Robert T. Young - "Doing Your Own Thing" (May 5, 1974)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ playing light music) | 0:05 | |
(organ playing light music continues) | 0:19 | |
- | Oh God, before who's thrown the whole family of earth | 1:20 |
bow down in ceaseless adoration, | 1:26 | |
except we pray the praises we offer you this day. | 1:29 | |
Make us to know the joy of your salvation, | 1:35 | |
that with glad hearts, | 1:39 | |
we may proclaim your word | 1:40 | |
in such a way that the sorrowing may be comforted. | 1:42 | |
The faint in heart made strong. | 1:47 | |
The alienated restored to life and peace. | 1:51 | |
And your saving health be may known to all people | 1:55 | |
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 1:59 | |
Amen. | 2:02 | |
(organ playing light music) | 2:07 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
If we say we have no need to make confession before God, | 7:51 | |
we deceive ourselves. | 7:57 | |
If we confess our sins, our sorrows, and our guilt, | 8:01 | |
God is fateful, and will forgive, and renew us. | 8:07 | |
Let us pray corporately our prayer of confession. | 8:14 | |
Oh God, | 8:19 | |
we know how often our world is torn | 8:21 | |
by hatred and misunderstanding, | 8:24 | |
and we know how much this pains you. | 8:27 | |
We know that we are not personally responsible | 8:31 | |
for all this tornness, | 8:34 | |
but we also know we stand guilty for some of it. | 8:36 | |
There have been times when we have been quick to accuse | 8:41 | |
and slow to forgive. | 8:45 | |
There have been times when we have let small differences | 8:48 | |
mushroom into vast difficulties. | 8:52 | |
While at the same time, | 8:55 | |
we ignore important understandings | 8:57 | |
that should be drawing us together in love. | 9:00 | |
For our tendency to push hate before love | 9:05 | |
and angry accusation before patient understanding. | 9:08 | |
Forgive us, Lord, in Christ's name we pray. | 9:13 | |
Amen. | 9:18 | |
And now let us continue our prayer | 9:20 | |
as we make our personal confession to God. | 9:22 | |
(choir singing in unison) | 10:22 | |
There is a bomb in Gilead to make the wounded hole. | 11:33 | |
There is a bomb to heal the sin sick soul. | 11:39 | |
Accept this bomb of healing as a gift from God and our Lord. | 11:44 | |
Amen. | 11:51 | |
(organ playing light music) | 11:54 | |
(organ playing light music) | 13:09 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
- | I appeal to you therefore brethren by the mercies of God | 16:13 |
to present your bodies as living sacrifice. | 16:18 | |
Holy and acceptable to God, | 16:21 | |
which is your spiritual worship. | 16:23 | |
Do not be conformed to this world, | 16:26 | |
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, | 16:28 | |
that you may prove what is the will of God, | 16:32 | |
what is good and acceptable and perfect. | 16:35 | |
For by the grace given to me, | 16:40 | |
I bid everyone among you not to think of himself more highly | 16:42 | |
than he ought to think, | 16:46 | |
but to think with sober judgment, | 16:47 | |
each according to the measure of faith | 16:49 | |
which God has assigned him. | 16:51 | |
For as in one body, we have many members, | 16:54 | |
and all the members do not have the same function. | 16:58 | |
So we though many are one body in Christ, | 17:02 | |
and individually, members, one of another. | 17:05 | |
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, | 17:10 | |
let us use them. | 17:13 | |
If prophecy and proportion to our faith. | 17:15 | |
If service, in our serving. | 17:19 | |
He who teaches, in his teaching. | 17:22 | |
He who exhorts, in his exhortation. | 17:26 | |
He who contributes with liberality. | 17:29 | |
He who gives aid with zeal. | 17:33 | |
He who does acts on mercy with cheerfulness. | 17:36 | |
Let love be genuine. | 17:40 | |
Hate what is evil. | 17:42 | |
