You Are Accepted by Paul Tillich -- Read by Peter Rollins

you're accepted a sermon by Paul tillick moreover the law entered that the offense might have bind but where sin a binded Grace did much more abide Romans 5 20. these words of Paul summarize his Apostolic experience his religious message as a whole and the Christian understanding of life to discuss these words or to make them the text of even several sermons has always seemed to me impossible I have never dared to use them before but something has driven me to consider them during the past few months a desire to give witness to the two facts which appear to me in ours of introspection as the all determining facts of our life the abinding of sin and the greater a binding of Grace there are few words more strange to most of us than sin and Grace they are strange just because they are so well known during the centuries they have received distorting connotations and have lost so much of their genuine power that we must seriously ask ourselves whether we should use them at all or whether we should discard them as useless tools but there is a mysterious fact about the great words of our religious tradition they cannot be replaced all attempts to make substitutions including news I have tried myself have failed to convey the reality that was to be expressed they have led to shallow and impotent talk there are new substitutions for words like sin and Grace but there is a way of rediscovering their meaning the same way that leads us dying into the depth of our own Human Experience and not depth these words were conceived and there they give power for all ages there they must be fined Again by each generation and by each of us for ourselves let us therefore try to penetrate the deeper levels of our life in order to see whether we can discover in them the realities of which our texts speak have the man of our time still a feeling of the meaning of sin do they and do we still realize that sin does not mean an immoral act that sin should never be used in the plural and that not our sins but rather our sin is the great all-pervading problem of our life do we still know that it is arrogant and Airness to defied Man by calling some Sinners and others righteous for by way of such a division we can usually discover that we ourselves do not quite belong to the Sinners since we have avoided heavy sins have made some progress in the control of this or that sin and have even been humble enough to not call ourselves righteous are we still able to realize that this kind of thinking and feeling about Sin is far removed from what the great religious tradition both within and outside the Bible has meant when it speaks of sin I should like to suggest another word to you not as a substitute for the word sin but as a useful clue to the interpretation of the word separation separation is an aspect of the experience of everyone perhaps the word sin has the same root as the word asunder in any case sin is separation to be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation and separation is threefold there is separation among individual lives separation of a person from themself and separation of all people from The Grind of being this three full separation constitutes the state of everything that exists it is a universal fact it is the fate of every life and it is our human fit in a very special sense for we as people know that we are separated we not only suffer with all other creatures because of the self-destructive consequences of our separation but also know why we suffer we knew that we are estranged from something to which we really belong and with which we should be United we know that the fear of separation is not merely a natural event like the sudden flash of lightning but that it is an experience in which we actively participate in which our whole personality is involved and that as fit it is also guilt separation which is fear and guilt constitutes the meaning of the word sin it is this which is the state of our entire existence from its very beginning to its very end such separation is prepared in the mother's womb and before that time in every preceding generation it is Manifest in the special actions of our conscious life it reaches beyond our Graves into all succeeding Generations it is our existence itself existence is separation before sin is an act it is a state we can say the same things about Grace for sin and grace are bind to each other we do not even have a knowledge of sin unless we have already experienced the unity of life which is Grace and conversely we could not grasp the meaning of Grace without having experienced the separation of life which is sin Grace is just as difficult to describe as Sin for some people Grace is the willingness of a Divine King and father to forgive over and again the foolishness and weakness of his subjects and children we must reject such a concept of Grace for it is merely a childish destruction of a human dignity for others Grace is a Magic Bar in the dark places of our soul for others Grace is a Magic Bar in the dark places of the soul but a par without any real significance for practical life I quickly Vanishing and useless idea for others Grace is the benevolence that we find beside the cruelty and the destructiveness in life but then it does not matter whether we say life goes on or whether we say there is Grace in life if Grace means no more than this the word should and will disappear for other people Grace indicates the gifts that one has received from nature or society and the power to do good things with the help of those gifts but Grace is more than gifts in Grace something is overcome Grace occurs in spite of something grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement Grace is the reunion of life with life the reconciliation of the self with itself Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected Grace transforms Fiat into a meaningful Destiny it changes guilt into confidence and courage there is something triumphant in the word grace in spite of the abiding of sin Grace abides much more and now let us look dine into ourselves to discover there the struggle between separation and reunion between sin and Grace In