Philip Berrigan - "King - Making" (March 19, 1975)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Would you stand as we sing | 0:05 |
a beautiful hymn considered by many | 0:08 | |
the Negro national Anthem, Lift every voice and sing. | 0:13 | |
♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪ | 0:39 | |
♪ Till earth and heaven ring ♪ | 0:46 | |
♪ Ring with the harmonies of liberty ♪ | 0:52 | |
♪ Let our rejoicing rise ♪ | 1:03 | |
♪ High as the listening skies ♪ | 1:10 | |
♪ Let it resound loud as the rolling sea ♪ | 1:16 | |
♪ Sing a song full of the faith ♪ | 1:26 | |
♪ That the darkness has taught us ♪ | 1:32 | |
♪ Sing a song full of the hope ♪ | 1:37 | |
♪ That the present has brought us ♪ | 1:43 | |
♪ Facing the rising sun ♪ | 1:51 | |
♪ Of our new day begun ♪ | 1:58 | |
♪ Let us march on till victory is won ♪ | 2:05 | |
♪ God of our weary years ♪ | 2:15 | |
♪ God of our silent tears ♪ | 2:21 | |
♪ Thou who has brought us thus far along the way ♪ | 2:27 | |
♪ Thou who has by Thy might led us into the light ♪ | 2:38 | |
♪ Keep us forever in Thy path, we pray ♪ | 2:52 | |
♪ Lest our feet stray from the places, our God ♪ | 3:02 | |
♪ Where we met Thee ♪ | 3:09 | |
♪ Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world ♪ | 3:13 | |
♪ We forget Thee ♪ | 3:21 | |
♪ Shadowed beneath Thy hand ♪ | 3:27 | |
♪ May we forever stand ♪ | 3:34 | |
♪ True to our God ♪ | 3:41 | |
♪ True to our native land ♪ | 3:45 | |
The second selection we have been asked to do | 3:55 | |
is a congregational type number. | 3:58 | |
Oh freedom, oh freedom. | 4:02 | |
Oh freedom over me. | 4:04 | |
And before I'll be a slave, | 4:10 | |
I'll be buried in my grave | 4:13 | |
and go home to my Lord, and be free. | 4:17 | |
The second verse song in the same tune is, | 4:22 | |
"God Almighty, God Almighty. | 4:25 | |
God Almighty over me. | 4:26 | |
And before I'll be a slave, | 4:33 | |
I'll be buried in my grave | 4:36 | |
and go home to my Lord, and be free. | 4:39 | |
Same ole sunshine. | 4:45 | |
Same ole sunshine, same ole sunshine over me. | 4:48 | |
And before I'll be a slave, | 4:54 | |
I'll be buried in my grave | 4:58 | |
and go home to my Lord and be free. | 5:00 | |
Will you join us in this congregational number. | 5:05 | |
(slow organ music) | 5:09 | |
♪ Oh freedom, oh freedom ♪ | 5:25 | |
♪ Oh freedom over me ♪ | 5:33 | |
♪ And before I'll be a slave ♪ | 5:41 | |
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ | 5:46 | |
♪ And go home to my Lord and be free ♪ | 5:50 | |
♪ God Almighty, God Almighty ♪ | 5:59 | |
♪ God Almighty over me ♪ | 6:07 | |
♪ And before I'd be a slave ♪ | 6:15 | |
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ | 6:20 | |
♪ And go home to my Lord and be free ♪ | 6:24 | |
♪ Same ole sunshine, same ole sunshine ♪ | 6:33 | |
♪ Same ole sunshine over me ♪ | 6:41 | |
♪ And before I'll be a slave ♪ | 6:48 | |
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ | 6:53 | |
♪ And go home to my Lord and be free ♪ | 6:57 | |
- | The reverend and Mrs. John Borons | 7:31 |
led our singing and we're grateful. | 7:34 | |
- | Will you pray with me. | 7:42 |
- | Almighty God. | 7:49 |
- | In this holy season, | 7:54 |
- | We remember that you have brought life out of death, | 8:00 |
light out of darkness, hope out of despair, | 8:09 | |
in Jesus Christ our Lord. | 8:19 | |
Raise us up. Oh God, one by one | 8:26 | |
and all together, | 8:29 | |
from despair that is based on our own strengths, | 8:33 | |
to a new and living hope grounded in you. | 8:39 | |
Lift our lives out of deadly routine, | 8:48 | |
and give to them a lively adventure. | 8:54 | |
Oh God of love whose desire is that | 9:01 | |
none of your children should perish | 9:08 | |
but that all should know life to the full. | 9:13 | |
Take from us those attitudes and actions, | 9:19 | |
which are deadly to others. | 9:26 | |
- | Oh, God help us to cause wars to cease. | 9:33 |
- | Heal the wounds of conflict in Ireland, | 9:44 |
Vietnam, Cambodia, | 9:47 | |
the Middle east. | 9:51 | |
And bring Shalom to troubled lands. | 9:55 | |
In this nation, | 10:04 | |
may our brothers and sisters and we | 10:08 | |
know peace and justice. | 10:14 | |
Oh God, again, in this holy season, make us humble. | 10:21 | |
As we bow in the shadow of the cross | 10:27 | |
of our Lord Jesus Christ. | 10:29 | |
May each of us experience anew the truth, | 10:34 | |
that you loved us enough to give your son. | 10:39 | |
