James T. Cleland - "The Agon and the Agony" (September 6, 1970)
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- | Testing one, two, three. | 0:04 |
Well, this is the second test, I'm working a cohort here. | 0:07 | |
Testing one, two, three, four, five, test. | 0:10 | |
Two, three, four, five, testing one, two, three, four, five, | 0:25 | |
testing one, two, three, four, five, | 0:32 | |
six, seven, eight, nine, 10. | 0:35 | |
(church organ music) | 0:57 | |
(church organ music) | 2:47 | |
- | Sing to the Lord a new song. | 3:54 |
Sing his praise from the end of the earth. | 3:57 | |
Sing to the Lord, bless his name. | 4:00 | |
Tell of his salvation from day to day, | 4:04 | |
declare his glory among the nations, | 4:08 | |
his marvelous works among all the peoples. | 4:10 | |
Therefore let us praise God with the singing | 4:14 | |
of hymn number one, stanzas one through four. | 4:17 | |
"O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing". | 4:21 | |
(church organ music) | 4:26 | |
(choir singing) | 4:48 | |
(church organ music) | 6:22 | |
Be seated, please. | 6:31 | |
God has given us life, but we have not lived. | 6:39 | |
We have been called to freedom, | 6:44 | |
but we have found the burden heavy. | 6:44 | |
The anxiety painful. | 6:48 | |
In fear and pride we have turned from him | 6:51 | |
to live in self defeat, deceit, | 6:54 | |
and to serve other lords. | 6:57 | |
Let us admit commonly our willfulness | 7:02 | |
and our weakness in denying what is given. | 7:05 | |
Let us confess our sins. | 7:09 | |
Most merciful God, our father, | 7:14 | |
we know we do not love you above all things. | 7:16 | |
We do not really love our neighbor | 7:20 | |
because we are too interested in ourselves. | 7:23 | |
We confess even that we do not like the bodies we have, | 7:30 | |
often we have longed for different families. | 7:34 | |
Certainly we would like to forget parts of our past lives. | 7:38 | |
We are afraid of our moods and our feelings. | 7:44 | |
We wish we had more time. | 7:46 | |
We would like to start over again. | 7:50 | |
We think more money will solve our problems. | 7:52 | |
We envy others, resent the injustices we have suffered | 7:56 | |
and cherish sometimes our sorrows. | 8:01 | |
We feel we have never really been understood. | 8:05 | |
In short, we have refused to live | 8:10 | |
because we have held out for better terms. | 8:14 | |
Heal us, oh, God. | 8:19 | |
on the distance we have tried to put | 8:22 | |
between ourselves and life, | 8:23 | |
heal us from the open wounds that separate us from you. | 8:26 | |
And from one another. | 8:31 | |
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. | 8:34 | |
Jesus said, "Be of good cheer. | 8:41 | |
Your sins are forgiven, | 8:48 | |
go and sin no more." | 8:52 | |
So I say to you this morning, | 8:57 | |
do not weep or punish yourself. | 8:58 | |
You are accepted just as you are, the good and the bad, | 9:01 | |
all wrapped up together. | 9:06 | |
Whatever you have done, | 9:10 | |
you are free from bondage to your past | 9:11 | |
and from anxiety about your future. | 9:13 | |
You are free to live fully in the present. | 9:16 | |
You are valued just as you are. | 9:20 | |
Life is good as it is given. | 9:23 | |
The future is open, arise, pick up your life, and walk. | 9:25 | |
- | Our Old Testament lesson for this morning | 9:41 |
comes from Psalm eight. | 9:43 | |
Oh Lord, our Lord, | 9:46 | |
how majestic is thy name in all the earth. | 9:48 | |
Thou glory above the heavens is chanted | 9:51 | |
by the mouth of babes and infants. | 9:53 | |
Thy has founded a board because of that pose | 9:55 | |
to still the enemy and the avenger. | 9:58 | |
When I look at the heavens, the work of thy fingers, | 10:01 | |
the moon and the stars, which thou has established. | 10:04 | |
What is man that thou art mindful of him, | 10:08 | |
and the son of man that thou does care for him. | 10:10 | |
That thou has made him little less than God, | 10:14 | |
and thus crown him with glory and honor. | 10:16 | |
Thou has given him dominion over all the works of thy hands. | 10:19 | |
