James C. Little - "Academy and Passion" (May 26, 1974) / Duke Chapel Recordings / Duke Digital Repository

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Okay.

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(choral music)

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(instrumental music)

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Almighty God who are worthy to be praised

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and to be held in a reverence

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by all those who stand before thee.

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Pour out upon us,

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we pray thee thy redeeming and sanctifying spirit

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that we being cleansed from sin

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may worship thee with true joy.

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Grant that all our praises be gone and ended in thee,

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may make thy name glorious through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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Amen.

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♪ Praise to the Lord, the Almighty ♪

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♪ The King of creation ♪

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♪ O my soul, praise Him ♪

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♪ For He is thy health and salvation ♪

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♪ All ye who hear ♪

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♪ Now to His temple draw near ♪

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♪ Praise Him in glad adoration ♪

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(instrumental music)

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(choral music)

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It's right that we enter the house of the Lord

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in the spirit of humility and confession,

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will you join me now in our prayer of confession.

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Oh Lord, look mercifully upon us

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who are encompassed about with many temptations,

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humbly we confess our thoughtless lives,

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our worldly vanities,

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our words and deeds unworthy of your children.

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We have not lived so as to glorify you on the earth

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and to finish the work you gave us to do.

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Comfort us in the arms of your mercy,

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pardon and absolve us of all our offenses,

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cleanse us from our secret falls

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and from the bonds of those sins,

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in which by our frailty we are taken,

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be pleased, oh Lord, to deliver us

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through Jesus Christ, your son, our savior.

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Amen.

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The words of assurance are these.

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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

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who in his mercy gave us new birth

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into a living hope

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by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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The inheritance to which we are born

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is one that nothing can destroy or spoil, or wither,

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it is kept for you in heaven.

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And you, because you put your faith in God

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are under the protection of his power until salvation comes,

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the salvation which is even now in readiness

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and will be revealed at the end of the time.

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Can we pray together the prayer of our Lord.

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Let us pray.

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Our Father who art in heaven,

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hallowed be thy name,

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thy kingdom come,

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thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day, our daily bread

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and forgive us our trespasses

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as we forgive those who trespass against us

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and lead us not into temptation,

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but deliver us from evil

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for thine is the kingdom

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and the power

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and the glory

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forever and ever.

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Amen.

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(instrumental music)

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♪ Oh, sing unto the Lord ♪

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♪ Sing unto the Lord ♪

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♪ Sing unto the Lord a new song ♪

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♪ Sing, sing unto the Lord a new song ♪

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(choral music)

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♪ Sing to the Lord ♪

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♪ Sing to the Lord ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah ♪

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Scripture lesson this morning

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is taken from the First Letter of Peter,

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I'm reading from the New English Translation.

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To sum up, "Be one in thought and feeling all of you,

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be full of brotherly affection, kindly and humble-minded.

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Do not repay wrong with wrong or abuse with abuse,

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on the contrary retaliate with blessing

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for a blessing is the inheritance

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to which yourselves have been called.

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Whoever loves life and would see good days

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must restrain his tongue from evil

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and his lips from deceit.

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Must turn from wrong and do good,

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seek peace and pursue it.

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For the Lord's eyes are turned towards the righteous.

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His ears are open to their prayers,

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but the Lord's face is set against wrongdoers.

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Who is going to do you wrong

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if you are devoted to what is good,

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and yet, if you should suffer for your virtues,

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you may count yourselves happy.

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Have no fear of them, do not be perturbed,

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but hold the Lord Christ in reverence in your hearts.

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Be always ready with your defense

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whenever you are called to account

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for the hope that is in you,

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but make that defense with modesty and respect.

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Keep your conscience clear

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so that when you are abused,

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those who malign your Christian conduct may be put to shame.

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It is better to suffer for well-doing

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if such should be the will of God, than for doing wrong.

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For Christ also died for our sins once and for all.

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He the just suffered for the unjust to bring us to God.

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In the body he was put to death,

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in the spirit he was brought to life

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and in the spirit,

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he went and made his proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.

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They had refused obedience long ago

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while God waited patiently in the days of Noah

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in the building of the Ark

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and in the Ark, a few persons and Noah

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were brought to safety through the water.

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This water prefigured the water of baptism

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through which you are now brought to safety.

