1 10 5 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/b6b43116d1d10ebdb3b096c1f4a22009.pdf 45ab7d0cf038394465fcce06221cbed9 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-164_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University It is our great and blessed fortune that our lives are never left to themselves alone. We are visited in ways that we can't understand and in ways that are beyond our understanding by highlights, great moments of inspiration, quiet reassurances of grace, simple manifestations of gratuitous expressions of the goodness of life. These quiet things enrich our common life and give to the ordinary experiences of our daily grind a significance and strength that steadies and inspires. We are also surrounded by the witness of those others whose names may be familiar to us, whose strivings have made possible so much upon which we draw from the common reservoir of our heritage, those who have carried the light against the darkness, those who have persevered when to persevere seemed idiotic and suicidal, those who have forgotten themselves, and the full and creative response to something that called them beyond the furthest reaches of their dreams and their hopes. We are surrounded also by the witness of the life of the spirit in peculiar ways that speak directly to our hearts and to our needs, those men and women who walk the pages of the holy book, those men and women with whom, in our moments of depression and of despair and in our moments of joy and delight, we identify as we sit now together, feeling each other's presence very near. We are grateful to thee, our Father, for all of the springs of joy and renewal and recreation that are our common heritage and our common lot. And we offer in thanksgiving to thee the fruits of our little lives that they may, in turn, be to those others whose names we do not know somewhat of strength and inspiration that, apart from us, they may not find fulfillment, and apart from them, we may not know ourselves. We thank thee, our Father, for so holy a privilege. And we offer our thanksgiving and our dedication as our response, not only to thee but to the life which is ours. We are continuing our thinking together about the moment of crisis, and we are considering the significance of this kind of experience in the life of Paul, the Apostle of Christ. Set your hearts on the higher talents, says Paul. And yet I will go on to show you a still higher path. Thus, I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels. But if I have no love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I am a prophecy, fathom all mysteries and secret law. I may have such absolute faith that I can move hills from their place. But if I have no love, I account for nothing. I may distribute all I possess in charity. I may give up my body to be burned. But if I have no love, I make nothing of it. Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy. Love makes no parade, gives itself no airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful. Love is never glad when others go wrong. Love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient. Love never disappears. As far prophesying, it will be superseded. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will be superseded. For we only know bit by bit and we only prophecy bit by bit. But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I argued like a child. Now that I am a man, I am done with childish ways. At present, we only see the baffling reflections in a mirror. But then it will be face to face. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At present, I am learning bit by bit. But then I shall understand as all along I have myself been understood. Thus faith and hope and love last on, these three. But the greatest of all is love. Make love your aim, and then set your heart on the spiritual gifts. And then this. I would know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, with my nature, transform to die as he died to see if I, too, can attain the resurrection from the dead, not that I've already attained this or am already perfect. But I press forward to appropriate it because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus. The moment of crisis is the experience through which an individual passes when he is caught in the grip of two forces moving in opposite directions, one force seeking always to maintain the balance, that is the familiar experience, to maintain the status quo, to conserve, to hold the line, to dig in, and the other to go forward, to take a step that has not been taken before, to move into an unexplored area, to change. To think of this basic idea in the life of Paul, the Apostle of Christ, is for me, personally, very illuminating, but because of my own background, a very difficult one. In order that you may not guess what I mean and, thereby, lose time, let me say very simply, when I was a boy, most of my life, my early life, I was raised by my grandmother, my grandmother who was a young woman at the time of the Civil War. And, therefore, all of her early adolescence, late adolescence, was spent in slavery. One of my chores as a boy was to write letters to all of the outlying members of our family, for my grandmother was the anchorperson. If you didn't know where anyone was, you simply wrote to her. She always knew where everybody in the family was. There came complaints from various members of the family because they found it difficult to read my writing. My grandmother, therefore, changed the chores. My sister, who wrote a very nice and refined and ladylike hand, became the letter writer, and I became the reader. One of the things that I had to do in addition to reading the letters was, of course, to read the Bible to my grandmother. She did not ever permit me, except under rare circumstances, to read from any of the Pauline epistles. Occasionally, she would let me read the chapter which I read to you this morning, the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I did not raise any question as to why as I grew up because my grandmother was a person with reference to whom you did not raise unnecessary questions. But when I went to college and came back home for a holiday, I was sitting on the front porch one afternoon, reading the Bible to her, and I asked the fatal question, the one that had been on my mind all through my childhood. Why is it, I said, that you do not ever let me read from any of the Pauline epistles? And she told me a very simple thing, that during the days of slavery on the plantation where she lived in North Florida, twice a year, the minister of the master would have religious services for the slaves. And at these services, each time, for as long as she could remember, he always preached to the slaves from the same text from Paul, slaves, be obedient to 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu your masters, for this is right in the Lord. And she purposed in our heart as a young woman that if freedom ever came or if she ever learned to read, she would not read that part of the Bible. This set a certain block in my mind. Now, there is another. And I do not wish to make anyone sensitive by what I'm saying about all of this. If so, it is too bad. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The other block, the thing that stands out in the end the religious experience of Paul was the overwhelming significance of the meaning of the cross, as we shall point out later, as the creative act of self-giving and redemption on the part of God. And literally, this became for me a stumbling block, because my memories of the cross were not related to Sunday school. They were these big wooden burning things in front of the school house down at the end of our street. At any time of tension when the Klan moved, the symbol of the Klan was the burning cross. So with these two handicaps moving at the center of my own adolescence, I had to work my way through many, many crucial experiences of turmoil and trauma to arrive at a place that I could contemplate the meaning and the significance of this figure without having it sotted and unclean and full of those things that make for brutality and war. Now, with that as a background, let us look at this tremendous figure. The first things that impressed me, all of this is preliminary to the moment of crisis, which I will make clear. Jesus was the founder of Christianity. But Paul was the first great creative interpreter of Christianity. It seems to me, as I read the record, that at no point in the moving and significant and, in many ways, unique religious experience of Jesus did he ever formally break with the religion of his fathers. It seems to me that he lived, experienced, taught, suffered, regarding himself always as the creative fulfillment of the meaning of the heart of the law and the genius of the covenant. Paul has a very different story. There came a moment in the experience of this man when the decision which he made resulted in a clear and definitive break with the religion of his fathers. There's one other thing that's important here. Jesus was a member of the Jewish community. And as a member of the Jewish community at that particular moment in human history, he was a man without the ordinary freedoms that would go with citizenship. He was circumscribed by the limitations of the community of which he was a part. He was not a citizen of the Roman Empire. Paul, on the other hand, was a citizen of the Roman Empire. And this is very instructive as a part of what seems to me to be the nature of the crisis in his religious experience. He inherited from his father, as is indicated by implication, a citizenship. This meant, you see, that he lived and moved and worked and functioned as a member of the Jewish community with the privileges of a citizen of the Roman Empire. Now, this is very crucial in my thinking. For it meant, you see, that even though by blood, background, culture, religious heritage, and social heritage to a large extent, he belonged to the Jewish community. But by this political or economic incident or accident of circumstance, he had the freedom that belonged to a person who is not a Jew in the Roman Empire but was a Roman citizen. And this must have had profound influence. How much, I do not know. I'm not wise enough to know. This must have had profound influence on the way he tended to look out upon the world. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University With whom would he identify, for instance? A simple question like that. With whom would you have identified? Suppose you were in a community in which all of the persons by whom you attired in terms of blood and so forth and so on and heritage were people who were not a part of the ordinary pre-suppositions of citizenship. But you were an exception. Would you identify with those who guaranteed your own emotional security by giving you a protection against the mindless brutality of the thoughtless members of the environment? Or would you identify with those who had no protection from such brutality as such? So if a Roman soldier pushed Jesus into a Palestinian ditch, it was just another Jew in the ditch. But if a Roman soldier pushed Paul into a Palestinian ditch, Paul could appeal to Caesar. And it is to the credit of the overwhelming power of Jesus Christ on his life that, according to our records, he appealed to Caesar only one time. But always here was something available. It's like having something in your hip pocket that you don't announce, but you know under certain very excruciating circumstances you might appeal to it and perform the miracle of freedom. Now, this was the part of the whole burden of the man. Now, he witnessed the death of Stephen, the death of Stephen. As Stephen was dying, according to the Book of Acts, being stoned to death, the clothes of the men who were doing this were laid at the feet of this man, Paul. And he watched Stephen die, being done to death by stones. And as Stephen is dying, he says, behold, I see Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. Is this man right? Is it true that the cross did not end the life of this man? Can a man, when he's dying for his faith, declare in that moment-- when there is nothing to be gained except inner damnation if he lies, can a man, under that circumstance, say what is not true? This was working away in the mind of Paul as he went on with his persecution, with his opposition. For, you see, if Stephen is right, then the whole structure and foundation upon which I'm standing, Paul may have said, must be re-evaluated, rethought, reinterpreted. And he must have had very searching questions to ask various Christians as he came in close contact with them, taking them to the places where they were incarcerated. How did it happen that you believe this? What is the key? Why? Why? Why? He watched then endure not with some sort of stoicism, but he watched them endure with a delight, a kind of holy glow in their countenance and without all of the normal and natural psychological recriminations and hostilities that would be engendered towards those at whose hands you are suffering radical violence. These people were different. Why? Can they be right? These were the things, I think, going on in his mind as he journeyed on the Damascus road. And there came a moment on the Damascus road when the thing happened. Hundreds of volumes have been written about what happened. But according to the simplest record, he had an encounter in which the crisis, which, in my judgment, had been building, now came to a point of tension that could not maintain itself without yielding one way or the other. He heard a voice say, Saul, Saul, why prosecutest thou me? Who art though, Lord? Here in simple language, as nearly as I can feel this, Paul discovered in his moment of crisis, bearing in mind how he defined crisis, that Jesus was not dead. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, let me go back as quickly as I may. A part of the religious heritage which he brought with him to this moment of crisis was this, that God is the creator of life and the King of the universe. He is moral will, a person with moral will. Second, that God created the whole world, that God reveals himself in time and space by a series of mighty acts. One act is the creation of the world. Another act is the creating of a community of people who are so sensitized that they can understand and respond and interpret his moral will so that they become, in that sense, a covenanted and unique community of all the peoples of the world, that creation is purposeful, that it is moving towards an event, which event is the coming of a messiah who, when he comes, will bring an end to all of the things that are out of balance and will bring an end to the age. And there will be a moment when the Kingdom of God and the life of God will be allenveloping. And those that are outside of that will not have even the dignity of a continuation of existence. But the messiah that would precipitate all of this had not come. And what Paul discovered in his religious experience was that the messiah had come, that he who was crucified on the cross and who had come back from the grave, this was the messiah. And now, the difference that it made in him was this, that unlike the religions by which his life was surrounded that had myths of the God being born of a human mother and a divine father and he lived and went back to where he came from, but always he was not quite a part of the warp and woof and struggle of human beings. Paul introduces an idea out of his experience, that God himself became articulate in the flesh, identifying himself with all of the dimensions of human life and human necessity and human need and human striving and human aspiration, and on the basis of that identification, tested by and act, a creative act of self-giving on a cross which opened the door not for a select community, not for the rich or for the poor, not for the sick or the well, but for all men to participate in the life of God at the level of his creative expression in time and space, namely Jesus Christ. Therefore, he says, as I live, for me to live is Christ. To die is gain. I would know him and the fellowship of his suffering and the power of his resurrection, that happily I, too, might experience the thing which he experienced, that I might so identify with him that the redemptive act of God coming in to time and space in a particular manner and behaving in this fashion, opening the way for all mankind to move down the long corridor to restoration of life and peace with him, that I might experience this and all men might experience it. Now, finally, what Paul does is to give out of the tensions of his religious experience a meaning to the cross which has made it through all the years since a symbol not only of self sacrifice and devotion and all manner of creative redemptive acts at many levels of human experience, but he gave to it a significance that no word of Jesus has. He gives to the cross a significance in the Christian movement that even the Sermon on the Mount does not. Suppose the sermon on the mount had the emotional impact and push and vitality and creative thrust that we find in the cross. The whole story of man's life in western culture would be a very different story. And the part of our job now is to put at the disposal of the terrific impact and creative power of the cross and all that goes with it the illuminated ethical significance and insight of the Sermon on the Mount. This is it. But they're divided. It would mean that, at the heart of Orthodoxy, there would be a concern for man that would make of the believer a living moment of redemption wherever he 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu moved and worked and thought and functioned and lived. It would not be the separation. And it is to this I think we are called to put at the core of all of the emotional insight and fervor and stability, if you please, that comes from the long and sustained and redemptive significance of the cross and the story and the religious experience of Christianity the words, love you, one another. Pitts Theology Library Emory University When you pray, do not use vain repetitions. But go to your closet and close the door, and there lay bare your heart to God. The lilies of the fields, the birds of the air, oh, how your Father loves them. Aren't you worth more than they? All men, how little you trust God. This is the combination in my judgement without which the human race cannot find redemption. And it is to this that we are called. Walk beside us, oh God, our Father, lest we stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. This is our cry. This is our boundless need. And we thank thee, our Father, that it is so. Dismiss us with thy spirit and grant unto us thy peace. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. [Note: Part 1 of the series is not available] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-164_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette "The Moment of Crisis" (Part 2-Paul and Part 3-Jesus) (Marsh Chapel), 1958 Feb 9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-164_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource The Moment of Crisis, Part 2: Paul, 1958 February 9 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-02-09 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Description An account of the resource In this second installment of The Moment of Crisis, Thurman considers the significance of the experience of crisis in the life of the Apostle Paul. In this lecture, the moment of crisis is defined as the experience through which an individual passes when he is caught in the grip of two forces moving in opposite directions, one force seeking always to maintain the balance, that is the familiar experience, to maintain the status quo, to conserve, to hold the line, to dig in, and the other to go forward, to take a step that has not been taken before, to move into an unexplored area, to change. This was evidenced in the life of Paul who functioned as a member of the Jewish community, yet still had the privileges of a Roman citizen. Similarly, it was on the road to Damascus where the duality of Paul’s identity would come into direct opposition, thus freeing him from his unbelief in Christ. Through his self-sacrifice and devotion, Paul gives additional significance to the cross in the Christian movement. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard balance Christ crisis Paul https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/38fedddb161c076e806fb6b32942c065.pdf 2a46f135225ed1e4c2749c7e3a432884 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-164_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University Oh, Sabbath, rest by Galilee. Oh, calm of hills above, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love. Drop thy still dews of quietness till all our strivings cease. Take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace. "How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, oh, God. How great is the sum of them? If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with Thee. Search me, oh, God, and know my heart. Try me and to know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Any explanation of Jesus in terms of the social or economic forces of His time must inevitably explain His contemporaries as well. Such analyses may explain why He was a particular kind of Jew, for instance, but it does not explain why the other Jews were not Jesus. And that is, after all, the most important question, since the thing that is most compelling about Him is not so much the way in which He resembled His fellows but the way in which He differed from them. It is reasonable to suppose that Jesus inherited the same traits as countless other Jews of His time. He grew up in the same society, the same traditions, pinnacled on the same funded prophetic insights. Yet He was Jesus, and the others were not Jesus. Often, we seek refuge in history or psychology or economics, and we are reluctant to face the problem that remains when history or psychology or economics has done its utmost. All three disciplines and others are useful in their way. The tragedy is in forgetting what that way is. In other words, the