William A. Holmes - "The Beggar's Mission" (October 29, 1975)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| (orchestral music) | 0:48 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 6:02 |
| Almighty God from whom every good prayer cometh | 6:08 | |
| and do pourest out on all who desire it, | 6:11 | |
| the spirit of grace and supplication, | 6:14 | |
| deliver us when we draw nigh to thee, | 6:18 | |
| from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind | 6:21 | |
| that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections, | 6:25 | |
| we may worship thee in spirit and in truth | 6:29 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 6:33 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 6:50 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 6:53 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 6:56 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 6:59 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:03 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:06 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:09 | |
| (choir singing) | 7:16 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:30 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:32 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:34 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:37 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:41 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:44 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:47 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:52 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:55 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 7:58 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 8:05 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 8:08 | |
| (orchestral music) | 8:20 | |
| (choir singing) | 8:22 | |
| Let us humbly confess our sins to almighty God | 12:17 | |
| our heavenly father. | 12:21 | |
| Praying that he will make us to know the faults | 12:23 | |
| we have not known | 12:26 | |
| and that he will show us the harmful consequences | 12:28 | |
| of those things in us, which we have not cared to control. | 12:32 | |
| Let us pray. | 12:39 | |
| Our heavenly father, who by that love hast made us | 12:41 | |
| and in thy love wouldst make us perfect. | 12:46 | |
| We humbly confess that we have not loved thee | 12:50 | |
| with all our heart and soul and mind and strength | 12:55 | |
| and that we have not loved one another | 13:00 | |
| as Christ hath loved us. Thy life is within our souls | 13:03 | |
| but our selfishness hath hindered thee. | 13:09 | |
| We have not lived by faith. | 13:13 | |
| We have resisted thy spirit. | 13:16 | |
| We have neglected thine inspirations. | 13:19 | |
| Forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are | 13:23 | |
| and in nice spirit direct what we shall be | 13:29 | |
| that thou mayest come into the full glory of thy creation | 13:33 | |
| in us and in all men through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 13:38 | |
| Amen. | 13:44 | |
| This is the message we have heard from him | 13:59 | |
| and proclaim to you, that God is light | 14:02 | |
| and in him is no darkness at all. | 14:07 | |
| If we walk in the light as he is in the light, | 14:12 | |
| we have fellowship with one another | 14:16 | |
| and the blood of Jesus, his son clean as us from all sin. | 14:19 | |
| Amen. | 14:27 | |
| - | Let us hear the reading of God's word | 14:41 |
| as we find it in the 30th through the 35th verses | 14:43 | |
| of the 32nd chapter of the book of Exodus. | 14:47 | |
| On the marrow, Moses said to the people, | 14:51 | |
| "You have sinned a great sin | 14:54 | |
| and now I will go up to the Lord. | 14:57 | |
| Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." | 15:00 | |
| So Moses returned to the Lord and said, | 15:03 | |
| "Alas, these people have sinned a great sin. | 15:06 | |
| They have made for themselves gods of gold | 15:10 | |
| but now if thou will forgive their sin, and if not blot me | 15:14 | |
| I pray thee out of thy book, which thou hast written. | 15:19 | |
| But the Lord said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me, | 15:23 | |
| him will I blot out of my book, but now go, lead the people | 15:28 | |
| to the place of which I have spoken to you. | 15:33 | |
| Behold my angel shall go before you, nevertheless | 15:36 | |
| in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." | 15:41 | |
| And the Lord sent a plague upon the people | 15:45 | |
