Theodore O. Wedel - "Why Do I Have to Be Me?" (April 24, 1960)

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-	I've chosen as the title for this morning meditation,	0:24
	"Why Do I Have To Be Me?"	0:28
	I was once a professor of English	0:30
	and I'm quite aware of the fact	0:33
	that I'm violating textbook grammar here.	0:34
	It ought to read, "Why Do I Have To Be I?"	0:38
	But I'm sure that the colloquial version of it	0:42
	will be more familiar to us,	0:46
	"Why Do I Have To Be Me?"	0:48
	And as text I'm choosing the opening verses of	0:51
	one of our more familiar Psalms, the 100th Psalm,	0:55
	often sung in a liturgical worship as the jubilate.	0:58
	O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands,	1:03
	serve the Lord with gladness	1:06
	and come before his presence with a song.	1:08
	Know ye that the Lord He is God.	1:11
	It is He that has made us and not we ourselves.	1:13
	And I caught a particular attention to the second verse.	1:19
	Know ye that the Lord, He is God.	1:23
	It is He that has made us and not we ourselves.	1:26
	Observers of child life can tell us that	1:32
	one of the earliest philosophical or religious questions	1:34
	asked by the growing boy or girl is, "Who am I?"	1:39
	It is a question which may remain unanswered through life,	1:45
	even a centenarian could still ask it.	1:48
	Not only do we ask who am I, but why am I?	1:53
	Or to put it in climactic form	1:58
	and to phrase it now colloquially,	2:00
	why do I have to be me?	2:02
	why am I what I am?	2:05
	Why am I not someone else?	2:07
	Indeed the great mystery of creation,	2:13
	who it is that created you and me, created the universe,	2:19
	how everything or anything came to existence	2:25
	can puzzle all experts.	2:27
	But however an answer was attempted	2:30
	by the atheist or the agnostic	2:32
	assigning the first cause to chance	2:35
	or to meeting this fate	2:38
	or by the man of religious faith	2:40
	who assigns of course the cause to a creator, God.	2:43
	One simple fact stands clear,	2:48
	and here the atheist and the Christian	2:51
	in some sense unite.	2:54
	We all know that we did not create ourselves,	2:56
	we had no choice in the creative act	3:00
	which brought us onto this stage of human life,	3:02
	we are as it were simply thrown into existence.	3:05
	By no choice of our own,	3:10
	in fact, we are simply here.	3:12
	In addition, we know ourselves to be somehow responsible now	3:15
	for what we do with this here, with his I, with this me.	3:19
	Is it a gift or is it a burden?	3:25
	Now here and there a man or a woman may be found	3:29
	who is altogether satisfied with what fate or chance	3:32
	or God has thus hurled	3:36
	into the maelstrom of ongoing history.	3:39
	But I would suggest that such satisfaction is rare.	3:42
	If it were a universal experience, envy and jealousy	3:46
	would never appear on the social scene,	3:50
	and we should see a return to the garden of Eden.	3:54
	And as we do envy our neighbors,	3:58
	we do ask, why do I have to be me?	4:01
	Why just to take myself for an example, why was I born	4:04
	in a humble little village on the windswept	4:08
	plains of Kansas that nobody ever heard of,	4:12
	a portion of the goal for what you almost have to apologize	4:17
	at least when you're in Boston?	4:22
	(congregation laughs)	4:24
	Yeah, why was I born there instead of precisely	4:27
	on Beacon Street, Boston on a lovely	4:29
	marvelous home in Virginia.	4:33
	Or to generalize a bit, why was I given an ugly nose	4:38
	instead of the features of Campos Apollo?	4:42
	Or why, supposing that I am known as a handsome cavalier,	4:46
	did whoever heard me into the world	4:49
	not give me brains as well?	4:51
	Or to put it over again,	4:56
	supposing that I do have a grand mind and	4:58
	Fiva de Capa is just sure ahead,	5:01
	why am I awkward at a dance and sad sight at a party?	5:05
	Well, this questioning of the created order	5:10
	and particularly our place in it	5:13
	once received classic expression	5:16
	in one of the sonnets of Shakespeare.	5:17
	He's describing a mood in a situation	5:20
