Service of Worship; 1970-09-13 Sermon copy by Eugene Carson Blake

the people's it's been the text is taken from the second episode of polo to the corinthians chapter eleven that's sonny lee simplicity but wars in christ

years ago lawrence houseman introducing might happen again day to a british audience saying you are so simple you baffled last us soldier since seattle you and biceps the same tribute can be paid the price for simplicity was one of the most striking features of his life his wants was simple thing to rio would conditions of his life he was not a man of property he knew

the value of money and what god like things can be done with it but he himself never break a cannon fodder it socrates when you looked into the shops of athens say how many things i can do without it was likewise with the man of nas and if he had been the slightest trace of the acquisitive instinct he was uneasy in the presence of luxury the intangibles well what mattered most and once he described himself as one who had nowhere to lay his head i'm glad that he lived in worldly possessions when he died was the seamless robe he wore in worldly possessions or otherwise

water own legacy he'd be queen ps i leave with you my piece i given to you not as a little give a divide onto you let not shot the troubled neither let it be afraid his speech was simple it was direct forthright news he avoided add subtract language and you just playing only workers it's not surprising that the common people have been glad late they could understand what he was talking about when he spoke to them about god and man and soon and forgiveness and life and death

and what comes after death he used familiar allusions the lilies of the field than gathering had chickens and their halloween it's a prosperous farm are booming down his barnes and building larger ones the prodigal son of a good father wasting his substance in riotous living the house of many mansions what he had to say was tying this was inexhaustible in its significance but rarely beyond the comprehension of the average man his speech was profound in content but simple informed in this christ is our example are we ought not to call a man the whinney is

monday we should live love simple speech as much as we should hate shadel superficial thinking john robinson one of the pilgrim fathers stayed as a new one although curiously turned is to be mistrust and soul is as speech everything was wired can be built into simple language and this speech is complicated it is a call to think again in a book about the christian faith written for a layman i came across this sentence the christian religion is a sense a press no sense of rapport with an author of values transcending but eminent in the material universe

and so they're by contrast the simplicity of christ when you pray he stayed say our father like his one else and this speech his fiance was simple profound but simple indeed he told theology right out of the hands of the ex pats and he brought it into the keeping of ordinary fork he watched fisherman and small town merchants and housewives receiving his teaching and broke out into a prayer of gratitude i think the old father margo heroin and death that the west and move these things from the wise and knowing one's and test revealed them and debate he

humanized theology what he had to say about god and theologies supremes subject will serve as an example he never used terms to describe lot like the absolute the infinite the omnipresent the omniscient in a speech that was no hint of the seminaries no academic terminology nothing academic scholastic impersonal indeed he felt the need of a new a distinctive name for god and four it didn't go to the corpse of things or cast about for a word to express majesty and might he preferred the risks of intimacy to the chew all the distance and gave us the name father

nothing could be more simple nothing could be more natural than that it's the language of the land and the fireside with no hint of a problem to be solved or imminent threat to be taxed but only the need of our trust in half and a steadfast love he had to christ is our example christian theologians have worked out an elaborate metaphysic lanai seeing green the passive than symbol b anthony see and cleaned off each a case in point that importance is not to be denied they agree at historical landmarks of christians thought they secured a central place for jesus and christians thought

and devotion that represent painstaking conscientious attempt to find adequate language for supplying drones at the time they were probably the best statements produce a ball by their framers nevertheless the atmosphere throughout is that of metaphysical abstraction and not a toll that of the st paul realities of normal personality the vocabulary has to do with hi possible to seize substances their senses nations the inevitable result being that although the theologians desired to be loyal the christ unto his gospel they lost touch with they lost interest in the simplicity of his life and teaching and set

forth the grape christian doctrines in a cds of highly ad spoofs propositions what is more what is was they insisted the dong acceptance all these propositions rather than on possession of the mind and spirit of christ the salvation of the human soul depended they substituted was that toxic for faith and a clean for a person instead of a simple purse no trust they demanded as a condition of salvation it to make sure less sent to theological formulations but god about who really theorize was not the father of our lord jesus

