Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

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-	Duke University Chapel service of worship,	0:04
	September 11th, 1977.	0:08
	(organ playing hymns)	0:16
	(congregation singing hymn)	11:40
	(organ playing hymn)	12:25
	(congregation singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	13:04
-	I greet you in the name and in the spirit	17:01
	of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.	17:04
	Life is difficult.	17:10
	Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.	17:13
	Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail.	17:18
	Sometimes we help, sometimes we hurt.	17:24
	Sometimes we build up, sometimes we tear down.	17:28
	Sometimes we obey God, sometimes we do not.	17:34
	For those moments, we need to confess and seek forgiveness.	17:41
	Let us join together and offer our confession to God.	17:48
	Let us pray.	17:54
Together	Oh God, we confess that sometimes	17:57
	we do not like ourselves as we are.	18:00
	Sometimes we long for different families and friends.	18:04
	We would exchange our places for the places of others.	18:09
	We would like to do away with some of our past.	18:14
	We are afraid of our moods and feelings.	18:18
	We wish we had more time.	18:22
	We would like to start over again.	18:25
	We long for the position of others.	18:28
	We think more education will solve our problems.	18:32
	We resent the injustices we have suffered	18:37
	and hold on to our sorrows.	18:40
	We want to be appreciated for our small graces.	18:44
	We are enchanted by the past and enticed by the future.	18:48
	We have not often been understood.	18:54
	In short, we refuse to live	18:58
	because we hold out for better terms.	19:01
	Heal us, God.	19:05
	From the distance we put between ourselves and life,	19:07
	restore to us a love for you	19:12
	and for our real selves,	19:15
	help us be renewed in the fullness of our lives	19:18
	through Jesus Christ, our savior.	19:23
-	Let us continue in prayer.	19:27
	Nothing, not even our sin and failure	19:40
	can separate us from the love of God	19:46
	in Christ Jesus, our Lord.	19:49
	I invite you now accept and receive	19:53
	the forgiveness God offers, amen.	19:58
	(organ playing hymn)	20:05
	(choir humming melodically)	21:38
	♪ Fairest Lord Jesus ♪	22:54
	♪ Ruler of all nature ♪	23:03
	♪ O thou of God ♪	23:12
	♪ And man the Son ♪	23:18
	♪ Thee will I cherish ♪	23:29
	♪ Thee will I honor ♪	23:38
	♪ Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown ♪	23:46
	♪ Beautiful Savior ♪	24:03
	♪ Lord of all nations ♪	24:11
	♪ Son of God ♪	24:20
	♪ And son of man ♪	24:26
	♪ Glory and honor ♪	24:37
	♪ Praise, adoration ♪	24:46
	♪ Now and forevermore be thine ♪	24:53
	♪ Now and forevermore ♪	25:05
	♪ Be thine ♪	25:19
-	The Old Testament lesson is from the first chapter	25:44
	of Genesis, verses 24 to 28.	25:47
	And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures,	25:53
	according to their kinds, cattle and creeping things,	25:57
	and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.	26:01
	And it was so, and God made the beast of the earth,	26:05
	according to their kinds and the cattle,	26:09
	according to their kinds and everything	26:12
	that creeps upon the ground according to its kind,	26:15
	and God saw that it was good.	26:18
	Then God said, let us make man	26:21
	in our image after our likeness and let them	26:25
	have dominion over the fish of the sea	26:29
	and over the birds of the air	26:33
	and over the cattle and all the earth	26:35
	and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.	26:38
	So God created man in his own image, in the image of God,	26:43
	He created him, male and female He created them	26:47
	and God blessed them.	26:52
	And God said to them,	26:54
	be fruitful and multiply	26:55
	and fill the earth and subdue it	26:58
	and have dominion over the fish of the sea	27:00
	and over the birds of the air,	27:03
	and every other living thing that moves upon the earth.	27:06
	The epistle lesson is from the second chapter	27:12
	of Philippians verses five to 11,	27:14
	have this mind among yourselves,	27:22
	which you have in Christ Jesus,	27:24
	who though he was in the form of God	27:26
	did not count equality with God.	27:28
	I think to be grasped, but emptied himself,	27:31
	taking the form of a servant,	27:34
	being born in the likeness of men	27:36
	and being found in human form.	27:39