Hold fast to what is good. | 17:44 | |
Love one another with brotherly affection. | 17:47 | |
Outdo one another in showing honor. | 17:50 | |
Never flag in zeal. | 17:53 | |
Be a glow with the spirit. Serve the Lord. | 17:55 | |
Rejoice in your hope. | 18:03 | |
Be patient and tribulation. | 18:06 | |
Be constant in prayer. | 18:08 | |
May the Lord have a blessing to the reading of his word. | 18:12 | |
(organ playing light music) | 18:17 | |
(organ playing light music) | 18:26 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
- | Let us affirm our faith. | 19:01 |
We are not alone. | 19:04 | |
We live in God's world. | 19:06 | |
We believe in God who has created and is creating. | 19:08 | |
Who has come and the true man, Jesus, | 19:14 | |
to reconcile and make new. | 19:17 | |
Who works in us and others by his spirit. | 19:19 | |
We trust him. | 19:23 | |
He calls us to be in his church, | 19:25 | |
to celebrate his presence, to love and serve others, | 19:28 | |
to seek justice and resist evil, | 19:33 | |
to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 19:36 | |
our judge and our hope. | 19:40 | |
In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. | 19:43 | |
We are not alone. | 19:49 | |
Thanks be to God. | 19:51 | |
The Lord be with you. | 19:54 | |
Congregation | And with your spirit. | 19:55 |
- | Let us pray. | 19:57 |
Almighty and eternal God, | 20:07 | |
you are hidden from our sight. | 20:10 | |
You are beyond our comprehension. | 20:12 | |
Yet you have breathed your spirit in our lives | 20:15 | |
and have formed our minds to seek you | 20:19 | |
and have inclined our hearts to love you. | 20:23 | |
We are restless until we find our true being in you. | 20:27 | |
Oh God of our past, and our future. | 20:34 | |
We are saddened and excited over another end | 20:39 | |
in the routine of our lives. | 20:42 | |
We give thanks for all persons | 20:46 | |
who have make this an institution where we can learn. | 20:48 | |
For all who have cared for the intellectual, emotional, | 20:53 | |
and spiritual dimensions of our growing and learning. | 20:58 | |
And for all who have provided | 21:03 | |
for the physical dimensions of our living | 21:05 | |
and have thus freed our time and energy | 21:07 | |
that we may seek truth and understanding. | 21:11 | |
We are thankful that we have been able to hear your word | 21:16 | |
proclaim to us in this house of worship. | 21:19 | |
We give thanks for all whose obedience to you | 21:23 | |
has benefited us. | 21:27 | |
Those who sing. | 21:29 | |
Those who play the organ. | 21:33 | |
Those who clean. | 21:36 | |
Those who usher. | 21:38 | |
Those who provide the monies. | 21:40 | |
Those who prepare the bulletin. | 21:44 | |
Who operate the mechanical aspects of the service, | 21:47 | |
who take care of the broadcast. | 21:51 | |
For all those we know, and for those we do not know, | 21:54 | |
who have made this a time of renewal and celebration. | 22:00 | |
We give you thanks. | 22:04 | |
We give thanks for those persons who love and care for us | 22:08 | |
when our pain is too much for us to bear alone. | 22:12 | |
We give thanks for those persons | 22:18 | |
who will not let us rest in our complacency. | 22:20 | |
Oh, God of love, hear our prayers for others. | 22:25 | |
For those persons who live in families, | 22:33 | |
but wish they had other families. | 22:35 | |
And for those persons who have no families, | 22:37 | |
but yearn for community. | 22:41 | |
For those persons who have difficulty accepting | 22:45 | |
the limitations of their minds | 22:48 | |
and the imperfections of their bodies. | 22:50 | |
For those persons who have no work, | 22:55 | |
and those who persons whose work is unbearable. | 22:57 | |
For those persons who have to make difficult decisions | 23:02 | |
and need direction and support. | 23:06 | |
And for those persons | 23:09 | |
