Wallace Alston - "The Kingdom Not of This World" (July 22, 1973)
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| - | Testing one, two, three, four. | 0:07 |
| Testing one, two, three, four. | 0:10 | |
| (organ music) | 0:12 | |
| - | When we gather to praise God, | 1:38 |
| we remember that we are his people | 1:41 | |
| who have preferred our wills to His. | 1:43 | |
| Accepting his power to become new persons in Christ, | 1:46 | |
| let us confess our sin before God and one another. | 1:50 | |
| Oh, God of grace and truth, | 2:01 | |
| whom the heavens cannot contain, | 2:05 | |
| but who love us to dwell with those of a contrived heart, | 2:08 | |
| look mercifully upon us as we seek thy face. | 2:12 | |
| Thou are eternal and we are frail children of the dust, | 2:17 | |
| thou art holy and we are filled with pettiness, | 2:22 | |
| thy heart is love, and we seek our own, | 2:26 | |
| thy thoughts are not our thoughts, | 2:31 | |
| and thy ways are not our ways, | 2:34 | |
| yet mean though we are, we are not holy so. | 2:37 | |
| We are tired of our obsession with self. | 2:42 | |
| Show us the way of finding thee | 2:46 | |
| and finding our brothers, | 2:49 | |
| and finding ourselves more truly in the worship of thee | 2:51 | |
| and service to our fellows. | 2:56 | |
| We are sick of the injustice | 2:59 | |
| and cruelty of which the whole world groans. | 3:01 | |
| We hear the cries of the oppressed | 3:05 | |
| and remember the desperate anxiety of those who face | 3:08 | |
| another winter without employment, | 3:13 | |
| victims of the world's greed. | 3:16 | |
| Give us wisdom and grace to establish justice between men. | 3:19 | |
| We are sick of our own pettiness, | 3:25 | |
| our preoccupation with little things, | 3:28 | |
| little jealousies of those who possess excellencies | 3:31 | |
| and advantages beyond our own. | 3:36 | |
| Little arrogancies and pride over underserved fortunes | 3:39 | |
| which are ours. | 3:44 | |
| Help us as we worship thee, | 3:46 | |
| to come to a truer knowledge of ourselves, | 3:48 | |
| for knowing thine eyes to be upon us. | 3:52 | |
| May we seek thee more diligently for knowing ourselves | 3:56 | |
| and our need of thee. | 4:00 | |
| God be merciful to us, for we are sinners, amen. | 4:03 | |
| Hear the words of assurance. | 4:10 | |
| Oh, Lord God of hosts, | 4:13 | |
| blessed is the person who puts his trust in you! | 4:15 | |
| You have forgiven the offenses | 4:19 | |
| of us all and have taken away our sins, | 4:21 | |
| you have put away all your displeasure, | 4:25 | |
| and now show loving kindness, amen. | 4:28 | |
| Let us pray together, the Lord's prayer. | 4:32 | |
| Our Father, who art in heaven, | 4:36 | |
| hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; | 4:39 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 4:43 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread; | 4:48 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 4:51 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us; | 4:54 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 4:58 | |
| but deliver us from evil, | 5:01 | |
| for thine is the kingdom | 5:04 | |
| and the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen. | 5:05 | |
| (gentle instrumental music) | 5:15 | |
| ♪ Shall we gather by the river ♪ | 6:48 | |
| ♪ Where bright angel feet have trod ♪ | 6:57 | |
| ♪ With its crystal tide forever ♪ | 7:08 | |
| ♪ Flowing by the throne of God ♪ | 7:17 | |
| ♪ Yes, we'll gather by the river ♪ | 7:33 | |
| ♪ The beautiful, the beautiful river ♪ | 7:42 | |
| ♪ Gather with the saints at the river ♪ | 7:52 | |
| ♪ That flows by the throne of God ♪ | 8:01 | |
| ♪ Soon we'll reach the shining river ♪ | 8:26 | |
| ♪ Soon our pilgrimage will cease ♪ | 8:35 | |
| ♪ Soon our happy hearts will quiver ♪ | 8:45 | |
| ♪ With the melody of peace ♪ | 8:54 | |
| ♪ Yes, we'll gather by the river ♪ | 9:10 | |
| ♪ The beautiful, the beautiful river ♪ | 9:19 | |
| ♪ Gather with the saints at the river ♪ | 9:30 | |
| ♪ That flows by the throne of God ♪ | 9:40 | |
| ♪ That flows by the throne of God ♪ | 9:50 | |
| - | Let's join together in the unison collect. | 10:11 |
| Oh, God, who knowest us to be set in the midst | 10:15 | |