	He humbled himself and became obedient unto death,	27:40
	even death on a cross.	27:44
	Therefore God has highly exalted him	27:47
	and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.	27:49
	That at the name of Jesus,	27:54
	every knee should bow in heaven and on earth	27:55
	and under the earth.	27:58
	And every tongue confess	28:00
	that Jesus Christ is Lord	28:02
	to the glory of God the father.	28:04
	Here ends the readings from the holy scripture	28:07
	praise be to God.	28:10
	(organ playing hymn)	28:12
	(congregation singing hymn)	28:22
	Let us affirm what we believe.	28:58
Together	We believe in God who has created	29:01
	and is creating,	29:04
	who has come in the truly human Jesus	29:06
	to reconcile and make new.	29:09
	Who works in us and others by the spirit.	29:13
	We trust God who calls us to be the church,	29:17
	to celebrate life and its fullness,	29:22
	to love and serve others,	29:25
	to seek justice and resist evil,	29:28
	to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,	29:31
	our judge and our hope in life, in death,	29:36
	in life beyond death, God is with us.	29:41
	We are not alone.	29:46
	Thanks be to God.	29:48
-	The Lord be with you.	29:51
	(muffled response)	29:53
	Let us pray.	29:54
	Oh God ever present and ever near,	30:03
	we come to this moment to offer ourselves anew to you,	30:09
	our hopes and anxieties, our fears and frustrations,	30:14
	our angers, and our loves.	30:19
	Transform us as we need to be.	30:23
	Renew us as we long to be.	30:26
	Remake us as you would have us to be.	30:30
	Help us define life in the midst of our everyday.	30:36
	Relief from the worry of yesterday	30:40
	and hope for the gift of tomorrow's day,	30:44
	may we, oh God, be mindful,	30:50
	not only of the struggles which we have,	30:52
	but ever sensitive and ever aware	30:55
	of the struggles of others.	30:58
	Keep us in touch with the hurt	31:00
	and heartache and heaviness and hopelessness of others	31:03
	that we might love as our Lord calls us to love.	31:09
	And wherever we go around, oh Lord,	31:14
	may the word follow with us that indeed the sorrowing	31:17
	have been comforted,	31:20
	the weary have been lifted,	31:22
	the oppressed relieved,	31:25
	the lonely visited and the hungry fed	31:27
	all in the name and for the sake of our Lord, Jesus Christ.	31:31
	And now, oh living and loving spirit,	31:36
	wake us up, give some new joy, some new vitality,	31:39
	some new promise in this moment,	31:45
	in this time of worship to each of us,	31:50
	we pray not in our name,	31:55
	but in the name and in the spirit of our Lord, Jesus Christ,	31:57
	who taught us to pray.	32:01
	As we pray together, our father who art in heaven,	32:03
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	32:08
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	32:13
	Give us this day, our daily bread	32:18
	and forgive us our trespasses.	32:21
	As we forgive those who trespass against us.	32:24
	Lead us not into temptation,	32:28
	but deliver us from evil.	32:31
	Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.	32:34
	Amen.	32:41
	We are delighted to see you here this morning.	32:45
	The first service of worship	32:48
	after the first week of classes,	32:50
	my blessings upon you all.	32:56
	There are a group of students,	33:02
	there are some students who are in the process	33:04
	of organizing a Methodist student group.	33:07
	They invite all persons who would like to join them	33:10
	in this Methodist student group	33:14
	to meet with them tonight at six o'clock	33:17
	in the divinity school student lounge,	33:19
	you're asked to bring a snack.	33:22
	Drinks will be provided and any and all persons	33:25
	who are interested are urged to come.	33:27
	Wednesday night we will continue with a service	33:30
	which was begun last Wednesday night	33:34
	here in the chapel at 10 o'clock,	33:36
	there will be music at 9:45 and the service itself	33:39
	will last from 10:00 until 10:30.	33:42
	You're invited to come and join in this mid-week	33:45
	time of worship together.	33:47
	Tonight at seven o'clock Fenner Douglas,	33:50
	university organist and professor of music here at Duke,	33:54
	will play the first concert of this year.	33:58
	The program for the concert is listed	34:02
	on the back of the bulletin.	34:04
	You're urged to come and share in this time together.	34:06
	It is our privilege today to welcome back home again,	34:11
