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This is Glendale Presbyterian Church People Moving Power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman titled Reflections on the Spiritual Implications of 1972. At the conclusion of side number one of this cassette, be sure to turn immediately to side number

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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 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

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for a personal word before the message is Dr. Thielman. It's a privilege to be with you via this tape. There's one matter about the tape this morning which should be explained to you. My message today to my people is illustrated with slide pictures. In order to indicate to the person running the projector when

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they are to shift to the next slide, I will be using a clicker. So as you listen to this tape, do not feel that there's a cricket in your house or anything of the like. It's just the clicker which we are using. I assure you that the substance of the message will be clear without your having to see the

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pictures. We're sorry you weren't here with us, but we're glad we can be with you via this tape. And may God speak to you through these words and ideas which I shall be sharing with our people here in Glendale. I want to share with you from the Word of God from the book of Exodus, the first

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chapter, beginning with the verse which is numbered one. Now these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt. Every man and his household came with Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. And all the souls that came out of the loins of

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Jacob were seventy souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty. And the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not

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Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

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Therefore they did set over them taskmasters, to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Ramesses. And the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the

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children of Israel to serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. And all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigor. And may God bless to us, and to our understanding, this reading from his word. Let us pray.

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. By any standard of measurement, 1972 was a full year. It was the year that Apollo 16 landed on the moon. The Jane Fonda visited North Vietnam and hasn't stopped talking about it yet. Japanese terrorists invaded an airport at Tel Aviv, and the

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result was murderous to behold. Clifford Irving and his wife received their just desserts for the Howard Hughes hoax. The Bangladesh question was resolved for at least a little while. J. Edgar Hoover died, ending an era which will never be repeated in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Godfather

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was the most popular film of the year, and the world was shocked by a single picture which showed what Napalm could do. President Nixon visited China, and then he visited Russia. Angela Davis was acquitted. Hijacking became almost a weekly occurrence. George Wallace was shot and evidently crippled for life.

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Senator McGovern was chosen, and then chose Mr. Eagleton, and then chose Mr. Shriver. Mr. Nixon was chosen, and then chose Mr. Agnew, and the country chose Mr. Nixon and Mr. Agnew. A madman attacked Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's and dealt it terrible blows, while Charlie Chaplin returned here to

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Southern California to receive an Oscar. And Bad Bobby battled Bored Boris in Iceland for a chess championship that amused the world. We sent grain to the Hungary and Russia, and the world was horrified by the desecration of the 1972 Olympiad in Munich. Israeli letter bombs filled the air after that terrible event,

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while the war in Ireland dragged on. Apollo 17 went to the moon and concluded our on-the-job surveys of that sphere, and in Vietnam the bombing was renewed. These, to my way of thinking, were the big stories of 1972. Your list, of course, might be altogether different, and that's as it should be. Indeed, one of the

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reasons I talk of the things which I think made the year important is so that you will make your own list. I started about nine years ago preaching this sermon, the first of every year, and every year, after all the criticism I get, I decide it should be the last. But as I review the year at the end of the year, I

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find it necessary to tell you where I am, to express to you as the one who is your pastor and for this hour each week your teacher, just the way world events are affecting me. I think it important that you understand where I am, because where I am colors anything that I'm going to have to say, and I want you to understand

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that coloring. It may lead you to accept what I say or to reject it, but in any case you will be better informed and better able to assess the worth of my ministry, whatever that might be. I make no claims to special insights or brilliance or revelation. I remember the story of the Idaho potato that married

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an Irish potato, and very soon they had a little sweet potato, and as she grew she got sweeter and sweeter. One evening when she was in her teens, she was looking at the television and saw a news broadcast featuring Mr. Harry Reasoner, and she turned to her parents and said, "I want to marry Harry Reasoner," and her father was

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incensed, "You can't marry him!" "Why can't I marry him?" "Why, because I am an Idaho potato and your mother is an Irish potato, and you are a sweet potato." She said, "I don't see that that has anything to do with it. Why does that indicate that I can't marry Harry Reasoner? Why, simply because he's nothing

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but a commentator." Well, if Harry Reasoner is a commentator, I'm a more commentator even than that, and I claim no insights that are remarkable. This is just a sharing, and a bearing, if you will. I group my thoughts for 1972 under a verse from the first

