James T. Cleland - "This Business of Churchgoing" (September 16, 1962)
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Transcript
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(Church organ playing) | 0:12 | |
- | Let us pray. | 0:28 |
Let the words of my mouth | 0:33 | |
and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable | 0:37 | |
in thy sight. | 0:41 | |
Oh Lord our strength and our Redeemer. | 0:43 | |
Amen. | 0:49 | |
For many years, one of the official acts | 0:58 | |
of Freshmen Orientation Week | 1:04 | |
has been a service in the university chapel. | 1:08 | |
A service, very specially for you | 1:14 | |
who worship now as newcomers | 1:19 | |
to the Duke community. | 1:22 | |
You have already been greeted by all kinds | 1:26 | |
of academic officials, and rightly so. | 1:30 | |
Without you, the undergraduate colleges would peter out | 1:37 | |
in June, 1965, | 1:43 | |
except for the scholarly laggards who cannot quite lay hands | 1:47 | |
on a BS or a BA in a normal student generation. | 1:53 | |
Today, the university welcomes you to its | 1:59 | |
own officially recognized service of worship. | 2:03 | |
This is because your chosen alma mater | 2:08 | |
recognizes the union of learning and religion. | 2:11 | |
(speaking in Latin) | 2:17 | |
The Protestant denominations on this campus | 2:22 | |
represented by their chaplains | 2:26 | |
unite to give you an inter-denominational salutation | 2:29 | |
symbolized in the chaplain of the university | 2:36 | |
who is presiding over this diet of worship. | 2:40 | |
We salute you in the name of God. | 2:44 | |
Now, as you settle down among us, | 2:52 | |
a recurring question is going to pop into your mind | 2:55 | |
with annoying frequency. | 2:59 | |
What is the point of this university service of worship? | 3:03 | |
We are here at Duke to study, to learn, | 3:12 | |
to widen and deepen our minds. | 3:17 | |
Are we also here to sing, to pray, | 3:23 | |
to listen to sermons? | 3:28 | |
Look at the newspapers, | 3:32 | |
the Berlin Wall, | 3:35 | |
the Communist irritation in Cuba, | 3:38 | |
the tumultuous awakening of segmented Africa, | 3:44 | |
the stalemate between conservatives and liberals | 3:50 | |
in Washington. | 3:55 | |
Has churchgoing any real reason for being | 3:58 | |
in a world like that? | 4:03 | |
Aren't the Armed Forces, the symbol of our generation, | 4:06 | |
wouldn't it be wiser to join the Air Force or the Navy ROTC | 4:13 | |
rather than the church? | 4:19 | |
Is there much point to worshiping together | 4:23 | |
during the next four years? | 4:26 | |
Now this is valid and good questioning. | 4:31 | |
And let us look together for an answer, | 4:36 | |
using as a norm, the new Testament scripture lesson, | 4:39 | |
which has just been read. | 4:45 | |
The story of that Army officer who came | 4:49 | |
face to face with Jesus in the village of Capernaum. | 4:53 | |
Here was a soldier engaged in policing Palestine, | 5:00 | |
presumably a junior officer in the Army of Herod Antipas, | 5:06 | |
the tetrarch of Galilee. | 5:12 | |
He was a non-Jew, perhaps a Roman, | 5:16 | |
with a hundred men under his command. | 5:21 | |
In the first century A.D., | 5:27 | |
his job was one of the most arduous in the Roman empire | 5:29 | |
because in that century, Palestine, | 5:35 | |
that little country about the size of Connecticut, | 5:37 | |
Palestine caused Rome more worry | 5:42 | |
than the rest of the empire rolled into one. | 5:46 | |
The steady stubbornness of Rome collided | 5:52 | |
with the sheer obstinacy of Jerusalem. | 5:55 | |
There was an uncanny cussedness about each of them, | 6:01 | |
because each held itself to be the chosen people. | 6:07 | |
On the one hand, the Jews claim to be the people | 6:12 | |
because of what was written in the old Testament. | 6:16 | |
It's in the book. Read the Revelation. | 6:19 | |
On the other hand, the Romans claim to be the people | 6:25 | |
because of the facts of Imperial history. | 6:28 | |
Look at the record. | 6:32 | |
Theological pride clashed with experiential confidence, | 6:36 | |
theory with fact, | 6:42 | |
and neither would yield to the other beyond | 6:43 | |
a jot or a tittle. | 6:47 | |
You can guess the outcome. | 6:50 | |