	Dr. Carlisle Marney and his wife, Elizabeth.	34:15
	Marney has thrilled us and confronted us	34:18
	and challenged us and moved us in the past	34:21
	with his preaching.	34:24
	He is a visiting professor during the spring semester	34:27
	in the divinity school.	34:30
	He is now director of Interpreter's House at Lake Junaluska.	34:33
	He is a friend of Duke	34:38
	and he has endeared himself to many of us.	34:39
	Marney, we're delighted to have you back	34:42
	to preach to us on this particular day.	34:44
-	This contemporary energy crisis means	34:56
	no more or less than this:	35:00
	there is a wall around our garden.	35:04
	Creation has edges,	35:08
	those predecessors of Columbus were right,	35:11
	one can literally sail off the edge of the earth.	35:15
	A laboratory culture really can exhaust the air	35:20
	and its envelope.	35:24
	A species really can overrun the garden.	35:26
	Us bees really are killer bees,	35:31
	and we brown rats really do become cannibals when crowded.	35:36
	The poor, we do have always with us	35:43
	and we create the poor.	35:46
	You should have seen this field when God had it all	35:50
	by his self runs the old farmer, preacher, Joe,	35:54
	but the line has this merit.	35:59
	It reminds us that even God almighty had need for a keeper,	36:02
	agent, junior partner, responsible for creation too.	36:07
	And so he made and commissioned a species of caretaker.	36:13
	Hence, any lifestyle that is Christian	36:20
	takes its rights, not in our salvation,	36:24
	but in creation.	36:29
	For if, as the blessed Salter puts it,	36:31
	God belongs in the heavens,	36:34
	it continues the earth he has given to us,	36:37
	but not surely to make it a swampy sewer choked	36:43
	with the bones of the prematurely dead,	36:48
	strangling on the noise and gaseous fumes	36:51
	of our iron horses, breaking wind	36:55
	in their mad climb to the top of Athos	36:59
	or Sinai or the moon.	37:02
	I've made three points:	37:06
	One, the limits on creation	37:09
	require an ethic of parsimony.	37:14
	The nature of covenant implies an ethic of responsibility.	37:19
	Incarnation is the mode for any ethic of identity.	37:25
	Salvation is created,	37:31
	runs the text of a glorious Russian anthem,	37:33
	but for here I reversed the words,	37:36
	creation is salvation.	37:39
	God's first good.	37:43
	Good is a word of grace before man or law or atonement.	37:45
	We're a more than a gleam in God's eye.	37:50
	Christians divide unhappily enough into sheep and goats.	37:54
	And one can really tell the goats from the sheep	37:59
	by whether we make the matter of our salvation	38:03
	a means or an end.	38:07
	For salvation is a stop gap intended only	38:11
	to keep the keeper from running off the edge	38:15
	of creation into abyss.	38:17
	Redemption is a bypass to keep the traffic flow	38:21
	toward God's own destination,	38:25
	which, and is the triumphant completion	38:29
	of all that the maker has made and makes and will make.	38:32
	So creation is stage and we creatures,	38:37
	part of nature all are actors,	38:42
	and God, he just may be indeed the only audience,	38:46
	unless there are, as Billy says, angels.	38:52
	Now, stages have edges and so does creation.	38:58
	This, we simply have not seen.	39:03
	All gardens have in common order,	39:06
	some kind of order, even a studied disorder.	39:10
	And all gardens have boundary, fence, limit.	39:15
	Man has grown up thinking and acting,	39:21
	ripping and tearing,	39:26
	using and misusing as if the garden has no age or limit.	39:28
	And as if he himself, herself were not a part	39:35
	of nature whose very continued existence	39:41
	depends upon the state of the garden.	39:45
	It just may be the heresy of all our reading of our history	39:49
	that we have thought ourselves above nature,	39:56
	instead of nature bound.	40:00
	But even Mrs. Prometheus is bound.	40:05
	Prometheus is beholden to the sacrament of limits.	40:11
	Phylogenetic biochemical photosynthetic processes	40:16
	bind our species and everything that organic life exhibits.	40:21
	Systems, neural, blood, bone, and cellular.	40:27
	Cultural, familial, political, and mythic.	40:32
	Ethical, psychic, sociobiological,	40:35
	philosophical, economic, and religious hold us.	40:37
	And spheres, biosphere, zoisphere, lewisphere,	40:41
	hemisphere and galactic contain us.	40:47
	There is no escape.	40:50
	We cannot get out.	40:52