Now, oh God, as we remember | 10:47 | |
that Christ surely did give of himself for us, | 10:49 | |
Help us to give of ourselves | 10:56 | |
in loving, caring service to one another. | 11:00 | |
- | In the name and in the spirit of Jesus Christ. | 11:10 |
Amen. | 11:19 | |
Following the service tonight, | 11:27 | |
we are all invited to Flowers Lounge | 11:31 | |
for some conversation, feedback, dialogue, | 11:36 | |
continuation of interchange with Phillip Berrigan | 11:42 | |
and with Ned Murphy, | 11:49 | |
who has been with Phillip on this trip yesterday and today. | 11:53 | |
And if they both survive through tomorrow. | 12:00 | |
Ned, they'll see Phil in a few minutes. | 12:04 | |
I wonder if you would stand | 12:07 | |
so that those who have not met you thus far. | 12:08 | |
Ned Murphy, colleague, coworker with Phil. | 12:11 | |
Philip Berrigan comes tonight. | 12:20 | |
That's not, what's supposed to be next. | 12:29 | |
Let me read for you, for us from God's word. | 12:37 | |
The passage which Phillip would use | 12:46 | |
as a basis of his meditation. | 12:51 | |
From first Samuel, chapter eight, beginning at verse seven. | 12:54 | |
Hear the word. | 13:03 | |
The Lord said to Samuel | 13:07 | |
hearken to the voice of the people | 13:11 | |
and all that they say to you | 13:12 | |
for they have not rejected you, | 13:16 | |
but they have rejected me from being king over them. | 13:19 | |
According to all the deeds which they have done to me | 13:24 | |
from the day I brought them out of Egypt, | 13:27 | |
even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods. | 13:29 | |
So they are also doing to you. | 13:34 | |
Now then, hearken to their voice. | 13:38 | |
Only you shall solemnly warn them | 13:42 | |
and show them the ways of the king | 13:45 | |
who shall reign over them. | 13:47 | |
So Samuel told all the words of the Lord | 13:50 | |
to the people who were asking a king from him. | 13:52 | |
He said, these will be the ways of the king, | 13:55 | |
who will reign over you. | 13:59 | |
He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots | 14:02 | |
and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. | 14:08 | |
And he will appoint for himself, | 14:13 | |
commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties | 14:15 | |
and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest | 14:18 | |
and to make his implements of war | 14:22 | |
and the equipment of his chariots. | 14:23 | |
He will take your daughters to be perfumers | 14:27 | |
and cooks and bakers. | 14:29 | |
He will take the best of your fields | 14:32 | |
and vineyards and olive orchards | 14:34 | |
and give them to his servants. | 14:36 | |
He will take the 10th of your grain and of your vineyards | 14:39 | |
and give it to his officers and to his servants. | 14:43 | |
He will take your men servants and your maid servants | 14:46 | |
and the best of your cattle | 14:49 | |
and your asses and put them to work. | 14:50 | |
He will take a 10th of your flock | 14:54 | |
and you shall be his slaves. | 14:56 | |
And in that day you will cry out because of your king, | 14:59 | |
whom you have chosen to yourselves. | 15:02 | |
But the Lord will not answer you in that day. | 15:05 | |
But the people refuse to listen to the voice of Samuel. | 15:11 | |
And they said, no, | 15:14 | |
but we will have a king over us | 15:16 | |
that we may also be like all the other nations | 15:18 | |
so that our king may govern us | 15:21 | |
and go out before us and fight our battles. | 15:23 | |
And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, | 15:27 | |
he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. | 15:30 | |
And the Lord said to Samuel. | 15:34 | |
Listen to their voice and make them a king. | 15:36 | |
Phillip Berrigan comes tonight to share himself with us. | 15:46 | |
He comes also to give his words from God's word. | 15:51 | |
It was a privilege for me to meet him this morning | 15:59 | |
because I like you, have known him, his courage, | 16:04 | |
his commitment, his convictions, his concern. | 16:10 | |
We have seen him from afar and respected him. | 16:16 | |
We've witnessed for right justice, | 16:24 | |
for life and hope for others, | 16:29 | |
for freedom and wholeness for the oppressed | 16:34 | |
has its price. | 16:39 | |
One reads about Brother Phillip Berrigan, | 16:43 | |
and is reminded of Paul's recitation of his experiences. | 16:49 | |