| because they made the calf, which Aaron made. | 15:48 | |
| Amen and here ends the reading of our lesson for this day. | 15:53 | |
| May God's blessing be added upon us | 15:57 | |
| as we have heard the reading of his word. | 15:59 | |
| (orchestral music) | 16:04 | |
| (choir singing) | 16:13 | |
| - | Let us unite in this historic confession | 16:47 |
| of the Christian faith. | 16:50 | |
| I believe in God, the father almighty, maker of heaven | 16:52 | |
| and Earth and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord | 16:56 | |
| who was conceived by the holy spirit, | 17:01 | |
| born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, | 17:04 | |
| was crucified, dead and buried. | 17:08 | |
| The third day he rose from the dead. | 17:11 | |
| He ascended into heaven and sitteth | 17:14 | |
| at the right hand of God, The father almighty. | 17:17 | |
| From then he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. | 17:20 | |
| I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, | 17:24 | |
| the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins | 17:29 | |
| the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. | 17:33 | |
| Amen. | 17:37 | |
| We are always thrilled to hear the gospel | 17:49 | |
| proclaimed significantly and excitingly. | 17:56 | |
| We heard such proclamation yesterday. | 18:04 | |
| We anticipated with eagerness again today. | 18:10 | |
| We are deeply in debt to you, Dr. Holmes | 18:17 | |
| for being God's messenger among us. | 18:23 | |
| - | My friends, if you will grant me a moment | 18:37 |
| of personal privilege, I want to take this opportunity to | 18:39 | |
| express my very deep appreciation to you and to Bishop Hunt | 18:46 | |
| and Bishop Blackburn, | 18:50 | |
| to Dean Langford and professors, Richie and Ingram, | 18:52 | |
| the board of managers of this convocation | 18:56 | |
| for the many hospitalities and kindnesses | 19:00 | |
| that have been extended to Mrs. Holmes and me | 19:05 | |
| during these last several days. | 19:07 | |
| I am especially grateful to you as a congregation. | 19:12 | |
| For your attentiveness and participation | 19:16 | |
| during the hour we have already spent together | 19:22 | |
| and now this hour, in the act of Christian worship. | 19:25 | |
| It has been a very high privilege | 19:31 | |
| for me to be the preacher for this convocation. | 19:32 | |
| And as is often the case, I find myself returning home | 19:38 | |
| having received far more than I've contributed. | 19:43 | |
| Because Metropolitan Memorial in Washington DC | 19:48 | |
| has been designated as the National United Methodist Church. | 19:51 | |
| And because all United Methodists | 19:58 | |
| or honorary members of that church, I would hope | 20:01 | |
| that when any of you are in the nation's capital, | 20:04 | |
| you would plan to drop by and see us. | 20:08 | |
| Each of the pews in the church | 20:12 | |
| is designated for a different state in the Union | 20:14 | |
| and almost every Sunday morning, we have some visitors | 20:17 | |
| sitting in the North Carolina pew. | 20:20 | |
| I would hope some Sunday morning to look out | 20:25 | |
| and see some of you sitting in that pew in the days ahead. | 20:28 | |
| Most of all, let me simply say, | 20:34 | |
| I'm grateful for the privilege of having been with you | 20:36 | |
| for this occasion and Bishop Hunt | 20:40 | |
| for your very generous introduction. | 20:42 | |
| I just want to assume this morning | 20:50 | |
| that all of us can identify with that business tycoon | 20:53 | |
| lying on a leather couch, | 21:01 | |
| the look of furious frustration on his face | 21:03 | |
| as nearby sits a psychiatrist with a notepad on his knee | 21:08 | |
| listening to the man, cry out in elemental agony. | 21:13 | |
| My Protestant work ethic has made me a bundle | 21:18 | |
| but my Christian conscience won't allow me to enjoy it. | 21:22 | |
| And as affluent Christians in a world of scarcity, | 21:29 | |
| I want to assume this morning that all of us can identify | 21:35 | |
| with that tycoon, with his schizophrenia, | 21:39 | |
| the polarity and tension of a Protestant work ethic | 21:45 | |
| on the one hand which for as long as we can remember | 21:49 | |
| has been urging us to gain and to acquire more and more | 21:54 | |
| and more while on the other hand, | 22:01 | |
| a Christian conscience which continues to remind us | 22:02 | |
| that the time may come When we will be required | 22:06 | |
