Clyde Fant - "Everything I Need to Forget I Learned in Kindergarten" (June 27, 1993)

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	(soft music)	0:01
-	Good morning and welcome to Duke Chapel	0:44
	on this bright summer Sunday.	0:46
	If you're visiting with us we're delighted to have you	0:48
	If you're in Durham for any length of time this summer	0:53
	and are a singer we invite you to join our summer choir here	0:56
	our choir is being directed by guest director	1:02
	this morning, Ms. Susan Clebanaw and we welcome her.	1:04
	Our guest preacher is a frequent visitor to the pulpit	1:10
	of Duke Chapel, Dr. Clyde Fant who is dean of the chapel	1:13
	at Stetson University.	1:17
	Dr. Fant is always a popular preacher here.	1:19
	He's is one of America's great homiletical voices	1:23
	and teacher of preaching and we welcome him back	1:26
	to the chapel.	1:30
	Now let's stand for the greeting.	1:32
	The earth and all that is it belongs to God.	1:37
	So let us rejoice in God and in all of creation.	1:47
	Lift up your heads oh gates.	1:56
	Lift them high oh everlasting doors	1:58
	for the God of glory shall enter and reign over us all.	2:02
	(organ music)	2:07
	(congregation singing)	2:53
	Gracious God we are here this morning because	6:33
	we have been summoned here by you.	6:37
	We are here because we are curious about unseen	6:41
	mysterious matters.	6:45
	We are here out of habit.	6:48
	We are here because having searched in many places	6:51
	for meaning, we know not where else to turn	6:54
	but toward you.	6:58
	Take us as we are, oh God,	7:01
	but do not leave us as we are.	7:04
	Remake us and our reasons for being here.	7:08
	Speak to us, show us your glory, teach us your way	7:13
	in this hour of worship, amen.	7:20
	Be seated.	7:24
-	Lets us pray together the prayer for illumination.	7:36
	Open our hearts and minds oh God	7:41
	by the power of your holy spirit	7:45
	so that as the word is read an proclaimed we may hear	7:47
	your message with joy this day, amen.	7:52
	This reading is taken from the 22nd chapter	7:59
	of the book of Genesis, starting with the first verse.	8:03
	"After these things, God tested Abraham.	8:10
	"He said to him, Abraham	8:15
	"and he said, here I am.	8:18
	"He said, take your son, your only son Issac	8:22
	"whom you love and go to the land of Moriah	8:28
	"and offer him there as a burnt offering	8:32
	"on one of the mountains that I shall show you.	8:35
	"So Abraham rose early in the morning	8:40
	"saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him	8:43
	"and his son, Issac.	8:49
	"He cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out	8:53
	"and went to the place in the distance that God	8:56
	"had shown him.	8:59
	"On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place	9:01
	"far away.	9:04
	"Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with	9:07
	"the donkey, the boy and I will go over there,	9:12
	"we will worship and then we will come back to you.	9:17
	"Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering	9:23
	"and laid it on his son Issac,	9:27
	"and he himself carried the fire and the knife.	9:30
	"So the two of them walked on together.	9:36
	"Issac said to his father, Abraham, father,	9:40
	"and he said, here I am my son.	9:44
	"He said, the fire and the wood are here	9:48
	"but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?	9:51
	"Abraham said, God himself will provide the lamb	9:55
	"for a burnt offering, my son.	10:00
	"So the two of them walked on together.	10:04
	"When they came to the place that God had shown him	10:09
	"Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order.	10:12
	"He bound his son Issac and laid him on the altar	10:19
	"on top of the wood.	10:24
	"Then Abraham reached out his hand	10:28
	"and took the knife to kill his son,	10:30
	"but the angel of the Lord called on him from heaven	10:34
	"and said, Abraham, Abraham,	10:37
	"and he said, here I am.	10:40
	"He said, do not lay your hand on the boy	10:44
	"or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God	10:47
	"since you have not withheld your son,	10:53
	"your only son from me.	10:57
	"And Abraham looked and saw a ram caught in a thicket	11:02
	"by its horns.	11:07
	"Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up	11:10
	"as a burnt offering instead of his son.	11:15
	"So Abraham called that place, The Lord Will Provide.	11:20
	"As it is said to this day,	11:26
	"on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided."	11:30
	This is the word of the Lord.	11:35
	Thanks be to God.	11:38
-	This morning's psalter is psalm 13	11:49
