D. Jürgen Moltmann - Communion Meditation (October 1, 1967)
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Transcript
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- | Sons of God | 0:02 |
through faith. | 0:05 | |
For as many of you | 0:08 | |
as were baptized into Christ | 0:09 | |
have put on Christ. | 0:12 | |
There is neither Jew nor Greek, | 0:15 | |
there is neither slave nor free, | 0:20 | |
there is neither male nor female, | 0:24 | |
for you are all one | 0:28 | |
in Christ Jesus. | 0:31 | |
And if you are Christs, | 0:34 | |
then you are Abraham's offspring, | 0:37 | |
heirs according to promise. | 0:41 | |
And may God bless unto us | 0:45 | |
the reading of his holy word. | 0:47 | |
- | This communion meditation is based upon the verses | 1:34 |
from Galatians, which we have just heard. | 1:37 | |
Who am I really? | 1:42 | |
This is a crucial question we all have to answer | 1:46 | |
in our lifetime, when we are young we compete | 1:49 | |
in games to find out how strong we are physically. | 1:53 | |
Later, we take a job to prove ourselves | 1:58 | |
and others what we can accomplish with our total being | 2:01 | |
and when we have exhausted ourselves in the demands | 2:07 | |
and responsibilities of our everyday concerns, | 2:10 | |
we often cry out, I have lost myself, | 2:15 | |
I want to find myself again, I don't know at all | 2:20 | |
who I really am. | 2:24 | |
And so the question of our self identity | 2:28 | |
keeps hounding is till the grave. | 2:31 | |
Man has hidden to himself all his life | 2:34 | |
he is in search of his true being. | 2:38 | |
Dostoevsky wrote, the end knows the formula | 2:42 | |
of her end who, the bee knows knows the formula | 2:46 | |
of her bee hive, they do not know their formula | 2:51 | |
in a human way, but in their own way. | 2:55 | |
And they don't need to know more. | 2:59 | |
Only man does not know his formula. | 3:01 | |
Thus man is always man on the go, a risk, an adventure | 3:06 | |
and a hope, he can gain everything, | 3:11 | |
but he can also lose everything, he can find heaven | 3:16 | |
and he can find hell as well. | 3:20 | |
In his preaching, saint Paul opens up two ways of life | 3:24 | |
for us, that of a slave and that of a son. | 3:28 | |
What does he want to say? | 3:33 | |
A man can try to find his self identity | 3:35 | |
by enormous works, who really he is then depends | 3:38 | |
on what other people see him doing. | 3:43 | |
Here he places himself under the law. | 3:46 | |
Everyday he hears the command of his conscience, | 3:50 | |
you must accomplish something big today. | 3:54 | |
You have to be somebody, you have to prove yourself | 3:58 | |
and to others, that you are a good guy or a charming woman. | 4:02 | |
You have to do better than others | 4:07 | |
and this voice evokes ambition in man | 4:10 | |
and his anxiety acts him on. | 4:14 | |
He looks for approval in the eyes of his fellowmen | 4:17 | |
and seeks self respect from their compliments. | 4:20 | |
On the other hand, however, he is also constantly | 4:25 | |
trying to humiliate others in order to exalt himself. | 4:28 | |
I am not like this text collector, said the Farizee, | 4:33 | |
I am not like this Jew or that Negro | 4:38 | |
or like the communist, some say today. | 4:41 | |
But this way of life is life under the law. | 4:45 | |
If we live this way, we are slaves, | 4:49 | |
slaves of our own anxiety seeking approval through works | 4:52 | |
is a characteristic of slaves. | 4:57 | |
A slave has to make something out of himself, | 5:00 | |
because he is nothing in himself. | 5:04 | |
Saint Paul's points to another way of life | 5:09 | |
by proclaiming Christ to us. | 5:12 | |
Don't look upon yourself, don't become dependent | 5:15 | |
in your works, whether in pride over the good ones | 5:20 | |
or in despair over the bad ones. | 5:24 | |
Look upon Christ, who gave himself up to death for you. | 5:28 | |
In him you will find yourself, whoever you are, | 5:33 | |
deeply loved forever. | 5:38 | |
In Christ, we recognize the love of the father | 5:40 | |
and whenever we experience this love, | 5:45 | |
we become free. | 5:47 | |
The frantic struggle for approval stops. | 5:50 | |
The anxiety of coming up on the short end of life | 5:55 | |
disappears, we can accept ourselves as we are, | 5:59 | |
because of being accepted by God in his love. | 6:04 | |
We can have confidence as a son, | 6:08 | |
who trusts his father, we are at home everywhere | 6:12 | |
and can breathe freely, because we are surrounded | 6:16 | |
by his love from all sides. | 6:20 | |
No one can earn this, for no one becomes a son | 6:24 | |
by doing good works, but only by the love of his parents. | 6:28 | |
Yee all are sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, | 6:34 | |
saint Paul tells the Galatians. | 6:39 | |
