[unknown] - Divinity School Convocation 8:30 am (November 9, 1982)

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	(lively organ music)	0:03
-	The peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.	1:32
-	And also with you.	1:35
-	The risen Christ is with us.	1:37
-	Praise the Lord.	1:39
-	Let us stand and sing together	1:40
	the hymn printed in your bulletin,	1:43
	God of Grace and God of Glory.	1:45
	(lively organ music)	1:49
	(congregation sings God of Grace and God of Glory)	2:23
-	Would you remain standing as we pray in unison	5:34
	the opening prayer.	5:35
	Let us pray.	5:37
-	Gracious and eternal God,	5:39
	we give you heartfelt thanks for this,	5:42
	the dawning of a new day.	5:44
	We pray that as this day passes	5:47
	we might use the opportunities	5:50
	and blessings before us	5:52
	to serve you more abundantly.	5:54
	Bless this day our fellowship,	5:57
	our study and our ministry to one another	5:59
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	6:03
	Amen.	6:06
-	You may be seated.	6:07
	I invite you to join now in the attendance	6:16
	upon the reading of the word of God.	6:17
	The Old Testament lesson is found	6:21
	in the first book of the Kings, the 17th chapter.	6:22
	We'll begin reading with the eighth verse	6:26
	and read through the 16th.	6:28
	And then the word of the Lord came to him,	6:32
	arise, go to Zarephath	6:36
	which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.	6:38
	Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.	6:42
	So he arose and went to Zarephath.	6:46
	And there he found the widow	6:49
	and when he came to the gates of the city,	6:50
	she was gathering her sticks	6:52
	and he called to her and said,	6:55
	bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink.	6:58
	And as she was going to bring it,	7:02
	he called to her again	7:03
	and said bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.	7:04
	And she said, as the Lord your God lives,	7:09
	I have nothing baked.	7:10
	Only a handful of meal in a jar	7:13
	and a little oil in a cruse	7:14
	and now I am gathering a couple of sticks	7:17
	that I may go and prepare it for myself	7:19
	and my son that we may eat it and die	7:21
	and Elijah said to her,	7:25
	fear not, go and do as you have said	7:26
	but first make me a little cake of it	7:30
	and bring it to me	7:32
	and afterward make it for yourself	7:33
	and for your son.	7:35
	For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,	7:37
	the jar of meal shall not be spent	7:40
	and the cruse of oil shall not fail	7:42
	until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the Earth	7:44
	and she went and did as Elijah said	7:48
	and she and he and her household ate for many days.	7:51
	The jar of meal was not spent	7:55
	and neither did the cruse of oil fail	7:58
	according to the word which the Lord spoke by Elijah.	8:00
	The gospel lesson's from the Gospel of St. Mark,	8:07
	the 12th chapter, the 38th through the 41st verses.	8:10
	And in his teaching he said,	8:19
	beware of the scribes who like to go about in long robes	8:22
	and to have salutations in the marketplaces	8:26
	and the best seats in the synagogue	8:28
	and the places of honor at feast,	8:31
	who devour widows' houses and for a pretense	8:34
	make long prayers.	8:36
	They will receive the greater condemnation.	8:38
	And he sat down opposite the treasury	8:42
	and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury.	8:44
	Many rich people put in large sums,	8:48
	and a poor widow came and put in two copper coins	8:51
	which make a penny.	8:53
	He called his disciples to him and said to them,	8:56
	truly I say to you, this poor widow	8:59
	has put in more than all of those	9:01
	who are contributing to the treasury	9:02
	for they all contributed out of their abundance,	9:05
	but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had,	9:08
	her whole living.	9:13
	The word of God for the people of God.	9:15
	Amen.	9:18
-	Let us pray.	9:25
	May the words of my mouth	9:31
	and the meditations of all our hearts	9:32
	be always acceptable in my sight.	9:36
	Oh Lord, our strength, and our redeemer.	9:40
	Amen.	9:45
	This morning as I discovered the lectionary readings,	9:48
	the reading from 1 Kings,	9:51
	the reading from the Gospel according to Mark,	9:53