	found on page 746 in the hymnal.	11:52
	Please stand and join me in singing the psalter	11:55
	in Gloria responsively.	11:57
	(soft music)	12:00
	♪ How long, oh Lord will you forget me forever? ♪	12:07
	♪ How long will you hide your face from me? ♪	12:13
	♪ How long must I bare pain in my soul ♪	12:19
	♪ And have sorrow in my heart all the day? ♪	12:23
	♪ How long will my enemy triumph over me? ♪	12:28
	♪ Consider and answer me oh Lord my God ♪	12:36
	♪ Give light to my eyes or I will sleep in death ♪	12:43
	♪ Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him ♪	12:50
	♪ And my foes will rejoice when I fall ♪	12:57
	♪ But I trusted in your steadfast love ♪	13:04
	♪ My heart rejoices in your salvation ♪	13:10
	♪ I will sing to the Lord ♪	13:17
	♪ For he has been good to me ♪	13:21
	♪ Oh glory be to you creator and to Jesus Christ ♪	13:29
	♪ Our savior ♪	13:34
	(congregation sings)	13:36
	♪ As it was ere time began ♪	13:43
	(congregation sings)	13:47
	You may be seated.	13:57
	(soft music)	14:05
	(choir singing)	14:25
-	This reading is from the Gospel	16:21
	according to Saint Mark.	16:23
	Chapter 10 beginning with the 13th verse.	16:25
	"People were bringing little children to him	16:31
	"in order that he might touch them.	16:33
	"and the disciples spoke sternly to them	16:37
	"but when Jesus saw this he was indignant	16:40
	"and said to them, let the little children come to me.	16:44
	"Do not stop them, for it is to such as these	16:49
	"that the kingdom of God belongs.	16:54
	"Truly I tell you whoever does not receive	16:57
	"the kingdom of God as a little child	17:01
	"will never enter it.	17:05
	"And he took them up in his arms	17:09
	"laid his hands on them and blessed them."	17:12
	This is the word of the Lord.	17:18
	Thanks be to God.	17:20
-	You know, one of the interesting things about college	17:49
	is that you never know who you're in school with.	17:53
	When I was in school	17:59
	one of my good friends	18:06
	was Tom Gerald	18:10
	who is now with ABC News.	18:12
	Tom was the most handsome boy in my high school class.	18:17
	He's gotten a little long in the tooth now	18:24
	as we all have but so it is.	18:26
	I was also in school with Bennett Johnston	18:32
	who is now the U.S. senator from Louisiana.	18:36
	In graduate school I was in school with Bill Moyers.	18:42
	We studied for our doctoral exams together,	18:46
	although since I got my doctorate and he didn't	18:51
	go on to take his I'm clearly the more accomplished	18:56
	of the two.	18:59
	But the guy who really made it big is someone that	19:04
	some of you will not have heard of.	19:07
	Others will have read his offerings.	19:11
	Bob Fulghum, Robert Fulghum who wrote	19:16
	that epic tome,	19:23
	Everything I Need to Know	19:25
	I leaned in Kindergarten,	19:29
	which will come as a tremendous shock to the trustees	19:33
	of Duke University.	19:37
	Not to mention the faculty.	19:40
	That book actually, what it was originally was	19:48
	a pastor's column.	19:53
	Bob was a part time minister	19:57
	in the Unitarian Church	20:02
	in the state of Washington, and he put together	20:04
	a collection of his little pastor's columns	20:08
	and published them under the title of that particular one	20:12
	and that thing now has been translated	20:18
	into every language I think except Bantu.	20:21
	Everyone all over the world has read it.	20:25
	It was followed by the undying classic,	20:33
	It Was Already on Fire When I Lay Down On It	20:36
	which was a line said by a man whose mattress	20:44
	was on fire when the fire department came	20:48
	and they asked him how his mattress caught on fire	20:50
	and he said, I don't know,	20:54
	it was on fire when I lay down on it.	20:55
	I've looked back over my pastor's columns.	21:01
	I don't think they're going to be translated into English,	21:03
	much less any other language.	21:07
	Now, recently to the American Booksellers	21:12
	hosted Bob down at South Beach in Miami.	21:17
	Wining and dining and interviewing him	21:23
	and they took him into	21:26
	a restaurant there to interview him.	21:30
	The place had changed hands since they made the arraignments	21:33
	and with all the cameras rolling, Bob sat to be interviewed	21:37
	in this very funky restaurant under enormous paintings	21:43
	of human body parts that Monty Python always described	21:49
	as naughty bits.	21:53
	Now I don't know what kind of kindergarten Bob went to	21:59
	but I didn't learn that in kindergarten.	22:05
	In one of the recent editions of his book he asked himself	22:09
	rather seriously, I think perhaps too seriously,	22:12