| of so many and great dangers, | 10:19 | |
| grant that by reason of the frailty of our nature | 10:22 | |
| we cannot always stand upright. | 10:26 | |
| Grant to us such strength and protection, | 10:30 | |
| as may support us in all dangers, | 10:33 | |
| and carry us through all temptations, | 10:37 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 10:40 | |
| The scripture lesson this morning | 10:46 | |
| is taken from John 18:28-40. | 10:48 | |
| "They then led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas | 10:57 | |
| "to the Praetorium. | 11:01 | |
| "It was now morning. | 11:03 | |
| "They did not go to the Praetorium themselves | 11:06 | |
| "or they would be defiled and unable to eat the Passover. | 11:09 | |
| "So Pilate came outside to them and said, | 11:14 | |
| "What charge do you bring against this man?" | 11:18 | |
| They replied, | 11:22 | |
| "If he were not a criminal, | 11:24 | |
| "we should not be handing him over to you." | 11:26 | |
| Pilate said, "Take him yourselves, | 11:30 | |
| "and try him by your own law." | 11:33 | |
| "The Jews answered, | 11:37 | |
| "We are not allowed to put a man to death." | 11:38 | |
| "This was to fulfill the words | 11:42 | |
| "Jesus had spoken indicating the way He was going to die. | 11:44 | |
| "So Pilate went back to the Praetorium | 11:50 | |
| "and asked Jesus to come to him. | 11:53 | |
| "Are you the king of the Jews?" he asked. | 11:56 | |
| "Jesus replied, "Do you ask this of your own accord | 11:59 | |
| "or have other spoken to you about me?" | 12:04 | |
| "Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? | 12:08 | |
| "It is your own people, | 12:12 | |
| "and the chief priests who have handed you over to me, | 12:13 | |
| "what have you done?" | 12:18 | |
| "Jesus replied, "Mine is not a kingdom of this world. | 12:20 | |
| "If my kingdom were of this world, | 12:25 | |
| "my men would have fought | 12:28 | |
| "to prevent my being surrender to the Jews. | 12:30 | |
| "But my kingdom is not of this kind." | 12:34 | |
| "So you are a king then?" said Pilate. | 12:37 | |
| "It is you who say it." answered Jesus. | 12:42 | |
| "Yes, I am a king. | 12:45 | |
| "I was born for this. | 12:47 | |
| "I came into the world for this, | 12:50 | |
| "to bear witness to the truth | 12:52 | |
| "and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice." | 12:55 | |
| "Truth?" said Pilate, "What is that?" | 13:00 | |
| "And with that, he went out again to the Jews and said, | 13:03 | |
| "I find no case against him. | 13:07 | |
| "But according to accustom of yours, | 13:12 | |
| "I should release one prisoner at the Passover. | 13:14 | |
| "Would you like me then to release the king of the Jews?" | 13:18 | |
| "At this they shouted, "Not this man," | 13:23 | |
| "they said, "But Barabbas." | 13:27 | |
| "Barabbas was a bandit." | 13:30 | |
| Thus endeth the reading of the scripture. | 13:33 | |
| (liturgical music) | 13:36 | |
| Let's repeat the unison affirmation of faith. | 14:22 | |
| We believe in God: who has created and is creating, | 14:24 | |
| who has come and in true man, Jesus, | 14:29 | |
| to reconcile and make new, | 14:32 | |
| who works in us and others by the Spirit. | 14:35 | |
| We trust him, | 14:39 | |
| He calls us to be in his church to celebrate His presence, | 14:41 | |
| to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, | 14:47 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 14:52 | |
| our judge and our hope, in life, in death. | 14:56 | |
| In life beyond death, God is with us, | 15:01 | |
| we are not alone, thanks be to God. | 15:05 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 15:10 | |
| - | And also with you. | 15:12 |
| - | Let us pray. | 15:13 |
| Almighty and most glorious God, | 15:22 | |
| we your most unworthy people give your most humble | 15:26 | |
| and hearty thanks for all your goodness | 15:30 | |
| and loving kindness to us, and to all people. | 15:33 | |
| Our blessings go forth to you for our creation, | 15:38 | |
| preservation and all the wonder of life, | 15:42 | |
| the means of grace and the glory of hope, | 15:46 | |
| but above all for your incredible | 15:50 | |
| and overwhelming love for each others. | 15:53 | |