| to sell all we have and give the money to the poor. | 22:11 | |
| I'm sure you understand this morning | 22:18 | |
| that that schizophrenia, that polarity and tension | 22:20 | |
| is something that I experience in my own life as well. | 22:24 | |
| You know, I'm not here today in rags. | 22:30 | |
| I haven't missed too many meals. | 22:37 | |
| And I'm never more aware of that tension in my own life | 22:42 | |
| than when in days like these, | 22:46 | |
| I am reminded as I have been reminded so dramatically | 22:49 | |
| at this convocation. And that I profess to | 22:53 | |
| follow a carpenter who died indigent and intestate. | 22:58 | |
| That I profess to live by a book | 23:04 | |
| which is clearly on the side of the hungry and the poor. | 23:06 | |
| The dispossessed and disenfranchised. | 23:13 | |
| You know, the one thing worse | 23:21 | |
| that I can think of than being an affluent Christian | 23:23 | |
| having to live with this kind of tension | 23:29 | |
| is to be an affluent Christian Who has somehow resolved | 23:33 | |
| or rationalized away that tension. | 23:41 | |
| Slender thread that it is. | 23:47 | |
| It just may be that the tension is itself a sign | 23:51 | |
| that we are at least somewhat still in touch with the gospel | 23:55 | |
| and its demands. | 23:59 | |
| So I assume the tension, it is my predicate this morning. | 24:05 | |
| And the question then becomes, how do we respond? | 24:09 | |
| What is the locus of our motivation? | 24:16 | |
| As affluent Christians in the Western world, | 24:20 | |
| what is the locus of our motivation | 24:23 | |
| for mission in and to the world? | 24:26 | |
| Is it guilt? As parish colleagues, | 24:33 | |
| you know how easy it is for us to play on people's guilt, | 24:38 | |
| especially when we share that guilt ourselves | 24:43 | |
| and know how easy it would be for me this morning | 24:45 | |
| to attempt to play upon your guilt. | 24:48 | |
| And I suppose we could have ourselves a regular masochistic | 24:51 | |
| emotional blood bath of self indictment, | 24:57 | |
| and I could whip and lash and flail | 25:00 | |
| and maybe we'd feel a little better | 25:05 | |
| for that kind of a catharsis for a little while. | 25:08 | |
| And it's not that I'm above doing that today. | 25:16 | |
| It's simply that I have the feeling that guilt | 25:19 | |
| can be a very neurotic and sub Christian motivation | 25:24 | |
| for defining the Christian mission. | 25:28 | |
| So let us look a little further. | 25:35 | |
| What about gratitude? | 25:40 | |
| What if I were to try and play today upon your gratitude? | 25:43 | |
| That's an easier thing to do and far less threatening. | 25:49 | |
| And you know how attracted we are to the images of the | 25:51 | |
| the high helping the low, the strong helping the weak, | 25:55 | |
| the rich, helping the poor, the wise, helping the foolish. | 26:01 | |
| What appeal there is for us in images of the benefactor, | 26:07 | |
| the arms giver, the lady bountiful standing high | 26:12 | |
| above the suffering of humanity and looking down with | 26:17 | |
| sad but gentle eyes saying, "There, but for the grace of God | 26:21 | |
| go I, I will be benevolent, generous, and kind." | 26:27 | |
| The only problem with this motivation | 26:38 | |
| and perhaps you already got a whiff of it. | 26:41 | |
| It has the smell of condescension, paternalism | 26:46 | |
| or maternalism if you prefer. | 26:53 | |
| The Achilles heel of this motivation is that | 26:58 | |
| when we bend down and talk baby talk and offer our handouts | 27:01 | |
| to people less fortunate than ourselves, have you noticed | 27:06 | |
| in our day, how many of them are just ungrateful? | 27:10 | |
| And how many of them act as though they are deserving | 27:14 | |
| of the very things that we have offered to share with them. | 27:19 | |
| And more than that, how many there are, who simply say, | 27:23 | |
| "forget it. I don't want it." | 27:27 | |
| I have an altogether more radical expectation | 27:31 | |
| of what it means for you to identify with me. | 27:35 | |
| The smell of condescension. | 27:45 | |
| I dare not try and play this morning on your sense | 27:50 | |
| of gratitude and generosity anymore than I dare try | 27:54 | |
| and play upon your sense of guilt. | 28:01 | |
| Then what am I gonna play on? | 28:06 | |
| It just may be that we're now at that point in the sermon | 28:12 | |
| where I can't play on anything at all. | 28:16 | |
| I think the time has come for me | 28:21 | |