Philip has been through four political trials | 16:58 | |
in the past four years. | 17:02 | |
Involved with the | 17:05 | |
Harrisburg conspiracy, the Catonsville Nine Trial. | 17:06 | |
I'm told that 40 out of the last 40 months | 17:13 | |
out of the last four years, | 17:16 | |
he has spent in federal prison or in jail. | 17:19 | |
He was ordained to the priesthood in 55. | 17:25 | |
And has been recently ex-communicated | 17:30 | |
from the church and the priesthood. | 17:34 | |
Now living with his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, | 17:39 | |
who preached in this chapel about three years ago, | 17:42 | |
I think it was. | 17:45 | |
And Ned and 10 other adults. | 17:47 | |
Ned tells me, Ned Clark tells me there's one baby there | 17:50 | |
and one expected momentarily | 17:53 | |
and twins expected there this summer. | 17:55 | |
In a place called Jonah House. | 18:00 | |
A house where there is a community of concerned persons | 18:05 | |
who are reflecting on our roots as a people | 18:08 | |
and reflecting on what's happening in the world today. | 18:14 | |
And are offering movements of resistance. | 18:19 | |
Profit, priest, pastor, poet, | 18:22 | |
man of deep devotion. | 18:29 | |
And on the back of his most recent book, | 18:32 | |
entitled, "Writing from jails, widen the prison gates". | 18:34 | |
A book which I'm sure | 18:41 | |
the Gothic bookstore would be glad to order. | 18:42 | |
These words describe Phillip Berrigan, | 18:47 | |
funny. earthy, shrewd, deeply spiritual, | 18:51 | |
tough, dedicated to non-violence, | 19:01 | |
a human being alternately boyd, buoyed, bored, | 19:07 | |
bitter, angry, resigned, | 19:13 | |
jealous, generous and hopeful. | 19:17 | |
As are some of us, | 19:24 | |
and as our brothers and sisters and mankind. | 19:26 | |
Phillip, we welcome you to the service | 19:33 | |
and we hear your word, | 19:38 | |
which you bring to us from God at this time. | 19:41 | |
- | Thank you Bob, sisters and brothers. | 20:02 |
- | Perhaps I can, or we can start together on a light note, | 20:10 |
with a little story. | 20:17 | |
I increasingly place reliance upon stories | 20:19 | |
because I think that they're good. | 20:24 | |
They have so much to tell us about our life | 20:27 | |
and its potential. | 20:30 | |
And also our present predicament. | 20:31 | |
It seems that a couple who had twin sons | 20:37 | |
early in their young lives ran into a dilemma | 20:42 | |
with the two little boys. | 20:45 | |
The dilemma was traceable to the fact that | 20:51 | |
their sons were as different as night and day. | 20:54 | |
One was a sour, jaundiced, little character | 21:02 | |
who sort of wind away his waking hours. | 21:07 | |
Nothing in this lad's life went right. | 21:15 | |
And he seemed to have no grasp of | 21:19 | |
the love with which his brother | 21:21 | |
and his parents surrounded him. | 21:23 | |
It made no impression upon him. | 21:25 | |
His brother in contrast | 21:29 | |
was sort of the habitual optimist. | 21:30 | |
He was bright and cheerful | 21:34 | |
and appreciative of everything done for him. | 21:38 | |
The parents were concerned enough about this contrast, | 21:43 | |
this difference in their twin sons | 21:47 | |
to go to a doctor about it. | 21:50 | |
And he listened to them at length. | 21:53 | |
And he said, well, Christmas is coming up, | 21:56 | |
let's try a little experiment. | 21:58 | |
On Christmas morning, | 22:03 | |
give all the presents to the little pessimist. | 22:04 | |
Load him up and see if we can inject a little cheerfulness | 22:10 | |
into that sour little life. | 22:14 | |
As for the other, he says it might be worthwhile | 22:20 | |
to demean him, even humiliate him. | 22:25 | |
Give him some absurd gift | 22:27 | |
or give him nothing at all. | 22:33 | |
He says, "I'll be around on Christmas morning | 22:36 | |
to see how it goes". | 22:38 | |
So he showed up | 22:40 | |
and there was the little pessimist | 22:43 | |
loaded up with trinkets and gifts, | 22:44 | |
but they had changed him not one particle. | 22:49 | |
And everything given him seemed to be the wrong thing. | 22:53 | |
So the train didn't run fast enough | 22:59 | |
and the boxing gloves were too heavy. | 23:01 | |
And the stereo that his parents gave him | 23:04 | |
had the wrong records. | 23:06 | |
On and on and on, endlessly. | 23:08 | |
So he turned from that sorrowful scene | 23:14 | |
to the other little brother. | 23:18 | |
