James T. Cleland - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

Download
- Rights
- No Re-Use
  In Copyright
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='//idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r44j0fz55?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r44j0fz55
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

	(vocal music)	0:05
-	God has commended us to pray.	6:10
	He has said that we should confess our sins	6:16
	that we should acknowledge our faults before him.	6:20
	And that if we do, he will be merciful.	6:25
	Let us therefore unite our hearts	6:29
	and our voices in our prayer of confession and for part.	6:32
	Let us pray.	6:36
	Oh Lord, Most Holy God, most mighty,	6:38
	who has found us wanting and yet has not forsaken us.	6:43
	We confess that we have often witnessed	6:48
	to our pride and vanity instead of witnessing to thy grace.	6:50
	The peace and joy thou didst offer us.	6:55
	We sold for power and prestige.	6:58
	We have trusted too much in the work	7:02
	of our hands and in the fruit of our laboratories,	7:05
	we have made the clean earth dirty,	7:08
	and we have behaved as though we were the last generation,	7:11
	which would need to live on this planet.	7:15
	We have not remembered our total need of thy wisdom.	7:18
	Save us from all sin.	7:22
	We humbly pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	7:24
	The scriptures quote, our heavenly father is saying,	7:32
	I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,	7:36
	but that he should turn again.	7:40
	God is not willing that any should perish	7:44
	but that all should come to repentance, says the scriptures.	7:47
	We have been assured from Genesis	7:52
	to revelation that this is the attitude	7:55
	of our heavenly father who scorns evil,	7:58
	but who loves the sinner	8:02
	and welcomes the repentance sinner back into the fold again.	8:05
	So be it.	8:11
	(vocal music)	8:19
	Our scripture for this morning is Luke chapter 18	13:40
	versus nine through 14 and chapter 22 versus 39 through 44.	13:46
	He also told this parable to some who trusted	13:55
	in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.	13:59
	Two men went up into the temple to pray,	14:05
	one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.	14:09
	The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.	14:14
	God, I thank thee that I am not like other men,	14:19
	extortionists, unjust, adulterers	14:23
	or even like this tax collector.	14:28
	I fast twice a week.	14:31
	I give tithes of all that I get.	14:34
	But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift	14:37
	up his eyes to heaven,	14:43
	but beat his breasts saying,	14:45
	God be merciful to me a sinner.	14:48
	I tell you this man went down to his house justified	14:53
	rather than the other.	14:58
	For everyone who exhausts himself will be humbled,	15:01
	but he who humbles himself will be exhausted.	15:06
	And he came out and went as was his custom	15:14
	to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him.	15:19
	And when he came to the place, he said to them,	15:23
	pray that you may not enter into temptation,	15:28
	and he withdrew from them	15:32
	about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed,	15:34
	Father, if thou aren't willing,	15:39
	remove this cup from me.	15:42
	Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.	15:45
	And there appeared to him and angel from heaven,	15:50
	strengthening him and being in agony,	15:54
	he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became	15:57
	like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.	16:01
	Here end the reading.	16:06
	(vocal music)	16:09
-	The Lord be with you.	16:47
Crowd	And also with you.	16:49
-	Let us pray.	16:50
	Almighty God, our heavenly father,	17:00
	in the quietness and holiness of this good time.	17:03
	We left our hearts in thanks to thee,	17:08
	for the blessings of which we are mindful as we come	17:12
	to the middle of this semester.	17:15
	Without any design,	17:19
	we simply offer our thanks for teachers.	17:20
	Some of whom have been our professors.	17:24
	Some of whom have been our roommates.	17:28