who feel they can never make a decision | 23:10 | |
affecting their lives. | 23:12 | |
For your church, | 23:16 | |
that it may be faithful to its task and work. | 23:17 | |
For our country. | 23:21 | |
Oh, God, save us from ourselves. | 23:22 | |
And for all the people of this world | 23:27 | |
that we may live in freedom, | 23:29 | |
with justice and love. | 23:31 | |
Oh God, our helpful, | 23:35 | |
we want to offer our lives | 23:37 | |
as a living sacrifice to you and this world. | 23:39 | |
But we are afraid. | 23:43 | |
We lack courage. | 23:45 | |
We are timid. | 23:47 | |
We have no vision. | 23:48 | |
We pray that you will give us courage, vision, strength, | 23:50 | |
and a sustaining support, | 23:55 | |
so that we may love those who need our love, | 23:58 | |
may comfort those who are sorrowful, | 24:02 | |
and heal those who are sick, | 24:05 | |
feed those who are hungry, | 24:07 | |
and release those who are captive. | 24:09 | |
Oh God, all our prayers we offer to you | 24:16 | |
in the spirit of your son and our Lord Jesus, the Christ. | 24:18 | |
Amen. | 24:24 | |
Let us now pray the prayer of our Lord. | 24:25 | |
Our Father, who art in heaven, | 24:29 | |
hallowed be Thy name, | 24:32 | |
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, | 24:35 | |
on earth as it is in heaven. | 24:39 | |
Give us this day our daily bread, | 24:41 | |
and forgive us our trespasses, | 24:45 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 24:47 | |
And lead us not into temptation, | 24:51 | |
but deliver us from evil. | 24:54 | |
For thine is the kingdom, | 24:57 | |
and the power and the glory forever and ever. | 24:59 | |
Amen. | 25:03 | |
- | One of the expressions of today's youth | 25:29 |
that has real meaning and validity | 25:35 | |
for the Christian community | 25:39 | |
is the expression doing your own thing. | 25:40 | |
I'll admit that the words do not sound elegant | 25:46 | |
or sophisticated, | 25:49 | |
but when we really hear and understand them, | 25:52 | |
we can see that there is something profoundly Christian | 25:57 | |
about "Doing your own thing." | 26:00 | |
For the words, suggest honesty, | 26:05 | |
and genuineness, and acceptance, and tolerance. | 26:08 | |
It would be good for all of us, | 26:14 | |
if a respect for personal integrity, | 26:15 | |
a willingness to let each person be herself or himself | 26:19 | |
were to spread throughout the church. | 26:25 | |
But few of us really do our own thing. | 26:28 | |
We tend to be chameleons changing our color | 26:33 | |
as we change our environment, | 26:36 | |
from home to campus, to work to church, | 26:38 | |
to the civic club, to family, to peers, | 26:42 | |
and do not consistently do our own thing. | 26:45 | |
I think part of the reason for this | 26:51 | |
is that many of us feel that Christianity | 26:52 | |
is the enemy of originality and creativity and freedom. | 26:55 | |
We think that being Christian | 27:02 | |
means that you are to conform to a pattern, | 27:03 | |
that you are to do the church thing and not your own. | 27:08 | |
Worse even than that, | 27:15 | |
I think there is a curious air of churchiness | 27:16 | |
that comes over those of us | 27:21 | |
who otherwise may appear to be quite normal men and women, | 27:23 | |
when we think that we are expected to be religious. | 27:29 | |
Then all kinds of false behavior takes place. | 27:33 | |
Too often, we're afraid to be our real selves. | 27:38 | |
Afraid that doing our own thing will not be acceptable | 27:42 | |
to certain other persons. | 27:47 | |
Part of this hesitancy | 27:51 | |
that we may have about doing our own thing | 27:53 | |
comes from pressure from without, | 27:55 | |
part of it comes from an emptiness within. | 27:58 | |
And Marilyn Haney | 28:02 | |
catches our emptiness within in these lines | 28:03 | |
when she writes "The Thermos Bottle." | 28:07 | |
Smiled condescendingly at the little man | 28:11 | |
