McMurry S. Richey - "A Renewed Church for Spaceship Earth?" (January 15, 1967)

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-	Without which our lives would be impoverished indeed.	0:03
	We pray for Grace to give well.	0:07
	To help without patronizing.	0:10
	To assist without weakening.	0:14
	To share without diminishing the self-respect of others.	0:17
	With these gifts for the work and witness of this community,	0:22
	we offer our prayers for the one Church of Jesus Christ,	0:26
	throughout all the world.	0:30
	In His name we pray.	0:32
	Amen.	0:34
	(soft uplifting music)	0:37
-	"It would be wrong."	1:00
	I said at the World Conference on Church and Society,	1:02
	in Geneva last summer.	1:05
	"It would be wrong for every North American child	1:08
	to have an electric toothbrush,	1:12
	before every Latin American child,	1:15
	has a daily bottle of milk."	1:18
	"In my neighborhood," (indistinct) Joseph Lyford in,	1:24
	"The Airtight Cage," about an urban ghetto.	1:28
	"In my neighborhood,	1:33
	an adult is a dead child."	1:36
	And he went on to deplore a system,	1:41
	which is turning more of our resources	1:42
	away from the nurture of human life,	1:46
	and more into the destruction of it.	1:49
	A French theologian,	1:56
	wrote recently,	1:58
	"we know the figures of hunger and the statistics of misery.	2:01
	We have seen the photos of children	2:08
	with their swollen bellies,	2:10
	their hollow eyes,	2:11
	and their prominent knees between five bones,	2:13
	as thin as shin bones.	2:16
	On the other hand,	2:18
	the hungry and wretched have seen the affluence,	2:20
	of our installations.	2:23
	Our way of life, our luxuries,	2:25
	our tanks and our guns.	2:29
	'People can deny that statement.'	2:33
	Commented Sergeant Shriver, who quoted it.	2:36
	'They can lament it.	2:40
	They can duck it.	2:42
	But if they still want to be Christians,	2:44
	they must respond to it.'"	2:47
	Almost three years ago,	2:54
	Duke University convened an extraordinary	2:55
	symposium on Christianity and social revolution	2:59
	in newly developing nations.	3:03
	The keynote speaker in this impressive gathering	3:06
	of world churchmen,	3:10
	of the economists and,	3:13
	various social scientists,	3:15
	United nations and United States governmental spokesman,	3:19
	the keynote speaker	3:25
	was a Hebrew Prophet Amos,	3:27
	cleverly disguised as charming lady Jackson,	3:31
	alias British Economist and Editor,	3:35
	Barbara Ward.	3:38
	Knowledgeable Catholic Christian,	3:41
	whose book on "Rich Nations and Poor Nations,"	3:44
	came to focus in her disturbing address here.	3:48
	"Am I my brother's keeper?"	3:53
	Now Barbara Ward and Economist,	3:57
	Kenneth Boulding,	4:02
	perhaps borrowing from,	4:04
	Renaissance Sundial Buckminster Fuller,	4:06
	has taken an unforgettably,	4:11
	new symbol for our human situation,	4:13
	"Spaceship Earth."	4:17
	This isn't a homiletical gimmick,	4:19
	but a vivid reminder of our present situation.	4:24
	Barbara Ward goes on to say in her book by that title,	4:31
	how the circumstances of today,	4:36
	our modern science and technology,	4:38
	have created such a network of	4:41
	communication, transport, economic interdependence,	4:44
	potential nuclear destruction.	4:47
	"That planet earth on it's journey through infinity	4:50
	has acquired the intimacy,	4:53
	the fellowship and the vulnerability of a spaceship."	4:55
	She goes on to say how in such a close-knit community,	5:03
	there must be rules for survival.	5:06
	And there must be concern for	5:10
	those whose poverty and destitution,	5:13
	would provoke them to violence.	5:17
	And she goes on to show how the great disparities	5:20
	between peoples in this world	5:24
	constitute a serious barrier	5:27
	to the development of the kind of,	5:31
	intimacy of community,	5:34
	which a spaceship needs.	5:37
	"The gaps in power," she cites.	5:42
	"The gaps in wealth,	5:44
	the gaps in ideology,	5:45
	which hold the nations apart also make up the abyss	5:47
	into which mankind can fall into an annihilation.	5:51
	World policy must concentrate on some of these imbalances."	5:58
	She insists.	6:02
	"Then when the grocer inequalities have been remedied,	6:04
	there can be more hope of building the common institutions,	6:07
	policies and beliefs which a crew of Spaceship Earth,	6:11
	must acquire if they were to have any	6:14