	when things have gone wrong with circumstance and fate,	5:22
	a mood which I'm sure we all share at one time or another.	5:25
	When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,	5:31
	I all alone beweep my outcast state	5:35
	and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries	5:42
	and look upon myself and curse my fate,	5:45
	wishing me like to one more rich in hope,	5:48
	featured like him,	5:51
	like him with friends possessed,	5:52
	desiring this man's art and that man's scope,	5:55
	with what I most enjoy contented least.	6:00
	Yes, but whenever this question,	6:05
	"Why do I have to be me?" arises in our heart and mind,	6:06
	do we realize what we really say?	6:09
	We are expressing though we may not be aware	6:12
	of the awesome fact,	6:14
	hatred of the power that created us.	6:16
	We are rebelling against God.	6:20
	It is he that has made us and not we ourselves,	6:22
	and we do not like His handiwork.	6:27
	He is to blame,	6:30
	and we refuse to give Him for what He has done to us.	6:32
	Now, these hatred often submerged in and not acknowledged,	6:38
	but still there,	6:42
	this hatred of the power that has made us what we are	6:43
	concerns first of all, the circumstances	6:48
	that surround our life,	6:50
	place of birth, economic condition,	6:52
	biological inheritance.	6:57
	As I can hail my addictions	7:00
	on my creator, on this God.	7:01
	When there is added then,	7:04
	the result of my own decisions in the form of	7:05
	a burden of guilt,	7:08
	every human being has a burden of guilt,	7:10
	this hatred can include myself also.	7:14
	Man can hate both God and himself.	7:18
	Now, this rebellion and hatred can assume many forms.	7:24
	I ventured to describe briefly three such ways of rebellion.	7:27
	The first is the most familiar.	7:32
	It is the attempt to lose this me,	7:34
	which I do not like in the life of the senses.	7:38
	I may try, for example, to drown it in alcohol.	7:42
	I can forget myself for a little while, at least,	7:45
	in a world of illusions and dreams.	7:48
	I shall not be here very long anyway,	7:52
	why should I take this vanishing I on me very seriously?	7:55
	Let us eat, let us drink, for tomorrow we die.	7:58
	The results of this way of rebellion,	8:03
	I should not dwell on here,	8:05
	skid row or the boredom of the luxury hotel	8:07
	there isn't much to choose.	8:11
	Indeed we have a whole book in the Bible,	8:14
	the book isn't read too often,	8:17
	but I think in coming to its own and our own day,	8:19
	the book known as Ecclesiastes,	8:21
	which sings the doom of this way of escape,	8:24
	vanity of vanities, all is vanity.	8:27
	Now, the second way of rebellion which I wanna mention	8:32
	is the equally ancient way	8:36
	that is known as the way of the stoic,	8:38
	the faith of the stoic.	8:40
	I did not create myself, its is true,	8:43
	blind fate had me in its grip,	8:46
	this power however will be fooled.	8:50
	I possess a citadel in my will,	8:53
	which neither God or devil or fate or chance can conquer.	8:55
	I am in final trial, captain of my fate,	9:00
	I am master of my soul.	9:03
	I can be my own God,	9:06
	the creator of my own destiny,	9:08
	I can defy the power of the very stars,	9:11
	I can by way of climactic defiance,	9:15
	commit suicide.	9:19
	I did not tie my beginning, but I can tie my end.	9:21
	It is indeed a fact of history that suicide	9:27
	has been a kind of last sacrament of the stoic	9:29
	from the days of the Roman emperors unto our own.	9:32
	Now stoicism,	9:38
	we can readily confess has its moral hero.	9:40
	There is quite possibly	9:44
	no rival the Christianity more appealing.	9:45
	It is again today, a fashionable creed	9:49
	under the name of atheist existentialism.	9:51
	Pardon my use that big word, it's popular on campuses.	9:54
	All right, we might as well use it,	10:02
	it's one of the big things today,	10:04
	and it's really,	10:09
	I sometimes think existentialism is simply	10:11
	the old stoic face dressed up in	10:15
	or entails, you know, a wonderful customer of some sort.	10:17
	To defy the universe, to defy fate,	10:23