And he noticed the little guy toddling around the house | 23:20 | |
with a tiny bucket of horse manure. | 23:24 | |
He was radiant as always. | 23:31 | |
And the headman was astonished. | 23:35 | |
And he talked to the little guy and he said, | 23:40 | |
"What do you have there"? | 23:44 | |
And the kid looked at him as though he were a bit retarded. | 23:46 | |
He held it out and he says, | 23:51 | |
"I've got a bucket of horse manure". | 23:53 | |
And the doctor said, | 23:57 | |
"Well, are you pleased with that as a Christmas gift?" | 23:58 | |
And in turn, the lads astonishment grew | 24:05 | |
and he looked at the doctor | 24:07 | |
as though he were a village idiot. | 24:09 | |
And he said, well, of course I'm happy. | 24:13 | |
He says, if I have this, | 24:15 | |
there must be a pony around here somewhere. | 24:17 | |
Perhaps, the pony is peace. | 24:31 | |
And we're searching for it as the lad did. | 24:41 | |
Despite the other symbol. | 24:46 | |
A society, which sometimes reeks like manure. | 24:50 | |
Despite the obstacle of that. | 24:57 | |
I want to thank Bob for his prayer and for his words. | 25:04 | |
And I hope you'll forgive me repeating | 25:09 | |
portions of the biblical account that he shared with you. | 25:12 | |
I'd like to use the Bible | 25:19 | |
and this section of the book of Samuel. | 25:20 | |
And because the Bible as with you, | 25:24 | |
the Bible for me is thee handbook of life. | 25:27 | |
As well as being a profound political commentary. | 25:35 | |
The negative side of all of that of course, | 25:41 | |
would be an observation like the following that | 25:44 | |
we as a people are somewhat biblically illiterate, | 25:47 | |
and therefore, | 25:53 | |
almost necessarily we're ignorant of how to live | 25:54 | |
and how to die. | 25:58 | |
So I would say there again from the negative side | 26:01 | |
that the present dilemmas and despairs | 26:05 | |
and accesses of both the United States | 26:07 | |
and the so-called Christian West | 26:11 | |
lends some credence to that charge. | 26:14 | |
In any case and here I repeat. | 26:19 | |
The prophet Samuel had two sons, | 26:21 | |
which he appointed judges over Israel | 26:24 | |
and his sons proved corrupt. | 26:26 | |
So Jewish elders appealed to him for a king. | 26:29 | |
The idea displeased Samuel, and he prayed to God for light. | 26:34 | |
And the answer came. It is not you they reject, | 26:38 | |
they are rejecting me as their king. | 26:42 | |
As they treated me from the day I brought them out of Egypt, | 26:45 | |
deserting me and worshiping strange gods. | 26:49 | |
Now, do they treat you also. | 26:52 | |
Now grant their request | 26:57 | |
and inform them of the rights of the king, | 26:59 | |
who will rule them. | 27:03 | |
And Samuel delivered the message of the Lord in full | 27:06 | |
to those who were asking him for a king. | 27:08 | |
And he told them the rights of the king | 27:11 | |
who will rule you will be as follows, | 27:14 | |
and he'll take your sons and assign them | 27:18 | |
to his chariots and horses | 27:20 | |
and they'll run before his chariot. | 27:21 | |
And he will also appoint from among them | 27:24 | |
his commanders of groups of a thousand | 27:26 | |
and of a hundred soldiers. | 27:29 | |
And he will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting | 27:31 | |
and to make as implements of war | 27:34 | |
and the equipment of his chariots. | 27:36 | |
And he will use your daughters as ointment makers, | 27:38 | |
as cooks and as bakers. | 27:41 | |
And he will take the best of your fields, | 27:43 | |
vineyards and olive groves, and give them to his officials. | 27:45 | |
And he will take your crops and your vineyards | 27:51 | |
and give the revenues to his unix and to his slaves. | 27:53 | |
And he'll take your male and female servants | 27:58 | |
as well as your best oxen and your asses | 28:00 | |
and use them to do his work. | 28:03 | |
And he will take your flocks and you yourselves | 28:06 | |
will become his slaves.. | 28:10 | |
And the people, however, | 28:14 | |
refused to listen to Samuel's warning | 28:15 | |
and said, "Not so, | 28:17 | |
there must be a king over us. | 28:22 | |
We too must be like other nations with a king to rule us | 28:25 | |
and to lead us in warfare and to fight our battles". | 28:28 | |
And when Samuel had listened to all the people had to say, | 28:31 | |
