Charles Adams - "The Humanity of God" (November 24, 1996)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Preacher | May I ask that you read with me | 0:12 |
the gospel lesson, Matthew chapter 25 | 0:15 | |
verses 31 through 46? | 0:23 | |
And let us stand to read it in unison. | 0:31 | |
All together. | 0:45 | |
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory | 0:46 | |
and all the angels with Him, | 0:49 | |
then He will sit on the throne of His glory. | 0:52 | |
All the nations will be gathered before Him | 0:55 | |
and He will separate people one from another | 0:59 | |
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats | 1:02 | |
and He will put the sheep at His right hand | 1:06 | |
and the goats at the left. | 1:09 | |
Then the King will say to those at His right hand, | 1:12 | |
'Come, you that are blessed by my Father. | 1:15 | |
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you | 1:19 | |
from the foundation of the world. | 1:21 | |
For I was hungry and you gave me food. | 1:24 | |
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. | 1:27 | |
I was a stranger and you welcomed me. | 1:31 | |
I was naked and you clothed me. | 1:34 | |
I was sick and you took care of me. | 1:37 | |
I was in prison and you visited me.' | 1:41 | |
Then the righteous will answer Him, | 1:44 | |
'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry | 1:46 | |
and gave you food? | 1:50 | |
Or thirsty and gave you something to drink? | 1:52 | |
And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you | 1:55 | |
or naked and gave you clothing? | 1:59 | |
And when was it that we saw you sick | 2:03 | |
or in prison and visited you?' | 2:05 | |
And the King will answer them 'Truly, I tell you | 2:08 | |
just as you did it to one of the least of these | 2:11 | |
who are the members of my family, you did it to me.' | 2:15 | |
Then He will say to those at His left hand, | 2:19 | |
'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire | 2:22 | |
prepared for the devil and his angels. | 2:26 | |
For I was hungry and you gave me no food. | 2:29 | |
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. | 2:33 | |
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, | 2:37 | |
naked and you did not give me clothing, | 2:40 | |
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' | 2:43 | |
Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it | 2:47 | |
that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked | 2:52 | |
or sick or in prison | 2:57 | |
and did not take care of you?' | 2:58 | |
Then He will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, | 3:01 | |
just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, | 3:04 | |
you did not do it to me.' | 3:09 | |
And these will go away into eternal punishment, | 3:12 | |
but the righteous." | 3:15 | |
Thanks be to God. | 3:18 | |
I want to give my word of appreciation | 3:30 | |
to Dr. William Willimon | 3:34 | |
and all of the staff and members | 3:37 | |
and friends of Duke Chapel | 3:40 | |
who have been so gracious and hospitable | 3:42 | |
to Mrs. Adams and to myself. | 3:46 | |
The chapel is breathtaking | 3:49 | |
and the music is wonderful. | 3:51 | |
The startling words that you have just read | 3:56 | |
convey the comfort and the challenge | 3:59 | |
of the humanity of God. | 4:03 | |
Updating Montefiore just a bit, | 4:07 | |
I hear him say, "How many deeds of charity and love, | 4:10 | |
how many acts of sacrifice | 4:16 | |
and devotion must have been accomplished | 4:19 | |
in the last 2000 years | 4:23 | |
because of the remembrance of these words? | 4:26 | |
Those who failed the human test of the holy judge | 4:30 | |
did not deny their indifference to the poor. | 4:34 | |
They simply objected | 4:38 | |
that they never saw Jesus in need. | 4:40 | |
They never noticed God in a vulnerable position. | 4:44 | |
God could not possibly be hungry, thirsty, naked, | 4:49 | |
a stranger, sick or in prison, could God? | 4:54 | |
But that is the point | 4:59 | |
and the reason for their condemnation and ours. | 5:01 | |
Failure to recognize the humanity of wholeness, | 5:06 | |
of the humanity of holiness | 5:11 | |
and the holiness of humanity." | 5:13 | |
What Martin Luther King Jr called, | 5:17 | |
"the intrinsic sacred value of every human being." | 5:19 | |
When God was ready to show the world how holy God is, | 5:26 | |
God demonstrated to all how human God could become. | 5:31 | |
