Neal F. Fisher - "The Courage to Be Different" (February 26, 1984)

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	(organist plays)	0:03
	("Mountain" by Joachim Pastor)	0:04
	(choir joins in singing)	11:03
-	God is our refuge and strength,	17:56
	a very present help in time of trouble.	17:59
	We will lift up our voices in praise unto God,	18:03
	our strength and our redeemer.	18:07
	Let us now test and examine our ways and return to the Lord.	18:11
	Together, let us confess our sins.	18:17
	We know God's way of wholeness	18:32
	but there is a dark side to our lives.	18:36
	Sometimes we choose to do that	18:39
	which hurts us and hurts other people.	18:42
	Sometimes we do evil and it is not even our own choosing.	18:45
	Our condition is one of brokenness.	18:50
	We find ourselves here not because our virtue	18:53
	brings us here but because our brokenness wants healing.	18:58
	Our incompleteness wants completion.	19:02
	If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just	19:28
	and will forgive our sins and cleanse us	19:33
	from all unrighteousness.	19:36
	In the name of Jesus Christ our sins are forgiven.	19:38
	Let us then give thanks for God is good	19:44
	and God's love is everlasting.	19:47
	Thanks be to God, whose love creates us.	19:51
	Thanks be to God, whose mercy redeems us.	19:55
	Thanks be to God, whose grace leads us into the future.	19:59
	We welcome you this beautiful morning	20:05
	to worship here with us in Duke University chapel.	20:07
	It is the eighth Sunday after Epiphany,	20:12
	the time when we call forth God's promises	20:15
	of light entering into the very dark places	20:19
	of our lives and human experience.	20:23
	On this special Sunday we want to express	20:27
	our appreciation to Mr. Shane Dodie,	20:31
	who has served as our interim organist	20:36
	during the maternity leave of our associate chapel organist.	20:39
	This will be Shane's last Sunday in this capacity	20:44
	and we are grateful for his presence	20:48
	and his music ministry among us.	20:50
	Our associate chapel organist, Monica Umstaedt Rossman,	20:54
	will be returning to the chapel	20:58
	and to our worship services next Sunday.	21:00
	It is our pleasure today and we delight in welcoming	21:06
	the Reverend Doctor Neal Fisher as our	21:10
	guest preacher for the morning.	21:13
	Dr. Fisher is President of Garrett-Evangelical	21:16
	Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.	21:19
	It is one of our sister institutions,	21:24
	a United Methodist seminary.	21:26
	He is also Professor of Theology and Society.	21:29
	He came to his appointment at Garrett-Evangelical	21:34
	from Boston University and the seminary there,	21:38
	where he served as both Professor and Academic Dean.	21:42
	Dr. Fisher has many gifts of ministry	21:48
	and has served the church as pastor, as preacher,	21:51
	as lecturer and author.	21:56
	We are very pleased that he has come to be with us today	21:59
	and we are also pleased that he is joined	22:03
	with his wife, his brother and his family,	22:06
	who live here in Durham and his parents	22:11
	who have flown up from Florida	22:14
	to join him for this special service of worship.	22:16
	We look forward to greeting all the Fishers here	22:20
	in the service of worship this morning	22:24
	and we very much look forward to the word	22:26
	that Dr. Fisher will bring.	22:29
	The sermon title for today is The Courage to be Different.	22:31
-	Let us pray.	22:44
	O God, you command the light to shine out of the darkness.	22:48
	Shine into our hearts, to give the light	22:53
	of the knowledge of your glory	22:55
	in the face of Jesus Christ.	22:57
	Amen.	23:00
	The epistle lesson is from Romans chapter 12,	23:03
	verses one through eight.	23:07
	"I appeal to you therefore brethren	23:10
	"by the mercies of God to present your bodies	23:12
	"as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,	23:16
	"which is your spiritual worship.	23:20
	"Do not be conformed to this world	23:23
	"but be transformed by the renewal of your mind	23:25
	"that you may prove what is the will of God.	23:29
	"What is good and acceptable and perfect.	23:32
	"For by the grace given to me, I bid every one among you	23:37
	"not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,	23:41
	"but to think with sober judgment,	23:44
	"each according to the measure of faith	23:47
	"which God has assigned him,	23:49
	"for as in one body we have many members	23:52
	"and all the members do not have the same function	23:55
	"so we, though many, are one body in Christ	23:59
	"and individually members one of another.	24:03
	"Having gifts that differ according to the grace	24:07