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chapter of Exodus, which I've just shared with you. It's the eighth verse, and it reads as follows, "Now there arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph." It's a very simple verse, but it points to one of the great junctures in human history. You know the story of how Joseph was sold into slavery, of how he then

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rose to position of prominence, what we would call the prime minister of Egypt, and how Joseph was honored by the people, and how Joseph's descendants were honored by the people. They were given all kinds of special privileges within the Egyptian society. But Joseph died, and his immediate descendants died. There

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were still many Jews, indeed they multiplied within Egypt, but it was now a good number of years after Joseph's time. And there arose a new king, a new Pharaoh, who did not acknowledge Joseph or his descendants or any of the good things that Joseph and his descendants had done for Egypt. This Pharaoh turned against

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the Jews. He put them in bondage. He even went to the point of killing their sons. He had no regard or respect for that which had been basic to the earlier experience of the land. There arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph. Now these words epitomize to me the events of 1972. Well, I can't point to a new king,

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to a new ideology, or to a new philosophy. I can't point to new events which I would say constitute a new king. But I can say to you that I discover in our time a new spirit, a moral malaise, if you want to call it that, an establishment of new priorities which are not sympathetic to our understanding of life as the

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spiritual descendants of Joseph, that is, as Christians. Most men pay no heed to our faith. They have no special reverence or respect for the things of God, and it seems to me that this is becoming more and more symptomatic of our time. You can remember when it was common to pray in school, when baccalaureate services were

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held in almost every community in the land, when Sunday blue laws closed most of the businesses on the day which we set aside specially for the worship of God. You can remember the time when no one questioned tax exemption for religious institutions, and when politicians always made it a point in

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advertising themselves for office as to what church they belong to or attended or at least were interested in. You can remember when society gave strong support to almost all, if not indeed all, of the ministries of the church. But now all of these things are gone. Pluralism has taken away the advantage of

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Christianity within our society. The church doesn't want to become involved in social issues because, by and large, the society does not want the church to be involved in social issues. A new king, new ideas, a new pharaoh is holding the scepter. Other sovereignties are demanding the allegiance of most men, and

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these sovereignties do not look with favor on us. In 1972, this seemed to me to be especially clear. I noticed, for example, the decline in America's international eminence. As Christians, we have profited from the fact that America was the strongest and indeed the most prestigious and influential nation on

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the face of the earth. But that's no longer the truth, or at least it's becoming less and less true. And because the most of the world sees Christianity as a Western religion, even though it is not, having originated in the Middle East, because the rest of the world looks upon Christianity as a Western religion, as

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they see the West decline, they see Christianity decline. Mr. Nixon goes to Russia, and that in itself was a remarkable event. An American president in Russia. He was not there as the leader of a great nation, just acknowledging in some humble act of graciousness the leaders of a small nation. No, this was

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one strong nation meeting another strong nation. There was no fear on either side. We needed each other, and so we got together. Even more astonishing was his visit to China. Mr. Nixon, always known as a man very much opposed to red attitudes and ideas, now shaking hands with Mao Tse-tung, or going to the ballet

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with Mao's wife. Make no mistake about how the rest of the world saw this. They saw it for what it was, the United States expressing respect for China, acknowledging the need for a rapprochement with China, trying to soften in one way or another China's inevitable entry into the United Nations.

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The balance of trade situation is serious, and certainly not in our favor. The precarious gold standard has led to a devaluation of our currency, and other nations whose leaders we criticized and said inevitably would come to failure seem to be doing better. The failure to handle our own domestic situations has

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led to criticism from the rest of the world. As I traveled in Zaire, in Tanzania, and in Kenya this last summer, I was repeatedly asked about America's social difficulties, and I was asked in the spirit that indicated, "If you haven't solved your own problems, what are you doing over here talking to us about

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ours?" We see the pathetic situation in Uganda, where General Amin seeks to drive out all those who are not black. He despises all those who are not black, because for so long the rest of the world has despised the black. Now I'm not exactly sure why we are seeing the decline of America's influence and

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eminence in the world. The things I have mentioned indicate it, and perhaps to one degree or another have contributed to it, but of at least one thing I am certain. Too many times we as a nation have bet all of our chips on losers. We did it in Cuba, we did it in the Dominican Republic, we did it in Portugal, we did it in