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Baptism is not the washing away of bodily pollution,

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but the appeal made to God by a good conscience.

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And it brings salvation

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through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

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who entered heaven after receiving

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the submission of angelic authorities and powers,

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and is now at the right hand of God."

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May God's Spirit interpret to our hearts this day,

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this portion of holy scripture.

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(instrumental music)

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Let us affirm our faith.

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We believe in God who has created and is creating,

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who has come in the true man, Jesus

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to reconcile and make new

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who works in us and others by his Spirit.

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We trust him.

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He calls us to be in his church

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to celebrate his presence,

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to love and serve others,

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to seek justice and resist evil,

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to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,

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our judge and our hope,

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in life and death,

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in life beyond death,

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God is with us.

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We are not alone.

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Thanks be to God.

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The Lord be with you.

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Let us pray.

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Eternal God, our Father,

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by whose hand we receive the gift of life,

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by whose love we are excused for distorting that gift,

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and by whose patient care,

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we are directed into the ways of abundant living,

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we offer our praise and our gratitude.

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Refreshed by sleep and the coolness of the night,

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we praise in thanksgiving

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for expectation of hope springing fresh from the morning.

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Oh, God, we approach our time of worship

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in a spirit of humility and confession

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for our sin is exposed in the light of your presence.

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Our tiny faith makes us children of fear and anxiety

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having placed our hope in the things of this world.

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Our impatience with friends

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has diminished your love in the world.

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Our overwhelming concern for self

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has robbed our children and our parents

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of the care and nurture that is rightfully theirs.

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And our abundant material lives doll our senses

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to the cries of desperation from those dying,

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wanting to die or begging for life all around us.

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Our Father, hear our prayers.

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We lift up each individual life here this morning,

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and each one listening.

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The particular hurts, frustrations, fears and hopes

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are different for each of us,

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but in a larger sense,

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we are one in our need of recognition,

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our need to be loved and to love.

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We long for renewed assurance that our lives are worthwhile.

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We want to be happy and we wish happiness for those we love.

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Comfort those who in this hour

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are living with panic.

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Those for whom physical or mental anguish

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is a constant companion.

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Minister through us and through your Spirit

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to those confronted by the inevitability

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of major decisions in this hour.

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We ask release for those struggling

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for freedom of heart and mind.

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Young people torn apart by the two or more lives

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they are forced to live,

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adults who fear that real life has passed them by

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and think maybe it's too late.

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Our Father, our needs are many,

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but we have been promised the hope of abundant living

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and an inheritance rightfully ours

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and we have believed.

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Come be with us.

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Oh God, we pray for nations, factions,

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brothers and sisters tearing at each other's lives.

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Heal the cancer of hatred and let understanding flow down.

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Show us the way to peace.

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We pray for the millions,

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particularly on the African continent,

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grasping at a barren land for morsels of survival.

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We pray for our nation

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and for our leaders in this time of moral crisis,

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raise up men and women

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for whom truth and integrity are words of life.

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And our Father be with him who this morning

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brings to us thy word through his preaching.

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Hear us oh God, in all our prayers and needs,

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renew a right spirit within us

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and set us free.

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In the name of the Lord of life, Jesus Christ,

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amen.

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As some of you present in this congregation

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and listening on radio know,

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this is an especially difficult sermon for me to preach,

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but what you do not perhaps know

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is it is difficult at two levels.

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The first and best known level of difficulty

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is that my wife and I have decided

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to return to our native Scotland after nine years at Duke.

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There is then the emotional difficulty

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of saying hail

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and farewell.

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There is also at this first and best known level,

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the practical difficulty of writing a sermon

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in the midst of almost total upheaval.

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Our life is probably as close as one can get

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to the feeling that the world ends in a week.

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Our immediate world ends next Friday

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when we have to vacate university offices and apartment.

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The consequence is that occasional experience in life

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of mass clearance of business matters and personal property.

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If you were looking for a steam iron in good condition,

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sorry you missed it,

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the yard sale was yesterday.

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But there is another level of difficulty

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in preaching the sermon.

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And this difficulty is best approached

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by quoting the words of Harry Williams,

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the British theologian and preacher

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in his series of sermons, "The True Wilderness",

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"I resolved that I would not preach

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about any aspect of Christian belief

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unless it had become part of my own life blood

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for I realized that the Christian truth I try to proclaim,

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would speak to those who listened

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only to the degree

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in which it was an expression of my own identity."

