David C. Steinmetz - "For the Sake of the Gospel" (February 7, 1988)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ music) | 0:00 | |
- | Grace and peace to you | 3:09 |
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, | 3:10 | |
and welcome to this service of worship | 3:12 | |
here at Duke University Chapel | 3:14 | |
on this fifth Sunday after Epiphany. | 3:15 | |
We extend special greetings to those of you | 3:18 | |
in our radio and television audiences, | 3:20 | |
and especially to any of you who may be | 3:22 | |
visiting our campus for the first time. | 3:24 | |
If there's any way that we may offer our assistance | 3:27 | |
to you here at the chapel, please let us know. | 3:29 | |
Our preacher for this morning | 3:32 | |
is the Reverend Doctor David Steinmetz, | 3:34 | |
Professor of Church History and Doctrine | 3:36 | |
at Duke Divinity School. | 3:38 | |
Doctor Steinmetz is a distinguished scholar | 3:40 | |
in the field of late medieval | 3:42 | |
and Reformation church history, | 3:43 | |
and he was recipient of the Duke University | 3:45 | |
Scholar-Teacher Award for 1986. | 3:48 | |
He is also a United Methodist pastor | 3:51 | |
and a greatly admired teacher here on our faculty. | 3:53 | |
We welcome Doctor Steinmetz and his family to our service, | 3:57 | |
and we look forward to his message. | 4:00 | |
We also welcome the bell ringers | 4:03 | |
from Edenton United Methodist Church in Raleigh. | 4:05 | |
Directed by Mister William Wiser, | 4:08 | |
they will join our chapel choir | 4:10 | |
for the offertory anthem today. | 4:12 | |
Please note the remaining announcements | 4:15 | |
as they are printed in your bulletins. | 4:17 | |
And now let us continue our worship. | 4:19 | |
(choir singing) | 4:30 | |
(organ music) | 5:46 | |
(choir singing) | 6:23 | |
(organ music) | 8:19 | |
(choir singing) | 9:38 | |
- | When we gather to praise God, | 10:20 |
we remember that we are a people | 10:22 | |
who have preferred our own wills to the Lord's. | 10:25 | |
Accepting God's power to become new persons in Christ, | 10:29 | |
therefore let us confess our sins | 10:33 | |
before God and one another. | 10:35 | |
Please be seated. | 10:37 | |
Have mercy upon us, O God, | 10:55 | |
according to thy loving kindness. | 10:58 | |
According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, | 11:01 | |
blot out our transgressions. | 11:04 | |
Wash us thoroughly from our iniquities | 11:07 | |
and cleanse us from our sins, | 11:10 | |
for we acknowledge our transgressions | 11:12 | |
and our sin is ever before us. | 11:15 | |
Create in us clean hearts, O God, | 11:18 | |
and renew a right spirit within us | 11:21 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 11:24 | |
Hear the good news. | 11:29 | |
Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. | 11:31 | |
That is God's own proof of his love toward us. | 11:35 | |
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. | 11:39 | |
- | Let us pray. | 11:55 |
Open our hearts and minds, O God, | 12:00 | |
by the power of your Holy Spirit, | 12:02 | |
so that as the word is read and proclaimed | 12:05 | |
we might hear with joy what you say to us this day, amen. | 12:09 | |
The Old Testament reading is taken from the book of Job, | 12:16 | |
chapter seven, verses one through seven. | 12:19 | |
Has not humanity hard service on earth | 12:25 | |
and are not its days like those of a hired laborer, | 12:28 | |
like those of a slave longing for the shade | 12:31 | |
or a servant kept waiting for wages? | 12:35 | |
So months of futility are my portion, | 12:38 | |
troubled nights are my lot. | 12:41 | |
When I lie down I think, when will it be day | 12:44 | |
that I may rise? | 12:48 | |
When the evening grows long and I lie down, | 12:50 | |
I do nothing but toss til morning twilight. | 12:53 | |
My body is infested with worms | 12:57 | |
and scabs cover my skin. | 12:59 | |
My days are swifter than a shuttle | 13:02 | |
and come to an end as the thread runs out. | 13:05 | |
Remember, my life is but a breath of wind. | 13:09 | |
I shall never again see good days. | 13:13 | |
Here ends the lesson. | 13:16 | |
(organ music) | 13:29 | |
(choir singing) | 13:41 | |
(organ music) | 16:37 | |
(choir singing) | 16:52 | |
- | The epistle reading is from 1 Corinthians 9:16-23. | 17:56 |
Even if I preach the gospel, | 18:07 | |
I can claim no credit for it, | 18:10 | |
I cannot help myself, | 18:12 | |
it would be misery to me not to preach. | 18:14 | |
If I did it of my own choice, | 18:17 | |
I should be earning my pay, | 18:19 | |
but since I do it apart from my own choice, | 18:21 | |
I am simply discharging a trust. | 18:24 | |
Then what is my pay? | 18:28 | |
The satisfaction of preaching the gospel | 18:31 | |
without expense to anyone, in other words, | 18:33 | |
of waiving the rights which my preaching gives me. | 18:36 | |