It is parabled in an analogy from the physics classroom, | 6:53 | |
where a teacher asked this question: | 6:59 | |
"What will happen when an irresistible force | 7:02 | |
meets an unmovable mass?" | 7:07 | |
And a student, distinguished more by common sense | 7:11 | |
than by scientific knowledge answered, | 7:13 | |
"There will be an inconceivable crash." | 7:17 | |
There was an inconceivable clash in Jewish-Roman relations | 7:24 | |
in 66 A.D. | 7:31 | |
And in four years, Rome steamrollered over Palestine, | 7:34 | |
slow, ponderous, inevitable. | 7:40 | |
It planned no Blitzkrieg. | 7:44 | |
It moved with glacier-like thoroughness. | 7:47 | |
Like a glacier, it left nothing living behind it. | 7:52 | |
Jerusalem fell A.D. 70. | 7:56 | |
Now in that situation, around the year A.D. 30, | 8:00 | |
this Centurion was stationed with these man on the shores of | 8:05 | |
the sea of Galilee at Capernaum. | 8:09 | |
And there, a Roman soldier though he was, | 8:14 | |
pledged to uphold the Empire and the emperor | 8:19 | |
as his chief loyalty, | 8:22 | |
he built a synagogue for the Jews. | 8:25 | |
He loves our nation. | 8:31 | |
"He has builted our synagogue" was how the | 8:34 | |
Jewish officials in Capernaum put it to Jesus. | 8:37 | |
And Jesus paid that officer in a foreign army of occupation, | 8:41 | |
the highest tribute he paid to anyone in the gospels. | 8:48 | |
I have not found faith like this in Israel. | 8:54 | |
Now it's not in the text, | 9:01 | |
but I'm going to assume that this officer | 9:04 | |
attended the synagogue. | 9:07 | |
It was not an uncommon occurrence for gentiles | 9:09 | |
to attend the synagogue service. | 9:12 | |
They were forbidden to enter the inner courts of the temple | 9:15 | |
on pain of death. | 9:19 | |
Some day, some of you will go to Istanbul. | 9:24 | |
And if you go up to the museum there, | 9:29 | |
you'll find the actual stone from the temple, | 9:31 | |
which says on it, "No foreigner beyond this place | 9:36 | |
on pain of death." | 9:41 | |
But there was no restriction on gentiles | 9:45 | |
in their attendance on the synagogue. | 9:47 | |
Now, why did he go? | 9:50 | |
Well, let me suggest two possible reasons. | 9:52 | |
Valid for him. Valid for us. | 9:56 | |
First, | 10:00 | |
he wanted to worship the God whom he had chosen | 10:03 | |
as the most important fact in his life. | 10:07 | |
He wants to worship the God whom he had chosen | 10:12 | |
as the most important fact in his life. | 10:14 | |
There was probably no need for him to build a synagogue | 10:19 | |
for political reasons. | 10:23 | |
He wasn't a proconsul, or a legate, or a governor. | 10:25 | |
He was only a Centurion, a junior officer, | 10:32 | |
second Lieutenant. | 10:38 | |
But he evidently had a religious sense. | 10:41 | |
Now, what does that mean? | 10:43 | |
He knew that he himself was not ultimate, | 10:46 | |
but he was not all-important. | 10:50 | |
He knew there was a fact in the universe other than himself, | 10:52 | |
greater than himself, | 10:57 | |
some a little more important than that, | 11:00 | |
other than Rome, greater, | 11:02 | |
more lasting than Rome. | 11:07 | |
He knew there was a Creator over against himself, | 11:11 | |
a creature, | 11:15 | |
therefore he was humble, | 11:16 | |
and humility is always the threshold of religion. | 11:20 | |
And so he looked around for a God to worship. | 11:29 | |
Now, what is worship? | 11:32 | |
Worship is just the worth in which we hold | 11:34 | |
something or someone. | 11:39 | |
Corporate worship is the social expression of that worth. | 11:43 | |
So he looked around for a worthy God | 11:50 | |
whom he could hold as worthwhile, | 11:53 | |
as the most worthwhile fact in his life. | 11:56 | |
Because you see true humility always demands | 12:01 | |
a worthy object of worship, | 12:06 | |
something someone which will give dignity to the worshiper, | 12:09 | |
even in his humility. | 12:15 | |
And out of the varied and the various gods | 12:20 | |
of the first century, | 12:22 | |
he chose the God of the Jews. | 12:25 | |
Now, why? | 12:28 | |
Well, we don't know, but we can guess. | 12:30 | |
For one thing, this God was just. | 12:35 | |
