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[silence] This is Glendale Presbyterian Church, People Moving Power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman titled "On Learning to Mind Other People's Business."

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At the conclusion of side number one of this cassette, be sure to turn immediately to side number two for the remainder of the message. This tape is copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Any public or commercial use, in full or in part,

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requires the advanced written permission of Dr. Thielman. The private use of this material for the spiritual gain of yourself or others is heartily encouraged. And here, for a personal word before the message, is Dr. Thielman.

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It's a very rainy morning here in Glendale, but San Foray's Christians are still on their way to church. And I'm glad they are, for I want to talk with them this morning about something that is crucially important in the ministry of the Church,

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about minding other people's business, about being significantly involved in the affairs of our society. I think what we will be discussing today is one of the major concerns in the life of the Church today,

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and I'm glad that you will be sharing with us. I hope these words will be thought-provoking and blessing and encouraging to you. God bless you, my friend, and thank you for being here. Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's word

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as it is recorded in the first letter of John, the third chapter, beginning at the thirteenth verse, and in the book of Revelation, the third chapter, beginning at the fifteenth verse, reading first from 1 John. "So do not be surprised, my brothers, if the people of the world hate you.

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We know that we have left death and come over into life. We know it because we love our brothers. Whoever does not love is still in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer,

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and you know that a murderer does not have eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is. Christ gave his life for us. We, too, then, ought to give our lives for our brothers.

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If a man is rich and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against his brother, how can he claim that he has love for God in his heart? My children, our love should not be just words and talk.

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It must be true love, which shows itself in action." And then reading from the book of Revelation, chapter three, "I know what you have done. I know that you are neither cold nor hot.

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How I wish you were either one or the other! But because you are barely warm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. I am rich and well off, you say.

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I have all I need. I do not know how miserable and pitiful you are." May God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word.

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Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I wish to share with you this morning on the theme

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on learning to mind other people's business. And the first thing to notice is, obviously, that we are already doing it. As members of the human community,

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we are almost ceaselessly interrelated with our societal siblings. Unless you choose to hide yourself off to the hills and live in a cave, you are going to be tied

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into the warp and the woof, the fabric of human relationships, woven into the tapestry of every group you touch, and even some that you do not touch. What John Donne wrote centuries ago

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was and still is indisputably true. No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

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I lay this down as axiomatic. As 20th century Americans, we are regularly, consistently, and inevitably involved in other people's business.

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You belong to the PTA? Good. You are involved in the education of every youth and child in this city. You've signed a petition or worked for the election

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of this candidate or that? To precisely this degree, you have had political influence on this place. You voted in the last election,

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made decisions on this proposition or that one, chose Nixon or McGovern for national leadership. You were involved in other people's business in every one of these decisions.

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The way you drive your car, whether you pay your taxes or fail to pay them, the behavior you insist upon in your children or simply tolerate in your children,

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each of these dimensions of your life touches other lives also, and to this degree, you are minding other people's business. Anyone who thinks that he can separate himself from involvement in the affairs of this society

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is seeking after the virtually impossible. No man is an island, and that means nobody can be neutral. Nobody can say about any significant issue of today,

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"I do not choose to be involved." Because we are part of today, we are involved, whether we want to be or not. And neutrality, when it is professed,

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or the kind of indifference which leads us to say that we are uninvolved, is simply announcing to the world that we favor the status quo

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or its deterioration into that which is even worse. You're driving along a surface street. You see the child on the bicycle, but the driver in front of you does not.

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He hits the child. The child is injured critically. There is terrible blood loss from a virtually severed right leg. You instruct someone to call a doctor, and they do so.

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You put your jacket under the child's head. You see the life of the child seeping from her lacerated limb. You know what to do. You take out your handkerchief prepared to apply a tourniquet

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above the wound to stop the blood loss. Someone in the gathering crowd yells at you, "Don't touch her. Man, if you do any damage, you'll be slapped with a lawsuit. They'll take every dime you have.

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Leave her alone. The ambulance is on its way." So what do you do? You saw the accident. You sent for a doctor.

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You used your jacket to comfort her crying. All of these acts, or any one of these acts, has led you to be involved. Now you know what more needs to be done, and you know further that if that tourniquet is not applied,

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death may result. You're no doctor, but you have eyes in your head and common sense, and you see the bloody evidence in front of you. But there's a risk involved in applying that tourniquet.

