Proctor1983 3337

our preacher this morning is dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor professor of education at the Graduate School of Education Rutgers University and the senior minister in the Abyssinian Baptist Church New York City he received his doctorate in ethics from Boston University in 1950 he has held administrative positions with the Peace Corps in Nigeria and Washington and with the National Council of Christian churches after a selection by the intermezzo singers let us hear what thus saith the Lord by way of his servant dr. Samuel Proctor I'm very grateful indeed for the privilege of being here in this fine institution and for having a small part in what I regard is as a very exciting program I was delighted to learn that the Lutheran Theological Seminary had made common cause with the urban ministry here in Philadelphia and had extended its ministry into this area this is one of the most highly commendable things that I have observed in a long time with respect to theological education I'm also very grateful to my fellow ministers who have participated and were a vital part of this - Dean Burgess and to all who've had anything to do with my coming it has been an inspiration to be here and to take part in the preliminary conversations and discussions and they're not least of all to be inspired by the music of Intermezzo and sister mix I'm very grateful indeed the text on which I shall speak this morning is found in that closing paragraph of the 25th chapter Matthew and if you will indulge it may not take too much time for me to read these words again when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him then he will sit on his glorious throne before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and he will place the sheep on his right hand but the goats at the left and then the king will say to those at his right hand come o blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for I was hungry and you gave me food I was thirsty and you gave me drink I was a stranger and you welcomed me I was naked and you clothed me I was sick and you visited me I was in prison and you came to me and then the righteous will answer him Lord when did we see thee hungry and feed the or thirsty and give thee drink and when did we see the estrange er and welcome thee or naked and clothe thee and when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee and the king will answer them truly I say to you as he did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it to me and then he will say to those at his left hand depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels for I was hungry and you gave me no food I was thirsty you gave me no drink I was a stranger you did not welcome me naked and you did not told me sick and in prison and you did not visit me then they will also answer Lord man when did we see the hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to thee and he will answer them truly I say to you as he did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me and they will alway into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life now the last time I read this I wrote a little note in the margin and the note said the bottom line the bottom line and that's the subject of my message this morning it as much as he have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me now we do an awful lot of things in the name of religion to impress God and one another we go to great lengths to try to prove how wonderful we are in the service of the King but this 25th chapter of Matthew is a kind of a litmus test it's a kind of an assertion of basic fundamental Christianity it is a low nonsense catalogue of what the master truly expects of us it's so simple it's so pure so honest it's embarrassing it is so unpretentious and yet it is high religion and the kind of high religion that would have given Christianity the unquestioned supremacy among the world's great movements and indeed this is how it all began the very simple band of people loving one another in the name of Jesus Christ ministering to one another's need going through Asia Minor the greco-roman world proving to people that the God who made the world was likewise the monitor of the moral universe as well and then running into Roman Imperial strategies getting all cluttered up all kinds of opportunism all kinds of compromises and before we knew it Constantine Theodosius Roman emperors making it a requirement for everybody to be a Christian to be a citizen of the Empire and there goes simple Christianity out of the window this is what it was simple caring for the sick the hungry the naked the prison bound the lepers the blind the lame the heart there was a straight line from Jesus to what the church believed and practice but then it got caught up into the clichy asta system caught up in dogmatix as early as the Galatian epistle big argument who could eat meat who can't eat meat who's got to be circumcised who does not have to be so far and so strange to the Masters simple teaching I was hungry you gave me no food thirsty you gave me no drink then they have descriptions on what you had to do to be saved and how you had to say it what you had to do before you could pray and how you had to go about doing that I once down myself over here and closed the seminary in an examination trying to get my theological degree right in about homoousios home or UCR transubstantiation consubstantiation then getting all bumble up trying to spell antidisestablishmentarianism what a long way from the barefoot have got it in who said I was hungry and you gave me no food and thirst came and he gave him a friend if the master should come back right now those who talk most about his return those who talk most about the rapture of the church are the ones that want to be most surprised and shocked I'm sure that all of this was done with great seriousness men with long gowns and deeply graven countenances heavy sonorous voices made all of these dick talk and translated the