(uplifting organ music) 

- Duke Chapel, Sunday service, May 27, 1979. (uplifting organ music) (congregation murmuring) (lively organ music) (lively organ music) (somber organ music) (uplifting organ music) (dramatic organ music) ♪ Lord Jesus Christ, be present now ♪ ♪ Our hearts in true devotion bow ♪ ♪ Thy Spirit send with grace divine ♪ ♪ And let thy truth within us shine ♪ ♪ Unseal our lips to sing thy praise ♪ ♪ Our souls to thee in worship raise ♪ ♪ Make strong our faith, increase our light ♪ ♪ That we may know thy name aright ♪ (inspiring organ music) (organ drowns out singing) (man whispers) 

- To be open to God, to know life in all its fullness, and to help bring life to others, we must be honest with ourselves no matter how difficult or painful this may be. We have, by what we have done and by what we have left undone, missed the mark of our high calling in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Therefore, individually and together, let us now confess our sin to God with our corporate prayer of confession followed by our personal prayers of confession. Let us pray. 

- Oh, Lord, ever present and ever merciful God, hear us as we offer our words and longings of confession and repentance, and remake us in your image and likeness that our lives may be more Christlike day by day. Where we are blind, oh Lord, give us clear vision. Where we are deaf, oh Lord, give us true hearing. Where we are lame, oh Lord, lift us and make us move. Where we are hardhearted, oh Lord, warm our hearts and give us life, life to receive and life to share. Help us to see ourselves as others see us. Give us grace to see others as you see them. Enable us to see and know your presence and have the abundant life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. 

- My dear friends, let us know and believe that the God who creates us can also recreate us. The psalmist tells us that God is never far from us. Let us rejoice in this truth, that God has loved us, is loving us, and will always love us. No matter where we are or what we do, God is with us still loving us. This is the good news that brings life to us and to God's children, amen and amen. In the name and spirit of Christ, may I welcome you to this service of worship in Duke Chapel, on this Memorial Day weekend. If you are traveling, we wish you safe travel and invite you to come and worship with us in this place any time it is convenient or desirable for you to do so. We are all invited tonight to the organ concert to be presented by Professor Schuyler Robinson, Professor of Music and chairman of the Department of Music at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Professor Robinson has played here before, is highly appreciated, and you are invited to come and share in this special concert tonight at seven o'clock here in the chapel. Many of you, all of you will be concerned, many of you will be interested in knowing that Father Bruce Shepherd, the Episcopal chaplain here at Duke, has been in the hospital for some time and had surgery again on Thursday. The last word I had with him and the word I have from the doctors is that he is progressing well. He will be there for some time. Your prayers, your words of support and love will be greatly appreciated and will be of help to him, I am sure. If you are in the summer school session or if you're going to be here for part of the summer, you're invited to come and join the chapel choir for this period of time. The choir rehearses Sunday mornings at 9:30, and Dr. Patters would be pleased to have you come and join and sing with us during this summertime. It is our privilege today to have as our guest preacher the Reverend Dr. Paul Mickey, who is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology in the Divinity School here at Duke. He is a native of Ohio. He and his wife have one son and one daughter, a daughter Sandy who is celebrating a birthday today. Dr. Mickey is a graduate of Harvard University with his undergraduate degree, theological studies and doctoral studies at Princeton University. He is an articulate and concerned spokesman, not only in the United Methodist Church but in the church at large. He speaks loudly and clearly and effectively for many conservative and evangelical causes and for many other concerns. He's one of those rare and unusual persons in the church who combines both psychological and theological training and experience. Paul, it is our privilege to have you today to preach for us and we look forward to the word which you bring to share with us this day. Let us pray. Oh Lord, as we read and hear your Word, open both our hearts and our minds that we might feel and understand and know your Word and your will for us in this day and in this time, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. Let us hear the Word of God, first from the Old Testament lesson in the Book of Daniel chapter 7, reading verses 7-9: After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, terrible and dreadful and exceedingly strong, and it had great iron teeth. It devoured and broke in pieces and stamped the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had 10 horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And, behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things. As I looked, thrones were placed, and one that was Ancient of Days took his seat. His raiment was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames. Its wheels were burning fire. Amen, here ends the reading of the Old Testament lesson. Let us hear now the reading of the epistle lesson from the Book of Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 15-23. Paul writes: For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Amen, here ends the reading of the epistle lesson. (uplifting organ music) ♪ Jesu, joy of man's desiring ♪ ♪ Holy wisdom, love most bright ♪ ♪ Drawn by thee, our souls aspiring ♪ ♪ Soar to uncreated light ♪ ♪ Word of God, our flesh that fashioned ♪ ♪ With the fire of life impassioned ♪ ♪ Striving still to truth unknown ♪ ♪ Soaring, dying round thy throne ♪ ♪ Through the way where hope is guiding ♪ ♪ Hark, what peaceful music rings ♪ ♪ Where the flock in thee confiding ♪ ♪ Drink of joy from deathless springs ♪ ♪ Theirs is beauty's fairest pleasure ♪ ♪ Theirs is wisdom's holiest treasure ♪ ♪ Thou dost ever lead thine own ♪ ♪ In the love of joys unknown ♪ 