I'm a free man and know no master, | 18:41 | |
but I have made myself everyone's servant | 18:44 | |
to win over as many as possible. | 18:47 | |
To Jews I became like a Jew to win Jews, | 18:50 | |
as they are subject to the law of Moses, | 18:54 | |
I put myself under that law to win them, | 18:56 | |
although I am not myself subject to it. | 19:01 | |
To win gentiles, who are outside the law, | 19:06 | |
I made myself like one of them, | 19:09 | |
although I am not, in truth, outside God's law, | 19:11 | |
being under the law of Christ. | 19:14 | |
To the weak I became weak to win the weak, | 19:18 | |
indeed, I've become everything in turn | 19:23 | |
to persons of every sort | 19:25 | |
so that in one way or another, | 19:27 | |
I may save some. | 19:29 | |
All this I do for the sake of the gospel, | 19:32 | |
to bear my part in proclaiming it. | 19:35 | |
Here ends the epistle lecture. | 19:38 | |
The gospel reading for today | 19:42 | |
is taken from the gospel according to Saint Mark, | 19:44 | |
first chapter, verses 29 to 39. | 19:47 | |
On leaving the synagogue, | 19:55 | |
they went straight to the house of Simon and Andrew, | 19:57 | |
and James and John went with them. | 20:00 | |
Simon's mother-in-law was ill in bed with fever. | 20:03 | |
They told him about her at once, | 20:07 | |
he came forward, took her by the hand, | 20:09 | |
and helped her to her feet. | 20:12 | |
The fever left her, and she waited upon them. | 20:14 | |
That evening, after sunset, | 20:18 | |
they brought to him all who were ill | 20:21 | |
or possessed by devils, | 20:23 | |
and the whole town was there gathered at the door. | 20:25 | |
He healed many who suffered from various diseases, | 20:29 | |
and drove out many devils. | 20:32 | |
He would not let the devils speak | 20:34 | |
because they knew who he was. | 20:36 | |
Very early the next morning, | 20:39 | |
he got up and went out. | 20:43 | |
He went away to a lonely spot | 20:45 | |
and remained there in prayer, | 20:47 | |
but Simon and his companions searched him out, | 20:49 | |
found him, and said they are all looking for you. | 20:53 | |
He answered let us move on | 20:58 | |
to the country towns in the neighborhood, | 21:00 | |
I have to proclaim my message there also, | 21:03 | |
that is what I came out to do. | 21:06 | |
So, all through Galilee he went, | 21:09 | |
preaching in the synagogues and casting out the devils. | 21:11 | |
Here ends the lesson. | 21:16 | |
It's the word of God to the people of God, | 21:19 | |
thanks be to God. | 21:21 | |
(organ music) | 21:33 | |
(choir singing) | 21:55 | |
- | Again from the epistle lesson, | 23:59 |
to Jews I became like a Jew to win Jews. | 24:01 | |
To win gentiles who are outside the law, | 24:06 | |
I made myself like one of them, | 24:08 | |
although I am not, in truth, outside God's law. | 24:10 | |
To the weak I became weak to win the weak, | 24:14 | |
indeed, I have become everything in turn | 24:16 | |
to men of every sort so that in one way or another | 24:20 | |
I may save some. | 24:23 | |
All this I do for the sake of the gospel | 24:26 | |
to bear my part in proclaiming it. | 24:28 | |
Paul is attempting, in a brief autobiographical passage, | 24:33 | |
to reestablish his credentials with the church at Corinth. | 24:37 | |
The question at stake is not the credibility of the gospel, | 24:42 | |
the Corinthians seem to have no real misgivings | 24:46 | |
about their commitment to the good news, | 24:49 | |
but the credibility of the man | 24:52 | |
who first preached the gospel to them. | 24:54 | |
It had been suggested to the Corinthians by a person | 24:57 | |
or persons unnamed that Paul, whatever his gifts, | 25:00 | |
and however well intentioned his motives, | 25:04 | |
was nevertheless an unsound teacher | 25:06 | |
who had misconstrued fundamental points | 25:09 | |
of Christian doctrine. | 25:12 | |
It's not altogether clear who Paul's opponents were. | 25:16 | |
For a long time, it was thought that Paul's opponents | 25:21 | |
were Judaizers, converts to Christianity from Judaism | 25:23 | |
who insisted that their religious experience | 25:29 | |
was normative for non Jews as well. | 25:32 | |
Conversion to Christianity implied | 25:36 | |
a concomitant conversion to Judaism, | 25:38 | |
or at least to a kind of abbreviated | 25:42 | |
and bowdlerized Judaism. | 25:45 | |
Christians of non Jewish ancestry | 25:48 | |
should keep a kosher table, | 25:50 | |
well, at least some kosher regulations, | 25:52 | |
they should observe Jewish practices and holidays, | 25:54 | |
the men should undergo the rite of circumcision | 25:59 | |
and give prominence to the Mosaic law | 26:02 | |
as a pattern for Christian discipleship. | 26:05 | |
As the Judaizers saw it, Paul, | 26:10 | |
by short circuiting this conversion to Judaism, | 26:13 | |
and by stressing Christian freedom, | 26:17 | |