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I am resolved sort to preach today.

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It is always difficult to speak about your own life blood,

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just hard to find the right words.

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It is potentially embarrassing to those who overhear,

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it is potentially arrogant if it is implied,

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as I do imply that it is somehow the word of God,

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it has implications for my own life in the future

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and for your life as you decide how to respond.

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Up until about a year and a half ago,

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I was pursuing a fairly average academic type of life.

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It is true that the opportunity

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to come to study here at Duke

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was also an escape from becoming a parish minister

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in the Church of Scotland,

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an escape which had something to do

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with intellectual doubts

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about the nature of the New Testament

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and the doctrines and life of the 20th century church.

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An escape however, which as I now see it

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also had much to do with the danger I felt

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if I took the gospel of Jesus seriously,

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for the one who said to me

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in the pages of the New Testament,

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"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

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for I am gentle and lowly in heart,

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and you will find rest for your souls

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for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

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Was also the one who said,

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"If any man would come after me,

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let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,

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for whoever would save his life will lose it

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and whoever loses his life for my sake

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and the gospel's will save it."

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At least one way of dealing with that danger

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is to indulge in purely academic study.

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And we have in our graduate programs of religion,

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a means by which the string summons of Jesus

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can be effectively underneath the times.

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Now it is true that my own academic product,

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a dissertation on the way,

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the writer of Mark's Gospel edited his sources

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is no bad thing

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just as it is true that most academic productivity

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in this or any other university is no bad thing.

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It becomes a bad thing however,

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when the issue of its relevance is not raised.

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And by relevance, I mean, precisely,

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as Webster defines the word, relation to the matter at hand,

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it is perhaps accident incidentally,

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that Webster has added as a good example

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of the proper use of the word, this quotation,

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"A scholars activities should have relevance

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to the immediate future of our civilization."

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I underline the word immediate.

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About a year and a half ago,

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having completed that dissertation

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and faced with what I sensed to be a strange irrelevance

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about further refining the nature of Christianity

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in the first century,

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I began to explore the relevance of what I had learned

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and what I seemed now easily to believe

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about Jesus and his gospel.

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That is the relation to my matter at hand

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and our matter at hand,

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the matter of where my body, mind, and skills

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should be given, should be

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given that our 20th century is alive and well

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with the same atrocities

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which pour from the hearts of men and women,

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even after Jesus has reputedly died

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to eradicate them for us.

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Jesus put it most precisely,

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"What comes out of a man is what defiles a man,

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for from within out of a heart of man come evil thoughts,

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fornication, theft, murder,

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adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit,

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licentiousness, envy, slander,

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pride, foolishness,

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all these evil things come from within

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and they defile a man."

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I took up again with new seriousness, the other injunction,

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which is reputed to Jesus,

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"Ask and you will receive,

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seek and you will find,

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knock and it will be opened to you."

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And it is perhaps not surprising

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that was received and what was found,

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and what was opened up

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was rather different from what I had expected

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and rather more precise than my academic treading

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had led me to think was possible.

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In the first place,

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I found it increasingly important

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that I be frank about my academic opinions

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and that I be precise about what is implied by them

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for me and for the community,

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which dares to call Jesus, Lord.

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The opinions first,

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although these are opinions,

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they have associated with them

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the high degree of probability,

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which is all one can ever hope for

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in matters of this type in this world.

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First, there is no doubt in my own mind

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that the four gospels as we now have them

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represent a creative exploration by the evangelists

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of the story about Jesus.

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They are not afraid I think,

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to change the story of Jesus which they receive

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in order to meet their own theological point.

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To cite two clear instances,

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the so-called fourth evangelist, John,

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is not afraid to say

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that Jesus died before the time

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that Jesus could eat the Passover,

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rather than agree with the other three evangelists

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that Jesus died after he had eaten the Passover.

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And John's reason seems quite clearly

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to meet the theological point,

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which he puts onto the lips of John the Baptist

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in his gospel's first chapter,

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"Behold the lamb of God

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who takes away the sins of the world."

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It is for him possible to place Jesus' death

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at the point when the lambs are being slain,

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rather than place it after the time

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when Jesus has eaten the Passover.

