My father was a priest for 43 years in the Episcopal Church. I plan to post his sermons as they might apply to our world today. As a preacher’s kid, I endured the stereotypical sarcasm of my friends and acquaintances. However, I learned from him and though he is long gone from this world, I feel his presence in my life today. Today’s posting is called the “The Worth of Man.” The sermon was preached as a radio broadcast in 1946 in Moscow Idaho, in 1948 in Palouse, Washington, and again in Twin Falls and Buhl, Idaho in 1958. In these troubles times of 2010, the words ring true to me as I hope they will ring true to you. I look forward to reading your comments. May we all find our worth in the worthless human existance. 

The Worth of Man 

This morning for the few minutes that I have, I should like to think with you about the current disillusionment of the worth and ability of natural man that is so prevalent in the world today. 

                There are those who are of the opinion that Christianity in its teaching about the common man is wandering in world of make-believe. It has told us to respect, to trust, to believe in this low fellow, the common man, and to call him a son of God. 

                It is this doctrine that is confusing so many of our people today, I believe. They look about them and see what man really is, what he done, and where he is heading and then say, “How can I accept it?” man is a failure, he is a fool. Man is a killer. Never in all of history has he sunk to a lower level than right now. 

                I have had good people say to me, “I do wish to believe in God and to serve Him if I can; but I simply cannot believe in man. And you tell me I believe in the worth of man if I am to be acceptable to God.” 

                My friends, we must remember that this problem of the worthlessness of man is a new problem only in our modern age.” It is not a new problem in history. Many centuries ago the psalmist was perturbed by the same thoughts and wrote, “What is man that thou are mindful of him, or the son of man that thou regardest him?” It the bothered the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, who said, “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil; madness is in them while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” And there has been no end of intelligent observers both religious and secular who have come to the same conclusion. 

                For decades now we here in America have been taught that man is by nature both competent and good. Modern people, certainly most Americans, have come to think that the world of human affairs will get better and better with the passing of time; that all that is needed if we are to transform the earth into a new Eden is an increase in the abundance of earthly wealth for all to enjoy plus a general education of everyone in A: how to get ahead, and B: how to live a full bull worldly life. 

                The futility of these doctrines has been discovered. Today, we have more wealth, more widely distributed than ever in the history of time and look at our society. Today illiteracy is almost non-existent in the greater civilized countries and look at our depravity. 

                The best thinkers of our times are more convinced than ever that man is incompetent, morally corrupt, untrustworthy, and self-destructive, and more than a little disgusting — which is precisely what Christianity has always said is true of man when man is left to himself. 

                If you want to know what Christianity teaches about the natural man, go to the Bible. See what St. Paul thinks about it for example. He says, that natural man is “Filled with all manner of wickedness, depravity, lust and viciousness, filled to the brim with envy, murder, quarrels, loathed by God, outrageous, haughty, boastful, inventive of evil, disobedient to parents, devoid of conscience, false to their word, callous, and merciless.” St. Paul insists that the Psalmist was quite right when he sang of man: 

                No one is righteous, no not one; 

                No one understands, no one seeks for God. 

                Certainly the Apostle was not given to an over praise of man’s inherent goodness. 

                Or we may read the words of Jesus, “Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction and many go that way.” And again Jesus cries, “For all their seeing they perceive no; for all their hearing they do not understand.” 

                In brief, our religion maintains that man is bad, so bad that he brings only sorrow on himself and ruin on Society unless man is willing that God shall save man from himself. 

                God looks on man and knows his common failure, his folly, his sin, know it better than man’s bitterest human critic can possibly know it. But God, as He looks on man, knows also that if and when man will perceive his sin and admit it an cry for aid to God who is “that Power not of ourselves which make for righteousness,” then God can save man. God sees in man that which is worth saving, the incorruptible possibility. God see that. We must see it, too. 

                A priest in my church ministers to the hopelessly insane. “How can you do it?” he was asked by a friend who had been with him in a room of idiots. The priest replied, “I see in each one of them his human dignity. I had to be taught how to see it. God teaches me as day by day I take His Holy Body in my own poor, sinful hands at the Altar. As God see his child in my defaced humanity, so I see the same in these poor creatures. Don’t you see it, too? I pray God that you may.” 

                God knows the decay and evil in man’s nature, in me, in you. It moves His heart to compassion, not to and easy contempt. Man being what man is, God died for love of him. You being what you are, God died for love of you. I being what I am, God died for love of me. When I perceive that brethren in the midst of self-made hell shall I, for whom God has died in pity and in love, stand aside in scorn? I cannot believe in man, no Christian can, “unless man lets God burn away the evil in a corrupt soul with the fire of divine compassion.” 

                Jesus came into history. He conquered the evil power and then founded a conquering company of those whom He rescues from the futility of history. They are not freed from human woes; but they are freed from the damning frustration involved in self-seeking. Human history for those who are unredeemed has no meaning; to those who are redeemed, history is a matrix out of which emerge, in response to the call of God, men and women who eternally matter, men and women who try with hope of success themselves to live in such a fashion as, if all men lived that way, would make our earth a part of heaven rather than a vestibule to Hell. 

                And the only way to make history meaningful or to make human life worthwhile in our world today is that all men shall submit themselves to the will of God. That is not only the Christian answer but the salvation of our very life. And the critic will ask, “ And do you think there is any likelihood of men doing any such thing?” That is hardly the point. It may well be that the human race which having eyes sees not and having ears hears not, will continually go right on into bitter failure. But as for you and me, we al least, must live in the way man was made to live, the way man would live if he were not enslaved and drugged by an evil nature. We, at least, can so live, please god, that if all men lived so the world would be a better place, a decent place. I so living we shall fail often, sin often; but we can by the power of God continue to defy the evil power, sure that God is stronger. We can do it, for God who is our rescuer imparts to us His own sufficient strength. We must attempt to do it and will do it thought the world laugh at us for trying, conspire against us, crucify us. In so doing we shall bring light into a darkened world.  

