Religious Sermon

it's being more attacks has fallen in the episode of the hebrews eleven choppers the eighth ninth and tenth verses familiar to us all by face abraham loeb a way was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as americans and they went out not knowing where he was to go bye faith a soldier and in the land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents with isaac and jacob areas with him of the same promise florian look forward to the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is rock these three familiar verses from the episode of a

bros have not only performed the function for almost nineteen hundred years of binding christians and their churches to their a break heritage but they use versus were also if we will hear them a fresh give us i believe an insight into the deepest present problems of the church and religion generally that question is this how faith in god can be widespread popularity and yet not degenerate and a while calling the title of the sermon culture religion i've chosen to examine the faith and life of abraham for this purpose or because he is a spiritual father of jews and

arabs as well as christians and despite this fact for i want to apply the insides of the scripture particularly to questions and to the unity of the church of jesus christ and yet the nature of our problem of christian unity is such that for anyone to consider today unrelated to the unity of all men would reduce god distort our faith in him and asked him to bless our own civil and religious cultures and we go out of a place of worship less religious than when we came in therefore one no one does oppose that the recovering of unity of christchurch is a threat to man of other faiths in

god or two men perhaps more of them have no faith at all the unity of the church of jesus christ as it is being promoted in our time by the worldwide ecumenical moment must be of the kind that is clearly seen not to be a threat to the unity of mankind but rather glibly a promise toward it and yet it is difficult and delicate the breach on christian unity and really to deal with the faith of a brown without appearing to be anti semitic even have you read the gospel of john that legally you read it one way it would appear to be as many of our jewish friends fear has always an

attack on journalism in the eighth chapter for example the jewish plaintiffs claim of jesus' own people is religious leaders to be sons of abraham was rejected by our lord himself in such a violent terms and he called those who were talking to him sons of the devil not sons of abraham i was there for rescue on all my jewish friends to be entirely clear that the use of gong john's gospel in the sermon or anywhere else i've never be understood to promote anti semitism as a ground of christian unity or for any purpose but rather than opus there is in fact this very same sands of culture religion

culture religion which is caused the nineteen hundred years of tragedy hatred between christians and jews it is the sin of culture religion which is the biggest obstacle are presently stands in the way of christian unity and so any churchmen who uses the gospel of john is an excuse for latent oral overt anti semitism on the part of christians peruse violent fact that is one who doesn't understand that possible or what jesus was saying at all for the villages in that drama of the gospel of john are not a jew as the villains in this drama are in the context of the sermon the presbyterians and then dickens the orthodox and the catholics in fact any other religious man who allow

their religious and cultural traditions to prevent their obedience or to distort their obedience living god there's some of that is about faith in god if there were no god all religion all churches that the escapes from reality they would be abstinent isn't or they would be superstitious we christians believe that god is that he has revealed himself to my own progressively and his acts acts recorded in the bible climax seeing in jesus christ himself but need i say that to us and we christians are also subject to the universal sin and temptation of trying to limit that universal got to domesticate him to bind him to our only places and they're using

them magically or by priests craft for our own very human and obviously selfish purposes more quickly than in a brown as apartheid man of faith another example of how men of faith in the world there are three qualities of faith as exemplified in the story that i like to have you think about with me hers faced as a pilgrimage site faith as blowing and pence and third faith as expectation by faith abraham away that when he was called a volatile place with you as very same love for americans anyway not knowing where he was to go

i'm of abraham most men live their whole lives a few miles from the spot on earth where they had happened to be born this was generated throughout most men until our century of course there have always been exceptions armies have written across the world to compliment to kill refugees have fled their homes before such armies and a few explorers across deserts and climb mountains and sale only open the city's merchants to i've always traveled to brian solis again wears a vision and peoples have had to migrate because of lack of food or water but generally speaking most men used to live there all lives in one place that's one reason why a grand jury was remarkable in his time it wasn't a long journey as gertie is going nowadays from

beginning to an abraham never left what we call the middle east almost entirely in the kingdom of jordan remarkable thing about abrahams journey was it was a pilgrimage because it arose out of his faith in god the sequence of events is very simple hear god speak to him telling him to leave his home go to a new lab which would be his neighbor out of rain gods word because he believed dunn's promise even though he didn't know exactly wary was going this is essentially what a pilgrimage is it's making a journey because of your faith in god faith then first of all his movement

a man as harry he starts on a journey the end of the journey is usually obscure are when he starts faith is believing god's promise that there is a better place along somewhere ballmer wrote at its faith in god means mobility faith is a journey it's a pilgrimage it's a movement in response was a promise to israel it's really serve that i would like to say a word about the ecumenical moment that twentieth century a pilgrimage of questions of all the churches including even the official leadership of the church is christians at our century you've heard the call of god a christian unity and have started out on the road together