- Will you stand for the reading of the gospel? The gospel lesson is from the Gospel According to St. Luke, the last few verses of the gospel, chapter 24, verses 44-53. Let us hear the Word of God: Then he said to them, he, Jesus, "These are my words which I spoke to you "while I was still with you, "that everything written about me in the law of Moses "and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, "Thus it is written, "that the Christ should suffer "and on the third day rise from the dead, "and that repentance and forgiveness of sins "should be preached in his name to all nations, "beginning in Jerusalem. "You are witnesses of these things. "Behold, I send a promise of my Father upon you, "but stay in the city until you are clothed "with power from on high." Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God. May God bless unto us this reading from his holy Word, amen. (uplifting organ music) (organ drowns out singing) 

- Perhaps you have read a little book entitled "The Late Great Planet Earth." It was written by a Californian theologian, Hal Lindsey. He lives along the ever-changing coastline of Malibu, California, a section north of Los Angeles. He writes out of both personal and biblical experiences of earthquakes, rain, fire, and storm. The insurance companies and governments and, often, theologians call these events acts of God. They are also what some would call apocryphal events, evidences of divine intervention in human history. Now if you've missed reading that little book, perhaps you saw the TV program by the same title, "The Late Great Planet Earth." I remember back in mid-March one evening, stretching out on a couch in my den before an eveningtide fire to watch how the end of the world would happen. And I watched that feature, and when it was over, I, too, turned out the lights and went to bed and called it a day, or eternity, or the end. But I keep being reminded of instant play flashbacks of that program. First is the image of Hal Lindsey himself. He does not fit comfortably into my stereotype of the fire and brimstone preacher thundering and roaring about the end of the Earth. Ah, no, Hal Lindsey is the essence of cool. Sporting a deep, rich California sun tan with a equally deep and rich baritone voice, he seemed perfectly at ease throughout this presentation, casually dressed in attire that looked something like military or paramilitary garb, which would be appropriate for narrating the end of the Earth. And I could not put Hal Lindsey out of my mind quickly and comfortably to dismiss him as some irate preacher. And the second kind of flashback that I have from that program comes from the news media, the coverage of the destructiveness that we experienced after mid-March, and that include the tornadoes that ripped through the Tornado Alley of Southeastern United States, the earthquakes that ravaged huge portions of south central Asia, and even granite-guarded Boston registered an unprecedented three on the Richter scale. Diplomats were killed by terrorists and mercenaries, 2,000 infants were killed by the impertinent backhand of a dictator's imperial bayonet, and not to be forgotten is the Three Mile Island reactor incident. That incident itself sounded like the sharp, metallic echo of a shell clanking into a cosmic firing chamber to begin a game of Russian roulette reminiscent of "The Deerhunter." Not a bad backdrop for a photogenic and graphic description of the end of the Earth. And within a month of that Hal Lindsey program, a phantom skywriter had etched rather dramatic footnotes across the heavens of a nearly late great planet Earth. "Roger, Lord, we're looking, but we don't see your hand "in the midst of any of this that's going on, "even though we're looking hard." And having sketched the sure realism of an apocalyptic or spiritual graffiti across the high hallways of human hope, the hand of the Lord moves on and points toward the Old Testament prophet Daniel. He's been there, too, you know. Daniel was no less content than we are to dismiss current events as mere acts of God. Old Daniel had seen the natural catastrophes of imperialistic inquisition, of anarchical ploys of terrorism, of hauling peoples and cultures into exile, namely God's chosen people, Israel. Daniel, too, had seen the capricious destruction of human life at the hands of unprecedented political and military power, all of it seeming apparently out of human control. And in our Scripture lesson for this morning taken from Daniel's book, he seems to touch upon our sense of the total, complete, inescapable power ascribed to any person or country or technology or ideology as having 10 big horns. These symbolize the unity and strength and power that crowns the holy monsters of the