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In a similar way,

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Luke is prepared to report

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that as well as sending out his 12 disciples upon a mission,

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Jesus also sent out 70 missionaries.

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He was ready to read back into the story about Jesus,

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the experience of the mission to the Gentile nations

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of which there were reputedly 70.

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There is evidence much more than just these two examples

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of considerable creativity

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in the way they evangelists use their traditions.

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And there is every reason to assume

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that similar creativity went into the development

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of the stories about Jesus before they were incorporated

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in a literary form of the gospels.

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The second opinion has to do

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with the possibility of reconstructing the essential life

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and message of Jesus of Nazareth.

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His time was marked by various divisions in society.

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And one of the most pernicious was the religious division.

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It has been estimated by one New Testament scholar

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that about 80% of the population of Palestine

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was effectively excluded from what was regarded

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as proper relationship with the God of Israel.

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The Temple Cultus had developed a series of walls

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of separation so that the holy of holiest

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could be approached only by the high priest of Israel

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and then only once per year.

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Priests, laymen, women, and Gentiles

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in that order, were kept progressively farther away

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from that holy center of Israel's Cultus.

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(indistinct) party

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had developed a massive rules and regulations,

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which even if some of them are unclear to us,

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nevertheless seemed to have kept most of the population

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in the class of sinners, along with the tax collectors.

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The Essenes had retreated to the desert

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to await God's election of their purified

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and restrictive society.

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Historically, it is at least certain

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that Jesus embodied in his own actions

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the idea that God was not separated

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from the world of the marketplaces,

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the fishing villages, the tax collectors table.

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It is one of the most assured statements

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in the New Testament that Jesus was characterized

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as I quote, "Glutton and drunkard,

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a friend of tax collectors and sinners."

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Historically, it is at least certain

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that Jesus was crucified

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because he challenged by word and action,

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the religious traditions of his day,

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which separated God from man and man from man.

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His cleansing of the temple is at the very least

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a symbolic penetration by this glutton and drunkard

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into the most holy place.

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His eating with sinners and tax collectors

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is at the very least an act of demonstration

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of the brotherhood of all men under the fatherhood of God.

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The third opinion has to do with my essential agreement

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with something that Rudolf Bultmann said many years ago.

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And I purposely chose the reading from 1 Peter,

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because it contains many of the elements

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about which Bultmann speaks.

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In his essay, now contained in kerygma and myth,

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Bultmann uses this language,

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"This then the New Testament language

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is the mythical view of the world,

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which the New Testament presupposes

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when it presents the event of redemption,

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which is the subject of its preaching.

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It proclaims in the language of mythology

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that the last time has now come.

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In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son,

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a preexistent divine being who appears on earth as a man.

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He dies the death of a sinner on the cross

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and makes atonement for the sins of men.

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His resurrection marks the beginning

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of the cosmic catastrophe, death.

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The consequence of Adam's sin is abolished

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and the demonic forces are deprived of their power.

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The risen Christ is exalted

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to the right hand of God in heaven

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and made Lord and King.

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He will come again on the clouds of heaven

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to complete the work of redemption

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and the resurrection on the judgment of men will follow.

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Sin, suffering and death will then be finally abolished.

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All this is to happen very soon.

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Indeed, Saint Paul thinks that he himself

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will live to see it."

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These are all quotations drawn from Paul,

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but as I pointed out this morning in the reading,

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Peter or whoever wrote that work has the same viewpoint,

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the same mythological view of the universe.

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That is his view of the universe,

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which is different from ours.

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I also agree with Bultmann

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that it is both senseless and impossible

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for modern man to accept first century language

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as the only way of describing Jesus.

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It is after all only first century language.

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Like Bultmann and others,

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I have serious reservations

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about the bodily resurrection of Jesus,

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or at least talking about the resurrection of Jesus

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as necessarily including a resuscitation of his dead body.

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I would agree with Bultmann, that quote,

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"Faith in the resurrection,"

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is really the same thing

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as faith in the saving efficacy of the cross."

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Unquote.

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I would pop company with Bultmann,

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however, in leaving that as a purely academic statement.

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For me, that has the implication

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that the resurrected body of Christ

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is the community of those who have faith

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in the saving efficacy of the way of the cross of Jesus.