You remember the lines which Amos wrote way back | 12:40 | |
in the eighth century B.C., | 12:43 | |
putting these words into the mouth of God, | 12:46 | |
"I hate, I despise your feasts. | 12:49 | |
I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. | 12:55 | |
Take away from me the noise of your songs | 13:00 | |
to the melody of your heart. | 13:05 | |
I will not listen. | 13:08 | |
But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness, | 13:10 | |
like a never flowing stream." | 13:18 | |
Now that would appeal to this Roman officer because the | 13:20 | |
Romans had a slogan. | 13:23 | |
(Speaking in Latin) | 13:26 | |
That means "Let justice stand | 13:31 | |
even if the heavens fall." | 13:34 | |
Justice undergirded the Roman Empire. | 13:38 | |
But more than that, the God of the Jews was holy. | 13:43 | |
That is morally whole. | 13:48 | |
When a man thought of Him seriously, | 13:51 | |
then a man was forced to examine his own conduct | 13:54 | |
in the light of the character of this God, | 13:59 | |
read Isiah on that. | 14:03 | |
The Lord God of the Jews | 14:07 | |
was a very different kind of deity | 14:10 | |
from the celestial beings on Mount Olympus. | 14:14 | |
Oh, they might be fun to have afternoon tea with | 14:19 | |
or ambrosia and nectar, | 14:23 | |
but one may hardly accuse them of being holy. | 14:27 | |
But there was a third quality which appealed | 14:33 | |
to the soldier. | 14:35 | |
The Jewish God was merciful. | 14:38 | |
The prophet Hosea had discovered that. | 14:43 | |
He had discovered it from his own experience. | 14:47 | |
His wife had become a prostitute. | 14:51 | |
And he discovered he still loved her. | 14:56 | |
He said, "If I can love my wife, | 14:59 | |
who has shamed me, and show mercy to her, | 15:03 | |
surely God is big enough to love Israel, | 15:09 | |
which has played the prostitute." | 15:13 | |
And to show mercy. | 15:17 | |
Most people need mercy for one reason or another. | 15:22 | |
And so this soldier chose the God of the Jews as his God. | 15:28 | |
He didn't become a Jew, no. | 15:34 | |
He joined that circle of gentiles | 15:37 | |
on the fringe of Judaism who are known as the God fearers. | 15:40 | |
They worship the Jewish God, | 15:45 | |
but they will not accept the mark of circumcision | 15:47 | |
nor keep the dietary laws. | 15:51 | |
They worshiped in the synagogue, not in the temple. | 15:54 | |
Now hasn't that been the case with many folk | 15:59 | |
ever since the first century? | 16:02 | |
They cannot accept everything in the Jewish-Christian | 16:06 | |
tradition, but they are God fearers. | 16:10 | |
They find in that tradition, | 16:16 | |
something outside of themselves, | 16:17 | |
to which they willingly pay homage. | 16:20 | |
For they know that the most important fact in their lives | 16:24 | |
is their view of the universe, | 16:30 | |
the calamity and the character of that | 16:33 | |
which we spell G-O-D. | 16:36 | |
And the Jewish-Christian God is that fact for them. | 16:43 | |
They accept the name that Jesus gave him, Father. | 16:48 | |
Because Father is a shortcut way of bringing together the | 16:53 | |
justness of Amos, | 16:57 | |
the holiness of Isaiah. and the mercy of Hosea. | 17:00 | |
A good Father is just, holy, merciful. | 17:05 | |
And so they ally themselves with the Jewish-Christian | 17:12 | |
tradition when they come Sunday by Sunday to chapel | 17:16 | |
and recognize that kind of God is the God and is their God. | 17:20 | |
Members of the Freshmen class, can that be true for us | 17:29 | |
here at Duke? | 17:33 | |
I think so. | 17:35 | |
During the last years of the second World War, | 17:39 | |
I was chaplain in one of the New England prep schools, | 17:42 | |
and one evening at chapel the headmaster | 17:47 | |
read a letter from an old boy written on the battlefield. | 17:50 | |
He had just buried a classmate. | 17:58 | |
There was no chaplain at hand. | 18:02 | |
And so the officer did what he thought was right | 18:06 | |
and fitting. | 18:09 | |
He repeated the school prayer. | 18:12 | |
He said the school hymn and the Lord's Prayer. | 18:16 | |
He buried his friend. | 18:23 | |
He commended him to the care of God | 18:24 | |
from and within the beloved community | 18:27 | |