	I immediately became attracted to them.	9:55
	I must confess to you that the reading	9:58
	from Hebrews concerns substitutionary atonement	10:00
	and the second coming of our Lord	10:05
	and being a student I just felt more comfortable talking	10:06
	about widows and poverty.	10:09
	I suppose I did because yesterday I sat	10:16
	and I heard Hugh Anderson and Brown Bar speak	10:19
	and I began to think about students leading you	10:23
	in worship this morning.	10:26
	From the wealth of experience that I heard yesterday,	10:28
	you have before you a poverty of inexperience.	10:33
	I stand before you	10:41
	and I see years of experience.	10:43
	I see things only years can teach.	10:47
	And I stand before you as a green, novice student pastor	10:52
	speaking from relative poverty.	10:56
	And so, here we are.	11:01
	We, the poor	11:03
	have assembled for worship.	11:05
	I submit to you that each of us knows	11:09
	what it is to be poor,	11:11
	to understand poverty of the soul.	11:12
	Do you remember your first sermon?	11:15
	Do you remember how it felt to stand there	11:19
	and between knocking knees and wavering voice	11:21
	try as hard as you could to proclaim the good news.	11:24
	Every Thanksgiving when my family assembles,	11:29
	after we've taken the stroll through the garden,	11:31
	my brother-in-law likes to remind me	11:35
	of my first sermon.	11:37
	When he has nothing better to do	11:41
	than admire the roses,	11:43
	he tells me how my head kept going up and down	11:44
	and he tells me I looked like a puppy dog	11:47
	in the back of a car window,	11:49
	you know how those things?	11:50
	That first sermon took me days to write,	11:54
	a few minutes to deliver,	11:58
	a lifetime to live down.	12:00
	(laughing)	12:03
	And a lifetime to live.	12:07
	It's dinner time now.	12:12
	It's the first evening home in a long time.	12:16
	It's the time to sit with the family	12:19
	and enjoy a good home-cooked meal	12:21
	that you don't have to rush	12:23
	because there's no meetings tonight,	12:24
	there's no one to go visit	12:26
	and all of a sudden the telephone rings.	12:27
	You catch it on the second ring	12:33
	hoping that it's some insignificant call	12:34
	and you hear a tearful voice on the other end say preacher,	12:38
	can you come over here?	12:41
	Our baby just died.	12:45
	And so, we walk into the door,	12:50
	a sterile kind of room,	12:53
	folding chairs placed against the wall,	12:55
	uncomfortable to fit in	12:58
	and even more uncomfortable to look at.	12:59
	Some are staring in space,	13:04
	some are making idle chatter	13:05
	and then others are tearfully mourning the loss of a child.	13:07
	And as we enter, all eyes turn to us	13:13
	for an explanation, for some hope, for some word,	13:16
	and then with sighs too deep for words,	13:21
	we pray.	13:27
	We know what poverty is,	13:29
	we've given out of our poverty,	13:31
	not once, not twice but I submit to you	13:32
	that more times that we can number	13:35
	we've tried to minister and make an offering	13:37
	to those persons that we serve	13:39
	out of our poverty rather than out of our abundance.	13:42
	Other times we've been asked to give love	13:48
	and there just wasn't any love left to give.	13:50
	We've been called on for some energetic response	13:53
	when our energy was almost spent.	13:56
	We've been asked to give more time	14:01
	when there wasn't anymore time to give.	14:04
	I suspected that the most pressing need	14:08
	for those of us who call ourselves ministers	14:12
	is a lack of time	14:15
	and so, I began to ask some of those persons	14:17
	that I was in school with last year,	14:19
	if you could have one more thing in the parish	14:23
	what would it be?	14:24
	And to a person they said, more time.	14:25
	Perhaps they should go to the time management seminar	14:30
	that's being held.	14:32
	The gospel message is this,	14:37
	to give all of what one has	14:41
	even out of poverty,	14:44
	there's that total self-giving	14:45
	is interwoven all through the gospel message.	14:47
	There's a rich young ruler that comes to our Lord and says	14:50
	what must I do and our Lord says,	14:52
	sell all you have and give it to the poor,	14:55
	come and follow me.	14:58
	And at that his countenance fell	15:00
	for he had much.	15:03