	"given to us, let us use them.	24:10
	"If prophecy, in proportion to our faith.	24:13
	"If service, in our serving.	24:18
	"He who teaches, in his teaching.	24:21
	"He who exhorts, in his exhortation.	24:24
	"He who contributes, in liberality.	24:28
	"He who gives aid, with zeal.	24:32
	"He who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness."	24:35
	Here ends the reading from the epistle lesson.	24:40
	(organ music plays)	25:00
	(choir sings)	25:40
	Will the congregation please stand	28:28
	for the reading of the gospel lesson.	28:30
	The gospel lesson is from Matthew chapter six,	28:37
	verses 24 through 34.	28:41
	"No one can serve two masters.	28:45
	"For either he will hate the one and love the other	28:48
	"or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.	28:52
	"You cannot serve God and Mammon.	28:56
	"Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about	29:00
	"your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink,	29:03
	"nor about your body, what you shall put on.	29:07
	"Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?	29:11
	"Look at the birds of the air:	29:16
	"they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns	29:18
	"and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.	29:23
	"Are you not of more value than they?	29:26
	"And which of you by being anxious	29:29
	"can add one cubit to his span of life?	29:32
	"And why are you anxious about clothing?	29:36
	"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;	29:39
	"they neither toil nor spin yet I tell you,	29:43
	"even Solomon in all his glory	29:47
	"was not arrayed like one of these.	29:49
	"But if God so clothes the grass of the field,	29:53
	"which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,	29:56
	"will He not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?	30:01
	"Therefore do not be anxious, saying,	30:05
	""What shall we eat?" Or "What shall we drink?"	30:08
	"or "What shall we wear?"	30:11
	"for the Gentiles seek all these things	30:13
	"and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all	30:16
	"but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness	30:19
	"and all these things shall be yours as well.	30:23
	"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow,	30:27
	"for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.	30:30
	"Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day."	30:33
	Here ends the reading from the gospel lesson.	30:38
	Amen.	30:40
	(organ music plays and congregation sings)	30:42
	It is a great joy to be in this inspiring	32:04
	and uplifting place of worship this morning.	32:08
	I've been made to feel very much at home	32:12
	since I have been here.	32:14
	The acting minister to the university	32:18
	is a graduate of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary	32:21
	and we like to think in our modesty	32:25
	that she's somewhat of a missionary in these parts	32:27
	and so I was made to feel at home when I saw her.	32:31
	I'm pleased to be able to give a warm hello	32:36
	from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary	32:38
	located on the campus of Northwestern University	32:41
	in Evanston, Illinois.	32:44
	It's good to be with this congregation	32:47
	and see friends including Dr. Dennis Campbell,	32:49
	the Dean of the Divinity School here and others	32:52
	and of course to have an infrequent family reunion	32:55
	thrown in, is a great joy among it all.	32:58
	It's good to be here.	33:02
	It's in fashion these days to fall into	33:07
	what have come to be known as identity crises.	33:09
	I suppose it goes with fast changing times.	33:13
	To come into those epochs of one's life	33:18
	in which one can do very little to define oneself.	33:21
	One finds it very difficult to say what it is	33:26
	that is distinctive about me.	33:29
	What it is that causes me to stand out from the crowd.	33:30
	I heard once of a man who was suffering from amnesia	33:36
	who stood up before a large gathering	33:41
	in which he thought someone might be able	33:43
	to straighten him out	33:44
	and he said to them, "Can anyone tell me who I am?"	33:47
	Can you feel the powerlessness of that?	33:52
	To be dependent upon someone else to define you	33:56
	is surely the most powerless condition	34:00
	in which one could ever descend.	34:03
	Now there's more evidence than some of us would like	34:07
	to suggest that this is a malady	34:09
	into which the church is falling just now.	34:12
	The lay people of the church addressing	34:17
	the general conference of the United Methodist Church	34:19
	nearly four years ago said to that body of persons	34:21