	Some have been secretaries on the campus.	17:31
	Some have been our enemies.	17:35
	We've had many teachers.	17:38
	We thank thee for all of them.	17:40
	For everyone and for every experience	17:44
	through which we have learned,	17:47
	through which we have come to know what reality is.	17:50
	Some of these experiences, oh, God have been painful.	17:54
	Some of our teachers have been stern.	17:59
	But now in perspective and on reflection,	18:03
	we give the thanks.	18:07
	Oh God, we are grateful for books through the printed page,	18:10
	many people whom we have never seen have taught us.	18:15
	We are grateful heavenly father	18:21
	for people who have been friends to us at times	18:23
	especially when we have needed friends.	18:26
	And unexpectedly,	18:30
	some of our stern teachers have become our best friends.	18:31
	Oh God, of every good thing,	18:39
	we are grateful for the simple things, clean air,	18:41
	a night's rest, a good meal, the changing seasons.	18:46
	We thank thee for the chapel.	18:55
	For the opportunity it continually provides	18:58
	for us to come together in common worship.	19:01
	Without denominational hangups,	19:05
	we thank thee for those who have come	19:09
	from abroad to preach to us,	19:10
	for those in our own community who know us	19:13
	and who preach to us, students and faculty, ministers.	19:17
	And so we thank thee oh God	19:24
	for everyone who has contributed to the enrichment	19:25
	of our worship of thee.	19:29
	Choir members, communion assistance, ushers, collectors,	19:32
	the one in the Pew next to us.	19:38
	So many people have done so very much	19:42
	for all of us, oh God,	19:45
	That we are grateful to each other,	19:49
	but supremely grateful to thee.	19:50
	And now our father, thou who art our eternal father,	19:55
	strong to save,	20:01
	hear us as we pray for our fellow man.	20:03
	We pray for the seniors who are in their final year.	20:08
	And may their final weeks and months here at Duke,	20:16
	be times when the tangled and fragmentary meanings	20:21
	of education may come to have a central	20:24
	and controlling purpose.	20:28
	May the Lord Jesus Christ be lifted up and chosen	20:31
	as master of life.	20:35
	Grant, oh God, that students may look	20:40
	on professors as teachers rather than as grade givers.	20:43
	And that professors may look	20:48
	on students as opportunities to mold the future,	20:51
	rather than as necessary evils in academic life.	20:54
	We pray that men may see women as persons	20:59
	more than as sex targets.	21:03
	That women may view men as sons of God,	21:06
	more than as sources of money and status.	21:09
	Heavenly father help us all,	21:15
	employers and employees, parents and children,	21:17
	merchants and customers to treat each other	21:20
	as people who are precious in thy sight.	21:23
	And now Lord, who are the source	21:29
	of charity and the fountain of sanity,	21:31
	deliver thy children in these days of political fervor	21:34
	from the sins of lying and slander.	21:38
	Save us from excessive and abusive language	21:41
	in the name of patriotism.	21:44
	Grant us grace to avoid name calling,	21:47
	deliver us from angry rhetoric	21:51
	that fans discontent into hatred.	21:53
	Save us from bombastic words that posture	21:56
	instead of persuading.	22:00
	Give us above everything to know	22:04
	and to follow the mind of Christ.	22:06
	Or we ask it in his name,	22:10
	as we remember the words he has taught us to use	22:13
	when we pray saying,	22:16
	Our Father who art in heaven,	22:18
	Hallowed thy name, thy kingdom come,	22:21
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	22:24
	Give us this day our daily bread,	22:29
	and forgive us our trespasses	22:32
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	22:34
	And lead us not into temptation,	22:37
	but deliver us from evil	22:40
	for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory	22:42
	forever, amen.	22:46
-	The grace of God be with us all.	23:08
	The last time I preached to a homecoming congregation,	23:15
	was during alumni weekend in June of this year.	23:20
	I spoke about the urgent need for a renovation of the chapel	23:27