And the Word was made flesh | 5:37 | |
and dwelt among us, | 5:40 | |
full of grace and truth. | 5:42 | |
That this saving demonstration | 5:47 | |
of the ubiquitous humanity of God did not happen | 5:49 | |
without a huge cost to be paid will be dramatized | 5:53 | |
next Sunday as the church begins | 5:58 | |
its plaintively exilic season of advent. | 6:01 | |
It is also notable that the very next verses of scripture | 6:06 | |
after the last word of the parable of the last judgment | 6:11 | |
has Jesus, Holy King | 6:16 | |
and Final Judge say, "You know that after two days, | 6:18 | |
the Passover is coming | 6:23 | |
and the Son of Man will be handed over | 6:25 | |
to be crucified. | 6:29 | |
Such is the price that even God must pay to be human." | 6:33 | |
So today on this festival of Christ the King, | 6:39 | |
we are forced to face the fact | 6:43 | |
of our ultimate accountability before God. | 6:46 | |
Not before some subordinate court, | 6:50 | |
not before the shifting standard of public opinion, | 6:53 | |
but we must stand before God, | 6:59 | |
the ultimate judge | 7:03 | |
who is also the quintessential victim of every crime, | 7:05 | |
every secret instance of cold neglect, | 7:09 | |
every furtive act of infidelity, | 7:13 | |
every devastating deed of violence. | 7:16 | |
The judge slash victim will not require any evidence, | 7:20 | |
will not consider any testimony | 7:26 | |
or hear any argument from the defense. | 7:29 | |
The crime cannot be explained away. | 7:33 | |
No elaborate bell curve evidence contrived | 7:38 | |
to rationalize the savage maldistribution | 7:42 | |
of educational opportunity will stand up in this court. | 7:45 | |
There will be no mistrial, | 7:50 | |
no basis of appeal, | 7:53 | |
because the victim is on the bench. | 7:55 | |
Every murderer murdered Him. | 7:59 | |
Every thief stole from Him. | 8:02 | |
Every slanderer slandered Him. | 8:06 | |
Every hater hated Him. | 8:09 | |
Every selfish person or crooked system | 8:13 | |
that denied anyone a job, a decent wage | 8:16 | |
and an equal chance to succeed denied Him. | 8:20 | |
In as much as you did it | 8:27 | |
or did not do it, | 8:29 | |
to the least of these my brothers and sisters, | 8:31 | |
you did it or you did not do it to me. | 8:34 | |
This parable shows us the comforting | 8:42 | |
and uncomfortable truth about every human being. | 8:44 | |
We are all sacred and we are all diabolical. | 8:50 | |
We are all saved and we are all sinners. | 8:55 | |
We are all wonderful and we are all hostile. | 8:59 | |
Only Christ, the Shepherd King, | 9:03 | |
can make the final separation. | 9:07 | |
Before Christ, every knee must bow | 9:10 | |
and every tongue confess | 9:15 | |
that we all have sinned | 9:18 | |
and come short of the glory of God. | 9:20 | |
No one can boast | 9:26 | |
before the ultimate standard of truth and love. | 9:28 | |
There is no earned justification. | 9:32 | |
If we're saved at all, we're saved by grace. | 9:35 | |
Race, creed and class are no final arbiters. | 9:39 | |
There's some good in the worst of us, | 9:43 | |
some bad in the best of us, | 9:46 | |
and we try in vain to make the final separation. | 9:49 | |
Race is no reliable index. | 9:54 | |
Whites who think they are supreme by virtue | 9:57 | |
of their whiteness will be surprised to find the very truth | 10:00 | |
and love in a Black person | 10:04 | |
that was denied them by the White person who hurt them. | 10:06 | |
Blacks who think they are superior by virtue | 10:12 | |
of their African identity | 10:15 | |
and American African ethnicity will be shocked | 10:16 | |
to discover in a White person the very humanity | 10:20 | |
and integrity that were lacking in the Black friend | 10:24 | |
who betrayed them. | 10:28 | |
God has such a tremendous sense of humor | 10:31 | |
that God keeps popping up in unexpected places, | 10:35 | |
showing up in unlikely people, | 10:40 | |
speaking clearly through unlicensed preachers. | 10:43 | |
Is that why at the Million Man March, | 10:47 | |
Muslim minister Lewis Farrakhan said more about Jesus | 10:51 | |
than Muhammad? | 10:56 | |
Quoted more Bible than the Quran? | 10:58 | |
While one or more million black men stood all day | 11:01 | |
to confess their sins, cleanse their souls | 11:06 | |
and love God, self and neighbor. | 11:10 | |
And when they left town, | 11:14 | |