| We praise you our God for our friend, the sun, | 15:56 | |
| who is our day and who brings us the light, | 16:00 | |
| who is fair and radiant with a very great splendor. | 16:04 | |
| We praise you for our friend the moon and for the stars, | 16:09 | |
| which are clear and lovely through our sky. | 16:13 | |
| We praise you for the wind, the air and clouds, | 16:17 | |
| the calms and the storms, | 16:21 | |
| for the water who is very serviceable to us | 16:23 | |
| and humble and precious and chaste for the earth | 16:27 | |
| and its creatures, we praise you most of all, | 16:31 | |
| for the earth sustains us and all of its creatures | 16:35 | |
| and grows fruit and flowers of many colors | 16:39 | |
| for all of these wonders we Lord and glorify you, our God. | 16:43 | |
| Our prayers of intercession. | 16:51 | |
| We pray most fervently for all people everywhere | 16:54 | |
| who have to make war, | 16:59 | |
| heal the madness of the nations, | 17:01 | |
| comfort the broken hearted, | 17:04 | |
| bind up the wounds of the sick | 17:07 | |
| and bring peace to the spirits of the dying, | 17:10 | |
| teach all of us the ways of making peace | 17:14 | |
| instead of the ways of making aggression | 17:18 | |
| and commit us to the actualization of peace in our times. | 17:21 | |
| We pray for all people who suffer | 17:27 | |
| from oppression and competition. | 17:29 | |
| We earnestly long for a world where some people | 17:32 | |
| do not relegate other people to the poverty | 17:35 | |
| and misery of the underdog | 17:38 | |
| and for a world where no one has to lose. | 17:41 | |
| Be with us God, | 17:44 | |
| as we go about creating a better society for all people. | 17:46 | |
| We pray for our friends and loved ones, | 17:52 | |
| as well as for the people we do not know | 17:55 | |
| who suffer the pain of sickness, | 17:58 | |
| be one with our healers, dear God, | 18:01 | |
| so that wherever possible | 18:04 | |
| people may be restored to health. | 18:06 | |
| Most sincerely we pray for ourselves, | 18:09 | |
| that each and every one of us may come to know | 18:13 | |
| and love ourselves, | 18:17 | |
| for each of us is beautiful and precious | 18:19 | |
| but we are hard pressed to believe this. | 18:23 | |
| Instill in us the desire to take ourselves seriously | 18:26 | |
| and finally be with us so that all living will be wonder | 18:31 | |
| and all wonder, living. | 18:37 | |
| This is our prayer, oh God, our creator and sustainer, amen. | 18:40 | |
| We are pleased to welcome as our preacher for this morning, | 18:48 | |
| the Reverend Dr. Wallace Halston, | 18:52 | |
| the pastor of the Durham First Presbyterian Church. | 18:56 | |
| - | Everyone has heard | 19:19 |
| quite enough of the Watergate thing, I'm sure. | 19:22 | |
| And yet it raises such ultimate questions for our lives, | 19:31 | |
| individually and as a people, | 19:39 | |
| that we must guard against the temptation | 19:43 | |
| to get free of it too soon. | 19:46 | |
| At least not until in Jacob like passion | 19:51 | |
| we have ran from it a blessing. | 19:55 | |
| Is there a God to whom it matters what we do? | 20:02 | |
| Is there a kingdom of justice | 20:10 | |
| and of goodness and of truth, | 20:13 | |
| that stands, these are the our poor kingdom? | 20:20 | |
| Is there another option to expediency | 20:27 | |
| and to the pragmatism of what works, | 20:32 | |
| to the operative and the inoperative syndrome? | 20:37 | |
| Which seems to justify | 20:44 | |
| at least to our former attorney general | 20:46 | |
| a politics of deceit. | 20:49 | |
| Is there ultimately a context | 20:54 | |
| in which the little text of our broken lives | 21:00 | |
| find some redeeming hope? | 21:04 | |
| These are at least some of the questions | 21:06 | |
| that our current national crisis raises for me. | 21:11 | |
| Now, the problem is that we are not accustomed | 21:20 | |
| to using the words king and kingdom anymore. | 21:23 | |
| Ours as an age of self-consciousness | 21:30 | |
| and self-expression and self-fulfillment. | 21:35 | |
| The men sciences so-called have left their mark on us all. | 21:40 | |
| The words, king and kingdom smack of totalitarianism | 21:47 | |
| in an age when we are struggling to be free. | 21:55 | |
