Franklin W. Young - "Thanksgiving Prolegomena" (November 22, 1970)

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	(praise and worship music)	0:34
Preacher	Let us walk and run to God.	4:50
	Our unison prayer of confession.	4:53
	Let us pray.	4:57
	Oh, we tell no God and most merciful father,	5:00
	we confess and acknowledge here before the divine majesty	5:04
	that we are miserable sinners	5:09
	that in us there is no goodness.	5:12
	But since we are displeased with ourselves,	5:15
	from the sin that we have committed against thee,	5:19
	and do sincerely repent of the same,	5:22
	we most humbly beseech thee for Jesus Christ sake	5:26
	to show thy mercy upon us,	5:31
	to forgive us all our sins	5:34
	and to increase thy holy spirit in us,	5:37
	help us to bring forth such fruit as maybe agreeable	5:41
	to thy most blessed will.	5:45
	Not because of the way they knows the lord	5:48
	but the merit of the ideally beloved son, Jesus Christ,	5:51
	our only savior, amen.	5:57
	Hear those comfortable words of assurance	6:02
	from the first chapter of John.	6:06
	Our sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake, amen.	6:10
	(worship music)	6:21
	The scripture today would be selected versus	7:08
	from the Psalm 116.	7:10
	"I love the Lord because he has heard	7:16
	the voice of my supplication.	7:19
	I found trouble and sorrow.	7:22
	Then I called out in the name of the Lord.	7:25
	Oh Lord deliver me, I was brought low and he saved me	7:28
	and now has delivered my soul from death,	7:34
	my eyes, tears, and my feet from stumbling.	7:37
	What can I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me,	7:43
	I will pay my vows to the Lord.	7:49
	The very presence of all these people	7:51
	I will offer to thee sacrifice of Thanksgiving.	7:55
	Call upon the name of the Lord, praise lord."	8:00
	(worship music)	8:05
	The Lord be with you, let us pray.	8:45
	We thank the Lord that we have thy wisdom,	8:58
	lying at the mercy of every seeking mind	9:01
	all thy most wonderful in the realm of truth.	9:06
	We thank the Lord that we have thy water river and sea,	9:12
	hill and valley, polished and filled for our dwellings	9:18
	All thy most audience in the realm of beauty,	9:23
	we thank the Lord that we have thy self,	9:29
	but our guide and breath for our most hateful	9:32
	in the realm of the love.	9:38
	Thanks be to thee, for the live,	9:41
	unspeakable gift this day and forever more.	9:44
	Let us put unto God a special prayer of Thanksgiving	9:51
	for the harvest, almighty God, our heavenly father,	9:56
	we give thanks and praise that thy mercy thou	10:03
	has brought us through the savior of another year.	10:07
	And that according to thy promise,	10:11
	see time and privacy have not reached	10:14
	blessed be the thou has crowned the year	10:20
	with like goodness and has bestowed upon us	10:23
	the kindly fruit of the earth,	10:25
	we pray thee to grant us grace,	10:29
	that we may receive them rightfully	10:31
	and use them carefully with own comfort for relief,	10:35
	from those that are needy and for the glory of thy name.	10:41
	Let us all put a prayer of intercession for others.	10:50
	Oh Lord God merciful and mighty,	10:55
	help those whom we have neglected to help,	10:59
	set a right, those who we've caused to stumble,	11:05
	visit those whom we have neglected to visit	11:12
	bringing back those whom we have led astray,	11:18
	cheer the hearts of those whom we have made sad	11:24
	that are with the courts of thy love.	11:30
	Those of whom, I would love, has grown old,	11:33
	save them all, oh Lord and have mercy upon us.	11:40
	For the sake of Christ our lord.	11:49
	And let us all put a prayer of supplication	11:54
	that we may have the graces of Christian character.	11:59
	All thou and whose boundless being or laid upon	12:04
	all treasures of wisdom, truth and holiness	12:06
	grant us through constant fellowship with thee	12:12
	the true graces of Christian Character,	12:15
	Grace us courage whether in suffering or in death,	12:20
	the grace of preparedness thus we entered into temptation.	12:27
	The grace to treat others as we would have others treat us,	12:34
	the grace of charity that we may refrain from his judgment.	12:41
	The grace of silence, that we may refrain from hate speech,	12:48
	the grace for forgiveness toward all who have wronged us.	12:55
	The grace of tenderness towards all those who are weaker,	13:01
	the grace of steadfast in continuing to desire	13:06
	that thou will do as thou we pray.	13:12
	Lord, tamper with tranquility our manhood activity	13:19
	that we may do out of where the very great simplicity.	13:27
	Now, as our savior Christ taught us,	13:37
	we humbly pray together.	13:40
	"Our father who at in heaven, hallowed be thy name,	13:43
	thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth	13:48
	as it is in heaven.	13:53
	Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us	13:55
	our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass	13:59
	against us and lead us, not into temptation,	14:03
	but deliver us from evil for thy is the kingdom	14:07
	and the power and the glory forever, amen."	14:11
	And the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts	14:35
	acceptable in Christ sake all our strength and our redeemer.	14:42
	This is Thanksgiving Sunday and our Duke Chapel calendar.	14:55
	I don't think it was fine in the light of eventualities	15:04
	that we have today or my remarks,	15:10
	perhaps things may I have to say maybe	15:17
	more appropriate than I had planned.	15:24
	It is appropriate that on this Sunday,	15:29
	we direct our thoughts toward the celebration	15:33
	of a demand in our national history,	15:38
	which comes as close as any other do have	15:41
	a deep religious roots and significance.	15:44
	At least it has been symbolized in this way.	15:50
	I need not rehearse for any of you,	15:55
	the meaning of that event in our national history,	15:58
	our need, I dwell upon the obvious gratitude we have,	16:04
	or it might be thoughtless and neglect things,	16:10
	but when mindful, we're thankful.	16:17
	I do not propose to direct your attention today to this.	16:25
	I do propose, excuse me, to direct your attention today,	16:32
	rather to this human phenomenon,	16:36
	this human project of giving thanks	16:41
	of acknowledging and expressing gratitude,	16:47
	the phenomenon as search,	16:51
	and here, I'm not primarily concerned to look	16:54
	at the phenomenon from the psychological point of view,	16:57
	intending to pay close attention to the meaning	17:02
	of this attitude as such.	17:07
	What I wish to consider in particular are certain dimensions	17:12
	of the larger environment in which Thanksgiving	17:19
	and giving thanks occurs today.	17:24
	It's not a matter of discovering something new.	17:33
	It is a matter of reminding ourselves,	17:37
	recalling what we are experiencing	17:42
	re-correcting, so that the environment	17:48
	may be full of ingredients,	17:54
	which show off or threatened giving thanks	17:57
	with thee sickness or death.	18:02
	Let's assume that we're all reasonably	18:11
	sensitive to our environment.	18:15
	Would you then agree with the following,	18:18
	that the terrible and the tragic cry,	18:24
	which took the lives of the Marshall university students	18:26
	staff will cast the dark cloud over any giving thanks.	18:32
	That the grim consequences of the cyclone	18:42
	which revenged Pakistan and the surrounding region,	18:46
	will create cast a dark shadow	18:52
	over any thanks giving would do.	18:55
	These are two shocking events of the immediate past.	19:03
	What are the nagging war continuing	19:11
	to take its toll of lives,	19:14
	distributed its offerings of suffering and hardship,	19:17
	where will it fit into our season of Thanksgiving?	19:23
	I need not continue this recital	19:33
	of aspects of our total environment (indistinct)	19:38
	to each one of you, for each one of you,	19:46
	there would be no difficulty in bringing notice	19:52
	of aspects of our environment, moving personal dramas,	19:58
	which you have not and will not right public intentions.	20:05
	Nevertheless, they are effective	20:13
	aspects in our lives.	20:23
	Now, I suppose we might try to shut out of our mind,	20:27
	all of this in our rarefying	20:35
	of our environmental atmosphere.	20:39
	We might say I would exclude from my mind	20:43
	anything except those things for which I can be	20:46
	truly grateful and offer genuine thanks.	20:49
	As we might say, I just won't pay any attention	20:58
	to those elements, destructive of our air	21:07
	or water (mumbles),	21:13
	but I wonder how many of us could pull this off	21:18
	in this day and age?	21:25
	I believe phrase one of the contemporary songs	21:30
	gives a pretty good summary of a not uncommon feeling	21:36
	regarding certain dimensions of our environment.	21:42
	In these words, get the word off my back.	21:46
	How do you not know the world when it is on your back?	21:55
	But isn't it the subtle encroach of the world,	22:04
	which is just as threatening as the dramatic	22:10
	pathos of sudden calamity	22:14
	that preys on my back is very suggestive	22:20
	or it conveys the impression not only of being weighted down	22:26
	by the sense of being caught and a grass concerning,	22:34
	which we have the awful temptation to believe	22:38
	that we can do nothing, (mumbles)	22:41
	We know that the terrible strains and goals frustrations	22:49
	antagonism in society, in families,	22:52
	between parents and children, between husbands and wives	22:58
	at those points where they seem often most manageable	23:04
	or not to be fully understood	23:09
	apart from the unpredictable	23:13
	and relatively uncontrollable pressures and demand,	23:15
