James T. Cleland - "The Duke University Chapel" (September 19, 1965)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(melodic organ music) | 0:28 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 1:04 | |
(indistinct) | 1:25 | |
- | Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 1:37 |
(melodic organ music) | 1:42 | |
- | Let us read from the New Testament, | 2:05 |
in 1 Corinthians 3 from verse 10. | 2:08 | |
"According to the commission of God given to me | 2:14 | |
"like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation | 2:18 | |
"and another man is building upon it. | 2:22 | |
"Let each man take care of how he builds upon it | 2:26 | |
"for no other foundation can anyone lay, | 2:30 | |
"than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ. | 2:34 | |
"Now, if anyone builds on the foundation | 2:39 | |
"with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, | 2:42 | |
"each man's work will become manifest | 2:48 | |
"for the day will disclose it | 2:52 | |
"because it will be revealed with fire | 2:55 | |
"and the fire will test what sort of work | 2:58 | |
"each man has done. | 3:01 | |
"If the work which work any man has built | 3:04 | |
"on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. | 3:06 | |
"If any man's work is burned up, | 3:11 | |
"he will suffer loss though he himself will be saved, | 3:14 | |
"but only as through fire. | 3:19 | |
"Do you not to know that you are God's temple | 3:23 | |
"and that God's spirit dwells in you? | 3:26 | |
"If anyone destroys God's temple, | 3:30 | |
"God will destroy him for God's temple is holy | 3:33 | |
"and that temple, you are." | 3:39 | |
May God bless to us this reading from his word | 3:43 | |
and to his name be the praise and the glory, amen. | 3:46 | |
- | Let us pray. | 4:07 |
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 4:11 | |
be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord our strength | 4:16 | |
and our redeemer, amen. | 4:23 | |
It is usually the happy responsibility of the chaplain | 4:35 | |
to the university to preach the sermon | 4:39 | |
at this freshman service. | 4:44 | |
But I have asked his permission to preach today | 4:48 | |
for a sentimental reason. | 4:53 | |
It is 20 years ago to the day and almost to the date | 4:57 | |
since I preached my first sermon | 5:05 | |
in the Duke University Chapel, | 5:08 | |
it was spoken to the freshmen class of 1949. | 5:12 | |
You were not even born then, which is quite a thought. | 5:19 | |
The class of 1949 has graduated, | 5:27 | |
but I am still here 20 years after | 5:31 | |
which sounds like the sequel to the, "Three Musketeers." | 5:37 | |
But I am no D'Artagnan and I cannot be Aramis, | 5:42 | |
the musketeer with vague ecclesiastical leanings, | 5:49 | |
or I would not have lasted 20 years on the chapel staff. | 5:53 | |
I won't last another 20 years, | 5:59 | |
someone else will greet the entering class of 1989, | 6:03 | |
probably 1979. | 6:10 | |
But I do welcome you to the university chapel, | 6:14 | |
to the central house of God on the campus. | 6:19 | |
Grace be to you and peace and joy. | 6:25 | |
Now those of us who are in the habit of worshiping in church | 6:34 | |
on the Lord's Day are probably used | 6:38 | |
to the minister beginning his sermon with a biblical text. | 6:41 | |
I have no text for this sermon. | 6:47 | |
You are sitting in my text. | 6:52 | |
You remember the words on the tablet of | 6:56 | |
Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's Cathedral | 6:59 | |
in London. | 7:03 | |
He's buried in the cathedral and a very simple inscription | 7:05 | |
in Latin marks his grave. | 7:11 | |
It says, "Reader, if you are asking for, | 7:14 | |
"searching for his monument, look around you." | 7:21 | |
Now, if you are asking for the text of this sermon, | 7:29 | |
look around you, my text, my theme | 7:33 | |
is the Duke University Chapel | 7:38 | |
that has asked just one question, what is the chapel? | 7:42 | |
And let us look together at three different, | 7:49 | |
but complimentary answers. | 7:51 | |
The Duke University Chapel is a building. | 7:57 | |
It is a magnificent building, English Gothic in style, | 8:01 | |
shaped like a cross, stalwart, impressive, beautiful. | 8:07 | |
It's 291 feet long about the length of a football field, | 8:17 | |
which may be an appropriate analogy | 8:25 | |
because here we play against the devil for the living soul. | 8:28 | |
It's 63 feet wide, including the transepts, | 8:34 | |
the short arms of the cross. | 8:39 | |
73 feet high, the tower is 210 feet high. | 8:45 | |