had denigrated the law of God | 26:19 | |
and falsified the gospel. | 26:21 | |
More recently, scholars have argued that Paul's enemies | 26:25 | |
were gnostic Christians, | 26:29 | |
members of spiritualistic group | 26:32 | |
who thought that freedom in Christ | 26:35 | |
meant freedom from ordinary moral constraints, | 26:37 | |
and who therefore opposed any unhealthy repression | 26:40 | |
of natural human drives. | 26:45 | |
Saints are known by the intensity | 26:47 | |
and fervor of their ecstatic worship, | 26:49 | |
not by the character of their sexual morality. | 26:52 | |
It is no business of the truly spiritual to be good, | 26:56 | |
in which case Paul was opposed | 27:00 | |
by people who thought not that he had too low a view | 27:02 | |
of the moral law, as the Judaizers alleged, | 27:06 | |
but altogether too high of one. | 27:10 | |
Paul argues for his credibility as an authentic teacher | 27:14 | |
by bringing up the sensitive subject of money, | 27:19 | |
or rather by reminding his readers | 27:23 | |
that he had never brought up the subject of money | 27:25 | |
when he was living with him in Corinth. | 27:28 | |
Soldiers do not go on active service at their own expense, | 27:31 | |
farmers eat their own produce | 27:36 | |
and use their own dairy products, | 27:38 | |
even the Mosaic law allows an ox | 27:40 | |
that is threshing to thresh unmuzzled. | 27:42 | |
But Paul never took a cent from the Corinthians, | 27:47 | |
though, as these examples make clear, | 27:50 | |
he had every moral right to do so. | 27:52 | |
Instead, he supported himself | 27:55 | |
by practicing his own trade of tent making. | 27:57 | |
Paul puts himself forward as an evangelist | 28:01 | |
who never asked for money, | 28:05 | |
but who preaches the gospel | 28:08 | |
for the sheer pleasure of communicating the good news. | 28:09 | |
Doesn't that count for something | 28:14 | |
when they issue his credibility? | 28:16 | |
Paul does not rest his claims to credibility | 28:20 | |
merely on his refusal to charge | 28:24 | |
the Corinthians for services rendered, | 28:26 | |
though that is clearly an important point to him, | 28:29 | |
but also on the extent he has been willing | 28:33 | |
to accommodate himself to his listeners | 28:35 | |
in an effort to persuade them to embrace the gospel. | 28:38 | |
To Jews I became like a Jew to win Jews, | 28:43 | |
to gentiles who are outside the law | 28:47 | |
I made myself like one of them, | 28:50 | |
to the weak I became weak to win the weak, | 28:53 | |
indeed, I have become everything in turn | 28:57 | |
to men and women of every sort | 29:00 | |
so that in one way or another | 29:03 | |
I may save some. | 29:06 | |
Effective communication of the gospel | 29:10 | |
rests for Paul on flexible adaptation to his audience. | 29:12 | |
The message was credible | 29:18 | |
because it was directed to people where they were | 29:21 | |
and not where Paul might've preferred them to be. | 29:25 | |
It was believable because it was understandable, | 29:28 | |
and it was understandable because it was couched | 29:31 | |
in the familiar terms of the world they knew. | 29:34 | |
They trusted the gospel because they trusted Paul first, | 29:38 | |
and they trusted Paul because | 29:42 | |
he'd taken the trouble to become one of them. | 29:45 | |
Any teacher who reads this passage | 29:50 | |
from Paul's letter to Corinth | 29:53 | |
might be tempted to remark that Paul | 29:55 | |
does not seem so much to be describing | 29:57 | |
the special circumstances and conditions that pertain | 30:00 | |
only to the preaching of the gospel | 30:04 | |
as the universal conditions that apply | 30:07 | |
to the communication of any subject in any field | 30:09 | |
to any group of people who are unfamiliar with it. | 30:14 | |
Teaching is a matter of patient adaptation | 30:18 | |
and accommodation by those who know more | 30:22 | |
to the knowledge, hesitations, | 30:26 | |
fears, and confusions of those who know less. | 30:29 | |
In his lectures on Romans delivered in 1515, | 30:33 | |
Martin Luther contrasted two kinds of art teachers. | 30:37 | |
The first sweeps into the studio, | 30:41 | |
slaps clay on a potter's wheel, | 30:43 | |
molds it into a vase, fires it in the kiln, | 30:45 | |
glazes the vase, and heaves a self satisfied sigh. | 30:49 | |
My, he says, look what a lovely vase I made. | 30:54 | |
Make one like it. | 30:57 | |
The second teacher not only tells his students what to do, | 30:59 | |
but encourages their first tentative departures | 31:03 | |
from his design, | 31:06 | |
advises them when the process does not work as advertised, | 31:08 | |
and assesses critically their first efforts at a new craft. | 31:12 | |
The second teacher is superior to the first | 31:17 | |
and not because he knows more, | 31:21 | |
but because he's accommodated his learning | 31:23 | |