scientific mood does not imply that other moods are fatuous or futile. It does not hold that the truths-- it enables men to discover the only truth. The scientist knows too well that behind the symbols of mathematics and the formulae of chemistry and physics and the general rigid generalizations of psychology and the social sciences, behind all these lie the unexplained mysteries of twilight and music, of autumn nights fringed with silver, of human fortitude and human idealism. It is unnecessary, perhaps, for me to say that I am defining crisis as that experience through which the individual passes when he is aware of being pulled in two opposite directions. One direction is interpreted by him as being that which moves the head, explores new areas, territories in which he has not gone with his life and perhaps not even with his thinking. The other, the impulse that urges him to pull back, to stay put, to conserve, to hold the line against all change and all innovation against all that would disrupt and upset the equilibrium by which his life finds its present basis of emotional security. The point of crisis, then-- there may be many points of crisis. It is very difficult to look at any man's life and find what seems to you to be the point of crisis. But we have no choice about this. The second thing that must be borne in mind is this, that in the life of Paul, as we pointed out two weeks ago, when he faced the point of crisis, he resolved his crisis by breaking with the tradition of his fathers and by setting out on a perilous journey, which marked Him as the first great 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University creative interpreter of what has become in human history as a new faith. Now, Jesus resolved His crisis by refusing to break with the tradition of His fathers. And this has puzzled me as long as I have been aware of giving thought and feelings to the life of Jesus. And it has been more puzzling, perhaps, than for many, because He is so much a part of the simple experiences of life for me that I find that my mind and my spirit revolt against all of the demands that would make me give to Him a category of officialdom that would put Him out of the reach of the sense-- how to say this-- the sense of immediacy, of presence, up at handness that has characterized how I relate to Him. At the point of His crisis, the great decision was to remain a Jew in the synagogue, and in addition, to remain informally and intimately a member of the human race. And step by relentless step, as the dynamics of His inner religious experience began to unfold and grip His life and fashion His destiny, these two problems kept coming back again and again and again. When the curtain rises on His life, according to the oldest of the gospels, He's a grown man, an adult. There is a blanket of silence concerning those crucial months and years of His life when all of the powers of His mind and spirit were gathering their strength and laying their foundation for the future on the basis of which His life would be lived and His death would be His experience. The curtain rises. He's a grown man, says the gospel of Mark. And when He emerges on the scene, He is talking about the gospel of God. The first crucial moment as of record seems to me to be when He decided to be baptized of John. Here is the last of the prophets, a man concerning whom, as a preacher, perhaps the greatest tribute was paid to him that could be paid. He was just a voice in the wilderness. He was crying aloud that the time had come for repentance, that the people needed-- nay, must-- turn around, repent of their waywardness and their apostasy, acknowledge their sins, and come back to God. And as a symbol of this reordering of the life, He invited all and sundry to come outside the city along the banks of the Jordan and be baptized, for, says the book, the remission of your sins. Why did Jesus go to him to be baptized? Why? What must have been going on in His mind as He mingled with the crowd and listened to the stirring words of this flaming evangel? When He made His decision to be baptized, it meant two very important things in His life. First, it meant that He identified Himself with the most creative and significant religious and spiritual expression of Israel at His time. He identified Himself with this growing edge within Israel that the prophet John symbolized and summarized and announced. It also meant that He identified Himself with the people, with the skinned and cast down or the high and mighty, but all of this mingling mass of human beings who felt the stirring in their hearts in response to the message of God as expressed by the prophet. He mingled Himself with them. He cast His vote on the side of the people. As soon as He did this, He had an overwhelming experience of religion. The record says that as He was baptized that the heavens opened, and the spirit of God like a dove descended upon Him. But this was not all. He heard a voice say, that for which each human being throughout human history seeks-- you seek it. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I seek it. All men seek it, that [? one, ?] that at the moment when you make what for you is your basic decision, that you have a sense that the whole universe confirms you, that at your roots, you are right. He heard the voice of God say, I approve. I approve. You'd give all of your life for that moment to know that that which sustains the universe, that holds all life in balance, that which has out of creation itself has come. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That your little private life has an ultimate sanction, you'd stand anything else. All your life you're looking for this. We knock at every door wanting the deepest thing in life, to say yes. And this is the thing that happened to Him. And then the second point of crisis was near the end. He'd been walking and living in the light of this first one. So when He walked outside the city of Jericho with His little band of disciples, and He approached the forks of the road, one road going toward the city of Jerusalem, the other road going back to Nazareth-- and if I go back to Nazareth, I perhaps could settle myself in my hometown, become a general teacher and perhaps set up a new school, the logic of which perhaps would lead me out of Israel and out of the Jewish community, and I would be a wise and revered teacher and die in my bed. Or if I go to Jerusalem, I will have to decide all over again, under what conditions can I stay put in the Jewish community? For if I go to Jerusalem during the period of the feasts, and I will look and see all of the things that are going on in my Father's house that are, from my point of view and my experience, in violation of the covenant of God with Israel, in God's name, in the name of the God of Israel, I must clean out the place in His name. And to do this would mean to imperil my life. And I must be careful now as I do this, because I do not want to be killed in an alley. I do not want that some assassin will kill me in the dark street somewhere behind a wall. So every night at sunset, what does the book say? The book says that He and his little group of disciples went outside of the city to a secret place so that only during the daylight when whatever deed was done would be open to all men would He be exposed to the judgment that had been created by this position that He had taken to do what He did in the name of the God of Israel. So now, the rational clue to the betrayal-- if we can find Him at night, then we could do this without precipitating another kind of crisis. How can we find Him? We do not know His hiding place. But if one of His disciples will tell us-- and His disciple told them where the hiding place was. You remember. Whatever may be his reasons, it is not my purpose to sit in judgment on him this morning. But he told them where the hiding place was. How will we know Him in the dark? I'll kiss Him so we won't get the wrong man. Now, even at the end when He is dying, all the references that He utters on the cross are references that come out of the throbbing heart of His religious experience as a Jew. And when He says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do--" if I had been willing to withdraw from Israel and start out de nouveau with another religion competitive with Israel, there would have been no quarrel. But His tragedy was He insisted on staying. And the only way by which His problem could be resolved within the heart of the community was to eliminate His life. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, two things-- think about this. Meditate on it. Take a long, hard look at this most amazing of all living men and then see where, in the privacy of your own living, does the road on which He walked cross the path on which you are moving? And when you and He meet, talk with Him and see how it looks to Him. And perhaps you will find what a great contemporary has found when he says, He comes to us as one unknown without a name, as He came to the man by the lake side who knew him not. He speaks to us the same language-- follow Me. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils and the suffering and the joy through which they shall pass in His fellowship. And as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who He is. This is the privilege, for He stands at the gate of our censury, looking at the straggling multitudes who are trying to find the city of their God. And He says to each one of us, "be of good hope. It is your Father's wonderful joy to give you the kingdom. Oh, men, how little you trust my Father." Oh, Sabbath, rest by Galilee. Oh, calm of hills above, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love. Walk with us, oh, God, our Father, in the way that we take as we leave this place and whisper into our hearts all that we may need of strength and courage for the life that is ours. And this be for each of us, our Father, enough. [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) Oh, [INAUDIBLE] 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. [Note: Part 1 of the series is not available] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-164_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Internal Notes Notes for project team Not sure about "that [? one ?]", and [INAUDIBLE] is part of singing - GL 5/22/19 Edited - GL 7/29 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette "The Moment of Crisis" (Part 2-Paul and Part 3-Jesus) (Marsh Chapel), 1958 Feb 9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-164_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource The Moment of Crisis, Part 3: Jesus, 1958 February 23 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-02-23 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Description An account of the resource In this third installment of The Moment of Crisis, Thurman brings the life of Jesus into the conversation. The crisis is still being discussed as the moment in time when one senses he is being pulled in two different directions. One direction is interpreted as that which would move him to new territories physically and mentally. The other direction seeks to conserve and hold the line against all change. When Paul was met with a moment of crisis, his resolution came through breaking with the tradition of his fathers. When Jesus was met with a crisis, he refused to break with the tradition of his fathers. This decision to remain a Jew and stay the course ultimately ended at the cross. It is often in our moments of crisis where we have the power to make decisions that bring forth confirmation and hold our lives in balance. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard balance Christ crisis https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/fe56ed75ffe057b566fbb4162908f5d2.pdf ad5e90f212f7341b7a53622bae3b9f5f PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-609_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University Always we are filled with a strange sense of the mystery and the miracle of life in our private lives. We are mindful of so many little blessings. Some so intimate, so closely binding, that to us they do not seem to be blessings at all. The ability to get tired and to be renewed by rest and relaxation. The taste of food. The peculiar quality that only cool water has when we drink it. The tender reminders of the love of mother and father, of sister, of brother, husband, wife, of child. And the coming of daybreak, the experience of daylight, the intimate quality of twilight, and then the mystery of darkness. And all the dimensions of meaning that each of us finds in this cycle of movement that wraps us, and sustains us, and holds us with such security. The heritage, which is ours. Ideas, notions, values, all of the monitors of our behavior and our living that nudge us on the elbow when there is a fleeting moment that would lead us to disaster. And to those things that would make our lives sad and broken. For our land with its resources so abundant-- fresh vegetables to eat, climate that does not threaten too disastrously, the little wind breaks that we build against the weather. Beyond all of this, a sense of being upheld, cradled, by a feeling of strength that is not of our making. Something that gives to our lives a quality of integrity and meaning, which we did not generate. The whisper that comes in the heart telling us to lift up our heads and be of good courage. All of the benedictions of our lives, we remember them, Our Father, as we sit here, or wherever we are, remembering and waiting for the movement of Thy Spirit in our hearts and our minds. We offer to Thee, our thanks because we want to love Thee. We want to make of our lives the sacrament in Thy hands. Teach us how, Our Father. Lest our spirits die, and all the virtue disappear from our living. And we vanish as shadows in the dark. We do want to love Thee. Teach us how, Father. Teach us how. I'm continuing our thinking together about the moment of crisis. And this morning, the moment of crisis, in the life of Abraham Lincoln. I shall depart from what is customary, I think. I want to do quite a bit of reading this morning. First, I shall read from Benet's, John Brown's Body. This will establish the setting for what is on my mind. Then I will try to say all that I have to say and in 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 minutes. And then, the last part will be from the lips, from the pen, of Lincoln, himself. So I hope you will just be. "While I live and breathe, I mean to save the Union if I can. And by whatever means my hands can find under the Constitution. I put the Union first and last, before the slave. If freeing slaves will bring the Union back, then I will free them. If by freeing some, and leaving some enslaved, I helped my cause, I will do that. But should such freedom mean the wreckage of the Union that I serve, I would not free a slave." If I may insert something here-- I remember the first time I read this-- not this-- from this book, but the first time I read the words of Lincoln. Saying this, it exploded the myth that had been a part of that which nurtured me as a boy. And for 10 weary years of my life, I could find no place 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu in my mind and in my thought for this man. Because having been conditioned so early with such terrifying stories about what slavery was like, as it came from the lips of the people who had come through the experience, I could not understand how on earth, Lincoln, could say such a thing. Changes came and it may be that in the 12 minutes it would be clear, maybe not. Pitts Theology Library Emory University "All will have gone. I am a patient man. And I can wait like an old gun flint buried in the ground, while the slow years pile up like moldering leaves above me, underneath the rake of time, and turn in time to the dark fruitful mold that smells of Sangamon apples till at last there is no sleep left there. And the steel event descends to strike the live coal out of me, and light the powder that was always there. This is my only virtue as I see it. Ability to wait and hold my own, and keep my own resolves once they are made, in spite of what the smarter people say. I can't be smart the way that they're smart. I've known that since I was an ugly child. It teaches you to be an ugly child. It teaches you to lose the thing you love. It's sticks your roots down into Sangamon ground and makes you grow when you don't want to grow. And makes you tough enough to wait life out. Wait like the fields under the rain and snow." Then-- "I've never found a church that I could join. Although I've prayed in churches in my time, and listened to all sorts of ministers-- well, they were good men, most of them. And yet, the thing behind their words, it's hard to find. I used to think it wasn't there at all. Couldn't be there. I cannot say that now. And now I pray to you, and to you alone, teach me to know your will. Teach me to read your difficult purpose here, which must be claimed. If I had eyes to see, make me just. There was a man I knew near Pigeon Creek who kept a kennel full of hunting dogs. Young dogs and old, smart hounds, and silly hounds. He'd sell the young ones every now and then, smart as they were, and slick as they could run. But the one dog he'd never sell, or lend, was an old, half dead, foolish looking hound, you wouldn't think had sense to scratch a flea unless the flea were old and sickly too. Most days, he used to lie beside the stove, or sleeping in a piece of sun outside. Folks used to plague the man about that dog. And he'd agree to everything they said. No, he ain't much on looks, much on speed. A young dog can outrun him any time. Outlook him, and out eat him, and out leap him. But Mr, that dog is hell on a cold scent. And once he gets his teeth in what he's after, he don't let go until he knows he's dead. I am that old death hunting dog, oh Lord. And the world's kennel holds 10,000 hounds, smarter and faster and with finer coats, to hunt your hidden purpose up the wind and bell upon the trace you leave behind. But even when they fail, and lose the scent, I will keep on. Because I must keep on until you utterly reveal yourself and sink my teeth in justice, soon or late. There is no more to ask of earth, or fire, and water only runs between my hands. But in the air I look. In the blue air, the old dog muzzled down to the cold scent, day after day, until the tired years crackle beneath his feet like broken sticks. And the last barren bush consumes with peace. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I should have tried the course with younger legs. This hunting ground is stiff enough to pull the metal heart out of a dog of steel. I should have started back at Pigeon Creek from scratch, not 40 years behind the mark. But you can't change yourself. And if you could, you might fetch the wrong jackknife in the swap. It's up to you to whittle what you can with what you've got. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And what I am, I am, for what it's worth, [? hipple, ?] and legs, and all. I can't complain. I'm ready to admit you could have made a better looking dog from the same raw material, no doubt. But since you didn't, this will have to do. Therefore, I utterly lift up my hands to you. And here and now, beseech your aid. I have held back when others tugged me on. I've gone on when others pulled me back striving to read your will, striving to find the justice and expedience of this case. Hunting an arrow down the chilly airs, until my eyes are blind with the great wind, and my heart sick with running after peace. And now, I stand and tremble on the last edge of the last blue cliff. A hound, beat out, tail down, and belly flattened, to the ground. My lungs are breathless and my legs are whipped. Everything in me is whipped, except my will. I can't go on. And yet, I must go on. I will say this-- two months ago I read my proclamation, setting those men free, to [? Seward ?] and the rest. I told them then, I was not calling on them for advice, but to hear something that I meant to do. We talked about it. Most of them approved the thing, if not the time. Then Seward said something that I hadn't thought of. I approve the proclamation, but if issued now, with our defeats in everybody's mouth, it may be viewed as a last shriek for help from an exhausted, beaten, government. Put it aside until a victory comes, then issue it with victory. He was right. I put the thing aside, and ever since there has been nothing for us but defeat. Still no news. Oh, if I had eyes that could look into Maryland. If I could move that battle with my hands. No it won't work. I'm not a General. All I can do is trust the men who are. I'm not a General, no, I promise this-- here at the end of every ounce of strength that I can muster, here in the dark pit of ignorance that is not quite despair, and doubt that does, but must not break the mind. The pit I have inhabited so long at various times and seasons that my soul has taken color in its very grains from the blind darkness, from the lonely cave that never hears a footstep but my own, nor ever will while I am a man alive to keep my prison locked from visitors. What if I heard another footstep there? What if some day there is no one but God? No one but God who could descend that stair, and ring his heavy footfalls on the stone. And if God came, what would we say to him? That prison is ourselves that we have built in being so, it's loneliness is just. In being so, it's loneliness endures. But if another came, what would we say? What can the blind say, given back their eyes? No it must be as it has always been. But one thing I know, God is not a jailer. And I make a promise now to you, and to myself. If this last battle is a victory, and they can drive the rebel army back from Maryland, back over the Potomac, my proclamation shall go out at last to set those other prisoners and slaves from this next year, then and forever free. So much for my will. God, show me what is yours. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Ah, that must be news. Those footsteps in the hall, good news, or else it wouldn't come so fast. What is it, hey? Yes. Yes. I'm glad of that. I'm very glad. There's no mistake this time. We have the best of them. They're in retreat. This is a great day, Stanton. If McClellan, can only follow up the victory now. Lord, I will keep my promise and go on your will, and much still being dark to me. But in this one thing as I see it, plain. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And yet, if Lee, slips from our hands again, as he well may, from all those last reports, and the war still goes on. And still no end, even after this Antietam, not for years. I cannot read it. But I will go on. Old dog, old dog, settle to the scent, and with fresh breath now from this breathing space, Almighty God. At best, we never seem to know, Your Holy, but there is something left a strange last courage. We can fail, and fail, and fail, but deep against the failure, something wars. Something goes forward. Something lights a match. Something gets up from Sangamon County ground, armed with a bitten and a blunted ax. And after 20,000 wasted strokes, brings the tall hemlock crashing to the ground." A crisis is the experience in which a man passes. When he senses that he is being pulled in contrary directions by two forces moving in opposite directions. And he must go one way, or the other. To make the decision, sometimes means a repudiation of one's past, as in the case of the Apostle, Paul. To make the decision, sometimes means the confirmation of one's past, as in the case of Jesus of Nazareth. With Abraham Lincoln, the crisis came when he had retired from politics, against his will somewhat, after having served one term in the House of Representatives, put all of his weight on the wrong side, and was repudiated by his constituency. And he goes back, having shopped around in Washington, to see if he could land something. Keep him going back home. Which is-still-- well, which does happen. But he couldn't land anything. He couldn't even have anything to say about the patronage. So he went back home and began the practice of law all over again. He was not a brilliant man. He was a plotter. A man with a wealth of stories and humor. A man who was deeply, deeply ingrained in the insight of the Founding Fathers. Because it is through them he felt that this country had been projected. And one of the most important and exciting things about it was that the nature of the freedom which had guaranteed. That there was no ceiling for the individual that was established by the state. This is important. He was attending to his business during this lull after his experience in politics-- practicing, reading all the things he could get his hands on. The familiar picture that is given, as you recognize. Having his horse set in the road that would go to the next town. He didn't have to guide the horse. He could simply settle back in the buggy and read. And then, this horse met another horse. He recognized him as his cousin. And they greeted each other and they went on. Lincoln was understood. Now, this was making of him a very good lawyer and he was making some money. As a matter of fact, one of his peak years, he made as much as $2,500. And many years ago that was a lot of money because it's a lot of money today. Now he lived with the other lawyers. You know, they travel-- they made the circuits, you see. And you didn't have hotels in those days. So you lived in 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu boarding houses. Sometimes as many as seven or eight lawyers would be sleeping in one room, two in a bed, during court. Pitts Theology Library Emory University All the time, Lincoln, was deepening his sense of history as affecting American life. And then-then, something happened. Douglas, who was in the Senate, and was the chairman-- he was in the congress and was the chairman of the Territorial Committee. Reported out of his committee, a bill, which opened up Kansas and Nebraska, finally, as territories. And these territories-- into these territories, it would be possible for slavery to go. Now if this is successful, then it would mean that, that interdiction which was a part of the Missouri Compromise would be waved aside and slavery would be given a new lease on life. For it could invade territory that was being opened up. And then, at last, it could go anywhere, Lincoln felt. And this, in his judgment, was a violation of the mind and the spirit and the will of the Founding Fathers. For they took into account, says Lincoln, and the other men, about his time, who felt the same way. They took into account the fact of slavery, but they thought that if they could confine slavery to a certain area, and freeze it there, then if it had no, no way by which it could expand, it would die on the vine. Whether this was right, or wrong, was beside the point. But this is the way they felt. And therefore, when Lincoln saw that this whole new territory would be opened up, and that slavery would move out now, and begin to grow, and develop, and finally become the universal in America, he said, I was shaken to my roots as I have never been shaken before. And I knew that I would have to put all of the weight of my mind, and my resources, and my experience, on the side of the meaning of freedom under the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and I could not, any longer, afford the luxury of merely withdrawing from the fray and being a practitioner of the law at the bar. And so, we find him now, snatched up by what seemed to him, rightly or wrongly, to have been the movement of the hand of destiny interpreted by this man who was not a churchman, as the act of the will of God on his life, that sent him out now to engage in the fray to put-- to do everything that he could to save the Union, which to him meant, to save freedom not only for America, but for all the world. And when he stepped out in to these debates with Douglas, with this basic commitment becoming now the hard core of his purpose, and feeling that in so doing, he was no longer Abe Lincoln, but he was the living instrument in the hands of him who controlled the destiny of America, and who controlled the freedom of all peoples in the world. When this happened, a dam broke in his spirit and in his life. And what was dead pros, a kind of homespun, wooden pros, becomes now, shot through with the kind of glory that makes his words carry the majesty of prayer. Listen to the words. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives, that, that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our powers to add or detract. The world will little note, or long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have thus, so far, so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." And then, at a later time, on the occasion of his second inaugural, fellow countrymen at the second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail of a cause to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs attention and grosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself. And it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all with high hopes for the future. No prediction in regard to it, is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it. All thought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the union without war, insurgent agents were in the cities seeking to destroy it without war. Seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war. But one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive. And the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves. Not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, to perpetuate, and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude of the duration which it has already maintained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and prayed to the same God. And each invokes his aid against the other. 6 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we do not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come. But woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses, which in the Providence of God, must needs come. But which having continued through his appointed time, he now wields to remove. And that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the war due to those by whom the offense came. Shall we design, there in, any departure from those divine attributes which the believers that are living, God always ascribed to him? Fondly, do we hope. Fervently, do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood drawn from the last shall be paid by another, drawn from the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, the judgments of the law are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in. To bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his offer. To do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Our hearts are deeply stirred, and our mind refreshed by this witness of the movement of Thy spirit in the heart of a man, Thy Father. Grant that in the way that we take, we shall do no violence to that spirit. That is the things that we control, and in the things that control us, we may be able to bring joy to Thy heart. And praise to Thy name that the time may never come when Thou shalt be ashamed of us, oh, living Father of Thy living children. [ORGAN PLAYING] (SINGING) Amen. Amen. Amen. 7 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. [Note: Part 1 of the series is not available] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-609_A.html" ></iframe> Internal Notes Notes for project team Edited - GL 7/6 Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Moment of Crisis, parts 4 and 5, 1958 Mar 2, 9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-609_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis, Part 4, 1958 March 2 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-03-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Description An account of the resource This installment of Moment of Crisis focuses on Abraham Lincoln. Thurman shares an excerpt from President Lincoln’s memoir that speaks to the personal crisis he faced as he grappled with whether slaves should be freed in the interest of saving the Union. Lincoln, heavily influenced by the founding fathers, believed that slavery was a violation of the mind, spirit, and will of the founding fathers. Still, those who embraced slavery and those in opposition of slavery understood that lives would be lost should the country go to war. The implications if emancipation as it relates to the Confederacy are woven into this lecture as well. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard America choice crisis slavery https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/1d0748632d1a627702a4d6840118a6c6.pdf facab5a3b9992671198afd4726de11a2 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-609_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University As we sit together in the quietness, each of us is involved in the great private intimacy of his own experiences. Experiences that are fresh in our minds because they are still present in our lives. And there are those moments when we have wrestled with some great weakness and have failed in our effort in its conquest. But we have not given up. And we gather strength in this moment of love that we may pick up the struggle again when this hour is over. Those experiences in which we have been disciplined, encouraged, we have watched our own fears mount and measure us, and move in to rule and dominate our days. And out of the depths of our own spirit, some new dimension of strength has come. And we have not been defeated the courage that is born in us as we have lived with loved ones whose burdens and whose wearinesses have overtaken them in the journey. And we would help, but do not know how. Would say the right word, but do not know what. And we have sat in the silence with them until between us and them has been born a new dimension of communication and strength so that we are deeply satisfied, and the load is eased. Those experiences that are ours because these times are ours-- times of great violences, times of great confusions and disorders in our own land and in the world. And we do not know how to relate to these things in any way that will give a witness to our private concerns and our personal desires. And we live in the midst of these things, trusting and hoping that the time will come when we will find the place at which we may register our resources, our mind, our disciplines, our spirits to the end that where there is chaos, there will be peace. Where there is disorder, there will be order. Where there is bitterness and hatred, there will be love. And thus, our Father, we offer the raw materials of our living on Thy altar in this moment of waiting in Thy presence. Brood over the stuff of life that we share with Thee until it becomes fully responsive to Thy will, and our private thoughts, and our private hopes, and our private desires may be illumined and enlarged, and become one with Thy great hopes and Thy great desires for Thy children. This is somewhat the way we feel, our Father, as we wait in Thy presence. Accept these stirrings as our living sacrament to Thee, our Father. God does not release us from the battle, but He shares the fate. He does not set us free from the possibility of pain and tears, but He feels the hate of our wounds, the salt bitterness of our sorrow. He spends Himself not only with us, but for us, and in the travail of redemptive passion, anticipates the victories of the spirit. We are never to forget that we are all so tied up in one bundle that peace and reconciliations in which others are not involved are quite impossible. The note of service must be deepened, and in our care for those who lie wounded or broken along the road, we shall forget our own wounds and our own wearinesses. So conceived, so reinforced, life is never impossible, but does indeed become an adventure whose greatness is its own best justification, and whose difficulties may become-- for the faithful and the discerning-- but stares of assent to radiant and to triumphant regions. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University We are continuing our thinking together about the moment of crisis, the simple definition upon which we are operating in our thought. Is this that crisis for the individual, is the experience through which he passes when he is aware that his life is the battleground between two forces, one moving ahead into the unexplored, the untried, the unknown, the other, pulling back to establish anew the status quo to hold that which has been gained from the past and conserve it, and freeze it. The crisis is resolved, and the individual says yes to one or to the other. There is something very awesome about the living of one's individual life, because there is a sense in which the things that you do or that I do seem to be the result of choices which we make. Deeds seem to spring from the movement of the individual mind, and decision, and desire, so that the measure of responsibility for the individual act, for the integrity of the act, is boundless and absolute. That's on the one hand. On the other, the private life of the individual seems-- whether he realizes that or not-- to be that individual's response to some movement, some social force, some concept which did not arise in his own mind or in his own experience, but is a part of the climate in which he lives, a part of the great apparently-impersonal ends towards which all life moves. There is a sense in which the individual's life seems to be manipulated as if he was some puppet. Another sense in which your life and my life seems to be independent, and indigenous, and free. We see this illustrated-- and I will the point, if you're patient. We see this illustrated when we watch a Greek play, for instance. The characters who are acting on the stage seem to be making their own decisions. They act that way. They seem to be responsible. Involved in ends which they foresee, and sometimes which they anticipate. But those who look at the play also see that above the stage-- in a sense-- the gods are at work. And the gods are really pulling the string. Agamemnon thinks that he decided this, but the gods pull the string and Agamemnon moved as if he moved himself. Now, this is the background for our thinking together about the application of this principle of crisis, and in the life of the great unknown prophet of the exile. He is known in some circles, technically, as Deutero-Isaiah, the second Isaiah. The Jewish community had been taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. Only a handful of people were left. Jerusalem was destroyed. There was a prophet down there in Babylon, Ezekiel, who wrestled with the problem, can Jehovah be with us when we are no longer in Jehovah's territory? And he comes forward with the great insight that God is not local. That God is not Earth-bound. And the logic of that, of course, is that God is not national. What a hard time the human race has had with this. God is a Protestant. He's a Catholic. He's a Hindu. Well, that's an aside. Now to go on. There came a change in the situation there because Nebuchadnezzar died and someone else came into power. And this person who came into power thought that he should deal a little more kindly 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu with captive peoples, for Nebuchadnezzar had kept the Jewish king in jail 37 years. And the new king said, perhaps if I can grant more freedom to the people who are captured, then they will have the kinds of stakes in the established order that will generate a dimension of loyalty and dependability. So he let Jehociachin come out of prison and invited him to be a guest in the palace. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, the unknown prophet of the exile was watching all of this at a distance, for he-- remember- was in Jerusalem, in Judah. He wasn't down there, but he could watch it all. And he began to brood over his destiny, and the meaning of life, and the meaning of Israel. And he saw that when the change in the historical circumstances had opened up a way by which the fulfillment of one of the mighty acts of God could be realized-- namely that this separate and special community with whom God had the covenant, this community, because it had an insight into the true meaning of God, would be saddled with the responsibility to become the tutors of mankind, to give to them, growing out of their own experience, the benefit of the knowledge of the true God. This was their role. This was their responsibility as one of the mighty acts of God. So what happens to this dream, you see, when there is no central place of worship? Jerusalem is gone, and you can't teach if you don't have some sort of center. So that when he saw that it looked as if the king was going to let the people free, then he was sure that the movement of the spirit of God in the people would make them respond to the announcement that now is your opportunity to come home. Come back to Jerusalem, away from all of these places where you have been scattered, and rebuild the city, and establish a central place of worship out from which you may go as evangelists all over the world teaching about the true God. He could hardly wait for the great tidal wave to come. And what happens? You can guess if you don't know. They didn't do it. They were comfortable in Babylon and these other places. They had made the adjustment to the culture. They had found a way of living and thinking in the community. And this meant uprooting themselves and going back to Jerusalem. And the prophet had felt that the hand of God was at work in the scattering of the people because, you see, if they are to become the teachers of the gentiles, if they are to become the teachers of all of the peoples of the Earth, then it is important that they know something about the habits of psychology, something about the way in which the different peoples of the world think and feel so that there would be an orientation to their minds, and from within the framework of that orientation, you would know where the growing edge is in their minds. And you could apply, then, the exposure of the wisdom and the insight of the true God to this growing edge. And this is the way the knowledge of God is to cover the Earth. But it didn't happen. And the prophet, in his first great crisis, felt that perhaps he had been mistaken. The ends that he had set up for Israel were just wishful thinking. That God was at work, yes. And he thought God was at work in history when God inspired Cyrus to open the way. And even though Cyrus was a pagan and didn't know anything about Jehovah, Jehovah can use anybody. But it all collapsed. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University And then a new idea came into his mind as he sought to work his way out of the crisis. And this is the idea. That the people, even within the Jewish community, there must be a sharp line drawn between those who are responsive to the will of God and those who are not responsive to the will of God. And up to this time, he was sure that to be born into the Jewish community meant, ipso facto, I will be responsive to the will of God and to the purposes of God, and be sensitive to God's ethical and moral will. But now, a new principle emerges. No, the thing that makes the true Jew the true Jew is not anything that is organic. It is not anything that is cultural. It is something that is spiritual. It is the experience of the knowledge of the true God to which the individual responds. This is the thing that makes him unique. Therefore, the logic of it is, any man who responds in this way to the moral will becomes unique. And the door is open now for the application of something brand new-- a great and creative concept of universality. But this is far ahead. When the prophet found that the people did not respond, and that he had to rethink the whole thing, he was depressed. God had failed him and the world. Or he had misunderstood God. Or that he himself was a victim of pride and arrogance to think that he-- just this little man-- would be in a position to understand the great creative movement of the will of God in the world. And brooding over this, looking at Israel, looking at the people, the handful of people who had come back, how can God make teachers out of this miserable-looking group of people? Even God can't perform a miracle like that. And it was then that he made what perhaps is the greatest, or at least one of the greatest spiritual discoveries that the mind of man has ever made. And what was it? That if, in response to this shift on the political scene, all of the people had come pouring back to Jerusalem to establish the temple and to set up the process for the evangelization of the world, anybody who watched that could have said, God didn't do that. It was simply the response to the dynamics of human history. It will require nothing creative to do this. But if God can take people who are weak, who had very little to offer except their commitment, if He could take them and let them become the creative tutors of mankind, if He could make them so aware of the meaning of their mission in the world that they would take upon themselves all of the suffering, and all of the brutality, and all of the sin and the wickedness and immorality of mankind and absolve it as a part of their commitment to the moral ends of God, then they would reveal that it is only through suffering, through identification with the most abject needs of mankind that the spirit, the redemptive spirit of the living God can be operative and be effective. In other words, what he discovered was what the individual discovers here and there as he lives along. There comes a time in your life, or my life, when the situations with which we have to do are so overwhelming that we know that we cannot reduce them to any kind of manageable unit of control. The suffering through which we pass seems unrelieved, and there is no way by which 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu we can get a handle to manipulate it so that it will no longer be the force of destruction that divides the mind and tortures the spirit. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And then, in the midst of this, sometimes the individual makes the great discovery that the peace that passes understanding is a peace that comes when the pain of life is not relieved. It is the peace that comes shimmering on the crest of a wave of pain. It is the spear of frustration transformed into a shaft of light. This is what the prophet found. So he talks. He talks about the new role. And as I conclude this, let me read what he says, because this is the-- He says, "Behold, my servant shall prosper. He shall be honored and greatly exalted, for his face was marred more than any other, and his visage then the children of men, so shall the mighty ones be startled at him. Who would have believed it? And to whom was the Lord's arm revealed? For he grew up as a slender shoot before us--" this is what the other nations of the world are saying as they look at this little handful of people. "--as a root out of the arid ground. He hath no form nor charm that we should notice him. No beauty that we should admire him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain. As one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Yet it was our woes that he bore, and our sorrows that he carried while we accounted him punished, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. On him fell the testament that made us whole, and with his stripes were we healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned away, each to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the penalty, charged upon him the guilt of us all. And then, this is his comfort. When his life shall make atonement for sin, he will see his seed will prolong his days, and the Lord's purpose will prosper in his hands. He will see the fruit of his mortal travail. In knowing himself true will he be satisfied. My servant will bring many to the right, for he will carry their sins." This is the heart-- it seems to me-- of the great dilemma. When the individual is no longer involved in ends which to him are just private and personal ends, but when the ends that are meaningful to him become ends that transcend his little life that have to do with the destiny of a race, the destiny of a nation, the destiny of mankind, and he has to live as a private human being, eating, sleeping, involved in all of the crud dimensions of ordinary living. And at the same time, he may be aware that his life is a part of a movement, the ends of which extend far beyond the length and breadth of his lifetime. And he has to try to give the kind of meaning to his little experience that is sensed by him when he becomes one with what, to him, is the destiny of mankind. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And when this happens to you, when this happens to you, then nothing that involves the human race is alien to you. The weaknesses become your weaknesses. The sins become your sins. All of the blind stupidity that wrecks the collective life or the individual life, this becomes yours. You no longer are privileged to detach yourself from an increasing involvement in the collective destiny of mankind. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And this means, you see, that at one level of your life, you have a sense of emotional security. Because emotional security simply means the experience of having your needs satisfied. As a private person, you have this sense of emotional security. Another dimension of your life, the degree to which you become involved, you sense some ultimate meaning in life, and the need to experience the fulfillment of that. This cannot be bound by any interval of time, so that one side of you leaps ahead and resolves the crisis created by living into a time that is not yet. Another side of you pulls back. I love my family. I love my little world. I love all the little tranquilities that lull me into peace. I don't want to disturb this-- so the tension. And that's why-- that's why it is always a terrible thing whenever the spirit of a man is exposed to ends and movements and destinies that swing out beyond the length and breadth of his little life. And it is so much easier to eat, sleep, work, love, die than to sense the winds that blow from distant shores and know that the set of your sail must be there. There is a quality of suffering in this that must be the constant persistent experience of the living God. I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me that it's better not to see the light than to see it and then try to be content with your little darkness. I don't know. Walk beside us, our Father, and the way that we take, and grant unto our spirits the quality of peace Thou dost deem we need and can abide, this day and forever and ever. [CHURCH CHOIR VOCALIZING] 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. [Note: Part 1 of the series is not available] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-609_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Moment of Crisis, parts 4 and 5, 1958 Mar 2, 9, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-609_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis, Part 5, 1958 March 9 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-03-09 Description An account of the resource In Part 5 of this lecture series on crisis, Thurman examines the tension between the private life and the transcendent experience. We have boundless freedom and responsibility over our own lives, but we may come to a point where we identify, not just with our individual destiny, but the destiny of humankind as a whole. Thurman suggests that it is through this expanded sense that the spirit of the living God can operate. On one side, we are drawn into transcendent goals bigger than ourselves; on the other, we are lulled into the peace of our little lives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/bb8ff75e35c3209c2a7a42933af6f70b.pdf a6cfe4bc5ba35cf4f114c68dc5e74d3b PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu ense394-610_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University There is a strange and wonderful delight in being unrecognized and anonymous in the midst of the traffic of life because this seems to give to us a kind of freedom to live and function without responsibility. If we are not known, there is no one to call us to task, no symbol of responsibility, which we are under obligation to recognize. There is a strange satisfaction in the contemplation of the freedom to do as one pleases with no one to hold the private judgment secure over the private life. And yet, as we sit here in the quietness, there is another kind of exhilaration that comes, the awareness that we are a part of a company of seekers, that we are a part of an immediate fellowship, that we are sharing in a collective destiny, which is ours because this moment is ours. And beyond all this, there is this startling awareness that we are not anonymous, that we are not unknown, that each of us is known. And for each beside his name, there is the life that he lives. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold. Thou art there. Search me, O God, and know my heart. My heart. Try me, me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. Everlasting. Seems almost jarring to introduce the spoken word after the quality of meaning and tremendum that comes on the wings of this great hymn. We are especially happy this morning to welcome the young people who are part of a youth group of the New York City Mission Society, the Harlem branch. We hope that you will give them a very warm welcome to Coffee Hour. As the oak tree cannot grow unless with each new ring it adds, its old bark cracks and splits, so humanity cannot develop without the rupture of its old institutions and laws. And it has been exactly because the bulk of humanity has never of necessity been able to distinguish between this healthful, disruptive process and unhealthful decay and have sought to crush and annihilate the particles causing it that the growth of humanity has been as slow as it has. To suggest to the more rigorous extermination of all non-law submitting humans is simply to suggest a slow suicide as far as human development is concerned. In all the ages, the multitude has looked upon Barabbas as a less violent and dangerous disruptor of social law than the Christ. Not this man, but Barabbas. I'm continuing our thinking together about the moment of crisis, particularly as it developed in the life of the great prophet to whose attention your minds were called last Sunday. I have more to say about him today. I refer, of course, to the unknown prophet of the exile. Bear in mind the working definition that crisis is that experience through which the individual passes when he is caught between the pressures of two forces, one moving forward into that which is unexplored, perhaps unknown, unguessed, unfathomed, and that which is known, is experienced, is the climate of familiarity and at homeness. The crisis is resolved when the individual says yes to one and no to the other. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University At the end of the-- our discussion last Sunday, the prophet had resolved one aspect of his crisis by arriving at the extraordinarily revolutionary notion that he should not be frustrated because when the decree went forward making freedom possible for his community, and they were at liberty to return to Jerusalem and re-establish the city and also the temples so that the worship of God would have a center from which those Jews, who had become a part of the diaspora, would be living evangels taking the message of the true God throughout the ends of the earth. He should not be disillusioned and depressed because there had not been the mad rush, that God had in mind something far more special and dramatic here, that there is a role that this community must play. And this is the role of the suffering servant. They must identify themselves with the sins and the blasphemies, the unrighteousnesses, the weaknesses, the strengths of all mankind and gather up within the context of their own spiritual experience and spiritual insight this great ache of the human race for fulfillment and meaning and redemption. And the degree to which they were able to do this, they would be the living arm of the living God redeeming mankind. It would come not today, not tomorrow. But it would come. And on the wings of that eschatological hope, the prophet retires. It will not come to pass in his lifetime. But he sees the travel of his soul and is satisfied. And then in his retirement, another kind of crisis emerges. He had sensed this, the implications of the idea of a concept that this nucleus of people would be the redemptive force, moral force, in the world. He saw it. But the implications of it were not very clear to him. And this is, of course, this is one of the things that happens about insight, isn't it? You get a tremendous insight sometimes. But you work your way back through all of the implications of it. The insight is a leak. It is an inspiration. It is rooted in fact. But the distance between the facts and the reach of the insight has to be covered by a detailed step by relentless step. And this is what the prophet had not done. For if it be true that it is possible for Israel under the aegis of the will and the mind and the purpose of God to be the organic redemption, the tool for the organic redemption of the human race, then this says that there is a fundamental unity of mankind that makes all of the notions that were part of the inheritance of this prophet that separated the Gentile from the Jew or the Babylonian from the Jew, all notions of exclusiveness and separateness were now obliterated. Because if humanity is to be redeemed by a nucleus of itself, then all humanity is one. Now this was gnawing away at the back of his mind in his retirement. And then, he began associating. Remember, he was a country boy, not a boy, country man. Sorry. He had the eyes of a country gentleman. And they're very different from city eyes. But that's an aside again. But they are different. He began associating with these, some of these Babylonians. Now the Babylonians, that is, the Jewish people who had gone down to Babylon. And they had some very interesting ideas that they had learned the hard way. One of them was that God can't be a prisoner, even in the Holy Land, that God moves. God broods. God is the creator not only of Israel, but God is the creator of Egypt and Ethiopia and even Nebuchadnezzar. And that's saying a great deal. But he is so that 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu God is as close as is the devoters, not in this place or that place merely, but God is as close as is the trembling heart that turns to him. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now if this is true, if this be true, then the concepts of the moral superiority of any group is completely obliterated. And all of this comes to the foreground when a eunuch, a eunuch, wanted to join the community, wanted to join the religious community. And there were those purists, as contrasted with those who, to use these classification, these words, because they lead us astray, but as contrasted with those who are not purists, they took the position that this eunuch-- this eunuch is-- can't belong. And they were standing on good solid history. We don't know. We did not know then. We do not know now what to do with marginal people, do we? We don't know how to handle this. In our society, we work out various ways by which we hope to build a bridge between the marginal people and the other people. So for instance, you take something like social settlement houses and other wonderful institutions. But they are dedicated to the marginal. The people who are not marginal belong to other kinds of clubs. So the eunuch applied. And he couldn't-- they wouldn't let him in. And the prophet was so touched by this, so enraged by this, that he came out of his retirement and uttered one of the great pillars of religious insight and ethical wisdom that we have available in any of the literature of the world. And I want to take a minute to read to you what he said because it is important. I had it marked here. Now I can't find. Hope I brought the right book. Oh yes, here it is. Now you're familiar with it. A part of it was read at our scripture lesson. Who everyone who thirsts-- now listen to the implications of this. Think about it as if you were not reading it in the Bible. And that frees your mind. Who everyone who thirsts, come ye to the waters. Anybody who's thirsty, not a Babylonian, not a Jew, not an Egyptian, but anybody who is thirsty, who everyone who thirsts come ye to the waters. Yea, come, he who has no money. Buy and eat without money and without price both wine and milk. Incline your ear and come unto me. Hear that your soul may live. And I will make an eternal compact with you, the favor assured to David. Let not the stranger say who has joined himself unto the Lord, separate indeed am I by the Lord from his people. I am separated by the Lord from the Lord's people. Don't say that, stranger. Nor be it said by the eunuch, behold, I am a withered tree and the strangers who join themselves unto the Lord to do his bidding, to love the name of the Lord, and to prove themselves his servants, all who keep the Sabbath, not profaning it, and who lay fast hold of my covenant, and I will bring them. Who? All who do these, whether they be eunuchs, male, female, whoever, will do these things, I will bring them to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their whole bread offerings and sacrifices shall be offered for acceptance on my altar. For my house, a house of prayer for all peoples, shall be called. Tis the word of the Lord God who gathereth the scattered of Israel. Yea others, to Him will I assemble my own to be in gather. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now this position now created a very grave problem for the prophet, for it meant that he had to take a position against those other prophets, those other devout believers, who insisted on the utter exclusiveness, cultural exclusiveness, religious exclusiveness, of the Judites. And over against that, the prophet said no. Whoever is thirsty and turns to God for drink, for my house is the house of prayer for all peoples. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This whole doctrine is very difficult. I am all-- I find that it is very hard for my own mind to deal with what seems to be one of the central paradoxes in the whole religious experience as it expresses itself in terms of the institution around which in that provides a climate in which the religious experience may grow and flourish. And this is-- the paradox is very apt, very present, very real. For you see, it is precisely at the point of the prayer to God, at the point of the worship of God, in the place where the worship takes place. Let me put it that way. It is precisely at that point that the barrier is raised. This is the thing that I find most difficult. And I think this is the thing that the prophet finally is getting at. At the level of activities in the community to be specific though, at the level of the administering the human need, all kinds of social service, all kinds of things which have to do with thickening the secular relationships, the worshipers of God can cooperate, can work together, can have fellowship at the secular level. But in the house of God, in that great high moment when the human spirit is laid bare in its act of worship before God, then in that act, only those who conform to this obvious, obvious-- I admit it-- this is what the prophet is talking about. God is the God of life and all living things. And even the distinction that was in the mind of the prophet that, with Israel as the Redeemer, there would be a slight differential in the religious fellowship that Israel would always remain the tutor, even after everybody else had come in, every knee had bowed before God, Israel would still be the tutor. There was a holdover of this thing in his mind. And finally, even that had to be obliterated in the presence of God and the work of the redemption of man. God is the tutor. And he who worships God, in spirit and in truth, dare not set up categories by which he may determine who has the right to worship God where. This is against life. And if it is against life, I think it is against God. Who everyone that thirsts, come. Drink. The thirst, the drinking, this is the culmination, not who you are, where you come from, what is your etiquette, thirst, thirst, thirst, drink. That's the formula. That is the formula. Leave us not alone now, Father, in the arrogance of our own mind. We offer to Thee feeble stirrings of thought and concentration. We offer to Thee even our pride. Thou knoweth how deep is the desire of the heart to give full, clear expression to Thy truth. Take what we have shared together and sanctify it, o God, with Thy grace and with Thy so great understanding of the depths of our need. Dismiss us with Thy spirit. And grant unto us Thy peace. [CHORAL SINGING] 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. [Note: Part 1 of the series is not available] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-610_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Moment of Crisis, part 6; The American Dream, 1958 Mar 16, Jul 6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-610_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Moment of Crisis, Part 6, 1958 March 16 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-03-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Description An account of the resource In this final installment of Moment of Crisis, Thurman is discussing the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. The salvation of foreigners in Isaiah 56 is discussed as the unnamed prophet referenced in this text was compelled to take a position against those other prophets and devout believers, who insisted on the utter exclusiveness, cultural exclusiveness, religious exclusiveness, of the Judites. This critical moment points out one of the central paradoxes of the religious experience, man-made categories that define who has the right to worship God where. Thurman believes that exclusivity in religious institutions and communities is against life and therefore against God. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard community duality religious experience