There's nothing pokey about this structure | 8:54 | |
except in it's office space. | 8:59 | |
It seats 1500 in the nave and the transepts, | 9:04 | |
150 in the choir though there are 175 here this morning | 9:09 | |
and 50 in the Memorial Chapel. | 9:15 | |
The outside building stone by a wonderful happenstance | 9:20 | |
is local from a quarry at Hillsborough, | 9:25 | |
13 miles from Durham. | 9:29 | |
It was chosen after all kinds of stone | 9:32 | |
from various parts of America had been tried | 9:36 | |
and found wanting. | 9:39 | |
There are no fewer than 14 different shades of color | 9:42 | |
in that volcanic rock from Hillsborough | 9:46 | |
and Duke still owns the quarry. | 9:49 | |
The trim inside walls, Indiana limestone. | 9:52 | |
An English visitor from Oxford or Cambridge | 9:59 | |
thinks we may have trouble with the stone in 500 years, | 10:02 | |
but you needn't worry for the next four. | 10:07 | |
The foreman stone mason who built this chapel | 10:14 | |
is worshiping with us this morning. | 10:18 | |
I wouldn't dare point him out, | 10:22 | |
it would embarrass him to death, | 10:23 | |
even though he is another Scotsman. | 10:26 | |
The windows are harmonious in idea, design and color. | 10:31 | |
One man Mr. Bonawit of New York | 10:36 | |
was responsible for everything connected with these | 10:38 | |
acres of glass. | 10:42 | |
He chose biblical figures for his inspiration | 10:45 | |
and fashioned them in medieval design. | 10:48 | |
Someone has referred to the windows in the clerestory, | 10:52 | |
the upper windows as, goggle-eyed splay footed saints. | 10:55 | |
But Mr. Bonawit's basic interest was not in life likeness, | 11:01 | |
his concern was a blending of translucent glass | 11:06 | |
which would allow the sun to pour seven varied hues | 11:11 | |
across the walls and the floor of the church | 11:15 | |
and flood it with radiance. | 11:19 | |
Drop in some sunny afternoon, about four o'clock | 11:22 | |
and steep yourself in color. | 11:27 | |
For those of us who enjoy numbers there are 77 windows | 11:32 | |
and probably over a million pieces of glass. | 11:38 | |
Took almost three years to complete the windows | 11:44 | |
and 15 artists and craftsmen worked with Mr. Bonawit. | 11:48 | |
The Memorial Chapel around the corner | 11:55 | |
from the Lectern was a gift of 8000 friends | 11:57 | |
of James Buchanan Duke patron of Trinity College | 12:02 | |
and founder of Duke University. | 12:08 | |
He and his father and his brother are buried there. | 12:12 | |
If Duke Chapel were in Europe, | 12:19 | |
thousands of tourists would beat away to its doors. | 12:22 | |
But even in America I have been told that | 12:28 | |
outside of Mount Vernon, more people visit the Duke Chapel | 12:31 | |
than any other building south of Washington. | 12:38 | |
Well maybe, | 12:44 | |
but do not let familiar oddity or indifference | 12:49 | |
or insensibility dull you to its glory and its grace. | 12:56 | |
For you, this is part of your heritage | 13:02 | |
now that you have become Duke men and women, | 13:06 | |
don't merely accept your heritage, inherit it. | 13:11 | |
And so the first answer then to the question, | 13:18 | |
what is the chapel, is the obvious one. | 13:20 | |
It is a building, but what a building? | 13:23 | |
There is a second answer, the Duke Chapel | 13:31 | |
is a realized idea, a dream come true. | 13:36 | |
Toward the end of his life, James Buchanan Duke | 13:43 | |
decided to leave something | 13:47 | |
in addition to the tobacco industry, | 13:50 | |
by which men would remember him. | 13:53 | |
Here's a statement which he made in 1922. | 13:57 | |
"I was born in North Carolina and I am 66 years old. | 14:01 | |
"It's time I was beginning to think about a monument. | 14:09 | |
"I want to leave something in the state | 14:12 | |
"that 500 years from now, 500 years from now, | 14:15 | |
"people can look upon and say that Duke did that. | 14:20 | |
"Every man owes something to the state he was born in | 14:25 | |
"and that's what I want to leave North Carolina." | 14:29 | |
When the plans were revealed | 14:35 | |
for the transformation of Trinity College into a university, | 14:36 | |
Duke raised his estimate. | 14:41 | |
"I think I've created something that'll last | 14:44 | |
"and do good for 1000 years." | 14:48 | |
He thought in terms of the arts, science, theology, | 14:54 | |
medicine, law, all the faculties of a great university, | 14:59 | |
but he wanted a vehicle and a symbol | 15:07 | |
of the Christian faith at the heart of it all. | 15:11 | |
Here's what he once said, | 15:16 | |