	be these under the rule of God are only a blind chance,	10:27
	rebellion and self deification can go no farther.	10:31
	But this stoic faith, like all idolatry,	10:36
	finds a broken idol at the end of the road.	10:39
	No human being is great enough to play God for very long.	10:42
	Even the suicide cannot escape the fear	10:47
	that the power of which had creation under control,	10:49
	just might refuse to hand control of the end	10:53
	of existence also.	10:57
	The Bible, I still speak truth,	11:00
	know ye, the Lord, He is God.	11:03
	Indeed I'm tempted to hear,	11:08
	even though it involves a little irreverent language	11:09
	to tell a story that I have heard told about Mark Twain.	11:13
	At the time when the famous poem known as the "Invictus"	11:18
	was first published,	11:22
	you know, out of the night that	11:24
	covers me black as the pit	11:26
	from pole to pole,	11:28
	I think whatever gods there be for my unconquerable soul,	11:30
	I am the master of my fate,	11:33
	I am the captain of my soul.	11:34
	Came out about 1900 and Mark Twain	11:37
	heard a friend reciting it, so the story goes.	11:39
	And he turned him and said, "What?	11:43
	You the master of your fate,	11:45
	you the captain of your soul?	11:47
	The hell you are."	11:49
	(congregation laughs)	11:51
	Now, a third form of rebellion	11:55
	against the creator can be tried.	11:57
	Why do I have to be me?	12:00
	Perhaps after all I don't.	12:04
	I can turn myself into another I or another me.	12:06
	I can pretend,	12:11
	I can wear a mask,	12:13
	I can try the art of imitation,	12:15
	I can obey the siren voices of the advertiser	12:18
	on my television set	12:21
	and transform myself into a glamor girl	12:23
	or a man with distinction	12:25
	by buying the right cosmetics or the right clothes	12:27
	or drinking the right whiskey.	12:30
	Eric from one of our leading psychiatric specialist	12:34
	has coined a striking phrase	12:36
	to describe this escape from reality	12:38
	and the rebellion against our created self.	12:41
	The phrase is the commercial self.	12:44
	Thousands of men and women	12:49
	are selling their birthright as persons	12:50
	so as to become sham merchandise on the market.	12:54
	Now, do I need to describe the revenge which life provides	12:59
	for this rebellion against him who has made us	13:03
	and not we ourselves,	13:06
	to play a bit with the analogy of the mask.	13:09
	To wear a mask, to wear a disguise	13:12
	and a masked blow maybe innocent fun,	13:15
	but to compel the self to wear it in broad daylight	13:19
	and even in sleep	13:22
	so as not to give a secret away	13:24
	can turn into intolerable slavery.	13:26
	The real creator God has been replaced by an idol.	13:30
	And idol worship as a history of religion can illustrate	13:34
	demands victims, human sacrifice, no less.	13:39
	Dante and describing the hypocrites in his Inferno	13:43
	and the hypocrite is in some sense,	13:47
	is personal to the mask.	13:49
	Pictures them as staggering and utter weariness	13:52
	under recovering of lead.	13:55
	"Oh, we remantle for eternity," he cries,	13:57
	"In pity over such a fate."	14:01
	Not only three attempts to rebellion against man's creator	14:05
	have received here brief description,	14:08
	there are others, but these may suffice,	14:11
	they may serve as backdrop now for the gospel,	14:14
	for the way of life of the Christian.	14:18
	Why do I have to be me?	14:22
	Can I not be somebody else?	14:24
	One answer found in Christianity	14:29
	may seem at first a very harsh one.	14:30
	No, you can not be someone else.	14:33
	"You cannot even," says Jesus,	14:38
	"By being anxious, add one cubit to your stature.	14:39
	You cannot be your own God.	14:44
	Know ye that the Lord, He is God.	14:47
	It is He then has made us and not we ourselves."	14:51
	You can to be sure, turn to idols and rule them,	14:55
	to offer escape from you created I or you created me,	14:58
	but they will let you down.	15:03
	You are an actor on a stage,	15:05
	you need an action whose direction is in another's hand.	15:06
