Van Bogard Dunn - "Where to Take Hold: The Structure of the Demonic and the Structure of Grace" (July 12, 1959)

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-	Okay	0:04
	Let us-	0:05
	(horn music)	0:06
	(choir music)	0:12
	(horn music)	0:20
	(buzzing ambience)	0:24
-	Let us pray.	0:36
	Let the words of my mouth,	0:40
	and the meditations of our hearts,	0:43
	be acceptable in thy sight.	0:46
	Oh Lord.	0:49
	Our strength and our Redeemer.	0:50
	Amen.	0:54
	In a recent book by Alexander Miller,	0:58
	references made to an experience	1:01
	which Sir George McCloud had	1:03
	in a railway station in north India,	1:05
	Dr. McLeod was waiting for his train in the station,	1:09
	and as he waited, his attention was caught	1:14
	by a packing case over in one corner of the station.	1:16
	The station, this packing case was labeled quite clearly.	1:22
	The case should be carried bottom upward.	1:27
	Now that so far is rather straightforward	1:32
	and doesn't create any confusion in our minds.	1:35
	But then down about halfway of the case,	1:39
	this further instruction was added;	1:42
	the top is marked bottom	1:45
	to avoid confusion.	1:49
	Now, the more you think about that, the worse it becomes.	1:53
	And as you turn it over and over in your mind	1:57
	you see what a topsy-turvy situation is created	2:00
	by that kind of instruction.	2:04
	(creaking)	2:06
	There is something demonic about it.	2:08
	Something erratic and irrational.	2:11
	(creaking)	2:15
	And as you think about it, the question that begins to rise	2:18
	in your mind is this:	2:21
	'Just where do you take hold?'	2:25
	And this is more than an academic question.	2:28
	It is more than a trifling question.	2:31
	I think it's a question that is raised	2:36
	by our religious experience,	2:38
	the whole history of our religious experience.	2:40
	Now it's not possible of course	2:45
	to review that history in its entirety.	2:46
	I want us to focus our attention	2:50
	upon a segment of that history.	2:52
	A segment that is recorded in the passage of scripture	2:55
	that I read for you a few moments ago.	2:58
	Let me reproduce it in paraphrase.	3:01
	The time is the beginning	3:06
	of the invasion of Europe by the Church.	3:09
	The place is Philippi.	3:14
	Paul and Silas have begun their work in that city.	3:19
	The success of their work can be measured	3:24
	in terms of their imprisonment.	3:27
	They had created disturbance.	3:30
	We find them in jail, singing.	3:32
	Singing hymns praise.	3:36
	About midnight,	3:39
	the foundations of the prison	3:41
	are shaken by great earthquake.	3:43
	The feathers of the prisoners are loose.	3:46
	The doors of the prison, fly open.	3:50
	The jailer awakes in the midst of this confusion.	3:55
	He sees immediately that it is all together possible	4:00
	that his prisoners have escaped.	4:03
	In this situation,	4:06
	he is aware of his responsibility.	4:06
	So he is at the point	4:11
	of drawing his sword and killing himself.	4:12
	And at this moment, Paul cries out with a loud voice,	4:16
	'Do thyself, no harm.'	4:21
	'We're all here.'	4:24
	And at this point, the jailer rushes in	4:26
	and throws himself before Paul and Silas,	4:29
	and he cries out of the despair of his situation.	4:33
	'Men,'	4:37
	'what must I do to be saved?'	4:39
	and then Paul answers him,	4:44
	'Believe in the Lord, Jesus,'	4:47
	'and you and your whole household will be saved.'	4:50
	And beginning at that very moment,	4:54
	Paul and Silas explain the word of the Lord to him.	4:56
	He is baptized,	5:02
	he administers to their need,	5:04
	he gives them the hospitality of his home.	5:06
	He and his whole household are brought	5:10
	into the community of faith,	5:13
	and the end result is that that very night	5:16
	this man who had known despair,	5:20
	suddenly is rejoicing	5:23
	in the fact that he has believed	5:26
	in God.	5:29
	Now I think we need to look very closely	5:32
	at this passage of scripture,	5:34
	for there is more concern here	5:38
	than the relationship between a jailer	5:41
	and two men, Paul and Silas.	5:44
	Here we see in the first instance, the demonic.	5:49
	The structure of evil,	5:54
	beyond the power of moral goodwill,	5:57
	threatening the life of a man.	6:01
	threatening his social relationships,	6:05
	presenting to him a threat, which is erratic,	6:11
