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Mhm. Good morning. What a delight it is to be here on the Austin Presbyterian Theological seminaries campus place where I've spent a lot of time in the state library. It has allowed me to undergird the

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messages that God has allowed me to bring it to David chappelle Church and elsewhere. Let me also thank President Ted Wardlaw for extending this gracious invitation to me last year and for this moment to arrive. Let

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me also thank the amazing Houston till it's inquire led by my dear friend, Dr Gloria Quinlan. I'm always blessed to hear them saying and to see these young people who are pursuing their dreams and hopefully the

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callings that God has on their lives. Thank you also for Brother Edison and Sister Cifuentes for sharing in this worship experience and all of the others. We also thank reverend Jackie Saxon and her staff for making

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this such a comfortable and gracious moment to the students of a Pts and faculty and uh staff. Thank you again for being here. I see some of David chapels members here and that's a delight. They

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knew I needed to see their faces. If nobody else no showed up and other friends who are in this gathering, Let me also thank another friend, reverend Melissa Wigington, who had me earlier this morning

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, spend time with a group of pastors who are here pastors who the fellows and pastoral leadership in public life, uh, to share some of my musings about how we pastors should engage on public issues.

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It's good to see some of them decided to stay around and to share in this moment as well. I wondered, um, when President Wardlaw asked me to come, I wondered about what would be the

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circumstances and the situation in our country. By then , I knew who the president was. Uh huh . But I didn't know what the president would do , but I was clear that that would be much

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meat available for us to eat on and uh each day indeed, each moment seems to be giving us something new, maybe even night when we wake up , something has happened. And this is an interesting

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time. But I've said to our congregation and others that in our experience we have been this way before that if you understand history, mhm there have been issues and circumstances through which we have traveled uh and

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we have survived those and I have no question that we will survive these. And so I want to spend a few moments talking about these times. Dare us to be friends. These times bear us to

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be friends. What About 30 years ago I inherited 1958 book from my baptist pastor father, the title of which is stride toward freedom, the Montgomery story . It is a copy of dr martin Luther King's

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first book, which he described as the chronicle of 50,000 negroes who took to heart the principles of Nonviolence , who learned to fight for their rights with a weapon of love. DR King further said that his

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understanding of Nonviolence while seeking to win an opponent to friendship rather than to humiliate or defeat him. On the inside cover of my copy of the book, are these handwritten words to my friends, jaycee Parker

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with great respect and deep admiration, martin L King , JR. We cannot parse DR King's words as if they were written in biblical language, but they assess a relationship that developed over time. And on

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my church office is a wall, on the wall is more evidence of this friendship. A handwritten, now published March 10, Letter found in Dr King's papers written by my father when he passed it in

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Montgomery urging DR King to accept the pastorate of Montgomery's dexter Avenue baptist church. By the time that DR King's words were written in that book, these friends had journeyed together through college, early pastoralists in Montgomery

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Alabama and the Montgomery boycott. At the time, my father had been called to a new pastor in Birmingham. The 1963 Birmingham protest the bombings of homes in Birmingham, The terrorist 16th Street Church bombing and

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the killing of four girls. The 1965 Montgomery to Selma, Selma to Montgomery, March had not yet taken place yet. These friends were together through all of these events& Dr King's 1958 words spoke of

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a continuing and future relationship and friendship that lasted up to the time of his death. These two men shared the christian faith. They shared pastoral calls on their lives and a commitment over their lives to social

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justice. These two men were united in mind, in spirit and in purpose. It's difficult to know dr King's definition of friend as he used it in this book, but being a friend means having some

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sort of attachment to another. It means that there is some common ground. It means that there is no hostility That exists between the two. It recognizes that we are all created in the image and likeness

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of God. And there are sentiments of affection and respect, but their lifelong friendship was forged literally through blood, sweat, tears and death during a time when black folks were treated less than human. When

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the murders where there were murders, a black folk that were regular fare when there was legally enforced racial segregation. As life in the deep south, we're hatred and racism were in your face daily. And

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in those days, most in the white american christian church Refused to embrace the words of Micah six and 8. And what does God require of you to act justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with