Christianity of the simple barefooted Judean teacher into all of this Confucian long coats and caps and gowns and wrinkled brows moreover today we have some of the meanest and most anti-christian people in the whole country calling themselves a part of a moral majority now I think there ought to be a moral majority but a one thing I'm very sure the Mara majority would never call themselves the moral majority nobody who belongs to a power majority finds it appropriate to address himself with such title I am by the very hardness and arrogance of it all is offensive to the Spirit of Christ those persons who made common cause with this administration then it was at its worst identifying with the worst aspects of it indifference toward the poor this obsession with bombs and tanks and first strike capability why I can't understand why a television evangelist preacher would spend so much time on first strike capability second strike capability what profanity in the name of the holy spirit these people who like to hobnob with the super-rich what have they got to do with the man who told a story about Lazarus at the rich man's eight and about a Kamel going through the eye of a needle every time we we look there they are craving a chance to hobnob with the super-rich once again people who don't talk about forgiveness and understanding and reconciliation and reproach MA but people will talk about vengeance and firepower and all of that sort of thing and then they pretend to be the persons who are the trustees of the gospel of our loving Savior whoever thought that the handmaiden of ultra political conservatism would be the great evangelical movement in the United States of America but it has happened before our very eyes what is more they keep talking about the end of the age the coming of the rapture why do you know that the Secretary of the Interior mr. Watts was in testimony and somebody asked him a very profound question about the care of this planet what he was going to do about allowing the big business interest to destroy the environment somebody said how long do you think the plan about the last you can't imagine what he said he said we don't know how many generations it will be before the Lord returns where did this come from Angelico Christianity but all of this kind of of activity that destroys the environment that makes the world a plaything for the super-rich people well it's a serious matter I don't know whether they going to come out of this in one piece or not I know they're better answers there's got to be a better way and if those of us who call ourselves preachers of the gospel would be loyal to our commitment to Jesus Christ and take this simple gospel and preach it with deep personal satisfaction and with a kind of cellphone dedicating verification I think we could turn this thing around it's a cop-out for people always to be talking about the world coming to an end what it means says this we ought not to do the best we can with the days we have at hand Jesus asked us not to worry about that didn't he he said all of that's in God's hands you go on and do your part he'll take care of all of these cosmological details about when histories are going to fold up but this much is true jesus said not every one that says unto me Lord Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven strange how the farmers of the lowly Galilean have strayed so so far away our president asked for tax exemption for the Goldsboro Christian school what on earth made it a Christian school it was christened because it wanted to keep new black children out of its classrooms Kristen how far can you stray I remember once I was in a conference at Green Lake Wisconsin and Clarence Jordan came to speak I knew something was gonna happen in Clarence Jordan got there but I didn't know exactly what they'd look for him at the airport at the bus terminal train station watching for him to arrive in ordinary traditional ways here he comes riding up there order two cylinder motorcycle hadn't been haven't preached his way all the way from Georgia to Wisconsin on a motorcycle dirty ill-kempt unshaven but loaded loaded with the truth from the New Testament when he started speaking he went right through the Sermon on the Mount a sermon that reader would get nobody called to a church I assure you everything that flew with it one of the preachers got up and made the Shema he said mr. Jordan I don't want to embarrass you but this question is bothering me we all here together out here nobody listening but I so I can't be just be Franklin one another he said no how can anybody be a success as a modern urban pastor and father the Sermon on the Mount as literally as you have presented it Clarence Jordan said Jesus did not give the Sermon on the Mount the modern successful urban pastor's he gave it to his disciples and you've got to decide when the conflict comes whether you want to be a disciple or successful modern urban pastor and you know it is because we are not authentic in our discipleship it is because we will not preach this gospel at all of this glorious simplicity we've got for all confused every time I gonna buy myself I hear great big theological debate I'm so glad they don't know I'm a preacher I don't know what to do to be the one word in the New Testament one word in the Old Testament because some preachers have made them believe that that the truth hangs on these kinds of details this nitpicking through the Scriptures and the great burden of the gospel passed over altogether oh I was hungry and you did not cede me I was thirsty you did not give me drink that's the bottom line when it comes down to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ I was a president of a Baptist College in Virginia for a while and a college president gets involved in a lot of things I'm sitting here looking in the faces of some of my friends who are graduates of that college and deeply devoted to it even until this for a moment one day a young man came in and said dr. Proctor you helped me to get