Washington DC was cleaner than ever. | 11:15 | |
No paper on the ground, no chicken bones in the grass, | 11:18 | |
no beer cans on the mall. | 11:21 | |
Who are we that God should place highest holiness | 11:25 | |
at the very heart of our most despised | 11:30 | |
and rejected humanity | 11:33 | |
so that race cannot ultimately divide us? | 11:35 | |
Class cannot separate us, and creed cannot judge us worthy | 11:39 | |
or unworthy to pass the final test of the last judgment. | 11:44 | |
Money cannot separate the saved from the condemned. | 11:49 | |
If Jesus owned nothing | 11:53 | |
and yet possessed everything, | 11:55 | |
there is poverty in our wealth | 11:56 | |
and there is wealth in our poverty, | 11:59 | |
security in our insecurity | 12:02 | |
and insecurity in our most sophisticated systems | 12:05 | |
of security. | 12:09 | |
Who is competent to separate the one from the other | 12:10 | |
except the Holy Spirit who searches the hearts of humankind? | 12:15 | |
Position is no definition of personality. | 12:20 | |
One can be a peanut personality sitting in a big chair, | 12:24 | |
riding in a big car and strutting on a giant stage. | 12:29 | |
Remember how we used to dress up in our parents' clothes | 12:34 | |
and get lost in things too big for us? | 12:37 | |
Some of us are still possessed | 12:41 | |
and consumed by our possessions, | 12:43 | |
privileges, positions, prerogatives, | 12:46 | |
too big for us. | 12:49 | |
Can a Duke education be the final line | 12:52 | |
of ultimate separation? | 12:55 | |
You can get through Duke but never let the spirit | 12:58 | |
and purpose of the university live in you. | 13:02 | |
Never think an original thought, never write a new sentence, | 13:06 | |
never read with creative understanding, | 13:10 | |
never contribute to meeting any human need. | 13:12 | |
GPA and SAT are not truthful dividers. | 13:16 | |
If those indices had been permitted | 13:23 | |
to decide who should be educated and who should not, | 13:25 | |
neither Martin Luther King Jr | 13:29 | |
nor Thomas Edison would've received the education | 13:31 | |
they needed to lighten up the landscape of human history. | 13:34 | |
One did it with electric lights, | 13:38 | |
the other did it with eternal love. | 13:40 | |
Sometimes education and intelligence can turn demonic | 13:44 | |
and destructive. | 13:49 | |
Two World Wars, the Third Reich, | 13:51 | |
South Africa before the change have taught us | 13:53 | |
that the most intelligent can also become the most barbaric. | 13:58 | |
The same Germany that gave the world J.S. Bach, | 14:03 | |
Beethoven, Brahms, Immanuel Kant | 14:06 | |
and atomic energy also gave us Hitler, the Holocaust | 14:08 | |
and the tragic division of Germany and Europe. | 14:12 | |
Right after World War I, | 14:17 | |
Carl Bart who had suggested the title | 14:21 | |
for this sermon in his 1956 essay noted | 14:24 | |
that just at the moment when the state thought | 14:28 | |
it had succeeded in making men out of wild animals, | 14:30 | |
found it necessary for natural security | 14:34 | |
to make wild animals out of men. | 14:38 | |
We all stand condemned before God | 14:41 | |
who is the ultimate source of our most stringent critique, | 14:44 | |
condemnation and transformation. | 14:50 | |
We are not in the final analysis permitted to reduce God | 14:54 | |
to anything less than God. | 14:59 | |
And I am mortally afraid of anyone | 15:02 | |
who does not seriously believe in God, | 15:04 | |
for if they have not taken God seriously, | 15:08 | |
they have taken themselves too seriously. | 15:11 | |
Christian ethicist James Luther Adams says | 15:15 | |
that the non-theistic adherence | 15:19 | |
of his own unitarian denomination may be guilty | 15:21 | |
of having ducked behind human rationalism | 15:25 | |
to avoid the ultimate critique of our most righteous | 15:29 | |
and holy creator. | 15:34 | |
Adams would also warn us who say we believe in God, | 15:37 | |
that even our behavior comes far short of our confession | 15:42 | |
and we too are dangerous | 15:47 | |
if we have reduced God to our self-serving perspectives | 15:50 | |
or opinions regarding politics, | 15:55 | |
economic structure or ideology. | 15:58 | |
Someone said no one is more dangerous | 16:01 | |
than a Presbyterian just off his knees. | 16:04 | |
But why pick on the poor Presbyterians? | 16:07 | |