to the ignorance and inexperience of his students. | 31:26 | |
To the weak, he became weak. | 31:29 | |
I've been a teacher for so long | 31:34 | |
that I'd almost forgotten what it was like | 31:37 | |
to be badly taught by someone else | 31:39 | |
until I learned to use a computer, | 31:42 | |
and was introduced to the arcane world of computer manuals, | 31:45 | |
the world of ROM and RAM, of bias and bod, | 31:50 | |
of bit speak and byte babble. | 31:54 | |
Computer manuals are written by people | 31:58 | |
who tell you everything you need to know about a program, | 32:00 | |
except the one vital piece of information | 32:03 | |
that will make the software work. | 32:06 | |
That's not because technical writers | 32:10 | |
are attempt to obscure their subject, | 32:11 | |
or because they maliciously aspire | 32:14 | |
to keep their readers in the dark. | 32:16 | |
The fact of the matter is that they have encountered | 32:19 | |
that omitted piece of information | 32:21 | |
so long ago that they have forgotten | 32:23 | |
that there is anyone on the planet who does not know it. | 32:25 | |
And so, they neglect to mention it. | 32:29 | |
To the weak, they remain strong, | 32:32 | |
of course with the result that the weak remain weak. | 32:35 | |
In this connection, I had an experience two weeks ago | 32:40 | |
that brought me up short. | 32:42 | |
I needed to transfer some information | 32:45 | |
from one computer with a special operating system | 32:47 | |
to a second computer with a different operating system. | 32:52 | |
After the transfer, | 32:56 | |
I discovered that I could edit the information better | 32:57 | |
if I made yet another transfer of that information | 32:59 | |
to a third computer with an operating system | 33:03 | |
different from the first two. | 33:05 | |
I was having coffee with two colleagues | 33:08 | |
who were not computer literate. | 33:10 | |
I felt such a relief at having | 33:12 | |
successfully made the transfer that I told them about it | 33:14 | |
as a topic of collegial small talk. | 33:17 | |
I said something like this, | 33:21 | |
the files I needed for Ventura Publisher | 33:24 | |
were on a Victor 9000 with a proprietorial system | 33:26 | |
edited with Benchmark. | 33:29 | |
We transferred them to an IBM machine | 33:31 | |
that was hardwired to the Victor, | 33:34 | |
and pumped them over as pure ASCII files. | 33:37 | |
ASCII strips out the high bits and substitutes | 33:40 | |
hard carriage returns for soft, | 33:42 | |
but left the files formatted in a way | 33:43 | |
Ventura could not read. | 33:46 | |
Ventura wants flush left ASCII files | 33:47 | |
with two carriage returns at the end of each paragraph, | 33:50 | |
and all extracts tagged. | 33:52 | |
Word Perfect reads ASCII files, of course, | 33:55 | |
but was clumsy to use since it involved | 33:58 | |
the text in out function key | 33:59 | |
rather than normal load and save. | 34:01 | |
PC Right is an ASCII editor | 34:04 | |
but I had been put off by its lengthy menus | 34:06 | |
so I never learned to use it, | 34:08 | |
therefore I use Compact to get the files | 34:09 | |
into my CPM Cape Pro where I could edit them | 34:12 | |
with Perfect Writers since Perfect Writers | 34:15 | |
is a pure ASCII editor. | 34:17 | |
After editing them in ASCII I would put them | 34:18 | |
in MS DOS format since Ventura would accept | 34:21 | |
MS DOS ASCII but not CPM. | 34:24 | |
Couldn't be clearer. | 34:26 | |
I said all this in a cheerful tone of voice | 34:31 | |
that invited my colleagues to share my relief | 34:34 | |
at finding such a simple solution to my problem. | 34:36 | |
My colleagues, however, looked at me | 34:39 | |
as though I had just announced | 34:41 | |
that I was a poached egg. | 34:42 | |
It was evident that neither of them | 34:47 | |
had the faintest idea what I was talking about. | 34:49 | |
They could see that I was immensely pleased with myself, | 34:54 | |
but the grounds for this pleasure were unclear to them. | 34:58 | |
To outsiders, I talked the language of insiders, | 35:02 | |
and so remained incomprehensible. | 35:06 | |
There is, however, | 35:11 | |
a limit to the principle of accommodation. | 35:11 | |
The adaptation of the expert to the beginner | 35:15 | |
has to be tactical and not real | 35:18 | |
or the process of education will come to an abrupt stop. | 35:21 | |
Teachers must identify with the situation of beginners | 35:25 | |
in order to make effective contact | 35:28 | |
with their world of discourse. | 35:30 | |
They cannot themselves be beginners, | 35:33 | |
or they'll have nothing to teach. | 35:36 | |
However much they may like and admire their students, | 35:39 | |
they cannot go native. | 35:41 | |
Education is a strategy for bridging the distance | 35:44 | |
between knowledge and ignorance, | 35:47 | |
it is not a game of pretending | 35:50 | |
that such distances do not exist. | 35:51 | |