Thou has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, | 10:23 | |
and also the beasts of the field, | 10:27 | |
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, | 10:30 | |
whatever passes along the paths of the sea. | 10:33 | |
Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name | 10:36 | |
in all the earth. | 10:39 | |
Thus ends the reading of the first scripture lesson. | 10:41 | |
(church organ music) | 10:45 | |
(choir singing) | 11:09 | |
The New Testament lesson is First Corinthians, chapter nine, | 13:21 | |
verses 24 through 27, and Second Timothy, | 13:24 | |
chapter four, verses six through eight. | 13:28 | |
Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, | 13:31 | |
but only one receives the prize? | 13:34 | |
So run that you may obtain it. | 13:37 | |
Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. | 13:39 | |
Well, I do not run aimlessly. | 13:44 | |
Enemy boxers one beating the air, | 13:46 | |
but I palm on my body and subdue it. | 13:49 | |
At least after preaching to others, | 13:51 | |
I myself be disqualified. | 13:53 | |
The time of my departure has come. | 13:56 | |
I have fought the good fight, I've finished the race, | 13:59 | |
I've kept the faith. | 14:02 | |
Henceforth it is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, | 14:04 | |
which the Lord, the righteous judge, | 14:07 | |
will award to me on that day. | 14:09 | |
And not only to me, but also to all | 14:12 | |
who have loved his (indistint). | 14:14 | |
Here endeth the reading of the second lesson. | 14:16 | |
(church organ music) | 14:20 | |
(choir singing) | 14:28 | |
(church organ music) | 15:02 | |
(choir singing) | 15:38 | |
(church organ music) | 17:36 | |
- | Lord be with you. | 17:44 |
Let us pray. | 17:47 | |
Let the congregation be seated. | 17:48 | |
Oh, mighty God. | 17:57 | |
Creator of life and light, | 17:59 | |
We thank thee for the beauty of thy world, | 18:02 | |
for sunshine in the dark, for the storm cloud | 18:05 | |
and the starry night. | 18:09 | |
We are grateful for the first radiance of dawn, | 18:11 | |
and the last glow of sunset. | 18:14 | |
We thank thee for physical joy, for struggle in athletics, | 18:18 | |
for the ecstasy of learning, for problems to solve, | 18:22 | |
and the hard work to do. | 18:27 | |
We bless thee for music that lifts our hearts, | 18:29 | |
for the hand clasp of a friend. | 18:33 | |
Supremely we thank thee for spiritual beauty and hope, | 18:36 | |
for the truth of the prophets and poets, | 18:40 | |
for the healing touch of the great physician. | 18:43 | |
For the awareness of thy presence among us, | 18:47 | |
for the redemption of the world | 18:50 | |
through our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. | 18:52 | |
Oh, God of love | 19:02 | |
who has called us to walk and to work with you, | 19:06 | |
give us courage to think clearly about the meaning of life. | 19:14 | |
Give us vision to accept responsibilities | 19:23 | |
that relate to the problems of people, and of nation. | 19:26 | |
Help us to match this day's demands | 19:33 | |
with abilities made strong by our opportunities, | 19:36 | |
deepen our concern for all people everywhere. | 19:42 | |
Grant us the determination to do all within our abilities | 19:46 | |
to bring about a united, a peaceful, and a redeemed world. | 19:50 | |
Direct us developing and serving new forms of ministry | 19:58 | |
in our changing world. | 20:04 | |
So may the days soon come that persons | 20:07 | |
in every walk of life will recognize | 20:09 | |
their God-given opportunities and responsibilities | 20:12 | |
within their own daily relationships. | 20:17 | |
We remember before thee, | 20:22 | |
those in our fellowship around the world this day | 20:25 | |
who are hungry and cold, | 20:29 | |
those who gather in meeting houses with thatched roofs | 20:33 | |
or no roofs at all save the blue sky up above, | 20:36 | |
those with no shoes on their feet, | 20:40 | |
and those with broken homes, and broken hearts. | 20:42 | |
Feed us all alike, oh, Heavenly Father. | 20:49 | |