Are Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals Catholics any safer | 16:10 | |
if they have worshiped their religious presumptions | 16:15 | |
and their theological ideas | 16:19 | |
instead of the true and living God | 16:21 | |
who judges us all and condemns us all? | 16:24 | |
Have we not all reduced holy God to some human idol? | 16:28 | |
Have we not all reduced the invisible to the visible? | 16:34 | |
Reduced the person to the sum total | 16:40 | |
of their biological structure, | 16:43 | |
sexual preference, church affiliation | 16:45 | |
or public image? | 16:47 | |
Reduced human beings to capital, commodities and markets? | 16:49 | |
Reduced God's holy family to military targets? | 16:55 | |
Reduced God to our own eschewed understanding of God? | 17:00 | |
Reduced college degrees to status symbols | 17:06 | |
and meal tickets? | 17:09 | |
Reduced service to sales? | 17:11 | |
Reduced worship to entertainment? | 17:14 | |
Reduced preaching to pep talks? | 17:17 | |
Reduced the Bible to spiritual motivation | 17:21 | |
and inspiration of be happitudes, | 17:24 | |
stripped of its hard sayings, discomforting judgments | 17:29 | |
and corrective disciplines? | 17:34 | |
Reduced church into a comfortable club of contended cronies | 17:36 | |
that will not let God be God? | 17:41 | |
Sometimes church people are the last people | 17:46 | |
to take God seriously | 17:49 | |
by taking the cross seriously. | 17:51 | |
We find it very hard to take seriously the suffering of God | 17:55 | |
or the suffering of others, including our own. | 17:59 | |
We want only to speak the upbeat language | 18:03 | |
of Jewish Zionism, Muslim militarism, | 18:08 | |
Christian triumphalism, Roman imperialism | 18:11 | |
or English Victorianism. | 18:14 | |
How many Christians can take seriously a God | 18:17 | |
on the cross or a victim on the throne? | 18:21 | |
Peter Goems said that the Victorians deliberately | 18:28 | |
took the tragedy out of the tragedies of Shakespeare. | 18:32 | |
They just would not allow Shakespeare's ambiguous sense | 18:36 | |
of reality to have the last word. | 18:40 | |
So they changed the grim endings of Romeo and Juliet | 18:43 | |
and Macbeth and Hamlet. | 18:47 | |
The Victorian version of Romeo | 18:49 | |
and Juliet has the young lovers suddenly recovering | 18:52 | |
from their cup of poison. | 18:55 | |
And not only do they recover, | 18:58 | |
but they are reconciled. | 19:00 | |
And not only are they reconciled, | 19:02 | |
but their warring families are reconciled | 19:04 | |
and they all live happily ever after. | 19:06 | |
And Father Lawrence has a wonderful wedding to perform | 19:10 | |
and it is a tremendously glorious occasion. | 19:13 | |
Likewise, the Victorians reduced the element | 19:17 | |
of filial pride in Hamlet | 19:20 | |
and made Lady Macbeth remorseful and penitent. | 19:23 | |
You see, revisionists are ignorantly | 19:27 | |
and arrogantly self-righteous and self-assured. | 19:29 | |
They are afraid of complexities, ambiguities, | 19:33 | |
and mysteries and tragedies. | 19:36 | |
They cannot handle sex unless they hide it. | 19:39 | |
They cannot handle trouble unless they minimize it. | 19:41 | |
They cannot handle sin unless they rationalize it. | 19:45 | |
They cannot handle differences unless they marginalize them | 19:48 | |
and they cannot handle death unless they deny it. | 19:51 | |
Are we any better? | 19:56 | |
Can we face the fact of judgment | 19:58 | |
without reducing it to self-justification | 20:00 | |
and congratulation? | 20:04 | |
The easiest thing in the world for us to do | 20:06 | |
on Christ the King Sunday is to dismiss the challenge, | 20:08 | |
spurn the reality | 20:14 | |
and deny the raw reality of the cross. | 20:16 | |
We can gild it with gold, | 20:22 | |
make it a precious piece of jewelry, | 20:25 | |
decorate the altar with it | 20:27 | |
and hang it around our necks | 20:29 | |
as if Jesus called us to wear the cross | 20:31 | |
and not to bear the cross. | 20:34 | |
We dare not let the cross critique us. | 20:37 | |
We dare not let the cross challenge our cravings | 20:40 | |
for comfort, safety, security, continuity and order. | 20:43 | |
It does not address our glorification of numbers and power. | 20:48 | |
Our delusions of grandeur, our accumulations | 20:52 | |
of material things. | 20:54 | |
It does not redistribute economic opportunity. | 20:57 | |
It does not cleanse the political process | 20:59 | |