	which is irrational,	6:15
	which is unpredictable,	6:17
	and in the presence of this kind of threat,	6:21
	the man is powerless.	6:23
	Now there is no line of contact between the morality	6:27
	of this man and the fact that his life is threatened.	6:32
	I'm fairly confident that this jailer was a man	6:36
	very responsible in his position,	6:41
	seeking to do the best he could, and then suddenly,	6:43
	beyond his control,	6:48
	and with no warning at all,	6:50
	his whole position in his community is threatened.	6:53
	There is something demonic about it.	6:58
	Mysterious.	7:02
	Strange.	7:04
	He is powerless in the face of it.	7:06
	And yet in spite of the fact that he knows he has	7:12
	done nothing to bring this upon him,	7:14
	in spite of the fact	7:17
	that there can be no connection made between his morality	7:18
	and what has threatened to swallow up his life,	7:21
	there is the feeling of guilt and responsibility.	7:26
	He knows that somehow or other,	7:31
	this thing that has happened to him	7:34
	does not in any sense, remove his responsibility	7:36
	for his role in the community.	7:41
	He had been entrusted with a civic job,	7:44
	and he knows that those	7:48
	in authority will hold him responsible for his prisoners,	7:50
	and with a bad conscience	7:54
	that is below morality,	7:57
	he can only, in despair, prepare to take his life.	7:59
	Now, what can you set over against this	8:07
	in this particular situation?	8:10
	Well, certainly you cannot set over against this	8:14
	demonic structure of evil,	8:16
	Paul and Silas,	8:20
	that simply is not enough.	8:21
	But I think Paul and Silas come into the situation	8:24
	representing something that is sufficient.	8:26
	They come representing grace.	8:30
	They come representing the divine structure of reality.	8:34
	Which is beyond the power of moral that will,	8:40
	this divine structure of reality	8:44
	which offers wholeness,	8:46
	which offers redemption	8:49
	and release to individuals and to society.	8:51
	And which overcomes the threat,	8:55
	which overcomes the threat of demonic destruction,	8:57
	which is able to	9:02
	trial	9:05
	in the face of that	9:06
	which is erratic,	9:07
	irrational,	9:09
	unpredictable.	9:11
	Now let's look at it in terms of this passion.	9:13
	This kind of gracious divine activity	9:17
	has to find a structure, a form,	9:22
	in history.	9:25
	And the structure and form in this passage can be	9:28
	the life of Paul and Silas.	9:31
	What a strange thing.	9:34
	To find men in prison,	9:37
	singing hymns of praise,	9:39
	and to find them calm,	9:42
	to find them poised,	9:45
	in the presence of an earthquake.	9:48
	To find them unconcerned with escape, from physical bondage.	9:52
	To see them crying out to a man in distress,	9:57
	'Do thyself no harm.'	10:01
	Now do not misunderstand me.	10:04
	I'm not suggesting for a moment	10:07
	that you can identify grace	10:09
	with Paul and Silas.	10:12
	But I am saying this;	10:14
	that the divine redemptive activity	10:16
	is operating through Paul and Silas.	10:20
	They become transparent.	10:25
	They point beyond themselves,	10:27
	to a power greater than themselves.	10:30
	Now, how does it work out in the situation?	10:35
	Well, you see, in the first instance,	10:39
	the jailer responding to this cry of restraint,	10:42
	'Do thyself new harm.'	10:46
	The jailer throwing himself at the feet of these two men	10:49
	and then asking 'What must I do to be saved?'	10:54
	Still groping in that situation for some place	11:00
	to take hope.	11:03
	And then with gentleness, I'm sure.	11:06
	With sympathy,	11:10
	Paul responding,	11:12
	'Believe in the Lord, Jesus'	11:15
	'and you and your household will be saved.'	11:19
	Now, what was the man asking for when he	11:23
	asked for salvation?	11:27
	Well, he was asking for safety,	11:31
	and I think we could say quite honestly	11:32
	that he was asking for something to save his neck.	11:35
	But he was asking for something more than just safety.	11:40
	He was asking for health, wholeness of life.	11:45
	Something that would begin to give his life,	11:49
	it was falling apart, integrity.	11:52
	Something that would hold it together.	11:55
	Now, Paul knew that there was nothing that he could do,	12:00
	nothing that any man could do in that kind of situation.	12:04