Thy sustain in grace, giving to the sorrowing comfort. | 20:54 | |
To the downtrodden courage, and hope to the weak, | 21:01 | |
might by thy spirit. | 21:07 | |
And to those more blessed with peace and plenty, | 21:11 | |
the needed blessing of a compassionate heart. | 21:15 | |
We thank thee, oh, father, that in these times of crisis | 21:20 | |
there are ties of Christian brotherhood | 21:23 | |
stretching across oceans and continents, | 21:25 | |
across man-made barriers of race and nation, and class, | 21:28 | |
maintaining even in the midst of hostility | 21:33 | |
and association of holy friendship | 21:35 | |
reaches over the whole of this earth. | 21:39 | |
Fill, oh, father, the empty reservoirs of our lives | 21:43 | |
with living water, we pray thee, | 21:46 | |
and send us forth with thy work to do. | 21:49 | |
To the salvation of our souls | 21:53 | |
and the coming of thy kingdom of peace, love, and joy | 21:55 | |
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 22:01 | |
For it is in his holy name we pray, | 22:05 | |
and we offer this prayer, oh, father, | 22:08 | |
which he has taught us to pray. | 22:10 | |
Our father who art in heaven, | 22:13 | |
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done | 22:16 | |
on earth as it is in heaven. | 22:21 | |
Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, | 22:24 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us, | 22:29 | |
lead us not into temptation, | 22:33 | |
but deliver us from evil. | 22:36 | |
Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever, amen. | 22:38 | |
(church organ music) | 22:46 | |
(choir singing) | 23:23 | |
- | Dearly beloved, | 25:48 |
we welcome you this morning to this service, | 25:49 | |
which is either sponsored by our football team, | 25:56 | |
or in honor of it, I've never quite found out which it is. | 25:59 | |
But we welcome you, there is one change, | 26:05 | |
if you realize, in the ministry of worship, | 26:08 | |
the Reverend Elmer Paul who is our assistant chaplain is ill | 26:11 | |
and at the last moment the Reverend Robert Young | 26:18 | |
was asked to preside and consented at (indistinct). | 26:22 | |
Now, he may be something of a fifth columnist in our midst | 26:28 | |
because in his undergraduate days | 26:35 | |
he was president of the student body | 26:38 | |
at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. | 26:41 | |
However, let me assure you that he has been redeemed | 26:47 | |
because he came to the Duke Divinity School, | 26:51 | |
and was president of the student body there. | 26:54 | |
And this year has returned to the divinity school | 26:58 | |
in an administrative capacity. | 27:02 | |
In previous years, the service has been an informal one, | 27:06 | |
we have used the piano rather than the organ, | 27:09 | |
but with the chapel organist here, | 27:13 | |
we decided we'd like to use him. | 27:15 | |
And then we had a problem before the service began | 27:17 | |
of how we would dress. | 27:19 | |
And we compromised. | 27:21 | |
We decided the lectors should appear | 27:23 | |
in all their sartorial splendor, | 27:26 | |
and that the two ministers would come in silver black. | 27:30 | |
And now before the sermon proper, let us pray. | 27:39 | |
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 27:44 | |
be acceptable in thy sight. | 27:49 | |
Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. | 27:53 | |
Around Christmas, 1967, I bought two books, | 28:03 | |
two somewhat expensive tomes, | 28:12 | |
two seemingly unrelated publications, | 28:17 | |
which together gave me this morning's sermon | 28:23 | |
at this football surface. | 28:29 | |
Now, most of you know one of the volumes, | 28:31 | |
"The Wonderful World of Sport" | 28:36 | |
with the longest subtitle I have ever run across. | 28:41 | |
A phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century, | 28:47 | |
as discovered, explored and interpreted | 28:52 | |
by the editors, reporters, photographers, | 28:56 | |
and artists of "Sports Illustrated". | 29:00 | |