defined recent years valley expression ecumenical moment has become common enough so that most people no longer a stumble over the words are mixing up with economical because they can't get medical ideas are new and because they're attacked by some as a threat to christian truth as we haven't received it many christians and all of our churches remain vague about what the ecumenical movement really means and really implies a busy bike and very briefly describe a humanism to you and clearly understandable terms first of all it's based on faith in god as revealed in jesus christ i suppose that's the real reason that the ecumenical movement is

controversial it's just as controversial as the christian faith it takes god seriously it takes the bible seriously it asks you when the allman to repent and to start walking walking with god on a pilgrimage ecumenical moment i would like to emphasize to you are here in church that rises out of the churches themselves if the moment of the faithful in the churches themselves it is not an attack upon the churches or are creation of them i admit there are great many impassioned argument us these days who have become so discouraged and i do not blame them so discouraged with the churches in mobility that they want to leave me official churches behind somewhere in mesopotamia

or aaron and go under the promised land by themselves but i must say that by in large the leaders of the ecumenical moment have been at the same time leaders both lay men and women and ministers leaders of their own churches that may lose some of the names from the beginning your mind as of istanbul who was the local taverns of the pack your arcade of the ecumenical patriarch gave in but they used to call constantinople the aroma of the east there is william temple oh the arch bridge we've got over there was john lott mocked methodist missionary and youth leader with charles brandt american episcopal bishop a missionary there was martha barnette still living president of the reformed church of france there was a mason soderblom archbishop of the

church of sweden martin them are president of united church of customers also still living in germany there's a bar graph lutheran church of norway roberts baron william adams brown than john look i have my own church and more recently the late august and roman catholic churches john the twenty thirteen michael ray news of the present archbishop got a very big you know some died this summer president of the methodist church of so long and some amongst us jim matthews bishop of the united methodist church christian bit of karma right when fried who died a few years ago the literature chin america i mention this

list just to make you stop to think however that the faithful of all of these churches find it possible to believe the kind of false charges against the ecumenical mobile verizon when it is being lead as all of us have been led by these memos names i've read off to the very man whom they are entrusting the leadership of their own traditions and their own churches again the ecumenical moment is a pilgrimage starting from wherever we are wherever we are to a land of promise it does find part of its motivation from dissatisfaction with where we are with the church's as they are what is is not the most widely based agreement of our times everyone that i read your hair theologians

human as senators church reporters the faithful themselves all agree that the church is in crisis all agree that the church was a mormon change and be changed and this change in rapidly changing world old structures old patterns are everywhere being repudiated a movement out into a new and pilgrim way is the only hopeful response to the theological as well as a sociological analysis of a place of a church in the world today it calls upon for losses adventure instead of rigidity movement instead of lethargy oh instead of just bad faith instead of cynicism and low replacing hate and fear and these are the motivations of the

ecumenical moment and it is a movement and movement of christian faith the riverside church itself was established by men who were dissatisfied with the nomination all structures of american protestant christianity larry amerson fires that john d rockefeller farmer jr and a group of people who gather themselves around them built his church to support ecumenical christianity a rather than sectarian christianity know more than a generation later it's all too easy for members of this congregation to settle down in the institutional i'll take and to forget that real faith in god is always moment note my second point faith is living in tents

by faith the abraham sojourn in the land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents with isaac and jacob shares with him of the same promise sergeant so there is to have some were temporarily intense run and stone houses faith is to recognize that there are stages in every pilgrimage and that you don't stop where you are until history under god reaches its culmination no two weeks living with your sons and grandsons interesting these days of generation gap abraham isaac and jacob three generations of them three generations already to move out and to move out i know together and forward

but the tendency of any man who meets god is to build the stone temple are usually a permanent house beside it you remember the high point of the gospels when jesus was transfigured before the eyes of his disciples and peter's first thought was to say they're on the mountain let's build tabernacle their boots for you and moses and elijah with a voice from haven't called upon him to following jesus but in this context i would like to remind you of the passage of the gospel of john which of already refer uses was addressing the religious leaders of his own people when he challenged them to break out of the cultural rigidity is which threatened to blind them to the truth and people drew from them they replied that they were abraham's son

a grand slams and never in bondage to any man their claim to make their claim always to have been free because of the ancient pilgrimage is that ancient of abraham that reveals how very easy it is for us to be self winded as we rejoice in our religious heritage they spoke your say is if a roman emperor didn't exist they spoke as if the mosaic law which they were interpreting was in fact producing men of for more about the free from satan that was the gentle jesus who said to them what would he say to us if you're a browns children you would do or ambien why do you not understand what

i say it's because it cannot bear to hear my word you are your father the double your will is to do your father's desires here is the precise point at which lies the ever present tension between faith and god and culture religion faith in god such as that of a brown or a martin luther or john calvin ordinary emerson phosphoric always encourages such a man of faith who live in this world as in a foreign land to live in tents to live in some ways it was a new generation's ready to scrap the only outlaw aren't ready to embrace the new but we presbyterians or lutherans or anglicans or methodists seen most of all to want in our fear to hold on in this terrible