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Pakistan, we did it in Vietnam. We've chosen to side with those who have been many times out of touch with the majority, with regimes whose days were numbered, so that when those regimes came to an end, our influence and prestige in those nations came to an end. We have too often sided with the haves and not with

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the have-nots, even though, interestingly enough, our Gospels clearly teach us that it is as we fellowship with the least of the brethren that we fellowship with Christ. Two-thirds of the world, you see, is in the have-not category. Those are the meek, and they seem to be on the march toward inheriting the earth. I'm

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desperately afraid that we are in the process of doing exactly the same thing over again in the Middle East. Because of its crucial geographic position, because of its vast oil reserves, it is important to us. But let us not forget that more important than these things, the Middle East has always been one of the most

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important mission fields we have known. We have sent literally hundreds of missionaries, our largest mission corps, to the Middle East to win to Jesus Christ the lost sheep of Israel. And now, slowly and systematically, this mission corps is being put out of that area of the world. The Jews are deterring, limiting,

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and expelling our missionaries in Israel, and at the same time, because we support Israel, the Arab nations surrounding Israel are driving our missionaries out because they see them as emissaries of a country which they progressively come to despise. I think it important that we be aware of this. Do you know, for example,

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that in Israel it is required that every school child study the Judaistic religion? Now, you know that here in our own nation, whenever we try to hold a baccalaureate service, or a nativity program, or some program which emphasizes Christianity in the public schools, our Jewish citizens are amongst the first to

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protest, which is their right. But it is interesting, I think, to notice that in Israel, the homeland so claimed by the Jews, there every student must study their religion. It is required under the law. Did you know that 10% of those who are being expelled from Israel are, in fact, Christians? Did you know that in

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1967, when Israel attacked Jordan, they destroyed over 1 million dollars of Christian property, churches, hospitals, and schools, none of which was being used for military purposes? Israel is very quick to assert its right to exist under mandate of the United Nations, and it's quite correct in doing this. But why then

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does Israel not acknowledge the United Nations when it votes 99 to 0? 99 to 0 for Israel to make Jerusalem into a city holy to three religions, and not holy only to its own. And in the midst of these kinds of circumstances, we continue to actively support Israel in its position, and do so supposedly to keep

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the Middle East free of communist influence. Anyone who knows the Arab world knows that to an Arab there are three important things. First of all is faith, and communism is godless. Secondly is family, and communism deprecates and attacks the family. And third is country, and anyone who knows what communism does

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to a country will not let communism take over his country if he has something to say about it. There has been no evidence of great Red strength growing in the Middle East. Indeed, the incursion of the Reds in the Middle East has come about principally because of our active support of Israel in that place. I'm not going to take any

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more time on this. I'm simply pointing out that we are beginning the same process there which we have carried out in a little island of land across the Pacific, a little spot of earth called Vietnam. We are beginning the same kind of policy, and it troubles me, for as we engage in more and more active support

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of Israel, this state in the midst of states with which it is incompatible, the third world, which constitutes two-thirds of the world, turns more and more against Israel and against us, and we consequently lose prestige. And our Christian brothers in Arab nations and our Christian brothers within Israel

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cannot understand our policy. Not a single one of the mission servants of our church who has worked in Israel or the Middle East is in support, not a single one in support of the policies toward which we as a country seem to be so aggressively committing ourselves. In 1972, we watched that hideous spectacle

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in Munich. Mark Spitz is not the personality who will be remembered from the 1972 Olympiad, but rather that hostile, maniacal, insane attack which was perpetrated by Arab terrorists. Now that kind of unreasoning activity must be condemned by the whole world, but when the United Nations rose up to condemn it,

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what nation stood in opposition to its proclamation? The United States of America. And why? Because in the proclamation there were certain statements which were also critical of Israel. Are we so blind as to believe that we can flaunt ourselves, flaunt our attitudes, attitudes which I do not

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understand, attitudes which it seems to me represent the sovereignty of a new king, a new pharaoh that leads us to support that with which the rest of the world is incompatible, to support that which moves against our own mission enterprise, to support that which it seems to me flies in the face of some of

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the things which we hold to be crucial and important. This is the will of the new king, it seems. He does not know me, and I do not know or understand him. Something else in 1972 which disturbed me was our growing tendency to praise the dishonorable. Take the case of D.B. Cooper. Now D.B. Cooper was the fictitious name