nor transform the social order. | 21:02 | |
I heard someone say that we need to take the cross down | 21:05 | |
from the top of the cathedral | 21:08 | |
and stand it up in the alley where it belongs | 21:11 | |
between two thieves. | 21:13 | |
D.T. Niles says that when Jesus said, "You are the light | 21:15 | |
of the world," He wasn't talking about sanctuary lights, | 21:18 | |
He was talking about street lights. | 21:21 | |
Try as we may, our Shepherd King will not permit us easily | 21:24 | |
to get rid of God. | 21:28 | |
We may go through all the machinations | 21:31 | |
and techniques of religious practice, | 21:33 | |
but we can't get rid of the God on the cross. | 21:35 | |
We can try. | 21:38 | |
We can straight jacket the living Word | 21:41 | |
into our own hard line, animalistic chopped up version | 21:43 | |
of the written Word. | 21:47 | |
We can transmute the story into a scheme. | 21:50 | |
We can fit and fix the Savior into a plan of salvation. | 21:54 | |
Freeze the Christ into a creed. | 21:58 | |
Harden gospel into a structure. | 22:01 | |
Embalm amazing grace into stiff authority. | 22:04 | |
Change love into law. | 22:08 | |
Beat blessings into bureaucracies. | 22:10 | |
Hammer faith into a formula. | 22:13 | |
Ossify freedom into procedure. | 22:15 | |
Liquefy liberty into license. | 22:18 | |
Rationalize redemption into rhetoric. | 22:21 | |
Subvert Holy Spirit into religious habits. | 22:23 | |
Preempt resurrection into regimentation. | 22:27 | |
Pickle Jesus in ecclesiastical uniformity. | 22:31 | |
Wrap Jesus up in the sassy normal shroud of orthodoxy. | 22:34 | |
Lay Jesus out in the tomb of detached ritual. | 22:38 | |
Keep God out of the fight for freedom, | 22:41 | |
out of the struggle for justice, | 22:43 | |
out of the march for peace, out of our business, | 22:46 | |
out of this world, | 22:48 | |
and expect God to remain | 22:50 | |
dead in the tomb, | 22:54 | |
fixed and fitted and frozen where we left Him. | 22:55 | |
Or, exalted on a throne and way out of reach, | 22:58 | |
but it won't work. | 23:03 | |
God will not keep out or bug off. | 23:04 | |
Jesus will not remain dead or exalted. | 23:08 | |
Faith cannot remain captive to ideology. | 23:12 | |
The Holy Spirit will not be obedient | 23:16 | |
to our selfish interests. | 23:18 | |
The voice of God will not be suppressed. | 23:20 | |
The light of love cannot be extinguished. | 23:22 | |
The challenge of Christ will not go away. | 23:24 | |
Jesus will not lie still, | 23:28 | |
will not keep quiet, | 23:30 | |
will not stay put, | 23:31 | |
will not be held down in the grave | 23:33 | |
or tied to the throne | 23:35 | |
or chained to the church | 23:38 | |
or nailed to the nation | 23:40 | |
or sealed in the system | 23:42 | |
or captivated by the culture | 23:43 | |
or riveted to the race | 23:45 | |
or locked in a location | 23:47 | |
or domiciled in a denomination. | 23:48 | |
I see an angel standing at the open door | 23:51 | |
of an open tomb saying, "He is not here. | 23:53 | |
He is not safe. He is not uninvolved. | 23:57 | |
He is risen as He said, | 24:02 | |
and He who sits on the throne reminds us | 24:05 | |
that it is also at the same time | 24:09 | |
that He who sits on the throne is out of the door | 24:12 | |
and into the victims of our maligned neglect." | 24:16 | |
In as much as you have not done it | 24:21 | |
unto one of the least of these, | 24:24 | |
my brothers and sisters, you have not done it to me. | 24:26 | |
How can we be joyfully triumphant today | 24:32 | |
when we have given up on the least, | 24:35 | |
the last, the lost, the unlucky and the left out? | 24:38 | |
We who are privileged seem incapable | 24:43 | |
of sticking with any struggle | 24:46 | |
that requires long-term diligence, discipline | 24:48 | |
and self-sacrifice. | 24:51 | |
We want cheap religion | 24:53 | |
rather than the pain and sacrifice of authentic faith. | 24:55 | |
That's why full democracy has never been realized. | 24:58 | |
That's why justice has never been evenly | 25:02 | |
and equally distributed. | 25:04 | |
That's why school desegregation has not been accomplished | 25:06 | |
after 42 years. | 25:09 | |
That's why affirmative action has been maligned | 25:10 | |
and swamped by affirmative reaction. | 25:13 | |
That's why justice in the courts has been compromised. | 25:15 | |
We can't stick with the struggle long enough | 25:18 | |
