Ernest T. Campbell Sermon

riverside church has some sixty members who are located in the flood ravaged areas of the state of california all week ago we wrote to these numbers expressing our concern us brothers and the faith and asking whether there was anything that we might do to help in a specific way one reply that has already reached us suggests that there is a place through which are concerned might be registered namely they took kind of post seven ninety six of the american legion in topanga california apparently this community it's right in the heart of a place where the suffering is huge i make mention of this because there may be some of us who would be inclined to help i invite you to send your gift directly to the american legion post

seven ninety six so kind of california on a flat addresses too much and too quick for you to manage your gift to the riverside church walking your brothers cause and we will see as bed no portion of scripture i think is loved more dearly the whole world wrong then the twenty third song the figure of god of shepherd ultimately it conveys says karen lotz and the implicit picture of man as she is how utterly it describes our dependence on the goodness and the mercy of another this shepherd and a strangely enough still has forced and meaning for us even though we live in an urbanized and technological

society it even though we walk more on pavement been on grass even though we seldom see as shiite much less a shepherd the new testament counterpoint to the twenty third psalm is the tenth chapter of st john's gospel and the heartbeat of this chapter is to be hardened eleventh corps where jesus says i am the good shepherd the good shepherd give up his life or partially today however it like us to camp around some words that follow that word of jesus three verses later are large goes on to say i know my sheep and i'm known of mine i don't come the president of san anselmo seminary bears to suggest that in those brave words we have a summation of the whole ministry of

jesus of nazareth i know my sheet and unknown of mine and de jesus knew usually you know them personally a new age for what he was earning for what it might become and so all nathaniel we read jesus saw nathaniel coming on to him and several him be holdin israel iten home there is no bio while his lawyers call me he's a stanford and suddenly him before the clerk called the one law was under the fig tree i saw the you can understand the potential residents and the big fisherman and saw looking him straight into the face they can say thou art simon but now shall be called sacred in a long legged amos came to him under the cover of night he knew the

question and the question of us coming to him in the guise of a friend and trusted disciple and yet jesus desert is the treachery that why is like a dark pool at the base of this man's soul democrat they could say throw all manner of stanzas and devices and masks to the cell that looked out from within john was almost honored by this capacity of his ward or he notes in his gospel in the second chapter that jesus did not commit himself under the crowd that is after the first miracle because i knew all man and made it not that it should testify a man already knew what was in men ah yo ma issue

but the more i wrestled with these words and i've been to the mat with them now on and off for a number of months the more i can quote the radio on their allies in the second affirmation i know my ship of mine or another and my sheep know lee jesus' ministry was marked by a mutuality his conversations and relationships were not one way street he wasn't trying to project an image and therefore he was not under the necessity of consistency he did not have to conceal restrain or falsify his reactions to lie in order to give everyone the same impression of him wherever he went when he was hungry he did not deny it when he was

sad they saw the tears in his eyes when he was angry they felt the reverberations of his wrath when he was disappointed his left arm was not very old when he was pleased is joy was not suppressed a chesterton was struck by this open math this mutuality on the part of jesus and he writes in his book orthodox a budget of pathos was natural almost casual the stoics ancient and modern were proud of concealing that is jesus never concealed his tears and showed them plainly on his open place that annie daly sites such as the far side of his native city solemn sober man an imperial the moment this is our proud of restraining their anger in every spring his anger he slung furniture down the front steps of the temple and asked men

how they expected to escape the damnation of well being called the man jesus christ open transparent unaffected not posturing whatever he indeed a lot i know my shape and mike you know me i always suffered by comparison here or we are so reluctant to be known how many officers could say i know my man and my men only how many parents can say i know my children and i'm known of them ahmed a professor's <unk> no no

how many pastors dennis i know my people and my people know me it's rather ironic though that with all the talk about communication and dialogue extent in our world today there is still an inability for us to be open and noble to the other it would seem that we prefer to be unknown or even miss known rather them to be fully known for what we are from one another behind a shield of cynicism a sense of humor a string of chatter a screen a busyness behind the austere and paraphernalia of our particular profession i remember carlisle morning telling me of a time when he was

trying to help a medical man who had a problem at home really prefer not to face up to the turnout that they met on the golf course with the thought that they and formality of the game might perhaps provide an opening and on one of those where they managed to drive off a reasonably close to one another wanting to a deep breath and said john what do you know when you're not an md and john sanford came back quickly and with anger by god i was always an md and so we become masters of evasion clinging to our professionalism or do any other device that will allow us to safely and comfortably find out

from what one rave this is the way it happens in the area of our employment man's burden has learned climbers tells us that what corporations are looking for today particularly non family owned corporations are men of executive caliber all in all the remain camp were terrible no matter what might be going on around them managers at a conference table and listen to an exchange of ideas without so much as having their hand or revealing that they have a failing or an emotion creating an image of say mass of response under all circumstances practices one o'clock they'll hour has become the number one ritual of our american life because after falsifying or restraining our reactions all day long there is need for some release imminent release that is

chemically induced george eliot speaks when she writes it is an uneasy a lot of grass to be what we call highly talk and yet not to enjoy that the president got this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungary shivering sell never even before he was asked by the glory we behold never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed of the vividness of the thought the author of a passion the energy and action but always to the scholarly and uninspired douglas some ancient greek as observant behind the big mass gunman speaking trumpet there must always be our poor little i used to being out as usual and our camera slips more

or less on their anxious control they're following us to belong in vegas the environment of the home why is it that we are so i'm able to share our inmost needs and hurts with those we love the most why is it that so frequently what passes for dialogue in our homes is nothing more than two monologues hurled at each other stephen colbert here when the man goes out in the morning and says goodbye i'm going to the rat race what he really means is goodbye to the rat race i'm going to something that will not require that idea so fully known but saddest of all this online