for its vacuum had a purpose. | 28:16 | |
Our emptiness within unlike that of the thermos bottle, | 28:22 | |
often has no purpose. | 28:26 | |
And so we don't do our own thing, pressure from without, | 28:30 | |
emptiness within, | 28:34 | |
but as long as we hold back from doing our own thing, | 28:36 | |
that is from becoming our real selves, | 28:39 | |
we miss one of the basic messages of scripture, | 28:42 | |
and one of the basic messages of the early church. | 28:46 | |
For there is the unmistakable overwhelming evidence | 28:49 | |
in the story of creation | 28:53 | |
and in the experience of redemption that God loves variety. | 28:56 | |
And from beginning to end, | 29:02 | |
the word in scripture reflects God's delight | 29:04 | |
in the differences within his human family. | 29:08 | |
Let's look at creation. | 29:14 | |
Not as God has done it for it is not done. | 29:16 | |
But let's look at creation as God is doing it, | 29:20 | |
and so we see a continuing creation of unusual variety, | 29:23 | |
fish in the water, birds in the air, animals on the land, | 29:29 | |
and then look at the family of man and woman and child, | 29:35 | |
each different uniquely so. | 29:39 | |
Thus, to believe in God's creation | 29:44 | |
is to see a universe alive with differences | 29:46 | |
where each throbbing atom, | 29:49 | |
each whirling planet, | 29:52 | |
each creature from the ant to the hippopotamus, | 29:54 | |
each human being is doing its or hers or his own thing. | 29:57 | |
And so our belief in creation | 30:03 | |
shows us a universe, a variety. | 30:04 | |
How about the experience of redemption? | 30:10 | |
Too often, particularly those of us | 30:15 | |
who have grown up in the church in this area. | 30:18 | |
Too often, we think that an experience of redemption | 30:21 | |
means that if you become a Christian or a church member, | 30:23 | |
you lose your individuality. | 30:27 | |
Surely it need not be true | 30:30 | |
that those who give their lives to Jesus Christ | 30:33 | |
are to be baptized into a straight jacket kind of existence. | 30:37 | |
There is no reason for you to cease to be yourself | 30:43 | |
when you become a Christian. | 30:48 | |
Look at the early disciples, blustering Peter, | 30:51 | |
bashful Andrew, skeptical Thomas, | 30:55 | |
militant James, persistent John, | 30:59 | |
were they any less themselves | 31:02 | |
after their response to Christ's call? | 31:04 | |
The whole New Testament is jammed with personalities, | 31:09 | |
just such as these, each one, amazingly different, | 31:12 | |
each one doing his or her own thing. | 31:16 | |
And what God offers us in Christ is a spiritual grace | 31:18 | |
that meets us just where we are. | 31:23 | |
We're not required, | 31:27 | |
or even asked to change ourselves over into someone else. | 31:28 | |
Christ shocked the religious leaders of his day | 31:33 | |
precisely by his acceptance of all kinds of people, | 31:36 | |
and praise God, he accepted them just as they were. | 31:41 | |
And to this day, | 31:47 | |
he does not look for some particular kind of person | 31:48 | |
to be a member of his church. | 31:52 | |
No. | 31:54 | |
God creates us in abundant variety, | 31:55 | |
and he redeems us just as we are with all of our differences | 31:58 | |
and all of our peculiarities. | 32:02 | |
If he did not, if he had not, | 32:05 | |
with my own peculiarities and my own problems, | 32:09 | |
I know deep within my heart, I would be sorely in trouble. | 32:12 | |
And perhaps, there would be some others. | 32:18 | |
And so Paul writes in our text for today, | 32:23 | |
do not think of the church | 32:25 | |
as an organization of those who happened to be religious, | 32:26 | |
but see the church as the body of Christ, | 32:30 | |
a living varied, dynamic, vital organism. | 32:32 | |
After all, think about the body for a minute. | 32:38 | |
