McMurry S. Richey - "A Tough New Breed of Servant - Minded Christians" (March 28, 1965)

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	(soft instrumental music)	0:04
-	A tough new breed of servant minded Christians.	0:21
	Embarrassing as it may be in an academic community,	0:28
	I can no longer footnote those telling words,	0:32
	I've forgotten their source.	0:36
	But the words themselves seem unforgettably indicative	0:40
	of a fresh emergence in our time.	0:45
	A sort of updating of that ancient word,	0:51
	"Behold, I am doing a new thing.	0:55
	"Now it Springs forth, do you not perceive it?"	0:59
	Actually, the original expression was a tough new breed	1:05
	of servant minded ministers.	1:10
	But isn't every Christian, every real Christian	1:14
	a minister, that is a servant for God to man.	1:19
-	But if authority for that expression is forgotten,	1:28
	there's no lack of authority for the theme itself.	1:32
	The Old Testament is gratefully aware	1:36
	of God's creating and redeeming work in the past	1:38
	but even more is it concerned to see and respond	1:43
	to God's new deeds in the living present.	1:47
	And these new deeds involve, especially the servant people	1:53
	of God, for the nations.	1:59
	Climatically the suffering servant,	2:02
	portrayed in those incandescent passages in the latter part	2:05
	of the great book of Isaiah.	2:11
	Thus the sublime prophet of those magnificent utterances	2:15
	could celebrate the glory and awesome majesty	2:20
	of the Lord who created the heavens, spread forth the earth	2:23
	and gives life and spirit to all his people.	2:27
	He could envision the servant of the Lord	2:31
	who in God's spirit would work faithfully, heroically	2:33
	undiscouragingly, till he has established	2:38
	justice in the earth.	2:42
	He could call God's people to become such servants	2:45
	to and praise and enter into God's new redeeming deeds.	2:49
	"I the Lord, I have called you in righteousness.	2:55
	"I have taken you by the hand and have kept you.	2:59
	"I have given you as a covenant to the people,	3:02
	"a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind,	3:05
	"to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,	3:09
	"from the prison, those who sit in darkness	3:11
	"Behold, I am doing a new thing.	3:15
	"Now it Springs forth.	3:19
	"Do you not perceive it?"	3:21
	And it was such a conception of amazing new ministry	3:25
	of self-giving discouragingly for the world of man in need	3:31
	that the early church remembered its Lord	3:38
	to have undertaken as he applied to himself	3:41
	another passage from Isaiah.	3:44
	"The spirit of the Lord is upon me	3:48
	"because he has anointed me	3:50
	"to preach the gospel to the poor.	3:52
	"He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives	3:55
	"and recovering of sight to the blind.	3:58
	"To set it Liberty those who are oppressed,	4:01
	"to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."	4:04
	So does a New Testament perceive	4:08
	and respond to the new things God is doing.	4:11
	So does the apostle Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ	4:15
	exalt over the embodiment of God's saving servanthood	4:21
	in Jesus Christ through whom he says,	4:26
	we have received grace and apostleship	4:29
	to bring about the obedience of faith	4:33
	for the sake of his name among all the nations.	4:35
	So does a whole New Testament, fairly throb	4:38
	with passage after vibrant passage, testifying to such faith	4:42
	and faithfulness in service as a servant church	4:48
	of a serving Lord spread the gospel abroad.	4:53
	Can we still today hail God's doing	4:59
	of new things through his people.	5:05
	Do we see God at work calling	5:10
	and sending forth his servant people embodying	5:12
	his spirit in their brave and resolute establishment	5:17
	of justice in the earth,	5:21
	in their serving as a light to the nations,	5:24
	a liberator of man from blindness, darkness, and oppression.	5:27
	Have the people of God become the followers of Jesus Christ	5:32
	who came not to be served, but to serve?	5:35
	To proclaim his liberating gospel in word and deed,	5:40
	that the power of God for salvation	5:45
	may work his new things in the world today.	5:47
	There is no lack of reasons to say no.	5:53
	And honesty calls for us to acknowledge	5:59
	what many a sharp critic and skeptic may thrust.	6:04
	The postwar religious revival seems to be dying down	6:11