	gathered together from across the country,	34:25
	we have somehow lost our ability	34:28
	to say who we are to the world.	34:31
	Are we, they said, so far removed from	34:34
	the sufferings of the world that we can not relate to the	34:36
	world or more likely,	34:39
	are we so much part of the world	34:43
	that we're virtually unidentifiable from the world?	34:45
	Identity crises, to be sure.	34:49
	If we need any help in this direction	34:52
	we are reminded by various polling organizations	34:54
	who poll about public opinion among United Methodists	34:57
	and about United Methodists.	35:00
	Their conclusion is that people feel	35:03
	neither particularly strong in a positive sense	35:05
	toward United Methodists nor particularly negative.	35:08
	Somehow United Methodists are kind of a bland blob	35:12
	in the public imagination.	35:15
	It reminds me of the person who quipped	35:18
	obviously in some part of an unidentifiable mood,	35:21
	he said, "Some people are in favor of apathy,	35:23
	"some people are against it, me, I really just don't care."	35:26
	It's hard to get more indifferent than that.	35:31
	Or the words of Abraham Lincoln reviewing a book	35:34
	that he obviously cared little for when he said,	35:37
	"Those who like this sort of thing will	35:39
	"find this the sort of thing they like."	35:42
	(congregation laughs)	35:44
	Is the church any more than that?	35:46
	Have we any identity?	35:49
	One gets the feeling in reading the pages	35:52
	of the New Testament without canonizing	35:54
	all the people who resided in that church	35:57
	that there was a time in which to swear loyalty	35:59
	to Jesus Christ was automatically to stand out	36:03
	from the crowd.	36:07
	One did not need to struggle long,	36:09
	not because one was more pious in those days	36:11
	than we are today, perhaps,	36:13
	but because simply it was going against the current	36:16
	to swear one's loyalty to Jesus Christ.	36:19
	And we have evidence from the letters that were written	36:22
	particularly by the apostle Paul to those early Christians	36:25
	scattered around the Mediterranean world,	36:29
	faltering though they were.	36:31
	We have evidence that...	36:33
	(speech cannot be heard as mic is adjusted)	36:34
	that was read, for example, to the Christians in Rome.	36:44
	Paul organizes this letter almost as a grand symphony.	36:49
	He begins talking about the natural bent of humankind	36:53
	to descend into self-preoccupation,	36:58
	to fall away from God, indeed to want to be our own gods,	37:03
	to resist the notion that there is a creator above us,	37:06
	who alone owns our ultimate loyalty.	37:10
	There is this downward, descending, chaotic trend	37:13
	and then a second theme comes into the letter.	37:19
	He says it is possible, on the other hand	37:23
	to live the life of a spirit, which is a soaring,	37:26
	harmonious, melodic line.	37:29
	And he says the distinctive time in all of history,	37:33
	the crossing point, the hinge of history	37:35
	is there on a cross where one was crucified,	37:38
	and was raised again from the dead	37:41
	and therefore there is now a power unleashed	37:43
	in the world which makes it possible	37:45
	to live in a different way than we've ever lived before.	37:47
	And so there is a great, soaring, harmonious chorus	37:50
	and finally it leads to that chorus in chapter eight	37:54
	where he recites the various things which might	37:57
	threaten us and disturb us and make us vulnerable.	38:00
	He says, "What shall we say?	38:03
	"Shall any of these things have any power	38:05
	"to separate us from God?	38:07
	"No, I am persuaded that neither life nor death..."	38:09
	and he recites the whole list,	38:12
	"None of these is capable of separating us	38:13
	"from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."	38:15
	And then he brings this symphonic letter to a great finale,	38:19
	in chapter 12 that was read,	38:24
	"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters	38:27
	"by the mercies of God to present your bodies	38:29
	"as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable before God,	38:32
	"which is your spiritual worship.	38:35
	"Do not be conformed to this world	38:39
	"but be transformed by the renewal of your mind	38:42
	"so that you may prove in practice	38:46
	"what is the will of God, what is good	38:48
	"and acceptable and perfect."	38:51
	I wonder if this is a word for us today.	38:55
	I wonder if we can hear this word,	38:58
	caught as we are in the midst of identity crises.	39:00
	When Paul said, "Do not be conformed to this world,"	39:05