our relation to others in our relation to ourselves and in our relation to the grind and EM of our being if our soul responds to the description that I intend to give words like sin and separation Grace and reunion may have a new meaning for us but the words themselves are not important it is the response of the deepest levels of our being that is important if such a response were to occur Among Us in this moment we could say that we have known Grace who is not at some time being lonely in the midst of a social event the feeling of our separation from the rest of life is most acute when we are surrounded by it in the noise and the talk we realize then much more than in moments of solitude how strange we are to each other how a strange life is from life each of us draws back into himself we cannot penetrate the hidden Center of another individual nor can that individual pass beyond the shride that covers our own being even the greatest love cannot break through the walls of the self who has not experienced that disillusionment of all great love if one were to hurl away itself in complete self-surrender he would become a nothing without form or strength a self without self merely an object of contempt and abuse Our Generation knows more than the generation of our fathers about the hidden hostility in the grind of our souls today we know much about the profusive aggressiveness in every being today we can confirm what Emmanuel Kant the prophet of human reason and dignity was honest enough to say that there is something in The Misfortune of our best friends which does not displease us who amongst us is dishonest enough to deny that this is true also of them are we not almost always ready to abuse everybody and everything although often in a very refined way for the pleasure of self-elevision for an occasion of boasting for a moment of lust to know that we are ready is to know the meaning of the separation of life from Life and of sin abiding the most irrevocable expression of the separation of life from Life today is fine in the attitude of social grips within Nations towards each other and the attitude of Nations themselves towards other nations the walls of distance and time and space have been removed by technical progress but the walls of estrangement between heart and Heart have been incredibly strengthened The Madness of the German Nazis and the cruelty of the lynching mobs in the South provide too easy an excuse for us to turn our thoughts from our own selves but let us just consider ourselves and what we feel when we read this morning and tonight that in some sections of Europe all children under the age of three are sick and dying or done some sections of Asia Millions without homes are freezing and starving to death the strangeness of life to life is evident in a strange fact that we can know all this and yet can live today this morning tonight as though we were completely ignorant and I refer to the most sensitive people among us in both Mankind and nature life is separated from Life estrangement prevails among all things that live sin abides it is important to remember that we are not merely separated from each other for we are also separated from ourselves man against himself is not merely the title of a book but rather also indicates the rediscovery of an age-old Insight we are split within ourselves life moves against itself through aggression hate and despair we are want to condemn self-love but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love it is that mixture of selfishness and are itself here that permanently pursues us that prevents us from loving others and that prohibits us from losing ourselves in the love with which we are loved eternally the one who is able to love themselves is able to love others also they have learned to overcome self-contempt and have overcome this contempt for others but the depth of our separation lies in just the fact that we are not capable of a great and merciful Divine love towards ourselves on the contrary in each of us there is an instinct of self-destruction which is as strong as our Instinct for self-preservation in our tendency to abuse and Destroy others there is an open or hidden tendency to abuse and destroy ourselves cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves nothing is more obvious than the split in both our unconscious life and conscious personality without the help of modern psychology Paul expressed the fact in his famous words for I do not do the good I desire but rather the evil that I do not desire and then he continued in words that might well be the motto of all depth psychology now if I should do what I do not wish to do it is not I that do it but rather sin which dwells within me the apostles stands the split between his conscious will and his real will between himself and something strange within an alien to him he was estranged from himself and that estrangement he calls sin he also called that a strange law in his limbs an irresistible compulsion how often we commit certain acts in perfect consciousness yet with the shocking sense that we are being controlled by an alien part that is the experience of the separation of ourselves from ourselves which is to say sin whether or not we like to use that word thus the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves because we are estranged from the grind of our being because we are estranged from the origin and EM of our life and we do not know where we have come from or where we are going we are separated from the mystery the depth and the greatness of our existence we hear the voice of that depth but our ears are closed we feel that something radical total and unconditioned is demanded of us but we rebel against it we try to escape its urgency and will not accept its promise we cannot Escape however if that something is the grind of our being we are bind to it for all eternity just as we are buying to ourselves and to all other life we always remain in the power of that from which we are estranged that fact brings us to the ultimate depth of sin separated and yet bind estranged and yet belonging destroyed and yet preserved the state which is called despair despair means that there is no Escape