Eugene Owens - "The Dis-Ease of Emptiness" (July 15, 1979)
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- | Duke University Chapel service and worship July 15, 1979. | 0:12 |
(classical pipe organ music) | 0:24 | |
(classical pipe organ music) | 2:43 | |
(classical pipe organ music) | 4:36 | |
(classical pipe organ music) | 7:36 | |
(baby cooing) | 10:47 | |
- | Our help is in the name of the Lord, | 10:59 |
who made heaven and earth. | 11:02 | |
Oh, come let us worship and bow down. | 11:05 | |
Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for He is our God, | 11:09 | |
and we are the people of His pasture | 11:16 | |
and the sheep of His hand. | 11:19 | |
("Praise to the Lord, the Almighty") | 11:27 | |
♪ Praise to the Lord, the Almighty ♪ | 12:03 | |
♪ The King of creation ♪ | 12:07 | |
♪ O my soul, praise Him ♪ | 12:13 | |
♪ For He is thy health and salvation ♪ | 12:16 | |
♪ All ye you hear ♪ | 12:24 | |
♪ Now to His temple draw near ♪ | 12:27 | |
♪ Sing now in glad adoration ♪ | 12:33 | |
♪ Praise to the Lord ♪ | 12:42 | |
♪ Who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth ♪ | 12:45 | |
♪ Who, as on wings of an eagle ♪ | 12:53 | |
♪ Uplifteth, sustaineth ♪ | 12:57 | |
♪ Hast thou not seen ♪ | 13:03 | |
♪ How thy desires all have been granted ♪ | 13:07 | |
♪ In what He ordaineth ♪ | 13:14 | |
♪ Praise to the Lord ♪ | 13:21 | |
♪ Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee ♪ | 13:24 | |
♪ Who from the heavens ♪ | 13:32 | |
♪ The streams of His mercy doth send thee ♪ | 13:35 | |
♪ Ponder anew ♪ | 13:42 | |
♪ What the Almighty can do ♪ | 13:46 | |
♪ Who with His love doth befriend thee ♪ | 13:52 | |
♪ Praise to the Lord ♪ | 14:01 | |
♪ Oh, let all that is in me adore Him ♪ | 14:04 | |
♪ All that hath life and breath ♪ | 14:12 | |
♪ Come now with praises before Him ♪ | 14:16 | |
♪ Let the Amen ♪ | 14:23 | |
♪ Sound from His people again ♪ | 14:27 | |
♪ Gladly for aye we adore Him ♪ | 14:33 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 14:41 | |
- | The scattered bits and pieces of our concerns, | 15:02 |
our sins, our humanity, have a grievous way of accumulating | 15:07 | |
in the darkened corners of our spiritual lives. | 15:12 | |
And a part of our worship of God is the calling forth | 15:17 | |
and naming of these sins in our prayers of confession. | 15:21 | |
In the period of silence that follows | 15:27 | |
the corporate prayer of confession, | 15:29 | |
you are invited on that occasion to lift up | 15:32 | |
in that personal and silent space of your own life, | 15:36 | |
your sins to God. | 15:41 | |
Let us pray. | 15:43 | |
Almighty and most merciful God, | 15:47 | |
creator and judge of all people, | 15:50 | |
we your servants... | 15:54 | |
(muffled congregation reciting) | 15:57 | |
Our claim to be in control of our destines and our pride | 16:06 | |
in thinking that we live decent and honorable lives. | 16:11 | |
Forgive our hardness of heart and our smallness of mind, | 16:16 | |
our self-centeredness, | 16:21 | |
and our indifference to the agony of others, | 16:24 | |
our arrogance and our readiness to prejudge | 16:27 | |
the actions of our fellow human beings | 16:31 | |
without taking the time to understand | 16:35 | |
the experience they have endured. | 16:38 | |
We do not deserve forgiveness, Lord, | 16:42 | |
yet your love is so great, so unutterably great, | 16:45 | |
that forgiveness is ours for the asking. | 16:50 | |
O God, we ask for your forgiveness | 16:55 | |
in the name of Jesus the Christ. | 16:59 | |
Amen. | 17:02 | |
Almighty God, who doth freely pardon all who repent | 17:18 | |
and turn to thee, now fulfill in every contrite heart | 17:22 | |
the promise of redeeming grace, remitting all our sins, | 17:27 | |
and cleansing us from an evil conscience | 17:32 | |
through the perfect sacrifice of Christ Jesus our Lord. | 17:35 | |