he repeated it to the Lord who said to him, | 28:35 | |
grant their request and appoint a king to rule over them. | 28:38 | |
I think we should note that up to this period, | 28:45 | |
Israel was remarkable for the integrity | 28:48 | |
and independence of its people. | 28:53 | |
Its society was admirably classless, and egalitarian. | 28:56 | |
What therefore does the text say to us, | 29:01 | |
of an internal decline from independence to slavery. | 29:04 | |
Number one, the text says, | 29:10 | |
"Rejection of God as Lord and judge. Number two, | 29:12 | |
substitution of false gods for the real God. | 29:17 | |
God's like exclusivism, money, power, war. | 29:20 | |
Number three, a false king to rule over false gods". | 29:26 | |
We might agree that that's the function of a king. | 29:32 | |
"Number four, slavery for the people. | 29:38 | |
Number five, a conviction on the part of the people | 29:42 | |
that slavery really is not slavery". | 29:45 | |
Now, I know you are making connections | 29:53 | |
between that reality and our own. | 29:56 | |
Between that ancient failure and our contemporary one. | 29:58 | |
The Bible's value lies with its genius | 30:03 | |
for exposing human tragedies and glories, | 30:06 | |
whether ancient or contemporary. | 30:09 | |
It emphasizes once again, as the text explains | 30:12 | |
that our cardinal human crimes | 30:16 | |
are neither ingenious, nor are they new. | 30:18 | |
Hence an application of the text to our society, | 30:23 | |
and to our prospects. | 30:27 | |
Have we to ask the blunt questions of the Bible. | 30:31 | |
Have we rejected God? | 30:35 | |
Are our idols who are false gods, | 30:38 | |
essentially the same as those of the ancient Jews. | 30:40 | |
Exclusivism, money, power, war. | 30:44 | |
Do we, or have we for a long time insisted on a king | 30:50 | |
in the United States, Nixon or other. | 30:54 | |
With a bicentennial upon us in a few short years, | 31:00 | |
are we from a biblical and democratic point of view, slaves? | 31:03 | |
And finally, | 31:10 | |
are we like those who went to Samuel under the delusion | 31:11 | |
that slavery, really is not slavery. | 31:14 | |
I would guess that Americans as a rule | 31:21 | |
would tend either to evade or to register an emphatic, no, | 31:23 | |
to questions like these. | 31:27 | |
Like the people that faced Samuel, | 31:31 | |
they will tend to assert, "Not so". | 31:32 | |
When he predicted that king making | 31:37 | |
would mean slave making and that they would be the slaves. | 31:39 | |
"Not so", they protested. | 31:44 | |
"There must be a king over us". | 31:49 | |
They told him "We too must be like other nations | 31:50 | |
with a king to rule us and lead us in warfare | 31:53 | |
and to fight our battles". | 31:56 | |
Let us look a little more closely at the passage | 32:00 | |
from independence to slavery. | 32:03 | |
Acceptance of God from a biblical point of view | 32:11 | |
always means acceptance of the victims. | 32:14 | |
It is loving everyone with the same immeasurable love | 32:21 | |
that God gives to us. | 32:23 | |
But especially the victims, | 32:26 | |
the ill, the poor, the bombed, the weak, | 32:28 | |
the starving, the imprisoned. | 32:31 | |
Now, when the idols or false gods or our selfishness, | 32:36 | |
militates against that command, that invitation, | 32:42 | |
we reject God to favor surrogates | 32:46 | |
like exclusivism, like money, power, war. | 32:49 | |
Now idols like these need a king. | 32:56 | |
A king to pretend a ministration to the victims, | 32:58 | |
and only the people can minister to the victims, | 33:05 | |
a king never. | 33:10 | |
A king to legitimize the idols | 33:13 | |
and to wage war to protect them. | 33:16 | |
False gods, therefore demand of false king. | 33:20 | |
The two go hand in hand with slavery. | 33:23 | |
In sequence therefore, false gods, a false king, | 33:27 | |
and a race of slaves. | 33:31 | |
He'll take your sons and assign them to his chariots | 33:34 | |
and horses. He will use your daughters | 33:37 | |
as ointment makers, as cooks and as bakers. | 33:39 | |
He'll take your flocks | 33:42 | |
and you yourselves will be his slaves. | 33:43 | |
So the text reminds us. | 33:47 | |
Americans of course have a ready reply. | 33:51 | |
They say, "Not so. The scripture does not apply to us. | 33:54 | |
We have not rejected God. | 34:00 | |
Our temples dot this land. | 34:02 | |
Everywhere are church related institutions, schools, | 34:04 | |