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used by the man who pulled off the first successful hijack. It was a Northwest Orient 727. He took over the plane, put the stewardesses and the passengers on the ground, got $200,000 in ransom, ordered them to fly off, and when they went back into the plane later and landed he was already gone. He had parachuted. He has

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never been found. The media picked up the story and magnified it so that pretty soon other people were trying it all over the world. None of them have succeeded as effectively as Mr. D.B. Cooper. Did you know that you can go to the part of the world where he jumped out and there you find him being honored

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as a modern-day Jesse James? Did you know that you can buy t-shirts with his name on them now and bumper stickers that say that you've been to D.B. Cooper country? They published a book now which is called A Handbook for Hijackers and it has a subtitle, "Please Hold This Bomb for Me While I Go to the Bathroom." And the

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woman who wrote it, who lives in the area where Mr. D.B. Cooper supposedly jumped out, has written that she breathed a sigh when he was not captured, for his glory is still his and his glory belongs to all of us. Is that the kind of thing that we want to be honoring in our society? Should the picture which is most

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acclaimed be the Godfather, which is the story of the Cosa Nostra, but which is pictured in such a way that we are shown a dear and sentimental old grandfather, who is in fact a cold-blooded killer, but who comes across on the screen as a gentle, tender character, whom we should honor at least for his allegiance to his

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own family. And did you notice at the time when J. Edgar Hoover died, how so many of the media were ready to make snide cracks about him? A critique indicated in more than one way that he was in office too long or that all of his policies were not good, etc., etc. I don't stand before you this morning as an

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apologist for J. Edgar Hoover. Maybe he was the director too long. Maybe all of his policies were not wise. But I want to ask you, is it a healthy sign to see us so ready to issue t-shirts to D.B. Cooper and only criticisms to a man like J. Edgar Hoover, to pillory him after he is dead, one who no matter what mistakes he

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made rendered great service to his country? Are we really, in a society where people are less safe than in most of the societies of the world, are we really ready to make a hero out of Mr. Cooper while we attack Mr. Hoover? Or look at another way in which we have a tendency to honor that which is not honorable. We

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give the Pulitzer Prize to Mr. Jack Anderson. Now Mr. Anderson, the columnist, has tremendous influence. Why, he can drop a lie about Senator Thomas Eagleton and in a matter of weeks make a major contribution to the ruin of a man's entire life. And then eat crow about it when it turns out to be a lie, and eat

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that crow so that it looks like squaw. That's what Mr. Anderson can do. His specialty, you know, is to snoop into the private papers of other people. Now we can ask Mr. Anderson by what right he does this, and he replies, "Public officials' work should be scrutinized." Well then, we say, why not scrutinize your

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files and your papers as well? You're a public figure. Always says, "I'm a public figure," but not a public official. Fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court says there's little to distinguish an official from a figure when it comes to public matters. Mr. Anderson says that public officials have a tendency to

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reveal only those things which are in their own favor. That's a sin which is common to most men. Mr. Anderson is a man. Is it not legitimate to suggest that neighbor Mr. Anderson only releases those stories which happen to throw light in his favor? Isn't it interesting to observe his suggestion that he would be

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willing to have an impartial, unprejudiced, objective panel review his stories before he releases them? Where would you get a totally impartial, objective, unprejudiced panel? Mr. Anderson says he's willing to decide who will be on the panel. Is Mr. Anderson objective and unprejudiced? Is he

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altogether open on all questions? The point is that Mr. Anderson is a muckraker. Now, you may wish to honor muckrakers if you wish. You may think it's a noble profession. That's your choice to make. But should a muckraker be given the Pulitzer Prize, or is this honoring what in fact isn't honorable? To give the

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highest plume that journalism offers to such a one? To give it to a man who by receiving it stands on the same level with Ernie Pyle or Margaret Higgins? Is that really what we want to do? Is that really good for America? I would simply say to you that as an American and as a Christian, I deplore the adulation and

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the praise of the unworthy. I think it is sentimental claptrap calling something good which isn't good. It bodes ill for the land, but it's become the way of doing things. It's a new sovereignty in our time, but this is a king or a Pharaoh who I do not understand and whom I think does not understand the things of our