night. And Daniel says that the monster is terrible and dreadful and exceedingly strong, and breaking into pieces any opposition. Talk about oppression, this was it, the end. Do you remember Bill Cosby and his monsters? He did a comic portrayal of a youngster fearful of the monsters that lived in his bedroom closet. "Thank goodness for covers," said Cosby, "or I would not be alive today." He was terrified of that childhood prayer. "And now I lay me down to sleep" was all right 'til it got up to the point that said "if I should die before I wake," 'cause Cosby knew that the monsters waited for you to come out from under the covers. They knew that you had to have some time to breathe in life, and he assured us he was the fastest breather on Earth. Well, those stark childhood memories of the night and the dreadful countenance of the 10-horned monster of Babylon that devour little boys and large kingdoms, those images are all too real for us today. They belong to white as well as black children. They belong to Israel as well as to the United States. Apocryphal imagery flows out of being scared, out of being out of control, out of being overwhelmed. This is true of Bill Cosby's childhood playmates, of the prophet Daniel, and us. Ah, the TV networks were right. Hal Lindsey's program commands our attention. Uncertainty about God, the night, future, this is the fertile soil that is the seedbed out of which monsters and rumors of saving monsters are born, and each of us has the 10-horned monsters in our lives. We have been carried off into exile and held captive by precisely those forces and alliances that we believed, falsely, would make us powerful, invulnerable, safe, and secure. But alas, the tables have been upturned and the tides ebb. It may be that the 10-horned monster of illness that now fills our once-happy days of health, or our financial vestments have soured and we are forced to eat our losses in good spirits, nearly choking to death. A one-time clear vision of the good life now oppresses us with inflation. Our children have not chosen or been chosen by what we know is best for career or marriage. And our personal sense of worth dangles at the taut end of a badly-frayed rope of inflation or rejection or whatever it is that makes each of us feel that we are at the end of our rope. Our relationship with the church, with Jesus Christ, has perhaps become very marginal and fills our days not with blessings but with emptiness. And there is that strictly personal dimension to our captivity, the Armageddons of our own lives. Somewhere in our own life is the monsters of our unfaithfulness, unfaithfulness to God, unfaithfulness to family, unfaithfulness to church, unfaithfulness to parents, unfaithfulness to moral standards, unfaithfulness to country and to our neighbor. That experience of unfaithfulness and what we do with it is like the summer squall line of embedded thunderstorms that rush upon the quiet afternoon of our otherwise peaceful aspirations. We're like the travelers in the little light, private aircraft who may have drifted off into conversation about things or taken time to eat a snack on their way to a relaxing weekend, or been checking the charts to make certain they're going the right way, and they look up, and outspread across the whole horizon is a squall line coming rapidly and desperately toward them. It's too high to climb over. It's too wide to run around. It's too dense and violent to penetrate. Only one thing to do, to retreat and try to outrun it in the opposite direction, and immediately forgotten are the long-held plans for the afternoon or the one-time faith in God. We turn, we run, we give up. That squall line is too massive. The monster is too big. But Daniel has a different vision, and he offers it to us this worship morning. The prophet would lift us, however briefly, to a new vision, to lift the arm of spiritual blessing on Ascension Day, on Memorial Day, on the Indianapolis 500, on the O'Hare Airport crash, to bless us amidst the beasts of empty gas pumps and nuclear leakage. Nestled within the 10 monstrous horns, Daniel sees a little horn. Now most of us wouldn't see it, but Daniel did, and there it is, like that little, tiny cloud off in the distant horizon in the days of Elijah, no bigger than a speck, and it offers hope in that otherwise vacuous horizons of our spiritual experience. It is the little horn of plenty nestled within the big 10 horns of the monster. Oh, it's not going to be like the big cornucopia that traditionally we have celebrated our Thanksgiving-tide in this country. That cornucopia has served its purpose and well, but it belonged to a naively pretentious and probably provincial outlook on life. No, the horn that Daniel offers is not a horn that