	he was clearly talking about more than	39:09
	simply a piece of real estate.	39:12
	Obviously we don't have much choice about	39:14
	the epoch in which we live.	39:16
	He was thinking rather about that whole body	39:19
	of predispositions we bring to our lives.	39:21
	The whole array of our values,	39:25
	the hopes that we harbor for the future,	39:27
	our attitudes about our life.	39:30
	That is our world, that is our epoch,	39:32
	that is the eon in which we live.	39:35
	Paul says, "Do not allow yourselves to take the shape	39:36
	"or to be squeezed into the mold of this world,"	39:39
	as one translation has it,	39:42
	"but let your minds be transformed,	39:45
	"let your minds be renewed."	39:47
	The world does have a way.	39:51
	The world does have a way of causing us	39:53
	to take on ourselves protective coloration, does it not?	39:56
	That is, we have a way of labeling people.	40:01
	I have a friend who bristles whenever	40:03
	he is in a certain discount department store	40:05
	and is addressed over the loudspeaker as a K-Mart shopper.	40:07
	He says I'm not a K-Mart shopper,	40:12
	I'm a child of God who happens to be in a store	40:14
	picking up some needed articles.	40:16
	My definition of myself is not that of a K-Mart shopper.	40:18
	But perhaps it's more serious when we think	40:23
	not merely of where we are or where we shop,	40:25
	but of where our head is, as some used to say	40:29
	in a certain youth generation,	40:32
	where our head is, that is, what are those	40:33
	prevailing predispositions that we bring into life?	40:36
	What are those values that escort us through life?	40:40
	What are those great visions and those	40:43
	imaginative settings of life that steer our lives through?	40:45
	On that, that is a far more serious matter.	40:49
	So maybe remember that after the end of Second World War,	40:53
	Norman Cousins wrote a book relating to	40:57
	the detonation of atomic bombs.	41:00
	He entitled his book Modern Man Is Obsolete;	41:03
	were he writing it today he would use	41:06
	more inclusive language,	41:08
	but the burden of the book was that now	41:10
	with the advent of this disastrously	41:12
	catastrophic new means of working devastation	41:14
	upon one another, "In light of that," he said,	41:19
	"the old sets of assumptions we brought about the world	41:22
	"the old mindsets, the old values,	41:25
	"are no longer capable of ushering us through life at all.	41:28
	"Modern humanity is obsolete.	41:33
	"That is, either we will be converted	41:35
	"in our way of looking at the world	41:37
	"or we are incapable of struggling	41:39
	"with this new world which is now, without invitation,	41:41
	"escorted into our being."	41:43
	Surely something like this is what Paul had in mind.	41:47
	Since this whole disastrous, descending, chaotic	41:52
	trend toward being our own gods has now	41:56
	been interrupted by the eruption of a new force in life,	41:59
	Paul says to live in conformity	42:03
	to the old world is obsolete.	42:06
	You have now the capacity of being transformed,	42:10
	undergo a metamorphosis is literally what he says.	42:13
	You have the capacity to be transformed	42:17
	by the renewal of your mind, in other words,	42:19
	there is a new set of first principles	42:21
	which you can adopt as your way of living into the world.	42:23
	Do not therefore be conformed to this world.	42:27
	I wonder if we can hear that as a word of hope for our day.	42:31
	I'd like to stand before that injunction this morning;	42:36
	not so much as an exhortation or another	42:40
	must-do to be pinned on to life	42:43
	but as a glorious permission,	42:47
	a glorious authorization from this apostle	42:51
	of the Christian Church,	42:53
	saying it is possible for you to live in	42:55
	a different way now than you lived before.	42:57
	That the same power which raised again from the dead	43:00
	Jesus Christ our Lord, this power	43:02
	is unleashed in the world and you are authorized	43:04
	to live under the power of that force.	43:10
	I want to suggest three implications	43:14
	or consequences which flows from it.	43:16
	It upsets a world, it unites a life	43:19
	and it redeems history.	43:26
	First this exhortation to be transformed	43:29
	does, in fact, upset the world.	43:32
	There is something imperious about the world.	43:34
	There is something about every generation	43:37
	that leads us to think that it is the last word.	43:39
	We moderns have grown accustomed to thinking	43:42
	of every age is relative except our own,	43:44
	and we tend to make modernity the measure of all things.	43:49
	And Paul says do not let this world, this age,	43:54