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There have been suits filed against those who tried to help. Make no mistake about it. The law does not require you to apply that tourniquet or to do anything at all to help this dying little girl at your feet.

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Way back in 1928, a young man fell into a Massachusetts lake. Another young man saw it happen and heard the man in the water scream, "Help, I can't swim!" But the youth on the shore, who was an excellent swimmer,

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simply sat and watched. He saw the drowning one sink, surface, and then sink again, this time to his death. In the lawsuit which followed, the court ruled that the youth on shore

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had no legal responsibility to try to save the drowning boy's life. And that case has become the locus classicus for all such cases that have followed. That is the law.

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You can't be sued, you can't be arrested for not applying the tourniquet. You may be sued, you may be arrested if you do. So what is your choice? The one choice that you can't make is not to be involved.

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You are already part of the event. To that degree, you are already involved. But more importantly than this, recognize that if you do nothing, that child may die, and therefore you can't say you will not be involved.

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To do something will have an effect on her, and to do nothing will have an effect on her. Whichever decision you make, you are affecting that little girl, and you are regrettably naive if you think otherwise.

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Neutrality is not a real option. It never is. And that means that if a child in Glendale, California, is not able to afford a lunch and goes hungry with consequent poor study habits

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and therefore less chance for success in life in 20th century America, if that goes on and we know about it, whether we do something about it or don't do something about it, we are involved. If a youngster in our schools is laboring under educational conditions

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that could be significantly improved with some volunteer assistance in the classroom of people who care for them and for their future, and thus also for the future of Glendale and all of America, then if we care and help those kids, or if we choose not to care

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and not to help those kids, in either instance, we are involved. We are affecting their future. If a black man comes to this town and tries to buy a home and is repulsed or intimidated or lied to or deluded or conspired against

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by any person or group of persons in this city, and we know of it or even suspect it and can learn of it and do something about it and do do something about it or decide not to do something about it, in either case, we are involved.

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Hear the word of the disciple James. If a man knows what is right and fails to do it, his failure is a sin. That is to say, like it or not, we are involved in other people's business, whether we aggressively relate to them or try to hide from them,

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whether we assert our oneness with them or deny it vigorously, whether we vote yes or no or don't vote at all. To make any of these choices is to be involved in other people's business, to be affecting their lives.

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But as Christians, let us go another step and affirm that as we are involved in the business of others, just so we are involved in the business of God. To be tied into the concerns of others is to be tied into his concerns.

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Even the most cursory consideration of Scripture makes this very clear. In the narrative concerning the creation of everything that is, we are told that it is our task to subdue the earth and to build upon it a lifestyle for all men which is acceptable to God.

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This command of God is both prior to man's sin and subsequent to it. It is heard from the Spirit of God both in Eden and outside of Eden. The story of Cain and Abel is recorded in Scripture for us precisely that we might learn that God sees all human life as sacred,

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that which blesses life he blesses, that which curses life he curses. That is, to the degree that we do what is good for our brother man, God is well pleased. But to the degree that we do or do not do

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that which is detrimental to our brother man, God is not pleased. The question "Am I my brother's keeper?" is decisively answered in the affirmative by the actions of the Almighty. Let me share with you one of the most awesome judgment passages in all of the Old Testament.

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Hear the word of God. "On that day," says the Lord God, "I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning,

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and all your songs into lamentations. I will bring sackcloth upon all loins. I will make it like mourning at the death of an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day."

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Now what prompted this terrible judgment? Is it the writing of some new revised standard version of some more ancient document? No. Is it some act of pagan idolatry, child sacrifice, or fertility rite?

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No. Is it for lack of faith, for failing to have personal devotions, for drinking or dancing or smoking or being a communist? No.

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Is it for using guitars in church or preaching a sermon in which at least 21 verses of scripture were not quoted? No. It is for none of these things.

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Hear the divine indictment. "Because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, they trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside from the way of the afflicted."

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Amos speaking for God condemns those who live self-sufficiently while others go hungry in body, mind, or spirit. He says for God, "To the degree that you do not care for them, you do not care for me." All of the Old Testament prophets pick up the same cry.