	after vacillating changing social	23:23
	and economic structure of our existence.	23:26
	We know we live in a society whose mechanisms	23:34
	for the provision of what used to be simple need	23:38
	like food, clothing, shelter, government	23:41
	are so complexes to suggest that personhood is cipher hood	23:48
	in such a condition where the solution to issues	23:57
	is in the decisions regarding issues	24:02
	seem so far from our present personal experience.	24:05
	It is not strange that we tend to discount our own	24:09
	personal responsibility for the movements	24:14
	and developments within our social order.	24:17
	Furthermore, it is not strange that we experience it	24:21
	as a part of our environment which is on our backs.	24:28
	(musical drum beating)	24:34
	We seem to be living in an environment which is closing in,	24:38
	on us from the outside	24:42
	posing as an impenetrable web that threatens to cast	24:46
	such a shadow over all our existence	24:51
	as to discourage us from thinking it can be penetrated.	24:55
	One might say this aspect of our environment	25:02
	is referred to in the rumor going around	25:05
	that man lives in a closed world	25:09
	and is totally subjected to it.	25:13
	That rumor is the most persuasive	25:19
	force ever oppressive ingredient in our (mumbles).	25:24
	We can add to this a very mostly related or not new rumor,	25:33
	which has recently gained some new momentum	25:43
	in substantiation and the publicizing of the researches	25:46
	of Dr. Jose Delgado of the Yale University	25:50
	School of Medicine experimenting with wild animals.	25:55
	Delgado has some remarkable accomplishments	26:01
	to his credit in the field of electrical stimulation	26:05
	of the brain.	26:11
	And most recently he has through the improvement	26:14
	of mechanical devices managed to establish the direct	26:18
	non-sensory communication between a computer	26:24
	and the brain of a Chimp leading to control	26:32
	the conduct of that animal.	26:39
	Dr. Delgado is the prophet of a new society,	26:44
	which he calls cycle civilized.	26:49
	Dr. Delgado has said, quote, "the human race,	26:56
	is an evolutionary turning point.	27:00
	We're very close to having the power to construct	27:03
	our own metal function through a knowledge of genetics,	27:06
	which I think will be complete within the next 25 years.	27:12
	And through a knowledge of the cerebral mechanisms,	27:17
	which underlie our behavior."	27:21
	The question is what sort of humans would we like?	27:25
	Ideally, Duke is black	27:31
	that only our cities are very badly planned.	27:35
	We as human beings are Duke	27:39
	that results in both cases are disasters.	27:43
	Dr. Delgado has concerned shares	27:50
	with most enlightened people,	27:53
	or he believes that something must be done	27:57
	about man's destructive (mumbles) and realities of love.	27:59
	His researches have prompted quite a discussion	28:09
	among the specialists on technical graphs,	28:13
	Towards layman.	28:19
	However, the principle question is posed	28:21
	by those technical experts.	28:28
	Fear that cycle civilization always is a threat	28:32
	to human freedom and arouses all the thoughts of the dangers	28:39
	involved in the mass control of human conduct.	28:44
	I am not at this point, entering basis on technical route.	28:52
	And I refer to this matter to point to one	29:02
	facet of our environment.	29:05
	I refer to the continuous implications	29:09
	of much of our plans for man that	29:12
	we are in the last analysis thanks,	29:16
	mainly object of manipulation	29:21
	when asked to respond to those specialists	29:27
	who believe that the danger of abuse	29:30
	in the use of electrical stimulation	29:33
	of the brain in humans is great.	29:35
	Dr. Delgado's reported to her said,	29:40
	I suppose that to primitive man,	29:44
	the idea of diverting the course of a river	29:47
	would have seen religious.	29:52
	This is an interesting analogy plan	29:57
	to diverting the course of a river.	30:04
	Obviously the question is, this mark,	30:09
	or rather on treatment of a river.	30:14
	I only refer to this to illustrate the environment	30:23
	in which a mark a question mark	30:27
	is repeatedly placed alongside man.	30:30
	As he in any sense ultimately distinct from his world?	30:35
	Is he an object truly destined to succumb to that,	30:45
	which is on his back and the environment	30:50
	on his back seems says closed in upon itself	30:55
	as it is upon here.	31:01
	These are aspects of the environment,	31:09
	in which the act of giving (mumbles)	31:14
	in contemplating the particular dimension,	31:26
	these particular dimensions of the environment	31:29
	of our giving thanks.	31:33
	I wish to suggest one line of scripture	31:36
	or our consideration as we thank.	31:40
	They are the words of the apostle Paul,	31:49