	There is no door	40:54
	and here we adjust and adapt or and we die.	40:55
	And if we bear the cosmic burden of knowing this,	41:01
	it only adds to the incredible obligation we have within all	41:05
	this precisely because we can do know this.	41:09
	This sacrament of limits is served only	41:16
	by acceptance of limits.	41:21
	Acceptance of limits supposes upon me	41:24
	what I have fled all my life.	41:28
	I have despised discipline.	41:31
	But this I must buy: if I continue to live long,	41:36
	or if ever, I should live well.	41:41
	And this discipline, it is which	41:44
	if preservative will be conservative,	41:48
	that is to say,	41:52
	I have been pushed to an ethic of parsimony,	41:54
	even while living in a cornucopia of supply.	41:59
	Parsimony is the only ethic I know	42:04
	that can protect homeostasis	42:07
	in a context of limited creation.	42:11
	But look again at my limits, stomach, bladder, bowels,	42:15
	heart, kidneys, head, muscle, nerve, bone,	42:20
	time, space, place,	42:25
	memory, mind, expectation.	42:28
	I am surrounded, halted, estopped	42:31
	with minimal power to move or move out.	42:35
	This is the given basis for an ethic of parsimony.	42:38
	I have myself survived a systolic blood pressure of 47,	42:43
	but I was clammy and barely living.	42:50
	If that same pressure should reach 180,	42:53
	I'm sitting on an explosion looking for a weak wall	42:57
	where it can happen.	43:01
	My belly juices are no longer those of an Irish setter.	43:03
	I can burn only 30 grams of carbohydrate a day,	43:09
	not the 380 grams of the average American's diet.	43:14
	I cannot live if I am more than six days from any water.	43:19
	And while my average is about three hours,	43:24
	I will become convulsive if I go too long between urinals.	43:28
	I can go 130 days without food, three minutes without air.	43:34
	I need electric stimuli on a mini-second interval,	43:40
	potassium, magnesium, salts and metals in constant supply.	43:44
	And I can't live a day without love.	43:49
	On the average American street,	43:54
	there is a sexual stimulus about every seven minutes,	43:57
	but if this is expressed in a breeding situation,	44:02
	I'm out of room to live in a single generation,	44:06
	marooned on acres of babies.	44:09
	How does one live with his limits	44:13
	up to his rear in crocodiles?	44:16
	How does he think about draining the swamp?	44:20
	The ethical principle involved here, I call parsimony.	44:24
	And this seems a crazy inversion	44:30
	when one has lived in an unlimited creation.	44:33
	But the law of parsimony means	44:38
	both qualitatively and quantitatively.	44:40
	The least that will really do.	44:45
	Professor Tom Terence told me last week	44:50
	that Dr. Einstein hesitated	44:53
	when asked to set a salary at Princeton,	44:55
	and then said he preferred a checking account.	44:59
	Who wouldn't?	45:02
	At the end of a year, trustees found	45:04
	that the great mind and his wife had used $1,700.	45:07
	Wesley may have said, "get all you can, give all you can",	45:15
	but he prescribed no more than eight ounces of any meat	45:19
	and 12 of vegetables a day for his clergy.	45:24
	And then added, no more than a glass of wine.	45:27
	"Never take more than three items at table",	45:33
	he is said to have said,	45:36
	which may explain why he never weighed more than 120,	45:38
	but it also explains why he could preach to 4,000 miners	45:42
	at Gwennap Pit at four o'clock in the morning	45:48
	when he was 82 years old.	45:51
	He was even parsimonious about sleep	45:54
	and ordered his men to study themselves	45:57
	and take no more than was needed to work well.	46:01
	Now, not frugality,	46:06
	frugality is the least I can get by with.	46:08
	Not penuriousness, which begrudges me,	46:12
	even the minimum needs of my own belly,	46:16
	but parsimony, the least that will really do.	46:19
	It means the shrinking of gargantuous gullet.	46:24
	The constriction of the appetite of Amazon,	46:28
	the drastic reduction of the belly of mammon.	46:31
	This is what I have sought.	46:36
	And one is rich in proportion	46:38
	to what he can do without, says Thoreau.	46:40
	The house farthest out in Dean Sam Miller's lovely gift	46:44
	had no television.	46:48
	He shall give thee thy heart's desire	46:51
	says my old neighbor in Paraguay	46:54
	means that God almighty will fix your water,	46:57
	if you'll let him.	47:02