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Hear another one of them utter it with great passion. Isaiah affirms that God will make Israel a place of waste and bloodshed because of the simple but undeniable truth that some are ignoring, seeking not to be involved in the lives of others.

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And then he goes on to proclaim what alone will lead God away from the terrible wrath which is his. Isaiah writes, "Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow." And then Micah picks up the same theme and echoes it again.

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"He has showed you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." And every single one of these categories speaks of our meaningful involvement in the lives, in the joys and the sorrows, in the business of others.

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And the New Testament is crowded with similar references. Let me give you just one example. Here again for a moment, the first text on which Jesus ever chose to preach. Looking out at that Saturday morning congregation in Nazareth, he said,

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"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty all those who are bruised. Today is this scripture fulfilled in your sight, and would God that today this scripture would be fulfilled in us

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that we might so live that when we hear words like this we need not be ashamed." John writes, "If a man has enough to live on, and yet when he sees his brother in need shuts up his heart against him, how can it be said that the divine love dwells in that man? My children, love must not be a matter of words or talk," he continues,

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"it must be genuine, it must show itself in action." In its greatest moments, the Church of Jesus Christ has always moved in active obedience to words like these that I've quoted. It has moved dynamically and dramatically into other men's business, into the affairs of society. In 125 AD, Aristides defended his fellow Christians by writing these words to the Emperor Hadrian,

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"They love one another. These Christians take care of the widow's needs. They rescue the orphan. He who has gives to him who has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting. When the Christians find a stranger, they bring him to their homes. When one of their poor passes away from the world, each one of them contributes to the burial.

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If they hear of any of their number who are imprisoned or oppressed, they all provide for the needs. Other people's business, you see, was to them the business of God. The Church went to work on the Roman Empire, and because of the direct action of Christians, torture was eliminated from judicial proceedings, slavery fell into disfavor, licentious and cruel sports were stopped,

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legislation was enacted which protected prisoners and cripples, children were given legal rights for the first time, women were given legal protection and care when they were cast aside, hospitals and orphanages were begun, freedom of conscience was established under the law, property reforms were instituted. All of this, other people's business, done in the name of and for the love of Jesus Christ, who cares about men.

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The names of the great servants of mankind pile up one upon another. Donatus the Great, Ratramnus of Cormie, Berenger of Tours, Arnold of Brescia, Teresa of Avila, the Lawlords, Christians all minding other people's business. As the great missionary movement of the Church began to reach out and claim the world,

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the men and women who went were not generally cultural imperialists, as some would argue. On the contrary, for their day, they were remarkably sensitive to the human needs of those they came to live for and sometimes to die for. Morrison of China, Schwartz, Carey and Duff of India, Williams of the South Seas, Chalmers and Payton of New Guinea, Judson of Burma, Moffat, Livingston and Slessor of Africa, Gardner of Egypt, Martin of Persia and India, Gilmore of Mongolia,

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and on and on the list, and all of them with two distinguishing marks, evangelistic fervor on the one hand and active social consciousness on the other. They minded other people's business even when those people lived on the other side of the world. They fought black magic in Haiti, child stealing in the Punjab, polygamy in Arabia, opium in Shantung, slavery in Madagascar, disease in Congo, cannibalism in Micronesia, head hunting in Barneo, and all for the love of God and for the love of others,

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minding his business, the business of other people. Let those then who question as to whether the church should be involved in the social questions of the day think instead of the only question which the responsible Christian asks, the only real question that speaks to the Christian heart, how, as Christians, can we most effectively and meaningfully mind other people's business?

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That's the right question. And I want to suggest very quickly a couple of answers. First, the Christian recognizes the responsibility he has to act as well as think and talk. John's counsel is carefully precise.

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Love must not be a matter of words or talk. It must be genuine and show itself in action. Now, in this third chapter of his first epistle, John is laboring to explain that the Christian's model for life is Jesus Christ. And he climaxes his development at this point by saying that even as Christ laid down his life for us,

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so we must be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers. And then, because laying down one's life is such a dramatic illustration of sacrifice and service, John hurriedly goes on to give a very practical demonstration of the kind of loving of which he is speaking. He says, "If a man has enough to live on, and yet when he sees his brother in need, shuts up his heart."

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And that's a very unusual phrase for John. In all of his writings, this is the only place where he uses that phrase, "shuts up his heart." It means literally, "to barricade." If a man sees the need of another and barricades his heart, how can it be said that the love of God dwells in him?