	sure hope of survival."	6:16
	She and others have confronted us starkly with the fact that	6:21
	the Northern part of our planet	6:26
	to above the Tropic of Cancer,	6:29
	with 1/4 of the human race,	6:31
	enjoys 3/4 of the trade, investment, resources,	6:35
	and tells us that, "in a single year,	6:41
	America added to its gross national product,	6:44
	the equivalent of a whole of Africa's current wealth,	6:50
	or 50% of Latin America's.	6:54
	Both continents with a higher population than America."	6:57
	Thus Barbara Ward and these others,	7:03
	have put up on our minds,	7:07
	the symbol of our present and our future,	7:09
	Spaceship Earth.	7:12
	In which we must learn to live under law	7:15
	or perish in strife.	7:18
	Conserve with care	7:21
	or waste, and fall and die.	7:24
	Share with profound concern,	7:28
	strengthen and enable the neighbor	7:31
	or lock in struggle,	7:34
	for survival	7:38
	and ultimate death.	7:40
	Where does the Christian,	7:43
	where does the Christian Church fit into this picture	7:45
	of Spaceship Earth?	7:50
	A student conference in the state, three weeks hence,	7:53
	will ask the question.	7:57
	The church in a revolutionary world,	7:59
	powerful enough to make a difference?	8:01
	Knowing those students,	8:05
	we may expect them also	8:06
	to be dealing with such prior questions	8:08
	as concerned enough,	8:11
	authentic enough,	8:14
	enough like it's Lord.	8:16
	In fact they will be asking about a church	8:19
	renewed for Spaceship Earth.	8:22
	And they will be thinking in terms of	8:25
	two other and more ancient symbols,	8:27
	which were put before us today.	8:30
	One of those was that ancient testimony,	8:33
	from the letter to the Philippians,	8:38
	to be heard not as pros to be demythologized,	8:41
	but as song to be celebrated,	8:46
	by this glorious choir,	8:50
	as poetry to be savored,	8:53
	for insight into the nature of things	8:56
	and the meaning of our existence.	8:59
	That ancient witness to one life	9:02
	that gave rather than grasped,	9:04
	that served rather than dominated,	9:08
	that suffered rather than hurt.	9:11
	One life, inviting our recognition,	9:14
	our transformation,	9:18
	our following.	9:20
	A servant Lord whose faithful Church	9:23
	would be a servant church.	9:26
	We should want to ask whether that kind of church,	9:30
	has a role on Spaceship Earth,	9:33
	and what kind of role it might be if so.	9:36
	And whether we are up to it.	9:40
	And when we ask undoubtedly,	9:43
	we should be ambivalent,	9:44
	saying yes to quickly and easily.	9:47
	Still preferring no,	9:51
	yet down deep knowing that this is the spirit,	9:54
	that engages us and invites us to discover	9:57
	or have discovered to us,	10:01
	the meaning of our world	10:04
	and our life.	10:06
	But first we call another ancient symbol,	10:08
	that parable,	10:11
	read also this morning,	10:14
	that parable of our neighbor	10:16
	as gift and claim upon (indistinct).	10:18
	That parable of judgment is so often thought of	10:24
	as condemnation for our irresponsibility,	10:26
	our self-centeredness,	10:31
	our insensitivity,	10:33
	that we may miss it more positive note.	10:36
	Indeed, it is a telling condemnation,	10:41
	a disturbing claim,	10:46
	to return to Barbara Ward.	10:48
	In speaking at that World Conference	10:51
	on Church and Society in Geneva,	10:54
	she ended with these disturbing words.	10:58
	"Why were these resources given into our hands?	11:02
	Why at the moment when we can incinerate this planet,	11:06
	have we also been given the means to feed the human race	11:09
	and lift it up?	11:12
	If this is not the apocalyptic moment	11:14
	to which we as Christians are supposed to look,	11:17
	I just don't know how much more apocalyptic we can be.	11:19
	That being the case, can we not at this conference,	11:23
	decide that as far as politics are concerned,	11:25
	we are not ever again going to be content with half trues	11:29
	and half promises.	11:32
	That our political action, is going to create	11:34
	community of citizens in the world.	11:37
	Christians alone."	11:40
	She went on to say,	11:41
	"Christians alone straddle the whole spectrum	11:43
	of rich nations.	11:46
	And therefore, Christians are a lobby	11:48
	of incomprehensible importance, in this field.	11:51
	And if we don't do it,	11:55
	when we come to see God ultimately,	11:57
	and He says, 'did you feed them?	11:59
