2 10 12 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/afe5fbc151b0cb75459c30eecfe4878a.pdf 952ce76e938b29bd6b04ab37b615369b PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-619_B.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University As best as we may or find it possible so to do, let us pray together the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING] The trained mind when brought face to face with the mystery of Jesus has no choice but to seek to reduce it to some unit of comprehension and understanding. In other words, the mystery somehow has to make sense. This is a legitimate and inescapable demand. One profoundly significant and primary consideration must be held steadily in mind, as this sort of examination is pursued. Despite all the merit that there is in the scholarly and reverential researches into the facts concerning the historical Jesus, they do not, nor can they explain Him adequately. A spiritual genius or any kind of genius for that matter cannot ever be explained in any complete sense. This is true, whether the explanation is in terms of his historical setting or his psychological pattern, his social, biological, and religious heritage, or whatnot. The one thing about Jesus that no explanation can [? compass ?] is why Jesus differs from those others, whom the same explanation would fit. Uniqueness is continually elusive. Any explanation of Jesus in terms of the social and economic forces of his time must inevitably explain his contemporaries as well. Such 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 the rest of 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 problems which remain when history, or psychology, or economics has done its uttermost. All these disciplines and others useful in their way. But the tragedy is in forgetting what that way is. In other words, to quote a young sociologist who died long before high noon, "The scientific mood does not imply that other moods are fatuous or futile. It does not hold that the truths it ennobles men to discover are the only truths. The scientist knows too well that behind the symbols of mathematics and the formulae of chemistry and physics and the rigid generalizations 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu of psychology and the social sciences lie. The unexplained mysteries of twilight and music, of autumn nights fringed with silver, of human fortitude and human idealism." Pitts Theology Library Emory University We pick up our journey today. Jesus and the disinherited. Last Sunday, we ended on a note with which I wish to begin today. And it's rather awkward to try to do this in the context of our sermon and inspiration. The temptation is to make it seem and sound like the unrealities of the classroom. Jesus was a Jew. A Jew. And as a Jew, He belonged to the Jewish community-- using community in the formal and informal sense-- that was surrounded by the Roman gentile world primarily. Certainly in terms of the kind of government that held the reins, that established the frontiers and the controls over the common life. This is true. The civilization by which He was surrounded was primarily Greek civilization. For the Romans were wonderful human beings who were able to develop far reaching skills and techniques of government. They were remarkable engineers. Because the engineerings upon the engineering skill depended the security of the empire. But they were not essentially civilized in the way the Greeks were civilized. This is no reflection on them. It's simply the fact of history. And the Greeks, the Greeks were civilized. And they had been conquered. And as one historian puts it, the conquered made conquests of the conqueror. The Greek with his sensitive mind and his world view and the subtle nuances of his culture simply moved all through the common Roman life and gave to the Roman mind a feeling torn and a quality of perception that was not indigenous to the mind itself. But be that as it may, the culture was a Greek or Roman culture in that sense. And this-- this was the sea that surrounded this island that the Jewish community. And Jesus was one of these. Now, pressure upon this island was very great, because of the nature of the case. Even people who have no sense of destiny do not wish to be controlled. But if you have a sense of destiny, then to be controlled is something that takes on the nature of blasphemy. So the Romans, even though they had accepted this responsibility and an invitation of the Jews who were hard up for some release from the inner pressures to which their lives were subjected nevertheless there was the tension between the Roman world and the Jewish community. Because always, always there was the sense of destiny. And that which blocked the sense of destiny was the political's power and the economic power that was characteristic of the Roman Empire. So the climate was a very, very stormy climate. It was like the climate of Little Rock the first day that the federal troops went in. That's the kind. Now, this gives you some feeling quality of the kind of climate. This was the constant state of mind of the body politic, if I may use such words. I remember many years ago, I attended a conference in-[LAUGHTER] 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University --Indiana, Indianapolis. And it was the conference of The World Student Volunteer Movement, a great missionary movement that at one time was the spearhead of evangelical protestantism as it sought to conquer the world. We were young. And we did not like these rather stodgy kind of program that they had. They brought people back from the ends of the earth. And the people said nice things. But we thought that they needed to bite into life. Youth is always trying to bite into something. So we withdrew. 