| And perhaps history demands that it be so. | 22:00 | |
| The charter of freedom has been won at bitter costs | 22:06 | |
| from King John through the Puritan | 22:12 | |
| and the Victorian kingdoms we struggled. | 22:16 | |
| And now even for the powers of this age. | 22:22 | |
| And yet I say to you on the rebound from Kings and kingdoms, | 22:28 | |
| we may be tempted to deify individual and social freedom | 22:36 | |
| to such a degree that each person to use | 22:42 | |
| Rudyard Kipling's words dubs his dreary brethren, king. | 22:46 | |
| That is to say if every person is his or her own judge | 22:55 | |
| and every nation its own judge, | 23:02 | |
| then Demagoguery of one sort | 23:05 | |
| or another is just around the corner. | 23:08 | |
| And Demagoguery is only another cruel king by another name. | 23:13 | |
| If Watergate teaches us anything at all | 23:21 | |
| perhaps it is that freedom | 23:26 | |
| without standards soon becomes chaos. | 23:30 | |
| Now the word's standard by the way | 23:37 | |
| is derived through the French word for banner. | 23:39 | |
| A banner we fly above ourselves to show a higher loyalty. | 23:44 | |
| The banner of God perhaps that waves | 23:51 | |
| above every person's life to save freedom from chaos. | 23:54 | |
| And so the words, king and kingdom | 24:02 | |
| though they may be oppressive | 24:04 | |
| and finely evil when applied to human being. | 24:06 | |
| Or the promise of life when applied to God. | 24:12 | |
| Which brings us to the bottom. | 24:18 | |
| Where in fact some of the same issues are rock. | 24:22 | |
| Now as for our texts, the jealous Jesus and Pilate affair, | 24:27 | |
| it records a drama so prodigious and so cornier | 24:33 | |
| that one might well wonder | 24:40 | |
| if it could possibly have happened in so perfect way, | 24:41 | |
| and the answer of course is, we don't know. | 24:45 | |
| The fourth gospel does not pretend | 24:51 | |
| to tell us what happened | 24:54 | |
| as though it were some literal biography | 24:58 | |
| of Jesus of Nazareth. | 25:01 | |
| What is truth anyway? | 25:02 | |
| It's not facticity certainly. | 25:07 | |
| Any decent historian knows that. | 25:11 | |
| Truth lived on many levels, | 25:15 | |
| and perhaps its deepest level is the level of meaning | 25:17 | |
| and the kind of meaning that shapes behavior. | 25:20 | |
| And so John in the light of Jesus | 25:27 | |
| tries to tell us the truth not about what happened, | 25:30 | |
| but about what always happens. | 25:33 | |
| When God takes human shape in the world. | 25:39 | |
| There is Pilate viewing Jesus | 25:46 | |
| as people of power always view pure goodness | 25:49 | |
| with both admiration and content. | 25:53 | |
| Then there is Jesus representing precisely that paradox | 25:59 | |
| of which we are speaking this morning namely, | 26:04 | |
| a majesty clean beyond Pilate comprehension | 26:09 | |
| and a weakness in the face of power. | 26:15 | |
| In precisely that domain in which he was called king. | 26:18 | |
| Pilate's concern says the drama was not religious at all, | 26:25 | |
| it was as political as it could be. | 26:29 | |
| How much of a threat to his power did this man represent? | 26:34 | |
| That was the issue. | 26:39 | |
| Because you see the chief priests | 26:43 | |
| had been speaking out of both sides of their mouth | 26:45 | |
| before the Jewish court | 26:50 | |
| they had stressed the religious implications | 26:52 | |
| of Messiahship when they had called him blasphemer. | 26:55 | |
| And now before the Roman court | 27:00 | |
| it was off the political implications of Messiahship | 27:02 | |
| that they spoke and they called him a traitor. | 27:06 | |
| Which is to say that when God | 27:11 | |
| takes human shape in the world, | 27:13 | |
| both the church and the state go for the judges, | 27:15 | |
| and that's the truth. | 27:19 | |
| Are you just a harmless dreamer | 27:23 | |
| or do you threaten my power to rule? | 27:25 | |
| That was the issue. | 27:28 | |
| Art thou king? | 27:30 | |
| Art thou? | 27:32 | |
| Is the question, the centers of power, | 27:37 | |
| be they individuals or nations always ask. | 27:39 | |
| When they are confronted by the kingdom | 27:45 | |