despair is the sickness unto death but the terrible thing about the sickness of Despair is that we cannot be released not even through open or hidden suicide for we all know that we are bind eternally and inescapably to the Grind of our being the abyss of separation is not always visible but it has become more visible to our generation than the preceding Generations because of our feeling of meaninglessness emptiness doubt and cynicism all expressions of despair of our separation from the roots and the meaning of our life sin in its most profined sense sin as despair abides amongst us we're cinebinded Grace did much more abide says Paul in the same ladder in which he describes the unimaginable power of separation and self-destruction within society and the individual soul he does not say these words because sentimental interests demand a happy ending for everything tragic says them because they describe the most overwhelming and determining experience of his life in the picture of Jesus as the Christ which appeared to him at the moment of his greatest separation from other people from himself and God he find himself accepted in spite of his being rejected and when he find that he was accepted he was able to accept himself and to be reconciled to others the moments in which Grace struck him and overwhelmed him he was reunited with that to which he belonged and from which he was estranged in utter strangeness do we know what it means to be struck by grace it does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists or that Jesus is the savior or that the Bible continues the truth to believe that is almost contrary to the meaning of Grace furthermore Grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our own moral self-control in our fight against special faults and in our relationship to people and to society moral progress may be a fruit of Grace but it is not Grace itself and it can even prevent us from receiving Grace for there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or despair it would be better to refuse God on Christ in the Bible than accept them without Grace for if we accept without Grace we do so in the state of separation and we can only succeed in deepening the separation we cannot transform Our Lives unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of Grace it happens or it does not happen and certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves just as it shall not happen so long as we think in our own self-complacency that we have no need of it Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness it strikes us when we walk through the dark Valley of meaninglessness and empty life it strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual because we have violated another life a life which we loved or from which we were estranged it strikes us when our disgust for our own being our indifference our weakness our hostility and our lack of Direction and composure have become intolerable to us it strikes us when year after year the long poor Perfection of life does not appear when the old compulsions Reign within us as they have done for decades when despair destroys all joy and courage sometimes at that moment a wave of Life breaks into our darkness and it is though a voice we're saying you are accepted you are accepted accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know do not ask for the name nigh perhaps you will find it later do not try to do anything now perhaps later you will do much do not seek for anything do not perform anything do not intend anything simply accept the fact that you are accepted after such an experience we may not be better than before and we may not believe more than before but everything is transformed in that moment Grace conquers sin and Reconciliation Bridges the Gulf of estrangement and nothing is demanded of this experience no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition nothing but acceptance in the light of this Grace we perceive the power of Grace in our relation to others and to ourselves we experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another the miraculous Grace of reunion of life with life we experience the grace of understanding each other's words we understand not merely the literal meaning of the words but also that which lies behind them even when they are harsh or angry for even then there is a longing to break through the walls of Separation we experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another even if it be hostile or harmful to us for through Grace we know that it belongs to the same grind in which we belong and by which we have been accepted we experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the Sexes of the generations of the nations of the races and even the other strangeness between people and nature sometimes Grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong for Life belongs to life and in the light of this Grace we perceive the power of Grace in our relation to ourselves we experience moments in which we accept ourselves because we feel that we have been accepted by that which is greater than we if only more such moments were given to us for it is such moments that make us love our life that make us accept ourselves not in our goodness and self-completency but in our certainty of the Eternal meaning of our life we cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves we cannot compel anyone to accept themselves but sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say yes to ourselves that peace enters into us and makes us whole as self-hate and self-contempt disappear and that our self is reunited with itself then we can say that Grace has come upon us sin and grace are indeed strange words but they are not strange things we find them whenever we look into ourselves with searching eyes and longing hearts they determine our life they abide within us and in all of life May Grace more abide within us

Channel: Revolution

Views: 4,431

Keywords: Revolution, Revolution Gathering, Jay Bakker, Grace, Reformation, Punk, Paul Tillich, You Are Accepted, Peter Rollins

Id: sVR72-Us4Ps

Length: 27min 1sec (1621 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023