	cramp you into its own mold,	43:58
	but rather let yourself be renewed by a new world	44:00
	that is impinging upon the present world.	44:04
	It was the educator Paulo Freire who says	44:08
	that education, if it is really education,	44:10
	treats us not merely to accept the world as it is	44:12
	but to look critically at the world	44:15
	and ask of it questions, why must it be this way	44:16
	and not another way?	44:20
	This is what Paul was getting at, wasn't it?	44:22
	Why must it be this way and not another way?	44:25
	But every epoch of the world	44:29
	will claim for itself ultimate authority,	44:33
	not merely next to ultimate authority	44:35
	but ultimate authority.	44:37
	Nikos Kazantzakis in his novel	44:39
	The Last Temptation of Christ,	44:42
	has a scene which is set in Nazareth.	44:45
	There he has a zealot who has profaned	44:48
	the symbols of empire.	44:54
	He has taken down the golden imperial eagles	44:56
	and taken them out into the wilderness with him	44:59
	and there this zealot has tried to get	45:02
	a whole force of persons who will rise up	45:04
	against the power of the colonizers, Rome.	45:06
	And when Rufus, the centurion of Rome,	45:12
	hears about it he summons all the Nazareth	45:14
	community together	45:17
	and wanting to get them upset at one of their own,	45:20
	who has dared to profane the symbols of Rome,	45:23
	he tells them what the crime is.	45:26
	This zealot has torn down the golden eagles of Rome.	45:28
	What punishment shall we give him?	45:32
	And there was in that crowd in the city square	45:36
	a gnarled old rabbi, who longed for the freedom of Israel,	45:38
	and he said half to himself and half out loud,	45:43
	"The royal crown."	45:46
	and the centurion looked at him again and said,	45:50
	"What did you say?"	45:51
	and now the rabbi's blood raced within him	45:53
	and the adrenaline gave him the force to say it,	45:55
	"The royal crown! The royal crown!"	45:57
	and then the rabbi looked straight in the eyes	46:03
	of Rufus the centurion and he said,	46:05
	"You have pronounced sentence and so have I.	46:08
	"There remains one yet more to pronounce the sentence."	46:12
	and Rufus says, oh, "You mean the emperor?"	46:17
	"No," said the rabbi, "God."	46:20
	and Rufus the centurion broke out into laughter.	46:24
	He said, "I am the voice of the Emperor in Nazareth.	46:27
	"The Emperor is the voice of God in the world.	46:31
	"God, the Emperor and Rufus have pronounced judgment."	46:34
	and so it seems every epoch will claim for itself	46:39
	the prerogatives of God.	46:43
	Paul says do not be conformed to this world,	46:45
	it upsets the world to be transformed	46:48
	by the renewal of your mind.	46:50
	I know a person who was ushered into a university	46:54
	psychology department; not this university, I hasten to add.	46:57
	A university psychology department	47:01
	where he was told that he would be	47:03
	the subject of an experiment,	47:04
	and he went into this room with 11	47:06
	other people in the room and he was told	47:08
	that he was simply to tell out loud	47:11
	how many sounds of the buzzer he heard.	47:13
	Well, they sounded, he counted very carefully,	47:17
	he said this is a piece of cake	47:20
	for a university type like myself.	47:21
	He counted very carefully and he counted 18 sounds.	47:24
	And so they asked person number one, how many did you hear?	47:28
	Person said 12.	47:30
	Asked person number two, how many did you hear?	47:34
	I heard 12.	47:36
	And on it went through the first 11 people,	47:38
	each one of them claiming, despite the evidence	47:40
	to the contrary that they'd heard 12 sounds.	47:44
	He said to himself, I must have forgotten	47:46
	the rules of the game and so when it came to him,	47:48
	he said, "I heard 12."	47:51
	Round number two, they sounded six sounds of the buzzer.	47:54
	They asked person number one, how many did you hear?	47:58
	I heard 10.	48:00
	What kind of a crazy world is this?	48:02
	Person number two, 10.	48:04
	And on it went until it got to him	48:06
	and you guessed it, he said he heard 10 also.	48:07
	And by round four, will you believe it?	48:11
	He even quit counting.	48:13
	He said these dummies give it all away,	48:16
	they announce the right answer before they even get to me.	48:17
	And so he sided nicely with the rest	48:21
	of those 11 witnesses who heard when it came to him.	48:24
	You probably have already guessed	48:29
	what he should have known at the outset.	48:30
	There were not 12 subjects in the room,	48:33
	there was only one subject in the room.	48:37
	The rest were in on the experiment.	48:39
	And their instructions were...	48:42