I don't think, that they were better people, | 6:42 | |
than we are, they were probably just as hopeful | 6:45 | |
and just as disappointed, just as proud | 6:49 | |
and just as sad as we are. | 6:52 | |
And nevertheless, they and we are sons of God | 6:55 | |
by faith in Christ, because they and we find | 7:00 | |
in Christ the costly love of God to his mankind | 7:05 | |
and in this love we are changed from proud | 7:11 | |
and unfortunate slaves to children of his joy. | 7:14 | |
To sons, to whom belongs the world, | 7:20 | |
to heirs of the coming kingdom in which all things | 7:24 | |
will be new. | 7:27 | |
Every fish needs water in which to swim. | 7:31 | |
Every bird needs air for flying | 7:35 | |
and we human beings need love to live in freedom. | 7:38 | |
The boundless love for God is like the atmosphere | 7:44 | |
in which we grow up to a truly free and human life. | 7:48 | |
We find ourselves where we find with very love of God. | 7:54 | |
Let us say therefore, seeking approval through works | 7:59 | |
is a sign of slaves, but the freedom found in faith | 8:04 | |
expresses the true dignity of the children of God. | 8:09 | |
And there's another negative characteristic of man | 8:16 | |
involved in saint Paul's reflections, | 8:20 | |
that need to be mentioned. | 8:23 | |
Whenever men come together, they easily draw apart | 8:25 | |
from each other at once as if separation | 8:30 | |
were a rule of their nature. | 8:34 | |
The Israelites consider themselves separate from the heathen | 8:38 | |
by divine election. | 8:43 | |
The Greek claim to be better than the Barbarians, | 8:46 | |
because of their education. | 8:50 | |
Some Christians today take non Christians | 8:53 | |
to be worse people. | 8:57 | |
We separate ourselves from other people by pride | 8:59 | |
in the superiority of our origin or education, | 9:02 | |
worlds, class, race and countless other ways | 9:07 | |
which we invent day by day. | 9:12 | |
We are naturally inclined to congregate with people, | 9:15 | |
whom we consider equals. | 9:20 | |
People, who are our equals are at last similar to us, | 9:23 | |
confirm us in which we are. | 9:27 | |
People, who are strangers make us feel uncertain | 9:31 | |
and uneasy. | 9:34 | |
Birds over feather flock together | 9:37 | |
and one crow doesn't pick out the eye of another. | 9:40 | |
These proverbs go back to the Greeks, | 9:44 | |
who thought, that only brotherly love | 9:48 | |
can bring together free citizen in society. | 9:52 | |
Their political society consisted of an assembly | 9:57 | |
of the free and the lords, an assembly rigidly | 10:01 | |
excluding slaves. | 10:06 | |
We all know, that this attitude of exclusiveness | 10:09 | |
is a basic motive for hate, | 10:14 | |
for wars and even revolutions. | 10:17 | |
The scheme of hate is rooted deeply in the souls | 10:21 | |
of vile men, it is a result of a whole cast | 10:25 | |
of thinking and of painting all of human reality | 10:31 | |
in black and white tones. | 10:35 | |
People divide each other up into neat categories, | 10:39 | |
friends and foes, equals and unequals. | 10:43 | |
Usually, they need an enemy, who creates in them | 10:47 | |
anxiety and fear precisely in order, | 10:50 | |
that they may solidify their own group | 10:54 | |
and their own nation. | 10:57 | |
Communists do in fact need a bad class enemy | 11:00 | |
who is guilty of all evil. | 11:04 | |
And many in the western world no less seem to need | 11:06 | |
the bad communists to serve as a focal point of anxiety. | 11:10 | |
Because man is not free to discover the guilt, | 11:15 | |
that is his own, he urgently needs a ribbing boy | 11:19 | |
or escape goat, whom he can accuse | 11:23 | |
in order to excuse himself. | 11:26 | |
Why do people act this way privately | 11:30 | |
as well as in public life? | 11:33 | |
I think because they are slaves of their own anxiety | 11:35 | |
and are not free. | 11:39 | |
God's love liberates us from this anxiety. | 11:42 | |
We simply lose fear, whenever we experience | 11:47 | |
everlasting love. | 11:51 | |
And God's love creates peace on earth. | 11:54 | |
We can see in the Christ of God, | 11:58 | |
who died not for his friends, but for the enemies of God, | 12:01 | |
what this love means. | 12:06 | |
It is not brotherly love fill you up as the Greek said, | 12:08 | |
but love of enemy agapi, as the new testament says. | 12:13 | |
Jesus associated not with the equal, | 12:19 | |
but with one, who was different, the unequal, the ostracized | 12:23 | |
the despised, the humiliated ones. | 12:28 | |
To the amazement of Farizee Jesus associates | 12:31 | |
where prostitutes and text collectors, | 12:35 | |
social outcasts, and political nobodies. | 12:38 | |
In his love equal doesn't associate with equal. | 12:43 | |
Opposites reflect each other | 12:49 | |
