Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg Sermon, 1965-06-13, Our Listening Generation

the poems by walk walk with the fbi mark protesters' numbers of those require friendly riverside church an all listening in or the year in connection with a subject of the morning are listening generation i like to recall for your attention in the words of the apostle paul and the seventeenth verse of the tenth chapter of romans were writing to the roman

christians paul said so faith comes from what is her and what is heard comes by the preaching of products one beautiful evening last summer as i was sitting by the open window of our apartment on the campus of crozier seminary i heard a lot of oil money for rendell who was saying repeatedly am rather professionally no you're really made it a new uranium a roger or were less than a boy turned out to be rusty they sign not the grandson of our neighbors across lake hollow with his father and mother had been other words very in new york that day in his

father had acquired a new walkie talkie so that night they will follow is planted in the shrubbery beneath your window while his father was sprawling and late twilight out among the trees around the corner of the house as resnais was saying or and over again through the twilight that i will read me the scenes that maybe the basic question for almost to think about the only mean are we in communication do we understand each other's thought who do a copperhead in each other's feelings this is an important question to answer because faith and long really have their origin in what we listened to

the apostle paul made this clear when he said faith comes from what you've heard and what you've heard comes by the breaching of heights we can't give me what we're listening to and whether or not we listen with the mind of christ will determine what we're going to be is most imperative that there that we should listen to each other for example in the life of the family there's more and more perplexity and the relationships of fathers and mothers and their children today partly because of the swift increasing knowledge partly because of a writer's own business and of pleasure apps along the golan father said to me that he had been reading they mathematics textbook of a daughter in high school and he said i was completely lost

the whole approach to mathematics was ira different from anything that we knew when i was in high school now this widening gulf between the older and the younger generations is true in this country how much more is it likely to be true in the nations that are now rising in asia africa and other parts of the world dr nicholas big entourage who is remember the national council of the ymca plus last summer that when he wasn't gonna win the new nations out and african regional he was watching a group of five or six young iranian students who had just returned from a study in america or were they had received graduate degrees and they were unloading an electric computer from a crop a computer that was to be used in some of the new

industries of piano and as the leader of this group spoke to doctor gone to raffi said next week i'm going up to my native village for the first time since my return from the united states and i'd grab a moment when my father and my mother and racially because we will be shockwaves from each other by five hundred years this can't be true in our country to another student an american student said on one occasion the other day i called my father on the phone a time of a problem that was bothering me but he's always so busy he sat on a workout some house on what hollywood work out

i want to talk with my father about my inner world and sean are we always dropping a lot there's a trouble in a world that rather than talking about our inner life we so often end up talking about things and this is not just a lot of mothers and fathers that as the fault sometimes also will really be as a young people often i have been in homes and my various congregations were answered look forward eagerly to the homecoming of their son or daughter from falling for christmas vacation or possibly coming home on a military role after two or three years absence overseas and the pats have been literally hungry for this time a reunion on the sharing of experiences with each other on the young people in our home they

were so busy going to move a sort of basketball games or big here and there that actually parents and children's saw very little of each other during that time about homecoming i've always admired one of my classmates of years to minnesota where back in nineteen fourteen who when we were trying to set a committee meeting on the campus for four o'clock sunday afternoon said no that's out of our house we brothers always reserve sunday afternoon for our mother and father it's little wonder that those three sons have all obtain distinction in both in science and in religion remains so much to be a time for companionship

and for communion in the areas of our inner world or what paul said is to create come by kieran wanted heard comes by the breaching of crisis it is important that we should the analyst they move within the circle of the family are imported is also that we should be enormously moved across state lines that divide racism people's and nations from each other thirty the other night on the closure campus crozier by the way is they seminary from which martin luther king graduated we're proud of him as our most distinguished alumnus what mr campos was picketed the other night why a group of my negro young people who were protesting a

housing situation and chester pennsylvania and rightly so night after night these haunting freedom songs that echoes through the canyons of our city streets daniel kwan highways of our country we shall overcome maybe in my heart i do believe we shall overcome some day these songs are a part of the sa but was leaving some around the world in these words a black man is saying today white man do you remain white man are we in communication

if the please enter not coming for voting rights housing employment and decent human recognition are not the voice and then we have not heard of preaching the gospel of christ all right not on everyone had heard what is listened to and thought about they come from what is heard and what is heard by the preaching of christ and the good news about in jesus christ did not make us aware of this hoover a necessity use of our civilization should make us realize that we cannot live in richard lee limited compartments of life for exclusive neighborhoods in which we seek to bar from all contact with us our fellow man we simply cannot live in