	if that is really true.	22:15
	If it is really true that everything one needs to know	22:17
	one learns in kindergarten.	22:22
	And as he reflects on it he says, well those basic	22:26
	principles, share,	22:30
	don't hit other people and so forth	22:34
	may sound like pop psychology or just a little	22:37
	superficial but underneath they represent the collected	22:40
	wisdom of the ages and therefore it is actually true	22:44
	that everything we need to know	22:48
	we learned in kindergarten.	22:51
	Let me suggest this morning,	22:58
	everything I need to forget	23:01
	I learned in kindergarten.	23:04
	Now Bob is not entirely serious I suspect	23:07
	in spite of his solemnity for the American Booksellers	23:09
	and I'm not 100% serious either that	23:13
	everything you learn in kindergarten	23:16
	isn't worth remembering.	23:19
	But Bob has a point to make and I have a point to make	23:21
	and the Gospel has a point to make	23:27
	and I think the Gospel's point is better taken.	23:31
	What is the enormous appeal of this little book	23:35
	and this one essay to put that thing	23:38
	on the bestseller list	23:42
	for months and months and months?	23:44
	I don't think it really has to do with the simple homely	23:50
	truths of kindergarten themselves at all.	23:55
	I think the reason that book was so enormously popular	24:01
	is because there is today as there usually is	24:05
	a tremendous desire in society for bottom line thinking.	24:09
	We want the answers.	24:15
	Or better said, we want to know we already have the answers.	24:18
	We want to know that what we think is right.	24:24
	We want the warm, fuzzy reassurance of the binkie	24:30
	beside us all of our lives like the blanket we lay down on	24:34
	in kindergarten.	24:38
	We want to know that what mama and grandmama taught	24:39
	and what we taught our kids is it, period	24:44
	because I said so,	24:50
	and we want to be done with it and then move on	24:53
	to whatever it is we really wanna get after in life.	24:56
	The problem is	25:03
	it just hasn't been my experience	25:06
	that all those things we learn the first time around	25:10
	are the bottom line.	25:13
	For example in kindergarten we learn that	25:17
	one plus one equals two.	25:20
	I mean that's simple enough	25:24
	and certainly can't be challenged, not much it can't be.	25:25
	Morris Kline, professor emeritus of New York University's	25:31
	Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences	25:35
	writing in his book, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty	25:39
	writes that the search for the foundational theory	25:43
	for mathematics is never ending.	25:48
	It's divided between logicists,	25:52
	formalists, set theorists	25:55
	and most of all intuitionists.	25:58
	For example, one plus one equals two in kindergarten.	26:03
	That's the easy part.	26:07
	The hard part is getting to one.	26:09
	And so constantly in the universe all of those things	26:15
	that are taken as bedrock kindergarten, everybody knows it,	26:19
	conventional wisdom truths are being plowed up.	26:24
	If IBM thinks everything it needs to know	26:33
	it learned I Kindergarten it's going to have problems	26:35
	or is that redundant?	26:39
	Apple Computer can't think that way.	26:43
	You can't think that way in your business,	26:45
	but that's part of the reason we wanna think that way	26:49
	about life in general.	26:51
	Because business is such a hassle we want to retreat	26:54
	into the monasticism of a kind of religion that	26:58
	doesn't know or see anything different in life	27:02
	and all the principles of life that we have once heard	27:07
	are in place and intact.	27:11
	I remember when I was studying geometry.	27:14
	I only studied it once, thank goodness	27:18
	and managed to get through it.	27:20
	Have no intention of dealing with any of that again	27:21
	like most of us, but I remember when I was taught	27:25
	that a straight line is the shortest distance	27:28
	between two points.	27:30
	I kept thinking	27:32
	there must be an exception to that somewhere.	27:32
	And I remember saying that to my teacher who just laughed	27:36
	and said, maybe but you're not likely going to be the one	27:39
	to figure it out.	27:44
	Well that's no fair.	27:49
	She had been grading my papers.	27:50
	Well, it so happens on a curved earth	27:55
	a straight line just doesn't happen to be the shortest	28:01
	distance between two points, except in abstract theory.	28:04
	If you think a straight line is always the shortest distance	28:08
	between two points, try that next time when you take off	28:12