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These then are the academic opinions

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to which I have come after years of study

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and upon which I must stand

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if I have to be intellectually responsible.

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But what are the implications of these

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for me as an individual and for us as a community?

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First, they are personal.

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My wife and I have been moved by a number of demonstrations

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in the present century of the saving efficacy

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of the way of the cross.

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Particularly, we have found power

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in the demonstration by the berrigans and their associates.

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But as a society, we are more disturbed

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by the burning of pieces of paper called draft-cards

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and by the burning of human bodies called Vietnamese,

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as Daniel Berrigan has put it,

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"I have been to Hanoi and I have seen what our bombs do,

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what our anti personnel weaponry was doing to civilians,

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to children and to their parents.

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And we all know what that is

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because we have seen the photograph in Newsweek

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and Time of that child's body covered in Nepal.

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That is the real offense

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about which we should be confessing

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and which we should be seeking to change

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in our 20th century world."

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They are personal also these implications

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in the sense that my wife and I have been moved

40:29

by the plight of certain areas

40:32

of our native city of Glasgow,

40:35

where young men and women,

40:37

as young as 12 and 13 years of age

40:40

are pursuing ways of violence

40:44

in the form of vandalism of property

40:46

and threats to human life.

40:49

Where in recent reports in newspapers,

40:51

teachers and policemen and social workers

40:54

cannot be found to work in these areas.

40:56

We have decided to seek to live, always to seek to live

41:00

and work in such an area in the belief that quote,

41:05

"The resurrection is really the same thing as faith

41:09

and the saving efficacy of the cross."

41:13

We believe that the nuclear family

41:16

can no longer afford to protect itself

41:20

against the violent trends of our society

41:22

by retreating to suburbia to save its life.

41:25

Our safe lives are being and will be invaded,

41:29

no amount of material goods, no amount of academic debate,

41:33

no amount of academic refinement, no amount of barbed wire,

41:37

no amount of defense spending

41:41

will keep the violence of our own hearts

41:44

and of our fellow human beings at bay.

41:46

Currently, the servant community can seek and save the lost

41:50

in the way of Jesus,

41:55

beginning, always beginning with ourselves.

41:57

The third implication is clearly farthest community

42:02

for it raises the issue of whether this community

42:07

is the body of Christ in the sense of the serving

42:11

and self-denying community.

42:15

There are clearly problems in this very setting,

42:18

the crucified Jesus who sits to be resurrected in us

42:22

has been neatly hidden behind the Gothic architecture,

42:26

the fine liturgy, the dispersed lives of us as worshipers,

42:30

but by the very act of entering this house,

42:35

by the very act of drawing near to the gospel of Jesus,

42:38

we are potentially the body of Christ in and far the world.

42:43

The hope of that potential

42:48

must be sought with high intention

42:52

otherwise the word of God for this community

42:55

will not be heard

42:58

and the cross will not have its saving power in our midst.

43:01

I want to end with the words of a black sister

43:08

who found it hard to relate

43:13

in this mainly all white community of teachers and students

43:15

in a class which I conducted this past semester.

43:20

Finally, after she had written a paper for me,

43:24

which was clearly irrelevant to her,

43:27

I got from her something

43:32

which dotted down to the nitty gritty

43:34

and discovered that her distance in class from us

43:37

and from the subject

43:40

was rooted in 300 years of her people's history.

43:42

And I read these words on her behalf.

43:47

As the crime of black sister,

43:50

to her white brothers and sisters

43:53

in a place where she would find it hard to speak

43:56

in the hope, the Christian hope

44:00

that her words and their implications may be reversed

44:03

by the thought and the action of this community

44:08

as a potential body of Christ

44:11

in and for its immediate world and the immediate future.

44:14

The reading will take about five minutes

44:20

and it's worth hearing it

44:24

because she speaks from the heart.

44:25

And that is what we must first hear from each of us.

44:27

"The first thing to be considered

44:32

is a history of which covers over three centuries,

44:33

and which still progresses along the same pattern.

44:37

That history is one of white supremacy

44:41

and black subordination.

44:43

It is a history which cannot be forgotten by me,

44:46

a black woman, because it is still present.

44:49

Although many changes have taken place

44:52

to ameliorate conditions,

44:54

many more changes are still too slow in coming.

