- Good morning. We'd like to welcome you to Duke Chapel. There are a couple of wonderful happenings at the chapel we hope you'll be able to make this week. At 5:00 today, there is a recital by Don Eagle, who will be playing the trumpet and Mary Ellis Bragg, who will be performing on the organ. Then, on Thursday night, at 7:00 PM, our university carillonneur, Professor J. Samuel Hammond, will give a demonstration of the carillon in the chapel tower. The elevator will be open, and those who come will be able to go up into the tower and see him perform. This is a rare opportunity, and we hope you'll take advantage of that. Please stand as we continue our worship with a greeting. Oh God, our God, how glorious is your name and all the Earth? 
(congregation chants) When we look to the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, we wonder. (congregation chants) You are the God of light, crowning us with glory and honor to serve you all our days. Oh God, our God, how glorious is your name in all the Earth. (hymnal music) (vocalizing) 

- Please remain standing and turn to selection number 890 in your hymnal. Let us pray in unison the prayer of confession. Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry, and we humbly repent. For the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name, Amen. Almighty God, have mercy on you. Forgive all your sins through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Strengthen you in all goodness. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, keep you in eternal life, Amen. 

- Let us pray together the prayer of illumination. Open our hearts and minds, oh God. By the power of your Holy Spirit so that, as your Word is read and proclaimed, we may hear your message with joy this day, Amen. This reading is taken from the 21st chapter of the book of Genesis, starting with the eighth verse. The child grew, and he was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned, but Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian who she had born to Abraham playing with her son, Isaac. So she said to Abraham, cast out the slave woman with her son for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son, Isaac. The matter was very distressing to Abraham on the account of his son, but God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar. Putting it on her shoulder along with the child and sent her away, and she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Bathsheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child onto one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about a distance of a bow shot. For she said, do not let me look on the death of the child. And she sat opposite him. She lifted up her voice and wept, and God heard the voice of the boy. And the angel of God called to Hagar from Heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with you in your hand for I will make a great nation of him. Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. This is the Word of the Lord. 
(congregation chants) This reading is taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Chapter 10, beginning with the 28th verse. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet, not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. And even the hairs on your head are all counted. Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows. Everyone, therefore, who acknowledge me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in Heaven. But whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in Heaven. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the Earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And one's foes, will be members of one's household. Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. This is the Word of God. (congregation chants) 

- Hello. Come on in. Welcome. Welcome to my home. Can you believe it? The home that you see about me, who would have ever thought that I, Hagar, would have a home like this. The walls, look at the walls. They're made of stone, and there's even glass in the windows and furniture that you see. It's wood, the finest hand-crafted furniture from Egypt. Who would have ever believed it? And my son, Ishmael, my son. The son of a slave, he is the father of 12 sons. 12 princes, 12 tribes spread out all over this land. And they have houses and tents and animals and slaves. Who would have ever thought that it would have come to this? Oh, life is funny. I never expected this. How did it come to be? Well, that is quite a story. You say you have time? Pull up a chair. Make yourself comfortable, and I will tell you how this happened. Now, as you know, I was born a slave in Egypt. I never knew who my father was, and I was taken from my mother and sold into slavery at a very young age. You know they don't want you to get very close, attached, to your mother. This was the hardest thing about those early days, missing my mama. And the loneliness. When I was still a young girl, I was sold in the marketplace to a man named Abraham. He had come a long way off, and he was a rich man with much property. He bought me, he said, to be a slave girl for his wife, Sarah. And we traveled many days until we came to his tent in the land of Canaan. Sarah wasn't a bad mistress as mistresses go. She was an old woman like Abraham and childless for many years. This had caused her much pain, and I saw her weep about this many times. Abraham tried to comfort her saying that God had promised that their