How large is it? | 29:05 | |
191 pages in full color, | 29:07 | |
and 114 pages of fine writing, | 29:14 | |
three columns to a page in diminutive print. | 29:22 | |
It is no small vest pocket edition. | 29:28 | |
If it slips out of your hands, as you read it in bed, | 29:34 | |
it may fracture a rib. | 29:38 | |
But the volume is to me a sheer joy from beginning to end. | 29:43 | |
There are probably not more than two people here | 29:53 | |
in the chapel who know the other volume, | 29:58 | |
which appeared in the same year | 30:04 | |
as the "Sports Illustrated" anthology, | 30:06 | |
it is a PhD thesis written by an Australian teacher | 30:11 | |
for the Evangelical Theological Faculty | 30:19 | |
of Munster, Westphalia, Germany, | 30:23 | |
and published in English, God be thanked, | 30:29 | |
at Leiden in the Netherlands. | 30:34 | |
Its title is "Paul and the Agon Motif", | 30:38 | |
which must be about as clear as mud to most of us. | 30:47 | |
Perhaps its subtitle clarifies the intent and the contents, | 30:53 | |
traditional athletic imagery in the Pauline literature. | 31:01 | |
Traditional athletic imagery in the Pauline literature. | 31:10 | |
"Sports Illustrated" and a doctoral dissertation | 31:15 | |
were the initial drives in the preparation | 31:21 | |
of this sermonic effort. | 31:25 | |
Now, first of all, let us define the meaning of two words. | 31:28 | |
The Greek word agon, A-G-O-N, | 31:33 | |
and an English word, which derives from it. | 31:39 | |
Agon was originally a place of assembly, | 31:43 | |
but its meaning narrowed. | 31:51 | |
It focused on a place where the Greeks assembled | 31:54 | |
to celebrate solemn games. | 32:00 | |
For example, the Olympian games, | 32:04 | |
the forerunner of the Olympics. | 32:08 | |
Thus the second meaning of agon is a stadium, an arena. | 32:11 | |
Then the meaning contracted still more | 32:22 | |
to an athletic contest, especially track, | 32:27 | |
and wrestling, and chariot racing. | 32:33 | |
In my ignorant knowledge, | 32:39 | |
I do not think the Greeks knew much about team sports, | 32:40 | |
but I'm ready, even anxious, to be corrected. | 32:46 | |
Now, at time like play that the apostle Paul | 32:51 | |
was an athlete, | 32:54 | |
public display of the naked body was an embarrassment | 32:57 | |
and an offense to the Jews. | 33:03 | |
And the Greek word gymnos ,G-Y-M-N-O-S, | 33:07 | |
from which we derived gymnasium, originally meant naked. | 33:12 | |
But Paul may have read the Jerusalem counterpart | 33:20 | |
of "Sports Illustrated", | 33:25 | |
or even the Athens sporting times. | 33:27 | |
He may even have seen a track meet in Ephesus, or Corinth, | 33:31 | |
(indistinct) | 33:37 | |
He knew something of the vocabulary of the athlete. | 33:38 | |
He made use of it to illustrate and clarify | 33:43 | |
his spiritual perspective in his preaching and his teaching. | 33:47 | |
We heard in the New Testament lesson | 33:54 | |
his advice to the Corinthians in Corinth, | 33:56 | |
and Corinth was quite a sporting town. | 33:59 | |
Let me read it again from another translation. | 34:05 | |
Do you remember how on a racing track | 34:09 | |
every competitor runs, | 34:14 | |
but only one wins the prize? | 34:18 | |
Well, you ought to run with your minds fixed | 34:23 | |
on winning the prize. | 34:28 | |
Every competitor in athletic event | 34:32 | |
goes into serious training. | 34:36 | |
Athletes will take tremendous pains | 34:41 | |
for a fading crown of leaves. | 34:46 | |
But our contest is for an eternal crown | 34:52 | |
that will never fade. | 34:58 | |
I run the race then with determination. | 35:01 | |
I'm no shadow boxer, I really fight. | 35:07 | |
It means I land my punches. | 35:13 | |
I am my body's strenuous master. | 35:17 | |
Now go in English, we do not use agon | 35:23 | |
in the sense of a stadium or a contest, | 35:28 | |
yet there is a derived meaning of it, | 35:33 | |
which is a constant companion of athletics. | 35:36 | |
It is the word agony. | 35:42 | |
Which may be of the body, or of the mind, or of the spirit. | 35:47 | |