When I began teaching in the 60s, | 35:55 | |
it was fashionable in academic circles | 35:58 | |
to claim that the lecture method was dead | 36:00 | |
and that henceforth all education | 36:03 | |
would be advanced through small group discussion. | 36:05 | |
Teachers were not repositories of knowledge to be tapped, | 36:09 | |
nor students empty vessels to be filled. | 36:13 | |
Teachers were co-learners, | 36:16 | |
colleagues with students in a mutual quest for truth. | 36:19 | |
There is, of course, some truth in this theory, | 36:24 | |
but not merely enough to cover the facts. | 36:27 | |
I remember watching teachers who had spent 25 years | 36:31 | |
with their subject painfully struggling | 36:34 | |
to suppress their knowledge and experience | 36:36 | |
in a discussion with students | 36:39 | |
who had spent 25 minutes with it. | 36:40 | |
This egalitarian approach to learning | 36:44 | |
never really caught on in the hard sciences, | 36:46 | |
since there was too great a danger that ignorance | 36:49 | |
might synthesize the wrong chemicals | 36:51 | |
and do itself and the surrounding laboratory | 36:54 | |
grievous bodily harm. | 36:56 | |
At any event, the theory collapsed of its own weight. | 37:00 | |
Ignorance has no right except the right to diminish. | 37:03 | |
The theory collapsed because adjustment to students | 37:10 | |
is not the only accommodation that must be made. | 37:15 | |
There is a prior and even more fundamental adjustment | 37:20 | |
to the subject matter. | 37:24 | |
Knowledge can only be had on its own terms. | 37:27 | |
It refuses to accommodate itself | 37:31 | |
to our personally less inconvenient terms, | 37:33 | |
or less demanding schedule. | 37:37 | |
Anyone who wants to learn organic chemistry, | 37:41 | |
among whom I do not number myself, | 37:43 | |
but anyone who wants to learn organic chemistry | 37:45 | |
has got to be prepared to spend long hours | 37:47 | |
in a chemistry lab setting up experiments | 37:50 | |
and patiently recording data. | 37:52 | |
Anyone who wants to read Goethe or Kleist or Ichendorf | 37:55 | |
has got to learn what seems | 37:59 | |
the almost purely arbitrary gender | 38:01 | |
of German nouns with the endings appropriate to each, | 38:03 | |
is that strong or weak? | 38:07 | |
Anyone who wants to become a labor negotiator | 38:10 | |
has to learn the history, economy, | 38:12 | |
and social psychology of the working class in America. | 38:15 | |
In short, anyone who wishes to learn any subject whatever | 38:20 | |
must be prepared to undergo a change of life, | 38:25 | |
and to meet the moral | 38:28 | |
and intellectual demands of that subject. | 38:29 | |
If anyone would be my disciple | 38:33 | |
let him pick up his cross and follow me | 38:35 | |
could as easily been spoken by Freud | 38:37 | |
or Heisenberg or Mendel or Keynes as by Jesus. | 38:40 | |
The university looks like a cloister because it is one, | 38:45 | |
no self denial, | 38:50 | |
no conversion to a new and inconvenient way of living, | 38:52 | |
no accommodation to the demands of the subject matter, | 38:56 | |
no voluntary subjection | 38:59 | |
to the criticism of superiors and peers, | 39:01 | |
no rigorous self scrutiny and examination of conscience, | 39:04 | |
no knowledge. | 39:08 | |
All that's missing from daily life | 39:11 | |
are robes and hoods, | 39:12 | |
and twice a year we even put on those. | 39:14 | |
Paul makes it clear that he has become a Jew to the Jews, | 39:20 | |
a gentile to the gentiles, | 39:24 | |
weak to the weak, | 39:26 | |
for the sake of the gospel. | 39:28 | |
That is to say that gospel forms | 39:31 | |
the prior controlling norm in his mission to the world. | 39:33 | |
Whatever accommodations he has made to his audiences | 39:38 | |
have been for the sake of communicating the good news. | 39:42 | |
Credibility is not for him primarily | 39:48 | |
a matter of adjusting elements in his message, | 39:50 | |
but of adjusting himself to that message. | 39:55 | |
The issue is the suitability of the messenger | 39:59 | |
rather than the adequacy of the message. | 40:01 | |
That stands in contradiction to the general trend | 40:07 | |
in contemporary American Protestantism | 40:09 | |
of Protestants are incorrigible message tinkerers. | 40:13 | |
Liberal Protestants want to adjust the message | 40:19 | |
to a modern worldview more in tune with the Enlightenment, | 40:21 | |
as though people do not people Christians | 40:25 | |
because Saint Mark did not read Copernicus. | 40:27 | |
Conservative Protestants want to preach | 40:30 | |
a painless gospel of health, success, | 40:32 | |
nationalism, and the avoidance of tragedy, | 40:36 | |
as though the Christian gospel | 40:39 | |
does not have death to the world, | 40:40 | |
the flesh, and the devil at it's very heart. | 40:41 | |
It's not for Paul the message | 40:46 | |