descendants would be as the stars in the heavens. As far as I could see, they might as well be reaching for the stars. For it had ceased to be with Sarah after the way of women for more than two decades. But one night, I heard her talking to Abraham about me, Hagar. And I heard her tell him, I want you to go in to my slave girl and take her to bed so that I may get children through her. Now this may shock some of you, but it was customary in that day that if a woman was childless, that she would give her husband to another wife so that his line might be continued. And Sarah chose me, and Abraham came in. And he lied with me, and I became pregnant. And I have to tell you that I was so proud to know that I, Hagar, a slave girl, would be the one to bear the child for my master, a rich man of much property. For a slave girl, there can be nothing better than this, the possibility of escaping slavery through the birth of a child. In looking back, I'm a little ashamed to say that I did gloat it over my mistress Sarah that she was barren and I was to bear a child. But she took it way too hard, and she came down on me and was cruel to me. And I could no longer stand it in the house, so I ran away into the wilderness. And I came upon a spring, and I knelt to the spring to drink. And then I heard a voice, a voice calling to me. And I must tell you that it scared me, and I got up to run away. But the voice said, Hagar, do not be afraid. Return to the home of your master, Abraham, and submit to Sarah and all will be well with you and with the child. You will give birth to a son. And you will call the son Ishmael, which means God hears. Not knowing what else to do, I returned to my master's dwelling. And it came to pass that everything the angel had told me was true. Those were good days in my life. I can tell you that I was so excited to know that I was the one to bear the child, the son, the inheritor for my master. My son would be a free man. And, perhaps, with his inheritance, I too might be free. These were good years, but then a strange thing happened. Three men came to see Abraham, and they told him that Sarah would give birth to a son. Now Sarah was listening at the door of the tent, and she laughed. Though she later denied it to the men. But I too was listening, and I knew better than to laugh out loud. But I thought, how stupid these men are. Don't they realize it is beyond the way of women with Sarah? Her womb, her womb is dried up. But to my amazement, she began to grow big with child. And in nine months, she gave birth to a son. And they called him Isaac, which means laughter. I began to feel a little bit nervous about what this might mean for my own son, Ishmael. But in our culture, the law protects the inheritance of the firstborn even if there was another son that is born later. So I tried to put my worry aside. And for the next three years, things went along fine. Sarah was excited about finally having a child of her own, and so she was a little bit easier to live with. And as the children grew, Isaac and Ishmael played together as brothers. And it was so exciting for me to see my son happy and playful as a child. For childhood was something that I had never known. But all of a sudden, things began to change. It happened after the feast. A great feast that Sarah and Abraham gave and invited all their friends and their family and all of us slaves to come to celebrate the weaning of Isaac when he was three. Now weaning was a big deal for us because so many children died before they were weaned. There was no weaning celebration given for my son, but all the same, it was a great party for Isaac. And there was much food and music and dancing into the night, and the children, the children were also playing and running around in the yard and enjoying themselves. And as I watched them playing, I saw Sarah across the way staring at Isaac and Ishmael. And she looked up, and she caught my eyes. And in that moment, the smile froze in my throat. And I felt a shiver of fear run down my back. In that moment, I had the feeling that something bad was about to happen. And I tried to put my uneasiness away. But from that moment, things began to change. Whenever Sarah would see Isaac and Ishmael playing together, she would take Isaac away. And whenever she saw me, she would turn the other way. And if we happened to meet, she was angry and short with me. And at night, at night I heard her arguing with Abraham in tense whispers. So I knew, I knew that something was up. But when Abraham came to me to tell me that Ishmael and I had to leave his house, had to leave his house for good, I was amazed. I pleaded with him for his son, Ishmael. Your son, your firstborn. I told him the law. The law said that you cannot disinherit the firstborn child, but Abraham said to me, God has said that he would provide. So you must go. I can't begin to tell you what it was like to go back to my tent that night, to look around to decide what I would take with me into the wilderness. What would you take? Leaving a home after 10 years. The next morning, when Abraham came to meet us, I saw a tear in his eye. And I knew that my dreams for our son were crumbling as the dust. I knew that the decision had been made and that Ishmael was cut off from the inheritance, and he placed water and bread upon my shoulders. And he picked up our son, and he put him in our arms. And he sent us away. As he turned away from us, and I turned to go into the wilderness. Tears running