	they say, and indeed it does now appear	6:15
	to have been more than superficial.	6:19
	Church membership growth rates are declining.	6:22
	Fewer are entering the ordained ministry.	6:25
	Society seems more unabashedly secular,	6:29
	more resistant to the voice of preachers and churches.	6:34
	Religion some feel is on the retreat	6:38
	before the secular schools and courts.	6:42
	Moral standards of the churches seem more openly	6:45
	and profitably floated.	6:48
	Critics, sharp critics use such terms as dull	6:51
	and irrelevant and stuffy and club like, communion like,	6:56
	for us of the churches,	7:03
	or see us as a burdensome institution	7:06
	rather than his servants of God for his mission	7:10
	to the world of needy men.	7:14
	Indeed a devastating article just recently summed up	7:17
	some of the sociological and psychological research	7:20
	with which we are painfully familiar	7:24
	and showed how the great Protestant Catholic	7:27
	and Jewish movements, which teach love, mercy,	7:30
	justice, equality, inward courage and peace	7:37
	actually had bio research, statistics,	7:41
	more anti humanitarian attitudes and bigotry	7:47
	and hostility and anxiety	7:54
	than those who were not prophetedly religious.	7:57
	Are we really the servant people of God for others?	8:02
	No wonder then that some keen young intellectuals	8:08
	stridently proclaim that Nietzschean doctrine	8:11
	that God is dead.	8:15
	That religion is dead, that the churches are dead.	8:18
	Yet there is more to be said.	8:23
	And this sermon is to say some of that	8:26
	perhaps not so much as a sermon	8:31
	as a sort of counter witness, a yes, but pointing	8:33
	to the perennial new activity of God springing forth.	8:41
	Do you not perceive it?	8:45
	As I was preparing to speak this word	8:49
	that came back to mind an impression	8:53
	from a stirring book just after the Second World War,	8:55
	by an ethically, sensitive, brilliantly,	9:00
	literary, young war time reporter,	9:04
	we know him better now, Eric Sevareid,	9:08
	who put his recollections in a book	9:12
	with an intriguing title, "Not So Wild a Dream."	9:14
	And that title came from a quotation	9:20
	which I vaguely remember something	9:22
	like this, "Published tidings that piece is not so wild	9:24
	"a dream as those who profit by postponing it declare."	9:30
	If that enshrined a more hopeful dream	9:37
	than the troubled present augers,	9:43
	it also signaled the resistant human factors	9:47
	but that's not my main recollection this morning.	9:53
	It was rather that Eric Sevareid returning from wars,	9:56
	horrors, and scenes of desperate human need,	10:01
	found American audiences eager to hear	10:05
	a firsthand report of what was going on,	10:09
	but were quick to turn away into trivial talk	10:14
	when the pathos of human devastation and need	10:19
	threatened their consciences too much.	10:25
	The American people were afraid	10:29
	of being suckers, concluded Sevareid.	10:32
	They could not risk getting involved	10:36
	with the world's hurt.	10:39
	Two comments, first, he was wrong.	10:42
	They did get involved as witness the enormous, unprecedented	10:47
	response to human need in the Marshall Plan	10:54
	and in extensive relief programs,	11:00
	not only by government, but by churches	11:04
	and people to people.	11:06
	Second, there is a remarkably sensitive, ethical concern	11:09
	again today, much like Eric Sevareid's own youthful idealism	11:15
	and hurt over others in sensitivity.	11:22
	A profound growing sense of responsibility.	11:26
	A concern to help, to serve, to do whatever can be done	11:31
	to meet the needs of suffering people.	11:35
	To get involved in service.	11:38
	Granted that she was politicking at the time	11:42
	as everyone else was Lyndon Baines Johnson had a point	11:45
	when she spoke last fall of the volunteer generation	11:50
	with its 10,000 overseas in the Peace Corps	11:55
	and it's 8,000 in Washington in Summer Government Service.	11:59
	Come alive is too good a slogan to waste on a bottle of pop.	12:04
	In the words of Sargent Shriver, the other night	12:10
	discussing beginnings of the anti-poverty program,	12:13
	it's really inspiring to see how the people of America	12:17
	if given a chance will respond to human need.	12:21
	Let us be careful then of too dark a picture	12:27
	but also let us be careful of too sanguine expectations	12:33