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John, you see, always brings things to the point of the concrete. He does not leave us off in the clouds of a dreamy discipleship made up of challenges that we will never be called upon to meet. "Love like Jesus," he asserts. "Love even as he did." But since most of you won't be called upon to die for your brothers, let me give you a more practical illustration.

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Love enough to tear down any barricade in your heart. And then, do what? Give him a tract? No. Preach him a sermon? No.

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Open your wallet. If you've got enough and you know a human being who doesn't, and you can help him and don't, then, John says, you are not a child of God. Get into, practically, demonstrably, actively, into your neighbor's business, and there be a blessing to him.

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And if you don't, then the love of God is not in you. Secondly, as you involve yourself actively in social action for Jesus' sake, remember to do it with intelligence. Nothing vitiates Christian social witness like ignorance and lack of intelligence.

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"Behold," Peter says, "be ready always to give a reason for the faith that is in you." Now, this obviously does not mean that you have to be an expert on every matter that you speak of. Tell me, when you get a parking ticket that you do not deserve, do you study the entire motor code of the state of California

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before you set out to correct the injustice done you by some over-anxious meter maid? When your teacher in school miscorrects your paper, do you study all of your notes over again, going back over everything, before asking for the correction and the adjustment?

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No, you don't do that. The fact is that we need to know as much as we can about the issue, but this doesn't mean we have to be experts on it. Unparalleled in the matter, such a rationale is a cop-out, pure and simple,

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and it ought to be called by its right name. I've heard citizens argue in City Hall about housing and federal funds and summer school and a hundred other themes. They were not experts, but they knew enough to make their case,

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and that is what is necessary. This community had a good opportunity to observe this principle in action just this last week. A very thorny issue on the separation of church and state was before our school board. One of the members of the board, John Hedlund,

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whom I'm very proud to say is our brother in Christ in this congregation, gave evidence of having carefully studied the matter. I know for a fact that he reviewed all of the pertinent theological, biblical, and legal materials that he could get his hands on in the limited time he had,

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and I know this because I helped him gather them. He came to recognize that the great danger in mixing the church and the state in education is not to the state, but to the church. Too often it has been the first step to the takeover of the church by the state,

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and there's not a healthy state church anywhere on the face of the earth today. So John rightly insisted on careful study, curbs, cautions, and the like, and as a result he has been bombarded by Christians--and I don't question their faith, they are Christians-- who want religion in the public schools, at least their idea of religion,

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and who aren't wise enough--and I do question their intelligence-- who aren't wise enough to understand that such a step, unless most carefully controlled, can be the beginning of a long slide toward a state-controlled religion, a watered-down kind of common man Americanity, not Christianity,

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which is an insult to God and a despair to mankind. So let the Christian be as informed as he can be. This, by the way, says a very strong word to those who feel that Christian education is to be nothing more than Bible study.

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I've devoted my life to the study of this book, and I will never cease studying it, but I know that my task as a Christian who cares and who struggles to live like Jesus is to bring these paragraphs into life and into practice, and to do that I must not only know this book,

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but I must also know the world in which I am to preach it and live it. Our faith is consistently embarrassed by those who, by insisting upon and defending their own ignorance, make, by their example, Jesus look like some first-century tramp, Paul look like an Old Testament bumbler, and Peter like a blundering oaf.

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But you read the sermons of Peter and Paul, and you discover that they're not just piling up verses or marshalling paragraphs. They knew God's Word, and they knew the world, and they spoke in the categories of the world. But this is how they brought the Word to the world with such power.

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No one could call them stupid or irrelevant or uninformed. They had to be listened to, and thus they could change the lives of those who heard. Let every Christian be informed on the problems of society as well as God's answers to them, and let no church which doesn't so inform those who are willing to learn

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pride itself on its Christian education program for it's only doing one half of its job. Third, let the Christian who is seeking to mind his brother's business never forget that he has a double aim, to bless a soul and a body. We are to be concerned for the spiritual and physical needs of our brothers.