	from New York to fly to Frankfurt	28:15
	but you better take a lot of oxygen along with you.	28:18
	Over and over again we learn	28:25
	that what seems to be absolute simplicity is either	28:27
	duplicity or foolishness.	28:30
	But we like to reduce things to manageable categories	28:34
	and so we keep coming back to these kindergarten truths	28:38
	that seem to be absolutely secure.	28:42
	Now, some would argue, of course,	28:45
	that this is all ridiculous	28:47
	because Bob Fulguhm isn't talking about	28:48
	quantum mechanics, and he isn't talking about	28:52
	the curved space time theories.	28:58
	He's just talking about principles, you know?	29:00
	And principles are absolute.	29:03
	If we just happened to know what they are.	29:07
	But, on the other hand,	29:15
	when Genghis Khan was in kindergarten	29:20
	they taught him that	29:22
	rape and pillage were okay against your enemies.	29:27
	That was a principle that he learned.	29:30
	When Adolf Hitler was in kindergarten he learned	29:33
	that the Jews were responsible	29:36
	for all the economic woes in Europe.	29:38
	That was a principle that he learned in kindergarten.	29:40
	Some of us in kindergarten learned that blacks	29:46
	stayed in one place and drank from	29:50
	one end of the water fountain	29:52
	and whites drank from the other and rode in the back	29:54
	of the bus.	29:58
	The whole time I was growing up, though it was	29:59
	sort of strange to go to Sunday School	30:02
	and sing, red and yellow, black an white	30:05
	they are precious in his sight.	30:07
	As long as they weren't in our Sunday School classroom.	30:12
	When Jesus was in kindergarten he learned	30:16
	an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.	30:19
	The problem with kindergarten absoluteness	30:26
	is that generally speaking what we learned in kindergarten	30:30
	is conventional wisdom.	30:33
	It is a cultured truth.	30:39
	And to whatever degree it is true it is always time bound	30:46
	and limited and gives us a great many problems	30:51
	when we try to apply it out into life.	30:55
	Now, we might not be surprised when a rather insulated	31:00
	white American, which most of us come under that category,	31:05
	comes up with a a conclusion that everything we were taught	31:10
	is what's right and then says that the whole world	31:13
	ought to think the same.	31:16
	On the other hand when Jesus comes up with something	31:19
	that sounds remotely kin to that	31:22
	it's a little disturbing.	31:24
	I'm not bothered if Bob Fulghum thinks	31:27
	everything he learned is all he needs to know	31:30
	from kindergarten.	31:34
	But if Jesus thinks that I've got a problem.	31:35
	What does Jesus mean when he says,	31:43
	unless we become as little children we will never	31:45
	see the kingdom of God.	31:48
	First of all you can forget any romanticized Peter Pan	31:52
	notion about children and kindergarten.	31:55
	They certainly didn't have that in first century Palestine.	31:58
	Nobody looked at children that way.	32:02
	Nobody looked at the world that way,	32:05
	least of all a realist like Jesus.	32:07
	The disciples had to be shocked.	32:12
	I mean, all these little kids coming around	32:17
	the feet of Jesus constantly?	32:19
	They were saying, go 'way kid, you bother me.	32:22
	Get out of here.	32:23
	We're having a hard enough time getting this movement	32:24
	taken seriously anyhow.	32:26
	I mean we got women hanging around with us anyhow	32:28
	and the master won't run them off,	32:30
	and I mean we all know, we were taught in kindergarten	32:33
	no women follow rabbis.	32:37
	Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten,	32:41
	and as for you kids bug off.	32:45
	Kids don't hang around serious teachers either.	32:48
	And Jesus stooped down and put his arms around the children	32:54
	and looked up at he disciples and said,	32:57
	let me tell you guys something.	33:02
	Unless you become like these kids	33:08
	you're never gonna see the kingdom of God.	33:11
	Now that had to snap their head back	33:15
	like a strong dose of ammonia.	33:18
	What is this, they said, this kid thing?	33:21
	Obviously Jesus was saying to them,	33:29
	you need the kind of trust	33:31
	these children have.	33:36
	You need the kind of openness to new things	33:37
	these children have.	33:43
	They haven't been to kindergarten yet.	33:45
	They haven't been accultured yet.	33:47
	They don't yet know what every	33:51
	Palestinian Israelite knows.	33:56
	They don't know that yet.	33:59
	They don't even know what every good Jew knows yet.	34:01
	They are still open	34:04
	to the truth of God.	34:09