	or glib generalizations.	12:38
	Newsweek's recent survey of campus, 65	12:41
	for all its limitations and trying to characterize	12:46
	several million unique students,	12:49
	reminds us of their variety and warns against seizing	12:53
	on such terms as explosive,	12:58
	twisted, cool, or committed generation.	13:02
	We are not second guessing Newsweek or its severe critics	13:10
	about American students or youth in general,	13:14
	but witnessing today to what some perhaps few	13:19
	are discovering in the way of servanthood	13:26
	as the meaning of their lives	13:30
	and thereby exemplifying the new things	13:33
	of God springing forth again in our time.	13:36
	And it is inspiring to observe young people	13:41
	resolving the glorious though perilous, disorganization	13:45
	and reorganization of adolescent years	13:51
	in the direction of servanthood for others.	13:56
	Shall we specify?	14:01
	There are the Duke students who served in Project Nicaragua,	14:04
	teaching, doing artwork, coaching, music,	14:09
	social service, building a clinic, the Duke doctors	14:16
	and nurses giving their summers there.	14:21
	There are Duke students and many others,	14:24
	ours are simply representative of the hosts,	14:27
	taking on the burdens of justice indeed in Selma	14:31
	and Birmingham or Chapel Hill or Durham.	14:37
	They're young theological students, Negro and white	14:42
	entering into ministry across racial lines	14:47
	or choosing the slums rather than the comfortable suburbs	14:51
	and the high steep churches for their ministry.	14:56
	There are students spending their summer	15:01
	in work camps and community centers,	15:03
	in volunteer tutoring, in work	15:07
	with underprivileged children.	15:11
	There are the North Carolina Fund volunteers	15:14
	even more this year than last about whom one of our Duke	15:16
	student wives, a supervisor said last year,	15:22
	that she had never encountered such an inspiring group	15:25
	of young people in all her life.	15:29
	There are the VISTAs, volunteers in service to America	15:31
	with more volunteering these first five months	15:35
	than even for the Peace Corps in its enthusiastic beginning.	15:39
	They're the countless older people who share the vision	15:45
	and dedication of these young people	15:49
	and the many younger ones who take a like spirit	15:52
	into their own more conventional work or study as servants.	15:55
	But this is a tough new breed of servant minded Christians	16:04
	and of some who would not want the term	16:11
	Christians linked with their names.	16:13
	They are an intellectually tough minded group.	16:18
	Some of them theologically insightful	16:25
	and critical of our traditional terms and concepts	16:30
	seeking for new and better ways of representing	16:35
	the realities we've tried to symbolize,	16:38
	often disturbingly revolutionary.	16:42
	They are an ethically tough yet sensitive crowd,	16:47
	realistic if not at the beginning, they will be	16:53
	when they confront and experience the compromises,	16:59
	the phoniness, the acculturation,	17:04
	and yet the need for a decision	17:08
	and they're ethically and spiritually sensitive enough	17:11
	that they would not want us glossing over what they're doing	17:15
	as if we were unaware that they like us,	17:21
	have mixtures of movies and failures constantly.	17:25
	They are a socially concerned generation in politics,	17:31
	in race reform, in poverty work, in education.	17:39
	They are coming freshly into knowledge	17:43
	of the power structures of our community	17:46
	and the need to work through political life	17:49
	for the securing of rights and justice and change.	17:54
	And they're becoming freshly aware of all the resistance	17:59
	of prejudice and privilege and ignorance	18:04
	including that and those they serve.	18:11
	They are some at least and others will increasingly	18:16
	be a spiritually disciplined	18:19
	and tough generation knowing the depths	18:22
	of need in their own lives, as well as the lives of others.	18:27
	And what we see of God's new deeds, this living God at work	18:34
	in these young people, we see also stirring in our churches	18:39
	as we become unhappily dissatisfied with what we are.	18:45
	And remember that it has been the genius of the church	18:51
	when it was really the church always to be open,	18:53
	to reform, to reconstitution of its inner life	18:59
	and outer service.	19:05