	Not frugality, this is a venal sin	47:04
	and a crime against nature.	47:08
	Not penuriousness, that's a spiritual condition,	47:10
	but parsimony, an empirical, administrative,	47:15
	judgemental, principle, operative	47:19
	with the least that will really finish creation.	47:22
	This is what I mean.	47:27
	It works especially, and even in psychic therapy	47:29
	for the hero's response is properly the least	47:34
	that we'll really do, lest he invade	47:38
	and assume another's privacy and responsibility	47:41
	of covenant and its concomitant responsibility.	47:48
	I do speak with passion	47:52
	and my passion is not devoid of precedent.	47:54
	It's 20 years now since I came east from Austin	47:59
	to do my structures of prejudice in public	48:02
	and found myself rooming with that covenantal monument,	48:06
	James Muilenburg, and could hear, see him	48:11
	be that Abraham's sinking into covenant	48:15
	with the Yahweh of grace and mercy.	48:20
	And I climbed those seven stories with dear Muilenburg	48:23
	to come to see where the human partner connected by covenant	48:28
	with both creation and salvation is reminded of duty	48:33
	and decision and a necessary declaration.	48:39
	Responsible I am, as Imago Dei,	48:43
	for the parsimonious caretaking	48:48
	of everything else and myself in creation.	48:51
	If entering now the Zenith of my brief arc	48:57
	across and within creation,	49:01
	I should enter God's grand assize hall tomorrow,	49:05
	called to account for myself,	49:10
	I would offer this confession and defense,	49:16
	if indeed I could do more than fall down,	49:21
	but if able to give vocal utterance at all, I should say,	49:25
	thou knowest, dear Lord of our lives,	49:30
	that for 50 of my years in ignorance, zest, zeal, and sin,	49:34
	I lived as if creation and I had no limit.	49:42
	I lived and wanted and was as if I had forever	49:46
	without regard for time or wit or strength	49:52
	or need or limit or endurance.	49:56
	And as if sleep were a needless luxury	50:00
	and digestion an automatic process.	50:03
	But thou, oh Lord of my love, did snatch my bits	50:08
	and did the drive me into thy back pasture,	50:13
	and did rub my nose in my vulnerability,	50:18
	and did split my lungs into acquiescence,	50:22
	and did freeze my colon in grief and loss,	50:26
	and did press me into that long depression	50:30
	at the anger I directed against myself	50:34
	and did so pressed me to knee drop	50:38
	where the only word of petition I could utter	50:41
	was a despair laden open, open,	50:44
	and thou didst read my diary over my shoulder	50:48
	on that long journey when at last I did melt before thee	50:52
	as mere creature than thou didst here.	50:58
	Hear now my pitiable defense,	51:04
	in all my 60 years, I killed no creature of thine	51:09
	I did not use for food except for a few rattlesnakes,	51:14
	a turtle or two, two quail I left overlong in my coat,	51:19
	three geese poisoned before I shot them	51:25
	on bad grain in Nebraska,	51:28
	plus one wood duck in Korea.	51:30
	In all my years, I consciously battered no child,	51:35
	though my own claim much need to forgive me	51:39
	and I consciously misused no person,	51:44
	thou knowest my aim to treat no human as thing.	51:47
	Never to hate overlong and to pass no child without her eye.	51:52
	And my inner most wish to love as thou doest love	52:00
	by seeing never any shade of class or color.	52:03
	And thou didst 30 years ago hear my cry	52:08
	to let me out of Paducah.	52:12
	Thou knowest my covenant with Elizabeth in our youth.	52:17
	Thou knowest it has been better kept	52:22
	than my covenant with thee	52:24
	and will thou forgive, indeed thou hast.	52:27
	Hear now mine intention with grace as if it were fact.	52:32
	I do and I have intended to be responsible	52:37
	in creation by covenant	52:42
	and where I have defaulted	52:46
	do thou forgive?	52:48
	Forgive thou, my vicarious responsibility	52:51
	for all the defection from thy purpose	52:55
	of all thy responsible creatures and accept thou this,	52:58
	my admission of utter dependence upon thy mercy.	53:03
	And this, dear friends, is as near as I wish now	53:09
	to come to total disclosure of what I mean	53:14
	by responsible ethic within my limits	53:18
	of God's limited creation, but there is more.	53:22
	The name above every name at which every knee shall bow	53:28
	has not yet been uttered.	53:33
	This name appropriated is the content and context	53:37