	And there's a risk involved with this total self-giving.	15:08
	There's a vulnerability there,	15:13
	there's no place to hide when we do that.	15:14
	When we give of all we have,	15:18
	then we must reply on God.	15:19
	There's no other choice.	15:21
	And that leaves security and comfortableness behind.	15:23
	Some four years ago,	15:30
	I sat on the floor in what we called a music room	15:34
	and I listened to a song over and over and over again.	15:36
	I began at about 11:30 at night	15:40
	and I stopped about dawn.	15:44
	And these are the words to that song.	15:48
	If God can hang the stars on high,	15:52
	can paint the clouds that drift on by,	15:56
	can send the sun across the sky,	16:01
	what could he do through me?	16:05
	If he can hang the stars in space	16:08
	and dot with trees the mountain space,	16:10
	if he the sparrows wake and trace,	16:13
	what could he do through me?	16:16
	If God can do such wondrous things,	16:19
	let's count the sands upon the shore	16:23
	and still the mighty ocean's roar,	16:25
	what could he do through me?	16:28
	If God can hang the stars on high,	16:34
	can paint the clouds that drift on by,	16:39
	can send the sun across the sky,	16:43
	what could he do through me?	16:48
	It will take me a lifetime to answer that question	16:54
	and if you dare answer,	16:58
	it will take you a lifetime.	17:01
	What could God do with us and through us	17:04
	if we would give of our all,	17:07
	even our last two copper coins' worth.	17:09
	This widow gave her last.	17:15
	The text is quite unclear	17:20
	as to her promise of future gains.	17:21
	It doesn't say what day of the month it is,	17:26
	it doesn't say if it's the second of the month	17:28
	or the third of the month	17:30
	and when she gets home	17:32
	and in the mail she's gonna find her check.	17:33
	It doesn't say any of that stuff.	17:35
	It says she gave her last	17:36
	with no hope for anything coming afterward	17:40
	and that's trust.	17:46
	That's faith.	17:49
	That's putting faith into action.	17:52
	Giving is not an investment.	17:56
	I confess to you that sometimes my visiting	17:58
	is an investment.	18:01
	I visit because I don't want to hear	18:03
	have you seen Ms. Smith lately?	18:06
	She surely would appreciate a visit from you.	18:11
	And so, in the middle of the afternoon,	18:17
	I crank the car up and I go see Mrs. Smith.	18:20
	I give out of poverty of time.	18:26
	Some years ago I heard about a suit in Florida,	18:32
	a minister was sued because he said in a sermon	18:34
	that if you give to God, then God will richly bless you	18:36
	and will provide for all of your wants	18:40
	and all of your needs	18:42
	and it didn't work out that way.	18:43
	Someone took him at his word.	18:45
	They gave,	18:49
	they didn't receive everything	18:51
	they thought they should have received	18:53
	and so, they sued.	18:55
	And our text doesn't say that today.	18:58
	It simply tells a story	19:00
	about a woman who gave all she had.	19:02
	And then there's another story	19:07
	that we heard today.	19:08
	It's the story of a woman who was confronted	19:10
	by the prophet Elijah.	19:12
	She was down to her last meal	19:16
	and her last oil and she was asked to give	19:18
	and she did and the good news	19:21
	is that the oil and the meal did not run out.	19:24
	Giving out of wealth or poverty	19:28
	is not counting what we have,	19:30
	holding onto to it and calling it ours.	19:32
	Giving out of our wealth or our poverty	19:37
	is recognizing that our gifts	19:41
	and our graces are just that,	19:42
	gifts of grace.	19:46
	And the supply	19:51
	will not run out.	19:54
	Giving is saying we give thee	19:57
	but thine own whatever the gift may be,	19:59
	all that we have is thine alone,	20:02
	a trust, oh Lord from thee.	20:05
	There's another song and that goes like this.	20:12
	What shall I give thee, master?	20:18
	Thou hast given all for me.	20:21
	Shall I give less of what I possess?	20:26
	It's the 23rd of December.	20:37
	Have you ever been shopping on the 23rd of December?	20:38
	You know what it's like on the 23rd of December	20:41
	in a shopping mall?	20:42
	A father and his daughter were shopping	20:44
	on the 23rd of December.	20:45
	Her little legs had walked as far as they could walk	20:48
	and so, she looked up to her daddy	20:53