Amen. | 17:41 | |
You are invited to consult the bulletin | 17:47 | |
for the announcements that pertain to the activities | 17:49 | |
for this coming week and the weeks ahead. | 17:53 | |
And I would like to take this time to welcome | 17:58 | |
to the pulpit of Duke University Chapel, Dr. Gene Owens, | 18:01 | |
who is a native of the State of Virginia, | 18:08 | |
has his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University, | 18:11 | |
his seminary training from Southeastern | 18:17 | |
Baptist Theological Seminary, | 18:19 | |
his advanced and graduate work in theology | 18:22 | |
at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. | 18:26 | |
For the past 10 years, Dr. Owens has been the pastor | 18:30 | |
of the Myers Park Baptist Church | 18:33 | |
in Charlotte, North Carolina. | 18:36 | |
We welcome him to our midst this morning. | 18:38 | |
- | Let us pray. | 18:54 |
O Thou Eternal Wisdom, | 18:58 | |
whom we partly know and partly do not know, | 19:01 | |
O Thou Eternal Justice, | 19:06 | |
whom we partly acknowledge but never wholly obey, | 19:09 | |
O Thou Eternal Love, | 19:14 | |
whom we love a little but fear to love too much, | 19:17 | |
open our minds that we may understand, | 19:23 | |
work in our wills that we may obey, | 19:27 | |
kindle our hearts that we may love thee. | 19:31 | |
In the name of the word incarnate, Jesus Christ our Lord. | 19:36 | |
Amen. | 19:41 | |
The Old Testament lesson for today is Psalm 126. | 19:47 | |
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, | 19:54 | |
we were like those who dream. | 19:58 | |
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, | 20:01 | |
and our tongue with shouts of joy, | 20:04 | |
then they said among the nations, | 20:08 | |
"The Lord has done great things for them." | 20:10 | |
The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad. | 20:14 | |
Restore our fortunes, O Lord, | 20:21 | |
like the watercourses in the Negev. | 20:25 | |
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. | 20:28 | |
He that goes forth weeping bearing the seed for sowing | 20:34 | |
shall come home with shouts of joy, | 20:39 | |
bringing the sheaves with him. | 20:43 | |
And the gospel lesson for today | 20:47 | |
is taken from the 12th chapter of Matthew, | 20:50 | |
the 43rd through the 45th verses. | 20:53 | |
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, | 21:09 | |
he passes through waterless places seeking rest, | 21:13 | |
but he finds none. | 21:17 | |
Then he says, "I will return to my house from which I came." | 21:20 | |
And when he comes, he finds it empty, | 21:25 | |
swept, and put in order. | 21:27 | |
Then he goes and brings with him | 21:30 | |
seven other spirits more evil then himself, | 21:32 | |
and they enter and dwell there. | 21:36 | |
And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. | 21:39 | |
So shall it be also with this evil generation. | 21:44 | |
Here ends the reading of today's scripture lessons. | 21:50 | |
All praise and glory be to God. | 21:54 | |
Amen. | 21:57 | |
("Christ is Made the Sure Foundation") | 21:59 | |
(muffled singing) | 22:13 | |
- | There is something in this universe | 23:15 |
that does not approve of emptiness, | 23:17 | |
something determined to fill vacuums, | 23:21 | |
something that rushes in at the slightest hint of vacancy. | 23:26 | |
Nature abhors a vacuum, | 23:31 | |
argued the ancients. | 23:35 | |
Horror vacui, | 23:37 | |
a prevailing characteristic of life on this planet. | 23:39 | |
Wherever a vacuum is created, | 23:44 | |
air, water, and other elements | 23:47 | |
tend to rush in to fill that emptiness. | 23:49 | |
Even the geometric ornamentation on early pottery, | 23:55 | |
according to Herbert Reid, was neolithic man | 23:59 | |
moved by the desire to fill a space. | 24:02 | |
If this argumentation is sound, | 24:08 | |