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faith. And let me point to one other aspect of 1972. This the other side of the coin I've just mentioned. On the one hand, we've had a tendency to praise that which is unworthy, but on the other hand, we've had a tendency to call worthy or to misuse that which is worthy. I refer specifically to Vietnam. It dominated the

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news again in 1972. Many of us tried to pretend it wasn't there, but it is there. It's still very much there, and it demands our attention. I've never spoken of it before from this pulpit. I'm going to speak of it now, but I want to make certain things very clear. I want to say first of all that I'm not blaming any

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political party, the Democrat or the Republican. I want to say I'm not blaming any president of the United States, the man who is our president now or any president who has preceded him. I want to say that I am not speaking as a pacifist. To me, pacifism is not an intellectually responsible position. I am

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no more interested in the opinion of a pacifist on the Vietnam War than I am interested in the opinion of a vegetarian on the qualities of different kinds of meat. And I am not speaking as one of those who question whether we ever should have been in Vietnam. There's a lot written about that. I've read much

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of it. I think it to be historically unimpressive and morally unsatisfying. It smells of an isolationism which I had hoped was dead a long time ago. Now, I've arrived at the position which is now mine in just the last few weeks, and I'm speaking now as one who simply feels that the issues in Vietnam are different

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now and involve a different response from this country. I'm one who thought it was the honorable thing for us to be there, but who feels now that the honorable thing for us would be not to be there. And I want to repeat at this point that I am not attacking any particular individuals. I very much

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resented the bitter polemic which was addressed at Mr. Nixon during the last political campaign. To suggest, as some did, that he was like Adolf Hitler is to scrape the scum from the bottom of the political barrel. I can forgive our young people who weren't alive during the Second World War and so simply don't

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understand what they're talking about when they use those terms, but I cannot forgive those who are their elders and who use that kind of talk. I don't believe for one moment that Mr. Nixon or General Westmoreland or Secretary Laird or Dr. Kissinger, that any of these men are evil, vicious, megalomaniacs whose

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motives are impure and who are the blood servants of the military-industrial complex. I don't believe that they have on their hands any more than anybody else the blood of our soldier boys or the blood of the citizens of any other nation. But by one of the largest majorities in the history of this

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country, Mr. Nixon has become again the President of the United States. And so I address these words to him and they will be going to him and I address them to you because I am concerned that we may be misusing our national honor. We may be misusing our national honor. Is honor to be found in a war which the rest of the

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world now looks upon as being essentially racial? Now this is not a racial war. I know that and you know that. Yet repeatedly I found in my travels in eight different nations this last summer that most of the world looks upon this as a war between a large white country and a small yellow one. Are we bringing

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honor to our country by persisting in a war which the rest of the world looks upon in such terms? Are we bringing honor to our flag when we engage in a war which is costing us so much, presently about 20 million dollars a day? That amounts to a billion dollars a week. Do you know how much a billion dollars is?

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If you had a billion dollars, you could hire 10,000 people to work for you, have them work 10 hours a day, every day for 10 years. Every day, no holidays, for 10 years. Pay them a dollar an hour. 10,000 people, 10 hours a day, for 10 years. A dollar an hour and still have enough money left over to make 27

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multi-millionaires. We're spending that every week. But more costly than that, the lives that are lost. Over 50,000 Americans now. That would be like driving from here to Sacramento and every 20 feet along the freeway passing an open casket which contains the remains of an American boy. And then continuing your

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trip around the entire nation and every 20 feet as you circumscribe the United States, coming upon the open casket of someone else from another nation who has died in this war. You know, the Vietnamese have been fighting for 27 years. They resisted the Chinese centuries ago. They resisted the French. Now they're

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resisting us. I don't think our progress in the war has been too impressive. Do you really feel that it has been? And are we honoring ourselves at such a cost, with such a gain? We say that it is to keep them free of communism and that is a worthy and an honorable goal. We'd all agree. But I want to ask you something.

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Cuba is now in the grip of communism. But don't you think really that Cuba, in the last 10 years, is better off than the last 10 years in Vietnam? Do you think Cuba would be willing to trade its last 10 years for 700,000 dead bodies or the destruction of 60% of its productive capacity or the disease, the

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degradation and the despair which now plagues Vietnam from shore to shore? Are we honoring America by being a part of this? You know, I sometimes feel that we've been approaching this war like we'd approach a football pep rally. You remember pep rallies when you went to high school? The color, the excitement, the

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band, the cheerleaders, the coach saying a few words and some of the key players, all the ballyhoo which was associated with the game, it was exciting. I was at the Rose Bowl game last Monday and that kind of thing at a football game is just great. I was sitting, it happened, just two rows in front of Mrs. Richard Nixon.