down my face. I can hardly see to walk, and I thought, what will I do? A woman, a slave woman, alone in the desert with a child with no one to turn to and nowhere to go? I don't mind telling you that I was scared. More scared than I have ever been in my life. The next few days are a blur. We wandered around. It was hot and dry in the day and cold at night. We would lay down in our blankets, shivering together, waiting for the day. And sometimes I was so filled with anger that I felt I could kill at the injustice that was done to us. Ishmael, the firstborn, had been cut off. It was against everything that was legal, everything that was fair. And I wanted to go back, and I wanted to fight. And I wanted to make them do what was right, but what could I do? A slave woman. It was unfair and cruel, but I was powerless to do anything about it. And so we wandered in the desert. Sometimes the darkness was so dark, and I felt such despair that I just wanted to lay down and die. But then when Ishmael would cry, I remembered the child. And I knew that I had to keep going on for the child. We would stop and take a small bit of bread, hoarding our water in sips, trying to make it last. But then when the water ran out, I didn't know what else to do. I ran about in the desert like a crazy woman, looking for a spring, a settler, a traveler, anything that would help us survive. And there was nothing, and Ishmael cried, Mommy, I'm thirsty! I'm thirsty, Mommy! And then, as the hours turned into days, he no longer cried. And his silence frightened me more than anything. I could not bear to see my son die, so I took him. And I put him under a bush, hoping that at least his last few hours would be shaded. Maybe he would be comfortable when the end came, and then I walked about a bow shot. And I sat down to wait with the buzzards circling over my head, and I put my head in my lap. And I wept, why, God? Why have you done this? Help my son! Help us! And then there was a voice that came to me, and I didn't know if it was real or if it was coming from my own mind. But the voice said, Hagar, why are you troubled? Why are you troubled? Why? My son is dying. You ask me why I'm troubled, and the voice, the angel of God continued, come and pick up the boy and lift him up for God has heard the voice of the boy crying. And I will make a great nation of him. And suddenly, my eyes were opened. And I saw a well, and I went. And I picked up my son, and I held him close for a long time. And then we went over to the well, and we drank. And our thirst was satisfied. Well, this was the beginning of a new life for us. I won't go into all the details of those days. They weren't always easy, but this God, this God who hears provided for us. And we were able to make our way in the wilderness, and my son grew up strong to manhood. And he was good with a bow, and he was able to provide for us enough even for trade. And when he was grown, I went to Egypt. And I got a wife for him there, and he had 12 sons by his wife. And we began to acquire some of what you see around you today. Some people have asked me how could I continue to worship the God of Abraham, the God who was so unjust to me that he cast me out into the desert? Well, I have to tell you truthfully that I am not convinced that Abraham was following God when he cast me out. Like I said before, it seemed to me, living in the household, that he was listening much more to Abraham than to God in those days. I don't blame him so much anymore really. I think it's easy to get confused with the voices in our mind, and sometimes we don't know what's our voice. And what are other voices, and what's God's voice? But I can tell you this. I know that the God who hears is not a cruel God, and I don't believe that that God would have sent out a helpless woman and child into the desert with nothing but a skin of water and a loaf of bread. Abraham was a rich man. He could have done better by his firstborn child than that. Even if he had been determined to send him out and to deny the inheritance, he could have given him more than that. And I can't blame God for that, but maybe, maybe it was better this way. We were cast out, exiled, thrown into the wilderness with nothing. We got nothing from Abraham, but I know without a doubt who saved us. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that without the God who hears, we would have died in the wilderness. And you know what I think? I think that Sarah and Abraham, they knew about this God and the blessings that this God provides. But they wanted to keep the blessings for themselves. They wanted to keep their bloodline pure to keep the promise in the family, but I don't believe this God can be contained in that way. I mean, look at me, Hagar, a slave woman. Look at what God has done for me who was cast out with nothing and no one to turn to, and my son, Ishmael, who was raised from the point of death to become the father of 12 tribes, 12 princes. He has made his descendants as the stars in the sky, and so I have come to be grateful to this God. This God, the God of Abraham and Isaac, the God of Ishmael, the God of the promise. So you see, I have much to be grateful for. And this home that you see about you, this home, I try to remember that it hasn't always been this way and that this is a gift, a gift from the God who hears. Well, I've taken up enough of your time. But I hope you'll stay for dinner. God has made a wonderful feast for us, and there's plenty for all. 