to solve the problem. | 25:20 | |
It's easier to blame the victim, | 25:22 | |
blame the government, | 25:24 | |
blame everybody, but ourselves. | 25:25 | |
If the course gets too hard, we'll drop it. | 25:29 | |
If school gets too demanding, we'll leave it. | 25:32 | |
If the struggle for justice and peace is too difficult, | 25:36 | |
we'll settle for the status quo. | 25:39 | |
If the road to excellence gets too rugged, we'll abandon it | 25:42 | |
and be content with mediocrity. | 25:45 | |
If it costs too much | 25:48 | |
to win the war against addictive substances, | 25:50 | |
we'll soon forget it. | 25:52 | |
If the marriage is not perfect, we'll walk out of it. | 25:54 | |
If romance wears off, we will end the relationship | 25:57 | |
and run smack into the arms of fantasy. | 26:00 | |
If the job gets too tough, we'll quit it. | 26:04 | |
If the church is not the full realization | 26:07 | |
of all of our expectations, we will have none of it. | 26:09 | |
If this is not the best of all possible worlds, | 26:13 | |
chuck it, stop it, jump off, | 26:16 | |
cop out, get high, give up. | 26:18 | |
But when the Son of Man comes in all His glory, | 26:21 | |
we will be called to account | 26:25 | |
for what we did not do that we could have done | 26:28 | |
to solve human problems, meet human needs | 26:32 | |
and ease human pain. | 26:35 | |
We will all be judged and condemned, | 26:38 | |
not by how we treated our superiors | 26:42 | |
because we wanted something from them, | 26:44 | |
not how we treated our peers | 26:48 | |
because we wanted a reciprocal relationship | 26:50 | |
that would bring us emotional and material reciprocity, | 26:53 | |
but we will be judged by how we treated those who looked up | 26:59 | |
to us powerlessly for the help | 27:03 | |
and love that they needed. | 27:08 | |
The children of Israel | 27:11 | |
and the members of the church might like to assume | 27:12 | |
that because we are chosen of God, | 27:16 | |
we may enjoy privileges and preferences and power | 27:19 | |
that is denied to other people who do not share our faith. | 27:22 | |
But according to Amos, the eighth century prophet, | 27:28 | |
"Intimacy and privacy with God require a higher standard | 27:31 | |
of accountability than is expected of those | 27:35 | |
who are not yet conscious of being chosen | 27:38 | |
and called by God to work with God in the world." | 27:41 | |
Amos spoke for God when he said in the third chapter | 27:46 | |
and the second verse of his prophecy, "You only have I known | 27:49 | |
of all the families of the earth. | 27:53 | |
Therefore I will punish you for your inequities." | 27:56 | |
Jesus was on the same page | 28:01 | |
when he said in Luke 12:48, "To whom much is given, | 28:03 | |
of him and her will much be required." | 28:07 | |
Most people who quote that verse reduce the requirement | 28:13 | |
to a mere expectation | 28:16 | |
because we dare not be confronted | 28:18 | |
by the judgment in God's love | 28:20 | |
and the wrath of God that accompanies the grace of God. | 28:23 | |
We want all love and no law, | 28:27 | |
all grace and no wrath, | 28:30 | |
all in judgment and no discipline | 28:32 | |
because we have forgotten | 28:35 | |
that the Lord disciplines those whom the Lord loves | 28:36 | |
and chastises every child whom the Lord accepts. | 28:40 | |
Law and covenant are the fruit and flower of mercy and love. | 28:46 | |
We have been blessed to be a blessing | 28:51 | |
and to do unto others, not as others have done unto us, | 28:54 | |
but as God has done unto us. | 28:58 | |
Because the golden ruler is more exacting | 29:01 | |
than the golden rule. | 29:04 | |
Much is required of the blessed, the brave, | 29:06 | |
and the good. | 29:09 | |
Does anyone here doubt | 29:11 | |
that we in America have been blessed of God? | 29:12 | |
We have arable land, accessible water, | 29:16 | |
geographic variety, ethnic diversity | 29:18 | |
and civic society | 29:21 | |
where our most serious political contingents are resolved | 29:22 | |
by ballots and not by bullets. | 29:26 | |
Mr. Clinton and Mr. Dole debated | 29:28 | |
but they did not duel it out until one lay dead. | 29:31 | |
And the one who was defeated showed up laughing | 29:35 | |
on "Saturday Night Live." | 29:39 | |
While the one who was victorious took a strained voice | 29:41 | |
and a tired body to the mid East, to the far East | 29:45 | |