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your God? It was also a time when the american church was racially divided and divided by faith. Although unity and friendships were expected because, as the apostle paul has said to us in the Book of

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Ephesians, the dividing wall of hostility has been broken and destroyed by christ Dr. King was disappointed in white clergy and the White church considered his 1963 letter from the Birmingham jail when he was arrested as a

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protester in Birmingham, he he spoke of his grave disappointment with the White church and its leadership and that some of the white moderates were not more devoted to justice. Listen to what he says. DR King

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says. There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed in those days. The church was not merely a

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thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion , it was a thermostat that transformed the more rays of society. And whenever the early christians into the town the people in power became disturbed and immediately assault

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to convict the christians for being disturbance of the peace and outside agitators. But the christians pressed on in the conviction that they were a colony of Heaven called to obey God rather than man. They were small

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in number, they were big and commitment. There were two God intoxicated to be astronomically intimidated and by their effort an example, they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest. Dr

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King says things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a week ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo and far from being disturbed by the

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presence of the church. The power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silence and often even vocal sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never

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before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, Forfeit the loyalty of millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the

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20th century. He father notes, every day I meet young people who's disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust in a sense, DR. King was daring them to be friends. It was his

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appeal when he spoke of the beloved community. When he spoke of this community of society that was based on justice and equal opportunity and a love of one's fellow human beings. It was there that he was

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urging the people of God to be friends. C . S. Lewis says friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another what you too , I thought that no one but myself, he

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says, friendship is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of enough but friendship , my friends also requires accountability. Friendship also requires responsibility and trust and dependency and dr King once concluded

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in the end, we will not remember the words of our friends, our enemies, but the silence of our free in these times we are being there to be afraid. Could this letter from the Birmingham

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jail be written today to the clergy of the american church, from the jails in our communities. Could this letter be written from the education crisis jail? Could the letter be written from the economic crisis jail

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? Could this letter be written from the racial estrangement and tension jails? Could this letter be written from the criminal injustice jail? Could could this letter be written from unaffordable housing jails? Could it be written

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from healthcare jails? Could it be written from homelessness jails? Could it be written from poverty jails and hunger jails and the immigrants jail? Where are the friends? But long before martin spoke of the beloved

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community, jesus spoke to his disciples of his beloved community For their, in John Chapter 15 is a word from the Lord to the church in these times here he says, and suggests to us the non

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violent act of just being a friend. I'm wondering , I'm wondering, my brothers and sisters, where are we today? Where are the friends who love ? And I come daring us to be friends.

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I come daring us to recapture the befriending spirit of the early Church. These times are urging us to be friends. Even dr King's words on another occasion encourage us when he says that love is the only

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force that is capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We christians need to what I would call Hopscotch through political and social and economic and interfaith and denominational and theological hurdles. We need to hot scotch

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and move around so we can engage one another rather than beef being afraid of one another. We need to learn to listen, to talk, to discuss debate. Despite our differences. Did you not hear

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the words of jesus? When he said he gives this to us the things that he learned from his father? Have you? And I learned from the father? Mhm. Where where are the friends in

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the church that need to befriend those outside of the church? To the theologians in the house? Have you and I exhibited our communities. Have we studied what is around us and in us to the extent

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that we can minister and preach to those? Yeah . When I was growing up, we played a game. Double dog, daria. Yeah. You know what double dog dare he is. You know

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, after a dare has been made and the dare ring has refused. The durer can then raise the stakes by double dog daring the diarrhea, meaning that if the dare is carried out out by the dairy

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, then the dearer will also perform the task. I stopped by if I went home and David chappelle , I say I stopped by the day. This to tell you that double dog, dare e to

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be a friend. Because jesus has already dared us In the 15th chapter of John and so my purpose is to come and double dog dare you. In these days, we who are the friends of jesus

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must recognize in this good news from him that these days dare us to live lives of love. Did you not hear the words when he says now remain in my love And Love one Another. You and

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I are required as people of God and followers of jesus to live lives of LA Today in the year 2017. In these times of just overall fear and division and disrespect for American institutions and distrust of authority