isolation we all know that when a striking illustration of this came to me just this past week on the twelfth of may i was a member of the delegation of non jewish catholic protestant creation ministers rabbis and lame and who interviewed secretary robert mcnamara and the pentagon relative to the situation in vietnam this interview had been arranged in my faith but mr wonder for democratic system of american government government and citizens must listen to each other also so we came together with mr mcnamara who received us where they are most courteously we came up in a

spirit of all finding but of fact finding while nearly a thousand people were assembled around three sides of the pentagon outside in a prayer vigil we presented a secretary mcnamara five points that seemed to i show concern to a large cross section of the american people we were designed for a ceasefire and the naacp we could to shape our therefore has stepped up effort towards a negotiated settlement word for they economic development of the lower mekong valley for a thorough definition of our games and southeast asia so that the american public might have a clear understanding of what is happening and fifty that there should be more time and so long united nations an international

action rather than purely on unilateral or bilateral bilateral action are these are controversial issues we all realize and i respect very much renee many opinions that there might be on these matters and i'm not here to debate them this morning ahmad relating them an order that i made bring you something that happened this week to show you are closely related we are in this kind of a war just as we were leaving sector secretary mcnamara his office we were informed that there was a group of radio and tv and newspaper amanda wish to have a news conference this we agreed to i would be asked to be the spokesman of the delegation on what was an entirely unexpected and off the cuff interview with a newsman while cameras and

recording instruments were running away one was my astonishment this past week to receive a letter from our sun in our son keith is a doctor what are american baptist missionaries in thailand way up in the jungle area of my story are more they work eloquent go by every day and where our son and his family your four children when laws are daughter long lived on a stove a jungle house up very near the burmese border in his letter are sons in the other day our children came home from a neighboring missionaries house all excited and said we heard ron paul over the radio lettuce is astonished me as much as it astonished my

grandchildren our son and his wife thought that that was probably only a vague or really vivid imagination of the children but it probably true that they had heard their ground for an eye line moreover i had a letter from an american gi up in korea who was a member of my former pastor of the first baptist church of st paul minnesota and he had heard why do our tenured this all nighter on my new adventures are listening generation and there is no place in the world so remote that our voices may not be heard and of course voices are not only to be heard from around europe our astronauts children children of vinegar white lieutenant colonel mcdevitt they heard their fathers from way out in space what should remind us all a

more that the longer we live the more we're going to hear voices not only familiar voices but i'm familiar voices and strange languages and strange tongue it is impossible therefore that we show wall ourselves in and cried a living separately from our fellow man because as the apostle paul said there isn't a very june or greek wine more free of all are one and christ jesus are more we come from what is hurt and one has heard comes by the preaching of christ and the degree to which we will be blessed as we say to each other do you read me the degree to which we will be blessed whether or not you're listening and

thinking wait a minute howerton encouraging things about this whole situation is that the day that judges aren't listening move whatever else may be said and criticism of the christian churches today one thing than they said to their credit but across all denominational an interfaith alliance that churches are beginning to listen to each other in every community the ecumenical dialogue is going on not alone on the national and the world level in the national and world counsel job churches but in the local areas as catholics eastern orthodox and protestants and jews all come together and in the most profound study of the bible and the doctrine and of worship and practice kryder read each other's minds and the grass the differences and belief and worship

mr ong on on campus and crozier every two or three weeks we have two eastern orthodox priest several catholic priests and les brothers meeting with professors and with protestant ministers and laymen as we discuss some of the great documents that are coming out of the world council churches and coming out of a vatican council and i don't know of anything that has been more heartening to me in the forty seven years of my ministry and this new understanding that is coming the barkley as a result of the dialogue how far they have gone i think i can illustrate one i don't know that last summer and my former city of st louis there were eleven thousand catholic priests and layman and nuns who gathered together at the call of joseph cardinal writer one of the most liberal and progressive progressive voices in the vatican council to body

together the new english liberty of the roman catholic church there honoring him was was very mighty him of a protestant reformation martin luther's here in a mighty fortress is our goal many other parts and timber a song a negro resign a negro spiritual during the serving a communion they drape author which usually characterizes a catholic service had been reduced to a simple worship center something like young people in our youth conferences might have that open bible in front of the lacrosse are delighted can all it can raving between the alternate people have been removed symbolizing a free access of the people the authors of everything was so free an informal that one woman president la woman said rather indignantly a reporter from the st louis post dispatch