christ law when jesus spoke about going to keep pointedly into the hall and he told them to consider the waves of human love that its highest and its base or was remembering as they did so that the love of god is broader than the measure of man's minds the lesson for the christian church to date is is played and i'm not talking about something that was true eleven hundred years ago and more and doesn't happen to be the case know we're still suffering terribly from academic religion christianity is often made an unnecessarily complicated affair to many of its six points think of it more as a science to be studied then as a life to be lived of the

hundreds of books on christian doctrine that a pr yearly the greater proportion unintelligible only to those familiar with religious phraseology only to those who know that way about an historical theology and over the phone sounds of bombs thousands of sermons preached every sunday many are scholastic fool on a phraseology a remote from every day life one of the things that has struck me about comments made to made by lehman when they've been looking for a new minister has been less we want a man in the ping pong we can understand who will talk to us in a language that we can understand and who will be at paintings they help us to

understand it's not surprising really that in the minds of the masses of ordinary people there is an impression that christianity on its theological site is beyond that understanding and little concerned with everyday life we need to get back for the simplicity that was in crisis on this reclamation sunday will you consider with me another matter the simplicity of law the association into which graced brought his followers mark the first of the evangelists there was as he called the twelve that they might be within and that he might save them for the week they would a society or for eons became

among them as a current from fellow come from preaching only a religion in the inner circle of his followers there was not a single priest for that matter i wonder whether you've pondered this only twice that he himself used the word church only twice and the new testament scholars who raise a question as to the authenticity of both passages where the term will curse and the wonder i asked themselves when it ever intended to fall much set in the sense of the hierarchical and for electrical institution he placed himself deliberately squarely in the prophetic lighting a warm manner of his life and teaching was prophetic the political and sass and local

parties of jerusalem sun came into conflict with him as their forebears had done with the profits away before him and he made no attempt whatever to conciliate than he treated the institutional religion of his tying with all the indifference of a prophet the hierarchy which like other high iraqis had assured instinct in this sending a dangerous opponent was not sold to declare war against him to the knife fight efforts and these frames new they're enemy at once his arise would only mean they're full what he still thought was the very

antithesis of what police stood for he was not regular he was not an institutional man he was not given to consulting the authorities he was not sound in the traditions to flatten him into into subservience was hopeless the band in by threats was the last of impossible things they had no recourse but to have him to note well contrast with the simplicity of the association into which christ brought his followers the title the church which emerged in the costs of the century a hierarchical corporation took the place of the society or friends and the spirit of jesus christ was

harold to have become incontinent in an imperialistic institution it was held to have inspired that institution with an infallible wisdom to have invested in it divine writes among the right to dispense the saving grace of got through the store a legion of its officers the church of christ became not the federation of democracies which is what the little congregation was in a new testament period where but that centralized monolithic like the holy roman empire the bishop of rome for rome was the seat of empire was raised above all other bishops and

placed in the dazzling position all theater of christ on earth the divinely appointed spiritual ruler all the whole christian wearing the charge given to a pole at his coronation mark that word carnation reads the us know that though are a father au princes and kings the lord over the earth that representative in the world of our savior jesus christ and shot the church became the air of the roman empire now is it any wonder that reform was martin luther something that calvin knox office themselves and this

be the church as christ designed it so they tend to the new testament and they started the account they're provided all the life and ministry of the man of nasa all the founding and initial character of the church and as they raped and really good the primary documents of the christian religion they discovered that price so far from establishing the principle of a religious hierarchy abolish they discovered that he deliberately praised police themselves not in the priestly but in the prophetic succession he did not institute a priest whom he did not set up a sacrificial coat he got them to vote in a band of disciples obviously intended and through

their agency to inaugurate a new kind of society with a new kind of character but first and foremost it was to be a society or free and they were a band of brothers and there was no pre sentence among them except in self denying service all over and all in one day and he warned against any claim to subpoena the arty our dominance over others one can imagine not to move the musing over passages in the gospel like please he said no and called the twelve if anyone wants to be thirsty said to them he must be lasting glow and serve and to vote and again you'd hold that the princes of the gentiles who love people

and they lead to great exercise or forty over though it shall not be so among you and again you were not to be called a rabbi want is your teacher you're all brothers and again you must not be called leaders for one is your leader even christ he who is greatest among you must be you often serve with just such passages in mind move them in his pamphlet address to the german nobility contrast in christ on flute with the poor carried on the shoulders of servants in a gorgeous patterns from