in school but I'm gonna have to leave now why the lady who took care of me has died and the house she left in the country is back in taxes they're gonna take it for taxes I've got to drop out of school and get a job to take care of it moreover all of my belongings are there where your family where are your people your relatives dr. Proctor I never had in the relatives I was just a little baby born in the country with they didn't know who my mother was the state had me and the state put me in someone's home paid them to take care of me and another home acted out of another one and this was the last lady who had me treated me just like I was her own child but I've always wondered who my people read her work I think I was just an unwanted child and and they did the best they could but thank God I'm here I'm in school but I'm gonna have to take a pause I said hold it can we do something else that had you drop out right now well he said we can talk about that I've got time to work on that but I've got to go down and get my things because there's no one there and we really may have to sell the house what things you talking about everything I've ever owned everything my childhood pictures and my high school diploma all of my life's possessions in one box in the corner of a room down there and I really don't want to lose that because I have no family what pictures I have of my butt is high school playmates they're all right there know how you want to get it well that's a problem I don't know how to get there get back now I've just been teaching a class and homiletics Christian ethics and all of that I didn't talk about going the Second Mile and all of that there i sat in that office with a nice suit on and fine shoes shined and carpeting and draperies and everything there he is standing in front of me with no relatives no money no future no nothing and I said how far is it it's about 40 miles from here down and Waverly Virginia and then you know how how the Lord comes to you in some strange ways you know to test you to find out what you really made it up and the word came to me saying Sam get up from here go over there and crank up that car drive that boy down there get that stuff it's gonna take you two and a half hours of your life you may go home and look at television two and a half hours you can make his life so different and just think you could talk with him all the way down and back no telephone no interruptions you may run upon some good ideas then I thought to myself well I'm the president of the college I've got no business Drive what is this all about you know like get thee behind me Satan you know but the Lord wouldn't let me go would let me go he said you know you sitting up your pretending to be so business or importantly one of the most important things you could do would be to bring some inspiration and encouragement for this coffee and got a daddy like you had and not a mama like you had all your brothers and sisters he's all by himself do something good for make it by that time the lead had come out on my shoes and I was feeling myself moving toward doing something other than what I ordinarily would do I called up my wife and I said hold dinner for me I'll be a little late for what I'm going down to Waverly with Sandy for what everything he's got down is about to be thrown out and I've got to get out of this even well I can't stand to get sort of it I said hold on I'll tell you all about it when I get back they're just letting me go then send us in dr. Brock I don't want you to drive your car your car is too nice-looking can we borrow somebody's dirty ugly raggedy car I said well how bad is this stuff but I've got a bed I want to get out of there - and I've got a rocking chair I want to get it oh you've got a moving job here so I call up the man in charge of the school vehicle and we just bought an old GMC Armas surplus truck and I said does that thing run oh it runs all right that is shift gears how many gears father four shifts forward everything all right in yeah or I'll change here I said come on let's go we climbed in that old raggedy mustard color army surplus truck started out there going on down toward wave of The Virginian and the longer I rode the more that changed from a truck it seemed like the back side of Mount Horeb that God said to Moses take off your shoes right where you are because this ground is holded it seemed that I was doing more than taking somebody to pick up some furniture in a box yeah myself into one flash of eternity I had stepped out of time and something was happening there he started humming old hymns and things to kill the the time and to break the monotony and I heard him singing a song my soul looks back and I wonder how I got over and I said to him I've heard that song but I never knew the words teach it to me and going on down the wave into Virginia he taught me to sing that song and I got it caught in me and I couldn't stop singing it all the way down and all the way back I got law out of going down there you know when Jesus said and all of these things shall be added unto you I tell you they will be added unto you seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness well every now and then we have a chance God gives us a chance to slip out of our Apocrypha and our pretense and all of our showiness and exhibitionism and all of our cute little gestures we do to make ourselves seem important God will give you a chance every now and then to redeem yourself and to become an authentic representative of the gospel of the Living Christ it as much as you've done it unto the least of these my little ones my brethren you've done it unto me well that's the bottom line that's the bottom line and when we do face the judgment these are the things that are going to be important not whether you were Baptist high baptist low baptist middle baptist Methodist's of any kind then a costal Roman Catholic Lutheran love in a description not what race or color not with socioeconomic status none of this is going to matter all