time do what our fathers had note i don't say what we have we want to hold on because of our fears that we apply this insight in relationship to cancel the churches you got a stone building an assault of you are here and particularly if i may however to the world council of churches or carthage or to just over twenty two years old for or two decades it has grown and developed rather remarkably i could this morning if i were earning my world council salary try to sell you on its accomplishments about which so many christians everywhere up yet appeared you know very little but let me just say what the world councils to endow it your instrument if you will use it to serve an ad world

seeking for peace and justice it your instrument if you will use it to sink deeper insights into the meaning and demands of faith and god of salvation by christ of loving your brother in the context of the global village which our world has become before you tell they let me say of course the world council itself as a structure we do have a building a rather nice one but its structure has always been thought of as temporary a transitional structure toward the unity of the church given by god through jesus christ as their year were attempting rather radically restructure our programs in the light of the greatest president needs not twenty years ago nate of the world and of the church president graham's case the promised land leans

toward george which we make our pilgrimage is that promise land is still much less clear that is the command of god to go out on the adventure of church unity of mutual enrichment of our faith of greater and more effective cooperation through the world council of churches all christians and altered says ken be involved where the action is whether that beyond ideology or on race on poverty on morality or worship or unity or mission or peace or salvation and the effect of this temporary structure is to challenge in the name of god everything you and riverside church or the world council of churches is doing as we call a name of christ and say we are doing it for him what i'm

suggesting is that an adventure together living in tents going forward and mutual trust and in unity it is a movement of faith that arises out of sight and depends upon your thing you're afraid not i may say in the world council of churches like your faith in god finally face as expectation forty that is a brown look forward to the senate which has foundations whose builder and maker is brought true faith in god is always expected it is believed that god is that he will act in the future as he has acted before in the past in history and is acting now

even here and now perhaps culture religion on the other hand rests satisfied remember what our fathers told us about what god did in the past this is the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the pilgrim fathers coming across to this new lab and some of our churches spill have the mayflower rooms of the most important shrine in their permanent campus faithful let god didn't stop three hundred and fifty years ago is alive he actually will act christians must live and hope we live in expectation

who have faith is to believe that god is building the foundations are laid by him and is the city of god that is at the end of the pilgrimage when the tents will be needed no more almost ten years ago now it was in san francisco i preached a sermon one of the few that anyone's listen to apparently i preached a sermon proposing a radical change in the american protestantism in that sermon as some of you may remember i propose that four of the major two nominations give up their separatism and unite a former church really catholic andrew ear for that is that for pope john had made catholic a great popular word among protestants other motivations behind that sermon were very similar in the national context to the motives

that founded this riverside church in the local context now almost ten years later there has at last been prepared a plan of union which if it is ultimately approved will unite nine major churches the original far have grown to nine what unites them under one church truly conflict truly evangelical truly reform i speak this morning of this plan of the consultation on church union in this particular goal but for very concrete purpose to those who are visitors here today presbyterians presbyterian methodist disciples members of the united church of christ i plead with you as you go back to pressure or local churches to study the plan of union now placed before them for study by the consultation on church union and you want to study it in groups

across denomination lines according to the plan but to those of you are members of riverside church i suggest now is the time for you also to examine carefully this plan of church union i'm sure the consultation itself would appreciate any suggestions for improvement of that plan that will arise out of the years of ecumenical experience in this particular place and if the nomination is finally do approve a plan of union as it may be amended then the riverside church will be faced with a decision as to whether it will be a part of that uniting and united church or not i would not want you to make a positive decision on such a future possibility unless you come to a conclusion unless you yourselves

come to the conclusion that such a stop would be the right implementation the nineteen seventies of the ecumenical vision of this church of the nineteen forties fdr the run by i warn you in fifty years when they probably try to persuade you to become a part of the proposed church of christ in it but i think it is right that i should challenge to this church to be looking forward to a new christian structures rather than tr as satisfied and what your father's and fifty years ago for the alternative is to remain what we our culture religious that is people whose ancestors had freedom rot whose fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers dared to break with their past because they've heard is called

vitals but despite all the ominous threats of various kinds of disaster in this world the middle east south africa is annihilating war an arc a generation rebellion and repression on orders starvation population explosion and all right i have not been trying to play up on your fears are your prejudices i want to be for you this morning a christian preacher bleeding as is the main task of any sermon to have faith in god which will give you courage three generations of you a brown was again jake to follow god's call do you figure out now

or they're wrong far down the road i see him the survey which has foundations whose builder and maker wild ourselves whose builder and maker is god into him be the praise and the glory now an evermore amen hour the pope the