to work on the problems of the world. | 29:48 | |
Who really won? | 29:51 | |
Those who do not sense | 29:53 | |
and accept the discipline of God's love | 29:54 | |
and the obligations implicit in God's gifts | 29:56 | |
will be found wanting in the final judgment. | 29:59 | |
Would love be genuine if it expected no response, | 30:03 | |
made no demand and required no accountability? | 30:08 | |
Our best courses are our most demanding ones | 30:12 | |
and our best lovers are those who criticize us relentlessly | 30:16 | |
and mercilessly. | 30:20 | |
It is written somewhere | 30:22 | |
that to love someone is to learn the song | 30:23 | |
that is in their heart and to sing it to them | 30:26 | |
when they have forgotten it. | 30:29 | |
Sing it to them even when they don't want to hear it. | 30:32 | |
Love is the highest judgment, | 30:37 | |
love the inexorable critique. | 30:40 | |
Love does not say to us, "You don't have to do anything, | 30:42 | |
give anything, achieve anything. | 30:46 | |
I will still love you and indulge you. | 30:49 | |
Walk on me, kick me around. It feels good. | 30:50 | |
Your punches do not hurt and your daggers do not wound." | 30:53 | |
That is not the way that a spouse should love the mate, | 30:57 | |
and that is not the way | 31:02 | |
that wise teachers love their students. | 31:04 | |
A teacher who is not critical is not a teacher. | 31:07 | |
A parent who is not a loving disciplinarian is not a parent. | 31:11 | |
Lay it on too heavy, it's abusive. | 31:14 | |
Leave it off altogether, it is sacred sentimentality. | 31:17 | |
But love, courageous in discipline | 31:21 | |
and yet gentle and reliable in kindness is transformative, | 31:24 | |
nurturing, growth and healing. | 31:28 | |
Those who love us will not allow us not | 31:31 | |
to love God, ourselves and them. | 31:34 | |
I have never been well served by those | 31:40 | |
who call themselves loving me so much | 31:42 | |
that they would not tell me the truth about my defects, | 31:45 | |
deficiencies and failures. | 31:48 | |
Those who love me the most were never too sentimental | 31:50 | |
to sting me with the criticism I needed to achieve my best. | 31:54 | |
My grand uncle, the late professor from Virginia, | 31:59 | |
Gordon Blaine Hancock, would return all | 32:02 | |
of my letters corrected in heavy red ink. | 32:04 | |
(congregation laughs) | 32:07 | |
And then he would say, "It's better | 32:09 | |
to be corrected in your face by someone who loves you | 32:11 | |
than castigated behind your back by someone who hates you." | 32:15 | |
So the parable cuts to the chase | 32:20 | |
by focusing upon the daily practical common effects | 32:23 | |
of our faith, our worship, and our doctrine. | 32:27 | |
The King in glorious judgment does not inquire about faith | 32:31 | |
and belief and prayer, praise, Bible study, creed | 32:35 | |
and word, not because these are not necessary, | 32:40 | |
but because these are assumed, | 32:44 | |
they have already been spoken of in other parables | 32:46 | |
and in other passages of scripture. | 32:49 | |
But if these things that we do | 32:52 | |
do not cause the hungry to be fed | 32:54 | |
and the thirsty to be relieved | 32:58 | |
and the strangers to be welcomed and the naked to be clothed | 33:00 | |
and the sick to be visited | 33:03 | |
and the prisoners to be embraced, | 33:05 | |
they shall have become invalidated by their failure | 33:07 | |
to modify human behavior and transform human society. | 33:10 | |
We dare not reduce religion | 33:15 | |
to feeling good about doing nothing. | 33:18 | |
Light shines, salt savors, wine gladdens, | 33:21 | |
love transforms, | 33:26 | |
and Christians turn the world upside down | 33:29 | |
in the name of Jesus. | 33:32 | |
Jesus said, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me | 33:34 | |
because the spirit has anointed me | 33:37 | |
to preach good news to the poor, | 33:40 | |
to proclaim release to the captives | 33:42 | |
and recovering of sight to the blind, | 33:45 | |
to let the oppressed go free | 33:47 | |
and to proclaim that this is the year of the Lord's favor." | 33:49 | |
If God has stepped down from God's exalted throne, | 33:54 | |
if the Word has been made flesh to dwell among us, | 33:58 | |
if the judge has identified with the victim, | 34:02 | |
if holy thought has been changed into human action, | 34:05 | |
if the divine a priori has gotten married | 34:09 | |