you need to go to enough funerals to find out how final it all is and how the things that you think matter most matter not at all not or not at all indeed the bottom line now break this down and summarize it and you'll see that whether we like it or not Jesus teaches us that that God does look at this bottom line did you feed me did you visit me it may be a little confusing because in our society we are so structured so and so caught up in the culture that there ought to be more to it than that that doesn't seem to be enough I'll never forget when some Nigerian students wanted to visit the First Baptist Church monument and broaden down in Richmond one of the finest churches in the country and had then one of the greatest ministers dr. Theodore Adams or what a saint the preacher he was but that church had sent a hundred and some odd thousand bottles a year all the way to Nigeria to convert the Orbis to Jesus and when I was in Nigeria with the Peace Corps I used to go to those Yoruba turkeys and they would stand up with those deep Yoruba tribal marks and saying all the southern baptists hymns in Yoruba and they still rhymed somebody platelets of your Birds amazing and they had these Yorubas converted by the hundreds of thousands big 7r up adobo musholt and all of those fine young men to be a little harder job over their dead but there I can see them right now and once Sunday morning they got up in Richmond and came to my house and said we've gone to the First Baptist Church to worship you are what should we do going over there you need a ride I'll take you when they got to the First Baptist Church they were met by important bankers lawyers presidents of corporations with expensive blue pinstripe suits and all kinds of fancy things on their stomachs you know all kinds of pins and emblems and little things stuck up in here and American flags and all of that why these been without ordinary men these men had taken fancy pledges to God and country they knew enough handshakes to have the palsy they knew enough passwords to speak in tongues but they stood out on that church and told those nigerians that they were not ready for them to worship God in their church with them on a Sunday morning in all of these fancy ways that church had printed programs three or four pages loaded with announcements all kinds of study groups all kinds of mission studies maps all on the wall win the world for Christ in this generation all of that then in such a simple way the violated completely you can't worship God with me in the beauty of holiness the bottom line it as much as you've done it to the least of these my brethren you've done it unto me now do you see why Christianity lost so much ground to communism and every other kind of ism look at how we violated what Christ taught oh but come next and see that neither our ceremonies our rituals our baptismal rites our noble intentions our fancy slogans none of these things count either the college in which we are caught up is one thing that violates us and then all of these things we substitute for good religion what do they must say God will not smell in your solemn assemblies he will not smell your incense will not listen to the melody of your violins let justice roll down as waters in righteousness there's a lightish stream and what did Micah say pure religion good religion simple do justly love mercy walk humbly with God but you see we have gone now and identified the the cause of Christ with all of these things that we find satisfying to our own ego needs and we've all but lost the essence of the gospel I was hungry and you did not feed me I respected it and you did not give me to drink now finally it says something else to me God just embarrasses us by the very fact that that he teaches us to do these very simple simple things and more than that by revealing himself to the world in such a simple way he didn't come in the form of a royal prince some kind of a great king he came in the form of a of a little boy in a Jewish carpenter's home and born in a barn in Bethlehem in an amazing path of God about whom the Philosopher's muse for generation after generation about whom all of these books are written how that God just cut through all of that talk talk talk and revealed himself in such a simple sort of way it's embarrassing because if you and I had to make our grand entrance into the world my soul we couldn't stand it the things that would be prepared for our for our Adsense but here comes God in the form of a of a teacher in ganodi and a healer bending over a neurotic little boy apparel at it by the Pool of Bethesda going to a woman whose spine was curved and and then worst of all spending the last week of his life on earth not with the big shots in town read your Gospels and see where Jesus was he came in town on Palm Sunday he slept somewhere where did he sleep do you know where did he go the Bible says every day at sundown and Jesus departed from the city and went out to Bethany to the home of Simon Simon who's Simon Simon a leper it blows my mind that Jesus spent his last week on her rooming and boarding in the home of a man who stabbed it put him out too ugly too sick too bad-looking in the face deep pits in his face fingers broken off poles irregular Simon the leper close to filter to be washed wherever foot washed his post Paula Nath would make Jesus the Son of God the rolls of salad what would make him stay with Simon the leper why couldn't he find somebody else Simon how come he's staying with you I don't know why he's in miles everybody asked me the same thing why is he staying here all I know is he's coming back every night to stay with me and the last night he's not coming back here he's going to his cross to Calvary from my house the house of Simon the leper oh I was hungry and you gave me no food and thirsty and you gave me no drink and that you see is the very bottom you you

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Length: 33min 37sec (2017 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2012