	and she said daddy, would you carry me?	20:54
	And with big brown eyes,	20:57
	melting a heart of years,	20:59
	he reached down, picked her up	21:02
	and she put her arms and her legs around him,	21:05
	she said daddy, I don't have any money left.	21:07
	And being the good steward father that he was says,	21:12
	what do you mean you don't have any money left?	21:14
	What happened to your allowance?	21:16
	Didn't you have $5 just a couple of days ago?	21:19
	And she says I gave all of my allowance	21:24
	to help feed hungry children at Christmas.	21:26
	Once upon a time	21:32
	Jesus sat opposite the treasury	21:34
	and the noise of the coins dropping into the vessels	21:38
	was deafening, ringing through the halls	21:40
	of the treasury as only coin against stone can do.	21:42
	And in the midst of the din,	21:47
	Jesus heard two copper coins settling to the bottom	21:52
	and he calls his disciples over	21:57
	and he said now men,	21:59
	this is what I've been talking about.	22:02
	This is discipleship.	22:06
	And for centuries the sounds of	22:12
	two copper coins	22:15
	dropping into the treasury,	22:19
	little girls giving of their allowance	22:22
	and Christians giving of their all	22:25
	has echoed through the centuries.	22:27
	And the good news is that the oil	22:33
	and the meal has not been spent.	22:38
	In the name of the Father,	22:44
	and of the Son	22:46
	and of the Holy Spirit,	22:48
	go and do likewise.	22:51
	Amen.	22:55
-	Let us respond to the word	23:04
	that we have heard read and proclaimed	23:06
	through our act of thanksgiving	23:08
	as you find printed on the bulletin.	23:10
	Let us adore our God	23:15
	who created us, who sustains us,	23:18
	who loves us with an everlasting love	23:22
	and gives the light of knowledge	23:25
	in the face of Jesus Christ.	23:27
-	We praise you, oh God,	23:31
	acknowledge you to be the Lord.	23:33
-	Let us glory in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ	23:36
	who though he was rich,	23:40
	yet for our sakes became poor,	23:42
	who in every respect was tempted as we are	23:45
	yet without sinning,	23:49
	who went about doing and preaching the gospel	23:51
	of the kingdom who became obedient	23:54
	unto death, even death on a cross,	23:57
	who died and is alive forever,	24:02
	who has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers,	24:05
	who is seated at the right hand of God,	24:09
	who will come again as judge and ruler.	24:12
-	You are the Lord, glory of Christ.	24:16
-	Let us rejoice in the fellowship	24:19
	of the Holy Spirit,	24:21
	the Lord, the giver of life	24:23
	by whom we are born into the family of God	24:26
	and made members of the body of Christ	24:29
	whose witness confirms us,	24:32
	whose wisdom teaches us,	24:34
	whose power enables us to do far more abundantly	24:36
	than all we can ask or think.	24:40
-	All praise you, oh Holy Spirit.	24:44
-	Amen.	24:47
	(lively organ music)	24:52
	(congregation sings)	25:10
-	Go in peace to serve God	26:37
	and your neighbor in all that you do.	26:39
	(congregation mumbles)	26:43
	The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ	26:45
	and the love of God and the communion	26:48
	of the Holy Spirit be with you all.	26:51
	Amen.	26:55
	(lively organ music)	26:57

Item Info

Title:

[unknown] - Divinity School Convocation 8:30 am (November 9, 1982)

Description:

The call of discipleship––and particularly to those disciples who intend to be ministers of the Gospel––is to give entirely of ourselves, whether that be from wealth or poverty, in faith that God will provide. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 09:48. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 22:57.
Key quotation: “Giving out of our wealth or our poverty is not counting what we have, holding onto it and calling it ours. Giving out of our wealth or our poverty is recognizing that our gifts and our graces are just that, gifts of grace.”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r42z1344p

Date:

November 9, 1982

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0111
ref7745_77t
uachapelsermaud
duke:321263
dcrau001103
ark:/87924/r42z1344p
24793683-5d8e-45ae-85e0-0c5fd3dd9bc3

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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