to the human a posteriori, | 34:12 | |
if holy God has become the human being | 34:14 | |
who needs our love and help, | 34:17 | |
then true religion is not reduced to practical concerns. | 34:20 | |
It is fulfilled and consummated in human service | 34:24 | |
to the holy God who meets us in the whole creation | 34:27 | |
so that no part of it can be carelessly abused | 34:31 | |
or callously neglected. | 34:34 | |
Who can satisfy such a God? | 34:36 | |
Who can pass such a judgment? | 34:39 | |
Have you ever spilled poison in the environment? | 34:42 | |
I have. | 34:45 | |
Have you ever mistreated a human being? I have. | 34:47 | |
Have you ever abused your privileges, position, | 34:52 | |
power, or prerogative? | 34:55 | |
I have. | 34:58 | |
Then we all stand condemned in the eyes of the judge | 35:00 | |
who is incarnate in the victims of this world. | 35:03 | |
But even as we confess our sin, we embrace our savior. | 35:08 | |
We still have a right to rejoice today | 35:14 | |
and to triumph in the grace of God who loves us, | 35:17 | |
even while judging us | 35:21 | |
and does not desire that anyone should perish, | 35:24 | |
but that all should be saved. | 35:26 | |
The last line of the parable speaks | 35:29 | |
about the righteous going away into eternal life. | 35:31 | |
And that is not a boast over the damnation of the wicked, | 35:36 | |
but that is a celebration of the vindication | 35:39 | |
of the righteous who have been made righteous | 35:43 | |
by the righteousness of God | 35:45 | |
and have received in this life, eternal life | 35:47 | |
that not even death can destroy. | 35:51 | |
Though we are sinners condemned before God, | 35:53 | |
we are still loved, | 35:56 | |
and by faith can be justified by God's grace | 35:58 | |
as a gift through the redemption | 36:02 | |
that is given us in Jesus Christ. | 36:04 | |
So there is hope even for the convicts, | 36:07 | |
even for those of us who stand condemned, | 36:11 | |
there is hope through Christ who is incarnate, | 36:14 | |
not only in the neighbor whom we harmed, | 36:17 | |
but also in us who have sinned. | 36:20 | |
There is hope because the God who made us will not rest | 36:24 | |
until God has conformed us to bear the image | 36:28 | |
of the Son of Man who lives in us. | 36:32 | |
So let us live in love and in thanks | 36:35 | |
and in joy for there is no other way to live. | 36:38 | |
George Buttrick says | 36:43 | |
that the word live is really the past tense | 36:44 | |
of the word love. | 36:51 | |
We live because we have loved. | 36:53 | |
We live because we are loved | 36:57 | |
and there is no other way | 37:01 | |
to meet the stringent requirements of the text. | 37:03 | |
How can we do what the text requires? | 37:07 | |
How can we stand before such an inexorable judge? | 37:11 | |
How can we face tomorrow unafraid? | 37:15 | |
How can we frail creatures of better intentions | 37:19 | |
and achievements, do our work, sing our song, | 37:22 | |
make our contribution to humanity, love our enemies? | 37:26 | |
How can we do it? | 37:31 | |
Because the Shepherd King has given us the power | 37:32 | |
of God's own presence and God's own spirit, | 37:36 | |
and we have what it takes to do what we need to do. | 37:39 | |
When Jesus came back from the dead | 37:43 | |
and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit," | 37:46 | |
and breathed into us the breath of God, | 37:48 | |
he gave us that critical energy | 37:51 | |
and that strong love of God | 37:53 | |
that makes the impossible possible, | 37:56 | |
that makes love beautiful, life meaningful, | 37:58 | |
pain bearable, trouble endurable, | 38:02 | |
tragedy transformable, time redeemable, | 38:04 | |
cities renewable, mountains movable, | 38:08 | |
rivers crossable, hard work doable, | 38:11 | |
justice achievable, freedom available, | 38:14 | |
sickness curable, sin forgivable, | 38:16 | |
sky reachable, death conquerable, | 38:19 | |
hope believable, faith powerful, | 38:22 | |
people thankful and Jesus visible. | 38:24 | |
We have it and it is nothing less than the love of God, | 38:27 | |
the grace of Christ and the power | 38:31 | |
and communion of the Holy Spirit. | 38:33 | |
And with that, we shall be like Him | 38:36 | |
and we shall live in eternity and victory. | 38:40 | |
Thanks be to God. | 38:46 |
Item Info
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