| not of this world, enemy or friend. | 27:48 | |
| Art thou king? | 27:52 | |
| Only the answer he gave is not easy for us now to fathom. | 28:00 | |
| For it has about it as many dimensions | 28:07 | |
| as Jesus had in himself. | 28:09 | |
| Note, for example, that the question of power | 28:15 | |
| quickly ended up in the question of truth | 28:18 | |
| and is that too not always so? | 28:21 | |
| Question of power run headlong into the question of truth. | 28:25 | |
| Which is proof enough that Jesus plied, | 28:32 | |
| not the shallow lakes of our lives | 28:35 | |
| but that he moved on the mighty water. | 28:37 | |
| Now the answer of Jesus was misunderstood by Pilate | 28:43 | |
| and it is often misunderstood by us. | 28:47 | |
| "My kingdom," said Jesus, "is not of this world." | 28:49 | |
| I mean obviously Pilate thought that he meant | 28:57 | |
| that he was interested not in this life | 28:59 | |
| but in the next life. | 29:01 | |
| And therefore that Jesus made no disrupting claims | 29:05 | |
| on the Roman rule and so Pilate could sit back and relax. | 29:08 | |
| If Christ and his church are not concerned with racism | 29:16 | |
| and deceit in government and bombing in Cambodia | 29:20 | |
| and something so painfully concrete | 29:24 | |
| as the struggle for decent public education | 29:27 | |
| in the City of Durham. | 29:30 | |
| But then you see the Kings and kingdoms of this world | 29:34 | |
| have no real fear, do they? | 29:37 | |
| Well isn't religion after all just an innocuous vaguer? | 29:43 | |
| To fill cathedrals such as this. | 29:49 | |
| An opiate for a weak and affluent people | 29:53 | |
| prompting them to dream of heaven | 29:56 | |
| even though many around them live hell. | 29:59 | |
| Giving them hopes for the future | 30:05 | |
| that will enable them to endure | 30:07 | |
| the present without too great revolution, isn't it? | 30:09 | |
| There was recently an article in the New South Magazine | 30:17 | |
| that made the point that the role of religion | 30:20 | |
| in the poor white community of Cabbagetown | 30:23 | |
| in Atlanta, Georgia, | 30:26 | |
| was not as we so often think it to be, | 30:29 | |
| to offer a realm of escape from the world | 30:32 | |
| and it's misery, | 30:35 | |
| said the article, rather religion | 30:38 | |
| in that community function to socialize the poor | 30:40 | |
| in the dominant values of their deprived society. | 30:44 | |
| And in that I say to you it did more to forestall | 30:51 | |
| social change than Karl Marx ever even begin to imagine. | 30:54 | |
| The theological justification of slavery | 31:03 | |
| in the 19th century. | 31:06 | |
| And the unwillingness of the church in the South | 31:11 | |
| to work for the undoing of that blasphemy in the twenties. | 31:13 | |
| The civil religion of the court profits | 31:20 | |
| and the White House religious services | 31:22 | |
| mixing prophecy with patriotism in such a way. | 31:24 | |
| As to define ourselves on God's side, | 31:32 | |
| and with few exceptions he on ours in the West. | 31:35 | |
| Bible you see as a prodigious book | 31:44 | |
| because it tells us the truth | 31:46 | |
| about what happens when God | 31:50 | |
| and the kingdoms of this world collide. | 31:53 | |
| And if we assure Pilate that Christ's kingdom | 32:00 | |
| is not of this world | 32:03 | |
| perhaps he will say to us as he did then to Jesus. | 32:07 | |
| "Well, I find no fault in him." | 32:11 | |
| Is that really what Jesus had in mind | 32:18 | |
| or the author of our text? | 32:20 | |
| I say no. | 32:22 | |
| And my guess is that the future of freedom | 32:26 | |
| itself depends on our deeper wisdom. | 32:29 | |
| I would suggest to you as alternative number one, | 32:37 | |
| that Jesus whatever he might have been doing was at least | 32:40 | |
| implying a simple matter of fact. | 32:44 | |
| When he said, "My kingdom is not of this world." | 32:50 | |
| There have been times, I suppose, | 32:57 | |
| when people have been tempted | 32:58 | |
| to think that this is the best of all possible worlds. | 33:00 | |
| And then with each generation | 33:06 | |
| and with a little better education, | 33:07 | |
| each go we progressed to a higher | 33:10 | |