	Did you give them to drink?	12:02
	Did you clothe them?	12:04
	Did you shelter them?'	12:06
	And we say, 'sorry Lord.	12:07
	But we did give them .003 of our gross national product.	12:09
	I don't think it will be enough.'"	12:14
	Yet, this parable is not primarily	12:22
	or perhaps we need not see it primarily,	12:26
	as one of judgment,	12:31
	on claims not met.	12:34
	More positively,	12:37
	it's a gospel of a gift.	12:39
	Our gift of the meaning of our life,	12:43
	in our neighbor's need.	12:46
	The gift of the possibility of surface,	12:50
	the sign of true life.	12:53
	When such service is,	12:55
	such a settle disposition.	12:57
	That it spontaneously serves a neighbor's need	13:01
	without even recognizing,	13:04
	and self congratulating over the quality of the action.	13:07
	"Lord when did we see the stranger and welcome Thee,	13:12
	or naked and clothe Thee?	13:15
	And when did we see Thee sick or in prison and visit Thee?"	13:18
	And the King will answer them.	13:22
	"Truly I say to you,	13:23
	as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren,	13:25
	you did it for me.	13:28
	So those who take seriously,	13:31
	the servant Lord will take seriously the neighbor's need.	13:34
	Even when they do not realize what they are doing.	13:41
	Even sometimes when they do not realize to whom they belong,	13:45
	many of them may be quite beyond,	13:51
	the labels we put up on our churches.	13:54
	Many of them may be in hidden ways,	13:59
	profoundly serving the need of neighbors.	14:03
	And this is life now. at life, you turn,"	14:08
	What does this really come to for us as Christians?	14:13
	As Christians in a situation of privilege, and learning,	14:16
	of tremendous potential power in society.	14:23
	As a church in a university,	14:28
	involved in Spaceship Earth,	14:33
	in a sense we need not be told.	14:36
	We know, that New Testament doxology that was read to us	14:39
	and that New Testament parable underscore what we	14:44
	already believe or entertain.	14:47
	But we need reminding,	14:51
	directing, enabling.	14:53
	And so in this sermon today,	14:57
	we are hearing from numerous witnesses,	14:59
	who speak to our condition,	15:03
	and help to make up our minds	15:05
	for the present and future tasks.	15:09
	Take for example,	15:12
	as instructor in our present and future,	15:14
	that World Conference on Church and Society in Geneva,	15:18
	to which I alluded.	15:21
	"Heareth call for a radical reconstruction,	15:24
	radical reorientation of the churches' approach	15:27
	to the modern world.	15:31
	Hear the World Council presenting challenges to action	15:34
	in political, technological and scientific fields,	15:38
	that thrust the Christian Church	15:42
	into the midst of man's most hopeful,	15:43
	yet explosive revolutions.	15:47
	An impatient world challenges a complacent church."	15:50
	Is the way some participants saw it.	15:55
	The strange new thing about this conference,	15:59
	was that this time,	16:03
	as much of the world's Christian leadership gathered	16:05
	to take seriously the common task and the social order.	16:10
	Most of the participants were layman.	16:15
	Layman from the fields of science,	16:18
	of education, industry, research.	16:21
	And nearly 1/2 came from	16:25
	the newer nations of the developing world.	16:28
	"We Christians," they said, "cannot escape the call	16:32
	to serious study and dynamic action.	16:36
	The church, a relatively small minority participating	16:39
	in the struggle for the future of man	16:43
	alongside other religious and secular movements.	16:45
	can contribute to the transformation of the world	16:48
	only as it is itself transformed in contact with the world.	16:51
	And so, this conference commits itself	16:57
	and calls others to the transformation of society.	17:00
	It is acknowledged that in the past,	17:05
	we have usually done this through quiet efforts	17:08
	at social renewal,	17:10
	working in and through the established institutions,	17:12
	according to their rules.	17:15
	But this time,	17:17
	the urgent imperative is for a much more	17:20
	thoroughgoing, radical and direct participation	17:23
	of the church as a body,	17:28
	or as many bodies working together	17:31
	and individuals of the church sent out into society	17:32
	as the businessmen and political leaders	17:37
	and voters and housewives	17:41