	You may rebel against your role,	15:12
	you may try to write a plot of your own invention,	15:15
	but the play will have a short run.	15:18
	But there's one way out.	15:22
	It looks impossible or foolish or even cowardly at first.	15:25
	It is the way of submission and surrender.	15:30
	It is a miracle that happens	15:34
	when an actor in place of rebelling against his role,	15:35
	accepts it as a gift.	15:39
	He is free at last on the burden of escape from self.	15:46
	He can take off his mask and every mantle of pretense,	15:51
	he can accept himself.	15:55
	The Christian gospel believe in	15:58
	telling that he can forgive himself	15:59
	and thus shed the further burden of guilt.	16:03
	You can begin to pray the Lord's prayer.	16:08
	Not my kingdom, but thy kingdom,	16:14
	not my will, but thy will,	16:18
	I surrender.	16:23
	Now, such surrender is never easy.	16:26
	The Bible uses bold language to describe it.	16:29
	It is learning to pray the Lord's Prayer,	16:33
	the New Testament will call this it a dying,	16:38
	a dying even realistically	16:41
	symbolized in a sacramental action called baptism,	16:43
	a dying which however has the promise of rising again.	16:47
	Christians enter the Christian life	16:51
	by way of a kind of suicide.	16:55
	The Christians dying however,	16:59
	is a joyous suicide,	17:01
	different in kind from the bitter defiance	17:03
	of the stoic rebel against God.	17:06
	Indeed the answer of no to the question	17:11
	of why do I have to be me	17:14
	or can I not be somebody else?	17:16
	Was only half true.	17:18
	Christianity can also reply, yeah,	17:21
	you can receive	17:27
	and you so.	17:29
	In the Bible we meet again, mysterious words.	17:32
	It speaks of being born again,	17:35
	it speaks of becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus.	17:39
	Christianity's demand for the surrender of the self	17:45
	to it's creator is however	17:48
	not that's the render to attire and deity,	17:52
	it is surrender to our Father,	17:56
	or as it can be even more boldly phrased	17:59
	surrender to our Lover.	18:01
	The story of Revelation of the Bible	18:04
	is precisely a love story.	18:06
	The creator wooing his rebellious children	18:09
	to return to him in love.	18:15
	It is the breathtaking epic of God Himself visiting men	18:20
	and breaking his proud self-will	18:25
	by dying for him on a cross.	18:28
	Nor does this wooing end with a story	18:32
	of the Christ during his earthly life,	18:35
	as a legacy of that life there exists in the world,	18:38
	a strange society.	18:42
	So strange, we don't realize how strange it is,	18:44
	strange society called the church.	18:48
	A society precisely of the surrendered and the reborn.	18:51
	To site once more, the strange	18:58
	and yet wonderful language of Christian faith,	18:59
	those who have entered the new relationship	19:03
	with the creator of God through Christ,	19:05
	speak of themselves as having died with him	19:07
	and risen with him.	19:13
	And in this fellowship or the new born,	19:17
	the question with which,	19:20
	well, you've had difficulty with speech too	19:26
	in your day I'm sure.	19:29
	All right, the question with which	19:32
	this sermon began is answered.	19:34
	Why do I have to be me,	19:38
	why should I accept myself as I am?	19:41
	Because otherwise you will miss the wonder and glory	19:45
	of being loved	19:49
	for just what you are.	19:52
	In family life we know this sure,	19:56
	mother loves her baby	20:00
	just as it is.	20:02
	Can't change it anyway.	20:06
	And in the Christian fellowship,	20:10
	we discover this marvelous gift.	20:11
	We can be accepted and loved as we are.	20:14
	We can take off our masks.	20:19
	Even if what is revealed behind the mask is ugly,	20:23
	so ugly that you cannot bear the sight yourself	20:27
	and cry out in shame for a hiding place,	20:30
	yes as we do	20:36
	in that wonderful hymn rock of ages cleft for me,	20:37
	let me hide myself in thee.	20:41
	There has been in the church, we can too,	20:45
	but the kind of a hiding place which	20:48
	accepts us then as we are.	20:50
