousness three ultimately manifests itself | 41:38 | |
| when people like you and me | 41:41 | |
| decide that we're not going to be shoved around | 41:43 | |
| by the corporate state and we're going to live | 41:45 | |
| according to values of our own choosing. | 41:47 | |
| Indeed the author says, | 41:52 | |
| "this virtually calls for new persons." | 41:54 | |
| And he speaks in his own fashion | 41:58 | |
| about the need for conversion. | 42:00 | |
| You will not be surprised | 42:06 | |
| if I found some similarity between that language | 42:07 | |
| and the language of the believing community. | 42:11 | |
| At the same time, | 42:16 | |
| I was working through a volume of a quite different sort. | 42:17 | |
| Mumford's enormous study of the technological society | 42:22 | |
| called "The Pentagon of Power." | 42:27 | |
| Massive. | 42:29 | |
| Thoroughly documented. | 42:32 | |
| Almost overwhelming to a layman like myself | 42:34 | |
| as I worked my way through his strong and powerful argument | 42:38 | |
| as to where our society is going. | 42:44 | |
| And this interesting thing. | 42:48 | |
| When Mumford begins to talk about | 42:50 | |
| how we may possibly give direction | 42:52 | |
| to the movement of society. | 42:56 | |
| He comes out at a point very similar | 43:00 | |
| to "The Greening of America." | 43:02 | |
| He says, what is necessary is that we as individuals | 43:05 | |
| choose the human values by which we will live. | 43:09 | |
| And he uses a magnificent statement. | 43:13 | |
| If I can remember it. | 43:19 | |
| One of his words is gone. | 43:25 | |
| So this won't be quite exact. | 43:26 | |
| But what he says we must do is to | 43:29 | |
| "reject the society in which we live | 43:32 | |
| "and make a selective use of its facilities. | 43:37 | |
| "Separate ourselves from the system, he said, | 43:42 | |
| "and make a selective use of its facilities." | 43:46 | |
| I read that phrase, | 43:52 | |
| bells began to ring and lights began to flash in my mind. | 43:53 | |
| And I realized that's the way I had been taught Christianity | 43:56 | |
| from as far back as I can remember. | 44:03 | |
| I have been persuaded that to be a Christian | 44:06 | |
| means to live according to values | 44:09 | |
| which grow out of the teachings of Jesus Christ. | 44:12 | |
| To be a Christian means to be willing | 44:15 | |
| to go against the crowd, | 44:17 | |
| to reject popular culture if necessary. | 44:19 | |
| To be a Christian means not to be worried | 44:23 | |
| about what your peer group is doing, | 44:25 | |
| but to be concerned only to be faithful to Jesus Christ. | 44:28 | |
| Whatever this commitment lays upon you to be and to do, | 44:34 | |
| that is what you must be and do. | 44:37 | |
| The simple unsophisticated people | 44:40 | |
| who had brought me up in a small town in New Jersey, | 44:44 | |
| who had taught me what Christianity meant to them | 44:48 | |
| had been saying in their own naive way | 44:51 | |
| what this popular professor and learned scholar were saying. | 44:55 | |
| And they all were saying what Paul | 45:03 | |
| had ventured to say 1900 years ago. | 45:05 | |
| Don't let the world around you | 45:09 | |
| squeeze you into its own mold. | 45:11 | |
| Let your life be shaped out of your faith in Jesus Christ. | 45:18 | |
| Let your life be shaped by your commitment | 45:26 | |
| to whatever he lays upon you. | 45:31 | |
| Christians are intended to constitute a counterculture. | 45:36 | |
| We're not supposed to be worried about conforming | 45:46 | |
| to the latest fashions in thought or action. | 45:49 | |
| We're not supposed to buy everything | 45:54 | |
| that our highly commercialized culture offers us. | 45:56 | |
| We're supposed to live out of our faith in Christ. | 46:03 | |
| Now I wonder if it's possible for us | 46:09 | |
| to indicate what this means. | 46:10 | |
| Again and again, I find the people with whom I live | 46:12 | |
| and work most closely asking me, | 46:15 | |
| "Come on now, doc. | 46:18 | |
| "Be specific. | 46:19 | |
| "Spell it out for me." | 46:20 | |
| And I always say, "I can't spell it out." | 46:21 | |
| The Christian faith does not consist of a series of rules | 46:24 | |
| and tests by which you can determine | 46:28 | |
| whether you're doing well or not. | 46:31 | |
| To try to spell out specifically | 46:33 | |
| what Christianity demands of you | 46:36 | |
| would be contradictory | 46:41 | |
| to what the Christian faith ultimately is. | 46:43 | |
| To be a Christian does not simply mean | 46:46 | |
| being obedient to rules. | 46:48 | |
| To be a Christian means being freed | 46:50 | |
| from legalistic requirements, | 46:52 | |
| freed to live out your own commitment to Jesus Christ. | 46:54 | |
| And yet there may be some way of indicating what this means. | 47:00 | |
| At this point, I can't resist telling you | 47:05 | |
| what to me is a charming story | 47:07 | |
| which I heard just a short time ago. | 47:10 | |
| It illustrates negatively | 47:14 | |
| what Christians are intended to be. | 47:20 | |
| As some of you may be old enough to remember, | 47:23 | |
| there was a time when Methodism was famous | 47:26 | |
| for its staunch opposition | 47:30 | |
| to any use of alcoholic beverages. | 47:34 | |
| Many of you in this congregation | 47:39 | |
| might not remember that time, but many of you will. | 47:41 | |
| This story comes out of that period in our past. | 47:46 | |
| Up in the frozen Tundra of Minnesota, | 47:51 | |
| in the city of lakes called Minneapolis, | 47:58 | |
| by the laughing gitty gummy or whatever it is. | 48:01 | |
| There is a beautiful Methodist home for the aged. | 48:06 | |
| It hasn't been too many years ago | 48:12 | |
| when television was first introduced into the lounges | 48:14 | |
| of this home for the aged. | 48:17 | |
| This injection of the world | 48:22 | |
