Friends Five-Year Meeting, Part 3: Jesus and the Natural Order, 1969 July 22

Description

In this second sermon from the Friends Five-Year Meeting, Thurman returns to the temptations of Jesus. The tempter urges Jesus to jump off a tower. Thurman says that the logic behind the tempter's dare is that there is no order or structure to existence; the tempter tries to convince Jesus that he is above the natural order. However, the truth is that if we do not act in accordance with the order, the order itself will destroy us. "Thou shalt not tempt God." Thurman relates this to America and the empires of history that have deemed themselves favored and thus unbound by the order that other peoples are bound to. Thurman says that the miracles we must seek are the unseen miracles of the spirit: the resolution of the inner conflicts which keep us separate and despairing.