7/20/52

Scripture: Psalm 48

Text: Psalm 48: 12-13; “Walk about Zion.... Mark ye well her bulwarks... that ye may tell it to the generation following.”

The Bible is an accurate reflection of what is in us, to be and to do. There is the story that Jesus told his listeners about a son who, in youthful impatience demanded his share of an expected inheritance only to squander it in a far place with riotous and indulgent living. That story is notable for the spirit with which the father forgave him, and gladly received him back when he came home in humble recognition that he had wasted both his substance and his worthiness. It also reflects our human jealousies as seen in the brother who stayed at home and worked dependably at his father’s side. [Luke 15: 11-32].

It further reflects the lift that most anyone might feel, when, having done that for which he is not proud, he is ready to admit his error and seek the forgiveness of one whom he has wronged. It raises the question of a father’s wisdom in indulging the impulses of a son with such irresponsible urges as that young fellow had. And it also points our attention, incidentally, to the use of an inheritance. For did not that willful young man show a most irresponsible attitude toward that which should have been his inheritance? He promptly squandered it, whereas it may have seemed to him, later, that he could have been well started on a useful career, and a stable household, had he handled wisely that which his father’s household had so carefully accumulated for him.

In a story like that, we see reflected in the young fellow our own impulses toward the useful and the useless; the irresponsible and the earnest; the self willed pleasure seeker and the sincerely contrite sinner; we also recognize our spiritual kinship with the father and with the other brother.

Most of us, perhaps, jump to the conclusion that we would have handled an inheritance differently; that even though it would be a lot of fun to “fly high” for a while, we should not be so foolish as to get ourselves in that prodigal son’s ultimate predicament of destitution, humiliation and disgrace. It might not be amiss, therefore, to ask ourselves what we do with our inheritance, other than the cash or goods which may on any day come to one or another of us. The question becomes more important than a mere amusing or idle inquiry, when we remember that a great deal that we have and are and enjoy is really an inheritance -- something we did not bring into being, but the benefits of which we enjoy and use.

I sometimes wonder if it is possible for us to realize what it really is to be able to go to a church of our own free choice, without any compulsion to worship in some particular way, except the compulsion of our own sincere desire. Hosts of people in the history of the past, and in the history of our own time in many places, have enjoyed no such freedom, and have longed for it with frustrated hope.

We feel quite satisfied and complacent that chattel slavery is outlawed in our land, after some conspicuous struggling in the past. And our complacency perhaps lulls us to a lack of awareness that slavery still exists in various forms, as a threat not only to people of some foreign locality, but as a threat to each of us, if we forget the price of liberty is vigilance, and passionate devotion.

There have been numerous dramatic portrayals of some of the experiences of the American Revolutionary War. One of the recent dramas brings the audience to sobering, and inspiring considerations. A scene in the play shows some dispirited colonial soldiers of the Revolution on a certain island where they had dragged themselves and their wounded comrades into an old barn. The battle had gone sorely against them.

General Washington came unexpectedly among them. Awful facts were seared into their souls as he spoke to them, saying, “I promise those who follow me further no chance for victory, for I see none; no glory or gain, or laurels returning home; but wounds and death - - cold, disease, and hunger, winters to come such as this you have, with our bloody trail in the snow and no end to it till you shovel each other in with those at Valley Forge.” Then, with heavy hearts, they bury the dead. And when the last ground is turned, Washington faces his few beleaguered men and says, “This liberty will look easy, by and by, when nobody dies to get it.”

What tides of mingled emotion rise within us when we hear the word “liberty” in such a context. What a spiritual awakening, when we realize that our liberty is so great a benefit, earned by sweat and struggle and tears and sacrifice and the spending of lives who knew not that liberty for themselves, but believed passionately that it must be! How precious, beyond the power to tell, is such an inheritance in the light of what it cost others.

Who among us is not sobered by a sense of self rebuke and judgment at the remembrance that we have taken our liberty so lightly and thoughtlessly? And how frequently we take other portions of our inheritance with no recognition of their cost -- not to us, but those who have prepared it for us.

Here is a man to whom his fathers bequeathed a good name, honored in fairness and integrity, who through preoccupation with his own insistent personal desires has lost that good name. And at length he feels that he has been treasonable against those who were his benefactors.

Here is one who regards outward trappings of our civilization - our material wealth, inventions, machines - as the heart of our national inheritance. And in his anxiety to possess them he has stifled those qualities of spirit that alone can make a man strong.

And another sits back in the assurance that the world owes him a living, who takes his heritage for granted, as if he could take it, plunder and loot it, for his own selfish ends -- like that thoughtless and headstrong prodigal boy in the story told by Jesus.

Such examples indicate an underlying weakness; namely, an ignorance of what a spiritual inheritance really is, and of the ways in which it ought to be appropriated and used.

Did you ever hear Jascha Heifitz, in person, play the violin? I did, once in the past year -- and by a circumstance quite unplanned which put the opportunity suddenly before me. That afternoon was a rich treat, purchased for my satisfaction by circumstances not of my designing; and by hours and days and years of constant discipline and violin practice on the part, not of myself, but of Jascha Heifitz.

But there is told a story of a well dressed woman who applied at the box office of Carnegie Hall, New York, for tickets to hear Heifitz. “Is he the best in the world?” she asked. “Yes,” said the manager, “he is considered one of the best.” “I only hear the best,” she explained, “and I must have two of the best seats.” Then, as she started to leave, she asked one more question: “By the way, what does he play?”

Few people of history were more conscious of their heritage than the people of Judah some 2700 years ago. And few people have been so careful to preserve their spiritual inheritance. We may see, in imagination, what they called “the City of the Great King.” The Temple hill on the north, crowned with the towers and the bulwarks and walls of Zion. - And the city of Jerusalem stretching out all around the foot of that hill. Each Judean working at his daily task would look now and then toward that strong and significant and sacred hill and feel secure and glad. The focus of his spiritual life was there. The Temple hill was the symbol of his nation’s confidence in the midst of the convulsions that shook the nations about them. God was in their work. God had worked a great deliverance for them. They felt that they were His people. And He was their source of confidence till death. Their feelings were caught up in the psalmist’s rapture and admiration, singing, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” [Psalm 122: 1].

This was the heritage of the people of Judah. Far more than the possessions they had, or hoped to accumulate. Their inheritance was not something that they could grab, or handle or hoard. It was a relationship to something far greater, stronger, more worthy than themselves.

What does this reference to Bible experience have to do with us? Simply this; we of this generation in America ought to take stock of ourselves. We would do well to recall that our spiritual inheritance is not merely victories and inventions of former generations, or records preserved in fireproof museums, though these are very important for us. Our heritage is not just America’s industrial potential nor a higher standard of living.

Our inheritance consists chiefly in our relationship to the highest values by which people live. The desire to worship God and obey his righteousness is a priceless heritage. We waste our heritage and court serious disaster when we let that relationship grow thin and shabby while we pursue the things of earth with such frenzy!

If it seems that the whole world has lost its way, we ought to rediscover and revitalize our heritage. This can be done through an attitude of respect to that for which we are indebted, through eagerness to foster the relationship, through reference to the claim which the relationship lays upon us.

Thomas Mann once said, “Democracy is the political expression of Christianity.” It is never in order to equate our kind of government with Christianity. For they are not the same thing. But it is in order for us to ask, “Have we in our democratic freedom, cultivated an attitude of due respect toward those Christian principles that have given our kind of governmental association so much of its nature and genius?” Let us not lay hold on our advantage disrespectfully, nor squander our inheritance in a far country.

Economic security ought to mean the opportunity of every man for an honest living. We owe each other that kind of opportunity. Those of us who do have such opportunity should have a burden of concern for those who do not have it.

The honest ballot is a rampart of our kind of government. Let it never be bought or bargained at any price other than the voter’s own conviction.

Let no minority or majority group take freedom of religion as an opportunity to advance its own cause to a point where it may deny freedom of religious expression to others who differ.

The religion which gave birth to a political ideal of personal liberty and responsibility deserves our respect and devotion and loyal adherence. You do not belong to the past. But the past belongs to you -- to use with the respect due to the goodness it has transmitted to you.

The great Scotch theologian, John Knox, said, “Give me Scotland or I die.” He was a man so ready to offer himself at so great a price and brought Scotland a great stream of blessing.

Open the Bible and preserve its heritage to you in your very soul. Whether it be a handful of freezing Pilgrims offering a prayer of thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock, or George Washington praying at Valley Forge, or Lincoln affirming against great odds, “There is a God governing the world,” or (in sacred category) Jesus of Nazareth saying, “To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth” [John 18: 37], the response has meaning for us.

For us it is a matter of answering the claim of the Lord of Life so that our new life in a new world may be His; so that the best things of our heritage - the open Bible, the liberty to proclaim its justice and its truth, the worth of all people in the sight of God - will not be permitted to perish from the earth.

-----------

Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, July 20, 1952

(Congregational and Methodist Union Services, 7:30 and 11 AM)

Wisconsin Rapids, April 16, 1967