that is a cause of anxiety, | 40:48 | |
he says earlier I've resolved while I was with you | 40:50 | |
I would think nothing of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross, | 40:52 | |
not the message, but the messenger, | 40:56 | |
I came before you weak, nervous, shaking with fear. | 40:58 | |
The question which the text raises | 41:03 | |
is not the credibility of the gospel, | 41:06 | |
which carries its own convincing power, | 41:08 | |
but the credibility of the men and women who witness to it. | 41:12 | |
It's very easy to think that this is a text | 41:19 | |
only for professional clergy. | 41:21 | |
After all, Paul's defending his credibility | 41:25 | |
to a congregation he once served, | 41:27 | |
and to whom he had preached on more than one occasion. | 41:30 | |
Very few members of this congregation in Duke Chapel | 41:34 | |
have occupied the pulpit. | 41:37 | |
A few expect to. | 41:40 | |
But the communication of the gospel | 41:44 | |
is the responsibility of the whole church, | 41:46 | |
not merely the professional clergy. | 41:52 | |
Most of us trusted the good news about Jesus Christ | 41:56 | |
because we trusted the people who first told us about it. | 41:59 | |
Sometimes, those people were clergy, | 42:04 | |
just as frequently, probably more often, | 42:06 | |
they were laypeople. | 42:10 | |
Luther tried to explain the distinction between | 42:14 | |
laity and clergy by stressing the difference | 42:17 | |
between public and private function, | 42:19 | |
not altogether satisfactory but it helped, | 42:21 | |
pastors are Christians who've been set aside by the church | 42:24 | |
to preside at the administration of sacraments, | 42:27 | |
and to preach the gospel | 42:30 | |
at public gatherings of the congregation. | 42:31 | |
Laypeople are Christians who worship God | 42:34 | |
through sacraments, through hymns, | 42:37 | |
and who bear the message of God's judgment and grace | 42:40 | |
in private word and deed. | 42:43 | |
The pastor has the duty to equip the congregation | 42:46 | |
for its mission to the world, | 42:49 | |
but the mission belongs to all Christians, | 42:51 | |
not just to clergy. | 42:53 | |
The principle danger that confronts us in the university | 42:59 | |
and very probably in the world outside the university | 43:02 | |
is not the danger of failing to translate | 43:05 | |
our Christian convictions | 43:07 | |
into the vernacular of intelligible words and deeds, | 43:10 | |
but of failing to translate them at all. | 43:16 | |
The temptation to go native, | 43:20 | |
to be full participants | 43:22 | |
in the circle of friends we most admire, | 43:24 | |
to postpone inconvenient convictions | 43:27 | |
to more convenient times, | 43:30 | |
is so strong as to be almost irresistible. | 43:32 | |
In the movie Wall Street, | 43:38 | |
the hero is lured into insider trading | 43:40 | |
in part because of the quick wealth, power, and prestige | 43:43 | |
such trading will bring, | 43:47 | |
but also in part, I think it's very clear | 43:50 | |
in the way the character's developed, | 43:52 | |
also in part because he wants the good opinion | 43:53 | |
of the Wall Street trader Gekko, whom he most admires. | 43:56 | |
The thought of being excluded from the inner circle | 44:01 | |
of Gekko's intimate associates | 44:04 | |
because of his own moral scruples | 44:06 | |
is almost more than he can bear. | 44:08 | |
No one has described the moral and spiritual dangers | 44:13 | |
inherent in this quest for admission to the inner circle | 44:17 | |
more eloquently than C.S. Lewis | 44:22 | |
in a 1944 talk to undergraduates at King's College, London. | 44:24 | |
I'd like to quote a paragraph from him. | 44:28 | |
It would be polite and charitable, | 44:32 | |
and in view of your age reasonable too, | 44:34 | |
to suppose that none of you is yet a scoundrel. | 44:37 | |
On the other hand, by the mere law of averages, | 44:41 | |
I'm saying nothing against free will, | 44:44 | |
it is almost certain that at least two or three of you, | 44:46 | |
before you die, will become something very like scoundrels. | 44:49 | |
There must be, in this room, | 44:54 | |
the makings of at least that number of unscrupulous, | 44:56 | |
treacherous, ruthless egotists. | 44:59 | |
The choice is still before you, | 45:03 | |
and I hope you will not take my hard words | 45:04 | |
about your possible future characters | 45:06 | |
as a token of disrespect to your present characters. | 45:09 | |
And the prophecy I make is this: | 45:13 | |
to nine out of 10 of you, | 45:17 | |
the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, | 45:18 | |
when it does come, in no very dramatic colors. | 45:22 | |
Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing | 45:26 | |
will almost certainly not appear. | 45:30 | |
Over a drink or a cup of coffee | 45:34 | |
disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes | 45:37 | |
from the lips of a man or woman | 45:41 | |
whom you have recently been getting to know rather better, | 45:43 | |
and whom you hope to know better still, | 45:46 | |
just at the moment when you are most anxious | 45:48 | |
not to appear crude or naive or a prig, | 45:51 | |
the hint will come. | 45:55 | |
It will be the hint of something | 45:57 | |
which is not quite in accordance with the technical rules | 45:58 | |
of fair play, | 46:01 | |
something which the public, to be ignorant, | 46:03 | |
romantic public would never understand, | 46:05 | |
something which even the outsiders in your own profession | 46:08 | |
are apt to make a fuss about. | 46:11 | |
But something, says your new friend, | 46:13 | |
which we, and at the word we you try not to blush | 46:15 | |
from mere pleasure, something we always do. | 46:18 | |
And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, | 46:23 | |
not by desire for gain or ease, | 46:26 | |
but simply because at that moment | 46:29 | |
when the cup was so near your lips | 46:30 | |
you cannot bear to be thrust back again | 46:33 | |
into the cold outer world. | 46:35 | |
It would be so terrible to see the other man's face, | 46:37 | |
that genial, confidential, | 46:41 | |
delightfully sophisticated face | 46:43 | |
turned suddenly cold and contemptuous | 46:45 | |
to know that you had been tried | 46:48 | |
for the inner ring and rejected. | 46:49 | |
And then, if you are drawn in, | 46:53 | |
next week it'll be a little something further | 46:55 | |
from the rules, and next year something further still, | 46:57 | |
but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. | 47:00 | |
It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude. | 47:04 | |
It may end in millions of peerage | 47:09 | |
and giving the prizes at your own old school, | 47:11 | |
but you will be a scoundrel. | 47:14 | |
The temptation to go native, | 47:19 | |
to be in the inner circle at any cost, | 47:22 | |
to postpone inconvenient convictions | 47:25 | |
to more convenient times | 47:28 | |
is almost, but not quite, irresistible. | 47:30 | |
Paul hints at this when he says that he has become | 47:35 | |
all things to all men and women | 47:37 | |
for the sake of the gospel. | 47:40 | |
He says it more explicitly in Romans 12 | 47:42 | |
when he warns adapt yourselves no longer | 47:44 | |
to the pattern of this present world, | 47:47 | |
or as J.B. Phillips, who's translated | 47:49 | |
don't let the world around you | 47:51 | |
squeeze you into its own mold. | 47:52 | |
As Paul sees it, we are obliged to accommodate, | 47:55 | |
but forbidden to conform. | 48:00 | |
All of us, therefore, who follow Christ, | 48:04 | |
stand where Saint Paul stood. | 48:07 | |
A mission to the world we cannot neglect | 48:10 | |
because the gospel demands it, | 48:12 | |
an identity we cannot surrender | 48:15 | |
without compromising our witness, | 48:17 | |
an accommodation to outsiders we cannot avoid | 48:21 | |
without lapsing into an unintelligibility. | 48:23 | |
The task remains for us as for Saint Paul | 48:27 | |
to adjust to the world without conforming to it, | 48:30 | |
to speak every vernacular without losing our native tongue, | 48:34 | |
to see from alien perspectives | 48:38 | |
without blurring our own vision, | 48:40 | |
to become everything in turn to men and women | 48:43 | |
of every sort without abandoning our identity. | 48:45 | |
All this I do for the sake of the gospel, | 48:50 | |
to bear my part in proclaiming it. | 48:54 | |
Communicating the gospel is not a simple task, | 48:58 | |
but then of course, no one said it would be. | 49:02 | |
(organ music) | 49:20 | |
(choir singing) | 49:44 | |
- | Let us unite in this historic confession | 51:48 |
of the Christian faith, the apostle's creed. | 51:50 | |
I believe in God the Father Almighty, | 51:54 | |
maker of heaven and earth, | 51:58 | |
and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord, | 52:00 | |
who is conceived by the Holy Spirit, | 52:04 | |
born of the Virgin Mary, | 52:06 | |
suffered under Pontius Pilate, | 52:08 | |
was crucified dead, and buried. | 52:10 | |
The third day he rose from the dead, | 52:13 | |
he ascended into heaven, | 52:16 | |
and siteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, | 52:18 | |
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. | 52:22 | |
I believe in the Holy Spirit, | 52:26 | |
the Holy Catholic Church, | 52:29 | |
the communion of saints, | 52:31 | |
the forgiveness of sins, | 52:32 | |
the resurrection of the body, | 52:35 | |
and the life everlasting, amen. | 52:36 | |
The Lord be with you. | 52:41 | |
Let us pray, be seated. | 52:44 | |
Almighty God, giver of all things with gladness | 52:57 | |
we give thanks for all your goodness. | 53:01 | |
Because of your gospel and for its sake, | 53:05 | |