	Yes, we can discard our masks,	20:55
	we here meet one who can endure the side	20:59
	of just what we are.	21:03
	Pascal, a great Christian of the 17th century once said that	21:07
	if all the secrets thoughts have been were revealed,	21:11
	there would not be four friends left in the world.	21:13
	Pretty hard saying.	21:18
	But there's one who can endure the sight,	21:21
	there's the one who has made us,	21:25
	who has died for us.	21:29
	Indeed there is a fellowship which can enjoy the sight,	21:33
	all the ones in rebellion, but suffered broken pride	21:37
	under the wooing of a Christ in a manger, on a cross,	21:40
	entered into the joy of surrender	21:44
	and are now a fellowship of prodigal sons	21:47
	returned to a father's home	21:50
	and rejoicing in a banquet together,	21:52
	here is a fellowship,	21:56
	which in the face of tragedy and fate of suffering and death	21:58
	can sing a hundred songs.	22:02
	Oh, be joyful in the Lord all you lands,	22:04
	serve a lot of gladness come before His presence	22:07
	with a song.	22:11
	Be sure that the Lord, He is God.	22:14
	It is He that has made us and not we ourselves.	22:17
	We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.	22:20
	Oh, go your way into his gates	22:24
	with Thanksgiving and into his courts with praise,	22:26
	be thankful unto Him and speak good of His name.	22:29
	Now, it may be a strange ending to a Christian sermon	22:36
	to close with a quotation	22:40
	that are more hammered in Qur'an,	22:42
	but that classic of the religion of Islam	22:45
	contains more than one site inspired by prophetic wrestling	22:49
	with eternal truth.	22:53
	The quotation reads as follows,	22:56
	"From God, there is no flight,	23:00
	but only unto Him."	23:05
	A modern poet has taken this jewel phrase	23:10
	and has added two further lines	23:13
	and the resulting triplet	23:16
	reads like a summary of the parable of the prodigal son,	23:18
	greatest of the parables in our New Testament.	23:23
	From God	23:28
	there is no flight,	23:30
	but only against unto Him.	23:33
	Against a father's sternness,	23:38
	no revolt of avail,	23:42
	a child's soul refuge	23:47
	is within His arm.	23:51
	From God there is no flight,	23:56
	but only unto Him.	23:58
	Against the Father's sternness	24:01
	no revolt avails,	24:03
	a child soul refuge is within His arm.	24:06
	Let us pray.	24:14
	Almighty God,	24:25
	infinite watch over the children of men,	24:26
	before whom the generations rise and pass away.	24:30
	Who my father's and father's fathers	24:34
	have worshiped in lands across the seas,	24:36
	whom our children and children's children will worship	24:39
	perhaps in this very place	24:44
	seeking as we seek to discover	24:47
	the mystery of the thy ways with these sons of men,	24:49
	granted we in our generation	24:53
	may desire Thee,	24:56
	and desiring these seek Thee	24:58
	and seeking Thee, find Thee,	25:01
	and having found Thee	25:04
	may rest satisfied in Thee forever more.	25:05
	Now, may the Lord bless us and keep us,	25:10
	the Lord make His face to shine upon us	25:13
	and be gracious unto us,	25:15
	the Lord lift up His countenance upon us	25:17
	and give us peace	25:19
	both now and evermore.	25:21

Item Info

Title:

Theodore O. Wedel - "Why Do I Have to Be Me?" (April 24, 1960)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4x34rt2t

Date:

April 24, 1960

Speaker:

Wedel, Theodore O.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0102
ref5405_q52
uachapelsermaud
duke:628341
dcrau002127
ark:/87924/r4x34rt2t
786cb270-db98-44d6-9565-8826bcfc66d1

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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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Theodore O. Wedel - "Why Do I Have to Be Me?" (April 24, 1960)

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1. Theodore Wedel - "Why Do I Have to Be "Me"?" (April 24, 1960)

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Theodore O. Wedel - "Why Do I Have to Be Me?" (April 24, 1960)

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