	So Paul told him to believe.	12:08
	Now faith is that condition of mine,	12:11
	where we are grasped by the power of grace,	12:15
	the structure of divine reality,	12:20
	laying hold upon our lives,	12:23
	and giving to us health.	12:26
	Faith is in a man,	12:32
	but it does not come from a man.	12:34
	It comes through men,	12:38
	but it is never created by men.	12:41
	Paul is pointing beyond himself.	12:47
	He points beyond this shaking of the foundation.	12:50
	He points to that grace of God.	12:55
	Which is ever moving toward men before their striving,	12:59
	and before their working,	13:03
	and then see how it works out.	13:07
	The man had been thrown into this situation	13:09
	with a desperate conscience.	13:11
	Guilt-ridden at the point of suicide.	13:14
	And at the end of this passage of scripture,	13:18
	we see him rejoicing in God.	13:20
	Now I think the temptation	13:23
	for us is to say that he had become a different person,	13:24
	as far as his morality is concerned.	13:29
	I'm sure that he is at the point of being transformed,	13:32
	but his good conscience is above morality	13:37
	just as his bad conscience had been below morality	13:40
	and he is praising God,	13:45
	because of that which had flooded his life	13:48
	in the moment of faith.	13:51
	So then I think we can say something like this,	13:54
	as we look at this passage of scripture.	13:57
	That man is threatened by	14:02
	a demonic structure of evil,	14:05
	something erratic, irrational, unpredictable	14:09
	but in the very moment of threat,	14:15
	God's grace is extended to him and proclaimed to him	14:17
	by the church and he can receive it by faith.	14:22
	Let us see how this begins to relate	14:29
	to our particular situation,	14:31
	how we can begin to make points of contact	14:35
	between what happened in a Philippian jail	14:37
	and what can happen in our 20th century world.	14:40
	This word 'demonic' is strange to our ears.	14:45
	And I know that if I am going to make it acceptable to you,	14:52
	I will have to labor it.	14:57
	It is not altogether acceptable to me.	15:01
	And yet it is a powerful symbol	15:04
	of those forces beyond our moral goodwill,	15:08
	which threatened to destroy our very lives.	15:13
	I think we ought to be conditioned to receive the symbol	15:18
	in our time, by what has happened	15:21
	in the area of our political activity.	15:23
	And here, I do not simply mean the conflict between	15:27
	Democrats and Republicans.	15:31
	I mean something far more serious.	15:34
	Perhaps we have seen the demonic	15:40
	come to sharp focus	15:43
	in what happened in Germany during the 1930s,	15:45
	and what happened in Germany during the Second World War.	15:49
	I want to tell you of an experience that I had	15:55
	in Germany, in the spring of 1945.	15:57
	In this experience, there is that which is irrational,	16:03
	that which is mysterious,	16:07
	that which threatens our very lives.	16:09
	I was a part of a task force	16:14
	which was liberating and	16:17
	releasing the captives	16:21
	in concentration camps in central Germany.	16:24
	We went into a	16:30
	quiet, peaceful, little German village, Ohrdruf.	16:31
	We passed through the village,	16:36
	and we noticed the doors closed,	16:37
	the windows,	16:41
	shuttered,	16:43
	no life in the streets.	16:45
	We passed on through the village	16:48
	and went up on top of a hill.	16:49
	And we entered into what had been a concentration camp.	16:53
	And corpses were scattered crazily around the courtyard.	16:58
	Prisoners had been slaughtered	17:03
	in one last desperate spasm of evil.	17:05
	And then we began to search around	17:10
	and we found the shed at the back of the camp.	17:13
	And in this wooden shed, we found stacked	17:17
	one upon another, like cordwood,	17:21
	the corpses of those	17:25
	who had been destroyed in this evil thing.	17:27
	After a while, as we were cleaning up,	17:35
	we went down into the village	17:38
	because we thought the people	17:40
	there ought to help with this task.	17:41
	(creaking)	17:45
	And we found the school master,	17:46
	and we found the village Parashah,	17:49
	and we found the ordinary people,	17:53
	and they had been threatened by this thing	17:58
	on the hill, above their village.	18:00
	And it was difficult indeed	18:04