	Unless you become like that you're not gonna see	34:11
	the kingdom of God.	34:13
	You're gonna keep seeing your own kingdoms.	34:14
	Or somebody else's kingdoms.	34:16
	Somebody else's idea of God, but you're not gonna see God.	34:18
	Don't you understand that?	34:22
	And they said, no we don't understand that.	34:24
	He said, you need to go back to the birth canal.	34:32
	That's what the new birthing is all about.	34:38
	It's been so battered around in the media	34:40
	and also by many Christians as well.	34:44
	The new birthing is to go back before kindergarten	34:48
	and before you know what you're supposed to know	34:53
	and start all over again.	34:57
	It's like getting born again.	35:01
	Trouble about a lot of the born again movement	35:05
	is the born again movement itself now	35:07
	starts knowing everything it needs to know	35:10
	so you never get born again in the first place.	35:12
	You get kindergardened again.	35:16
	When I first heard this text	35:24
	I heard it as an altogether	35:27
	religious text and as such altogether untrue.	35:29
	That is I heard it filtered through all of the culture	35:35
	of religion	35:40
	so that I just thought	35:41
	what it meant to be a Christian	35:44
	is I heard this thing, you know,	35:47
	of course Jesus wasn't thinking about being a Christian	35:50
	Jesus was thinking about seeing God but	35:52
	as I thought of it, in order to get to be a Christian	35:56
	then what I needed to do was to become a child again	36:00
	which meant that all my questions, even at age 13 about God	36:04
	I had to get rid of.	36:08
	What I needed to do was to give up learning	36:12
	modern science, dinosaurs,	36:18
	philosophy,	36:24
	psychology, none of which of course I knew	36:24
	a thing about at 13.	36:27
	You have to remember I was born before kindergartens.	36:29
	Also before groups, you know and so forth.	36:33
	Tori Spelling and education.	36:39
	I thought what they were saying is,	36:44
	unless you believe the otherwise unbelievable	36:46
	and swallow the otherwise unswallowable you will	36:50
	never see the kingdom of God so I tried to become gullible.	36:53
	I seriously prayed to God to make me gullible.	36:58
	I asked God to make me gullible.	37:03
	I couldn't believe in God, I couldn't see God.	37:06
	I didn't know anybody that could	37:09
	and I didn't ever get any sensible answers from anybody	37:11
	about that and I didn't know what to make of that	37:14
	but I certainly didn't want to go to the Baptist hell.	37:18
	I mean there's some bad places to go to	37:23
	you think the Methodist hell is bad,	37:25
	you ain't seen nothing yet.	37:27
	And I prayed that God would make me gullible	37:32
	so I could believe in the otherwise unbelievable	37:35
	and swallow the otherwise unswallowable	37:40
	or else I knew I would never catch a glimpse of God.	37:43
	So as a 13 year old I tried to believe in a big man	37:47
	in the clouds, I tried to believe in a real giant	37:51
	of the Jack and the Beanstalk somewhere.	37:54
	I tried to believe in a real cosmic Santa that gave	37:58
	good gifts to the gullible.	38:03
	I didn't do very well with that, but I did	38:07
	get far enough with it to join the church	38:11
	and get appropriately baptized.	38:13
	The trouble is, you and I begin in life,	38:20
	open to life and learning and then all of these ideas	38:23
	come in and we find ourselves struggling	38:28
	the way thorough them.	38:30
	Both towards the human and the divine.	38:31
	How do we get there, we ask.	38:34
	What are they trying to tell us?	38:37
	I eat lunch at a frozen yogurt store everyday at noon.	38:42
	The cost of living went up to $1.87 the other day	38:50
	when they raised the price on my favorite cup of yogurt.	38:55
	I was in there and there was a little child there,	39:00
	little toddler who had just gotten a cone from his mama,	39:03
	and she was ordering some elaborate concoction, you know.	39:09
	All of the pleasure, none of the guilt.	39:12
	What a store.	39:16
	Of course, the fudge and the nuts on top on top	39:19
	of a no fat ice cream	39:22
	means you have all the pleasure	39:26
	and the fact the slogan tells you	39:28
	you have none of the guilt absolves you.	39:29
	What bothers me is how heavy	39:34
	the people are that eat in there.	39:35
	But the little toddler was not only showing me her cone	39:41
	she was offering it to me.	39:46
	She wanted me to take a bite of it.	39:48
	It was good.	39:50
	That's sort of what Jesus was talking about.	39:53
	We all start like that	39:58
	but I guess that's before we wise up.	40:01
	I was reading Fortune Magazine yesterday,	40:04