| and more humane form of civilization. | 33:12 | |
| But few in our century would venture that Pollyannaism. | 33:18 | |
| Not after two World Wars, | 33:24 | |
| the Koreas, the Vietnams, the assassination, | 33:26 | |
| the politics of deceit. | 33:31 | |
| To say nothing of the shallowness of life | 33:34 | |
| that meets us in the machinations | 33:36 | |
| and the morals of modern man. | 33:38 | |
| We know full well you and I that the kingdom has not come, | 33:42 | |
| and that whatever there is to God in Christ | 33:49 | |
| it must be more than can be seen in this world | 33:53 | |
| or else it is of no earthly good. | 33:58 | |
| Believe the Watergate by if further proof is needed | 34:06 | |
| that Christ's kingdom is not of this world, | 34:09 | |
| look at ourselves, | 34:12 | |
| the kingdom has not come in you and me either. | 34:16 | |
| It hasn't. | 34:19 | |
| We condemn the widespread evils of lying and cheating | 34:22 | |
| abroad in our land without ever pausing | 34:27 | |
| to consider our own complicity in these things. | 34:31 | |
| No generation has ever been fruiter than our generation | 34:36 | |
| in tracing the social lives. | 34:40 | |
| But perhaps no generation has been more reluctant | 34:44 | |
| than ours either to cry as we did in our prayer | 34:47 | |
| of confession, God be merciful to me. | 34:50 | |
| The sinner. | 34:56 | |
| Psychologist remind us that denunciation | 34:59 | |
| is often a transfer. | 35:02 | |
| That is to say we tried to shift the blame | 35:06 | |
| onto our neighbors in order to avoid | 35:09 | |
| the pain of confession in ourselves. | 35:11 | |
| Communism has often then made a scapegoat in this land. | 35:16 | |
| And it is, I suppose, a case in point. | 35:20 | |
| That communism is completely of this world. | 35:26 | |
| And that communism is without any ultimate light | 35:32 | |
| to shed on our human condition. | 35:35 | |
| That for me at least is clear. | 35:37 | |
| But we shall never really cope with its challenge | 35:43 | |
| until we ask after the whens and the why. | 35:46 | |
| The First World War gave it a start, | 35:52 | |
| and the Second World War helped it to spread | 35:55 | |
| because communism thrives more on human misery | 36:00 | |
| than it does on some economics philosophy. | 36:03 | |
| And so the partial answer to the whens and the why, | 36:08 | |
| is that comfortable people such as you and I | 36:11 | |
| have not greatly cared that millions of other people | 36:16 | |
| live in misery in our world | 36:19 | |
| or at least we do not seem to use the power | 36:24 | |
| we have to turn our nation's face | 36:27 | |
| and its pocketbook to the alleviation of that misery. | 36:30 | |
| Thus you see the issue is back on our doorstep again. | 36:35 | |
| And we trust that God's kingdom | 36:40 | |
| is something more than we see in this world. | 36:42 | |
| And that is the reason we pray, | 36:45 | |
| thy kingdom come. | 36:47 | |
| Only we must surely know that such a prayer | 36:52 | |
| is asking God to conduct a major surgical operation | 36:55 | |
| on the vital organs of our lives. | 36:59 | |
| And anyway, at least by implication | 37:04 | |
| the answer Jesus gave told the truth, didn't it? | 37:07 | |
| My kingdom is not of this world | 37:12 | |
| and because of that we hope and we pray, | 37:15 | |
| let it be, let it be. | 37:20 | |
| And yet on the other side of that story, | 37:28 | |
| there is the presence of Jesus himself, | 37:29 | |
| a word says John in the flesh. | 37:33 | |
| As if to say in some strange way, | 37:38 | |
| the kingdom not of this world is yet in this world. | 37:41 | |
| If we had not known something | 37:51 | |
| of its nature present in our midst | 37:53 | |
| could we ever have progressed | 37:55 | |
| so far as to pray, thy kingdom come? | 37:56 | |
| Jesus called it a kingdom of truth, truth. | 38:03 | |
| And that in itself might be our clue to finding the kingdom, | 38:10 | |
| not of this world resident and active here where we live. | 38:14 | |
| "I was born for this," said he, | 38:18 | |
| "to bear witness to the truth, | 38:23 | |
| "and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice." | 38:27 | |
| The New Yorker magazine which is to my mind | 38:37 | |