and this means God justifies | 12:53 | |
the godless and accept sinners and always them. | 12:56 | |
This love is not like a playboy love, which is attracted | 13:02 | |
by outward glamour and what appears lovable. | 13:06 | |
It is a creative love, which seeks the lost and creates | 13:10 | |
new life where otherwise hate kills everything. | 13:15 | |
Through Christ we learn this new creative love, | 13:20 | |
because we experience it only in him. | 13:25 | |
If we are recreated to a new life by this love, | 13:29 | |
we are unable to love our enemies. | 13:33 | |
I think this is the creative reality of the Christian | 13:37 | |
community, here all boundaries are infiltrated | 13:42 | |
and the wars of separation, men themselves erect, | 13:47 | |
for mutual isolation are raised. | 13:52 | |
Here is neither Jew, nor Greek, neither bond nor free, | 13:56 | |
neither male nor female and let us say neither friend | 14:00 | |
nor foe for all are one in Christ Jesus. | 14:05 | |
All are alike as sinners, lacking true humanity | 14:10 | |
and yet all are equally loved by God. | 14:14 | |
We can become a Christ to the other, | 14:19 | |
for we have put on Christ as saint Paul says, | 14:25 | |
thus we can become a brother and a helper | 14:28 | |
and in this way the redeemer to the other. | 14:32 | |
A way of freedom went through the ancient world, | 14:38 | |
when people left behind them their prejustices | 14:42 | |
and the nations classes and races | 14:46 | |
to find a new humanity in the worldwide community | 14:50 | |
of the church. | 14:54 | |
They were called the new people | 14:56 | |
of God and the third species. | 14:58 | |
The movement of peace went through the medieval world | 15:03 | |
when people left behind them the everlasting struggle | 15:07 | |
for blood revenge and came to the last supper | 15:11 | |
for reconciliation. | 15:15 | |
It is especially at similar frontiers, | 15:18 | |
that we have to seek the creative reality | 15:22 | |
of the church today, where enemies make friends, | 15:25 | |
where contempt is replaced with appreciation, | 15:31 | |
where hate changes into kindness, | 15:35 | |
there is the true Christian community. | 15:39 | |
Christ is not against the communists, he died for them. | 15:43 | |
Christ is not against our private or public enemies, | 15:49 | |
he died for them, if we understand that | 15:53 | |
and follow him in the ministry of reconciliation, | 15:58 | |
then the Christian community is what it has to be, | 16:03 | |
the avant garde of the coming new world of God, | 16:07 | |
where man kind shall live in peace. | 16:11 | |
Well it is true, what we are able to realize | 16:16 | |
in this life are fragments, beginnings, | 16:20 | |
only very small steps, but it belongs to the vision | 16:24 | |
of the Christian hope to see in the fragments | 16:29 | |
the form of the coming whole. | 16:34 | |
In the ambivious beginnings | 16:38 | |
beyond equivocal perfection, | 16:42 | |
and in there some vessel the beauty of the coming kingdom | 16:45 | |
of God. | 16:50 | |
What we are able to realize of kindness and peace | 16:52 | |
in our Christian community is always very human | 16:56 | |
and puny and often all together much too human. | 17:00 | |
But at the same time, this reality is a sacrament | 17:05 | |
of the great hope for the future of mankind. | 17:10 | |
Today is worldwide communion Sunday, | 17:16 | |
throughout the world people are celebrating | 17:19 | |
the supper of our lord, everywhere men are becoming | 17:23 | |
free sons of God, out of proud or desperate slaves. | 17:28 | |
Greek and barbarian, bond and free, male and female, | 17:34 | |
Germans and Poles, black and white are entering | 17:40 | |
the brotherhood of Christ, leaving behind | 17:44 | |
what separates them and makes them enemies. | 17:48 | |
Now they are becoming a unity in the midst of all disunity. | 17:52 | |
They are celebrating the festival of freedom | 18:00 | |
across all boundaries, they hope in peace on earth, | 18:03 | |
because they believe in the reconciliation | 18:08 | |
of the world through the love of Christ. | 18:11 | |
This is presented as a great | 18:15 | |
offer to each of us. | 18:18 | |
God offers us his open hand to recreate us | 18:21 | |
from slaves to sons, | 18:26 | |
from all continents and nations, | 18:29 | |
brothers stretch out their hands to find the brother in us. | 18:32 | |
Do not let these hands remain empty. | 18:37 | |
Seize these hands and hold firm, it is the offer | 18:41 | |
of true life in the midst of death | 18:46 | |
and herein we can experience what we really are. | 18:50 | |
We are the sons of God by faith, | 18:55 | |
we are all one in Christ | 18:59 | |
Jesus and we shall live in the peace of God, | 19:01 | |
amen. | 19:07 |
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