hospitals, orphanages, universities. | 34:08 | |
Men of God sit with the Congress | 34:12 | |
and act as special advisor to the president. | 34:14 | |
As Father McLaughlin did. | 34:17 | |
No people worship as intensely or as regularly as we do. | 34:21 | |
And nowhere does the church so interact | 34:25 | |
with major institutions. | 34:28 | |
Nowhere does it so criticize it's government". | 34:30 | |
As for the charge of false gods, | 34:38 | |
that is met with incredulity, even anger. | 34:40 | |
Americans assert for example, | 34:46 | |
our blacks enjoy better conditions | 34:49 | |
here than anywhere else in the world. | 34:51 | |
And we give enormous sums away, | 34:53 | |
personally and officially. | 34:55 | |
As for power, we have used it benignly, | 34:57 | |
mostly in protection of freedom. | 35:02 | |
Moreover, we have waged war discreetly | 35:04 | |
and even mercifully in fidelity to our allies. | 35:07 | |
Concerning kings and king making | 35:13 | |
even a greater incomprehension reigns. | 35:15 | |
We have a president. | 35:18 | |
Americans will say, "We choose one every four years. | 35:20 | |
Ours is a citizens government subject to the people. | 35:23 | |
It is a flawed experiment, that's true, | 35:28 | |
but it's still the best in history". | 35:31 | |
And finally slaves, | 35:36 | |
slaves of whom? | 35:41 | |
Not Nixon nor Ford, certainly. The press got Nixon. | 35:43 | |
And finally the courts backed up the original charges | 35:50 | |
of the press. Slaves of ourselves? | 35:54 | |
No, we say what we please, we worship or not worship, | 35:57 | |
as we choose. We insist on a free press. | 36:00 | |
We meet and assemble on every conceivable issue. | 36:04 | |
Slaves of whom? | 36:08 | |
As for asserting that slavery is not slavery. | 36:17 | |
Americans will say, | 36:21 | |
"No, we've never heard of George Orwell. | 36:22 | |
That's true or doublespeak. | 36:24 | |
Delusions might strike us as they strike other people, | 36:28 | |
but that's not one of them. Not so. | 36:31 | |
there's another side of course, | 36:38 | |
to the controversy and it hinges on war. | 36:39 | |
As the text says, | 36:46 | |
we too must be like other nations | 36:47 | |
with a king to rule over us | 36:48 | |
and to lead us in warfare and to fight our battles. | 36:50 | |
To the people of Samuel's day | 36:54 | |
the main function of a king | 36:55 | |
was ruling and leadership in war. | 36:57 | |
In fact, the text makes it clear that ruling | 36:59 | |
and war were two sides to one coin. | 37:02 | |
Economics, in a word. | 37:05 | |
The people wanted prosperity | 37:09 | |
and they wanted a rising standard of living. | 37:11 | |
They wanted ruling, they wanted war. | 37:14 | |
An impressive case can be made for the claim | 37:21 | |
that Americans want, what the Jews wanted. | 37:23 | |
We want prosperity, therefore we want ruling, | 37:29 | |
therefore we want war. | 37:31 | |
If we didn't, we would gather resolution to and effort | 37:34 | |
to stop the American adventure in war making, | 37:37 | |
which is the most massive one in history. | 37:40 | |
Yes, it seems to me that we wanted to eclipse other nations. | 37:46 | |
We wanted kings or presidents to rule over us | 37:50 | |
and to lead us in warfare and to fight our battles. | 37:53 | |
Of our kings from Washington to Nixon or to Ford, | 37:58 | |
if they have any crowning fault, | 38:02 | |
it is their fidelity to the people. | 38:04 | |
Since our inception as a nation, | 38:09 | |
they have unconstitutionally committed our troops | 38:11 | |
abroad more than once every year. | 38:14 | |
Since 1946, our Kings have spent $1.3 trillion | 38:21 | |
of your money for war making. | 38:26 | |
More than all the rest of humanity combined | 38:29 | |
during the same period. | 38:32 | |
Our Kings have dropped atomic weapons on Japanese flesh | 38:36 | |
as a threat to the Russians, | 38:38 | |
when Japan was tottering and suing for surrender. | 38:41 | |
Our Kings wage wage perpetual war in Indochina. | 38:45 | |
And that's an orgy of scorched earth and genocide. | 38:49 | |
Still continuing to the volume of 610,000 dead, | 38:54 | |
wounded and homeless | 39:00 | |
since the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. | 39:01 | |
Our Kings have escalated the insanity | 39:05 | |
of the thermo-nuclear arms race | 39:07 | |
by striving now to develop a first strike capacity | 39:11 | |