mash to be known to let the other person in as works it's harm in the life of the church when one looks at the list of events on what our why any church for a given week it cannot help but wonder where in this complex list of events and happenings an individual who had a great burden could be received i'm known and understood where it all at this camp race didn't take place where is there a women's society meeting and a where the rights and injured woman might return with the property could be heard and understood and received where is there a church school class that is law concerned with the pertinent question of a stove and then the matter of getting through what the lesson of the day

we have developed a very subtle onion elaborate way of getting one another at arm's length solid what used to be a very meaningful terms fellowship on mar has been reduced to a meaningless latitude in most congregations perhaps the epitome of what i'm getting out can be seen in the emphasis of your years ago the ministers were asked to observe and their counsel it was the rage for a while that we all engage in mind direct counseling bronx behind his desk properly and emotionally supported by a few moments leaning on the wall and as the console a big and for our tails sometimes a

deep anguish it was to remain at a separate leon involved than simply sit and now and then with an icy or an ah ha it is always saying to me that this approach is not only psychologically own sound but relied solely on where they are christian i can say vote no situation in which one might be related to another christian as the holy today on polling as the wise today on wire and there is much to be said for the kind of response in counseling which has now succeeded thank god this non directly they use a counselor a minister himself but the right time must be willing to be known you must be willing to acknowledge that is bolivar council is violent flash of his flesh

this is what happened that morning when the minister arrived in a study of eight o'clock and found a huge hulking steel salesman sobbing waiting for a chance to speak he had gone down to the sauce go on a river for a little fishing but rain had fallen and he had gone to a tavern there had met a woman and for the first time a compromised his marriage vows and he was afraid to go home the healing began in that counseling situation when the minister dared to suggest that anything that any other man has ever done a himself could do under similar circumstances and when it seemed good and proper that they should pray the minister of trade not for the man but with him the church is not a parade

ground where we start our virtues every time we get together the church's larger hospital in which we are all set a bonus segments and in that but for the grace of god i don't why am i normally well perhaps somewhat defensively you say well some are like that and some are some of us are open some are closed some of us or extroverted some of us aren't averted so what but not so quickly there's something more involved here than merely the casket one's personality are very integrity is at stake something as old fashioned and fundamental as our sincerity or sincerity is the duty to date for oneself and others whatever

one really good we used to sing a song years ago that didn't have a lot of gospel and i guess what i had some proof it would be true of those who trust me moreover it's conceivable that our neighbors good may rest on our ability to be open the joyride taking on other people which it either enabling or disabling if we stay locked up if we stayed all blocked in with an hour so if we review those to be known do list ban has been inhabiting effect

on the other person all at that time i very much wish a deeper relationship there's something wrong about us if we're chronically not at home no other people it whenever and one i wish to call albert the moon at least was honest when in the fall he said i live consequently without any other continuity than that from david ayer iii from day to day women from dated a virtue or voice from day to day like dogs when every day myself security mikos leslie says i progressed on the surface of life in the realm of words as it were never in reality all those books barely read

those friends barely loved those cities verdi visited those women barely process i went through their gestures out of boredom or absent minded mass then came a human being they wanted becoming what there was nothing to cling to and that was unfortunate for them as for me i forgot i never remembered anything but myself what a pity that one the neighbor asks the bread of our concern in conversation we should give him a stolen of our silent and indifferent it but most of all this and a willingness to be

no i'm comes down upon him to a denial of our very freedom in jesus christ knowledge is power and we hear this in all the time and in so far as i give you the knowledge of myself i am to that degree giving you power over me this is the fundamental reason why we are not willing to be known farmers are growing up on a small diner in upper michigan some boys were there looking for a sandwich but also trying to make a little time with a very attractive waitress behind the counter it shrank a generation gap a little for me to discover that the techniques of not changed over the years the opening fly was was very simply what they have to say your name was

very calmly the girl looked up and said i didn't say if she had said that she had said my name is margaret bubble i would have said you know i have an aunt margaret living in toronto they went out on a certain power over the second question where did you say you're from again i didn't say if he had said i'm from toledo surely would've spent some time in toledo in the past and again would argue that knowledge again a further entrance in a friendship and so where reserve when i will end of you know it's none of your business where i'm ticklish i'm not about to tell you what particular subject can raise my temperature almost instantly that for you to find out and so in that bottom we said is that

there is old palmer ability that being known and we prefer not to take the risk in this raises the question of whether love by its very essence those not imply a vulnerability one a lot when you think about it does not get us some of the ways we are where we are willing to unilaterally disarm it's true that sometimes is so vulnerable that its own life can be taken this was known to happen on across many years ago what is this not really the gospel in essence that we have really nothing to fear and being known for god or matters most and who knows us most deeply as chosen to receive an

acceptance you know the us down to the basement of our lowest thought and has not an afterthought well we are already has made us rep lowey are so there is he has justified us why his grave though we are disobedient he has blamed a call out to fund i don't know we would make a good beginning on about a world where we were we can honestly say i know my fellow employees and they know me if in our homes we can't honestly say i know my loved

ones and then known of them given our churches we could say in candor i know my brother in and the faith and unknown although who will to be honest before god i don't they wear where christ has made a brief but gracious god forgive us our reluctance to baby for others what we really are our role playing our image wearing party feat free us from our

misguided fear of honestly and uphold us why by grace that we made a better serve the nose omar has given us through jesus christ far more than a man if you would like a copy of dr campbell sermon on being willing to be known person at the close of the service of worship today the recession and those numbers sixty three martin discuss us with my blessing all in for