| one of the finest theological journals in the land, | 38:41 | |
| commented not very long ago on the Watergate affair | 38:47 | |
| in terms of the force of sheer truth. | 38:51 | |
| And perhaps this is the blessing | 38:56 | |
| which must be wrong in Jacob like fashion | 38:58 | |
| from the Watergate before we let it go. | 39:02 | |
| The power of sheer truth in the world. | 39:05 | |
| What finally broke the case said the New Yorker, | 39:12 | |
| was the force of sheer truth | 39:18 | |
| in a system that is as helpless to deny the truth | 39:22 | |
| as it is to deny public opinion | 39:28 | |
| when public opinion has been around. | 39:32 | |
| In the last few months, it read, | 39:36 | |
| we have seen the power of truth | 39:39 | |
| acting almost in spite of our public mood, | 39:43 | |
| turn our political life upside down. | 39:50 | |
| And in fact the public, it said, | 39:57 | |
| was dragged from willful ignorance, | 39:59 | |
| by the truth, | 40:03 | |
| In Hannah Arendt's words, | 40:06 | |
| "Truth has a despotic character." | 40:08 | |
| Men who could wipe countries off the face of the earth | 40:14 | |
| or blow us all to extinction, were powerless. | 40:20 | |
| If Martha Mitchell reached for the phone, | 40:27 | |
| one word of truth, the article, ends | 40:33 | |
| outweighs the whole world. | 40:39 | |
| The kingdom of not of this world, He said, | 40:44 | |
| breaking in to the kingdoms we have contrived, | 40:50 | |
| unable to be stopped even by the public mood, | 40:56 | |
| waving the banner of God | 41:02 | |
| if you will over the parapets of our lives, | 41:05 | |
| to save freedom from chaos. | 41:11 | |
| "I was born for this," said Jesus, | 41:17 | |
| "To bear witness to the truth, | 41:24 | |
| "and all who are on the side of truth, | 41:29 | |
| "listen to my voice." | 41:34 | |
| To which Pilates sneered a sneer | 41:41 | |
| that always comes from people of power in this world | 41:45 | |
| when the kingdom not of this world stakes out its claim. | 41:52 | |
| Truth? | 41:56 | |
| What is that? | 41:59 | |
| Now John's gospel makes a great deal of truth | 42:03 | |
| and of light, as the meaning of Jesus Christ for us today. | 42:08 | |
| And by proof, John does not mean a theory or a theorem | 42:16 | |
| rather he means an event, | 42:22 | |
| something that happens | 42:27 | |
| that gives meaning to all other events, | 42:31 | |
| to everything else that happens. | 42:34 | |
| By shining a light on them, | 42:37 | |
| that enables us to see them, as they really are. | 42:41 | |
| "Jesus", says John, "is that event | 42:47 | |
| "that illumines all other events. | 42:52 | |
| "By showing us who we are in the light of | 42:57 | |
| "who it is we are meant to be." | 43:01 | |
| "I was born for that," said Jesus, | 43:05 | |
| "to bear witness to the truth. | 43:11 | |
| And with His birth, | 43:16 | |
| in relation to which both believer and unbeliever | 43:19 | |
| alike now date their male. | 43:23 | |
| We are given to see the kingdom not of this earth | 43:29 | |
| breaking in upon our lives, | 43:34 | |
| in judgment and in hope. | 43:38 | |
| Once in a public park in Jacksonville, Florida, | 43:45 | |
| a spectator to a chess game | 43:49 | |
| was overheard to say of a certain move | 43:53 | |
| on the chess board, "That's it, that's it." | 43:56 | |
| And he meant of course | 44:02 | |
| that though the other contestant | 44:03 | |
| might score him for a while, even for a long while. | 44:04 | |
| That one move had determined the outcome of the whole game. | 44:10 | |
| The opponent might not know the victorious | 44:17 | |
| input of that move. | 44:20 | |
| And the other spectators might not know it either, | 44:23 | |
| but that one spectator knew, | 44:28 | |
| and now he watched the whole chess game | 44:31 | |
| before him in a different light | 44:34 | |
| because he knew how it was going to end. | 44:37 | |
| That's it. | 44:40 | |
| Now the Bible plays the role of that perceptive man. | 44:45 | |
| By faith, and faith in the Bible | 44:51 | |
| is the respond to the person, | 44:56 | |
| to the beckoning, not the bludgeoning, | 44:59 | |
| but the beckoning of the mystery, | 45:01 | |
| the response to the person to the grasp | 45:05 | |