What can be more different in size or shape or function | 32:42 | |
than a nose from a foot? | 32:46 | |
Or an eye and a mouth? | 32:50 | |
Or an ear and a hand? | 32:54 | |
Each one, thank God, does its own thing. | 32:57 | |
Or if it ceases to do its own thing, | 33:02 | |
or if it starts to do | 33:06 | |
what some other part of the body is supposed to do, | 33:07 | |
then you'd better call the doctor | 33:10 | |
because you're in trouble. | 33:12 | |
So it is with each member of the body of Christ | 33:15 | |
that is with the church. | 33:18 | |
Each is to do his or her own thing. | 33:20 | |
All different, but united in Christ, forming one body. | 33:23 | |
And so this morning, as you think on your life, | 33:32 | |
and on your relationship to God, | 33:40 | |
in the name of Jesus Christ, | 33:45 | |
let me affirm you for who you are right now in this place | 33:50 | |
and at this moment. | 33:59 | |
For whoever you are, you are you, | 34:02 | |
and you are uniquely valuable to God almighty. | 34:05 | |
All of this, | 34:12 | |
I think means that doing your own thing | 34:13 | |
is not only the spice of life, | 34:15 | |
but it is also one of life's Supreme rules. | 34:18 | |
Look for just a moment, | 34:22 | |
if you will with me, through scripture. | 34:23 | |
Eve was doing her own thing in the Garden of Eden. | 34:26 | |
Cain, when he destroyed his brother Abel. | 34:30 | |
Jacob, when he hoodwinked his father. | 34:34 | |
David, when he connived for Bathsheba. | 34:37 | |
Judas, when he sold Jesus to the authorities. | 34:41 | |
Peter, when he claimed not to know Jesus. | 34:45 | |
Pilate, when he listened to the crowd. | 34:49 | |
These recollections reveal many persons | 34:53 | |
doing their own thing. | 34:57 | |
But then how about these? | 35:00 | |
Moses, when he forced Pharaoh to let his people go. | 35:02 | |
Noah, when he hammered away and built his boat. | 35:09 | |
Amos, when he came from the fields to be God's spokesman. | 35:13 | |
Andrew, when doing his own thing, | 35:18 | |
excited him so much that he wanted to run | 35:20 | |
and get his brother, | 35:22 | |
and have his brother to share in it too. | 35:23 | |
Saul, when he had to persecute and then had to preach. | 35:26 | |
Jesus, when he said, "I must go to Jerusalem." | 35:30 | |
And he did. | 35:35 | |
These two were doing their own thing. | 35:36 | |
So you can readily see | 35:43 | |
that doing your own thing then is a principle | 35:44 | |
which can be helpful or harmful, | 35:49 | |
be productive or destructive, | 35:53 | |
good or evil, | 35:56 | |
it can fulfill or it can frustrate. | 35:57 | |
Or when one person demands | 36:00 | |
that he be allowed to do his own thing, | 36:02 | |
it may mean that another person gets destroyed | 36:05 | |
in the process. | 36:08 | |
For example, a teenage youth's demand for sexual supremacy, | 36:10 | |
may mean the loss of self-respect for some young woman. | 36:15 | |
A hot rod in youth's persistent demand to do his own thing, | 36:20 | |
may mean death or injury to others. | 36:25 | |
A husband's insistence on doing his own thing, | 36:29 | |
may mean that he neglects his wife, | 36:32 | |
or his son or his daughter. | 36:34 | |
Or doing your own thing may mean fulfillment for one person, | 36:39 | |
or it may mean fulfillment for many other persons | 36:43 | |
as one does his or her own thing. | 36:46 | |
I remember just not too long ago, | 36:49 | |
I was up late one night watching "The Tomorrow Show" on, | 36:52 | |
I guess it's NBC. | 36:55 | |
They have the "Today" show, and "The Tonight Show," | 36:57 | |
and now "The Tomorrow Show." | 36:59 | |
And a woman by the name of Sandra Dean | 37:02 | |
was on The Tomorrow program that particular night. | 37:04 | |
And she was talking of the right to live | 37:10 | |
for persons who have birth defects. | 37:12 | |
When she had been born, | 37:17 | |