-	Name the most extravagant answers they could think of	0:03
	to see what it would take to get him to differ	0:05
	from the first 11 people who reported on what they heard,	0:08
	and he never differed in the slightest.	0:11
	Do not let the world squeeze you into its own mold.	0:13
	We come into a place of worship having had the world	0:19
	shout into our ears incessantly,	0:22
	not only what are the right answers in life,	0:25
	but rather what are the questions	0:27
	we ought to be delivering on,	0:28
	deliberating on I should say, in the first place.	0:29
	That's even a more critical question.	0:33
	We come to this place of worship	0:36
	not knowing who we are in our own identity crisis	0:39
	because we've been called so many things	0:42
	during the course of the week, and this is one place	0:44
	where we know who we are and whether our reputation	0:46
	is loftier than our deserving or lower than our deserving.	0:50
	When we come here we know we are creatures of God	0:54
	and that we live by grace alone,	0:57
	and we are restored to our true being.	0:59
	Do not let your lives be molded	1:02
	into the mold of this generation,	1:05
	but let them be transformed.	1:07
	What we need in education is not merely more facts	1:10
	and techniques, important as they are,	1:13
	but facts and techniques wrapped up	1:16
	into a selfish person are not only not redeeming	1:18
	for the world, they are downright lethal for the world.	1:21
	The greatest obstacle of the world we agree,	1:25
	the great obstacle for the world	1:28
	are not natural circumstances,	1:29
	formidable though they are at times.	1:32
	The most demanding obstacle of the world	1:35
	is our own mentality gone awry, gone mad.	1:36
	We suffer from the works of our own hands.	1:40
	It is a renewal of our mind from the very first principles	1:43
	which is most essential to the whole educational enterprise,	1:46
	to say nothing of life itself.	1:49
	Do not be conformed to this world,	1:52
	but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.	1:54
	It upsets the world to heed this exhortation.	1:57
	Consider also that it has a way	2:02
	of uniting life, pulling it together.	2:04
	Paul says present your bodies as a living sacrifice	2:09
	which is your spiritual worship.	2:13
	In other words, the realm of the service of God	2:15
	is sticking out of the narrow realm of the cultists,	2:17
	important as that is.	2:21
	It is the whole arena of one's life	2:23
	that is the arena in which you worship God.	2:25
	It is all of life and not a part thereof.	2:29
	Not a segment and portion thereof	2:32
	that constitutes one's rightful	2:34
	and appropriate worship of God.	2:36
	I have a friend who was locked in the midst of a debate	2:40
	and was asked about a magazine	2:43
	that he obviously cared little for.	2:44
	They said to the person, have you read	2:47
	the last issue of Magazine X?	2:50
	And he quipped back, I certainly hope so.	2:52
	I sometimes have the same sentiment	2:55
	when I hear of reactions to debates,	2:58
	whether a Christian faith is spiritual or social,	3:01
	whether it is individual or communal,	3:05
	whether we should be involved	3:08
	in evangelization or in prophecy.	3:09
	I think there's as much substance of those debates	3:12
	as there is a debate of whether one needs	3:15
	a right leg or a left leg in running a marathon.	3:17
	There's not much to be said for the efficiency in either.	3:20
	It is a uniting force.	3:24
	Paul doesn't say that one tenth of your life	3:25
	is to be the worship of God.	3:27
	He says present your bodies as a living sacrifice.	3:29
	Last summer, my wife and I had a chance	3:33
	on successive Sunday mornings to be first	3:35
	in the ruins of the Forum of Rome,	3:38
	where this letter was addressed.	3:40
	And the next Sunday, in the city square of ancient Corinth,	3:42
	among the ruins there, the likely place	3:45
	where Paul lived when he wrote this letter to the Romans.	3:48
	They didn't want for altars to the divinities	3:52
	of the day then.	3:54
	In fact, in the central square of Corinth,	3:55
	you can see at least the ruins	3:57
	of at least eight altars plus the central figure	3:58
	of the Goddess Athena, after whom	4:01
	the city of Athens was named.	4:04
	He knew something about offering sacrifices,	4:06
	for they were, smoke was ascending all the day long	4:08
	from the sacrificial places of his day,	4:11
	but he said present your bodies as a living sacrifice.	4:14
	It is all of life that is to be united.	4:18
	All of life is to be held together.	4:21
	A pastor in Holland during the Second World War	4:24
	sympathized with the Jews, and for his efforts,	4:27
	he and his wife were rounded up	4:30
	with some Jews and with Jewish sympathizers.	4:32
	Hearing that terrible, fearful knock	4:37
	on the door in the middle of the night,	4:39
	they were rounded up into cattle cars,	4:40
	taken through the cold darkness	4:43