	for me to make any organic relationship	18:06
	between their morality and that thing	18:09
	which threatened their very existence.	18:11
	And I could see in my own eye	18:15
	some comparison between Ohrdruf, Germany	18:17
	and Hazel, Kentucky, the village that I had left.	18:21
	And the same people were in Ohrdurf,	18:26
	the same kind of people,	18:28
	the same situation perhaps,	18:33
	and there was no real relationship	18:37
	between their morality and that thing that had happened too.	18:40
	Now I think this is demonic.	18:45
	It is irrational.	18:48
	Erratic,	18:51
	unpredictable.	18:53
	We have seen it in our own country	18:56
	when our highest placed officials	18:58
	in despair have committed suicide.	19:01
	We have seen it in the response	19:05
	of ordinary citizens,	19:07
	the beatniks,	19:09
	the mature beatniks,	19:11
	those who cynically	19:15
	declare that nothing can be done.	19:18
	And those who are determined	19:21
	to have a good time in spite of it.	19:23
	And we see it in those	19:26
	who are content to cultivate their own gardens.	19:27
	This way is madness and despair and destruction.	19:32
	And in the presence of this kind of demonic threat,	19:38
	what is the role of the church?	19:42
	What is it that can be set over against this	19:47
	which is there?	19:50
	Massive,	19:54
	monolithic,	19:55
	immovable,	19:57
	beyond the power of moral goodwill?	19:58
	Well, I think it's impertinent	20:03
	for the church to begin to tell people to be good.	20:05
	When the foundations have been shaken,	20:10
	to come into a situation of despair,	20:12
	with a message of moralism	20:16
	is impertinent, it is impudent,	20:19
	it fails even to sense the situation.	20:21
	And yet, again and again,	20:24
	this is what we are accustomed to hear	20:26
	from our Protestant (mumble).	20:28
	Man must be good.	20:31
	I heard just this past week,	20:34
	the suggestion made that we could stay out	20:38
	of the hands of the Zacchaeus,	20:41
	by obeying the will of God.	20:44
	Now that kind of moralism simply will not do when	20:48
	a man is threatened by the very disintegration of his life.	20:52
	What is the role of the church?	20:59
	What is ours?	21:02
	Because we are caught in this period	21:05
	of the shaking of the foundations.	21:08
	Do we have anything to say?	21:12
	Well, I have been returning	21:16
	to this campus for the last three summers	21:17
	to participate in a preaching clinic.	21:20
	There is something that always thrilled me	21:27
	as I come back to do it.	21:29
	Oh, it's good to see the people whom I love,	21:33
	it's good to renew acquaintances,	21:38
	but I think which really thrills my life	21:43
	as I come back on this campus,	21:46
	is to come in the drive and go round the circle.	21:50
	And then suddenly,	21:55
	look down the road	21:56
	and see this chapel standing here,	21:59
	towering over the life of this community,	22:02
	and to see shining	22:06
	through the transparency of this architecture	22:07
	the structure of God's grace,	22:11
	which is there offered to us	22:14
	before all our striving and all our doing.	22:16
	And to feel through this very building,	22:21
	the presence of that, which restrains us	22:25
	in our moments of despair,	22:28
	the presence of that which begins to point beyond,	22:32
	beyond our morality,	22:37
	to the structures of grace.	22:40
	Let me talk to you a moment	22:44
	about the structures of grace in this place,	22:45
	because as	22:50
	demonic structures of evil have historical reality,	22:52
	so the divine ground of all-	22:57
	(interrupted by creaking)	23:00
	must begin to have historic expression.	23:01
	And I find it here in this worshiping community.	23:06
	I find it in those who will sing the hymns of the church,	23:11
	at the time of the shaking of the foundation.	23:16
	I'm sure that there are some here	23:21
	this morning who have been shaken,	23:23
	who have been disturbed,	23:26
	who have been threatened with destruction,	23:30
	and yet at the moment of threat,	23:34
	have found the religious reservation	23:37
	and have been able to say	23:40
	in spite of all discipline,	23:41
	in spite of all,	23:45
	there is that moment when grace triumphs over you.	23:47
	All that is done here	23:54
	in the community of worship is transparent.	23:56