her parents had been told by the doctor | 37:19 | |
that she would never talk, | 37:21 | |
that she would never walk, | 37:23 | |
that she would never be able to think or reason on her own, | 37:25 | |
that she probably would not live very long. | 37:29 | |
She now has a Master of Arts degree in psychology, | 37:33 | |
and is working as a psychological consultant. | 37:37 | |
And that night she said, | 37:40 | |
in proclaiming the right to everyone, | 37:42 | |
right for everyone to live, she said, | 37:45 | |
"Everybody can be something." | 37:47 | |
Or if you saw the autobiography of Jane Pittman, | 37:52 | |
you perhaps saw what to me is one of the most poignant, | 37:57 | |
powerful moving scene I have ever seen | 38:01 | |
on television or in the movies. | 38:04 | |
Jane Pitman was going to do her own thing. | 38:07 | |
You recall right near the end of that movie, | 38:09 | |
she was going to drink that water | 38:12 | |
from the water fountain at the Courthouse Square, | 38:14 | |
and she trembled as she walked up the sidewalk | 38:16 | |
to that water fountain. | 38:19 | |
And as my family and I sat and watched that, | 38:20 | |
the tears roll down my cheeks | 38:22 | |
and I almost shuttered up and down my spine. | 38:24 | |
And she went to that water fountain marked white, | 38:28 | |
and drank for herself and her people. | 38:32 | |
So you can see, | 38:39 | |
doing your own thing is a valid and healthy principle | 38:43 | |
which can be perverted. | 38:46 | |
So what happens then when my claim to do my own thing, | 38:49 | |
clashes with you and your right to do yours? | 38:52 | |
One look at nature tells us very quickly | 38:56 | |
how nature deals with this. | 38:59 | |
For nature reveals not only a multiplicity of variety, | 39:02 | |
but also an underlying current | 39:07 | |
and an ever present thread of order. | 39:09 | |
And the presence of order makes possible the variety | 39:13 | |
that we have around us. | 39:16 | |
Without order, everything would collapse. | 39:17 | |
What then is true of nature is also true of human nature. | 39:23 | |
Every human society has developed some kind of order | 39:27 | |
within which the individual may be free | 39:32 | |
to do his or her own thing. | 39:34 | |
I'll admit that the recent | 39:37 | |
tragic expulsion of Solzhenitsyn from Russia | 39:39 | |
indicates that there are limits to freedom | 39:42 | |
in some societies. | 39:45 | |
But the absence of laws | 39:48 | |
would not mean perfect freedom for us. | 39:49 | |
Rather, the absence of law would mean the end of freedom. | 39:53 | |
For if we know not order, | 39:58 | |
no woman and no man will be free to do his or her own thing. | 40:00 | |
There's a paradox here. | 40:08 | |
The paradox we speak of when we talk of that service, | 40:09 | |
which is perfect freedom. | 40:13 | |
Service within order. | 40:16 | |
Now, this is not really too hard to understand | 40:19 | |
if you look at two various simple examples. | 40:21 | |
Take a trombone player in an orchestra. | 40:26 | |
Would he be free to do his own thing | 40:31 | |
if there were no conductor to impose order | 40:33 | |
and no musical score for him to follow? | 40:37 | |
Or you take a center on the football team. | 40:41 | |
Would he really be free to do his own thing | 40:45 | |
if there were no quarterback to call the plays, | 40:48 | |
and no pattern of plays for him to follow? | 40:51 | |
Sure the trombone player or the center can do his own thing | 40:55 | |
all alone, all alone. | 40:58 | |
Or he can do it to the utter disregard of others, | 41:02 | |
but little would be accomplished | 41:05 | |
for either the trombonist or the center. | 41:07 | |
And also their fellow musicians and teammates | 41:11 | |
would be overwhelmed or ignored in the process. | 41:14 | |
This is why I think Paul writes, | 41:20 | |
all of us united with Christ. | 41:24 | |
Form one body. | 41:29 | |