"I'm going to give a good part of what I make to the Lord." | 15:19 | |
Though he shrewdly added, | 15:25 | |
"But I can make better interest for him | 15:27 | |
"by keeping it while I live." | 15:29 | |
(crowd giggling softly) | 15:32 | |
He decided on the chapel as the expression of his desires. | 15:36 | |
"I want the central building to be a church, | 15:42 | |
"a great towering church, | 15:46 | |
"which will dominate all of the surrounding buildings. | 15:50 | |
"Because such an edifice would be bound | 15:54 | |
"to have a profound influence on the spiritual life | 15:57 | |
"of the young men and young women who come here." | 16:00 | |
That was his dream and you are some of the young men | 16:06 | |
and young women. | 16:12 | |
He chose English Gothic as the architectural style, | 16:15 | |
probably under the influence of Princeton University, | 16:20 | |
and he selected Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia | 16:24 | |
as the architect. | 16:28 | |
Now laying aside the question of the suitability of Gothic | 16:31 | |
in a climate like North Carolina's, | 16:36 | |
especially in a day like this. | 16:39 | |
What is Gothic supposed to do to us? | 16:43 | |
It ties us in with a noble religious tradition. | 16:49 | |
A Gothic cathedral is the incarnation of the desire | 16:54 | |
of medieval man to find a unity in and beyond mortal life, | 16:59 | |
is how Professor Blackburn explains it in his book, | 17:08 | |
"The Architecture of Duke University." | 17:10 | |
I like the use of the word incarnation. | 17:13 | |
The incarnation of the desire of medieval man. | 17:18 | |
Incarnation is a theological term, | 17:22 | |
intimately linking heaven and earth. | 17:25 | |
And Blackburn explains it something like this | 17:29 | |
on the one hand look at, from the point of view | 17:32 | |
of its structure. | 17:37 | |
A Gothic cathedral is a study of how a building | 17:41 | |
may be weighted to the earth. | 17:45 | |
The compelling physical thrust is downward, | 17:51 | |
that pull of this whole building on the ground. | 17:56 | |
On the other hand, looked at from the point of view | 18:00 | |
of its meaning, the Gothic cathedral is a study | 18:04 | |
in terms of stone of how the spirit of man | 18:09 | |
may escape from the fetters of the flesh. | 18:13 | |
That's why the pull for us is upward. | 18:16 | |
The compelling thrust of the spirit is upward. | 18:20 | |
The foundations anchor us in the earth, | 18:24 | |
the tower points us to the heavens. | 18:28 | |
And so God and man are linked | 18:32 | |
in an architectural Jacob's ladder | 18:36 | |
set between heaven and Durham. | 18:40 | |
That was Mr. Duke's idea and his dream became stone | 18:44 | |
and wood and glass, and he allows us to share his dream. | 18:52 | |
But Duke had another dream, | 19:01 | |
which he did not live long enough to make a reality, | 19:06 | |
but which has come to life in this chapel to some extent. | 19:11 | |
In the year before his death, | 19:17 | |
he heard a sermon over the radio | 19:20 | |
that impressed him by its logic and its eloquence. | 19:24 | |
The possibilities of broadcasting such a sermon | 19:29 | |
excited his imagination. | 19:33 | |
He shared the idea with his associates | 19:35 | |
to build a great church for all people, | 19:39 | |
with a great organ and a great choir. | 19:43 | |
The preachers would be chosen regardless of denomination | 19:48 | |
and of country. | 19:54 | |
The service would be broadcast. | 19:57 | |
Now it would be an act of pride, which is a sin, | 20:02 | |
to say that the Duke University service of worship | 20:08 | |
has made that second dream a reality, | 20:12 | |
but it tries to do so. | 20:17 | |
The service is broadcast. | 20:22 | |
The music, organ and choral is of a high order. | 20:26 | |
The preachers come from Europe and Asia and America | 20:33 | |
and Africa and India. | 20:38 | |
They are Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalian, | 20:45 | |
Lutherans, Methodists, Quaker, Presbyterian and others, | 20:49 | |
which has said without disrespect. | 20:54 | |
The congregation is God's foreign legion. | 20:58 | |
The service, as you can see from your bulletins | 21:04 | |
is officially inter-denomination. | 21:07 | |
That's the word, second top line of the front page. | 21:11 | |
The prophet Joel once said, | 21:16 | |
"Your old men shall dream dreams." | 21:18 | |
JB Duke dreamed a dream, two dreams. | 21:25 | |
The second answer to the question, what is the chapel is, | 21:30 | |
it is a dream, a dream, two dreams come true. | 21:36 | |
There is a third answer. | 21:46 | |
