Dear Engaged Spirituality Family,
Both Jesus of Nazareth and Howard Thurman understood fear. As oppressed people during Roman occupation and during Jim Crow, they were born into and lived every day in fear’s “climate closing in like the fog of San Francisco.” Thurman spends most of this 6th sermon of Jesus and the Disinherited elucidating the specifics of the horrific fear in which the disinherited live. Then he says, “fear, for the (disinherited) is a form of insurance against precipitous violence.” At the end of the sermon Thurman cautions: “in the end that which saves, protects, and guarantees the perpetuation of his life a little longer - (i.e. fear)…warps and finally diseases the soul…(and) becomes that which kills the soul and dries up all the bearings of inner creativity and meaning, so that the individual becomes a charred corpse.”
In the 7th sermon, Thurman explores the negative effects that ‘the fear of man” have on the disinherited and insists that if the disinherited can answer the question – “Who am I?” with - I am God’s child. (This) “establishes (in them) a sense of personal well-being in the midst of a situation that cannot justify well-being...The redemptive quality of the ‘fear of God’ (nourishes) the life (of the disinherited) with strange new courage...Lays bare the heart of reverence...Pours wave after wave of healing balm upon the broken and forlorn...Makes strong the failing spirit...Renews the mind and affirms the craven will…Is the beginning of wisdom - Fear not, says Jesus, and all the sons of men echo in their hearts the triumphant word.”
Please join us for Engaged Spirituality to discuss these questions and raise other questions on SUNDAY June 26 at 10:30 AM as we discuss Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited recorded sermons #6 and #7 (Fear).
Here are the links to the sermons. Just click on each link and it will bring you to the recordings:
#6 – Fear, Howard Thurman Sermons on Jesus and the Disinherited, March 1, 1959
(Sermon begins at 8:39)
#7– Fear of God - Howard Thurman Sermons on Jesus and the Disinherited, March 8, 1959 http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/virtual-listening-room/detail?id=371632
(Sermon begins at 4:18)
Below please find abridged transcripts of these recorded sermons and the Zoom invite.
Hope you can join us on SUNDAY June 26
Take care,
Eileen
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