	and clerks, and teachers	17:45
	to do the job there.	17:48
	This conference acknowledges	17:52
	that there will be tension between this revolutionary	17:54
	claim upon the service of the church.	17:58
	And the more accustomed ways of thinking	18:01
	about the Christian faith,	18:04
	as,	18:07
	a private personal piety,	18:10
	sealed off, from major responsibility in the social order	18:12
	or to the neighbor's need.	18:17
	But the conference joins the issue and summons the church	18:19
	at us, of the church,	18:22
	to hear and to act.	18:26
	"What is the role of the church in, economic affairs,	18:30
	for example, this conference?" I asked.	18:34
	And it laid down as one principle role.	18:37
	This statement, "society moves forward	18:43
	by means of the interaction of a vast number of decisions	18:46
	by both the humble and the mighty.	18:50
	Ethical ideals and great political and religious symbols,	18:53
	act like a magnetic field on the molecules of iron	18:57
	in a magnet,	19:01
	exercising a certain drag and directional pool	19:02
	on each of these innumerable decisions,	19:05
	introducing a biased or good or ill in the total result.	19:08
	It is this creation of an ethical field,"	19:13
	(indistinct)as a conference report.	19:17
	"It is this creation of an ethical field,	19:18
	which is perhaps the most important social task	19:22
	of the church.	19:25
	In particular,	19:28
	with regard to this creation of an ethical field."	19:29
	The report goes on,	19:32
	"Christians will insist that priority be given	19:34
	to the needs of the poorest section of society,	19:37
	and above all to the needs of the developing world.	19:40
	The faith and the ethics of the church,	19:45
	can be expected to exercise continual critical pressure	19:47
	on any economic system, and program."	19:51
	So, we have heard from, some witnesses,	19:56
	the call for, the life and work the church in all day	20:01
	on Spaceship Earth.	20:07
	To take responsibility corporately, and as individuals,	20:10
	for the reconstruction of ethos,	20:15
	the reshaping or renewal of an ethical field,	20:19
	out of which, those who are in places	20:23
	of decision and society,	20:26
	those who can be guided and influenced by the church	20:29
	or spokesman for it,	20:33
	can make the technical decisions	20:35
	required by the circumstances at the times.	20:37
	But the responsibility of the church,	20:41
	especially they were saying,	20:44
	"is this reconstruction of our thinking.	20:46
	So that to be a Christian,	20:51
	to be Christians together,	20:53
	is to be involved with the world	20:56
	in that spirit of the Lord Who did not grasp, but gave,	21:00
	Who did not dominate, but serve,	21:06
	Who did not hurt,	21:10
	but healed and helped."	21:14
	Confronted with this kind of demand,	21:17
	We're attempted to say,	21:19
	"stop the world, I want to get off."	21:20
	There is an easy irresponsibility, in our society,	21:24
	our prosperity, our comfort,	21:29
	our complacency,	21:33
	about the demands of Spaceship Earth.	21:35
	So freshly put upon us.	21:38
	We prefer tranquility, accustomed waves,	21:41
	like the rich man,	21:46
	do not want to know of Lazarus, at Aldo.	21:48
	There are various escapes we use.	21:52
	Sometimes into highly individualistic Christianity,	21:55
	which supposes that we can quote change	21:59
	men's hearts one by one.	22:02
	And that from this whatever social impact,	22:06
	the church can be expected issue,	22:08
	but all the time we've been full changing men's hearts,	22:12
	to be selfish, individual, isolated, persons	22:18
	concerned for their own welfare	22:25
	rather than the others goal.	22:28
	So whatever changing of men's hearts,	22:31
	the church may, help to effect,	22:34
	should be a change for involvement with a neighbor,	22:37
	in terms of that parable, of his gift and claim,	22:41
	upon our time and service and love.	22:45
	We may easily escape in all day into a political reaction.	22:50
	However,	22:56
	you may read the recent elections	22:56
	and there are various partisan indices to these.	22:59
	It is disturbing to see how often, the great society,	23:05
	is rejected because some miss the chance	23:10
	to exercise the power themselves,	23:15
	or because others, do not want to pay the cost of justice	23:19
	for others,	23:25
	or because of middle-class resentment	23:28