	of our responsible identity.	53:42
	I wrote 20 years ago,	53:46
	my suffering servant for Eastertide	53:48
	and the artists commissioned	53:53
	to do His dear face for its cover.	53:55
	Smitten, deaf, and dumb in her infancy	54:00
	to the astonished eyes of her editorial colleagues	54:05
	did for the face of the Christ, her own self portrait.	54:10
	It's authentic.	54:18
	And it hangs now in my study,	54:20
	but the blessed Jesus never referred to himself	54:23
	by that suffering servant title.	54:26
	Servant, yes.	54:30
	Son, yes.	54:32
	Rejected, yes.	54:34
	To suffer, yes.	54:36
	But he never appropriated Isaiah's graphic poem	54:38
	as his own name.	54:42
	Who then laid it on him,	54:46
	that he was bruised for our iniquities.	54:49
	The chastisement of our peace was laid on him.	54:53
	Who recognized first that he was despised	54:58
	and rejected a man of sorrows and a grief knower?	55:02
	That all we like sheep had gone astray	55:08
	that we had turned every one to his own way,	55:12
	and that the Lord had laid upon him the iniquity of us all?	55:17
	Answer, the whole believing first century community	55:23
	laid it on him when they saw his cross death.	55:28
	In unison, as they looked back, they said there,	55:35
	there in the St. Mark gorgeous liturgy,	55:40
	it comes in the fourth century,	55:44
	the Lord hath reigned from the tree	55:46
	and he is suffering servant.	55:52
	Jesus never claimed the title.	55:55
	And for that matter, there's no label on Matterhorn.	55:58
	It waits for you to gasp and know where you are.	56:03
	There's no sign on Grand Canyon,	56:11
	the overlooker just gasps and draws back.	56:14
	There's no placard for suffering servant,	56:20
	but the whole community of believers says,	56:23
	God comes and has come to us.	56:27
	The divine has emptied himself.	56:31
	Dear Augustine puts it, God has become a peasant,	56:34
	and still man is proud.	56:39
	Pass by him the man, and you will come to God,	56:44
	do not ask for any other way to come to him	56:47
	for if he had not vouched safe	56:50
	to be the way we should all have gone astray.	56:52
	Therefore I say to thee do not seek the way,	56:56
	the way has come to thee, rise and walk.	57:00
	Our Christian secret, says the aged Karl Barth,	57:07
	is that I know you, who you are,	57:12
	and you know, me, our name is Jesus,	57:16
	and this puts us in church.	57:20
	But he goes on and also we also know	57:25
	this about all them others out there,	57:30
	whether they know it or not.	57:35
	And this changes our style with them	57:39
	and puts us all in church.	57:43
	And what does this mean for us here and now?	57:45
	It means at least this,	57:51
	I am not to derive my name and identity	57:54
	from culturally imposed designations.	57:58
	My sex and my race and my religion and region	58:03
	and class and economic location and family and education	58:07
	are not identification tags.	58:12
	My name is the highest I know.	58:16
	Jesus, who is the Christ, the best of breed is my species.	58:19
	This imposes a higher identity secretly upon me.	58:25
	But how, and with what effrontery	58:31
	would I assume this identity?	58:35
	My culture, class, town, and family,	58:40
	my religion, education, and values structures,	58:44
	my race, economic location, and national heritage	58:48
	all tell me that I am supposedly male, white,	58:52
	east Tennessee, Democrat lower-class, Baptist, ordained,	58:57
	half-educated and certified.	59:02
	Is there for me a higher identity resting	59:06
	on God's own recognition?	59:09
	I certainly hope to God so.	59:12
	Jesus Christ is my species and my breed.	59:18
	Our incarnation is a stupid fantasy.	59:22
	And John Hick's little new essay could go far,	59:26
	except I was with John McAuley when he came out	59:31
	and he'd already written an answer,	59:33
	the truth of incarnation.	59:36
	But what happens if I know and assume	59:39
	that my identity is Jesus Christ, catastrophe.	59:43
	It's an ego maniacal self-aggrandizing assumption	59:50
	of false identity.	59:54
	Unless. Unless I wait.	59:57
	Wait, wait for you to see this.	1:00:00
	Wait for you to give me my name as priest of God to you.	1:00:05
	For you to tell me who I am to you,	1:00:12
	Jesus, who has appeared.	1:00:16
	But if I say this,	1:00:19
	I disfranchise the blessed Jesus and myself.	1:00:21
	You must tell me this, if it's so, and I must wait,	1:00:26