Agony is extreme pain. | 35:55 | |
Anguish, the struggle to endure the unbearable. | 36:00 | |
"The Wonderful World of Sport" | 36:09 | |
has section on this entitled the last full measure. | 36:11 | |
Some of you may recall the pictures, | 36:19 | |
Ken Venturi gasping with exhaustion | 36:23 | |
and dehydration in 100% heat, | 36:29 | |
as he won the U.S. Open in 1964. | 36:36 | |
Mickey Mantle riving with pain from a thigh muscle | 36:43 | |
that gave way, as he lay in the dust of the Yankee stadium. | 36:49 | |
Y.A. Tittle, quarterback of the Giants | 36:57 | |
on his knees, sledged to the turf, | 37:03 | |
the end of a great professional career. | 37:09 | |
Roger Bannister on the threshold of unconsciousness, | 37:15 | |
as he broke the four minute mile. | 37:23 | |
Agon, the contest, and agony are related, | 37:28 | |
conjoined, inseparable in the excruciating disciplines, | 37:34 | |
which sport demands of those who would play well. | 37:42 | |
Now, let's look at the sporting agon first. | 37:48 | |
Let us begin with the what of it. | 37:53 | |
What is it that you, athletes, are doing | 37:57 | |
in coming back early to school, in bruising yourselves, | 38:00 | |
and others, and then in wearing yourselves out | 38:06 | |
through a succession of games | 38:11 | |
in which many of the community | 38:14 | |
are not particularly interested, | 38:16 | |
what is the what of it? | 38:20 | |
It is the chance to earn your letter, | 38:24 | |
to prove your athletic prowess | 38:31 | |
at a somewhat respectable university. | 38:36 | |
It is the opportunity to demonstrate your superiority | 38:40 | |
with and against your peers on the playing fields | 38:45 | |
of Duke, in Ohio State, and USC, | 38:51 | |
and especially against UNC of Chapel Hill. | 38:57 | |
It is justification by works, | 39:03 | |
and the reward is a large deed for all to see, | 39:08 | |
and rightly so. | 39:15 | |
It is the joy of merited worth appreciated, | 39:19 | |
recognized, and honored. | 39:24 | |
Something like that is the what of the agon. | 39:29 | |
Let's move on to the how of it. | 39:34 | |
It is training, and discipline, and practice. | 39:37 | |
And then more of the same. | 39:44 | |
There's a section in "The Wonderful World of Sport" | 39:49 | |
called the solitary ones. | 39:51 | |
Here's a picture of a girl skater in an empty rink at dawn | 39:57 | |
repeating, and repeating, | 40:07 | |
and repeating the basic skating figures | 40:12 | |
on her way to an Olympic championship. | 40:20 | |
And on the page opposite that girl skater | 40:28 | |
is the Duke indoor stadium, also empty, | 40:32 | |
except for one player, Bob Verga, | 40:40 | |
stubbornly practicing shots after his teammates had left. | 40:47 | |
It is Vince Lombardi committed to excellence | 40:56 | |
in everything he attempted. | 41:03 | |
It is such dedication that loneliness, and exercise, | 41:08 | |
and scull practice, and accepted routine | 41:12 | |
is parked at the gate. | 41:19 | |
But behind the what and the how is the why. | 41:24 | |
Why are you here? | 41:33 | |
Not in chapel, but in the stadium. | 41:37 | |
Maybe that you want to play pro ball? | 41:41 | |
That's what drives you to be even better than before, | 41:46 | |
and to workout more and more, | 41:50 | |
after all who can tell if a scout is at a game | 41:52 | |
that has dropped in at mid week. | 41:57 | |
But it may be a conscious desire or an unconscious desire | 42:00 | |
to let the old Latin motto become flesh in you, | 42:05 | |
perhaps better, to become muscle in you. | 42:09 | |
Mens sana in corpore sano, | 42:14 | |
which may be translated a healthy mind in a husky body. | 42:18 | |
It's an appreciation of the companionship of mind and body, | 42:26 | |
be your sport football, or basketball, or baseball, | 42:32 | |
or soccer, or swimming, or tennis, | 42:37 | |
or cross country, or track, or wrestling, | 42:42 | |
or even badminton, or squash, or ping pong. | 42:46 | |
But it may be, and this will surprise some people, | 42:51 | |
that you like Duke. | 42:55 | |