against Russian missile sites. | 39:13 | |
Building a weapon, as one commentator put it, | 39:17 | |
and then finding a purpose for it. | 39:21 | |
Our Kings for the sake of our prosperity | 39:30 | |
have flooded the developing countries with obsolete arms | 39:33 | |
and some not so obsolete. | 39:36 | |
Anywhere from eight to nine | 39:40 | |
to 14 to $15 billion worth annually. | 39:42 | |
Including to both sides in all of the most recent wars. | 39:47 | |
Now, if Americans want prosperity, | 39:55 | |
they want a king and they want war. | 39:59 | |
Our kings have been all too faithful | 40:03 | |
to the desires of the people. | 40:05 | |
And I apply that to Nixon especially, | 40:09 | |
because he's recent in our memory. | 40:13 | |
Who entirely apart from the puny and pitiful dodges | 40:17 | |
and connivings of Watergate | 40:20 | |
is one of the three great criminals of the 20th century. | 40:21 | |
Ranking with Stalin and Hitler. | 40:25 | |
So in all good faith had King Richard | 40:30 | |
done this in all due obedience to the people, | 40:33 | |
or as he might explain in his mono-syllabic fashion, | 40:38 | |
"I was only doing my job". | 40:42 | |
So most protest and say, | 40:53 | |
"That's too fast and that's too simple." | 40:56 | |
Nixon and the satellites | 41:01 | |
represent the banks and multinationals, | 41:02 | |
not us, not the people. | 41:05 | |
Such a counter charge of course might be true to a point, | 41:11 | |
but only to a minor point, | 41:14 | |
the banks and multinational corporations | 41:16 | |
institutionalized the American preoccupation with property. | 41:18 | |
A preoccupation, which eclipses fidelity to God | 41:23 | |
or compassion for those suffering. | 41:27 | |
How many Americans have faithful and self-sacrificing | 41:33 | |
alternatives to banks and to the vast economic empires | 41:37 | |
that call multinationals. | 41:41 | |
One might claim | 41:49 | |
that from the biblical text under consideration, | 41:50 | |
that we are indeed into king making | 41:52 | |
and therefore well progressed into slave making. | 41:55 | |
Slave making might be of an apparently comfortable | 42:02 | |
and secure nature. | 42:04 | |
Having attached to it a whole range of alosery freedoms, | 42:06 | |
but it is still slave making simply because the God, | 42:10 | |
that Americans profess is a God of peace, | 42:14 | |
while they pay war taxes and remain silent | 42:19 | |
while the American war criminals | 42:22 | |
heap up their crimes and their victims. | 42:24 | |
So this is the reality it seems to me that we all face. | 42:35 | |
And the reality that our choices must grapple for. | 42:39 | |
From a view of which honors life | 42:43 | |
and struggles against death, that death, | 42:45 | |
that Bob referred to in his prayer. | 42:47 | |
That is a radical view. | 42:52 | |
One must live as though the survival of humanity | 42:54 | |
where the overarching issue. | 42:57 | |
One must act as custodian of the whole race | 43:00 | |
and was one must do this in face of a badly demoralized | 43:04 | |
public that no longer desires to hear of Indochina | 43:08 | |
or Slessinger's hardcore killers called MaRV | 43:12 | |
or how Nixon or Ford | 43:16 | |
or the war department spend their money. | 43:18 | |
I recall an Austrian priest, | 43:23 | |
Australian priest coming to talk with us last summer. | 43:25 | |
He was a guy who was dedicated | 43:30 | |
to the workers of the third world. | 43:32 | |
And he came directly from Indochina and Malaysia. | 43:34 | |
And he asked one question repeatedly. | 43:38 | |
One which can be paraphrased to fit our exchange. | 43:41 | |
The question was, | 43:46 | |
"What has happened to descent in the United States? | 43:48 | |
What are students thinking? | 43:53 | |
Why are people so emphatically backed into | 43:55 | |
kings and king making and their own slavery? | 43:58 | |
Why do Americans display so little questioning? | 44:04 | |
So little outrage or energy at the crimes of leadership". | 44:07 | |
He was a man who saw those crimes of exploitation | 44:13 | |
and murder all over our interior world. | 44:16 | |
One who had seen them strike with brutal force | 44:20 | |
in the flesh of the poor and defenseless. | 44:23 | |
And so he could ask with a sort of balanced anguish. | 44:27 | |
Why? | 44:31 | |
And he asked his why not of Nixon | 44:35 | |
or of the war profiteers from the multinationals | 44:39 | |