as they both had known it best. | 18:32 | |
There are Duke alumni, whose first port of call | 18:38 | |
when they return to the campus is the chapel. | 18:43 | |
Some even sing again in the choir. | 18:48 | |
Many worship with us on the Lord's Day. | 18:52 | |
They remind us of the Centurion at Capernaum. | 18:58 | |
And so that is one reason for churchgoing, | 19:04 | |
the opportunity to respect, | 19:08 | |
to worship the God who is the most worthwhile fact in life, | 19:12 | |
who gives us dignity in our humility | 19:19 | |
by calling us his sons and his daughters. | 19:23 | |
Now, there's a second reason why that Centurion | 19:31 | |
may have attended the synagogue which he built. | 19:34 | |
And that was to keep his spirit sensitive in the midst | 19:40 | |
of a world that numbs the finer feelings, | 19:45 | |
to keep his spirit sensitive in the midst of a world | 19:50 | |
that numbs the finer feelings. | 19:55 | |
I think that would be a sound reason for the Centurion. | 19:59 | |
His was a profession which called for heroism, | 20:03 | |
for cold courage, not for hot courage. | 20:08 | |
Police action never calls for hot courage. | 20:11 | |
It calls for cold courage. | 20:14 | |
If you would understand the kind of job that he did, | 20:17 | |
then ask any British soldier who was engaged in the same job | 20:21 | |
between the first and the second World Wars. | 20:29 | |
And yet it was a job that was often callous and brutalizing. | 20:34 | |
One act to lore the model, tone, and produce inner discord. | 20:41 | |
But this officer had a sensitiveness to the things | 20:47 | |
of the spirit. | 20:51 | |
He recognized another side to his nature. | 20:54 | |
He wanted to keep a grip on the finer qualities on the | 20:58 | |
gentler virtues, | 21:02 | |
therefore he attended the synagogue. | 21:05 | |
The service in an army of occupation was not | 21:08 | |
the ultimate. | 21:12 | |
Policing the outpost of an empire was not | 21:15 | |
the be all and the end all of life. | 21:18 | |
There was another realm, | 21:22 | |
another kingdom to which he owed allegiance, | 21:25 | |
in which he wished to live too, | 21:30 | |
but he loves our nation. | 21:34 | |
He has builted our synagogue within the Jewish faith. | 21:37 | |
He kept his spirit sensitive. | 21:42 | |
And down the years, others have experienced what we have | 21:47 | |
assumed that Centurion discovered. | 21:51 | |
Listen to this written at a time of civil strife in England. | 21:55 | |
The year after the death of Oliver Cromwell, | 22:02 | |
the year before the restoration of Charles the Second. | 22:06 | |
It is an inscription on a tablet in the | 22:12 | |
Staunton Harrold Church in England. | 22:16 | |
Here it is. | 22:22 | |
"In the year 1659, | 22:23 | |
when all things sacred were either destroyed or profaned, | 22:28 | |
this church was built to the glory of God | 22:36 | |
by Sir Robert Shirley Barnett, | 22:41 | |
whose singular praise it was to have done the best thing | 22:45 | |
in the worst time and hoped them in the most calamitous." | 22:49 | |
So singular praise it was | 22:58 | |
to have done the best thing in the worst time | 23:01 | |
and to have hoped them in the most calamitous, | 23:05 | |
that's a worthy epitaph. | 23:08 | |
A spirit alive to spiritual things in a day | 23:11 | |
when all things sacred were either destroyed or profaned. | 23:15 | |
It's a good reason for building a church, | 23:21 | |
it's a good reason for coming to church. | 23:24 | |
And we too live in a world, which is moderately ugly, | 23:30 | |
which has been moderately ugly in many of its major emphasis | 23:36 | |
for over a generation. | 23:41 | |
It's a world of moral chaos, ethical confusion, | 23:44 | |
and spiritual perversion. | 23:48 | |
Moreover, for many of us, | 23:53 | |
especially for you men in the freshman class, | 23:54 | |
it's a world in which the Armed Forces seem ultimate. | 23:59 | |
It's not easy for us to find ourselves around | 24:06 | |
in the realm of ideals and values in this year of grace, | 24:09 | |
something which Mark Twain once wrote in his diary, | 24:14 | |
is almost a parable of our time. | 24:18 | |
He was in Germany in February, 1892, confined to bed, | 24:22 | |