	that's a nasty thing to do, I only do it once a year	40:06
	as a sort of a spiritual discipline.	40:09
	And it just really made me sick, I'll tell ya.	40:14
	Won't go into that at this point	40:17
	but once you wise up like those writers	40:19
	in Fortune Magazine you know better than to offer anything	40:22
	to anybody unless it's a leverage buyout.	40:25
	You know, some kind of a deal.	40:27
	Here, the little girl is saying, taste this.	40:30
	It's so good I want you to have some of it.	40:33
	Mom immediately snatches her back from this potential	40:36
	child molester.	40:39
	The Chaplain at Stetson University may carry her off	40:43
	God knows where.	40:47
	But I mean, we learn don't we?	40:50
	And we learn after awhile	40:53
	that we don't do that sort of thing.	40:55
	Of course she learned quicker than that because	40:58
	in about 30 seconds her big brother came	41:01
	and grabbed it out of her hand	41:04
	and ate the whole top off of it.	41:05
	Then she cried and held it in both hands	41:08
	and I thought, mama doesn't need to worry anymore.	41:10
	That kid isn't going to be offering anything to friends	41:13
	much less strangers.	41:16
	It's not easy to become a child again.	41:22
	The trouble with being a child is you become vulnerable	41:29
	and the last thing Fortune Magazine wants to happen to you	41:31
	is for you to become vulnerable.	41:34
	You wanna become impregnable.	41:36
	Tough, hard.	41:40
	Win, win, win.	41:44
	That's the way life is supposed to be.	41:46
	Isn't that right?	41:49
	Amen, and amen.	41:50
	In religion we wanna win, we wanna be the best	41:52
	we wanna be the biggest.	41:54
	The same thing is true out there.	41:56
	The bottom line, that's why those books are selling	41:58
	like crazy, it's the bottom line.	42:02
	Just what we learn in kindergarten.	42:04
	That's the way it is.	42:08
	But even there, it isn't the way it is.	42:10
	Ultimately we find ourselves	42:18
	in a world where sharing	42:21
	is dangerous.	42:26
	We being to ask ourselves, do these people know	42:29
	what they're talking about?	42:33
	Are these church people serious or are they crazy?	42:34
	This isn't the way to live.	42:38
	So religion then begins to modify itself	42:41
	'till it becomes a win/win proposition.	42:44
	And when Jesus died on the cross it was the ultimate proof	42:48
	he was a loser.	42:51
	And many went away as they do today.	42:56
	The trouble is that churches need to win too	42:59
	because they are institutions as are denominations	43:03
	as are all of us.	43:06
	We become small institutions operating	43:08
	for the good of our families or our individual selves.	43:11
	We are John Doe comma PA.	43:15
	And so we begin to look at the way we can benefit ourselves	43:20
	and if religion can say to us, here is a gold card	43:23
	that you exercise when other cards don't work	43:27
	it becomes also a part of something	43:31
	tremendously useful in life.	43:33
	But I mean isn't this sort of turning upside down	43:36
	what it was Jesus seemed to be about?	43:40
	Wasn't what Jesus was saying essentially	43:42
	that it is good somehow to be vulnerable.	43:46
	I mean I know that doesn't make a lot of sense does it?	43:53
	But you see, unless you are vulnerable you're not human.	43:55
	Unless when you're cut you bleed.	44:02
	Unless you are vulnerable by being accessible	44:07
	you are a rock.	44:11
	Or at best a tree, but you're not a human being.	44:13
	For God to notice when a sparrow falls	44:18
	is to make God vulnerable.	44:24
	For the heavens to weep when the son of God dies	44:28
	upon a cross	44:33
	is to indicate in the great theology of it	44:36
	that God is suffering just like a human being.	44:40
	Now, the Greeks laughed at that.	44:49
	The idea that God suffered.	44:52
	What would be the advantage in that?	44:54
	Why be a God?	44:55
	Why gain all power in your life on earth and give it away?	44:59
	Why be vulnerable?	45:05
	I was at the post office the other day	45:09
	coming out with my mail	45:11
	and there was a black man	45:16
	about to get in the automobile next to me	45:18
	and riding down the sidewalk was one of the local	45:20
	characters that you see most places.	45:24
	Large, red faced fellow.	45:28
	Indeterminable age, 30s, 40s, who knows?	45:33
	Sagging britches and old belt.	45:40
	Dirty, dirty shirt.	45:48
	Unshaven, talking to himself,	45:51
	riding a child's bicycle	45:55
	with a child's lunchbox.	45:58
	The old fashioned kit kind that somebody'd tossed out	46:00
	somewhere and he had hung over his handlebars	46:04
	and he's looking, looking, looking and he sees the black man	46:08