This analogy of the body | 41:33 | |
where each member has a different function, | 41:35 | |
depends on unity and on order. | 41:38 | |
Without unity and without order, | 41:42 | |
there is no living organism. | 41:45 | |
The head, the center, the source of unity, | 41:48 | |
and order in the Christian fellowship is Jesus the Christ. | 41:51 | |
Without obedience to Christ, we cannot be free. | 41:59 | |
Under the lordship of Christ, | 42:05 | |
we are set free to do our own thing. | 42:08 | |
For you have a place. | 42:13 | |
You have a thing to do. | 42:18 | |
You are someone to be. | 42:21 | |
Saint Augustine once wrote, love God and do what you will. | 42:26 | |
Love God, and do your own thing. | 42:32 | |
Do you know one of the things | 42:37 | |
that I believe that made Jesus great, | 42:39 | |
and that has made him unique? | 42:43 | |
Jesus was himself to the fullest extent. | 42:48 | |
Jesus was not Isaiah or Jeremiah or Moses, | 42:55 | |
Jesus was himself. | 42:59 | |
He was Jesus all the way. | 43:01 | |
And this is what God intended for him to be. | 43:06 | |
Now, as I think about the lives | 43:11 | |
that you and I are called to live today, | 43:13 | |
I do not believe that you and I are called | 43:17 | |
even within the Christian faith, | 43:19 | |
particularly within the Christian faith, | 43:21 | |
we're not called to be little Jesuses, | 43:23 | |
for we cannot be Jesus made over again. | 43:26 | |
But you and I are called to be the biggest, | 43:31 | |
the most honest, | 43:33 | |
the most authentic, | 43:35 | |
the best integrated, | 43:37 | |
the best Bill or John or Mary or Sue | 43:38 | |
or Anne or Tom or Jack or James | 43:42 | |
that you can possibly be. | 43:46 | |
Whoever you are, | 43:51 | |
in the name and in the spirit of Christ, | 43:53 | |
be the biggest, the fullest, | 43:57 | |
the richest, the truest, | 44:01 | |
the most authentic you that you can possibly be. | 44:03 | |
Each one. | 44:10 | |
Each one of us. | 44:14 | |
Though different in creation and in redemption | 44:17 | |
is united in Christ. | 44:23 | |
Each member important and necessary in one body. | 44:27 | |
In the name of the Father, | 44:37 | |
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. | 44:40 | |
Amen. | 44:46 | |
(organ playing light music) | 45:01 | |
(organ playing light music) | 45:44 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
(organ light music continues) | 48:21 | |
(organ light music continues) | 49:12 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
(organ light music continues) | 52:20 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
(organ light music continues) | 57:07 | |
(organ light music continues) | 57:44 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
- | Oh, holy God. | 58:48 |
We are people who live in abundance | 58:49 | |
in the a midst of a world of poverty. | 58:52 | |
We pray that you will accept these gifts of money, | 58:54 | |
which symbolize our lives, | 58:59 | |
that all may be used to care for your people and your world. | 59:01 | |
We pray in the spirit and for the power of Christ, | 59:06 | |
Amen. | 59:12 | |
(organ light music continues) | 59:16 | |
(organ light music continues) | 59:41 | |
(choir singing in unison) | ||
Go now, remembering what has happened in this place. | 1:02:09 | |
Go remembering that we are forgiven people, | 1:02:13 | |
eternally loved, | 1:02:18 | |
thoughtfully instructed, | 1:02:20 | |
gratefully obedient, | 1:02:22 | |
responding and responsible wherever we are. | 1:02:25 | |
And may the blessing, love, and peace of God, | 1:02:30 | |
the almighty Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, | 1:02:35 | |
be among us and abide with us now and forever more. | 1:02:39 | |
(choir singing in unison) | 1:02:49 | |
(church bell rings) | 1:04:00 | |
(organ playing light music) | 1:04:14 |
Item Info
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