The Worth of Man 

This morning for the few minutes that I have, I should like to think with you about the current disillusionment of the worth and ability of natural man that is so prevalent in the world today. 

                There are those who are of the opinion that Christianity in its teaching about the common man is wandering in world of make-believe. It has told us to respect, to trust, to believe in this low fellow, the common man, and to call him a son of God. 

                It is this doctrine that is confusing so many of our people today, I believe. They look about them and see what man really is, what he done, and where he is heading and then say, “How can I accept it?” man is a failure, he is a fool. Man is a killer. Never in all of history has he sunk to a lower level than right now. 

                I have had good people say to me, “I do wish to believe in God and to serve Him if I can; but I simply cannot believe in man. And you tell me I believe in the worth of man if I am to be acceptable to God.” 

                My friends, we must remember that this problem of the worthlessness of man is a new problem only in our modern age.” It is not a new problem in history. Many centuries ago the psalmist was perturbed by the same thoughts and wrote, “What is man that thou are mindful of him, or the son of man that thou regardest him?” It the bothered the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, who said, “The heart of the sons of men is full of evil; madness is in them while they live, and after that they go to the dead.” And there has been no end of intelligent observers both religious and secular who have come to the same conclusion. 

                For decades now we here in America have been taught that man is by nature both competent and good. Modern people, certainly most Americans, have come to think that the world of human affairs will get better and better with the passing of time; that all that is needed if we are to transform the earth into a new Eden is an increase in the abundance of earthly wealth for all to enjoy plus a general education of everyone in A: how to get ahead, and B: how to live a full bull worldly life. 

                The futility of these doctrines has been discovered. Today, we have more wealth, more widely distributed than ever in the history of time and look at our society. Today illiteracy is almost non-existent in the greater civilized countries and look at our depravity. 

                The best thinkers of our times are more convinced than ever that man is incompetent, morally corrupt, untrustworthy, and self-destructive, and more than a little disgusting — which is precisely what Christianity has always said is true of man when man is left to himself. 

                If you want to know what Christianity teaches about the natural man, go to the Bible. See what St. Paul thinks about it for example. He says, that natural man is “Filled with all manner of wickedness, depravity, lust and viciousness, filled to the brim with envy, murder, quarrels, loathed by God, outrageous, haughty, boastful, inventive of evil, disobedient to parents, devoid of conscience, false to their word, callous, and merciless.” St. Paul insists that the Psalmist was quite right when he sang of man:  

                No one is righteous, no not one; 

                No one understands, no one seeks for God. 

                Certainly the Apostle was not given to an over praise of man’s inherent goodness. 

                Or we may read the words of Jesus, “Wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction and many go that way.” And again Jesus cries, “For all their seeing they perceive no; for all their hearing they do not understand.” 

                In brief, our religion maintains that man is bad, so bad that he brings only sorrow on himself and ruin on Society unless man is willing that God shall save man from himself. 

                God looks on man and knows his common failure, his folly, his sin, know it better than man’s bitterest human critic can possibly know it. But God, as He looks on man, knows also that if and when man will perceive his sin and admit it an cry for aid to God who is “that Power not of ourselves which make for righteousness,” then God can save man. God sees in man that which is worth saving, the incorruptible possibility. God see that. We must see it, too. 

                A priest in my church ministers to the hopelessly insane. “How can you do it?” he was asked by a friend who had been with him in a room of idiots. The priest replied, “I see in each one of them his human dignity. I had to be taught how to see it. God teaches me as day by day I take His Holy Body in my own poor, sinful hands at the Altar. As God see his child in my defaced humanity, so I see the same in these poor creatures. Don’t you see it, too? I pray God that you may.” 

                God knows the decay and evil in man’s nature, in me, in you. It moves His heart to compassion, not to and easy contempt. Man being what man is, God died for love of him. You being what you are, God died for love of you. I being what I am, God died for love of me. When I perceive that brethren in the midst of self-made hell shall I, for whom God has died in pity and in love, stand aside in scorn? I cannot believe in man, no Christian can, “unless man lets God burn away the evil in a corrupt soul with the fire of divine compassion.” 

                Jesus came into history. He conquered the evil power and then founded a conquering company of those whom He rescues from the futility of history. They are not freed from human woes; but they are freed from the damning frustration involved in self-seeking. Human history for those who are unredeemed has no meaning; to those who are redeemed, history is a matrix out of which emerge, in response to the call of God, men and women who eternally matter, men and women who try with hope of success themselves to live in such a fashion as, if all men lived that way, would make our earth a part of heaven rather than a vestibule to Hell. 

                And the only way to make history meaningful or to make human life worthwhile in our world today is that all men shall submit themselves to the will of God. That is not only the Christian answer but the salvation of our very life. And the critic will ask, “ And do you think there is any likelihood of men doing any such thing?” That is hardly the point. It may well be that the human race which having eyes sees not and having ears hears not, will continually go right on into bitter failure. But as for you and me, we al least, must live in the way man was made to live, the way man would live if he were not enslaved and drugged by an evil nature. We, at least, can so live, please god, that if all men lived so the world would be a better place, a decent place. I so living we shall fail often, sin often; but we can by the power of God continue to defy the evil power, sure that God is stronger. We can do it, for God who is our rescuer imparts to us His own sufficient strength. We must attempt to do it and will do it thought the world laugh at us for trying, conspire against us, crucify us. In so doing we shall bring light into a darkened world.

The Reverend Norman E. Stockwell