44:57

This is evidenced by poor education given to blacks,

45:01

the high rates of unemployment

45:04

and inadequate welfare assistance

45:06

and many more humiliations.

45:09

There're humiliations so great

45:12

that it still means that to be born black in America

45:13

is to be born less than human.

45:17

To be born black and impoverished

45:20

is done near worse than never having been born at all.

45:22

I say this because the way up from rock bottom

45:27

is like trying to climb up a broken ladder.

45:29

Mine is the experience of a poor black woman,

45:33

which should explain my tone of bitterness.

45:36

The black woman is the lowest of the low,

45:39

abused by all and respected by none.

45:41

With that bit of background information,

45:45

I should know like to explain my position

45:48

as a student at Duke University,

45:50

not only you Dr. Little but other professors as well

45:52

have complained of my distant attitude

45:55

and lack of concern with our classes.

45:58

My position at Duke is that of a black

46:01

in a white institution,

46:03

just as my position in America

46:05

is that of a black in a white system.

46:06

I did not ask to be here and would prefer to be elsewhere,

46:09

namely, the place of my ancestral origins.

46:13

But I do not even know where that is.

46:17

And I blame you white America for that.

46:20

However, the fact is that I am here now,

46:24

and that is what must be dealt with.

46:27

My way of dealing with the situation

46:30

is to do only what it takes to get over on whitey,

46:32

but to push with heart and soul

46:35

for solidarity with my black brothers and sisters,

46:37

it is almost like a game

46:41

that you have to play according to whitey's rules

46:43

up to a certain point,

46:46

beyond that point,

46:48

if the game has been learned well,

46:49

whitey cannot touch you.

46:51

As a student at Duke,

46:53

I am still playing by whitey's rules,

46:55

but not completely,

46:57

to do so completely would be prostitution

46:58

and I think too highly of myself to do that.

47:01

I long for a unity with my people

47:05

who would share my pride and self-esteem,

47:07

we already share a common experience and a common course.

47:10

And that course as I see it

47:15

is to establish my own identity

47:16

rather than have one imposed on me

47:18

and to be able to assert that identity

47:21

in the face of all stereotyping, labeling and classifying.

47:23

My distant attitude

47:28

is a means of combating forced identities.

47:30

My attraction to my black brothers and sisters

47:34

is a means of establishing an identity.

47:36

It is only with my own people

47:40

that I feel I exist and that I belong somewhere.

47:41

I depend on them and they on me for existence.

47:45

The white world must be shut out

47:49

as a hindrance to that goal.

47:51

You might then ask what is their progress?

47:54

The answer is nowhere,

47:57

at least not right now for the overall situation,

47:59

if you want to help I say,

48:03

do what you think best,

48:04

but do not interfere with me in what I am doing.

48:06

It is not that your help is not appreciated,

48:09

but experience has taught me to be wary of palefaces.

48:12

And I can honestly say

48:16

that I have never met a white face I could trust.

48:17

I know that sounds harsh, but it is true.

48:21

I hope therefore that you understand

48:24

how it is impossible for me to work alongside someone

48:26

who might cannot, not will not trust

48:29

on a matter that concerns my destiny.

48:33

It is of paramount importance that you understand that.

48:36

Lack of trust is the bridge which separates you and me.

48:39

It is a long bridge covering hundreds of years,

48:43

which you must cross because I have no desire to meet you.

48:47

You must first prove to me beyond the shadow of doubt

48:51

that I can trust you

48:55

before I can have anything concrete to do with you.

48:57

That in essence explains my distance.

49:00

Given that viewpoint,

49:04

things may seem hopeless and perhaps they are,

49:06

but I still believe in Martin Luther King's dream,

49:09

it was not realized in his lifetime

49:13

nor it will be realized in mine,

49:15

but one day I must believe that it will be.

49:18

Perhaps it takes time to heal the wounds,

49:21

or more men like Dr. King with visions to guide the world.

49:24

Well I am still bleeding from my wounds

49:29

and I have no clear visions of my own.

49:31

So for me, the situation remains stagnant.

49:34

I await my vision, however, and it will come.

49:38

I know within myself that it will.

49:41

I just hope that it is bright enough and clear enough

49:43

to set my world and yours in order.