	and he stops his bike and he gets out and he walks over	46:11
	and the talks earnestly, earnestly, earnestly, earnestly	46:15
	to the black man for awhile.	46:18
	I'm still waiting to get in my car watching this	46:20
	and in a moment the black man snugs up his tie,	46:25
	looks down at the street and	46:30
	looks around a bit, takes out his wallet.	46:34
	First reaches into his pocket to get change,	46:37
	thinks better of it, reaches in his wallet,	46:40
	takes out his wallet, pulls out a bill,	46:42
	goes back pulls out two more bills.	46:45
	Holds them over and puts three ones into the hand	46:49
	of this Florida cracker redneck	46:55
	whose mind never got him past the age of a child.	47:00
	He got into his car and left	47:07
	and the man got back on his bike,	47:12
	nodding his head in the direction of his departing friend	47:14
	and pedaled away.	47:19
	There's a lot you could think about that.	47:22
	The thing I thought about was,	47:24
	why didn't he ask it from me?	47:26
	Probably because he thought the other guy	47:33
	maybe understood more what it was like	47:37
	not to have everything in the world.	47:41
	To be vulnerable is to be human.	47:46
	And Jesus is saying to us, look don't grow up too much.	47:50
	Come in to the world of the kingdom of God.	47:58
	Learn what that's about.	48:03
	Come into the faith	48:07
	of Jesus of Nazareth.	48:12
	The wisdom of Jesus, the religion of Jesus	48:16
	is not a religion of wisdom.	48:19
	It's not a religion of reason	48:22
	of philosophical speculation.	48:25
	It is not a religion of individual mantras	48:28
	or serene isolation.	48:33
	It is not a religion of success achieving	48:36
	or power grabbing.	48:39
	It is not a religion of authorities and hierarchies,	48:42
	of great ones and pyramids of power,	48:47
	secular or religious.	48:51
	It is not a religion of glittering spectacle,	48:54
	whether secular entertainment	48:58
	or sacred pomp.	49:02
	It is not a religion of the magical endowments	49:04
	of its skillful practitioners doled out	49:09
	to the dutiful followers	49:13
	whether these leaders are the omniscient oracles	49:17
	of Protestant pulpits or the elegant wizards	49:22
	of Catholic cathedrals.	49:26
	It may be embarrassing to think in the last days	49:30
	of senior ministers in diapers	49:35
	and bishops on tricycles all waiting in line	49:38
	at the gate of the kingdom, but so it is.	49:43
	Unless you become as little children, Jesus said,	49:48
	who receive God's grace in one another	49:53
	in humility and love and trust	49:57
	you will never see the kingdom of God.	50:02
	Not in your personal lives,	50:06
	in your relationships of equality and not dominance,	50:09
	of giving and not taking, nor in your professional	50:16
	relationships, that look at people	50:19
	not objects.	50:24
	Even the world. Even the creatures.	50:25
	And if the sparrows that fall to the ground are seen	50:31
	by the eyes of God, surely the spotted owl	50:35
	deserves more than just ridicule.	50:38
	Well anyway,	50:44
	just when we were getting a little nervous	50:49
	all of us standing there in the circle with the disciples	50:52
	around Jesus and the little child, Jesus smiled	50:55
	and looked up into their wide staring two adult eyes	51:00
	and said, aww,	51:04
	be of good cheer little children.	51:09
	It's God's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.	51:14
	Let's pray together.	51:21
	Unlearn us, oh Lord	51:26
	disabuse us, oh God	51:31
	from the safe notions we have that are designed	51:35
	to look after us and ours, but nothing else	51:39
	because we're going to be such short tenants	51:45
	on the property.	51:49
	Help us to return to a place of new birth	51:53
	where once again through your love and grace	52:03
	we can open our arms and embrace as you embrace	52:10
	a whole world, amen.	52:19
	(organ music)	52:28
	(choir singing)	52:52
-	The Lord be with you.	54:40
Congregation	And also with you.	54:41
-	Let us pray, be seated.	54:42
	Almighty God	54:55
	in a world of constant change you have placed	54:58
	eternity in our hearts.	55:01
	In a world in which there is much moral confusion	55:04
	you gave us the power to discern good from evil.	55:10
	Grand us we pray, sincerity	55:15
	that we might persistently seek the things that endure	55:20
	in this changing world	55:24
	and might refuse those things which perish.	55:27
	That amid all those things which are vanishing and deceptive	55:32
	we might see the truth steadily	55:38
	and follow your light faithfully	55:42
	and grow ever richer in that love which the life of all.	55:47