the graffiti sprayed over the New York subway system | 24:11 | |
is more than adolescent ego trips, | 24:15 | |
it is the compulsion to fill a space, | 24:18 | |
something in life refusing | 24:22 | |
to live with emptiness. | 24:26 | |
When I was a student in the seminary, | 24:30 | |
a friend and I decided to cultivate and share a garden. | 24:32 | |
We worked for hours and days | 24:37 | |
preparing the soil for planting. | 24:40 | |
We planted and we waited. | 24:44 | |
And then some circumstance took both of us | 24:47 | |
out of town for a couple of weeks. | 24:50 | |
We were probably out to save the world | 24:53 | |
in a 10-day revival meeting, | 24:55 | |
as seminary students were want to do in those days. | 24:57 | |
At any rate, when we returned, | 25:01 | |
we went directly to our garden. | 25:03 | |
We couldn't even find it. | 25:07 | |
Kudzu covered the entire field. | 25:09 | |
Well, that's the way of it. | 25:14 | |
You might clear a space in the jungle, | 25:17 | |
but gradually, inevitably, | 25:20 | |
the jungle reclaims its own. | 25:23 | |
If we don't want the jungle | 25:28 | |
to reclaim the cleared spaces of our lives, | 25:29 | |
we'd better allow them to be filled with some spirit of life | 25:33 | |
that brings personal fulfillment for us. | 25:37 | |
There is about us today a rushing into empty spaces. | 25:43 | |
Where are those national leaders | 25:50 | |
who will enable us to fill full our national dreams? | 25:52 | |
Instead today there is only talk of emptiness. | 25:58 | |
We are running out, exhaustion is everywhere, | 26:01 | |
and not only exhaustion of our energy resources. | 26:07 | |
There is today in so many people an exhaustion of will, | 26:12 | |
an emptying of commitment to justice, to human rights, | 26:18 | |
an emptying and exhaustion | 26:24 | |
of the commitment to one's neighbor. | 26:27 | |
We do not have enough. | 26:30 | |
That is the current cry. | 26:34 | |
And this exhaustion of willpower manifests itself | 26:37 | |
as a mean spirit in our land. | 26:41 | |
It's a spirit of overt selfishness. | 26:45 | |
What is happening is this: as our willpower | 26:50 | |
to help the neighbor is drained from us, | 26:55 | |
that emptiness is filled with greed, | 26:59 | |
lust for power, and isolationism. | 27:03 | |
The emptiness in religion is being filled | 27:08 | |
by a kind of emotional charisma and a crass promotionalism. | 27:11 | |
If mainline religious groups | 27:18 | |
withdraw from or fail to enter | 27:21 | |
the field of mass communication, | 27:23 | |
you can be certain that that vacuum | 27:26 | |
will be filled by the Armstrongs, the Grahams, | 27:29 | |
the Bakers, and all the others. | 27:33 | |
Wherever responsibility is refused or surrendered, | 27:37 | |
and a vacuum is created, someone will fill it. | 27:42 | |
Emptiness cannot be tolerated. | 27:46 | |
Now, the vacancies are not all out there somewhere, | 27:50 | |
not all in our national life, or in our institutional lives. | 27:54 | |
They are within also. | 27:59 | |
Souls too small for bodies. | 28:03 | |
And, my God, what a rattling around that is in us. | 28:06 | |
Beings too shriveled for life. | 28:11 | |
Emptiness. | 28:15 | |
We have all experienced this | 28:18 | |
at one time or another in our lives. | 28:19 | |
Emptiness calls when you outgrow a space, | 28:21 | |
and must move on from that space. | 28:26 | |
Distances between | 28:29 | |
gaps in relationship | 28:32 | |
so painful that you wonder | 28:35 | |
whether growth is worth it at all. | 28:37 | |
Concepts that have been outgrown, | 28:41 | |
and all that emptiness that will be filled. | 28:44 | |
Spaces left vacant also by the loss | 28:49 | |
of some significant person, | 28:52 | |
an emptiness that you are certain can never be filled. | 28:55 | |
On a dank day in February, 1963, | 29:01 | |