	at exposure of our guilt.	23:32
	It was disturbing to hear in the applause	23:38
	at parts of the state of the union message,	23:42
	a few nights ago, not one clap,	23:46
	when the president pointed to the possibility,	23:50
	that more little children,	23:53
	three years of age and poverty situations,	23:56
	might be given the kind of help	24:00
	that opened up their lives for the future.	24:02
	And that those who had been given such headstart,	24:05
	might have continuing special attention,	24:09
	in the early years of the school.	24:12
	Not one clap of applause, there.	24:14
	Idea of applause when they came	24:19
	to increase in social security,	24:21
	that good vote getter.	24:23
	But a starkly disturbing lack of response,	24:27
	to the need of the neighbor,	24:32
	and the child who is of a future.	24:34
	It would not be very difficult for us	24:39
	to identify in ourselves and in our community,	24:41
	our various reluctancies to accept the gift of life	24:45
	offered in our neighbors need.	24:53
	But rather than expose my own and yours and others failures,	24:57
	and how we could confess, ours and others.	25:06
	Can we not also celebrate,	25:12
	celebrate with gratification and respond and allegiance.	25:16
	When we see some in our midst,	25:24
	some sitting near you today,	25:28
	some who never frequent this chapel,	25:31
	who would not want to be known by the name of Christian,	25:34
	some in our community,	25:38
	beyond the university situation.	25:41
	But especially I would like to thank students,	25:44
	here among us,	25:48
	who are taking seriously,	25:49
	these three great symbols,	25:53
	I've signed it today,	25:56
	Spaceship Earth, the servant Lord	25:58
	response to the neighbors need.	26:04
	As we see some here in our midst,	26:07
	profoundly concerned over the poverty	26:10
	of some of Duke's employees,	26:13
	as we see others involved in living and learning	26:17
	in an area of poverty, not in condescension or paternalism,	26:21
	but the effort to understand some dimensions	26:26
	of the neighbor's life,	26:28
	from which we are ordinarily sealed off.	26:32
	As we see students and doctors and nurses,	26:35
	giving off their funds and their time and service,	26:40
	in Project Nicaragua.	26:44
	As we discover in our midst, students preparing for,	26:47
	faculty members presently involved in responsible concern	26:52
	for better schools,	26:57
	not only, for the privileged,	26:59
	but for the poor.	27:02
	As we discover at point after point,	27:05
	direct and institutional involvement,	27:08
	in the meeting of human need.	27:11
	And we realize how little of this	27:14
	is consciously celebrated in terms of Christian service,	27:18
	yet, how much of it maybe a hidden and inspired	27:23
	service to the neighbor,	27:30
	not realizing that the Lord is there.	27:32
	Just recently, we've had an extraordinarily inspiring,	27:36
	conference, of students with some faculty	27:41
	concern for an ecumenical ministry to this campus,	27:46
	ready to surrender some of the prerogatives, and privileges	27:52
	of denominational power, isolation.	27:56
	Ready to put their facilities,	28:01
	their time, their leadership,	28:05
	their efforts together in a common ministry.	28:08
	There are ways on Spaceship Earth,	28:14
	and in Durham.	28:19
	There are ways in which, it is apparent no,	28:21
	that the church need not claim to be (indistinct).	28:25
	Need not remain dormant.	28:31
	Can become, is becoming, servant on Spaceship Earth.	28:35
	Let's pray.	28:43
	Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly	28:52
	above all that we ask or think.	28:56
	According to the power that work within us,	28:58
	unto Him be Glory, in the church, by Christ Jesus,	29:02
	throughout all ages, world without end.	29:07
	Amen.	29:13
	(congregation sings)	29:18

Item Info

Title:

McMurry S. Richey - "A Renewed Church for Spaceship Earth?" (January 15, 1967)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4tq5wf7m

Date:

January 15, 1967

Speaker:

Richey, McMurry S.

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0368
ref5939_u3o
uachapelsermaud
duke:627931
dcrau002364
ark:/87924/r4tq5wf7m
9c0e4f37-0b74-4c11-8d6f-9687ec1e3c6b

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McMurry S. Richey - "A Renewed Church for Spaceship Earth?" (January 15, 1967)

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