	Oh God, we pray for the wisdom that only you can give.	55:54
	Not the wisdom which comes from acquisition of things	56:03
	of power, of the acquisition of more data, more knowledge	56:07
	but rather from the recognition that you are	56:11
	the ruler of the universe.	56:15
	Teach us, oh gracious, loving God	56:19
	to see people by the light of the faith we profess,	56:24
	that we may check in ourselves all ungenerous judgements,	56:29
	all presumptuous claims,	56:34
	and that recognizing the needs and rightful claims of others	56:38
	we might remove old hatreds and rivalries	56:43
	and hasten new understandings.	56:45
	That we might bring our tributes of excellence	56:50
	to the treasury of our common humanity	56:52
	in Jesus Christ our Lord.	56:56
	This day we pray especially for all those	57:00
	who are feeling particularly vulnerable and small.	57:03
	We pray for those who suffer bereavement.	57:09
	We pray for those who are sick and those who	57:13
	watch over the sick.	57:15
	We pray for young people who are uncertain of their future.	57:19
	We pray for older people who are facing a future	57:24
	of limited abilities.	57:28
	We pray for families in their struggle to love one another	57:34
	and to live peacefully.	57:38
	Oh Lord who taught us that in turning	57:41
	and becoming as little children we might find life.	57:44
	Turn us toward you, help us to let go of false securities.	57:49
	Open our eyes to your sustaining and guiding presence	57:56
	always among us	58:01
	reaching out to us in our vulnerability	58:03
	to love us, to bring us home.	58:08
	This in she silent petitions of our hearts	58:13
	we pray this day in the confidence of children, amen.	58:17
	Now let us offer ourselves and our gifts to the God	58:25
	who has offered so much to us.	58:28
	(organ music)	58:31
	(choir singing)	58:55
-	Let us pray.	1:04:41
	Gracious God, for every good and perfect gift	1:04:43
	we have received in this life we give you thanks	1:04:48
	realizing that all that we treasure in life,	1:04:52
	our lives, our heath, our families,	1:04:57
	this beautiful world.	1:05:00
	All the things that make life worth living,	1:05:03
	all has come as a gift from you.	1:05:06
	Help us to glorify you in all things,	1:05:10
	to praise you not only with our lips	1:05:13
	but also with our lives.	1:05:15
	To pray to you, not simply in our prayers in church,	1:05:18
	but also the way we conduct our business.	1:05:22
	They way we live in our families and the light	1:05:26
	that we show forth to others.	1:05:28
	May all of this be offered to you	1:05:30
	and for your glory as a sign of our gratitude	1:05:33
	and thanksgiving.	1:05:35
	And now we pray	1:05:38
	as our Lord and savior Jesus has taught us saying,	1:05:40
	our father, who art in heaven	1:05:44
	hallowed be they name	1:05:48
	they kingdom come, thy will be done	1:05:50
	on earth as it is in heaven.	1:05:54
	Give us this day our daily bread	1:05:56
	forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those	1:06:00
	who trespass against us	1:06:03
	and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil	1:06:06
	for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory	1:06:12
	forever, amen.	1:06:16
	(organ music)	1:06:20
	(choir singing)	1:06:56
	Now may the grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ,	1:09:43
	the love of God and the fellowship of the holy spirit	1:09:46
	be with you now, and always.	1:09:48
	(organ music)	1:10:11

Item Info

Title:

Clyde Fant - "Everything I Need to Forget I Learned in Kindergarten" (June 27, 1993)

Description:

To become like little children is not to become gullible. Rather, it is to become vulnerable, leaving ourselves open to one another and to receive the Kingdom as God has prepared it, not as we prefer to imagine it. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 17:49. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 51:24.
Key quotation: “To be vulnerable is to be human. And Jesus is saying to us, ‘Look, don’t grow up too much.’”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r42805d4t

Date:

June 27, 1993

Speaker:

Fant, Clyde E.

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

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Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0325
ref9274_v68
uachapelsermaud
duke:321710
dcrmv001311
ark:/87924/r42805d4t
c40aa29c-0be1-474a-a827-857f1e442e2c

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Clyde Fant - "Everything I Need to Forget I Learned in Kindergarten" (June 27, 1993)

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