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We hear a great deal of talk these days about a two-legged gospel. That is, a gospel which concerns social needs and spiritual needs. Now what troubles me about this kind of talk is that I don't see many Christians or churches walking on either leg,

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let alone on only one of them or both of them. I hear the avid exponent of socially relevant Christianity moan his platitudes about the two legs of the gospel, and I find that his service is not sacrificial,

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and his evangelistic fervor is virtually lifeless. On the other hand, I talk to the right wing, to the so-called conservative evangelical Presbyterian. I find him ready to attack the crippled state of the liberal

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while he argues that he has a two-legged gospel which he claims for himself. I question him and discover that he's never been in a ghetto, and when I ask for the name and address and phone number of the last man he won to Jesus, or even for the name, address, and phone number of the one on whom he is working now to bring him to Jesus,

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he is unable to provide them. You can't love a man's soul and be contemptuous of his social needs. You can't be concerned for a man's life and leave out his soul, which is the spark of his life. Christian love is to walk on two legs.

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It would be very nice if slavery in this country would have ended because all Americans became Christians, but that hasn't happened yet, and that means that if there had been no social zeal in those Christians back there and in others, we would still have slavery in America.

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In like manner, there are a lot of people in this life living today who are still tragic to behold, still slaves to sin and collecting the wages of sin which is death, and this is because our only concern for them has been their bellies, and when they become satisfied with that, they are most to be pitied

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for their very physical comfort takes away from them, conceals from them, their more necessary spiritual needs. Why, we go to them with a basin and a towel, but while we are on our knees before them, and that seems to be the position in which the world hears us best,

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while we are on our knees before them, let us tell them about Jesus. And one last thought. Let us recognize from the start that the balanced, two-legged gospel which John calls us to will demand courage.

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The evil in the world will hate us because we are doing good. The socially myopic will condemn us because their brains are not as big as their hearts. The evangelically shallow will attack us because their hearts are not as big as their brains. To stand on both legs of the gospel, to mind other people's physical needs and spiritual needs,

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to be involved socially and personally, with head and with heart, is a lonely and a costly discipleship. Jesus says it means taking up your cross and following him, and we know where this ministry led him.

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But you see, if we are Christians, we can't stop loving him, and so we must continue following him. He haunts us. We may try again and again to escape him, but to no avail.

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We may hurry faster than the dawn and hide on the remote islands of the sea, and he will still find us. Whether civilization scrambles to heaven or slides to hell, he will still be with us. Men will sneer at him and curse him, and because of him they will sneer at us and curse us.

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They may trample him into the dust and us with him, but he will persist. And because he does, so must we. He looks back over his shoulder at us as redeemer, as tormentor, as savior, as God, and every time he sees us walking on only one leg, we will hear him say what he first said so long ago,

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"I know all your ways. You are neither hot nor cold. How I wish you were either hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." Yes, to know him and what he requires, and to fail to do it,

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or at least try with all one's ability to do it, that is to be the spittle of God. That which is of God, but which he expectorates from himself. What finally shall we say in the last moment, when we will be confronted by the unimaginable,

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the one who could not be measured or contained in space or time, who was love unlimited? What shall we answer when the question is asked about our undeeds committed in his name? In the name of him for whose sake we promised to have courage to abandon everything. Shall we say that we didn't know?

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That we couldn't hear the clatter of hearts breaking, millions of them in lonely rooms, in alleys, in prisons, and in bars? Shall we explain that we thought it mattered more that buildings were constructed and maintained in his honor? That we were occupied with the arrangements of hymns and prayers,

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and the proper and the responsible way of doing things? Shall we tell him that we had to take care of the orderly definition of doctrine, so that there was no time to listen to the sobbing of little ones huddled in corners, or the silent despair of those already beyond sobbing?

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Or shall we say that we were afraid? That we were keeping busy with all of this to avoid confrontation with the reality of his meaning, which would lead us to repentance? That it was fear which kept us hiding in church pews and in important boards and committees?

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When he went by. What shall we say when our time comes? Well, in his name, I call all of us to love like him, to break down every barricade within us,

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to open the doors of our hearts, to mind others' business, which is to say, to mind the business of him who is our master, our savior and our lord.

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To do it in deed as well as word. To do it with intelligence. To do it as individuals and as a congregation. To do it with concern for body and soul.

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And to do it with courage until he comes. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us.

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O Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us. Make us by thy grace into what we have not yet been. Those who are willing to die to offer to live and to love others, body and soul, in his precious name. Amen.