	and of the appurtenances their on.	23:34
	The title of the sermon was the Duke Chapel Blues.	23:39
	For some reason or other, it did not go down easily	23:45
	or well with certain officials in the alumni office.	23:49
	I'm no longer entirely persona grata in what was once	23:56
	and probably should still be the president's house.	24:01
	Therefore I decided some time ago to be administratively	24:06
	innocuous this morning.	24:11
	I've chosen a non alumni other than homecoming subject,	24:15
	namely prayer.	24:23
	Now in preparation, I turned to an unusual anthology,	24:26
	a dictionary of military and Naval quotations,	24:32
	by Robert Debs Heinel.	24:37
	Colonel Heinel was to the Marines for Admiral rickover	24:42
	is to the Navy.	24:47
	Able, independent, well or red pertinent and pungent.	24:49
	Let me share with you three of the quotations subsumed	25:01
	under the heading prayer before action.	25:06
	The first is said to have been prayed back in 1917	25:13
	by the commander-in-chief of the British Army	25:17
	in World War One.	25:22
	So Douglas Haig,	25:24
	please God,	25:27
	let there be victory before the Americans arrived.	25:29
	The answer was not in accord with the intrigue.	25:38
	The second was the petition of a young Highlander,	25:43
	a member of the clan Fraser on the eve	25:47
	of the Battle of Cloden 1746,	25:51
	when the Stuart cause was happily forever lost.	25:56
	Dear Lord, on the morrow,	26:03
	pray do not let me kill anyone.	26:07
	And dear Lord pray do not let anyone kill me.	26:12
	One wonders we lived perhaps so maybe that's why we know	26:19
	the prayer.	26:23
	The third was offered by Sir Jacob Astley,	26:26
	a cavalier officer before the Battle of Edgehill	26:31
	against crumbles around heads in 1642.	26:35
	Oh, Lord thou knowest how busy I must be this day,	26:41
	if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.	26:49
	It's a good prayer for a busy person	26:58
	but one shouldn't be that busy every day.	27:03
	Now these petitions give us one insight into the fact	27:08
	and the meaning of prayer.	27:12
	Prayer is based on the postulate that there is a God	27:15
	with whom we make contact,	27:19
	a God who hears and answers prayer,	27:24
	though not always nor necessarily in accordance	27:29
	with our desires.	27:34
	It assumes that the spirit	27:37
	of man is akin to the spirit of the universe.	27:39
	And that a human being seeks to augment his finite energy	27:44
	from the infinite source of all energy.	27:51
	Now in the light of that postulate,	27:57
	let us think of three arrow prayers,	27:59
	cold arrow because they are short.	28:04
	Aimed and speeding in flight.	28:09
	They may well be at the very heart of our own prayer life	28:15
	for ourselves as individuals and as a gathered congregation.	28:21
	The first was prayed by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,	28:29
	on the night before he was crucified,	28:35
	not my will but thy will be done.	28:38
	It was not an easy thing for Jesus to say,	28:45
	immediately before he had prayed,	28:51
	father, if thy are willing, remove this cup from me.	28:54
	What cup?	29:04
	The cup of death.	29:06
	At the age of 33.	29:08
	what Jesus had to pray not my will, but thy be done.	29:13
	Why? Because it is the second petition of the prayer	29:20
	which he taught his disciples,	29:25
	which we prayed together this morning.	29:29
	Thy will be on earth as it is in heaven.	29:32
	There was a consistency between our Lord's teaching,	29:39
	and his behavior.	29:44
	His behavior in the Garden of Gethsemane was identical	29:47
	with his attitude on the Mount of the Sermon.	29:53
	God was primary.	29:58
	God's will was first.	30:00
	God's will was Jesus will so help him God,	30:04
	But as you heard in the lesson this morning,	30:11
	he sweated blood to say it.	30:15
	His was like clots of blood falling to the ground,	30:20
	is how the new English Bible translates the verse.	30:27
	What do we think of such a prayer?	30:32
	One commentator write if mankind were granted	30:37
	but one prayer,	30:41
	what other could we choose?	30:43
	But another commentator says,	30:47
	I think it is the most fearful prayer to pray in the world.	30:50