- The Lord be with you. 
(congregation chants) Let us pray. We give thanks, oh Lord, that your ways are not our ways. We are sometimes good, we are sometimes just. You are always good and just. Tempering your justice with your unfathomable love and deepening your love with the high price of justice. Our presence here is our testimony to your goodness and justice, which have relentlessly pursued us without counting the cost. Oh, Heavenly Father, who wept over Jerusalem we pray for children whose fathers know neither goodness nor justice. We pray for mothers and children abandoned, forgotten, or simply neglected by fathers who have repudiated their vocation as father. Lord, in your mercy. 
(congregation chants) Oh Lord who submitted the back of your son to the repeated blows of his persecutors to redeem those you love, we pray for women and children abused physically and sexually by husbands and fathers, beaten, subjected, intimidated, harassed, physically and sexually abused. Lord, in your mercy. 
(congregation chants) Oh now whose only begotten one went about doing good, blessing women and children and calling all persons to goodness and justice, we pray for our society which is confused about the true role of men, men in relation to women, men in relation to children and to other men. Help our men to find their way to true manliness, to tenderness as well as toughness, to sensitivity as well as sensuality, to the value of person more than the value of property, to the vocation of fatherhood as well as the vocation of profession. Bring the men of our culture to justice and to goodness, to the elevation, preservation, dignity, and ennoblement of human life as you alone can do. Lord, in your mercy. 
(congregation chants) Oh God who rules and governs the nations, who humbles the mighty and lifts up the forgotten and seemingly insignificant ones, we pray for those who literally have no place and no one to turn to, who have been cast aside and abandoned by family, neighbor, community, for those who have no one to pray for them. May our prayer and our communion service count for them to comfort, to console, to encourage, to lift up. And may our act of love, adoration, and obedience in this service reshape our hearts and lives that we may love you and these more dearly and serve you and them more clearly. Lord, in your mercy. 
(congregation chants) Amen. As a forgiven and reconciled people, let us stand and greet one another with signs of our reconciliation and love. Please be seated. It is both our privilege and our duty to worship God with our tides and offerings. Let us worship God. (spiritual music) (vocalizing) 

- The Lord be with you. 
(congregation chants) Lift up your heart. 
(congregation chants) Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God. (congregation chants) 
It is right and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, God Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth. You formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away and our love failed, your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God, and spoke to us through the prophets. And so with your people on Earth and all the company of Heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn. (spiritual music) (vocalizing) Holy are you and blessed is your son, Jesus Christ. Your spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection, you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit. When the Lord, Jesus, ascended, he promised to be with us always in the power of your Word and Holy Spirit. On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said, take, eat. This is my body which is given for you. When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples and said, drink from this, all of you, for this is the blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, and so in remembrance of these, your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice. In union with Christ offering for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith. (spiritual music) (vocalizing) Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be, for us, the body and blood of Christ that we may be, for the world, the body of Christ redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world until Christ comes in final victory. And we feast at his heavenly banquet through your son, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever. (spiritual music) (vocalizing) And now with the confidence of the children of God, let us pray together. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen. Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one loaf. The cup over which we give thanks is a sharing in the body of Christ. Won't you come and feast at the Lord's banquet. (spiritual music) (vocalizing)