would rival the size and strength of the monster. But look in verses 8, 9, and 10 of our scripture for how the power of that horn grows: As I looked, thrones were placed, and one that was Ancient of Days took his seat. The stream of fire issued and came forth from before him. A thousand served him, 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him, and the court sat in judgment. I looked then because of the sound of great words which the horn was speaking, and as I looked, the beast was slain and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. First we see, then, that scruffy little horn amidst the big horns, and then poof, the little horn reaches out and picks up three of the large horns. The little horn doesn't trim them back or prune them or cut them off to surface level. They are plucked out, roots and all. They are gone, and we find a little breathing room to maneuver around that squall line or the bedroom closet monsters or the cosmic monsters, the Armageddons of our lives. Let's go on with Daniel. There is hope here. And then in that verse nine, we have the impressive character, the Ancient of Days, somewhat like God, a symbol for the Lord, and that little horn that was almost unnoticed, buried initially in the midst of the desperate and overwhelming circumstances of life, issues forth into the Ancient of Days, before whom and in whom the truth of actual events is unfolded, and by whose power, we are told in verse 11, the beast is slain, its corpus destroyed, and its remains burned. Graphic imagery, you bet, but this is not the imagery of power that bullies. It is the power that begins its movement in the little horn of plenty with touches of grace nearly imperceptible amidst the towering passions of overwhelming squall lines and monsters in our lives. Grace that abounds has small beginnings in the midst of struggle, pain, heartaches, and the oppressiveness of life. Paul Tillich was an eminent German-American theologian who spoke of the leap of faith, and that imagery suggests that one runs to the edge of a well-defined cliff and leaps, almost like Evel Knievel on his motorcycle, and then securely and firmly to be caught on the other side of the abyss of doubt. While some residue of doubt would surely persist on the other side of that abyss, but the outcome is really not in doubt. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps this is true for those whose intellectual life and commanding imageries come from the well-defined precipices of German idealism or the high bluffs of the Bitterroot Mountain range of Butte, Montana. It may be that the image, leap of faith, says it best for them, but for most of us, I believe Daniel's imagery says it better. A new spiritual journey, a new world of faith begins not with a leap but with a little gentle nudge, a little horn that comes up among our problems, a root out of dry ground, a babe in swaddling clothes. So two things Daniel offers us today. First of all, his vision of the world seems, I think, remarkably like ours. The horned monsters surround and stalk us because we have made unholy alliances, we have relied too much upon the devices and desires of our own heart. And Daniel sees life, including God, as they are. Now the second blessing that Daniel offers is that God's real presence and revelation have small beginnings, and so let us move on to consider the fullness of that relationship. In St. Paul's letter to the little mission church in Ephesus, he restates Daniel's message in his opening paragraphs. For the New Testament gospel is a recapitulation of the Old Testament gospel, and we're reminded of what that gospel is as we've heard the epistle reading for this morning. And there are perhaps six words that need mentioning from this vision of St. Paul that is seconded by Daniel and speaks to us. First of all is a word of thankfulness for faith, faith once given to us by Jesus Christ. And secondly, Paul reminds us, and this little mission church in Ephesus, of the word of the recognition of our needs. We need that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him that we might know who he is and what our life is to be in Jesus Christ. And a third word, a word of a gift in Jesus Christ, that we may have the eyes of our hearts opened, that we may perceive truth and yet not have anything definite to see. And a fourth word from this epistle to the church at Ephesus is a word of majesty and power, not of our work and not of our might but by the power of God working through Jesus Christ. And a word of God's transcendence, for you see, the people to whom St. Paul was writing struggled just like the folks to whom Daniel was writing and just like us, threatening to be overwhelmed. And St. Paul assures them that Jesus, working