crisis was seeing the feed of his disciples with the pope having his feet case now i know that to speak of these matters even as the day of the dial fans still roman catholics and i am aware that there are protestants who feel strongly that in these days the emphasis should be placed on points of agreement as between roman catholics and protestants not on points of diversions yet a protestant minister on reformation son as a very plain duty to befall surely he has to expound to his congregation the protestant conception of the nature of that set off weeks they are members surely he has to expound the principles which are

the legacy of all the formation indeed did this for the wall all such exposition that so many of our young people within the protestant church grow up not knowing what the distinctive principles at the same time a protestant minister will go badly paid tribute to other aspects of the roman catholic church in the medieval period it was the preserver of culture for centuries not only religion but education and art and music and the care of the sick and the destitute have been its loving concern and in every century in a way that shameless many protestants it has inspired it has nourished and the source of monk kitchens and gentle and a truly christian piatt pope pius the

twelfth was a humble and dedicated them sink in a personality moreover we protestants to have departed from the simplicity that was in crisis we need a new reformation sectarian divisions over two hundred and fifty a protestant denominations in the united states a sectarian divisions are indefensible in times like these when civilized nation is engaged in a race with catastrophe when the basic principles of the christian faith are widely challenge to and for that matter over the greater part of the earth expressly repudiate how can we expect people to believe are claiming that the church can heal the divisions of the nation's when

we ourselves are so lamb timberlake divided yes and our secularism and worldliness are indefensible in protestantism are our standards are mostly quantitative that church buildings big congregations big organisations big budgets by such right ed on the success of a minister the success of a church is measured and our appeal principle is to the middle class we inclined to equate christianity with conflict and and with prosperity many of our churches actually are really just clubhouses the section winship is a gratification look what has to be done for us if we have to be induced to come to set

are our church worship is a gratification and so the most exercise so that an observer has criticized the majority of protestants as sermon sexual rated patrons leaving remaining within an institutional church on his life reserving the right to criticize it frankly and mercilessly saying not once not twice but many times that it was a society of friends that was closest to the mind and spirit of the mosque there the name wrote a little book conn protestantism from which i quote one brief potter the ironies of history of course will and they support the contention that all institutions tend to develop into them all course it's

the catholic church which in the name of the mass offered a patient harrowing purely passive resistance to the prosecuting secular power all from a clique ish and in the ireland pretensions all the hildenbrand puritanism which with equal sincerity preached the sinfulness of law self indulgent expenditure ended in producing the mandates off the american process rightly considered these two examples show how we're at the devil is to capture organize asians formed to defeat him and when he has succeeded in heaven changes the labels

so a lot of the protestant denominations would build anyway the day i leave out of the book off the society of friends in the simplicity of them like their speech then we're sure and their uncompromising condemnation of law in their social concern and social service in their freedom from institutionalist and ecclesiastes kisses in there i'm concerned about numbers in their belief in the nearness of god to the human soul without any time eg and that belief in the grace of god

as our life giving and i'd say within reach of every individually everywhere they're mindless of the simplicity that was in price the iowa for another quotation many a time i put it on the front is beasts of the calendar but today when we're thinking of the simplicity of it was in crisis it's appropriate here is a man who was born in an almost pure of image the child of a peasant woman he worked in a cop and to show until he was thirteen and they enforce it is he was an itinerant preacher he never

audible he never held an office he never warmed only he never had a family he never went to college he never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born he had no credentials but himself while still young man the tying of popular opinion turned against him his frames that only one of them denied and he was turned over to his enemies he went through a mockery of a trial he was nato them on a cross between two themes his executioner is gambled for the only piece of property he had our math while he was living his school then he was taken down and laid in a ball rolling

green through the love of a friend nine teen wide centers have come and lawn today he is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress i am thought within the mile when i say that all the armies that ever mocked and along the navy's that ever where built and a lot of the parliaments that ever sat and a lot of butt please that mr arraigned we have not afforded the life of man upon this earth a direction as great as that sort of a

simple life better sprays became the purpose be oh god let thought no tend to prayer and prayer to resolution and since impressions are transients and fleeting khan salman us every hire is always but here has visited us amen is

be