| into the life of these elderly citizens | 48:25 | |
| exposed them to certain kinds of worldly amusements | 48:28 | |
| and indulgences to which they were opposed. | 48:32 | |
| And at no point was this more objectionable | 48:37 | |
| than the commercial blandishments of the local breweries. | 48:40 | |
| So there was one dear lady among this elderly group | 48:47 | |
| who every time the beer commercial came on, | 48:52 | |
| planted herself squarely in front of the television set | 48:56 | |
| so as to block out the screen. | 48:59 | |
| Now she surely wasn't trying to protect | 49:05 | |
| the innocence of her contemporaries. | 49:06 | |
| This had to be her own way of expressing her opposition | 49:11 | |
| to something in her culture to which she was opposed. | 49:15 | |
| Ever since I heard that story, | 49:21 | |
| I have wondered whether this is what the church, | 49:26 | |
| what the clergy sometimes looks like. | 49:29 | |
| Standing, spreading out our pulpit gowns | 49:32 | |
| so that they'll block off some aspect of our culture | 49:36 | |
| that we'd rather you not see. | 49:39 | |
| Is this what the church is trying to do? | 49:42 | |
| To deny certain aspects of reality | 49:44 | |
| that we wish were not there, | 49:46 | |
| to try to shield young people from temptations | 49:48 | |
| which they cannot in any case avoid. | 49:51 | |
| I think not really. | 49:55 | |
| The image of the church is not always good | 50:00 | |
| and we're not always effective | 50:05 | |
| in protesting against our culture. | 50:06 | |
| But the Christian affirmation is primarily affirmative. | 50:10 | |
| The counterculture to which we are committed | 50:14 | |
| is primarily an affirmation faith | 50:17 | |
| and a style of life which grows out of that faith. | 50:20 | |
| Let me say quickly what I believe these two things to be. | 50:24 | |
| The Christian community is committed to faith | 50:29 | |
| in the reality of God and Jesus Christ | 50:31 | |
| as the index to that reality. | 50:35 | |
| We are utterly committed to belief that in Jesus Christ, | 50:40 | |
| God is in our midst. | 50:43 | |
| And the meaning of our existence | 50:47 | |
| takes its clue from that reality. | 50:49 | |
| Now ironically enough, | 50:55 | |
| this faith often brings us into conflict | 50:56 | |
| with the academic community | 50:58 | |
| because it seems undeniable that in the past two centuries, | 51:01 | |
| the intellectual tradition has been increasingly contrary | 51:04 | |
| to this authentic Christian faith. | 51:08 | |
| But that's all right because we happen also to believe | 51:12 | |
| that it is out of such tension | 51:14 | |
| even conflict that our understanding of the truth | 51:16 | |
| is sharpened and clarified. | 51:20 | |
| But there can be no question | 51:23 | |
| as to what the church is committed. | 51:25 | |
| Our culture will never embrace this faith | 51:29 | |
| as a majority faith. | 51:31 | |
| Our civilization will never be built clearly | 51:33 | |
| upon this conviction, | 51:36 | |
| but this is the vocation to which we are called. | 51:37 | |
| And in our society, there is no other institution | 51:41 | |
| which is committed to this faith. | 51:44 | |
| This is our task to keep alive | 51:48 | |
| this option in every generation | 51:51 | |
| and in every style of civilization. | 51:55 | |
| Our way of life grows out of this faith. | 52:00 | |
| If we take this faith seriously, | 52:02 | |
| we must allow our life to be shaped in terms of it. | 52:04 | |
| And here's where we can't spell it out exactly. | 52:09 | |
| But I find myself again and again | 52:11 | |
| sharply caught up by a word of Jesus in which he said, | 52:13 | |
| "Seek first the kingdom of God." | 52:16 | |
| Above all else, let your life be ruled | 52:22 | |
| by the purposes of God. | 52:25 | |
| Now this sets us sharply and abrasively | 52:28 | |
| against our popular culture | 52:31 | |
| with its strange love of violence, | 52:35 | |
| with its anxious inquisitiveness, | 52:38 | |
| with its frenzied search for pleasure. | 52:40 | |
| So we are called to be a counterculture. | 52:49 | |
| And all of these thoughts bring us back again | 52:55 | |
| to the word of Paul. | 52:58 | |
| Don't let the world around you | 53:02 | |
| squeeze you into its own mold, | 53:06 | |
| but let God remold your minds from within. | 53:12 | |
| Let us pray. | 53:23 | |
| Oh thy God who has made us | 53:30 | |
| in whose will therefore is our fulfillment. | 53:34 | |
| Give us courage to resist the forces | 53:40 | |
| which would be contrary to thy will, | 53:43 | |
| wisdom to know what doubt is call us to be and do | 53:45 | |
| and strength to bear witness to the life and love and joy | 53:51 | |
| which thy give us, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 53:57 | |
| (soft piano) | 54:08 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:15 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:17 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:20 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:22 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:26 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:28 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:31 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:33 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:45 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:47 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:48 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 54:59 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 55:01 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 55:11 | |
| (trumpet blowing) | 55:13 | |
| (congregation singing) | 58:58 | |
| (bell chiming) | 1:00:23 | |
| (soft piano music) | 1:00:47 |
Item Info
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