550 of us withdrew, not breaking up the conference, no. But we withdrew for a series of programs of our own. We felt that if we could select the people who would come and would have a little [INAUDIBLE], we could get the truth, rather than merely the facts. So we decided that we would have a meeting on the impression of a series of foreign students at the time, their impression of American education. And since they were all among friends, we felt that they would tell us what this was really like. One of the young ladies who spoke was a Korean girl. She was a sophomore at Syracuse University. She made a statement something like this. I-- I know that I have been asked to talk to you about my attitude towards American education as seen from the vantage point of a sophomore at Syracuse University. I am a Korean. And there is only one thing that a Korean has any right to talk about in public. And that is freedom from Japan. And for 20 minutes she made a passionate plea. And then at the end was this tremendous [? peroration. ?] If you see a little American boy and you ask him what he wants, he says, I want a penny to buy some candy or to get a whistle or to put it in my piggy bank. But if you see a little Korean boy and you ask him what he wants he says, I want freedom from Japan. And the next person to speak was a graduate student from Harvard who was Japanese. And this-this was very interesting. Now, the climate-- this is all that I am mentioning this for, not to tell you what happened-- the climate of which this Korean girl spoke is the climate in which Jesus lived all of His life. And the climate in which He was crucified. Not very far from the place where He grew up, a man decided that he could do something about Rome. So he organized the young men into a great insurrection. And the insurrection did not last, did not fulfill itself. These men were killed, were caught, were captured. And most of them are crucified. And the town nearest to the place from which the insurrection sprang was burned to the ground. 2000 years before Hitler a town was-- was destroyed because of what some body or bodies in that town had done. And the town had to be rebuilt. And to rebuild it, it required carpenters. And Nazareth was only five or six miles away. It is not unreasonable to assume that among the carpenters who rebuilt [INAUDIBLE] was Joseph and Jesus. What was going on in his mind? A sensitive Jew deeply gripped by the passion of destiny that belonged to Israel, feeling in the lonely watches of the night that the God of Israel kept a tryst with him. What did it say? What did He say to him? How-- how can I fulfill the deep insistences of my heart and spirit and mind until I make some basic decision about the enemy, the survival of the people? This was is problem. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Before he could get over to considerations which had to do with the meaning of existence, with the particular expression of His life, He had to deal with this crucial problem. Just as you would if you are a native South African this morning and you are trying to decide about a vocation, about the meaning of the voice of God in your heart. You would have to hear through the climate. Given my situation, what do I do if I love God? Do I join up with the zealots? Pitts Theology Library Emory University The Zealots are those who felt that there is only one thing that the Roman understands. And that's seeing his own blood flow. That's a language that he can understand. They were interesting people. They walked along. They had these long daggers up their sleeves. And they'd go along in pairs talking and tending to their own business. And they'd see a very prosperous looking [INAUDIBLE]. And they'd walk up to him and greet him and then accompany him a little, talking of commonplace nothings. And then before he knew it, his heart would be punctured. And as he stretched out dying, they would look over him weeping, wondering who had done this violent thing full of terror. God will give His angels charge concerning you. He will bear you up. They will bear you up on Their wings, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Do it. Destroy the enemy. God will take of it. Because this is God's will, that the destiny be fulfilled. And when you do anything to remove that which blocks the destiny, you become an arm of the righteous will of God. And God will support you. Because your cause is righteous. Because your cause is His cause. Why didn't Jesus become one of them? But more crucially, why did He select one of them as His disciple? I don't know the answer. But He remained a zealot. Because when you read the listing of the disciples even now, it is so and so and so and so, the zealot. He kept the title. So His point of view must have remained sufficiently intact to be identified. Then there were those who said, why be [? Picayunish ?] about this? Rome has everything anyway. It has all the power. It has all the economic resources. It is able to place one man