| for the kingdom not of this world. | 45:07 | |
| The Bible looks at the total Christ event and says, | 45:12 | |
| "Behold the man." | 45:16 | |
| That's it. | 45:19 | |
| God has made his move in human story. | 45:22 | |
| And that moves give meaning to all other moves | 45:28 | |
| that will be made. | 45:32 | |
| Shines light on all other events that will be done | 45:36 | |
| and now at last we see things as they really are. | 45:40 | |
| "I was born for this," said Jesus, | 45:45 | |
| "to bear witness to the truth | 45:53 | |
| "and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice." | 45:57 | |
| Notice not the other way around as conservative Christian | 46:06 | |
| orthodoxy would have it. | 46:09 | |
| That those who listen to his voice are on the side of truth. | 46:12 | |
| That is to say those who go to the right church | 46:17 | |
| or say the right creed, not what John said. | 46:19 | |
| "All who do the truth," say that He, | 46:25 | |
| "of whatever creed or of whatever kingdom | 46:28 | |
| "march to the drumbeat of the kingdom not of this world. | 46:31 | |
| "And all who are on the side of truth | 46:39 | |
| "are in the process of listening," | 46:43 | |
| says grief to my voice. | 46:47 | |
| A deep calls unto deep in this text | 46:55 | |
| and we haven't even exhausted it. | 46:57 | |
| We've only waved at it. | 46:59 | |
| Now what a bit for us, | 47:03 | |
| we, you and I who must know live with partial justice | 47:04 | |
| and partial goodness and partial truth | 47:08 | |
| even in the time being. | 47:12 | |
| W. H. Auden and the concluding part | 47:17 | |
| of his Christmas oratorial | 47:19 | |
| for the time being set it well enough for us all. | 47:21 | |
| Speaking of Jesus, He wrote, He is the way. | 47:27 | |
| Follow Him to land of unlikeness, | 47:32 | |
| you will see rare beasts send to have unique adventure. | 47:35 | |
| He is the truth. | 47:40 | |
| Seek Him in the kingdom of anxiety. | 47:43 | |
| You will come to a great city | 47:46 | |
| that has expected your return for years. | 47:48 | |
| He is the light. | 47:53 | |
| Love him in the world of the flesh and at your marriage. | 47:55 | |
| All it's occasion, shall dance for joy. | 48:03 | |
| In the name of the father, and of the son | 48:10 | |
| and of the Holy Spirit, amen. | 48:13 | |
| (organ music) | 48:26 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 48:53 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 48:58 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:05 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:11 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:21 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:26 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:31 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:35 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah, amen ♪ | 49:39 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:48 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 49:55 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 50:01 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 50:08 | |
| ♪ Aa, aa, amen ♪ | 50:11 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 50:17 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 50:23 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 50:30 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah, hosanna ♪ | 50:38 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 50:45 | |
| (organ music) | 51:13 | |
| (singing in foreign language) | 52:02 | |
| - | Heavenly father, giver of all good things, | 58:17 |
| who has taught us that it is more blessed | 58:21 | |
| to give than to receive. | 58:24 | |
| We dedicate these our offerings to the service | 58:27 | |
| of the church. | 58:30 | |
| Humbly beseeching thee that all our gifts and energies | 58:32 | |
| may be consecrated to the extension | 58:36 | |
| of thy kingdom on earth, | 58:38 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 58:41 | |
| (organ music) | 58:51 | |
| (bell rings) | 1:02:30 | |
| (instrumental music) | 1:02:49 | |
| (indistinct chatter) | 1:04:10 | |
| - | Thank you everyone. | 1:04:15 |
| You're welcome. | 1:04:18 | |
| (indistinct chatter) | 1:04:19 |