in and through God's power, is far above all human rule and force. All monsters and storms and natural catastrophes are put under his feet, under the feet of Jesus Christ. And a word of hope for the church, guess what? We too, like those apostles and church members at Ephesus, are being formed in the likeness of Christ. We too are becoming a little horn of plenty for someone else, for that's what it means to be formed in the fullness of Jesus Christ our Lord. It is interesting that God chose a little horn, a baby, a carpenter, a crucifixion, a struggling church, as the historic means for offering us peace and power. That's how we take hold of nuclear holocausts, tornadoes, earthquakes, divorce, surgery, economic reversals, academic failures. These are the makings of the Armageddons of our own lives on the current great planet Earth. We are called to take hold of the inheritance of the saints, the power in us who believe that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. It isn't really so much a leap of faith as it is a lifting up of the hand, or leading briefly that we might be fully led, and in part, you have taken that lead this morning. You offer your hand and a portion of your life to God in Jesus Christ in coming here for worship. You're willing to have the little horn of plenty in the prayers, in the echoing beauty of this place, in the sensitive organ music, in the supportive choral ministry, maybe even in the sermon, that these might provide some lead in your life. Your participation may not be dramatic, but for some of you, even being here this morning is a dramatic step forward because the eyes of your heart have been enlightened. I invite you, therefore, to share in the vision of St. Paul and the prophet Daniel, for this is the only vision that the church can offer. It may not look like much, but we have God's word that it is sufficient. And now before our final blessing, a brief word of warning. Recall the gospel lesson this morning and the ascension. Today is Ascension Sunday. We celebrate the ascension of Jesus Christ. It seems to me there are two messages of Ascension Sunday. One is that Christ has ascended, that Christ is victorious, but the other message of that Ascension Sunday is that we are not to grab hold and strangle the kingdom of God or of Jesus Christ. The ascension takes Christ out of sight in a way that we can't grab hold and strangle the kingdom before it has a chance in our lives. And sometimes we are too quick either to grab hold and strangle the kingdom, lunging for it out of our desperation, or at other times, we tend to show it off because we know that we have the kingdom of God parked gently in the palm of our hand. Ascension Sunday is for guiding, not for grabbing, although certainly we desperately want some kind of security amidst the nuclear reactors and simulated aircraft engine-out emergency procedures that seem so fully to fail us. On this Memorial Day weekend and Ascension Sunday, let us honor what has gone before us: Jesus Christ, soldiers who never came home, the hopes and dreams of yesterday, or the recollections of another, more peaceful, period in our lives, whatever. Don't crush your hope by your need to over-control, to grab, to dominate. The invitation is to let the memories of our tradition and the experience through Jesus Christ, the preeminent horn of little, guide us beyond the valley of the shadow of death. And so it is the little horn of plenty, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, don't flee or grab. Relax, open your heart. Unclench the palm of your hand and allow the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, to give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him that you may be what is the hope that you have been called to be. Amen and amen. (uplifting organ music) ♪ Rejoice, the Lord is King ♪ ♪ Your Lord and King adore ♪ ♪ Rejoice, give thanks, and sing ♪ ♪ And triumph evermore ♪ ♪ Lift up your heart ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice, rejoice ♪ ♪ Again I say rejoice ♪ ♪ Jesus, the Savior, reigns ♪ ♪ The God of truth and love ♪ ♪ When he had purged our stains ♪ ♪ He took his seat above ♪ ♪ Lift up your heart ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice, rejoice ♪ ♪ Again I say rejoice ♪ ♪ His kingdom cannot fail ♪ ♪ He rules o'er Earth and heaven ♪ ♪ The keys of death and hell ♪ ♪ Are to our Jesus given ♪ ♪ Lift up your heart ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice, rejoice ♪ ♪ Again I say rejoice ♪ ♪ Rejoice in glorious hope ♪ ♪ Jesus the judge shall come ♪ ♪ And take his servants up ♪ ♪ To their eternal home ♪ ♪ Lift up your heart ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice, rejoice ♪ ♪ Again I say rejoice, amen ♪ 