here. And he remains, or another man there. And if you play your hand right, you can manipulate this pagan empire from the inside. So that at the strategic moment when the destiny of Israel is ripe and the Messiah comes, there will be at every critical, sensitive, crucial spot in the Roman Empire one of us. Penetrated. Cover all the area. And then when zero hour comes, the thing collapses. And you have all the strategic spots. And after all, the culture is pretty good. It's pretty good. Nobody wants to be different. When you go to a place, you can't eat what you want. You eat because of something in you that discriminates about diet. This is a nuisance. You can't marry whom you want or marry because of this insistence about destiny that's unique. This is a nuisance. So why not just become culturally a good Roman? And then everything that's coming to the Roman will come to you, including his fall. And assure him all the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them. And if you will bow down and worship me, if you will give to these kingdoms the nerve center of your consent, then all that they are will be yours. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And after all, this is what you want. Or there were those who said the whole business is rotten. And I had better withdraw. We had better withdraw from it. We've heard a great deal about them now since the Dead Sea Scrolls have turned up. The [INAUDIBLE] it said don't contaminate yourself really. Don't get mixed up in all of this. Withdraw. Find a place where there is a climate of your own. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Something so wonderful about this, isn't it? Do you ever long to be on that island somewhere where there's no proing and conning. And you don't have to work out so many times some adjustments to people who are going in a direction that is not in your direction. But if you could just get on this island with even a desert and the sea between you and all these others, then you could live your wonderful life of quiet disintegration. [LAUGHTER] Now-- now [INAUDIBLE] were more positive than this. They felt if they could devote all of their time to prayer and to having no responsibility for possessions, that perhaps-- and this is the wonderful thing-- perhaps it is possible to create by sheer naked spiritual energy the kind of ground swell that moves at a level that's deeper than politics, deeper than cosmology, deeper than dogmas of any kind. But to a ground swell of the spirit of the living God that will shatter the foundations of empires without anybody's ever having to lift a finger of violence. And this is a reasonable thing. If God is the creator of life and this is the end which God is seeking, why not be able to become a channel through which the living spirit of the living God can be released at a point that will shake the foundation? So don't fight. Pray. Don't haggle. Meditate. Purify. At least find one place-- let the spirit of God find one place that is wide open through which the moving energy which is His can be released into the world to do its perfect work. Why didn't He go with them? Now, this is part two of part one. I talked about the world, the climate. Now what kind of religion did Jesus bring to His problem? Obviously, very little that is relevant can be said about this in five minutes. But I want to point out one very important thing, and then touch it. The religion of Jesus insisted that a man is responsible for his actions before God. But more crucially, a man is responsible for his reactions to his environment before God. So it became very important to Jesus what his reaction to this total situation was. Because this was a part of the responsibility which He held before God. Now, what kind of God did he-- did He have? God was the creator-- creator of the world. God was righteous will. God was a person. Now, this is very important. A person. Now, interestingly enough, notions of God as personal in the history of the human race usually belong to what we call the primitive cultures. Now let me illustrate how we reproduce this. When I was in seminary, one of my classmates came from a little farm. He was a very pious, very devout [INAUDIBLE]. And God was just almost a glorified man moving around. And then after he began to study, you know, he was studying psychology and social origins and all the history of ideas, well, he became more and more sophisticated. And I went with him-- I 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu went with him one Sunday to his little congregation at [INAUDIBLE], New York. And I was interested in listening to his prayer. Now, this boy he was much less involved and less complicated. God was very real. God was a person. He began his prayer, Oh, thou metaphysical absolute. Now-- Pitts Theology Library Emory University [LAUGHTER] Now-- now-- no. He'd come all the way-- now this is-- this is-- this is the thing-- this is the thing that happens you see. As you are a simple and primitive God is real. God is personal. God is primary. But as you begin to deal with notions of generalizations, with concepts that are binding in order that the total structure of human life and existence will have some general principles upon which-- on the basis of which it moves, then the personal God is lost. And the logic of the generalization-- now, this is the thing that happened. The Greeks when