49:47

Until the occurrence of my vision,

49:50

I will permit myself to nothing,

49:52

my vision coming from whatever exists over and beyond myself

49:54

would demand my total life's commitment

49:59

to the death if necessary.

50:01

But that death could only be the last fulfillment

50:04

to an already fulfilled life.

50:08

That vision of which I speak

50:11

must also be my religion for there's none other

50:13

for which I can embrace.

50:16

There are certain aspects to almost all religions,

50:18

which I can accept, but no one group I can accept totally.

50:20

Christianity for example, is inadequate

50:25

because it has suffered too much abuse,

50:28

it to lies on the bridge which you must cross.

50:31

Whereas I can accept the idea of a Jesus Christ figure,

50:35

I cannot accept your idea of him,

50:39

which is all I have ever known and had to go on.

50:42

Your God is white and so is his Christ

50:45

and white is not to be trusted

50:49

nor can I accept the idea of Allah in the nation of Islam,

50:51

because he is a reverse Jehovah.

50:56

My ultimate cannot be partial to color of country,

50:59

but seeks to incorporate all

51:03

into one solid being of humanity.

51:06

It is because I believe that I can believe

51:09

in ultimate racial justice.

51:12

There is nothing else I find to see.

51:15

And I am sure that not very much has been changed

51:18

by what I have already said,

51:21

but the fact that it is head and heard

51:24

must amount to something.

51:28

I offer no apologies nor ask for any,

51:30

for the giving and of accepting of them

51:34

still changes nothing."

51:38

I too make no apology for reading these words,

51:41

because they are authentic words

51:44

from one of our black sisters who finds it hard to speak.

51:46

It took a whole semester for us

51:51

to get together enough

51:54

for her to feel that she could even say that to me.

51:55

And I don't know whether she trusts me yet,

51:59

for good reason, perhaps she does not because I am whitey.

52:01

But what I have said here today

52:06

is an attempt to pierce in my own mind

52:09

and in my own heart, the meaning of the title,

52:13

which I was asked to give for the sermon,

52:17

"Academe and Passion."

52:19

Academia means that circle of scholars

52:21

who seek out wisdom and knowledge

52:24

in the isolation of a place like this.

52:27

Passion has the two meanings.

52:31

The one of the willingness to absorb into the intellect,

52:33

the place of the heart

52:37

and the potential for suffering

52:39

in the name of the Christ who suffered for us.

52:41

Hail

52:45

and farewell.

52:47

Amen.

52:49

Let us pray.

52:53

Almighty God, who speaks through the broken words of men

53:00

who has broken through

53:05

the broken words of men of the first century,

53:07

and still speaks to us in those broken words

53:11

as in the broken words of our own time,

53:14

help us to see you once more as the God of history

53:18

who speaks a word to the present situation

53:23

and asks us individually and then as community

53:27

to become your body in the world,

53:32

the body which seeks to love,

53:36

seeks to hope,

53:38

seeks to have joy,

53:40

seeks to be prepared

53:42

to spread the body of Christ in the world.

53:44

Forgive us that we have failed you,

53:48

that we have sensed that your task is far too great.

53:50

And help us to learn that as we take up your cross,

53:55

so we find, your yoke is easy and your burden is light.

54:00

And this we ask in the name of Christ, our Lord.

54:06

Amen.

54:11

(instrumental music)

54:33

(choral music)

55:00

-

Our Father in our unworthiness

1:04:07

we have been given the gift of grace.

1:04:09

Our insignificance has been transformed

1:04:12

into eternal relationship.

1:04:14

Humble in the midst of this divine mystery,

1:04:18

we approach the alter with our lives

1:04:20

and with these symbols of our material abundance.

1:04:22

Receive us and our gifts into your abiding care.

1:04:26

Amen.

1:04:30

(instrumental music)

1:04:36

(choral music)

1:05:29

And now may the Lord bless us and keep us.

1:09:13

The Lord make his face to shine upon us

1:09:15

and be gracious unto us.

1:09:17

The Lord lift up his countenance upon us

1:09:20

and give us peace.

1:09:23

(choral music)

1:09:28

(instrumental music)

1:10:46

James C. Little - "Academy and Passion" (May 26, 1974)

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1. James C. Little - "Academe and Passion" (May 26, 1974)

Duke University Archives

James C. Little - "Academy and Passion" (May 26, 1974)

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Duke University Archives