a pretty young mother of two children was found | 29:06 | |
in a London flat with her head in the oven | 29:09 | |
and the gas jets wide open. | 29:12 | |
The dead woman was Sylvia Plath, 30 years of age, | 29:16 | |
an American poet of growing fame and renown. | 29:21 | |
Within a week of her death, | 29:26 | |
intellectuals in London were hunched over copies | 29:28 | |
of a strange and terrible poem she had written | 29:32 | |
during her last sick slide into suicide. | 29:36 | |
It was titled Daddy. | 29:41 | |
Its subject was the enormous vacuum that existed in her life | 29:45 | |
since her father died when she was 10 years of age. | 29:50 | |
Little Sylvia had been Daddy's darling. | 29:56 | |
Her father was a professor of entomology | 30:00 | |
at Boston University, | 30:03 | |
and by the time Sylvia was three years of age, | 30:05 | |
she knew the Latin names of hundreds of insects. | 30:08 | |
But when she was 10, Daddy died. | 30:14 | |
That terrible void was in her for 20 more years | 30:19 | |
until she could stand it no longer | 30:23 | |
and she took her own life. | 30:25 | |
Sylvia Plath filled her emptiness | 30:28 | |
with despair and with poetry, | 30:30 | |
and neither was quite adequate for her life. | 30:33 | |
But even vacancies that are caused by death | 30:37 | |
are going to be filled. | 30:40 | |
Some turn this emptiness into a perpetual memorial. | 30:43 | |
They spend energy and time | 30:49 | |
keeping that vacuum clean and empty. | 30:52 | |
They refuse to allow the love of others | 30:56 | |
to penetrate the space of that empty memorial. | 30:59 | |
Such individuals fill their emptiness | 31:03 | |
with misplaced loyalty or self-pity, | 31:06 | |
or a liberating memory of one who was | 31:11 | |
such a vital part of their lives, and always will be. | 31:14 | |
But that memory frees them necessarily to love and live on. | 31:19 | |
There is an important thing | 31:26 | |
about the fact of the life of Jesus, | 31:28 | |
when he refused to allow the Church | 31:30 | |
to be primarily a memorial society. | 31:33 | |
He would not allow that first band of followers | 31:38 | |
to dedicate themselves to memorializing him. | 31:42 | |
When I go away, he taught, | 31:47 | |
the Father will send his spirit to you. | 31:51 | |
I will not leave you comfortless, he promised. | 31:55 | |
The Comforter, the Spirit of God, will be in you. | 31:59 | |
What we can be certain of is this: | 32:05 | |
empty spaces in our lives will not remain empty. | 32:07 | |
Nature abhors vacuums. | 32:11 | |
This is the point of the story Matthew reports | 32:15 | |
in our New Testament lesson this morning. | 32:18 | |
Jesus told of a demonic spirit that goes out of a person, | 32:22 | |
roams around the territory, and returns to discover that, | 32:26 | |
while he was away, the person has taken control of life, | 32:31 | |
cleaned up, put things in order now. | 32:37 | |
Whereupon the demon then invites | 32:41 | |
seven more demons to come home with him, | 32:43 | |
and the last state of that person is worse than the first. | 32:46 | |
The jungle moves back into the clearing. | 32:52 | |
The kudzu covers the garden, untended. | 32:56 | |
Emptiness will be filled. | 33:00 | |
There is some compulsion in this universe | 33:03 | |
to fill all emptiness. | 33:07 | |
Is there not someone here this morning | 33:12 | |
who knows the truth of that experience? | 33:14 | |
You had some demon exorcized from your life, | 33:18 | |
some demon who was taking over your life. | 33:23 | |
You gave that demonic power his walking papers, | 33:27 | |
evicted him, and this eviction was accomplished | 33:31 | |
through religion or psychiatry or whatever. | 33:35 | |
Then without that demon in you, | 33:39 | |
your life was cleaned up. | 33:43 | |
Things were put in order, straightened out. | 33:46 | |