| to simply tell the story of our faith. | 28:23 | |
| Knowing that every time that story is told | 28:30 | |
| it is accompanied by the freedom for those who hear it | 28:33 | |
| to say yes or no. | 28:38 | |
| And even as I'm the preacher this morning, | 28:42 | |
| it's just occurred to me, I'm also the listener. | 28:44 | |
| And as I proclaimed this word, William Arthur Holmes today | 28:49 | |
| like every other person in this place | 28:52 | |
| must finally say yes or no. | 28:57 | |
| The story goes in the cosmology of the new Testament. | 29:02 | |
| God did not look down on a suffering sinful world. | 29:07 | |
| He came down and he identified | 29:14 | |
| with the humanity of his creation. | 29:18 | |
| All the way, no holes barred to the hilt. | 29:22 | |
| Jesus did not say there, but for the grace of God go I, | 29:33 | |
| He said, "There I go born of a woman." | 29:36 | |
| The word made flesh. Identified with a bone | 29:40 | |
| and blood and life juices of humanity itself. | 29:45 | |
| God did not bend down and talk baby talk to us, | 29:52 | |
| he came down and the talk he talked was human talk | 29:56 | |
| and it was plain And crystal clear. | 30:01 | |
| And as much as you have done it unto the least of these, | 30:06 | |
| my brethren, you've done it unto me. | 30:09 | |
| I'm all mixed up with them. | 30:12 | |
| They're all mixed up with me. | 30:14 | |
| Whenever you deal with God, you deal with human beings. | 30:16 | |
| And whenever you deal with human beings, you deal with God. | 30:18 | |
| And as of this morning, he still has not changed his mind. | 30:25 | |
| And my friends, when we are confronted by a love like this, | 30:32 | |
| we do not love in guilt, we do not love in condescension. | 30:37 | |
| To paraphrase the DT Niles, | 30:43 | |
| we love as beggars who have received a gift | 30:46 | |
| that we can't help but share with other beggars. | 30:54 | |
| In Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story", | 31:00 | |
| Maria, the Puerto Rican Juliet stands looking | 31:04 | |
| out the window of her tenement | 31:08 | |
| at her Irish Romeo as he goes dancing down the street | 31:12 | |
| in an ecstasy of love. | 31:17 | |
| While standing nearby her, her sister-in-law screams | 31:23 | |
| out a list of evils applicable to men in general | 31:29 | |
| and to Romeo in particular, until finally with tears | 31:34 | |
| in her eyes, Maria turns to her sister-in-law and cries, | 31:38 | |
| "Whatever he is, I am." Are those words, not reminiscent | 31:43 | |
| of our text this morning, where Moses says to God, | 31:52 | |
| now Lord, everything that you have said | 31:57 | |
| about your people, Israel is true. | 32:00 | |
| They are a stiff necked hard-headed, | 32:03 | |
| cantankerous bunch of people. | 32:05 | |
| But if you can see your way clear to forgive us | 32:10 | |
| and then there follows the granddaddy silence | 32:20 | |
| of all silences, as Moses waits and waits and waits. | 32:25 | |
| And then finally says, "But if not, Lord, | 32:32 | |
| then block me from your book too, for I am with them." | 32:39 | |
| And in the distance, one can almost see Jesus hanging | 32:50 | |
| from the cross and hear him cry, Father, forgive them | 32:54 | |
| for they know not what they, they do. | 32:59 | |
| Whatever they are, I am. | 33:05 | |
| When we're confronted by a love like this, | 33:11 | |
| we do not love in guilt. | 33:15 | |
| We do not love in condescension. | 33:18 | |
| We have met the man in need of love, and he is us. | 33:20 | |
| And we love his beggars who have received a gift | 33:29 | |
| that we can only share with other beggars. | 33:34 | |
| How radical and relevant this word? | 33:41 | |
| Well, What about the homosexual issue? | 33:44 | |
| I know it is complex. Beyond the issue of ordination, | 33:51 | |
| regardless of how we come out on that, beyond that issue | 34:02 | |
| will of the time ever come, when heterosexual Christians | 34:07 | |
| can say of homosexuals, Whatever you are, I am. | 34:13 | |
| Not in terms of sexual identity or preference necessarily, | 34:24 | |
| but at least in terms of fellow human beings. | 34:29 | |
| Will the time ever come | 34:37 | |
| when the white majority of this nation can say | 34:39 | |
| of black and brown and red, whatever you are, I am. | 34:42 | |
| When men With a masculinity so long propped up | 34:47 | |
| by putting women down can say of women, | 34:52 | |
| whatever you are, I am. | 34:57 | |
| Does this remove the schizophrenia | 35:04 | |