	It recalls the awesome final question put to a young	30:58
	divinity graduate at the end of a two hours grueling	31:01
	grilling before a committee	31:08
	in an examination for ordination.	31:11
	The ancient inevitable final question was,	31:14
	are you willing to be damned for the glory of God?	31:20
	Are you willing to be damned for the glory of God?	31:26
	The candidate responded correctly?	31:33
	I am.	31:37
	Then he added, I am also willing that the committee	31:41
	be damned for the glory of God.	31:46
	And no one dare gain say the addition,	31:53
	but the committee did find him guilty	31:58
	of a lack of Christian charity.	32:01
	And to my knowledge that question was never asked again	32:06
	in that Presbytery.	32:11
	Not my will but thine be done,	32:16
	points out that prayer is not an attempt	32:20
	to change God's will	32:23
	but to discover it to go along with it even if it means	32:26
	altering our own wills.	32:33
	Thomas Carlyle,	32:36
	the philosophical Scottish historian as said,	32:38
	it was the only prayer that a Christian should pray.	32:43
	Someone commented,	32:49
	that there was one other which Carlyle should add.	32:52
	What do you think the prayer was?	32:57
	Which was suggested as an addition	33:00
	to Carlyle's choice of not my will but thine be done.	33:04
	It's found in that jarring parable	33:09
	of the Pharisee and the publican,	33:13
	which was the other part of our morning lesson,	33:16
	the strict and upright Israelite	33:20
	in contrast with the Jewish tax collector who worked	33:23
	for the Roman army of occupation.	33:29
	The Pharisee had understandably enough	33:33
	a good conceit of himself.	33:36
	He played either with himself or by himself	33:40
	that he was conscious of freedom from the vices	33:45
	which affected other men, especially tax collectors.	33:48
	And then he reminded God	33:54
	of two specific instances of his own piety.	33:56
	He fasted twice a week.	34:01
	He gave away 10% of his income.	34:05
	Boy, that's the kind of alumnus duke would like to have	34:10
	with regard to the loyalty fund.	34:13
	And the chapel could use some of it too right now	34:17
	According to the standards of legal righteousness	34:22
	this fallacy was exhibit A.	34:25
	The tax gatherer stood in a distant corner,	34:30
	kept his distance would not even raise his eyes to heaven.	34:35
	All he murmured beating his breast.	34:42
	A gesture of despair was God be merciful to me,	34:45
	miserable me,	34:53
	a sinner.	34:55
	And Jesus said that one of these two men	34:58
	went home justified.	35:01
	That is acquitted every sins, right with God.	35:05
	And it wasn't the Pharisee,	35:12
	though unworthy the public harness was accepted of heaven.	35:16
	This suggests that the church should not be a museum	35:22
	for saints but a hospital for sinners	35:27
	who know they are sinners,	35:34
	who are sorry about it and who are on their way to health,	35:37
	which is what salvation means.	35:45
	What makes a person realize he is a sinner?	35:50
	May well be the moment when he actually sees himself set	35:54
	against the holy love of God	36:00
	as it was incarnated in the man Jesus.	36:04
	Then even a law abiding, church going, Bible reading,	36:10
	homecoming Christian Pharisee,	36:17
	may be converted to the humility	36:21
	which recognizes that he is a sinner	36:23
	but accept such a man may then be able to pray and to mean,	36:28
	not my sinful will,	36:37
	but thy holy will be done in me.	36:42
	A third arrow prayer alluded me as I worked on this sermon.	36:52
	Then one day quite it recently,	36:59
	driving with a young Episcopal Rector	37:02
	to a Diocesan Conference where at the Bishop's request,	37:05
	I was supposed to teach his clergy how to preach	37:11
	like Presbyterians in four lectures.	37:15
	I was given the third prayer.	37:19
	I told the director about this sermon	37:24
	and he responded instantly,	37:27
	I know the third selection,	37:30
	Lord I believe help thou my unbelief.	37:35
	And at once I realized that he was right.	37:45
	I recall the setting of the petition.	37:51
	So do some of you.	37:54
	A distracted father had brought his epileptic son	37:56