But you left the house clean and empty. | 33:49 | |
Nice to look at, but nothing there. | 33:53 | |
Nice to look at like those beautiful empty houses | 33:57 | |
in Better Homes and Gardens. | 34:00 | |
No one could possibly live in houses like that, | 34:03 | |
and no one really lived in your emptiness. | 34:07 | |
Cleaning house spiritually | 34:12 | |
can be a very negative affair. | 34:15 | |
A religious spirit that concentrates | 34:19 | |
entirely on what I have now outgrown, | 34:22 | |
what I no longer can believe, | 34:27 | |
an emptying of life. | 34:31 | |
Well, nature abhors a vacuum. | 34:34 | |
The jungle moves back in, that is the law of this life, | 34:39 | |
and unless life is filled with some affirmations, | 34:44 | |
it will be filled with exhausting negativisms. | 34:47 | |
To be satisfying, life must be much more | 34:52 | |
than carrying out the garbage, as essential as that is. | 34:56 | |
In His Christ, God has confronted | 35:01 | |
the emptiness of this world. | 35:04 | |
In this Christ, according to Clarence Jordan, | 35:07 | |
who was quoting Saint Paul, | 35:10 | |
God is hugging the world to himself, | 35:12 | |
bridging those gaps of distance between us. | 35:16 | |
So any emptiness, personal or corporate, | 35:21 | |
can be viewed in the light now of God's presence. | 35:25 | |
Shekinah, that Hebrew term for the | 35:30 | |
glory of God's presence. | 35:33 | |
And that ancient story told by men and women of faith, | 35:37 | |
how in the beginning, in the very, very beginning, | 35:40 | |
when all was formless and void, empty darkness, | 35:45 | |
then the Spirit of God moved purposefully into history. | 35:50 | |
Slaves were delivered from bondage, | 35:56 | |
exiles returned to their homeland, | 35:59 | |
eternity was planted in the hearts of humans, | 36:02 | |
and the kingdom of God started spreading out | 36:06 | |
and filling empty lives. | 36:10 | |
Emptiness is or will be in all of us. | 36:14 | |
How it is filled, that's the point. | 36:18 | |
We can have some determination in that filling. | 36:22 | |
We can give thanks and celebrate | 36:25 | |
certain fillings of our emptiness. | 36:28 | |
Elie Wiesel was the only member of his family | 36:33 | |
to survive the Nazi concentration camps in the Holocaust. | 36:36 | |
Once the escape, to escape the advancing Allies, | 36:41 | |
the Nazis herded the Jews through a blizzard | 36:46 | |
to another camp at Gleiwitz, | 36:50 | |
and then jammed them all together into sheds | 36:53 | |
to endure the freezing night as best they could. | 36:56 | |
Elie Wiesel described this incident | 37:01 | |
in his book titled Night. | 37:03 | |
How vividly I remember that night, he wrote, | 37:07 | |
the cold, terrible emptiness of life. | 37:10 | |
I heard a violin playing, | 37:14 | |
the sound of a violin in this dark shed, | 37:18 | |
where the dead were heaped on the living. | 37:21 | |
What madman could be playing his violin here | 37:25 | |
at the brink of his own grave? | 37:28 | |
It must have been Juliek. | 37:31 | |
He played a fragment from Beethoven's concerto. | 37:34 | |
I had never heard sounds so pure in all my life | 37:39 | |
in such silence, it was pitch dark. | 37:43 | |
I could hear only the violin, | 37:47 | |
and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. | 37:49 | |
He was playing his life. | 37:53 | |
The whole of his life was gliding on the strings, | 37:56 | |
his lost hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. | 37:59 | |
I tell you this, I shall never forget Juliek. | 38:05 | |
How could I forget that concert | 38:11 | |
given to an audience of dead and dying men. | 38:13 | |
When I awoke in the daylight, | 38:17 | |
I could see Juliek, slumped over, dead. | 38:19 | |
I shall never forget Juliek, | 38:26 | |
who filled that awfully empty space with his music. | 38:28 | |