	which are found near the conclusion of his first letter	31:51
	to the best of the loss and they are thee	31:54
	" Rejoice always, pray constantly	32:02
	give thanks in all circumstances	32:12
	for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you".	32:19
	I am not pretending to unload that passage of it to me,	32:29
	In the first place I couldn't because I'm sure I don't know	32:36
	all that Paul meant by those closing words.	32:41
	Furthermore, I am sure that he meant each one of us	32:47
	to find its meaning as it points to a decisive	32:52
	illuminating empowering dimension	32:59
	in the environment of our world.	33:04
	Let me say this much.	33:11
	If we take these words seriously,	33:14
	I infer the following from what Paul says	33:18
	from the word rejoice always,	33:27
	we can infer that at all time,	33:32
	no matter how the environment seems or looks	33:37
	to allies there is an ever-present ground for joy,	33:42
	from the words give thanks in all circumstances,	33:53
	we can infer that in all circumstances,	34:03
	there is a ground for giving thanks and thanks giving	34:07
	furthermore, I believe we can infer	34:16
	that we are asked not to close our eyes	34:18
	to any of the circumstances of our environment,	34:22
	but rather to confront them.	34:27
	In deed Paul seems to imply that unless we do confront them,	34:31
	we are not adequately comprehending full context	34:37
	in which we give thanks or the full meaning	34:44
	of giving thanks from the words pray constantly.	34:50
	I believe we can infer	35:00
	that Paul is saying there is the possibility	35:03
	of a conversation taking place	35:07
	in which we are involved in the world.	35:09
	And that it is a possibility of that conversation	35:17
	which opens and leads out on to the ground	35:25
	that is ever present source of rejoicing and that ground,	35:32
	that is the source of giving thanks in all circumstances.	35:40
	And from the words or this is the will of God	35:49
	in Jesus Christ for you.	35:52
	I believe we may infer that the language	35:55
	of that conversation is to be found in Jesus Christ,	36:00
	The interpretation of that conversation	36:10
	in world indeed he establishes a conversation	36:15
	between the ground of joy and Thanksgiving.	36:19
	That prophet Paul is ultimately creative	36:26
	and indestructible limited only by the openness of mankind,	36:30
	to enter into that conversation.	36:40
	In one dramatic word elsewhere.	36:45
	Paul seeks to get the substance of the conversation	36:49
	by saying that Christ is God's yes,	36:52
	To all his promises to mankind.	36:59
	It is yes, conveyed in the living and live giving image,	37:06
	of one who did not get a word off his back	37:12
	but saw and seeks, to carry that word back	37:19
	into a conversation,	37:25
	a conversation with the only one who's yes to life	37:30
	can ultimately overcome a devastating	37:35
	suspicion of our environment.	37:39
	The suspicion that deadly ignore,	37:43
	depersonalizing, dehumanizing,	37:48
	destructive things making circus that can be our word.	37:52
	Yes, is the last word,	37:58
	The only one who's yes to life can offer that ground of joy,	38:03
	which is omnipresent and that ground,	38:09
	which renders Thanksgiving a possibility	38:12
	in the face of all circumstances.	38:16
	This then, I would call Paul's prolegomena to Thanksgiving,	38:24
	The reminder are, and the call to a conversation,	38:36
	Which conversation all believe he is the crucial ingredient	38:45
	in the understanding transfiguring	38:53
	and transforming of the total environment	38:56
	of Thanksgiving and giving thanks.	39:01
	Next Thursday (mumbles)	39:05
	It is the conversation without which	39:11
	the ecological balance of human and humane life	39:14
	and especially the light of Thanksgiving	39:20
	and giving thanks is threateningly disturbed.	39:23
	Take this prolegomena, rest with it, live with it,	39:33
	rejoice always, give thanks in all circumstance,	39:44
	pray constantly while this is the will of God	39:51
	in Jesus Christ for you.	39:57
	In the name of the father and of the son,	40:02
	and of the holy spirit, amen	40:04
	(sharp worship music)	40:09
	All thanks come up to you God	58:15
	our silver and our gold (indistinct)	58:19
	As the symbol of ourselves,	58:25
	In the name of Jesus Christ our lord.	58:28
	(mumbles)	58:35
	(sharp worship music)	59:03

Item Info

Title:

Franklin W. Young - "Thanksgiving Prolegomena" (November 22, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4zp4121z

Date:

November 22, 1970

Speaker:

Young, Franklin W.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0547
ref6297_plp
uachapelsermaud
duke:628277
dcrau002536
ark:/87924/r4zp4121z
5a508b29-b6e0-472c-b279-04de54165c2e

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

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

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