when an important debate was going on in the Reichstag, | 24:29 | |
the German Parliament, here's what he wrote: | 24:33 | |
"30 days sick-a-bed, full of interest, | 24:36 | |
read the debates and get excited over them, | 24:41 | |
though I don't understand. | 24:44 | |
By reading, I keep myself in a state of excited ignorance, | 24:47 | |
like a blind man in a house of fire, | 24:53 | |
flounder around immensely, but unintelligently interested. | 24:56 | |
Don't know how I got in. | 25:00 | |
I can't find the way out, | 25:02 | |
but I'm having a booming time all to myself." | 25:03 | |
Can that describe us? | 25:09 | |
Here we are fascinated in our heads and sick in our hearts, | 25:12 | |
as we try to steer ourselves through the model straits | 25:18 | |
of Messina, | 25:21 | |
between the scilla of Washington | 25:23 | |
and the corruptness of Moscow, | 25:25 | |
while listening to the bewitching voices of Fulton Lewis, | 25:29 | |
Walter Littman, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. Cruciate. | 25:34 | |
And perhaps like the Centurion, | 25:41 | |
we should come to chapel, our synagogue, | 25:44 | |
to expose ourselves to the things which are true, lovely, | 25:50 | |
and of good report. | 25:56 | |
To remain sensitive to spiritual values | 25:59 | |
in that kind of a world | 26:02 | |
because in that kind of a world, we must live | 26:04 | |
in the world but not of it. | 26:14 | |
There's a reason for churchgoing and the juxtaposition | 26:18 | |
of these two prepositions, | 26:22 | |
in the world but not of it. | 26:24 | |
Read first Corinthians, | 26:26 | |
and watch Paul wrestling with that problem. | 26:29 | |
How can this little church be in Corinth, | 26:33 | |
but not of Corinth? | 26:38 | |
Because Corinth was probably the most wicked city | 26:40 | |
in the first century, there's an old sea captain's proverb, | 26:44 | |
which says, "Not everyone is lucky enough | 26:47 | |
to get to Corinth." | 26:51 | |
I'll give you some idea what it was like. | 26:53 | |
It was a sailor's paradise. | 26:56 | |
And this little church, | 27:01 | |
how can it be in Corinth, but not of it? | 27:03 | |
No wonder he wrote them four letters. | 27:07 | |
Trying to straighten them out. | 27:10 | |
Now there's another reason for churchgoing, | 27:13 | |
to keep the spirit sensitive in the midst of a world | 27:17 | |
that numbs the finer feelings. | 27:21 | |
I'd like us to ponder these two reasons | 27:24 | |
as we think of this university service of worship. | 27:26 | |
Don't let anyone discourage you by saying that the synagogue | 27:31 | |
was a more estimable institution in the Centurion's day, | 27:36 | |
than the church is in ours. | 27:41 | |
You read Jesus on the Jewish religion in Matthew 23. | 27:44 | |
His attitude is symbolized in the repeated use of the word | 27:52 | |
"hypocrite" for the Jewish clergy. | 27:57 | |
And yet, in that kind of a church, | 28:03 | |
this Centurion found the spiritual inoculation, | 28:08 | |
which safeguarded them against the infection | 28:16 | |
his job was apt to bring. | 28:19 | |
And in like manner, | 28:23 | |
many of us will find here in the next four years, | 28:24 | |
in this spot, a holy place. | 28:28 | |
We shall come back. | 28:34 | |
Some of us often. | 28:36 | |
We shall return not to accept unthinkingly | 28:40 | |
everything said, | 28:45 | |
not necessarily to identify ourselves completely | 28:48 | |
with everything done. | 28:54 | |
Many of us will be God's fearers. | 29:00 | |
And we shall return first to come to know, | 29:05 | |
to respect, and maybe ultimately to worship | 29:11 | |
the God revealed in the Jewish-Christian tradition, | 29:17 | |
which is the stuff of the ideals and aspirations | 29:22 | |
of our heritage. | 29:27 | |
And second, we'll come to keep the spirit sensitive | 29:30 | |
to the things of the spirit | 29:38 | |
in a world of recurring darkness and unwary cruelty. | 29:42 | |
And for these reasons, we can echo the words of the | 29:51 | |
Psalmist, which began our old Testament lesson this morning: | 29:55 | |
"I was glad when they said unto me, | 30:01 | |
let us go into the house of the Lord." | 30:06 | |
Amen. | 30:14 | |
Let us pray. | 30:17 |