	This is a tough new breed of servant minded Christians.	19:11
	And there are two quotations with which I close	19:18
	that put freshly on our mind the thought	19:21
	and the name of two such representatives.	19:25
	One of them is that disturbing young William Stringfellow	19:28
	who makes his best friends so disturbingly angry.	19:33
	"To become and to be a Christian he says,	19:38
	"is not at all an escape from the world as it is	19:41
	"nor is it a wistful longing for a better world	19:44
	"nor a commitment to generous charity	19:47
	"nor fondness for moral and spiritual values	19:50
	"whatever that may mean nor self-serving positive thoughts	19:53
	"nor persuasion to splendid abstractions about God.	19:57
	"It is instead the knowledge	20:02
	"that there is no pain or privation	20:03
	"no humiliation or disaster, no scourge or distress	20:06
	"or destitution or hunger, no striving or temptation	20:10
	"no wail or sickness or suffering or poverty	20:14
	"which God has not known and born for men in Jesus Christ.	20:17
	"To become and to be a Christian then	20:24
	"is to have the extraordinary freedom to share the burdens	20:27
	"of the daily, common, ambiguous, transient,	20:31
	"perishing existence of man.	20:36
	"Even to the point of actually taking the place	20:38
	"of another man, whether he be powerful or weak,	20:40
	"in health or in sickness, clothed or naked, educated	20:45
	"or illiterate, secure or persecuted, complacent	20:50
	"or despondent, proud or forgotten, housed or homeless,	20:54
	"fair or hungry, at liberty or in prison, young or old,	21:00
	"white or Negro, rich or poor," soul, William Stringfellow.	21:06
	And the other, Dag Hammarskjöld who in his book of markings	21:13
	sort of spiritual autobiography included these words.	21:20
	"I don't know who or what put the question.	21:26
	"I don't know when it was put	21:30
	"I don't even remember answering.	21:32
	"But at some moment I did answer yes	21:35
	"to someone or something.	21:38
	"And from that hour, I was certain that existence	21:41
	"is meaningful, and therefore my life	21:43
	"in self-surrender had a goal.	21:46
	"From that moment, I have known what it means	21:49
	"not to look back and to take no thought for the morrow.	21:51
	"Led by the Ariadne's thread of my answer	21:56
	"through the Labrinth of life,	21:59
	"I came to a time and place where I realized	22:02
	"that the way leads to a triumph, which is a catastrophe.	22:05
	"And to a catastrophe, which is a triumph	22:09
	"that the price for committing one's life would be reproach.	22:12
	"And that the only elevation possible to man	22:16
	"lies in the depths of humiliation.	22:18
	"After that, the word courage lost its meaning	22:21
	"since nothing could be taken from me.	22:26
	"As I continue to along the way,	22:29
	"I learned step by step, word by word,	22:31
	"that behind every saying in the gospels stands one man	22:35
	"and one man's experience.	22:40
	"Also behind the prayer that the cup might pass from him	22:42
	"and his promise to drink it.	22:46
	"Also behind each of the words from the cross.	22:49
	"In our era," he said again, "the road to holiness	22:54
	"necessarily passes through the world of action."	22:59
	Teach us good Lord to serve thee as thou deservest,	23:13
	to give and not to heed the cost,	23:18
	to strive and not to seek for rest,	23:21
	to fight and not to heed the wounds,	23:24
	to suffer and not to seek for reward	23:28
	except knowing that we do thy will.	23:30
	And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,	23:34
	the love of God, the communion of the Holy Spirit	23:38
	be with all, amen.	23:44
	(bells ringing)	23:50
	(instrumental music)	24:07

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Title:

McMurry S. Richey - "A Tough New Breed of Servant - Minded Christians" (March 28, 1965)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4v40q11t

Date:

March 28, 1965

Speaker:

Richey, McMurry S.

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0288
ref5781_qzt
uachapelsermaud
duke:628262
dcrau002287
ark:/87924/r4v40q11t
3d861635-b0fd-4b07-be97-5ddac38dd362

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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

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McMurry S. Richey - "A Tough New Breed of Servant - Minded Christians" (March 28, 1965)

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