	It points beyond itself,	24:00
	it calls attention to that moment,	24:03
	that moment which is	24:06
	the center of our faith.	24:09
	We are told to believe.	24:14
	Not to conjure up faith,	24:18
	but rather to have faith.	24:22
	Let me give you an analogy.	24:26
	A child comes into a strange school.	24:30
	He is surrounded by companions	24:33
	who he does not know.	24:36
	He is confronted with a teacher.	24:38
	And in this situation, the personal relationship	24:41
	is difficult to begin to	24:46
	take hold.	24:51
	And in that sort of situation, what can the child do?	24:54
	He's helpless.	24:58
	The teacher can only begin to make gracious overtures.	25:01
	And as the teacher makes these overtures,	25:06
	faith is created in the life of the child.	25:10
	And in the moment of trust,	25:14
	the personal relationship is established.	25:16
	The faith is in the child,	25:21
	it is not of the child.	25:22
	The faith comes through the teacher,	25:25
	but it is the child's faith.	25:28
	And our faith this morning	25:32
	is not of ourselves,	25:36
	it is in us.	25:38
	It has come through the preaching of the church.	25:40
	It is there that condition	25:43
	when we are grass migrants.	25:45
	The object of our faith,	25:49
	that moment unique in history,	25:51
	when the demonic forces of evil come to sharpest folks,	25:55
	and then the great surge of God's grace in Jesus Christ,	26:01
	swallows it up.	26:06
	The message of the church is still the message of Paul,	26:08
	'Believe in the Lord, Jesus,'	26:12
	'and you and your household,'	26:16
	'will be saved.'	26:19
	I told you a moment ago how this demonic threat	26:25
	was revealed to me in something that happened	26:30
	in Germany in the spring of 1945.	26:32
	I want to set over against this.	26:37
	Another thing that happened to me in Germany	26:40
	in the spring of 1945.	26:43
	On the outskirts of Nuremberg,	26:47
	at the close of the war,	26:49
	there was a church named St. Paul,	26:51
	and I worshiped in that church.	26:56
	And let me tell you of one particular service,	27:00
	a service of holy commute.	27:02
	Let me describe the congregation,	27:06
	The members of an army of occupation for the most part.	27:10
	Negro soldiers and white soldiers.	27:14
	And then scattered through the congregation,	27:19
	German civilians,	27:22
	and then here and there a displaced person.	27:24
	And I remember going to the communion rail	27:29
	and I remember receiving communion in that church.	27:34
	I remember the response that came	27:39
	to the congregation as we received these structures	27:41
	of grace,	27:45
	these transparencies,	27:47
	the love of God shining through,	27:49
	and at the close of the service, the prayer of Thanksgiving,	27:52
	welling up out of our hearts,	27:57
	praising God because we had believed.	28:00
	Finding a good conscience.	28:04
	A good conscience that was far above our morality.	28:07
	So then as we are gathered here this morning,	28:16
	the question is not where to take hold.	28:20
	In this kind of surrounding,	28:24
	the affirmation is that we have been grasped	28:26
	by grace.	28:30
	And we feel the hold on our lives.	28:32
	And as we sense this power	28:37
	of which is beyond ourselves,	28:39
	giving us holy,	28:42
	giving us integrity,	28:45
	And giving us joy.	28:48
	We cry out of the depths of our heart,	28:51
	and we join with all those	28:55
	who have had this same experience.	28:56
	Hallelujah,	29:00
	The Lord God omnipotent	29:02
	reign,	29:05
	hallelujah, Amen.	29:07
	(sounds of chairs against the floor)	29:23
	The grace of our Lord in savior of Jesus Christ,	29:26
	The love of God.	29:29

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Title:

Van Bogard Dunn - "Where to Take Hold: The Structure of the Demonic and the Structure of Grace" (July 12, 1959)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r40v8fj84

Date:

July 12, 1959

Speaker:

Dunn, Van Bogard

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0076
ref5351_11e
uachapelsermaud
duke:628641
dcrau002106
ark:/87924/r40v8fj84
2367737b-aa71-4f9e-af68-580988cd0b72

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Van Bogard Dunn - "Where to Take Hold: The Structure of the Demonic and the Structure of Grace" (July 12, 1959)

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