| and tension between a Protestant work ethic | 35:07 | |
| on the one hand and a Christian conscience on the other? No. | 35:11 | |
| I am convinced this morning that we are destined to live | 35:15 | |
| with that polarity and tension until the grave. | 35:18 | |
| But my friends let us never forget that the locus | 35:24 | |
| of our motivation for Christian mission, | 35:29 | |
| indeed The horizon of our humanity at its best, | 35:31 | |
| lies in the direction of our being able to say with Moses | 35:40 | |
| and Maria, And even our Lord, Whatever you are, I am. | 35:46 | |
| Let us pray. | 36:01 | |
| Almighty God, Father and mother of us all. | 36:10 | |
| As we soon prepare to leave this place | 36:21 | |
| and and go back into a world, standing on tiptoe | 36:24 | |
| to see if Christians mean what they say. | 36:28 | |
| We do not ask to be made super human | 36:38 | |
| but only deeply human. To love as we've been loved. | 36:43 | |
| And to go as beggars who have received a gift | 36:53 | |
| that we can share with other beggars, amen. | 36:58 | |
| (orchestral music) | 37:13 | |
| (choir singing) | 37:26 | |
| - | We deeply appreciate, the moving inspiration | 41:21 |
| and helpfulness of the music, which has been given | 41:28 | |
| to us again by our singers and their talented director | 41:33 | |
| and the gifted organist. | 41:40 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 41:45 | |
| Let us pray. | 41:49 | |
| All almighty God our creator, savior, and comforter. | 41:52 | |
| We bless thee, for the gospel of redeeming | 42:00 | |
| and sustaining love, which reaches us in our sinfulness, | 42:03 | |
| our fearfulness and our despair. | 42:08 | |
| And restores us to purity, courage and wholeness. | 42:13 | |
| As we lord and magnify thy holy name and return unto thee, | 42:20 | |
| the humble confession of our human faultiness and failure, | 42:26 | |
| we ask that thy spirit, | 42:32 | |
| at work once more through the miracle of worship | 42:34 | |
| may make our lives clean and new and meaningful again. | 42:39 | |
| Our hearts are burdened today | 42:47 | |
| for those who are sick and suffering around the world. | 42:50 | |
| And especially for those near to us. | 42:55 | |
| We thank thee for the wonders of medical | 43:00 | |
| and surgical science, hospitals, doctors, nurses, | 43:03 | |
| but most of all, we thank thee for thyself, | 43:10 | |
| The Great Physician to whom we can entrust our dear ones | 43:15 | |
| with childlike assurance, that there is a love | 43:21 | |
| which never, never lets either them or us go. | 43:25 | |
| We pray the prayer of faith just now, | 43:32 | |
| for Mary Jean Blackburn, thy child. | 43:37 | |
| And for all of those who love her best. | 43:43 | |
| Lend skill to the surgeons, | 43:47 | |
| and if it be possible in thy will, | 43:51 | |
| let the light of health break through the darkness | 43:55 | |
| of disease. | 44:00 | |
| In any event, may she be held in the center of thy love | 44:03 | |
| and care, now and always. | 44:08 | |
| Guide us in this day and through the future. | 44:16 | |
| Sanctify to our growth, the fresh word from thyself | 44:20 | |
| which we have heard this week. | 44:25 | |
| Make us instruments of thy peace in troubled hours. | 44:28 | |
| Use us in ways beyond our imagining | 44:33 | |
| until thy church becomes vigorous and young again. | 44:38 | |
| And the kingdom of thy dear son | 44:43 | |
| rises from the ashes of earthly injustice and agony. | 44:46 | |
| We make our prayer in the sovereign name of him | 44:54 | |
| who taught us to pray saying, | 44:57 | |
| our father who art in heaven, | 45:00 | |
| halloweth be thy name, thy kingdom come. | 45:03 | |
| Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 45:08 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread | 45:12 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 45:16 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us | 45:19 | |
| and lead us, not into temptation | 45:23 | |
| but deliver us from evil | 45:26 | |
| for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory | 45:28 | |
| forever. Amen. | 45:33 | |
| (orchestral music) | 45:39 | |
| (choir singing) | 45:43 | |
| The Lord bless you and keep you. | 48:36 | |
| The Lord make his face to shine upon you | 48:39 | |
| and be gracious to you. | 48:41 | |
| The Lord lift up his continence upon you | 48:44 | |
| and give you peace. | 48:47 | |
| Amen. | 48:50 | |
| (orchestral music) | 48:53 | |
| (choir singing) | 48:56 |