they were primitive and they were much less complicated, they had many gods. And every god was personal. And he had a series of personal acts. Some acts were good. Some acts were bad. But he had a thisness and a thatness about him. But as they began to get general ideas and the idea of one universal spirit, this universal spirit sort of absorbed all these personal gods. Now, this is the thing about the God of Israel that to me is just absolutely staggering to my mind. And that is that here in Jesus and in Israel, God was personal. God was righteous will. And at the same time, without any loss of personality or persona, He was the creator of existence. They put these two notions, these two primary demands that the human spirit makes about the nature of existence if it is to live its life with some measure of meaning and dignity, they put these together in one created synthesis and said that this God who is righteous will, expresses his righteous will in time. And if He expresses His righteous will in time, then that means that in time we see the operation of purposes and goals as over against a time process that is continuous, that has no beginning and no ending. It's rather extraordinary isn't it how as we have become more sophisticated in our own time and our God, any sense of a personal God is more and more lost among the brackets of higher mathematics, that what we think about our destiny as human beings becomes increasingly pessimistic? This is interesting. Now, I don't quite know how to resolve this. I know how I have resolved it. But the problem is the scene. What Jesus brought them [INAUDIBLE] and I stop and begin at this point next week. What Jesus brought as central in His thought this is what he brought to the problem. This is the kind of raw material that the problem had to work with, that God had to work within Him, an idea of God as righteous will and Creator of existence. A righteous will that expressed itself in time in terms of purposes and goals and destinies. And in order to do that, it had to be particularized in a group of people. So you get the community that has some primary relationship with God. And the goal of this community at first was to guarantee itself. And through the open and transcendent wonder and glory of the 6 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu prophetic spirit, this destiny that at one time was confined to the people of the beloved covenant and the beloved community who were responsive to the particular acts of God in human history, these people became the living instruments through which this experience of God would become a part of the experience and the destiny of the whole human race. And how to embrace this great idea and be yourself at the same time is the persistent dilemma. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Walk with us as we wrestle to find a way to reveal thy life and thy spirit and thy mind oh, God, God, God. that we may be through to the light dismiss us with thy spirit and grant unto us thy peace [INAUDIBLE]. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 Jesus and the Disinherited (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource "[Jesus and the Disinherited] is the centerpiece of the Black prophet-mystic's lifelong attemot to bring the harrowing beauty of the African-American experience into deep engagement with what he called 'the religion of Jesus.' Ultimately his goal was to offer this humanizing combination as the basis for an emancipatory way of being, moving toward a fundamentally unchained life that is available to all the women and men everywhere who hunger and thirst for righteousness, especially those 'who stand with their backs against the wall.'" - Vincent Harding, foreword to 1996 edition of <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em> (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).<br /><br />First published in 1949, <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em> was also a common topic in Thurman's lectures and sermons. In 1959, he delivered this 12-part sermon series as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University.<br /><br />[In Progress] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Ken Owens 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/394-619_B.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 Jesus and the Disinherited, parts 1 and 2, 1959 Jan 11, 18, 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 394-619_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> Title A name given to the resource Jesus and the Disinherited, Part 2, January 18, 1959 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 1959-01-18 Description An account of the resource <p>Part 2 of <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em>. He quotes from Russell Gordon Smith from "Fugitive Papers." Thurman argues that the Jews had a sense of destiny, which was hindered by the fact of Roman rule and created a constant turmoil and sense of danger. What made Jesus, then, different? The common belief was that anyone who upends that which blocks destiny, becomes a righteous arm of God as the enemy is destroyed. The Zealots want to appear Roman, then kill it from the inside. The Essenes wanted to withdraw completely, feeling the Roman Empire to be totally polluted, and hoping that through shear naked spirituality God would overthrow Rome without anyone having to resort to violence.