And I shall never forget those violin players | 38:33 | |
who have wondered through the empty spaces of my life, | 38:37 | |
and fill them with their music. | 38:42 | |
And I shall never forget that Christ | 38:46 | |
who was sent to fill this world with God's love. | 38:48 | |
He, as the Spirit of God holds back | 38:53 | |
the jungle that threatens to engulf us, | 38:56 | |
he shows me the place of my garden | 39:01 | |
and strengthens me to cultivate it. | 39:05 | |
God is in us, | 39:09 | |
in all of us, | 39:12 | |
believe it. | 39:15 | |
Amen. | 39:17 | |
Let us pray. | 39:19 | |
O God, what a vast emptiness | 39:23 | |
there is in this world to be filled. | 39:27 | |
And what a vast emptiness there is in our lives. | 39:32 | |
By the power and presence of your Spirit, | 39:38 | |
fill us, O God, with yourself | 39:44 | |
and grant to us the joy of thankful celebration | 39:48 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 39:54 | |
Amen. | 39:57 | |
(hymnal organ music) | 40:05 | |
(music drowns out singing) | 40:31 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 43:13 | |
- | Let us affirm what we believe. | 43:23 |
We believe in God, who has created and is creating, | 43:27 | |
who has come in the truly human Jesus | 43:33 | |
to reconcile and make anew, | 43:37 | |
who works in us and others by the Spirit. | 43:40 | |
We trust God, who calls us to be the Church, | 43:44 | |
to celebrate life and its fullness, | 43:49 | |
to love and serve others, | 43:53 | |
to seek justice and resist evil, | 43:56 | |
to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 43:59 | |
our judge and our hope. | 44:04 | |
In life, in death, | 44:07 | |
in life beyond death, | 44:10 | |
God is with us. | 44:12 | |
We are not alone. | 44:14 | |
Thanks be to God. | 44:17 | |
Be seated. | 44:21 | |
The Lord be with you. | 44:31 | |
- | And with your spirit. | 44:33 |
- | Let us pray. | 44:36 |
Almighty and merciful Father, | 44:41 | |
restore our souls in Jesus Christ | 44:44 | |
that we may mercifully and kind be as thou ever art. | 44:47 | |
Let thy forgiveness make us willing | 44:53 | |
to forgive all wrong which we have suffered, | 44:55 | |
and to ask forgiveness for every wrong which we have done. | 44:58 | |
Give us the Spirit of Him who dwelled among men | 45:03 | |
in great humility and was meek and lowly of heart. | 45:06 | |
Let the same mind be in us which is also in Him. | 45:12 | |
Let our love and charity be abundant as our joy, | 45:17 | |
that our hearts may be tender to all need, | 45:21 | |
and our hands give freely for His sake. | 45:25 | |
And grant that being rooted and grounded | 45:29 | |
in the mystery of the word made flesh, | 45:31 | |
we may receive power to overcome the world | 45:34 | |
and gain life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 45:38 | |
O Thou, who has founded the Church | 45:45 | |
and has promised to dwell in it forever, | 45:47 | |
enlighten and sanctify it. | 45:51 | |
We beseech thee by thy word and spirit, | 45:54 | |
and do all pastors and ministers with thy grace, | 45:58 | |
that with joy and assurance, | 46:01 | |
they may guard and feed thy sheep, | 46:03 | |
looking to the great shepard and bishop of souls. | 46:06 | |
Bless all who serve thee and the rule of the church | 46:11 | |
in the care of the poor, in the ministry of praise, | 46:14 | |
and in the teaching of thy people. | 46:19 | |
Strengthen them and their labors. | 46:22 | |
Give them courage to witness a good confession, | 46:25 | |
and to cause thy church to increase more and more, | 46:30 | |
that every knee may bow before thee | 46:34 | |
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. | 46:36 | |
O God, who has made of one blood all nations of men | 46:41 | |
for to dwell on the face of the whole earth | 46:46 | |
and did send thy blessed Son to preach peace to them | 46:50 | |