or of the war chieftains of the Pentagon, | 44:42 | |
but why, of the American people. | 44:45 | |
Why of you and of me | 44:49 | |
In the late thirties | 44:56 | |
when humanity teetered on the brink of World War II, | 44:57 | |
Gandhi fought to forestall the war from India. | 45:01 | |
And he wrote the following. He says, | 45:04 | |
"Millions sacrifice themselves in war without any guarantee | 45:08 | |
that the world will be better as a result | 45:12 | |
or even that the enemy will be defeated. | 45:15 | |
Yet who does not fiercely resent | 45:19 | |
the suggestion that anybody die in deliberate | 45:23 | |
non-violent sacrifice. | 45:26 | |
Of course, to forestall war. | 45:29 | |
I remember the umbrage that Americans took | 45:36 | |
at the act of self-immolation on the part of some Americans | 45:41 | |
during the course of the Indochina war. | 45:45 | |
It's almost like rebelling against the idea that measures | 45:53 | |
like this were necessary. | 45:56 | |
I don't know if they were, and I don't know if they weren't, | 46:00 | |
but maybe the valuable part of that sacrifice was the | 46:07 | |
suggestion that they were. | 46:10 | |
And as commentary upon what he was talking about. | 46:21 | |
That is this tiny little man, | 46:24 | |
this wise man from the east. | 46:29 | |
50 million people died in World War II, | 46:31 | |
over a hundred million more were wounded and crippled. | 46:37 | |
And now we can multiply that carnage | 46:42 | |
and that damage a dozen times in a few minutes. | 46:44 | |
We might argue that human beings haven't changed. Have they? | 46:54 | |
Neither the Jews who went to Samuel or those in 1939. | 46:58 | |
The people that Gandhi was speaking about, | 47:04 | |
or those today. There seems to be this Pall Mall desire | 47:06 | |
to scorn God, to run medley after the idols, | 47:12 | |
to get into kings and king making. | 47:16 | |
To relish slavery, and then deny that we are slaves. | 47:18 | |
But not with all and not with all of you. | 47:28 | |
That ought to be our hope and our prayer tonight. | 47:33 | |
Some of you, if not all of you will see the peril | 47:37 | |
and will comprehend that we have peace, or we have nothing. | 47:42 | |
Some of you will take truth as an utter | 47:47 | |
and an ineffable priority for your lives. | 47:49 | |
And you will seek the God who is truth | 47:52 | |
and the service of human suffering, | 47:55 | |
human beings that is truth. | 47:58 | |
And some of you will treasure freedom enough to pay for it | 48:01 | |
and perhaps sacrifice your freedom | 48:07 | |
and even your lives for it. | 48:09 | |
And some of you will discern that Ford's Washington | 48:13 | |
or Brezhnev's Moscow or Mao's Peking | 48:16 | |
are exaggerations of the abominations of king making. | 48:21 | |
They are use of patience | 48:25 | |
of God's sovereignty over life and death. | 48:26 | |
And some of you will refuse to be slaves. | 48:29 | |
And some of you will, in closing, | 48:34 | |
become women and men of peace. | 48:37 | |
So that's our hope. | 48:41 | |
And I suggest that should be our prayer tonight. | 48:42 | |
Thank you. And God bless you. | 48:47 | |
- | Would you stand and sing with us? | 49:25 |
Oh, freedom, oh, freedom. | 49:27 | |
Oh freedom over me. | 49:31 | |
♪ Oh freedom, Oh freedom ♪ | 49:53 | |
♪ Oh freedom over me ♪ | 50:02 | |
♪ And before I'll be a slave ♪ | 50:09 | |
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ | 50:15 | |
♪ And go home to my Lord and be free ♪ | 50:19 | |
♪ God Almighty, God Almighty ♪ | 50:29 | |
♪ God Almighty over me ♪ | 50:38 | |
♪ And before I'll be a slave ♪ | 50:45 | |
♪ I'll be buried in my grave. ♪ | 50:51 | |
♪ And go home to my Lord and be free ♪ | 50:55 | |
♪ Same ole sunshine, same ole sunshine ♪ | 51:05 | |
♪ Same ole sunshine over me ♪ | 51:13 | |
♪ And before I'll be a slave ♪ | 51:21 | |
♪ I'll be buried in my grave ♪ | 51:26 | |
♪ And go home to my Lord and be free ♪ | 51:30 | |
- | And now to Thee, eternal God. | 51:42 |
We lift our hearts in praise and thanksgiving to Thee. | 51:49 | |
We ask oh God for strength and courage and wisdom | 51:55 | |
to hear and do the things pleasing in Thy sight. | 52:01 | |
By the grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, | 52:06 | |
of the communion and fellowship of the holy spirit | 52:10 | |
sustained by the love of God, all mighty. | 52:14 | |
Amen. | 52:19 |
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