</p> <p>In the religion of Jesus, each person is responsible for their own actions in response to the environment they find themselves. Education can make God less personal and, ironically, we become more pessimistic about our destiny. God used that Jewish/Roman/Greek environment in which to shape Jesus and his community.</p> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Ken Owens Essenes Fugitive Papers Jews and Rome Le Roy Little Rock Psalm 91 Russell Gordon Smith seminary Sepphoris Temptations of Christ World Student Volunteer Movement Zealots https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/4d4e144797a44ab03177d5f613d27ba3.pdf b8a407a3880f9537ad8cb4fc59d5ae0a PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-619_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University As we sit together surrounded by the climate of silence and reflection, there are many things that crowd in upon us. The long shadows cast by the events of the last year so recently passed. The high resolves with which we began it. The stumbling, faltering ways by which we ended it. The narrow escapes from violence within and without. The high moments when it seemed as if for one swirling second all the goodness and beauty and completeness of life were contained. Those hours of sadness and tears, when that was taken from our midst, someone whose life was deeply entwined with ours, and since they are journeying. The way has been hard and difficult, with no bond to heal the ruptured life, the broken heart. The long shadow of the events of the year that has passed so recently is upon us as we sit here, our father. We do not quite know all together how to face the future. We do not know what there is in store for us tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. But as we share the meaning of this moment, our father, gentle our spirit with thy great calm, that we shall not be afraid, that we may be sustained whatever may betide us. This is not our only option, our father. But we turn to it with confidence and with hope. Leave us not in the despairing grasp of what may be our own futilities. Oh God, God of our spirit. Wherever there appears in human history a personality whose story is available and whose reach extends far in all directions, the question of his working paper is as crucial as is the significance of his life. We want to know what were the lines along which he decided to live his life. How did he relate himself to the central issues of his time? What were the questions which he had to answer? Was he under some necessity to give a universal character to his most private experience? Our attention is called to such a figure because of the impact which his life makes upon human history. For what is human history but man's working paper as he rides high to life, caught often in the swirling eddies of tremendous impersonal forces set in motion by a vast impulse out of the womb of the eternal. When a solitary individual is able to mingle his strength with the forces of history and emerge with a name or character or personality, it is no ordinary achievement. It is more than the fact that there is a record of his life, as singular as that fact may be. It means that against the background of anonymity, he has emerged; articulate and particular. And this is an achievement. Such a figure was Jesus of Nazareth. To some, he is the grand prototype of all the distilled longing of mankind for fulfillment, for wholeness, for perfection. To some, he is the eternal presence hovering over all the myriad needs of humanity, yielding healing for the sick of body 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu and soul, giving a lift to those who weariness has overtaken in the long march, and calling out hidden purposes of destiny, which are the common heritage. To some, he is more than a presence. He is the God fact; the divine moment in human sin and human misery. Pitts Theology Library Emory University To still others, he is a man who found the answer to life's riddle. And out of a profound gratitude, he becomes the man most worthy of honor and praise. For such, his answer becomes humanity's answer, and his life the common claim. In him, the miracle of the working paper is writ large for what he did all men may do. Thus interpreted, he belongs to no age and no race and no creed. When men look into his face, they see edged the glory of their own possibilities, and their hearts wish thank you, and thank god. 10 years ago-- and I should say, parenthetically, this is not a plug-- but 10 years ago I sat down in written form an answer to a problem with which I had been wrestling all my life as touching the impact and the significance of Jesus of Nazareth. It is my purpose during the next few weeks to take another long, hard look at this, for much has transpired since that time. And you will pardon me as we work along together if here and there some other things that I have to say may seem to you so intimately private that I may seem to be living my private life in public. I begin then with the first moment when I had to deal with the impact of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the life of people devoted to him as Savior, and the effect that that impact, with all of its integrity of meaning and purpose, the effect that it had on me as a little boy. It was the first time that I had ever seen a man die. It was my father. I was a boy, seven years old, and he was a man, 55 years old. My mother and I stood beside his bed-- I on one side, and she on the other-- as his giant frame, for he was a big man, wrestled in the last agonizing stages of the fight for air when the body is a victim of double pneumonia. That could be heard all through the rooms which we occupied as our home. That sound which once it is heard can never be forgotten. The sound which in our community was called the death rattle; the fight of the lungs for air. My mother was very devout. And as she watched my father die, she said, calling him by name, Saul-- for his name was Saul Solomon Thurman-- Saul, can you hear me? And between these gasps, he said, yes. Shook his head. "Are you ready to die?" she said. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then with all of the effort available to him, possible to him, with punctuated gas, he said, Alice-- calling my mother by name-- all my life, I've been a man. I can face death. I'm not afraid of it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And with that, his huge body was lifted as it were out of the bed, and my mother and I held him down by shear force. And then there was that great spasm, and he died. The minister of our little church, because my father died out of Christ, felt that in all honesty-and here I do not speak with vindictiveness and judgment now-- he felt with all honesty that he could not have my father buried from the little church, nor could he take the service himself. Now, this posed a crucial problem, for it meant that our only other option was to have the funeral in one of the two rooms that we occupied. This was not possible. We could not have it at the undertaking parlor downtown, because the undertaker would not even embalm us there. If we were embalmed, we had to be embalmed at the place where we died. Therefore we could not even be buried in such a place. So my grandmother went to talk with the minister. And she said-- to talk with the deacons of the church. I'm sorry. She said, the minister has said that Saul cannot be buried from the church. Now, ministers come and go, but deacons are here with us. So what are you going to do about it? And the deacon said, of course, he can be buried from the church. But who would take the service? And then a traveling evangelist appeared, and he offered his services to this little heartbroken family. And we were very happy because of what it meant. And then at the funeral, as I sat with my mother and grandmother on the mourners seat, listening to the minister, it suddenly struck me with great horror that what he was doing was preaching my father into hell, and had seized upon this dramatic moment as an object lesson to all sinners and all persons who had not confessed to Christ. This is what happens to you. And I said to my mother, mama, he didn't understand Papa, did he? Didn't know Papa. I kept building this thing in me, saying it over and over again. And then, finally, she reached over and put our hands on my knees to communicate the great tenderness that always rode high on her spirit. And I was quieted. But coming back from the graveyard, I talked it out with them. They tried to explain to me what it was that was at work here. I listened, but I could not understand. And as a seven-year-old boy, I said, well, one thing is certain, that if I ever grow up to be a man, I will never have anything to do with the church. Well, and here I am. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I have lived with this dimension of the impact. Now, I want you to follow me carefully now for a little while. So this began my search. Jesus. Was that his gospel, really? Pitts Theology Library Emory University Here you see is an honest, authentic response to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the response to which the individuals felt called upon to put the strength of their arm against the weak, the needy, because the weak and the needy had not given voice to the magic formula upon which the salvation of Jesus Christ rested. And a little later, when I began to encounter all the circuitous and terrifying problems of the various kinds of violences in my environment, and as I looked out upon the great divide that separated Christians from each other, the crucial problem began to mount more and more frontally in my mind and in my thoughts. And strangely enough, all during the period I had worked out privately and intimately a place, a kind of fellowship-- I don't know quite how to put this-- but a meaning and a significance in the life of Jesus independent of all the things that were being said about him. He and I enjoyed each other. He was as real to me as my right hand. And sitting down on the sand dunes watching the waves of the Atlantic Ocean late at night, if anyone had come upon us, upon me, they would have thought that I was standing in immediate candidacy for some place of incarceration, because I was having conversation. I was talking with him about things, but never praying to him. This is very interesting. Talking with him about various things. I could hardly wait to get off by myself to compare notes. All this in my little imagination. So then on the one hand here was a Jesus, very real to me, no god at that time for me, but a very real personality, who had the listening ear. And on the other hand, here was all the other