	in the painful agony of knowing	4:45
	they would be separated from their families	4:47
	who were with them, simply incarcerated	4:49
	and then done to death by the Nazi concentration camps.	4:52
	After what seemed to be an interminable evening,	4:56
	the doors were finally opened,	5:00
	and the train shuttered to a halt,	5:03
	and they walked out into the midst of sunshine,	5:06
	and what they saw were not bayonets and barbed wire,	5:09
	but the embraces, not of their captors,	5:12
	but of their liberators, and they, without knowing	5:15
	what has happened, were suddenly the benefactors	5:19
	of some courageous soul during the midst of that night,	5:21
	during one of their hour long waitings on some sighting	5:24
	had tripped the switch and had sent this whole train	5:27
	of victims into free Switzerland,	5:31
	rather than the concentration camps.	5:34
	Said the pastor, what do you do with a gift such as that?	5:36
	What do you do when your life, which had suddenly been going	5:41
	in one direction, is suddenly now turned	5:45
	in another direction, what do you do	5:47
	with a gift such as that?	5:48
	Is there anything less demanding and less fulfilling	5:51
	that is promised in Christian faith than that?	5:54
	Just as our lives were headed in one direction,	5:57
	says Paul, now there is a new possibility.	6:00
	Therefore, I appeal to you by the mercies of God,	6:02
	present your bodies as a living sacrifice.	6:05
	It unites all of life.	6:10
	Finally this exhortation not only upsets a world	6:14
	and unites life, but it redeems a world.	6:18
	I must hasten to add, though it's sound to the contrary	6:22
	to be sure, that it is only by being different	6:25
	from the world, only by having identity	6:29
	which is different from the world	6:31
	that we can really be for the world at all.	6:32
	Sometimes Christians have sounded as if to love Heaven	6:36
	means that one must scorn Earth.	6:40
	I don't think that's the case at all.	6:42
	When I go to a physician, I want that physician	6:44
	to be a different from me as possible.	6:46
	That is, I want that physician to know more than I know	6:47
	about the workings of the body	6:50
	and what makes for health, and that physician	6:52
	can only be for me if he or she is different from me.	6:54
	We will not save the world as a church.	6:57
	We will not save the world as individuals.	7:01
	If we participate, only if we wallow	7:03
	in its lack of identity.	7:05
	If we have no identity save the protective colorization	7:07
	that is given to us by the rest of our society.	7:12
	We can become the redeemers of history	7:15
	only if we have that emblem stamp upon us	7:17
	through discipleship to Jesus Christ	7:20
	that gives us a transcendent reverence.	7:23
	Some reverence that goes beyond the present world	7:26
	that so longs to stamp its stamp upon us,	7:29
	that gives us the capacity to be renewed	7:32
	in the very first principles of our mind.	7:34
	It restores; it redeems.	7:38
	Someone here is struggling between identities.	7:42
	Someone here is being conscripted	7:46
	into the colorization of the world around him or her.	7:48
	Let this word sound to you a new possibility.	7:53
	That you can upset a world.	7:57
	That you can unite your life, and that you can	8:01
	be a part of the redeemers of the race	8:04
	rather than the destroyers of the human race.	8:06
	Howard Thurman, the late Howard Thurman	8:10
	was deemed the chapel of Boston University, a mystic poet,	8:13
	pasture, preacher, author of more than 20 books.	8:17
	His last book was an autobiography called	8:21
	With Head and Heart.	8:24
	He told in that autobiography how the church	8:26
	was the one place where the slave civilization	8:28
	held itself together despite all the pressure	8:31
	from the outside world to define	8:34
	themselves in a different way.	8:35
	It was the church, he said, that gave us	8:37
	our identity to stand out from that world.	8:38
	To cry out in the name of God and humanity	8:41
	that they were children of God.	8:43
	And he tells how his slave grandmother	8:46
	used to speak to them about what the preacher	8:48
	said to them on Sunday morning.	8:50
	She said the preacher never talked	8:52
	to his slave congregation without going by calvary,	8:54
	talking about the cross, how one was unjustly abandoned,	8:57
	abused, forsaken, and done to death,	9:02
	and she says whenever he got to that point	9:06
	in the story, going by calvary she put it,	9:08
	he would take off his glasses and look	9:11
	into the eyes of his slave congregation,	9:13
	and would say to them despite all the evidence around them,	9:16
	you are not niggers.	9:20
	You are not slaves.	9:22
	You're God's children, and said Dean Thurman,	9:24
	when she got to that part of the story,	9:27
	her back would stiffen, and she sucked in the air,	9:30
	and our spirits were renewed,	9:36