we are bold this day to pray. | 53:09 | |
Save and defend your whole church | 53:13 | |
purchased with the blood of Christ, | 53:17 | |
give it perseverance by your spirit, | 53:22 | |
and strengthen it through the word and sacraments, | 53:26 | |
make it perfect in love and in all good works, | 53:29 | |
and establish it in the faith delivered to the saints. | 53:35 | |
Unite all of your people in the world, | 53:43 | |
that one holy church, | 53:47 | |
so that we might bear witness to you, | 53:49 | |
the creator and redeemer of all. | 53:52 | |
Give your wisdom and heavenly grace | 53:55 | |
to all pastors, | 53:57 | |
and to those who hold office in your church, | 53:59 | |
that by their faithful service to the gospel | 54:03 | |
faith may abound and your kingdom increase. | 54:07 | |
Send the light of your truth | 54:12 | |
into all the earth, | 54:14 | |
raise up faithful servants of the word | 54:16 | |
to labor in the gospel both here and in distant lands. | 54:20 | |
In your mercy, strengthen the younger churches | 54:26 | |
and support them in time of trial. | 54:30 | |
Make them steadfast, | 54:33 | |
abounding in the work of the Lord, | 54:36 | |
and let their faith and zeal for the gospel | 54:39 | |
refresh and renew the witness of your people everywhere. | 54:41 | |
Preserve our nation in justice and honor, | 54:47 | |
that we may lead a peaceable life with integrity. | 54:51 | |
Grant health and favor to all who bear office in our land, | 54:55 | |
especially the president of these United States, | 55:00 | |
the governor of this state, | 55:04 | |
our senators and representatives, | 55:06 | |
and all those who make, administer, and judge our laws, | 55:08 | |
and help them to serve this people according to your will. | 55:13 | |
Take from us all hatred and prejudice, | 55:19 | |
give the spirit of love and dispose our days in your peace. | 55:22 | |
Prosper the laborers of those who take counsel | 55:28 | |
for the nations of the world, | 55:30 | |
that mutual understanding | 55:33 | |
may be increased among all peoples. | 55:35 | |
Bless the schools of the church, | 55:39 | |
and all colleges and universities and centers of research, | 55:43 | |
that those who teach in them, | 55:48 | |
particularly those who teach and study at this university, | 55:50 | |
might find wisdom in their endeavors, | 55:57 | |
and that our common life may be conformed | 56:01 | |
to the rule of your truth. | 56:04 | |
Sanctify our homes with your presence and joy, | 56:07 | |
be with our families. | 56:11 | |
Let your blessing rest upon seed time and harvest | 56:14 | |
with all human commerce and industry, | 56:18 | |
be with all who lay their hands to any useful task, | 56:22 | |
give them just rewards for their labor | 56:28 | |
and the knowledge that their work is valuable in your sight. | 56:30 | |
Comfort with grace of your Holy Spirit | 56:36 | |
all those who sorrow, | 56:39 | |
who are in sickness or adversity, | 56:42 | |
particularly those in Duke hospitals. | 56:44 | |
Remember those who suffer persecution | 56:49 | |
for the sake of the gospel, | 56:51 | |
and to all grant a measure of your love, | 56:54 | |
taking hurting ones into your tender care. | 56:57 | |
All these things and whatever else you see | 57:02 | |
that we need that we do not see, | 57:07 | |
grant us, loving God, | 57:11 | |
for the sake of him who died and rose again | 57:14 | |
and now lives and reigns with you | 57:16 | |
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, | 57:19 | |
one God forever, amen. | 57:21 | |
And now, as a grateful people, | 57:27 | |
let us offer ourselves and our gifts to God. | 57:29 | |
(organ music) | 57:37 | |
(choir singing) | 59:45 | |
Gracious God, you have been so good to us | 1:07:20 | |
that it is our pleasure to offer ourselves | 1:07:24 | |
and these gifts in your service | 1:07:27 | |
as our gratitude and thanksgiving | 1:07:30 | |
for all the blessings that you have bestowed upon us. | 1:07:33 | |
And as we do so, we pray our Father who art in heaven, | 1:07:37 | |
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, | 1:07:43 | |
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, | 1:07:46 | |
give us this day our daily bread, | 1:07:50 | |
and forgive us our trespasses | 1:07:53 | |
as we forgive those who've trespassed against us. | 1:07:55 | |
Lead us not into temptation, | 1:07:59 | |
but deliver us from evil, | 1:08:01 | |
for thine is the kingdom | 1:08:03 | |
and the power and the glory forever, amen. | 1:08:05 | |
(organ music) | 1:08:12 | |
(choir singing) | 1:08:53 | |
Now may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, | 1:12:39 | |
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit | 1:12:43 | |
be with you now and always. | 1:12:46 | |
(choir singing) | 1:12:55 | |
(organ music) | 1:14:11 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund