Transcript
Thank you, Ms. Sewell, the presiding officer this evening. My friends, Ms. Sewell, you really shouldn't have felt at all put out, I've had far worse things said about my preaching by my own wife. I must add also that Ms. Sewell is a Methodist and I am Baptist, and that is perhaps to the very campus. I came down for a Sunday morning sermon here at the university, and they put me up in one of the guest houses.
Those who preach around in these schools know that there are rooms reserved for preachers on Saturday evenings up at Harvard, where Reverend Suzanne Johnson is now. They call it the preacher's room. And they have the most interesting literature on the nightstand, the 1960 census, the report of the Fishery Commission of the state of Connecticut for 1972, exciting things. And here on this campus, I picked up a book, Stories of New Jersey. That would get the imagination.
And in it, a story of a General Lee. Now I take it not the light horse Harry Lee, but another General Lee, who in his will here in New Jersey asked not to be buried in any Baptist or Methodist cemetery. His reason was, I have lived among disreputable people all of the days of my life, and I do not wish to be associated with them in death, actually, they can't be. It will be hard for you
to imagine it, even by the loftiest flight of your imagining, that I was once a seminary student. There's an epitaph somewhere in England, I have read, I have not seen it, in which the person dead has caused to be placed on the stone, here I lie Engel Elgin Broad. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you must be. So please prepare to follow me. Somebody came along and wrote underneath it,
scribbled underneath it, to follow you. I'm not content until I know which way. Well, this is the way you went in the years ahead. Seriously, it is an enormous delight to me to come, to see, and to be with these representatives of another generation of our African-American Christian witness in this country. And I say to you that I could half wish to be starting all over again myself. We almost always preach about men, and I
suppose it is done because they are such depraved creatures, and stand in such immediate and urgent need of redemption. I want to preach about some women tonight. I had wanted to call this a family love story, but that seemed a little too low-ceiling for what I want to try to do. And so I'm going to call it Three Women and God. The Book of Ruth is an intriguing book. I've been around the block a few
times myself, and I know that it is said that it is written to establish a certain, to deliver from the people of Israel from a certain parochialism, a certain particularism. But it is also an endlessly engaging book. I always put the little blue thread right at the book because I can never find it. It is set so early in the Old Testament that I'm always looking somewhere else for it. The word God is mentioned very little
in the book, and yet it is one of the noble expositions on what you seminary people like to call theodicy, the ways of God with our humankind. It is the account of a family, Elimelech, his wife Naomi, their two sons, Kaelan, Killian, and Malon. They leave home, they migrate from Israel because hard times have come upon that land. And they go east of the Jordan to Moab, whose line of purple hills has formed a background, an
almost somber background if one sees the hills of Moab at evening, to the long, strange history of ancient Israel. But these are migrants, they have gone seeking a better life. And all of us who are children of migrant communities might well ponder what must have gone through the minds of this man and his wife and their two sons, but particularly the father and mother in giving up familiar surroundings and going to make their way to establish
their home in a strange land where very likely they knew very few people and where they would be looked upon as foreigners and whose customs with whose customs they were not familiar. Somebody ought, some competent person, ought to set down in some skillful way the account of our great black migrations in America, the circumstances, the raw, ugly circumstances which prompted the great migrations of blacks up the coast from Florida, the Carolina, Georgia, the Carolinas, and on
up Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and then from the middle of the country up through the Delta, Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, and then the westward migration of people from my own native state of Louisiana, Texas, on to California, people driven by circumstances. And in how many humble quarters of the south by lamplight must there have been the greatest anxiety of people who were determined that their children would have a better opportunity than they had and
who were willing to brave the hazards and the uncertainties of what they had heard was a cold and particularly in the cases of the northern migrations was a cold and hostile land and yet what courage, what determination they had to get up and to go and many of them began those migrations after the repressive segregation codes were put in following Plessy Ferguson in 1896, 1901 Georgia and interestingly enough the last code Mississippi 1904. But what faith
and what determination, well when one looks back upon Naomi and her husband Elimelech and their sons, one sees a replica of what many of us have gone through and what many black people do not realize and many people in this country do not realize is that with all of the incredibly courageous demonstrations and hazards to which blacks in the south subjected themselves at last in the passing of the civil rights legislation in this country it was
finally the strength of the sons of those migrants concentrated in the great ghettos of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles who finally turned the tide with members of Congress and you may live to see, you may well live to see that the southern black community delivered in the 1960s by the northern black community will in turn deliver the northern black community before another generation goes by, watch for that. But what was the pattern of
migration? Well they establish a home, they live, the husband in natural course of time dies, these sons take wives to themselves. I had the delight at dinner of speaking with a matchmaker on this campus and it is an interesting thing to see romances take place, develop and blossom and flower. These lads, Malon and Killian, marry Moabite girls, lovely in their life, highland beauty and for ten years two generations lived together, this widowed mother-in-law and
mother, these daughters-in-law and these two sons. But after a while something occurs and those of us who preach ought never forget that there lingers ever over human life and after a while the two sons die for life is never one thing or the other. It is always a mixture of joy and sorrow, of gladness and grief, of sunshine and shadows, of sickness and health, of life and of death. This is life and therefore preaching
ought never be far away from tears and laughter. Any preaching that is going to search at the hearts of people must search at them at their depths of their gladness and in those profound moments of their grief. These sons die because the generations rise and the generations pass away and now Naomi is left widowed. She says, and I come now to the heart of what I want to get at, she says to her two daughters-in-law
with a wonderful mature beauty and character that I have no other sons for you and if I barren as I am in my old age if I could bear children you could not wait for them. Go back to your own people. What a selflessness on her part. It was not for nothing that McLaren in his generation suggested that maybe this ought to be called the book of Naomi for in one sense it was she who
was the heroine of it. Willing to undertake and to undergo whatever uncertainties and hazards were involved in returning to her land minus her sons minus her daughters-in-law. Go back she said to your own people. They kiss it is one of the farewell scenes of scripture. Opera goes a little while. Is that the choir? Tell them to come in I want them to hear what I've got to say. That's a wonderful thing nothing like having
a late choir. Tell them to come in. And tell them not to be embarrassed we've been waiting on them. That's wonderful come right in we're going to hear from you before we're through. That's good. That's marvelous. The truth of it is I'm glad to see you because I thought you were a myth. They have delivered you. Isn't that wonderful. I said to myself two or three times there's no choir. They made a truth tell out of
you my dear. How lovely. What was I talking about? No that was a rhetorical device to get your attention I know what I was talking about. Naomi is widowed and then her sons die. She starts back toward the land of Israel hearing that circumstances have altered back at home. She says to her daughters-in-law go back to your own people. Opera goes a few steps kisses her mother-in-law and turns back toward the hill
country of Moab from which she has come. And perhaps Opera finds happiness. Perhaps she marries again. Because there is no beauty quite like that of a woman already attractive who knows sorrow early in her years. And so very likely Opera found a new life. But she disappears forever. She has come very close to salvation history. And one need not blame her. It was a natural impulse for her to go back home. But there is a certain
sadness. A wee bit of a melancholy which settles upon one realizing that here is a woman who touches so close to the whole lineage of God's revelation to people. And then turns away from it and disappears in the purple hills of Moab. How sad it is for anybody to miss life. But how doubly tragic it is for anyone to come close to the meaning of life. To its richness, to its fullness, to its grandeur, to its
glory. And then to turn away from it. One looks out upon this land and it is by any measurement a great land. America is great in the conception of its government. I do not now talk about the execution of it but the conception of it. As Mr. Lincoln stated it before those silent graves at Gettysburg. A nation, a government of the people, for the people and by the people. Though there have been those some in our
immediate past who have sought to turn it into a government against the people. Certainly against poor people. But what a magnificent political concept has been wrestled with on this continent. Where people of diverse backgrounds of varying religions could come together under differing circumstances to be sure. And contract a society which one of these young seminarians called an egalitarian society. What a glorious concept. And what a grand nation it is in our natural resources. Our broad rivers,
our streams, our lakes, our mountains. And yes it must be said that it is a nation in which if one strives hard enough. No matter the disadvantages. And I have come through disadvantages of which neither of you can scarcely imagine. One may make it. It is not to extenuate or excuse the disparities that exist in the land but one can make it. Last week I spoke at Southern University and spent a day or two among the
general people of my upbringing. And I saw people there, hundreds of them, who have actually made it to places of responsibility. People who came along in my time and who could not even go into a public library. It can be done. But how tragic that a land so blessed, so grand, would now be so imperiled by a wicked, I had started to say marriage, but liaison. Between greed and racism. So that the nation has penalized itself.
And paralyzed its energy. And sadly enough, though people have been, some of us have been talking about this up and down this country for three or four years. The nation has finally begun to realize that we are right on the verge of becoming a third world nation. And I'll define a third world nation for you if you want. It is a nation which are a people who send their raw materials elsewhere to be refined. That's what
third world is all about. And whose products are made elsewhere. That's what a third world nation is all about. And this is what we have come to in our generation. In an awful marriage of greed and racism. A greed which has been made respectable by an administration which will be remembered as one of the most sinister administrations in modern times. And it has been baptized by televangelists and at another level by many of us who are
black religionists. So much so that we are no longer willing to pay what it takes to educate our children. We are no longer willing to pay what it takes even to keep our roads open and our bridges upright. Greed has taken hold of us along with racism. How sad that a nation that touched greatness. That could have been really the flagship of all of the civilizations that have ever existed on the face of the earth should
come to such a pass upon which we've urged tonight. The Japanese, then Japanese Prime Minister said that America has fallen back because its minorities hold it back. And some of us were startled and stared by this as a part truth in that. But of course there is no enemy of the truth so strong as a half truth. It is a half truth. It is true that America's minorities have held America back but America's minorities have held
America back because America has held its minorities back. It is as simple as that. And how sad that the heirs of a people who braved the uncertainties of migration and who came out of the dark night of slavery with a bright vision of who they were and what they might become should be succeeded in our day. By a generation so many of whom seem to have lost all sense of direction and purpose. I weep for the
black American community when I remember whose descendants we are. I was born 40 years after slavery are there about and I knew people who came out of that dark night. And I knew their determination. I knew their courage. I knew their willingness to sacrifice. In 1854, the Richmond Monitor, which was then the leading paper of the city of Richmond, which would shortly be the capital of the Confederacy printed an editorial in which it said. The Negro
is here and is here forever. And he is ours. And he is ours forever. In 1854, when from the slave quarters of the South, and I've eaten in former slave quarters and preached in former slave churches. From the slave quarters, there came a reply, not in the print of the Richmond Monitor, but driven up out of heartbreak and hope. I'm so glad trouble don't last always. How sad that we who are the heirs of that tradition
should come now to a place where we do not know now what is the next step we ought to take. How sad in my own city. I hope it has not happened in yours. And I must be honest with you. The other day, the principal of Boys and Girls High School issued a ban on our young people wearing these gold cap teeth. Our people wore gold when they had to wear it. We need to stop that
foolishness and get some honest gold in our pockets. That's where our problem is. And I see I have nothing against it. I see the young people, young men in my church, and I joke with them about it, wearing the new hats. And I have nothing against it, the new flat top, as long as their brains are not flat underneath the flat top hat. How sad that now 23% of our young black men would be either
in prison. And I know they're extenuating explanations, but they do not explain it all. Or on parole or probation. How sad of people, descendants of such greatness, would come now to the verge of our self-destruction, Orpah brushed up against salvation history and disappears in the purple hills of Moab. I want to look down one or two other roads and then I'll bid you good evening. Roof, with some deep interior motive of love and duty and
regard for our elders, would not turn back. And those tender words, which are among the most romantic words, we they, that between boy and girl, or between parent and child, some of the most tender words in any literature in any part of the world. Entreat me, she said, not to leave thee, nor to turn from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge. And thy God, had she
seen this elderly woman in prayer, thy God will be my God. Had she seen this woman's sterling faith under difficult circumstances? She had found in her mother-in-law a role model. Thy God will be my God. And let me say to you quite honestly, the strongest preaching that you will ever do will be in what you are. If you have principle and decency and purpose and a determination not to exploit your people, there will be
people who will look to you. And the God of heaven, the God of heaven, will honor your ministry far beyond what you will ever be able to scramble and scrounge and plot and scheme in order to get. God will do it. And so Ruth follows her mother-in-law. I shall not go on. Boaz sees her and sees again in her beauty deepened by sorrow something else because, believe me, you are not really ready to preach
the gospel at its depths and heights until something has caught you. There was a young woman singing in a concert hall. A man said to another, There is something wrong with her voice. The other said, No, it is not anything wrong with her voice. It's her soul. She has not been hurt yet. And on some day something will cross your life that will bring you to tears and heartbreak. But it will be the means by which
you get access to other people's hearts. And so Ruth enters the lineage of the household of faith. And when I turn to the, what is it, the fourth verse of that first chapter of the book of Matthew, there her name stands. She becomes the mother of Obed. Obed becomes the mother of Jesse. Jesse becomes the father of Jesse. Jesse becomes the father of David. And there in that lineage comes the Savior of the world. This morbid
girl, this heathen girl, this alien child of the hills, this foreigner, by loyalty to love and to duty enters the covenant of grace. And her name stands there and will stand there as long as the stars shall shine and as long as the ocean shall move. Because she found what to find is the most precious thing in the world. An association in the covenant of grace, in the household of faith. Let me bid you good evening
by telling you this. Years ago I preached in a southern city, I forget where now. George Beverly Shea, the song leader for Dr. Billy Graham, was on the program that night and he told something out of his own youth. Apparently he and his family lived in a little town across the Hudson from New York. Young George Shea got a job in Wall Street. And it was soon discovered that he had a knack for dealing with finances.
His family, as I remember the account, it's been years now, his family had a custom of gathering around the piano, as some of us did in the long ago, singing the hymns of faith evenings after dinner. But George Shea became more and more fascinated with the intricacies and involvements of Wall Street finance. And he began showing later and later for dinner. And his mother apparently must have seen that something was happening to him internally. So she
left a note for him to come early from work the next day. And to play a piece on the piano while the other family members were arriving for dinner. And he said that she had left that simple, old, truly evangelical hymn. I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather have Jesus than riches untold. I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land. I'd rather be led by his nailed, pierced hand. I'd rather have Jesus than
men's applause. I'd rather be faithful to his dear cause. I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame. I'd rather be led by his holy name. And I want to say something to you now tonight that I do not say often. I have come now to the evening of my life. It has been a wonderful day. I never dreamt, having been born where I was and when I was, 90 miles from where land runs out in the deepest
south, that such wide opportunity should have opened to me. It's been a wonderful day. And now evening has come. But let me say this to you from my heart, my young friends. I have known people of great wealth. And the faith that I have now, I have not won in any bucolic, cloistered surrounding. I have won my faith in the toughest arena in the world, in the hurly-burly of public life of the city of New
York. I've known people of great wealth, but I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather have Jesus than riches untold. I have heard great auditoriums echo with acclaim from one end of the earth to the other. You name it, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, London, Tokyo, Miami. But I'd rather have Jesus than men's applause. I have known great people, Malcolm and Martin. And once here in this very place, preaching in Old First Church 30 years
ago, I guess, 25, I spent a morning with Albert Einstein. But I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide acclaims. I'd rather have Jesus. I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords. I'd rather have Jesus. We're going to ask that you all stand, would you please? This is an extremely reverent moment. And I would ask of you tonight that you would allow the ministry of the Holy Spirit now to continue to speak with you as the Holy
Spirit has been and is still speaking through His servant and now speaking even more so to the hearts of you, His people. And if you are here tonight and you don't know of this Savior, this Jesus about whom God's servant has preached, this is an opportunity for you to join God's history-making plan to draw His creation to Himself. And so, my brothers, my sisters, my friends, if you are here tonight and you want to say,
Jesus, I don't know you, but I need to know you. I haven't trusted you. I have trusted myself. I have trusted my wisdom. I have trusted my friends. But, Lord, I have not given you the opportunity to rule and reign my life. So, my friends, if you stand here tonight and you know not of this Christ, I'm going to ask that nobody would look around. I'm going to ask that every heart here tonight would open itself
up to God Almighty to say, Lord, here I am. Here I am. You know me. You made me. There are many things that I don't understand. Many heartaches, many sorrows have come my way. But, Lord, I'm tired now and I need to relinquish my life to you. And if that's your heart's cry tonight, you don't have to have it all figured out. But if that's your heart's cry, I'm going to ask you all over this auditorium
to just slip your hand in the air, and I want to pray for you tonight before you leave so that it can be settled with you, that all your sins are forgiven, and that you have allowed Jesus the Christ to come and rule and reign in your life. If that's your desire, tonight. I just want you to slip your hand way up high so we can hear it and put it right down. Yes, I see that
hand. I see that hand. Yes. I see that hand. Yes. Raise them high. Yes, I see that hand. I see that hand. Yes. We'll wait for just a few moments. I don't want to rush with a dynamic message, and we don't want to move in ourselves tonight. But for those of you who raised your hands, I want you to take another bold step. Take a bold step of faith. Move out from where you are and come
right down these aisles, and I want to pray with you. Just come from where you are. We're not here to put you on the front. We're not here to embarrass you. We're not here for people to see who you are, but we want to join with you, and we want to partnership with you, and God wants to partnership with you that this moment might be sealed in time and eternity. So right now, just move from where
you are. Those of you who raised your hands, just move from where you are and come. Yes, come right on. Allow the burdens of God to rise up in you and come. Yes. Yes. You can give God a hand of praise as they come. Come. Yes, come. And cry. I'm going to ask that you would come as they're coming. All of you who raised your hands, yes, come. Come. No need to be ashamed. It may not
be your tradition, but throw your tradition out of the window tonight and allow God to minister to you. There are more of you who raised your hands. Come. No need to be ashamed. You're monks, you're friends tonight. You will not be embarrassed. We will not hold you here all night. We will not pour anything over you, and we will not push you or shove you or put our hands on you and try to put something in
you. But we believe that God Almighty is able all by himself to do what's necessary for your life. Yes, come. Yes. And those of you who are standing now, I'm going to ask that you would grab the person's hand next to you. Hallelujah to God. Yes, all across the balcony, if you would link, yes. God bless your hearts. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. God bless you, doctor. Our speaker tonight, God give you strength. God continue to endow you
with his wisdom. And even in the twilight of your years, we're believing, God, for you, our brother, our senior, our elder, that these years will be some of the sweetest years that you have experienced in the entirety of your life. God, we thank you for Dr. Taylor. God, we thank you for the tears that have been shed. We thank you for the burdens that he has borne. We thank you for the lives that you have touched
through him. We thank you for the ministry that you have imparted into his hands. And now, God, as we have been privileged to hear from you through him, we thank you for these who have come tonight. Those who want to settle the issue once and for all. I ask in Jesus' name, as you have seen their hands risen, you know them because, God, you made them. And you are the only one who can intercede on their
behives in a way that will make life of them meaningful, in a way that will make life whole. So we speak your wholeness to them right now. And as they stand here in your presence, and in the presence of this company, we're asking in Jesus' name that you will settle the issue in their hearts and in their lives so that when they leave this place they will not leave with the same burden as they had when
they came to leave our house. And for that tonight, we want to say thank you because we realize that the angels in heaven even now rejoice because you have allowed a great party to take place. And we thank you that we are a part of that party tonight. So we say glory to your name. Glory to your name. Glory to your name. And God, for these people whose hands are joined, whose hearts are open to you,
whose minds are willing to say, God, we need your wisdom, I pray for them right now. And I ask in Jesus' name that you will endow us with wisdom from on high so that we will not try to do your business on our own merits or on our own laws, but that God, we will relinquish ourselves to you and allow your greatness and your bigness and your holiness and your righteousness to so envelop us that we
will be your people so that where you lead us, we will go. Where you large us, we will large. Your people are our people and you are our God. So God, tonight, as we prepare now to give, we first of all give ourselves to you as a body, as your church, as your people. Help us to ever be mindful of the fact that we stand on the shoulders of our great high priest who bore his cross
up Gorgotha's hill. And when the burden got heavy, one of your servants came along to help him to bear his cross. Nevertheless, he made it to that hill. And when you stretched out your arms there and commended your spirit into the hands of your creator, Jesus, we say now thank you for making it to the cross. We say thank you for enduring all of the heartache and the suffering and the pain that we might enjoy what
we're enjoying here tonight. Help us, O God, to be ever mindful of the fact that it is to you whom we belong. Now, God, you're able to keep us from falling. You're able to transform our lives. And because we know that to be true, we thank you for the exuberance. We thank you for the excitement. We thank you for what's ahead. We thank you for the joys and the sorrows. We thank you for the heartache and
the pain because we realize that you are able to do exceedingly, abundantly about all that we can ask or think. We ask it in the name that's above every name, the name of our Christ, our Savior, our Lord, and our soon coming King. And all God's children said. Amen. I'd like to greet you all, my brothers and sisters in Christ. It was the singer-songwriter, the late singer-songwriter, Marvin Gaye, who wrote and recorded a song
some years ago by the title of Trouble Man. One of the lines in that song says, there's only three things in life that's certain. Taxes, death, and trouble. Death we know is inevitable. Trouble will hang around, and we must pay taxes. These are things that we must do. We have no choice. What I'm about to ask you to do, you do have a choice. But, as Christians, we're asking that your choice would be governed by your
commitment. One of the things that this administration envisioned last year when we first took office was to begin or set up a new headquarters for the National Association of Black Seminarians. To give the organization some stability and continuity. To establish something that in years to come, those who follow after us would have something that they could point to without pointing all around the country. And not being able to pinpoint where it is, or what it is
that they're pointing toward. We're going to ask you if you will, and I know that all of us are basically in the same boat, if you're like me. I'm a seminarian and I don't pretend to be wealthy, even though I live in Princeton. I know most of us don't have a lot of money, but we do have some money, and we can give something. We're asking you to give, not out of your abundance, but out of
the need for this organization. We're going to ask the ushers to come forward at this time. As the ushers come forward to receive your money, not to take your money. We will ask that the choir, if they could, give a selection during the offering.
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Let us bow in prayer. Eternal, all-wise God, King of the universe, we thank you for these gifts that have come, not out of our abundance, Lord, but out
of our vision for seeing that there is a need. We ask that you would bless those that have given. We ask that you would take this little bit that we have received here and make it great. Put it to good use for your kingdom and for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Let the church say amen. Let the people of God say amen again. Won't you repeat after me, thank God for the preacher. Thank God for
the preacher's word. Thank God for the preacher's word. Thank God for the fruit of the word. Thank God for the fruit of the word. And every round goes higher and higher and higher. Dr. Taylor, thank you for blessing us tonight and for setting us off with an inferno in this place tonight. We want to thank Reverend Ervin Wilson from the San Francisco Theological Seminary for extending the invitation to Christian discipleship and rendering our altar call tonight.
We've decided not to have a benediction until Saturday night at the official closing of the conference. And the scripture says, and they sang a hymn and went out. So let's stand together and sing this little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
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