	and so will ours as well.	9:40
	(organ music plays)	9:51
	(choir sings along with organ music)	10:35
-	As the people of God, let us affirm what we believe.	14:23
	We believe in God, who has created and is creating,	14:28
	who has come in the truly human Jesus	14:33
	to reconcile and make new, who works	14:37
	in us and others by the spirit.	14:40
	We trust God, who calls us to be the church,	14:44
	to celebrate life and its fullness,	14:48
	to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,	14:51
	to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,	14:57
	our judge and our hope in life, in death,	15:01
	in life beyond death, God is with us.	15:06
	We are not alone.	15:10
	Thanks be to God.	15:12
	The Lord be with you.	15:15
	Let us pray.	15:19
	In this holy season of light and dark,	15:33
	in peace, let us come and pray to the Lord our God,	15:37
	for the world in need of reconciliation and peace	15:43
	that a spirit of hope may grow	15:48
	among nations and peoples, we pray to you, O God,	15:50
	for the Church of Jesus Christ,	15:56
	that it may be filled with truth and love	15:59
	and may be eager to serve as Christ's ambassadors.	16:03
	We pray to you, O Lord, for the mission of the church	16:07
	that in faithful witness it may preach the Gospel	16:13
	to the very ends of the Earth, we pray to you, O Lord,	16:17
	for those who do not yet believe,	16:24
	and for those who have lost their faith,	16:27
	that they may receive the light of the Gospel,	16:31
	we pray to you, O Lord, our God.	16:34
	For the poor, the persecuted, the sick	16:39
	and all who suffer, for refugees, prisoners	16:43
	and all who are in danger, that they	16:47
	may be relieved and protected, we pray to you, O Lord.	16:50
	For all those who have been in our hearts	16:56
	and in our private prayers, for our families,	17:00
	friends, and neighbors, that they may live	17:04
	in joy, peace, and health, we pray to you, O Lord.	17:07
	For our very selves, for the forgiveness of sins,	17:14
	and for the grace of your holy spirit	17:19
	to amend and redeem our lives, we pray to you, O Lord.	17:22
	We thank you, O Lord our God, for all the blessings	17:29
	of this life, and we will exalt you, O Lord our God,	17:33
	and praise your name forever and ever,	17:38
	through Jesus Christ our Lord,	17:41
	who taught us to pray, saying our father,	17:44
	who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name,	17:49
	thy kingdom come, thy will be done,	17:53
	on earth as it is in heaven.	17:56
	Give us this day our daily bread.	17:58
	And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those	18:01
	who trespass against us.	18:05
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	18:07
	For thine is the kingdom, and the power,	18:12
	and the glory, forever, amen.	18:15
	(organ music plays)	18:28
	(choir sings)	21:45
	Thine, O God, is the greatness and the power	28:11
	and the glory, the victory, and the majesty	28:14
	for all that is in the Heavens and in the Earth is thine.	28:18
	Thine is the kingdom, O God, and thou art exalted	28:22
	as creator above all, amen.	28:27
	(organ music plays)	28:34
	(choir sings along with organ music)	29:08
-	The piece of God which passes all understanding	32:03
	rest and mind in your hearts in the knowledge	32:08
	and love of God, and of his son Jesus Christ our Lord,	32:12
	and the blessings of God Almighty,	32:17
	creator, redeemer, sustainer be among you	32:21
	and remain with you always.	32:25
	(choir sings)	32:31
	(organ music plays)	32:55

Item Info

Title:

Neal F. Fisher - "The Courage to Be Different" (February 26, 1984)

Description:

The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus ushered in the possibility of a new way of living, and we, as Christians, are to conform our lives to this pattern and not allow the world around us to shape our values and first principles. It is only by living into this identity that we can truly live for the sake of the world. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 32:04. Sermon end time: (Part 2) 09:44.
Key quotation: “Though it sounds to the contrary to be sure, it is only by being different from the world, only by having identity which is different from the world, that we can really be for the world at all.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4k06xg1j

Date:

February 26, 1984

Speaker:

Fisher, Neal F.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

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Chapter and Verse:

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Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0195
ref7913_24c
uachapelsermaud
duke:321189
dcrau001185
ark:/87924/r4k06xg1j
33c734aa-ec65-4660-b357-812c6b0e7159

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Neal F. Fisher - "The Courage to Be Different" (February 26, 1984)

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