That you want to help it recapture some of its glory | 43:01 | |
or continue its prowess, | 43:06 | |
you love the place and you're glad to be here, why not? | 43:08 | |
I have great respect for an army football captain | 43:15 | |
beaten by Navy, standing in the shadows of the goalposts | 43:20 | |
in the Philadelphia stadium with tears in his eyes, | 43:26 | |
but with valiant words on his lips, | 43:32 | |
I'd rather be a plebe at West Point, | 43:37 | |
than admiral of the whole damned Navy. | 43:42 | |
I wish we had a measure of that spirit | 43:49 | |
in our academic community. | 43:52 | |
To quote Lombardi, | 43:55 | |
"Any man's finest hour is when he has worked his heart out, | 43:58 | |
exhausted on the field of battle, victorious." | 44:07 | |
Any man's finest hour is when he's worked his heart out, | 44:14 | |
exhausted on the field of battle, victorious." | 44:20 | |
I suppose that is the why of the agon | 44:25 | |
for the individual, for the team. | 44:29 | |
But let's move from the sporting agon | 44:34 | |
to the Christian agon, find out something about it. | 44:37 | |
And that agony is a part of it. | 44:43 | |
There's a basic difference in the what of the two. | 44:47 | |
You recall that in the world of sport, | 44:52 | |
it is the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of each player, | 44:56 | |
and or the cooperative effort of the whole team, | 45:03 | |
which constitutes the raison d'etre of the enterprise. | 45:08 | |
Success is symbolized in a letter for the player, | 45:13 | |
and in a championship trophy for the team. | 45:18 | |
But in the Christian agon | 45:22 | |
we are given our letter when we sign on. | 45:28 | |
In the Christian agon we're given our letter | 45:36 | |
when we sign on, in fact, some churches believe | 45:41 | |
that we are given it as infants, when we broke ties. | 45:44 | |
To be a Christian is not primarily to do something, | 45:51 | |
but to accept something that God has done. | 45:58 | |
That is absolutely basic in Jesus' teaching, | 46:06 | |
the technical theological term is justification by faith, | 46:10 | |
not by works, a person's acceptance | 46:18 | |
of God's gracious acceptance of him. | 46:24 | |
Did you hear the words | 46:28 | |
in the prayer of confession this morning? | 46:29 | |
That God accepts us just as we are, | 46:33 | |
just as we are, | 46:39 | |
a person's acceptance of God's gracious acceptance of him | 46:43 | |
because that's the kind of God he is. | 46:48 | |
Our graduate of the divinity school | 46:51 | |
who is still quite an athlete, | 46:53 | |
I must've mentioned his name from the pulpit. | 46:56 | |
Would be fair to because this is a personal story, | 46:59 | |
but he's still quite an athlete, | 47:01 | |
came to me some time back and asked me to help him. | 47:03 | |
His father was dying in the Duke Hospital, | 47:07 | |
and his son was finding it difficult to be both a son | 47:12 | |
and a minister to his parent. | 47:18 | |
So I moved in as the minister. | 47:21 | |
About my third visit the father said to me, | 47:25 | |
I'm not afraid to die, | 47:29 | |
but I'm not good enough to get into heaven. | 47:33 | |
I told him that one doesn't get into heaven | 47:38 | |
because he's good, that puzzled the patient. | 47:42 | |
Quizzed me, "Then why do you get into heaven?" | 47:47 | |
I said, because God is good. | 47:53 | |
He was quiet for a whee while. | 48:01 | |
And then he said, "Why did nobody tell me that before?" | 48:02 | |
Well, they had, but he'd never caught it. | 48:08 | |
He died two or three days later. | 48:13 | |
And his last words were, | 48:16 | |
you get into heaven because God is good. | 48:19 | |
That is the what of the Christian agon, | 48:26 | |
let's move on to the how. | 48:31 | |
The primary how is the work of God | 48:35 | |
through Jesus Christ and through the continuing activity | 48:39 | |
of the holy spirit telling us, reminding us, | 48:43 | |
encouraging us that we are in right relations with God | 48:48 | |
because that's what he wants. | 48:53 | |
If only we'll believe it. | 48:57 | |