	to the disciples to be cured.	38:02
	They were unable to make him well in the language	38:06
	of the time to cast out the demon, which possessed the boy.	38:09
	Then Jesus appeared in the scene.	38:16
	He listened to the story	38:19
	of suffering and failure and he responded.	38:21
	Everything is possible to the one who has faith	38:27
	and the father burst out.	38:36
	I have faith, help me where my faith fall short.	38:38
	The same rector drove me back to my plane from the diocese	38:49
	and conference,	38:53
	three days after our first meeting.	38:55
	He then told me why Lord, I believe,	38:58
	helped thou my unbelief was the prayer ever uppermost	39:03
	in his mind.	39:07
	His wife had undergone open heart surgery.	39:10
	When the operation was over, the surgeon said to him,	39:16
	the outlook is not promising.	39:20
	I have stood on my feet	39:26
	for 10 hours struggling to guarantee your wife's life.	39:28
	Now you go and spend two hours on your knees.	39:36
	The rector confessed that he had little real acquaintance	39:45
	with such a prayer of supplication,	39:49
	but he did us commanded for two hours.	39:53
	Then he return to the hospital to his wife's room.	39:58
	Senior resident met him, talked with him.	40:03
	We did not believe that she could live,	40:08
	but in the last two hours, something amazing has happened.	40:12
	The blood pressure is up.	40:19
	The temperature is down.	40:22
	I think she's gonna make it.	40:25
	She's alive today.	40:29
	She has given birth to a son.	40:31
	She lives life fully.	40:35
	Her husband is still amazed at,	40:39
	puzzled over the miracle of healing.	40:43
	He walks on tiptoe in this area of his faith.	40:47
	His constant prayers is,	40:54
	Lord, I believe help thou my unbelief.	40:57
	He's in good company was none other than St. Paul who wrote,	41:05
	now we see through a glass darkly	41:11
	or now we see only the puzzling reflections in a mirror.	41:16
	And remember that in the first century,	41:23
	mirrors were not made of clear glasses today.	41:26
	Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.	41:32
	Now I know in part, the time will come	41:37
	when I shall understand fully.	41:43
	On this earth,	41:46
	there is a tentativeness to our faith, a gentle agnosticism	41:47
	but it is still faith.	41:56
	A confidence in the God revealed to us in and by Jesus,	42:00
	the Lord of our faith.	42:06
	That's why Lord, I believe help thou my unbelief	42:08
	is the valid prayer Of most of us	42:12
	where we are mixtures of belief and unbelief of trust	42:18
	and doubt of confidence in the heart and hesitation	42:22
	in the head.	42:29
	There then are three arrow prayers.	42:32
	All from the New Testament and all still valid	42:36
	after 19th centuries.	42:42
	This is not all there is to prayer.	42:45
	Nothing has been said about two major elements,	42:48
	Thanksgiving and intercession.	42:52
	But if we began our private devotions	42:56
	with these three prayer.	43:00
	And if we offered them to God	43:04
	before every service of corporate worship,	43:07
	and really meant what we said,	43:11
	our whole prayer life would have a different emphasis.	43:16
	God would be primary.	43:22
	We would be his grown up, mature children.	43:25
	We would be open-minded to him and to his purpose for us.	43:31
	So let it be and let us pray.	43:41
	Not our will, but thine oh God, be done.	43:51
	God be merciful to us sinners.	44:00
	Lord, we believe help thou our unbelief, amen.	44:09
	(vocal music)	44:24
	(crowd applauds)	59:03

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r44j0fz55

Date:

November 1, 1970

Speaker:

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

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0545
ref6293_7ra
uachapelsermaud
duke:628080
dcrau002534
ark:/87924/r44j0fz55
3a6ec404-ece0-4f6f-84db-7b05eeb6b1f0

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Related Resources:

See below

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.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

James T. Cleland - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

Transcript

Item Info

Related Item

Duke University Archives