	and this is the ethic of identity.	1:00:31
	I need you to tell me who I am, Jesu mercy.	1:00:34
	And now I need a summary, and it defies my powers	1:00:42
	of condensation and consanguinity, whatever that is.	1:00:48
	But Jesus is my name.	1:00:53
	I am goyim, gentile, born out of due season,	1:00:57
	included by God's creator grace	1:01:04
	in all He has intended for all mankind.	1:01:07
	Within God's Israel by adoption, as are all them,	1:01:13
	and called to be Jesus where I can,	1:01:21
	under an ages old covenant of responsible presence	1:01:25
	in an arena of created powers and processes	1:01:31
	over which I exercise some kind of oversight	1:01:36
	as vulnerable, limited, inhibited, victim, and sinner,	1:01:40
	recalcitrant, redundant, reluctant	1:01:46
	junior partner in a creative process,	1:01:49
	which may or may not reach its fulfillment	1:01:53
	far beyond me and mine.	1:01:57
	Naked came I into the world, mama always says.	1:02:02
	How I'm dressed at conclusion makes no difference.	1:02:09
	A pair of jeans or a Glasgow gown, it makes no difference.	1:02:15
	Meantime, I mow. I cut wood for winter.	1:02:20
	I clean drainage ditches.	1:02:27
	I preach where I'm asked what is happening.	1:02:30
	And I listen and I wait and I want,	1:02:34
	and I work and I look to see what God will do in the earth,	1:02:38
	which asks for covenant response and glories in redemption	1:02:44
	as a weigh station en route to completion, Silas.	1:02:50
	But I watch out always for babies	1:02:57
	and little rabbits in front of my big mower,	1:03:00
	and old folks nearby,	1:03:05
	and black snakes that are worth preserving,	1:03:08
	and little puppies on the road,	1:03:11
	and all these young, old who stutter and lack	1:03:14
	and can hear too, the cry of all us faithful.	1:03:19
	Come Lord Jesus.	1:03:27
	Let us pray.	1:03:32
	Let thy holy presence come upon us,	1:03:37
	we beseech thee, oh Lord.	1:03:42
	Hallelujah.	1:03:45
	Amen.	1:03:47
	(organ playing hymn)	1:03:56
	(congregation singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	1:04:19
	♪ Amen ♪	1:05:54
	(organ playing hymn)	1:06:05
	(choir singing hymn)	1:08:01
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	1:11:32
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	1:11:47
	(organ playing hymn)	1:12:17
	(choir singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	1:12:43
	♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪	1:12:55
	♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪	1:13:16
	♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪	1:13:21
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	1:13:28
	♪ Amen ♪	1:13:36
-	Oh God, as we offer our gifts to you,	1:13:48
	may we also offer ourselves,	1:13:54
	take our bodies, our minds,	1:13:59
	our spirits, our whole selves,	1:14:01
	and use us in your ministry in your world	1:14:05
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	1:14:11
	(organ playing hymn)	1:14:20
	(congregation singing hymn, lyrics muffled by organ)	1:14:59
	And now without bowing our heads or closing our eyes,	1:18:55
	may I offer you this blessing, this benediction,	1:18:59
	the grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.	1:19:04
	The love of God,	1:19:09
	the fellowship of the holy spirit	1:19:11
	be with you now and forever.	1:19:14
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	1:19:21
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	1:19:28
	♪ Amen, amen ♪	1:19:38
	♪ Amen ♪	1:19:55
	(organ playing hymn)	1:20:13
	(congregation chattering)

Item Info

Title:

Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4s46n758

Date:

September 11, 1977

Speaker:

Marney, Carlyle, 1916-1978

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0915
ref7033_rz0
uachapelsermaud
duke:628460
dcrau002859
ark:/87924/r4s46n758
042e61bf-8d5c-49c1-86c6-a8478c12e285

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

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No Re-Use

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This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

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1. Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Life-Style" (September 11, 1977)

Duke University Archives

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Carlyle Marney - "A Christian Lifestyle" (September 11, 1977)

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