The secondary how is for us to try to become what we are. | 49:01 | |
To try to become Christian, | 49:12 | |
to become the kind of Christian that God wants us to be, | 49:16 | |
honoring him and showing good will to our neighbor, | 49:20 | |
white and black, male and female, Gentile and Jew, | 49:24 | |
rich and poor, where? | 49:29 | |
Here, in the chapel, | 49:32 | |
in the fellowship of Christian athletes, in Edgmont, | 49:36 | |
on the Chronicle, in the dorm, during a game, | 49:40 | |
after a game, anywhere, everywhere, all the time | 49:46 | |
so far as we can. | 49:52 | |
Why should we behave like this? | 49:56 | |
Why? | 50:01 | |
I think it's because after we've lived for a while, | 50:06 | |
and thought a bit, | 50:11 | |
and experimented here and there, | 50:15 | |
and watched some real Christians in action, | 50:19 | |
then we discover that what this old world needs | 50:27 | |
is the love, which is good will. | 50:34 | |
And that's what we need, both as receivers and givers. | 50:40 | |
I suppose, the motivating force | 50:48 | |
in accepting Christianity, | 50:53 | |
or in keeping on with it is gratitude. | 50:55 | |
Gratitude for what God has done in Jesus Christ, | 51:02 | |
and what he's done in folk like Paul and Francis of Assisi, | 51:08 | |
and Booth of the Salvation Army, | 51:16 | |
and Branch Rickey of the Dodgers | 51:20 | |
who went to the Pirates later. | 51:22 | |
And some folk you know, and some folk I know, | 51:25 | |
a steward in a prep school, | 51:30 | |
an employee in a dining hall, | 51:34 | |
a surgeon, and a pediatrician, | 51:39 | |
a coach, and a Scottish soccer referee. | 51:44 | |
Gratitude may arise from shame and embarrassment. | 51:52 | |
When we realize that there hasn't been enough agony | 51:58 | |
in our Christian agon, | 52:03 | |
that we've been loafing, slacking, | 52:06 | |
breaking training, | 52:11 | |
while still claiming our Christian letter, S, T. | 52:14 | |
It hurts to know that we have not become, | 52:24 | |
in fact, what we're supposed to be in grace. | 52:28 | |
Our agon, as Christians, is too often touch football, | 52:36 | |
and not a real contest for so many of us. | 52:43 | |
For Jesus and the martyrs agony | 52:51 | |
was an integral part of the agon. | 52:55 | |
The expert on all this next to Jesus is Paul, | 53:00 | |
read his letters, but in a modern translation, | 53:04 | |
and there you will discover a man | 53:09 | |
who found out probably in his thirties | 53:16 | |
that you don't have to prove yourself to be right with God. | 53:21 | |
Thereafter he worked with all his might to show himself | 53:30 | |
worthy of being so accepted by God. | 53:34 | |
And he probably wrote his own epitaph, | 53:38 | |
the epitaph of a Christian athlete. | 53:42 | |
I have fought the good fight. | 53:46 | |
Or the Greek can be translated, | 53:50 | |
I have played my part in the bone game. | 53:52 | |
I've run my race. | 53:59 | |
I have kept faith. | 54:02 | |
Now, to the glory of God, | 54:07 | |
and in gratitude to Saint Paul, and his Lord, Jesus Christ, | 54:09 | |
let us sing words like these as they've been set to music | 54:14 | |
in hymn 241, "Fight the good Fight". | 54:19 | |
(church organ music) | 54:27 | |
(choir singing) | 54:56 | |
(church organ music) | 56:59 | |
(church organ music) | 57:31 | |
(background noise drowns out speaker) | 1:01:11 | |
(background noise drowns out speaker) | 1:01:54 | |
(church organ music) | 1:02:33 | |
- | God, our father, | 1:04:06 |
we present ourselves, our work and our play | 1:04:08 | |
our joys and our sorrows, | 1:04:14 | |
our thoughts and our deeds just as we are, | 1:04:16 | |
to be used by you, father, | 1:04:21 | |
for the sake of all men everywhere, amen. | 1:04:25 | |
- | Grace to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, | 1:04:33 |
for the love of (static noise drowns out speaker). | 1:04:36 | |
The communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit. | 1:04:40 | |
(static noise drowns out speaker) | 1:04:43 | |
This day. | 1:04:45 |
Item Info
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