The Duke Chapel is the people of God, | 21:50 | |
a worshiping congregation, you and I. | 21:56 | |
It is us, or should that be we? | 22:02 | |
The chapel is a building, a good one, a worthy one, | 22:10 | |
a visited one. | 22:15 | |
The chapel is the realization of an idea, | 22:17 | |
two dreams come true, a worthy idea blessed dreaming. | 22:21 | |
But the chapel is more than that. | 22:27 | |
It is a colony of the kingdom of heaven. | 22:31 | |
It is a beloved community on earth. | 22:36 | |
It is the Duke University family | 22:41 | |
met to recognize and to worship the God | 22:44 | |
primarily revealed in Jesus Christ. | 22:49 | |
The chapel is people. | 22:54 | |
People expressing that relationship to God | 22:58 | |
in worship and in service. | 23:01 | |
The Duke Chapel is the choir and its directors | 23:06 | |
practicing for hours on end to make the chapel anthems | 23:12 | |
worthy of God. | 23:18 | |
The Duke Chapel is the organist | 23:21 | |
reverently bringing to our worship | 23:24 | |
the rich treasures of music, ancient, medieval, modern. | 23:27 | |
The chapel is the presiding ministers and preachers | 23:34 | |
preparing the liturgy and the sermons to God's glory | 23:38 | |
and for our benefit. | 23:44 | |
The chapel is the student ushers and collectors, | 23:47 | |
making sure that any and all movement | 23:51 | |
is done in decency and in order. | 23:55 | |
It is the members of the faculty and staff | 23:59 | |
who prepare the Lord's Supper for our spiritual sustenance. | 24:03 | |
It is the YMCA members trim in their Duke blazers, | 24:09 | |
who act as chapel guides all week long, | 24:15 | |
week in, week out. | 24:19 | |
The Duke Chapel is people, many people | 24:22 | |
who draw strength from this place and give service to it. | 24:27 | |
The Duke Chapel is a young graduate, | 24:33 | |
two graduates who met here bringing a child to be baptized | 24:36 | |
or to be presented to God in an act of dedication. | 24:43 | |
The Duke Chapel is a young couple | 24:49 | |
kneeling in front of the Lord's table, | 24:53 | |
receiving from God his first blessing as husband and wife. | 24:55 | |
Now, if you as a class run true to form, | 25:03 | |
some of you will be married here. | 25:07 | |
Some of you will marry one another. | 25:12 | |
In a small family wedding in the chancel | 25:15 | |
or in a huge celebration, | 25:19 | |
where it takes 16 ushers to control the traffic. | 25:22 | |
A chapel is people, at solemnly happy moments in their lives | 25:27 | |
consciously linking themselves with God. | 25:34 | |
The chapel is six senior members of the medical faculty | 25:39 | |
acting as ushers at the memorial service | 25:48 | |
for five student nurses who were killed | 25:52 | |
returning from spring vacation. | 25:55 | |
The chapel is a Presbyterian minister | 26:00 | |
serving an Episcopal bishop with the bread and wine | 26:03 | |
of the Holy Communion, which had been set apart | 26:08 | |
according to the Methodist ritual. | 26:12 | |
Now that's interim-denominationalism | 26:16 | |
with a holy vengeance. | 26:18 | |
(crowd giggling lightly) | 26:20 | |
The chapel is a divinity school convocation service | 26:24 | |
attended by faculty, students and alumni. | 26:28 | |
And by our separated Roman Catholic brethren, | 26:32 | |
male and female in that Ecclesiastical habits. | 26:37 | |
And the preacher was a negro baptist. | 26:44 | |
Now that's ecumenicity with a holy vengeance. | 26:47 | |
The Duke Chapel is people, | 26:54 | |
people in surprising fellowship worshiping and serving God. | 26:57 | |
Many years ago, | 27:04 | |
Saint Paul writing to the church at Corinth | 27:05 | |
said to its members, "We are the temple of the living God." | 27:07 | |
Now, what does that mean today | 27:14 | |
here in Durham on this university campus? | 27:15 | |
We are the Duke Chapel. | 27:19 | |
We folk who worship in this building, | 27:22 | |
for the Duke Chapel to be a living vital entity | 27:27 | |
has to be the dream in stone, in glass, in wood, | 27:34 | |
become flesh in people, in us. | 27:43 | |
We together in partnership, in corporate worship | 27:52 | |
and service, we are the Duke Chapel of the living God. | 28:02 | |
Amen, let us pray. | 28:13 | |
Almighty and eternal God who are alpha and omega, | 28:21 | |
the God of beginnings and of endings. | 28:28 | |
So bless this class in its beginning | 28:32 | |
that it's ending may be filled with grace to thy glory | 28:37 | |
and for its good, amen. | 28:44 | |
- | May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 28:50 |
the love of God and the. | 28:54 |