i've been a southern baptist all my life on it two years ago when i joined the catholic church and out on a roman catholic the catholic church is going back to its well it hasn't come it hasn't come quite to the baptist view of the millennium yet we have a great many differences to overcome and the relations of church and state in the matters of faith and quality enter mary education population control and many other deep and abiding controversial issues but we are at least beginning to listen to each other and this is the great thing because religion is starkly has often been a divisive force that either because you and separatism added value

but now instead of being a divisive force religion one was becoming a unifying force and i say that this is most encouraging because at the very time or nations and racism the polls are in such desperate need of reconciliation the churches are earnestly seeking to answer the prayer jesus and recorded an assembly chapter of john when he prayed that all of his followers might be one that he and the father were won that the world might really and there's of course we just automatically to go and this is the realm above all other realms where we must be listening in late listening movie waiting in silence before god only saying when samuel the board profit speak more for lice

servant here ultimately i say we must come in the listening mood to call and you never had the experience and some dark night of your personal sorrow beloved member of the family had died or in some tragic aren't really worries me or maybe time and now prices are in your life and you never gone out and it opens bart starr looked up at the stars and said old auto do you read me are we in communication you understand what's in my heart tonight and it's that universal its millions of stars and suns and words do you read me a mark where

on this close but the dust in space we color i really brought any results because of the promise of jesus when he said when he graced stray off color this really important role because in this space age it is not only important that we should become gravity free but that we should become sin free not long ago we should walk in space but in a high rams have the mind of christ that we should walk in the realms of the everlasting only so that we become part acres of the ascension

and always saw are our human problems song because of compromise ruling set on one occasion problems are not so much sorrow as they are just less and the song and the presence of a higher unity and that higher unity we find him what's going to happen to us personally and individually when we are in communication with god i think is illustrated and what happened to the life of the negro friend of mine dr ward and pastor of a greater st luke african methodist episcopal church in east st louis following my retirement from active pastor at your three years ago i preach on sunday and dr wharton's church

after which has doberman i were guests of dartmouth has worked in a lovely home on sunday dinner at the dinner table he told us the story of his life he had been born on the island of st kitts far out in the atlantic the youngest of six children the son of poor carried maker but in his boyhood he suffered terribly from an impediment in his speech by which he stammered and sputtered unmercifully one day and they're all negroes school a white inspector of schools a british citizen came to the school to ask the students calling upon them to recite a poem or to answer a question and only course of time he came to a young cork called on him wharton was then a call ben lang awkward teenager

wrote comically jewish three and atlanta announcer they question put to him by the inspector but as horton told it to us he showed up i will cordon has hit a new ward specter said sharply to the teacher what's the matter this young man is he afraid of a white man peter said gently know he has an impediment in his speech and the inspector who is really an understanding person said to young warden son on a steel in the office after class when i got out of the office this specter said to young working on the young man who got to overcome this or you will be had they kept all the rest of your i really do i want you to

go down and spent by the river and listen catch the musical that sense the rhythm and the full but on tour down on stand by the sea legs under the tide rolling in sanford are other random the way he should we should right then the inspectors said i want you to learn by heart the great passages of the bible we're mortal passages of shakespeare the aggressors and lincoln and a lot still needs and should be and those were angeles young warden did this week after week month after month

year after year poncho on that sunday when we were visiting in his home after dinner the helm as a dollar and he spelled out for over an hour as he recited us re passages from the bible in from shakespeare some of the addresses of the mosque the leaves and abraham lincoln this seemed to me my friend gabby a parable of our situation we stand or rome hardly a pasta say the confusion on the sin of the time we scan or we spot her in our witness for crisis facing the needs of the world and possessed as we are of the good news of god in christ world war ii computer could have said that area will work

this is the time we must stand by the rivers of history catch the music of the gospel the rhythm and the flow of it we must stand by the shores of the eternal listen to the winds and uptight as they come rolling in from the everlasting from beyond thailand's case or anything that mammals and when we have less and then my friends at should we get a great name of jesus christ our lord sal we'd be renewed in and be renewed in for romney in from one is herman and what he's heard romney in wind up breaching of crying

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