- Let us affirm what we believe. 

- We believe in God who has created and is creating, who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust God who calls us to be the church, to celebrate life and its fullness, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. 

- Be seated. The Lord be with you. 

- And with your spirit. 

- Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, hear us now as we pray, not for our goodness, not for our merit, not for our many words and vain utterances, but hear us through your mercy and through your love. We give thanks to you, oh gracious God, for this time and this place and this moment of worship. It is indeed good to go into the house of our Lord, to hear your word in music and scripture, in prayer and in sermon, to be close to friends and family and neighbors, and to celebrate this day and all that it means. We give thanks, oh God, for this university, for the love of religion and learning, of the arts and the sciences, the concern to heal and to help, the desire to make life more whole and more real, which we experience here. We give thanks, oh God, for beautiful memories of persons, places, and experiences, all cherished and held very dear, for the hope of a better life tomorrow because of this place and its people. Oh God, bless us in our remembering and in our hoping. Oh God, we thank you for life, life which offers us days never lived before so that we may share and not hoard our lives, so that we might choose joy over pleasure, peace over ease, truth instead of safety, and find love above all else. And now, oh God, we pray in the name of the Christ who loves us and gives life and hope and promise to us. May we be healers of others through your love and power. Be our guide through all that is dark and doubtful. Be our guard against all that threatens our integrity and our wholeness. Be our strength under pressure and our consolation in sadness. Be our joy in celebration and our comfort in disappointment. Keep us always open to you and thus open to one another through Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught his first disciples and us to pray, we pray. 

- 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, the power, and the glory forever, amen. (gentle organ music) ♪ The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want ♪ ♪ He makes me down to lie ♪ ♪ In pastures green, he leadeth me ♪ ♪ The quiet waters by ♪ ♪ He leadeth me, he leadeth me ♪ ♪ The quiet waters by ♪ ♪ My soul he doth restore again ♪ ♪ And me to walk doth make ♪ ♪ Within the paths of blessedness ♪ ♪ E'en for his own name's sake ♪ ♪ Within the paths of blessedness ♪ ♪ E'en for his own name's sake ♪ ♪ Yea, though I pass through shadowed vale ♪ ♪ Yet will I fear no ill ♪ ♪ For thou art with me, and thy rod ♪ ♪ And staff me comfort still ♪ ♪ Thy rod and staff me comfort still ♪ ♪ Me comfort still ♪ ♪ My table thou hast furnished ♪ ♪ In presence of my foes ♪ ♪ My heavy heart thou dost anoint ♪ ♪ And my cup overflows ♪ ♪ My head thou dost with oil anoint ♪ ♪ And my cup overflows ♪ ♪ Goodness and mercy all my days ♪ ♪ Will surely follow me ♪ ♪ And in my Father's house ♪ ♪ My dwelling-place shall be ♪ ♪ And in my heart forevermore ♪ ♪ Thy dwelling-place shall be ♪ (inspiring organ music) ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ ♪ Praise him, all creatures here below ♪ ♪ Thy name above, thy heavenly power ♪ ♪ Praise him above, ye heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, amen ♪ 

- And now, oh God, we present ourselves to you, our work and our leisure, our joys and our sorrows, our thoughts and our deeds, just as we are, to be used by you in this world. We pray that you will accept our offering as the personal giving of ourselves for the good of others and the doing of your will. As we give our gifts, may we also be led to give of ourselves through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. (triumphant organ music) ♪ All hail the power of Jesus' name ♪ ♪ Let angels prostrate fall ♪ ♪ Bring forth the royal diadem ♪ ♪ And crown him, crown him, crown him ♪ ♪ Crown him Lord of all ♪ ♪ Ye chosen seed of Israel's race ♪ ♪ Ye ransomed from the fall ♪ ♪ Hail him who saves you by his grace ♪ ♪ And crown him, crown him, crown him ♪ ♪ Crown him Lord of all ♪ (organ drowns out singing) ♪ And crown him, crown him, crown him ♪ ♪ Crown him Lord of all ♪ ♪ Let every kindred, every tribe ♪ ♪ On this terrestrial ball ♪ ♪ To him all majesty ascribe ♪ ♪ And crown him, crown him, crown him ♪ ♪ Crown him Lord of all ♪ (organ drowns out singing) ♪ And crown him, crown him, crown him ♪ ♪ Crown him Lord of all, amen ♪ 

- And now may the love of God, the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you and those whom you love this day and forevermore. ♪ Lord be with you 'til we meet again ♪ ♪ By his counsel's guide uphold you ♪ ♪ With his sheep securely fold you ♪ ♪ God be with you 'til we meet again ♪ (dramatic organ music) (congregation chattering)