things around me done in his name often that could not be identified with the personality with whom I felt myself in almost constant fellowship. I don't know how to put this in any other way, but I do hope you understand me. So as the years unfolded, I had to face this. I had to find for myself what there was here in the life, in the record that was capable of administering to the needs of my mind and my spirit in a manner that would leave all of the impact of the things in my environment ineffective in their ability to snatch away from me the companionship which he provided. I was very grateful for the fact that I had spent so much time wrestling with this, getting no answers, and often confused and depressed, because in 1935, when I went to India, the first day at Colombo on an invitation from the principal of the Law College, I was asked to give a lecture on civil disabilities under states' rights in the United States. Well, this was quite something. Well, I didn't know anything about the technical jargon. I knew about civil disabilities. I didn't know very much about states' rights. That was just political theory that I didn't understand. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So I apologized to these law students and the law faculty for the fact that I would not be able to speak in their language, their jargon, but I would talk about the thing experientially, and then they could transpose it into respectable jargon that fitted their pretensions. And this is what I proceeded to do. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At the end, there were two questions asked me; one by a young Hindu fellow who said, can you tell me out what kind of exhibit-- out of what kind of material exhibit number something was made that attorney Leibowitz used in his defense of the Scottsboro Boys in Decatur, Alabama, as he said. Well, I didn't know anything about that. And the second question, why did your community wait until the famous Euel Lee case on the eastern shore of Maryland, as he said, before you contested non-participation in jury service? Now, here are two fellows, who one a Hindu, one a Muslim, who had never been off the island of Ceylon raising that kind of question. This was 1935, before Sputnik. Then at the close, the principal invited me downstairs for coffee. And we drank our coffee in complete and utter silence. And then when the service was removed and the door was shut, he said, I did not intend to ask you any question, but after listening to you upstairs, I'm convinced you're an intelligent man. What are you doing over here? Oh, he said, I know what the newspapers say about a pilgrimage of friendship from the students of India-- from the students of America to the students of India, Burma, and Ceylon. But that doesn't answer my question. What are you doing over here? This is what I mean, he said. 300 years ago or more your forefathers were taken from the Western coast of Africa as slaves by Christians. He said one of the names of a very famous British slave vessel was Jesus. He said, you were sold in the new world to people who themselves were practicing Christians in a Christian country, a country started on the basis of Christianity. One of your famous Christian hymn writers, Sir John Newton, as he said, who wrote and published "Glad Tidings," "Tidings of Peace," and he quoted all of him. Oh, how sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear. He quoted all of that. Made all of his money by selling your forebears. 70 years ago you were freed by a man who himself was not a practicing Christian, but was a spearhead of certain political, social, and economic forces he himself did not quite understand. And now for that long interval since, you live in a Christian country in which you cannot be free, in which you proscribe that you are lynched, burned. He had all the catalogs. And one of my students went to Columbia to do an advanced degree in law. And he sent me a clipping back that described how in some place in your country, some man from your community was being hounded by a mob on a Sunday night. And the church dismissed its services that the men may join in the hunt. And when the man was done to death, they came back and resumed their worship of their Christian god. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, he said, here you are standing in that tradition talking to us. I do not wish to be rude to you, he said. But I think a man like you is a traitor to all the darker peoples of the Earth. And I wonder what you can say in defense of your position inasmuch as you are an intelligent man. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At last now there was brought into sharp focus the problem with which my mind and soul had been wrestling. Who was Jesus? Was he what the Christians say that he was? What was the primary accent of his life? Upon what did he place the emphasis? What kind of religion did he have? Was he on the side of the strong or the weak? The mighty and the powerful or the disinherited? Was his god the god of power and vengeance and authority and control, the god of veto and certification? Or was he some other kind of god? Who was he? And so I began working to see what kind of answers I could find, because if I could not a way, a clue in his life that could sustain the integrity of his meaning independent of all of the hallowed devotion as expressed in the devoted thought and the inspired moment, if I could not find for myself this, then I could not call myself a Christian. Who was he? On that answer turned the fate of my whole life, my whole life. The first thing that I found out, that's all I should have an opportunity to say now. The first thing that I found out that hit me with a sort of-- I don't know how to describe it, but it hit me. The first thing that I discovered was that Jesus Christ was a Jew. I just hadn't realized this. But he was a Jew. And again and again in pursuit of the implications of that discovery, I have been startled by what is disclosed in my mind. That almost did not equal. As great as is the miracle of this strange and wonderfully incisive and sensitive spirit is the miracle of the Jewish community itself. How on Earth? How on Earth or in the heavens could a band of human beings covenanted together by whatever may be the ties name them? How on Earth or in the heavens could they endure the kind of unrelieved, organized, created, devastating destruction from 70 AD down to the present time and still remain intact? I don't understand this. It confuses the very grounds of my spirit in an effort to get at a satisfactory rationalization for the phenomena. And out of the womb of that kind of experience in the movement of the forces that go to determine the significance of human history, Jesus came. So it is small wonder that Albert Schweitzer, whose birthday anniversary we celebrate today, says, he comes to us as one unknown without a name, as he came to the men by the seaside 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 trials and the sufferings and the sorrows and the joys through which they shall pass in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery. They shall learn in their own experience who he is. Who he is. Who he is. 6 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Leave us not alone, our father, in the torture of our minds and the tumult it stirs deep within our souls, but speak to us spirits thy calmness and tranquility that we may walk in the way that stretches out before us in thy trust. Oh God, our father. 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 Jesus and the Disinherited (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource "[Jesus and the Disinherited] is the centerpiece of the Black prophet-mystic's lifelong attemot to bring the harrowing beauty of the African-American experience into deep engagement with what he called 'the religion of Jesus.' Ultimately his goal was to offer this humanizing combination as the basis for an emancipatory way of being, moving toward a fundamentally unchained life that is available to all the women and men everywhere who hunger and thirst for righteousness, especially those 'who stand with their backs against the wall.'" - Vincent Harding, foreword to 1996 edition of <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em> (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).<br /><br />First published in 1949, <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em> was also a common topic in Thurman's lectures and sermons. In 1959, he delivered this 12-part sermon series as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University.<br /><br />[In Progress] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Ken Owens 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/394-619_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 Jesus and the Disinherited, parts 1 and 2, 1959 Jan 11, 18 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 394-619_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Jesus and the Disinherited, Part 1, January 11, 1959 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> 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 1959-01-11 Description An account of the resource <p>Part 1 of <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em>. Begins by referring to Jesus' "working paper." Thurman's book was written about ten years prior, and he wants to take another look at these issues with consideration of all that has happened. He tells the story of his father's death and funeral when he was seven. As he grew he found he had a very intimate relationship with Jesus, even verbally discussing things with Jesus at night in the sand dunes. Jesus was a real personality to Thurman. However, he couldn't square this intimate, real "personality" Thurman had come to know with the things people said about Jesus.</p> <p>Later, when he traveled to India and asked why he was a Christian, when Christians had harmed the black people so terribly, even considering people like Thurman a traitor to his people by professing Christianity. That encounter led Thurman to go back and study the actual life of Jesus. He realized that Jesus was a Jew. Thurman began wondering how the Jewish people could have possibly endured all the suffering they had endured since AD 70 to the present, and in fact Jesus came out of that milieu of suffering community. He quotes Albert Schweitzer, and points out that people shall know Jesus by experience, even mystery, through the trials, sufferings and joys of life.</p> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Ken Owens Albert Schweitzer black history defense of Christianity experience father's death India Jesus Jewish history Jews mystic Saul Solomon Thurman slave history slave ship Jesus traitor working paper