James T. Cleland - "The Duke University Chapel" (September 19, 1965)

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	(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

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "The Duke University Chapel" (September 19, 1965)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49g5mf6r

Date:

September 19, 1965

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0305
ref5815_eug
uachapelsermaud
duke:628144
dcrau002303
ark:/87924/r49g5mf6r
1f0acf43-10f5-4e39-b047-9f91d7e46204

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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James T. Cleland - "The Duke University Chapel" (September 19, 1965)

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Duke University Archives