No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.
Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said: 'Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.'
I believe in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
No one can whistle a symphony.
A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, "The best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person." That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a person.
Expressions of sharp and even violent criticism of religion and the church have been welcomed, for they usually imply sincerity of thought. If caustic criticism of religious institutions and practices is irreligious, then Amos, Isaiah, and Jesus were very irreligious men. In fact, that is exactly what many of their contemporaries took them to be.
The Christian message is not an exhortation - "try hard to be good." Good advice, but there is no saving gospel in that.
There is the liability of accepting prematurely an artificial horizon for our own character and personality, of losing the horizon of the possible person we might be. It is the danger of considering our character as something static, rather than as something emerging.
We have a moral obligation to be interesting, for our gospel is loaded with life-and-death interest for people.
The aim of preaching is not the elucidation of a subject, but the transformation of a person. Our task is the sharing of intense faith and experience.
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