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She's a lovely, gracious, charming person. I think one of the most winsome women to observe and to just listen to that I have ever seen or heard. At one time I had the opportunity to express a brief word or two to her and suddenly as we were talking an image jumped into my mind. I don't know why it was there. I was

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having a very good time and delighted to have the opportunity to exchange a few sentences with her, but suddenly this picture came to my mind. It was a picture of Mr. Nixon kind of talking to America as if we were engaged in a great big football game and we were to keep on going in the war so that we

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could have a peace with honor, but I got the impression that the honor part of it seemed to be more important than the peace part of it. That the urge to win was more important than the urge to have peace and that troubled me. I know what I'm saying is troubling some of you. I see some of you shaking your heads and

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looking at me with great despair. I'm sorry about that. I don't like you ever to have to feel that way about me, but well it's like one of our men said to me a few months ago, "I honor this man so much that I've never been able to tell him how much I honor him and I couldn't tell you now," but he said after hearing

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me say certain things in a sermon that I'd made a serious mistake because I preached something contrary to the foreign policy of the United States. I didn't know how to respond to him then. I wouldn't know exactly know how to say it now, except to just blurt out the fact that I didn't take an oath to preach the

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foreign policy of the United States. I took an oath to preach this book and this book says blessed are the peacemakers and this book says that those that take the sword will perish by the sword and this book says that our ministry is to change swords into pruning hooks and this book says that

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God requires of us to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God and the fact of the matter is my brothers and sisters I can't talk to Jesus anymore about this war in terms of our winning because he looks at me and I feel guilty. I don't like that. I don't like that any more than you do. I was

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thrilled when right before Christmas it looked like it might be over, that the Nixon plan would be resolved quickly and we would be out of that place. What a gift to put at the cradle of the newborn King. Peace. But now the bombing has been increased. More of our planes are being shot down than ever. More of our young

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men are in red prisons now than have been for years and years and years and where is the honor in all of this? It seems to me that there's a new Pharaoh, a new king who loves honor more than peace and who sometimes in the pursuit of honor does things that don't seem to me to be honorable and this kind of hurts

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me inside. I saw a picture of a little Vietnamese boy sitting in the midst of ruins, despair, dejection and confusion on his face and as I looked at the picture I wondered whether peace at any price would not be worth more than what was happening to him. And the words of a poem written years and years and years ago by

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Edwin Markham came searing into my memory. Picture that little boy, that hurt, confused, dumb with fear little boy. Picture him and listen to these words. "Oh masters, lords and rulers in all lands, is this the handy work you give to God? This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? How will you ever

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straighten up this shape and touch it again with immortality? Give back the upward look and the light, rebuild in it the music and the dream, make right the immemorial infamies, profiteous wrongs and immedicable woes. Oh masters, lords and rulers of all lands, how will the future reckon with this boy? How answer

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his brute question in that hour when whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings, with those who shaped him to the thing he is, when this dumb boy shall rise to judge the world after the silence of the centuries? How will it be when this new Pharaoh who knows not

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Joseph dies? How will it be?" Let us pray. I thank Thee, Father, that I can feel safe enough with these people to say what's on my heart, to know that they will hear it, that they will test it, that they will accept it or reject it, but all in love. And I thank Thee, too, this day that after the Pharaohs of the oppression

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came Moses, the man who set his people free, who led them into a promised land, and I'm beseeching Thee now, Lord, to lead us all to a promised land. Take us to that land, whether it be here or hereafter, and fill that land with a peace, a peace so high, so deep, so wide, that we won't even be able to understand

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it and won't care that we can't understand it. A peace so magnificent that in it all we'll have to do is love You and love each other and enjoy it to the full, forever and forever. And I thank You also, Lord, for 1972 and for the fact that it brought us one step closer to the coming of Your Son. Oh, Jesus Christ,

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regnant, sovereign Lord, come and set up Your kingdom where we will be known as those who love Thee and own Thee as Lord of all. It's in Your name that we ask it. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]