that are far off, and to them that are nigh, | 46:53 | |
grant that all men everywhere | 46:58 | |
may seek after thee and find thee. | 47:00 | |
Bring the nations into thy fold, | 47:04 | |
pour out thy Spirit upon all flesh, | 47:07 | |
and hasten thy kingdom through the Son, | 47:11 | |
the same thy Son Jesus Christ. | 47:14 | |
God of All Comfort, we command unto thee | 47:18 | |
all and in anywise afflicted, | 47:22 | |
all persons oppressed with poverty, | 47:25 | |
sickness, or other trouble of body or sorrow of mind, | 47:29 | |
and all such as we name in our hearts. | 47:36 | |
Grant them the consolations of which they have need | 47:42 | |
and overrule their present sufferings | 47:45 | |
to their eternal good, through Jesus Christ. | 47:47 | |
And, O Lord Most High, we give thee thanks | 47:53 | |
for all thy saints, martyrs, and confessors, | 47:55 | |
for all the faithful, who in every age | 48:00 | |
have witnessed a good confession | 48:02 | |
and have been chosen vessels of thy grace | 48:05 | |
and the lights of the world in their several generations. | 48:07 | |
Grant us grace so to follow them as they followed Christ, | 48:12 | |
and bring us with them to those things | 48:17 | |
that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, | 48:21 | |
which thou hast prepared for those who love thee | 48:25 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord, | 48:29 | |
to whom with thee the Father and the Holy Spirit | 48:31 | |
all honor and glory, world without end. | 48:34 | |
Now let us join in praying together | 48:39 | |
the prayer which our Lord hath taught us. | 48:41 | |
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. | 48:45 | |
Thy kingdom come. | 48:51 | |
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. | 48:53 | |
Give us this day our daily bread, | 48:58 | |
and forgive us our trespasses, | 49:01 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us, | 49:04 | |
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. | 49:09 | |
For thine is the kingdom, | 49:14 | |
and the power, and the glory forever. | 49:16 | |
Amen. | 49:20 | |
(classical pipe organ music) | 49:34 | |
("All Creatures of Our God and King") | 55:57 | |
(music drowns out singing) | 56:15 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 56:26 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 56:29 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 56:45 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 56:48 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 56:51 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 57:04 | |
- | Almighty and most gracious God, | 57:16 |
who in the abundance of your goodness has given us | 57:19 | |
far more than we desire or dare to ask. | 57:22 | |
Give us, we pray, a spirit of true thankfulness. | 57:26 | |
Increase in us the grace of charity | 57:30 | |
that we may always be more willing to give than to receive. | 57:33 | |
And so rule our hearts that all that we have | 57:38 | |
may be used for Your service through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 57:42 | |
Amen. | 57:48 | |
(hymnal organ music) | 57:51 | |
(music drowns out singing) | 58:11 | |
Go forth into the world in peace, | 59:50 | |
be of good courage, hold fast to that which is good, | 59:53 | |
render no one evil for evil, strengthen the fainthearted, | 59:58 | |
support the weak, help the afflicted, honor all persons. | 1:00:04 | |
Love and serve the Lord, | 1:00:10 | |
rejoicing always in the power of the Holy Spirit. | 1:00:13 | |
And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, | 1:00:18 | |
the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit | 1:00:20 | |
be with you all, both now and forevermore. | 1:00:25 | |
(classical pipe organ music) | 1:00:36 | |
(congregation murmuring faintly) | 1:04:18 |